AM 7: Durance, chapter 10 (Patreon)

Kavon sat at Darren’s bedside and answered texts from dozens of people, all of whom seem to have the same concerns about securing the scene and finding a way to explain the damage. One reporter had even gotten his text number and every five minutes, she sent another text asking him to comment on events. And with every passing minute, Kavon hated the world more.

Bennu hovered near the corner in his ancient form, standing so his head brushed the ceiling. 

“He’ll recover fine. He simply got the magic stuffings knocked out of him,” Anita said. Her attempts to reassure him were well-intentioned, but Kavon still resented them. He didn’t want words; he wanted Darren to wake up. And if that wasn’t going to happen, he wanted to tear the world to shreds. Bennu gave a warbling cry, and then Kavon’s bull was there, his emotions slow and heavy and dangerous all at once. Dave had always warned Kavon about the danger of letting his spirit animal influence his emotions, but right now the bull was a cooling balm in the middle of fiery anger. He held to that strength.

Bennu shrunk down into the form of a cattle bird and flew up onto the bull’s back to watch the world.

When Kavon’s phone chimed again, he looked down to find Assistant Director White texting that he had arrived at the Djedi Center. As a supervisory agent, Kavon had an obligation to report to his boss, but he didn’t want to leave Darren. The rest of the team was at the scene, and Darren looked so fucking helpless lying in the middle of the bed. The white sheets mirrored Darren’s complexion. Maybe his distress showed on his face because Anita took a step closer.

“Agent?” Anita asked. Her monkey guide appeared in the corner near Kavon’s bull and started chittering unhappily.

“Our boss.” He raised his phone.

“I can watch Darren.”

Kavon frowned. While he trusted Anita’s ethics, she couldn’t protect Darren from that creature. 

“I’ll send my guide to get you if I feel even a whisper of a threat,” Anita said. “I’ve been in combat situations before, so trust me to stand guard over my patient, okay?” Her steady aura filled the room. Kavon hadn’t expected such strength from someone with a monkey guide, but he had to admit that he didn’t understand the animals well enough to know what their actual behavior patterns might include.

“If anyone shows up…”

“They aren’t getting in without your permission,” Anita said, “And if I’m not strong enough to stop them, I’ll send my guide to get you. I won’t leave Darren undefended.”

Kavon stood, but he still hesitated.

“Agent Boucher,” she said in a questioning tone. She took a deep breath as though bracing herself. “What was the enemy out there? What do we have to protect Darren against?”

“Didn’t Les tell you?”

She sighed. “Les makes a show of being open and accessible to everyone, but it’s all show. He is even more closed off than you are. So I need to know which direction to expect an attack to come from.”

Kavon had no privacy spells in place, but Djedi Centers tended to ensure a certain level of privacy in the rooms. That said, he didn’t want to get into specifics. “Guides. Old and powerful guides. Don’t try to hold your own.”

Anita gave him a quick nod. “Got it. I’ll keep him safe.”

White had to be close to the room now, and Kavon hurried out to meet him at the elevator. He stopped when he saw White walking down the corridor toward him. Kavon schooled his features into something respectful, burying his fury and fears under layers of polite calm. “Assistant Director White, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

White stopped short of Darren’s door. “One of my men is in the hospital after being attacked. It seems like this is the appropriate place for me to be.” White looked at Darren’s door, and his tone shifted. “How is he?”

Hurt, Kavon wanted to scream to the ceiling. He wanted to rant and rail against the unfairness. However, he shoved those emotions aside. “He's going to recover. It may take time, but you know Darren. He’s tough. He's going to pull through.” Kavon clenched his teeth before he could lose his emotional control. Pochi appeared, and the air pressure against Kavon’s skin felt like a puff of air. Pochi hovered, darting first one direction and then another as he searched for an enemy, but White didn’t even notice when Pochi dove through him. The monster might have knocked Pochi down, but he was not out.

“Good.” White nodded, his relief clear. “What about the attacker? What do we know about him?”

Kavon blew out a breath. He would not lie to White, but he was also unwilling to bring a mundane into this fight. “If you’re asking about the shaman directing this attack, I have no idea. I didn’t see anyone on the street, and I can’t tell from the attack if we’re looking for a man or a woman. The most I can say is that the attack came from someone with a well-developed Talent.” At least Kavon assumed that. When Darren joined with Bennu, they had far less control. It took months of practice before they could coordinate their efforts well enough for a focused attack.

“Did Darren see the attack?” White asked. Pochi darted directly up and then vanished. Kavon got the impression he was patrolling the area. He would have to call Detective Johnson and let him know where his guide had gone. “A magical attack is not the same as a mundane one. It's closer to a sniper attack than a physical assault,” Kavon said. 

“So you're saying the attacker was far enough away that no one on the street could see him?”

“That's exactly what I'm saying. And the identification is even more problematic because I threw up a shamanic shield.”

White frowned. “Why is that a problem?”

Kavon had never openly shared details of his work before. A big part of that had been Dave’s strict rules about privacy. Many mentors encouraged secrecy, but Dave had taken that to extreme levels. Now Kavon wondered if Dave truly felt that shamans functioned best when others couldn’t predict them or if Dave had wanted to help Bennu hide. Either way, the time for a complete embargo on shamanic knowledge was over. White needed to know how to fight the coming battle, or at least how to keep mundane agents from being crushed between the two sides.

“A shield that is strong enough to block the magic is generally strong enough to stop the caster from being able to see the attacker. That’s why large shields are dangerous. They create a blind spot.”

White frowned. “I wish I would have known that. Why didn’t you mention that?”

Whatever issues Kavon had with Dave, they were not for public consumption. “Sir, it’s no different than hiding behind a wall. If the wall is solid enough to stop a bullet then it’s equally effective at making it impossible to watch the suspect. All I can say is that the power that slammed into us was also shamanic.”

“That makes sense. Even if it made it impossible for you to identify your attacker, I’m glad you were there to shield your partner.” White project a weary relief. “And at least we know we’re looking for a shaman. That doesn't actually narrow the suspect list down much, does it?”

White had a point. “No, sir. A lot of shamans have reason to hate us, or fear us because they're afraid of getting caught.”

White stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Do you think that's what this is? Is this about your work with the FBI, or is this about your position on the Shamanic Council?”

“I can't say for sure,” Kavon said. “Hopefully an investigation will be able to get to the bottom of it.”

Disappointment crossed White’s face, but he nodded as though he’d expected that answer. “I've already called unit three. They’ll interview you as soon as Darren is released from the Center. I asked them to avoid separating you two because Darren isn’t strong enough to protect himself from this sort of perp, so we’re going to bend a few rules on this one.”

Kavon had a flare of temper, and Pochi blinked into existence over his head. Kavon took a calming breathe and tried to control his own emotions before Pochi started blowing up people based off Kavon’s fraying temper. “No offense sir, but unit three is violent crime. They have no experience investigating Talent.” Hell, they wouldn’t even know what questions to ask. While that would make it easier for Kavon to hide the involvement of mythical durance from other worlds, it would also make them next to worthless.

White’s expression turned hard. “I can't have the Talent unit investigating an assassination on one of its own. We’re going to have to make do with the resources we have,” he said firmly, but Kavon wasn’t about to let this slide.

“Assign it to Coretta’s team. Isn't that why we divided the Talent team into two separate units, so we would have more flexibility in assigning cases?”

“Is there some place where we can speak in private?” White asked. He gestured toward the hallway. Two nurses sat at a desk at the far end and a young man pushed a large cart down the corridor, stopping to deliver meals at each room. Because this was a Djedi center, the floor was quieter and calmer than a normal hospital. No one wanted an emotional or injured shaman startled by a loud crash or shouts. However, it still had an undercurrent of activity throughout.

“There’s a small lounge this way.” Kavon led the way. In the past, the lounges were used as places for people to make phone calls on public lines and perform small spells that might help a loved one. These days, cell phones made the first function obsolete, but plenty of visitors would still conjure the illusion of butterflies to swirl around a bouquet or use the small spaces to transfer energy to a healing crystal. If Kavon could do something similar to help Darren recover, he would, but sometimes the body simply needed to heal on its own.

When Kavon opened the door, a young couple was groping each other, but they took one look at Kavon’s expression and fled.

“So sorry, we just need the room for a minute,” White said to them as they hurried past. 

“They can find another spot for that,” Kavon said without any mercy. “Now why can’t Coretta investigate this attack? She’s already on the scene and is in a better position to contain the damage.”

White sat on a narrow loveseat and leaned back to study Kavon. “All of the experienced investigators with the sole exceptions of Anne Peters and Joe Kaslov have worked under you. One shaman straight out of California and an analyst with a background in interviewing cannot run an investigation into an attempted homicide of one of our agents.” 

Kavon crossed his arms and refused to budge or even respond to that idiocy. Peters and Kaslov would be assisting several well-trained and respected federal agents, and to suggest they were the only ones with the ability to act impartially was simply offensive. Kavon was not in a mood to be offended.

White glared right back for long seconds, but eventually his posture softened and he rubbed a hand over his face. “If this happened six months down the road, I would listen to your argument. I don't know if I would let you investigate one of your own, but I would consider it. But right now, the separation between your two teams is nothing more than a legal fiction. If Coretta investigates, any competent defense lawyer, hell any incompetent defense lawyer, is going to point out that she was your second-in-command for years. She has a motive to push past the boundaries of acceptable investigation in order to find out who targeted you and Darren.”

Kavon was offended on her behalf. “She would never violate the law or a suspect's rights, and I wouldn't ask her to.”

“I don't doubt that,” White said in a tone that was almost amused. “I sometimes question your good sense, your diplomacy, and your inflexibility, but I have never questioned your ethics. However, this isn't about impropriety; it's about the appearance of impropriety. I recognize that we have an investigative problem because all of our serious Talent is on your team or they worked for you before getting booted off the team. Didn't you say the Djedi Center was going to hire a couple of investigators to loan out to various agencies who found themselves in need of help?”

Kavon hated that White had essentially dismissed the whole argument and moved onto logistics, but Kavon couldn’t dispute the White’s facts. So he gave in. He did, however, continue to glare as he sat in the loveseat opposite White. “Yes. The agency can hire investigators on short-term contracts. I know the local police departments are designed for that sort of temporary worker, but I really didn't think the FBI was set up to bring in outside investigators.”

“Leave the paperwork to me. I'll figure out a way to make it work one way or another. Do they have good investigators available?”

Salma had arranged hiring them, and she had failed to attract her top few choices. That had left them with two older shamans who had retired from federal agencies and a young magic user who had incredible skills but who also had a disability that made her physically fragile and almost uninsurable. It was a motley group, but all of them had incredible Talent. 

“They've hired a couple of retired federal agents. They'll be able to help team three investigate. However, if you tell the Council what happened, you may have a larger problem.”

White went straight for the heart of the problem. “Halverson and McLean are going to try get in the middle, aren't they?”

“Without a doubt.” Kavon actively disliked the other council members. “Halverson wants to be in the middle of everything, and McLean is going to worry about whether this was the beginning of an attack on the Council as a whole,” Kavon said. In the case of Susan McLean, she could even guess who had launched the attack. She’d been scheming with Thuya Sherif before the woman had even died.

“For the sake of expedience, I’m going to assume this is an attack on you because of your work with the FBI. If someone was upset about your work on the Council, I wouldn't expect them to go after agent Oberton. As a consequence of that, I feel justified in withholding any information from the council.”

“Anyone with shamanic Talent would recognize the flaw in that logic,” Kavon said.

White leaned forward and gave Kavon a quizzical look.

“Darren functions as my anchor in the physical world. If I don't have him to guide me back to the place where the two worlds connect, I cannot effectively spirit walk. I have too much power, and there are too many distractions that could pull me deeper into the spirit world and make it impossible for me to find my way back to my own body. So even if this was related to my work with the council, a shaman who wants to damage me may target Darren, assuming he is more vulnerable.” Kavon was implying an untruth, but he was not outright lying. Every word was technically correct.

“I didn't realize that. I knew you needed and adepts in order to use your powers, that's why I approved so many transfers, but could you really die without Darren?”

“The probability is that I would die. Either that, or I wouldn't be able to go to the spirit plane at all. With my power, the chance of being distracted is too great.”

“Does that mean Halverson and McLean have partners?” White asked.

Kavon nodded. “I suspect both of them work with adepts, but I don't know who. Most shamans will hide their relationship with their adept so that they are not as easily targeted by enemies.”

“And you never considered doing that?” White sounded shocked, but then he had been the one approving a revolving door of adepts and low level shamans in an attempt to stabilize Kavon’s Talent. “You never considered having an adept outside the team?” Maybe White was only now realizing that those agents had put their own safety on the line, but as far as Kavon was concerned, that’s what every agent did. 

“Whether or not I use Les as my anchor, people who see us together are going to assume he anchors me. That puts a target on his back. And that's why I won't go out with him in the field.”

“You used to go out with him, and you went out in the field with all the agents brought in to maximize your shamanic gifts. Were they all at risk?” White didn’t sound angry as much as concerned.

“Every single person who transferred in understood the risks. They also understood I needed to have them near me in case I used my powers. I never hid any risk and I took every precaution with the lives of every person on my team.”

“But you won’t go out with Les because it would put him at risk,” White challenged him. “How does that square with you going in the field with Oberton or even Ben Anderson? I know he broke your trust and his willingness to put lives at risk is unforgivable, but he was little more than a kid straight out of the academy. Can you actually tell me he understood the threat?”

“Yes,” Kavon said. He still carried a healthy share of guilt about how he’d handled the Ben-Darren conflict. His unwillingness to set boundaries had hurt both men. However, he’d never lied about the risks involved in being his anchor. “None of my temporary guides ever got so much as a hangnail in the field.”

“And Kaslov?” White asked. “Will he require a partner or will he work with Agent Gillette?”

“You would have to ask Supervisory Agent Nixon who she planned to assign as his partner.” There was no way Kavon was going to express any opinion about Coretta’s team assignments.

“Nixon is not a shaman, and I am asking you, as a shaman, whether Agent Kaslov will require an adept or shamanic partner. Am I going to have another merry-go-round of agents?”

Kavon hadn’t even spoken to Joe Kaslov about his Talent. “I have no idea. Some guides can help their shamans find the exits, and if he doesn’t develop his Talent, his perception of the spirit plane may be simple enough for him to find the exit. That would be an issue to take up with him or his supervisory agent.” It was time for Coretta to deal with the politics. Hell, she was better at it than he was. “However, I need a partner, and anyone who knows Darren provides that anchor to the real world also knows that eliminating him will cripple me.”

White sighed. “So an attack on Darren might simply be an attack on your ability to use the spirit plane.”

“This attack is going to be far more complex than anything unit three is designed to handle. Part of me thinks you should hand any investigation over to the Djedi Center. They're not likely to find an answer either, but they’ll understand the scope of the crime.”

Even though Kavon expected an immediate rejection of that idea, White leaned back and appeared to think it over. Forty years ago before the civil rights movement, all crime involving those with Talent went through the Djedi center. The concept of separate but equal as it applied to race ended twenty years before the courts had finally banned it in matters of Talent as well. But plenty of agencies still turned to Djedi centers far more than the courts would probably prefer. 

“I’ll take it under consideration,” White said. “Until I make my final decision, make yourself available to unit three for questioning.”

Kavon nodded. That had sounded a lot like a dismissal, so Kavon stood. When White didn’t say anything more, Kavon hurried out of the lounge and back toward Darren’s room. This whole situation was getting dangerously messy. White had been a top-notch investigator before he had gotten his last promotion, and Kavon had shared far too many truths. Given time, White might put together a frighteningly accurate picture of what was going on.

While Kavon trusted Assistant Director White to keep a cool head, the man had his own bosses and wrote his own reports. Kavon didn’t want information about a potential war to find its way up the chain of command. The potential for panic was too great.

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

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