P. Stormcrow

Finn stared at the board in front, puzzling over the photos they had pinned to the cork. Because of course magnets on a whiteboard was too much of a risk, whatever that meant.

“Here,” Agent Jackson glided across the floor with grace and handed her a mug of coffee.

“Thanks.” The print on the black porcelain caught her by surprise and it took her a second to recognize the reference to the Harry Potter film. Seriously? She peered into the dark liquid within and inhaled its scent with an abundance of caution. It smells okay. The quality of this drink at the office always made her wary.

Still, the allure of coffee was too much, and she held the cup to her lips to taste it. Her eyes widened. It was good. Better than good. It was one of the best she ever had. She stared down at the mug again.

“My personal stash. Nothing like that instant, cheap stuff for my partner.” Jackson murmured beside her.

Finn almost jumped, but instead, heat crawled up her cheeks. “Yeah… um… thanks…” Shit. How did he always get her flustered so easily? Her mind flashed back to that moment when he hovered over her.

“So what do you have?” He swung around to the other side of her desk, his own drink in hand. 

As she took another sip of the too-damn-wonderful coffee, she stared hard at the cluster of three photos on the board. The day was already crawling towards the late afternoon and her new partner had insisted they return to the office despite her protests she was okay. In truth, she was still shaken by what happened, but she could deal with it later.

“Reed?”

Right. She cleared her throat, setting the close call with the keyboard aside. “Well, the most likely candidate seems to be those three. According to Emily, Bettany and Katy botched an Ouija summoning.” The words felt funny on her tongue. There must be some other explanation. “But no one has a motive.” She paused and let out a long sigh. “We need to interview more people.”

“There is someone with a motive.” Jackson snatched a piece of paper from the desk and pinned it to the board in between Bettany and Katy. “Or something.”

Finn stared at the sheet. Jackson had drawn a classic ghost on it, completed with an O for the mouth and a “boo” on the side. She crossed her arms and gave him a look with a raised brow.

“Hey, you said it yourself. They screwed it up, so the super is free to possess any of them.”

“Super?”

“Supernatural entity. Short hand.”

Okay, she could live with new lingo. “Well, it can’t be Katy or Bettany.” She still remembered the stretcher. And the corpse.

“Which leaves Emily. Or Neil.”

Finn shook her head, following along despite her innate disbelief. “Neil sounded like he left pretty fast.”

“So Emily then.” Jackson tapped a slender finger on the student’s photo.

“But she was the one that told us what happened.”

“Right!” He spun around to face her, shaking both forefingers at her in excitement. “But that’s her. The human her. Think sideways on these things. She probably has no idea she’s possessed.”

Like split personalities. Jekyll and Hyde. Except it doesn’t work that way in real life. “Okay, but why Joe?”

Jackson shrugged. “Perhaps Emily doesn’t have a grudge with Joe, but the poltergeist may.”

“Wait. That makes no sense. What about Katy and Bettany then?” And me. “Emily was with us when all that happened.”

“They’re witches. Or at least, her mom is. I didn’t see any warding on Emily, and she would have protected herself against something like this if she was one. If the super is working through her, it might have access to her powers.”

“You think Emily is what? Some kind of dormant witch?”

He nodded.

“That’s a lot of speculation.”

“It’s more than speculation.”

“How so?”

For once, he looked uneasy as he ran his hand through his hair, smoothing it back. “Just trust me on this.”

Finn narrowed her eyes and took one step closer to him. “Not good enough. If we are going to be partners, you need to tell me everything.”

He bent over and peered at her, his face so much nearer. Her heartbeat thumped faster, but she refused to show anything other than that same skepticism. There was no way she was backing down.

“Fine.” This time it was him that exhaled as he leaned away and straightened himself. “I can smell it on them.”

“What?” Finn blinked at him.

He slumped and looked to one side, unwilling to meet her eyes. “I can smell magic.”

She stared at him, trying to wrap her mind around his admission. Well. If they believed in ghosts already here, why the hell not. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Jackson startled in surprise.

“Yeah. Let’s say you do detect… powers. Walk me through it.”

A wide grin spread across his lips. “That’s my cautious skeptic,” he applauded. “All right. So I picked up the scent on both Emily and Mrs. Dawson. More so on her mom. And when I went into the backyard with her, I saw all the usuals.”

“Usuals?” Finn knew she was repeating a lot of words and risked look like an idiot. But she was still playing catch-up here.

“Sage, mugwort, lavender, foxglove, nightshade,.” Jackson waved a hand in the air as he listed them off. “But Emily didn’t wear a single protective charm. And the magic in her is faint.”

“Okay. So if the poltergeist is possessing her, it… what? Put a spell on the computers? And it has a grudge against Joe? Why?”

Jackson shrugged. “We should look over the school records, figure out what Bettany and Katy were looking up. I’ll see if Jerry can get us a warrant.”

“Jerry?”

“Agent Newman.”

“Wait, why do we need another jurisdiction to get—”

“We don’t exist, remember?”

Finn groaned.

He placed a hand on her shoulder and she found a sympathetic smile on his face. “Go home and rest up. I’ll meet you back at the school first thing in the morning.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he shook his head. “It’s too big of a risk to do these things at night.”

Right, because the supernatural is more active after the sun is down in all the stories.

“Okay.”

***

What a fucking day. Finn threw her keys on to the kitchen counting and shrugged off her jacket. Ghosts. Poltergeists. Magic. What had she stepped into?

She tossed the article of clothing on top of some to-be opened boxes and bee-lined straight for the carton on the opposite end of the counter. There was no more of the rum she used earlier for her coffee, and she grimaced at the bottle of cheap bourbon as her only other option. 

Whatever. It’ll do the job.

She needed to stock up and for a second, she contemplated walking out to the nearest liquor store. But the last thing she wanted was to go outside again. What I’d I run into a ghost? Laughter bubbled up from within, drenched up by the sheer absurdity of the thought. Well, you laugh or you cry.

Fuck.

She forewent any cups or glasses and grabbed the bottle by its neck. As she walked to the living room, only about six paces away, she unscrewed the top and downed a healthy mouthful. It burned enough to make her eyes water, but she shook it off. Satisfied for now that she had a weapon in hand to numb her senses and help her forget the day, she flopped down on the old couch, one of the few pieces of furniture she had in place.

Her mind, however, would not let go as easily. The scent of scorched flesh in that computer room. The arc of blue reaching for her from the keyboard. Computers didn’t act that way. And yet, she couldn’t deny that it had happened.

“You consciousness will try to rationalize it. Don’t allow it. Remember each detail without trying to assign a reason to it. Our heads like it better when everything fits nice and tidy with what we already know and believe. But keep yourself from succumbing to that. I need my partner focused and unbiased.

Unbiased her ass. Everyone had their biases.

Another image flashed in her head. Jackson’s brilliant blues staring down at her with concern and worry all over his face.

Shit.

Maybe she should just drink to oblivion so she didn’t have to think of the implications of why he makes her heart race. And it’s only been one fucking day. Finn took a swig from the large bottle.

But two kids were dead and one’s life still hanging by a thread. She couldn’t forget. It wasn’t a luxury she could afford. Jackson was right about this. She needed to be unbiased, to cover every possibility. 

Buzz.

Even on vibrate mode, the thing was loud. She groaned and contorted her body until she could fish her phone out of the pocket. 

The number was unfamiliar to her as she brought the device closer to her face. Not local. No. The area code was from where she was from. So who the hell was it?

At the fifth ring, she let out a long exhale of breath and picked up the call.

“Finley, you need to sign the agreement papers.”

Oh, fuck no.

He knew she would recognize his number, so she called from one she hadn’t seen before. Was it from his lover’s? Or would she be his girlfriend now? It didn’t matter. Should she respond? Or just hang up?

Give no quarter.

“Piss off, Kaden. You know there’s nothing fair in those terms.”

“It’s perfectly equitable, Finn. We split things by the originator.” Her ex’s voice was stuff, proper. And scrapped at every nerve in her body.

“You don’t get to use that name,” she retorted, pushing herself to sit up on the couch.

“You’re being unreasonable—”

“I racked up all that debt, took out the loans to put you in school,” she yelled into the phone, cutting him off. “So you can have your lawyer call me back when the papers are actually fair.” With that, she pressed the virtual button hard to hang up and threw the inferno device to the opposite end of the couch.

Fuck that bastard.

Finn grabbed the bottle and took a deep drink, gulping down large mouthfuls before her body even registered the burn. At last she jerked it back, coughing and spluttering, her throat and chest pulsing with the heat. Tears beaded in the corner of her eyes but she refused to shed them. It was the alcohol, not the shredded remains of her tattered heart.

Jackson’s worried face floated in her mind again.

Shit balls. She was on the rebound and grasping at straws. No, she would not screw up her work that way, no matter how attractive and flirty her partner was. Besides, it was too soon. And that was what she was sticking to.