P. Stormcrow

Ms. Callaghan’s office was in many ways a microcosm of the rest of the warehouse – spartan get classy in a sort of old world sense with a heavy wooden desk, a beautiful typewriter on top and rows of filing cabinets behind the single luxury—a high end talkback office chair. But the woman sitting in it today sported a more dour expression than usual.

“Report, Olivia.”

“Right!” Olivia straightened the oil stained lab coat she wore over her loud pink shirt. “I have disconnected the tube system from the rest of the warehouse and from our fleet and have shut down all spells associated with it.” She resisted the urge to rub her eyes again. The toll of working on the same thing for so many hours straight was getting to her.

“Good.” Ms. Callaghan pushed back from the desk and rose. An antique bronze key dangled from a chain against her neck.

The sight of it caused a similar object to pulse with heat in Olivia’s pocket, but she said nothing as she followed her boss outside. 

The heels of their shoes, boots for her, stilettos for Ms. Callaghan, clacked against the concrete and echoed as they passed the vast open area to another smaller room, this one Olivia called The Brain. Invisible feathers brushed across her skin as the additional wards detected and accepted their passing while flames flickered into existence on torches bolted to the walls. Very medieval. They had to be given the delicate spells woven and sustained here.

Ms. Callaghan strode over to the center console, stopping to survey the controls before she cast a glance over to Olivia as she approached.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Olivia withdrew the bronze key’s twin with care and held it up for her to see.

“Good.” The director passed her hand over a panel as she moved her lips without a sound. Gold light emitted from the blank spot before it wobbled and faded to reveal two keyholes. “On three.” At Olivia’s nod, she began. “One. Two. Three.”

Olivia inserted the small piece of metal into the slot at that moment and muttered. “Lorgar a-nis dè a chaidh a chall.”

Next to her, Ms. Callaghan did the same, though Olivia couldn’t quite catch what her incantation was. But it didn’t seem to matter as a pregnant pause hung. Olivia inhaled and twisted the key.

A great groan resounded. Olivia held her breath as she waited for the telltale signs of the wards resuming normal operation, for the shutters to roll up, for the lights flashing red across the console to turn green.

Everything remained the same.

Next to her, Ms. Callaghan dropped a string of expletives vile enough to cuddle milk. Olivia stared at her in shock. She surprised her almost as much as the warehouse not coming out of lockdown did.

Afraid to ask, but knowing she had to, she pushed on ahead and whispered. “Ma’am?” 

“It thinks it’s still in danger. The containment won’t end until it deems itself safe, going as far as to override our commands.”

“It?” Olivia echoed, reduced to one word questions. She wasn’t as dumb as to think she had learned everything about this wonderful and strange place, but this is a pretty big miss.

Ms. Callaghan let out a long exhale as she lifted the fine chain and looped it back around her neck. The key settled between her chest, but she tucked it into her shirt before she spoke again. “The warehouse is not sentient but with the layers and layers of spells covering it over the years, there is a sense of… something.” She shook her head, sounding more hesitant than usual. “I have only ever heard of this happening once before and it was before my time.”

Before her time? Ms. Callaghan had always given off the idea that she had been here forever. At least she had been here longer than any other agent or back office staff she knew. Olivia couldn’t imagine what before even looked like.

“What happened?”

“They waited. And we will have to too until our agents on the outside can eliminate the threat.” Ms. Callaghan set her hands on her hips, fingers drumming against her expensive-looking suit pants. “Olivia, try to get a message out to them. Find a loophole, any loophole in the system. I don’t care if we are resorting to banging out Morse code on the pipes. We need to let Agent Jackson and Agent Reed about our situation.”

The challenge brought forth a renew excitement within Olivia. It wasn’t every day she got the order to hack the warehouse and evade the notice of the protection spells. She was so there.

“Yes Ma’am!”

Ms. Callaghan nodded. “Get to it.”

***

Damien stalked to the kitchen, stifling a growl. He wanted to punch the wall. Instead, he gripped on to the edge of the sink, counting down in his head to calm himself. Because…

“Jackson?” 

Even through his shirt, he could feel Reed’s warmth as she laid her hand on his back and could hear the concern in her voice. But he didn’t quite regain the ability yet to reassure her he was fine.

“It’s not your fault.”

Fuck. Was he that obvious? No, his new partner was that perceptive.

“I should have seen it. Sensed it,” he muttered through his clenched jaws.

“You can’t put everything on yourself.”

He spun around to face her. “I am the senior agent. This is my responsibility. You are my responsibility. He whammied us and it could have been a lot worse, given the way I think he pulled it off.”

“How did he do it?” His partner remained calm, a voice of reason while he beat himself up over the rookie mistake. 

“Most likely a compulsion spell. He must have convinced us to believe him and that we want to move on to our next lead.” Damien slowed his last words, aware that Reed was leading them down a path with her line of questioning though he wasn’t sure what that was.

“So he took advantage of our pre-existing thoughts and feelings.” Reed nodded, more to herself than anything, and put both hands on his shoulders. It was enough to pull him out of his own spiral downward. “That means in order to not trip up your sense of magic, he had to be very subtle about it, gave little pushes rather than try to convince us of something we didn’t believe in the first place. If he tried to, say, nudge us to hurt one another, you would have sensed it and broke his hold right away. Which meant, you did protect us.”

Damien grimaced, but couldn’t fault her logic. But it still bothered him he hadn’t been able to detect the magic from the start, and he hoped she wasn’t misplacing her faith in him.

“Jackson. I know I’m new at this but I am also a full-fledged agent, not just your responsibility.”

He opened his mouth in surprise and shut it again. “You are—”

She held up a hand to stop him. “We are partners, right? That means we have each other’s backs. It’s not a one way street and you need to remember that.”

He breathed out at that and managed a smile for her. “You sure this is your first rodeo?”

She grinned. “Field agents back in my old division loved to take me along on missions.”

So what happened? He couldn’t help but wonder how she ended up being available for transfer. After all, her file from what he had read had been exemplary.

“Okay, partner. What’s next?” She was right. He needed to give her the chance to stand on her own. After all, she had already saved his life once.

Reed dropped her hands. “My guess is Sunny’s in the wind by now. But we need to go back to the house to check and see what we missed the first time. Then there’s his mom.” She pivoted and spun around to peer outside the kitchen. “But what are we going to do about Lacey?”

Damien grimaced. There was too much to do and cut off from everyone else, they didn’t have enough hands to cover all grounds. But at least he had an idea for their just-turned witness.

“If I remember right, there should be a supply stash keyed to us and that means standard issued tracking spells.” He moved past her to one cabinet, inching his hand underneath, measuring the length across the old scarred wood.

Ah ha. There. He took out his badge and swiped it. “The Hound requests assistance.”

A small whirring started, then stopped. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door again and grinned. It worked. Not that he had a doubt. Of course he didn’t. He perused the shelves until he found a vial of glitter. “Catch.”

Reed held out her hands, and he lobbed the tube to her.

“Wouldn’t she be able to shake the tracking off?”

He shrugged. “Probably. The point isn’t to track her forever, just long enough that we can find her when and if we need her. It should at least take her a few hours and we’ll have this resolved by then.” 

“Cocky.” There was a teasing lit in Reed’s voice that Damien found he rather liked. 

“Just confident.” He winked. He knew he sounded too sure of himself, but he needed to channel the confidence for both of them now that she had set his head back on straight.

Because he couldn’t afford to repeat any of his past mistakes.