9:54 AM September 15th 2026
New York F.B.I. Magic Crimes Division
There was snoring in the Magic Technology Lab office. Frank was moseying on into the lab hoping he’d get a chance to talk to Sam and Alex, or at least warn them about the fact that everyone was now aware of what Sam had done with Gleipnir and she was going to be mobbed, mobbed by people congratulating her if she ever made it down to the rest of the building. But the snoring made him pause.
Not that snoring was unusual this time of day. Gleipnir was not a morning person and he didn’t actually work, so he slept if he felt like it. But there were three different distinct pairs… sets… what did you even call multiples of snoring? Snorts? Whatever. There were definitely more than just Gleipnir sleeping and that was not normal.
He slowed as he approached the door to Sam’s domain, unsure of what to expect. Then he stifled a chuckle as someone murmured in their sleep in a classic ‘memememememe’ kind of snore. That had to be Gleipnir. Taking a quick, deep, fortifying breath, the senior agent rounded the corner and peered through the door to the lab office.
A smile spread across his face.
Alex, Sam, and Gleipnir must have slept in the office after getting back from out of town. Gleipnir had made himself a hammock up out of the way in a corner on a set of hooks that, if Frank remembered correctly, had been placed there specifically for that purpose. Alex was curled up on her cleared desk head pillowed on her arms, and Sam… Sam was…
Frank had to cover his mouth as he began shaking silently with mirth. Sam was sitting in her chair with her flat on her desk. No pillow. No arms. Just face turned to the side and her cheek on the cold faux wood surface, mouth open with a puddle of drool forming on the table beneath her lips. Frank rubbed his hand over his face, sucked his lips, and shook his head. This was above his pay grade. He did not want to wake these kids up.
Shaking his head, Frank did the smart thing and did not approach any further. Instead, he pulled out his wand, whispered a spell and watched as it began to lengthen. A set of footsteps drew his attention and he peeked back down the hallway the way he’d come. It was their boss, the director of the Magic Crimes Division.
Odd. He didn’t come down and interact with them often. And Frank was worried that things might not be great for them if he didn’t wake the kids up fast.
“Come on. Come on.” He muttered to his wand, willing it to lengthen up faster so that he could poke the girls with a stick from a safe distance rather than risk getting swatted by one of them if they were startled. Now it was too late to try a loud noise as that would clue the approaching director in on the fact that the main techs were sleeping on the job.
As he walked the director stuck a hand inside his suit coat and fished something out of an inner pocket that fit perfectly in one of his hands. Was the man using some kind of movement spell because he was fast. Really fast. It was as if every time Frank glanced away or blinked, the man moved twice the distance he should have been able to in that time. The director smiled wickedly at Frank.
“Good morning agent. You can stop with that. And you might want to get behind cover.” In one smooth movement, the director pulled apart the thing he’d taken out of his pocket and chucked half of it into the center of the room before ducking down behind and against the other side of the doorframe.
“What the hell?” Was that what Frank thought it was? He tried to go after it to help the girls but felt himself pulled backward by his jacket.
“No. Idiot. I said cover.” Sighing as he grabbed Frank and yanked him to safety with him. “It’s just a low-yield sound grenade. I use them to wake Sam up so she or Gleipnir don’t accidentally maim me when she works all-nighters.” Then the director covered his ears with the palms of both hands. Wide-eyed, Frank followed suite.
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True to his word, a few seconds later a blast of noise came from the room beyond. As the sound died down, two feminine shouts of startlement could be heard along with the beginnings of a protective spell. Then cussing as an irate Sam realized she wasn’t under attack and canceled her summoning. Alex was silent until a very, deliberately loud snore broke the low ringing in Frank’s ears as he took his hands off them.
“Really Gleipnir?” Then she laughed. So did the director who had been shaking with mirth the whole time but let it out now.
“Yeah, laugh while you can because I’m gonna skin whoever did that…” Sam was stomping her way towards the door and Frank quickly sidled his way away from the director to try and give himself some distance from the target of Sam Wattkins’ ire.
“What are you planning to do to me?” Not the least bit afraid, the director stepped around the door just in time for Sam to walk into him.
“Oh. Director. Guess it’s time to wake up, hey?” Like flipping a switch, Sam’s building wrath petered out. Puff. It wisped away into nothing, and he smiled at her with a mischievous and knowing grin.
“It is.” He agreed. “But shouldn’t you be at home? Resting?” He gave her a raised eyebrow that made the magic technician duck her head, blush, and look away. Observing from a safe distance, Frank’s mouth dropped open. What was that? Sam… Sam didn’t… She wasn’t pliant like this for anyone.
“I had work to do and someone needed to look after Alex.” She mumbled grouchily before glancing up defiantly. “Plus, it was dark and neither of us wanted to see what state our shittily shielded apartments were going to be in at oh’dark stupid in the morning.” The mirth faded from the director’s face at that mention and he became more serious on that note.
“Okay. Well, I need my magitechs to head home, get some rest, and take a week of leave.”
“What?” Sam’s eyes bulged and she glanced up, looking the director in the face again. Alex’s ‘what’ followed by her head popping out from behind Sam’s shoulder.
“Yeah.” Now it was the director’s turn to look a little nervous. “Word’s gotten out about what you did…” here he paused as if looking for the right words, “and about what you saw and might have experienced… and someone’s making a hullabaloo about hiding your real magical ability level… psych evals for trauma… and maybe, maybe aninquiryintomagicallicensingfraud.”
The last bit had been said so quickly that it took a few seconds for the listeners to catch up with the sentence. Especially as the director had lowered his voice just a bit to try and make it difficult to hear.
“What?”
“What?”
“What?”
“WHAT?”
Sam, Alex, and Frank all stared at the director once the words kicked in. But Glipnir, who had been sawing hugely loud obnoxious, and obviously fake snores, shouted his question in outrage. Magical licensing fraud was a big fucking deal and could result in serious repercussions.
“Sam, you took down a dragon. Yeah, it was a corpse. Yeah, it was manifesting as a monster. Yeah, you had Gleipnir’s help. But it was a Gods damned real adult dragon. Doesn’t matter what the extenuating circumstances are, you aren’t rated as a Dragonslayer, and neither is Gleipnir.”
“Oh, fuck!” Gleipnir commented as that sunk in. He floated up behind Sam, pointed end up, on the opposite side from Alex with a pair of googly eyes stuck on his length near the top. Frank wasn’t sure, but he could have sworn the googly eyes blinked at him before focusing on the director. Frank rubbed his own eyes in disbelief. “Well, it’s not like I hid the fact that I am fully capable of restraining a deity. I mean, the whole Ragnarök thing is not even ancient history at this point. A dragon was significantly less difficult.”
“Regardless,” the director continued with little more than a slight pause as Gleipnir’s googly eyes had their double-take effect on him, “I need you both out of the office and on recuperative leave or something, I don’t know, I’ll figure out the paperwork, until I’ve got this mess straightened out. Okay?” He shooed at the direction of the exit. “Hurry along now before my bosses get here.”
The two women and Gleipnir glanced at one other significantly as if they were communicating silently with their eyes. Which was made even more bizarre by the fact that one of those pairs of eyes wasn’t even actually real, but they were definitely blinking and moving. Yeah. They were blinking and moving. Then the three shrugged. Sam and Alex, as humans, shrugged their shoulders but Gleipnir as a, whatever he was, manipulated his ribbon tail into some kind of approximation of shoulders several inches below his ‘eyes’ and shrugged that instead.
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Why not?”
Then they turned in unison to retrieve their belongings, straighten up, and head home.
“Really?” the director questioned in disbelief. “I was expecting a bit more pushback on this.”
“No. It’s fine.” Sam replied cheerily over her shoulder. “If it’s mandated, we don’t have to use my accrued leave.”
“That makes so much sense, actually.” The director acknowledged. “Relax. Recover. And we’ll see you in a week.” He turned and started down the hallway, he walked jauntily and as he went.
“Okay. Bye. Just don’t forget to explain to your superiors why you didn’t send us backup when we asked for it.” He froze for a second almost out of earshot but then continued on as if he hadn’t heard. Frank shook his head.
“Gods damnit, Wattkins. You just couldn’t keep your mouth shut.”