Fornell was standing there looking bewildered when Gibbs and McGee met up again after their inspection of the area.
"How the hell can a building vanish?" The FBI agent sounded as if he was having severe trouble processing the entire scene. Not that Gibbs could blame him. This was getting a bit hinky even for them. And he really, really, had to stop using Abby-isms.
"I suspect magic, Tobias," he replied grimly.
"Magic. I hate that damn word. Do you know how hard it is to write official reports about things that can only be explained via magic?" Fornell looked like a man who was going to explode from frustration at any moment.
"Boss," McGee said, suddenly but quietly. "We're being watched. From the treeline to my right."
Gibbs narrowed his eyes slightly. Yup, McGee was learning. There'd been a time when he would have tilted his head slightly in the general direction of someone who was following, tipping off any experienced agent that he was blown. This time McGee had acted like a man who was utterly unaware that he was being watched. He stretched out with his own senses. This still freaked him out a bit, but he was starting to get used to it now. You had to become one with the area. Feel the magic in the air. The sap in the trees. The blood in the animals. The very heartbeat, the thrum of life.
Ah. There he was. "Wuornos."
Fornell was staring at him again. "How the hell do you know that?"
Gibbs sighed. "Magic, Tobias. Magic. I've been getting some lessons."
The stare that Fornell now directed at him was tinged with what looked like very hard thinking. Whilst the FBI agent was busy Gibbs scratched at his chin and then pointed at the ground as if he was making a point. "You're the Jedi Knight McGee. Go bring in the good detective."
"Sure thing Boss." McGee turned at walked off in the exact opposite direction as Wuornos. Not that it would take him very long to get to him.
That just left Fornell who had finally sifted through his thoughts and reached something of a conclusion. "Let me guess – the famous Gibbs gut?"
"Yup."
"That was some kind of empathic magic thing making its way out of you?"
"Yup."
"I should have goddamn suspected that. And perhaps hinted something about it."
"You probably should have Tobias. Came as a hell of a shock to me."
Nate wriggled his way through the undergrowth and then peered into the clearing through his binoculars. He wasn't going to take the chance of being spotted. Not when it came to these guys. They seemed to be full of damn surprises.
As he peered he swore under his breath. Ah, shit. They were looking at the field where the Barn had been. And by the way that they were staring at the ground he could hazard a pretty fair guess at what they were discussing. The Barn had made an impression on the field. Ah shit #2.
Hearing his phone chirp at him he pulled it out and looked at it. Hmm. Dwight wanted to know what they were doing. Lifting it up he opened the text message function and typed back hurriedly: "AT FIELD WHERE BARN WAS. THEY'RE LOOKING ABOUT. WILL KEEP EYE ON THEM."
When he turned his attention back to the Federal Agents he could see that all three were talking again. That asshole Fornell seemed to be annoyed about something. Oh and now the youngest one, McGee, was walking away to the other side of the clearing. Fine. Why though?
Nate rubbed a hand over his chin, realised that he probably should have shaved that morning and then peered through his binoculars again. Ok, so Gibbs and Fornell were talking. Fornell seemed to be shaken up about something. Damn, he'd give his eye teeth for a directional mike. What the hell were they talking about? Then he looked back at the far end of the treeline again. Where was McGee? He'd vanished, like a fart in a Jacuzzi. Which was a bit worrying.
"You people are starting to annoy me," he muttered.
At which point he almost had a heart attack, because an amused voice said: "Then we're doing something right." At a range of about three feet behind him.
He turned around as fast as he could, his hand reaching for his automatic, but something wrenched at his hip and he suddenly saw his sidearm fly up into the air.
"Tut tut," said McGee, who was leaning against a tree and looking at him with a sardonic expression. "Someone like you should know that it's an offence to draw a weapon on a Federal Agent." He smiled. "Especially people like us."
Nate gaped at him and then looked over at his sidearm, which was a good twenty feet away. "How the hell did you do that? And how did you sneak up to me?"
"Sorry, you're not ready to find that out. We're going to go off now and have a word with my boss. We don't like being followed and you seem to know why this place is so damn odd. So – after you Detective."
"What, am I under arrest or something? No crime to watch people."
McGee just looked back at him, placidly. "Walk." And he said it in a way that somehow got Nate's feet moving underneath him.
They were almost a quarter of the way to Gibbs and Fornell before Nate's brain finally revolted and overrode his feet. "Wait, what was that? What did you do to me?"
"Interesting," McGee replied, looking at him. "You have a strong mind. Off we go – a bit further."
"Or?" Nate asked, curious.
"Or we don't have a free discussion about what we've spotted so far in our time here. And I'm sure that you might find that easier to discover talking over there than skulking about ineffectually back there." And McGee also had his sidearm in his hand. How the hell had he gotten that from that spot?
This was a good point and Nate huffed slightly and then stuck his hands in his pockets and ambled off towards the two other Federal Agents, making sure that his most insolent smile was plastered all over his face.
As they approached Gibbs turned to look at him. It seemed to be a fast inspection and he then tilted his head to one side smiled at nothing and then flickered a gaze at Fornell, who just shook his head and smiled as well, deflating Nate just a bit.
"Remember when we were that young and arrogant, Tobias?" Gibbs muttered, just loud enough for Nate to hear.
"Sadly yes Jethro," Fornell replied. Interesting, Nate thought, they're old friends.
Gibbs then nodded at McGee. "Good job McGee."
"Wasn't that hard, Boss. Detective Wuornos here is about a stealthy as a herd of rhinos."
This wounded Nate just a bit, as he'd always prided himself on his fieldcraft. McGee somehow picked up on that because he shot him a very thin smile. "No offence. I just have certain… abilities that you lack."
Abilities? What? Nate narrowed his eyes and was about to ask a few questions when all of a sudden Gibbs pointed down at the ground. "Something was here. Something large. Something supernatural. This place is lousy with very, very, odd magic and it's also the place where you said that the fake Agent Parker was last seen. So why don't we have a talk about what the hell it is that you people are trying to hide here. And making a piss-poor job of by the way."
Nate felt his brain freeze. "Magic?" He didn't mean to croak the word out, but it came out that way.
This prompted a roll of the eyes from Gibbs. "Hell, yes, magic. You've probably been calling it something else for years – unexplained phenomena, freaky stuff that no-one can explain, things that go bump in the night – magic. Something is very wrong with this town. What happened here?"
Naturally it was at this exact moment that Nate's cell phone chose to ring. And it was the ring tone that usually meant that someone, somewhere had died.
