“Someone could have cast spells on Amber to make her think she’d seen all this, sure. I don’t see any evidence of that, but it could happen. But as for actually creating all those effects at once? Going toe-to-toe with werewolves physically, and being able to fly and blast out all that fire? Plus all the other effects she described?” The occult expert shook his head. “There’s a lot about magic I just don’t know, but all that added together goes so far off any scale I’m familiar with that I’ve gotta say no.”
“And Lorelei?”
“She’s another matter. So far all Amber has described is some illusory magic. I couldn’t do that, but there are plenty of people who can.”
“Agent Maddox,” Hauser said, “what’s your read on what they do next? The whole group?”
“I dunno,” she shrugged, “probably find a way to get the vampires and the werewolves off their backs and then go about their lives.” She had forced herself to look Hauser in the eye when she told him how far things had gone with Jason, but had stared mostly at the floor since then. Only now did she look up once more. “Like I said, I think we had this whole group pegged wrong from the beginning. Jason, Alex, even Lorelei… they’re the good guys.”
Hauser snorted. “By her own admission, this Lorelei woman is a murderer. It doesn’t matter who she’s sleeping with now or how much she claims she’s changed her stripes. She’s a criminal. End of story.”
“Demons aren’t exactly part of our mandate, Joe,” Keeley pointed out.
“No? How aren’t they? We’re here to handle crimes committed by creatures that science doesn’t even know exist. Seems like she fits the bill to me.
“Jones and Reinhardt murdered a man in a parking lot in full view of Bureau agents. Amber saw Carlisle and Cohen commit felony assault and kidnapping.”
“Sir,” Amber said, “they can’t exactly dial 911 and say vampires are trying to kill them.”
“Nobody gets to play vigilante, either,” Hauser scowled. “And nobody gets to turn an American city into their own little warzone.”
“What were they supposed to do?” asked Amber.
“These are crimes, Agent Maddox. If they wanna prove they’re the good guys, they’ll get their chance. Lanier,” he said, shifting his attention. “We need a better place to hold our prisoners. And we need to get a tac support team up here as soon as possible.”
“Joe, I think we’ve got something else to work out first,” reminded Paul.
“What’s that?”
Paul nodded toward Amber. “She’s compromised the whole case, Joe.”
“No, she hasn’t,” Hauser frowned.
“Joe, she got romantically involved with a suspect in an investigation!” snapped Colleen. “The case is blown! We can’t bring any of this to a prosecutor, let alone in front of a judge.”
“We’re not the regular FBI, Agent Nguyen,” Hauser replied flatly. His eyes turned back to Amber, ignoring the shocked looks on everyone’s faces. “Agent Maddox, did you have sex with him?”
“Wait, what?” Amber blinked. “No! But-”
“Did you offer him sexual favors in exchange for information? Was any of this foreplay done on a quid pro quo basis? Did he intimidate or blackmail you?”
Her jaw fell open. “No, of course not. This all just spiraled away from me. I started to tell you this could happen two days ago, but I couldn’t get clear guidelines out of you. That’s no excuse, though, and I know it. I should’ve been more explicit. I accept full responsibility for what I did, and I’ll face whatever consequences-“
Hauser held up a hand to stop her. “I’m not suggesting anything like that. This is not a problem for our case. That’s my point.”
“The hell it isn’t!” objected Colleen.
“That’s enough, Agent Nguyen!” Hauser barked. “We are not under standard FBI regulations. Agent Maddox improvised and came through with information and evidence we may never have gotten through any other approach. I wouldn’t give a damn if she did fuck him. That’s her call. We are not going to close the investigation, we are not going to go home, and we are not going to turn a blind eye to the laws that have been broken here.
“Agent Maddox? Are you still with us?”
“Sir?” she blinked, still in complete shock.
“Cohen is only one of the people at risk here. He might get off with a plea deal when this is all over, but we’ve gotta see it through to make that happen-unless we want to just abandon this whole matter and let him and his friends and God only knows who else die at the hands of two different groups of supernatural criminals loose in this city. Do you want that?”
“No, sir. Of course not.”
“Then we need you to stick with this. You need to stay on Cohen. Go back to his place and try to steer him away from looking for Jones and Reinhardt.” He turned from her then, pacing across the small living room as he thought. He seemed completely oblivious to the shocked looks he got from Amber, Colleen and the others on the task force. Nor did he notice the discomfort as they looked at one another.
“Lorelei and Carlisle are the keys here,” he said. “We’ll need a lot of leverage on her. But everything we’ve seen points to Carlisle being a stand-up guy and a boy scout…” He scratched his chin and frowned. “We’re just gonna have to put that to the test. Lanier.”
“Yeah?”
“I need to see Carlisle’s class schedule again. And a map of the campus.” He sat down on the couch beside Matt, looking over his shoulder as the agent typed away on the laptop. Then he looked over at Amber. “Like I said, we need you to stay on Cohen. Get on it, Agent.”
Still shocked to have her job, Amber rose and slowly walked out. She made it halfway down the hall before she heard the door open and shut again.
“You know you screwed up, right?” Colleen asked her without venom but also without pulling any punches. “Doesn’t matter what Hauser thinks of it. This is flat-out bad.”
Amber shook her head. “I know, Colleen. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say other than that. I screwed up bad and I’m sorry and maybe I should lose my job.”
“That’s obviously not happening now,” Colleen shrugged, “and as mad as I am at this, I knew it was way too soon to put you on an undercover assignment. There are agencies who probably wouldn’t bat an eye at this, but they don’t handle domestic law enforcement.” Her face held its frown of displeasure. “Do you think you could’ve gotten this info without going about it the way you did?”
“Yeah. Probably. I don’t know… Jason would still have been interested in me, but I probably could’ve held it to ‘just friends’ if I’d really tried.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
She feared the question would come up in front of everyone. Alone in the hallway with Colleen, it seemed no less daunting. “Because I like him. Probably more than any guy I’ve ever met. But I should be able to keep all those feelings separate from the job, so… maybe that means I’m not fit for it.” She took a deep breath. “But that’s where we are, and we gotta follow through, so how do I make this right?”
Colleen’s frown turned to a scowl as she looked over her shoulder toward the closed door. “At least you’re owning your bad calls. You’re not the one I’m worried about right now.”
“Yeah, I’m a little…” Amber’s voice trailed off. “Is it just me, or did he want me out of the room? And did you think it was weird that he brought up the possibility of Jason getting out of trouble on a plea deal?”
At that, Colleen turned back to her. “You may not be right for undercover work,” she said, “but don’t start drafting your resignation letter just yet.”
* * *
Magic, as it turned out, involved an awful lot of running around buying stuff.
It seemed they went to every florist in town, picking up dozens of lilies and as many of the darkest roses they could find. They bought wine and whiskey and sake. They went to a cemetery on the north end of the city and bought from the groundskeepers a couple of the small American flags sold for the graves of veterans on patriotic holidays. After two fruitless stops, they found a coin dealer whose wares satisfied Molly, and there they bought three silver coins.