Conjuring Quantico (The Federal Witch Book 1) (19 page)

The lab techs turned sheet white and backed slowly away from the hole in the floor. No one wanted to be locked away forever as being possessed.

I approached the hole and looked down. Carefully I telekinetically removed the items one at a time. A large bundle of money, jewelry, some odds-and-ends gemstones, and a small bag of what looked like coins. The coins were the danger.

“It’s the coins. That other stuff has a faint glow about it but it’s from contact with the coins. That glow should fade with time. Just store them separately and wear silk gloves if you have to touch them. The coins are another thing altogether. They are demonically enhanced.”

Nita grabbed Herman and dragged him over to the desk. I levitated the small bag and set it in front of him. Without opening the bag I could see they looked like gold.

“What are they and where did you get them? Let me tell you up front a few things. Demon worship is not illegal, but kidnapping is and if you don’t start talking right now, you are our only lead on four child abductions. You are looking at going away for a very long time.”

Dawn was sheet white. “Demons, Kidnapping, what the hell are you talking about? The man came in here to order the statues, he wanted twenty of them. Special he said. He paid up front and gave us all the designs and mold settings. He showed up the day of casting out of the blue and said he wanted those coins embedded inside the statues. I was like ‘Sure, anything you want.’ We poured the mold, and he watched as the coins went into the first batch. He slapped me on the back and left. I checked out the coins, saw they were solid gold and thought payday! I kept the rest and put washers in place of them in the other statues. How was he going to know? Right? He came back, picked up the order, and left.”

Nita could only shake her head at this guy. “Get him out of here. Agatha, can you get those to Anastasia? I don’t feel safe letting the regular human techs touch them.”

I nodded and reached into the backpack Cat was wearing. I had packed several silk bags to use for carrying artifacts or spell components. I carefully lowered the coins into the bag and then sealed them into an evidence bag. The forensics truck was just pulling in as we walked out of the building. Since the FBI had seized this warehouse and fenced area, it made a perfect spot to work from. Easy security once the cars were removed from the lot.

To preserve the chain of evidence, I handed the bag to Anastasia personally and watched as she signed for it. Procedure was very important in our job.

She got to work immediately analyzing the coins and looking for trace evidence. Other techs had the camera footage and were scanning for familiar faces and looking for our guy.

The techs found several underworld representatives and a drug runner on the tapes which explained why they were hidden. The DEA and RICO boys would find much of this very interesting, but it didn’t get us closer to our kidnapper.

Finally the tape rolled past a man I thought I recognized. “Stop. That guy. Back up a bit.”

The man in the picture was a very large man in a suit. The cameras were set too low the catch his face in the first scene. On the second visit they only caught his back and front of his shirt. The final shot was of him and Herman shaking hands. He leaned down to pick up the box of statues and his face was revealed.

“We’ve seen him before! It’s Senator Emery’s servant!”

Chapter 14

Senator Seymour Emery’s house was the first crime scene we’d visited. The man on the screen was the one who both answered the door and escorted him back up the stairs. This was bad. Senator Emery was a major mover and shaker in DC. He had a lot of money and was not afraid to use it. His was also the house where men attempted to break into our vehicle. This had the potential to be a political nightmare.

The command center was tightly filled with all the agents involved. “What do we know?” Nita looked very tired.

I looked to the whiteboards and studied them. The other agents filled in Nita with what we knew and didn’t know. Our prime suspect was a member of the Senator's own household. According to background checks run by Agent Mu’s team his name was Aalu Kovacic. He was of Croatian descent and had worked for the family for many years. We knew that the Senator was conducting his own investigation and had attempted to break into an FBI vehicle. Agent Mu was now being investigated for both that and some of his other orders by the FBI’s version of Internal Affairs. We had the statues and knew how they were constructed. But we had no proof connecting the Senator to the investigation. Only his hired help.

“Can we get a warrant to search the house?” Agent Smith, one of the original team members, voiced the question we were all thinking.

“With the evidence we have? I doubt it. He allowed us access to the child’s rooms before, but if he finds out we suspect him, he will cut that off quickly. Pull everything we have into a readable report. I will send it higher. This is going to suck.” She looked over at Cat and I. We were just about asleep leaning against the wall.

“Agent Smith, take temporary Agents Moore and Blackmore to the hotel and get them settled. Ladies, we will come for you when we have something actionable. So get some rest. You deserve it.”

We thanked Nita and followed Agent Smith out to our Suburban. A quick snap of my fingers dropped the shield I’d put up. The agent glanced at our bags piled in the back and told us to hop in.

“What hotel are we going to?” I was in the back watching the cars go by.

“We have rooms reserved at the King’s Inn for stay-over visitors. You two deserve it. For students you ask good questions.”

“Thank you Agent Smith. I studied everything I could get my hands on about the FBI when I was given the choice to join. Cat there is the same way. A friend of ours, Chuck, reads even more than we do.”

“It sounds to me like you have the makings of a good team. From what I remember from the Academy you may get that opportunity. Hold on to him or some other team may try to steal him.”

Cat almost growled. “They can try.”

The agent looked back at me in the mirror. I explained. “Cat is his Alpha. She is a bit possessive about some things.”

Remembering the floor safe the agent could only nod. “There: your hotel.” He pointed to a multi-story building on the left of the highway.

We didn’t have to check-in and Cat was able to carry the bags in. We said goodbye to the agent and got settled in. Our rooms were connected by a door. The room was on the third floor but I set my standard wards, anyway. I had just finished when Cat came in through the door. “Hey, whatcha doing?”

“I’m setting the wards for the rooms. Let me know if you want to go outside and I will make a hole.”

“Is it the same kind of ward you put on the car?”

“It’s a bit similar. The ward I put on the auditorium is just like it. Anyone of ill intent cannot get inside. We are safe here.”

“Thanks for bringing me along, Aggy. This has been fun.”

“You’re just happy you got to show off in front of all those agents.”

She rolled her eyes at me.

“Why don’t you call Chuck and rub it in? You know he has to be dying to know what we’ve done and who we’ve met. We can’t talk about the case, but we can mention Anastasia the Vampire.”

Cat ran back into her room and grabbed her cell phone. I could hear her chatting with Chuck and laughing. Fergus looked over at me from the table in the room. “Is hay all you brought? I could go for a salad right about now.”

I gave him a ‘really?’ look.

“Just saying. I’ve been listening to you and those FBI guys all day. And I had an idea on how you can get into the house.”

At this point any idea, even one that comes from a Unicorn, might be a good one. “What is your idea?”

“Use the daughter, the mother of Senator Memory’s granddaughter. Isn’t she the one that called the FBI originally, anyway?”

“It’s Senator Emery and yes she is. I will mention that to Nita. Good idea Fergus.” I laid out on the bed and flicked on the TV. Center stage in the news was the kidnappings. It only took a day for them to ferret out the reason for the investigation. So much for secrecy. There were camera shots of the FBI vehicles and some of the agents walking around. I didn’t like what the one reporter said about how insiders report that ‘Magical support brought in by Washington had sidelined the investigation’. That was a prod at Cat and I. Although completely untrue it could hurt Nita. I looked up her number and dialed.

She picked up after three rings. “Agatha is something wrong?”

“No we are OK. Did you see the news? What they are saying about Cat and I?”

“Calm down. We know it’s not true. Washington knows that it isn’t true. I checked with my boss. It seems that after Agent Mu was interviewed by internal review, he called a friend of his at the Post and spilled his guts about the investigation. He’s right out of the FBI. They revoked his credentials two hours ago. Charges are pending and he won’t be able to wriggle his way out of them at all.”

“Oh, OK. I was worried. How goes the case?”

“Not good. My boss says we don’t have enough to go against the Senator. He wields too much power in Congress to hit head on. Any hint of an investigation and he will come down very hard on us. We have to have solid evidence to even try.”

“Fergus had an idea on how to get inside the house.”

“Fergus, the Unicorn?”

“Occasionally a gem of truth falls out of his ass but yes the Unicorn has an idea.”

“Do I really want to know?”

“It’s not a bad one. What he suggested is that we use the child’s mother. She is the one that called us in the first place. We could go to her with either our suspicions or use her to get to the bodyguard.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea. I will say it came from you though. I really don’t want to write in my notes that a mouse-sized Unicorn is making the decisions here. Get some rest. I’ll send an agent for you in the morning.”

I relayed the information to Cat. She ended up in my room on the other bed. We both felt the big rooms were too much for us alone. The day had been incredibly long and both of us were very tired. I’m not sure what woke me up first, the man stuck to my window or my new bracelet.

I was so sure it was a dream. I heard a loud thump followed by my wrist getting suddenly warm and almost vibrating. For a moment I thought my cell phone was in bed with me. Then I heard the second thump. “Cat! Did you hear that? Cat?” I threw a pillow at my friend and roommate.

“Why is the rum gone? Wait… What? Did you throw a pillow at me?”

“Did you hear that?” I cocked my head to one side.

“You know I can hear everything. What is it I’m listening for?” There was yet another thump this time followed by a loud scraping noise and then a crash.

Cat looked at me and pointed toward the windows. “That noise? Yes. I heard something. Can I go back to sleep now? Maybe he’s still on the island waiting for me.” She fell back and covered her face with a pillow.

I looked at the clock. It read five in the morning. I blinked a few times to clear the sleepy out of my eyes. I crawled out of the nice warm and toasty sheets and pulled the drapes aside to look out. I screamed and jumped backwards!

“What! What is it!” Cat sat up in bed and was in a half-change. Her face contorted and changed as large needle teeth appeared and her eyes began to change.

“Cat stop your change! There is no immediate danger.” Once a Were starts their change it is almost non-reversible. Only the strongest Alphas have the capability to do what Cat then did. She slowed the process and reversed it. Every time she did it she got a splitting headache. I got up from the floor and grabbed a bottle of painkillers out of my bag and a glass of water.

I handed them to Cat as her face shifted back into the form that I liked the most. “Man that smarts! Thank you.” She took her medicine and glared at me. “What the hell was that scream for? I thought there was a killer in here or something.”

“Through my shield? Please. No, let me show you.” I stepped back over to the windows and opened the drape up. Stuck to the window and staring right at me was a man. His face was plastered right up against the window. He was frozen but completely aware. His eyes swirled in panic at his situation. There was another one higher up, all we could see was a foot stuck to the window. I stepped over to Cat’s room and peered through her windows and could see another man stuck upside down with his back to the wall just below the one that scared me. A rope dangled down from the roof and was flapping in the wind.

“Are they stuck to your shields like last time?”

“They are. I’m not releasing them without backup. Let me text Nita and let her know. Then I’m going back to sleep.” I pulled out my phone and took a picture of the man looking at me stuck to the window like a spider. I gave her a brief run-down of what happened and how many. Just for grins I forwarded the text to Anastasia. If anyone was awake over at the command center, it would be her. I pulled the drapes shut and went back to sleep.

~~~~

Forensic Tech Commander Anastasia Moondragon was in her element. She and her team had an entire warehouse and manufacturing plant to process and search. While she was pretty sure they had already found what needed to be found, it would give her people some much needed practice. So far this case was boring. She had just finished processing the molding equipment when her phone dinged. Looking at her watch she saw it was five. Way too early for anything official and there were very few that had her current number. She stripped off her rubber gloves and pulled out the phone. Hitting the View Pictures button, she started to chuckle. The candid shot of the man stuck to the window was priceless. The guy hanging on the wall was nice too. Scanning the text she decided to see if Nita had gotten it too.