AM7: Durance, chapter 19 (Patreon)

Kavon ignored the uncomfortable atmosphere in the SUV. Les stared at absolutely nothing and Darren wouldn't make eye contact. That was marginally better than Ahtisham who had an utterly neutral expression that still projected disrespect. Kavon deserved it. He had blown that interview and only the missing search warrant could salvage it.

Kavon looked over at Darren's phone, but it was as unhelpfully silent as Kavon’s own. An SUV pulled up in the next parking space and Coretta got out.

“I’ll let her sit up front.” Darren practically fled the passenger seat. When he opened his door, he greeted Coretta with, “Hey, long time no see.” Les groaned at Darren's attempted small talk.

“It's amazing how often I am seeing you, considering that you're on vacation.” Caretta got in and slammed her closed. The backseat, Ahtisham scooted over. 

“I could get into the third row,” Darren offered. 

“You're too skinny to take up much space, so just park your ass,” Ahtisham said.

Kavon cringed. Darren was on the thin side right. The accelerated healing had caused both of them to burn a lot of calories. And that was one more failure on Kavon's conscience. When they had first started talking about an ifrit war, Kavon had this impression that they were going to fight, guide against guide. Sometimes he imagined himself dying in that war, but he never expected it to be so damn hard to find the battlefield.

“So,” Coretta said slowly. Her gaze darted back to Ahtisham and Les, but she didn't say anything, for which Kavon was grateful. She had already given him an ear full about taking her agents out without discussing it with her, but she was professional enough to avoid public displays of righteous anger.

The last time Coretta was this angry, at least half of her ire had been directed at Darren. After all, they had both allowed themselves to flirt with an inappropriate relationship, nearly destroying the team along the way. Kavon was more to blame for that failure than Darren, but Coretta had spread the blame around, especially when Darren had struggled to hide his feelings. 

Now Kavon had all Coretta’s anger directed at him and him alone. If she did physically split the team by taking her agents to another floor, he couldn’t even blame her at this point.

“Legal called, asking for some clarification on the search warrant you requested,” Coretta said.

“Why did they call you and not me?”

“Because you are technically on vacation. More importantly, much of the building is under the impression you’re taking care of an injured partner, not filing paperwork for search warrants.”

She was definitely testy. “It is the warrant coming through soon?”

“It's not coming at all,” Coretta said. Before Kavon could demand an explanation, she continued. “If this is related to the attack on Darren, the Djedi center is handling that. Since they are civilian agency, legal wants nothing to do with any investigation they touch. If this is not related to the attack, legal would like to know what you think you're going to find. They know as well as we do that magic transfers are both legal and physically impossible to trace. Even if he has magic in there, that doesn't connect him to any crime.”

“There could be records,” Kavon said.

Coretta scoffed. He had that one coming. Kavon wanted to stage a defense of his actions, but legal was right. He had left the reservation, and his team was too nice to call him on his bullshit. Coretta wasn’t.

Darren spoke up. “I saw his guide. This is not a simple matter of transferring energy from one guide to another or recharging a magic user’s artifact. That little hamster is seriously glutted with energy. His body was bulging and throbbing, and that sounds weirdly sexual, which is not where I was going, but it is definitely unnatural.”

“A hamster? Are we seriously freaked out about a hamster?” Ahtisham asked.

”Bruh, hamster guides are mean little shits. They’ll cannibalize their own in a heartbeat. Never underestimate any guide from the rodent family.” Les gave a dramatic shiver. “They may be small, but they gotta be vicious fighters to survive. You’re better off around something like a whale guide. Man, when someone has a whale guide, that's a lazy shaman. They’ve got enough strength that nothing threatens them, but they also don’t want to bother with much except gliding through life easy.” Les held his hand out like a blade and mimicked cutting through the waves. “But the little ones...” Les whistled.

“Says the man with a wasp guide,” Darren said.

“Hey, wasp guides have nothing on the rodents.”

“Can we please get back on topic?” Coretta asked, the corner of her mouth twitching. “Kavon, you're on vacation. And I understand that you were going to try to hunt the ifrit down, but the Magic Factory is off limits.”

“You could go in and talk to him.” Now that Kavon thought about it, he should've waited for her in the first place. As a magic user, she would know whether the ifrit had dumped a large amount of energy in the shop, so she would have a better idea of how big of a disaster they had on their hands. “If this guy is powering up local criminals, we could be looking at a magical arms race.”

She sighed. “I know that. Quite frankly, that's going to keep me up at night for a very long time. I've already contacted DC police, and they’re going to task units to track whoever's coming and going. However, this is not an FBI case.”

Kavon was going to have to change tactics. “No, but it is a Djedi center case and as you pointed out, I'm on vacation.” The blast of indignation and fury that crashed through the bond startled Kavon. However, Darren didn’t speak up. Coretta did.

“As legal would point out, even if you are not acting at the direction or for the benefit of the FBI, you are still an FBI agent. You are bound to the rules of probable cause, even if the Djedi center is not. That's why there is a firewall between our investigators and theirs, and you're on this side of the firewall.”

Kavon had to swallow down enough frustration that he could speak without yelling. “We can't just sit here and do nothing as we wait for that durance to attack again. Darren nearly died last time.”

“Do you think I don't know that? This—” Coretta’s voice had been rising, but now she stopped and took a deep breath. She continued in a far calmer tone. “This is not what I signed up for. I wanted to help my community, not stand at ground zero or a guide war. Part of me wishes I didn’t know that we are facing the very real possibility that my people would die. That my son would die.” Her voice broke.

“Hey, we stopped O'Brien,” Darren said. He might not have as much power as a typical shaman without Bennu around, but he threw out a net of reassurance. “That asshole nearly took out Kavon, so we’ve gotten through shit almost this bad.” Not even Darren sounded convinced of that.

“We just need to treat this like any other case,” Les said. “We go back to the office and start brainstorming. We’re better as a team, so let’s go be teamlike.”

“And here I thought you people would be less stressful than SWAT,” Ahtisham said. “But I’m seconding Les’s motion. We have a missing person. We know he has some connection to this shop, so that’s a lead.”

Coretta nodded. “A deep dive in the computer might unearth some suspects connected to both our magical sinks and this place.” She looked at Kavon. After a second, she raised her eyebrows, and then he got it. Milton was one of Kavon’s team, so she was modeling how to be a collaborative partner and ask before coopting someone else’s agent.

“Good idea,” Kavon said. The bands around his heart eased a little, although Kavon didn’t know whether that had more to do with Coretta’s tacit forgiveness or the fact they had a direction. True, it was the sort of electronic trail Kavon couldn’t help with, but that mattered less than having productive work for the team.

“Since we’re talking about practical logistics,” Ahtisham said, “I’d like permission to introduce myself to this informant—Angel Zamora—and see if he could help me out.”

Kavon turned around in his seat. “Help you with what?”

“The rest of you have some sort of affinity for magic. Either you can see this durance,” he looked at Coretta, “or you can see where the thing is shedding magic. I’m blind. And like Darren is always reminding you guys, shamans who protect themselves from every kind of Talent will leave themselves open to a bullet.”

Coretta narrowed her eyes. “Are you offering to execute the human partner?” She had a sharp edge to her voice, and Darren blasted out a quick desire to retreat before the bond quieted.

“I don’t plan to execute anyone,” Ahtisham said, “but if my team is attacked, Mr. Zamora might be a good spotter. I don’t want to get crushed by a mythological monster as I work, and my sniper rifle is much more effective against a human target than a supernatural one.”

“Not supernatural,” Darren muttered, but Ahtisham and Coretta were too locked into each other to notice him. Kavon wanted to jump in the middle and force both of them to back down and find some compromise, but Coretta was right about him keeping his hooves out of her team. So despite his growing discomfort, Kavon kept silent.

“I’m being practical,” Ahtisham said. “I tried to get Rima to take me with her when she went out to talk to him, but she said he has issues with men in authority. Apparently I look scarier than Joe, so she took him. But unless I am misinterpreting what you’ve told me, Angel has a whole different base of power. That feels like a valuable asset.”

“I saved Kavon from O’Brien because I wasn’t a shaman yet,” Darren pointed out. “I was still tied to the natural power of Earth, and Angel has a deeper connection to that source.”

“I still question his ethics,” Kavon said.

“We all do,” Coretta said. “And I question our ethics when we’re this willing to talk about killing a suspect who hasn’t committed any crime greater than blowing up a chunk of DC. Darren and Kavon have done that multiple times.”

Kavon glared at her. “We never tried to kill a federal agent.”

She held up her hands in surrender. “I know. And I know the consequences if we fail.” Her voice grew softer. “Trust me, I know. I also know I swore to uphold the law.”

The bard sunk deep into Kavon’s soul. He was no more fond of acting outside the lines than Coretta. Less probably. However, he would not permit these durance to threaten his people and his world.

Coretta sighed. “Do it, Ahtisham. Keep in mind that Mr. Zamora is more practical than idealogical, and if he has to throw you to the wolves to save himself, his lover, or that uncle of theirs, you’re going to have teeth in your leg bone before you realize there’s a problem.”

“Luckily I have a carbon fiber pylon attached to a plastic foot, so I won’t feel it,” Ahtisham joked. “But warning accepted. I know Mr. Zamora has only a passing acquaintance with the law.”

“Oh, he knows the law,” Darren said. “He can probably cite statues he’s broken. He just doesn’t care about it.”

“Sounds like Luschesce,” Kavon said dryly, which was exactly why he tried to avoid Zamora. The magical sink he found gave him enough resources that he didn’t go out and rob stores anymore, but if he ran out of money or power, he had no ethical qualms.

“I like the dude,” Les said, “and I’ll admit he’s a little morally shaky, but that is not the same as being a bad guy. Luschesce and that asshole in there delight in breaking the law. Zamora is just resigned to the idea he’s going to have to.”

Tremors of curiosity, realization and alarm cascaded down the bond like fireworks going off. The sensation was so strong that Kavon shivered. “What was that?” He looked at Darren. Kavon recognized the expression—something between fear of saying something stupid and desire to blurt out an idea. Darren made that face every time he sent the team off on some wild goose chase that might or might not lead to them closing a case.

“Bruh, spit it out.”

Darren looked around at everyone and seemed to brace himself. Now the bond slid toward apprehension and horror.

“Green doesn’t sound anything like Luschesce.

“Meaning?” Coretta asked.

“Think about it,” Darren said, “Luschesce always bragged about how he was better than law enforcement, about how he could outsmart us. When he complained about laws, he complained that they were all political. He talked like he was a business man that was getting picked on my small-minded people who passed laws simply to make him miserable.”

“And?” Ahtisham asked.

“Luschesce never said law enforcement was helpless. What fun is it to win against an impotent enemy. He saw us as powerful antagonists and himself as the more clever, more powerful protagonist of his own story.”

“Oh, bruh.” Les breathed the words. “Tell me you don’t mean...”

“Who complains about the laws being too slow to catch up with the reality of Talent here on the streets?” Darren asked.

“The anti-Talent brigade?” Ahtisham guessed.

“They don’t care about the laws,” Kavon said. He had a bad feeling about where Darren was going. “The anti-Talent groups would happily lynch all of us, damn law.”

“Yeah, but we’ve all heard the exact complain Green made in there,” Darren said. 

Kavon rubbed a hand over his face. Shit.

“You think we’re looking for a cop,” Coretta said.

Darren shrugged. “Interesting life, ability to hide in the population, and understanding of tracking methods, connections to the less savory side of the Talent community, and a wealth of frustration for the ways in which the laws mishandle Talent crime.”

Coretta closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I officially hate you. Are you coming back to the office to work this angle?” She asked.

Before Darren could answer, Kavon spoke up. “No. We need a few hours to decompress and rebuild our Talent reserves. You have the investigation; call us if you need us.”

She nodded. “Again, I hate you, but I’ll have Milton look for law enforcement that might intersect with the locations for our magical sinks and your attack. Les, Ahtisham, I’ll give you a ride back to the office so they can head home.” Coretta gave Kavon a concerned look. No doubt she wondered why he was walking away from the case, but Kavon had to get his own head on straight before he did any more damage.