It was really strange.
“Welcome Head Agent Vedis,” the one in the middle, a female mage said. I don’t know how I knew she was a mage, but I did. “I’m called K.” Her wispy hand motioned to the other four Directors on the panel. There was a male djinn, a male vampire, a female shifter, and that extremely female succubus. “These are Stern, Chan, Andrea, and Honey.”
Honey leaned forward, all business. She got my attention instantly. “We are going to ask you some questions about your interactions with Officer Rakenchan,” she said. “Please be honest and limit your responses to facts.”
I nodded and did as I was instructed.
The next hour went by at a paraplegic snail’s pace. I answered, re-answered, and re-re-answered questions about Rakenchan. It was exhausting.
“And finally,” K said, “what is your overall impression of Victoria Rakenchan?”
I took a deep breath and slowly released it.
“Officer Rakenchan was a dick when I met her,” I said. “She bullied me and my team, she showed no ability to discipline certain members of her staff, and she maintained a business relationship with someone who turned out to be an enemy.”
I looked over at Rakenchan. Her head was lowered and she clearly felt ashamed regarding her involvement. It wasn’t her fault, no, but that obviously wasn’t making her feel better about things.
“However,” I continued, “I’ve recently learned that she’d been under the power of a djinn during the time. The instant she was able to act, despite her brainwashing, she saved the lives of me and my team.”
“So not only did your ‘super team’ have to get bailed out,” Chan the Vampire said, “you didn’t even find out what happened to your predecessors.”
Asshole.
I glanced from wispy face to wispy face. I had a theory about that, but there was no way I was sharing it with these people. I didn’t know them, and I damn sure didn’t trust them.
“It was a difficult situation,” I said, counting to ten in my head. “But we’re not here to talk about me. You have the fate of a good officer in your hands and I’m hoping you’ll do the right thing.”
“That’s none of your concern,” said Andrea the shifter. “You’re here to present information, and that’s it.”
Hey, another asshole.
I was starting to suspect the Directors didn’t get appointed by being great people.
Plus, my count-to-ten calming plan wasn’t working.
“You want information?” I scowled. “Here’s some. You let your chief get taken over by an enemy and never noticed it. You did that. Not me. You.” I let that sit for a moment before adding, “It’s a good thing you aren’t working the beat anymore. You’d all be dead in a week.”
“Now, that’s not fair,” Honey fumed. “We can’t be expected to notice everything.”
I scoffed at that. “It must be nice to be able to fuck up and live through it. Some of us don’t have that luxury.”
I rubbed my eyes. They were starting to burn. That wasn’t a good thing since I knew where it would lead. But this whole thing had turned from an interview into an interrogation and I wasn’t taking too kindly to that.
“I’m done with this,” I stated. “I’ve already done the hard work and punished the ones responsible for screwing with her head and infiltrating your department. You’re welcome.”
“Careful,” warned Andrea, bristling slightly.
“Or what?” I asked, acting much more calmly than I felt. “I don’t work for you. You wanted my testimony and you got it. Now do the right thing and let Rakenchan go.”
“This is what I’d expect from one of Stone’s pets,” Chan said, sneering. “A warlock.” He looked at the other Directors. “You do remember what they did to us during the war?”
“Enough Chan,” Honey said. “We asked him to come here, remember?”
“You asked,” he argued. “I don’t trust anything a creature like him has to say. If I had my way we’d have killed him as soon as Stone sent him to our area.”
I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms. My anger drained away. It was replaced by smugness. This next part was going to be fun.
“Speaking of remembering,” I said, calmly. “I remember Jonah Blue quite confidently assuring me that he could sway the opinion of at least one of the Directors.” I tilted my head slightly as I looked at Chan. “Now why would that be?”
Rakenchan bolted to her feet.
“Because Director Chan is the one who had me meet with Jonah and The Third in the first place!” Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Why didn’t I remember that until now?”
The air near the judges shimmered, then darkened, revealing the form of Chief Stone.
How’d he get here?
“Because,” Stone explained, “Jonah used his mind control powers to keep you from remembering. Now that he’s dead and everyone still alive has been evaluated and reintegrated, we know a lot more.” He looked at Director Chan and winked. “In fact, we now know enough to act.”
A flash of light filled a section of the room, illuminating Director Chan, taking him from the wispiness into the real world. It looked weird, since he was here virtually just like the rest of us.
Whatever magic or tech had been protecting his identity seemed to have been stripped, because I could clearly see he was a middle-aged vampire with light brown hair and a permanent squint.
“Who are you?” he shouted to someone I couldn’t see. “How dare you barge in here. Do you know who I am?”
A familiar looking woman with a soccer mom hairstyle stepped into view, smirking her ass off.
Retriever Piper Shaw.
The same person who had arrested me what now seemed like years ago.
“Yes, I know who you are,” she said, “which means you really fucked up. Director Craig Chan, I Piper Shaw, hereby place you under arrest for corruption, betraying the trust placed in you by the PPD, and for being an all-around dickbag.”
She turned and eyed me.
“Hey, Vedis. Still alive, I see.”
She could see me through the hologram? I guessed Chan’s whole room must have been setup for virtual communication, instead of just his connector.
She pulled out her handcuffs.
“Want to know something funny?” she asked. “An anonymous tip came in that this was the little prick who put the ‘kill on sight’ order on you that I ignored before. When I found out he was going to jail, I had to jump on the assignment. Karma’s a bitch, right?”
Director Chan spun on her while she was talking, pulling his cuffed arm away and attempting to sink his fangs into her neck. In one motion she pulled her pistol from its holster and fired it, almost casually, into his chest.
He barely had time to let out a scream before he was dust on the floor.
“Damn,” she said, looking at the pile of what had just been a Director of the PPD. “I guess I won’t get the full commission for a live perp on that one.”
She shrugged at me, touched her tattoo, and then vanished, teleporting out.
The other Directors looked shocked, but immediately went into damage control.
“I had no idea,” Honey said, ignoring me and looking at Stone.
“I know,” he replied. “None of you did; otherwise I’d have sent Retrievers after your asses too.”
“You dare?” Andrea said, with a low growl.
“Did I dare to clean up after you?” he asked. “Yeah. Seems like Mark and I have that in common. You’re welcome.”
Stern spoke up for the first time.
“Stone, you are interfering in Director business here.”
“Yep.”
“Would you please explain yourself?”
“Gladly.”
Stone took off his suit jacket.
“I heard you’d asked Mark to chat and, wouldn’t you know it, I got suspicious. A character flaw, I suppose. I guess my paranoia was justified, since Chan was about two minutes from ordering Mark’
s death. Mark was to be a scapegoat so that Chan’s relationship with the Shaped would stay under wraps.”
He reached for his belt, unbuckling it and putting it with his jacket.
“Now, I could be wrong,” he admitted, “but seeing as you’ve all inconvenienced my agent and started treating him like one of your people, I’m getting the impression that you want to get into a good-old-fashioned dick-measuring contest.” His hand went to his zipper. “Should I go first?”
Nobody would look at Stone’s midsection, myself included.
He walked to every remaining Director and made direct eye contact with each until they backed down.
“Nobody?” he asked. “Fine.”
Much to my relief, he took his hand away from his crotch.
“Please don’t pull this shit again,” Stone stated, putting his jacket back on. “Getting dirt on people is my business. Get in the way of my people and I’ll take you down.”
“By what right did you do this?” Andrea snarled as she leapt to her feet.
“Not ‘what’,” Stone said, all trace of humor leaving his face, “‘who’. And that ‘who’ is Drake.”
“Oh.” Andrea sat down so fast that I wanted to give her a doggy biscuit.
I leaned over to Rakenchan.
“Who’s Drake?” I whispered.
“The Executive Director for the region,” she answered. “There’s only a handful for the entire planet. Pretty much at the top of the do-not-fuck-with list.”
Stone looked over at us, giving a hell of a cold stare.
I shut up.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I think we’re about done here.” He motioned back at us. “Victoria Rakenchan’s not responsible for what was done to her, and she was willing to ruin her life by calling in the mafia to help. That was a tough choice.”
“Tough choice or no,” K countered, “she broke the rules. She can’t remain as chief of the PPD.”
Stone smiled.
“I’m so glad you said that, K,” he said. “And I wholeheartedly agree, which is why I’ve arranged to have her transferred to my team. She’s got guts and isn’t afraid to put everything on the line when it matters.” He sniffed derisively. “Frankly, you pickle shits wasted her.”
My head jerked back at that and I had to bite my lip to keep from grinning. Finally, I had something on Stone that I could use to show him up.
Stone must have seen my reaction, though, because his grin fell for a second.
“Frog dammit.”
He looked back at the Directors.
“Uh…good talk. Let’s wait awhile until the next one.”
He waved his hand and the remaining Directors vanished.
Then, he turned to Rakenchan.
“I assume my recommendation is okay with you? I mean unless you want to go to jail. Rules are rules, you know…unless I’m the one breaking them, of course.”
Rakenchan stared at Stone, a sour look on her face. Finally, she nodded.
“Excellent,” Stone said. “Get your shit together and come to my office tomorrow.”
Another wave and she vanished.
“I guess we’d better talk, too,” he said, eyeing me now. “Come to my office in an hour.”
With another wave of his hand, I felt the world go away as I came to on the floor of the PPD office.
Chapter 39
An hour later, I was sitting in Stone’s office again. He was calm, but I thought I’d detected just the hint of worry from his eyes.
“So, aside from the Shaped what did you find out?” he asked, casually.
I scanned him with my warlock senses, making sure to confirm what I’d found before saying anything. It was risky, but everything I’d done over the last few days had been.
Time to see if I could trust Stone to believe in me.
“I found out what you sent me to find out,” I answered evenly. “I learned who killed the original team.” I paused and bobbed my head from side to side. “Well, kind of. I know what happened to one of them anyway.”
“Really?” he remarked, his face remaining calm. “And who was that?”
“Jade Brice,” I told him, playing it cool. “The former Head Agent for the Southeast Asia PPD IDU. Damn, that’s getting to be a mouthful.”
Stone chuckled dryly. “Most of my teams have nicknames. The previous team called themselves the Fixers. You could use that name if you prefer.”
“Fixers, huh?” I thought about it for a minute.
It sounded pretty cool, and it’d work just fine as long as it didn’t scare off any werewolves who were worried about being neutered.
“I like it,” I said. “You have a flair for interesting names, it seems.”
“What do you mean?”
I stood up and walked to the door.
“Jade Brice,” I said theatrically. “Such an interesting name. Almost like someone was getting overly devoted to a theme.”
I stuck my head out of the door, where the receptionist was playing on her phone.
The female pixie receptionist.
“Isn’t that right, Jade?” I asked. “Or should I say Stone?”
The pixie, who I’d figured out was actually Stone, as well as Jade, jerked back in shock.
“Cock rabbit.”
I crossed my arms, satisfied with myself.
“Mother fucker,” she said, shaking her head as she grinned. “I thought you’d figure it out eventually, but not that fast, and I sure has hell wasn’t going to tell you outright.”
Hers was a face of awe.
“How did you do it?”
“I worked on the Kansas side of Kansas City.”
“I don’t get it,” she said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I shook my head slowly. “It means that I can’t believe you really tried to Wizard of Oz me.”
She groaned, her head dipping.
“Okay,” she said, after a moment, “I’m coming in there.”
She flew over to the familiar figure of Stone and waved her hand at him. He disintegrated into a pile of pixie dust. She then reformed that dust into a taller chair and had a seat.
“Right,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Tell me how you figured it out.”
I sat back down, wiping pieces of Stone out of my chair.
“You mean aside from Jade being a type of stone and Brice being one letter away from the word ‘brick’?”
She shook her head. “Nobody else ever put that together, but they also didn’t interact with both of us. What else tipped you off?”
“A few things,” I said, relaxing a bit. “I noticed Tranq, the pixie coroner had a method for trying to keep his pixie insult tendencies repressed, but it didn’t work all the time. Frankly, his method wasn’t quite as good as yours.”
“Mine?” She frowned.
“You repress your pixie insults,” I explained, “the same way you were teaching him to control his. But yours comes out when you’re nervous, in the form of random cursing.” I gave her an impressed look. “Hiding pixie swearing as a form of Tourettes is a little wrong, but also pretty clever.”
“Well, I can’t really control it,” she said, “so it wasn’t exactly a lie.”
“True,” I acknowledged, “and that wasn’t enough to make me suspicious in and of itself. But a combination of something you said and something you told Tranq tipped me off.”
She crossed her legs, bouncing one of them on top of the other, nervously.
“I’m afraid to ask.”
I leaned forward. “Let me tell you a joke,” I said. “What do you get when a lemon eats a cucumber.”
She winced, visibly.
We answered together.
“Pickle Shit.”
She punched her desk, scattering pixie dust, but not doing any damage.
“Fuck.”
I grinned.
“I thought you might have suspected something was up when I said that in the courtroom. I use that phrase a lot, especially when I’
m surprised.”
Happily, I was right about the pickle shit blurting. A good thing too, since that was the part I wasn’t a hundred percent sure of.
“So, it was you who answered the phone when I called the first time, right?” I ventured. “It was not your daughter, was it?”
She nodded, biting her lip slightly.
“Pecker was supposed to give you the number of my work phone, not my personal cell phone. I only answered because he even masked your number as his in the caller ID.” She bit her lip again. “The little shit must have been getting even with me for hiding stuff from him. He’s nuts when he thinks people are keeping anything cool a secret.”
I laughed. Fucking Pecker.
“And so you panicked and pretended you had a daughter,” I commented with a nod.
She raised her hands in a what-can-you-do? motion.
“I had two seconds to come up with something,” she laughed. “I’m pretty smart, but come on. What else could I have said? I was going through puberty?” She looked down her blouse. “I mean, yeah, I’m not stacked like some chicks, but that excuse hasn’t been valid for centuries.”
I did a good job of studying the pixie dust around the desk and not looking at my boss’s chest.
“Now, wait,” I ventured, “does this mean there’s no Stone?”
“Stone exists,” she said, waving her hand and making a little Stone puppet, which she put on her hand. “but he’s more of a title than a person. You’ll keep calling me that, by the way. I have to be able to move in secret, so Stone is my public face. I can set him on auto-pilot or talk though him, so I can be in two places at once.”
She made the Stone puppet attempt to smell his own ass, which made me laugh.
“I created my version out of magic, my predecessor used a robot. It all ended up the same. Anything works, since “Stone” uses the same memory altering method as the Directors. As long as he’s bland enough, nobody can really remember much about him.”
“That would make you the Dread Pirate Roberts.”
“Who?”
I waved the thought away. “Never mind.”
She shrugged.
“All right, so you figured it out,” she said. “Some of it anyway. I don’t think I need to tell you that telling anyone outside of your team about this will result in your death.” She leaned in. “Just in case, though, let me formally state that: I’ll kill you if you tell anyone outside of your team about this.”
Bangkok Warlock: A Mark Vedis Supernatural Thriller Book 1 (Southeast Asia Paranormal Police Department) Page 21