Thankfully, there were no cops waiting for me at the dig site. It was a small relief, but every little bit counted. Willem awaited me at the check-in tent, looked me over, and shook his head. "You couldn't even comb your hair?"
"What're you doing making best buddies with that rich asshole?" I asked, signing in as quickly as I could. The pen splattered me with ink and I sighed, doing my best to wipe it off on my pants.
His face turned into a storm cloud. "His money is sitting in your bank and you're going to talk to me like that? He and his insurance auditor want to speak with you and Nicole immediately. And we'll be talking about your insubordination when you're finished."
"Insubor-" I sputtered. "Are you serious? I have a right to know why you're speaking directly with him and I can't believe that you'd-... God, man. Where am I going?"
"Inside the portable office. Hurry. He's been sipping coffee waiting on you for half an hour."
The portable office was actually a single-wide trailer that more-or-less kept our documentation dry. It was where we charged the power tools, too, when we needed them. Though I had to admit, we were getting through the soil pretty good at the moment. Yes, we hit hard stuff more frequently than I enjoyed, but the dirt around the finds yesterday had been easy enough to remove.
The trailer had been one of the first shocks I'd had when I'd joined the junior team almost a decade ago. No one told you that this kind of work was all outdoors in the blistering heat until you were already on a site and signed up for your major. But I'd come to cope with the heat as much as anyone could.
I still couldn't really get used to the whole trailer thing. The entire interior was crammed full of stuff we needed, blinking lights on charging tools simply everywhere. I liked things to be organized and the inside of that trailer was not.
He waited for me at the end of that chaos, a Starbucks cup raised to his lips, his face unreadable. A man with another trillion-dollar suit sat next to him, out of place with his bright blue mohawk and even brighter orange eyes. I stared at him for a full second, incredibly rude and possibly apologetic, before I walked through the disorder around me and sat down in front of them.
"Sorry, sorry," Nicole said, running through the rest of the mess a breath after me and slamming down next to me. She smacked a portfolio in front of herself. “Everything’s a mess out there today. Tomorrow's supposed to bring a deluge of rain and we've been laying coverings over everything all morning. What can we help you gentlemen with?"
I wasn't surprised that Nicole didn't blink at the new guy's hair. She'd been in some kind of scream band when she was in high school. It was why I didn't do karaoke with her.
"My insurance adjuster has a few questions for you the two of you," Eskal said. His voice was like crushed velvet sheets in the dead of winter. I eyed him and turned my head away, looking instead at the portfolio.
Nicole nodded. "Sure. We have a few minutes, don't we?"
I shrugged. Eskal motioned to his insurance adjuster. "In that case, Doctor, if you would be so kind as to follow Iyadre into the office over there so he can get your statement?"
I opened my mouth to object but Nicole and Iyadre, the mohawked insurance agent, were already heading into the tiny office that served Doctor Sonnet. The last thing I wanted was to leave my friend alone with these weirdos, but I didn't own her and it damned sure wasn't my choice where she went.
"While I work with you," Eskal said. "Tell me about the discovery. What else have you found?"
My gaze shifted back to him. My brows came together in a glare. "That's easy enough for you to find out by contacting the research office as is outlined in paragraph 117 of our contract and-"
"Olivia, I don't have time for your senseless contracts. And why play games with each other? We know what we are."
"Uh?"
He shook his head. "You must know something of the arts."
"I took an art history class when I was in college," I said.
Eskal frowned at me. The moments ticked by on the old analog wall clock as I sat there, trying to figure him out. Maybe he was some kind of supernatural collector. There seemed to be a lot of those wandering around, according to several of my mom's old friends. They were stealing mermaids and people who practiced magic; that kind of stuff.
But those people had been around since the beginning of time. That was nothing new and they rarely turned up in a polite suit and tie number, willing to sit down and talk about whatever it is that Mr. Vervain was here to bother me about.
While I thought, he finished his coffee. The cup was left on the table between us, a barrier that gave me something to look at instead of him. "The arts. The occult. Esoteric studies."
"I don't know anything about witchcraft," I said, immediately. I probably said it a little too quickly.
His eyes sparkled. "I didn't say witchcraft."
And when I say they sparkled; I mean it. Whatever was sitting before me wasn't a normal human. After you run around in witchy circles for enough time, you get a sense of other magical stuff. Someone's having a bad day? You feel it. If you run into a house where something terrible happened? Yeah, you get a sense of that, too.
What I felt in front of me was like looking into an active
