AM 7: Durance, chapter 14 (Patreon)

Kavon breathed a little easier when he parked the SUV in the parking garage of the FBI office. This place and his apartment were the only places where he felt protected. They were the only places he maintained magical shields. Those might not stand up against Anzu, but they would warn Kavon if that monster or any of his durance cousins showed up.

“How upset is White?” Darren asked.

“If I knew, I’d tell you,” Kavon said. “Other than asking us to come in for witness interviews with unit three, he’s been working with Coretta.” Kavon suspected that Coretta would make him pay for that, but technically he was on vacation and as a practical matter, he couldn’t perceive magic that had separated from a shaman or guide. The whole reason O’Brien had been so dangerous was because he had used dead magics. As a shaman, that was like him picking up a gun and firing blindfolded, but he’d trusted Traci Frane to build her spells well. And wasn’t that irony. The psychopath had trusted the FBI agent who had had betrayed her team.

They headed up the back stairs without seeing anyone. Since the Talent unit was tucked into a little used corner of the building, it was usually quiet, but Kavon still had an eerie feeling. His bull appeared at the top of the stairs and snorted a challenge to the universe. The problem was that as a guide, he didn’t notice most of the world around him. He experienced the world through Kavon, so unless someone had shamanic Talent, Kavon didn’t trust his bull to be an effective guard.

Kavon rested his hand against Darren’s back as they headed for the unit.

“Is team three coming to us?” Darren asked in a shocked voice. It wasn’t standard to allow witnesses to set the place for the interview, but the other rooms didn’t have the same shielding against Talent. 

“Yep.”

Darren chuckled. “You and your immovable object impressions.” He shook his head.

“It’s logical for them to come here,” Kavon said. He pushed the double doors open.

Les was on his feet in a heartbeat. “Bruh, it is so good to see you unbroken.” Les grabbed Darren in a tight hug. “Damn. Stop getting broken. Both of you.” Les risked giving Kavon a sharp glare, but then he retreated to his desk. Les and the others on Coretta’s team had scooted their desks to the north side of the room, but the additional desks meant that everyone was sitting in even closer proximity now.

“You you look good for somebody who just got blown up. I agree with Les, you can stop trying to curve our agent injury statistics for the year,” Rima teased. “We’ve won the pool, several times over.

Joe, the new shaman, snorted. He stood, his lanky frame unfolding itself with grace as he moved to sit on the edge of his desk. “This unit is a little heavy on major injuries. Looking good, Oberton.”

Darren gave him an easy smile, but Kavon moved between them. Joe was quick with a smile, and that made Kavon’s skin itch. He preferred open hostility or reserved suspicion to Joe Kaslov’s sort of gregariousness. 

Ahtisham stood and crossed in front of Joe before holding his hand out for Darren. “You need to stop having such an interesting life. My mother would accuse you of looking for metal chickpeas to gnaw on.” 

Les wrinkled his nose. “That sounds bad for the teeth.”  

Darren gave all of them a brilliant smile. “Well, you know, I like to make sure Anita has enough business to keep her busy.”

“I’d suspect that you were trying to hook up with her, only I happen to know you are stupidly love with someone else,” Les said. “I’ll call Coretta and let her know you’re in.” He grabbed his desk phone, and Joe retreated back to his chair. Ahtisham leaned back against Anne Peters’ desk. She continued to type, but she watched with a small frown. 

“Call Brown over in unit three,” Kavon said. Since he was in the office, he wanted to check on his cases. Rima had been on the team longer, but Anne had the field experience and rank. Kavon wondered if Ahtisham stayed close to her because they were the only two mundanes in the room. It was one thing for him to be the only mundane on a small team, but now there were three shamans, three magic users and an adept in the unit.

“Any movement in our cases?” Kavon asked Anne while Darren gravitated over to Les’s desk. Rima moved to his side, her hand resting on Darren’s arm. They both projected worry. 

“You mean in the half day you took off before blowing up a DC street?” Anne asked.

Kavon shifted his gaze from Darren to Anne. She continued to type, and Ahtisham snorted before he retreated to his own desk. Only then did Anne look up. “We haven’t had any major breakthroughs, and if we do, I trust Coretta will handle them well.”

“Don’t assume I’m micromanaging her,” Kavon warned.

Anne pursed her lips and nodded. “Right. We still don’t have any movement on the cases. Milton is trying to track financials in the Taylor case.”

“I thought that was a dead end.” Kavon didn’t like the thought of one of his people getting sent on a wild goose chase, and their witnesses said Taylor kept all his betting records in his notebook. They needed a warrant and a pickpocket, not a hacker. Anne shrugged, but her expression suggested she hadn’t liked the assignment either.

Kavon headed for Milton’s desk. He had pulled it up against a wall and then used a spare bookcase to arrange an impressive array of computer guts and crystals. Kavon didn’t know much about crystal magic, but Coretta was impressed with his speed and accuracy, so Kavon trusted Milton to know his way around a spell, and he preferred Milton’s open insecurities and nasty attitude to someone like Joe who seemed to hide behind a quick smile.

“Milton, I need you to find a list of everyone who was at the scene yesterday,” Kavon said.

Milton looked up and his glasses, which had been perched on the top of his head slid backward. He grabbed them before they could fall. “I didn't think we were working that case.”

“Don't worry about what case we’re working. Put in the request and get that list,” Kavon said. If they couldn’t stop Anzu directly, they would have to find his human partner. Since Anzu had grabbed the SUV and swept a tree out of his way, he could see Earth clearly. That implied he watched through the eyes of his shaman partner.

Milton swiveled his chair around to face Kavon. “But if it's not our case, what right do I have to be requesting information? I’m sure someone else has the attack case.”

“Team three,” Darren said loudly. Kavon graced him with a withering look, but Darren grinned back, unrepentant. 

“Team three,” Milton said. “Right. Okay. If it’s not our case, I'm not supposed to be getting that information out of the database.”

“You're supposed to complete the work as assigned by your supervisory agent,” Kavon warned darkly. Milton was young and academically minded and nervous. His fingers twisted around like he was soldering something. Kavon sympathized, but he needed Milton to do the work assigned as Kavon assigned it. 

“Yes. Of course I am. I understand that. But if you're going all cowboy to investigate the attack, I don't want to be the one caught in the middle. As a black man, I'm a little paranoid about not being used as a scapegoat when the ship and the fan have a close personal encounter.” Milton swirled his finger in the air.

“Excuse me?” Kavon’s temper frayed at the suggestion that he would ever let one of his team take the blame for his decisions, and the suggestion that he would do that to another black man made Kavon’s blood pressure rise. All Kavon’s sympathy vanished.

Darren practically leapt between them.  “Hey, how about you don’t assume Kavon would ever put you at risk. He won’t. As a supervisory agent, he has a right to ask you to pull records, so why don’t you start there. No paranoia required.” Darren offered an easy grin and even leaned against the corner of Milton’s desk in a show of comradery. 

“Oh please. As much as there are bigots who hate Talent, there are just as many bigots that hate people because of skin color,” Milton said. “It’s not paranoia when people really are out to get you, and as a young Talented black man, I am not in favor of sticking my neck out so that somebody can chop it off.”

Kavon slapped his hand down on the desk so hard that Milton and Darren both jumped. “Request the damn list!” Rather than argue, Kavon turned his back and headed for the break room. His bull must have taken up residency in the bull pen because he could hear the conversation, even when the break room door closed behind him.

“Well of course he understands discrimination. That's one of the reasons I wanted to come to this team, because everyone says that bigoted crap doesn’t fly around here, and let me tell you there are entirely too many bigots within the FBI.”

“Preaching to the choir,” Anne said.

“But just because Agent Boucher has reached the point where he has enough political power and respect and authority to be able to get away with things doesn't mean that I can. You know, just because I can hack things and just because I am good at working around systems does not mean that I want to go around breaking rules.”

Rima laughed. “Oh my God, there are two of them.”

“Excuse me,” Milton demanded, his tone rising.

“Come down off Defcon 5, Professor. No one asked you to hack, and if you request the list and don’t get it, no biggie,” Joe Kaslov said.

“Defcon 5 is a state of low readiness. You’re trying to say Defcon 1,” Milton corrected him. “And I assure you that I’m not above a Defcon 3 right now. When I reach Defcon 1, you’ll know it.”

“Knock it off, both of you. All of you,” Anne said loudly. “God help me, I did not take this job to babysit. Agent Ackie, request the damn list. If someone above your pay grade kicks the paperwork back, let me know. Agent  Kaslov, kindly mind your own damn business.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Joe quickly agreed. Kavon didn’t hear any response at all from Milton, but hopefully he was getting the information. If he was as good with computers as he claimed, Kavon needed him to start applying search parameters to the people in the area. This was the sort of needle in a haystack operation that Wyatt’s supervisor over in technical support would never approve, so having their own technical expert was important. Kavon just needed to let Darren or Anne handle the man because Kavon wanted to kick him off the team already.

Kavon hid in the breakroom and listened to Darren gossip with the others. Coretta was meeting with White and the others to create a plan for magical disasters and was trying to get the team expanded even more to include a magical version of hazmat. Kavon doubted anyone in the upper offices would go for that, but maybe Coretta would prove more persuasive than Kavon. He wished her well on the attempt. 

He heard about Ahtisham’s weekend basketball tournament and Joe’s preference for hockey. He didn’t hear much from Jen, but Coretta’s youngest agent was about as insecure as Milton. She covered by trying to become one with the environment. Kavon feared she would never have the presence to handle herself in the field, but she was Coretta’s agent. He didn’t need to train her or counsel her out of the Bureau.  

Kavon wondered if there was something about Talent that bred personality issues or if he just noticed the damage in his own people more than in the wider world. People with Talent certainly suffered more prejudice than most. Les had fled his home to get away from assholes who used him, and Traci Frane had been willing to side with a psychopath to create a kingdom of magic users and shamans where she would be in the ruling class. Staring at his cup of black coffee, Kavon wondered if the world would be a kinder place if there weren’t magic. 

If the guides had managed to remove all the foreign power leaving only the more subtle Earth-magics, would people have fewer reasons to hate each other? Would his people be less insecure? Would Milton still hide behind abrasive honest and Jen behind a computer monitor or stack of files? The older he got, the fewer answers Kavon had.

When Kavon heard Coretta’s voice, he dumped the last of his coffee into the sink and headed out into the bullpen.

Coretta had a laptop and a stack of papers in her arms. Ahtisham was clearly trying to help, but she waved him off and headed for her desk. When Kavon walked over, she graced him with the same withering glare that Kavon’s grandmother used to give him. “Next time blow up a street in someone else’s town. That way we can leave the clean up to them.”

Kavon nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind next time we get jumped,” he said.

Coretta’s gaze flitted toward Darren and she pressed her lips into a thin line. If they could figure out how to kill Anzu or find the shaman attached to him, Coretta was going to do some blowing up of her own.

“We need to discuss our classified case,” Kavon said. 

Coretta slowly nodded. “Joe, Ahtisham, Jen, stay on the background checks.”

Kavon felt the surge of frustration. He looked at Coretta’s team and frowned. Ahtisham had proved himself in the field, and Kavon’s gut said he was a solid agent—one they could trust. The only reason for leaving him out had been the fear that Ahtisham might report the details back to White, but Kavon couldn’t keep making decisions that affected the whole world. 

He would fight Anzu or any durance, but if Pochi and the other docent purged the earth of magic, what world would be left for mundanes? Would they turn on each other? Would the parents and siblings of those with Talent pick up torches to burn out the Anti-Talent churches or would the churches seize the opportunity to kill any remaining family members in an attempt to wipe out the Talent bloodlines? Kavon considered time-walking, but when events this momentous were in play, the future became an unpierced veil.

Darren moved to Kavon’s side and raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

“I’d rather have Ahtisham in on this meeting,” Kavon said. 

Coretta’s eyes got larger, but she nodded. “You heard him. The rest of you, please have something on our cases when I get back. We’re all going to be buried in cleanup work once forensics finishes with the scene, so I would like some progress before then.”

Ahtisham rose and silently followed them toward the large conference room next to Salma’s office. She should be back by the afternoon, and Kavon wanted to have some pieces in place before she showed up to advocate for her Egyptian brand of secrecy and seclusion.