Conjuring Quantico (The Federal Witch Book 1) (27 page)

Chapter 20

My head was killing me. I could almost swear that Fergus was kicking me in the forehead. “Fergus stop it or no more hay.”

“Hey, don’t pick on Fergus, he’s a cool little guy.” That voice was definitely not the Unicorn. I opened my eyes. Nita was standing over me smiling.

I reached up to rub my eyes. All I could see were spots interspersed with a double Nita. Blinking a few times I cleared them. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself. Are you awake now?”

“I think so. Where are we?” I was flat on my back on a not-so-comfortable bed staring up at a white ceiling and walls.

“You are in a local clinic that was just down the road from the plant. Nice job on the demon by the way.”

“The demon! It’s not dead, the head, did someone chop the head?” Holy crap if that thing got out again I don’t think I could take it again.

“I took care of that little detail for you. Next time don’t pass out. You did good work there Agatha. What made you think of using lava?”

“Earth and fire seemed to hurt it. It was all I could think of. Even then it was incredibly hard. I didn’t want a volcano rising just outside of Washington. Are the kids OK?”

“They are. Cat got them to safety and they are in a local hospital being evaluated. The last report I received was that they suffer from dehydration and are a bit hungry. The cult only fed them bread and water.”

“Did we get all the Bunis? I took out as many as I could.” I could remember hitting them with fireballs.

“We think that the ones here are taken care of. My boss is both happy and unhappy. We took care of the incursion here, but exposed a potential horde of problems.” She frowned for a moment.

“The Sorority?”

“Got it in one. That mess is being evaluated on a level higher than I can access. I was told to only worry about this issue. Once you are up, we need to finish clearing the cosmetics plant. How do you feel?”

“Like a herd of Unicorns are stampeding through my ears. I’m fine. Where’s Cat?”

“She is back at the plant climbing the walls waiting for you. Something about taking care of her Pack?”

My cheeks reddened. “Yeah, I’m one of the first Witches to be part of a Were Pack.”

“If anyone can pull that off you would be the one. She is a force to be reckoned with. Her warrior form is awesome! What does she shift into?”

“She didn’t do a full shift? Get her to show you sometime. It’s a surprise.” I sat up and the herd of Unicorns went away in my head. The room spun for just a moment. Swinging my legs around I started to stand and promptly sat back down.

“Stay seated for a minute. You need to let your body rest.”

The room finally stopped spinning. I looked down at my body and all I could see was a white gown. “Uh, where are my clothes?”

“They had to peel the armor off to check you. I wouldn’t let them cut your clothes off. Damn doctors get off on ruining them that way. You were only exhausted not hurt. You do have some bruises that look painful, but they say you will be fine.”

“Thanks. Where are my clothes?”

Nita laughed and pointed to the chair next to the bed. Everything was laid out in small piles ready for me.

Nita left the room while I got dressed. I found all of my things except for Fergus. I could only imagine the trouble he was getting into in the hospital. My bracelet was still on my wrist the doctors must have been surprised they couldn’t remove it. I flashed back on that final battle as I dressed. I was lucky. So very lucky that the demon didn’t kill me or the lava flow stopped when it did. I made a mental note to pray to Vulcan during my prayers tonight. I carefully strapped on my body armor. All that was missing was my helmet but it should be around somewhere. I gathered my hair up and tied it into a ponytail. I needed to find the Unicorn.

Nita knocked on the door as she stepped inside. “Ready to go?”

I was sitting on the bed tying my boots. “I am. Where’s Fergus?”

“I’ll show you. Come on.” Nita motioned for me to follow her. The clinic was smaller than a hospital but it had most of what was available, just less. I heard voices and laughter up ahead.

Fergus was in rare form. He was holding court on the coffee table in the waiting room. To hear his version, he defeated the demon all by himself. Pretty good for a hero the size of a mouse. It was time to rain on his parade.

“Fergus!”

The Unicorn froze and looked up at me. I smiled at him. “How’s it going hero?”

“I was just telling my new friends about the battle to save the city. Fighting off hordes of demons is hard work.”

“Interesting, how much you could see from inside my body armor where you were safe. Are you ready to go? We still have lots of work to do.” I held out my hand for him.

I thanked the doctors and staff and walked out under my own power to our SUV. “I can’t take you anywhere, hero. Did you have fun in there?”

“Of course I did. You missed it, Agatha, they opened up your armor, and I started talking to them. One of the nurses fainted right there in the emergency room. It was awesome!” I had to laugh at him and his antics.

“Well, we have a lot of work left to do before we can go home.” I climbed into the car and we headed back. Nita told me on the way that reinforcements showed up about a half hour after the death of the demon. So did the press. The call on an open channel attracted them like flies to honey. The local police were all that was keeping them out of the crime scene. Pundits were already mourning the loss of Senator Emery. Details had not been released about his wife, yet.

The cosmetics plant was hard to miss. Flashing lights were everywhere. Hordes of news media and gawkers stood in groups everywhere. That didn’t even include the relatives and loved ones of those who worked at the place. Most of those would never be coming home. Demon incursions here deadly for all involved.

“You better duck down if you don’t want news exposure.”

“Thanks, Nita. I forgot.” I slid down in my seat to avoid being seen. The media knew I existed, but I didn’t want the attention right now. It was too soon.

We passed the security cordon and entered Fabulous Face’s grounds. The forensics lab and command center trucks were already set up and agents could be seen tagging and marking the dead Bunis on the ground. The ground was carpeted with them. I was almost sorry for them. Evil was very pervasive in each of those people and it allowed the demon to get to them somehow. Nita pulled the car around the front of the command truck out of sight of the majority of news media. According to what Nita said on the ride over at least one news helicopter had been confiscated for breaking the NO-Fly zone above the plant. A demon incursion was big news.

I stepped out of the car and was immediately embraced by one-hundred and fifty pounds of Cat. “You’re back!”

“Hey, Cat. Are you alright?” She pulled away from me and stared at me.

“Me? You are the one that took down the demon and passed out!” Her face was serious.

“Cat, it’s OK. I just overextended myself and passed out. Nita got me out.”

“Don’t. Ever. Do. That. Again. Understand?” Poking me each time she said a word she got closer to me and gave me another hug.

“I understand. I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

“Good.” We then both burst out laughing.

“OK ladies. Let’s get to work, shall we? Agatha you ready?” I nodded. We stepped over to the tactical unit and armored back up.

“While you took your nap, Agatha. We brought in more troops and secured the area. We have begun tagging and bagging the Bunis out here and by the AC units. No one has gone inside since I left carrying you.”

I nodded. “Let me run a diagnostic spell and see if anything trips it.” I concentrated and felt myself slip into the spell easier than before. Something to be said for practice makes perfect. There was what I associated with demonic activity around the Bunis bodies. I expected that. What I didn’t expect was the lack of anything else. They had been very careful to keep any trace from the buildings themselves. It made me wonder about the walk-in cooler. That might be why they use it.

I opened my eyes and related what I saw to Nita. She grabbed her phone and called Anastasia in the forensics truck. They talked for a moment. I could see Cat nodding too. Freaky were hearing.

“Anastasia says that might be possible. Many companies use magic to evaluate things. They were very careful. She thinks the cooler may have been taken from jobsite to jobsite rather than start over each time.”

“Then we need to go see for ourselves.”

“Let’s go,” Nita called to a tactical team standing by and an even dozen of us entered the building again.

There were a few bodies lying in the lobby. They looked to be Bunis that ran from our units and bled out where they lay. We followed the hallway toward the cafeteria. I could remember chasing after Cat through this very hall racing to save Nita and the team. This time we checked every room, closet, and crawlspace. It took time, but we had to be sure. The cafeteria doors were smoke-blackened and twisted. They looked as if they were hit by more than one fireball. Tables and chairs were tossed like playthings everywhere. Bodies and parts of bodies were burnt and shredded all over the floor. Toward the center of the room, the floor was melted and piled with rubble.

I had to be sure and stepped closer to the demon’s death ground. Crimson streaks covered the pinnacle of the mound. A blood trail of drops led off toward the door.

“I cut off the head with a butcher knife. Anastasia has it for study. It was still screaming when I cut it off.” Nita was behind me staring at the mound. I patted her arm.

“Sorry, I passed out.”

“Don’t be sorry. Without you, I would be dead over in that hell-hole of a cooler with what was left of the team. Let’s check it out.” She led us past more dead Bunis and into the kitchen. I never came this far.

The area around the cooler was a charnel house of death. Nita and her team had literally piled them up outside the cooler. The smell of death was strongest near the open door. Readying a spell I stepped inside followed by Cat.

I could sense the evil inside. My bracelet gave off a shiver that I was beginning to associate with demonic activity. The altar loomed across the back of the cooler. I could see all that Nita had described except for two things. The painting and the statue were gone. “Nita?”

Nita and two of her team stepped into the cooler. “I don’t see the statue you mentioned. Is anything else missing?”

The painting, the statue, and all of the other demon statues were gone. The jars containing the hearts were all broken and scattered on the floor. I wanted to destroy the whole place but procedure must be followed. We needed to search the rest of the building.

The upper floors yielded nothing. Offices and shipping rooms were empty of life. It was if the people just walked off the job and either disappeared or attacked us.

“Nita, there were hundreds of people at work in this place. Where did they all go? Does this place have a basement?”

According to plans submitted to the city, it was supposed to. Access was supposed to be available via the freight elevator at the rear. None of the elevators even showed a lower floor. The emergency stairwell was finally found hidden inside a janitor's closet.

“Guns up, there could be anything down there!” Cat volunteered to go first but Nita held her back. She had specialists for that. The tactical team went in first. They threw flash-bang grenades in to clear the room and then charged in. It was several moments before we heard garbled cries of “clear” come from the team.

Our first clue something bad was in the basement was when we passed one of the younger agents puking in a corner. I could smell decomposition as we opened the first door. We had found the missing workers. It was here that those non-Bunis ended up. Imagine the worse thing you can imagine that humans could do to one another and that is what was in that room.

Each body would need to be cataloged but our job here was done. Cat and I had seen too much and been a part of too much over the last few days. It was time to go back to Quantico.

~~~~~

The ride back to school was anticlimactic, no helicopter this time. We were almost scarred by some of the things that we witnessed inside that cosmetics company. I would never look at cold creme again the same way. Both Nita and Anastasia swore that many more lives would have been lost if we had not joined the investigation. I kept running every decision I made through my head trying to see ways I messed up or could have done differently. It hurt that so many of the people I had come to know had died or been disfigured. Agent Smith was a huge loss for Cat. She had bonded with the older man. Cat told me she intended to look up his former partner’s family and describe the man's death. It was a were thing.

Fergus was in a good mood unlike the both of us. He was loose inside the car and was starting to get on my nerves. “Fergus calm the hell down!”

“Hay! Hay! I’m getting Hay!” He was doing a little dance across the seats.