Chapter 20

June 29, 2000, 22:00

Frank and Mark entered a bar located on Acadie boulevard. They went to watch The Shaft and wanted to go out for a couple of drinks before heading back to their dorm. The bar was within a short walking distance.

Mark had just broken up with his girlfriend Jessie and Frank didn’t know when he was going to be able to see Coralis and take her on a date.

“All right, now you know how bad it crashed between me and Jessie, it’s your turn bud, how is it going between you and Coralis?”

“Well, if you wouldn’t have been deep into Jessie’ skirt for the entire month, you would know,” said Frank.

“Ouch! Well ok, I deserved that one, but it’s past history now. So. You and Coralis.”

“Hard to tell, I saw her only twice since the party. The first time doesn’t count: she was walking out of the dorm’s elevator while I was coming in and she had to leave for work. That was about 2 weeks ago. We spoke a little bit, but she was running late”.

“But you said you saw her twice.”

“Saw her again this morning around the campus, she was heading to Vic’s, but we went for coffee instead. She is leaving for Asia tomorrow and will be away for at least a week. She gave me her pager and UK landline numbers, but she doesn’t know when she’ll be back in town.”

“She truly really is the elusive girlfriend, then.”

“That would depend on whether she is my girlfriend,” said Frank, while sipping on his beer. “I like her, but you know when a girl seems almost too good to be true, so that there must be a catch somewhere?”

“Do you think that it is the only catch with her? Her lack of availability? Vic warned you about that.”

“Yeah, I’d say so, but too soon to tell. I think we clicked and I would like to see where things would go with her… but she works two full time jobs and spends most of her time outside the country, so it’s like she doesn’t have time at all for a relationship.”

“Two full time jobs? I think I remember hearing something like that, national defence she told you, right”?

“Yeah, she works on the classified stuff.”

“Hmm if you want to, I can ask my dad to look her up, see if she’s telling you the truth about that. You know my dad would do it for you.”

“I know, but no need to. It might be too soon to fully trust her, but Victoria said the same thing and they’ve known each other for 10 years.”

Meanwhile, Eva and Coralis were at a warehouse nearby, searching the place for evidence connecting the descendants of the company founder to their ghoul case. When they arrived there, they stuck to the shadows so that they wouldn’t be seen on any camera and sneaked in through a back window giving into a basement. The place looked like it’d been abandoned: most of the furniture was covered by white drapes, dust and spiderwebs.

Coralis removed her eyeglasses, so she could get a better sense of the place and Eva sniffed the air.

“I smell witches,” said Eva, “coven witches.”

“I hate coven witches. There is something in the air, but I don’t know what it is, it’s too faint. Let’s go upstairs, I don’t think there is anything in this room… but there is something in this warehouse.”

They started to walk toward the stairs, but Coralis stopped suddenly. Eva stopped too, and looked at her partner. Coralis was staring at the floor. She grabbed her wand and pointed it to her shoes.

“There is so much dust on the floor that we can see our footprints all over. I’ll remove them to cover our tracks, but I will also spell our shoes so that we won’t leave any prints at all.”

“I’m starting to like working with you even more.”

They found nothing on the main floor and went up to the second floor.

“It’s in this room,” said Coralis. “I know now what’s in the air. Turmeric. A high concentration of it… which is widely used by coven witches in some summoning spells. Get your evidence containers ready.”

“Coincidentally, there is barely any dust in here, and we know that there is no such thing as coincidence when coven witches are involved. I think I can smell the turmeric… coming from there,” she said, pointing toward a filing cabinet across the room.

Before opening the cabinet, Coralis checked for wards and deactivated them. She opened it and grabbed a jar full of the blue spelled cages, the same ones they found at the cemetery.

“Look what we have here,” said Coralis, “we indeed do make quite the team. Time to take the backpack out, we’ll take this with us and whatever else relevant that we can find here. We’ll head back to the cemetery when we’re done here.”

An hour later, Frank and Mark walked out of the bar and headed for the nearest bus stop. Mark moved back to his parents a few days after the party, but Frank was going to stay at their dorm for the summer.

“Still want to stop by the dorm?” said Frank.

“Yeah, I think there are some documents I forgot in my room and I’ll need them for my interview tomorrow.”

They got onto the bus and at the next stop, Eva and Coralis got in. Both girls still had some spider webs in their hair and a lot of dirt on their clothes. They had no blood on them and were heading to a cemetery, so they figured they were good enough to get onto a bus crowded with humans.

“Well well well,” said Mark, grinning, “look who’s feeding the bus with coins.”

“Oh sweet, but I thought she had to work tonight,” said Frank when he saw Coralis paying her fare at the front of the bus.

“Looking at her and the girl who is with her, unless they’re coming from a June Halloween party, seems to me that they were probably working around here.”

Coralis finished paying for her fair and waited for Eva to pay for hers. The bus wasn’t crowded. As they walked onto the bus to find a seat, Eva noticed two guys waving at them from the back of the bus.

“Do you know these two guys?” said Eva. “Looks like they’re waving at us. Although, they probably want to know about the Halloween party they think we’re going to.”

“Hmm yes I know them,” said Coralis, feeling her cheeks reddening for a moment, which didn’t go unnoticed by Eva.

“All right, let’s go sit with them,” said Eva, smirking, “and you’ll have to tell me all about him when we get back to the cemetery.”

They sat on the bench across from them.

“Hey guys! This is Eva, my co-worker,” said Coralis. Eva was next to the window, across from Mark, while Coralis was on the side next to the aisle, across from Frank. “Eva, in front of you here, is Mark and in front of me here, is Frank.”

She voluntarily omitted to specify their relationship to her, as she wasn’t sure what to call Frank and didn’t want to offend him by saying he’s a friend.

“Had I known you were working around here, I would have asked you to come join us for a drink after work,” said Frank, looking at her, wondering why she had spider webs in her hair.

“When we spoke this morning, I didn’t know I was going to be in this area tonight, but even if I knew, I wouldn’t have been able to join you guys, we’re still on the clock, we’re not done yet.”

“Are you working the Halloween scene?” said Mark, amused by their appearance.

“I guess you could say that,” said Eva, “we’re on our way to a ghoul meeting at the cemetery.”

The guys laughed. Eva smelled that they were humans and therefore were most likely clueless about their world, so they would think that she was joking. Frank knew that Coralis couldn’t talk about either of her works, but he really was curious about what exactly she was doing for work. He figured that she must be working as some sort of field agent that night.

After they got off the bus, they walked into the metro together, but got off at a different station.

“Spill,” Eva said when they got off the metro and the door closed behind them. “The guy with short dark blond hair, Frank, right? Friend or boyfriend?”

“I’m honestly not sure, we’re not dating but we want to do something together when we’ll be both available. Thing is, I don’t think it’s a good idea to start seeing a human like that, especially not with what we do for a living, but I like that he’s got no idea about who I am, so he doesn’t have some ulterior motives.”

“Can’t argue with your point.”

Meanwhile, Frank and Mark were about to get off at the next station.

“You know,” said Mark, “I remember my dad saying something about the Côte-des-Neiges cemetery having been vandalized, I think he said that there were some sort of special agents investigating it. Seeing where they got off, I wonder if it’s related to it.”

“If that’s the case, it means that she told me the truth, although she said both of her works were kinda related to national defence.”

“I can ask my dad, but if she’s telling you the truth and it’s classified, I doubt he’ll even know anything about it, that is if it’s related.”

They saw Victoria entering the dorm at the same time they got back. They told her they saw Coralis on their way back and that she was with a co-worker.

“She was with a co-worker?” said Victoria. She knew that her friend had a flyball practice earlier on and was supposed to crash at her place tonight, so she figured that the EBEE must have sent her on a case somewhere. “Was she with Andrew?”

“Who is Andrew?” asked Frank, “No, she was with a girl named Eva.”

“Oh! Hmm that can’t be good then,” said Victoria as they got into the elevator. “I should have convinced her against signing with them at the time. I mean, it’s not like she really had a choice back then, but still. Andrew is her mentor. Coralis and Eva are both supposed to be in training, and Eva is attached to a different agency. Lately they’ve been sending them on some nasty businesses.”

“They had spider webs in their hair. Her co-worker said they were on their way to a ghoul meeting at the cemetery,” said Mark.

Victoria laughed at that and couldn’t stop until they walked out of the elevator on her floor. The guys followed her.

“Better laugh about it than cry over it, I guess,” said Victoria, while wiping tears under her eyes. “I don’t know what they have been working on, but Coralis was supposed to be crashing here later on tonight. If she was covered with spider webs and wasn’t done with work, I doubt she’ll be coming here. She doesn’t like taking shower here: too many people. Most of the students are gone, but still. If she gets off work in the middle of the night, she’ll probably just stop at Eva’s for a shower and leave from there to go to Thailand.”

“My dad said something about the Côte-des-Neiges cemetery being vandalized, think it’s related?” said Mark.

“I have no idea, but could be. I didn’t hear about it. I can ask her next time I talk to her.”

“If I ask her, is she going to tell me?” said Frank. “She did give me her UK phone number this morning.”

“Oh did she?” asked Victoria, with a raised eyebrow. “She didn’t tell me about it. In fact, she didn’t tell me anything about her relationship with you. I am going to add that to the list of things I need to ask her, but to answer yours, she probably would answer you on whether it’s related to the vandalism you’re talking about, but won’t elaborate or give you any details. The only reason why I know a little more on what she does is because I was with her when she got recruited.”

She unlocked her door and offered a drink to her friends.

“Do I need to be worried if she didn’t tell you anything about whatever there is between us? Can’t say there is much of a relationship at the moment, but I won’t lie, I do hope there will be one.”

“Like I said to you the last time: Coralis doesn’t lead people on. I mean, that was quite the kiss we saw at the party and she gave you her UK number, so she’s clearly interested.”

“I got to ask, just because Frank is my best friend, you know, my brother from an estranged relative: if she works two full time jobs and doesn’t have time for herself, would she be seeking something like a friend with benefits?” said Mark.

“I’ve known her for 10 years. She’s been in a few relationships that didn’t last long, but she doesn’t do one-night stands. As Frank gets to know her, he will quickly realize that she’s not talkative about herself and she does not open up easy.”

“She did tell me a little bit about her previous relationships,” said Frank, “and that she also lives with other guys in London.”

“That, my friend, proves my point: she’s interested, whether she realizes it or not. The guys she’s living with, trust me, aren’t any threat to you. She will tell you more about them eventually. We went to school with them, there never was any sort of romantic interest between any of them. If you call her and one of them picks up the phone, maybe they’ll try to prank you, but my advice: do not get jealous or they’ll be laughing at you.”

“Hmm I’ll keep that in mind. I don’t know what it is with her, but it’s like she’s out of my league, you know, there is that otherworldly feeling about her, I don’t know how to explain that. I think there is no other girl like her, so yeah, I would like to see if it could work out between us.”

“I’ll ask her about you when I see her,” said Victoria, while thinking ‘If you only knew’, “Remember: she will be moving with me when she gets back in town. Another advice: don’t take it personal if she has to cancel a date with you for work. Unlike us, she really doesn’t have the luxury of calling in sick or saying no when they send her somewhere. If you can get over the fact that she works 80+ hours a week and isn’t in town half the time, at least for the next… 7 years maybe, give or take, then I think she’s your girl. Whether or not things will work out between the two of you, will ultimately boil down to that.”