Lilium

Eleven

Eleven

He was only on his first case for the morning and he already felt like he was going to pass out. Not even the scent of coffee had done anything to wake him up. Granted, he reflected as he tried – and failed – to read the first page again, his night had been active in nearly every sense of the word. But he'd been out like a light afterwards. The laws of nature dictated he should've been bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after a good night's sleep.

And yet he wasn't. The words before him moved on the page, blurring together or doubling up, until Oliver at last shoved the folder away from him and leaned back. He put his head in his hands and groaned into his palms.

To make matters worse, Rei was busy now and Arthur was out doing field-work. There would be no one to entertain him – or, by extension, keep him awake – for quite a while. The prospect sent a shock through his heart and he groaned again.

I am so bored!

He slammed his fists into the desk and watched with dark amusement as his keyboard and mouse jumped off the desk. Not even a foot away, his desk phone shuddered. Then it rang.

He waited a moment to see if the phone rang anywhere else in the office. When it didn't, he rolled his eyes and lifted the phone up to his mouth.

"Johnson speaking."

"Johnson. It's Gonzalez. Nice to see you're in this morning... Come by my office. There's something you might want to hear."

"Oh?" Oliver rose from his chair and stepped around it, careful to keep the cord loose as he pushed his chair in. "I'll be right there."

The phone hit the receiver with a clang. For the third time that morning, Oliver groaned. Then he shook his head, grabbed the file he'd tried to read, and stepped away from his desk. He walked to the other end of the room, nodded to anyone who called his name, and stepped into the hallway beyond. At the end of the hallway, he knocked once on the last door on the right. Director Gabriel Gonzalez gave a gruff, "Come in!"

Gabriel Gonzalez was a tall man with thick black hair and a needle-thin mustache that didn't quite meet in the middle underneath his nose. Combined with his pointed nose and narrow eyes, the mustache gave Gabriel a near-comical appearance. He sat in his chair with his head tossed back, fingers laced behind his neck as he gazed to the ceiling.

When Oliver walked in, Gabriel leaned forward and looked at him with pitch-black eyes. "Good morning."

"Morning, Director."

"Have a seat, if you please." He gestured to the chair on the opposite side of his desk as he spoke, brushing the hair out of his face. Oliver nodded and sat down. The faux leather exhaled underneath him. Oliver took a quick glance around the room, eyeing the cross on Gabriel's wall with a faint sense of disdain.

Gabriel moved a pencil away, rotated his coffee mug, and clasped his hands over his desk. "There is a Scourge on the loose."

Oliver pursed his lips. "I know. Shiro told me."

"Right, of course." Gabriel frowned. "But it has not been detained as of this morning. This has the potential to be a serious problem."

Oliver dipped his head a fraction of a degree. "I understand that."

"The Magistrate hasn't revealed a name, but there's a file being formed on this being... They're Rank Black."

He flinched. A Rank Black on the loose... "So it's dangerous," he said after a moment.