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  “You’re something, Wilde. You really are.”

  “Well?”

  “I do wish I had the balls to say the things you said, but I have kids and a wife, and—oh, hell. I’m sorry, Jasper. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Jasper sighed. “Yeah, fine. But you’re right, I don’t have anyone, only myself, and if I fuck my career up, so what? I hear you. So, you gonna give me the time I need?”

  “You gonna apologize to the dim bulb waiting in my office?”

  “I didn’t know you had it in you, boss. But since you put it like that, fine, I will, but only to smooth this rough patch over so I can get on with my work.”

  “All right, but don’t expect any resources from the office, and until this is over, you’re a headquarters guy. Let’s go.” Johnson left the office.

  Jasper took a deep breath. Then took a few more before getting up and finally facing Masters.

  Chapter 27

  “Where were you?” Temple asked as Jasper plopped into his chair.

  “Getting my ass chewed on.”

  “Sounds lovely.”

  “The tried yanking me from SAG, pull me back to working the mean streets.” Jasper chuckled. “Hey, is Poindexter over there?”

  “Who is that?” Temple asked.

  “You see a Buddy Holly looking jerk in the next cube over?”

  Temple leaned to her right and popped her head back into Jasper’s cube. “No.”

  “Okay, good. He doesn’t care for me much and I’d rather he not be around for this part.” Jasper leaned back in his chair.

  “I thought you’d jump at the chance of being pulled off of this,” Temple said. “And then you wouldn’t have to deal with me.”

  “Heh. You wish.” Jasper grinned. “I’ve a vested interest in this case now.”

  “What, Penny?”

  “No. Well, yes, I suppose that, too. But this case has merit despite how crazy it all sounds. God help us—Nephilim, who might be bad angels or devils or djinn or take your pick. But we also have honest-to-goodness humans doing bad shit, and we’re going to put them away.”

  Jasper rocked forward and rifled through the stack of papers on his desk. “So, while the ASAC cleaned out my ears, or should I say, acting special agent in charge, some of my records checks came back.”

  “That bad, huh?” Temple’s eyes held genuine concern for him. “The ass chewing?”

  “I’m flattered,” Jasper said. “I said a few bad things and almost got myself some time off. I could use some, but what would I do with it?”

  “Wow, you’re kind of rambling. Been sipping away at cappuccinos all morning?”

  “Yes. But Poindexter pestered me, and then I bent over and spread my cheeks wide for the ass reaming. Despite all the issues, I’m actually in a pretty decent mood. I won for the time being and I’m being allowed to continue fighting the asshole cult with you.”

  “There is more to it, I’m afraid,” Temple said.

  “You and Vance already come up with something? I haven’t even been given the chance to do much here. I was called to the principal’s office almost as soon as I sat down. How about we keep to the plan and meet for lunch?”

  “How about you come to the conference room and work there? That way we can bounce things off each other. I still have some open source checks to run, anyway.” Temple nodded. “Sound good?”

  “Actually, yes. If Poindexter comes back I’m liable to get sidetracked by his stupid pranks.”

  The conference room table once sported a polished wood surface, but now binders, papers, pens, and pencils littered the surface, along with Vance’s bag of tricks and a rack of vials, and what appeared to be a rather large scientific calculator.

  “You guys are serious,” Jasper said.

  “Yeah, we don’t fool around, mister.” Vance glanced at him from behind goggles.

  “This isn’t a laboratory, you know. My boss is going to be pissed if he sees this. Well, no more than he already is, I primed him up for you guys.” Jasper approached the table and glanced at some of the papers near the top of a stack.

  “Before I go through the records checks I requested, what do you have for me? Anything that might inform what I do?”

  “I got results from the medical examiner.” Vance pulled off a pair of latex gloves and rifled through a stack of paper. “Here they are.”

  “Okay, and?” Jasper leaned forward.

  “These reports were hastily written,” Vance said.

  “I prodded Doctor Lewis to finish up her reports.” Temple shrugged.

  “Excellent,” Jasper felt his impatience growing. “So what’s in them?” He glanced at Temple, who smiled knowingly.

  “Right.” Vance fumbled with the reports. “Doctor Lewis also found materials foreign to what is typically found on earth.”

  “That was a quick turnaround on the lab results, huh?”

  “Your friend Ed White and myself ran all the tests and shared with Doctor Lewis. She independently examined the lab results and we all arrived at the same conclusion.”

  “But the doc is not saying it’s from some alien life-form or devils, correct?” Jasper leaned on the table. “She say what the cause of death was on the first mangled corpse? The one we found near Animal Control?”

  “They aren’t sure. Inconclusive.”

  “Did Irene speculate?” Temple asked.

  “Irene?” Vance frowned, confused.

  “The medical examiner, Doctor Lewis,” Jasper said.

  “Oh, right. Some. But not like us.”

  “Oh, of that I’m quite certain.”

  Temple’s phone rang and she stepped to the other side of the conference room and plugged her free ear with a finger.

  “I may be a scientist,” Vance said, “but Bhutan rests on the borders of India and China and therefore has a foot in both countries when it comes to culture.”

  “What’s your point?” Jasper asked.

  “I’m just saying, don’t be so quick to dismiss Temple’s beliefs, or even those of the guild you two visited. Science and the so-called fantastic are compatible.”

  “Fine, I’ll give it a shot.” But Jasper wasn’t convinced. Everything they’d seen so far still could be easily explained as a group of assholes running around causing trouble. Coupled with odd atmospheric conditions—extremely odd conditions.

  Vance tilted his head. “Really? Anyway, I’ve also run tests on the residue left behind by the suicide twins from the Euclid.” He picked up a vial. “This guy right here had small traces of alien material mixed in, but the other did not.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Could mean a few things, I suppose. One theory holds the sample is contaminated, and the other being he was exposed to an alien or Nephilim before, in a prior ceremony. An even more remote possibility is the other universe—remember the brane cosmology theory posited by Doctor Greg?”

  “Doctor Greg?” Jasper laughed.

  Vance grinned. “Yes.”

  “You have a man crush on that guy?”

  “No, okay, maybe. But not a full-blown bromance.” Vance shook his head. “And certainly not like Temple’s—”

  Jasper turned his attention to Temple for a moment and listened to her conversation with Ed.

  “Yes, thank you very much, Ed. I’ll let Vance know.” She noticed Jasper staring at her. “Yes, Ed. I think so. Uh huh.”

  “Hey, tell Lando I said hi, okay? And keep a Colt cold for me.” He chuckled.

  Temple frowned. “Ed? Jasper says hi.” A pause. “Yeah, he mentioned him and beer.”

  Jasper snapped his fingers. “Damn. Ed’s catching on a little too quickly.”

  Temple tucked her phone in her back pocket.

  “What did that old rogue have to say?” Jasper asked, happy with himself for giving Ed a little shit.

  Temple ignored Jasper and turned to Vance. “Ed has reconsidered his ideas on the, uh, extra—”

  “Extracellular digestion?” Vance
raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes. That. Well, he hasn’t abandoned the idea, but believes the mangled bodies are a result of foreign matter unable to efficiently extract iron from the blood.”

  “What does that mean?” Jasper asked. “Foreign matter? And don’t say Nephilim.”

  “And why not?” Temple’s head bobbed back and forth. She held up a finger. “Don’t.”

  “For crying out loud, Temple. Do you really believe in all this otherworldly shit?” Jasper yanked a chair out from under the conference table and sat.

  Temple’s mouth opened, but Vance spoke: “Nothing on earth could extract only the iron content and leave a body in such a state. How would a cult achieve such a thing?”

  “So, the mangled bodies are directly connected with the cult now? I thought the kidnap victims were directly connected to the cult,” Jasper said.

  “Yes, but the foreign material I found at the Euclid—where we found no mangled bodies, only suicides and what looked like a sacrifice in the past—was also present on the mangled bodies, and don’t forget, one of the suicides. I think it’s clear.” Vance nodded.

  “Fine. I concede. Now let me think for a few minutes.” Jasper took his stack of records and sat in front of one of the FBINET computers in the room. “What do you want for lunch?” He asked after a minute. “I’m starving.”

  He phoned up some delivery from a nearby sandwich shop, and while they waited, each of them worked on their own part of the project.

  Jasper’s part was not all that difficult. In fact, a Staff Operations Specialist he’d co-opted, Mandy, ran all the name checks and cross-referenced the information with both open and closed investigations and provided him with a link chart. He examined the results and determined there were no links between the cult members and the victims. A few closed and active investigations were listed and represented on the chart. He scanned them, and transferred what he deemed as pertinent to a small notepad he carried around. Many Agents still carried around pen and paper, but some of the real young ones stored everything in an electronic format. He also jotted down a few names associated with those investigations for further look up if needed. Even the records on Steve, Penny, and Carlos were sparse—and there were no mentions of Câ Tsang or Völundr’s Hammer in any FBI database. Wayland Precision, however, did have a hit, but from an old white-collar case that had gone nowhere involving some sort of fraud, but the allegation was unfounded.

  Lunch arrived and Jasper retrieved it from reception—they’d never allow a delivery person access to the innards of the FBI building, and especially not unescorted. Jasper plopped the bag down and slid bottled waters to Temple and Vance.

  “Shall we discuss over lunch what we’ve come up with so far?” Temple asked. “Or are you still looking over all those records?”

  “I’m good to go. These charts have some possibilities, but nothing earth-shattering,” Jasper said. “I’m going to have Mandy, the SOS who put all this together, do a little more digging on a few of these other names.”

  “Sounds good,” Temple said. “I’ll offer up what I’ve done, since we’ve sort of heard from Vance already.”

  Jasper ripped into his sandwich, a nice roast beef with mayo on the most amazing soft hoagie roll. “Go,” he said, mouth full of bread and beef,

  “I researched Bhutan a bit, and some of the religions there. I’d say, this cult, the Câ Tsang, originated as an offshoot of an old religion named Bön, but they broke free a long, long time ago.”

  Jasper laughed, still chewing. “Let me guess, in a galaxy, far—”

  “All right, wise ass. Great one. Moving on—and Jasper? Don’t talk with your mouth full of food.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “So anyway,” she continued, “the cult’s origins may be shamanistic, which may explain the sacrificial rituals we’ve seen. Oh, and get this,” she unwrapped her sandwich, “ever see the flag of Bhutan?”

  Jasper shook his head, but Vance appeared to know what she was going to say.

  “Their flag has an Asian style dragon on a field of gold and red. The country is nestled in the Himalayas, between India and China.”

  “Fascinating,” Jasper said. “Tell me more—”

  “And Bhutan? The precise etymology isn’t clear, but I came across some information what else the country’s been called: Druk Yul. And you know what that means?” Temple asked. “Didn’t think so. Land of the thunder dragon.”

  “So a few guys are running around worshipping dragons.” Jasper took another bite of the sandwich.

  “This fits. I will bet you anything Penny and Steve know a hell of a lot more about the Câ Tsang than they’re letting on.” Temple opened her bottled water and drank half the bottle in one tilt.

  “Impressive. But Penny and Steve aren’t likely to give us anything anytime soon, remember? We kind of pissed them off when we walked out.”

  “What I’m fascinated by,” Temple said, “is how a guild based on Northern European myths and stories ever became mortal enemies with one from the Himalayas. Don’t you find that odd?”

  “A little,” Vance said. “But remember, not too long ago, Mongols made their way across Asia and almost conquered Europe.”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘almost’ conquered,” Jasper said.

  “I would.” Vance bit into a sandwich comprised entirely of vegetables.

  Jasper wrinkled his nose. “All right, how do we use any of what we learned to our advantage moving forward?”

  Vance edged forward in his seat. “Oh, I forgot something—you provided me with an odd list of things earlier—sea squirts and mushrooms at Wayland Precision.”

  “Do they have anything in common?”

  “I don’t think so,” Vance said.

  Jasper threw up his hands. “Then why bring it up?”

  “In case you were wondering.”

  “Oh, boy. It’s probably like Penny said, old superstitions—they were used to ward off Nephilim or some nonsense.” Jasper finished his sandwich and gulped the water.

  Temple started picking at her sandwich.

  “But I asked Ed about it, you know, him being the biochem guy,” Vance said.

  “And?”

  “He didn’t know either, but would think about the possible connections.”

  “Vance? How about you only give pertinent information from now on, and without any prodding. Okay?”

  “Look, I can’t help how I think and process information. Get used to it.” Vance ripped at his sandwich like a dog, biting down on it from the side of his mouth.

  Temple tapped away at her phone.

  “Texting Ed?” Jasper grinned.

  “No. Trying to look up something.” She frowned. “Forget it, wanted to see if I could figure out the mushroom thing.” She slid her phone across the table, disgusted.

  “All right, so do we have much else to discuss right now?” Jasper asked. “I say we put in a couple more hours and pull together what we have into one cohesive report—”

  “You weren’t planning on uploading our findings into the system,” Temple asked, “were you?”

  Jasper held up his hands. “I was leaving that up to you, this is ultimately your show, right?”

  “I tend to keep things out of the system until it makes sense to put information in. The last thing we need is executive management poking their noses into our business.”

  “Agreed. I had enough of executive management today, but I’m going to have to show my direct supervisor something, or they may pull me off the TDY.”

  “At the moment, aren’t I your direct supervisor?” Temple grinned.

  “Technically, yes.”

  “No, I understand,” Temple said. “You have to come back to this office and work with these people at some point, and the last thing you want to do is burn bridges.”

  “Too late, I’m afraid.” Jasper dragged his hand down his face.

  “Yeah, Vance and I know nothing about burning bridges, don’t we?” Temple’s eyes
twinkled.

  “Let’s knock this out so I can go home and get some rest,” Jasper said. “I think you two could use some as well.”

  Chapter 28

  Jasper stared at the ceiling. Sleep evaded him despite his weariness.

  His work phone buzzed. Even the phone’s vibrate setting proved too loud for him right now. His ears rang a bit, nothing too bad, but enough for him to think about it from time to time. The Marine Corps played a role in the irritating malady.

  He reached over and snatched the phone—didn’t recognize the number—and tossed the phone back on the nightstand.

  The condo’s air kicked off, but the heat remained, as if roasting him in a pan inside an oven. He licked his lips and rolled over. The bed cradled him and the aches melted from his body, but—

  Too quiet. Too hot.

  Buzz.

  Damn phone.

  He sighed and answered.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Carlos—his truck.”

  “Who is this?” Jasper’s mind raced. “Penny?”

  “Yes. I’m not sure what to do next. Carlos’s truck was found alongside a road.”

  Her voice quavered. Did they discover his mangled corpse? Jasper’s heart raced. He sat up. “Okay. Slow down. How did you find this out?”

  “The East Chicago Police phoned his wife, and she phoned me.”

  “Let me call my friend Pete.” Jasper turned on his lamp. Nothing. Bulb burned out. “Penny? Pete is a partner of mine from the PD. Okay? May I call you back on this number?”

  “Yes.”

  Jasper glanced at his television—the red light denoting the TV was off wasn’t illuminated. No power, which explained no air conditioning and the ovenlike conditions.

  “Okay, Penny. Sit tight. I’ll see if I can get some answers.”

  “Okay, Agent Wilde. Thank you.” Penny’s voice regained some of the strength of their previous interactions.

  A long sigh, like a window sliding open, caught his attention. He never opened his windows during the summer—too damn hot, even at night.

  “I’ve got to go. I’ll reach out to you later.” He hung up and rolled off his bed, grabbing his baby Glock off his nightstand.

  A board creaked in the hallway.