Page 43 of Demon Hunter

Matt shrugs. “Nope. But it was one of those dreams where everything felt super real. Like, I could have sworn I could actuallyhearthat kid vomit and smell the bread.”

Ian snorts. “Only you would have vomit and fresh-baked bread in the same dream.”

“A couple arguing, a sick child, and baking smells?” Marc asks casually. “Those were the key elements?”

We all look at him like he’s crazy. “I mean, if you wanna get all dream-analytical, yeah, those were the ‘key elements,’” Matt says. “But I’m not psychic. I might be a hunter, but this kind of dream is just a dream.”

“We get dream training,” Ian explains. “I can’t remember if I’ve told you that before.”

“Dream training.” Marc’s voice is flat.

“Aren’t you the one who just went all ‘key elements’ on my dream? Yes, dream training. When you have hunter abilities—or mediums, they get dream signals too sometimes—repeated dreams or dreams with really strong themes can be our power trying to tell us something. We’re trained in how to recognize that. Which is how I know this was just a dream and nothing more.”

I thought the same as Matt, but seeing the way Marc’s face goes perfectly blank makes me wonder if we’re overlooking something. Though… an argument, kid vomit, and bread? I can’t think of anything that even connects those into a single theme. Unless Matt starts having this same dream over and over again, I still think it’s just a weird dream.

“You all are the experts in hunter abilities,” Marc agrees. “Now, let’s return to the topic at hand—not that your child vomit dream story wasn’t delightful, Matthias.”

“Everything I do is delightful,” Matt says, deadpan, and I elbow him. I share a bathroom with him, so I’m witness to that not being true. Love him, yes. Think everything about him is delightful? Pfft.

Marc, wisely, ignores him. “We’re all agreed that Matt was the target and that his attack was intended as a message?”

“Yeah,” I say gloomily, frustration rising. “I just can’t figure out the who or why. Or even what the message was supposed to be.”

“I thought it was supposed to be ‘we beat him to death.’” Ian sounds confused. “Isn’t that what they did?”

“Mm. But did they do it as a warning?” Marc muses. “And if so, to whom and why? Or was it more of an indication that they exist? Do they want us to know who they are?”

Something about that tweaks the niggling thought I’ve had at the back of my mind for the past weeks, but not enough for it to become clear. “It’s in the code,” I say, resisting the urge to throw something—like my coffee mug. It’s empty, but still. “I know there’s something in the code. I just can’t work it out.”

Matt sighs gustily and pats my hand. “We’re not the best people to help with this, since we don’t understand what you’re saying. But walk us through it anyway.”

Massaging my forehead, I try to think how to explain it. “Okay, so the code is what makes everything work. If it’s not coded right, the result—for example, job sheet—will either have errors on it or just not work at all.”

“Like when I click on a web link and the page doesn’t come up?” Ian asks.

I hesitate, because there can be other reasons for that, but I don’t want to confuse them. “Yeah, sometimes. Anyway, rules are the same, but everyone has their own preferred way to write code. When you work with someone for a while, you can usually tell when they’ve coded something. It’s kind of like talking. If you want what you’re saying to make sense, you have to follow the basic rules of language. But Marc and Ian, for example, have different speech patterns.”

Ian’s nodding like he gets it. “Right. So we could both say something about today’s weather being clear and sunny, but I’d say it different to Marc, and people who knew us would probably be able to tell who said what, even if we used voice disguisers.”

Voice disguisers? Of course he had to make this as weird as possible.

“Essentially, yes.”

“So if you knew the person who’d written the code for the job sheet, you’d recognize it?” Matt asks, and I make a face.

“Theoretically. If they were trying to hide who they were I prob—” A lightbulb goes on in my head.

There’s something in the code that’s bugging me. Because it’sfamiliar. I’ve seen it before. “It’s not anybody I know,” I say, more to myself than the others. “They’d try to hide it. But it’s someone whose work I’ve seen before.”

“Did he just take a sharp left turn, or is it just me that’s lost?” Ian asks, but I’m only half listening. It can’t be someone who knows I’m familiar with their work. Nobody on my team—thank fuck. Even though I was mostly sure it wouldn’t be, that tiny niggle of doubt wouldn’t leave me. But it can’t be—for one, I would have noticed immediately, but also, they’d have been super careful not to leave any traces at all. It would have been textbook code, no shortcuts or identifying features. Or… There are some smart people on my team, and if they wanted to throw me completely off the scent, they might have copiedmystyle, or someone else whose work I’m really familiar with. The fact that I’ve probably only seen this person’s work once or twice in the past, and probably not connected to my job, means that this is entirely coincidental.

I read a lot of code. Some people like knitting, some like football. I like digging into the code of every website I visit. It’s fun. But it means I’ve seen a lot of it, and even though my memory is good—better than most people’s—it’s not a database. I can’t just call up the information I need.

That’s okay. I have a starting point. I’ll go back through the job sheet and pull out every single stylistic choice the coder made, and then I can set up?—

“Dyl?” Matt’s face looms in close to mine. “You still with us?”

Huh. Guess I zoned out. I smile and kiss him, feeling lighter than I have in days. Marc’s here to keep Matt safe, and I have a plan. “Sorry, I had an idea of a new path I can take. Hey, before I forget—has there been any update from Norval?”

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