Full Boar

Chapter 14: The Inside Woman

"No! Absolutely not!" Adrianna swore. "Are you insane?"

Mason's growl still raised her hackles, even over the phone. "Look, we're running out of options."

"I didn't ask for this," Adrianna snapped, then glanced up from her desk. She had closed the door, drawn the office room shades, but even so, sometime her voice carried out. When she had started this job, it became a joke that Dr. Waverly's semi-often irate phone calls served as in-office entertainment, because everyone in the office could hear nothing but them. It was pretty much impossible once he started swearing and telling them to go do anatomically impossible things to themselves.

"I know. I hate asking this, for more reasons than just that, but it's one of them." Mason sighed. "You're involved in this whether you like it or not. You were chosen."

Adrianna sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "You make it sound like you're saying I'm some dumb schlock fantasy novel hero. Chosen by a weird wizard for a quest."

"Sadly, looks like it was a witch that chose you. And not for a quest. It seems like you're the inside man for a job."

"An inside man?" Adrianna asked. "This sounds like... I don't even know what it sounds like, to be honest."

Mason sighed. "I... I don't want to tell you this, but I think they're gonna be hitting your museum."

"Hitting it? Like... a burglary?" Adrianna asked.

"Precisely," Mason said.

Adrianna's blood ran cold. "What? How? You have to tell me the proof, we need to get the police involved."

"No!" Mason shouted. "That's a bad idea. Trust me on this, I've been in situations where Unwary cops get involved. It's ugly. It's always ugly."

"They're trained to stop crime," Adrianna said, "and a burglary is a crime."

"Yeah, but they're trained to stop normal stuff. Muggings and assaults where the perp's using a normal weapon like a gun or his fists." Mason went quiet on the other end of the phone. "But a witch with corpse powder? A bokor channeling one of the pissed-off loa? A werewolf? Last time I checked, Philadelphia police ain't issued silver bullets."

Adrianna grunted. "So we've got nobody," she said.

"Adrianna... Doctor Marcionne. That's what we're for. That's what the Van Helsings are for. That's what a dozen different organizations are for. We clean our own house."

"Well, that's fine if it's your house," Adrianna said, "but this is... it's a normal person's house."

"Maybe so," Mason said, "but that house is being messed up by very abnormal people. And those abnormal people will get folks killed."

"Then you deal with them. You're not normal, after all. But just... leave me out of it. I'm not interested in this weird world you all seem comfortable in." Adrianna massaged her temple with her other hand. "I'm not part of your world," she said.

A sigh nearly deafened her. "Look," Mason said, "I understand you didn't ask for this. None of us did. Well, maybe my friend Tim did, but he's just a braucher, not like you or me or Vince." Another long pause followed. "But here's the thing, what someone told me. You can moan and whine about your bad lot in life. But everyone who has a sucky fate does that. We don't get that choice. All we can do is choose what to do with the piss-poor hand the world dealt you."

Adrianna narrowed her eyes. "Are you trying to paraphrase Gandalf? From Lord of the Rings?" she snapped.

"Uh... no... wait a minute, that's why it sounded familiar!" Adrianna heard indistinct grumbling on the other end of the phone. "I was paraphrasing a friend," he said, "but it turns out that he was quoting someone else. Someone fictional. But," Mason said, "the point still stands. You're part of our world now, even if you didn't ask for it. You're one of us, and you can either bemoan that fact and prevent yourself from fixing your life, or you can accept it and decide what to do from there."