Mark Del Franco - Face Off

She closed her eyes. “He saved my life. No, that’s not true. He gave me a life. Before I met Terryn, Ian helped stabilize my abilities. I can’t imagine the man I remember killing himself.”

Laura rested a comforting hand on her shoulder. “That was a long time ago, Cress. People change. Not always for the good.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think he’s dead. I think he walked away from his life. Too many people wanted too many things from him. That was true back when I met him. The man lived for research. He valued life. Until they find his body, that’s what I think.”

Laura hugged her. Cress didn’t respond—she wasn’t physically comfortable with people—but she did allow herself to hold Laura’s arm. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too,” she said softly.

On the counter behind Cress, Laura caught sight of a clear evidence bag with a handheld stun gun inside. She held the bag up for a closer look. “What’s this?”

Cress returned her attention to her test tubes. “A fortunately malfunctioning liquid stun gun. I was almost mugged this morning.”

Laura gaped. “Mugged? Are you all right?”

Cress looked more amused than anything. “I’m fine. Two guys came at me. One of them fired the stunner, but the liquid didn’t release correctly, and he ended up stunning himself. The other guy ran off. It was rather amusing, actually.”

“Did you report it?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t have time. Too much to do here, and I didn’t want to lose half a day making the report. I left him there looking stupid, but I took the gun.”

Laura placed the bag back on the counter. Liquid stun guns were the weapon of choice for humans who preyed on the fey. They shot a stream of liquid that carried the electrical current to the target—highly beneficial when the target didn’t need any gadget to shock someone. The trick was to take a fey unawares and fire before he returned an essence-bolt.

“You need to be more careful, Cress. The fey aren’t the most popular right now, and you make an easy target.”

Cress grinned. “Yes, well, I have my own defenses. People may not like them, but they keep me out of trouble.”

Laura pushed away from the counter. “Terryn’s debriefing Jono and me. Any chance we can catch up later?”

She didn’t answer right away, and again Laura sensed turmoil. “I’d like that, Laura.”

Laura touched her on the arm. “You okay?”

Cress smiled, but Laura thought it looked feigned. “I’m fine. We can talk later.”

Whatever was bothering her, her expression seemed to indicate it wasn’t the mugging. Since Cress was willing to let it wait, Laura gave her arm an affectionate squeeze.

The conference room held an oval table with chairs facing a wall of television and video screens. The dim glow of a flat-screen computer monitor illuminated the surface of the tabletop in front of each seat. Local, national, and world news played on the television screens. Laura scrolled through the messages on her PDA while Sinclair leaned back and watched a basketball game.

Terryn macCullen entered with a firm gait that caused his long wings to arc sharply behind him. Inverni fairies’ wings tended to pale shades of blue and green and rose into points high above their heads. The wings moved of their own accord, shifting and separating as fairies sat or lay down, and their energy fields came in contact with objects. Laura had glamoured herself as a fairy in the past, but the wings she displayed were an illusion. Terryn explained once that they acted like opposing magnetic fields, automatically sensing physical surfaces and barriers and moving accordingly. The closest he could describe their sensitivity was somewhere between the acute touch of skin and the dull sensation of hair.

Terryn dropped data drives on the table and plugged one in. Laura adjusted the monitor in front of her, its privacy screen rising out of the tabletop. Financial spreadsheets popped open. “The financial data we pulled after the Archives incident connects the Legacy Foundation to the Triad terrorist group,” he said without preamble.

Laura recognized the earlier data. Triad was the organization responsible for the terrorist attack on the National Archives.

Despite a century of integration, the fey engendered suspicion and fear among some human populations. No one—fey or human—understood how parts of Faerie and its people appeared in the modern world. Beings of myth and legend—fairies and elves, druids and dwarves and a host of other fey—walked the world trying to find their place in a strange new reality. Their innate ability to manipulate essence set them apart. The elusive form of energy that allowed the fey to perform tasks perceived as magic scared the hell out of most humans. It didn’t help that there were, in fact, fey groups like Triad that were taking more aggressive means to further their political agendas.

Laura looked at Terryn from beneath her brow. “Rhys brought them up this morning. They’re making noise about the National Archives. If they’re connected with Triad, are you saying they’re interested in more than harassing loyalists to the fey monarchies?”

Sinclair cleared his throat. “We were at a murder scene, Laura. That’s a bit more than harassment.”

She winced as she skimmed through documents. “Right, Jono. Of course. I meant I was surprised about their connection to Triad. That makes them more sophisticated than we’ve thought. This looks like major money-laundering.”

Terryn shifted some documents on their screens. “Legal, or as legal as it gets. Several of Legacy’s benefactors contribute checks and anonymous cash donations. Again, all legal, but the quantity raised suspicions that federal rules were being circumvented, which triggered a review. It’s the source of those funds we were able to match up with other intelligence. Genda Boone has pulled together a framework of the players involved.”

As Mariel Tate, Laura shared an office suite with Genda, a Danann fairy who specialized in financial analysis. The two had formed an easy friendship although Genda wasn’t aware that Mariel was a glamoured persona.

“So, in addition to weapons-smuggling, we’re looking at an organization that has a political motivation to use the weapons,” said Sinclair.

Terryn shifted new documents to the front of the displays. An organizational chart appeared. “Their professed goal is unity among human and fey without a monarchy.”

Laura scanned the chart, recognizing a few high-profile politicians and businessmen. “Odd goals for a place with so many anti-fey people on its board.”

The organization chart shrank as Terryn expanded the template to include more people. “We’ve found connections to a sort of shadow board of directors. Peeling back the corporate layers, we start to see interesting contradictions and oddities.”

Laura recognized several names either from high public profiles or internal research—a group of unsurprising businesspeople, some politicians, and a few notable military personnel. Then things got interesting.

“Is this right? These look like fey names now,” said Laura.

Terryn nodded. “They’re separated by several layers, but that’s right.”

“That would fit the unity thing,” said Sinclair.

Laura examined the names. She recognized some, including Tylo Blume, an important businessman among the elven tribes. He was also a legal arms merchant and sometime philanthropist. “Blume’s showing up bothers me.”

“Maybe not so surprising, considering that our corresponding intelligence is from his Triad corporation,” said Terryn.

Blume had had a falling-out with a former Triad partner named Simon Alfrey, an Inverni fairy—and political rival to Terryn—who had been responsible for the recent terrorist attack at the National Archives. Despite claims of innocence, Laura was deeply suspicious of how much Blume knew about Alfrey’s plans.