“Torres,” she finally said, closing the folder and setting it just to her left. She said my name but then nothing else, just took a deep breath and rested her elbows on the desk. She folded her hands, leaning her chin against them. I was just about to tell her that she had in fact gotten my name right, anything to prompt her, when she continued. “I can’t do anything.”
“Oh, come on,” I all but whined. Uncrossing my legs, I planted my feet on the FBI regulation carpet and leaned towards her. “Nobody died.” It seemed I put more weight on the zero-count death tally than anyone else.
“You discharged your preternatural abilities on a suspect,” she stated, sounding exasperated.
I held up my hands with a shrug. “I didn’t shoot anyone!”
She didn’t look impressed. “Frankly, it would have been less paperwork for me if you had. Do you know the current agency regulations and filing for a DPA?”
DPA equaled Discharge of Preternatural Abilities. It was a brave (insane) new world.
My name is Serafina Torres, and I’m an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigations, stationed in the preternatural satellite office in Boston, Massachusetts. In the years since Cameron’s Law, making all preternatural beings legal citizens of the United States, the country had changed—had to change—a great deal. Now there were things like the preternatural satellite office of the FBI. As an electrokinetic—which meant I could create and/or control electrical currents—I was assigned there.
Basically, I’m a human taser.
In the case before us, that was all I did. I used my abilities to stop a suspect who was running. He didn’t die, although he did end up in the hospital for a few days. Just like when any force is exercised on a suspect, you file a report. I was sitting in front of my boss, hoping that there wouldn’t be too much trouble rolling down the mountain about it. I didn’t feel like riding a desk.
I didn’t reply to her question, because I didn’t think anything that would come out of my mouth would actually help. She sighed, either frustrated with me or relieved that I didn’t speak.
“You’re not going to be shelved,” she assured me and I blew out a breath. “However, you’re not going to like what you’ll do instead.”
“I hate it when you do that.” I narrowed my eyes at her, and waited.
“Protective detail.”
“Babysitting?!” I sounded like a teenager asked to babysit their toddler sibling, but I didn’t bother trying to correct myself. I’d been working under this woman for long enough that she knew me for who I was.
She looked thoroughly unimpressed with my annoyance. That was how it usually was, so I wasn’t bothered. I knew that nothing I said could change her mind.
Dropping my head, I sighed.
“Who?” I asked, defeated.
I saw the edge of a file folder enter my vision. Without looking at her, I took it and opened it. Inside, there was a picture clipped to the top left. The name was Ben Collins, and from a quick look at the image, I would guess he had some Pacific Islands in there. Maybe he was from Hawaii. Although why anyone would leave islands like that to come to chilly New England, I couldn’t guess. Reviewing the stats, I saw that he was a vampire, but a young one. It had only been a few years since he Turned.
“He’s a witness for the murder trial of Cameron St John,” my boss said before I got to that part. That automatically made my eyes widen as I looked up.
It was widespread knowledge by now that a top level member of LOHAV—the League of Humans Against Vampires—had been arrested for the murder of Cameron St John, the werewolf who introduced the Preternatural Rights Act in the first place, back in 2010. He and his girlfriend Sadie Stanton had been attacked. Cameron was killed, and Sadie nearly.
But it had been years, and there had never been enough information to make an arrest. I now knew what had changed, but they’d been keeping word of a witness pretty tightly locked.
“As you can imagine,” she continued, “we are highly concerned for his safety. Members of the LOHAV organization have been known to attack and kill preternatural citizens on the street for less reason than being a star witness for the prosecution of one of their elite.”
Suddenly, this job looked much bigger.
“So far, we have no reason to believe that his identity has been leaked; we don’t even think his existence has been leaked, but we’re taking no chances. He’s a vampire and completely vulnerable in daylight, so a guard during those hours is going to be the most important. I plan to have an agent on him at all times. We have to swap out the daytime agent, and you’ll be taking his place. Only one more week until he testifies.”
“So you’re not really punishing me for the DPA?” I asked with a small half-smile.
“Not really,” she agreed with a mirror expression. “Still, this will get you out of everyone’s line of sight for a while.”
I nodded. “When do I start?”
It took a whopping two whole days before my “quiet” daylight assignment went from standard to ‘shit got real.’
Contrary to popular belief, vampires don’t sleep in coffins in mansions better suited to Miss Havishim. Ben Collins lived in a modest first floor apparent, with one bedroom that was sealed off with heavy, oversized blackout curtains. As a young vamp, he was going down halfway through dawn and not waking until full dark. The night agent showed up before that happened and I arrived after dawn, so I never even spoke to him. He kept to his dark room in that coma vamps go to during daylight hours. I played on my laptop, caught up on paperwork, and started reading a new book.
This all changed on my third day.
It started with the smell of something burning. Instinct made me jump up and rush to the oven in his small, stuffed-in-a-corner kitchen. I happen to hold the world record for burned cookies and muffins, so the smell of burning anything made me jump and think I’d done it again. It took until I had a grip on the oven door’s handle before I remembered that I wasn’t cooking anything.
That’s when the smoke detectors went off.
My human brain just shrieked: fire, panic! My FBI brain told me that someone had found out about our witness and where he lived. They were going to burn him alive while he was temporarily dead to the world. It might not have been the case, but I suspected. Whatever the source of the fire, however, one thing was before me: I had to get Collins out.
During daylight hours, vampires are asleep. It’s a coma-like state that no amount of effort can wake them from. Only the sun can do that, and only by setting. Otherwise, the sun isn’t exactly healthy for them. A little can burn, a lot can destroy.
It didn’t pass my notice that this could be a ploy to get Collins out of the building; him like a dead man, and me compromised by dealing with his body. I checked the door and found the hall clear and traces of fire licking the end of it through the open door of another apartment. I rushed back in and called for back up and emergency services as I ran to the bedroom. The space was so short that I had only just gotten a person on the line as I opened the door.
I was explaining the situation very hurriedly as I looked into the pitch black room. Even though I couldn’t afford the time, I was momentarily disoriented. In the age of electronics, and my chronic curtain shortfall, I had never seen a truly dark room. Only the light from the open door I stood in fell on anything, but it was enough to guide me to his body.
I almost tried to wake him, just out of habit, but caught myself. I finished with the phone and stuffed it into my pocket as I hurried to the side he laid on.
By quick estimation, I guessed Collins was 5’9” or thereabouts and happily not a big man. However, I’m only 5’5” and unlike shifters in human form, human psychics don’t have super strength. At least I kept up with my physical fitness as a fed. I knelt down and pulled his dead weight to the edge of the bed and over my shoulders in a sort of firemen’s carry. Grunting with the effort, I stood and staggered awkwardly out of the room. Both the smell of smoke and the smoke itself was getting stronger.