Durance by Lyn Gala Page 0,52
the subject. Darren waited. The bond opened, and a wealth of discomfort and confusion seeped through. “Call Coretta,” Darren said gently, “ask her if she’s okay with us taking her people into the field. If not, we can go check out the reporters on our own. We need to have a shaman check for shamanic power anyway, so Les is the only one who might be useful in identifying Anzu’s partner, and even then, I’m not sure he would recognize an ifrit or an ifrit’s partner.”
Kavon grimaced. Realization and a sense of wry awareness dominated. But then, Darren wasn’t trying to hide the fact he was managing Kavon. Kavon said, “You’re probably right.”
“Will wonders never cease? Sometimes I can be right,” Darren joked.
“If I ignore your crazy ideas when you’re coming up with theories, I would say you have a high probability of being right most of the time. People sometimes miss that because you do not edit yourself when brainstorming.” Kavon reached out a hand, and Darren took it. While Kavon still felt like a conflicted mass of emotions, the anger had faded. For now, that was enough.
“So call Coretta,” Darren urged.
With a nod, Kavon took out his phone.
Chapter Eighteen
Kavon was hyperaware of Darren as he strode into the squad room, but he focused on the team. “Les, Ahtisham,” he said, “we’re heading over to Washington Conservative News. This is a newspaper, so the odds of them giving us anything useful is fairly low, so this calls for friendly chatter. Nothing pushy.” He bit down on an urge to tell them he had cleared the assignment with Coretta. It was enough that she had given her approval. He had even clenched his teeth and kept silent when she said she was sending Joe to help search for shamanic power. Her team, technically her case, and so her choice. And objectively, it was a good call, but Kavon just had this itch to set everything up the way he wanted it—the right way. His inability to do that was fueling more irrational anger than he’d felt in a long time.
Les had been looking at his phone, but at that, his head came up. “Not to piss you off or anything, but you suck at chit-chat.”
Kavon wanted to get angry at the insult, but Les was right, and Kavon was too exhausted to take offense. “I’m not going to be chatting with anyone. I’ll be searching the spirit plane for our suspect. Let’s go.” Kavon headed toward the stairs so fast that Ahtisham had to do a little hop on his good leg to catch his balance.
Kavon hurried toward the garage stairs. Ahtisham took another hopping step to catch up, and Kavon felt a niggle of guilt about rushing the agent with the artificial leg. But Ahtisham had passed the field readiness test. He could handle himself.
“Do we have a plan other than talk to people?” Les asked.
“Don’t get thrown out,” Kavon said. He knew it was a less-than-helpful suggestion, but his anger still simmered under the surface, and it took most of his control to prevent another outburst. He didn’t want to be one of those assholes who took advantage of a bond-partner by taking out every bad mood on someone who physically couldn’t leave. That was the main reason Kavon had avoided a bond before Darren had found his own guide. Kavon knew he was a bastard, but he didn’t want to be that special sort of abusive.
When all four of them were in the garage, Darren spoke. “How often have we shaken a suspect loose just by hanging around the area?” He asked. “Do you remember that counterfeit art case we worked in Baltimore? That was before your time, Ahtisham, but we walked into the store they were using as a front, and the second we identified ourselves, employees were racing for exits. One idiot broke his leg trying to jump out of a second-story window.”
“Thank god for dumb criminals,” Ahtisham said with a laugh. “Given that our suspect is dropping huge amounts of energy all over the city, I’m expecting a lower than normal IQ.”
“Don’t,” Kavon said. “This guy has avoided leaving any obvious trail and he has access to enough magic that he can leave sinks of that size behind. And don’t lose track of the fact that this is most likely the same person who attacked Darren.”
“I’m not going to forget that any time soon,” Les said softly. “Dude, you scared me out of ten