P. Stormcrow

Finn didn’t want to get out of the car, but she steeled herself for heat outside even as she eyed the distance between them and the entrance to the theater. 

“You ready?” Jackson asked.

“You know, when you told me about this, I was expecting some smaller indie place, not one of the big box ones,” she muttered under her breath. It wasn’t the biggest or most popular location, but she had imagined in her head a dark old, run-down establishment. Aren’t those the kinds of places that are usually haunted?

She was jumping to conclusions again 

“Weird things could happen anywhere,” Jackson quipped, seeming to have recovered from his earlier confession.

Part of her hoped all he needed was to get it off his chest, but she knew they were both walking around wounded, just that his were older and more scarred over. But the appearance of Eve Albright had torn open some old hurts and now he was bleeding all the same. 

But they smiled, hid behind their gallows’ humor, and carried on. Because that’s what the job needed. 

“Right. So how do you want to play this?” 

“Let’s look around, see if we detect anything unusual. When the place opens, we can take bring the investigation inside.”

Finn nodded, glancing at her watch. They had hours before the theater would open for its early showing. She scanned the area again and looked longingly at the diner perched on the far corner of the lot.

“How about we review the case over breakfast first?” Jackson suggested, reading her mind. He had been doing that more of that the longer they worked together.

“I can use some food.”

Jackson grinned at that, but much to her chagrin, he exited the vehicle. She did the same more reluctantly, wondering why he couldn’t move the car closer, so she didn’t have to walk across the concrete desert. 

Okay, so she was a wuss when it came to this heat. With a sigh, she got out too and followed.

By the time they reached their destination, Finn had already built up a sweat so when the server gestured and told them to take a seat anywhere, she sank into the first booth, grateful for the air conditioning.

“Here, you look like you can use this, hon.” The same woman from before swung by and set down two glasses of water, half filled with ice. 

“Oh thank you,” Finn gasped, and fell on hers with gusto. The cold liquid went a long way to cooling her down.

The server chuckled and placed the menus in front of them. “Ya welcome. The name’s Macy. Just holler when you’re ready to order.”

“Thanks,” Jackson replied with his signature charming smile. 

For the next few minutes, they busied themselves looking over their choices. A wave of nostalgia hit Finn. Meals at the local diner with her father on Sunday mornings were one of the few things she missed from back home. 

“You good?”

Finn swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. “Yeah. I think Dad would like it here. There was this little restaurant he took me to for breakfast as a treat when I was little. Eventually, it kind of became the de facto place to meet up whenever we both had an off day.”

Jackson leaned forward, elbows braced against the table. “He was an agent too, wasn’t he?”

She shouldn’t have been surprised. Word had a way of spread, especially if one was a legacy kid and her dad had bounced around a few departments, making it to special agent-in-charge before retiring. Which was why she felt she had let him down when she had first received the news that they were transferring her to the Aberrant Control Division. 

“He was.” She didn’t elaborate.

“What about Mom?”

“She passed away when I was pretty twelve.” She shrugged. It wasn’t something she enjoyed talking about, even in her adult years. Old enough to remember what she missed, young enough to feel abandoned, growing up without her mother was not easy.

“I’m sorry.”

Finn gave him a brief, mirthless smile and pointed to the file. “So tell me more about the vics.”

Jackson accepted the abrupt switch in topic with grace, opening the folder and pushing it to her.

Three photos. Three faces stared back at her. Different gender, age and race. As he had noted earlier, there was nothing they had in common. But there must have been more than these three watching that movie, so why them? 

She switched to the deaths themselves. Same night. Same time. The manners of death all looked like accidents if not for the accounts witnesses gave. A fall from the top of the stairs. Furniture that fell over. Electrocution in the bathtub? It reminded her of the case of the murder dolls and Finn could not help but shudder.

“Here you go. Farmers for you—” Macy set the plate down, heaped with ham, sausage, bacon and toast—”and waffles and strawberries for the gent.” 

Finn’s eyes almost bulged at the mountain of berries and syrup all over the two massive waffles, and her teeth ached at the thought of all that sugar.

“Thank you.” Jackson beamed, but before their server stepped away, he called out again. “Macy, I was wondering if you can take a peek and let us know if you’ve seen any of these people around before.”

Macy lingered and gave the paper spread out on the table a cursory glance before eying them in a new light. After a second of hesitation, she turned back to the photos. “Ah, I remember her.” She placed a finger on the corner of a photo, the one of a young girl with a serious expression. “She came in with her boyfriend who looked like he did not want to be here at all. Poor thing. Got into a bit of an argument and stormed off by herself.”

Oh.

“Any of the others?” Jackson asked.

“No, sorry.” 

“Thank you.” Finn offered Macy a smile.

“Sure thing, hon. Holler if you need anything.”

As soon as she walked away, Finn turned to Jackson and lowered her voice. “What do you think?”

“Probably unrelated, but we can come back here later with our tools.”

Tools. Olivia had shown her the plethora of little throwback toys that had been repurposed as various detectors, wards and even weapons, but she had yet to use much of them. Usually, by the time she arrived at the scene, someone had already done most of the legwork.

“Eat.” Jackson pointed at her plate, then dug in himself. 

She started on her own meal and couldn’t help but make a small noise of satisfaction. When did she last had a full breakfast like this?

Maybe she needed to do this more often.

***

Finn stared at the small pink egg-shaped device in her hand for the umpteenth time, still having trouble processing the little ASCII creature on the screen prancing around.

“Explain to me why we aren’t using an EMF meter and are pacing the perimeter with these virtual pets?” she called out when it hit her at last what they were doing.

“Pft. those things are unreliable and for amateurs,” Jackson scoffed. “Keep an eye on your pet. If it acts pissed and erratic, it means it’s detecting residue energies.”

“What about your nose?”

He chuckled. “Sure. I can smell magic, but what if I wasn’t here?” When she grimaced at his reply, he waved her off. “These devices are just as accurate and they are more sensitive.”

Yeah right. Despite his explanation, Finn still felt ridiculous walking the perimeter of the theater with this thing in hand. Her only saving grace was that no one was around to see this. 

She had never gotten into these toys as a kid. How would she even know what—

The screen blitzed. The little creature made an angry face and bounced all like a ball. Whatever experience she lacked with these toys, she was still certain it wasn’t programmed to do that. “Um… Jackson?”

He fell back beside her and pulled out a kaleidoscope, pointing at one end toward the theater. “Wow.”

“What?” 

He passed the toy to her, and she mirrored his earlier movements, shuffling a gasp as the sight that greeted her through the peephole. Wisps of angry red energy swirled and writhed along the wall. 

“This must be the other side of the screen.”

The showing mentioned in the file was two days ago. If this was what the lingering traces looked like now, how bad would it have been on the day of? “What do you think it is?”

“Not sure,” Jackson muttered and pocketed the tools, taking the plastic egg from her as well. “We should head in and investigate.”

Finn checked her watch. Yeah, it was about time for a showing. “How do you want to play this?”

“Let’s go undercover. Retrace their steps, go catch the movie and see what happens.” He didn’t wait for her answer but reached across into his bag and dug around before withdrawing two sticks. “Here, Olivia gave me these earlier. New prototypes. She said the wards last much longer.”

She accepted one and watched him slap it against his wrist. The bracelet curled over him and glowed a faint yellow before it became an inert piece of plastic again. Wondering if the new ward would work for the entire movie, she strapped the thing on to herself before she looked up. To her surprise, he held out his arm.

“Shall we?”

Finn stared at him.

He laughed. “Undercover, right?”

The last time she had gone undercover, it had ended up in a disaster. Was he trying to help her form better memories? He had suggested trips to the first multiple times now, all of which she had turned down, telling him she wasn’t ready yet.

Well, she could handle this one. She mustered a smile and hooked her hand in the crook of his arm. “You’ve got yourself a date.”