Mercury reclined on the pillows, wondering when they had actually made it to the bed. Dane was tracing circles on Mercury's stomach with two fingers. He wasn't glowing any longer now that the fun had ended, but he hadn't put his glamour back on. His long blond hair was splayed behind him in tangles. It was the color of sunshine and mesmerizing if Mercury looked at it too long. He preferred to get lost in Dane's eyes, but the blue orbs were closed as Dane fought to even his breathing back out. Instead, Mercury reached out to run one finger along the pointed tip of Dane's ear, jingling one of the silver rings pierced through the cartilage.
"Lumie wants us to go on a picnic during lunch tomorrow," Dane said out of the blue. He opened his eyes to look at Mercury. There was a pinched line between Dane's eyebrows that made Mercury laugh. Dane was very worried about what Lumie had planned.
"Sounds like fun," Mercury replied with a shrug just so he could see that line deepen and Dane frown. "I can leave work for an hour around one o'clock."
Dane saw the smile on Mercury's face and buried his head in a pillow with a groan. "It's Lumie's picnic. Something is going to go wrong," Dane insisted. He peeked one eye out to look at Mercury, who couldn't help laughing even louder.
Lumie was a menace, admittedly, but it was far too much fun watching Dane try to handle Lumie's quirks. Dane was smart in that he knew offending Lumie wouldn't end well for him, and trying to dance around the delicate line between upsetting Lumie and appeasing him was going to slowly drive Dane insane. Mercury was enjoying every moment of it and he thought Lumie might be too.
"You're sure you can get off work?" Dane asked hopefully after a moment of thought.
Mercury's smile couldn't help growing at the plaintive note in Dane's voice. Dane was an amazingly powerful person, both in magic and personality, and a five-year-old dragon had felled him.
"I've taken lunch at my desk while working for the past few days," Mercury explained, much to Dane's consternation. "No one will complain if I leave the office for a bit tomorrow."
Mercury still wasn't entirely certain how he had gotten a job with the local division of the SupFeds, also known as the Federal Bureau of Supernatural Investigations. He had applied on a whim, joking with Dane at the time that he would make an excellent spy inside the SupFeds to see if they still had any hand in the dragon abductions and cruel experiments. Mercury had never expected to be called in for an interview and had been even more surprised when he had been offered the job.
He was a low-level analyst. His job was to comb through alleged supernatural crimes to find out which ones actually had magic or a magical creature involved. The various police departments in the region handled most local crimes, even the supernatural ones, but it didn't hurt the SupFeds to stay abreast of what was going on. Mercury looked for patterns, repeat offenders, and crimes with enough magic that the local police wouldn't have the resources to handle them. Then he passed everything he found to analysts higher on the food chain. It meant that he recognized when a dragon in distress caused a disturbance, and he did break his security clearance to point Dane in the right direction.
Sometimes Mercury thought he had been hired so the SupFeds could prove how diverse they were in their hiring practices. He was the only dragon on staff and the vast majority of his colleagues were human. Other times Mercury wondered if they were using him to watch Dane. Someone had to know that Dane wasn't a mere human or an ordinary supernatural creature, and once they realized that Dane was involved with Mercury, they probably thought they could somehow keep better watch on Dane's activities through him. Mercury wasn't certain whether that meant they thought he would disclose information about Dane—which he wouldn't—or whether they just wanted a firmer connection with Dane. Mercury wondered if they also realized Dane was using Mercury to keep a better watch on them in return.
"Yay, we're going on a picnic," Dane deadpanned with a heavy sigh. "You bring Lumie's picnic basket and I'll sneak us a pizza."
"You don't think Lumie's picnic is going to be delicious?" Mercury asked. He couldn't help teasing Dane. It made Dane's beautiful face scrunch in the most interesting expressions of disconcertion and disgust.
"Lumie cooked it himself," Dane groaned. He buried his head under the pillow again as he spoke. "There's no telling what's actually in it or whether anything will be edible. I think Daisy just left Lumie to it and only supervised enough that I wouldn't need to replace another oven."
"It'll be an adventure," Mercury declared. Dane just grumbled incoherently into the pillow.
It certainly would be, Mercury knew. Dane was right: there was no telling what Lumie had put into the picnic basket. It could be something dangerous or poisonous for all he knew. Yet, if they ditched the food somewhere and got a pizza instead, Lumie would somehow know and hate them forever.
"So how did your search go today?" Mercury asked, hoping that changing the subject would get his own mind off of his fears over Lumie's picnic.
The pillow covering Dane's face didn't move and Dane's breathing halted for a long moment. It was almost as if Dane were embarrassed, which wasn't an emotion Mercury saw from him a lot. He mumbled something so softly that Mercury couldn't hear what he said through the pillow.
"What?" Mercury asked. This time he kept his smile in check. As funny as it was to see Dane out of his element, the topic was far too serious to tease him over. They had to find those dragons before the enemy did.
Dane slowly pulled the pillow away. "I'm an idiot," he repeated scathingly. "The mother dragon wouldn't stay in pack territory. She moved on while I've been uselessly searching the wrong area."
Mercury hadn't thought of that either. It was common sense that a dragon would want to leave someone else's territory as quickly as possible and Mercury hadn't thought to mention it, or honestly even thought of it at all, the last time Dane had mentioned his search.
"So you were figuring out where to restart your search when I interrupted you?" Mercury wiggled his eyebrows to let Dane know exactly the type of interrupting he meant. Dane's grin was a little sharp as memory quickly surfaced.
"I've got it all figured out. Now, come here so I can figure you out too."
Mercury laughed and let Dane pull him close so their naked bodies still slick and warm from just a few minutes before could press together. Mercury bent down to kiss Dane, and when Dane's hand landed on his butt and squeezed, Mercury smiled.
*~*~*
Dane put on his sturdy boots with his outfit that morning while Mercury was contemplating actually wearing a tie. His kits would tug on it and choke him. Besides, he only wore a tie when he had a meeting with his boss. Wearing it today just because he was going to take a long lunch would probably raise some red flags.
Mercury got away with dodging the business professional dress code because he growled at anyone who mentioned it to him. It probably fell under some species awareness law so the HR department couldn't force someone of another species to conform to human standards. He tossed the tie he was holding on the back of a chair with a growl of disgust and left it where it lay. He was wearing a pair of nice dress pants and a collared shirt, which was good enough as far as he was concerned.
They both went down to the kitchen together for breakfast. Lumie and Alloy were waiting for them. Both kits were holding their breakfast bowls in their hands and were waiting patiently for someone to come and help fill them with food. Lumie had just allegedly cooked an entire picnic, yet he couldn't get the cereal down from the cabinet and pour himself and Alloy some breakfast? Something didn't add up, and unfortunately the answer was locked up somewhere in Lumie's head, which meant Mercury would never know.
Between Mercury and Dane, they were able to get Lumie and Alloy happily crunching on cereal. Nickel wandered into the kitchen yawning widely and fixed himself a bowl on his own.
"I'm not bringing all of you to work today," Dane grumbled ineffectually. If Lumie and Alloy wanted to go to Dane's office, they would go. Nickel went to Dane's office every weekday and did his schoolwork and some easy office work. It kept Nickel happy and gave Daisy fewer kits to look after during the day.
Lumie made a face. "Just want breakfast. Don't want to walk in the woods. Make sure you come back for your picnic!"
Dane sighed tiredly and Mercury had to suppress a laugh. "I won't forget," Dane replied.
"Neither will I," Mercury echoed.
Dane gripped Nickel gently on the shoulder, and they both vanished with a whoosh of magic. Mercury ruffled Lumie's and Alloy's hair.
"Try to behave today?" he asked them both. He got reluctant nods in return, which was probably the best Mercury was going to get out of them. "I'll see you for dinner."
Mercury's magic was different than Dane's magic. He couldn't just vanish into thin air. Dane emulated a basic transportation spell by using enough power to do what he wanted it to. Mercury, on the other hand, needed to recall how the magic had to be shaped around him so the transportation spell would work properly before he cast and magic pulled him away. The kitchen vanished around him and the front entrance of his office building appeared instead.
The building had magical shields around it that prevented someone like Mercury from appearing inside his cubicle at will. Instead he had to walk through the front entrance just like every other employee. Mercury didn't need to carry car keys, though, which made walking through the metal detector a quick process. His badge was scanned by the guard and then he was waved towards the elevators as the guards tried to hurry the morning line along.
There was more than one federal department inside the building. Mercury's office was on the sixth floor, the entirety of which belonged to the SupFeds. His space was a small cubicle amid a floor of small cubicles. The outer edges of the room were lined with windowed offices for people with considerably more clout than Mercury. He didn't want an office like that; it just brought more scrutiny and more work hours. Daisy did an amazing job corralling Mercury's kits, but it wasn't fair to keep her from her own family just because Mercury's job required more hours. He would apply for a promotion to get a slightly larger cubicle, but going into a private office was too much.
The fuzzy walls of Mercury's cubicle were an ugly gray. Some of his coworkers had plastered their cubicle walls with family photos and awards certificates. Mercury had one lone picture hanging next to his computer. He studied it while he waited for his computer to boot up.
Alloy was hanging over Copper's shoulder, grinning widely. Lumie had his thumb in his mouth and was clinging to Dane's leg. Copper and Zinc were glaring at each other from opposite sides of the frame. Nickel was in the center of the picture next to Mercury. His smile was small and hesitant, as if he were still unsure of his place in the world. The picture had been taken before Dane had finally relented and Nickel had become a permanent fixture at Dane's office. 'Ron was clinging to Mercury's arm and grinning widely, and Chrome was standing on Nickel's other side glaring sullenly at the camera.
Daisy had only gotten the one shot before the kits started wandering off to play in different directions. Dane had a copy at his office too.
The computer beeped softly to let Mercury know it was finally on. He input his password and settled into his chair to begin sorting through his work email. Most of them were junk or the usual reply-alls that accidentally went viral. Mercury had to delete all of those first before he could get to work on the real emails.
"Mercury, if I might have a word?" a voice asked from outside the cubicle. Mercury jumped in surprise and a fizzle of magic sparked between his fingers. He quickly moved his hands away from his keyboard and mouse so he didn't fry another motherboard. His work computer wasn't as sturdy as Dane's spelled laptop.
"Director Stockton!" Mercury gaped, standing up abruptly when he saw who had interrupted his work. Ames Stockton was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Supernatural Investigations. He was so far above Mercury on the food chain in terms of work that he should be locked in his office on a pedestal while peons like Mercury did his personnel fetching. Stockton was a big man, tall and thickly muscled. There wasn't an ounce of extra fat on his body, but Mercury had little doubt he had to go up a suit size or two in his shirts just to accommodate his shoulders. His skin was dark and his eyes sharp with intelligence as he looked at Mercury.
"This way, please," Stockton said, waving his arm towards one of the conference rooms. Most of Mercury's coworkers were probably still fighting through the crush of people downstairs trying to get through security, but enough people poked their heads around their cubicles to see what was going on that he knew the gossip would be flying once he was out of earshot.
"Is something wrong?" Mercury asked as he obeyed Stockton's directions. There were two other people that Mercury didn't recognize in the conference room and a very large stack of papers covering one end of the long table. Mercury walked inside. Stockton followed and closed the heavy door.
"Nothing is wrong, per se," Stockton began as he took a seat at the head of the table. He gestured that Mercury should sit too, so Mercury pulled out a chair further down the table and perched awkwardly on the edge. "We just have some questions for you."
"Okay?" Mercury asked, wondering where this was going and if he should be contacting Dane to break him out of the office.
"As you know, we performed our usual extensive background check prior to your hiring," one of the other men Mercury didn't recognize said. "Because you were raised in a government-funded foster home, you have a Social Security number and identification we can track. School records, work locations, etcetera. Except one day you simply vanished and only reappeared three years later. You explained the missing time as going dragon in your interview. You realized you needed time to embrace your cultural heritage by spending time in the wild. There were people who believed your story, enough that you were hired, but those few who still had concerns kept digging."
He pulled a piece of paper off the top of the stack and pushed it across the table for Mercury to see. It was a print out of a news article from eight years ago. "Terrorist bombing! Government lab set on fire by a terrorist calling himself Quicksilver." Mercury could make out the destroyed remains of the lab that had held the water dragons captive in the grainy photo.
"You were living in Chicago at the time of this attack and the facility in question was only ten miles outside the city. You did not arrive at work on the day this attack occurred and did not reappear until the day after the fourth attack in Maryland occurred three years later."
Three additional pieces of paper were placed in front of Mercury, each an article detailing Quicksilver's attacks. Mercury looked up at Stockton, whose face was as blank as Mercury hoped his own was. Inside, Mercury was wondering if he should demand to contact a lawyer before the interrogation continued. Gregory, Dane's centaur lawyer, would be tickled pink to be given the chance to go after the SupFeds.
Mercury was guilty of the bombings, although he hadn't used any actual explosives. He had woken up after being kidnapped strapped to a gurney in a lab where scientists had been conducting cruel experiments on dragon kits and eggs. He still didn't know why someone wanted an adult dragon, but he felt safe in assuming that someone had noticed what he was, and that he was in his less-protected human form, and had taken him. The first attack in the newspaper articles had occurred when Mercury escaped from his bindings and started killing the bastards that had kidnapped him. Then Nickel had blown open a wall for his own escape attempt and together they had brought the entire building down around them. The following two attacks had been Mercury rescuing the earth and fire dragons from their own separate labs, and the final attack had been a trap laid to stop him and Dane from pursing the government and the scientists. They had barely escaped with their lives and with Zinc. But he wasn't going to tell the SupFeds any of that.
The government had funded those labs, and there were some who were also benefiting directly from the experiments being conducted there. Jacobson, Stockton's immediate predecessor, had been one of those people. Jacobson and others had forced the media to keep the findings of smashed dragon eggs and the bodies of dead kits mixed in with the dead scientists a secret, one that had only gotten out when Dane leaked it to the media five years ago. Stockton knew the terrible truth about the labs and hadn't confronted Mercury about it, although he had to have his suspicions about Mercury's involvement.
Another piece of paper was dropped in front of Mercury, this one unfamiliar. "Quicksilver Strikes Again! Terrorist bombs another government facility." It was a print out from an online news site dated just that morning. The article said the blast had occurred at six o'clock in the afternoon the previous day while Mercury had been at work.
His alibi was airtight, recorded on the cameras scattered throughout the sixth floor and on every exit and entrance into the building. Mercury had arrived at work at eight in the morning. He had to work late to finish a report and hadn't left until six-fifteen that evening. He wasn't sitting in an interrogation, Mercury realized—he was in a debriefing.
"Was any evidence of experiments conducted on dragons found in the destroyed facility?" he asked calmly.
"Nothing specific," the third man, who had yet to speak, answered. "The responding officers found a few rooms that might have been used as jail cells, but the facility was too destroyed. We can't be entirely certain."
"And the signature?"
"Different," the man replied immediately. "Handwriting analysis of the first crime scene photos show we are looking at a copycat of some sort."
A destroyed facility with no evidence of dragons could mean two things. Either the copycat had heard about Quicksilver's bombing attacks and had decided to emulate them for his or her own purposes, so saving incarcerated dragons wasn't part of the plan, or it was the enemy blowing up their own emptied facilities in order to draw the real Quicksilver out. The enemy had been on the run ever since Mercury had started destroying their labs and Dane, the Genie of the East, had declared to the supernatural community that he was on the side of the dragons and anyone experimenting on them would be punished.
"And you want me to look into this?" Mercury asked, wondering if the SupFeds were laying a trap to connect him to Quicksilver too.
Stockton sat forward in his chair and caught Mercury's eyes with his own piercing ones. "We know you had something to do with Quicksilver," he said, the sharp tone of his voice brooking no arguments. "You can't deny that and I don't want to hear you even try. We both also know that the person calling himself Quicksilver in this new attack is a copycat. You're the only analyst in this department with enough experience with the issue to understand what's going on." And his connection to Dane would ensure Dane got involved without the SupFeds having to pay him for his work. "We're putting you on a field assignment with one of our special agents. She's waiting for you at your cubicle and has been fully briefed on your connections to the case."
That was a dismissal, so Mercury hopped back to his feet and hightailed it out of the conference room. His cubicle looked empty at first glance, but as he approached, a woman straightened up. She had been leaning over to get a closer look at Mercury's lone picture. Her hair was a nondescript color of brown, pulled into a no-nonsense tail at the base of her neck. Her makeup was light, just a touch of eyeliner around her brown eyes and ChapStick on her lips to keep up a professional appearance. She was completely human as far as Mercury could tell, which meant that she couldn't get away with skipping the female version of a tie, i.e. makeup. Her pants suit was off the rack, navy blue, and her blouse ordinary white.
He approached her quickly, not wanting to keep her waiting. When he got close enough, she eyed the bronze scales where they peeked out of the collar of Mercury's shirt for a moment before meeting his eyes. Her own eyes were cold and Mercury knew he had been found wanting solely because of his species. It was something he was used to. Most dragons didn't attend any school, let alone have any eligibility for jobs at a government facility. The vast majority of dragons never left the forest at all. Humans, apparently including the woman in his cubicle, had developed prejudices against magical creatures deemed uneducable. Admittedly, most dragons weren't interested in attending school. Mercury had seven kits at home that were prime examples of that fact, and putting himself through high school and then college hadn't been easy, but it was doable if the right motivation was involved.
"I'm Mercury," Mercury said with a small smile. He would try to be friendly first, and if that didn't work, he would hope for a cordial working relationship at the very least.
"Valerie," she grunted in reply. Her severe face didn't soften into anything resembling a smile.
"I guess we're working together, then?" Mercury asked. He let his smile fade away, but he forced his voice to remain friendly. He refused to be the reason their partnership failed.
"Let's get some things straight right away," she snapped. "I'm the lead on this case. You will listen to what I have to say and do it as I say it. Understand?" Mercury nodded wordlessly, feeling his eyes grow round in surprise as she continued to snarl. "Good. Shut down your shit and meet me downstairs in five. We have a crime scene to investigate."
She stomped off and Mercury sagged against the edge of his cubicle. He glanced at his watch and winced when he saw it was only eight-thirty. One o'clock lunch with Dane couldn't come soon enough.
"So you're the one stuck with Crazy Valerie this time," Cheng asked as he stuck his head over their shared cubicle wall. "I had to work a case with her last year, and let me tell you, she's a piece of work! How'd you get stuck with her?"
"Lowest man on the totem pole?" Mercury asked. It was true that he was one of the more recent hires in the department and he certainly had one of the lowest level positions, but it was also true that she had been assigned the case and Mercury was the most knowledgeable analyst on the topic.
"Look, my advice is do whatever she says, no matter how stupid. It'll keep her from yelling at you." Cheng was grinning at Mercury as he spoke, no doubt glad that he hadn't been chosen. "Once the case is resolved, you just have to fill out the paperwork to transfer out of the field department and back to the cubicle farm. She's had so many partners over the years that HR is probably used to it. If she didn't get slam dunks with just about every damned investigation she was put on, she'd have been out the door a long time ago."
Mercury nodded, taking in the gossip with half an ear while he shut his computer down.
"Any other advice?" he asked after glancing at his watch to see that he still had another minute before Valerie would consider him late.
"Take up drinking?" Cheng asked with a laugh. "You'd better go."
Mercury waved goodbye and headed to the elevator to meet with potential doom, apparently. He couldn't believe he had gotten stuck with such a hard ass, especially one who didn't respect him solely because of his species.
Valerie was waiting for him in the lobby, her foot tapping impatiently as she glared at the elevators. Many of Mercury's coworkers were giving her a wide berth as they headed past her into the building.
"There you are," Valerie snapped the second Mercury stepped out of the elevator. "It's a forty-five minute drive. I hope you have gas in your car."
"I don't drive," Mercury replied, already flinching in anticipation of her reaction. She glared at him, her eyes narrowed and lips pinched, but she changed direction in the parking lot to head towards a rusty clunker of a car tucked awkwardly in the back corner. It didn't look like a car that could safely be taken on the highway, let alone survive a forty-five minute drive.
There was a better, magical option that would ensure they actually made it to the scene, but Mercury didn't think Valerie would ever agree to let him transport them with a spell. She already hated him. Would it be any worse if he didn't ask for her permission first? Probably. Yet, as they walked closer to Valerie's very dead-looking car, Mercury honestly believed that it was still the better and safer option.
"What's the address?" Mercury asked as magic fizzled through his fingers as he began to build a transportation spell around them. Valerie didn't notice, but she rattled off the address after a quick glance at one of the papers sticking out of the bag she was rifling through for her keys.
Mercury added the address to the spell and felt it lock on. He jogged up to Valerie, looped his arm through hers, and let his magic pull them both away.
The parking lot vanished and magic swirled in its place for a brief moment before a debris field manifested around them. Mercury let go of Valerie and took a step back to look around, but before he could see more than broken wood and shattered brick scattered on the ground nearby, Valerie's fist caught him in the stomach.
He groaned and fell to the ground, his hands automatically coming up to protect his stomach as he wheezed for breath. Valerie stood over him while he gasped, glaring down.
"Owwie," Mercury whimpered when his diaphragm finally relaxed enough that he could take a full breath.
Valerie's lips twitched involuntarily and Mercury winced and wondered when he had acquired Alloy's vocabulary.
"I have seven kits," he grumbled in explanation.
Valerie's almost-smile grew for a brief moment—Mercury thought he could call it an actual grin—but it faded just as quickly as it appeared.
"Don't you ever use your magic on me like that again!" she snarled. Her hands were in fists as she glared down at him. He could tell that she wanted to hit him again, but at the same time she knew she shouldn't have attacked him in the first place. It wasn't professional. Then again, she was known for having trouble keeping partners.
"You hit me!" Mercury grumbled back, which had her freezing in place.
"Everything all right here?" another voice asked before Valerie could retort. Mercury stumbled back to his feet with a suppressed groan. He was going to have a bruise there! Dane would be so angry, but he would also get the chance to kiss it all better tonight, so Mercury wasn't too upset. Besides, Mercury was kind of enjoying needling Valerie. He would do the same if any of his kits were in a bad mood, and she had almost cracked an actual smile for a second there, so maybe he was getting through her growly shell.
"Just a little dizzy from the transportation spell," Mercury explained, turning towards the man approaching them. "I slipped on some of the debris. Are you in charge here?" he added, quickly reaching into his pocket to pull out his badge.
The man was a plain-clothes police officer. His suit fit him better than Valerie's fit her, but he hadn't yet perfected the stony cop's face that she wore all the time.
"Captain O'Simmons is in charge," the officer said once he had looked at both Mercury and Valerie's badges. "He knows you're stopping by to have a look. He's right over here." He waved towards a grouping of officers, some in uniform and some not, standing near a squad car and ambulance that were blocking the road from commercial traffic. Mercury and Valerie walked in that direction.
They had landed just outside the crime scene tape that surrounded the blasted area, which was the purpose of the simple wards that were cast on every roll of the tape. The officer led them around the perimeter towards the squad car. Mercury followed, but he also looked at what was left of the building.
Only one wall was still standing of what appeared to have been a two-story structure. The rest of the building was scattered around the street and the parking lot. Nothing was still smoldering, although soot was heavy on the ground and the debris. He was in a commercial area of town that had seen better days. The shops on either side of the destruction zone were empty, their windows boarded up. The asphalt underneath his feet had been cracked and pitted with age before the destruction had made it even bumpier, and rivulets of water and firefighting foam made it slippery to walk on. The wind was blowing gently and Mercury smelled the usual city scents of old cars, filth, and muck, but he also caught the slightest whiff of gunpowder underneath the stench of char, which was decidedly odd.
The inside of the standing wall came into view as they neared the squad car. Mercury had been feeling melodramatic and, quite frankly, pissed off when he had finished destroying the water dragon lab where he and Nickel had been held and had etched "Let My People Go" into the small bit of that lab that was still standing. It had gotten his point across fairly strongly, he had felt at the time, and the connection to biblical slavery and incarceration had been poignant.
"Is that paint?" he couldn't help exclaiming after studying what the impostor had done.
"Meant to look like blood, I think," one of the officers milling around grunted in agreement.
Mercury's lip curled and he let out a growl of disgust. "The original Quicksilver used magic to etch that saying into the brick or stone of whatever lab he had just finished destroying. Red paint is the work of an amateur."
"Valerie Robertson, FBSI. This is my partner, Mercury Chicago." Valerie stated, flashing her badge. Mercury flashed his too, manfully not wincing when she mentioned his last name. It was a result of the foster system arbitrarily handing him a last name when they had to put him into the system. He had wandered into a suburb of Chicago as a kit and that was the name they had stuck him with.
"I'm Captain O'Simmons," one of the men said. He strode forward with his hand out for Valerie to shake. He was wearing a uniform, but the extra shiny bits around his badge told Mercury that his uniform was a mark of his rank while the other officers wearing their uniforms were the peons. It was a complicated way to divide ranks, but since it worked for the police, Mercury wasn't going to question it. O'Simmons looked clean cut with a military style buzz for a haircut, sharp brown eyes, and he fit in his uniform nicely with defined shoulders and a trim waist. He smelled like a normal human, although Mercury probably shouldn't be relying too much on his nose given the acrid stench of burnt building and firefighting foam that encompassed the entire area. O'Simmons turned to Mercury with his hand still out and so Mercury shook it too, hoping the bronze scales on the back of his hand didn't freak the man out.
"Any leads so far?" Valerie asked, turning to survey the scene as she spoke.
O'Simmons grunted. "Nothing. Had one of my boys look up the graffiti and he pinged off of your database, so we had to call you in. How many unsolved Quicksilver cases does this make so far for the FBSI?"
Captain O'Simmons might not have a problem with Mercury being a dragon, but he did have a problem with the SupFeds swooping in to steal his case. It was typical inter-departmental rivalry, Mercury knew, but it was still fun to see firsthand. Mercury let Valerie answer.
"There have been three bombings like this one that can be attributed to Quicksilver and a fourth we're fairly certain he was involved with even though the site was missing his usual signature. This is the fifth Quicksilver case I've investigated."
Mercury didn't know Valerie was the lead investigator on his criminal activities. It must have rankled a good bit to be forced to work with the guy she had been trying to put behind bars not too long ago.
"Five unsolved cases?" O'Simmons said with a mocking whistle of disbelief. "I'm sure glad they sent you my way then."
"She never said they were unsolved," Mercury couldn't help interjecting. "The FBSI are fully aware of the circumstances surrounding the first four bombings and have exonerated the culprit." At least, he hoped they had. Mercury didn't want to accidently put himself behind bars while looking for the impostor.
"With a judge and jury?" O'Simmons asked sarcastically.
"You know full well that's not how some things work," Valerie snapped back. "So we've got a copycat and we need to find out who and why before he or she attacks again."
"You're so certain it's a copycat," one of the plainclothes officers standing behind O'Simmons asked, his tone just this side of polite. He was apparently taking cues from his boss instead of being civil.
"Like I said, the paint is the work of an amateur. The real Quicksilver has enough magic that he doesn't need to resort to cheap tricks," Mercury explained. "The place also smells like gunpowder, which is another cheap trick Quicksilver would never have to use to destroy a building."
"Sounds like you think the bastard's a hero or something," the officer said warningly.
Mercury shrugged. "Maybe I do. I'm a dragon and Quicksilver was destroying evil places where evil people were hurting dragons. Or maybe I want to go do my job and your nattering is pissing me off." He smiled widely at them, just being friendly, except he was also showing off his sharp teeth.
"Tell me about this scene," Valerie snapped when the men shifted around slightly as if unsure whether they should be grabbing their guns or their security blankets.
O'Simmons stepped forward, aggressively muscling his way past his own men and past Valerie as he walked towards the crime scene tape as if he needed to prove to everyone present that he was still top dog. "We've only had access to the scene a for few hours; fire and rescue had to cool off all the hot spots and the bomb squad had to declare the scene secured before my team could move in, and that took all fucking night. Our bomb technician tells me that whoever set the bomb most likely found instructions on the internet. It wasn't a high-tech build. Quicksilver set it off, ran for it, and returned with his paint to graffiti what was left."
"The fake Quicksilver," Mercury grumbled under his breath. He ducked underneath the tape and started walking around the scattered debris in the parking lot in front of the building.
"Had to be a bomb with a lot of pop," Valerie said as she followed Mercury. "Most internet sources aren't strong enough to blow out entire walls. They'll kill anyone close enough and cause major damage, sure, but this looks more like a missile hit than an internet bombing. I'm going to speak with your technician. Is he still here?" O'Simmons pointed towards the large crime scene vehicle parked next to a fire truck on the far side of the debris field. Valerie nodded. "I'll be over there. Don't make a mess, Mercury."
Mercury just growled in reply, frowning at her when she turned and walked away.
"She's a piece of work," O'Simmons remarked. Mercury held back his scathing reply of asking whether O'Simmons knew he was obnoxious too and instead walked towards what was left of the building.
Aside from the lone standing wall, the rest of the two stories were scattered on the ground in various states of charcoal. There was a hole in the ground in the shape of the building, what was left of the basement. It looked like the bomb had been set down there because the basement ceiling was missing too and Mercury could see a crater in the center.
Mercury walked to the edge of the basement and dropped down, hiding a smirk at O'Simmons' exclamation of surprise. There was a ladder set up off to one side for everyone else. He walked around the bomb crater, careful of the people still snapping pictures of the scene, and headed towards one of the hallways. He wanted to find the suspected jail cells first.
There wasn't any evidence of destroyed lab equipment shattered on the floors. In fact, aside from the pieces of the building itself, Mercury didn't see any other debris. The place must have been totally cleaned out before it was attacked. Or it was never a lab to begin with because the impostor had nothing to do with dragons.
Whatever. Mercury refocused on his surroundings instead of worrying about the various what-ifs.
Stockton wouldn't have known that there were rooms that could have been cells on the upper floors after the bombing, which meant the area where any dragons might have been confined was somewhere still standing. There was only one hallway on his side of the basement, so he wandered down it.
Four broken doors lay haphazardly on the ground. The walls they were supposed to be attached to were a soggy, half-burnt mess. Most of the basement was built from wood, but for some reason it felt like these particular walls were a later addition. Mercury didn't want to get his nice clothes dirty; he stayed outside of the soaked wood perimeter and leaned as far over the mess as he could to look inside.
He didn't see the small bed or toilet he remembered from Zinc's horrible cell inside the first door. It didn't smell like a dragon either. In fact, underneath the overpowering stench of gunpowder and firefighting foam it smelled kind of like wet dog. Mercury wrinkled his nose and backed away from the first room.
The second room also smelled like dog and like old blood. The same smell repeated in the last two rooms as well. There was no sign a dragon or anything with a human form had been kept captive in the building. Beyond the hallway was another large room with the remains of what looked to Mercury like a fighting ring in the center.
"This was a dog-fighting operation," Mercury called loudly so everyone above could hear him. His stomach rolled with disgust, but also with relief that he wasn't looking at any more dead dragon kits. He had seen enough of that horror to last for the rest of his very long life.
"A what?" Valerie asked from somewhere above his head.
"Dogfighting. The whole place smells like dogs and blood and this looks like a fighting ring to me."
"So the impostor blew up the wrong building?" Valerie asked sharply. "Get up here so I can look at you properly when you're talking!"
Mercury sighed, but obeyed. He didn't think there was anything more to discover in the blasted basement anyway. Unless someone discovered a trap door that led to cells or a lab even further underground, Mercury was done searching.
He hopped up the ladder to avoid putting his knees in the mud climbing up the side of the basement and then jogged over to where Valerie was waiting impatiently with O'Simmons near the lone standing wall.
"There hasn't been dogfighting in this town ever and I don't expect there to be any now," O'Simmons was insisting to Valerie as Mercury got close enough to overhear.
"It smells like wet dog down there and I'm pretty sure the ring in the far room was where they fought them," Mercury interrupted. "You've got dogfighting in your town now. I thought this was supposed to be a bombed government facility?" he asked Valerie.
"Ex-government facility, and only through a technicality," she grumbled. "It was declassified thirty years ago and sold to a developer who went bankrupt before the property could be dealt with. We have no idea what squatters might have been doing with it in the meantime."
"Apparently they used it for a dog-fighting operation, blew it up, and put Quicksilver's catchphrase on the wall," Mercury muttered. He looked up at the lone wall and the paint staining it. "Maybe someone who likes dogs did it?" he asked jokingly.
"Or a werewolf?" Valerie added thoughtfully. Although their initial meeting had been terrible, Mercury didn't think she was a bad partner. She was just gruff and a little bit mean. He had a feeling her attitude had gotten her paired with the least capable of partners, Mercury included, and the worst assignments. Maybe she deserved it, Mercury thought unkindly with an awkward shuffle of his feet in the wet muck, but sometimes a bad reputation was also caused by bad luck. Maybe she didn't deserve it, Mercury insisted to himself. He stared down at his wet shoes, wondering if Chrome had ever returned his second pair so he had something dry to wear tomorrow. Everything was wet and yucky thanks to the firefighters' efforts to put out the fire. Mercury's shoes and pants cuffs were suffering.
Everything was wet from hose water, except for the paint.
Mercury rushed closer to the wall, staring incredulously up at the paint.
"What now?" Valerie sighed with exasperation in her voice. "I don't see any dog hair in the paint."
"Why isn't the paint washed away?" Mercury asked. "It couldn't have been dry by the time the firefighters arrived and the hoses should have been strong enough to wash at least some of it off."
"Yet, it's pristine," Valerie finished. She spun on O'Simmons. "When did you first notice the paint?" she asked sharply, her intense eyes pinning O'Simmons in place as if he were a bug on display.
"First the firefighters had to get the fire out, then the bomb squad had to clear what was left," O'Simmons hedged shiftily. "We didn't secure the scene until five o'clock this morning," he finally admitted.
"And the bombing occurred at, what? Six o'clock yesterday evening?" she continued scathingly. It had happened early enough to make the morning paper, Mercury knew, which should have been more than enough time for O'Simmons to take control. That he hadn't meant he was either incompetent or was colluding with the bomber or the impostor. "Which means the paint might have been added well after the bombing and you didn't have the scene secured enough to know?" She swore at O'Simmons and ran a hand through her hair, dislodging it from its hair tie. "So sometime after the firefighters finished putting out the burning building, someone entered the scene and added the paint."
"That's my guess," Mercury replied with a shrug. The curl of one letter was low enough that Mercury could touch it. How wet the paint still was would let them at least estimate at how long ago it had been added. Mercury reached upwards and felt the trap spring into action, magic igniting inside the paint to freeze his fingers in place.
"Uh-oh," he gasped.
There was magic in the paint and he hadn't noticed. Mercury called himself an idiot as he yanked on his hand. He wasn't quite touching the paint, but his fingers were stuck. His own magic flared from his fingers in ineffectual sparks as every spell he tried failed to free him.
"What did you do?" Valerie snarled, glaring at him again.
"The magic caught me," Mercury replied through gritted teeth as yet another spell failed to free him.
The paint flared again and a second spell formed around his hand. Mercury groaned as it set into place and his body tried to shift form without his permission. Sweat broke out on his forehead as he fought the magic internally.
"What's it doing?" Valerie snapped. "Talk to me!"
"Trying to force me to change shape," Mercury gasped out.
"And that's bad?" she asked, sounding skeptical.
"I'll destroy the entire crime scene and squish you, O'Simmons, and most of the adjacent building if the spell wins," he growled, sending more magic through his fingers to fight the spell.
Valerie spun on O'Simmons, who was backing away from Mercury with a dawning look of horror on his face. Maybe he just hadn't known that Mercury was a dragon when they shook hands and that was why he hadn't acted prejudiced.
"You have a witch on staff or on call?" Valerie asked him sharply.
"There aren't any witches in this town," O'Simmons replied with a touch too much pride in his voice, as if that was a good thing. Idiot.
"Just like you don't have any dog-fighting operations?" Valerie scoffed. "You're terrible at your job, I hope you know." She turned back to Mercury. "It'll be at least forty-five minutes for the FBSI witch to get here. Can you hold on that long?"
Mercury growled. He could feel the spell working through his body, picking at his muscles and bones, tugging on tendons and ligaments, and scratching down his scales. It hurt so very bad and Mercury just wanted to give in and change shape, but he knew he couldn't. There was a reason the spell had been triggered by his fingers, why someone had set a spell for a dragon in the paint, and he wasn't going to allow them to win, but he could only hold out maybe another five minutes and there was no guarantee the SupFeds witch could even help.
"I have a better idea," Mercury gasped out. His free hand dove into his pants pocket and he pulled out his phone. It took a few seconds to key in Dane's cell phone number and hit send. Mercury could only hope Dane was in a part of the forest where there was service. Dane picked up on the second ring.
"Hello!" Dane said, sounding cheerfully stressed as if he were trying to make the best of a difficult situation. Mercury didn't have time to worry about Dane at the moment as the spell intensified suddenly as if sensing he was about to get help.
"I'm a little stuck right now. Some sort of magic caught me and I can't break free. I was wondering if you or Lumie might be able to get me out." He rattled off the address, then had to pause when yet another pulse of magic flared though him. His body shuddered, but he held his human form. This time. He might not be able to next time.
"I'll be right there," Dane finished, ending their call abruptly. Mercury tucked his phone back into his pocket and tried a different spell to get his hand free. He failed.
"Who was that?" Valerie asked. "You can't just call in an outsider like that! If you don't follow the protocol you'll get us both fired."
Mercury didn't bother to answer. A second later, the air shimmered next to him and Dane appeared. Lumie was clutching at his leg. They were inside the perimeter supposed to be maintained by the warded police tape.
Valerie jumped and swore. O'Simmons went a little white in the face. Dane ignored them all, immediately rushing forward and putting his hands on Mercury's shoulders. Mercury felt a block fall into place as Dane erected a magical wall between Mercury's body and the spell trying to force him to change shape.
"This is a nasty bit of work," Dane murmured as Mercury sagged against him in relief.
"Nasty, nasty," Lumie echoed, staring up at where Mercury's fingers were still stuck. "Daddy's silly."
"I know, Lumie. I need to look before I touch," Mercury replied with a grin.
Lumie nodded imperiously, something both adorable and hilarious coming from a five-year-old kit, and held his hands out for Dane to pick him up. Dane lifted Lumie high into the air until he could reach Mercury's hand. Lumie danced his fingers across Mercury's own fingers, and with a loud pop, Mercury's hand slipped free. Dane's wall faded away slowly. The part of the spell forcing Mercury to change shape had also vanished the moment Mercury was released.
Mercury's magic was depleted. He felt sweaty and gross, and a little stupid. It was idiotic of him to not double check the paint before reaching out and touching it. Dane let Lumie drop to the ground and wrapped his arms around Mercury. Lumie wandered off to eagerly check out his first real crime scene.
"Give the paint a whiff," Dane grumbled. "I really hate that smell."
Mercury obeyed and then wrinkled his nose at the first sniff. It smelled like paint, burnt building, and firefighting foam, but underneath all of that Mercury could smell tainted dragon magic. It was faint and it was also entirely possible that it hadn't been discernable until after Mercury had stupidly activated the hidden spell.
"The enemy was here," Mercury growled. "So either they bombed the building and then set the trap or they took advantage of someone else's criminal act and trapped the paint when the firefighters were still working."
"It's the first solid lead we've had in months," Dane replied eagerly. "The kits should obey their tutor for at least five more minutes. Let me dig at the layered spell in the paint for a bit."
"Why were you home?" Mercury asked since Daisy was supposed to be watching the kits while Dane searched through the woods. Then he thought of an even more serious worry. "What did you bribe the kits with?"
Dane blushed slightly. "Candy after dinner, but only if their tutor says they behaved." So the kits would be sugar high before bed. It made things a little more difficult, of course, but it was better to have happy kits than surly ones when it came to baths and pajamas. It only became an issue when Alloy decided to savor his candy, fell asleep with it still in his mouth, drooled all over his pillow, and woke with it on fire. "Daisy's son bit his teacher today," Dane added, sounding forcefully okay with how his morning had apparently turned out. Dane might not have a problem with the kits destroying his home or with a half-dozen things that drove Mercury mad, but he was desperate to find the missing dragons before the enemy did and losing the chance because Daisy had to leave work early again was enough to push his button. "Her husband took a half-day at work, but he can't leave until noon. Daisy promised Lumie she'll be back in time for our picnic, but until then I'm stuck making sure the kits don't kill this week's tutor." He sighed heavily for a moment.
"Wait a second!" Valerie snapped, interrupting Mercury before he could voice his sympathy. "Don't you dare contaminate the crime scene! Mercury, you know better than to invite someone arbitrarily into a case like this!"
"Ah," Mercury said, turning to look at Valerie. "May I introduce Dane, from the Supernatural Consulting Firm. The FBSI uses his services regularly."
"And you think we have the budget to hire him?" Valerie steamed, her face growing red as her eyes narrowed in fury.
Dane grinned over his shoulder at Mercury. "He'll pay me in sex tonight. Don't worry about your budget."
"What?" Valerie hissed, her face growing even redder. "I'll have your badge for this, Mercury!"
"He's my mate," Mercury said with a happy shrug. Valerie couldn't take his badge and Mercury seriously doubted she had the pull to get someone higher up to do it. Besides, it was such a cliché thing to say to an officer, Mercury knew she was just venting anger without actually thinking first. "We've been together for five years, so he'd come running if I called even if I didn't promise sex afterwards."
She gaped at them both for a brief second before storming off towards the basement. She was probably going to see if there was any truth to Mercury's claim that the building had been used for dogfighting. He also hoped she took a few minutes to calm down.
"Okay, bored now," Lumie rumbled. He threw his arms around Mercury's legs. "You won't forget, right?" he asked Mercury's knees.
Mercury glanced at his watch and was astonished to realize that it was already eleven o'clock. Where had all the time gone? "In two hours, I'll come home so Dane and I can go on your picnic," Mercury promised. He would drag Valerie kicking and screaming back to the office for lunch if he needed to.
"You'd better," Lumie sighed. He squeezed Mercury's legs one last time before letting go and running after Dane. He slammed into Dane's legs, causing Dane to swear and catch himself on a large piece of rubble so he didn't hit the ground. "Time to go," Lumie said with a wide grin up at Dane, who lost his responding scowl quickly under Lumie's cheerful onslaught.
"See you in a bit," Dane called over to Mercury, who smiled and nodded. Dane and Lumie vanished, leaving Mercury to return to work.