Full Boar

Chapter 14: The Inside Woman

Adrianna sighed. "Fine. What do you want me to do? Who is this witch?"

"You've probably heard of her. Dr. Tessa Tondichee?"

Adrianna blinked. "What? Dr. Tondichee? A witch? I know her!" Adrianna paused. "I was the one who invited her to speak. She's an anthropologist. I've read some of her papers. They're... not witchy."

"What were they?" Mason asked.

"Kinda dry, to be honest. Read better, but it was good research, and she's a good speaker," Adrianna said. "A witch?"

"Yeah, what they call a skinwalker. If you see her, try to snap a picture of her with the flash on your camera on."

"Why?" Adrianna asked.

"Something Mad Charlie said," Mason explained. "There's a couple stories of them having reflective eyes in human form. You ever see a dog's eyes light up? Well, hers might do that too."

"Um... that's not exactly a simple thing to get," Adrianna said. "I can't just walk up to her and go 'Hey, a friend of mine thinks you're a witch. Mind taking a photo?'"

"Well, no duh," Mason said. "Figure out a way to make it tactful."

"And then what?" Adrianna asked. "Seeing as I'm your new double agent."

"We play it by ear, just... I gotta run." The phone fell silent.

Adrianna let it clatter to her desk. This... this life was draining. This madness that was her new life, though she hated to even acknowledge that it was her new life, left her sleepless, yet oh so tired. It was like she was running down a long corridor, aching to reach the end of it, yet it kept receding out of her reach.

Her pity-party ended, however, the second she heard the knock at her door. She glanced up to see one of the interns poking her head in. Celia? Serena? Adrianna couldn't recall her name. "Uh, Dr. Marcionne? Someone at the front is calling for you."

"Who?" Adrianna asked.

"She says her name is Dr. Tessa Tondichee."

***

Dr. Tessa Tondichee was a severe-looking woman with dark hair pulled back into a bun. Her skin gleamed like bronze beneath the atrium lights. She wore a well-fitting suit, with a string of onyx beads around her neck.

She glanced up at Adrianna's footfalls, and she smiled. "Dr. Marcionne! So good to see you again."

"Thanks for coming on short notice," Adrianna said. "Our last speaker was supposed to talk about Etruscian burial rites, but he only agreed to that because the Italian government blocked the archaeologists from the dig he was supposed to go on."

"Let me guess," Tondichee said, "some minister got part of himself caught in a model and is facing accusations of infidelity? And now that dig's open?"

"Not sex, embezzlement. He got his hand caught in the cookie jar," Adrianna said, "and everything he's doing is coming under scrutiny. Turns out, blocking that dig was contingent on some infrastructure thing. A highway or a reservoir."

Tondichee rolled her eyes. "Building an infrastructure thing on top of an ancient grave? Are they asking for a haunted highway or a ghost-infested reservoir?"

Adrianna chuckled. "You'd think they'd at least hesitate to bulldoze an ancient burial site. If not for respecting cultural heritage, at least, then for the many movies that go into gory detail on why that's a bad idea.

The anthropologist laughed at that. "If only. But I'm glad the dig went through for your other choice. You know how it is when you choose to focus your archaeological career on a specific culture. A poor friend of mine studies the Assyrians, but given how awful the situation in Syria's been, he's not been on a dig in years!" Adrianna grimaced at that.