The Paragon Element (Book 1)

by Jeff Hale

  “I know. I don’t even know her. I’m sorry. She must be some girl to make you feel guilty for being with me even though you two weren’t together.” She sounded genuinely apologetic.

  “She… was.” I hesitated on that last word because I knew it would raise questions.

  “Wait? Was?” Jessie pulled away and stared at me curiously.

  I should have just gotten up and walked away the moment she had brought Serena up, but it was too late now. I swallowed hard, fighting back emotion that I did my best to keep buried and locked away. “She’s not...”

  “Around anymore. Yeah, you said that already. Are you telling me that she’s…?” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  Not like I could either. The pain was still pretty strong. “Yeah. Let it drop. Please?”

  “I’m really sorry.” Jessie’s eyes were wide and her cheeks went red with mortification. “Really. I didn’t mean to…. Oh, Jesus… I feel like such a cunt now… I’ll just… leave you alone.” She got up and hurried off towards the school so quickly that I didn’t have time to call her back over and tell her it was okay, and I spent the next several minutes convincing myself that it was okay as well.

  At least I managed to not cry. That was no small feat.

  I headed to my locker a few minutes later, trying very hard not to break down. Dealing with anything regarding Serena still hurt to the point of me not being able to function properly. Even though she had been dead almost three years, sometimes it felt like it was just yesterday. But I’d be damned if I was going to parade my pain for everyone else to see. I stared at the inside of my locker, forcing myself to breathe normally, then began to pull out the books for my afternoon classes: Pre-Calculus, Spanish, and Health & First Aid. Yeah, I hated my afternoon curriculum.

  “So. How are things going today?” I started at the voice that sounded behind me and in my head at the same time. I looked over my shoulder to see Talon sitting behind me in the hallway, other students walking right through him as though he wasn’t there. Luckily, he could speak with me telepathically, and even though all sorcerers ended up with a familiar eventually, we could only hear and see our own. I shut my locker and began to walk to class, Talon falling into step beside me.

  “Not bad I suppose. Same ol’, same ol’.” I was careful to think the words, rather than say them out loud. No need to make people think I was more insane than they already thought me to be. I also made sure to squelch my feelings fast. Talon would pick up on them.

  “That’s too bad. I could use a bit of excitement.” He sounded disappointed.

  “We got plenty last night. Weren’t you the one telling me that that sphinx smelt like a decade old port-a-potty?”

  “Well, it did.” He chuckled.

  “Aren’t you also the one that nearly got ate by it?”

  “Hey! I didn’t get eaten by it! I was just going for the throat. From the inside. That’s all.”

  “Right. Just cool it. I’m sure we’ll get an assignment tonight.”

  “Well, I’m going back to sleep. I’m sure you’ll just have another boring afternoon. If you decide to do that Jessie girl in the janitor’s closest like you were planning, do be kind and wake me up, that should prove to be entertaining. You humans make such amusing noises and make the funniest faces when you copulate.” With that, he started to discorporate entirely.

  “Yeah sure, ‘cause I’d love having you watch me having sex with some girl. Besides you should know it will never happen, you voyeuristic mutt,” I thought back at him. All I got was a low snicker in return.

  As Talon predicted, the rest of the afternoon went pretty smoothly. I chatted with Nina during Spanish class while watching her try to pierce her lip again with a safety pin. I tried to tell her that I probably wouldn’t be able to show up at her rave due to work, but I was pretty sure she didn’t hear what I was trying to say.

  When the last bell of the day rang out, I headed to my locker, ditching my books and hurrying out of the building. I had to get home quickly to get my report on Spence so I could head to the MAGE HQ and hand it in to my supervisor. She hated it when I got them in late; meant more paperwork for her.

  But if I was late, oh well, she would just have to deal. I had a feeling she was going to have a weekend assignment for me anyway, so why should I put her in a good mood if I didn’t get a weekend off?

  C’est la vie.

  THREE

  I set a brisk pace on the way home and let nothing, even the crazy after-school traffic, slow me down. Once there, I snatched up the report and headed back out, hoping to get to the bus stop on Rainbow Boulevard in time. The next bus was in two minutes and I’d be pushing it.

  When I got to the stop, I found myself staring at the retreating bus that was already a quarter mile up the road in the direction I wanted to go. It’d be another thirty minutes before the next one got there, which would make me about twenty minutes late in getting the report in. If I didn’t miss any other buses. Well, that would be the icing to my day, a dressing down from my supervisor.

  I sighed in frustration and sat at the bus stop, turning to look back at the apartment complex as I heard someone yelling. It sounded like a male, and as I enhanced my hearing using the Aether, I recognized that it was Val’s dad from inside their apartment.

  “…and you’re out whoring at all hours of the night! Just like your fucking mother! You ain’t leaving this fucking apartment until you tell me where you were the other night!”

  “Fuck you! Watch me!” I heard her scream back. A few seconds later I heard a door slam from the nearest bottom floor apartment as he continued to yell after her.

  Val’s expression was sullen as she headed towards me, but as she looked up and saw me, she worked her face into an appearance like it was just an average day. She was dressed somewhat normal in a pair of tight fitting black jeans and a dark blue corset top with dark gold designs.

  “Hey, Rick! What’s going on?” she asked as she sat down next to me. I could tell that she was trying hard not to cry. I felt really bad for her and I leaned in to try to hug her to comfort her. “Whoa there! What’s this all about?” she demanded, pushing me away.

  “Nothing. I just thought maybe…” I began to say.

  “Yeah. Forget it. Forget you heard that,” she said, switching back to being pissy.

  “But… are you…” I tried again, and she turned her back to me.

  She continued to ignore me the entire time until the bus showed up. When we got on she sat in the seat that was nearest to the front, knowing I was a creature of habit and would sit in the back corner as always.

  I watched as she got off at the stop on Charleston Boulevard and walked across Rainbow and kept going. I didn’t need to leave until Tropicana Road, a few more miles up the street, but I almost got off at that stop. I wanted to follow her and make her talk to me because I had the feeling something more was going on with it, but I’d be endangering my job, and I couldn’t do that. I’d heard horror stories about what they gave as a severance package.

  I arrived at Rainbow and Tropicana, got off the bus and walked a little ways east to the stop that would take me to the one on the Strip. Once there, I headed towards a parking garage that was near the MGM Grand. It was there, on the lowest sub-level, near one of the elevators, that there was a small stitch in reality that opened into a pocket plane that existed solely for use by MAGE and its agents. Only a MAGE agent knew the proper incantations to see and utilize the stitch to access the offices and facilities that were located within.

  Inside, wide, spotless corridors of highly polished iron reflected apprentice made mage lights. They floated about three feet above the floor, red, green, blue, or yellow, giving the place a bit of a magical-technological feel. Magic could not pass through pure iron and the material served a dual purpose of keeping it contained both inside and outside. In theory, pure iron armor could protect a sorcerer from unfriendly spells, but with direct contact to the sorcerer, it would also preve
nt him from casting them as well.

  The corridors were laid out in a simple and sensible design. The main entrance opened to a four way intersection: directly ahead to the research library, the summoning chambers and magic labs; left for the main offices and the elevator to the second level Councilor’s offices; right leading to the apprentice quarters. I knew there was a sub level that was restricted to high clearance sorcerers accompanied by their supervisors. It housed a prison for creatures and magic users that MAGE couldn’t eliminate, so they were locked up and left to rot.

  I took the left at the intersection and walked down that corridor about fifteen feet before coming to my supervisor’s office door on the right. As I entered the room I was impressed, as always, at how bare the office really was.

  Along the back wall was a bank of file cabinets, and what I knew to be a false wall. Where the hidden door led, only my supervisor knew. Closer to the door, in the middle of the room, was a desk with a top of the line computer on it. The desk itself was black and grey marble and had golden trim on it. Not fake gold or gold plate, but actual gold. If you looked close enough you could see silver inlaid runes etched into the trim. Other than that, and two chairs, the room was completely empty except for my supervisor.

  Coleen Galaway was a very prim and proper lady of around twenty-one. She had been with MAGE for about as long as I had been a field agent; so, we were both new at this. Her hazel eyes settled on me through glasses that were stylish and looked kind of sexy, and she pushed aside an errant strand of red hair that had escaped its tidy bun. I’d never seen her hair in anything other than a bun, or her in anything other than a business suit, so I had no clue how long her hair was or even what kind of figure she had outside of being slender and maybe five foot sixish.

  “Good afternoon, Kerensky. I trust that if you are here that your assignment is complete and that you have a report to hand in?” she asked, right to business as always.

  Part of me always did want to just bend her over the desk and have my way with her. Maybe she’d loosen up then. Then again, maybe not. I surmised that she was one of those really hot women just waiting to break out of her plain look, but I doubted that it would ever happen. I could dream, though, couldn’t I?

  “Yes ma’am.” I sat casually in the chair in front of her desk that was meant for visitors to her office, took the report out of my inside jacket pocket and handed it to her.

  She unfolded it and looked it over, making several “hmmm” and “uh-huh” noises as she did so. Then she put it away with another stack of files, folded her hands on top of the desk and stared at me for a few seconds before she spoke.

  “Your next assignment is to track down a renegade shifter that has been the cause of several disappearances in North Las Vegas. He shouldn’t be hard to track; he has been very sloppy in his victim choices. Always young females, though he has a preference for blondes. We figure he is feeding on them, chances are he’s gone savage, given in to his thrall,” she said calmly.

  I gave her a confused look. “Thrall?” I asked, unfamiliar with the term. I scooted forward a bit in the chair as she nodded and explained.

  “Well, you know how shifters are always fighting their inner animal, which is why they’re so violent and uncontrollable? Thrall only makes it worse. It’s when the animal has taken complete control,” she said matter-of-factly.

  I was baffled for a second. Something else was going on here. It was a pretty routine assignment, but I couldn’t help but feel that something was off here. It just felt too… basic. Something someone would be given as their first assignment. Then it hit me. This was way too basic. There was almost no information on this case.

  “Well, I have a question then...” I started, before she cut me off by making a slight tsk noise and holding up her right hand.

  “No, Mr. Kerensky, you cannot have sex with me on my desk. I know you were thinking it earlier.” She glanced up at me, looking over her glasses, one brow lifted slightly.

  Damn me, that’s right. I had forgotten that Coleen Galaway was a minor telepath. She could only read thoughts that were tied to a very strong impulse reaction however.

  “Er… no, that wasn’t my question. Though, yes I had been thinking that earlier.” No sense in lying to her about it now. “I was actually wondering why there wasn’t more information on this assignment? No name, no description, nothing? Just a possible location and a victim M.O. and some vague explanation that this shifter is eating people because he’s gone feral? Something isn’t right about this.”

  “Actually, feral is the term they use for those born as a shifter. But yes, that’s all I was given, Aerick. I know what you’re thinking, and yes, it has me worried too. Be careful out there, okay? Watch your back and come back in one piece. Oh, and… don’t get eaten.” She gave me a sad smile and motioned for me to leave. I was hesitant as I took the assignment folder from the hanging organizer by her door. “One last question. Has Bianca stopped by your office yet to introduce herself?”

  “No. Should she have? Who is she?” I had never even heard of the woman before.

  “She’s the Councilor of Fire. I’m surprised she hasn’t. She makes it a point to get to know everyone on her roster, especially the guys,” Coleen said. The Councilors were the heads of MAGE, and it looked like this Bianca must be my overall boss. “Anyway, I’d expect her anytime now since you’ve gotten a few cases under your belt. She will deliver the case file to you when it’s ready. May not be for a little while though.”

  Coleen had taken on the role as my supervisor because she had read my performance record from my training and she figured that with me doing the field work she would quickly rise in the ranks alongside me. She was competent at her job and knew that I would take her further than any other agent. I was what was called an ‘Arcane Prodigy’. I had taken to the training better than anyone ever had.

  She always had the utmost confidence that I would complete a mission with a stellar performance, and I had yet to let her down in that regard. But if she was worried about my next assignment, then more than likely I should be terrified. After all, it was my life I was putting on the line. What kind of shifter was I dealing with?

  Through my training I had been taught what a lot of supernatural creatures were capable of, though I was always warned that renegade creatures often developed new tricks that would bend the rules of the Aether. The Aether was almost like a world in and of itself, but one that was spiritually tied to ours; like another layer, only energy based. It was pure chaos and thought and almost anything could come from it. But I had been taught that there were certain rules and laws that had to be followed to allow for Aetheric energy to exist here. Vampires, werewolves, dragons, and magic… all of it drew from the Aether in some fashion or another. It’s what made supernatural creatures, well, supernatural.

  I stepped out into the hallway and shut the door behind me. There had been a steady rise in cases of supernatural attacks of all kinds lately. While I would never question my superiors about it, it made me question the fallibility of the Barrier, the wall that separated our world from the Aether itself. It ultimately allowed only so much energy through at a time, and what it did let through, it only permitted through in specific forms and ensured that the energy followed certain arcane laws.

  That was why practitioners of ‘dark’ magic could only twist and bend the rules, but not break them. Like Spence had done with that evil sphinx. So no summoning forth some strange creature with three heads, five eyes, seven tails, and with pink fur; just ain’t gonna happen. Thank all that is sane for small favors. After all, with some people there is just no accounting for taste.

  Unfortunately I had no idea what this shifter was capable of. I knew there were specific types, mainly the all popular werewolf, but also werecats, werebears, and even werebirds and werelizards. But there were vague stories and half-rumored conjecture that spoke of other, more exotic and dangerous types as well.

  Being knowledgeable in my quarries�
� abilities ahead of time was usually a good thing. It allowed me to prepare for them and made my lifespan considerably longer. With nothing to go on, all I could do was hope that I was up to the task. The file said that they would give me a call when they had more information and I was officially on the case, but until then I was to just wait. That meant that I possibly had a lot of time to stew and think about all the horrible stuff this target might be capable of. Great.

  Come to think of it, this could be the most dangerous assignment I had ever been on. Usually MAGE matched their target’s and agent’s relative power level; that way a recruit agent didn’t get erased from existence by a superior creature. This time it seemed that MAGE didn’t even have an approximation to base their agent assignment on.

  Maybe because they thought that a shifter problem was cut and dried? Nah, nothing was when it came to MAGE. They took every assignment they handed out seriously, no matter how minor. Nothing could slip through the cracks. I had a feeling this was going to be a long and possibly very painful, if not fatal, assignment.

  “Yeah, well you and me both, remember if you perish, so goes me,” Talon said as he materialized in the hall outside the office. “Just keep in mind that there is no shame in running away, and I’ll be there to make sure your six is clear. Besides I have to make sure you live long enough to see you pay up on that bet we made a few weeks ago.”

  “Yeah, I know, but this has me worried, no telling what we’ll be up against.”

  “That’s okay, have no worries, you’ll live to get laid again.”

  “Why is it always with you it comes back to that?” I sent a mental scowl his way.

  “Because, you were just thinking that you’d never live long enough to see some action again.”

  “I wish you’d stay out of my mind.”

  “I wish I could stay out. It gets cluttered, and somewhat… repulsive at times.” He made a gagging motion, which made me think of a cat trying to yack up a hairball.