“Can I remain on the West Coast?”
“Your domicile is still California at this time, correct?”
“Yes.”
“The SOA has three cities the Rapid Response Division works out of on the West Coast. Agents can be based out of Los Angeles, Portland, or Seattle. We can have you assigned to one of those at your request, but your cases won’t be limited by a state’s border. In fact, the case I want to assign you comes out of Seattle.”
Fatima perked up at that.Fish?
Spencer glanced at her. “Not yet.”
Fish when we get there. The red one.
“Fine, yes, I’ll get you salmon once we’re in Seattle.” He met Priya’s curious gaze and shrugged. “Sorry, she doesn’t talk to anyone else but me.”
“It’s fine. She’s been your psychopomp since you were a child, is that correct?” Priya asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We’ll be sure to take her needs into account as well. I understand you had a handler in the PIA but not a field partner?”
“Partners aren’t useful when in deep cover, and Fatima can hide herself. You won’t see her unless she wants to be seen.”
“Is she always an ocelot?”
“It’s the form she favors.” Spencer glanced at Fatima, who flicked her ears at him. “But she projects a different image in civilian areas sometimes. People see her how they want to see her in public. Usually as a fat housecat so they don’t panic.”
Fatima leaned over and gently nipped his arm, nose wrinkling in distaste at his words.People are foolish.
Spencer dragged a hand down her spine, scratching his fingers through her tawny gold-and-black-spotted fur. “That they are.”
Priya folded her hands over her desk, studying them. “I’ll be frank with you both. The federal government employs two necromancers, one of whom is assigned to the SOA. With you now in our ranks, I think it might be best if we handle your placement the same way we’ve handled Special Agent Dandrige’s. You’ll have a supervisor you report to out of your assigned field office, whichever one you ultimately choose, but I’ll grant you direct access to my desk and open communications with Legal here in DC if you feel a need arises. I won’t assign you a field partner since you have Fatima.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t find anyone who’d be comfortable around us?” Spencer didn’t take it personally; people had felt that way for his entire life.
Priya sighed tiredly. “Not for lack of trying. But I thought you’d prefer working alone with support from a field office and our headquarters as opposed to working with a partner you’d never truly trust simply because they wouldn’t trust you and your magic. If that changes, we’ll revisit the issue.”
Spencer was well past the years when he’d been bitter about such things. The people he considered friends were few and far between, and these days, he was content with them and had no desire to make new ones. “I appreciate the frankness, ma’am. So, this case you want to give me. Will I be hunting down missing artifacts?”
“One in particular.” Priya reached for a folder on her desk, Eyes Only stamped on the cover. She flipped it open and handed it to him. “The Ouroboros Mirror is an artifact used to channel spirits and demons to possess people. We think it went missing around the same time the Morrígan’s staff did. Considering its possession properties, we anticipated its use in the field a few years ago but never saw it deployed.”
Spencer read through the cover sheet on the file, identifying key details in the summary, before turning the page to study the archival photographs. He picked one up that showed the Ouroboros Mirror head-on, the opaque glass barely reflecting anything, not even the light in the room it must have been in.
It was several feet in diameter and circular in shape. The glass was set in a gold frame depicting a snake eating its tail, with the head and tail set at the top. The mirror took its name from the Ouroboros, and in one of the zoomed-in pictures, Spencer could see that the snake’s eye wasn’t a jewel, but more opaque glass. Archival notes indicated the eye could be removed from the frame, but they were unclear on how that would affect the overall spellwork, so it never had been.
“It was first discovered during the San Francisco World’s Fair in 1915. It’s changed many hands since then before it came into the government’s possession during the Cold War,” Priya said.
“Let me guess. Someone wanted to use it to spy on the Russians.”
“I can’t speak to the reasoning on past administrations, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Spencer sifted through the photographs, studying the Ouroboros Mirror from different angles. The back of the frame looked to be metal, with runes for a spell etched across it. The spell took up the entire space, and the translation included in the file made him grimace.
“All this power just for possession? What’s the catch?”
Priya tapped her finger against her desk in a measured beat. “Analysts believe it might be capable of summoning a specific, powerful demon, but no research has come up with a name. We’re unclear on the sacrificial or blood element, if there is one.”
Spencer set the translation document back in the file, thinking about what could’ve happened if Ethan Greene’s necromancer, Ilya Nazarov, had been in possession of the Morrígan’s staffandthis Ouroboros Mirror. It didn’t paint a pretty picture.
