Page 5 of Consumed
“Of course I can. The Bureau is supported by a wide variety of positions, not all of which require physical agility. I think you’re an excellent candidate for some of those, and I’m almost never wrong. So what do you say, son? How about a move?”
Townsend folded his hands across his ample belly and waited. His expression was placid, as if he fully expected Con to accept his offer.
Which of course Con would not. It was ridiculous. He had no idea what tasks Townsend was talking about or why the guy was under the impression that Con would be any good at them. Townsend was… weird. The whole situation was weird.
But all of a sudden Con had a hauntingly clear image of himself sitting in a chair in a filthy, decrepit room, staring out a dirty window at a world he would never be a part of. Drinking himself to death or maybe just stewing in his own despair.
He took a deep breath and looked Chief Townsend in the eyes. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
What did he have to lose?
CHAPTER3
Bureau West CoastHeadquarters
Los Angeles
Ten years later — June 2004
Con groaned as he stood up from his chair. He’d been sitting for hours and his joints and muscles had locked up. From experience he knew that he needed to grab his cane before hobbling the long length of the room to the storage cabinets. A few times he’d decided that juggling the cane and the evidence samples was too much hassle, and he’d attempted to make it on his own. Each try had resulted in a graceless fall. Fortunately nobody had been there to see, and he’d been able to get back on his feet by himself, but those hadn’t been fun experiences. So, grumbling softly, Con grasped his cane in his right hand and the bag of fangs in his left.
“Be grateful you can walk at all, buddy,” he reminded himself. After all, he’d worked hard to regain the ability, and even now, a decade later, he still had to do daily exercises to keep himself operational.
The lab was cold—better for preserving evidence, much of which tended to be organic. The chill, added to the glaring lights and gleaming white surfaces, caused most Bureau employees to refer to Con’s workspace as the Antarctic. He didn’t mind, just as he didn’t care when someone referred to him as the Phantom, as inPhantom of the Opera. He was disfigured, and he did tend to lurk in his underground lair.
He couldn’t carry a tune, though, which is why he kept a radio on, tuned to a station that played classical music. Not that he was a huge fan of Beethoven and Brahms, but anything with lyrics still made him feel guilty—feelsinful—so he stuck to instrumentals. Boy, his parents had sure done a number on him. The chief had been right, that day in the hospital when they first met: invisible scars could be tremendously incapacitating.
Con reached the cabinet, unlocked it, and put the baggie into its assigned cubby. Eventually, when the case was closed, he’d dispose of the evidence bag. But first somebody who wasn’t him would have to figure out who was going around breaking fangs out of vampires’ mouths and why. At this point, nobody even knew whether the vampires were surviving these attacks. None of them had filed a report, but then, very few vampires would feel comfortable about revealing themselves to the Bureau, even when victimized.
“None of that is my problem,” Con reminded himself as he slowly made his way to the computer desk. He sank into his chair with a muffled groan and peered at the form on the screen. Unlike most other Bureau employees, he didn’t mind the paperwork aspect of his job. In fact, he rather enjoyed it. There was something intrinsically satisfying about filling in the blanks and sending documents off for the next level of review, knowing that he’d communicated the appropriate details clearly and concisely.
“Your reports have solved cases for us,” Chief Townsend had told him a few years ago. “They’ve saved lives.” And that was pretty gratifying to know. It made enduring the Antarctic cold worthwhile. Heck, it madelivingworthwhile.
The report on the fangs was nearly complete, so it wasn’t long before Con hit Save and then Send. One copy would go to the Bureau’s fancier lab in Northern California. Had the evidence been complicated, Art Gundersen would have taken over at that point, possibly requesting that the samples be sent to him for more intensive analysis. In this case, however, that was unlikely. Con had been able to definitively identify them as vampiric and had documented the likely method of their removal. A sharp metal blade. Wire cutters, he guessed.
Agent Guerrero would also get a copy of the report. It was her job to assign people to investigative teams, except when Townsend decided to stir things up. The chief would receive a copy too, although what he did with them was anybody’s guess. Similar to what Churchill had famously said of Russia, Townsend was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
There was more work to be done on other cases, including unidentified bloodstains on a victim’s clothing, some footprint castings that might have been from a harpy, and a small cloth bag containing what could be elements of a hex—or soup ingredients. Con’s bet was on the latter.
But when he glanced at his watch, he saw that it was nearly 2 p.m. Time to head upstairs for the training session.
* * *
The classroom was a large space on the main floor, down the hall from the gym and the locker rooms. It didn’t have any windows, probably to minimize distractions, and it contained neat rows of chair-desk combinations, all facing a long table at the front. There were several chalkboards, various screens that could be unfurled at the push of the button, and a cluster of audiovisual equipment. Con had been saved the effort of dragging a laptop to the session due to the presence of a desktop computer.
It took him several minutes to boot up, log in, and make sure the projector was working properly. In the meantime, agents trickled into the room, some with bagged lunches, some with notepads, all of them looking glum.
Con perched on the tall chair behind the computer. He would have preferred to walk around as he taught, but he wasn’t up to having all of those pairs of eyes watch him limp and hobble. Besides, the computer blocked most of the view of his face from the audience.
“There’s no point complaining about it,” he informed the group when everyone was seated. “You have to learn this software, and it’s not that hard.”
“I didn’t join the Bureau to peck away at a keyboard.” That was Agent Isaac Molina, the bane of Con’s existence. Molina’s field notes were illegible, disorganized scrawls that generally arrived in Con’s hands only after repeated requests. His presence at trainings was surly at best and heckling at worst. And he was handsome, with a tall, tightly muscled frame that confidently stalked the hallways or sprawled carelessly in the classroom seats.
Con took a steadying breath. “It won’t take up much of your time. It’s more efficient than scribbling things in notebooks.”
“Didn’t join to scribble either. I’m not a goddamnclerk.”
“Shut it, Molina.” That was Agent Vaughn Brown, who had the physique and stolid temperament of an ox. His reports weren’t great either, but at least he tried. And he didn’t give Con a hard time.
