Chris stood, hands bawled up into fists, his eyes not leaving mine. I wasn’t going to throw the first punch, not as a suspect, and not with the lead FBI agent on the case. After ten seconds with nothing escalating. Chris took a step back and ran his hands through his hair, the tense moment passing.
“Look, I’m here to help,” I said, staring Chris down. “Either I’m a suspect or I’m not. You tell me. As for Lana, you don’t get to make her decisions for her.”
Chris looked at the digital recorder, consciously relaxing his fists. “You agree to another interview, later on, one I can record?”
“Maybe, if you’re not a dick the whole time. But it will probably end up with the same result. Check your phone.”
And just because I didn’t like him, I purposefully summoned my will, gathering the energies which made up the foundation of the universe, into my core. My inward power surged and with it I knew the bleed off that impacted electronics would spike.
Chris pulled out his phone and turned it on. It activated but the screen flickered, and the speaker made a slight whine even though he wasn’t directly using it.
“How did you do this?”
“I’m not saying I did. This room is pretty weird,” I put my hands on my hips and spun around, taking in the cheap wooden wall panels, the old dusty picture frames. “Maybe that’s why I had a nightmare and wanted to leave so quickly. Hey—can’t ghosts make lights flicker and go out?”
Chris slammed his phone back in his pocket, “We do have records of events like this.”
“I’m sure the FBI has run across a lot of things,” I said.
“About people with talents, gifts… magic.” He spat, “Interestingly electronics don’t work long around people like that—or so I understand. What is your gift?”
I sighed, turning to Chris. He’d revealed more than I thought he would, which probably spoke to him being angrier than he was letting on. I was impressed the FBI had files on wizards or those with talents, but not particularly surprising. It was surprising that a field agent like Chris would readily know them. That might mean the bureau knew these attacks and disappearances had a supernatural factor, and they had sent a very specific person to look into it. Then again, that was assuming the government was competent in what it did, which was asking for a lot.
Lana had said her father worked with Chris’s father while looking into the supernatural. Things were starting to make a little more sense, but I didn’t want to reveal all my cards. “Plenty of people have some form of gift, if that’s what you want to call it. But they are corrupted or self-taught. I’m something more. And I’m here to help.”
Chris stared at me for about a minute straight. I didn’t know what he knew about the supernatural, but I bet he knew more than he was letting on. “Okay. I’ll trust Lana about you. The other guy on my team will get it. We both deal with the more obscure cases on the regular. The locals, however, are not going to be onboard with a civilian looking over the crime scene. A civilian who is also our most promising person of interest.”
“I’m sure Lana can come up with something, some form of cover.”
“She presented it like you were an amateur private investigator who had some theories that might be relevant. She said you were here in the inn the day of the attack because of that information and that you were looking for the cause of all of this. You must have some good insights if you were that close. The attack did occur.”
I nodded, smiling at Lana’s of description of me and my motives. If only it was that simple. “That’s sort of the truth, but I don’t have crystal-clear information I can just hand over. It was luck. I was actually trying to find the exact location of one of the attacks so I could learn more.” I said rubbing my chin. It had been Fren who had sensed evil near this place, and I had come to try and stop it if I could.
“Why are you really looking into this?” Chris asked, folding his arms, his body blocking the door out now that we were both standing. It annoyed me that he felt like he could trap me in the room.
“I hunt what hurts people. Same as you, just the scope is a little larger for me.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Chris let out an exasperated sigh, “Get online and get a certificate to be a private investigator by tonight. You might not even need a certificate here in Idaho but figure it out. Get it done and make it official. It will make this easier for the others and those we report to.”
“I’m not going to change my life to be involved in your case. Use my information or not, I don’t care if it’s easy for you or those above you to stomach. I’m going to do what I can to solve this, then live my life.”
“It’s the only way,” Chris said folding his arms. “Lana said you could be useful. This is the only way I can swing it. I’ve collaborated with people with gifts before, once or twice. It was helpful and it’s the only reason I’m considering it now. Maybe you can help us save lives, but it will be you helping us.”
I nodded, willing to give him a little slack despite not liking him. He was trying to do his job. We were on adjacent teams, “There is a problem with that.”
“What?”
I gestured to his phone. “I can’t easily go online and fill out paperwork.”
“Damn. That’s got to suck,” Chris said, grasping my meaning.
“You have no idea,” I said. Thinking about my options. “Lana can help me, but it’s going to be a process and I’m not ready to do it tonight. Plus, then I have to worry about taxes and all the government regulation shit that is more than a pain for me.”
“Do it. If you’re half as good as Lana seems to think, then we need you. I could pull you into future cases. You would be paid.”
“Like into the FBI? I don’t really do ‘big organizations’ and ‘corporate life’.”
“No, not like that. Did Lana tell you about her dad, what he was up to?”
“Sort of,” I said, realizing I didn’t know much. “But not all. I don’t know how long she told you that we’ve known each other, but it hasn’t been long.”
“I figured, she moved here a few weeks ago, so not long even if you met her first day.”
“Are you stalking her?” I asked, I felt my arms and torso grow taught, the thought of this guy hounding her unawares made me furious.
“She’s a friend. I keep an eye out for her,” He took a small step to widen his stance, picking up on my own change. “Her dad asked me to keep an eye out for her, should anything happen. It was shortly before he died.”
“Sure…” I said, making it clear what I thought about that.
“When did you meet?”
“Yesterday.”
Chris’s eyes rose, “Oh.” He laughed, his shoulders relaxed, and a large smile lit his face. “You don’t know anything do you? And really, she can’t know that much about you.” He ran his hands through his hair frustrated at himself. “—This isn’t going to work. You’re too much of an unknown.” I could tell he regretted telling me the little he had.
Offended, I drove down my impulsive responses to show Chris what he didn’t know. But I had to work with him if I wanted more information and on the off chance, he would give me access to the crime scene. He was also, as much as I didn’t love it, a friend of Lana’s. To get his mind working in the right direction I asked, “How did the gifted individuals you worked with in the past help?”
Chris didn’t answer, he grimaced as his lips were drawn to one side. Then he sighed, his walls coming back down. “The first was a medium or psychic—whatever you want to call them. They could talk to the dead and asked one of our murder victims what happened.”
I whistled. That was actually a rare gift. Truly talking to the dead, especially if they had been gone for a time was closely related to death magic, but some people had a gift and could commune with the dead without using magic. The connection was somehow through their soul and being rather than ambient mana flows. “That had to make the case easier.”
“Sort of. It led to more evidence which solved the case. The victim hadn’t seen their attacker.”
“And what did you do to the psychic after?”
“They are still somewhere in Pueblo Colorado, last I checked. I’ve pulled them in twice since, but the victims had been passed too long and didn’t wish to commune, or so they said. Can you do something like that? Talk to Phillis and find out what she saw?”
Now it was my time to put some cards on the table, “No. That’s a different kind of gift, even in my circles that is rare. I can cast spells, find connected items. I should be able to sense enough to know if the murderer is part of the supernatural or mundane community.” I’d chosen my words carefully and watched Chris to see his response. He gave none.
“Back to Lana’s dad, I’ll let her fill you in, if she ever trusts you enough. But… well her father’s whole mission was to find supernatural creatures who did things like this—and he did. If you do something similar, I can see what drove Lana to take an interest in… you. Her dad had friends in the FBI, my father among them. They helped hide what he found a few times and made the paperwork simple for local departments. Frankly, a lot of it doesn’t make sense. It’s the stuff my partner and our small subset of the bureau deal with.”
His matter-of-fact explanation quickly passed over the barbs or his statements about me. I knew he was trying to put me on edge, make me doubt myself. The worst part was, it was working.
“Her father’s death is mired in that sort of thing. Honestly, the FBI has files and files of things that don’t make sense. I’m part of an internal ‘special inquiries taskforce’. Our closure rate is abysmal, but we help people feel like it’s in the right hands when things are terrible and cannot be explained by any other means. We can conceal what needs to be hidden from local authorities, and the public, so people can sleep at night. If you really know things, you could be invaluable. How did you learn? Are you part of the Grimm Brotherhood, one of the Grimm seekers?”
Grimm Seekers. Chris knew a lot if he knew what a seeker was. In a way I was like them but not one of them.