Page 19 of Once Upon a Curse for True Love
“How noble of you.”She rolled her eyes and turned back to the keyboard.“Fine.Watch all you want, but don’t interrupt unless you have something useful to contribute.”
“All I hear is talk.Get started, and I’ll judge when to interrupt.”The words held an undertone of dominance that made her fingers falter on the keys.
Andromeda cleared her throat.“We need to create a virtual safebox before we can open the email.Think of it like a quarantine zone for curses.”
She began typing rapidly.Lines of code filled the screen—part magical symbols, and part traditional programming language.The fusion of ancient runes and modern technology was her specialty, a bridge between two worlds that few could navigate with her level of skill.
“The safebox will contain any magical backlash if the curse activates,” she explained, not bothering to slow down her typing.“I know it’s a lot of big, scary words.But try to keep up, detective.”
“I’m hanging on your every syllable, Miss Swan.”His tone was so dry it sandpapered her skin.
“Good boy.”She continued typing.“I’ll print you a certificate when we’re done.”
“Frame it for me, sweetheart,” he countered, leaning closer until the heat radiating from his body licked at the insufficient space separating them.“And I’ll hang it next to my awards for patience.”
She bit back a smile.“You did strike me as the poster boy for restraint.Right from the moment we met.”Andromeda not-so-subtly alluded to him bursting down her door without even ringing the bell.“You must have an entire wall of those.”
“Trophy room, actually.”He dragged a hand through his hair.“Might need to add new shelving after this investigation.”
This time, she didn’t suppress her eye roll, despite that traitorous part of her brain that found his cockiness charming.She refocused on the code, constructing layers of protection and weaving magical shields with digital firewalls.
Donatello kept his eyes on her the entire time.Not on the screen, but on her.His gaze pressed against her skin, as tangible as a touch.It made her flesh prickle with an awareness she hadn’t felt in so long.
“Done,” she announced after several minutes of intense coding.“The safebox is ready.Now we can open the email without risk of turning into digital ghosts.”
With a few more keystrokes, she pulled up the malware that had been sent to Arcanet.The subject line was innocuous: “Dude, have you seen this?”
Andromeda gave a dry snort.If this wasn’t clickbait, she was a fire-breathing garden gnome.The sender’s address had been anonymized through magical proxies.But that wouldn’t have thrown Arcanet off.It was standard practice in magical hacking circles.This was the type of email any hacker might receive and open without a second thought.
She extracted the email’s code into the safebox, watching as lines of magical script unfurled on the screen.To an untrained eye, it would read as gibberish—a jumble of arcane symbols and programming commands.But to Andromeda, it was a story, each line a sentence, each block a paragraph.
“Hex me sideways,” she whispered as the pattern became clear.
“What is it?”Donatello asked, sounding interested instead of antagonizing for once.
“The email wasn’t the murder weapon.It was the trigger.”
“Meaning?”
She turned toward him and found his face surprisingly close to hers.“This program isn’t capable of performing a consciousness transfer on its own.It’s like… a key.”
She pointed to a specific section of the code.“See these commands?They’re activating something, not creating it.A dormant object already present in Arcanet’s house.The email jumpstarted the curse when he opened it.”
Donatello’s brow furrowed, his concentration lines making him frustratingly hotter.“We’re looking for a physical artifact?A cursed object in Arcanet’s possession?”
“Exactly.”Andromeda pushed away from the desk, needing a moment’s distance from his proximity.“Did your people find anything unusual that might serve as a conduit?”
“The crime scene team is still cataloging everything,” Donatello replied, dragging a hand along his jaw, the scrape like a grater peeling against her nerves.“Arcanet was a collector of rare magical artifacts.His place is full of potentially cursed objects.”
“Great,” Andromeda muttered.“So we’re down to, what, several hundred suspects?”
She narrowed her eyes at the screen, studying the code more carefully.“Whoever did this has an incredible knowledge of both modern magi-tech and ancient rituals.That’s a rare combination.”
“Are you saying we have more than one murderer?”Donatello asked.“A hacker and a traditional curse caster?”
“It’s possible.”Andromeda nodded, impressed despite herself that he’d followed her logic.“Do you have any suspects yet?”
“Only vague leads,” he said.“Competitors in the magical cybersecurity field.Former colleagues with grudges.Companies whose systems he compromised.”
