Emerson Cole & The Wayward Souls

- 1 -

It was 3 AM when Emerson Cole finally got a look at the figure sitting across the spelled glass window of the interrogation room. He pinched the bridge of his nose between two rough fingers, truly and fucking knackered. His nails felt closer to claws, their tips a little sharper than normal against his skin. It was a hint of otherworldliness he never quite managed to hide, even after all these years wearing this skin.

Standing beside him, Pythia Justice, Director of Delphi: Los Angeles—Site 20A, cleared her throat. She was a severe woman of about fifty, all sharp-featured angles accentuated by a series of geometric jewelry and hair, its color more gunmetal than blonde, pulled into a tight but elegant knot atop her head. No more than five feet—a foot and a half shorter than Cole himself—and dressed in a well-tailored white pantsuit, she still somehow remained an impressive figure. 

The Delphi Foundation's crest, a coiled python emblazoned in silver laurels tucked between the iconic scale of the goddess Nemesis, was pinned to the woolen blazer of her suit. To Cole, Justice seemed burdened by some enormous weight, one she refused to bow down or succumb to. It was etched into the stark lines carved into her face by time and age, echoed by the rigid set to her shoulders. In spite, or maybe because of this, she remained a figure of dignity and no small amount of power. It lent to her an authority most others lacked.

Or maybe he was just projecting.

Pythia Justice clicked her tongue, her green eyes glinting like flint as she fixed him with an unimpressed look before snapping her fingers—impatiently if the haughty twist to her lips was anything to go by. Cole flicked his own gaze back to hers. 

"What do you see," She said, her tone flat. Impersonal. Frosty. Cole could tell the professional distance between them was stretched as far and thin as a frozen lake in a subarctic blizzard. "Your...," her eyes dragged over him, lingering on the ratty sweater and faded jeans that made up his outfit, "professional opinion."

It wasn't quite a question. Not quite a demand either. Something in between. Calculated. A test more than anything if Cole were to guess. Realistically he knew that was fair. He figured if he were stuck with being in charge of a nation's paranormal security, he'd probably want to vet whoever the government sent his way too. Even if neither party had any real say in the matter.

It was irritating, but when the government granting you magical amnesty called with a request at eleven o'clock at night, you didn't say no. You bitched in your head, threw on the rattiest pair of clothes you had, and caught the next flight out to wherever the fuck they wanted you to go. No, ifs, ands or buts about it. Usually, the one upside to a late-night summons was that everyone working the night-shift looked just as puffy-eyed and sour. In Cole's professional opinion, people in deep shit hardly ever tried to get strangers out of theirs. And that's how he liked it.

Everyone minding their own damned business.

Unfortunately for him, it looked like Pythia Justice was a hoverer.