They drove silently most of the way. Jeremy didn't bother to ask Hurwitz any more questions. He doubted the man had any real answers, and even if he did, Jeremy would rather hear them from the real source.

  Hurwitz was never in Rallsburg. They could place him at his work up until the day of the incident. By the next day, he'd vanished, presumably along with his daughter and her mother, who'd also vanished that same day despite having a scene to shoot for a cable show. All three in the family, gone in an instant.

  Those details had never been released to the public, because they couldn't definitively link them in any way. Jeremy had kept an ear out, just in case, but Rachel and her parents had been thorough. None of them had ever surfaced in the public eye even once, visibly or financially. He wondered how they were getting by.

  "You didn't call her to ask," he commented.

  Hurwitz didn't answer, staring at the road ahead. They were driving off to the opposite end of Vancouver, as expected. Even their pharmacy location was calculated.

  "'Cause you already knew what she would say, right?"

  "...Yes."

  Jeremy shrugged. "You'll both get it eventually. I really don't care about you. I'm just tryin' to find Jackie and make sure she's okay, and get some answers."

  "She was the last time I saw her."

  "Yeah, I can't just take your word for it. After the shit I've seen, I need to talk to my old partner."

  Hurwitz finally glanced over at him. "You were partners?"

  "Eight years, Seattle homicide. Way back in two thousand. Best partner I ever had, and the last time I ever really cared about the fuckin' job."

  "Oh."

  "You saw her, though?" Jeremy prompted. "When?"

  "...That night."

  "That'd be Tuesday the fifteenth, back in May?"

  "Yes."

  "And she was okay?"

  "...Honestly?"

  "That'd be why I'm fuckin' askin', yeah. Honestly."

  "She looked scared."

  Jeremy frowned. "...Bullshit. Jackie didn't get scared."

  Hurwitz braked a little too hard at a red light as he shook his head. "You weren't there that night. First Andy calls me, saying that our daughter's in trouble and that we might have to get out of town. I start packing. Then, about twelve hours later, I get another call from God knows who. Some girl with a weird voice, who tells me to go to Issaquah under a fake name, meet Andy, and get ready to go into hiding."

  He stepped on the gas a bit too hard. Jeremy's head smacked against the rest as they jerked across the line.

  "And I did, you know? I dropped everything, called into work, and I was there for my family. But when I saw them that night… If you saw Will, you'd understand."

  "I did."

  "What?"

  "They took photos of him at the hospital when he checked in. Pretty standard in a case like that when the victim can't speak for themselves. Just in case they need to pursue a criminal case."

  He shuddered. "Your partner looked haunted, that's all I'm saying. And from what Rachel's told me, she had every reason to be."

  "...When did you see her last?"

  "She left right after we settled down, about a week later. Never saw her again."

----------------------------------------

  The place was totally unremarkable, which didn't surprise Jeremy in the slightest. A modest one-story home with a garage. No front yard, though, just a odd rock garden in front of a walkway leading up to the door. Easier to take care of, he guessed. They couldn't risk being outside too frequently, and the trips to the pharmacy were bad enough.

  Obviously, since that's how I caught him, Jeremy mused. "After you," he added aloud.

  Hurwitz gulped and nodded. He pulled up to the curb, turned off the car and got out. Jeremy picked up the bag of medicine. Anythin' to appear less threatening. He followed Hurwitz up the driveway to the front step, where they stopped.

  "No trouble," he repeated weakly.

  Jeremy nodded. "No trouble. We're just gonna talk."

  He nodded again, digging through his jacket pocket. After a moment, he came up with a house key, which he fumbled into the lock.

  The place was sparsely decorated, but it was clear someone had tried to turn it into a new home. There were pictures on the walls, and touches of personality throughout, but it was clear that the place just hadn't been lived in that long. Nothing was settled into its spot. It didn't have the natural mess and clutter of a real home. They'd been forced here, and it was painfully obvious even to an outsider like Jeremy, who hadn't lived with a real family since he was young.

  "In the back, Dad!" called a voice. Female, young, strong, confident. Must be Rachel. Without waiting to be prompted, Jeremy started down the hall to the open door. He turned the corner and stopped, staring into the room and a group of people that clearly wanted nothing to do with him.

  The room was dominated by a full-sized motorized hospital bed, with an occupant that could only be Will Carbonell. Compared to the hospital photos, the bruises had faded, but he certainly didn't look to be walking any time soon. His head lolled over as Jeremy walked in, and his eyes widened in surprise. Rachel and her mother, both tall brunettes, flanked the bed. Jeremy opened his mouth to speak, but Rachel beat him to the punch.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Jeremy Ashe," she stated. Jeremy looked past Will to the girl sitting at his bedside. Her hair was tied back rather than the sheets of straight brown he was used to seeing in her photos, but she looked mostly the same otherwise.

  Less familiar to him were the twin fireballs that burst into life on either side of her head, flickering ominously. By now, he knew they were very real.

  He froze in place. "I'm alone," he said, slowly lifting his hands into the air.

  "Then you're an idiot," said Rachel. Her mother shot her a disapproving look, but Rachel ignored her.

  She got to her feet. In spite of himself, Jeremy was intimidated. He'd known she was tall, but this was ridiculous. He wasn't exactly the tallest guy around, but at five foot ten, he could walk into a crowd and usually not feel too outclassed. In front of Rachel, he found himself looking up. She held a good eight inches on him at least. Rachel was taller than him, taller than even her own father.

  Jeremy noticed as she walked around the bed that her clothes didn't fit very well, before his eyes were drawn right back to the fireball floating above her hand. She stood a few feet away, staring him down.

  Her eyes flicked to the bag in his hand. "Where's Dad?"

  "I'm here," Hurwitz called, finally appearing at the doorway behind him. Jeremy didn't dare move.

  Jeremy held out the bag very slowly. "I just want to talk."

  Andrea got up and snatched the bag out of his hand, pulling out a bottle and hurrying to the bedside. Will was still watching Jeremy with a curious look, though he hadn't yet said anything. The room was clearly dominated by Rachel, and aimed to stay that way unless he did something about it.

  "I'm here to help."

  Rachel raised an eyebrow. "You started a manhunt for some of my people."

  "Your people?"

  "Yes." Rachel glanced at her father. "Dad, did you check him?"

  "What?"

  "Is he armed?"

  "I am," Jeremy cut in. "But I'll surrender my weapon right now, if you'll answer some questions."

  "...Like what?" she asked suspiciously.

  "Where's Jackie?"

  She looked surprised. "I don't know."

  Jeremy's heart sank. "Goddammit, if they're your people why don't you fuckin' keep track of them?"

  "I do." She held out her hand, while the fireball continued to spin in midair above it. Reluctantly, Jeremy pulled out his pistol and handed it over, grip-first. Rachel checked it with an experienced eye, and clicked off the safety. She took her seat again next to Will, with the pistol casually trained on him. The fireball dissipated, at the same time that Rachel's body released a lot of tension.

  That took a lot out of her… She ain't good at magic, I guess. But she knows a 1911, and she's not stupid enough to take me at face value. Jeremy had hoped to just walk in, bully a location out of her like he had her father, and leave a few minutes later. Rachel's expression told him otherwise. That's the face of someone who's used it before… This is gonna be harder than I thought.

  "So where's my partner?"

  "She hasn't been your partner since April of 2008," Rachel replied.

  "...How'd you know that?"

  "They did a profile of you in a local paper, after you were announced as the lead investigator. Your days in the precinct. It didn't see much circulation, but I read it."

  "And you remembered?"

  Rachel smiled grimly, which was a terrible thing to see on the face of someone with a gun trained on him. "Is she the only reason you came here, Agent Ashe?"

  "Honestly? No." Jeremy took a breath. "I've seen some fuckin' wild shit over the last couple months. My partner got shot. I nearly got my face beat in by a giant monster without a face. I watched a girl fly across a room, and another guy moving stuff with his mind. Then out of the blue, someone fuckin' teleports into my living room, middle of the night, and tells me to go find you. And hey, I'm a sucker, so I drove straight north. Took me a few days but here we are."

  He paused for breath again. "So let's get somethin' straight. I don't understand what the fuck's goin' on, and honestly I don't really want to know. But this shit ain't goin' away, so I need some fuckin' answers."

  Oh, and Maddie? Fuck you for being right. Again.

  When we get home, I'm buyin' dinner.

  Somewhere in the middle of his speech, Rachel visibly relaxed, which eased a lot of tension out of the room. Still tense as fuck, but at least she doesn't look like she's about to break down anymore. "It's magic, right? Y'all can cast spells and shit. And, right on schedule, everyone's fightin' over it. Am I on track?"

  Rachel nodded slowly. "More or less."

  "How long?"

  "Two and a half years. The first discovery was in May, two years ago, as far as we know."

  "And where did it come from?"

  She shrugged. "Rallsburg. Where else?"

  Jeremy rolled his eyes. "No, I mean, where did it come from?"

  "We don't know."

  "Seriously?"

  "No one does. Not even the first to discover it."

  "And y'all are the reason Rallsburg blew up. Right?"

  "...Yes." Rachel glanced away.

  Personal guilt. There we go. "It was your fault?"

  "Not directly. But yes."

  "...You realize you just admitted that to a federal agent, right?"

  She shrugged. "You're under effective suspension, and you're well outside your remit of office. You're here off the books, and you aren't even carrying your standard sidearm. This isn't an FBI service weapon, except for Special Forces groups, which you have never been a member of. At the moment, you have no real authority." Given that she held his gun, in addition to whatever magical powers she could conjure up, Jeremy wasn't about to disagree with her. "I'd be more afraid of your sister than of you right now."

  Play up humor, build the relationship. Same as the hostage situation, even though I'm the only hostage here. "Good move. She's always been the smarter one of the family."

  "Congratulate her for me on the election. Two million, two hundred and thirty thousand, four hundred and six votes was a good landslide. She deserves it."

  Jeremy was starting to feel more than a little unsettled. "Studyin' me, are you?"

  "I study everyone. But I did take an interest once you set yourself up as our enemy."

  "My partner was shot," he fumed. "I needed answers and that was the only lead I had. Tell me you wouldn't've done the same."

  "...I did, and I regret it." Rachel finally set the pistol down in her lap. Her parents finally relaxed, and tension tangibly eased out of the room. "Well, since she isn't going to let me rest, I guess I'm supposed to help you."

  "...She?"

  She didn't answer him. "Mom, could you get us something to drink? We could be a while."

  "Hang on," Jeremy interrupted, as Andrea started to move out of the room. "What's going on?"

  Rachel shrugged. "Call it a liaison. A first contact, if you prefer, though it really isn't the first."

  "First contact? You tryin' to say you're aliens?"

  "No, not aliens. Just different." She glanced at her mother again, who shuffled out of the room. It was strange to see her parents taking orders from her, but then again, everything about her was off. She should have been a college junior, but she had something much darker behind her eyes. It took a minute for him to place, because it had been a long while since he'd seen it in person.

  That girl's killed before, with her own hands.

  Suddenly, the pistol in her lap didn't seem like an idle threat by an overly confident college co-ed. Jeremy was starting to take her much more seriously. He finally understood why he'd been sent to find her, of all people, and it wasn't because of Jackie. However much he wanted to find his partner, the bigger picture was settling in bit by bit, and he couldn't escape it forever.

  "If you don't mind me askin'," he started, "why'd you decide to trust me just now?"

  She sighed. "For the same reason I once trusted your partner. When I saw you go on the news in front of hundreds of reporters and lie, for the sake of one of ours that you probably didn't even know..." She paused, waiting for confirmation. He nodded. "You follow the rules and do your job well, right up until the moment when the rules don't account for something new. Something the world's never seen before. When that moment came, you took our side, even with the little information you had. That's something."

  Jeremy shrugged. "She saved my life. I figured I owed her one back."

  Rachel nodded. "You probably saved a lot of grief doing that, so let me be the first to thank you."

  Not exactly the first, but whatever. "Just doin' my job, like you said."

  "Will you help us again? Help the world transition into… well, whatever comes next?"

  Fuck that. Even more press? "If it's all the same to you," he said suddenly, "I'd like to call my sister."

  "What for?"

  "Well, to tell her I'm alive, for one. But more importantly, 'cause this is really her scene. You want a fuckin' first contact, you want Maddie."

  Rachel nodded. "Go ahead."