Agent Grace was a tall, heavily built man with the most alarmingly boyish grin Caroline had ever seen in real life. She honestly wondered if he wasn’t just an actor playing an FBI agent, because even surrounded by guys like Greg and all the elves back at the office, the guy was almost too attractive when he smiled.
“Thanks for meeting with me,” he said, shaking Darien’s hand, then Greg’s. He didn’t hesitate to offer Caroline a greeting as well, though she could tell he had questions. They were meeting in another cafe, and she had to wonder if investigators were the real people keeping coffee shops afloat and the coffee-lovers were secondary. “You’re getting a pretty solid introduction to your agency, Miss Peters.”
“I admit that I didn’t expect to be out in the field this summer,” Caroline agreed.
“We’re hoping to convince her to stay on after she graduates college,” Darien said. “I think we’ve got a good shot at it. She’s a quick study and has some remarkable skills.”
“Well, I hope this case won’t be too much of a swim in the deep end, then,” Grace said with a smile as he took his seat.
“We’re really only interested in the missing horn, though I’m sure it’s all tied up together with the other missing artifacts,” Darien said. “I don’t want to step on any toes, but that horn left a pretty hefty enchantment residue in the display case, and we want to make sure nobody gets into any trouble. There are no records of what the horn can do, but we suspect it was given to the captain to help him call favorable winds while on a voyage. Phineas Morgan was a wind mage, after all.”
“I got you. Yeah, I could tell something about the whole thing smelled a little off, but I couldn’t tell what it was.” Agent Grace nodded. “Well I’ve only had a day’s worth of head start on you guys, so I don’t have much to tell you other than that Whitman guy is a piece of work. But I bet you figured that out already.”
“We did,” Greg said. His grumbled words had a tiny edge to them, but he didn’t look up from picking the chocolate chunks out of his cookie.
“I brought the copies of the provenance paperwork that you wanted to see. Whitman was irritated that I asked, but didn’t seem too hung up on it. You say it’s missing now?” Grace pulled a slim file folder out of the backpack beside his chair and handed it to Darien. “There’s also a short background on a few of the people at the museum, including Whitman. There’s nothing obvious in his history as far as we can see, but that guy definitely sets off my alarm bells.”
“Unchecked arrogance can do that,” Caroline muttered, then raised her voice. “But that guy was definitely shifty.”
“Agreed,” Grace said with an approving glance. “We’re keeping an eye on him and digging into his background, but so far, nothing.”
The three men fell silent and Caroline turned it all over in her head. It always looked so easy and exciting on television: finding the clues, making the connections, solving the case and putting the bad guy behind bars. Often while looking fabulous. Well, the guys had that covered, honestly. Agent Grace and Greg both had that golden All-American high school football hero thing going for them, and Darien filled the slightly bad boy with a heart of gold slot, even down to the worn-in leather jacket he wore.
Otherwise they all three wore dark jeans and relatively middle of the road button up shirts to look casually respectable. She herself wore jeans and a sort of dressy t-shirt as well, but felt entirely too plain and unhelpful sitting here with these fully trained, fully capable men. She was definitely the child at the table.
“Hey,” Darien nudged her elbow. “You said he was definitely lying about something?”
“Oh yeah,” Caroline shook away the negative train of thought. “He didn’t like that we were there at all, let alone that we were interested in the horn.”
“May I ask, are you a mage?” Grace tipped his head at her. His voice held only curiosity, so she couldn’t think of any reason not to answer.
“No. I’m just an intern,” she answered.
“Just an… are you nuts?” Greg sputtered.
Darien sighed and shook his head for a moment then turned to Grace. “I think she’s gotten hung up on a technicality.” He turned to her. “I have no idea where this self-deprecation’s coming from, but it’s bullshit. Just so you know.”
“Yeah. Besides, who knows what’d happen to D if you left him alone. Last time that happened he got himself knocked out and abducted and nearly killed, remember?” Greg chimed in.
“Extenuating circumstances,” Darien protested. “I was set up and you know it.”
Agent Grace’s eyebrows were slowly lifting and he tried to hide a smile. “Sounds like a story there.”
“Yeah, basically dumbass here got himself hit with elfshot and held prisoner by terrorists,” Greg waved at Darien who ducked his head and grimaced. “Caroline was in the wrong place at the right time and got kidnapped, too, and proceeded to orchestrate the rescue from inside the group’s base. She saved D’s life, took out a few of the elves on her own, and faced down the traitorous rat bastard fire mage who used to be our chief. And got video evidence to secure conviction and exonerate Darien at the same time. All with no training and no magic of her own.”
Grace’s eyes were huge by the time Greg’s summary was finished. A low whistle slid across the table and Caroline wondered if invisibility magic was a real thing and maybe she could learn it.
“That’s pretty impressive,” Grace said.
“I just did what made sense at the time.” She shrugged.
“She’s quick-thinking, calm in a crisis, and she’s got a pretty useful empathic skill,” Darien said. “I didn’t have to nudge Point too hard to get him on board with hiring her. He was already working on the paperwork.” Caroline was pretty sure her whole head was on fire, and she tried to slide down into her seat as if she could magically blend into the scenery.
Grace laughed, and the sound was full of friendly camaraderie. “I can see you’re not entirely convince, Caroline. But I’ve met FPAA agents before, and they’re not usually so full of enthusiasm for the new guy. I look forward to seeing what you do once you’re a full agent. Welcome to law enforcement.”
“Yeah, just wait till we get you all trained up.” Greg grinned. “You’ll be the worst nightmare of bad guys everywhere!”
6
They sat around a pizza that night in Darien’s motel room. The place was clean and cheerful at least, and smelled like all-purpose cleaner and old curtains. Instead of the normal abstract photos and pictures of ducks that decorate motels everywhere, this place had artistic black and white pictures of the area and the desk clerk had gushed about the local artist that did them when Greg commented on the one on the lobby.
The pizza was local, too, and damn good. Caroline pulled another slice out of the cardboard box and snagged the piece of pepperoni that was sliding back into the box.
“So, besides the obvious reason of financial gain for robbing a museum, why would anyone want this stuff? I mean, I’ve never investigated anything before.” If she was going to be training as a real agent for the FPAA, then she was going to take it seriously. “I imagine there are other reasons to steal something other than making money, and it’s not like most of this stuff was particularly valuable outside of historical research.”
“Oh, man. People are terrible,” Greg said. Something flashed through his eyes, making the gold flicker wide in a way that she was coming to understand meant his magic was surging.
“Well, yes, there is a lot of that,” Darien agreed with a frown. “But people steal things for all sorts of reasons. Aside from flat value gained from selling off the stolen items there’s pride, personal desire, revenge, desperation, all kinds of things. As many reasons as there are thieves.”
“Well, obviously enchanted objects are stolen often enough to make it worth having the FPAA in the first place,” Caroline mused. “Is there anything different about those thefts?”
“Eh, not really, from a basic motive st
andpoint.” Darien shrugged and snagged another slice. Greg glanced over at him, then at the soda bottle next to Darien’s plate then back at Darien and raised an eyebrow. Darien sighed and got up to go over to his bag and rummage in it for a moment. He came back to the table with something that looked like a thermos, but sealed around the lid. It had an interesting blue and green geometric pattern under what looked like a standard nutritional label on one side and a large logo label on the other.
Darien glanced up at her somewhat sheepishly. “I, um. You know.” He twisted the cap sharply and the seal broke with a snap,
“D doesn’t want to put you off, but we’re used to him ‘taking his supplements’ at work once in a while.” Greg rolled his eyes while making the exaggerated air quotes. “Even though he tries to hide in the break room by himself when he does it. A few of us try to keep track so he doesn’t push it and start stumbling around like a sleep-deprived kid before finals.”
Oh. Right. Vampires need blood. Darien glared at Greg over the pizza as he chugged back what seemed like half the contents of the bottle.
“Well, he’s right. It’s not like I don’t know about it, Darien. And I think I made myself pretty clear that you need to stay healthy last time we worked together.” Caroline grinned and tried to show that she wasn’t bothered by it. And she wasn’t, really. She knew a lot more about vampires now than she did six months ago, after all.
“Hah, worked together!” Greg cackled a laugh over his own drink— just a lime soda.
In fact, a huge amount of popular knowledge was entirely wrong. They neither sparkled in the sunlight nor did they spontaneously combust in it. They didn’t go hunting in the night for unsuspecting victims. They didn’t turn everyone they bit into new vampires, either. It was a genetic condition, passed down through families like red hair or magic. They did, however, need to drink blood to stay alive and well, but it usually came in a can from a collection center. They took blood donations and specially sealed some donations together for the dietary needs of the local vampire population and the rest went to hospitals and other medical supply depositories.
“Yeah, well. I know it puts some people off.” Darien said after he finished drinking and lowered the bottle. “I usually keep it all at home, but once in a while I get stuck at work for too long.”
“Dude, she fed you. I think you’re past that.” Greg stabbed a finger into the air at Darien. “I don’t think anyone here cares, do you, C?”
“C?” she raised her own eyebrow at Greg now.
He just grinned and winked at her. “Yeah. You two are partners, so. C,” he pointed at her, and then pointed at Darien. “D. Makes sense, right?”
“Really? Seriously? Ugh, fine.” This was never going to go away now. They’d be lucky if the whole office wasn’t calling them CD by the end of the week. “And no, Darien, I don’t care. Drink your vitamins.”
Darien shrugged slightly and ducked his head, but did as she told him to and finished the thermos and took another huge bite of pizza before standing up and taking the empty canister to the bathroom.
“He’s really sensitive about it, huh?” She listened to the sound of water running in the sink and guessed that he was washing the thermos out.
“Yeah. I guess it was kind of a thing at his last post. I dunno, something happened and he got all skittish about it.” Greg actually looked serious and thoughtful while they spoke, and Caroline heard the concern in his voice. It was as far removed from his normal, happy-puppy demeanor as the defensive reaction had been in the museum had been. Darien’s not the only one skittish about something I bet she thought to herself.
“So, we were talking about motives,” Caroline said when Darien sat back down. Greg threw a wadded up paper towel at him and grinned when it bounced off Darien’s nose.
“Well, that’s a great question. There are a few basic things that a stolen item can do, usually. It can be turned into money by selling it.” Darien ticked the reasons off on his fingers. “It can be hidden and kept in a private collection, providing value to a greedy collector. It can be destroyed by someone afraid of whatever it represents. Or it can be used. It’s that last one that worries me.”
“But we don’t know exactly what the horn can do. Besides make noise, I mean,” Caroline said.
“True, but as I was leaving there was a mage coming in. One of our contractors. She was going to go analyze the spell residue in the display case and see what she can tell us,” Darien said.
“Wow, that’s really cool! I didn’t even know that was possible.”
“Sure, and handy for us,” Greg said. “Forensic mages are few and far between, and I think most of them contract out to the FPAA.”
“Or just plain work for us. Ollie’s a forensic mage, for example.” Darien nodded.
“Woah. Ollie’s mage, too? Man, I feel so far behind,” Caroline said. She slumped back into her chair and glanced at Greg. “Um…. Are you...” She let her words trail off, embarrassed. She had the feeling that it was really rude to ask.
“Am I a mage?” Greg finished for her. He grew serious again and shook his head. “No. I don’t have any magic to use, especially. Not like that, at any rate. I’m made by magic.” There was a pause where a series of hard to read expressions flew over his face and Darien stayed quiet, letting Greg work up to whatever it was he was going to say.
“I’m a manticore. Best I can describe it is part lion, part scorpion, with a few extra bits thrown in for good measure, and all kinds of dangerous. At least that’s what the goal was, at any rate. I was engineered, so as far as I can tell I’m the only one,” he said, the sadness— and unexpectedly, fear— she heard in his voice making it feel heavy. “So I can sense magic, but I can’t particularly use any aside from the gadgets Ollie and his crew enchant for us. I can’t do anything on my own.” He grimaced slightly in a way that Caroline guessed meant it wasn’t supposed to be a big deal.
“Well, that’s pretty badass anyway,” she said. “And it explains why you’re so good at napping in patches of sunshine. You really are a giant kitty, aren’t you? Glad I don’t knit, I’d be nervous about my yarn.”
Greg’s grin started to return. “Jesus. You just roll with all the punches, don’t you?”
“Eh, I can’t change what I can’t change. But I can find our local yarn shop when we get back and leave you fishy treats in your desk.” She grinned. Greg cracked a laugh so loud she wondered if there would be noise complains called into the front desk. Even Darien was grinning.
“You’re definitely fitting in just fine, C.” Greg wiped away the tears of laughter with the heel of his hand and grinned like a lunatic. “Now then, what are we going to do next?”
7
What they ended up doing next was heading to a fairly unsavory area to look into who may have wanted a horn enchanted by a wind mage in the eighteenth century. That seemed fairly specific, to be honest, but it wasn’t like they could just walk in somewhere, flash their credentials, and get answers.
“Um, you remember the part where I’m not even old enough to be in here, right?” Caroline asked as the condensation slid down the side of her glass of soda water and lime. “Or, you know, paranormal enough.” And she couldn’t get past the sticky floor. That was just gross. Why were bars appealing if they were like this?
The bar wasn’t exactly grimy or shady, but it certainly wasn’t a hip, trendy sort of place that would end up in somebody’s Instagram feed, and was populated almost exclusively by non-humans. The few that were there were likely mages, Darien had told her before they set out, and she’d been checking to make sure she was wearing her pendant every five minutes since. It was enchanted to ward off spells and aggressive magic, and had already saved her life once. It wasn’t perfect, but that was why she was with Greg and not in there alone.
Also, in her pocket was a little gizmo that Ollie had handed her on her second day. The way he explained it, it was like a taser for paranormals. Well, humans, too, but he said it was calibra
ted slightly stronger than necessary for them. If she needed it, all she had to do was pull it out, aim in their direction, and push the button, and a small, sharp wave of magical electricity would zap whoever was in front of the thing.
Greg had something intensely pink in front of him called a sea breeze that he’d settled on when the bartender gave him a long flat stare after he gave his original order. Apparently, the drink he wanted changed colors and was in his words ‘magic, but actually delicious science!’ and he was very disappointed to have to settle for a merely pink concoction. Caroline had just shrugged and asked for club soda. The bartender raised a brow but didn’t ask.
Darien was there, too, slinking around the room in some impressively disreputable clothes looking much more thug than anything else. In other words, he blended in much better than she did in her relatively tidy jeans and a hoodie, or Greg with his size and flashy pink drink. The plan was for them to draw enough attention that Darien could slide around the edges of the room and be less memorable when he asked questions. Caroline had the feeling that it was working, from the eyes on them.
“So, we can’t talk about work,” Greg said, his voice just a touch louder than usual. “School hasn’t started yet, so there’s nothing there to talk about. How’s living with Julia working out?”
“Fine,” Sarah “She’s pretty cool. Like an awesome aunt instead of a babysitter or something. She’s talked me out of stressing myself out a couple of times now. And she let me have pie for breakfast on Wednesday. She said it had fruit in it and freshly whipped cream so it was fruit and dairy.” Caroline grinned.
Greg’s eyes lit up. “Oh my God, I never thought about it like that. She’s totally right!”
“I know! I mean, sure the pie was from a pretty good bakery so it wasn’t pure sugar, and she actually whipped the cream right there in the kitchen the night before, so it really was actual dairy, not sprayed from a can, so there’s obviously rules to eating pie for breakfast.” Caroline put on a very fake serious face and Greg followed suit.
Caroline's Internship Page 4