by Curtis, Greg
“More coffee?” James did his best to smile politely at his boss. That was a choice of a sort. He was choosing to at least try and be respectful to his boss. He might dress like a cowboy and he might give him a hard time about things but James knew that if Will wasn't there his life could become much worse.
Really, the man was trying to help him and he needed to respect that.
Chapter Four
The doctor's office was exactly like every other doctor's office that James had ever seen or read about. The carpet was soft and bland. The walls painted in reassuringly tepid colours. There were degrees and diplomas hanging on the walls. Some interesting artwork too. And of course the doctor's desk sat at one end of the room and the couch and recliner chairs were at the other end. But then it was a doctor's office.
That was one of the things he had to give to the Illuminati. They were masters of hiding in plain sight. But then they'd had centuries of practice. So the German was in fact not just one of the magical people with a gift for reading emotions, but also a therapist. He had an office in a clinic and saw patients both from the magical community and the normal one. The only difference for James was that when the doctor saw him he was assessing him for the Illuminati and when he saw the others he was assessing them as patients. But the chances were that if James had ever looked at his records, he would have been listed as being counselled for something. No one would ever have been any the wiser.
Still, whether he was there for counselling or to be assessed as a security risk, James was really only bothered by the length of time it was taking. Will had said for him to be prepared for a thorough session, but this was extreme. Two hours had come and gone and time was marching inexorably into the third hour. The big recliner chairs were comfortable enough, but he wanted to be gone. He would have wanted it even more had he been paying for the session. Fortunately the tab was being picked up by his employer.
“How much longer Doc?” James was tired of the interrogation. That was what it was after all even if the Illuminati didn't call it that. And though it was a condition of his employment and had to be done, it had gone on too long. “Surely you've asked every question imaginable.”
“Every question imaginable?” The German – or Hans Schroeder as he was actually known – raised an eyebrow in question. “That's a lot of questions.”
The German was actually quite a pleasant guy. Easy going and with a sense of humour. And despite being universally referred to as “the German,” he didn't actually have a trace of a foreign accent. All he had to identify him as anything other than pure American was a name.
He was perhaps slightly more cultured than most – James couldn't see him going ten pin bowling on a Thursday evening or out drinking in a pub with friends – but that was no reason to dislike him. In fact James might have quite liked him himself, if it hadn't have been for the fact that he was his counsellor – and had magic. Besides, he didn't go out bowling or drinking either anymore. Not since his world had collapsed. But in his heart he still wanted to think he was the guy who did those things.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes. And I also know that you have nowhere else to be anyway. So stop your complaining. This isn't a punishment.”
“No. It's a security check.” James was too tired to be subtle about things.
“In part. But mostly it's about seeing how you're doing. That you're not falling apart emotionally given the things you see and do in your work.”
“And given what people say about me.” James could read the subtext. Especially after William had already read it to him a few days before. “But I'm fine. I saw far worse as a detective.”
“So you know what they say about you?”
“I know they say I'm cold. That they call me the Iceman.” Even as he said it James was desperately hoping that the counsellor didn't ask him how that made him feel. He'd already had more than enough psychobabble for one day. He didn't need to discuss any more of his feelings. “But what does it matter?”
“It matters because you never used to be like that. You've changed. You've suffered a major emotional trauma and retreated from the world. You need to recover.”
“Or I just need to deal with it and move on. Which I'm doing.”
“Denial is not dealing with things.” The German sighed. He did that a lot around James.
“And what am I denying Doc?” He asked but he knew there was no point. He knew the answer. The German had told it to him before – many times. “That I'm not a cop anymore? That I don't deserve to be one? That there's a living, breathing monster inside me, and I let it loose? Because I know that. That I owe the Illuminati everything? Because I know that too. That my daughter carries the same curse as my brother? I also know that. That my life is a ruin? Everyone knows that.
“No. You’re denying something else. Something you can't stand to hear. You won’t accept that you are one of us.”
“I am not!” James was outraged by the thought. He had been every time it had been suggested before. “I don't have any sort of gift!”
“Really? Your parents are gifted. Not powerfully so, but they have the blood. Your brother has a powerful gift. Your daughter has a gift. But somehow you got left out?” The German's voice rose a little in incredulity. “Even you don't believe that.”
“And besides, you know you have a gift. You know what it is. You alone out of everyone around you was immune to your brother's gift. You couldn't even feel it. Which is why you were unable to realise that he had a gift. Or to see what was actually happening.”
“Immunity is not a gift.”
“When you've got a fascinator around it's probably the most useful gift imaginable.”
“Well it didn't exactly help me, did it? Or anyone else.” James had reason for being bitter. “My parents were robbed blind by my little brother. Left homeless and destitute while I had no idea what he was doing to them. My wife was lured away from me and turned into my worst enemy by him – just for laughs. And I had no clue. My daughter was sold into slavery simply so he could have a few extra dollars to spend. And I didn't even know what was happening until it was too late. I would never have known if Francis hadn't given in to his need for revenge and started bragging about what he'd done. I don't call that a gift. I call that blindness and stupidity.”
But really he called it shame. Shame and evidence of his crushing failure. Because for years while his ex-wife had been pining away for his little brother and roasting him in the divorce court, he hadn't had a clue that she was under any sort of spell. He'd assumed that that was just how she felt no matter how crazy it seemed. When she'd character assassinated him in court and his little brother had sat there beside her laughing at him, he'd had no clue. Not even when the judge had started calling him names and accusing him of crimes. Throwing him into the cells night after night for contempt. It had been bitter and brutal and he'd truly learned to hate his little brother, but he'd assumed it was normal. Even during the years before that when his parents had continued to empty out their bank accounts and sell everything they owned simply so they could give it to Francis, he'd had no clue.
It had only been when he'd found out that Matti was missing and started to panic that his eyes had been opened to how terrible things were. And when Francis had laughed at him and bragged of what he'd done that he'd understood what was happening. Because no one, no mother could surely sell her beloved daughter to slavers. But by then it had been too late to undo his mistakes. All he could do was try to fix what had gone wrong.
But there was no fixing what had happened. Not truly. His fixing had resulted in eight men being shot – not that he cared about them – and his daughter being hurt in a fall during the gun battle. It had left his ex-wife on the point of institutionalisation. His parents had been left destitute and too ashamed to speak to him. At the end of his fixing everything, all that he had seen ahead of him was a long stint in jail. It had ended up with the Illuminati stepping in to fix his mistakes.
/> Now he was trapped in a job he didn't want, with a daughter he could only communicate with through weekly emails and see once a month. A daughter who he was terrified would grow up into a monster. He had an ex-wife who hated his guts in between her nervous breakdowns, parents living in the sticks in Florida who couldn't work up the courage to talk to him, and he was surrounded daily by people he didn't understand or want to know. His life was no gift. It was one step short of hell on Earth. Was it any wonder he was cold?
“Amazing! Self pity and a martyr complex both. It's a wonder you can even get out of bed in the morning!” The German smiled sadly at James.
“I can get out of bed and do my job fine.” And he could, though that was mostly because he had to. Someone had to pay for Matti's schooling and Sheryl clearly wasn't going to do it. She was simply going to pocket the child support and alimony he paid her and spend it on herself. Or on the mortgage for the house he'd once owned while he lived in a crappy apartment and ate packet noodles out of a microwave. It would be nice if magic paid the rent, assuming he even had any, but it just didn't.
Thank God his daughter was in boarding school. It was expensive, but James considered it vital to keep her away from her mother. Even if she had been under Francis' spell, she had still sold their daughter into slavery. And she wasn't stable either. The school seemed to be working out well for Matti.
“But are you living? Are you even surviving? That's the question.” The German shook his head at him. “I've got reports here of a difficult attitude. They say you give dismissive answers to questions asked about cases. That you refuse to follow procedures. Ignore safety protocols. Don’t ask for back up when you need it. Fail to keep your bosses informed of your progress. You even refuse to engage in collegial activities or have casual conversation with your colleagues.”
“I know how to take care of myself. I was a cop for a long time.” And grief, did he wish he could go back to those days. Life hadn't been easy. Money had been tight. The strains of raising a family and working all the hours he could had been crushing. And his case load had been immense. But in hindsight it had been a golden time for him. At least compared to his current life.
“And police officers have partners.” The German was quick to pounce. “You had a partner.”
He had had a partner – Watkins. And they had worked well together. They had brought down a lot of bad guys. Shared their lives. It had been a good relationship. But he could never have told Watkins what he did these days. Not just because it was all secret. But because what he was doing was one step over the line between legal and not. And what wasn't legal was never something Watkins or anyone else could know about. The gifted he worked with – for them it wasn't an issue. They didn't see the law in the same way. They didn't understand that what they were doing was against the law. He did. And he hated it. Besides which he didn't trust them.
“A partner would only slow me down. And that girl would have been dead by now if I'd been any slower.”
Nor was the girl the only one to have been used and abused by the magical. Besides his wife, daughter and parents others had been hurt. Many others. Some had died. When the gifted went bad too often they went very bad. He got to see that through his work. The old saw was that power corrupted and absolute power corrupted absolutely. Magic it seemed to him was worse still. There were just too many temptations.
“But equally you might be dead along with her, and no one would ever know what happened.”
“Doc, if things ever get that hairy I'll pull out the super-dooper ray gun you guys gave me. Promise.”
The promise though was a bald faced lie and he knew the doctor knew it when he saw the German’s face fall. His bosses didn’t like the fact that he didn’t use it. But he didn’t use it because past practice with it had shown that it failed too often. It fired spells instead of bullets. Spells that would incapacitate an enemy. So they considered it a humane weapon. The problem was that many witches and wizards had immunities. So what worked on one didn't work on another. Instead of wasting time with it he'd pulled out his ten mm Sig and shot people in the leg when he had to. They hated the fact that he still carried his old weapon. His barbaric cannon as they called it. But at least he could trust it to do its job.
Then again, he supposed he was very old school and didn’t adapt to change easily. He had a simple flip over notebook of the same type he'd used as a detective, for taking notes. He could have used a tablet but it was what he was used to. He still had a vest in the car, simply because he didn't trust the protective spells they'd given him. In fact the only reason he wore them was because they'd magically tattooed them into his skin. He was stuck with them.
They had offered him a car too, but instead he'd kept his old BMW. But that was somewhat different. He told them it was because the car was grey and low profile in a city where everyone had a BMW. But the truth was that he liked it. It was comfortable, had a big V8 and perhaps most important of all reminded him of a simpler, happier time before his little brother had set about destroying his life. A time when he had been a cop with a loving wife and a young daughter. A time that would never return.
“Somehow that doesn't fill me with confidence Mr. Henderson.” The German stared at him, clearly unimpressed.
“You've been treated with a hands off approach until now. It was thought at first that you were dealing with a powerful emotional trauma and that in time you'd get over it. That you were new to this world, but that in time you'd adjust. Find your place. And for a while it seemed you were adjusting. But now I'm not so sure.”
“You learnt the rules. But I think only enough to learn how to push them to their limits. To break them when you thought you could get away with it. You learnt how to bury your pain instead of dealing with it. And now I think the problem far from resolving, is growing worse. When you see someone with a gift you no longer see a person. You see a threat. Or someone completely alien. And while you cover it up, it’s clear that that includes your colleagues. You are suspicious of them – suspicious of anyone with a gift. You won't even trust the equipment you've been given because it has magic.”
“Actually it's because it's not reliable.”
“You've refused point blank to be properly assessed.” The German carried on, unbothered by James' objection.
“I don't have magic!” How many times did he have to keep saying that James wondered? The thought that he might have something more than just an immunity was a nightmare for him. Why didn't the German understand that? But the German still refused to understand that as he continued with his list of James' many failings.
“The last three times you came to see me you were strongly advised to accept counselling. You said you'd take it. You never showed up. Couples therapy with your ex-wife was recommended. You refused even though you're co-parents to a daughter who needs both her mother and father. You were asked on many occasions to speak with your own parents. To spend some time with them. You said you would and never did.”
“I did!” James interrupted, trying to defend himself. “It just didn't work out well.” Which was an understatement. He couldn't listen to his mother crying ever again, and his father had swiftly given up speaking to him at all. It had been a disaster.
“Once! You tried exactly once and gave up.” The German didn't seem impressed.
“It was a nightmare!” It had been worse than that. A conversation with more painful silences than words.
“But it would have gotten better. If you had only been willing to try.” The German had said that to him before. “You were told in clear terms that you had to make an effort to socialise with your co-workers. But despite promising that you would, you never did that either.”
“I did try.” And he had – a little.
“Not very hard.” The German fixed him with an accusing stare. “Need I continue?”
James shook his head. There was no point.
“Mr. Henderson you show all the hallmarks of a man slowly but surely driving o
ff the reservation and becoming a recluse. A hermit fleeing from the world. And I see no sign at all that you recognise your issues or are trying to deal with them. Given the nature of your work that strikes me as dangerous and it needs to be dealt with.”
Dangerous? Needed to be dealt with? That sounded serious to James. It sounded as though he was planning on doing something more than just making the usual recommendations. It didn’t sound like something James would like. “I'll –.”
“Don't even bother Mr. Henderson.” The German held up his hand to stop James speaking. “I wouldn't believe a word that came out of your mouth.”
“The time has come for more drastic action. And that starts with a partner.”
“A partner! That's –.”
“That's my recommendation. You carry weapons. You go into dangerous situations. People's lives are entrusted to you. And if things go wrong as sooner or later they will, there could be deaths. Yours. Your colleagues’. Those you hunt. Their victims’. You all deserve better. You deserve a hunter at the top of his game.”