“Is this some sort of suite?”
“I think so.”
“Wow.”
“Seniority.”
“Oh?”
Unlike most of the housing at Headquarters, Carmichael had an actual working doorbell. It took several minutes and lots of ringing, which must have been unwelcome on the inside.
“Maybe he’s, you know, entertaining,” Lana offered.
Cal’s only response was a snort.
The door cracked open only wide enough for the occupant to get a look at the disturbers of the peace. Lana could make out that he was not any taller than she, with graying hair and glasses that reflected light when he moved his head. Carmichael said nothing.
“Mr. Carmichael. It’s Cal Magnus. I have something urgent that only you can address.”
“A mystery?” Carmichael’s voice was raspy.
“Unquestionably.”
The door swung wide open. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
Carmichael was either going for a much younger hairstyle or he’d already been to bed. He wore a burgundy robe with gold piping over green silk pajamas. Lana batted away the stray thought that Carmichael was ready for Christmas morning.
Cal and Lana stepped inside. “Thank you,” Cal said as they looked around. “This is Lana. Ms. Atalanta Ravin.”
Mr. Carmichael nodded, but refrained from offering either his hand or a greeting. His age was enigmatic. He could have been sixty or eighty. Either way, Lana could see why Cal had found the idea of Carmichael and sex amusing. He took the stereotype of a bachelor academic to its most ridiculous extreme. Every surface was stacked with books or files or books and files. That included the sofa, the chairs and much of the floor space. Cal wondered if The Order was aware at the same time he wondered if anyone was attempting to clean Carmichael’s residence. Neither of them wanted to be rude, but they needed a place to sit. And there simply was none.
Lana decided to break verbal gridlock. “Um, would you consider coming to my apartment so that I can show you a video? It won’t take long. I’m just one floor up and I can make you tea.”
His head jerked toward her. “What kind?”
“Well, let’s see. I have Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Orange Pekoe, and Black Russian.” Since he made no response, she added, “And a Green Tea cleanse.”
“I’ll bring my own,” he said.
Lana nodded and gave Cal a what-the-fuck glance behind Carmichael’s back. Cal’s abs rippled under his shirt while he controlled his own laugh.
Half an hour later, they were seated in front of the video in Lana’s dinette area. Carmichael had brewed his own tea to his own satisfaction, but when the conversation turned to how many varieties of cream Lana had available, Cal took control and directed Carmichael’s attention to the large tele-monitor on Lana’s wall. He had just finished connecting the video feed so that they could see it easily and simultaneously.
Carmichael sat on Lana’s sofa and sipped his tea while expressing no discernible reaction to the video. Cal and Lana both watched him closely, but he gave nothing away. After playing it twice, Cal waited patiently for some sort of response.
“Would you like me to play it again?”
“No,” said Carmichael. “Twice is more than sufficient.”
Again, Cal waited for more, but nothing was forthcoming. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
“No. I haven’t.”
“Have you ever heard of anything like this?”
“As a matter of fact I have.” Cal perked up. “Check with Hoagmire in Demonology. I think he may be the expert you’re after.”
“You think those blurred shapes are demons.”
Carmichael set his cup in its saucer carefully and seemed to be studying the china pattern. “Very likely. Tell me. Did you deposit the artifact with one of the vaults?”
Cal tilted his head. “As a matter of fact I didn’t. The artifact disappeared while we slept.”
Carmichael nodded, set his cup and saucer on Lana’s coffee table and stood. “Don’t feel too bad, young man. After all, you knew when you went after it that it rightfully belonged to them.” Lana could tell by the expression on Cal’s face that he was not expecting that. “The artifact was probably a device that emitted a signal. They simply collected it before you had a chance to bury it in a lead-lined vault.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be about my evening.”
“Yes, certainly. And thank you, Mr. Carmichael.”
“One more word of advice. Hoagmire will be happier to see you if you wait until tomorrow morning.”
Cal locked eyes with Lana. Though neither spoke they knew they were thinking the same thing, that the video might disappear if they waited until the next day.
“Shall I walk you back?” Cal offered.
“Don’t be insulting. I think I know the way to my own lair.”
Lana mouthed the word ‘lair’ and gave Cal another WTF look.
When Carmichael was gone, Lana flopped on the couch. “What do you want to do next?”
Cal tried to put his hands in his pockets and looked silly doing it since he’d forgotten he was wearing pajama pants and had no pockets. Lana thought it was one of the cutest things she’d ever seen, but she suppressed the chortle that tried to bubble up. As a southern girl she’d been taught all about the art of protecting male egos.
“I agree that waking somebody late at night for a favor isn’t a splendid idea, but we’re both too tired to stay awake all night.”
“Could we maybe remove the video card and secure it so that if someone tried to take it, you would definitely wake up?”
“Maybe. Got any ideas?”
She mulled it over for a couple of minutes while chewing on her lip. “What about between your mattress and box spring? In the middle so that the mattress would have to be lifted up to get to it?”
He scrubbed his hand down his face. “If I was somebody else, I’d say that’s a great idea, but I can be a super heavy sleeper.”
“Okay. We’ll do it together.”
“Do what together?”
“Sleep together.” Cal looked interested. “In a platonic way. If your side of the mattress was lifted, you would roll into me and I’d wake up. If my side of the mattress was lifted, I’d wake up and probably start screaming something about demons coming.”
“I don’t know, Lana. I don’t want to take a chance with this. Truthfully, I think this video is a better prize than the artifact.”
She smiled slowly. “Yeah. Me, too.”
“Let’s just go sit in the hall outside Hoagmire’s apartment and try to keep each other awake. We can take turns going for caffeine.”
“And sugar. Lots of sugar.”
“Goes without saying. The minute we start to sugar crash, we’ll eat more. Let’s go down and raid the kitchen for chocolate.”
“An excellent strategy. I approve.”
Cal handed Lana the video card, which she promptly buried in her bra. “You’re sure it can’t fall out?”
She laughed. “Not that I’m trying to draw attention to body parts, but have you seen me? No, Cal. The problem is not that it might fall out. The problem is that we may need the French Foreign Legion to find it later on.”
He gave her that goofy lopsided grin that was so charming. “We shall not involve the French. I, myself, shall volunteer.”
“Ha!”
“Would you like me to double check and be certain that it’s secure?”
She gave him a deadpan look. “It’s secure, Cal. I can feel it.”
“Oh.” He stared at her chest longer than necessary. “Sensitive.”
Hoagmire opened his door at seven-thirty sharp to go to breakfast, as was his habit and almost stumbled over what he found at his doorstep - two young people sound asleep and wearing pajamas, or at least pajama pants. The young man had his back against the hallway wall. As if nightwear in public was not enough, the young woman’s utter disregard for propriety - la
ying her head on a male lap for all to see - was nothing less than astonishing.
The pair continued to snore softly, oblivious to being harshly judged. One of Cal’s hands rested loosely on her back, the other seemed to have a death grip on a video camera. Strewn all around their bodies were every manner of candy wrapper as if they had jointly binged on every manner of decadence, including chocolate.
“Good gods,” said Hoagmire. The day was not beginning as he expected, which was a little off-putting, but he was more curious than perturbed. He tapped the young man’s leg with his cane, not hard enough to bruise, not gently enough to be ignored.
Cal’s head lolled to the side. When he thought he’d caught himself dozing he jerked back to sitting position.
“See here, young man.”
Cal’s eyes opened a sliver. At first he looked a little dazed as if he was having trouble placing where he was and how he’d gotten there. His eyes flew open. “Hoagmire!”
The man nodded. “That would be Dr. Hoagmire to pajama-clad litterers.”
Cal shook Lana.
“Hmmm?” she asked sleepily. She looked around. “Oh. Hoagmire.” She looked up into the pudgy pink face and had the unkind thought that he should have been named Hogmire before she could stop herself.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Dr. Hoagmire,” was all he said, emphasis on the Doctor.
As soon as she sat up, Cal hurried to his feet. “We’ve been waiting here all night to speak with you. Carmichael, ah, Mr. Carmichael, said you’re our expert, but not to wake you.”
“I see. It’s that much of an emergency?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You are aware that my area of expertise is demonology.”
“Acutely so.” Cal motioned by holding up the video camera. “The explanation is on here. Can we show you?”
It was then he realized that they had gone to sleep. He looked at Lana trying to control a rising panic. “Lana, is the thing still…?” He nodded toward her chest. “You know.”
“Oh.” She faced away from the two men and fumbled for a few seconds before withdrawing the video card. She turned in triumph. “Tada!”
“What is that?” Hoagmire was viewing it suspiciously.
“It holds the video that we want to show you.”
“Video, is it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And it couldn’t wait until after breakfast, I suppose?”
“Um, well…”
“How about coffee?”
Cal looked at Lana. “I can make coffee,” she said.
Cal looked at Hoagmire hopefully.
Hoagmire looked between the two oddly dressed young people and decided to think of the morning as interesting rather than interrupted. “After you,” he said.
Twenty minutes later Dr. Hoagmire sat at Lana’s little dining table. While Lana made coffee, Cal described the mission to retrieve the suspected demon artifact, how it had disappeared and how something suspicious was showing up on the video feed. “Compliments on the coffee, Miss… Raven, was it?”
“Ravin.”
“I see. Yes.”
“Are you ready, sir?”
Hoagmire nodded and Cal started the video. As soon as the blurred shapes came into view, Hoagmire laughed out loud. “Oh, stumbled onto something they wanted back, did you, boy?”
“You know what we’re looking at?”
“It’s a demon species that has the ability to alter their appearance so that they’re all but invisible. Mostly harmless. So far as we know. But they have been coming and going for as long as The Order has been keeping records of such things. Of course we didn’t have the sort of proof you have here until the recent past. Marvelous invention, this video thing.
“Quite a prize you have there, having caught them at it.”
“The artifact we were supposed to retrieve? What do you think was so important about it that they wanted to reclaim it rather than have it come into our possession?”
Hoagmire shrugged. “Whoever knows about demons?”
Lana clamped her lips together so that she wouldn’t say, “Well, you’re supposed to,” out loud.
“It may have been some sort of transmitter or a religious relic. I mean, it’s anybody’s guess.” He set his coffee down and stood to go. “Very entertaining. I’ll have to thank Carmichael for thinking of me.”
“Mr. Carmichael,” Lana said.
Hoagmire narrowed his eyes slightly. “Yes. Mr. Carmichael. Well, if there’s nothing else, I’ll be on my way to breaking the fast as it were.”
Lana let Hoagmire out and turned back to face Cal.
“Let’s get this turned in so we can get some sleep.” He yawned as he said it.
“I’ll change clothes.”
“On second thought. You’ve already gone way above and beyond. I’ll go turn the video into Dr. Tvelgar and I’ll make sure you get credit. You go to bed.”
“You sure?”
He held out his hand. She ejected the video card and slapped it into his palm.
“Night,” he said stopping at the door for a goodbye smile before he left.
The excitement died down as quickly as it had come on. Lana was assigned to assist with the ongoing transfer of hundreds of years of paper to computer while waiting for the next retrieval mission. Days passed into weeks. Occasionally she caught sight of Cal, but he’d never called or stopped by.
After three weeks she did run into him in the dining hall and told herself it was inevitable. It had surprised her that their budding friendship had come to such an abrupt halt and she supposed her feelings were a little bit bruised over it.
“Hello there.”
“Hi. How have you been?” she replied.
“Right as rain. You caught up on sleep?”
She smiled. “Do I still have bags under my eyes?”
He looked embarrassed. “No. I was implying no such thing. What do they have you doing now?”
She smirked. “It’s not ‘meaningful’ work. I can tell you that.”
He cocked his head. “Bet it is. Just depends on how you look at it.”
“I guess. Well, good to see you.”
She was several yards down the hall when he caught up with her. “Wait a second. I was wondering if I could treat you to a successful first mission celebration dinner?”
Lana’s eyes lit up. “My mother told me the answer to that question is always yes.”
He raised his eyebrows. “So she’s clairvoyant then?”
Shaking her head, Lana laughed softly. “Hardly. Name the details. I’m all yours.”
She wished she hadn’t said that as soon as it left her mouth. Unfortunately it hung in the air between them like a clingy phrase that wouldn’t let go and move along.
He grinned. “Tomorrow night? Wear something, um…”
“Dressy?”
“Yes. Dressy.”
“I have something like that.”
“I never doubted it.”
She wanted to ask if it was really just an employee appreciation dinner or if it was the kind of dinner that could be considered a date, but she couldn’t figure out a way to work that in delicately. So she decided she would dress for a date, but be completely professional. Like the night she ate five thousand calories in candy and crashed with her head in his lap.
He told Lana to meet him at the front door at eight because Simon had asked to speak with him at the last minute. He was waiting when she got off the elevator in her black dress with the layers of flirty ruffles at mid-thigh. The dress had cost a fortune back when she took home the paycheck of a hedge fund department manager. Cal was waiting by the front door in a black suit with a crisp white shirt and looking good enough for the cover of GW. He grinned when he saw her and then whistled loud enough so that everybody in the central part of the building stopped to look. She laughed and didn’t even bother to pretend that she didn’t enjoy the attention.
She made a flourish of twirling into her black wool shawl with the fa
ux black fox trim and flashed a million dollar smile at Cal.
“You look scrumptious,” he said, opening the door partway where the doorman took over and waved for their ride.
An old-fashioned black London taxi pulled up. Lana looked up at Cal. “Is this for us?”
He smiled. “Nothing but the best for the best field assistant in the biz.”
“The biz?” He chuckled and took her hand to help her into the back of the cab. “You going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Well, there’s this fabulous restaurant…”
“The Witchery!!” She almost squealed in excitement.
His lips were curved up, but his brow was furrowed. “What if I said no?” A wave of horror washed over Lana and her face showed it. “Then you would have hijacked my date.”
He let her sit there groping for options for precision surgical removal of foot from mouth while trying not to be distracted by his admission that he did, in fact, consider the outing to be an official “date”. Finally his face cracked into a smile. “Yes. It’s The Witchery.”
She took a deep breath. “That was mean.”
He laughed. “Yeah.” His eyes swept over her exposed cleavage. “Did I mention you look good tonight?”
Before she could answer the cab came to a stop. The driver opened the door closest to Cal. He got out and offered his hand as elegantly as any member of the exclusive Dallas Petroleum Club would.
From just inside the entrance the Maître d station could be seen down a hallway with dark wood and blood red carpet.
Cal stepped up with his hand to the small of Lana’s back. “Caliber Magnus.” Cal glanced toward the part of the dining room that was visible. “Looks crowded.”
The Maître d smiled. “Aye, sir. The prince and his wife are entertaining tonight.”
Lana leaned toward Cal. “I don’t see any extra security.” She spoke in a lowered tone intended for only him to hear, but she forgot about elf ears.
The Maître d looked at her as if she was beyond daft. “Security, madam?” His smile had disappeared and he looked a little put out. “There are five million fae prepared to defend the prince with our lives.”
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