Quinn hated flying. The Department never paid for the good seats, which meant being cramped into the worst economy sections with sour-faced Special Agent Adam Ahlgren shoved right up beside him. And Adam never shared the arm rest. At least they usually gave him a window seat, even if Quinn knew it was mostly to keep him from interacting with the poor unsuspecting general populace.

It was hardly Quinn’s fault that he was a creepy weirdo now. He’d fallen into this line of work and, well, turning into a malnourished, pale, cold stick of a person with dark veins and darker bags under his eyes that no amount of sleep or coffee ever removed. One of his earlier handlers had sneered at him, calling Quinn an emo goth. Even before magic had ever entered Quinn’s life, he’d been that one thin, slightly effeminate kid at school that never needed to come out as gay because everyone just looked at him and knew it, even before he understood what such things were. He’d learned how to let bullying roll off of him, getting revenge by being even more of whatever it was that made people around him uncomfortable.

So, of course, he’d leaned into being an “emo goth” just as much.

The black clothing made his coloration stand out less. The long bangs hid how his eyes were becoming more washed out and bloodshot and even went all creepy black sclera and silver iris when he was actively casting. Well, the bangs and his decorative sunglasses. The chains and charms he draped off his clothing allowed him to carry his foci in easy access and cargo pants had a ton of pockets to hold the rest of his kit. His scars from blood magic were waved off as depressive self harm. People stared at him, sure, but they were thinking creepy metalhead, goth, satanist rather than active death mage. Social ostracization was preferable to a witch hunt and hey, sometimes he made random new friends with some really cool goths.

The contrast between Quinn and Special Agent Adam Ahlgren made them stand out more than anything. Agent Ahlgren, as the man insisted on being called, dressed impeccably in a black suit and looked like he belonged in a Men In Black movie. His attitude and expression were just as stiff as his clothing. He discouraged any closeness and informality, which of course meant Quinn tweaked Adam’s boundaries whenever he could.

He had few pleasures left to him; he might as well grab what he could and run with it. Like running with scissors and likely to end just as well.

With effort, Quinn yanked his tumbling brain back to the situation at hand. For all that he played the fool, Quinn was sharp. His skill earned him respect, annoyance, and fear all at once. When the Department had gotten a call about a death mage setting up a killing tree ritual, one with a significant number of victims already, they had pulled Quinn off of his previous task and put him on this instead. Death magic on that scale was serious bad news and serious bad news required the best, which meant Quinn. As much as they feared him, Quinn knew they would keep using him up to the very end. They just couldn’t afford not to.

The initial report had reminded Quinn of several old rituals he’d seen or read about and he couldn’t wait to sink his sticky little fingers into researching the active effect. Of course, they had gotten another call today about a run-in with a death mage, potentially a second one working with the first one, and the need to deal with some sort of blood magic spell on one of the shifters out here.

Shifters were a squirrely folk. Sometimes literally. He’d met a squirrel shifter once. That guy was a jerk. In general, they acted like they weren’t just another type of mage and treated themselves like some sort of demi-human species. Quinn didn’t really care, whatever floated their boats and all, but it did make it harder to work with them. He didn’t get the whole cultural thing behind it but they were both more and less harsh on death mages compared to the general mage populace. Shifters understood what death mages actually did better, since spirits bordered on ghosts, but also were pretty militant about killing any death mages they found.

Once they were landed, Adam shuffled the pair of them quickly to the baggage claim, which was just down the plain brown carpeted hallway from the terminal and past the single TSA checkpoint. The special agent pointed to a spot out of the way of foot traffic, not that there really was much even with the other passengers from their small flight.

“Stay there,” Adam commanded in a tone that brooked no argument, “Don’t touch anything. Don’t talk to anyone. Our hosts are sending a driver to pick us up, so try not to cause trouble until they get here.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Quinn acknowledged with a two fingered salute.

That little muscle near Adam’s eye twitched again, but he made no other response before storming off to get their one checked bag. Quinn traveled with his own essentials in his backpack, but his more restricted kit went in the mission bag where Adam could manage his access.

While he was waiting for either the driver or Adam, Quinn tapped the stones housing his friends. Zeren’s bloodstone was embedded in his black leather choker, next to some lovely metal studs, and Ingrid’s moonstone set into an equally chunk black leather bracelet. The ghosts didn’t like being trapped on a plane any more than Quinn did, which he thought was unfair since they didn’t have to worry about being cramped in a tiny seat but they pointed out that crying babies were still annoying to anything that could hear.

“This is quaint,” Zeren said, their mismatched eyes sweeping the tiny airport.

“What does it look like, Zizi?” Ingrid asked, her own empty eye sockets mimicking the gesture of the older ghost, hidden behind stained bandages.

Zeren had taken the little blind ghost under their care after Quinn had freed her and Ingrid practically worshipped the ground Zeren… floated over? Both ghosts hovered near Quinn, invisible to everyone but him. He smiled at the pair, slipping his hands into his pockets and leaning back against the wall tiredly as they bantered.

“Bland,” Zeren replied flatly, the way they said most things, “Much smaller than the airport we left. There is just the one baggage carousel here and the parking lot is right outside.”

“That sounds tiny,” Ingrid said, considering. She turned around again, surveying the space in her own way. While the manner of her creation as a ghost left Ingrid blind, her ability to perceive magical energies, especially those related to death, were drastically heightened. The glowing sigils inscribed on her dirty bandages pulsed. “There’s barely anyone here. The only magic ones are Quinny and Mr. Grumpy. Oh, and the moose!”

Quinn straightened away from the wall, blinking. Moose? He swept his gaze around the relatively small space, half expecting to see a moose just standing there that he’d somehow missed. That meant he missed the broad-framed woman opening the door into the baggage claim area until the second pass, by which point, she’d seen him as well. He looked at her and sensed the flickers of spirit and life magic, intertwined in the manner that meant shifter. She looked at him and saw a death mage.

Whoops.

Someone clearly hadn’t warned their driver properly, because that woman took one look at him and got both scared and really, really angry. Adam had turned towards the newcomer at this point, but not in time to stop her from charging across the room right at Quinn.

For a moment, Quinn considered just letting her hit him. He had several defensive charms already enchanted and charged, so it wouldn’t have hurt him. Hurting their shifter hosts, even in accidental self-defense, would be bad though. He also couldn’t pull out any of his flashier effects in public or he would get into way more trouble than it was worth, especially with Agent Ahlgren the no-fun watching.

“Zeren, help,” Quinn hissed, calling on the ghost for assistance, his hands scrambling into one of his big cargo pants pockets, looking not for his prepared charms but for his official badge. His fingers fished around the pocket, finding every other thing in there first, as it always went.

At Quinn’s call, Zeren stepped in front of Quinn. The ghost was bound even more strictly than Quinn himself, unable to act with the permission of their own, which was Quinn now. As the patchwork ghost sunk their hands into the charging woman’s arms and held her in place, Quinn was reminded of why. Most people didn’t have an easy counter for ghost attacks. Which was fine until the ghost was able to act on the physical plane directly.

“Hi, wait,” Quinn squeaked reassuringly, trying to find the words and get them out his mouth in an intelligible order, “Specialist. I’m the specialist. Here!”

He’d finally found his badge, tucked all nice and tight in its little flip wallet cover thing. Quinn flipped up the cover and held it out for her just as Adam reached them, armed with his own badge and a deep frown that promised Quinn was going to be in trouble later. Probably because he let his ghost friend grab their pickup person, but what was he supposed to do? Let her punch him and get hurt even worse?

“Quinn,” Adam reprimanded him in a severe tone, “Stop it.”

That was the vague official code words for “hey, stop having your ghost freeze a person” while they were standing in a public place. They had the attention of the airport security as it was, though none had approached yet. Even then, Quinn hated how Adam referred to Zeren as an it. They might not have a clear gender after being condensed into their new form, but that didn’t change the fact that they had a soul and a mind and a quirky personality that was all them. Calling a ghost an “it” always seemed like reducing them to less than human. It wasn’t their fault they were dead! And even if it was, dead didn’t mean life was over! Except it did. Quinn was botching his mental semantics and threw the whole train of thought off the rails and into the bin of “nope, that was a train wreck.”

As much as Quinn disliked Adam’s attitude, he was more than happy to call Zeren off now that Adam was standing between the stranger and his own fragile bony body. He softly called, “Zeren, return.”

Immediately, Zeren removed their hands from the woman and she staggered a bit as the force holding her spontaneously released. The ghost floated back over to stand next to Quinn as if nothing had happened. The woman looked around a bit wild-eyed before settling her gaze on Adam and his own proffered identification.

“Right,” the woman shook her head as if trying to reset herself, “I’m Maudy Smith. I work for Vera Hunt, the pac- the head of our camp group. I take it you are the two agents I’m supposed to pick up?”

Maudy looked around the baggage claim as if there would be another two strangers with federal agent badges who could be the ones she was looking for and Quinn and Adam could be someone else’s problem. Too bad. They asked for help. Now they had Quinn and they could all go suck eggs if they didn’t like it. Quinn had work to do.

“I heard you had a friend in need of more immediate assistance?” Quinn prompted in return, his question serving dual purposes of showing they had the right information and to push this conversation along. He also got to cut Adam off, which made Quinn happier than it should.

“Yeah, Mark--” Maudy cut off, shaking her head. “Sorry, I’ll tell you on the drive over. They are at a motel in town.”

“By all means, lead the way,” Quinn gestured towards the doors. He shrugged his shoulders to resettle his backpack and shoved his badge back in a pocket.