Undisclosed Location / 2002

I opened the door to the boss’s office and said, “Director, you wanted to see me.”

“Yes, come in Agent Jameson,” she replied as she turned from facing a wall of monitors each showing information from across the globe.

Sage Thurston, Director of AEGIS, the international law enforcement agency was a six foot tall blonde that was built like she should have been accompanying her ancestors off of dragon ships in viking. The shrapnel scars near her left ear and temple of an almost lethal encounter was the only thing that marred what many would have called a classic Nordic beauty; then again who knows if those old warriors would have been attracted to an obvious warrior. She dropped a red folder on her desk and said, “We have a potential Ghost case, and if it is him then we have caught a break.”

Taking the folder I opened it up to see stills from a security camera that had caught a dark haired man in black tactical gear covered by a trench coat. The key identifying feature of the man however was what looked like a tattoo over the man’s temple. One of the pictures was a cleared up image of the tattoo that showed what looked like an F with angled slightly up and another that was angled down. I asked, “Have we identified the tattoo to see if these symbolize anything?”

Hearing the Director sigh I looked up to meet her eyes and saw anger flashing in them, “I didn’t need to have anyone else identify them.”

She must have caught my look of confusion because she fished a necklace out from under her shirt that had the same downward slanted symbol on it before she explained, “It’s a Nordic Rune, specifically Ansuz. The rune represents thought, answers, and stability. The other is Fehu, usually meaning power or control.”

“Which part is it that has you ready to break out the battle axe?” I asked, trying to use a bit of humor to calm her down.

“I’m not sure,” she said, before tucking the necklace away and continuing, “I am a little unhappy that these symbols of my heritage are on a killer, but that’s personal. I am angry with the fact that we still haven’t managed to catch this guy, and the only reason we even have a clue about him was an observant child. The part that really pisses me off though is the fact that one interpretation of this rune combination means we may have someone out there who can control minds. Granted it is possible that it has a different meaning or intent behind it, but there is no way to tell.”

I nodded in understanding. AEGIS’s remit was to handle crimes of a more esoteric nature than standard law enforcement. Ever since Hitler’s occult research team during World War Two figured out something that actually worked everyone had been scrambling to try and understand the rules. Even after almost sixty years the answers were unclear. I asked, “Do we know if he has an ability or is he just a skilled operator?”

“We don’t know for sure, we have the lead on this one because it was one of our safe houses in New York that put us on his trail, but if he isn’t a warlock then he isn’t in our jurisdiction,” she said.

Warlock was the term law enforcement had settled on for those who used what had been called magic for so long it was now the acceptable term to break the law. Those few who operated within the civilian world were known as adepts, and the few they had interviewed tended to dislike dealing with law enforcement. The one magic user Aegis knew they had on staff was still trying to decide what law enforcement and military personnel should use as a descriptor. Considering Carl Hunt was a twenty-three year old, self identified nerd, with severe ADHD, he had been using references from fantasy books to video games and couldn’t settle on which he preferred. He was honestly a bit tiring to deal with, but he seemed to have a natural ability to comprehend any language he encountered; including computer languages. I might have to get checked for ADHD tendencies myself with how much I was getting side tracked though as I continued the conversation, “Where did we get the photos from?”

A predatory grin crossed Sage’s face as she said, “From a hidden camera in the home of Anton Romanov. Seems his wife had a fetish about watching him when she was out of town.”

“And we already know that Romanov was the middle man for the fire, and likely the source for where we had stashed our guest,” I replied.

I thought back to the kid I had met who used a comic book reference to define the operative we now called Ghost. We likely wouldn’t have been this far along in the case if we hadn’t looked at it as two separate crimes, rather than a shooting and then a fire to cover it up. Jonathan Powell had been arrested and convicted of arson and second degree murder for the fire that had claimed the life of an elderly tenant of the apartment, but due to the young man we knew the shootings were a separate crime. Powell hadn’t known that and had given us Romanov’s name as the one who hired him, which is likely how we got this information so quickly after his death. It did raise the question though, “Why is he dead now though? If he was a loose end shouldn’t he have been killed back before we were onto him?”

The director tapped the photo and said, “Why don’t you take your team and find him so we can ask?”

I nodded and stepped out of her office to find Christine Ming, my second in command waiting outside the door with a pair of extra large travel containers of black ambrosia. As I closed the door she asked, “What’s the job boss?”

“Take these down to Carl and see if he can work his magic on tracing a pattern for him. I’m going to take Nicholas with me to talk to the late Mrs. Romanov,” I said, handing her the file.

“Who is it?” she asked.

I gave her a smile and said, “Ghost.”

Her eyes widened in shock and I said, “I need Carl and you to confirm that for me. It is possible he is, or answers to, a warlock.”

“Right, that reminds me. One of the R&D geeks had a breakthrough on that front. Said that they hooked up some monitoring equipment to Carl when he was updating the security software,” Ming said.

“Anything time critical?” I asked.

She shook her head and said, “No, just the fact that he emitted some strange energy signature when he was working that they were going to try and isolate. Apparently it exists naturally, but is less concentrated.”

I considered that for a moment, “Are you saying that this energy is what we have been calling magic?”

Christine shrugged and said, “He’s going to run a few more tests, but we would need to get a larger sample size to confirm it.”

“Have them send the report up to the director. If we are polite we might be able to get a few of the adepts we have identified to help us run those tests. People generally don’t like law enforcement knocking on their doors to ask questions though,” I said.

“So pass the buck on that, get Carl to bloodhound this guy, and you’re headed for the grieving widow; anything else?” she asked with a bit of sarcasm when she mentioned the late Mrs. Romanov.

“Yeah, send a memo over to the legal team that they might want to review the less obstinate prisoners to see if a deal can be worked out for R&D. I’m thinking Banks, but that’s just a hunch,” I replied.

Ashley Banks was a warlock we had captured a year ago for resisting arrest after being pulled over for a severe DUI. She hadn’t been an aggressive prisoner, but she did have a talent for electricity that had made taking her down difficult for the regular police. Apparently she hadn’t been drunk at all based on the tests, but had been showing signs of it when she was pulled over.

I shook off the thoughts and made a dismissive gesture to Ming as I went down the hall towards our teams desks to collect Agent Schmidt to interview the wife of a mob boss.