Lupi 04 - Night Season by authors_sort Page A

theory. Long fingers, Cullen noted, though the joints were swollen. Arthritis? The product of whatever condition kept him in that chair?
    Behind the chair stood a skinny, red-headed gun freak, Brooks’s bodyguard du jour. Steve Timms was human, intense, and barely back on duty after a month’s medical leave. Cullen knew all this because he was the man’s roommate at the moment.
    Ah, Cullen thought, amused, when Timms failed to reveal by the flicker of a sandy eyelash that he knew Cullen, my little boy is growing up . Hope he doesn’t shoot me.
    The wheelchair required Brooks to tilt his head back to study the assholes. “The problem is, Agent Yu,” he said mildly, “that I’ve already cleared Mr. Seabourne. So I’m confused, gentlemen. Whose orders were you following?”
    Asshole Number One was puzzled. “It’s standing orders, sir.”
    â€œAnd yet I didn’t issue those orders, and you report to me. I remain mystified.”
    Asshole Number Two wasn’t puzzled. He didn’t like Brooks, thought he’d one-upped the man, and was stupid enough to let it show. “Orders issued by Acting Director Hayes last month, sir. All nonhumans are to be given a level one search before entering a level one secure area.”
    â€œAh!” Brooks’s exclamation landed soft and cold in the hallway. “You are oddly ignorant. Those orders were rescinded two days after being issued. The President,” he went on in that chill, quiet voice, “did not consider them helpful. Nor do I. You will call Mr. Croft now and inform him you are to be replaced here at once, as you are temporarily suspended from duty. Mr. Seabourne.” He looked at Cullen. “I appreciate your promptness and apologize for the insult. Please come with me.”
    He reversed his chair. Lily followed him promptly. Cullen paused to give the two guards a cross-eyed grin.
    Childish? Sure. But fun.
    Behind the door on the right was another hallway, this one short and ending at yet another door.
    â€œMCD idiots,” Lily muttered as they headed for that door.
    â€œYou’re MCD,” he reminded her.
    â€œThey’re regular MCD. Not Unit.”
    MCD stood for Magical Crimes Division, a section of the FBI that had a bad rep with the clans. MCD had been tasked with enforcing the registration laws before the Supreme Court decided that werewolves were citizens.
    The Unit was different from the rest of MCD. Most of its personnel were Gifted, for one thing. On paper the Unit looked like part of MCD, but in practice it had always operated independently of the rest of the division—even, to some extent, of the entire FBI bureaucracy.
    Then came the Turning. The number and severity of magical disturbances shot right off the scale. The Unit was the only law enforcement agency with trained, Gifted agents, but there weren’t enough of them to deal with everything. So they’d recruited from the ranks of regular MCD agents for some positions…leading to the presence of cretins like the two Cullen had just encountered.
    Brooks stopped his chair a few paces away from the door at the end of the hall and put it through a tidy maneuver that left him facing Cullen and Lily. “I’ll ask Agent Yu to brief you in a moment, Mr. Seabourne. First, though, I have a question. In your opinion, did those two agents act in honest if regrettable ignorance? Or did their actions arise from prejudice?”
    Cullen shrugged. “Asshole Number One is stupid—probably doesn’t read much, so he never knew about the search orders being rescinded. He thought he was ‘doing his dooty.’ Asshole Number Two—”
    â€œSort that for me, please.”
    â€œAsshole Number One’s the blond. Number Two is the African American, and if he didn’t spend his formative years as an agent shooting lupi, he wanted to.”
    â€œThank you. Mr. Timms? Your opinion,