Page 72 of Catastrophe

Arabella and Alcor exchanged a glance before she asked, “Do you know exactly when this is going to happen?”

“No. But I don’t want to waste any time. I want to get them out now. Yesterday. But I need you guys to help.”

Arabella took us back to their place in the black SUVs they’d used before. It really gave them a more Men in Black feel when, from their lack of knowledge and results, they were acting like amateur detectives, but maybe it was a “dress for the job you want” kind of deal.

They’d been staying on two floors of an office block. They’d laid out their beds and belongings on the top floor, and the below floor was office space for them to work. It was hurriedly put together, but the location was great for a secret operation. The building was secluded, surrounded by a forest with only one building on each side, a restaurant and a shop, with one path in and one path out, watched by cameras.

“Hey, guys!” Isaac cheered as we entered the office. Screens decorated the space behind him, and I noted all the different cameras they were watching and where they were. “Welcome to task team paradise.”

I smiled and replied just as enthusiastically, “You’re living the dream here. No fighting for your life against crazy witches, dragons, or hunters.”

He nodded but grimaced playfully and said, “Fighting for your life when you need to find an empty bathroom, though, so you decide what’s worse.”

“You’re right. At least a quick death means I don’t almost shit myself,” I deadpanned.

He smiled and waved his hands at the other people standing and gathering toward us. “I can’t remember who has met whom, so I’ll just introduce everyone. The demonkin is Robert, and Danica is the vampire. You know Arabella already, and Omaira is still classified. We’re the leaders of our teams, most of which are upstairs or out on the ground.”

“And you know my misfits.” I introduced them with a wave. My team was definitely more diverse than theirs. Ancestor, birth mom, boyfriend-in-law, faei friend, daemon friend. I eyed the screens with interest and took a step forward as I asked, “So, where are we at?”

Isaac sighed and sagged back into his seat at the computer. “We aren’t much further than before, which is frustrating. A few sightings of Fafnir in human form, but when we try to follow, we lose him pretty quickly.”

“And the people he’s walking with? Have you been tracking those? My family?” I asked, dragging a seat from another table to sit next to him, ignoring everyone else who murmured around us or simply watched.

“We’ve tried to identify a few, but we keep running into obstacles I can’t get past. They’ve got some excellent hackers on their side keeping all identities and information locked tight.”

I nodded slowly. I knew they had some talented people covering shit up after Adam’s call. They got him tied up in knots before he realized what was going on, and he was one of the best hackers I knew.

Maybe not as good as me, though.

“Right. So we’ve got nothing,” I confirmed.

“Basically.”

I rolled up my imaginary sleeves and nudged him. “Move over. Show me what you are doing.” I watched as he walked me through his process of trying to get past the walls around the hunter's identities.

“Okay, you’re right, they’ve got some great code protecting them, so we have to deal with it in different ways. One, we could go right for the kill and try to use their code, because it’s unique, to track them and take over their machine. Two, we can use the places and people around Fafnir to track him. Not everyone is going to be a hunter, and people are creatures of habit. If he’s interacting at a coffee shop every Tuesday, then we’ll know. Three, we can distract the hackers by causing other issues, and hopefully they give away something we can use.”

“We are tracking all the random people he has interacted with, and so far, no connections have been made,” he said, showing me the profile they’d created and the location lists. My eyes scanned over it for anything that looked strange, but nothing jumped out at me. Isaac asked, “How could we track through code? And what distractions can we create when I can barely scrape the surface of their info?”

“Your girlfriend is a witch,” I said as though the answer should have been obvious, but I was winging it. Every day I was reminded I didn’t know enough.

He shushed me under his breath. “Not so loud.”

I stared at him, a little surprised, and looked around to see the blue-haired daemon standing like a guard by Arabella’s side as she watched us. “Alcor doesn’t know you two are together?”

He gave me another “shut up” look and changed the subject loudly. “What does Arabella being a witch have to do with anything?”

“There are spells to track. Potions to track. Magic ways to hunt people down. I only know this way, but surely she’s tried magic ways.” I looked over my shoulder at her, my eyebrow raised in question.

“Yes, Charlie, we’ve tried to track him, but we have nothing of his to use. He hasn’t even touched anything for longer than half a second that we could use.”

“What about magical tracking with digital footprints?” I pursed my lips.

Arabella hesitated a moment before asking, “What do you mean?”

“We have this code, and I think I can track it digitally, but it might be quicker and more distracting if we could track them with magic.” They looked at me as though I were speaking pig latin. “Am I making this up? Can it be done? Didn’t Mary track Savida with just his name?”

“I think so,” Arabella said slowly and turned to look at Elizabeth.

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