Toxic Influence

  Toxic Influence

  Office of Preternatural Affairs Book One

  Voss Foster

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Author’s Note

  Also by Voss Foster

  About the Author

  Sneak Peek: Elemental Disturbance

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons is entirely coincidental or beyond the intent of the author.

  Toxic Influence © Voss Foster 2019

  Cover Art © Coffee and Characters 2019

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

  Requests to use the material will be considered and may be directed to: Voss Foster at [email protected]

  For Grandma, who watched nonstop police procedurals around her grandson and drank too much iced tea.

  Those practices live on in me.

  1923-2009

  Acknowledgments

  I say often that there are too many people to thank for the production of a book to ever fit them all in a manageable acknowledgment. It's why some books have two or three pages of acknowledgments in the back. Editors, fans, spouses, research sources: a book doesn't happen without effort from each of them, and this one is no different.

  Thank you to Frances Pauli, who's always there to lift me up and tell me I'm brilliant when I certainly don't believe it.

  Thank you to Danielle Annett, who is willing to put up with my particular brand of stupid on a regular basis and still get excited about my book idea.

  Thank you to Maria at the local grocery store. Not just for keeping apple sodas stocked up, but for always asking about my day and my health. I live in the middle of nowhere, so I interact with you more than with my own family.

  And of course, thank you. Thank you for picking up this book, or tapping the cover on your e-reader. Thank you for reading the acknowledgments lifting up a bunch of people you don't know. Thank you for taking a chance on some new urban fantasy novel. Thank you for…everything. Without you, there is no me. No books. No career. No nothing.

  Thank you.

  And welcome to the Office of Preternatural Affairs

  Voss

  Chapter One

  Busywork would be the death of me. I mean, it's pretty reasonable, sending the new guy out on the coffee runs and the menial jobs nobody with a little silver at their temples wants to handle. I'd been an agent for a year, but only attached to counterterrorism for three months. So that was exactly the kind of work Carlson had me doing, standing around there at the Rise and Shine Motel and Cockroach Hatchery…playing communications jockey. Glad I spent four years in college studying national security so I could man the walkie-talkie.

  All right, so it was part of the job. I knew that. I even knew it was important to stay in communication. According to the FBI analysts, the Rise and Shine was the most likely location for the next poison gas attack to rock Manhattan. We had to stay in touch with the other agents in the area, and with the field office. The terrorist bastards had evaded us for the past week, and this was our first chance to maybe get ahead of them.

  I could acknowledge it was important and still feel like my skillset wasn't quite being put to the use I expected.

  "Rourke!" Agent Jeffrey Carlson walked up. A tiny man, he barely came up to my chest. And he could also fire me in point-four seconds if I pissed him off enough…which wasn't that hard. I was a little too belligerent and he was a lot too stuffy.

  He stood as tall as he could manage, eyes narrowed slightly as he looked up at me. "Any word of activity from anywhere else?"

  He was antsy, and I couldn't blame him. I wasn't the only one who didn't like sitting around, waiting for the terrorists. "No sir."

  His mouth turned into a frown. "Anything else to report?"

  "No sir. All quiet on the western front." At the very least, this job was better than coffee runs or menial paperwork. It took a modicum of concentration and thought, checking the walkies for anything strange and checking the broad scanner for anything coming off local PD or, if we got super lucky, an intercepted signal from the terrorists own communications. I got to focus on two things. I was multitasking. Go me.

  Carlson nodded curtly. "Keep me posted if anything changes."

  "Will do, sir. No plans on keeping it a secret."

  He snorted as he walked away. He may not appreciate my delightful commentary in the face of massive death and destruction, but he also couldn't feasibly reprimand me for it. Not in any official capacity. Though I'd probably get off this communications detail a lot faster if I played my FBI agent role a little straighter and closer to the casting call.

  I scanned through all the feeds as Carlson stalked away, even double-checked that my phone was on in case we were getting a call on that end for some reason. But no. Everything was fine. And when it came to terrorists, fine was…unsettling.

  A black Ford Edge trundled along the street, breaking what, until then, had been quiet and drawing my attention behind me. I immediately popped up, keeping an eye on the SUV and a hand on my Glock, and called behind me. "Agent Carlson! We've got company." I spotted the license plate. Government issue. So no Glock required after all. "They're ours."

  "Well something must have happened that you missed." He stood up next to me. "You didn't catch a call or a notice or something."

  I let that snide remark about my incompetence slide. We were all on edge. The door of the SUV opened and I was very glad the driver climbing out was looking the other way, because my first reaction involved a lot of slack-jawed staring. He stood seven feet tall, and could probably lift that Ford Edge over his head and toss it at anyone who annoyed him. Also blue. He was a pale blue-gray, like slate. He turned his head to the side, revealing that he was wearing tight, black sunglasses. He had a broad nose, oversized ears with droopy lobes, and wore a ballistics vest that didn't fit any better than the sunglasses.

  I glanced to Carlson as subtly as I could once I remembered how my tongue worked. "Sir? Is that an ogre?" It was definitely one of the massive preets, though ogres tended not to be blue. "Or an orc?" I didn't see any scales, but cosmetic surgery could do wonders nowadays.

  "Troll." Big blue strode over, covering ten feet in three easy strides, and extended a hand the size of a Yorkshire Terrier to me. Not to Carlson, to me. "I'm a troll, my good man, and I take it you've never seen one in person."

  "No. I…sorry. I meant no disrespect." I took three fingers, which was all I could manage, and shook.

  "No disrespect at all." His voice boomed and thrummed, but it was bright and warm, not…terrifying and bloodcurdling. He pulled off his sunglasses and pocketed them. "The Mundane and the Hidden Kingdoms have only been together ten years, now. I daresay you don't deal with us on a regular basis."

  Carlson shoved his hand out, interrupting the conversation. I could have pretended to be annoyed, but I was just glad he'd given me the chance to pull my foot out of my mouth. "Special Agent Jeffrey Carlson. I'm lead here." />
  "I see." He took Carlson's entire hand in one giant fist and shook. "I am N'Gutta of Droshheim. But you can call me Gutt. Everyone does." He surveyed the area. "You've cleared the area?"

  Carlson nodded. "Not a soul left in that motel, or for a block and a half around it. And agents are posted on the perimeter to keep people out. If these bastards want to poison someone, it's not going to be here."

  "Good, very good." He looked back at me. "Your name? I don't believe I got it."

  I swallowed and that lubricated my throat just enough to toss off a response to the big, blue, scary man. "Special Agent Dashiel Rourke." I needed to get my shit together. It's not like he was my first preternatural. Not by a long shot.

  First troll, though. They stayed mostly to themselves, far away in the Hidden Kingdoms.

  Gutt nodded to both of us in turn. "Well, agents, I do hope my presence here isn't going to be a bother."

  "Not at all." Carlson nodded. "I wasn't aware we had any preternaturals working counterterrorism."

  Gutt shook his head. "You don't. I'm from the Office of Preternatural Affairs."

  A spook. My stomach tightened. Why did we need a spook here?

  "The OPA is interested in this case?" Carlson ran a hand through his thinning hair. It was the most nervous I'd ever seen him, and for damn good reason as far as I was concerned. The spooks from the Office of Preternatural Affairs only poked their heads up when the rest of us normal humans couldn't handle whatever shit was going on. It meant there was a magical threat. So yeah, Agent Carlson had every reason to be nervous. None of us were equipped at all to handle a fucking dragon or wizard or whatever.

  Gutt waved all those concerns off with one massive hand. "We're not necessarily interested in any official way. Our department head just wanted me here in case something came up. It's been a strange case, you must admit. Thousand to one chance I'm needed at all, though. There's agents at the other two sites as well. All precautionary."

  I didn't buy that line for a second. Spooks didn't leave the offices for just a hunch or just a little extra safety and peace of mind. My stomach tightened, and I checked all the feeds and comm lines again, really hoping that something had popped up anywhere that wasn't here. Nothing. I turned to our new troll buddy. "So, Agent Gutt—"

  "Just Gutt."

  "Right. Gutt. You know how to handle magic?"

  "Oh, I'd rather not sound braggadocios. But I was a prison guard back home." He winked a huge, olive green eye at me and grinned, which was honestly considerably more terrifying than anything else he'd done. Those were some damn big teeth, and his incisors were…tusks. Small tusks, blunt tusks, but still long curvy bone-crushing things. "Not the prison that broke open, mind you. I can't say it wouldn't have happened on my watch, but I can certainly say it never did, and I was stationed there for sixteen years."

  "Good news for us, then." Definitely better than whichever guard was on duty when the big magical prison break happened ten years ago. Having them on the case would have made me a lot less confident.

  "I certainly wouldn't let anything happen to any innocents, Agent Rourke."

  "Call me Dash."

  Gutt nodded, finally sheathing his teeth again. "Dash. It is highly doubtful that my presence here is even required, but if things were to take a turn in that direction, I'm more than qualified to contain magical incidents. And anything I'm not qualified for would probably kill us all instantly, so my presence here would be moot."

  Beautiful. Perfect. That had me totally relaxed.

  I was ready to make another check through all the feeds, and hopefully collect myself in the process, but I saw Gutt's eyes narrow. His ears wiggled and perked. "You're certain you've cleared the area, Agent Carlson?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Then things are about to get interesting."

  I looked around, saw nothing, listened, heard nothing. And then there was a presence around the corner. I saw the shadow before I saw the figure. Too small for even a lesser dragon. Maybe a wizard. Definitely a person. Humanoid, at any rate, as they came into clearer view. A sickly, sallow looking humanoid, dressed all in olive drab that didn't actually belong to any branch of the military. Just the color, a canvas-looking material that bunched around his joints. Full pants and long sleeves. Honestly, the fabric was about the same color as his skin. He also had a gas mask on his hip, high black boots, and thick gloves. The only skin really visible was his face.

  "Agent Carlson, we need to get him out of there." Something felt wrong about this, but training was training, protocol was protocol, and he looked inches from death. We saved people. "He looks like hell—"

  "He looks like hell because he's a sorcerer." Gutt blew out a growling breath. He clapped a massive, heavy hand down on my shoulder which definitely did not jerk me downward or threaten to buckle my knees. Not a super-strong stud like me. "It appears you've hit the proverbial jackpot."

  Yeah. And what a shitty prize we'd managed to win.

  Carlson cleared his throat. "You're OPA, what do you suggest?"

  Gutt didn't respond, just kept staring straight ahead at the sickly looking sorcerer.

  I pulled myself together and finally sent word out to the other agents. "This is Agent Rourke. Suspicious subject is on site at Rise and Shine Motel. Site has been cleared. Office of Preternatural Affairs is on the scene. Follow protocol for…for preternatural threats." I didn't even like saying it. Our protocol wasn't much protocol. It amounted to…stay out of the way.

  Carlson nodded approval at me. "If it's poison gas like the other times, there's no point in him launching an attack. There are no targets."

  "Well he could come our way if he really wanted to." Gutt said it absentmindedly, scratching the folds of his chin. "Our gas masks aren't holding off the poison they're using, and there haven't been any survivors thus far to get any real information on how it functions. I imagine it would be just shy of child's play to take us out, if he was desperate enough."

  I stiffened, and next to me Carlson surreptitiously checked for the gas mask we were just reminded was useless. I cleared my throat and looked up at him. "No offense, Gutt, but that's really not helping."

  "Oh. Apologies." He stepped ahead of both me and Carlson. "I don't recognize anything about him, unfortunately, but it's definitely a sorcerer." Gutt raised a hand, palm facing up, and sighed. "Let's see what we can do to buy some time."

  A ring of light appeared around his wrist. Magic. I'd seen magic once or twice, but not god damn two feet away. The air smelled slightly of ozone or rain or something like that. Couldn't exactly place it.

  Gutt threw the ring of light. It flew off his wrist and headed straight for the olive drab sorcerer, zooming like a frisbee with a rocket attached to it.

  Never hit the sorcerer, though. Our unfriendly little intruder waved a hand. The ring stuttered in midair, then collapsed into sparks against the pavement.

  Gutt chuckled. "All right, then. He's good, I'll give him that." He called up more of those rings. At least a dozen, all orbiting lazily around him, their glow casting stark shadows all around him. "Try this."

  With a snap, the rings flew erratically forward, but the sorcerer just planted his feet and brushed them all away with his arms. They crashed into nearby buildings, or into the ground, or just shattered to dust like the first one had. Anywhere they touched down whole, they left shallow craters. At any rate, they never made contact with him, but if they were going to do that? Well, I wouldn't want them hitting me, either.

  Gutt wasn't near as jovial when he spoke again. That deep baritone chilled the marrow of my spine. "He's quite good." Gutt pulled out a cellphone that looked like a children's toy in his hands and carefully tapped the screen with the tip of his pinky. Then he brought it to his ear. "Swift? Yes, we need people here at the Rise and Shine. Sorcerer. Good one. I know, I wasn't really expecting it either. Needs apprehending. No, area's clear, no chance of civilian casualty. Right." Gutt hung up his phone and turned around. "I'm not arresting
him on my own, that much is clear." He growled that sentence out, baring his teeth in the process. "Assistance should be here in a few minutes. We'll just hold tight until then." He nodded to Agent Carlson. "I hope you don't mind me taking this over at this point?"

  Carlson shook his head. "Looks like an OPA case to me."

  Gutt nodded sharply, and his mouth set into a scowl that, again, showed oversized teeth. I imagined the damage those could do to a turkey leg…or a human leg. I didn't know how much fairy tale crap was actually true, but trolls ate bones, didn't they? Or was that giants?

  Either way, I wasn't planning on getting on his bad side.

  We just had to wait it out until capable people showed up and hope that the sorcerer didn't try anything unpleasant before then. I got back on the horn to spread the word. "This is Agent Rourke. This mission has been handed to OPA purview." I barely managed to get the words out. Even going to college with some of the first preternaturals in secondary education, working as a cop inside preet communities, something felt wrong about this. This poison gas stuff was supposed to be terrorist attacks…not this. "Unknown subject is a sorcerer. OPA agents are en route for apprehension."

  "Agent Carlson." Gutt's growl, again. His hands tightened into massive crushing fists at his sides. "You're one hundred percent positive that you cleared all civilians out of the area?"

  "Yes, and I don’t appreciate the implication that we didn't do our jobs." Carlson stood up tall again, though nothing compared to Gutt. "We may not have the freedoms granted to you and your OPA boys, but we can still do our job." He huffed. "I've been an agent for twenty years."