Chapter Sixteen
Kavon took a deep breathoutside his boss’s office. This might be his last moment as a supervisory agent if White wanted to get technical with the rules. However, it was time to worry about the world, not his career. At least Coretta was in place if Kavon got demoted or fired.
“Come in,” White called.
Kavon felt a tug at the bond, and he locked his emotions down tighter. Darren didn’t need to feel any of this. Before heading into White’s office, Kavon schooled his expression. “Thank you for meeting on such short notice,” Kavon said.
White stood. “Considering everything that’s been going on, when one of my agents wants to speak with me about Talent crime, I’ll make room on my schedule. I have to say, the formality of your tone is concerning. Take a seat. What's on your mind?”
“The attack outside the hotel yesterday.” Kavon settled into one of the visitor’s chairs.
Any trace of levity vanished from White’s voice. “Is Agent Oberton okay?”
“He is.”
“Glad to hear it.” White settled down behind his desk. “From the reports I heard, he was seriously injured.”
“Being a shaman has a few perks, if someone has access to enough power to heal someone.”
White closed the files on his desk and pushed them to one side. “He’s a lucky man. But I get the feeling that's not what you wanted to talk about.”
Kavon felt as if he was preparing to jump out of an airplane without a parachute. “I wanted to talk about the guide that committed the assault.”
“The guide? I thought guides were tools that shamans used.”
Kavon might have allowed that misconception to stand too long. He now regretted passing up all the small moments when he could have shared information about how shamans worked. “Guides have minds of their own. They take animal form because they prefer certain behavioral patterns.”
“Which is exactly why profilers are always interested in learning a shaman’s guide. I understand that.” White leaned forward, his elbows propped on his desk. “However, I thought guides didn’t act on this plane of existence, not without a shaman’s or adept’s encouragement.”
“Guides are independent sentient creatures,” Kavon corrected him. “They make choices that run contrary to their human partners all the time. Sometimes I fight my bull for hours before he’ll give me the power for some shamanic ritual.” Those had been difficult days, and Kavon had learned to rely on his FBI training because his bull had been so recalcitrant. Even now, Bennu provided the power more often than Kavon’s bull.
Kavon continued. “Many guides choose to connect to animals, and over time they will start to use the form of the animal. That does not mean they are animals themselves. They have their own thoughts and needs and desires.”
“Are you telling me that it was a guide and not a shaman that attacked you on the street?” White’s expression twisted in horror. He was probably thinking about jurisdiction and extradition. It wasn’t as if laws applied to the spirit plane.
“I'm not sure,” Kavon admitted. He wished he had answers, but he didn’t. “Most guides won’t take independent action. But some older guides play by different rules, and while those older guides have avoided the world in the past, the situation is changing.”
“This is sounding ominous.” White picked up a pen and tapped it against the notepad.
“It is, and quite frankly I'm not sure how to navigate the political waters.” Kavon explained with the durance and docent as succinctly as possible, although he kept Bennu’s identity and his partnership with Darren to himself. He believed in giving Assistant Director White all the pertinent information, but he wouldn’t put Darren, or Zach Johnson, at risk by having them identified as a docent partner in official paperwork. He ended with, “Sir, I trust your judgment and your political acumen, and I am asking you to keep as much of this conversation confidential as you can.”
White sighed. “Two years ago, I came to you with one file on the top of the pile and I asked you to consider Agent Frane for your team.”
Kavon didn’t understand the topic change. “Yes, sir. I understand why. On paper, her experience fit well with my team.” At the time, Les had been fairly new and Rima was in her thirties, but she still looked like a teenager when she wore jeans. That unfortunate genetic quirk meant that previous team leads had kept her out of the field. With the exception of himself and Coretta, none of the team had serious long-term field work. “If anyone should have noticed Agent Frane’s schemes, it should have been me.”
“I shouldn’t tell you this.” White paused. “Frane was on desk duty the year before she transferred to your team.”
“Agent Frane was an analyst. I understood she was on desk duty most of her career.”
White huffed. “In a manner of speaking. Before she was on limited duty, she went out with teams and acted as the liaison and technical on-scene coordinator. Her team was out in the field when a local department in Minnesota realized she had Talent.”
Kavon got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. If the department was anti-Talent, that would be a lot of temptation—a magic user, isolated, surrounded by armed mundanes. He looked at White with horror.
Perhaps White recognized Kavon’s horror, because he rubbed a hand over his face. “I threw the weight of this office behind the investigation, but local police had... held... Agent Frane for two hours before her team called in. They cleaned up the evidence, and all my threats were useless when the DA had no physical evidence and Frane had been blindfolded. Three officers were dismissed, but that was to placate us.”
White stood and moved to his window. For a time, he stared out over Ninth Street. “I understand the danger the Talent community faces, and I will not expose more of my people to prejudice or hatred. Unless one of these ancient guides targets my agency, I will maintain operational security on this case the way I would any other.” He turned back to face Kavon. “And I might neglect my report writing. So how old, how independent, and how powerful are these old guides?”
Kavon felt the determination and guilt rolling off White like waves of low-lying fog. Most of the time, he was one of the most controlled mundanes Kavon knew, but now his emotions were obvious to anyone with skills related to emotional reading. Ignoring his instinct to hide information, Kavon decided to put his faith in White. He outlined everything he knew or suspected about their enemy.
