Ben Kidder sat on his parents' couch and rubbed his brow in a vain effort to curb the headache he was suffering as a result of sleep deprivation and the emotional turmoil he had gone through that night. His other hand held his phone to his ear. On the other end of the line was his former slave girl, Krista.
"Come again," he said.
"Sir," Krista said, in a deferential tone of voice, "there is an FBI agent in the lobby, waiting to speak with you."
Ben took his phone off his ear and looked at its screen. He put it back to his ear and said, "Now? It's not even nine a.m."
"I can only tell you what I know, Sir," Krista said. "The agent arrived a few minutes ago and the doorman described him as insistent."
Ben huffed in frustration. He didn't want to be interrogated by the FBI. He didn't want Krista to keep addressing him as 'Sir'. He wanted to apologize and atone for blowing up at the girls earlier. He wanted to get the full might of the federal government behind himself.
Before he could say anything, Krista said, "Sir, the doorman already confirmed to the FBI agent that you are here."
Ben's brow drew down in displeasure. "Well, that takes him off my Christmas list," he thought to himself. "And no more tips, either."
"Should I try to dissuade the agent?"
"No," Ben said. "No." He was about to say that he'll be right there, but his parents were sitting right next to him. He couldn't say that, excuse himself for a moment, and go teleporting to his apartment without provoking his mother's suspicions.
"Hold on a sec," he said to Krista. He covered the mouthpiece of his phone and said to his parents, "I need to take this call upstairs, in my room. I'll be back downstairs in, like, ten minutes, or so. Ok?"
His parents nodded, still shaken up from hearing the President speak of emergency measures to deal with the undead threat, and Ben got up to go to his childhood bedroom. As soon as he locked the door behind himself, he picked up his bag with the jade circlet and teleported to his apartment. He hung up the phone and said, "Krista, send the agent up and keep him occupied at the front door! Offer him refreshments and the like, ok?"
"Yes, Sir," Krista said, with a sharp salute. She marched over to the door and stood by it at attention. Ben didn't know if she was being sarcastic with her pseudo-military act, or if it was for real. He hoped she wouldn't go blabbing to the FBI agent. He walked up the stairs, to one of the bedrooms, and placed the circlet upon his brow. He cast Shapechange on himself and changed into a Djinni.
He took gaseous form and invisibly flew towards the front door. While he waited for the agent to arrive, he took the chance to read the girls' minds.
Krista's mind was focused on the task of distracting the agent, but Ben could tell that she was eager to fight the enemy in the manner he had described. She saw it as a new experience and an adventure beyond compare. She wanted to be the badass scrapper, for once, and not have to rely on her charms and quick wits to get out of trouble. She imagined herself wearing sexy, magically enhanced armor and chopping down waves of crazy cultists with a big machinegun. She didn't even think once about him screaming at her.
Raven was asleep in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Lisa was also lying in bed, but she wasn't asleep. Her mind was consumed with doubts. Ben focused on those and understood that her doubts were about herself and whether or not she had the guts to go fighting alongside him and the girls. Ben wasn't surprised to read from her mind that the girls had a serious tête-à-tête about his rant as soon as he had teleported out of here, but he was surprised to learn that Krista and Raven were completely on board with the idea of entering combat with the cultists.
They were somewhat less on board with the idea of adhering to strict, military discipline and the no-fun approach to preparations that he had angrily spat out earlier, but he guessed that that was to be expected. Krista was a hedonistic adrenaline junkie and Raven had only been deflowered last month. Lisa, too, had only started having orgasms the day before she wound up with Ben. She didn't think it fair in the least to be done with sex so soon.
Lisa seemed to think that a climactic battle with the evildoers was unavoidable, but she doubted if she would be of any use in it. She wanted to help, to contribute to the fight, but she didn't feel confident that she could. She was also frightened that she would come to a bad end if she left Ben's vicinity. Now that the evil side showed their ability to raise the dead, she was very scared of them. She didn't even have absolute faith in Ben's ability to win, anymore.
"Join the club, sweetie," Ben thought.
Ben couldn't believe that neither girl was hung up on the fact that he had been yelling at them, hours ago, over things that weren't their fault. He didn't know if the sleeping Raven felt the same way, but neither Krista, nor Lisa were even thinking about him having suddenly turned into a rage monster and spouted profanity-riddled filth at them.
He was going to humbly apologize, nonetheless. He felt the mind of the FBI agent come into range and focused on it.
The agent was thinking about his wife and her strange reaction to the undead disturbance. Ben felt a bit embarrassed to read in the man's mind the many arguments he had put together in favor of his wife having been cheating on him for quite some time, now. Ben wanted to tune out of the man's silent monologue, but couldn't afford to. He needed to keep listening in if he was to find out what the FBI was thinking about him.
The agent decided that he would just have to weather the coming apocalypse all alone. He imagined his military experience and FBI training would allow him to save quite a few nubile, female survivors that would be most grateful for his heroics. As horrible as the coming apocalypse would probably be, the agent was going to get rid of "the ol' ball and chain" and try to have some fun before the very end.
Finally, the man exited the elevator on the last floor. There were only two doors on offer to him, the stairs to the side and Ben's apartment dead ahead. He pushed the thoughts of his wife aside, for the moment, and reminded himself that the dead had risen, after all. The agent looked at Ben's door and turned his thoughts towards him. If Ben hadn't been an intangible being at the time, he would have sighed in profound relief. The agent opened his folder and skimmed the salient points of his small file on Ben.
The Bureau, Ben learned from the agent's mind, had been ordered by the Attorney General to investigate all reports of the supernatural, no matter how ridiculous they sounded. A scapegoat was needed. If there was a name attached to a report, they were to knock on that name's door and see what they could shake out.
The agent believed that the government was going to hold the modern equivalent of witch trials and that he was tasked with finding likely candidates for burning at the stake. He felt sure that the government would execute some people, if it felt like controlling the masses warranted it. And he might be the one to put someone in harm's way. That thought made him like his job again. After many years of incessant desk-riding drudgery, he felt like he was holding the power over life and death in his hands again. He pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind and focused fully on the matter at hand.
Ben was surprised to learn that he had been reported by Susan, who had come to the Bureau's local offices on Monday morning and denounced him as a mind controller. She had been politely laughed out the door. When the Assistant Director passed down the Attorney General's order, everyone in the office remembered her at the same time and ran a quick background check on Ben.
The check quickly revealed statements from the four young burglars that had broken into Ben's home, weeks ago. Statements in which they claimed Ben had transformed two of them into frogs. Ben could read in the agent's mind that he had felt ridiculous just reading those statements. The idea of a magician living in a shabby house and turning people into frogs was utterly ludicrous on so many levels, undead, or no undead. If one had magical power, why would they want to live in squalor?
When Ben's very large and very recent influx of cash was spotted, everyone's mind changed. The Bureau tagged Ben as a potential person of interest and sent the agent Ben's way. The agent closed his file folder and tugged on his tie. He cleared his throat, crossed the small lobby and knocked on the door.
Krista answered it very quickly and greeted the agent with a polite smile. Ben was a little incensed to read in the man's mind all the things he'd like to do to Krista, but he reminded himself that he had screamed at her and shoved her around, just a few hours earlier. The two of them may as well be broken up, for all intents and purposes. As he saw in the agent's mind the various poses he'd like to put Krista in, Ben had to repeatedly tell himself to not strike out at him in a jealous rage.
The agent smoothly deflected all of Krista's offers of refreshments and repeatedly asked for Ben. Krista bid him to take a seat and walked off to find Ben. Ben was amused to read fear in her mind. She considered the agent to be competent and she feared him figuring out her criminal past if she hung around him for too long.
Ben took one last look inside the agent's mind. He was trying to get a read on Ben from the things he had in his apartment. He was quickly drawing a general conclusion of Ben being nouveau riche. Ben was going to do nothing to dissuade him of such a notion. He flew back upstairs and turned into himself in one of the bedrooms. He checked in the mirror that he hadn't made his circlet appear and walked downstairs.
As he passed Krista, he gently caressed her wrist and whispered, "Thank you." She looked him in the eye and nodded.
Ben walked over to the FBI agent, who whipped out his credentials and said, "Mister Ben Kidder?" Ben nodded. "I'm special agent Daniel Thomas Fitzgerald of the Federal Bureau of Investigations."
Ben approached the agent and extended his hand to shake. The agent was momentarily taken aback, but then put his ID away, moved his folder into his left hand and shook Ben's hand.
"Nice to meet you, agent Fitzgerald," Ben said. "What would you like to talk about?"
"I'm just here to ask you a few questions," Fitzgerald said.
Ben thought that he could see in the agent's demeanor that he was a little angry that Ben wasn't at all intimidated by him and his three name introduction. "Questions about what," Ben asked, gesturing towards the sofa and taking a seat on the couch himself.
Fitzgerald remained standing and ominously said, "Questions about the accusations that have been brought up against you."
Ben had already decided to play the brash young brat that got rich by inventing something new, so he gave his new persona a twirl. He sat back and relaxed with a small sigh. He spread his arms in wordless question.
"As I'm sure you're well aware, mister Kidder," the agent said, with an air of authority, "this nation is under attack by supernatural forces."
Ben screwed up his face. "Nah," he drawled. "I think that was just CGI."
"What," Fitzgerald barked out in disbelief.
"Yeah," Ben said. "It was Computer Generated Imagery. CGI for short. You see, you can take images that-"
