CHALCEDONY

Ellis and the Agent Talking to each other

"He's protecting a kidnapper," Ellis said, shoving a chair across the room.

"You are just as familiar with Stockholm syndrome as I am. It shouldn't surprise you," Agent Craig said calmly. The man never registered any emotion beside calm humor. He was forty years old. Fifteen years older than Ellis. He'd seen men buckle under the stress of being a supervisor in Homeland Security.

"Rogue fey is one thing, but when fey royalty start breaking the damn treaty, what the hell are we supposed to do about it? We just turn our heads and pretend that it isn't happening?"

"Politician or fey royalty, they never think the law applies to them. Give it up. This isn't a fight you can win. Release him. The girl is home. Forget about the rest and let the boy go."

Ellis grimaced. The thought of releasing the boy made him sick. Coal was the key to bringing down the fey. The girl was young and unreliable. But the boy... "Are we sure he's human?" Ellis asked, grabbing at anything that'll keep the boy in jail.

"Paranoid much? Besides his height, what about him screams fey?. Our contact from the fey realm has already confirmed the boy was taken from the human realm just like the girl was."

"And you believe him?"

"Yes. Have ever seen a black elf, and shape-shifting, color bending queens don't count." Agent Craig said with a tone of finality. "The boy is human and he has rights. We can't hold him any longer. With this Black Lives Matter movement, If our records get audited, which the fuckers in congress always do, I'll get my head handed to me if they see I kept an innocent "victim" locked up any longer than necessary. On paper, the boy looks like an angel. He escaped with the girl and bought her home. It's a Lifetime movie."

"It has fairies, so that would make this a Disney movie."

"You have jokes," Agent Craig said. "Do what you were supposed to do two months ago. And release him.

"Are we supposed to ignore that he won't give up the real kidnapper?"

"Yes."

Ellis swallowed his disappointment. "We couldn't find his family. He doesn't know his last name, and I doubt if his real name is even Coal."

"You know the drill. Place him into a group home until he's eighteen."

"There is something more to this, Craig," Ellis insisted. He knew he was treading on dangerous ground, but someone needed to wake this division up. Someone needed to ask the hard questions. "Our job has always been easy. The fey clean up their own damn mess and we watch, but the balance is tipping. They're getting messy. More creepy shit is slipping through the cracks and getting into the papers."

"Your point," Craig asked.

"Their world is full of freaks. When they crack, we're not going to have any idea how to handle what comes through."

"I've heard all of this before. What do you want me to do about it? We can't go there, and we can't hunt or prosecute the ones that are here. Say what you want about 'em, but they are good at tracking down their own before we can get to 'em."

"Let me have the name of your fey contact. Let me talk to him."

Craig shook his head. "You know I can't do that. Prove yourself at this job, and you'll get other doors opened for you."

Ellis glared at Craig. Ellis had only been on this job for a year months. At first, he'd hated it. The cliché secret branch of the Homeland Security. He wondered if he'd been funneled here because he'd pissed off someone important without knowing. But slowly, he saw there was more to it. A lot more. A treaty signed by two warring species. Two species that split the world into two different realms. Crazy, outlandish. But true. But he was only given the most basic information and the most basic resources.

"I've proved that I can be discreet," Ellis insisted.

"That's not for you or me to judge."

"Do you think we really have time for this? More and more occurrences are popping up. The kidnapping of that girl for example."

"Believe me. We're looking into it and it won't happen again."

"How do you know that?" Once again there was something he wasn't being told.

"It won't happen again," Craig said. "And if it does, we are more than ready to deal with it." He started walking towards the door and then paused. "Get the boy in a foster home and out of here. Is that understood?"

"Yes," Agent Ellis said, not bothering to hide his disgust.