tarnished -- part one -- trekker |
Chapter Seven | |
Storm Signals |
"Tardy again, Giles?" Bernstein said.
He bit back the 'Piss off,' that was on the tip of his tongue and restrained himself to simply saying, "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware I *had* a supervisor. Nor set hours for that matter."
He skirted around Bernstein and ducked into his office before the other Watcher could get another word in edgewise. He didn't need that simpleton's attitude today. Or any day, for that matter. But particularly not today.
He sat down at his desk and rubbed his forehead, which wasn't hurting, but was threatening to hurt. Preemptively, he dug out two aspirin and swallowed them dry, then pulled out that days' files.
In the hopes of maintaining his sanity, he now balanced the translation work with monitoring world news for signs of paranormal events.
Usually, the Watcher's Council had enough operatives in place to catch most of the events first hand, but occasionally one or two would slip between the cracks, and only be reported by the non-paranormal press, or heard through demon channels. All in all, it was a much less tedious assignment than the translation, and between his demon contacts in Bristol and Ethan, who seemed to simply know everything that ever happened simply by osmosis, he was good at it.
Of course, he hadn't *seen* Ethan in nearly two weeks.
Which had nothing to do with why he was feeling off today. Nothing at all.
He rubbed his forehead again and flipped open the first paper, which covered local events throughout most of Montana.
Immediately, his blood ran cold.
"Five Infants Vanish From Hospital During Freak Storm"
"Five infants went missing from the neonate unit Tuesday after a powerful and highly localized storm sprang up and dumped several feet of snow and ice around the facility. Officials say the high winds and other weather conditions caused a panic and knocked out power lines to the hospital.
"'We were all so caught up in the storm, security was compromised. This is truly a tragedy, and we will do whatever it takes to assist the police in locating these babies,' the hospital's chief of security said."
Giles' throat went dry, as he recalled Ethan saying, "They said they needed something big. People had to be out of it. So that later, they'd blame themselves."
Good god, it had been infants, then, too. And Ethan wasn't here, was he? He'd been gone.
It seemed to fit. What could be more chaotic than a storm?
He flipped through the pages with numb fingers until he found a phone number for the editorial staff. His heart was pounding as he picked up the phone and dialed. He had no idea what he would do if it was Ethan.
He navigated the menus for a few minutes, and hung on hold for fifteen more minutes, while he stared across the room at the blank white wall. Even if Ethan hadn't done this, he had done this sort of this before. What the hell had Giles been *doing* these past few weeks?
Then the phone picked up, and the journalist answered.
"Uh, yes, hello," Giles said, "I'm with the USA Today and I was wondering if I could get some follow-up information on the infant kidnappings?"
"Oh, those. Hey, man, no story there, really."
"No?" He felt a glimmer of hope.
"Yeah. Turns out, some of the staff had the babies taken to another wing. Nursery had a big window, they thought it might break. Only problem was lack of communication."
Giles couldn't help a shaky sigh of relief.
"I'm... I'm glad to hear that," he said. "Thank you for your time."
"Sure thing, bud."
He hung up, shaking. Not Ethan. No infant sacrifices to demons. Nothing but a freak storm and a disorganized staff.
Which didn't make him any less of an idiot.
tarnished -- part one -- trekker |