Federal Agents of Magic Boxed Set

by T. R. Cameron

Tony was the only undamaged one. He seemed to be self-conscious about it, and his voice was quiet as he asked, “Is Rath okay?”

  Diana nodded. “His wounds were in better shape by the time he stowed away in his capsule, and I re-wrapped them after he shrank.” She patted the belt pouch where his defensive container hung during missions. “He said to tell you that you need to be faster, Tony.”

  The other agents broke into tired laughter, and she shook her head. “He’s something. Let’s get out of here.”

  She led them to her vehicle, and they clambered inside. A SWAT officer would return their spare to the lot at street level outside the ARES building. She drove the short distance to one of her favorite restaurants she’d discovered in the area, a breakfast place that stayed open into the early morning hours.

  They passed the old register with its cash-only signs and seated themselves in a booth far from the door of the mostly vacant space. The seating was covered in cracked vinyl, with antique jukeboxes mounted on the wall above each laminate table. Tony flicked idly through the pages of song selections as they settled. The server was there before they were fully organized. Compassion colored her features at their clearly exhausted conditions. “Coffee, I’m guessing?”

  All three nodded, and Cara added, “Plus one Coke for me.”

  The woman smiled and took their omelet orders. Ham and cheese for Tony, western for Cara, and black-eyed peas, greens, and ham for Diana. She also requested a side order of cheesy potatoes. Rath couldn’t actually make an appearance in such a public place, but she’d make sure he had a treat waiting when he was ready to eat.

  After her initial visit to the restaurant with Bryant, this had become her favorite breakfast spot, and she was working her way through the menu options.

  Cara turned her head to where Tony sat on her left. “So, where the hell were you?”

  It might have sounded aggressive if she’d said it on the first day they’d met. Shared experience had since revealed that they all possessed deeply sarcastic senses of humor. He laughed. “Sunbathing on the roof. It was relaxing.”

  They chuckled briefly before his smile morphed into a frown. “When the wall came down and cut me off, I looked at the map and found another route. It took forever to get across the museum to the staircase as a fairly large group of guards had locked down the main one outside the gift shop. I still had to take out a couple of those assholes along the way.”

  “Magicals?” Cara asked.

  Tony shook his head. “Idiots with rifles. I got the drop on them because they were talking when they should have been watching.”

  Diana pushed the hair out of her face. “There were some significant differences among that group of criminals. Some were scarily competent, and others seemed like it was their first time actually firing a gun.”

  He sighed. “Street thugs and gangbangers, for sure. Cheap cannon fodder, but effective.”

  “Well, they bought them all the delay they needed, even though we knew they were doing it. It shows that someone smart was in charge.”

  Cara nodded. “I’d say the last three were the core of the group.”

  Tony interrupted. “Hey, who’s telling the story here?” They laughed, and he folded his arms in a dramatically offended fashion. “Anyway, the second guy almost got me, but he forgot about recoil. The first shot hit the vest, and the rest missed.” He shook his head. “After that, I moved as quickly as I could until I wound up above you. I didn’t realize you’d gone down two levels. I thought you were only down one.”

  “Comms died when we reached the bottom, so we couldn’t tell you,” Diana explained. “We need to ask the techs for a solution to that.”

  Cara nodded. “Relays, maybe.”

  He slapped his palms gently on the table. “Honestly, you two, can I finish?”

  She resisted the impulse to plague him again with another interruption and offered a nod instead.

  “After I shot through the glass, I ran down the staircase on the other side. I called SWAT for help on my way down. But, as you know, I got there too late to make a difference.”

  The marshal raised an eyebrow at him. “A committed teammate would have jumped."

  “A committed teammate would have had two broken legs and not been of use, anyway,” he countered.

  The waitress found them grinning as she slid their food and drinks onto the table. Cara reached for her Coke and almost knocked her coffee over with the air cast around her left arm. She winced, likely at both the pain and the near accident. Diana asked, “How bad is it?”

  “The painkiller from the kit seems to be wearing off, so it sucks a little more than I’d like.” She shrugged, then flinched. “I’ll head to the hospital after we eat. Food is more important.”

  Tony interjected, “I’ll drive you, just in case.”

  She nodded her thanks. “You know, boss, we really need a medic and something in the way of medical facilities if we have to keep this up.”

  Diana nodded. “They said we’d be in the fire, but I’ll admit I didn’t expect it to come so soon. Or so hard. It makes me think that not only were they right to open an office here in Pittsburgh, but they underestimated how much it was needed.”

  She shook her head and tapped her fork against the plate. After a furtive glance for reassurance that they were unobserved, she popped the lid of Rath’s canister. His nose twitched immediately like a built-in meal sensor and his grin broadened. She positioned his cheesy spuds beside the bag, and he shifted so he could snack within his mobile home without drawing attention to himself.

  “Unfortunately,” she continued around a smile at the troll’s murmurs of enjoyment, “there are too many trade-offs. We need to kick the budget up, and you know what that means.”

  Cara sighed. “Bounties, bounties, and more bounties.”

  “At least we can make sure they’re properly categorized and be compensated appropriately,” Tony pointed out.

  Diana nodded. “That’s all you. Shout if you need anything on that end but otherwise, run with it.”

  “I have it under control, boss.”

  She pushed away her frustration with another bite of her delicious omelet. After a sip of equally tantalizing coffee, she set her fork down and retrieved her phone. “I’m tired enough that I'll take notes. Item one, med facilities. Item two, bounties. What else?”

  Together, Tony and Cara said, “Anti-magic bullets.”

  Diana laughed. “Do you actually know how expensive those things are?”

  The marshal shrugged. “More expensive than our medical bills or having to replace us?”

  “I agree totally. I’m only messing with you. It’s high priority. There are a few kinks to our supply.” Like a menace out there, hunting for us. “Hopefully, Emerson can do something about that.”

  Tony looked confused, and she waved a hand. “Head tech in DC. I forgot I’d only told Cara about him. He’s working on a different way to make anti-magic rounds that should cost less. There’s no real information on the timetable, though. In any case, I’ll harass Bryant about it.”

  He nodded and returned to his breakfast. Diana grinned when he piled the omelet on top of a piece of toast and shoved a huge bite into his mouth.

  Every op I’ve ever been on, the first meal after tastes twice as good.

  “Okay, what else?” she asked.

  Cara finished chewing. “Portable anti-magic emitters?”

  “I don’t think those exist.”

  “Okay, then. A tech who can create portable anti-magic emitters.”

  Diana laughed. “Actually, I’m already on that. Well, the first part, anyway.”

  Tony dropped his utensils onto his empty plate with a clatter. “We need a reliable backup unit. Not necessarily people who will be on the front lines with us, but ones we can trust to watch our back—like SWAT did, but with more skills and better weapons.”

  The other woman nodded. “Like a mini-AET squad.”

  Diana added it but shook her head.
“I’m not sure how we can make that happen. I’ll have to pass that one along.”

  “More agents,” Cara suggested.

  Tony countered with, “More investigators.”

  The marshal turned to him as if his response were a challenge. “Access to the city’s surveillance grid.”

  His tone upped the competition. “Shotguns that’ll work against magicals and non-magicals.”

  She raised her voice. “More grenades, and more kinds of grenades.” She held a hand up to silence his counter and turned to her boss. “Okay, seriously, we need more agents, and we need to spin up faster. All signs point to trouble.”

  Diana nodded and underscored that where she’d already written it in her notes. “Finding quality people is hard, and we have to factor training time in. I don’t know if it can happen more quickly. We’ve already sent feelers out, but we’ll keep trying.”

  Tony grinned. “I have one more. How about some brass knuckles for those who insist on going hand-to-hand?”

  Cara gave him a half-lidded look that told Diana the finishing blow was about to strike.

  “Faster teammates, so they don’t get stuck behind falling rocks. As Rath would say, ‘Must train, Tony’.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The following week passed in a haze of normalcy. No further revelations appeared in the media to concern them, and no whispers rose among their contacts of impending events.

  Cara nursed her fractured arm—which remained in a splint to keep it supported—and ran things at the office. Tony and Diana used their necklaces and alternate weapons as disguises to increase the profile of Two Worlds Security Consulting by apprehending bounties. Thankfully, the necklaces definitely worked for non-magicals too, something Bryant had told her. She hadn’t fully believed until they tested it on their newest team member since her first test on Cara was moot given her magical abilities.

  They chose AR-15s and Sig-Sauer pistols instead of the more identifiable BAM gear and hid their unique vests under their clothes. It left them less well-equipped than their regular choices but was still adequate for the level-two and -three crooks they rounded up to deliver to the Pittsburgh police. By the end of the week, they had caught four, and Tony had improved his connections in the city in the process of tracking them down. Only one had been captured in a public place, and Diana had simply snuck up from behind to stun him with a taser rather than making a scene.

  Rath had fully recovered but had yet to go back to his more rigorous training regimen. Some days were spent at home with Max, while others were spent with Diana at the office. He seemed more tired than usual and didn’t show any real inclination to train. She assumed it had something to do with his healing process and that he’d let her know if it was anything serious.

  Ha. Maybe he’s found a new movie series. He loves his binge-watching.

  Still, he professed to be excited for the night out they had planned. She weaved the Fastback through narrow back streets. Instinct guided her unerringly toward their destination, a restaurant in one of the city’s up-and-coming neighborhoods that boasted the best burgers in town. “We’ll be the judges of that,” Cara had replied when Diana suggested it, and they all agreed such a bold statement required verification.

  She backed the car into a convenient parking space against the curb and threw the keys into her purse. Rath unclipped from his booster seat in the back, having decided on his three-foot size for the evening’s activities. He wore a T-shirt they’d found in the local comic shop with the logo of a band from the 1980s on it. When the troll had chosen it, Diana had immediately approved. “You can’t go wrong with the Sisters of Mercy.”

  She had worried about Rath’s visibility but decided that if ever a place to feel comfortable wandering through crowds with him existed, the gallery crawl was it. The monthly event attracted the artistic and art-appreciative to the borough streets. The prohibited traffic and permitted open-air entertainment created an atmosphere of jovial acceptance. The early March night was unseasonably warm, which seemed to have everyone in a good mood, judging by the throngs they passed on the way to the restaurant.

  When they pushed through the door, they found the others already seated in a booth. Rath slid in beside Tony, and Diana sat on the end across from Cara. Drinks materialized before them, delivered without a word by a harried server with a septum piercing and dark beard. Diana tasted hers and looked at Rath with a grin. “Is good. Must drink.”

  The whole table laughed, and the troll inclined his head in regal acknowledgment. Their waiter spun past again, they ordered, and he dashed away. A warm evening apparently meant great business. The rectangle of seats around the fancy bar in the center was completely filled, and the booths on the periphery were likewise occupied. A line had formed beyond the entrance. Diana asked, “How long did you have to wait?”

  Tony shrugged. “I got here about fifteen minutes early, and we only had another five after Cara arrived.”

  The other woman nodded. “It’s a nice night for standing outside, though.”

  He laughed. “Enjoy it while you can. Pittsburgh’s weather is the weirdest. And that’s saying a lot, given that I’ve spent the last year in Cleveland.”

  Cara grinned and sipped the colorful cocktail she’d ordered. “You know the city best, Tony. Tell us something about it.”

  He lowered his Guinness from his lips and banished the foam from his mustache with a swipe of his tongue. “Okay, here's a good one. So, when I first arrived here and hadn't learned the town yet, I got a call to an area called Blawnox. Or, as they pronounce it here, Blah-nax.”

  Diana sputtered into her drink at his impersonation of the Pittsburgh accent. It made him seem unconcerned with pretense. An oversimplification, no doubt, but she liked the idea.

  “Anyway, we arrived, and two guys yelled at each other on the street. A big guy, the bodybuilder type, sat on the hood of his beat-up car, which he'd stopped right in the middle of the road between parked cars on either side. The other scrawny older dude sat on a folding chair in an otherwise empty parking space.”

  Diana shook her head. She'd been warned about this particular Pittsburgh idiosyncrasy early on. Tony continued, “It turns out, in this town, a chair in a parking spot means it belongs to the house nearest it. It’s not only a reservation. No, these people view it as a sacred tradition. To the man in the chair, the guy in the car essentially demanded to park in his living room.”

  They laughed, Cara more incredulously than the rest. “So, how did it turn out?” she asked.

  “When I showed up, both men shrugged and claimed to be having a conversation. A conversation audible from down the block, apparently, since we were called in—and which included many colorful words—but a conversation, nonetheless. We told car guy to shove off and park somewhere else, and he did it without further protest like he simply needed to be heard or something. The person in the chair then offered us beers and invited us to stay.”

  They all laughed again, and Diana shook her head. “It’s a unique place, to be sure.”

  Tony nodded. “And that’s only the start. There are a hundred stories like that.”

  Their food arrived, and they spent the next minutes in silent appreciation. When they’d all eaten at least half of their meals, Cara finally broke the comfortable silence. “Okay, I’m buying it. This is the best barbecue burger I’ve ever had. And that’s saying something since Fort Benning had its share.”

  He grinned. “I agree. Best in town.”

  Diana rocked her hand. “It’s not the best bacon and bleu ever, but it’s up there.” Tony threw a napkin at her, and she caught it. She laughed as she whipped it back at his face, then turned to Rath. “Opinion?”

  He looked up from where he munched happily on mozzarella sticks, dipping them in three different sauces in rotation—marinara, cheese, and gravy. Diana’s stomach twisted a little at the combination. “Is good. Must eat.”

  They finished the meal with more conversation and laughter,
then emerged and turned left down the avenue.

  I think this is the most relaxed all of us have ever been together. We’ll need to make this a tradition.

  Small businesses lined the block on either side. The food and drink sellers had positioned portable counters at the edge of glass garage doors that served as the fronts for the restaurants when closed but were now open thanks to the good weather and happy crowds. Several bars had the same arrangement. Galleries were interspersed among them, some with multiple styles of art and others dedicated to one specific type.

  They wandered through the entrance of the photography gallery and held up the admission bracelets they’d purchased at the restaurant. The exhibit featured candid shots of everyday people, and they took turns to make up stories about the characters in them. By the time they’d worked their way around the displays, the tales had grown truly outlandish. Cara claimed the last was a space vampire, and Tony groaned. “There’s no such thing.”

  Diana grinned. “Don’t be so sure. What about Area Fifty-one?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Unless you’re telling me that ARES runs Area Fifty-one and you’ve been there and seen stuff in person, I call shenanigans on you.”

  They passed through a gallery devoted to paintings and another filled with modern sculpture. Diana feared the latter, as Rath seemed very interested in some pieces and spent much of the time hopping up to see the ones that towered above his height from a better perspective. She needn’t have worried. His agility was remarkable.

  Hell, he could probably jump from the top of one piece to the next without knocking them off their pedestals.

  As they walked down the center of the street, surrounded by diverse folks engaged in their own conversations, laughter, and the pleasant spring atmosphere, she realized that the town was growing on her. It felt surprisingly like home, the same way Colorado Springs and DC had.

  Now, if I could only convince Lisa to get her ass up here, everything would be perfect.

  A tiny part of her brain added, “and Kayleigh,” but she shushed it. Tonight was for fun, not work.