Driving Needs, part thirteen

"Can I ask you something?" asked the fox, squatting down beside Chris where he was keeping watch on the skin-stealer's body. 

Chris suppressed a momentary nervousness and said, "Sure." 

"When you first got to that conference room, did the smell of gunpowder seem unusually strong?" 

Chris considered that. "Yes. I mean, also blood and voided bowels, but... yes."

The fox nodded. "I thought so. It seemed to be concentrated just inside the door, like the intruder stopped to shoot everybody on the way out."

"I didn't get far enough into the room to compare," Chris looked at the body in front of him, then met the fox's eyes. She was older than he was by several years, unexpectedly attractive with that red-brown hair and those dark brown eyes, that hint of sharpness to her teeth. He ignored that particular stirring -- and what the hell could he do about it, really? -- and added, "Thought it was better to close the door and call it in."

"You're young for Enforcement," the fox told him. "All three of you are. Most teams don't get sent into the Grey until their fourth of fifth year, when they've established themselves." 

Chris froze, then deliberately rolled his shoulders. "You've been looking at our files." 

The fox tilted her head. "Does that bother you?" 

"Yes," he said immediately. "It shouldn't, and I should have known you would -- but I didn't, and I don't like being surprised." 

"We're investigators," the fox said, looking away to check over their surroundings. "It's what we do."

Chris nodded. "I know. Like I said, I should have expected it." They squatted side by side in silence for a long moment, and then he said: "Makes it damned hard to cultivate an aura of mystery, too."

The fox laughed, a startled bark. "Mystery? Around a fox? That's catnip for us. You do that, you're all but asking for us to take an interest."

Chris chuckled. "All right. If I have to guess -- and I'm guessing you want me to -- even after reading our files, you're wondering how an inexperienced group like us wound up covering an established first responder like Captain Saintcrow in a very public, very unusual situation like this."

The fox smiled at him and offered a slight shrug. "You were on the scene before we were; we'd have had to interview you regardless. I'm not saying you're wrong, though."

Chris rose to his feet and turned away from the murderer's corpse. "Magus Frummelt," he said simply. "He knew we were nearby on other business, so he tapped us when this came up."

"Your magus reports to him?" 

Chris nodded. "She does."

"If I'm reading your files right, all three of you have stumbled into some things that should have killed you and managed to survive. Is that why he brought you onto his team?" 

Chris hesitated, knowing that the fox was probably reading his expression no matter how blank he kept it. "I'm going to say yes, but if you want more detail you're going to have to ask Magus Frummelt."

"Ah." The fox waited for a heartbeat, then asked: "So why didn't you follow the skin-stealer? By all account your senses are excellent. You and Elyssa must have both known that you were sending her down the fresher trail. You're not a coward, either; if anything, I'd have expected you to throw yourself after the intruder."

Chris nodded. "You're not wrong. It just..." He remembered the voice of the dark heart. "...It seemed more important to find out where that thing had come from and how it got here."

"Well," said the fox, "you weren't wrong either. And you probably saved the Cleanup crew a lot of headaches; if one of the mundanes had found that room first, it would have created a lot more work."