“Where are we going?” Charlotte asked, just before we left the IT department. “Am I being arrested?”
“No,” I said. “We're taking you somewhere safe.”
She looked a little uncertain. Danio caught up with us and loosely draped an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, we’re going back to my place. Ember’s there. You two can hang out, get a bite to eat, order a pint of blood. Shannon's there too. You'll like Shannon,” he continued, smoothly guiding her down the hall. “She was changed into a dhampir a few years ago. Oh, and you'll be safe from Fletcher there until we take care of him.”
I chuckled at his uncanny ability to switch from intimidating agent to big brother figure as I followed them into the garage.
Charlotte still looked a little uncertain, but came with us willingly. We drove home in an awkward silence.
Everyone was waiting for us in the living room and jaws dropped as we walked through the door with Charlotte. She looked around nervously and hung back in the foyer.
“Charlotte?” Ember demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“That's a bit of a long story,” said Danio.
“But we think we're finally on to something,” I added. I hesitated and glanced over at Danio, not really sure how much I wanted to say in front of Charlotte.
“Hey Shannon?” he suggested. “Why don't you take Charlotte around and give her a tour.”
“Sure!” Shannon jumped up and came over to introduce herself to Charlotte. “Come on,” she said with a friendly smile. “Why don't you come take a look around.” Charlotte followed nervously and I smiled as Shannon began brightly chattering away. “Now, I've only been a dhampir a few years myself,” Shannon said as they walked up the stairs. “I don't know about you, but I still find all this magic stuff fascinating.”
“It’s pretty cool,” Charlotte said softly.
“Well, in that case, you're absolutely going to love this house! You've never seen one like it, I promise.” They vanished around the corner and I turned back to the others, satisfied that Charlotte was in good hands and trusting Shannon would keep her busy.
“Rak,” Jen called. “Why don't you go with them?”
Rak nodded. He stretched and started to run toward the stairs. Before he hit the bottom he jumped, disappeared in a blink, and landed neatly at the top. Wisps of black smoke drifted lazily at the bottom and top of the staircase as Rak turned and trotted off after the dhampirs. I flashed Jen a smile and a nod. If Charlotte tried anything, Rak would be able to let Jen know immediately.
“So, what happened?” Ember demanded. “Who was on my computer? Why did you bring Charlotte back with you?”
Everyone listened as we explained what we discovered in the IT department.
“Fletcher,” Tethys said in shock when we were done, sitting heavily on the couch. “I can't believe it. We've worked with him for years.”
I nodded grimly.
“Do you really think he’s the one responsible for the parking lot attack?” Charlie asked, eyes red and flaming with rage.
“Charlotte didn’t seem to know, but I…” I trailed off as I remembered driving into the parking garage and seeing a panicked-looking Ember with Fletcher. “Ember!” I gasped. “How long was Fletcher with you in the garage?"
“I… I dunno… I never called for help.”
“I did,” Tethys said. “I could sense something was wrong.”
He sensed it from me, but I wasn’t upset until Ember told me she had been attacked. “That means Fletcher was there first,” I snarled. “He was already with Ember when I got there. What was he saying to you?”
Ember frowned in thought. “I was pretty freaked out… I think he was telling me he was going to take me somewhere to calm down.
A fireball burst to life in Charlie’s hand. I felt sick. What if I hadn’t gotten there when I did? What if Charlie hadn’t? Fletcher could have taken her…
I jumped as a knife sailed by me with a whoosh and embedded itself in the far wall. I waited for Charlie to say something to Danio about the fresh paint, but instead he clenched his fist around the flame and put it out.
“We need to find him. Tonight,” Charlie spat. “Don’t suppose we’re lucky enough that he’s home.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “Charlotte said he told her he had to do something tonight.”
“What do you think he's up to?” Tethys asked. “Not just tonight, but in general. Trying to kill us because we were looking into Turner?”
“I wish I knew,” I said. “Charlotte doesn't know much either. But he's obviously trying to protect Turner and all the other Miami witches and wizards.”
“When did Fletcher start working with MES?” Danio asked. “He must have known Turner, right?”
“Yes!” Tethys said after a moment. “Yes, they worked together. I think they were on the same shift for a while, before Turner transferred… wait. I sensed a sudden surge of inspiration. “Fletcher took a sabbatical a few years ago, didn’t he? After…”
A painful stab of grief ran through both of us. “After his familiar died,” I said softly. “Yeah.” I realized why he was asking. “You don’t think he went to Miami?!”
“Can you check his profile, Ember?” Tethys asked.
“Yeah,” Ember said. “One second.” She started typing away, then paused and looked up at me. “My computer is disconnected now, right? And off?”
“I took care of it,” said Danio.
She nodded and then quickly logged back into her MES account. She pulled up Fletcher's profile and went straight to the activities log. “He did take a sabbatical from MES! It was four years ago!” Ember announced. “And it was six months long!”
“Does it say where?” Danio asked.
She shook her head. “No, but it wasn't deleted. It's here on the frontend. So, that explains why he didn't come up in our altered files. Assuming this is Miami.”
“That means there could be more of them too,” I said grimly.
She nodded. “Let me see if I can get his accounting information.” She tapped away on her keyboard for a little a little longer. “Oh, ashes,” she said. “I can't get his accounting information on the frontend.”
“I can,” Mariana said. “Can I log in?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Ember passed her laptop to Mariana, who quickly logged into her own account. I walked behind the couch and leaned over, watching as she navigated through Fletcher's accounting information until she found his credit card records. She skipped back to four years ago and started reading through the dates.
“There,” I said. “It's a six-month gap.”
“I see it. And right before it…” Mariana pointed to a cash withdrawal. “That's enough for a plane ticket.”
I nodded. “Although there's nothing that proves he was in Miami.”
“Still, it looks pretty bad for Fletcher,” Tethys said. “He's connected to it all.”
“But what is it all?” I snarled. “What are they doing in Miami?”
“And where the bloody hell is he now?” added Tethys. “We have to stop him tonight. Before he goes after Ember again. Or me. Or skips town.”
Danio hummed and slung himself onto the couch. “If I were a creepy-ass, treacherous wizard,” he began in a flawless impression of Fletcher. “Where would I hide?”
Ember grabbed a pile of files. “I’m going to look through the Miami ones again. Maybe now that we know about Fletcher we’ll find something we missed.”
Jen reached for a pile too. “What are these?” she asked, opening one.
“Maybe-park, I think,” Ember said.
“Yeah.” Jen started to close it, then stopped and jerked the page back up. “Whoa… no way…” She picked up another and flipped through it. Then another. She opened a third, tossed it aside, and then opened another.
“Jen?” I prompted.
She held up a hand, then checked a few more files. We all watched curiously as she rapidly sorted them into two piles. I
wanted to offer to help, but she clearly knew exactly what she was looking for. Instead, I watched until she had one large pile and one much smaller one. Jen took a deep breath, then lifted the bigger stack of files up.
“These are all maybe-park. People who were listed as missing without the park being specifically mentioned, but either the person who reported it said they went camping or they had camping-related transactions… the initial reports were all signed off on by the same field agent.”
“Fletcher,” Tethys growled.
I shot to Jen’s side and quickly leafed through them. Sure enough, all of the vague reports about missing magics had been investigated by Fletcher. “This isn’t coincidence,” I said slowly. “He’s not just covering up Miami, he’s involved in the park too.”
“Didn’t he get hit by the blood magic too?” Mariana asked.
“Yeah. But maybe there’s a reason it didn’t kill us,” Danio said. “Maybe he let it hit him.”
I nodded in agreement. Who would suspect him when he was attacked too? “Which means we were getting too close.”
“I didn’t think much of it at the time,” Tethys said slowly. “But he was quite firm about me waiting for backup before following the scent of that wood elemental. I told him I was worried we might lose it if it rained, but he said it was more important to be careful…”
“He was hoping we’d lose the scent,” I said.
“Forget going after Fletcher. As much as I’d love to rip out his bloody throat,” snarled Tethys. “Let’s go back to the park. We could waste all night looking for Fletcher and never find him, but we must have been on the right track in the park. We can find whatever he was hiding and get enough evidence for Jon to take the whole damn operation down. With any luck we’ll be able to get Fletcher too.”
“I agree,” Danio said. “We’re the only ones who have been hit with that blood magic. We were too close.”
“Let’s go,” I said.
Ember stood.
“Not you,” Danio said instantly.
“You’re staying here,” Charlie said at the same time.
“I’m not a kid anymore,” Ember said angrily.
Before they could argue, Tethys stepped in. “I’m the ranking senior field agent, so technically, I’m in charge of this,” he said loudly. “I say who comes and who stays. Ember…” Danio and Charlie both started to protest as Ember grinned, until Tethys went on, “I’m sorry, you’re staying.”
“But—”
“It could be dangerous,” Tethys said.
“I’m not—”
“And if something happens to us, someone has to be here to alert MES to what’s happening,” Tethys continued. “You’re more familiar with the files than the rest of us. And you have the database access and knowledge to recreate them. If we don’t come back, it’ll be up to you to prove something is going on in the park, as well as this CVLR issue. I also don’t want Shannon alone with Charlotte, just in case she is more than a pawn in this.”
“Okay,” Ember said reluctantly.
Mariana cleared her throat. “I should stay too. If there’s no water…”
“I know you can take a dhampir,” Danio said confidently.
I nodded in agreement. Mariana had started taking some combat and self-defense classes at MES and Danio was giving her extra lessons. She could certainly hold her own against a dhampir, especially with Ember and Shannon.
In all honesty, I would have been happy if Jen stayed too, but I knew before she said anything she was coming. On the other hand, she had taken on a vampire alone, less than a month after learning her first spell. And she had only gotten better and better in the years since; she was a skilled witch. Sure enough, Jen stood, ready to go. I gave a token protest, but we both knew it was a lost battle, especially once we considered that if Rak stayed behind then either group would have a way to know if something happened to the other.
Soon, we were piled into the car, somberly heading for the park.
Chapter Ten
Jen
There was a time when I would have felt uncomfortable walking through the woods at night. Walking with night vision, armed with a wand, and accompanied by four other people – four trained agents, including a vampire – shouldn’t have felt so unnerving. Yet, I felt like something would pop out from behind every tree or each shadow my night vision didn’t penetrate. Nobody spoke.
TS shifted and trotted along in wolf form, carefully sniffing as he went. Thomas stuck close to me, periodically sniffing as well and tilting his head to listen. Dani drew his gun the moment we stepped out of the car and I didn’t think I had ever heard him quiet for so long. I could feel the heat radiating from Charlie and was waiting for the leaves beneath his feet to catch fire.
We trudged along in an eerie silence. As we got deeper into the woods I swear even the sound of night birds and crickets had stopped. The trees parted as we entered a clearing. TS sat down and whined softly.
“It was here,” he said.
Sure enough, there was still a dark circle of burned grass, just like Thomas described.
“Everyone be careful,” Thomas warned. “If you hear a strange sound, just move, get away.” He turned to TS. “I don’t smell anything unusual. Or anyone. You?”
“No.”
“It rained recently.” Dani looked up toward the sky with a frown. “More is on the way.”
Charlie huddled into his sweatshirt in response and put one hand on his hood, as if he was considering pulling it up. “Where do we go from here?” he asked.
“I went that way.” Thomas pointed. “To find Danio. After we met back up we came some of the way back here, then kept going…”
Dani checked his compass tattoo. “That way.”
Thomas came over to me. “Jen,” he said softly. “I know you want to help but…”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “It’s a little too late to send me home anyway.”
Truthfully, I was a bit out of my element. I didn’t have a fraction of the field experience a bunch of fully trained agents had. I didn’t even have decades of experience simply living as a magic like them. But I did have more dangerous situations under my belt than Ember and Shannon. Mariana and I were a bit closer in terms of the number of times we’d been in life-or-death altercations, but I had a wand and she didn’t.
Either way, this was where I needed to be. I may not have been that powerful, but I seemed to have a knack for getting out of trouble. I had almost lost Thomas and my other friends before and I hated being stuck at home when the field agent alert went out, knowing that they were in danger once again. If an opportunity to actually fight with them came up, I was not going to sit at home waiting.
“You could always wait in the car?” he suggested.
“First of all, I can’t help you from the car. And second, we agreed that we need me here and Rak at home, so we all know if something is wrong. If I don’t know you’re in trouble, I can’t signal Rak.”
“I know,” Thomas sighed. He moved closer and gently brushed a lock of my hair behind one of my ears. “I just want you to be safe.”
“I’ll be with you.”
He chuckled softly. “If anything happens, I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Thomas leaned down and kissed me. I pulled him closer and kissed him back hard, just in case.
“Or Charlie could wait in the car with you,” Dani suggested.
Charlie glared at him. “I can take care of myself. You do realize I am an agent too.”
“Yes! I just… don’t want you to…” Dani cleared his throat. “That blood magic hit us out of nowhere. It’s dangerous out here.”
“And you didn’t stand a chance before, without me. That doesn’t make me more inclined to leave you now. So, unless you’re planning on waiting in the car with me, I’ll be out here with you!”
“It’s going to rain too.”
“Danio.” Charlie’s eyes flared dangerously as he fixed Dani with a challe
nging glare.
Dani’s eyes darkened in response and he squared his shoulders. He took a deep breath and then a massive werewolf shouldered his way in between him and Charlie.
“We’re wasting time here,” TS growled. “We already went over this in the house and we’re all here now. It’s too late to go back. Why don’t you two just be like Jen and Tom, have a nice kiss, and admit that it’s dangerous and everyone is worried about everyone else. And then let’s go.”
Dani sighed. “Fair enough. I’m sorry, C. I just…”
“I know. I don’t want you to get hurt either. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Just as TS suggested, they kissed. Thomas wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer as they did.
“We don’t even know if the car is safe anyway,” I pointed out softly, as it occurred to me. “We could waste our time wandering around here all night, while Fletcher or some other blood wizard is in the parking lot. We’re safer together.”
“We could!” TS cried. He whirled and looked at me; the shocked expression on his large wolf face looked so human it was almost comical. “Jen, you’re a bloody genius!”
“I am?” I looked toward the others, who looked equally confused.
“Something’s been bothering me.” TS shook himself, then sat down. “It’s clear we were attacked with that blood magic because we were getting too close. But using blood magic is so extreme.”
“Guess we were really close,” said Dani.
TS shook his head, sending his ears flapping. “I’m not so sure. It doesn’t make sense. Fletcher, or whoever actually used the blood magic, had to know we’d come back. Or other agents would. It’s a giant red flag that something is happening here. He’s been so clever, why would he do something that almost guarantees an investigation returning to this spot? But what if, just like Jen said, we waste our time wandering around here all night? What if that’s what he wanted?”
Dani groaned. “You weren’t getting too close.” He looked at Thomas. “We were. The attack lured us away from where we were going.”
Thomas hissed in response. “Damn it. He knew the blood magic would bring us right back here. Why would an investigation go anywhere else?”
Rise of the Arcanist Series: Books 1 - 6 Page 14