The Agency, Volume I Read online

  He made me think of deer, of trees. Of peace.

  Of Tolkien.

  "You're an Elf," I said dumbly.

  "Yes, I am."

  "Then what is he? Some sort of vampire?"

  The other—Jason, I recalled—made a humorless noise something like a laugh. "There's only one sort of vampire."

  "I would have to disagree," the Elf said with a smile that was like the sun edging around a cloud. "You and Beck are almost positively different sorts of vampire."

  Now he smiled back, and there was an affection in the expression that made me wonder again if they were lovers. "Point taken. Now, if you'll kindly return to the point, SA-5?"

  "Of course."

  SA-5 tilted his chin toward the photograph that Jason, SA-7, had placed in front of me. "The object in the photograph, Ms. Larson. Have you seen it before?"

  I took a deep breath and noticed for the first time that my headache was totally gone. I nearly forgot the question, I was so shocked, but why it would surprise me that an honest-to-god Elf could heal a headache, I have no idea.

  I looked down at the picture. It was a little blurry, but the object in question was obvious: a stone sphere, some sort of banded pattern like tiger's eye, but in shades of red and black. I'd seen red tiger's eye before, but this was too brightly colored. The sphere sat on a stand made of a dull silver metal, fashioned after a bird's talon.

  I shook my head slowly. "No. The stone looks familiar, but the sphere itself, no. Is it tiger's eye?"

  SA-5 shook his head. "What you're looking at is known as Muertinite. This particular piece is called the Reaping Sphere. There were three made originally, and we have two in our possession."

  "Reaping Sphere. So, what, it kills people? It's cursed?"

  He tilted his head to one side. "Do not…what's the phrase? Play dumb, Ms. Larson. You're a trained Witch. You are well aware of the power inherent in crystals and gemstones. We found at least three dozen in your apartment of various kinds and shapes."

  I breathed deeply again. "All right. Muertinite, as in muerte, Spanish, I'm guessing, for death or dead. So it must kill people. What does it have to do with me?"

  "This Sphere was used by your former coven to kill James Harker and Leigh Ann Sellars. The high priestess of that coven told us that you had the Sphere, and had stolen it from the group in order to use it on your own."

  I blinked. "Owl tried to frame me for murder? Are you fucking serious? After they tried to force me to help them, and then voted me off their freak-ass island, they tried to sell me to the fucking FBI? That…that…"

  Jason folded his hands, and said helpfully, "I believe the phrase you're looking for is 'lying cunt.'"

  "That lying cunt!"

  I was on my feet, practically pacing. "Where the hell did they get that thing? It must have been through the store. WolfStar—can you believe what a stupid name he picked to be known to his gods by?—owned a Pagan supply store, he probably got it off Ebay or something. Blue Moon was a reputable coven when I joined, right after Foxglove retired. Things were fine for the first two years, then they…there were all these secret meetings, and…wait…” I stopped, faced them again. "You don't believe her, do you?"

  SA-5 and SA-7 exchanged a look. "No," SA-5 answered. "I knew she was lying before she opened her mouth, just as I knew you weren't. The search of your apartment turned up no evidence of the Sphere, and it's obvious you'd never seen it before."

  "And we're not FBI," SA-7 added.

  "Then…who are you people?"

  "We're the SA," he said. "The Shadow Agency. On paper we're a branch of the FBI specializing in classified weapons technology."

  I sat back down. "I guess that's a front. Unless there are Elves and vampires in the FBI too."

  "It would be a cold day in hell," SA-7 said, disdain clear in his tone. "The SA is dedicated to evaluating and eliminating potential occult and supernatural threats to national security. We keep tabs on every major magical and psychic power in the country. We have files on every coven, every secret society, every ceremonial group, and every idiot named Raven in America, harmless or otherwise." He tapped the folder in front of him. "This is your former coven."

  He opened it again, and I saw sickeningly familiar faces…but not mine. "Shouldn't I be in there too?"

  The Elf smiled, reached into his cloak, and pulled out another file. "You have your own, Ms. Larson."

  "Do I want to know why?"

  "You have what we classify as a level 7 psychometric gift, and your secondary gift is at…I would say…a 4 or better, possibly a 5 to 6 with proper training. Even without the Blue Moon issue, you would be of interest to us."

  "You've been watching me? That's a breach of privacy! What is this, England?"

  "England has its own problems. The Shadow Agency doesn't answer to the same sets of regulations as other law enforcement agencies. We deal with nonhuman citizens, powerful psychics, weapons that defy conventional physics."

  "Don't I still have rights?"

  SA-7 cast his eyes around the room, then to my face. "You're in a windowless interrogation room being questioned about occult murders by a vampire and an Elf, Ms. Larson. You have bigger problems than privacy right now."

  The Elf gave him a mildly irritated look, then said, "I think we've kept this poor woman long enough, Jason. I'm sure that if we have more questions about her associations, and we don't come in guns blazing and tear up her home, she'll cooperate."

  The vampire stared at me again, then shook his head. "Too risky. We'll have to wipe her memory and send regular FBI next time."

  I sat back hard. "Wipe my…what now?"

  "You can't leave this room knowing what you know about the Agency."

  "I won't tell anyone—"

  The Elf reached over and put his hand on the vampire's arm. SA-7 paused in whatever he was about to say to counter my assertions, and stared at the hand, seeming surprised, and even a little flustered, his words dying on his lips.

  Withdrawing his hand, the Elf pointed out, "She isn't safe if this Wolf person has made threats against her life. Until we find the Sphere we should assume she's a target."

  "What do you suggest, then? We can't very well turn her loose with her memory intact."

  He opened my folder and withdrew a stack of blank forms. Beneath the stack I saw what looked an awful lot like my most recent resume.

  "Ms. Larson," the Elf said, "we can offer you protective custody and relocate you outside of Austin, but I have another proposal you may find more appealing."

  Now the vampire looked bewildered. "Rowan, what the fuck—"

  I looked down at the stack of papers.

  It was a job application.

  "We're in need of an admin," SA-5 said. "Filing, general office tasks, possibly some logistical backup for our field Agents. Nothing terribly glamorous, but it pays double your current salary. Room and board are covered, as is health care. All Agency personnel live on base."

  "Why…why me?" I stuttered, staring at the application as if it were a unicorn. Christ, maybe they had them here too.

  The Elf pointed at my file. "You've already been pre-approved, pending official paperwork and a final interview with the Director of Operations."

  "Do I have time to think it over?"

  "Thirty seconds," he said with a smile.

  "Can I bring Pywacket?"

  "He's already here," the Elf replied. "He scratched the hell out of SA-14."

  "And if I say no?"

  "You'll wake up tomorrow with no memory of the last 24 hours. But I can't guarantee your ex-covenmates won't try to harm you. As part of the Agency you can help us bring them to justice and stop them from killing anyone else. You can help us, Ms. Larson. Out there, you're just a file clerk who talks to buildings. Here, you'll be part of something extraordinary."

  I looked from Elf to vampire, one face open, the other hard; I looked at sheaf of paper in front of me. It was standard government-issue complete with boxes for my SSN and
birthdate. The official seal of the Shadow Agency, Texas branch, was stamped atop each page: a stylized bald eagle perched atop a pentacle, with a Latin motto beneath. I puzzled at the words until the Elf translated them for me:

  "Ten thousand gods, five hundred races, one people."

  I took a deep breath, and met his bright green eyes. "Got a pen?"

  The New Girl

  "Well, Py," she said, sitting down on the brand-new, plastic-covered mattress with a loud crinkle, "Here we are."

  The cat gave her a withering look and set to performing his feline yoga, a Butt Salutation, while he licked his back leg and pointedly ignored her. He had in fact been angry with her since the night before, when armed FBI agents had stormed their apartment, then she'd disappeared while someone called SA-14 had stuffed Py into a carrier and brought him here...wherever here was.

  She'd been told by the friendly guard with the big gun that the Shadow Agency's campus was west of Loop 1, back behind Camp Mabry. It was in fact disguised as part of the University of Texas research complex, and looked to all outward eyes like a big brick campus building, three stories and carefully-manicured grounds, one of dozens like it around Austin, totally innocuous and unremarkable. Most of the employees and Agents of the SA lived aboveground, where she was. The majority of the nonhumans and a few others lived underground.

  The main command center and most of the classified operations were below the surface, too, branching off something just called "The Floor." The diagram she'd been given depicted the Floor like the middle of a spider web, with training rooms and archives and living quarters branching off of it in all directions.

  Sara hadn't seen any of that yet. Her tour below was scheduled for Monday, her first day on the job. Today, Saturday, she was free to walk around the upper levels and familiarize herself with the layout. At her orientation on Monday morning she would receive her security pass for the Floor.

  She'd spent a restless night in an empty, windowless room on the most uncomfortable excuse for a bed she'd ever dealt with, worrying about her belongings, fending off nightmares about guns and shouting men. She'd lain awake remembering the two creatures who had interrogated her, and that was no more comforting than her dreams.

  Vampires. Elves. Not only were they real, they were now her coworkers.

  What in hell was I thinking?

  She'd spent an hour filling out the application forms, been shown to a temporary room, and given assurances that her possessions would be transferred to her new quarters by morning. The Elf--SA-5, whom the vampire had called Rowan at some point, she remembered--had been very sweet in promising to see to her cat's welfare personally. He had slipped her application into her file without even looking over it, smiled at her, and turned her over to the guards before vanishing down the same corridor that SA-7, the vampire, had taken earlier.

  And now, here she was, in her new home.

  "Here we are," she said again, as if to force herself to believe any of this was real. "Hi, my name is Sara Larson, and I work for the Shadow Agency, a top secret branch of the FBI that investigates the occult. Yes, I’m insane, why do you ask?"

  She stared around her, trying to make sense of her surroundings without dwelling too much on the fact that her life had suddenly become a prolonged X-Files episode. Her entire apartment had been packed up in a few hours into stacks of cardboard boxes that now surrounded her; each was labeled CLASSIFIED in huge black letters, but underneath was a smaller sticker that indicated which room the items had come from. Thank goodness she'd only been in Austin for a month, and had fled Houston with only what she could fit in her rented Corolla.

  She wouldn't need any cookware or anything like that; there was a cafeteria that saw to the varied needs of the diverse staff, and it was open all night and all day, presumably to feed those who were nocturnal...she found herself wondering if the vampire got his blood there. Did he have to stand in line with a tray? Drink it with a straw? And what did Elves eat, anyway? Morning dew and acorns?

  And what else worked here besides humans? Werewolves? Leprechauns? The Wizard of Oz?

  Her brain was spinning again. Too much, this was too much. She had to focus on something, something mundane and small, or she was going to blow a gasket.

  Sara forced herself to stand up and open one of the boxes. She could unpack. That was good and normal.

  Her new quarters were a small suite of rooms that seemed situated in the corner of the building. She had a small bedroom, a sitting room off that, a walk-in closet, and her own bathroom. Nothing luxurious, but bigger than she'd expected, and probably better built than her apartment had been. The walls were standard beige, the floor hard wood and bare. There was no decoration. The furniture was plain and utilitarian, with a bed and desk and bookshelf, overhead lights. There was a small sofa and TV stand in the sitting room, and a mini fridge with a microwave.

  She'd moved to Austin with nothing, so she had nothing here, furniture-wise; she wondered if they'd let her have more shelves. She had a lot of books, a TV, a reasonable collection of DVDs, and a set of speakers to connect to her iPod. That was really about it.

  One of the bookshelves was about the right height for an altar. She should set that up first; maybe having incense burning, assuming that wasn't against regulations, would make her feel less panicky.

  She walked past the desk to try moving the shelf, and noticed a folder there with the SA seal on it. "Welcome to the Shadow Agency Living Quarters," it proclaimed in sober silver lettering, as if she'd booked a room at the Hyatt and would find the room service menu and concierge phone extension inside.

  The folder contained lists of rules about what she could and couldn't do to her new home. Painting was allowed, but only using an approved zero-VOC organic paint that could be requisitioned through Housekeeping. Incense, she saw, was permitted "within tolerance of nearby residents." Candles were not to be left unattended. Trash pickup, laundry pickup...it was like a cross between a dorm and a hotel.

  Also in the folder was a requisition form for additional furniture, a more detailed map of the surface level building, a phone extension list, a guide to getting on the Agency network...which was pretty useless to her at the moment, as she had no computer. Her faithful Mac laptop had finally died the week before she'd moved here to Austin, and until she got a job she'd had no hope of replacing it. Temp work had been a last resort when her usual interviewing skills had failed her.

  It occurred to her to wonder, for the first time, if Blue Moon had had something to do with her streak of ill luck. They'd threatened her, lied to her, tried to frame her for murder. What was a little hex between exes?

  The magma of rage rose in the back of her throat, and she dug her fingernails into the paper she was holding until it started to wrinkle. Blue Moon--the people she'd pledged to support and defend. Her covenmates. They were supposed to do the same for her. She'd stood in Circle with them, called upon the old gods, celebrated the eight holidays of the Pagan year...danced...chanted, called up power the mainstream believed a fantasy...and they had betrayed her, broken her trust under their collective heel. They had killed.

  "I'm going to stop you," she murmured, feeling dizzy with anger. "I'm going to stop you." She looked down at the Agency seal. "We're going to stop you."

  Sara took a deep breath, grounding herself, and turned back to the pile of boxes. "Okay. Altar. One step at a time, girl."

  As she stripped the packing tape from the first box, she heard a knock at the door.

  "Come in," she called, a bit uneasy as to what might cross the threshold.

  To her relief, the head that poked in was perfectly ordinary--a messy-haired young man in a dark blue lab coat, wearing a clip-on badge with his picture.

  "You must be the new recruit," he said with a cheerful grin. "I'm Frog."

  She stared at him. "Frog? So, are you, like, an amphibian of some kind?"

  His grin grew wider. "Nope. 100% regular human being. I'm your next-door neighbor. I work in Research
and Development."

  "So why do they call you Frog?"

  He shrugged. He was kind of cute, in a geeky way, with his horn-rimmed glasses and slightly crooked nose. He reminded her of every guy she'd dated in high school, and, lucky for him, he looked nothing like a frog. "I keep frogs," he explained. "I have three Poison Darts and a Peruvian Laughing frog."

  "Oh. Well, I'm Sara. Larson." She gestured at the now-retreating grey rear end of her cat. "That's Pywacket."

  "What?"

  She smiled. "Pywacket. He's named after the cat in Bell, Book, and Candle--you know, that old movie with Kim Novak, about the witches?"