Caroline's Internship Read online

  “It’s looking like we’ll be solving a number of problems.” Darien stretched, then reached for his soda. “After lunch.”

  “Well. That’s as good as half a dozen spa days!” Serena laughed. “Now I just have to worry about what color nail polish my three year old granddaughter is going to pick for me. I’m hoping for sparkly pink, but last time it was twenty different colors! One for each nail!” Serena laughed, and they chatted about much more cheerful things until her family arrived and she excused herself. Then, everyone dug back into their meals with a purpose, eager to get started on their afternoon.

  14

  “Hello, I’m Agent Darien Webb, this is Agent Greg Barnett and Caroline Peters from the FPAA. Is Mister Collins here?” Darien sent a polite smile to the woman on the other side of the reception desk. They’d found the office in the end of a strip mall featuring a Chinese restaurant, a cleaners, and an ‘antiques’ shop that seemed to mostly fail to sell broken bits and pieces from old boats.

  The office looked cheap but tidy— no doubt the work of the tired woman picking up the phone to talk to her boss. The drywall was painted off-white and looked relatively fresh, though Caroline didn’t smell paint. The industrial brown carpet was vacuumed recently and the two limp throw pillows had been arranged as attractively as possible on the saggy sofa. Current magazines were fanned across the cheapest coffee table Ikea sold, which was otherwise clean.

  “Mister Collins will see you now. Can I get you anything? I just made some coffee a few minutes before you came in, or water?” The receptionist smiled at them, tired but friendly.

  “No, thank you though. We just came from lunch.” Greg gave her a smile in return and the woman sat up a little straighter. Darien knocked on the door she indicated— not that there was more than that door and a short hallway that smelled of coffee— and swung it open when there was a call from inside. They stepped into the office and got their first look at the man who owned the run-down apartment building and was currently making himself a thorn in the side of the local government.

  Sheldon Collins was an early middle-aged man with over-styled brown hair and a suit that would have looked sharp on someone one size bigger. His clear green eyes flicked over them, assessing, and he offered his hand to all three of them with a businesslike attitude. He wasn’t especially greasy, or shabby, or in any way obviously the scumbag that Caroline had started to imagine him as. She found herself to be slightly disappointed.

  “Thank you for taking the time to chat with us, Mister Collins,” Darien said. “I’m Agent Webb, this is Agent Barnett, and Miss Peters.” Darien nodded at each of them as they all shook hands.

  The office itself was a little nicer than the reception area, but not by much. The same cheap brown carpet continued in here, but there was an area rug covering the middle of the floor, brightening the room a bit with a blue and green pattern, and pleasant images of sailboats hung on the walls. The desk wasn’t especially expensive, but it was solid and well kept, and the shelves were heavy with books and a few pieces obviously picked up from a home decor shop in an effort to make the room comfortable. Two chairs faced the desk and rather surprisingly, a small kid-sized table with a plastic bin of crayons and a few coloring books sitting on it took up space in the corner.

  It was an office the completely confused Caroline. It didn’t jibe at all with the shady zoning process pushing, sketchy permit submitting slumlord she had expected.

  Greg waved Caroline into the second chair and stood behind her right shoulder while Darien sat in the slightly bigger seat to her left.

  “Miss Peters? Are you a budding mage, to be working for the FPAA so young?” Collins asked.

  “No,” she shook her head. “I’m interning for credit with my college.”

  “And they sent you into the field? That’s pretty advanced stuff, Miss Peters.” Collins said. His voice likely sounded perfectly polite to everyone else, but Caroline heard the disdain in it, and a little bit of something else that she didn’t want to think about. When he’d asked his first question he’d been polite and— well friendly was way too strong a word for it, but it was all Caroline could think of— but now that she was merely a young human woman he’d lost any pretense of respect for her in his own mind.

  “I’m mostly just keeping track of the receipts and paperwork,” Caroline lied with a shy smile. “I’m learning a lot, though. My professors will be pleased when classes start.” She opened her eyes wide and was rewarded by a slight relaxing of his shoulders. Anything she could do to help put this guy off his guard.

  “I’m sure they will.” He smiled at her, then turned to Darien. “And what can I do for the Federal Paranormal Activities Agency today? I rarely practice anymore, but I’ve kept my certifications up to date for the odd occasion. I can’t think of any other reason for you to be here.” His eyes flicked over Darien, then up to Greg. When they landed on Caroline again, they lingered for a moment. Not on her face.

  “We’re in the area on another matter, but since the storm the other day, the local guys asked if we’d help a little canvassing the folks who own property that was damaged. You were on our list and we just wanted to check in.” Darien’s voice was calm and confident, almost bored even, and if Caroline didn’t know that he was lying even she might have been fooled. She could still hear the falseness of his words though, and almost held her own breath for Collins’ response.

  “That’s very generous of you,” he said. “Although I’m not sure what I can tell you.”

  “Well, we know that your rental property was flooded, and there was some wind damage, I think you said? There have been a number of properties that had trees come down on them from adjacent county property, and there have also been roads washed out and that sort of thing. We wanted to know if you’d had any trouble like that,” Darien said with a small shrug. “From what we could tell from the maps, your apartment building was nearly right under the track of the storm.”

  “It was, yes. But there was nothing for the county to be very concerned about. A couple of sheds collapsed, but the insurance should cover all the damage.” His eyes drifted back to Caroline, and she tried not to shift in her seat. There was something seriously gross about this guy. “To be entirely honest, I’m trying to get my plans approved to redevelop the whole site. I’ve bought some of the land that butts up to that property and I want to expand, so I might just do that instead of repairing the existing structures.” Collins smiled back at Darien.

  “Well, that’s a bit beyond the scope of what we’re here for, so if there’s no sewage or other infrastructure damage that you need to report, we’ll just get out of your hair.” Darien stood and offered his hand again.

  “It’s no trouble at all. Glad I could reassure you all.” Collins smiled.

  “I have a question,” Greg said. “Just curious, really. Why the coloring books?”

  “Ah,” Collins frowned for a moment and shrugged. “My office manager sometimes has to bring her daughter in when she has to work late and can’t get a sitter. Since I’m often out of the office I didn’t mind much when she asked if she could bring that stuff in. As long as the child keeps it neat and tidy.” The admission was something that Collins regretted, not wanting the girl in his office at all, but he seemed to think that it was better to have her hidden from public view. Caroline wasn’t sure why that would be. Wouldn’t he want her out of his office if he had a meeting? But then he did say he was out of his office…

  “That’s very generous of you.” Greg smiled, but Caroline could see it didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Well, Jenny works hard for me. It’s the least I could do.” Collins walked them to the door. “I hope there isn’t too much of a mess out there, if they have wrangled you into helping to track down problems?”

  “The early reporting got all tangled up, I understand, so they’ve resorted to some old-school techniques to track down all the problems.” Darien nodded a final farewell and ushered Caroline back into the lobby, w
ith Collins murmuring a finally goodbye and closing the door again. Greg was chatting with the receptionist— Jenny, she supposed— and gave her one last smile and a wave before following them out onto the sidewalk. They stepped a few paces toward the car until they were out of sight of the small shopfront window and then stopped in a small huddle to talk.

  “What a sleazeball. Don’t think I didn’t notice him leering at you, C,” Greg growled.

  “Yeah, made my skin itch every time I felt his eyes on me.” She shuddered. “But it helped make him less alert, I think, so at least I could help a little. What were you talking to Jenny about?”

  “That’s not the sort of help you need to focus on, but you’re right, anyway,” Greg said. “Seems Jenny needs to bring Kayla in when her boss demands she work late in the evenings and on weekends. I’d guess that he doesn’t pay her enough for a sitter and she needs the job so she does it on demand.” He growled again.

  “What could he need her to do?” Darien raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, technically he is a lawyer. She’s studying to be a paralegal and he has her doing most of his real work,” Greg said. “She didn’t say that, of course. She said he allowed her to do extra work for experience in the field.”

  “That explains why his application was such a mess,” Caroline said. “She had no idea really, what she was doing or how shady it all was.”

  “Right. I’d guess she either hasn’t gotten very far in her studies or he’s got her totally snowed.” Darien sighed. “She’s going to need a new job soon, I’m afraid.”

  “I’ll stay and watch the guy. There’s no back exit, so he’s going to have to leave by this door. If he got spooked by our visit, he’ll head out soon and lead me right to something useful.” Greg grinned and stretched his arms up, arching his back.

  “Good call. He’s probably smart enough to worry about someone tailing him, but he’s definitely not smart enough to shake you.” Darien grinned now. “Caroline and I are going to go see if we can figure out how he called the storm. Mitch should have a few ideas by this point.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll call if he leads me someplace interesting.” Greg stepped back and crossed the street to a small alley between a shabby looking building and an auto repair shop and vanished entirely into the dappled shade like it swallowed him whole.

  15

  “So I’m still not sure why we went there at all.” Caroline stared out the window at the scenery as it flashed by on their way back to the motel. “I mean, you lied to his face about why we were there, we didn’t ask any questions about the horn, or about the storm even, really.

  “Greg and I wanted a look at this guy,” Darien said with a slight frown. “We still have a few other shady listings to look through, but after what Serena said at lunch our bad guy senses were tingling.”

  Caroline turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “Bad guy senses?”

  Darien flashed a grin and shrugged.

  “He’s kinda a creep, I’ll agree. He kept staring at my chest.” Caroline grimaced. “Men suck.”

  “Hopefully a few of us aren’t the scum of the earth.”

  “Eh, you’re okay,” Caroline grinned back at him. “Though you do suck, too. Mostly when you’re hungry.”

  “Oh! Oh, going for the vampire jokes now? I’m hurt!” Darien clutched his chest with one hand before breaking into laughter, and Caroline joined in. It was good to shake the last of the greasy feeling she’d had since leaving Sheldon Collins’ office. Once he concluded that she was a ‘mere human’— and a young female on at that— she’d become either office decor or a victim in his mind. She didn’t like it either way.

  Darien pulled into a parking space at the motel and they hopped out, the humidity wrapping around Caroline the moment she opened the door.

  “So how’d Greg do that back there? Disappearing like that? Is it some fancy spell or some gadget from the labs?” Caroline asked. Anything to get her mind off the soupy air. Summer on the east coast was nothing new to her, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

  “No, actually. It’s one of his inherent skills. And he didn’t really disappear, he just… sort of faded into the background. If you’d really put your mind to looking, you could have seen him. Probably,” Darien answered. “He’s got a few odd skills and talents that are just part of who he is thanks to what he is.”

  “Fascinating.” Caroline mulled it over. “Kind of like napping in the car?”

  “Yeah, I suppose that is some of him channeling his magical nature,” Darien grinned. “Although, I dunno if napping in the sunshine really qualifies as a superpower. Come on, Mitch texted while we were in there. Let’s go see what he wants.”

  Caroline cracked up and followed him to the motel door. Mitch opened at their knock and they followed him in.

  “So you met with a suspect?” Mitch asked.

  “Yep. Sheldon Collins. Irresponsible landlord, cheap lawyer, shitty boss, registered low-level mage, and general all around sleazeball.” Darien dropped into a chair at the table which was covered in books and had a laptop sitting precariously on top of one stack. A yellow legal pad had notes scrawled down the page and about half the pages were flipped back.

  Caroline wrinkled her nose and nodded agreement. “Yeah. The guy was basically one of three things at any point in the conversation: smug, lying, or feeling superior to me in the skeeziest way possible. As soon as he learned that I wasn’t a mage, he stopped looking at me as anything other than a possible quickie.” She made a gagging noise. “Guys are so gross. I may not have had any dates thanks to those snotty, stuck-up bullies, but please. I have standards.”

  “As if you had taste that bad,” Darien agreed.

  “Ugh.” Caroline huffed and folder her arms across her chest. “I didn’t even need to hear it all in his voice. He wasn’t exactly subtle.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” Darien agreed. He glanced at Mitch. “Greg stayed back to keep an eye on him. If he wasn’t involved in all this, then he’s definitely involved in something else.”

  “I see,” Mitch said. He nodded toward the debris on the table. “Well, I’ve been doing some thinking about this storm problem.”

  “Yeah? What’s you come up with?” Darien asked.

  “Well, the horn that was stolen was enchanted to call a wind strong enough to move Phineas Morgan’s trading ships, correct? Now, we know that the wind that was called was localized to the area around the ship. Given the size of trading ships around that time, I’d have to guess the wind called covered an area of roughly two thousand square feet. Maybe more, maybe less, but I think that’s a reasonable estimate. Now, judging only from the spell residue left in the display case and a little research into sailing vessels of the day and Morgan’s fleet in particular, I’d say the horn likely calls a wind of somewhere in the range of ten to twenty knots. I’d guess the higher end of the range is more likely, but I’m not going to swear to it.”

  “Um…. How fast is that?” Caroline asked. “I’ve heard the word before on the weather report sometimes, but…”

  Mitch smiled and Caroline thought he looked like her old math teacher for a moment.

  “One knot is equal to one point one five miles per hour. So twenty knots is close to a windspeed of twenty three miles per hour,” Mitch said.

  “Is that strong?” Caroline asked.

  “It will make some branches sway, yes. More importantly, it will move a three-masted merchant vessel.” Mitch nodded. “The storm the other night had sustained winds of around Thirty-eight knots, with recorded gusts up to fifty knots. That is more than strong enough to cause the damage we saw.”

  “So the horn couldn’t have caused the storm?” Darien asked.

  Mitch shook his head. “Not if it was used as intended, no. However, I think we all doubt that it was used in such a responsible manner. Here, I did some math to work it out.” He strode over to the table and flipped through the pages of his legal pad before dropping it back in front of Darien, who r
aised his eyebrows at the scribbled numbers and diagrams.

  Darien glanced up at Caroline then turned and said, “Explain this all to us like we’re not lab mages.”

  Mitch sighed, and flicked a glance to Caroline. “It’s like trying to teach a rock. Please don’t be like most agents, Miss Peters. Actually try to pay attention when we explain things.” He folded his lean frame onto the bed and pinched the bridge of his nose for a long moment.

  “It took a minimum of three mages of moderate power and skill to cast the initial enchantment. If someone somehow managed to double the horn’s power, that would achieve the winds we saw. However, spell enhancement like that is difficult in the best of circumstances.”

  “I was under the impression that boosting a spell, even when the effort is successful, wouldn’t produce such dramatic results.” Darien frowned. “That storm was wild. And besides, the horn was never supposed to summon rain, was it?”

  “Or hail. It definitely hailed here while you guys were out rescuing people and getting jumped by wolves,” Caroline added.

  “True. Ordinarily a mage won’t try to boost an enchantment very much. The possible results are simply too unpredictable to make the attempt worthwhile. In this case, I suspect that there were several mages working together to boost the original enchantment under what they likely considered safe conditions. It’s possible that they attempted to simultaneously boost a second enchantment, and those two spells overpowered them and grew out of control.”

  “Then combined with the natural weather pattern, we ended up with a massive storm instead of whatever they were trying to do,” Caroline said, and Mitch beamed like she was his star pupil.

  “But I was under the impression that combining enchantments is effectively impossible?” Darien asked.

  “It is.” Mitch nodded. “There has been no reliable, repeatable method recorded for combining existing enchantments. There have, however, been several recorded cases of accidental combinations. Usually the enchantments in question were poorly cast initially, and as a result had several open entry points, if you will. It’s somewhat difficult to explain without understanding the fundamental nature of enchantments, and neither of you has studied magic at that level.” Mitch frowned in thought for a few minutes. “It’s a little like doing electrical work. A skilled electrician will finish a job and all the connections will be firm, and there will be no exposed wiring, but an amateur or a poor workman will leave loose connections and exposed places that could, over time, touch something else and cause a fire or a short circuit. A sloppy enchantment can wear over time and two of them in concert can accidentally become combined. Their exposed wiring touches.”