Field Mission HQ, Glasgow, Scotland, 02:13

Marty O’Flannigan had been awake for fourteen consecutive hours. Three monitors’ screens cast a blue-light halo around her frizz of hair, and the angles of her shoulders, and the clutter scattered in heaps around her. The room was pitch dark save for the computers’ glow -- not just from the monitors, but from consoles tucked beneath desks, pouring out beeps and buzzes and flickering flashes of LEDs, and through their sounds traveled an undercurrent of whirring. At regular intervals, their fans picked up speed, cooling their interiors and making nearby papers flutter. Various objects weighed the sheets down: a half-eaten granola bar, a stapler, a rock. A plastic bag of ramen packages, tucked between two stacks of papers and books, crinkled in the fan-breeze.

She was deep in a noodle- and cold chip-fueled surveillance of a city alleyway, which occupied the screen directly before her -- a path of angles and concrete and trash piled high as the eye could see. Crude scrawlings plastered the wall, though here and there, someone had crafted images of interest. There was a mouse balanced on limbs of exaggerated length, more spindle or stilt than leg. Further up, a girl with an owl’s head spread her arms wide. Earlier, Marty had tried to busy herself by imagining what colors painted these pictures, as the black-and-white footage robbed them of all hue and life, but it had only reminded her of how boring this was. She’d rather clean the dust from the air vent, which hadn’t been done in days.

With her gaze locked on the alley, she plucked another chip from the cardboard box in front of her keyboard.

Another chair squealed behind her; wheels rolled across about five feet of clean space. The fans wafted a sandalwood scent toward her as her partner steered himself closer.

“Hey, Marty, gimme a fry,” he said, Southern-drawling the last word.

His voice was a breath of candle smoke, soft enough to drop to a whisper at any moment, a husky rasp trailing in its wake. It was the kind of voice that entranced those unlucky enough to be swayed, paired with the kind of appearance that kept them under a spell: tousled brown waves, ocean eyes, a pierced brow, an all-American chiseled jawline complete with a knife scar below his lip. More scars, too irregular to be self-inflicted, notched his arms, bared in a denim vest and white tee with the sleeves torn off. He was fit, muscles defined even at rest, and his skin a tan counterpart to Marty’s sun-deprived pallor.

She wasn’t falling for a scrap of it. Without a single glance at him, she handed him the squishiest, most unsatisfying chip she could find.

He asked for another seconds later, waving his fingers in a ‘come here’ motion.

Marty closed the box. “Focus.”

“On what? There’s nothing happening.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s our assignment anyways.”

“Man...” He slouched back in his chair, elbows draped over its arms. “I wish I was still in Memphis. Always something crazy to see there.”

“You’re not. Deal with it --”

Movement in the alley grabbed her attention, pulling with it a bright streak of hope that maybe, finally, something had happened. A drunkard stumbled from one side to the other, shuffled along the wall, and vanished around the corner. Marty slumped forward on her desk, chin propped up on one curled hand.

“Damn,” she mumbled.

“What city is that, anyway?”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Marty spun to face him, her hands now cupped in the universal gesture for baffled outrage. “You don’t even know what city we’re watching!?”

“I forgot!”

“You forget everything -- it’s Manchester! England!”

“Not my fault we get stuck with the cases no one else wants.”

“No, Don, it is your fault! Killarney was a disaster! And Cork, and Edinburgh --” She waved her arm, smacked a styrofoam cup, and spilled lukewarm noodles onto the desk. They worm-wriggled off of the edge and spattered on the floor. “Great. Thanks.”

“Not my fault,” Don grumbled again, and retreated to his station, where he stared at his own feed of the Manchester alleyway with his shoulders hunched.

Marty shoved her chair aside, stalked to the supply closet for napkins, and dropped them in a pile on her workspace. She spent the next several minutes wiping up noodles.

At a ring from her headset, still plugged into the computer and hanging over the left monitor, she stood. A window had appeared, blank grey except for a blinking phone icon, an ‘accept’ button, and a line of text.

Incoming Call: Agent Baxter Avery, Field Training Department.

Don had already joined, twirling the cord of his own headset around his thumb. Marty grabbed hers and pulled it on, settling into her chair. She gave herself no more than five seconds to assume a false air of calm, then clicked accept.

Avery’s voice came through in crystal clarity, northern English without the clipped syllables and rushed words so common to the region.

“Careful, or they’re going to stick you two with a London case,” he was saying to Don, who drummed his fingertips on his mousepad.

“What’s wrong with London?” Don asked.

“Think, newbie. It’s damn near impossible to navigate. And it’s not easy getting help. The average Brit won’t take you seriously when you inquire about the supernatural.”

“Then Manchester’s just as bad --”

“Don, please!” Marty interrupted. “Can you pay attention instead of complaining?”

Avery took and crushed Don’s opportunity to fire back. “Enough bickering. Don, care to outline the case for us?”

He shot Marty a withering glare, and she mirrored it in force, but let him speak.

“Sure. There’s a faerie of unknown type hiding somewhere in the eastern part of the city. We know it’s a threat because four people have gotten sick with something mysterious, after making social media posts about feeling observed. Before they made the posts, there was an increase in toadstool ring sightings around parks and such.”

“Thank you. Marty? What type do we theorize the faerie to be, and why have ring sightings increased?”

Marty jumped on the chance to prove that she knew more -- that Don was the beginner, not her. “Toadstool rings are associated with decay, and are most frequent during autumn. This is the season of the autumn equinox, and of the festival Samhain.” She emphasized the pronunciation -- so-when -- for Don, who, without fail, mispronounced it every time. “During Samhain, it’s believed that the veil between Earth and the supernatural is thinner. In short, this is because the lunar energies are heightened between the equinox and winter solstice. The fae can use these energies to open portals through the rings --”

“Marty, the type? I would hope Don’s aware of all of this.”

He rolled his eyes, and to Marty, mouthed, Of course I am.

“I’m getting to it. Because of the link between fungi and decay, death-aligned fae are better at opening these portals than life-aligned fae. Respectively, they used to be known as the Unseelie and Seelie courts.”

“So the faerie in Manchester is death-aligned,” Don finished, seeming eager to ride the coattails of Marty’s explanation. She flipped him off, silent.

Avery confirmed their theory. “Good. How long do you have left to find it?”

“Two days,” they said at once.

“Right. Marty, I want you watching those social media pages and I want you watching them closely. Whatever lying you need to do, whatever documents you need forged, just find this thing. Don, I know you’ve kept using that rusty old shiv. Get some new iron. Cold-forged, or else. Can I count on you both?”

“You can,” Marty swore, and to herself, she made another, secret promise: that she would do anything it took to salvage the reputation Don’s negligence so frequently ruined.