Quick Study
Page 7
Besides, she still had Point’s contact information in her cell phone, and her internal compass telling her where Darien was, though that seemed to be growing weaker as time wore on. Now she had to think about it before she could turn to face his general direction.
Finally the bell rang and she collected her things and slogged her way out to her locker. She knew what would be waiting for her there, and she ground her teeth. She didn’t even make it around the corner before she heard the hyena-like laughs.
“…can’t even skip school right!” Cackled the voice of the lead tormenter. Caroline sighed.
“Honestly, you can’t even think of something new? Its been a week, Mo.” Caroline sailed around the corner to her locker, and felt the glare stabbing into the back of her skull.
“Well, only you could find a way to skip school and get kidnapped by the lamest excuse for a criminal ever.” Monique sneered. “Who would want to rob that nasty, boring excuse for a storage closet? And then they took you?”
“Well, Mo, not all of us can be aspiring trophy wives.” Caroline loved the simplicity of the dig. Monique loathed having her name shortened at all, but she hated ‘Mo’ the worse because she thought it sounded like a barfly.
“Ohmygod, Monique!” One of her cloned followers rushed up to the group just as Caroline managed to get past the gaggle and to her locker.
“Yeah?” Monique drawled, keeping her favorite target in her sights.
“There’s this guy out front by the school marquis!” the clone bubbled. “And he’s soooooo tasty. And like, probably in college! And did I mention he’s hot? Macey went and tried to talk to him, and he said he’s waiting for someone. A girl!”
“Tasty college boy, huh? I doubt anyone here is capable of handling a real man. I’d better go rescue the poor thing.” Monique turned her focus back to Caroline. “Lucky break for you, huh?” And with that terrible excuse for an exit line, Monique and her clones chattered away towards the front entrance. Caroline watched them go and felt almost sad for the poor guy, whoever he was. Unless he fell for Mo’s brand of brainless twittery, then he deserved whatever he got.
She sighed. Just another day in the life. She finished stuffing her books into her backpack and glanced in the mirror inside her locker door. Same plain, old Caroline. But… maybe not quite the same. Last week Monique had seemed like pure evil, a serious threat to her happiness. Now she was just a pain in the neck to be suffered through. Maybe there was a bit more perspective in her own eyes, Caroline thought. With a shrug she closed her locker and turned to go. Might as well go out the front and see if the poor sucker was sinking or swimming against the flood of Mo’s arrogance.
It took all of a second to find Monique and her lackeys, but the look on her face was worth coming around the long way. The guy was clearly shooting her down. Caroline hurried her pace a bit: she wanted to hear this.
“…You sure?” Monique dug deep and formed the perfect pout. “I know the best burger place in the whole city, and it’s right near here.” She sounded shocked and completely confused, and more than a little bit desperate to Caroline’s ears.
“Look,” Was that… No way. “I’ve already told you that I am not interested in your offer.” Caroline checked her magical inner compass and her first thought was definitely the right one. With a smirk, she stepped easily around the group of Monique worshippers and there stood Darien, looking severely annoyed.
“But…”
“Not even slightly tempted, kiddo.” Ow, Mo actually winced at that one. “I prefer a woman that can think on her feet and take out an enemy or two with whatever’s at hand.” He looked up and grinned. “And there she is now. Hey, Caroline, I’ve been waiting for you.” Darien grinned and Caroline was almost sure that the sunny day got sunnier. Monique’s face went through a series of expressions that almost cracked Caroline’s own game face. The first was shock, then outrage, then confusion, then more outrage.
“It would have been three bad guys, but you got that last one first.” Caroline grinned. Darien shrugged and stepped over to join her.
“Yeah, well. Couldn’t let you have all the fun. Come on, I hear there’s a great burger place nearby.”
“They’ll cook ‘em any way you like ‘em.” Caroline winked.
After a few minutes of walking, once they’d gotten away from any prying teenage ears, Darien turned to her.
“I hope that wasn’t a bad idea. I guessed that girl was the cause of your troubles last week and couldn’t resist playing her game a bit.” He said.
“God, did you see her face? She’s going to give me hell till graduation, but it was completely worth it.” Caroline laughed.
“It’s a good thing I’m on leave, too. I could catch some heat for turning up the supernatural charm.”
“Magic charisma, huh? I’ll consider myself warned.”
“Well, it wouldn’t affect you anyway. I mean, you’re wearing the charm, right?” He frowned down at her. She nodded and pulled it from under her t-shirt.
“Yeah. After last week? Yeah, I’m wearing it. Point came by and said I might still be on the elf guys’ radar, so yeah. Definitely.” She shivered.
“Yeah. Well, I’ll be hanging around for a few weeks anyway, to make sure. Point’s been tapped for the chief position permanently, and he made it entirely clear that I’m on duty here.”
“He told me that you were being punished and on leave or something.” Caroline let him open the door for her, thinking it was amusing that he would make such a gesture.
“He’s not as dumb as most people think he is. They take one look at the fact that he’s a troll, and assume that he’s got the IQ of a brick. Just cause he’s built like one…” Darien shrugged. “Anyway, he knows what happened. The stuff that’s not in the official report I gave, I mean. He wanted to make sure that we had enough time for all the effects to wear off. He knows perfectly well that I’ll stick near you till that happens, no matter what assignment I get. That’s how it works.”
“Oh. Wow. That’s…” Caroline blinked at her menu and tried to process all that. “That’s actually really clever of him. And nice, too.”
“Yeah. And fair, since I really did break about a thousand rules about this stuff, written and unwritten. I thought it would be fair to give you a heads up though, cause I’ll be around.”
“Oh. Okay.” Caroline stared at the laminated plastic. She knew what she’d order so she didn’t really need to read the words but it was a good cover for her spinning thoughts.
“There was one other thing, actually.” Darien sounded hesitant.
“Oh yeah?” Caroline glanced up at him. He looked so serious that it made her nervous.
“Point had one of the brownies look into you a bit, just basically so we’d have some information to put in the file about you really.” He said.
“I’ll try not to be pissed off.” She said. He sounded so worried that she wasn’t ready to be mad yet anyway.
“Well, she came up with your college enrollment information, and it said that you hadn’t declared a major yet.” He fiddled with the edge of his own menu.
“No. I’ve got all sorts of interests so I figured I’d take a bunch of electives and see if anything really called to me.” She shrugged. What could her classes next year have anything to do with anything?
“Well…” He glanced up at her. “Point wondered if maybe you’d consider a career with us. You could intern over the summer and see what you think.”
Caroline opened her mouth and realized that she didn’t have any words ready, so she closed it again. The waitress came by to take their drink orders and Caroline managed to get her brain started again.
“Point thinks I’d make a good paranormal cop?” Caroline asked. She wanted to make sure that she understood what he was saying. Darien nodded.
“Yeah. So do I.” Darien tipped his head to the side and held up his fingers to tick off his points. “You found out about us and didn’t even think about panicking. You k
ept your head in a very stressful situation, far better than anyone could have expected. You followed orders quickly and well when it was necessary and ignored them when it was better to do that— not that anyone above Point would consider that a good thing. We definitely do. You improvised to gather evidence. You adapted to situations as they came up. You asked fairly intelligent questions and confirmed information you had already gathered. I could keep going, but I think you get it. Besides. I’d like a chance to work with you again. It was nice, not working alone.” Darien glanced out the window as he said the last part.
“Not to mention I’d blend right in to human society. HR wouldn’t have anything to do for me.” Caroline said. He laughed.
“True.”
“But… I am human, Darien. How would I be able to help against anyone bigger than an elf grunt? Beckett almost got me, easily. And what would I tell my parents?” She said.
“Well that’s what training is for. And just because you’re human doesn’t mean you can’t learn some magic, it just won’t come as easily. And you tell your parents that you’re interning for a federal agency. We are technically part of the Justice Department. That’s pretty prestigious, you know. Will you think about it, at least?”
Caroline stared out the window. Elf supremacists were a real life thing. And there was a whole federal agency devoted to stopping them, and others like them. Now that she knew about this, she honestly couldn’t forget it.
“Yeah. Okay. I’ll come and see what your little team is about.” She said. Darien raised an eyebrow.
“We’ll see who you’re calling little when you mean Ollie.” He said.
“You guys ready to order?” The waitress glided up and set their drinks down in front of them.
“Yeah. We’ll both have the Ultimate Burger. I’ll have mine medium.” Caroline looked at Darien.
“I’ll have mine as rare as you can. Practically bloody.” He grinned back.
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About the Author
Katherine Kim is a lifelong lover of fantasy. She started early, being read Tolkien as bedtime stories, which honestly explains a lot. More recently she’s been drawn to more urban fantasy stories through both books and television, and reading continues to be a passion. She lives and writes in Tokyo for the moment, with her young family.
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Books by Katherine Kim
The Demon Guardian
A Demon’s Duty
A Demon’s Sanction
A Demon Saved
The Riverton Demons
Personal Demons
Spirits of Los Gatos
Sarah’s Inheritance
A Spirit’s Kindred
Finding insight
Brewing Trouble
Spiritkind
Federal Paranormal Activities Agency
Quick Study
Caroline’s Internship
In The Blood (coming soon)