14. Body & Soul

09.23.203 UI

Aaron had exhausted every legitimate avenue trying to get to the bottom of Morgan’s claims. He had spent days in the office, digging up old records in secret at his desk, hiding his investigation behind the information on Abernathy when anyone approached. His fellow officers and the precinct staff all assumed he was obsessed with finding his kidnapper, and no one questioned him looking over the file for the millionth time.

His efforts had amounted to a grand total of jack shit, however. The only times that the names of any witches appeared in reports were two that he had filed himself, and when they were listed as potential suspects; the majority of which bared the name of a certain someone that filled his mind with the smell of electricity and tannins, setting off a pang in his gut whenever it popped up. While it wasn’t damning evidence, it was becoming clear to him that either the ECPD didn’t bother to assist witches in need, the occult community knew better than to ask them for help, or both.

There were firewalls protecting access to any and all information regarding their rune issuances, which only lent weight to the idea that there was something not quite right about the procedure. When he tried to find a contact within the department regarding their administration and upkeep, claiming he wanted to check the stability of his own runes after being abducted, he was met with nothing but ignorance and suspicion. The office was nothing but a dead end.

What he really needed was information on Esotech, and that was far beyond his abilities to get. So, there he was, huddled into a ragged booth beside Lexi in a rundown coffee shop in the West District.

“I really wish you hadn’t dragged her into this,” he groaned, sipping black coffee that had sat for too long from a worn mug.

Lexi huffed, folding her hands on the peeling table in front of them. “What other choice do we have? You can’t turn a corner at work without raising the alarm, and I don’t have her kind of resources to dig any deeper without putting a target on our backs. We both agree that Morgan is too close to the situation to give us any objective insight on the matter, but Daphne knows how to keep her cool. She’s our best shot.”

“I get that, but I feel like we’re going behind Morgan’s back.” He frowned at the table. “I hate it.”

“Well, take your damn comm off of emergency settings and talk to him about it then.” She shot him a sideways scowl, then softened. “Sorry. I know you’re not ready to reach out to him yet. That’s why we’re doing this, Aaron. If he wants to sort things out with you, he’ll understand.”

He nodded, casting a glance through the tall windows to the streets outside. He had been fighting with the decision to get in touch with Morgan for days. There was this awful hope in his gut that when he restored his comm to normal settings that there would be something, anything from the man waiting for him. The fear that there wouldn’t be, though—that looming disappointment was holding him back. As long as he remained unaware, he could still hope.

The tinkle of the bell hanging over the door filled the coffee shop suddenly, and Aaron snapped his head up.

“Sorry! Had to take the van. I forgot how crowded this area gets.” Daphne came rushing in, Shane and Frey following. Aaron’s stomach curled inward.

Great.Not just Daphne. Morgan’s whole damn coven came out for the betrayal.

“Hey, hey, hey!” a gruff voice shouted from behind the counter, “We don’t serve your kind! Out!”

Daphne rounded on the burly man, fury in her gaze. “Excuse me?”

The man huffed, pointing toward the window, “I mean that!”

Daphne turned to witness a hanging planter full of ivy, glittering a soft pink as lush green overtook its formerly desiccated vines. Small, white flowers sprang to life from its curls as Frey flinched back from the man with an apologetic jerk of their shoulders.

“Why?” Shane droned, “Allergic to flowers, are you?”

“We don’t serve witches!” the man spat.

Aaron was already standing, placing himself between the barista and Daphne. “They’re with me, sir. I apologize for the misunderstanding, but I asked them here on… official business.” He pulled his jacket aside, flashing his badge.

The man growled in his throat. “No more funny stuff or I’ll have your badge number, Officer.”

Aaron nodded, swallowing back the habit of giving his last name when addressed as such. The last thing he needed was the precinct getting word of his little side project.

“Sorry,” Frey mumbled, following the rest.

“Not your fault,” Daphne scoffed, shooting the man a dirty look as he walked away, “Maybe he should take better care of his plants.”

Frey and Shane slid into the booth across from Aaron and Lexi as Daphne snagged a rickety chair from the nearest table.

“Full house, huh?” Lexi chimed.

“We’re not allowed to be left alone in the Manor without supervision, apparently.” Shane pouted.

Daphne rolled her eyes as she pulled a messenger bag from her shoulder into her lap. “Oh, quit whining. Morgan’s in a mood and you two suck at lying. Besides, I want you both to hear this. It’s not something I like to discuss, and you need to know. Might as well fill everyone in at once.”

Aaron’s eyes shot to her at the mention of Morgan. “He’s... in a mood?”

Daphne sighed with a tense nod. “When he makes an appearance, yes. He’s been holed up gods know where for the past few days, working on his plans for the ball.”

“The ball?” Lexi asked.

“Harkening Ball,” Aaron said, “Tradition when forming a coven.”

“Yep!” Shane grinned. “He wants to inv-”

Daphne kicked him under the table with a scowl, causing him to hiss in her direction.

“Is he... okay?” Aaron asked hesitantly.

“He’s a lot of things.” Frey chewed their lip. “I can’t really make sense of it. There are too many emotions shifting back and forth in him right now.”

Daphne wagged her head with a stern look. “He’ll be fine. That’s why we’re here, right? To help you make sense of what he told you? Then you stupid boys can get back to making googly eyes at each other.”

Aaron couldn’t help but laugh. “Right. Googly eyes.”

Daphne sifted through her bag, casting a wary glance around the cafe. Her eyes shimmered a faint gold, and Aaron felt a strange waft of air over his skin.

She dropped a large, manilla folder onto the table. “Alright. Like I said, I hate talking about this, so please save your questions for when I’m finished. Comms off—not muted—off.” Everyone but Frey reached for their temple before returning their gazes to Daphne, and she continued, “You need information on Esotech. I haven’t managed to effectively breech their security measures—yet. I’ve been running algorithms in the background on my hardware for years. I think they have their code reinforced with magic somehow, so I’ve been looking into the methodology behind it. I believe they may have found a way to integrate runes into the code. How to break it, though... well, that’s out of the question for now.

“There is, however, someone that was on the inside. Someone that got out. Almost, anyway.” She removed the first page from the folder, gently placing it on the table between them. “This... is Alena Lippincott.”

Aaron’s jaw fell as he stared down at the picture; a woman running down an alley, captured by a security camera. The dark skin of her face was tensed in panic as she glanced over her shoulder. Her raven hair was unkempt and pulled back in a loose ponytail. Her clothes were nothing more than ragged scrubs, tattered and stained in places.

Aaron looked up at Daphne. “That’s...”

“Yes,” Daphne said, “That’s me. Part of me, at least. The original owner of this body.”

“Daph...” Shane reached out to console her, but she waved him off.

“Alena was taken from her parents at birth,” she went on, ignoring the confusion in Aaron’s and Lexi’s eyes, “I never found their names. This is the only picture of her in existence. Esotech acquired her sometime after she was placed in the system. They ran countless experiments on her once she was old enough to withstand them. She is the reason they were able to devise a way to forcibly tether a witch’s magic to another, so long as they say the words.”

She placed several more images over the picture of Alena. “They’re not very clear because they’re not technically my memories, but these are some of the things I was able to pull from her mind with a bit of brain scan tech. She wasn’t permitted to leave her room somewhere in the underground levels of the tower, other than to make her ‘appointments’. You see these shapes beyond the observation windows?”

Aaron squinted where she indicated with her finger. “Are those-”

“Beds,” Daphne said, glaring at the picture, “Filled with other witches that they plucked from the street. They raised the suspicions of the Council after snatching a child from an orphanage that one of the covens had been considering taking in. After that, they got smart about it, taking only the older and covenless and performing the process on the spot with children, leaving their families to think they were simply low powered.”

Aaron choked back vomit.

“I know this is hard to hear, Aaron.” Daphne gave his hand a squeeze and offered him a sympathetic smile. “Morgan may not have gone about it the right way, but you do need to know the truth. Especially if you want any kind of future with him, with all of us, in it.”

He nodded and met her eyes. “It’s hard, yeah. You lived it though, Daph.”

“Not really.” She shook her head, laughing gently. “It helps that the memories are fuzzy.”

“How did you- Alena get out?” Shane asked.

Daphne released a breath and pressed on. “Alena was... what magickind call ‘gifted’. No one in the company knew it. She wasn’t even aware of her talent at first, but one night, after a series of brutal tests, she tried to run. Magic doesn’t work on most of the equipment within their facilities, but in an act of rare kindness, one of the techs working on her that day chose not to shackle her with iron because her wrists were swollen from their experiments.

“When she got to the door, her attempt to disengage the lock with magic failed. All she said was ‘Please,’ and the door opened for her. I don’t fully understand it, neither does Morgan, but we think that on some level she was able to communicate with the electrical currents controlling the tech.”

“Gifted...” Shane whispered, “I’ve heard of it. It’s really uncommon. Some witches don’t even develop their talents until they’re hundreds of years old.”

Daphne nodded. “Morgan’s had his since birth.” She grimaced suddenly. “Shit. I never told you that. Forget it. Right now.”

“Morgan is gifted?” Aaron’s brows reached high.

Daphne growled. “Yes, but he almost never uses his gift. The last time he did was to break out of his sarcophagus. It’s a form of manipulation he can use on any magic that isn’t part of a functioning rune sequence, but he considers it offensive to usurp another witch’s magic. So, you won’t see him doing it any time soon. Forget it.”

“Forget what?” Lexi smiled, attempting to ease the tension.

“Thank you.” Daphne sighed, rubbing her head. “I’m already worried how he’ll react to our little pow-wow here. I’ll have to tell him eventually.”

Aaron was relieved by that, glad to know this wasn’t something he’d need to keep from Morgan in the future.

If there is a future there.

“Alena didn’t make it out of the building that night,” Daphne said, “She tripped an alarm down the hall and ran back to her room. After that though, she started finding ways to use her ability to her advantage. She hacked the computers in her room, and she started learning anything and everything there was about the outside world. She picked up so much technological skill over the next few years, always managing to keep her secret safe, and she formed a plan to escape.”

Daphne closed her eyes with a pained expression, took a few breaths, and continued, “Four years and ten months ago... Alena ran. She was so happy. She got out of the building—the prison where she’d been held her entire life—and she was going to see the world.” Tears were forming in her eyes as she spoke. “Only a kilometer away from the tower... Esotech detonated a tracker they had embedded at the base of her skull.”

She drew in a rattled breath. “Morgan found her shortly after she died, only two blocks away from where this picture of her was taken. A witch can’t truly restore life, but he was able to repair the damage that killed her. He placed my soul, like he promised he would, into her empty body, and... I became me. Part Alena, part Daffyd.”

Aaron slammed his eyes shut. This was so much more than he bargained for when he chose to fall into this rabbit hole Morgan had opened. This was sick. This was everything he swore to fight against, and it had been happening right in front of him. Alena had died in the street while he was off believing whatever convenient lies he’d been fed.

“I know it’s not proof, Aaron. It’s just my story against what you’ve always known.” Daphne had regained her composure. “But this is where Morgan’s anger started. This is one of the many reasons he can’t deal with someone... someone important to him staying in the dark.”

He turned away from her intense stare, gazing out the window in contemplation. His hands shook as he took deep breaths to calm himself.

“No. It’s not proof,” he growled, “It’s a victim’s statement. That’s enough for me to do my job.”

Three hours after his meeting with House Fell, their head excluded, Aaron sat in front of a blank monitor in his office. His leg bounced in agitation beneath the desk as he absentmindedly sipped cheap coffee. His mind was racing, his palms were sweating, and he was furious beyond reason.

He didn’t remember shoving away from his workstation. He didn’t remember storming past his coworker’s cubicles or nearly knocking over one of the secretaries as he stormed across the building. He would vividly recall the way Chief Bowen’s face morphed from shock to outrage as he barreled through the doors to his office, however.

“Jones, what in the blazing hells do you think you’re doing?” the surly man shouted from his desk, slapping a hard copied file closed.

Aaron scathed at him, leaning over the other side of the desk. “Our runes. Where do they get their magic from? And don’t tell me it’s from the Well. Don’t you dare feed me that horseshit.”

“Who—the fuck—do you think you are, officer?” Bowen stood, leaning forward, inches from Aaron’s face. “You’ll eat whatever I put on your plate, or you can hand over your gun and your badge right now.”

Aaron jerked back. It wasn’t an admission, but it sure as shit wasn’t a denial. “Not from the Well. Got it.”

“Get back-” Bowen spat, “To your desk. You can stay there. Forget your cases until you learn some respect for your superiors. If I hear one more word about you sticking that witch ass sniffing nose where it doesn’t belong, you’ll be living in your mama’s cheap room at Meadows until the rent runs dry.”

Aaron shook with fury, pushing away from Bowen’s desk and practically throwing himself toward the door before turning back to the man. “Witches are human too. Maybe more so than the people running this damn city.”

“OUT!”

He trembled with silent rage as he stalked back across the hall, ignoring the stares and the whispers that followed him to the break room. He snatched another mug from the fiberboard cabinets above, turning to a window near the coffee brewer. The pot was almost empty, just as he had left it, and he poured the last bit into his cup.

When he’d left the coffee shop that morning, he had no intention of taking things that far, but as he turned over Daphne’s account of Alena’s time in Esotech’s clutches, his blood had begun to boil. Chief Bowen was in on the whole thing. Morgan had told the truth. Aaron had been living in ignorant bliss, perfectly content to play his part in this show of service and protection for the people of Etna, all the while blind to the ugly reality beneath the shiny fa?ade.

He took a long swig, turning to stare out the small window, making out the top of Esotech tower in the distance. “Should’ve let him blow the place up.”

A hushed conversation from the hall pulled him out of his enraged trance. “Yeah, a break in. They think it was the guy that took Jones- Abernathy, I think?”

Theresa had reached out to Morgan to inform them that after several hours of debate, the terms of their coven formation had been accepted by the Council. House Fell was official, and the ball was to take place in less than two weeks’ time, under the full moon. Morgan was intent on retaining something sacred about the forming of a coven. It was to be a masquerade theme, a notion he had been enticed by while reading about the world he’d missed.

Shane had been the greatest topic of debate among the Council, but they were persuaded in the end. No one batted an eye at Frey’s sudden appearance, Theresa claiming they had arrived from Hasenwaith, a crumbling city far to the south. Daphne was to test for the rank of Adept two days after the ball, and had been provided with an exhaustive list of every spell the Council might ask her to perform from each field of study—conjuration, alteration, restoration, and destruction—along with a single demonstration of her brewing technique.

It was midday as Daphne practiced away in the armory, using restoration magic to heal a fern that Morgan had drained the life from almost entirely. He watched closely as her eyes burned gold while she reached for what little strength remained in the plant. With a focused exhale she pushed into the withered, brown foliage, and it shuddered. Vibrant, green life spread from its center, each wilted leaf rising slowly as the spell accomplished its task.

Shane clapped, cheering her on from a nearby chair, the book he was supposed to be studying forgotten on the floor. Morgan noticed the way the man had been watching Daphne lately. Initially, he had chalked it up to Shane’s fascination with magic as a whole. While he did fixate on Morgan’s casting as well, there was a greater hold on the his stare when Daphne took the stage.

Morgan opened his mouth to tell Shane to get back to his own studies when his phone vibrated. As it had these past few days, his heart leapt, hoping it was Aaron. It sank just as fast at the unknown number. “Fell here.”

“Ah! Mister Fell!” a familiar, oily voice said over the line, “Castor Ellington of Esotech. We spoke a couple of weeks ago?”

Morgan growled in his throat. “How the hells did you get this number?”

“Please, Morgan.” Ellington laughed. “May I call you Morgan?”

“No.”

“Very well,” he said, unabashed, “To answer your question, your device uses our communications technology. It took our techs mere minutes to locate your information.”

“Luxe.” Morgan made a mental note to look into setting up their own comm relays. “What do you want?”

“Well, to be perfectly honest, I would much rather give this information directly to Officer Jones. However, I’ve been unable to reach him. The precinct assured me that he’s on duty, but I’m to understand he’s been placed on desk detail for the time being and that his case has been assigned to another team.”

Aaron is back at work? “Is this about Abernathy?”

Daphne and Shane took immediate interest in the conversation, moving closer as Morgan turned the device on speaker.

“I fear that it may be,” Ellington said, “It seems that an old warehouse of ours in the West District was ransacked in the night. A number of valuable prototypes were reported stolen; specifically, those meant for anti-magical defense.”

“You mean anti-witch tech,” Morgan said through gritted teeth, “What does this have to do with Abernathy?”

Ellington sighed. “Before the break in occurred, there was an access attempt at one of the side doors. While it failed, the system retained the code that was entered. A code that formerly belonged to one Doctor Edward Abernathy.”

Morgan clenched his free hand. “Send me the address.”

“I don’t think that’s wise, Mister Fell,” Ellington chided, “The department already has a team en route.”

“Send me-” Morgan hissed, “The address, Ellington.”

Ellington sucked his teeth over the line. “Very well. I suppose there’s little more damage you could cause. I’ll let security know you’ve been cleared to enter, shall I?”

“Wouldn’t stop me either way.”

Ellington chuckled. “I believe that, Mister Fell.”

“Been a pleasure, Ellington.” Morgan pulled the phone away to end the call, but Ellington’s voice came through again.

“Morgan, one more thing. If your investigation does lead you to Abernathy, I highly suggest you dispatch him. Immediately. I’m aware of your abilities, but these prototypes were designed with power like yours in mind.”

“Noted.” Morgan hung up and turned to his coven members. “It sounds like the police don’t want Aaron to know about this. That concerns me. Can you get in touch with Lexi quick, Daph?”

She gave him a nod and stepped away to make the call.

Shane shot her a nervous glance over his shoulder before turning back to Morgan. “Do you think he’s in trouble?”

Morgan bit his lip in thought. “No, not from Abernathy. He wanted weapons to fight witches. I’m more worried about why they took the case away from him and aren’t letting him know they have a lead.”

“She’s not answering.” Daphne returned, casting a wary look between him and Shane.

Morgan eyed her with suspicion. “What?”

She let out a choked sigh. “Don’t be mad, okay?”

“Don’t give me a reason to be mad.” He scowled.

She pressed her lips together and inhaled slowly. “We saw them this morning. They should both be at work right now. Try her at the salon, Shane.”

“What do you mean you saw them this morning?” He glared as Shane happily took the opportunity to escape.

“Aaron was digging into Esotech. He wanted proof of what you said to him.”

Morgan pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes with a huff. “And?”

“I told him.” Daphne locked eyes with him, standing her ground. “Everything.”

“That’s...” He pushed a slow exhale through his lips as his phone vibrated with Ellington’s message. “That’s fine. I wish you didn’t feel like you needed to keep it from me. I’m sorry. He deserved to know after what I dropped on him.”

“R-Really?” She stared at him in bewilderment.

“Yes,” he said forcefully, “But that doesn’t explain any of this. Any luck Shane?”

Shane growled, turning back to them and wagging his head. “She’s not picking up.”

“Daph, cams.” He tapped at his phone screen, tossing the address to her comm with a flick. “Shane, get over to Lexi’s salon. Something about this doesn’t sit right with me. I just want to make sure they’re okay.”

“On it, boss.” Shane called over his shoulder as they jogged from the room.