Barclay gazed at the computer screen, again and again reading over the information so clearly printed on it. It was Latener's file, his personnel file to be correct.
Dee Latener, orphan. Former street kid. First grade detective, high achievements, but an attitude that really needed adjustment. How he had made detective was sometimes a mystery to Barclay. He smiled slightly. Young, wild, brash, not much respect for authority, but a damn good investigator with a quick mind and enough commendations to impress even the toughest of superiors. Latener liked to hide his abilities behind his attitude, but the moment you chipped away the loud mouth and ignored the sharp tongue, you had a good man. Barclay knew that. And together with his partner, the two men had become a good team. They were slowly forming one of the best partner units on the force, whether they knew it or not.
It had taken a while, but McLane and Latener had smoothed out the rough beginning of their work relationship, becoming an effective investigation team.
Latest events had proven that. They had proven just how tough both men were, how much they could take, it was something no one but Barclay and maybe a few others would ever know. He still had to work through the shock of now knowing that one of his detectives was a freshly awakened, powerful shaman and the other was his bonded partner, his shield.
So much for normalcy around here, he mused, smiling wryly. The life of an ally was never boring, but getting a Shaman Pair shoved right under your nose, he had never dreamed of that.
And it had triggered the whole investigation into Dee Latener. Why had his powers never surfaced before? Why had no one picked up on his paranormal background? A shaman would radiate power even before his abilities manifested and Dee, as a police officer, had run into enough witches in his career to warrant a report. But no one had ever noticed even the slightest blip on the paranormal radar – until that evening.
An evening where the blip had exploded into the world, had wiped out everything, and had informed whoever was strong enough to receive the blast what had happened. A new shaman in New York. A damned powerful one who had found his shield, had formed a Pair, and with it was one of only seven Pairs known.
So why had Latener not been discovered earlier? Barclay had believed it had something to do with his past, with his parents, but Dee was an orphan, the parents unknown. Then again, that was the official version. Maybe he should look into this more closely, see if there was something hidden underneath the files known to everyone.
It was time to pay them a visit.
It had been ridiculously easy, Barclay thought. Flash an ID, show some
authority, and people caved in and gave you what you wanted. Well, sometimes,
he amended. Not everyone was like the filing clerk that worked for the
city, taking care of the orphanage's filing system. He had been a bored,
pimply man, spending his time in a windowless archive all day, and Barclay
had been a welcome distraction, as well as the only visitor. People rarely
wanted to know about orphans.
What had surprised the commissioner was that the small department possessed
a microfilm archive and a reading machine. The clerk, McCarthy, had directed
him over to a separate room, which was as stuffy as it was small and only
contained the machine, then handed him the files in question. Barclay had
requested all of the files from the year Dee had arrived at the orphanage
to cover his tracks. If someone had flagged Dee's file, a singular request
would bring down hell.
Sitting in front of the slightly outdated machine, he had read the
microfilmed file of one Dee Latener, and a kind of strange dread had settled.
Sure, the file seemed innocent enough, but it wasn't. Not to someone who
looked at it with the eyes of Ross Barclay. His mind was working overtime
and when he had a look at the pictures taken at the time the baby had been
delivered to the orphanage, a heavy weight settled in his stomach.
No…
It couldn't be.
He reread the information twice, studied the photos, but there was
no doubt. No viable doubt anyway.
He left the archive an hour later, mind whirling.
The next day he paid the lab downstairs in the precinct a visit with
a very special request.