“If a being of light wanted to, could they crawl through the fiber-optic cables, override all the firewalls and encryption, and get information?”
He blinked, his eyes turning away. Blinked again. “JoJo and I have been researching that, Nell. We can’t rule it out. But if it is possible, and if an arcenciel is in the hands of an enemy, they might be forced to try. There are a lot of unknowns about your question.”
“If it’s a possibility, then no security systems set up by the government, any government anywhere, any private company anywhere, are safe. I can’t see how any systemcanbe safe from light.”
Tandy met my eyes again, his bright with delight. “Your brain works in such strange ways.”
“Trauma victim.” I pointed at my chest. “We always think in terms of saving ourselves from attack. And also, well, I was thinking about attacks by a light being who worked for the government. I remember hearing a while back that Soul can break her way out of a crystal if she’s captured. Is it true?”
“We’ve heard similar things from the Everhart witches in Asheville, the same witches related to Lincoln Shaddock. We’ve also heard that from the Dark Queen’s people. Soul hasn’t verified it.”
“If she was being forced to help the enemy, even in human form, Soul might be leaving traces for someone to find. And if we locate her, and she’s close to a fiber-optic cable, maybe you could set up an escape route for her. A way for Soul to get away from a captor if they forced her into her rainbow dragon form. It might mean having a big crystal here at HQ that she could get into, and that she could then break.”
A smile spread across his face, brightening the Lichtenberg lines there. His eyes went off into the distance, unfocused, problem solving. “Beautiful,” he said.
I wasn’t sure whybeautiful, but he was seeing things I couldn’t, so I shrugged and nodded all at once.
“JoJo and I have been working on several different ways to locate her and to get her free if we find her, each based on any particular current form—human, tiger, dragon, probably others we don’t know about. We’ll have to have several methods available to rescue her. Yes,” he said, “I’ll add fiber-optic cables to the list. And when Jo wakes, in”—he checked the corner of a screen—“two hours and twelve minutes, we’ll work on it together.”
“I want to look through the locked closet where we keep the arcane weapons,” I said. “Maybe something will come to me to help us get her back.”
“I’ll buzz you in. Sign in and out.”
“Will do.” At the closet, I swiped my ID and opened the door when the green light appeared over the doorsill. Inside were items we had collected at various magical scenes, and items we had from PsyLED central and the military’s R&D department. There were null sticks. Weaponized amulets for T. Laine’s sole use. An emergency box of sky blue antimagic unis. There was a large crystal—one without an arcenciel-shaped space inside—on the top shelf, and I texted Tandy to remind him we had one.
At the bottom of the closet, sitting on the floor, were three empty containment vessels. Containment vessels were used to capture and hold any demon, uneasy spirit, noncorporeal magical being, or whatever we might find harming humans, providedwe could get the magical thing inside. We’d had them since the demon situation, when local witches had had to…help me with a demon. It had been difficult, and would have been immeasurably easier had we had the vessels back then.
Rumor had it that PsyLED HQ in Langley had a whole null room, in a level five secured space, built from reinforced concrete, that was full of the vessels, imprisoning everything from djinn to fae. Rumor was often based on fact. I wondered what I could capture underground, like evil souls who refused to pass on. I wondered if an arcenciel could be caught in one. And what Soul would think of that question.
I signed out one of the vessels, locked the closet, and went to my car, where I secured it in the backseat. Each containment vessel cost enough to buy a mansion. I hoped I didn’t have a wreck and total the car and harm the vessel. I tossed my army blanket over the vessel to disguise it from opportunistic passersby, and locked my doors with the fob.
Back inside Unit Eighteen’s HQ, I wandered to my cubby. As I walked, still trying to make sense of Zeb at Soul’s apartment, I had a second bit of blinding brilliance—though I was the only person who would ever notice that brilliance—that I should track every overnight report of annoyinghowlingdogs.
Minutes later, I hit pay dirt. There were four reports of howling dogs. I raced to tell the bosses. LaFleur assigned Occam and me to check them out.
A bit after lunch, my cat-man and I drove toward the first howling dog location. It was near the Egwani Farms Golf Course, where we slogged through the rough—that’s what golfers called the brush and unmown grass around a hole—to discover a litter of puppies and an abandoned mother dog in distress trying to deliver a pup that was simply too large for her small body. Fortunately there was a veterinary office a few blocks off the golf course and it only cost us a small fortune to have the bitch seen to, the puppy birthed, and a week’s boarding paid for until the vet could try to foster the small family.
The second howling call wasn’t much better. It was a small dog that had been attacked by predators and eaten. The tracks didn’t resemble devil dogs’, more like a small family of foxes’, so we didn’t spend much time at that one.
The third howling call had come from behind the Kroger inSeymour, on the far side of the river. The body in the snow had once been human. He appeared, from the lack of blood, to have been dead and frozen before he was eaten, and he hadn’t been tortured, which gave me some comfort but didn’t help him at all. We took pictures of the body, which was lying face down, with a naked back and arms exposed.
As Occam followed animal tracks into the surrounding area, I called in the death and studied the animal tracks around the body. I was guessing that a hungry pack had feasted here, and compared them to pictures of devil dog tracks from back when I was a probie.
They were not the same.
Occam trotted to me, his body long and rangy, his hair hanging into his face. He opened the door and levered himself into the driver’s seat, turned the car on, and cranked the heaters up to high. As we waited for the local police, wildlife, and crime scene people to arrive, Occam stared ahead at the body, silent. I could practically feel his turmoil, but I gave him space. I grew up in a church where women who pestered a man oftentimes had a black eye at the next worship or devotional. I knew the signs for when to not ask questions, and after a few long minutes, when the seats got warm and the air heated, he finally asked the questions I knew he had been avoiding.
“Nell, sugar? You think this man was one a your Lost Boys? And you thinkgwyllgi…ate him?”
“No, cat-man,” I said gently. “His hands are too old, his body too stringy. This was a homeless man, maybe a vet, which breaks my heart. He had military tattoos on his upper arms, and scars that mighta come from service injuries.”
Occam blew out a breath and said, “I’m right glad to hear that. And also not glad.”
“Lookee here.” I turned so he could see my footprint research. “Coyote tracks have this little bump in the…I guess you call it the palm, of each front foot, and the toes all point directly forward. The coyote back feet are different and have a much smaller palm, with usually only two toenails showing. But here.” I handed him my cell. “These are pics ofgwyllgitracks. Note the palm on the back foot is larger than the coyotes’, and the outer toes point more out to the sides, like regular dogs. But unlike regular dogs, they have longer claws that often curl downand lift the toes just a bit. We don’t have anygwyllgitracks here.”
“Okay. So a homeless man, already dead, was eaten by local coyotes.” He looked into the rearview. “Local LEOs are here. Let’s turn this over to them and check out the last scene.”
On the fourth site of howling dogs, we got lucky.
