Durance by Lyn Gala Page 0,19
hadn't been a shaman. Without his bull to reinforce his idea of herd and the need to protect, would Kavon have the same personality?
“I choose not to,” Kavon said in a dangerously quiet voice. Two of the young women fled into the hotel, and three others took out phones and started filming.
So much for subtlety.
“Maybe I’ll make you.” The young man jumped over the rail and landed with his arms outstretched.
Kavon grew still. “If you choose to engage two armed federal agents, you will not like the results.”
Darren moved to the side so he would have a better angle if the confrontation grew violent, but the man hesitated now. He might’ve wanted to show off in front of the women, but it hadn’t occurred to him that he didn’t want to attack agents. He looked around as though searching for an out.
Before this guy could make matters worse, Darren redirected him back to Kavon’s question. “Have you overheard anything that the police might need to know about? Has anyone threatened or promoted violence?”
The man frowned.
Kavon pressed the issue. “Did anyone in the NCCP meetings advocate violence?”
The man took a step back and the tension dropped. “They’re all talk,” he said. “But management says that any concerns go to them—not the police.” With a dismissive snort, he turned his back on them and headed into the hotel.
“So that would be a ‘yes.’ You have heard something.” Darren gave the young women a hopeful expression, but they all escaped into the hotel. Darren sighed and turned to Kavon. “Do you want to follow?”
“You know how the management is here.”
“Protect the clients at all costs?” Darren remembered their blackmailing maid case. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Then there’s no reason to stick around. Hopefully one of the staff will start thinking about the potential for violence, but we don’t have a legal reason to push the issue.”
“Text Coretta?” Darren asked. Since he and Kavon were on vacation, she would be the one to handle any FBI follow-up.
“With what?” Kavon headed back toward the street. “All we have is someone warning us that the NCCP hates those with Talent. That’s not actionable intel.”
As much as Darren wanted to argue that they should open an FBI case, Kavon was right that White would shut them down. Darren followed Kavon. Every choppy move of Kavon’s body radiated frustration as he turned toward their car. And the bond had gone conspicuously silent.
“Thuya did say our suspects like to cause chaos and create interesting conflicts.” Darren said. That put the NCCP members and haters on the suspect list.
“Don’t jump to any conclusions. We have other magical hot spots to investigate.”
“Could our durance be looking for a partner?” Darren mused aloud.
“Or he has one and they’re plotting something. The NCCP could be involved without being the source of the problem.”
If Darren had been a newly returned durance who had joined with a shaman, he might see the NCCP as a threat. Guns and bombs were just as effective against shamans and adepts and magic users as they were against mundanes.
Given that the durance had been driven out of the world by the simple but brutal act of killing all the shamans last time, Darren could imagine they would take steps to protect their human partners this time. As they passed the power sink, an older man was taking a knife to the magic-soaked tree.
“If our suspect is partnering up with someone greedy, is it going to make them more greedy?” Darren asked Kavon.
Kavon frowned. “I don’t know.”
“How often do you think the partners aggravate a person's worst instincts?”
Kavon stopped and looked at Darren. “That makes it sound like you're assuming they do.”
A patrol car stopped and an officer yelled at the man trying to claim bits of wood from the damaged tree. Darren thought about his own personality quirks. When Bennu was around, he had more power to get himself in trouble. Their first act as a partnership had been to blow up a city street.
Darren’s habit of being impulsive had been magnified, not because Bennu was changing his personality as much as allowing him to be more himself. “I was always quick to start things and sometimes not so quick to finish them,” Darren admitted. “I get the feeling my partner is the same, and sometimes I think that we feed each other’s impulsiveness.” Darren figured that was why the other ifrit in the deeper well world wanted Bennu to give his obedience to Kavon.
Kavon frowned. “Do you blame my guide