CHAPTER 1: MEETING THE TEAM
Courage is found in unlikely places. -- J. R. R. Tolkien
September 21, 2009
Darkness.
Silence.
Cold.
Pain. I hurt everywhere.
Enjoyment.
Violation.
Exultation.
Shame.
Punishment.
Grief.
Anger.
Horror.
Satisfaction.
Fear.
Sulfur and Hate.
The sense of another mind, another presence.
Pleasure at my pain, and the glee at forcing himself on me. Ronnie Dolan sat bolt upright in her bed drenched in cold sweat with the coppery tang of blood in her mouth. Her throat was raw. She wondered if she had been screaming again, or was it just her body remembering the screams in her dream. It was the same old nightmare. “Traumatic Flashbacks” the shrink had called it. Most nights, the memory of the nightmare is enough to send Ronnie scrambling for the bathroom in time to empty her stomach of the night’s dinner. But tonight it was only the cold sweat, the terror, and the shakes. It could have been much worse.
The alarm on the nightstand said four. Too early, Ronnie thought as she untangled herself from the sweat soaked sheets and went to brush her teeth. Too wired to sleep after the nightmare, she looked at herself in the mirror. Auburn hair, gray eyes, freckles and a healthy figure made for an attractive woman, but the permanent bags under her eyes and the pallor of her skin hinted at the demons she carried with her.
Face it, girl, Ronnie thought to her reflection,
this is who you are now: damaged and damned. Good thing you’re so good at glamours. Waving her hand before her, she felt the tingle of her magic as it flowed across her skin to hide the pale complexion and the grand tour baggage under her eyes. Anyone who didn’t know would think she was as beautiful as any other Fae woman. Of course, they would also think she had brown hair and blue eyes. Frowning, she dropped the glamour and turned on the shower. She didn’t need to report for her new assignment until 8:30. She should sleep, but experience had taught her that sleep was impossible after the nightmares.
May as well get ready. Or at the very least get clean, Ronnie decided as she turned the shower on as hot as it would go. She stepped into the all but scalding water and scrubbed her skin. Even awake, she could still feel hands ghosting across her skin. It didn’t register that she had scrubbed her skin to the point of bleeding in spots, until she got out and started to dry off.
“Well, if that doesn’t just make my morning even better,” Ronnie groused to herself.
After getting the bleeding to stop and making sure the areas that bled were covered in gauze, Ronnie got dressed and wandered to the kitchen mumbling under her breath about tea and coffee. Not really much of a coffee drinker, preferring tea as her morning routine, Ronnie fumbled with the filter packs she kept in the freezer for just such an occasion. Finally getting the coffee going, she lost some of her tunnel vision. Good thing too, because there was a note on the fridge from her roommate:
Did you get the blood? I’ll need it bad by the end of my next shift.
Did I just miss it?
-A
“Crap.” Grabbing a pen, she scribbled a quick note saying she’d get some blood for Allison on the way home. In other words, just in time for her roommate to make it in for her next shift. “Oh, the joys of rooming with a dhamphir. I ought to be used to it by now,” Ronnie muttered and grumbled to herself. It has not been an auspicious start to her first day at SCI. If only she had known it was going to get worse
* * * * *
Ronnie was not having a good morning. I-85 was a parking lot. Which was nothing new. It had taken thirty minutes to get Igor started. Again, nothing new. She’d stopped for breakfast and gotten egg, when she’s told them not to, and spilled her third cup of coffee in the parking lot. All in all, not an auspicious start to a new job. It was one of those days that you wish you’d spent in bed with a trashy novel.
She had finally made it through security, gotten her building credentials, parking pass, and other annoying, but necessary, bits. It was now 9:30, and she was an hour late. On the upside she could blame security for half an hour of that. You can blame security for anything these days. She was pretty sure this day couldn’t get worse.
Once again, Ronnie was wrong.
First there was the Supervisory Special Agent sent to escort her to her new boss. SSA Amici was a walking libido that exuded sex and masculinity from every pore. It was like frankincense, spicy and alluring. Although what do you expect from a Celestial? He’d had two thoughts about her before he’d mentally dismissed her and went on to think about the case they had just finished and the paperwork he needed to round up. The first thought was:
Hottie, nice legs. The second was:
I wonder who her ladyship’s daddy is? At least there will be someone to get the coffee. The Jerk had assumed that she had gotten this assignment because she was Somebody’s daughter and “Daddy” had pulled strings to get her this assignment. All the poor little princess was going to do was cause more work. Grinding her teeth, Ronnie squashed her sudden spike of temper. It still surprised her sometimes how much sharper her own emotions were after tasting someone else’s.
Marc tugged at his collar as though it had suddenly gotten hotter in the elevator. This cooled her down some. To be fair to him, she was “Somebody’s Daughter”. Lord Eamon Brian Seamus Dolan, Keeper of Justice of the American Fae Council, was Ronnie’s father, and he had pulled every single string he could get his hands on. Only he’d been trying to keep her off the SCRT roster. Only Lady Moira, The Keeper of the Law, had been able to convince Ronnie’s father that she was capable, and, more to the point, required to serve the United States. Did he prefer her to join the military? While after that, Lord Eamon had stopped trying to keep her off the SCRT roster, he point blank refused to help her get on the roster. If she couldn’t do it herself, then she had no business doing it at all.
The second thing that proved to Ronnie that the day could get worse was the name on her new boss’s door: SSA Alex Ulfsson.
Alex Ulfsson? Ronnie thought in horror.
I have to work for ALEX?!?!?!?! Oh, great. Like this day wasn't bad enough. "Roadie?" Alex questioned. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm your new agent," Ronnie answered him stiffly. Alex's responding grin made Ronnie want to cringe, but she held it in. His glee was like a searchlight turning on, while pointed directly at your eyes. Bright and painful.
"You're my new Probie?" Alex said. "Oh, goody. Just in time. I need a fresh cuppa."
Ronnie raised her eyebrow, crossed her arms and said nothing.
"Something wrong, Roadie?"
Apart from the SNAFUBAR this day has been from the word go? Ronnie thought as images of being tormented by Alex as children flitted through her head. What she said, however, was, "You need to sign the paperwork first. Until then, I'm not your probie, and you can get your own tea. And why don't you drink coffee?"
"I never developed a taste for the stuff. I never understood how something that smells so good can taste so foul."
"I tend to drink a splash of it with my cream and sugar on bad mornings. I think this is my fourth cup."
"It's only 9:30!" Consternation finally turned off the bright light that was Alex's glee.
"That should tell you something about my morning."
"Okay," Alex began as he waved Ronnie into a seat across from him, "we've got to go through some of this paperwork and info so I can sign off. Let's see what they have to say about you. Good with a pistol, huh? Ronnie with a pistol, that's scary...fantastic scores on your driving instruction...Interrogation training, level three empath helped, I bet...Didn't hurt with advanced deception detection either, but apparently, according to your instructors, can't lie to save your life. Geasa can suck that way. Elemental channel. Nice. Water, fire, air...Evocation, glamours, no thaumaturgy, that's fine...we have Kika for that. Now, when I look at your Psych Eval what am I going to see?" he asked casually.
Throughout his overview of her file, he'd been radiating the warmth of interest and curiosity; it was a soothing, comfortable feeling. But his last question was tainted with the gray edges of worry and concern, and it wasn't necessarily directed towards her.
The silence stretched for a moment as Ronnie decided how to word her answer. Eventually she decided that she couldn't lie, because geasa suck and Alex knew most of it anyway.
"A conditional pass," Ronnie said a brief answer that said as much as it didn't.
"What conditions?" The gray-edged worry was clawing at Ronnie's senses.
"Continued training with Agent Jensen for control of the Empathic power. It went haywire. All my shields and defenses were gone. And seeing Dr. Stavros for counseling, as assignments allow, twice a week."
The gray edges began to fade from Ronnie's vision as Alex visibly reined in his emotions and began erecting his own defenses. Alex looked at Ronnie for a moment. The swirling colors of indecision leaked from behind his shields. Suddenly the colors stopped swirling on the edges of Ronnie’s vision when Alex came to a decision.
"I never really got the whole story. Your twin dying is traumatic, but it doesn't cause traumatic flashes and the utter destruction of your mental shielding. I know you, Ronnie. You've been working on that shielding since your abilities were discovered. You were ten."
Ronnie turned her mental air a deep indigo blue. Only two people knew the answer to that question, and one was dead.
“It’s not a fun story, Alex. I don’t want to tell it.”
“Want really has nothing to do with it at the moment, Ronnie.”
“You know you only call me Ronnie when you want something,” she observed in an attempt to rid herself of the iron tang of his determination to figure out what was wrong with this picture. The man was like a dog with a bone, kind of appropriate that his Fae heritage was part wolf form.
“Veronica.”
“Once I start, do not interrupt me, or I won’t be able to finish.”
“Let me close the door.” Turning word into action Alex stood, closed his door, locked it and touched a knick-knack sitting on his desk. It held a touch-activated privacy ward. “A gift from, Mom.”
Ronnie took a deep breath and began.
“I went looking for her mind. I’ll tell you how the Agent in charge of the investigation found out what happened. It was late, and it was cool in the morgue. I told Momma and Jesse I would go and officially identify Annie. I think it was my way of protecting them. As the Agent and I walked into the morgue, I could have sworn I saw the Medical Examiner squeeze the shoulder of her body and say, ‘Don’t worry. I won’t tell them.’
We walked up to the table, Agent Hayden slightly behind me. I was calm and collected, professional. It was the first time since I had mentally gone looking for Annie that I wasn’t a mass of hysterics and random emotions. I was grateful for the lack of people in the morgue. I think I might have collapsed had anyone else been there to identify their loved ones. Too many emotions. Agent Hayden asked the doctor to pull the sheet back from Annie’s face.
I said, “Yes, that’s my sister.” The doctor began to pull the sheet up gain and I stopped him. Looking a little closer I commented, “I expected her to look like she’d gone fifteen rounds. Why didn’t you expose any of her shoulders or neck? What did he do to her after he killed her? You were very careful.”
At first, he didn’t answer me. I looked up after a few moments. He was staring at me, weighing me. Finally he sighed, glanced at Hayden, who gave a barely perceptible shrug, and asked me a question in return, “Are you sure you want to know, Miss Dolan?”
I told him I didn’t want to know, but I needed to know. He told me there was some post-mortem mutilation, but that he wouldn’t be more specific.
As Agent Hayden and I walked away I asked a question that I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer to, “Is the mutilation what makes this a case for the FBI? Is that why you are here?”
She told me it was part of a specific signature. And then I asked about her lapel pin. It was a replica of George Washington’s 1789 campaign button.
“Yes, a few of us in the office have them.” It was conversation in code for the sake of any camera or listening devices, of course. I knew that pin, only worn when dealing with mixed groups of Normals and Paranormals, identified Agent Hayden as a member of The Washington Defensive Corps.
I asked if it was specific to the paranormal community. She said yes. She was so frustrated and angry that the emotions leaked passed her shields. I asked her to lie to my mother and Jesse. I asked her not to tell them what he’d done to her. I also asked for more information about the killer.
Once again I was on the other end of a measuring stare. It seemed that she would stare at me forever. I knew her answer before she even opened her mouth. She told me no. I knew better than to argue, the subject was closed. I left the morgue, went to the hotel, took a powerful sleeping pill and slept the dreamless sleep of the drugged for several hours.
The next day we met with the FBI, again in my case. Agent Hayden had someone sit down with Jesse and Momma. She talked to me herself. She began with some basics, my name, my address, where I had gone to school, when I had last spoken to Annie. She looked at me for a moment after she had finished the basics as though she was measuring out her thoughts or trying to come to a decision. I remember the spiraling colors of her indecision spun on the edges of my vision.
“You asked me yesterday,” she began when she finally spoke, “to tell you about the man that killed your sister. At the time, I refused. I spoke to the ME about something to make sure it wasn’t my imagination, and then I spoke to my superior. I’ll tell you about this man, but I need you to answer a few questions for me. “
I asked her what questions. She began asking about my reader abilities, saying something about being a Level 3 reader.
“I never realized I’d been tested, but, yes, I’m a reader.”
“You and your sister are twins aren’t you?”
“That isn’t in your file?” I remarked a little snidely.
“I’m asking more for confirmation than information at this point.”
“Yes.”
“Now I want information. Why didn’t you ask what he had done before he had killed her?”
I froze.
“Does it matter?” I whispered horrified that I might have to relive those moments.
“It might. I have a theory. I want to know if I’m right.” A surge of Desperation and despair shot through the room like lightning, but somehow it was tinted with the soft pearly fog of hope.
I drew a deep breath and pulled myself together. I had to answer her. Because after what had been said last night, I knew that who ever had done this to Annie would do it again. And again. And again. I might be able to help stop him. Knowledge is power. There was nothing I wanted more at that moment than the power to get revenge. So I organized my thoughts and began. I told her that I function as a Level 1 reader most of the time and almost never stretch beyond that. I have a hard enough time sorting my emotions from everyone else’s, adding images and experiences to that is more than I want to deal with. Tests are hell.
Agent Hayden nodded but kept silent as I explained I had never really tried much at a level two difficulty; I can get flashes from my parents. I think it has to do with familiarity with the other mind. I functioned on a high level three with Annie. I could find her anywhere. Her mind was never closed to me neither were her emotions. I never built any defenses against her mind. It was never necessary. I discovered how powerful the link was when I mentally went looking for her on prom night to tell her she and Jesse needed to come home because Da was oiling up the shot guns. I found her and Jesse doing what a lot of teenagers do on prom night. And I got a little caught up.
That particular story got Agent Hayden to grin.
“You can imagine, I couldn’t look Jesse in the eye for a week.” Suddenly something occurred to me. “I can’t keep thinking of you as Agent Hayden, what’s your name?”
“Kris.”
“When Annie and I first went to college I asked her permission and then used our link to see if I could find her, see how powerful it was from that distance. Her mind was as open to me there as it was when she was standing in the same room. Does that answer your questions about your theory?”
“Mostly, I know the next questions I ask will be difficult and even painful, but I’m afraid I have to ask them.”
“I know.” I was shaking but her iron control on her emotions was keeping me from going to pieces.
“You say her mind was open to you, were her senses, too?”
“Yes and no. How much do you know about Reader abilities and limits?”
“Almost nothing. The Program has very few Readers.”
“Okay, let me explain a few things then. Because if I don’t you won’t understand why I know some things and not others. Certain sights, smells and sounds trigger deep emotional and mental reactions. Certain things stick with you: seeing a beautiful sunset or hearing a talented singer perform a particular song or the smell of your favorite flower. Because I knew Annie’s mind so well, I could tell what she was hearing, smelling, or seeing. I knew what she was physically feeling because touch is the sense that, more than any other, is tied to emotion and the mind.”
“Okay, with you so far. But why is touch so much closer to the mind?”
“Most of it has to do with what people in general learn, a caress is affectionate, a slap to the face is an insult, a hug is comforting. We learn that and so the body’s nerves are to an extent extensions of the mind. I’m explaining it badly. Okay, start over. I can’t always hear what another person hears because people who can hear naturally learn to filter what they hear from what they actually listen to. They don’t process the sounds they aren’t paying attention to. I can’t always see what’s in front of them because they can shut their eyes and sometimes do to enhance other senses. I can almost always smell because, unless that person has a cold or has plugged their nose, they don’t usually filter that sense they way they do hearing or sight. I mean, you don’t plug your nose to make your sight sharper the way you close your eyes to make your hearing sharper, do you? But all those senses take time to use. Sound and light waves have to travel, smells have to drift. What you feel against your skin is occurring simultaneously.”
“So far so good.”
“Because touch is more immediate, so is the emotional response. Because the response is immediate so is the understanding.”
“Okay, so because of your connection to her, you heard, smelled and saw what she did?” A stab of hope jolted through her as she asked the question. I knew what she was hoping for. I also knew I couldn’t give it.
“No.”
“No?” The disappointment was sharp.
“Like I was trying to explain. You can block certain senses. I think Annie closed her eyes or was blindfolded. I don’t remember any sounds. So either he didn’t say anything or he covered her ears or maybe ear plugs, but I don’t know why. He knew he was going to kill her. I can tell you what he smelled like. I can tell you what he was feeling as he raped my sister,” My voice cracked and I began crying, ”I can tell you what his hands felt like on her skin, but I never saw his face or heard his voice. Nothing that can help you.”
“I never asked the readers in the office, but how do you keep from going insane from everything you feel?”
“I guess it’s like background noise.” I said, pulling myself back together some. “You learn to tune certain things out. But I went looking for Annie. I opened myself up to her and what she was feeling was so strong that I lost myself in it. It was like he was doing all those things to me. If she hadn’t realized what was about to happen and kicked me out, the psychic backlash of being in her mind when she died would have killed me, too.”
Agent Hayden nodded and said that was enough for today, and that she would speak to me tomorrow. Pity oozed across the room like a swamp fog, acrid and bitter. In that moment I learned to hate that emotion.
The next day I spoke to Kris again. We met in the morgue. She said she remembered Readers in the office saying that less people made it easier to control your own emotions. I told her it helped to have less ‘noise’, for lack of a better word. Kris nodded. She did a lot of nodding.
“What do you know about the man that did this?”
“Please understand, Miss Dolan -”
“Ronnie. Please call me Ronnie.” I interrupted
“Ronnie. We don’t know much. We weren’t even called in until now. Your sister was his third victim. The other two deaths were registered in the NCIC and we were looking to see if there were other cases when we got the call about Mrs. Armstrong. We weren’t sure about several things about him until she was killed.”
“Such as?”
“He has a type. Young, dark haired, and so far all have been some form of Fae descent.”
“With only two you weren’t sure if it was a type or a coincidence.”
“Exactly. We learned that it’s Fae types in general and not specifically ‘Thropes . His first two victims were ‘Thropes.”
“Okay. But why choose Annie, I mean she doesn’t exactly scream victim. We were taught evocation from the time we were ten. She could fight back. Trust me, I was her sparring partner.”
“I don’t know. We haven’t figured out how he chooses his victims. He jumps around a lot, too. So far, apart form being a twin, brunette and Fae, we don’t know what it is about these particular women that’s setting him off. If it had been you rather than your sister I’d even tentatively say he was looking for the younger twin, but…
“What do you mean?” I interrupted.
“The previous two victims had been the younger half of the set.”
“And you assume because Annie was the heir, she was the older twin. I see. But, you’d be wrong. I am the older twin. We laughed that we were born in the wrong order. Annie acted more together than I did, but I was older. Two whole minutes.”
Suddenly, I was struggling to breathe. Loneliness crashed down on me as I unconsciously reached for the link to my twin, and found the nothingness instead. I had done it a dozen times a day without realizing I was checking up on her. I hadn’t realized I check on her so often. It was like the feeling of a security blanket when you’re small and afraid, and now I was so very alone and lost. And I can’t honestly say it’s changed all that much in the last three years.”
“Damn,” Alex said quietly when Ronnie finished. “Kris took all evidence of it out of her notes. She never told anyone. It’s not part of the case file. And then he killed her and only you knew.”
“I don’t think what little I knew even helped her.”
“You know better than that Ronnie. Everything helps. Every piece of information gets us closer. Just so you know, I am the lead on that case now. I was brought on the team when I first joined the Program, right after I came home. Then he killed Kris, most of the others left the case for various reasons, eventually it landed in my lap. If you stay here, you’re likely to end up working this case. If I find that you can’t work it. I will pull you off so fast your head will spin.”
* * * * *
“Okay, that’s the last of the forms and paperwork,” Alex said as he signed off on the transfer and duty paperwork, clarifying many things in them along the way. “It’s eleven now, so you have two options. You can take an early lunch, and meet the rest of the team later or you can meet them now and let them take you to lunch.
“You seem awfully sure someone will offer,” Ronnie smiled, glad to be on a more comfortable footing and not talking about Annie and her murder anymore.
“Kika will offer. Kika likes people. Besides she’ll be thrilled to have another girl on the team.”
“Well, I’m not really starving right now anyway.”
“Let’s start with Ty,” Alex said as he stood up, brushing his fingers across the privacy ward.
“Ok, who’s Ty and why are you so incredibly amused at me meeting him?”
“Ty is Marcus Aurelius Amici, and Marc likes women, especially pretty ones like you,” Alex stated with a conviction like granite.
“I see. We met. He’s the celestial that led me through the rabbit warren to get here once I cleared security. He wasn’t impressed. He admired my legs and then dismissed me as a secretary.”
Alex laughed. “Hey, Ty!” He called across the room, mostly empty as the SCRT was a very new and only a few people were even assigned to the fledgling units. “I want you to meet someone.”
“Her Ladyship?” he asked absently, he was extremely uninterested in meeting the person he had already classified and dismissed. He was trying to avoid his paperwork and he needed to pretend to be busy.
“Yep, meet our new probie! Ronnie Dolan. Ronnie, meet Ty. We served on the teams together. Ty, I’ve known Ronnie all her life. Be nice. On second thought, don’t be nice. I’d hate to have to explain to her father that I had to arrest his daughter for murdering one of my agents.” There was that glee again. Ronnie needed more coffee.
“Huh?” Marc’s head shot up in surprise at that statement. Somehow this man made her think of strawberries, chocolate and citrus fruit. “What makes you think she’d kill me for being nice? What makes you think she could?” Bewilderment and glee are not a good mix. It can make you dizzy. And it did not improve Ronnie’s mood.
“One,” Alex began ticking off on his fingers as he went, “when you’re nice to a woman it usually means you want something. And that something is usually in her pants. Two, I taught Ronnie a couple of moves when she went off to college and she got good enough at one or two that she even put me on my butt a couple of times. And three, she’s been training in combat arts since she was ten.”
“It would never get that far anyway,” Ronnie interjected.
“Oh, really? And why not, Princess?” Marc said derisively, annoyed that his male prowess has been dinged by the idea that this puffball would turn him down or kill him.
“Because,” Ronnie said equally annoyed at his contempt of her, her eyes began glowing a ruby red as the temperature dropped suddenly in the room until their breath frosted in front of them, “I’m an aquamancer, among other things, and I could either draw all the water in your body to me and instantly mummify you or I could freeze all the liquid in your lungs. Either way you wouldn’t get very far.”
“You seem awfully sure about that,” Marc retorted with a challenge in his voice.
“I could prove it to you,” she said as she released her hold on the temperature and it normalized, “but I doubt you’d enjoy the experience. Death can be so uncomfortable.”
“Behave, you two,” Alex interjected before it got any farther. An odd spike of satisfaction coated with concern flicked off Alex. “Don’t bait her, Ty. She’s never been one to back down from a challenge.”
“By the way, why do you call him Ty if his name is Marcus?”
“Old habit,” Alex shrugged, “his call sign on the teams was Titan, so I’m just used to calling him Ty. Kika and Mac both call him Marc.”
“Okayfine, Marc it is.”
“Okay, Roadie,” Alex said, recognizing Ronnie’s desire to walk away from Marc, “Let’s move on. Don’t forget I need your report by two, Ty. I’m tired of getting chewed out because you can’t be bothered to do your paperwork on time. Read me?”
“Yeah, yeah, five by five,” Marc waved away his growling.
“Two o’clock! C’mon, Roadie. As low man on the totem pole, probie, and all around noob –“
“Noob? Seriously? Are you trying to sound like a forty-something trying to be cool or are you just trying to be funny?”
“I’m amused. Anyway as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, as an FNG (since you object to the term noob), you will sit here and act as our small office’s admin-slash-secretary. I want to see you in some workouts and evals of my own before I put you in the field. Your father would kill me. And I don’t even want to think about what your mother would do. Or mine, now that I think about it.”
“Fine. Let me ditch my stuff,” Ronnie said. She put her purse neatly in her desk and secured her work area taking the small key with her. Having a firearm had made her slightly paranoid about security in personal spaces. Well, firearms and Annie. “Also, I need to know where two places are before we go any farther in this tour.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“The ladies room and the coffee pot. One is immediately necessary, the other is not.”
“Need the Ladies?” Alex asked, intending to give her a hard time. His mischief fizzed in Ronnie’s brain like coke.
“No,” Ronnie said as she tossed her empty take away cup in the trash, “I need more coffee. Knowing where the ladies room is located is academic at the moment.”
Disappointment had never tasted sweeter. Usually it was bitter and harsh, but thwarting Alex’s jokes had been too much fun. What made it even better was the comic way his face fell when she thwarted his “big-brother-you-never-wanted” syndrome.
“Coffee pot’s over there,” he grumbled good naturedly as he led her over. “We keep mugs for visitors, but I’d suggest bringing your own and keeping it at your desk.”
“Check,” Ronnie said as she grabbed a mug and doctored the cup of liquid caffeine.
“Right. Kika’s lab is right there,” Alex said indicating the door across from the coffee station marked Lab. Alex opened the door and Ronnie looked around. Personally maintained rooms are often an indicator of the personality of the keeper. It was meticulously organized and labeled. It smelled faintly of some cleaner guaranteed to leave no residue, have no streaks, and not harm the environment.
“Kika?” Alex said to the back of a woman in a white lab coat. All Ronnie could see was the shapeless coat, and masses of dark hair carefully trained into a neat bun. Ronnie felt the iron hard determination that lay at the core of this woman’s soul, over it laid a shimmering layer of concentration. Kika was in “the zone”, but something spicy like saffron and curry hung in the air around her.
“Busy, Alex. Go away,” came the reply. She didn’t even look up from the microscope.
“Alright, but I brought the new girl for you to meet,” Alex said teasingly stressing the word girl and pretending to shut the door.
“I told you to go away, not her.” The response came with the sweet tang of mango and hot peppers.
“I never win against you,” Alex whined. He left quickly, leaving Ronnie leaning against the counter watching the woman.
“Is he gone?” She asked still not looking up from her work.
“Yes, although he’s listening at the door to see what you say about him, because he’s just that insecure and childish.”
A muffled, but indignant, “I am not!” came through the door. Ronnie opened the door to see Alex leaning against the wall next to the door, she raised an eyebrow and just gave him a look.
“What?” He said in a defensive attempt at innocence. “I’m just waiting for you.”
“No, you’re eavesdropping. You can wait for me somewhere else. I know for a fact two things. One, you are dying to snoop and you just can’t help yourself. Two, Marc is done with his paperwork and you now have work to do.”
“How do you know he’s done, you aren’t a mind reader.”
“No. I’m an empath and he’s feeling way too triumphant and carefree. People with paperwork always have a little niggling feeling with them. It tickles.”
No sooner had Ronnie finished her statement then Marc walked up with a coffee cup and a stack of paper.
“There. Complete, detailed, brain numbing reports in triplicate, signed, DNA sample, my first born child and so on. Don’t say I never gave you anything.” He snarked as he dropped the offending stack of paper in Alex’s hand. He poured himself a cup of coffee, and walked away whistling.
“Go away and do your paperwork, Alex. You’re distracting.”
“You know you love me.”
“I also know your mother’s phone number.”
“I’m going. I’m going.” Alex said as he held up his hands in surrender. And he suited word to action and went to his office.
“Is that how you do it?” came the slightly accented of Kika from across the room. “I’m Laukika Apsaras. Call me Kika. I do the crime scene bit. Mostly I do secondary testing. The stuff the original CSIs is good, but dealing with our kind we can do a certain amount of extra testing things that look like contamination can just be magic or certain DNA markers normally associated with harmless mutation are really indicators of someone’s paranormal heritage. I’m part of a project to find markers that specify what paranormal race and sub-race a person is. I do a bit of thaumaturgy, but not a lot.” She crossed the lab and shook hands with Ronnie.
“Nice to meet you.”
“So how does that work? Just threaten him with his mom?”
“Sorry. It won’t work for you.”
“Why not?”
“Fae Politics, and you just don’t have the flavor of a Fae.”
“Flavor?”
“Yeah. I’m a reader. But I’m an empathic reader and read mostly the emotions people don’t bother to control. Every paranormal group has a particular kind of flavor or texture to all their emotions. Those that are hopelessly intermixed just taste like plain vanilla humans. I’ve never tasted someone like you before. And because of the aforementioned Fae politics, I have met someone from every possible group and sub-group of Fae.”
“Really?” Kika asked. Her curiosity was obvious and exciting, like eating a new food for the first time and loving it. “You could identify each person’s grouping by their emotions?”
“Mostly. It only really works if they know it. I have a friend who has no idea what his heritage is. He feels 100% human.”
“Hmm…..” Kika had that clear white light feeling of a scientist looking for an answer just to have it. “So what do I ‘taste’ like?”
“Exotic spices, like saffron and turmeric, and tropical fruits.”
“What does Alex taste like?”
“Alex is a hybrid so he has a couple different things. When he’s tapping his Aesir side, it’s salty and metallic. And shiny, all celestial groups I’ve met are shiny. Just like all infernal groups have a matte coloration. --” At this point Kika was furiously scribbling notes. Her mind was a swirl of rainbow colors like a fireworks display and Ronnie realized that what had been throwing her off in her understanding of this woman. She glowed. “You’re a Deva.”
“Yes, so do I shine?”
“Yes, you glow. I didn’t notice because some emotions and mental process have the same effect as being one group or another. Discovery or focus makes everyone glow or shimmer to some extent. Just like depressed people have the grainy matte film that infernals have. “
“Could you give me a list of traits and which groups they belong to? It would be interesting to see if I can identify the traits that make a person identifiable to both scientists and psychics –“
“Can I have lunch first?”
Kika threw back her head and laughed. It was a rich sound and made Ronnie see rose petals swirling and dancing around on an invisible wind. “I needed that. Thanks. I’ll buy, where do want to go?”
“I’m not sure what’s in this area of town. But I need something with plenty of long lasting protein energy. I’ll trust you.”
“I know a great place. You won’t be sorry. Alright, have you met our ME yet? If not, have Alex take you to meet him and then we feast. Alex and Marc can fend for themselves. They always leave me to fend for myself. It’s nice to take a small amount of petty revenge.”
“Ok I’ll go rescue Alex and meet the ME.” Ronnie smiled. It wasn’t as difficult as it might have been. Laughter and lightness can be as infectious as any disease. Life and laughter have a special kind of magic. They create hope, that most magical of all things in life.
Ronnie left the lab and walked the few feet to Alex’s office. His door was open. So she walked right in.
“I’ve come to rescue you from the dreaded paperwork you detest so much.”
“Bless you, child,” he said with overly fervent relief.
“By the way, I know that with this door open you could hear.”
For one moment he looked as though he was going to attempt an innocent façade. He decided better of it and shrugged. “I can’t help it.”
“You could have closed the door. You could have still eavesdropped without being so obvious.”
“It’s only obvious to you, Roadie.”
“Let me guess. No one knows what the Fae half of your heritage is?”
“Not true!” he defended. “Ty knows and Mac knows.”
“Who’s Mac?”
“Our M.E., the person you were coming to get me to introduce you to.”
“Introduce away, Lord Alexander.”
“Careful, Lady Veronica.”
“No one here knows how the council works do they?”
“Above their pay grade” Alex shrugged as he got up. “And honestly they don’t want to know. Saying politics to Ty is going to get a very unhappy reaction. Kika is a scientist. It doesn’t affect her research, so she doesn’t care. And Mac…well, has his own issues.”
The SCRT office wasn’t big. It was essentially four or five desks, Alex’s office, a short hallway with a small alcove on the right and three doors. One door was marked Lab, one was marked Autopsy, and one wasn’t marked at all. Ronnie made a mental note to ask Alex about that door later.
Autopsy was a cool, clean, well-lit room, all white tile and gleaming stainless steel. It was alarmingly impersonal. The sterility of the lab had somehow still had Kika’s emotional finger prints on it. This room was…uninhabited. It struck Ronnie as odd and somehow, very wrong. It had the typical wall of refrigerated units for maintaining corpses to be autopsied, as well as two autopsy tables, a counter that obviously doubled as desk of some type, a lightbox and other medical gizmos. And yet, it was totally unused and inhumanly untouched.
“Hey, Mac?” Alex called as soon as they walked in. “I want you to meet the poor girl replacing you as new guy!” A muffled and unidentifiable response came out of the depths of room of filing cabinets whose door was on the far side of the room.
“He’s new, too?”
“Yeah, he’s been here about a week. He’s worked in the local branches of the Program, but I poached him when we started setting up teams. He’s a Mageborn with a really rare skill.”
“What’s so rare that you’d poach him?”
“Necroscopy.”
“Huh?”
“He can …see? I guess that’s the best word... through the eyes of the person on his table. It’s creepy. He’s also a fully trained medico though, so he can do all the forensic cutting, too. Plus he’s cross trained as a field medic, so score one for us.”
“Hm,” Ronnie murmured vaguely as she walked to the counter/desk thing against the wall. There were small pinpoints of personality: a paperweight here, a pencil cup that had started out life as a coffee mug over there, but most obvious was the almost obsessive level of organization. Everything was necessary to work and this was obviously just where notes were taken or files maintained. The battered knickknacks and handle less mug spoke of someone who never threw anything away. There was probably a desk, somewhere else. It was probably covered in junk, too.
“Ronnie?” Alex called her attention away from the desk to its owner, who was coming out of the file room. “I’d like you to meet Mac.”
As Ronnie turned she froze. Her fingers went numb and her coffee cup slipped out of her fingers and fell to the floor. It shattered in a spray of hit coffee and ceramic shards. She just stared him. She knew his name. Dr. Jason MacKenzie.
“I…”
“How are you, Ronnie?” He asked. He was truly interested, truly concerned. He’d been that way before when she’s seen him squeeze her sister’s dead shoulder and promise not to tell. He had calmly walked up and collected her coffee cup and was blotting the spilled coffee as Ronnie did her fish impression.
“I…”
“You’ve met?” Alex asked in confusion and concern which wasn’t helping Ronnie’s equilibrium. His confusion made sense. She was raised for life in the Fae Council and schools of sharks took copius notes from that particular body.
“I was on loan to the local branch in Pennsylvania the summer of 2006.” Mac said diplomatically.
“What does that…oh.” You could almost feel the world come to a screeching halt when he realized what Mac had meant.
“How have you been, Dr MacKenzie?” Ronnie finally managed to croak out. She had managed to get some semblance of control when Alex stopped being confused. He had a strong mind and, when unguarded, a strong mind is very distracting to a reader.
“I’m alright at the moment. I imagine that won’t necessarily last considering the cases we’re likely to get. But I’ve dealt with them before.”
“Yes, you have. Alex said that you’re a Necroscope. Is that why you promised Annie you wouldn’t tell?”
“Yes.” Mac said simply. Ronnie could tell he was uncomfortable with her questioning. It felt like wool on her skin, just a little itchy.
“What didn’t she want us to know?”
“I find out intensely personal things in the course of an autopsy,” Mac hedged. “I don’t put things that aren’t medically or legally pertinent in the files. But if it is pertinent and painful to survivors I simply don’t tell them.”
“Is it…I mean do you….”
“Just Ask.” He laughed.
“Do you live it, or is it more like watching a movie?” Ronnie’s heart twisted over this question. She hated the idea that this kind man, who had treated her sister with such kindness and respect, had lived through it like she had.
“Something in the middle. I don’t live it directly, It’s more like being in virtual reality or one of those first person shooter games. I am…piggybacking I guess is a good term. I cannot sense emotions. I can hear their thoughts. I can see what happened to them through their eyes like watching a movie.”
Relief flooded Ronnie. He’d not felt the violation. Then another thought occurred to her.
“Did you hear me?”
“Only when you first arrived, after that you disappeared until she kicked you out.”
“I have a problem,” Alex interrupted.
“You have a problem?” Ronnie asked a little hysterically.
“I need to know that you can handle this. You’re a probationary agent with a conditional pass on a psych eval. This will add more stress to you. Can you deal with it?” Alex asked a little brutally. He’d been hopeful that she would work out, but this reminder of what she had told him might be too much.
Can I live and work every day with a reminder that I survived being raped, and brutalized? That’s the question he’s really asking. Am I tough enough? Ronnie reflected to herself. She looked at Mac. He and his morgue had been an oasis of calm and safety in those first few days. His face was impassive and all she got from his mind were tropical bays with untouched beaches and …sea shanties? Suddenly she let out a laugh.
“Yo ho! Yo Ho! A pirate’s life for me.” She sang as she smiled wanly at Mac. I am Lady Síle Veronica Cassandra Dolan, Heir to Keeper of Justice of The American Fae Council. I may be damned and I may be damaged, but I am not broken. Besides, it’s not Mac’s fault he reminds me of… that.
“I wasn’t sure it would work!” Mac laughed in response.
“How did I get lost again?” Alex groused quietly to himself. “I guessing that means yes.”
“Yeah,” Ronnie nodded as she gathered even more strands of her dignity together, “We’re good. I worked hard, and worked against Da to get this slot. I’m not going to give up so easily.”
“Good, I didn’t want to have to explain to the director why you weren’t going to work out.”
“Be honest. You didn’t want to explain to your mother.”
“That either.”
“Why does his mother frighten him?” Mac asked in genuine curiosity.
“She doesn’t frighten him. He just has an incredibly healthy amount of respect for the damage he can do to his personage. She’s an incredibly powerful woman, both magically and politically. I don’t like explaining things to my Da for much the same reasons. And my mother is worse.”
“If we’re done dissecting me, I believe Kika invited you to lunch.”
“Yeah, I believe the word feast was part of the invitation and that you and that walking hormone in the office were on your own.”
“Roadie….”
“Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Just be nice.”
“Fine. Mac, do you want anything while Kika and I are out?”
“I’m fine. I brought my lunch.”
“See you later,” Ronnie tossed over her shoulder as she left.
“So, Mac,” Alex began, “what was it you were doing?”
“I was focusing on Caribbean Islands and relaxing beaches. It reminded me that I was going to watch Pirates of the Caribbean tonight.”
“Explains the sea shanty. By the way, what weren’t you supposed to tell Ronnie and family?”
“Mrs. Armstrong was pregnant,” Mac sighed. He’d wanted to cry remembering that. What broke his heart was the fact that after Annie pushed her sister out of her mind she had only enough time to be grateful she hadn’t told her husband about the baby yet. “It’s in the file, but I didn’t do more than mark the boxes. No pomp, and most people read over it.”
“This just gets better and better,” Alex groaned, feeling about 100 years older than he really was. “Did the files get transferred?”
“Yes, all the original reports and evidence. Kika and I are looking over it. We also got the evidence from Arizona and Nebraska.”
“Funeral is today. They’ll bury her next to her sister. No other kids.”Alex shook his head in helpless sympathy for the girls’ parents. No one should have to bury a child, much less two.
“She worried for her mother at the end. She was afraid it would kill her,” Mac sighed.
“Jesus,” Alex whispered under his breath. He had been raised in the kind of household that was in church every time the doors were open, partly because his dad had been the preacher. His whisper was half swear and half prayer. It was hard sometimes for him to tell where his family’s lifestyle left off and his own faith began.
* * * * *
“So….?” Came Ally’s voice the minute Ronnie made it up the stairs.
“So what?”
“What do you mean ‘SO WHAT’? You’ve worked hard to get this job, even going against your dad. So how was your first day?” Ally said in exasperation. She recognized the bag Ronnie was carrying as being from the local butcher, who was very nice and never made comments about his customers’ orders. She took it from Ronnie and poured herself a mug of blood.
“Let’s see. I woke up at an ungodly hour after another nightmare. Between traffic, Igor and trying to get my credentials I was late for work. But that’s ok because I was met by a walking hormone who dismissed me immediately, found out my boss is Alex Ulfsson, and discovered I’m going to be working with the ME that did Annie’s autopsy. Then I had lunch. Sleep well?”
As soon as she had heard the name “Alex Ulfsson” Allison Rebecca Wilson climbed onto the counter to reach that cabinet over the sink that only NBA players can reach without a step stool, grabbed the Jameson and began assembling the ingredients for a whiskey sour. She quickly blended the drink and handed it to Ronnie.
“All that before lunch? Now, I feel even more guilty about sleeping in.”
“So glad I can help. Thanks, by the way.” Ronnie said and waved the glass she was holding in her roommate’s direction.
“You sounded like you could use it. Slaínte.”
“Isn’t that how I’m supposed to toast? Aren’t you supposed to say something like, I don’t know ‘Cheers’?” Ronnie asked after kicking off her shoes and dropping into the ridiculously comfortable chair-and-a-half in the living room. And thanks to Ronnie’s generous father, the girls had a very nice flat screen over the fireplace that was showing the weather.
“Racist,” Ally joked. Ally was as white as Ronnie, with dark hair and full smiling lips. “I can toast in Irish and stopping me makes you a racist.”
Ronnie snorted in her drink and leaned her head back as the alcohol started to pool in her lower abdomen, releasing the tensions of a truly horrendous day. “Did she really say something to you about being elitist? Surely, your boss isn’t that stupid. I mean if anyone would know about having people misunderstand you it’d be a living vampire.”
“She really said it. I just let it go. Statements like that only go to prove how ignorant and narrow minded people are, particularly when there is real racism in the world.”
“So you have your blood. I have a drink. And I’m very tempted to go to bed without dinner.”
“Don’t. Eat the leftovers. I think there’s Chinese in the fridge.”
“Which should go perfect with my Irish whiskey. You on third tour?”
“Yep. Eleven to seven. Vampire hours.”
“Stop. I’m too tired and if you get me laughing I might be forced to snort.”
“Oohh…A challenge.”
“No. A plea for mercy.”
“Alright, but you are officially no fun. Will you make it upstairs?”
“Yeah, I just need to get the food. I’ll eat in the loft. Read a book and go to bed early.”
“Take a pill.”
“I hate the pills,” Ronnie whined at her friend.
“Let me put it this way: which do you hate worse? The pills or the nightmares?”
“Cheater.”
“I’ve got to hit the library before my shift. See you later, dearest.”
“Night. See you tomorrow. Good luck with the paper.”
Ronnie sat there for a few minutes leaning her head back against the cushion as she let go of the day. She stood quietly put her empty drink in the dishwasher, reheated the leftovers from the fridge and climbed the stairs. She hit play on the stereo and Gershwin started filtering through the speakers. She sat down and balanced the leftovers on her lap as she looked at the pictures on the bookshelves. The Loft was hers, and she paid the lion’s share of the rent after all. So she had made it her escape. Her music – an eclectic mix of everything from Audio Adrenaline to Wagner, her books – Agatha Christie sat cheek by jowl with Anatomy textbooks and paperback classics, and framed photos of her family filled the flat pack bookshelves. It was her. All jumbled and unique. The chair was perfect for curling up with a book and a big bowl of popcorn.
“I wish I could talk to you, Annie. It’s so hard to remember I can’t pick up the phone and call and tell you about my day.” She started eating. She waved her fork at the picture of the two girls together smiling and happy in their high school cap and gowns. “You’d have laughed so hard today. Particularly when I met SSA Amici….”
The conversation went on. Ronnie talked to Annie while she ate her dinner and the loneliness was held at bay just a little longer.