Chapter Twenty-Two
“Did you get a text?” Darren asked as they navigated morning traffic.
“No.” Kavon had hoped to hear back from Angel, but he wasn’t surprised at the continued silence. If anything, he respected that the man felt the moral weight of having to take a life. Before their conversation the previous day, Kavon had assumed Angel didn’t even have more than a passing understanding of morality.
“Anything from White?” Darren asked.
“I’m driving. I haven’t checked.”
“You should feel the vibration.”
“My phone is constantly vibrating.” If Kavon could’ve gotten away with it, he would’ve lost the damn thing down a sewer. But that was against the rules. The rules he had been breaking lately. Kavon was lucky that Darren was a forgiving lover because Kavon knew he didn’t have his head in the game. Getting an early morning call from Assistant Director White asking them to come in for a meeting hadn’t improved that.
“If we were actually trying to take a vacation, I would have made you lock that thing in the gun safe.”
“A week ago, I would have argued with you.” Now, he would, if not for the potential for Armageddon. Kavon felt a need to retreat and tend his emotional wounds. He had an uncomfortable suspicion that Angel had been right that Kavon was all bluster and bravado. As a kid he hadn’t been attached to following rules. He sneaked out of the house. He told his siblings ghost stories after his mother had bodily threatened him if he didn’t stop traumatizing his little brothers and sisters. But then he’d joined the FBI.
He’d never fit in, but the rules... he’d held on to them because that was how he stood out by choice. If he made a big enough fit about the rules, people forgot that he was a large Black man. They didn’t care as much that he was a shaman. They could all hate him for the same non-prejudicial reason—Kavon was an asshole about the rules.
A migraine gnawed on the edge of Kavon’s brain.
“I can feel that,” Darren said. When Kavon tried to shut down the bond, Darren caught him by the arm. “No, that’s not what I meant. I like being able to feel you, but I want you to stop beating up on yourself.”
Kavon grunted.
“You do guilt like my mother does chocolate,” Darren complained. He sighed. “And the way I do insecurity. Can we maybe focus on the fact that we might be getting written up? I wonder if he figured out that we’re the ones who asked Milton to request those files.”
“We aren’t getting reprimanded,” Kavon said.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because White would have written me up and assumed you were following orders.”
Darren didn’t say anything, but his general anxiety level did settle. He never liked conflict, which was ironic for an armed federal agent, especially one who had blown up a downtown street because of a petty conflict with a probationary agent who lacked ethics. Apparently, neither of them were perfect.
Kavon pulled into the garage and parked in the semi-empty corner closest to the Talent unit. With the additional agents on the team, the corner had more cars than usual, but other agents still avoided this part of the garage, either because they thought it was contaminated or because it was too far from the main elevators and stairs.
They headed into the building in silence. Darren was one step ahead, and Kavon rested his hand on Darren’s back.
“Mr. Tanner,” Kavon said to White’s assistant.
“The director is waiting. You can go in,” Tanner said. He didn’t do more than glance up at them before gesturing them on, which was a good sign. Kavon still felt a niggle of unease as he rapped on the door before opening it.
“Agent Oberton, Supervising Agent Boucher,” White said as they walked in. Kavon stopped when he spotted Halverson and McLean sitting around White’s conference table, along with a man Kavon didn’t recognize. He didn’t appear to have any shamanic Talent, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a magic user.
“Sir,” Kavon greeted White before he focused on the other two members of the shamanic council. “What are you doing here?”
McLean smiled. “We have a small conundrum.”
Given that she was allies with Thuya, Kavon didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her, but Darren moved around him and walked toward the pair, his hand out. “Nice to see you, again,” Darren said. McLean smiled at him warmly and shook his hand, and Halverson stood to do the same. Kavon gave White a suspicious look, but he shrugged.
“Agents Boucher and Oberton, this is Richard Smith from the attorney general’s office. Why don’t we all take a seat,” White suggested as he headed for the chair next to Smith. Kavon urged Darren toward the seat next to Halverson since he was far less of a threat with his politics and his blustering. McLean with her quiet nature and unknown powers worried Kavon more. That earned him a glare from Darren, either because he didn’t appreciate being put into the more sheltered position or because he didn’t like Halverson.
“Agent Boucher, I asked you to come in because you are the only shaman in a supervisory position, and this is a sensitive issue.”
Smith opened a file and started shuffling through papers. “Is it true you can identify a Native American shaman?”
He hadn’t expected that. “Officially, I have no comment, especially since it is illegal to identify Native shamans,” Kavon said. Bennu was the one with that ability, but Kavon had no idea how White or this man Smith had found out.
