Page 59 of Tooth and Nail

“I get it. Was she mad about your involvement once she learned about things?”

“Well, by the time Gladys and I approached her, rapid response had already given her their report about the fingerprints and the body of the homebuilder. That didn’t stop her from reading us the riot act. We were reminded by her that the Agency frowns on anything that’s not at the core of the I.S.R.’s mission statement.”

“Which is?”

“That our contact with aliens and paranormals is supposed to be limited to those things which relate to us acting as marshals and nothing more. Our contacts with other-than-human species is narrow in scope.”

“Meaning to capture fugitives, hold them in our jail facilities until such time as they can be turned over to authorities of those species, provide them with WITSEC as necessary, and escort them to and from jail as needed,” Ari said.

“Yes, exactly.”

“But the fact that Oberon and Titania asked for help to find their offspring, didn’t fall within those parameters, right?”

“Right.”

“But the chief ordered it anyway,” Ari concluded.

“Yes.”

“Why did she, if it didn’t fall within the I.S.R.’s scope of authority and duties?”

“Bottom line? Because the Agency left it in her hands whether to do so or not,” Eoghan said. “There is no other government or even a non-government entity in the world which exists to do the type of things the I.S.R. does. That doesn’t mean it’s not necessary because we have an important job. This is one of those cases which she decided would be best handled if we could simply get involved. I think she was stinging from Devon’s murder and thought she’d be irrelevant to the Agency if she didn’t solve the case.”

“So, on the one hand, she got us involved in the first place, and on the other hand, she told you to leave it alone because the case didn’t fit Agency parameters. What a hypocrite,” Ari said.

“That’s true but Oberon and Titania’s offspring’s kidnapping and murder happened in California, and the Los Angeles branch of the I.S.R. basically covers the entire state. She felt it was important that we try to contain any fallout from disregarding a request from them. That decision resulted in mine and Devon’s attack and then the homebuilder’s murder. Things were snowballing. Besides, what other agency was going to deal with this? At this point, we didn’t know anything but what Oberon and Titania told us, and they’re known liars. We had to investigate, and the chief knew it. And, after all, they were friendly enough with humans and lived almost off the grid.

“Visalia isn’t large, only about a hundred and forty thousand people, but it’s located in an important agricultural part of the state. I think if there was another agency which could have handled the case, Priest would have been more than happy to leave it to them. Anyway, I bet she wishes we didn’t have to go out there to deal with them now but atthis point, it seems more like containment. I’m pretty sure she’s following orders from the Agency, especially after what happened.”

“Okay, now I’m dying to know what happened to you and Gladys.” Ari leaned forward to look at a road sign as they drove by it on the freeway. “After all, we have less than forty miles to Bakersfield and the Flying J Truck Stop.”

Eoghan nodded, thinking back to the day he, Gladys, Acosta, and Wick had gone out to talk to Oberon and Titania.

“You’re right. Okay, before Miranda disappeared and we were contacted by Oberon and Titania, no one from the I.S.R. had experience with space fairies in the flesh. The Agency knew about them because they’d registered with them when the Agency had been formed by Teddy Roosevelt. Here’s a little background you need to know. Back then, all paranormals who were born here on Earth were given land and allowed to create settlements or reservations as you already know. However, extraterrestrials were treated differently.”

“That’s wild,” said Ari.

“You said it. But even then, there was a huge amount of racism regarding anything other than the norm and there was a terrific scare about the unknown. Still, earthly paranormals appeared as fictional book characters as far back as written history went. Even folklore passed down through families and through spoken accounts from total strangers, told tales of vampires or werewolves. They were a part of our mythology. Aliens, however, were not. They terrified us…so when the Agency was formed, aliens were barely to be tolerated and definitely not encouraged to live here…unlike paranormals who stayed here on reservation land set aside by the government.”

“That weirdly…explains a lot.” Ari grinned.

He laughed. “The whole purpose of giving earthly paranormals land, was basically to segregate them. I know that sounds bad, but it’s one way the I.S.R. keeps track of the populations we deal with day in and day out. It’s necessary because if, for example, a vampire drains a human, their clan knows that the U.S. government won’t treat them well. They might lose the land they were given. That’s how we know they’ll enforce self-restraint.”

“So, you didn’t know of Oberon or Titania before you met them?”

“No. Before we went out to meet them and talk about the homebuilder’s murder along with Acosta and Wick, the only person from our office who’d ever had contact with them was Tony Alvarez. Like I told you, he’d asked to be off the case and then almost immediately decided to be transferred to the civilian U.S. Marshals Service when he saw a picture of Devon. When he’d realized Devon was killed because of his resemblance to him, it freaked him out. He wasn’t going to stick around and wait to be killed by Devon’s murderer once Titania and Oberon’s rivals figured out they’d targeted the wrong person.”

“Okay, that only makes sense. So, what happened when you guys went out to talk to Oberon and Titania?”

“We’d decided to split up, which ended up savingourlives but unfortunately didn’t do the same for poor Acosta and Wick. Gladys was the senior marshal in the field and she decided we should interview Oberon and Titania. She thought maybe the presence of a female marshal who could talk to Titania, might help mitigate any hard feelings between us and the space fairies. What she couldn’t have understood—none of us could have understood—was that they are a matriarchal society who won’t tolerate any softness in females.”

“Jesus, how could Gladys have predicted what would occur?” Ari said. “She probably interviewed Titania in the softest, most gentle way, right?”

Eoghan nodded as his heart flooded with warmth when he realized that he’d been right. His partner was a total romantic. It took everything within him not to point that out.

“In space fairie culture, females who are considered less than warriors are to be thought of as disposable,” Eoghan said instead of what he really wanted to say which was how amazing this man was. “That’s what almost got us killed and what ultimately did get Bulmaro Acosta murdered.”

“What happened?”

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