by Louisa Lo
Madeleine was unfazed. “Remember who secured the drive for you. I can get it for you, and I can take it away. Come with me. Allow the mercenaries to learn about the victims through their partners. You know it’s the right thing to do.”
Vera growled at Madeleine, then resumed walking, teeth baring. The group moved forward again.
After half a minute of awkward silence and another two turns, Madeleine and Vera stopped before a door. From the ones we’d passed before, they tended to open to classrooms or study areas of various sizes.
Vera beat Madeleine to tapping on the door. I got a feeling it had less to do about wanting to go in and more about having one up on the other girl.
“Knock, knock!” Vera said.
It must be some sort of secret code, because a muffled sound from the other side asked, “Who’s there?”
“Your worst nightmare.”
“My what?”
“That’s right. You won’t even remember it.”
That must’ve been the right code, or the right code for Vera anyway, because the door swung open, revealing a female fire demon—the type that was the disguise of choice for Candy. This one was the real deal, though. She moved out of the way and allowed Vera to enter. Madeleine leaned close to the fire demon and whispered, “Gilda, these are mercenaries and they’re here to help.”
Gilda looked Gregory and I up and down. “What’s your name?”
“Megan and Pete,” Gregory replied, using his professional name.
“Alright, but keep it on the low down. I don’t want to get the girls’ hopes up until there’s a good reason to.”
“Of course,” Madeleine agreed.
We followed Madeleine into the room, which was about the size of a large classroom. All the tables were heaped haphazardly to one side, forming a clearing in the middle with a dozen chairs circling it. Over a dozen women and a few men were already seated, chatting amongst themselves. They were a diversified bunch, with supernaturals ranging from goblins, chess fairies, trolls, dark elves, ogres, and firbolgs.
“You came at the right time,” Gilda said, “we’re just about to start."
Every seat was taken save for one. I assumed that was Gilda’s. Madeleine grabbed a folding chair close to the wall and Gregory and I did the same. There were the sounds of chair legs shuffling on the floor as people moved to incorporate us into the circle. They were looking at us with open curiosity.
Madeleine said to the group, “These are friends of mine, Megan and Pete. Please make them feel welcome.”
“Hi, Megan! Hi, Pete!” Everyone greeted.
“Let’s start the meeting like we usually do. That’ll give the newcomers a sense of what to expect.” Gilda gave Gregory and I a meaningful look, telling us to play along.
A lithe shapeshifter, probably one that could turn into either a lion or a leopard, stood. “Hi, I’m Kat. I’ve been without my man for one month, five days, and eleven hours.”
“Hi, Kat,” the group chorused.
Yeah, not an AA meeting, my ass.
As everyone introduced themselves, I met the lovers of magical enforcers, fairy dust smugglers, and crooks who sold the Purgatory Bridge to unsuspecting tourists. All of them had one thing in common—they had done only small-time stuff until they were arrested, charged, and quickly sentenced to Hell over offenses that were a heck of a lot more violent and serious in nature.
Most of the convicted had been taken to Hell, or escaped and returned to Hell, in the last three months. In two cases, Gregory and I were the ones who handled the, er, logistics of that retrieval. Just like how we’d done with Boyce.
Awkward. If only these attendees had known.
The emerging pattern of mass miscarriage of justice was disturbing. Could all of those prisoners have been patsies? With their past record, they could fit into that type of role and no one would worry about their innocence overly much. But if so, where the heck did the real bad guys go? It would take deception on a major scale to pull it off. We were talking about enchanting supposedly incorruptible police officers and judges, the disappearance of official court evidence, and doing that a dozen times or more over.
It was in the last three months that Hell started hiring lots of freelancers to deal with their little problem of jailbreaks. I thought back on the assortment of supposed wrongdoers that Gregory and I had sent back, creatures that span from a wide variety of races very much like the support group had. Like Boyce, they had loved ones who missed them, and life plans that were ruined.
I did a mental face palm. What if Lucifer was the one behind all this? The Lord of Hell would definitely be capable of this massive switcheroo. It was hard to imagine him spending all this money to control, or to contain, these prisoners if he wasn’t in on the deception.
And then there was that blasted note from him, asking me to visit him, offering to take my troubles away. What if that was really an invitation to be a part of his conspiracy? It was way more convincing than an out-of-nowhere romantic interest.
Could it be that every fear that I’d had about dealing with Lucifer was coming to fruition? Just what kind of entanglement were we in for? What kind of wrong had Gregory and I helped perpetuate?
But perhaps I was getting ahead of myself. So far, there was only solid evidence of a single case of wrongful conviction—Boyce’s. I needed to find a way to either prove or disprove this theory about a massive number of innocents being trapped in Hell.
We needed to talk to Mel again.
Chapter Eighteen
Protective Streak
After the session, I was giving Madeleine instructions on how to teleport to Mel’s place when Gregory coughed.
“Megan, can we have a private word?” he asked.
“Sure.” We walked into an empty classroom nearby. “What is it?”
There was hesitation on Gregory’s face. “Do you think we could do this one on our own?”
“You mean, without the girls?” I puzzled. “I thought they could be useful.”
“No, not the girls.” Gregory’s lips thinned. “I mean I wonder if we could do this without going to Mel’s.”
“Because of Candy?” I guessed.
Gregory exhaled. “You must’ve come to the same conclusion as I did that Lucifer might be involved in all this.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not exactly big leap.”
“If Lucifer is involved, I don’t want Candy anywhere near this mess. And that means we can’t go to Mel, either.”
I sighed. Gregory’s protective streak would’ve been super sexy if he wasn’t throwing such a huge monkey wrench into the whole operation. If we were to investigate over a dozen potential victims, we had to do a lot of research, and Mel’s resources and foresight were second to none.
But I could see where Gregory was coming from. Candy might be a prodigy, but she was still a very young child. And dammit, I was fond of the little girl, too. Who knew what the consequences were if she was to attract Lucifer’s attention? I grit my teeth. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.”
“No, you won’t,” Candy said a few feet from me. I had no idea when she got there, but there she was, standing in front of the professor’s table. She told Gregory smugly, “Mel had an unusually clear reading on your findings tonight, and he’d foreseen your pigheadedness and told me to come get you. Seriously, Pete, you have to trust Mel. I’m safe.”
Gregory glared at the little girl. “Isn't this past your bedtime?”
“Not for a witch.” She smiled. “Witching hour is not even here yet.”
Yeah, that witching hour had already gotten me into enough trouble as it was. I wasn’t going to comment on that.
***
Candy’s mom, Sarah, was at reception when we showed up at Mel’s. Madeleine looked around the office with undisguised mistrust, her eyes darting everywhere, expecting a trap to spring at any time.
And who could blame her? This was, after all, the headquarters of Gregory’s and my business. Maybe not officiall
y, but it was the heart of it. Vengeance demons like Madeleine—and me, for that matter—were weaned on the notion that mercenaries were all unethical opportunists. I mean, I didn’t know any better until I became one of them.
I almost laughed at the puzzled frown Madeleine kept sending Candy’s way, clearly unsure how a child fit into all this.
Vera, on the other hand, was just brooding that she’d returned here at all, with her prize already in hand.
“Mel said to go right in.” Sarah waved us through. Candy walked ahead and led the way.
Madeleine lifted her eyebrow and said nothing.
Mel’s office had morphed into the precinct of the TV show Castle. Was it just a coincidence that like the characters in the show, we, too, were on an investigation? In a typical episode, there was always a point when more questions were presented than answers. I felt like we were in that exact position right now.
At least we still had Mel’s help. Heck, he and Candy pretty much insisted on it. Was I a bad person for being relieved that they’d made the choice for me?
I noticed the glare Gregory shot Mel’s way, but the latter simply smiled serenely.
Mel had been busy since we last met. Instead of facial recognition software running through faces and profiles on the computer screen like they did in the cop shows, mug shot after mug shot of mean-looking supernatural thugs flashed across Mel’s ceiling.
“What is this?” I asked.
“A little bit of magic, and a little bit of technology,” Mel replied. “I’d collected all the rumored disappearances from the Internet forums that the likes of the Book Club members frequented. They’re mostly written in codenames. I’ve been trying to match the codenames with profiles and updates of supernaturals from Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and even Linkedin. We’re looking at a hundred or so codenames, and counting.”
Yep, supernaturals all over the Cosmic Balance used the same social media platforms as humans. When someone online said LMAO, there was always a chance that they really could detach their bottoms when they laughed too hard.
Then I realized what was wrong with Mel’s words.
“What do you mean, you’ve been trying to match them?”
Mel was like Yoda. There was no “try” with this guy.
Madeleine, on the other hand, looked pretty freaked out by what he could do as it was. She narrowed her eyes at Mel with suspicion and a hint of fear. “How could you have known about the missing men if you weren’t at the Book Club tonight?”
Vera rolled her eyes at Madeleine. “That’s the essence of being an oracle, isn’t it?” Then, to all of us, “Hey, why am I even here? I’ve done my duty to the support group and I’m going to repay Megan later. Right now, I gotta go get to my Boyce.”
“You can’t,” Mel stated.
“Why not?” Vera demanded.
“The same reason I’m having a hard time getting an idea of the real scope of this matter. Something is blocking me from finding out the truth, possibly some kind of blanket distortion spells that make me unable to connect all the dots together. But I can tell you this much, young lady. This is far, far bigger than a hundred or so ex-cons getting throw into the pit of Hell for no good reason. This is about who they’re made to replace, and why. This is a cover up of something more sinister than you and I could imagine. Until we figure it all out, do you really want to draw attention to your man and risk having him get wiped out of existence for our nosing around? Hard as it is to believe, he might be safer staying put and facing the standard torment for now.”
Vera pulled her lips back from her teeth, but said nothing. That was probably as much a concession as we were ever going to get from her.
Damn, I hated the idea that Mel’s skills might have reached their limit. On my way here, I was so glad that we could have his two cents on things, after all. Now it would seem that he, too, was stumped.
“Mel, Megan and I think that Lucifer might be behind all this,” Gregory said, earning gasps from both Madeleine and Vera.
“I suspect as much,” Mel admitted. “He would certainly be powerful enough to be behind all this.
“What do we do?” Gregory asked softly.
“If I could get around the blanket distortion spell”—Mel looked at the ever-shifting profiles and pursed his lips—“I can discover the true identities of the missing. With that, I can discern a pattern that could link them together and get an idea of what the conspiracy might be.”
“How do we break the distortion spell?” I asked.
“By going straight into the Internet.”
Chapter Nineteen
Stargate
In a case of serendipity, or whatever it could be called given the Three Fates were retired already, I ended up going to exactly where I'd wanted to go when I first made my deal with Vera. These kind of coincidences hardly ever worked in my favor, so when it did, it was absolutely wonderful and surreal. I had to suppress my joy at the prospect of possibly seeing Grandma again and listen to what Mel was saying instead.
“Between me and Vera, we have the components needed to help you enter the Net. She holds the key to Lies and Illusions, while I control the Hardware and Facts element. She’ll be your guide, manipulating whatever data needed to navigate around the virtual landscape, and I’ll stay here and interpret the information with Candy.”
Gregory’s shoulders relaxed visibly at Mel’s words, relieved that Candy would be safe in the physical world.
“I managed to match the codenames and identities of a few people. The more connections we could make between codenames and identities, and between the identities themselves, the more strain we put on the blanket distortion to bring it down. Once it comes down, Candy will download the list of all the wrongfully accused for further analysis.” Mel continued, “Interestingly, those few I identified are all linked to one single person, and her name is Ginny Smith. It is from Ginny’s site that we’ll enter the web.”
“It's like the Six Degrees of Separation,” I commented. “With Ginny being Kevin Bacon.”
A room of confused faces looked back at me.
“He's a human actor," I explained. "The idea is that everyone in Hollywood is tied to each other, and their connection could all be traced back to within six or fewer acquaintance links apart from this guy.”
“I suspect in both cases the congregation is organically-formed. Nature has a way of grouping things together.” Mel’s jaw hardened. “Even under a distortion spell.”
Before we began, I dialed Esme’s number, hoping to connect with her and her mom before we headed into the Net. Perhaps they’d gotten another message from Grandma, or could tell me how to receive such a message myself once I got in. Maybe we could even, I don’t know, meet up in there or something. But no one answered the call, suggesting that the mother and daughter team hadn’t returned to the physical world yet. So I left a detailed message hoping they would get it in time and come after us. As it was, I didn’t even know how one went about meeting inside the web. Was it like trying to find someone at Time Square on New Year’s Eve, or worse?
By the time I pocketed my cell, everyone had gathered around Mel, staring at a mirror he’d conjured. It was about five feet tall, hovering just above ground.
“Here,” Mel said. “The official website of Ginny Smith.”
I squinted. The large mirror was acting like a monitor, except it was just a bright, white screen.
“Er, it’s blank,” I pointed out.
“Just wait for it,” Candy said. “It takes a while to load up.”
“Why?” Gregory asked.
Candy shuddered. “This is one of the old ones from Web 1.0.”
When the site finally finished loading, the first thing that popped out were an array of ads that covered the website on four sides. An assault of bright colors in highlighter red, orange, and green formed large, pixelated shapes that flashed in a seizure-inducing frequency. The real content of the site, if you could get past the ads at all, was
filled with graphics that weren’t size-adjusted and jerky videos that started without permission. The fonts were jumbled, overlarge and bold in one area, and tiny in another, and the layout looked like it was thrown together by a four-year-old.
It was an over-the-top hot mess.
“Now all we have to do is find the right balance between Hardware and Facts, and Lies and Illusions, and the mirror will become a portal,” Mel said as he gestured Vera to place her hand on the frame of the mirror like he did on the other side.
“The right balance?” Madeleine asked.
“It’s a complicated calculation with many variables, such as the level of integrity of the facts on the site, the believability of its lies, the percentage mix of the two, etc. Even a little off, and the portal won’t open, or it’ll drive you insane”—Mel shot Candy a glance—“or it opens but you can’t leave your corporeal body behind to enter it, and monsters come to you instead.”
Candy shifted her weight uncomfortably, a sheepish expression on her face.
Ouch. Was I glad we got Mel on board this time around. Then I thought of Cynthia, Esme’s mother, and how she’d managed to do all that calculations on her own and command the different components. Never did I appreciate the skills involved in such a feat until now.
“So the right combination is like the address used in dialing a stargate then,” I commented.
Gregory laughed. “Oh, Megan, you and your nerdy references.”
I grinned, then a solemn thought came to me. I turned to Mel. “If the wrong combo means no-open, insanity, or a visit from the scary guys,” I counted the consequences with my fingers. “What about once we’re in there? What risk do we run into?”
“You just might stay lost,” Mel said simply. “So get the job done and come back quickly.”
He proceeded to work out the various calculations and incantation with Vera, and the mirror took on different hues of colors with the addition of a little data here, and the pulling of a little illusion there. Mel and Vera might as well be speaking French for what they were talking about, so after a while I tuned it out and focused on the site itself.