Chapter Twelve.

"Hi, Auntie!" Cam cheerfully greeted his aunt when she opened her eyes. "Sorry about the headache, it's an unfortunate side-effect of the potion. Callum could have gotten rid of that with a little bit more work, buuuuuuuuut we decided not to. You're evil, after all. You traffickers. You know, we were not expecting one of the people behind Derrick's organization to actually be here! That's amazing!"

"Ambrosius," Tabitha narrowed her gaze at her nephew. "You tricked me."

"Aw," he made a mocking face at her. "Doesn't feel good to be on the receiving end of deceit, does it? See, thing is, a friend of mine was kidnapped and brought here. That was months ago, though. So we decided to disrupt this location and find out where he was taken. I'm not a big fan of rooting around through someone's mind, so I'd rather you just tell me everything."

"You'll have to rip it out of my head," she snorted. "And even then, you won't be able to get access to the information you need."

"I already figured that last part," Cam sighed, holding up a Thornton Crest. "I found the little impression on your computer over there, and realized that it needs a Thornton Crest to work. But it didn't pull up the interface. Why?"

"It's locked to the owner of the crest," she informed him. "The crest can only be used by the one it's bonded to."

"Oh!" Cam's face lit up as he pulled out his wallet, then his own Thornton Crest. "My father retrieved this for me after the forest froze it up!"

Tabitha's face fell the moment she saw her nephew pull that out. If the feds had someone with one of those on their side, and someone who could use it, then all of their information would be revealed.

The Thornton Crest was the ultimate security measure, and allowed the user to link into the organization's full database. Every hideout, every warehouse, every employee and slave – everything was recorded. Customers, financial information, front businesses. Everything could be accessed as long as they had one of those crests, but they never worried about someone betraying them. No Thornton ever would.

Everything would be lost.

There had never before been a Thornton born who was an enemy of the family. Every last one who wasn't turned into a tree was loyal to the end. It was in their blood. Their hateful, spiteful blood born from the mixing of dark gods and evil angels.

"Thanks, Auntie!" Cam cheerfully hopped off his seat. "Time to find my friend!"

"Wait!" Tabitha called. "If you give me his name, his abilities, his age, everything you can think of, I could easily find him for you. If I don't, you'll have to search, possibly for hours. How long will your potion last? There's no doubt that the next guard change will-"

"My cousin's ensuring anyone who comes near here is taken out," Cam pressed the token into the indentation, and immediately, a screen of magic appeared before him. "This is so cool! Let's see…"

Tabitha continued to attempt to talk her nephew into letting her help, even promising to buy back his friend and give the boy to him. Anything she could think of to prevent him from continuing with his plan to ruin them.

She could not let him grant access to anyone else.

Unfortunately for her, Cam had tuned her out already as he focused on figuring out how to work their network. Jenna had already given him everything she could think of, and it only took him a few minutes to find the logs for the day of Tyler's capture.

There was only one boy of twelve or thirteen captured that day, and his image was Tyler, though looking older than he had when Cam met, of course. Demigods aged faster than regular humans, reaching puberty around seven or eight and finishing around fourteen or fifteen, being the equivalent of an eighteen-year-old human at that point.

Cam pulled up the log on that 'slave' to search for what happened, then pulled out his phone and opened up a note, typing in the information of the location he'd been moved to after that one, which looked like a larger holding place. From there, he was directly purchased, though the information was anonymous.

It looked to Cam as if whoever had bought his friend did not want to be known, even to the sellers. Sighing, Cam removed his token, watching as the screen vanished.

Then, he turned to his aunt and stuck his tongue out.

"We're gonna go raid another place! Enjoy dealing with DoSS!"

He didn't notice her sigh of relief as he grabbed his wagon and left, a sigh given because she realized that he had no interest in sharing access with an agent. The organization was safe, even if she had been captured and that location shut down.

Cam skipped out of the warehouse, then pulled out his phone and made a call.

"All done!" He exclaimed. "You can come out now, Callum!"

A few seconds later, his cousin approached from between two more warehouses, and Cam informed him of the developments.

"Tabitha is why you took so long to trigger the spell?" Callum asked.

"Yep!" Cam said. "I had fun teasing her! She's raging in there, though it looks like Eden's magical cuffs really work. Oh! I gotta call Mr. Tules!"

Cam dialed another number and pressed his phone back to his ear.

"Cameron," Lucas said.

"Hi, Mr. Tules!" Cam said. "A little birdie told me about a certain warehouse. I think you already know about it? Anyway, there's a bunch of mage traffickers under the effects of a very potent sleeping potion. They'll probably be out for another three hours. Tabitha Thornton is in there, as are four slaves I freed. Remember: you're being given this information by the same person who ended the threat of the fae. It's reliable. Don't let the others tell you you can't trust a kid. Got it? Good. I gotta go, I have an appointment to keep."

Cam hung up without letting Lucas respond, and Callum sighed.

"How much ice cream did you eat while waiting for your aunt to wake up?" Callum asked.

"Like, all that was left," Cam rolled his eyes. "We already proved it didn't work on me when I accidentally ate the entire gallon earlier, before you'd put the spell into them to delay the effects."

Callum rolled his eyes again, then placed a hand on Cam and teleported them out, leaving the security warehouse behind, where Tabitha was attempting to free herself. She was still attempting to when DoSS agents arrived an hour later.

The agents immediately began loading the traffickers into a van while a group of them interviewed the four remaining former slaves.

"Let me get this straight," the agent in charge of talking to the four of them said after listening to their stories. "A thirteen-year-old boy came in here, drugged all of them with cookies and ice cream, set you free with what seemed to be a universal key to the collars, accepted most of you as his eternal minions, dumped the collars into a cooler that seemed to be a magical storage device, accessed the ring's information system to locate a specific slave, and then left?"

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"That about sums it up."

"Yep."

"Pretty unbelievable, but it's what happened."

"I'm still trying to process it, myself."

"You do realize that this sounds like something out of a fantasy story, right?"

"Leave it," one of the other agents snorted. "We got the call from the kid, who directly called one of the directors. Apparently, it was the demigod who killed Titania."

Tabitha grit her teeth at the reminder that her nephew had outplayed them. He put on such a mask of innocence and friendliness that he managed to drug all of them. With cookies and ice cream. With cookies and ice cream!

Where did he even get that idea? The Hound of the Line must have suggested it to him. Her father had received information from the god who sired him to leave the boy alone because of the Hound of the Line.

They weren't sure what that meant, but they knew it was a reference to the boy's bodyguard, the ancient demigod.

She needed to get a message to the family, to let them know their prodigy was hunting the organization. If he continued like this, it was possible he'd completely destroy the organization in his search.

The information he'd pulled up… he didn't know how to read it properly. She knew exactly who had the slave he was seeking. They weren't an easy person to locate, and it was possible Cam would go after several more locations in his hunt for his friend.

Resigning herself to being arrested for the time being, Tabitha allowed them to recuff her and lead her into a van just for her. She was strong enough to take on the agents around her, but only the ones immediately around. They were smart enough to keep her ankles cuffed when they released her arms from the chair, leaving her without magic during the recuffing.

An hour later, Tabitha found herself in an interrogation room. As soon as her father found out what happened, he would be formulating a rescue plan. If DoSS started using compulsion serum on her for information, they might get something out of her before her nephilim body burned through it.

Two hours later, she felt satisfaction when they failed to get a word out of her and moved her into a cell by herself, still cuffed, with the walls and bars enchanted to keep mages inside. She wasn't strong enough to break out even if she weren't cuffed.

Tabitha sat on the metal bed on the back wall and stared at the bars, waiting. Either her father's agents would come through the hall or they would break in through the wall behind her. One of the two.

Footsteps caught her attention, and Tabitha smiled. They were moving with authority and power, not a trace of hesitation or meekness in their steps.

The figure came into view, and Tabitha frowned. She didn't recognize this agent. He looked to be in his mid twenties, with sandy-blond hair and dark blue eyes. A pair of majestic pink wings were tucked against his back, and he wore a crimson leather vest with black leather pants and boots.

Someone who cares enough to have a vest made with little of the back covered, to allow for the wings, she thought to herself as she assessed him.

"Who are you?" She asked.

"None of your concern," he waved a hand, and the door to her cell opened.

"Thank you," she stood.

"I'm not here to free you," he stepped inside her cell, and the door closed, locking once more. "My father has asked me to kill you."

"Kill me?" She frowned. "Who sent you?"

"That is not your concern," the being stepped forward, and Tabitha threw up her hands to create a shield, only to remember that her magic was bound at the moment. "Foolish girl. Even if you did have that power, what could you do against me?"

A moment later, he was standing directly in front of the nephilim, his right hand pressed against her chest, his dark blue gaze turning pink as he stared into Tabitha's eyes. She attempted to look away, only to find herself entranced, her world shifting to focus only on him and the feeling of his hand against her.

As Tabitha faded into the fantasy, she was rudely brought to alertness by the feeling of the demons around her and the heat of hell.

The demigod stepped back as the nephilim dropped to the ground. There wasn't a single person he used that on who could resist it. The tempting allure of love and lust mixed with the final power of death. They always woke up to find themselves in eternal damnation.

Turning, the demigod left the cell, teleporting out of the DoSS prison and to his home. He stretched for a moment, then unmanifested his wings before changing back into jeans and a tee, leaving his feet bare as he made his way out of the room.

His target was a room upstairs. A poster was hung on the door, with beams of light slicing through a monster, the words "KEEP OUT" in big, bold, black lettering above the beast. The demigod knocked on the door.

"One moment!" His son's voice called out as something thumped. The demigod snorted as he heard his son moving around in the room. "Come on in!"

The demigod opened the door and looked around his son's room, with clothes, games, movies, and magazines scattered across the floor.

"Kris," he sighed as he looked at his son, who was pulling on the old anime tee he slept in. "You were supposed to be in bed an hour ago."

"Yeah," Kris gave his father a sheepish look. "I have a good excuse, though! I was texting Ambro!"

"Ambro?" Kris's father asked. "You actually found him?"

"Yep!" Kris grinned. "He's here in town, just like I told you I heard! He goes by Cam now, by the way. He doesn't like Ambrosius anymore, though he thinks it's cool that it was Merlin's last name. He's weird as always. Can he come over? Not, like, now, but tomorrow or something."

Kris's father thought over that. He'd liked the little kid a year younger than his son, and could tell his son was being an honest. One benefit to being a natural mind mage over nine hundred years old: his son couldn't lie to him and not be found out immediately.

Ambrosius was a sweet kid, and he had considered looking into adoption. The two boys were fast friends when they met, and Michael knew that his son's friend didn't have anyone else at the time. Then the boy had run away while he was in the process of having the paperwork finalized to take custody of the boy.

"Where'd you find him?" Michael asked.

"I found this awesome arcade that's spelled so that only mages can enter," Kris answered. "Was gaming and talking with some of the other kids, and one mentioned a kid who matched Ambro's description. Did you know that Ambro barely looks older than he did three years ago? He looked twelve back then, remember? Even though he was only, like, ten? He looks thirteen, now, but he's so skinny. Apparently, he didn't eat much on the streets. When I poked him about that, he puffed out his chest and said 'I'm eating lots now, so I'm going to get big and strong!' It was super funny. We sparred in the mage arena you don't want me going to. Not during open hours, he's actually friends with the owner and got us in hours before anyone else showed up. He's badass! He's the Cam from the arena I told you about, the mind mage who uses a mental battering ram to take out his opponents, and he's apparently friends with with teleporter Eden and even, apparently, knew the fiery Jenna from his time on the streets. By the way – he's totally into her. Massive crush!"

Michael chuckled at his son's ramble.

"Alright, Kris," he said. "Go to bed. You do have school tomorrow, and it's already past midnight."

"Yeah, yeah," Kris rolled his eyes, walking towards his father. "Let me brush my teeth first."

"Alright," Michael said. "But then you're going to bed, Kris. Don't try to stay up any later."

"If I do, you'll know," Kris rolled his eyes again as he walked past his father, who bopped him on the head. "Hey!"

"Hurry up," Michael said. "You're not going to be late for school because you overslept."

Kris rolled his eyes and Michael returned downstairs, running his fingers through his hair. Over the last nine hundred years, his father had called upon him many times to perform assassinations. His ability to teleport, send people into a fantasy that cast their soul directly into hell, and remain completely undetected was unparalled by most mages and demigods.

Most of the time, he didn't question it, though he did wonder why his father had suddenly told him to head to DoSS and kill one of their prisoners. She was a Thornton, too, which greatly interested him.

He knew his son's friend was a Thornton, and so the assassination made him wonder if Ambrosius had been in any danger because of her. The part that puzzled him was why his father would want him to protect his son's friend.

Letting out a sigh, Michael decided not to question it. Answers would either come with time or they wouldn't. If he spoke with his son's friend, he might figure it out.

Unlike who his half-brother was. Suddenly being told 'you have a half-brother living in Tejina, move there and look for him' was the extent of what his father would say. In fact, that was all he said. When Michael asked for more information, all he received was 'just do it, will you?' in response.

Perhaps Ambrosius might know of who my brother is, Michael thought to himself.

His son's friend seemed to have connections in the underworld. It was possible that he'd heard of a mind mage specializing in compulsion, especially since he himself was a mind mage, based on his son's words.

After grabbing a snack, Michael went to his room to get some rest. The morning would bring with it a continued hunt for his brother.