InsaneJournal

The Real Deal
“Pause it.”

The grainy black-and-white footage stopped on Jill’s command, freezing the image of a nebulous black figure. The agent squinted her eyes and leaned in for a closer look, her eyes taking in that form and what destruction that camera shot could find. The destruction wasn’t Jill’s focus, though – she’d already seen the high-resolution photographs taken at the scene.

Rather, Jill wanted to confirm or negate the suspicion she’d held since talking to Kathleen in Montana: that Elfleda was responsible.

“What is it, Agent Andersen?” Scott, the Chicago field office’s video technician, asked.

Her brow still furrowed, Jill pointed the back end of her pen at the monitor. “Have you verified the authenticity of this feed?”

Scott nodded. “Yeah. That’s the real deal.”

The agent frowned and heaved a sigh, chewing on her lower lip. The video quality made identifying the figure with total certainty impossible, but from what Jill remembered of her encounters with Elfleda, the Corruptress didn’t always take on easily identifiable forms. There was a nebulous nature to the way Elfleda could make herself appear, and by that logic, Jill figured that had to be who she was looking at.

Because frankly, she didn’t know of anything else that could do such a thing.

“Do we have an I.D., Agent?”

“I think so,” Jill answered, the frown glued to her pale face as she dialed numbers on her cell phone. Placing the unit to her ear, the agent sighed again, closing her eyes and taking a moment to gather her thoughts.

How would Maureen take this revelation? Or Washington, for that matter? There was already pressure from the nation’s capital to explain how the barricade at Lincoln Park came down – so much so, the case of Dr. Forbes’ office vandalism had fallen by the wayside.

But if Elfleda was responsible, that meant Leviathan’s Bride was in the area. Jill shuddered at that thought, knowing she could do almost anything. Though there was no evidence to suggest the Corruptress had a hand in the New Year’s Eve incident, the agent wouldn’t have been surprised if that was the case.

“Maureen,” Jill spoke when the Chicago director finally answered. “Set up a briefing with the Pentagon for some time tomorrow. I think I have an I.D. on the creature that destroyed Dr. Forbes’ lab.

“Get Washington’s mystical experts on this; ask them about the Bride of Leviathan. I’ll explain more later.”

Jill closed her phone and stuffed it into her pocket, giving Scott a polite, if not forced, smile. “Thank you.”

Scott turned off the monitor with a nod, pressing a button on the black console to his right and waiting for the DVD to emerge from the tray. Concern littered his young features, black-framed glasses magnifying his eyes. “This is bad, isn’t it?” he mused.

Another sigh, Jill ran a hand through her black hair. She wished Whistler would call her at that moment, wondering if he or his allies had an idea of who Elfleda was. They probably did.

“You could say that.”