Prompt#11: "It's Alive?"

Word Count: 499 of 500 MAX
DAY 11 Prompt: "It's Alive?"

         Brady stopped in mid stride when he heard those two words. “What? That’s not possible. All five of my rounds hit it square in the chest. Those were radiant rounds, Keela.”

         Keela waved her hand at him, the universal signal for shut the hell up. Her head was tilted away, her phone pressed tight against her ear. “Say that again, Jonah. Are you sure it’s still alive? Okay, copy that. We’re heading back now. Pull your team in case its still lurking in the area. If its wounded its gonna be angry.”

         Keela hung up and headed through the lobby towards the front doors. Brady hurried to catch up. “What the hell’s going on, Keela? That thing is dead. No way it survived.”

         “There is no possibility of you having an indoor voice is there?”

         “Keela…I swear to…”

         “Okay! Jeez, Brady, calm down.” The lobby doors silently opened as they neared. It was still raining outside, the night darker because of it. “Go get the car and I’ll explain on the way back to the bridge.”

         Brady mumbled under his breath but jogged out to the parking lot, pulling his coat up around his neck.

         Brady and Keela were agents with The Federal Bureau of Cryptozoology (FBC); a division of the Justice Department founded in 1910 to help the Bureau of Investigation (now the FBI) handle cases dealing with unusual circumstances. It wasn’t a publicly known agency. Brady was a war mage, specializing in offense. Keela was his fey tracker, a natural talent of her people. They were always assigned in pairs, one tracker, one hunter. They’d been partners for just over a year.

         Brady swung the car into the porte-cochère and slowed long enough for Keela to get in. “Alright, spill it. What the hell is going on?”

         “Not much to tell you. Jonah’s team went down to the site but couldn’t find a body. There are no prints, no blood, no nothing.”

         Brady didn’t say anything for awhile. He was certain every bullet hit. Not only that, but each one had been radiant or sun spelled. He’d used a specific incantation to change the normal rounds in his gun to solid sunlight. And everyone knows, sunlight is fatal to trollkind.

         “Whatcha thinking partner?”

         “I’m thinking this is bullshit. I shot that sonofabitch five times. Five times! No way its alive.”

         “What if we're wrong?”

         “What?”

         “What if it wasn’t a troll? It could explain the whole 'not dead' part.”

         “We both saw it. Big, ugly, nasty temperament. Sound like something we know?”

         “Yeah, I get what you’re saying but it’s alive. Plain and simple. It walked away and now its probably really pissed at us. Well, you at least.”

         “This isn’t right. We’re missing something.”

         “Well we’ve got about five miles to figure something out.”

         They drove in silence, puzzling over tonights events. In his head, Brady counted down from ten. 'Two…one..'

         “Why does this always happen to us?” wailed Keela, right on cue.