…She wanted to make an app to connect freelance witches with other Magiks…
“You said this just came out? Who made it?”
“Why would I know that? Do you know who madeUnleashed?” she asked, giving me a teasing nudge with her elbow.
“Good point,” I conceded. “What’s the name of the app?”
“Kaldrin. Oh, and if you ever want to order anything from us, my witch’s name is Brooke Fernsby. Her specialty is summoning charms for lost items and things like that.”
I paused. “What about lost people?”
She wiggled a finger in my face. “Nice try, buddy. Maybe you should move on, it sounds like she’s not interested.”
Damn, she was sharp. “No, but for real. Is there witch magic that can do that?”
She shook her head in disappointment. “No, sorry. Summoning charms and spells only work if the item or person wants to be found. If your princess doesn’t want to see you, you’re out of luck.”
“Well, you can hardly blame me for asking,” I said with a half smile. “But this is great. Thanks a lot, Kit.”
She patted me on the shoulder and headed back to the bar. “No problem, Ronan. And good luck. I hope you get through this rut and find whatever it is you’re really looking for.”
9
A Fruitful Pilgrimage
Iwent home, jerked off again to the thought of Sage, and tried to get some sleep. But she still invaded my dreams, her sweet, fruity and floral scent teasing and taunting me, and I woke up several times humping my pillow.
I was becoming rather pathetic.
Once I’d given up on getting any more shut-eye, I downloaded theKaldrinapp and found a local witch who might be able to make the kind of suppressant Kit had suggested. Then I went through all of the app itself, looking through the settings, the about page, the terms and conditions… whatever might point me to its developer.
I drank way too many cups of tea while I waited for my delivery, watching the news and catching another segment on Premier Corvane’s life. Apparently, it was very important that all of Lundaria knew he attended the opera with his wife a few hours ago.
His glamour was still quite heavy, and just watching his smug smile was pissing me off.
He’d hurt Sage. Whether Morgana was exaggerating about Sage’s innocence in the whole deal remained to be seen, but with the facts as they were, everything pointed to him being heavily involved with her disappearance five years ago.
The “why” of it all was killing me, even though my job was just to find her, “no questions asked.”
Screw that.
When it finally got to a respectable hour of the day, I texted my elf hacker contact to see if he was up. Within a minute, he was calling me.
“Ronaaan,” he greeted with a creaky tone. “What’s up, my man?”
“Hey Arlen, I need you to track down the creator of an app for me.”
I heard some sheets rustling in the background, and a woman’s angry groan followed by a door closing. “An app, huh? What, is it crashing too much and you’re taking it personally?”
He laughed at his own joke, and I gave him a moment to situate himself, listening for the telltale hum of a computer coming back to life. “Alright, well, let’s see what app you’re talking about. You know I charge by the hour, right? And my rate goes up the more I get pissed off at who I’m looking for.”
I usually asked for Arlen’s help to find some true pieces of shit, because as tech savvy as I was, the dark web was still a mystery to me, and some things really couldn’t be unseen. If a few extra hundred runics of his hazard pay helped cover the cost of a therapist, or, in his case, mind-altering substances, it was worth it for both of us. “Yeah, yeah, I know, but you don’t have much to worry about with this one. And I don’t think the security will be particularly sophisticated or anything, either. They didn’t finish their CS degree and…”
“Bitch, I never even went to college, you know degrees don’t mean shit. Just tell me the name of the app already. I’ll take a look and get back to you.”
“It’s calledKaldrin, it’s…”
“Oh, for real? I love that app. I ordered some primo moon-shrooms from there last night. They delivered it and everything.”
