“We know about Nightshades,” Ian said. “You’re completely safe from them or anyone else you may have reason to fear.”
Including demons opening portals. Then I had another thought.
“Your employer, maybe?” I asked.
The goblin turned even pastier, if that was possible.
The door immediately opened.
“That’s all, Agents Byrne and Fraser.” Dr. Barbara Carey wasn’t going to accept any response other than us getting away from her patient.
Within seconds, we were in the hall with the door firmly closed behind us.
If I could’ve kicked myself in the ass, I would’ve. “Dammit, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Our time was almost up. Dr. Carey wouldn’t have let us have a second more. Sounds like the kid’s afraid of his boss.”
“Do we know who owns the Murwood?”
“No, but Kenji has a database of buildings owned by supernaturals. Murwood is the name of a forest in the goblin and elf dimension, so chances are good that a supernatural owns the building.”
“I have a couple of follow-ups I need to do, so I’ll check in with Kenji on that.”
Ian nodded. “I’ll wait for Dr. Carey to come out and see when she might let us talk to Jesin Nadisu again, though I’m not holding my breath for it being anytime soon.”
I tilted my head down the hall. “And if you could listen out for any celebrations erupting in the lab.”
“Will do.”
I headed down to the bull pen and to my desk.
Only to find Alain Moreau sitting in my chair.
Aw crap.
Being called into your manager’s office was stress inducing enough. But to have your manager camp out in your chair to wait for you?
I’d stepped in something serious. Even worse, I’d stepped in so much lately, I had no clue which pile this could be about. At least he hadn’t had to come down to one of the NYPD’s precincts to bail me out. Regardless, I was sure I looked like a kid with their hand in the cookie jar, even though I didn’t know what I’d done.
Alain Moreau looked like a man about to fire someone.
He’d hired me. He could fire me.
“I can explain,” I told him. That is, as soon as I knew what he was here for. “Or . . . do I just need to pack a box?”
Moreau looked baffled—baffled and tired. “I beg your pardon?”
“A box. To clean out my desk.”
More bafflement as he regarded the surface of my desk. “It appears to be acceptably tidy. Why would you need to clean—?”
“You’re not firing me?”
“You’re not going anywhere, Agent Fraser.”
I took an involuntary step backward. Maybe SPI management considered firing to be wasteful. If I was a failure as an agent, maybe I’d be a rousing success as a meal in the employee cafeteria. After all, I wouldn’t actually have to do anything. I couldn’t screw that up.
“Unless you wish to leave,” he continued, still sounding tired.
Now I was confused.
He had the same expression as Ian had upstairs—too much bad news and no idea how to deal with it. But instead of thunking his head against a wall, Moreau ran his hand through his perfect hair. Hair that was still perfect. I wasn’t sure if it’d even moved. Maybe it was a vampire thing.
“We have questioned both Agent Filarion and Mr. Sadler, and neither have experienced any effects—ill or otherwise—from being exposed to the ley line convergence.”
“Dang it.”
One of Moreau’s silvery eyebrows shot up in surprise.
“Okay, that didn’t come out right. Sorry, sir. It’s just that that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I mean, I’m glad that Caera and Ben didn’t get zapped with some kind of mutant power, but it’d be nice not to have the only explanation left being a bizarre mind-meld, power-transfer thing with Viktor Kain. I’m not exactly enthused about catching anything from a multi-millennia-old, psychotic criminal mastermind.” I paused for breath and sighed. “At least I don’t have an urge to take over the world,” I muttered. “Yet.”
“That is not the only explanation left.”
I perched on the edge of my desk. “It’s not? But Ms. Sagadraco said—”
“We need to reconsider your family background. The contact with either Viktor Kain or the diamonds or the nexus—or even a combination—could have awakened a previously dormant ability.”
“No one in my family can see portals. If they can, I never heard about it. Not to mention, I’d kind of hoped to be able to avoid calling home and asking.”
“Why?”
“They worry about me enough as is, moving up here and all. Calling home and going, ‘Uh, Mom . . . yeah, I’m doing great. I’ve got a question. Has anyone in our family ever been able to see portals? No, no. No problems here. Just asking out of curiosity.’”
“I can see how that might be awkward.”
“And impossible to hide why I want to know. Mom’s relentless. And don’t even get me started on Grandma Fraser. Trust me; you don’t want my family coming up here. Nobody wants that. Least of all, me. Has Kenji taken a shot at it yet?”
Kenji Hayashi was SPI’s CTA—Chief Technology Agent. Each SPI office worldwide had their own CTA, but Kenji was the best, which was why he was here at agency headquarters. If it existed in cyberspace, the Japanese elf could find it, and decipher it six ways from Sunday.