“Oh, it wasn’t hard. I heard of your disappearance from Wilford Hall and your face was pretty clear on the news footage. I’m surprised the Otherworldly Task Force hasn’t contacted your aunts already.”
“Otherworldly Task Force?” I queried while suppressing a laugh.
Biers chuckled again. “That’s what they’re calling themselves. They didn’t ask my opinion on the name.”
“And this OTF knows that I’m the person who was with Rafe at the Garden of the Gods?”
“Certainly. We have excellent facial recognition software.”
“Well, that’s upsetting. Are my aunts safe?”
“We’re the government, Tess,” Biers said sternly. “This isn’t Russia or China. Citizens still have rights here.”
My Aunt Emily spoke up for the first time, “Besides, they wouldn’t want to piss off Raphael after seeing the news footage of the fight.”
I had to grin. Aunt Emily was a wise old Sergeant.
Biers cleared her throat. “Yes, uh, I’m sure that’s part of it. While the OTF has directions to learn everything they can about you and Rafe and everything else otherworldly, they were expressly forbidden from doing anything that would alienate Rafe. During our early conversations, I expressed on them the seriousness of messing with relatives of anyone involved in this matter. There was a lot of resistance to my suggestions where it came to your aunts.”
“Why was that?” I asked, making no attempt to keep the irritation from my voice.
“Well, the argument was that since both of them are in the military, they would be obligated to reveal anything they knew about you and your capabilities.”
“Oh.” Damn, she was right. If asked, Emily and Ashley would be hard pressed not to provide anything their commanders determined was necessary to the defense of the country. Ashley, being a Chaplin of the Rabbi persuasion, might be able to claim privileged communications with devotees, but Emily…it’d been hard enough to keep her from calling the MPs when she first saw me with Rafe.
“I don’t think you have to worry about it, at least for the near future. Everyone is pretty much convinced that you and Rafe stopped an invasion, which buys you a lot of good will, even with the government. By the way, while I know who you are, I don’t know why Rafe took you out of that hospital in November. Would you mind enlightening me?”
“Well, he told you how Wanderers get their job, right?”
“No, he didn’t mention anything about that. I’ve talked to several witches since I met him, but they couldn’t give me much more information than that I should stay the hell away from any Wanderers I encountered. Apparently, Wanderers have sort of a nasty reputation among witches.”
I laughed. “Hah, well deserved I’m sure.”
Rafe had managed to slip back in to the bedroom without me hearing the pad of his bare feet. He held out a cup of coffee, which I took, and then he sat beside me on the bed.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
“I’m back Agent Biers. I’ll give you the quick and dirty about Wanderers, just so you don’t dream up something even stranger to tell your boss,” Rafe said.
“Thank you, I’d appreciate it.”
“Okay, briefly we work for a god named Verðandi. Before you interrupt, yes, gods are also real. Verðandi is one of the Norn sisters, the fates from Norse mythology. They take a fallen warrior from the battlefield and imbue them with their powers and their mission.”
“Mission?” Biers interrupted.
“Like I think I told you, we’re sort of cops. We keep things from interfering in man’s fate. If a night magic user, like those two in Huntsville, gets uppity, we slap them down. If creatures find their way into our dimension from wherever they originated, it’s up to us to get them home, as peacefully as possible.”
“Peacefully?” Biers laughed. “I’ve seen your work twice and neither could be considered remotely peaceful.”
“Yeah, but you’re only seeing the flashy problems that we face,” Rafe said. “For instance, have you noticed that there are very few sightings of the creatures from the Garden of the Gods fight in the last few weeks?”
“Well, yeah, reported sightings have dropped off considerably. The few we’ve investigated this week were all bogus sightings.”
“You’re welcome.”
“For what?” Biers asked.
“We’ve rounded up most of the remaining creatures and shoved them back through portals to where they came from,” Rafe added.
Biers was silent for a moment and then she said, “Okay, maybe I don’t know that much about you. Is it okay if I mention some of this to my boss? It’d make you sound a little less threatening to some of his colleagues.”
“Sure, I don’t guess there’d be any harm in that,” Rafe agreed.
“Now about, Tess, you’re telling me that she’s also a Wanderer?”
I almost spit coffee out my nose. I coughed noisily, trying to get what had gone down the wrong way back up.
Rafe grinned and then kissed me on the cheek.
“Yes, Tess is a Wanderer, also. She’s my apprentice. I’m teaching her the trade,” he said.
“Okay, I didn’t think she could do the kind of stuff I’ve seen in the few months she’s been with you. That reminds me; she lost a leg and a hand in that explosion in Afghanistan, that’s why she was in the hospital. But the video evidence from your battle doesn’t show any sign of missing appendages.”
“That’s right. It took some time, but she’s healed.”
I squeezed Rafe’s thigh and then kissed him lightly on the lips. I could never thank him enough for restoring my limbs.
“Is that what happened to you, too?” Biers asked.
“You mean in November?” Rafe asked.
“Yeah, the image analysts were pretty damned sure you lost both of your legs when that dragon snapped you up.”
“Yeah, that was what happened.”
“But you’re alright?”
“Right as rain, as they say. Wanderers are pretty tough individuals. We don’t let something like missing
