“I looked into the overdoses like you said, and you’re right.”
“They’re not overdoses.”
“No.”
“What else did you find?” I ask, knowing he didn’t get a burner phone just to tell me he agrees with me.
“I’m not sure yet, but…but I think the Order is involved.”
Chapter
Sixteen
“Involved how?” I ask, sitting up straighter.
“I’m not sure yet. Two of the men who overdosed were recent recruits.”
“Holy shit. Are you positive?”
“The names match. Physical descriptions and ages match. They look ratchet in the photos, but yeah. These were guys I had lunch with not that long ago.”
“How long ago?”
“Maybe two or three days before you were taken. Three guys came to the Zodiac with Santiago. He asked me to join and tell them how great the Order is.”
“Gross,” I huff quietly. “Yeah, the Order is so great you’ll get possessed by demons and then—wait—you said three guys.”
“Abbot is the third guy,” he tells me. “I don’t know his last name. He’s not dead, or at least his body hasn’t been found and identified.”
“What does he look like?” I ask, knowing I can get Xavier’s contact at the county to pull any John Doe records. If this guy died the same way as the others, he would have been included as an overdose.
“About my height, dark buzzed hair, a little heavy, and he had a tattoo on his left wrist of a snake wrapped around a skull.”
“So basic,” I chide. “But that’s more than enough to go off of.” A chill runs through me. “Be careful, Toni. I have a really bad feeling about this.”
“I do too. Don’t go digging around where you shouldn’t. I don’t think your new husband will appreciate it.”
“You might be surprised. Xavier is curious about this and wants to put a stop to it.”
“Mm-hm,” he says dismissively. “There’s something else about these guys and I kinda feel bad saying it.”
“Spit it out.”
“They wouldn’t be my top picks for recruits.”
“What do you mean?” I put my phone on speaker and get up, going over to the pink duffle bag on the bench.
“They weren’t in good shape. Abbot—the guy unaccounted for—had a heart condition. One of the others would not be able to chase after demons because he was probably two hundred pounds overweight, and the other was old enough to be our grandpa. And before you ask, he didn’t have any prior experience or knowledge of monsters.”
“They were recruited to be field-hunters?” Not everyone in the Order goes out and hunts demons. It’s an incredibly physically demanding job and you have to be able to make a fast getaway more times than not. Years of training is required before anyone can even tag along. There are other factors to the Order though, from office managers to accountants. The Order has run as an organization for centuries, and it takes a lot of people behind the scenes to keep it running smoothly.
“Yeah. That’s why I was asked to meet with them.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“None of this does. I asked around to try and see how Abbot is doing, and no one knew anything. Oh shit,” he rushes out.“I have to go. Can you meet me in three days? Same place downtown as before.”
“You’re going to make me wait three days to dive into this?”
