Chapter Twelve
Darren took shallowbreaths and tried to ignore the way Kavon's weight on his right side made his body tilt and his muscles ache. Despite the physical pain it caused, he needed the emotional connection right now. “Coretta is going to be annoyed that he didn't get a statement,” Darren said. Of course, she was far more likely to blame Kavon than Les.
“Wait,” Darren said as Kavon’s earlier words finally filtered through his drug-addled mind. “Did you say Assistant Director White was here?”
Kavon sighed. “You were attacked on a public street.”
“I was in an SUV that was attacked, and I’m pretty sure White doesn’t show up every time an agent wrecks a car. Hell, I was still trying to come up with a good cover story.” Depending on the damage to the building, the attack might exceed even his ability to lie. As much as Salma had always talked about the power of the durance, Darren hadn’t thought of a guide as a creature capable of throwing an SUV. Sure, Bennu had the raw power, but he didn’t have the precision or inclination.
“I don’t think a cover story is possible,” Kavon said, but then he never liked even the little lies. Darren was more morally flexible on that front.
“Why not?”
“Between the three guides on that street, we appear to have blown up a good chunk of the street, so....” Kavon shrugged. Weariness and shame rolled off him like a heavy fog.
“Oh.” Darren didn’t know what else to say. Their record couldn’t look good at this point. Even before Bennu, Kavon had a reputation for property damage. Darren wondered if Bennu had ever given Kavon’s spells a little push back then. But now... it was as if they were on a regular schedule. Take out a street every twelve months, a building every eight.
Kavon drew a gentle circle with his fingers over Darren's sternum. “White is worried about how you're doing.” Kavon’s touch warmed Darren, and he longed for more even as he knew his body wouldn't handle it well.
“How angry is he?” Darren asked. When he lowered his barriers, the magic flowed between them.
“He’s not. He’s treating this like an attempted murder and he’s having Unit Three investigate.”
Darren frowned. Maybe the center was giving him the good drugs because that made no sense. “What exactly are they supposed to do?” Darren had a lot of respect for Unit Three. There were some damn good investigators on that team, but none of them had any experience with Talent. And at least two of them were mildly anti-Talent. They used to show a certain sympathy toward Darren for being stuck on a Talent team. They weren’t Darren's first choice for investigating a Talent-based crime. “I thought Coretta had the scene?”
Kavon didn’t say anything for several minutes. Darren could not handle Kavon going into shutdown mode. Not now. Finally Kavon said, “She does. And White can't pull her until someone makes a decision about what to do with the magic that spilled onto that street. But he wants someone objective to investigate the actual attack.”
“Spillage? Bad?”
“I assume. Coretta says that the dead magic on the street is bigger than anything she's ever seen.” Kavon sounded so damn neutral and unemotional, but the bond screeched like fingernails down a chalkboard.
Coretta had been there for O’Brien’s failed spell, for Bennu’s magical storm when they’d bonded, for the gas station incident, and the aftermath of Angel Zamora’s showdown with Luschesce, when Bennu had dropped a fucking nuclear bomb of magic. And now they had created the biggest spill yet. Fuck, no wonder the black market for magical objects was in overdrive. Darren let out a shaky breath.
Kavon kept tracing circles against Darren’s shoulder, and his body warmed Darren’s side. “White is considering having the Djedi Center investigate, but we’ll have to see what he decides to do.” Kavon had a stillness that suggested he was trying hard to control his reactions.
“How much does he know?” Darren asked softly. In the past he had avoided asking questions about the politics of Kavon’s job. But Darren had too many unknowns in his life right now. He needed information.
“Not much.” Guilt flooded the bond, but so did a perverse determination. Kavon was tying himself into an emotional knot. He continued. “I told him someone could be targeting me for my work for the FBI or my position on the Council, but in either case, attacking you would disable me.”
“So you left out the whole part where a durance from another universe is threatening to declare war?” Darren summarized.
“I trust White, but do you trust everyone who would read his reports?”
“Okay, you might have a point there, but this war is going to affect mundanes, too. They have a right to know they might wake up to find a sizable percentage of the population slaughtered by invisible aliens from another dimension.” Darren understood Kavon’s concerns. If someone in the top levels of the FBI had an anti-Talent bias, this would be fodder for them. And given how many of the rank and file officers were borderline anti-Talent, it was reasonable to assume there were assholes at the top as well. But the situation might burst into public view any time. Up until this point, Darren had assumed Bennu could handle the durance. Now... he simply wasn’t sure. “White understands politics better than we do, couldn't we tell him our concerns?”
“And what?” Kavon demanded. “Ask him to violate his oath by concealing information on a terror threat against the United States?”
Darren wanted to rub his face in exasperation, but that would require moving. Kavon was assuming that White was as rule-bound as Kavon was. Darren wasn’t so sure. From what he’d seen, White was more the type to trust his subordinates to handle the details and focus on setting the unit goals. However, Kavon knew White better. Darren was still mentally debating whether to push the issue when Kavon changed the subject.
“Do you want to work on some healing energies?” Kavon asked.
“Yeah,” Darren said. “That would be awesome. Is your bull willing to share some energy, or do you want me to call Bennu?” The bull was far less likely to drop too much magic, so Darren trusted him more with the smaller spells, but sometimes the damn guide was as stubborn as Kavon.
Kavon closed his eyes and his guide appeared, snorting loudly and pawing the floor. After it had shuffled around in a circle and assured himself that no enemies were hiding behind the bedpans, the bull gave a weird snuffling noise and settled. “He will happily help,” Kavon said. His freckles glowed with a subtle blue shamanic light.
An expanding bubble forced its way into their bond, a pressure that felt almost like the air pressure change when an airplane took off, and then Darren’s ears popped . Kavon rested his palm against Darren's chest and his skin tingled. When the heat reached Darren’s collarbone, his whole body shuddered. Muscles tightened like the morning after a hard run, and the urge to stretch became overwhelming.
“That feels good.”
