Chapter 2 #3
I continued on until I reached my car. It was a nondescript Toyota sedan and not my usual style of vehicle—at home, I drove a small but sporty lime-green BMW—but this was a rental and wasn’t costing me anything, so I wasn’t about to complain.
I jumped in, hit the Start button, then did a U-turn and made my way across to the Brisbane sub-office.
While Head Office had always been located in Canberra, they now had teams in every major city, thanks to the fact that all kinds of magical fuckwittery had spread its wings across Australia.
Each sub-office was usually manned by a commander, four to six investigators, and a lawyer.
Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane also had full forensics and tech teams, but personnel numbers in the other capitals were restricted.
It was also Society policy that any event involving any high-profile royal-blood witch was by order referred back to Canberra to deal with, which was why Ginny and I had been sent here in the first place.
Lowell had, of course, been against our arrival, adamant his team could handle a simple protection detail. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was relieved or vindicated now that it had all gone pear-shaped.
I parked in one of the spaces on the other side of the road, then climbed out and tugged on my coat.
There was parking underneath the building, but I tended not to use underground parking if I could at all get away with it, thanks to a totally irrational fear of small dark spaces.
Said fear had been born from the time my bratty brother—Samuel, not Michael—locked me in a basement wardrobe during a game of hide-and-seek, only to forget about me for six of the longest hours of my life.
It was only when Mom had asked him to find me for dinner that he’d remembered.
He’d gotten merry hell from our parents for that little adventure, but I’d gotten back at him a month later by hiding his precious game controllers.
He and I adored each other, both then and now, but it was fair to say that as kids we’d taken great delight in annoying the hell out of each other.
The wind was cooler this close to the river, though the reflections from all the colorful lights lining the bank on the other side danced across the dark water, giving it a rainbow glow that made me smile appreciatively.
I slung my handbag over my shoulder, locked the car, then walked across the road and ran up the steps to the long, squat, and rather plain brown brick building that housed the Brisbane team.
Once I’d dug my ID out and scanned it, I entered, my heels echoing on the tile floor as I made my way past the reception desk.
The guard manning it nodded in greeting, then pressed the button to allow me through the secondary entrance.
The hall beyond was silent and shadowed, the lights flicking on as I approached then turning off again once I’d passed.
The four doors here—three on one side and one on the other—were interview rooms and a larger conference space, the latter rarely used from what I’d been able to gather.
The beating heart of the building lay behind yet another set of doors.
Three security points was overkill in my opinion; hell, even Canberra didn’t have this much “real” security, but maybe that was because we didn’t really need it.
Only a very foolish witch, mage, or even a supernatural entity would dare test the vast netting of spells woven around and through head office’s building.
I went through the final security point and heard the soft murmur of conversation. Two of the voices I didn’t recognize. The third was Lowell.
I swore silently. I’d been stupidly hoping that he’d gone home for the night, but after everything that had happened, it was no real surprise he remained.
But his presence meant more damn questions, and all I really wanted to do was finish the audit, return to our assigned apartment, and get some damn sleep.
I took a deeper breath that did little to ease the annoyance that pulsed through me, then reached for my politest smile and opened the door.
The office beyond was pretty standard—six desks, each one surrounded on three sides by half-height dividers, a long conference table close to the windows with eight chairs around it and, at the far end, Lowell’s office, which ran the entire width of the room.
He was sitting on the conference table, chatting to a woman and a man.
The auditors, if the odd energy that ran around them was anything to go by.
He was a big man with ruddy-colored skin, buzz-cut crimson hair, and muddy gray eyes, and one of only five half-bloods working for the Society.
His mother—an Ashworth—had, according to the rumor mill, decided the man her family had lined up for her to marry wasn’t to her taste at all, and had instead run away with Lowell’s father, a human with a dermo-optical perception—an unusual ability that allowed him to receive sensory stimuli through his fingertips without needing sight or light.
Lowell had inherited his mother’s power and his father’s perception, and it was a combination that had seen him rise through the sub-office ranks quicker than usual.
Unfortunately for his ambitions, it was also a combination that was nowhere near strong enough to allow a transfer to head office—a reality, I suspected, that was the cause of the resentment festering deep in his soul.
It hadn’t yet tainted his soul’s energy, but if he wasn’t careful, it would.
And if that happened, well, it was a slippery slope from there to the darker side of witchcraft.
Not that I’d seen it, but Owen—my ex—had told me multiple stories about such witches and the heinous situations it had gotten them into.
“What the fuck happened out there, Agent Kang?” he growled the minute he saw me. “I thought you had the situation under control?”
I stopped a couple of meters away from the three of them and clasped my hands behind my back.
Technically, he wasn’t my boss—Ginny and I were working in conjunction with Lowell and his team rather than being subordinate to them—but I’d learned very early on in my career that it paid to be respectful when stepping into someone else’s territory.
As Mom had a habit of saying, honey attracted more bees than lemons.
“I did, right up until the moment we were hit by black magic.”
Lowell scowled. “How can you be sure the magic was black? Have you come across it before?”
“No, but I think the fact I was stalked by a demon of some kind in the midst of it was a dead giveaway, sir.”
Annoyance flickered briefly through his expression—the man did not appreciate any sort of backchat—but all he said was, “And the bridesmaids?”
“Left the venue. Jack is chasing some leads for me now.” I hesitated. “Has Monica’s father been apprised of the situation?”
“Not as yet. We were waiting for the full report before anything was said.”
Meaning he still didn’t entirely believe I was telling the truth. “Do you want me to contact him?”
“No. That will be handled by Ms. Ashworth herself. Once your report has been made, it will be immediately sent to her.”
It was no surprise Sophie wanted to break the bad news personally, given the Society was only here in the first place because she was doing a favor for Tane.
Lowell glanced at the two people sitting nearby. “Greta, you and Frank had best get on with the audit. I’ll be sitting in the observation room.”
They nodded, pushed to their feet, and motioned me to follow.
The audit room was a psi and magical dead zone, preventing the use of either while not affecting the auditor or reader.
I sat on the only chair in the room. Greta stopped and knelt in front of me, while her partner walked over to the table holding the small camera system and hit the Record button.
“Right,” Greta said, “for the sake of the records, please state your full name, your status, and your reason for being here in the Brisbane office.”
I did so.
The woman glanced at her partner. “Sound coming through clear?”
Frank gave her a thumbs-up. A man of few words, obviously.
Greta’s gaze returned to mine. “I take it you know how this all works?”
“You’ll connect to me psychically, and while I’m making my report, you’ll bring the memories to life, thereby ensuring if there is any difference between my statement and my memories, the camera will catch and record it.”
“With verbal confirmation from me of the variation,” she added, with a nod. “Do you mind if I touch your hands?”
While not all readers needed physical contact to do their thing, most of them seemed to prefer it.
Apparently it made the connection stronger for them.
I upped the shielding around that darker part of me—though in truth it wasn’t necessary in rooms as well protected as these things tended to be, but better safe than sorry—then held out my hands and said, “Go for it.”
Her palms rested on my hands, and the faint buzz of energy surrounded me. “Please proceed with your report.”
I did so, starting from the moment Monica and her friends had walked into the rave venue and finishing with the discovery of the absent bridesmaids and the two leads Jack was still chasing down.
As I spoke, it played out as a movie to the side of us; it was almost as if someone was manning a projection camera behind my eyes.
By the time I was done, my head ached like a bitch, and all I wanted to do was go home and sleep for the next ten hours. Given tonight’s events, and the fact I still had to chase down the bridesmaids, I’d be lucky to get a quarter of that.
Greta rose and patted my shoulder. “You should go rest.”
“I should. I probably won’t.”