Rise of the Arcanist Series: Books 1 - 6 Page 13

  On the other hand, I was grateful it was slow. Now that Tethys knew it was coming, he could be ready to block her out as much as he could. He was prepared. And maybe, just maybe, it would help. And with me and Shannon here with him, he might even have a chance. But that didn’t make the agony of waiting any easier. My head had been pounding ever since the accident and just sitting around knowing that any minute now could be it for Tethys and probably for me, was torture. I couldn’t even fathom how he was functioning, not with the added pressure of the intense devotion a werewolf had to feel for a soul-packmate.

  “Let’s take a dinner break,” I suggested. “And a mental one.”

  Nobody argued.

  The idea of helping with the move a little came up and we ordered dinner, then started getting some of Dani and Charlie’s boxes unpacked.

  “You’ll be getting your crap out of my basement now, right?” I asked as I shelved books.

  “Eventually,” Danio said, smoothly giving the exact same answer he’d given for over thirty years.

  “I’m going to bring it over here some night and leave it,” I threatened.

  “Mm. That doesn’t work for me.”

  I chuckled and tossed a book at him, just gently enough that he could catch it.

  Jen lugged another box of books over and dropped it near me. “Phew!” She laughed, then looked around and leaned in close. “Is TS okay?”

  I smiled weakly at her. “Sort of.”

  “Are you?”

  “Sort of.”

  She hugged me. I set the book I was holding on the nearby shelf and pulled her closer. For a few moments, we just stood there embracing. Danio came over with another box and I expected a snarky comment, but none came. I opened my eyes; he was standing close by, watching us solemnly. His eyes, gray and barely rippling, met mine.

  “Is there anything I can do?” he whispered.

  I shook my head slightly. He sadly nodded once, then returned to shelving books.

  The food arrived and we all ate slowly, putting off the increasingly frustrating task of trying to find clues.

  “Is there a way we can run a report and see if anyone else has new changes in their files?” Mariana asked when she was done eating.

  “Not from here,” Ember said. “We’d have to go through every profile one by one, compare them to last week’s print-outs, and just hope that anything that was changed is on the frontend.”

  “How delightfully tedious,” Danio snorted.

  “Why don’t we at least check the three deceased ones,” said Tethys. “Can’t hurt.”

  Ember went to get her laptop, then settled in on the couch with it.

  “Wait,” Danio said, stopping Ember as she opened it. “You can’t go into their files, it’ll put your name in. We don’t need that happening again. I can do it, let me get my laptop.” He started to stand.

  “No, you can’t,” Ember said. “You don’t have access on your account. You can only see people registered to our field office.”

  “Drought.”

  “We can’t let them scare us off. We’ll protect her,” Tethys said fiercely.

  Reluctantly, Dani agreed and Ember turned on her laptop. Dani sat down next to her. Curious, I went over and joined them.

  We waited as Ember pulled up the MES database and logged in. She thumbed through her notebook and started to input a name. A little pop-up appeared in the corner and she closed it with a quick tap.

  “What was that?” Danio asked.

  “It wasn’t porn, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Ember teased.

  “Depends on what kind,” he retorted. “Are there girls involved? Cause if not…”

  “Ew!” Ember smacked him on the arm. “I’m not telling my dad what kind of porn I watch!”

  “Wait, what?” Charlie demanded from the other couch.

  “It was just a notification!” Ember cried. “I didn’t even read it, I just dismissed it.”

  I chuckled and cut in to save her. “It said ‘desktop synchronization complete’.”

  “See?” Ember said. “Nothing important.” She turned her attention to the database. “So, this is the first guy who was listed as…” She trailed off and turned to me, eyes flaring wildly. “What did you say?!”

  “I didn’t say anything…”

  “No, the notification! What did you say it said?!”

  “Uh… desktop synchronization complete.”

  “That’s not right.” Ember sat back. I could feel heat emanating from her.

  “Mine syncs,” Danio said.

  “Yeah, so does mine,” Ember said. “But I turn my desktop off when I leave work. I always turn it off.”

  “Maybe you forgot this time,” Mariana said.

  “No!” Ember insisted. A flash of bright orange crossed her eyes. “I always turn it off!”

  “Hey, it’s okay,” Danio said. “You’ve got a lot on your mind.”

  “But what if I didn’t forget?!” Ember demanded.

  “Then, mm…” Danio shook his head.

  Ember looked around in frustration. “Don’t you see?! That notification means my desktop is on right now. But if I didn’t forget to turn it off, then someone else turned it back on! Someone could be using my computer at MES, right now!”

  Danio’s eyes quickly darkened. “I take it that’s not normal in IT.”

  “No.”

  “Can you tell if someone is still using it?” I asked.

  “Actually…” Ember grinned. “I can enable the screenshare. It will let me see everything happening on my desktop.”

  “Can you do it without anyone noticing?” Tethys asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do it,” Danio said.

  Ember clicked on something and a bunch of icons popped up, she gasped and closed it just as quickly. “Oh my god,” she breathed. “It’s already running.”

  “What?” Danio asked.

  She swallowed hard, staring wide-eyed at her laptop. “The screenshare is already on… someone is at my desk at work watching everything I’m doing here!”

  “Right now?” snarled Danio.

  “Right now.”

  Danio locked eyes with me. I nodded once. He stood and went swiftly up the stairs, while I headed for the front door.

  “We’re going to MES,” I announced. Tethys started to stand. “Stay here with them.”

  “Tom,” he protested.

  Luckily, Shannon had my back. “I’d feel a lot better if you stay here.”

  “We won’t be long,” Danio promised as he came back down the stairs, no doubt freshly armed. He joined me in the foyer. “Ember, keep on looking at profiles. Not any more on our list, just poke around. Maybe start adding them to a document. Make whoever is spying think you’re doing something worth watching until Tom and I can get to MES.”

  She nodded and we turned to go.

  “Tom?” Tethys called. I turned to him, sensing how worried he was. “Please, be careful,” he begged.

  “I will.”

  “Yeah, be careful,” Jen echoed.

  “We’re just going to the office,” Danio said casually. “It’ll be fine.”

  But as we hurried down the driveway, I could see his eyes were swirling furiously and nearly black.

  “I’ll drive,” I offered. He didn’t argue, but slammed my door with a bit more force than necessary as he slid into the passenger seat.

  “You’re not going to typhoon on me, are you?” I asked as I pulled out and onto the street.

  “No,” he said tightly. “But you might have to hold me back if the bastard on Ember’s computer is the one who tried to have her killed.”

  “If it’s the same person who wanted Tethys dead, you’re going to have to hold me back.”

  He chuckled darkly. We both knew he couldn’t possibly overpower me. “Guess somebody’s going to die tonight.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not one of us,” I said dryly.

  “Mm-mm,” he agreed.

 
; We were open around the clock but nights at MES were quiet; the majority of our work was done during the day, with just agents and minimal staff at night, usually made up of weres and vampires, mixed with magics who either wanted to work nights or were low enough in the ranks to not get a choice. I never minded the quieter nights and was grateful now; it made it easy to get to the IT Department without being caught at work on our night off.

  Cautiously, we pushed open the door to the main room. It was a small room, packed with shared office equipment like copy machines, as well as spare computers, extra keyboards, ream after ream of paper, and ink. The room also reeked of electronic heat and wires, and various chemical smells. It made it hard to distinguish any suspicious scents. The sound of everything humming away made it tough to hear easily too.

  The door to the manager’s office was closed and dark. We tip-toed by and stopped at the door that led to the rest of the department. Danio reached for the doorknob, just as a familiar scent hit my nose. My hand shot out and I grabbed his wrist.

  “I smell blood,” I whispered.

  “Fresh?”

  It wasn’t fresh in a someone-is-still-bleeding way, but it wasn’t more than an hour or two old. “Fresh enough.”

  He snapped out a knife, then reached carefully for the doorknob again. We poked in our heads. The larger room was surrounded by shelves of spare equipment and the back wall was lined with server towers, humming away and further obstructing sound. Six computer desks were pushed together in the middle, with short partitions between them. The lights were off and while I could see perfectly, I could also see the glow from Ember’s computer. If anyone was in her chair, they were obscured by the partition and desks.

  I gestured to Danio to go around the other way, then took full advantage of the speed and silence of a vampire. In a blink I was across the room and behind the person sitting at Ember’s desk. They were wearing a bulky sweatshirt with the hood up, making it impossible to identify them. The scent of fresh blood was overpowering and, admittedly, mouthwatering.

  Both of Ember’s monitors were on. One was displaying the exact laptop screen I had been watching just minutes ago. As Danio requested, Ember seemed to be accessing a random profile. On the other monitor was a document which looked like it was a list of all the profiles Ember was opening, complete with details of which tabs she clicked. As I watched, the spy clicked a key and the words “Screenshot Taken” flashed.

  Then, the person gasped and spun around in the chair to face me.

  I don’t know which of us was more surprised.

  “A-agent Clark!”

  “Charlotte?!”

  She smiled weakly at me and scooted her chair a little farther back. “You… you startled me,” she said. “What uh… what do you need?”

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Working?”

  “I thought you worked at the same time as Ember.”

  Charlotte cleared her throat awkwardly. “We got kind of behind when she was off. I was asked to come in tonight.”

  “Where is everyone else?”

  “Gust is fixing something… somewhere…” She sounded uncertain, but honest about her co-worker’s whereabouts. “It’s just us tonight.”

  “Why are you using Ember’s computer?”

  Her pulse, which had started to slow, sped up again. “Oh um… mine is… updating… I figured Ember wouldn’t mind.” As she spoke, she slid her hand back toward her keyboard.

  A small throwing knife embedded itself in the desk, hardly an inch from her fingers, with a solid thunk. Charlotte shrieked and yanked her hand away. It drew my attention to a large take-out cup with the Erin’s logo. That was the source of the blood; nobody was hurt, a dhampir was just feeding.

  “I think Ember minds you spying,” Danio said flatly.

  Obviously not wanting to take her eyes off me, Charlotte half-turned toward him. Danio strode forward, casually flipping a second knife. Charlotte watched it go up and down a couple of times before speaking. “Agent Pelagos… I’m uh… not… spying?”

  “Then you won’t mind if I do this, right?” Danio kicked her chair, rolling it closer to me, and took her place at Ember’s computer. He studied it for a moment, before disconnecting it from Ember’s laptop. “If you weren’t spying, why were you taking notes on everything she was doing?”

  “I wasn’t!”

  “Now you’re lying to me and spying on my kid. Getting a bit close to three strikes here, isn’t she, DiMaggio?”

  I bit back a smirk; he never missed a chance to use my middle name. “Want to tell us what you’re really doing?” I asked.

  Charlotte shook her head. “I’m not… I’m just…”

  “Allow me to rephrase that.” Danio hooked a foot under another chair and swung it around in front of him. He spun it, threw a leg over it, and plopped down, arms crossed over the back. He landed so close to Charlotte she pushed her own chair back in surprise. Somewhere in the middle of the chair theatrics, he swapped his knife for a stake. Charlotte noticed and let out a small squeak of alarm. “Did you hear about what happened to Ember in the parking garage?” he asked calmly.

  Charlotte nodded. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine. He’s dead.”

  Charlotte’s eyes drifted to the stake, idly tapping against the back of the chair.

  “See,” Danio continued. “We think she was targeted because of something she was looking at in the database. And now here you are. Looking at her computer. Guess what that makes you?”

  “Um…” Charlotte frowned. “I’m not sure…”

  “It’s makes you our number one suspect.”

  “No!” Charlotte cried. “It wasn’t me, I swear!”

  “Then why are you taking notes on what she’s doing?” I asked.

  “I’m… it’s…” Charlotte swallowed hard, hearts audibly pounding. “I can’t!”

  “It’s either you or someone put you up to it,” Danio said. “Who was it?”

  Charlotte shook her head frantically. She was scared; it wasn’t her. Danio reached the same conclusion.

  “Let me put it this way,” he said. “Whoever you’re protecting wanted Ember dead because of something she saw in the database. That same someone wanted her attacker dead too. And then killed him. Do you honestly believe he doesn’t want you dead now?”

  “I… he said…” she stammered.

  “If you’re spying on Ember, then you’ve seen the same thing this guy is willing to kill to hide. And you know who he is, don’t you? But I’m sure you’re special,” Danio said with a shrug. “I’m sure he won’t kill you for the same reason.”

  Charlotte sniffed softly and shook her head.

  “Let’s start small,” I suggested. “What are you doing?” I gestured to the computer.

  Charlotte sighed. “I’m seeing what profiles Ember is accessing and writing them down to give to…”

  “Why?” Danio asked.

  “I didn’t ask…”

  Danio leaned back in the chair. “She’s getting something out of it,” he said confidently.

  He had a knack for picking up on that type of thing, so I wasn’t at all surprised when Charlotte hung her head.

  “You made a deal,” I said. “What are you getting?”

  She wiped a tear away from her eye. “A permit… so I can tell my sister about magic.”

  Danio and I glanced at each other.

  “You know you can just apply for those, right?” he said.

  “I did, but…” She paused, trying to compose herself. “He said that if I help him, he'll make sure that it's approved and rushed through so I can get her a permit right away. And he said if I don't help him…” She broke off crying.

  “If you don't help him… what?” I asked.

  “Then he said he'll make sure the permit is denied. And he'll add some kind of a note so that I can't ever apply for a permit again. And once it’s denied I won’t be allowed to see her!”

  “No, no
, that's not how it works,” I said gently.

  She sniffed a little and looked at me. “Really?”

  “Have you already told her anything?” I asked carefully.

  “No!” Charlotte said. “No, I swear. But I want to. I have to get a permit.”

  I couldn't resist thinking of Jen and her own somewhat similar situation. I was grateful that I had been able to explain the permit process to Jen and that no one would ever have the chance to manipulate her into doing something out of fear of having a permit denied. A small stab of guilt went through me; of course, Jen couldn't apply for a permit now. In a way, that made me even more determined to help Charlotte.

  “And nobody can just deny a permit like that,” I added. “There's a process.”

  “Unless…” Something about Danio’s tone caught my attention. I looked at him questioningly. His knuckles were white around the stake and his eyes were blackening. “Unless that person is the one in charge of issuing permits.”

  It was as if he had just gone ahead and driven the stake into me. No!

  “Fletcher!” I breathed in disbelief.

  Charlotte hung her head and I knew. “Please don't tell him I said anything,” she begged, “Please!”

  “You don't have to worry,” I told her. “We're going to take care of it.”

  Danio swung off the chair and stretched. “I think we need to go drop in on Fletcher.”

  “He’s not here,” Charlotte said.

  “Where is he?”

  She shook her head. “I don't know. He told me that he had something to do. And he would check back with me tomorrow after my shift and he expected me to have something for him.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell us?” I asked her.

  “No… he didn't like questions. And I was afraid to… to ask more.”

  “What are we going do with her?” Danio asked in Japanese. “We can't leave her here.”

  “Take her back with us,” I suggested. “We can keep an eye on her while we figure out what to do.”

  “That works.”

  “Come on,” I said to Charlotte. “Let's go.” She followed me hesitantly, as Danio set about deleting her document and turning off Ember’s computer.