[https://i.imgur.com/jpOYNWV.png]

The next hour was relatively quiet. Colson managed to talk them down after a couple of minutes and I honestly think the sight of him made them forget about their trauma for a moment. Even Penelope seemed awed by the gentle giant once they'd gotten over their initial reactions. Luckily, he was wearing his sunglasses.

As time ticked by, I was thankful that we had some shade, or I think they’d be dehydrating fast in this heat.

The man was still a mystery to me. Immensely strong, he could be affable and kind one moment, turning ruthless and calculating in an instant. He seemed to be ruled by a set of principles that brokered almost no negotiation and I’m glad he wasn’t my enemy. Thinking about it made me shudder.

My previous predicament hadn’t reared its head again, yet. Maybe keeping my mind preoccupied right now was the way to go.

Mateo went and took over for Colson, talking kindly and genuinely with them about their experience. He was good at asking pointed questions and not letting them linger too much on their hardest traumas—diverting their attention—it was a treat to see.

Colson and I joined Dink, Sally, and Rob standing at the front door, looking apprehensive.

Colson told us that he’d talked to the E.I.S.—short for Enforcement Investigative Services—and they’d agreed that the situation warranted looking into, especially since a Holder had potentially turned bad and two others had gone missing. While I was glad they’d be doing something, that last sentence didn’t sit well with me. I’d have liked it better if they did their best regardless of Holder involvement.

They’d send out two of their people to look over the runeward and see if they could pull something from the design and the remaining aether. I had no idea how that would work, but now that it was empty of captives, Colson explained that it shouldn’t expend itself. Maybe they’d get something off of it.

He’d also called Jasper and given him the details. Jasper knew a guy who knew a guy who owned a bus, so he’d closed down the bar, borrowed it, and was on his way to come get all of us. He texted Colson fifteen minutes ago—when he left—so he was still about fifteen minutes out. The logistics were taken care of and our conversation turned more serious.

All of us were standing in a circle and the mood was subdued, everyone wearing resigned expressions.

“What can you tell us?” Colson asked the others.

His voice wasn’t judgmental, I don’t think he suspected that any of the others had anything to do with this.

“Dunno what to say,” Rob said, and sighed, “we’re still in shock. Colson if you hadn’t been ‘ere… we’d prolly be occupying the cages downstairs with the others.”

They all murmured their agreement to his statement. Seems like they’d talked it over while I was sitting with the normals.

“Any idea why he told us about the gig? He could’ve just ignored us or said you guys could handle it,” Colson inquired next.

“How long’ve you known us for?” Dink requested instead of answering.

“’Bout what, three years, I think. The Wendis, down in Chickasha.”

“Exactly. Nasty creatures. We’ve all known him since then. Knowing a bit about what you can do, wouldn’t it have seemed off to you if he didn’t ask you to join? Jasper would’ve told you about it eventually.”

“Maybe he wasn’t expecting you to accept, since you’ve got Ethan with you,” Sally mused out loud.

“Or maybe he felt guilty and decided now would be a good time to cut and run,” Rob chimed in.

Colson frowned and considered their words for a moment. Either option didn’t sit well with me, it was still a betrayal.

“D’you know if anything has happened to him recently?” came his next question.

Dink shrugged.

“You know how it is, Colson. We don’t talk about our private lives much. Hell, we don’t have private lives much”—they all chuckled grimly— “the job keeps us on the move, even though we mainly operate in this area. I’ve been to my flat twice this last month. Most we can tell you about Tanner is that he’s married.”

Sally looked my way.

“The big guy here roams around a lot, but a lot of Holders mainly stick to a certain stretch. Get to know it pretty well, you know? That way we have an advantage when things go down and we can spot it more easily,” she told me.

Made sense. If you were aware of your immediate surroundings, you could potentially identify anything weird going on.

“How do you guys keep in touch? Texts?” I asked them.

When they were all operating out of the same area, it would be an advantage to set up some kind of group chat.

“Nah,” Dink said and fished out his phone, “tech guys who work for the Board developed this app,” he clicked around a bit and turned it to show Colson and me.

“ParaWeb? Haven’t heard of it before,” Colson grunted.

They all rolled their eyes and Rob addressed me in a stage whisper, “Three years ago this guy didn’t even have a smartphone, he’s stuck in the 80s.”

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“Hey! Am not, I listen to all sorts of hippity hop,” Colson’s voice took on the creaky characteristics of the elderly.

“Don’t believe a word he says,” I intoned, smiling, “we’ve been listening to nothing but Bon Jovi, Guns ‘n’ Roses and Van Halen for the past couple of days.”

We all chuckled, and the mood lightened a tad.

Colson raised a finger, looking overly serious, “Oi, there’s nothing wrong with old rock,” his voice was pseudo stern, “RIP Eddie.”

He bowed his head for a second.

“Anyway,” Sally interrupted, amusement fading, “call the tech line and get them to send you a link to download the app. It’s not on any of the conventional marketplaces. It’s the Board’s own version of social media. They’ll help you set it up if you dunno how, but it's pretty straightforward.”

“Thanks,” I told her gratefully.

Using an app like that seemed like a better way to go about keeping in touch with the people we’d met so far. I thought about asking for their regular contact info – just to get some more numbers in my phone—but recognised that it didn’t make much sense and that it was probably my insecurities talking.

“Back to the matter at hand,” Colson led the conversation back on track. “Whatever Tanner’s done; we don’t know where he’s gone. The E.I.S. will probably put a warrant out for his capture, but I’d be surprised if they deploy a tracker. They’re in high demand.”

“What then, we just ignore it?” Rob scowled as he spoke.

None of them looked happy about it. Understandable.

Colson shook his head.

“Not ignore, keep an eye out. Ethan and I will stick around for a couple of days. We’ll have to talk to the E.I.S. people as well, but we need to keep up his training and tracing, so some of our time’s booked.”

There was a chorus of assent from the others.

“I’ll stick around too.”

“Me too.”

"Yeap.”

“Great,” Colson nodded in acknowledgement. “I’ll download the app too, then we can keep in touch there.”

An unspoken consensus passed between the rest of us, and we all applauded him.

“Fuck off.”

One corner of his mouth creaked upwards briefly.

The faint rumblings of an engine echoed through the air. We all looked towards the gravel road and spotted an older model yellow school bus heading in our direction.

“Jasper’s here,” Colson provided unnecessarily.

Mateo got the normals on their feet. They were looking a little better. Not happy, by any stretch of the imagination, but at least mobile and unfearful. We all waited in silence and the bus arrived in short order. The front door opened, and Mateo went in first and exchanged a few words with Jasper who nodded intermittently, glancing at the former captives.

Everyone hopped on board, Colson and I heading into the back.

“Let’s get that app set up, kid.”

He gave me the number to the Board’s tech support, and I dialled it in.

“You’ve called BOE tech support. You are number… two, in the queue. Please hold.”

Monotone elevator music started playing and I got comfortable while the bus did a U-turn and started our drive back towards El-Reno.

“You are number… one, in the queue. Please hold.”

Reflecting on the past days’ events, it occurred to me how much had happened in such a short time. Not even a week ago, I thought I was going to finish school and make an entry into the family business. Then I’d met Colson, killed a monster and was now starting to learn magic. I’d also helped save four people. That had just occurred to me. They weren’t corpses on the ground like what I’d experienced with the empousa.

A warm feeling filled my chest. We’d done some good.

“BOE tech support this is Lisa,” a rehearsed voice sounded through the speaker.

“Hi Lisa, this is Ethan Margrave. I’m calling to get a link sent to my phone for the ParaWeb app,” I told her.

“Just a moment please.”

There was silence on the line for a couple of seconds.

“Ethan Margrave, a probationary member, vouched for by one Colson. Is that right?”

“Yep, that’s me.”

“Is the number you’ve called us from the one you’d like us to send the link to?”

“It is, yeah.”

“Great, you should get it... now.”

I heard the faint ding of a message ticked a couple of seconds later.

“Got it, thanks, Lisa.”

“You’re welcome. Please note that this link is a one-time use only, so make sure you download it the first time or you’ll have to call us again. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Nope, that’s it, thanks.”

I said goodbye and hung up, immediately opening the text, and clicking the link. It took me to a blank site that only contained another link and I clicked that too, downloading the app. Colson was emulating me and was currently on hold with the support. I opened the app and started setting it up.

It was pretty basic stuff, there was a profile for me to fill out and then I could add people to my contact list. There was also a subpage with threads people had made, where others could chime in with comments and tips, sorted by geolocation.

Just for fun I clicked on New Orleans and scrolled down a bit. Some of the threads were old, but there were a couple of recent ones.

“Need help identifying a were.”

“Where’s the nearest artificer?”

“*K E E P*I T*G O I N G*A L L*N I G H T*!.!.!”

I snorted. Even with the precautions they had in place, somehow bots had still made it inside. I guess that was inevitable and I reported the thread for good measure.

Standing up, I went over to the rest of the gang and exchanged contact info with them through the app, then went to sit back down. Colson repeated the process a couple of minutes later.

We rode the rest of the way in silence. I closed my eyes at some point and Colson roused me after what seemed like a couple of seconds.

“We’re here, kid. C’mon.”

Stopping in front of the bar, we departed the bus. I don’t know who’d done it, but someone had called ahead and told some people to expect us. When we got out of the bus, there was a strange-looking emergency vehicle, a van and a dozen or so people prepared to receive the normals. I thought about going over to say goodbye, but Colson grabbed me by the shoulder and guided me inside the bar.

“Trauma team,” Colson told me in a lowered voice, “let’s let them take it from here.”

We met with the others inside and Jasper prepared some of his famous fish and chips for us. It was really good, and I ate two large portions, to Jasper’s obvious delight.

Filling him in on what had happened today, the talk then circled the events leading up to the start of the investigation. Apparently, Tanner had messaged the others separately about the disappearances in El-Reno and that he was looking into it. He’d asked for their assistance and suggested they checked foreclosed and empty properties.

After a couple of days with nothing to show for it, he’d mentioned the farm and told them he’d spotted people on the premises. They’d done surveillance from afar before deciding to check it out today.

As they explained how it had all gone down, it only added fuel to the fire that was my anger. The bastard had probably been planning to ambush them with the Vdélla all along, arranging the kidnapping to support his claim, then contacting the Board to legitimise it even further. I didn’t understand why anybody would do this. There had to be a reason, right?

“I’m not sure,” Jasper provided, “it’s unusual but unfortunately, it’s something that we’ve seen before. He was caught in the act because he ran away but it probably goes on more than we know. We undoubtedly have people acting as doubles in some of the bad guy circles as well.”

“I just can’t figure out why the Vdélla didn’t blab as soon as she saw the fight wasn’t going their way,” Sally said.

“Could be they were rotating crews,” Colson interjected, “they may not’ve been the ones Tanner was in contact with. We're operating on a lot of unknowns here.”

My hands were clenched under the table, and I was shaking slightly. The others noticed and gave me some wary looks, possibly recalling my previous outburst. Right now, I didn’t care.

Colson patted me on the back and spoke, “I think we’ll call it here. See you tomorrow everyone.”

There was a general murmur of goodbyes, and we headed out of the bar together.

"Let’s head up and work on your Sigil.”