Dara was staring at the TV, scrunched up against the couch, pulling her knees up to her chest.

“Another terrorist attack? Is California under siege?!” The news reporter looked eager at the thought. “Wait for our special interview with a panel of experts. What can you do to protect your family!”

“Not listen to idiots,” Millie muttered. The sound of the sirens had faded finally, but the news was still there, giving their breathless commentary as they provided live footage of the remains of the spirit’s body being loaded onto a flatbed. There were other images being played.

The ones of Dara. Most of them were unsteady, showing her charging the spirit or dodging its attacks. One, from the security cameras of the market, showed her flying through the window.

Dara put her face in her hands at that.

“At least they didn’t get a look at your face,” Millie said.

“All my fault,” Dara moaned. “I should have thought about it. The same thing happened back at the park.” She shook her head. “Or close enough. I should have put a warding circle up to keep any magic from leaking out.”

“Well, nobody got killed, and now you know,” Millie said. “And we don’t have a camera shot of my car in the parking lot, so my little sister isn’t going to be annoying me.”

“Right.” Dara said. “And it’s only going to get worse! What do we do!”

“Sit down, take a deep breath, and think,” Millie said. “That’s what we do. And then we wait for Mike to work his magic and figure out what we do then.” She tilted her head. “It could have been worse.”

“How?”

“Well, beyond dying, if you’d been knocked out, right now I’d have to figure out how to bail you out.” Millie paused. “Before they started the vivisection.”

Dara just moaned again. I just wanted to guard the library! Then she blinked and a louder moan filled the room.

“What is it?” Millie asked.

“I’m probably going to miss all of my tests!”

“Eh, you’ve got a good excuse,” Millie said, leaning back to watch the next news segment, this one about the danger of robot terrorism.

“Maria?” Maria looked up from her work. The entire building was buzzing. Not one, but two possible terrorist attacks in less than a week. She knew everyone was under pressure, but…

No demands. No threats. No previous intelligence of anything happening, coupled with footage that looked like it had come from a recent Hollywood blockbuster rather than reality.

No dead, and yet someone who could set that up could have killed people in job lots. Only an idiot would believe the “they mistimed the bomb” story that some news agencies were trying to push.

But now her boss was calling her. She got up and followed Thomas Chang into his office. The supervisory agent gestured for her to sit down.

“You’re being transferred,” he told her. “A new team is being set up to handle an unusual aspect of this case.”

“Sir?”

Without answering, he turned and pulled a thick folder from the shelf and handed it to Maria. She opened it and then…

What the hell? The copies were of documents from decades ago, nearly a century, back when the FBI was the… Bureau of Investigation? She glanced up at Thomas, but he just gestured for her to keep reading.

“Monstrous beings… specters that took an unwholesome interest in the weak… What is this, an unpublished Lovecraft story?”

“No, it’s actual reports of events in California, from 1918 to 1921. It didn’t get much play, well because of the war and the Spanish Flu.” He shrugged. “Oh, also the fact that nobody had cell phones back then.”

Maria flipped the pages, shaking her head. “Okay, it sort of looks familiar, but c’mon, this is a fairytale.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But my bosses, including some men who didn’t share ID, want us to investigate it, and you’ll be taking the lead on this.”

“Me?” Oh, God. I can already hear the X-Files jokes.

“You, for many reasons, not the least of which is you’re young so if this blows up, you play the ‘I was doing what my boss told me, even though I knew it was stupid card,’ and your career will survive.”

“So make work.”

“Maybe not.” He handed her another file, this one from the present day. “There was a shooting in the High Desert, a bunch of gangbangers high on their own supply, except…”

Maria read the synopsis. “Except they talked about a fog, a strange walking monster and… Wait a minute.”

“Fired a shit-ton of bullets. Most of which were recovered on the ground, undeformed.” Maria blinked. “They didn’t hit anything?”

“Yes, except they were in an empty building. They should have hit something. Some of them did and embedded themselves into the wood or ricochet off some of the tools. Not these.” He looked at Maria, his expression serious. “We’re keeping that quiet and fortunately everyone is focusing on Fullerton and LA, but that’s three events. So get these files and get to work.”

“Understood.”

“And Maria?”

“Yes?”

“Special effects or something bigger, this could get serious. Stay on your toes.”

“Yes, Sir.” With that, Maria left, taking the folder with her. Time to get to work, because whatever this is, isn’t going to wait for my convenience. Because Maria had a bad feeling there were going to be a lot more than three events…