Conjuring Quantico (The Federal Witch Book 1)

by T S Paul

  I was so sure it was a dream. I heard a loud thump followed by my wrist getting suddenly warm and almost vibrating. For a moment I thought my cell phone was in bed with me. Then I heard the second thump. “Cat! Did you hear that? Cat?” I threw a pillow at my friend and roommate.

  “Why is the rum gone? Wait… What? Did you throw a pillow at me?”

  “Did you hear that?” I cocked my head to one side.

  “You know I can hear everything. What is it I’m listening for?” There was yet another thump this time followed by a loud scraping noise and then a crash.

  Cat looked at me and pointed toward the windows. “That noise? Yes. I heard something. Can I go back to sleep now? Maybe he’s still on the island waiting for me.” She fell back and covered her face with a pillow.

  I looked at the clock. It read five in the morning. I blinked a few times to clear the sleepy out of my eyes. I crawled out of the nice warm and toasty sheets and pulled the drapes aside to look out. I screamed and jumped backwards!

  “What! What is it!” Cat sat up in bed and was in a half-change. Her face contorted and changed as large needle teeth appeared and her eyes began to change.

  “Cat stop your change! There is no immediate danger.” Once a Were starts their change it is almost non-reversible. Only the strongest Alphas have the capability to do what Cat then did. She slowed the process and reversed it. Every time she did it she got a splitting headache. I got up from the floor and grabbed a bottle of painkillers out of my bag and a glass of water.

  I handed them to Cat as her face shifted back into the form that I liked the most. “Man that smarts! Thank you.” She took her medicine and glared at me. “What the hell was that scream for? I thought there was a killer in here or something.”

  “Through my shield? Please. No, let me show you.” I stepped back over to the windows and opened the drape up. Stuck to the window and staring right at me was a man. His face was plastered right up against the window. He was frozen but completely aware. His eyes swirled in panic at his situation. There was another one higher up, all we could see was a foot stuck to the window. I stepped over to Cat’s room and peered through her windows and could see another man stuck upside down with his back to the wall just below the one that scared me. A rope dangled down from the roof and was flapping in the wind.

  “Are they stuck to your shields like last time?”

  “They are. I’m not releasing them without backup. Let me text Nita and let her know. Then I’m going back to sleep.” I pulled out my phone and took a picture of the man looking at me stuck to the window like a spider. I gave her a brief run-down of what happened and how many. Just for grins I forwarded the text to Anastasia. If anyone was awake over at the command center, it would be her. I pulled the drapes shut and went back to sleep.

  ~~~~

  Forensic Tech Commander Anastasia Moondragon was in her element. She and her team had an entire warehouse and manufacturing plant to process and search. While she was pretty sure they had already found what needed to be found, it would give her people some much needed practice. So far this case was boring. She had just finished processing the molding equipment when her phone dinged. Looking at her watch she saw it was five. Way too early for anything official and there were very few that had her current number. She stripped off her rubber gloves and pulled out the phone. Hitting the View Pictures button, she started to chuckle. The candid shot of the man stuck to the window was priceless. The guy hanging on the wall was nice too. Scanning the text she decided to see if Nita had gotten it too.

  Anastasia had been alive a lot longer than many Agents in the FBI suspected she had been. She was extra careful to not to fall for the age jokes and games the other forensic techs liked to play. In all of her years she had met and worked with several witches and wizards. Rule one when dealing with magical people was never, ever piss them off. From what she has seen Agatha was not someone to annoy. Tayanita Lowrey should be in the command vehicle if she wasn’t taking a nap. For as long as she had known the agent, Anastasia knew she would be working.

  Dawn was just under an hour away so Anastasia needed to hurry. As she rushed, she thought about the young witch and Were that started this trek in the wee hours of the morning. Dawn was coming and if she wished for her secrets to remain secret, she would have to hurry. Who knew keeping a secret this long would suck so much? Vampires were in most ways exactly like fiction portrayed them: allergic to sunlight, not fond of garlic, liquid diets, and cold to the touch. Not all vampires are created equal, however. The really old ones were different and very, very rare these days. By tradition and culture vampires lived underground in vast cities, called nests by the other paranormals. They fed only on the willing, not the unwilling. For over a thousand years a special truce had been in place between the vampires and the other para’s. The vampires would serve as the diplomats and legal representatives to the para world and give up drinking from the unwilling in exchange for not being wiped out. Magical threats are a real hazard and vampires are very flammable. Blood was supplied through a very intricate system of debts and balances owed. Willing participants could sell their blood to vampires. Debt and obligation is what ruled a Vampire’s life.

  The really old Vampires ruled the nests with iron fists. It was they who controlled the others’ lives. When war broke out, the nests in Germany and Austria chose to help in diplomatic ways but they were betrayed. The very magical people that they depended on to monitor society and enforce the laws turned on them and used them in war. The eldest were trapped inside their own cities. They were powerful enough to resist the Spells being cast upon them but had no way to leave. The same happened in hundreds of other cities as the war widened. Career diplomats were sent out to calm the other races and to request assistance. Much travel was restricted due to the war and Vampires such as Anastasia were trapped in countries they were only visiting. Then the night of the Purge changed everything.

  In a single moment Anastasia lost everything. Her family, her city, her country, and her entire purpose in life or in death. The Purge took it all. She had been in Japan to organize a trade deal and then she had nowhere to go. True ancients were in demand to help refugees and take control of cities. She had no real desire to do any of that. Taking careful steps to not be detected she slipped into obscurity and disappeared. Her secrets safe, she changed her name and her life. Many of the older cities on the East Coast were in search of residents so she joined groups of young vampires and blended in. Over fifty years had passed before she found something that gave her purpose again. She took her old name again and joined law enforcement.

  She found Nita with her head down on the desk sound asleep. Time was running out, so she had to wake her.

  “Nita sweetie, time to wake up.” Shaking her slightly the Vampire tried to be gentle. The agent mumbled in her sleep and tried to pull away. Being a bit more forceful she gave her a shake again.

  Nita opened her eyes into the face of Anastasia. She jerked awake and checked the time. The Tech commander held up her cell and told her to read her messages. “You got an important one from those two youngsters. They forwarded it to me. I have to go, the sun is rising.” Running faster than a human, the vampire spun out of the vehicle and was in her own just as the sun painted shadows upon both vehicles.

  Nita pulled out her phone and checked the messages. What have those two done now? She hit view messages and began yelling for some of the other agents. Time for a field trip and maybe a way to get into Emery’s house.

  Chapter 15

  I knew we were in trouble when I heard the pounding on the door. My phone had begun pinging at me barely an hour after I texted Nita. The sun was coming up and our FBI keeper was on the warpath!

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Nita and two of her agents pushed their way past me into my hotel room.

  “Uh, what?” The male agents threw open the drapes and were trying to figure out how to open the windows.

  Nita pointed at the windows.
“That! Agatha, really? Did you and Cat think I wouldn’t be upset? If the press sees that, Washington will crawl up my ass! You are a Witch and Cat’s a Were. You didn’t have to leave them stuck on the side of the building like a twisted Halloween display! Damn it! You are training to be FBI agents! Where the hell is Cat, anyway?”

  I threw a pillow at the sleeping lump on the other bed. “Hey, wake up! We have company!”

  “Waaa..t. Company?” Cat sat up and saw the red faced Nita and the other agents and squeaked. She covered back up.

  “Now we need to get them down and find out who they are! Can you release them? Please?”

  I floated the one pressed up against the window inside and un-zapped him. The others were a bit more difficult, but I got them inside. The one that was upside down was the worst. He was near catatonic having spent nearly three hours upside down with his back to the wall three stories up.

  As soon as they could move they began babbling that they were innocent. They weren’t killers or assassins. It seemed they were hired to break into our room and offer to hire us away from the FBI. Their employer didn’t like taking no for an answer especially from mercenaries. He wanted our services, and he was willing to pay for it a lot. For such a smart man Senator Emery was pretty dumb. He didn’t know that I wasn’t one of the Russian mercs that everyone used. No one in Washington had a real Council Sanctioned Witch or Wizard working for them.

  “You two got very lucky. No one from the press saw anything. Only one guest asked about it and Agent Smith told him it was a new publicity advertisement. Be sure to thank him for that; he saved your ass. If we didn’t need you so badly, this might have gotten you kicked out. Next time, think! Promise me you will try to listen?”

  We promised her and then ducked into Cat’s room to change clothes. I put my special vest and all the gear we were issued on along with my clothes. For once we looked a bit like real FBI agents.

  The ride back to the command center’s current location was very quiet. The other agents all knew we got read the riot act. I had reactivated my ward to guard the room and left instructions for the maids to NOT clean it. Trapping the staff would not endear me to the hotel. Fergus elected to stay and watch TV all day instead of coming along. I gave him snacks and hay before I left. He could not open the Ward, so room service was out.

  Nita called a meeting in the command center as soon as we got back.

  “What do we have? Tell me what we know about all three Senators and the Mayor.”

  “We researched what was available about the Senators. They went to different Colleges in different states in different years. They each graduated with different majors except for the Mayor and Senator Emery, who are both lawyers. The Mayor is a tax attorney, while Emery, when he practices, is a corporate one.” Anastasia was on the video screen from her van.

  “That’s interesting. Find out if either of them have any clients anymore. Go on.”

  “Each man was married in their early twenties; only the Mayor while he was still in college. Their wives are all educated and from the same schools as their husbands. According to school records they met through the fraternity system.”

  “Were they in the same frat in college? Many of those do brotherhood events.”

  “No. Senator Emery is a Tau Kappa Epsilon or TKE. Senator Payne from Georgia is Alpha Phi Alpha and Senator Owen is Sigma Nu. The Mayor is Phi Kappa Psi. We couldn’t find any connection between the chapters that links them to each other. Their wives, however, are all from the same Sorority, but from different chapters - and in Mrs Emery’s case, years.”

  “What Sorority do they all belong to?” Nita had a funny look on her face.

  “All the wives are Alpha Nu Omega. We checked and their daughters are in the same sorority too. Legacies for the most part.”

  “Add that factor into your search, see if the men had contact with each other through their wives. What else do we know?”

  “None of the Senators became politicians until after they married. They worked their way up the political chain, local to State, until they achieved their positions. All are very outspoken and popular in their States. We have the ‘nut files’ from each man and there is no crossover. It reads like it’s random which is strange.”

  I raised my hand and spoke. “Agent Lowrey? What about the mothers of the children? Maybe it’s not political at all and has to do with them.”

  Nita smiled at me. “Good question, Temporary Agent Blackmore. Anastasia what do we know about the parents?”

  “Senator Emery’s daughter has a health condition and is hospitalized at the moment. Her husband was a local mayor in Virginia but was killed in a freak lightning storm. He was playing golf in the rain. It was a few years ago, and it checks out. Senator and Mrs Payne have custody of their granddaughter because their daughter Emily and Benton Walburn, her husband were killed in a car accident on vacation. The Walburns were off celebrating his win in local elections as a city treasurer. Senator Owen’s daughter is serving in the Navy as a sub commander. We show her currently on a Top Secret mission. The department of the Navy refuses to release her records to us. We do know that she and her husband divorced after the birth of the child. He is a State Senator in North Dakota. We checked: he hasn’t left the State in over a year and has no contact with his child or ex-wife.”

  Half the people in the room shook their heads. What a douche.

  “Like the Paynes, the Mayor and Mrs Wilson’s daughter was killed, or at least that is what we think happened. They were on vacation in Florida three years ago. They were staying in Orlando at one of the parks.”

  The whole room winced. Even me. I remember watching some of it on television. Grandmother told me the rest of what happened. The Magical community has its rebels much as any other communities do. A small group of Wizards and Witches took over one of the Orlando theme parks to protest mundane characterizations of them. The Wizard’s World theme park was encased in a shield bubble for over forty-eight hours. By the end of the stand off, all the park staff and half the visitors were dead. Many of them transmogrified into trees or other living creatures. What one magic user does cannot be reversed by another. There is a large exhibit at the Jacksonville, Florida zoo where many of the former victims ended up. They aren’t people anymore. The Witches’ Council came down hard on the perpetrators and killed them on the spot. Changing people and animals against their will on purpose is against magical law. So far nothing I have done was on purpose.

  “So only one parent is aware of the kidnappings? This just gets harder and harder. What about our wall-crawling friends?”

  “They haven’t asked for a lawyer yet: but one showed up for them. He works for the same firm that Senator Emery is a part of. We got some nice taped video confessions from them before he showed up. Emery was the one that hired them. He has used them before to acquire business secrets according to them. Unfortunately it’s all hearsay.”

  “What about forensics? Did we get anything off the coins or the statues?”

  “We have the statues figured out. The spell is used to affect the sense of reasoning and leave the person susceptible to suggestion. For a child, it acts as a lure making them trust a stranger. The coins are demonic in nature. We think they were created in the early part of the twentieth century. Metallic traces show the gold comes from a particular mine in California that was played out by the early 1940’s. Similar coins were found during the two previous investigations, but it was not known if they were demonic. Magical support at that time didn’t detect anything. The only lead we have is Senator Emery’s bodyguard, Aalu Kovacic.”

  “OK. I will call legal and try to get us a warrant to search the house and bring in Kovacic for questioning. I expect that Emery will have it squashed in minutes of us serving it so move as fast as possible. Agatha? I need for you to do your Demon scan as soon as we walk in. If we find anything it will slow the judge's ruling and allow us to continue.”

  “Anastasia? Keep digging. We might have an a
ngle with the wives. Keep me in the loop. Now, let’s get ready to move, people.”

  Nita stepped over to where Cat and I were sitting. “Good question earlier, Agatha. How are your studies coming along?” Both Cat and I groaned. We were given tablets filled with procedure that we had to read before doing anything else. It was incredibly boring.

  “I know it’s a bit tedious but you have to understand procedure. No matter how badly we need you, if we don’t follow procedure, valuable evidence could be lost and criminals set free. Think of it as punishment for going back to sleep.” She smiled and walked off to make some phone calls.

  Cat and I spent the rest of the morning staring at the damn tablets. It was starting to make sense, and we began to quiz each other.

  “OK people let’s get moving. We have warrants and a very small window to use them in!” Nita woke us up from the daze we were in.

  We grabbed our kits and stepped out of the command center and into the bright Virginia sun. We took two teams of agents this time as well as a tac-team. They would stay out of the house and away from us unless there was armed resistance. Cat and I rode with Nita as usual but we had three cars altogether.