AM 7: Durance, chapter 4 (Patreon)

“Can we get this started?” Les asked. He was sitting backward on one of their patio chairs Kavon had brought down from the patio. “I told Anita I would take her out for dinner, and I don’t want to get up in the dog house.”

“Again,” Darren added.

Les rolled his eyes. “Bruh, you don’t have to worry about keeping a woman happy, so I don’t need comments from the peanut gallery.”

Coretta cleared her throat. “Whatever magical insanity you two have landed in the middle of, let’s hear it.” She was in the arm chair, but she perched on the edge and nearly vibrated with worry. Rima sat on the far side of Darren and watched with wide, worried eyes. These were Kavon’s people—his team. Settling down on the couch next to Darren, Kavon tried to present the last year and a half in a logical order, the way he would introduce them to a case.

However, when he presented crimes, his team never stared at him with horror rolling off. Kavon finished and waited as silence filled the room. Rima twitched her hand like she might grab for a weapon, but then she stilled. Coretta leaned back with an expression like someone had punched her.

Les found his voice first. “So, evil gods from another dimension are trying to come through into this world and kill us all, is that about it?”

“You don't need to get dramatic,” Kavon said. He respected Les, but he didn’t appreciate the man’s penchant for spectacle.

“Really? Because I can promise you, that's exactly the way mundanes are going to hear your story,” Les warned. “Bruh, magical creatures want to kill us. Yep. That's going to be the lead on certain news stations and you know it.”

Unfortunately, Kavon knew that already. “That's why we have to make sure it's not on the news.”

Coretta said softly. “It'll start a new purge.” Her face twisted with horror.

“Funny thing you should mention that,” Darren said. 

Before he could get further, Les demanded loudly, “What haven't you told us?”

Kavon loved Darren, but now was not the time for one of his tangents, not if they wanted to keep the team on topic. However, Kavon couldn’t avoid it now. “The last time the ifrit had a war, they decided to put earth back the way they found it.”

Les made the connection fast, blurting out, “Oh dear God. They found it without any magic. Are you telling me that the ifrit started the purge? Because if that's what you're saying, I'm going to find Darren's little bird and I'm going to wring its neck.” Les had real anger in his voice.

That ruffled Darren’s feathers. “You can't kill Bennu over something that happened thousands of years ago.”

“Yes I can,” Les said without any hesitation. “You know how much people with Talent have suffered.”

Coretta leaned forward, finally engaging in the conversation. Kavon trusted her to bring a more level head to the debate. “We can’t blame the ifrit for the prejudice people have toward Talent,” Coretta said. “When magic started reappearing in the 1500s, that led to a whole new round of purges and witch hunts led by humans. The ifrit had nothing to do with that or with the religious persecution people with Talent face today.”

“Okay, then we can focus on the part where were all going to die.” Les said. “That's the part I find interesting anyway.”

“Don't exaggerate,” Kavon snapped.

“Oh, I'm pretty sure I'm not exaggerating. Your story sounded a lot like an end of the world prediction. Either that or we're all going to be the slaves of evil gods who give psychopaths amazing new shamanic powers. Yes. That is so much better.” Les put his head down on his arms. “Will someone please shoot me?”

“I might,” Coretta said. 

“I assume we’re here to figure out how to stop that from happening,” Rima said. “What’s the plan?”

Rima was Kavon’s new favorite person. He projected the calm leadership he had developed to mask his own impatience. “We handle this like we would any other case.”

Coretta frowned. “Are you suggesting that we go out and interview witnesses, call Wyatt for a database search, and then file reports with Assistant Director White requesting additional resources? I can't see any of that working well.”

Sadly, Kavon couldn’t either. He would prefer to handle the case using FBI regulations; however, too many agents had their own anti-Talent biases, and Les was right about the general panic if the public found out about the returning ifrit. He and Darren had made the decision to keep that fact to themselves… and then they’d told Detective Lammas and Detective Johnson, and Lammas had told some Native shaman in Texas and he had told his religious leader, and at this point, Kavon figured they had long ago left Plan A in the dust.

“Clearly we will have to be a little more creative and avoid bringing others into this,” Darren said. “However, we already have reports of unusually strong magical artifacts and landmarks showing up, and we've talked about these hotspots. If we’re investigating them, that’s normal, right?”

“If we had spare time, sure,” Coretta said. “We have nearly three times the number of active cases compared to a year ago.”

“But it would be an easy and safe case for the new people to investigate,” Rima said. She spoke slowly as though thinking the words through as she spoke. “They could poke around and see if anyone suspicious is related to all the places where large amounts of magic had been left. Well, anyone other than Darren because we all know he tends to leave a few magical bombs in his wake.”

“Ha ha,” Darren said, although he didn’t deny the accusation.

“I don’t want the new members of the team involved,” Kavon said. “We don’t know them or know how they’re likely to react to this news. I don’t want to deal with a panicking and illogical agent.”

“Then you should have avoided telling me,” Les whispered. Kavon chose to ignore him.

“We might be able to get some sort of geographic profile from the reports,” Coretta suggested, “but none of us specializes in geographical profiling. Are we going to bring profilers in? We could use a false anonymous tip to link the sites to one of our active cases.”

Darren looked to Kavon before he said, “I’m guessing that would be not just a no but a ‘hell, no.’” 

“We’re already breaking enough regulations by not reporting any of this,” Kavon said. He might get hives from how many rules they were breaking, but every possible outcome he could imagine ended with chaos and panic if he told White. White would want a full inter-agency task force, and any hope of secrecy would go out the window. “We are not going to misappropriate FBI resources by falsely linking them to cases we already have. If we do that and get caught, we will betray the trust the FBI has placed in us.”

“Given that the world could potentially be ending, that upsets me much less than it would have yesterday,” Les said.

“Enough.” Kavon did not need Les distracting the team with his irrational fear.

Les snorted. “Your disapproval is also less upsetting than it was yesterday.”

In a soft voice, Darren said, “Les.”

Where Kavon’s anger did nothing, Darren’s disapproval brought Les’s head up off his arms, and he nodded. “Right, right. I'm just having an existential moment here. I’m on board.”

Coretta started tapping her fingers against her knee. “Then we don't link it to any current cases. Your computer guy is driving me up the wall.”

“Milton?” Given that he had asked to be assigned to Coretta’s team, Kavon had expected him to try and impress her in an effort to earn a transfer.

“He's a menace. All he wants to do is show me his damn programs. He's like a flea buzzing in my ear.” Coretta pressed her lips into a thin, angry line.

“Fleas don't buzz, flies do,” Darren offered. That earned him a cold glare.

“Milton is a menace, and I don't want to send him out in the field right now,” Coretta said. “I have too few experienced field agents, and two newbies. How about we give Milton all of the data on the hotspots, and ask him to write a program that predicts where another one might show up. That would be helpful to us in terms of identifying patterns of crime or potential crimes, and literally we are checking into the potential of crime. It's not a lie.”

Kavon hadn’t even considered the possibility. “Do you think he could write that? And could he do it without knowing why we really want the information?”

“If he is one quarter as good as he claims he is, he could write a program that would predict the time of the second coming,” Coretta said dryly.

Les added, “He is a little arrogant.” Coming from Les, that was a harsh condemnation.

Coretta shrugged. “But if he's good, we might not need a geographical profiler. And if White asks why I’ve assigned him to busywork instead of active cases, I can honestly say that I question your sanity in hiring him and I prefer to not put him in the field with any of my agents.”

“His magic is solid,” Les said in the weakest defense Kavon had heard yet. Kavon hadn’t worked with Milton long, but his only impression of the man was of a quiet, weedy young black man who always had his nose in a computer. Kavon was a little concerned about the others’ reactions.

“His magic, absolutely,” Coretta said, “his interpersonal skills.” She held up a hand and rocked it from side to side while giving Kavon a pointed look. “But he's on your team so I don't have to worry about it. Just as soon as you get back from vacation, you can handle him.”

“Assuming we don't all die first,” Les added.

Darren reached around Kavon to throw a pillow at him. “You’re sounding like a broken record.”

“I’m just saying that the rest of you seem to be ignoring the potential for death. I’m all in favor of seeing if our new guy do his technomage best, but I’m worried that we’re treating this like a case when I still think it sounds like an armageddon.”

Rima jumped in with, “I thought you were supposed to be the laid-back one.”

“If you're talking about someone stealing my parking place or being late for dinner, I am more laid-back than any of you. Because those things don't matter.” Les took a second to look around the room before adding, “Death matters.”

Darren said with exaggerated humor, “Look at the bright side, we could just be looking in a case of enslavement by evil gods.”

Everyone gave Darren incredulous looks. Rima said, “I hate you.”

Kavon stood, his movement commanding everyone’s attention. “So we have a plan. Coretta, have Milton try to make a predictive model. We don’t know what’s causing these hot spots, so it’s a reasonable assignment. Darren and I are on vacation, so we can go out and do some interviews. We can check out the places that magic is appeared and see if there's any common denominator.”

“Isn’t that going to look suspicious, given that you're on vacation?” Coretta asked.

Darren outright laughed. “Do you really think anyone is going to question why Kavon chooses to work on his days off?”

“You might have a point there.”

Kavon had no intention of defending his honor because chasing leads was relaxing to him. He didn’t need vacation the way others did. He cast a worried look at Darren. He had hoped to give Darren a chance to play video games and recover from the general havoc they’d dealt with lately, but now that wasn’t an option.

Just as Kavon got ready to invite the team to get to work on the plan, Les spoke up. “We need to bring Anita into this.”

Coretta spoke before Kavon could. “Your girlfriend Anita?” She sounded as horrified as Kavon felt. This was not a team picnic where spouses and significant others got an invite.

“She's a shaman. When something happens, people will tell the medical personnel at the Djedi center when they won't report attacks to the police. If someone is out there throwing his weight around, she’ll know or she’ll know of other nurses who have treated injuries.”

“How many attacks don't get reported?” Darren asked. His concern and horror flooded their bond. Despite his discomfort with public affection, Kavon caught Darren’s hand in his and interlocked their fingers. After a brief hesitation, Darren squeezed, and the bond settled as the negative emotions faded to the background. They were still there, but they weren’t as overwhelming.

“You've seen the reports on rape; do you really think it’s significantly different with shamanic attacks?” Les asked. “They both have the same ability to make a person feel violated. I mean, I don’t have numbers and I don’t even know if anyone out there is keeping track of how many shamans and adepts don’t report spiritual attacks, but I know that every week or two, Anita asks me to talk to some victim.

“I ask them where the attack happened, and if happened on the physical plane, I give them the name of a detective who is less likely to dismiss Talent crimes. If it happens on the spirit plane, I try to get them to report it to McLean’s office. That’s the best I can do.” Les sounded genuinely distressed that he couldn’t do more.

Kavon took a breath. He never wanted to bring new people into this, but Les had made a valid point. At least Kavon knew her and knew she would go toe to toe with Halverson himself if she had to. In fact, when Halverson had suspected Darren of killing adepts, he had used his power as a shaman and his position on the DC shamanic council to try to get her to leave the two of them alone when Darren had been injured.

She hadn’t backed down one inch.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s find out if the Djedi nurses know anything. We have some angles to work, so unless someone has a question, let’s get moving.”

“Tonight?” Les sounded eager to get back to the office and start work.

“Tomorrow,” Coretta said firmly, and she glared at Kavon as if daring him to argue. “If this is a war, we have to pace ourselves, so we go home, relax, and start tracking down leads in the morning when we’re all fresh.”

Part of Kavon wanted to charge in and start making headway, but his logical side knew she was right. Hopefully the war could wait until tomorrow.

Chapter 5: https://www.patreon.com/posts/am7-durance-5-22585700 

Chapter 6: https://www.patreon.com/posts/am-7-durance-6-22652631 

Chapter 7: https://www.patreon.com/posts/am7-durance-7-22675390 

Chapter 8: https://www.patreon.com/posts/am-7-durance-8-22684193 

Chapter 9: https://www.patreon.com/posts/am-7-durance-9-22744305 

Chapter 10: https://www.patreon.com/posts/am-7-durance-10-22817775 

Chapter 11: https://www.patreon.com/posts/am-7-durance-11-22905312 

Chapter 12: https://www.patreon.com/posts/am7-durance-22974766