Page 2 of The Paranormal Investigation Bureau
“Maybe it’s not just Derek. Maybe I like your work stories.”
Kaine just grunted and sat on one of the chairs in my studio.
“You graduate from the Bureau Academy in four hours… you’re going to burn out if you aren’t doing this for the right reason. Understand this… most people have to be a little unhinged to go into law enforcement, so you’re going to see the worst sides of people. Oh, and no one is going to help you find Derek, you won’t be able to use work resources either. Want to know what happens if anyone above me finds out a rookie is looking into her human ex-boyfriend? They’ll take your badge, and there won’t be a damn thing I can do about it.”
We’d been having similar conversations ever since I declined a plane ticket to New York and instead entered the Bureau Academy. I got where it was coming from, and Kaine had helped me find myself and process a lot of things. I never got any of that from Derek, who had left me in a park with two broken feet after begging me not to leave him. So, I was pretty sure he didn’t want to face me, but also knew he was close with his parents. If he were really going to leave the state because of what he did to me, he’d still be in contact with them.
Just because I didn’t know I was a witch didn’t mean other people didn’t. I had heard Kaine’s stories about what people in the supernatural community did to humans who hurt one of their own. Did someone I didn’t even know existed take revenge on Derek, because of what he did to me? I hoped not, that would have robbed me of any closure I might get from kicking him right in the balls… and I have strong legs!
“I’m going to my graduation, Kaine. And I’m going to make you proud.”
Kaine slung his arm around my shoulder.
“Then you better go take a shower and get dressed. You’ll make me proud, no matter what you do, but I don’t think this will make you happy. Magic happens when you dance, and it happened way before your gifts kicked in. If you do this, you may never find Derek.”
“There are plenty of other criminals I can find, Kaine. Dance careers are short, and an injury could end mine at any moment. I get working with you is dangerous, but I need to do this.”
“Then, you do it full out, Beyla. No marking.”
Chapter2
Beyla
BureauAcademy training was brutal, but in a different way than ballet, it had different requirements than the human police academy, and it lasted a lot longer, too. They recruited me straight out of high school, and had been training me for the last four years, then Kaine had also been tutoring me when I got home. Somehow I still found time to dance, before class and before bed. I’d probably continue doing that until I couldn’t anymore.
I had classes that covered the myriad of supernatural species… and there were a lot of them. I learned criminal profiling, though they insisted we only do that if there was a serial. There were classes specific to me as a witch, in which I learned to incapacitate and kill with my magic and was taught how to break curses and banish spirits.
Kaine had already explained that, as a rookie, I’d be dealing with a lot of angry spirits at first, and then I’d eventually move on to cursed objects until finally they’d be confident I could handle myself in more dangerous situations. He’d tried to use all that to talk me out of joining. I got that I wouldn’t have a lot of time to look into Derek’s disappearance, and I absolutely couldn’t use Bureau resources to help, but a lot of what I learned at the academy was utterly fascinating to me.
I’d made friends at the academy, though there were people I had to prove myself to. It was pretty obvious I was a ballet dancer, and many of these people thought it was silly. They thought I should be off somewhere else, in a pink tutu and tiara, prancing on my toes. Those people would never be my friends, and I didn’t particularly care about impressing them.
My friend Morgan sat next to me in the audience and squeezed my hand. She was a siren, and totally gung-ho about catching bad guys.
“I’msoready for this!” she said.
Morgan and I had different stories. I was adopted by a cop, and her family was killed by an insane man who fell in love with her mother because she was a siren. He’d thought he was owed her love, and didn’t accept that she refused to leave her family for him. Morgan was the only one to survive, though she was seriously injured. She wanted this job to stop that from happening to anyone else.
“How many hauntings do you think there are, anyway?” I asked. “There’s an entire department for angry spirits we have to work in before we get promoted.”
“Mina is a bitch,but banshees know all about the dead. Haven’t you seen her do that creepy stare into nothing? She hears the dead. Those fuckers areeverywhere.”
“Ireallyhope I don’t get partnered up with her. She threw the most shade at me for being a ballet dancer, but I bet she wouldn’t last five minutes in one of my classes.”
“Theonlyreason I made it through that first year, when I was five, was because my mother forced me to. She was hoping ballet would mean I’d stop tearing shit up. I had zero of that turnout shit, and wanted to quit as soon as they forced me into first position and made me bend my knees.”
“Shh! They’re starting. Mina will let out a banshee shriek if she thinks we’re talking when her name is called.”
They called through all the names and eventually got to mine. I was handed a shiny badge and a piece of paper that said I’d completed the academy. I’d start work with Kaine in four days.
He hadn’t pulled any strings to get me hired. Honestly, if it had been up to him, he wouldn’t have given me a job to get me to New York. Sure, Kaine was the chief, but he didn’t interview me. I had an entire board go over my application and grill me for an hour at my interview, and they made me wait two weeks for a decision.
I earned that job. I busted my ass at the academy. I aced every written exam, and I practiced every practical application like it was a ballet step I was trying to master.
So, that was it. My ballet dreams were officially over. I'd become a part of the Paranormal Investigation Bureau. I was determined to make Kaine proud.
Chapter3
Beyla
