<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#99ff99">It wasn’t every day that Cat considered quitting her job – but it had been a number of days, lately.  She was up to her ears in a particularly disturbing case, and had gotten… nowhere.  Murder wasn’t typically her beat, not anymore.  The FBI didn’t work traditional homicide cases.  But this wasn’t traditional.  It had been kicked up from NYPD when the body count got higher than three, the usual threshold for a serial killer.  Further investigation found a fourth case in neighboring Pennsylvania and what might be a fifth in New Jersey if she could ever get NJPD to crack open their files.  All of that added up to more than the usual murder… and a colossal headache.  <br/>
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It wasn’t bad enough that there were four-maybe-five dead bodies.  It was the method that had Cat tearing her blonde hair out.  They’d had their hearts… exploded.  In true horror movie fashion, just – kaboom.  Outwards, with no sign of external trauma.  And more baffling than that, one of the murders had been the classic locked door mystery.  They’d had to batter down the door to get in, and there’d been no sign whatsoever of anybody else in the room.<br/>
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That left Agent Catherine Gabledon at a loss.  She’d explored everything she could think of in the “traditional” investigatory sense and gotten nowhere.  Over beer at her favorite watering hole, her ex-partner David Muldoon had made a careful suggestion – if she was really at her wit’s end, she could try this fellow.  Don’t admit it to her superiors at the FBI, because she’d be a laughingstock… but as he’d handed over the business card, David had given her a very sober look.  “Take him seriously, Cat.  He’s pulled off miracles before.”<br/>
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She could use a miracle… so she went.  Rather than call him, she approached the address directly.  She’d dressed to intimidate in what might as well be FBI uniform – black pants, white blouse, black blazer.  Sidearm on her left hip, badge and restraints on her right – covered by the blazer, unless she made an effort to let the pistol show.  Blonde hair left down, but neat.  Sensible black flats rather than the heels most would expect of a professional woman.  She looked efficient and capable, with a gleam in her eye that also said – don’t fuck with me.  You will not win.<br/>
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Unsure of the proper protocol when meeting what the business card claimed was a consulting wizard, Cat just pushed into the office, pulling off her sunglasses (another mandatory item of the FBI uniform) and looking around, curious for her first impression of the mysterious wizard.<br/>
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