Isabella checked her watch for the tenth time in the last couple of minutes. Time seemed to have a habit of moving slower, the faster one wanted it to go. She glanced back out the window of her office, hoping in vain to see the lights of a car creeping slowly up the drive. But just as had been the case the last three times she'd looked, there was nothing outside but the pale light of the crescent moon casting a dim, shimmering glow onto the tops of the trees.
She took a sip of the whiskey in her glass, when a new noise and scent reached her. A pair of footsteps was nearby. Heavy, wearing thick-soled shoes, but taking careful and measured steps so as to avoid making unnecessary noise. The faint smell of artificial pine commonly associated with cheap hair care products, and the grease of a hastily digested fast food meal.
Two men, moving up the drive. Isabella narrowed her eyes and placed her glass back down on the desk. She opened the top drawer and pulled the nine-millimeter handgun from within. Checking the chamber, she confirmed that at least one silver round was loaded, before tucking the weapon behind her back and moving casually towards the front of the house.
Having gotten a whiff of the men, she was easily able to follow their movements. Nobody could match her sense of smell, it was a gift, even for shifters. The footsteps stopped, just outside the front door. There was a slight pause, before a polite rapping. Cocking the hammer back on the weapon, Isabella gazed through the peephole, and relaxed when she recognized Sury and Paulaskaite. They were dressed casually enough in attire that could have blended in with any other set of summer tourists, though the odd leather bag around Paulaskaite's shoulder was strange. Opening the door, the ushered the pair of men quickly inside.
Gregory Sury was a short, unremarkable man. Brown haired, brown eyes, and neither thin nor overweight. He was an altogether normal-looking individual, which was what made him the perfect man for his job.
Gediminas Paulaskaite on the other hand was about as conspicuous as it got. A tall and handsome man, he was built like a professional linebacker in the NFL, most likely because at one point, he actually had been. Though a rather terrible injury and crippling alcoholism had robbed him of what had appeared to be a promising career. In spite of his lumbering appearance, the man was shockingly light on his feet and had it not been for Isabella's incredible hearing she wouldn't have ever heard them coming up.
Without a word, the two men followed Isabella through the hall and back into her office. She closed the door behind them and locked it, before gesturing for them to take a seat. She bit back a sigh as she sat back down in her chair and took a sip from her glass. She hated, absolutely hated doing business here in Paradise, but she didn't see much of a choice in the matter. She wasn't willing to fly out to Boston for this, but she did not, under any circumstances, want to expose her daughter to any more of this life than she already had. It was bad enough that Isabella was forced to bring her to family meetings, she didn't need to be bringing this shit back to Michigan too.
"Were you able to find anything on him?" She asked the two, cutting straight to the point.
"Some," nodded Paulaskaite,
"But a lot of it seems…contradictory and unreliable," continued Sury.
"Well, it's better than nothing," grumbled Isabella, then waved for the pair to continue, "Hit me with everything then."
Paulaskaite nodded, and reached down to the small leather carrying case he had brought with him. From inside, he retrieved a thin-looking manilla envelope, which he promptly handed over to Isabella. Much like the dossier Packard had found, the inside contained a picture of Percy and a brief synopsis of who he was, his height and weight. Unlike Packard's dossier, however, this one was full of actual information that she could use.
"He was born in New York in '95," began Sury, "Mother is Sally Jackson, father is, as of now, still unlisted." "In '01, Sally began seeing one Gabe Ugliano. He was more than a bit of a bastard. Beat the shit out of her a couple of times, nearly killed her once and she ended up in the ICU for a month in '02. But shortly after Sally was checked into the hospital, Ugliano stopped showing up to work. Found his body a week later," Paulaskaite gestured for Isabella to turn the page. Doing so, she was greeted with a rather horrific crime scene. Ugliano's body was propped up against the wall of a shower. He was naked, and his body had wrinkled to a point of nearly being unrecognizable.
"But it gets weird from there," said Sury, "Cause of death? Drowning."
"He drowned in a shower?" Asked Isabella skeptically, "How the hell did he manage to do that?"
"No idea, cops didn't know either. They interviewed Jackson, who was technically living there, but he didn't hear or see anything. At the end of the day, the cops decided it wasn't worth thinking too hard about it and let it drop."
"Some kind of water supernatural then," mused Isabella, "No way Percy could have done that without some kind of control over it. Either that, or there's magic in his family, but I doubt that. The feds keep track of them." She looked up from the dossier, "Keep going."
Paulaskaite and Sury shared a look with one another, and Sury shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
"It gets…weirder, after that," said Sury. "While his mom is in the hospital, Jackson just kind of…disappears. Vanishes into nothingness. Stranger still, is that his mom never seemed worried about it. Never filed a police report, never took out any ads in the papers or posted anything about it on social media. For five years, he just disappears from the face of the earth…and then…." He trailed off, and shared another knowing look with Paulaskaite. The taller man once more reached down into the traveling bag and pulled something out. This time, a faded newspaper, dated June of 2007. The headline read: "MASS BOMBING IN SANTE FE, DOZENS INJURED"
Under the title was a side-by-side of two images. The first, showed a torn-up city street. Cars thrown on their sides, buildings in ruins, and plumes of smoke cascading into the heavens. The second photo, was of a young boy. Maybe only twelve or thirteen. Isabella didn't need her men to tell her who it was.
"He bombed a city street?" She asked, incredulous.
"Not done yet" muttered Sury.
"Kid gets seen carrying a large black bag into this post office, right?" Said Paulaskaite "Next thing anyone can figure, is half of the street is torn to shit, and Jackson is nowhere to be found. But then, a month later, the charges are just dropped, and everyone just forgets about the kid. Like he never even exists. The news stops reporting it, the newspaper ads stop printing. Like some kind of government conspiracy or something."
"But it's not the only time it happens either," continued Sury, and Paulaskaite placed three images of newspaper headlines on the desk. Each one depicted Percy, incrementally older in each one, along with a different catastrophic headline. One put him connection with a set of gristly murders in downtown Seattle. Another connected him to a burglary in Knoxville. The last was trying to link him to a mass brushfire in Texas.
"He's linked to each and every one of these," said Paulaskaite "Was seen moments before fire in Texas. Talking to the victims in Seattle. Went into the museum in Knoxville literally minutes before the alarm went off…but every single time the charges are dropped. In spite of being on the literal most wanted list for the fucking FBI at one point, this guy has never formally been charged for anything. Like he's got some kind guardian angel or something looking out for him or some shit."
"Or something all right," muttered Isabella, looking over the photos in front of her. This sang of mysticism. Not the kind of voodoo and hoodoo that Thailor and Daiyo practiced, but some seriously heavy spell craft. But that didn't make any sense. If there was this powerful of a magical running around, then the government would have already swooped him in. They would have gotten involved well before Percy had gotten on any wanted list.
"All right…" She said slowly, pushing aside the millions of questions buzzing through her head, "And what about the DSI? Where are we with that?"
"Well, we definitely know he was involved with them," sighed Sury. He ran a ragged hand through his hair and slouched down a little in his chair. "But we have no idea what capacity he worked for them. We reached out to our own contacts, but they couldn't find anything more than what you sent us. And even then, they couldn't even confirm that he was employed by the DSI."
"How?" Isabella asked, confused, "I thought that file was pulled from employee records?"
"Who told you that?" Asked Sury, frowning, "It was pulled from a file with known associates of the Department, but from the information we've seen, Jackson never formally worked for the DSI. At least, he was never an agent with them."
"The hell are you talking about?" She demanded, a spark of rage flickering in her chest. "That file you sent us?" Said Paulaskaite, "Well it's from a file with the DSI with all of the corporations and private entities that contract their business with the DSI. Vehicles, food vendors, cleaning services, shit like that. His file was on that list, but there wasn't anything there about what his business was or what he did for the DSI."
"So, we did a little more digging," continued Sury producing yet another a document from the bag. Isabella snatched it from him and scanned over the contents.
"Pulled that from the New York Secretary of State website," explained Paulaskaite. "In February of 2016, Jackson started an LLC, Praetorians, LLC. According to the Secretary of State, their a manufacturing firm out of Queens. They supposedly manufacture the coverings you put on your boat when it rains." "But let me guess," said Isabella, "It doesn't actually exist."
"Not that we've ever found," nodded Sury,
"Which begs the question, what does he need a dummy corporation for, and what is its connection with the DSI?" Isabella leaned back in her chair, pouring herself another glass and shooting it all back in one smooth motion.
"I'll need to think on this. Tell our friends back home to keep running this down. I want to know what he did with the DSI, what that LLC is for, and how the hell he managed to keep himself out of jail," she ordered.
"Yes ma'am," the pair said instantly,
"And as for you two, I need you on him like white on rice. He doesn't so much as piss without one of you knowing about it. I want to know where he's going, who he's talking to, and what he's talking about."
The pair nodded once more, and without further instruction, they stood and quietly left the house.
Isabella waited until she could no longer hear them, before heaved a sigh and slumped down in her chair. It was bad enough that she was all but conducting family business in Paradise. But all of this shit about Percy…she didn't know if it broke her heart, or pissed her off. The further down the rabbit hole she got, the harder it became to deny that he had something to do with the DSI. Was involved somehow, some way.
She was going to wait though. She couldn't explain why. But she was certain that there was…something. She didn't know how she knew; she was just certain that there was more to Percy's odd connection with the DSI than Packard would like her to believe.
Maybe she was being foolish. Maybe she was being a touch naive. But maybe, just this once, she was okay with that. She just knew that there was more to this than they were seeing. She refused to believe that someone that was as good with her daughter as Percy, that someone she could trust so easily, would be someone nefarious. She had good instincts about people, almost always had, and none of her alarm bells rang when it came to him. That wasn't to say that she couldn't be wrong, she just felt confident that she wasn't.
With one final sigh, she finished off the last of her cup.
It was time for bed.
BREAK
Percy shifted uncomfortably in the hard metal chair. Though, it wasn't the seat that was causing his discomfort. It had been some time since he had been in such a crowded location, and the throngs of people bustling about the busy San Diego streets, going about their daily lives comfortably and casually caused him a tremendous amount of anxiety.
It had been years since he had been around so many people, and he was instantly reminded how much he had hated living in a city. It was all too easy for the creepy and crawly to blend in with the everyday hustle and bustle. As he watched a young man in his early twenties sit down a couple yards away on the edge of a fountain, Percy felt his hand subconsciously drift to his pocket. The man wasn't paying Percy any attention, but a lone individual, seemingly minding their own business, more often than not had proven to be the downfall of the less experienced demigod.
He shifted his body slightly, pressing a little more closely to the wall and maneuvering just the right way where he would be able to keep the man in the corner of his eye while allowing him a clear view of the rest of the small courtyard that surrounded the coffee shop. Raising his coffee to his lips, he took a deep pull. He'd been up for the last two days or so, and was running on a little more than caffeine and a greasy breakfast sandwich from the cafe.
A flash of shifting movement from the entrance of the store drew his attention, and Percy locked eyes with a wiry little man as he entered the front of the store. His thinning, pale brown hair was already thinning around the sides, in spite of the man still clearly having a few years before even turning thirty.
Percy let loose a small burst of divine power, and part of the mist-made glamor he'd constructed around the table dissolved. Just enough for him to become visible to the other man.
He met Percy's eyes and flinched. He glanced over his shoulder, and Percy knew that the little rat was heavily considering just turning around and legging it as far and fast as his gangly legs could carry him. He met Percy's eyes once more, and Percy shook his head. The man flinched once more, and averted his eyes, turning his gaze resolutely to the inside of the shop.
Snorting quietly to himself, Percy only had to wait another few minutes or so before the wiry man walked through the door to the outside seating area, his hands cradling a large cup of coffee. The lid of the cup shook somewhat in his hands, his head still resolutely turned down at the floor. Percy rolled his eyes, and kicked out at the chair across from him, pushing the chair away from the table and opening the seat for the man to sit down.
"Christ Pike, you look like I just killed your damn cat." Percy grunted as Mitchell Pike fell, more than sat, down in the chair.
Pike didn't answer. He scooted the chair forward until his tiny frame was pressed against the edge of the table, his elbows propped on the glass top and still refusing to meet Percy's gaze.
"Here," Percy tossed a wrapped breakfast sandwich that had been cooling in the sun beside him at Pike, "You look like you haven't eaten in a month."
Pike didn't respond, though he did open the preferred sandwich and began taking small, measured bites. They sat there in silence for some minutes. Pike refusing to look at or speak to Percy as he nibbled at the small sandwich, but Percy was content to patiently wait. He hadn't always had such a calm head in these kinds of situations, but had learned, more than once, the hard way that it was better to let your prey come to you, than to try and force them to play your game. Especially when they were wary enough as it was.
Percy sipped at his coffee, his shoulders relaxing somewhat in heat of the summer afternoon. From the corner of his eye, he watched as the lone man perched on the edge of the fountain got up. He stretched, cracked his back, gathered his backpack from the ground, and meandered off back in the direction he'd come from originally.
"Why did we have to meet out here? If anyone saw me meeting with you…"
When Pike finally spoke, his voice was quiet. The high-pitched tenor of his voice barely audible over the general noise of the courtyard. Percy continued to watch the courtyard, not bothering to look at Pike.
"You can relax, Pikey, no one is going to notice that you're here. I've already leveled an…enchantment over our table. Even if someone saw you come in here, they'd look over at this table, and see you on a date."
"W-with you?"
Percy scoffed, "Oh please," he took a sip of his coffee, "I'm way too fucking hot for you. And did you listen to a single fucking thing I just said? I already said that if they looked over here, they wouldn't see, so why would they think it was me trying to fuck you?" He turned his attention away from the courtyard and back over to Pike.
"You bring what I asked?"
Pike glanced around him, his beady eyes darting from one end of the store to the other. He then reached a shaking hand under his shirt and retrieved a large manilla envelope. His eyes still darting quickly around them, he slid the envelope across the table. Percy snatched it and opened the folder, his eyes darting along the pages inside.
Nodding to himself in satisfaction, Percy reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bundle of hundred-dollar bills, bound tightly by a rubber band. He tossed the bills onto the table, which landed with a hefty "THUNK."
Pike didn't hesitate and snatched the bills from the table. It was a testament to Percy's reputation, that Pike didn't even bother counting the bills. Percy was good for his word, that much was well known.
The exchange done, Pike got to his feet, still not looking at him. Out of the corner of his eye, Percy could see Pike shift nervously from one foot to the other.
"I'd…I'd heard you'd retired…does this…are you getting back into the game?"
"Have a good one, Pike."
Pike took the dismissal for what it was, and all but ran from the cafe. Even after he was gone, Percy kept the mist-made intact. It was for no other reason than he didn't much want to be disturbed at the moment. Pike might have been a shifty and sleezy little shitbag, but he was nothing if not competent. Percy had been using the DSI Technical Analyst as his own source of information brokering for years, and not once had the man given Percy bad intel. He was always costly, but Percy had long held the belief that you got what you paid for, and he was always willing to shell out what someone thought their talents were worth, so long as they delivered.
And Pike always delivered.
Getting up, not worried about losing his belongings while the mist illusion was up, Percy cleaned up the last of his drink before ordering a second. With more coffee burning in his stomach, he opened the file again and began reading.
Isabella Connors was born to Zachariah and Marisha Connors. While no charges had ever been levied, the DSI had been convinced that Zachariah Connors had been the head of the Ursa Major Familia, one of the most dangerous and powerful criminal organizations in the country.
Gambling, racketeering, bribery, murder, drug smuggling, if the law existed, then it was likely that the Ursa's had committed it, though with some rather notable exceptions. They didn't dabble in kidnapping, and apparently crimes of inherently brutal nature, beyond murder, were something of a taboo with the Ursa's. Percy was far from surprised. He'd had his suspicions when he'd run the search on Packard, and when he'd tried to search for Isabella but hadn't managed to find anything. If the watermark at the top of the file was anything to go by, then Isabella's file had been buried so deeply that not even Percy's high clearance credentials had been enough to get to it.
The family had been exceedingly active in the eighties and nineties, but had fallen off in the last couple of decades. Apparently, it was a common occurrence, as when Percy dug through the other files for the others that he had seen at the meeting, he saw the same thing. Frowning, he took another sip of coffee and went back to Isabella's file, there wasn't much in the way of information regarding the cause of the decline. Only a minor reference to something referred to as "The Incursion."
According to what information the Department had, Zachariah had died some five years or so go, supposedly of illness though the Department still wasn't certain. Marisha had died when Isabella had barely been twelve. Again, it was mostly speculation, as the details surrounding her death were sparse, though some of the analysts had chalked it up to an ongoing rivalry with another of the families.
Percy frowned, rubbing at the stubble around his jaw. How the hell was information so sparse on these people? He knew for a fact that the FBI had even had more information on La Cosa Nostra in seventies then the DSI had in the twenty-first century. Either the Department had stopped paying attention, or the families had gotten a lot smarter, a lot faster.
Scanning again through the information, he was at least pleased to see that Cassidy's existence was not known by the Department. Kid like that didn't deserve to have the attention of those people.
Well, at least now he knew what he was dealing with. He'd need to take the time to actually dig into the documents he'd been given, but from what little he'd seen, he could put the pieces together himself. O'Sullivan, Ursa Major, and nearly half a dozen others that Percy recognized. The biggest families in the Supernatural world. Families that had been at war with one another for centuries. Families that hated one another more than any other single thing on the planet. Not only had they apparently stopped killing one another, but they were now actively working with one another.
The ramifications behind that were…astronomical. Not since the nineties had there been such an agreement between major criminal organizations. The DSI, if they weren't already aware, would have had a field day if they had this kind of information at their disposal.
But that wasn't his problem.
He wasn't their errand boy anymore.
He'd been worried that there had been something more. Something…divine. But a bunch of supernaturals playing at being the big dog on campus? He could deal with that. He could live with that.
Leaning back in his seat, Percy closed the file and took another swig of his coffee.
After all, who was he these days, but just a simple farmer?
AN: Shoutout to Double for helping me with this idea and for being the best beta on the planet. Check out the link in my channel for the discord server I'm in. My upload schedule is there and you can come hang out with me a bunch of other really awesome and talented authors. Thanks for all the love, and hope you're enjoying the ride thus far.
Love,
LilDB