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I grunted. I wasn’t kindly disposed to believe that anyone involved with MFM wasn’t a hair’s breadth away from igniting the pyre.
“Honestly, Hart, would you rather the whole organization was on a genocidal trajectory?” he asked me.
I mimicked his crossed-arm stance. “No,” I replied sullenly. “Doesn’t mean I have to like the fuckers, though.”
“True enough,” Raj agreed. “But I’d personally much rather be dealing with a fringe group than a massive organization that has the money and numbers to incite a civil war.”
“Fucking Christ, Raj.”
“Would you?”
“Fuck, no, not when you put it that way.”
“So we’re going to assume that that database—” which had sixty-four people on it across thirteen states “—is the extent of it until I have direct evidence otherwise.”
I nodded. God, I fucking hoped he was right.
I didn’t have the heart to ask him how he thought this fringe MFM group related to the Antiquus Ordo Arcanum. Because someone from the Ordo had killed Faith Oldham. But I could only handle so much at once, and this was a war that needed to be fought one battle at a time.
20
I’d finishedcross-referencing all of the victims in the maybe-not-MFM murder case against local law enforcement records, and had found that about half of them had been arrested or ticketed (or both). Some of the others had been provided with food stamps or other government and social services. This pointed pretty clearly to the involvement of someone in law or government work—most likely multiple someones.
The thing that really bothered me, though, was the fact that a really similar tactic seemed to have been used by the Antiquus Ordo Arcanum—with Shelby. But where Shelby was kidnapping people directly, the Oldham victims seemed to be selected by looking through existing records, particularly since I hadn’t been able to actually connect any of the arresting or ticketing officers to anyone on the Oldhams’ contact list. Even if four of them had donated to the MFM.
But even if they had similar methods, it seemed clear to me that the Ordo was not allied with the MFM, and not just because the Ordo had killed Faith Oldham. I also had a hard time buying that a secret warlock society would have wanted anything to do with the Magic-Free Movement.
At least I fucking hoped not. Because I couldn’t really think what possible reason they’d have for working together that wasn’t going to end in a horrific disaster. So I really hoped this was a case of both groups had just independently realized the… convenience of having someone in government work picking victims. Who seemed to be more than easy to find.
Ugh.
And what the fuck did that say about me, that I shared a calling with people like that?
Let me tell you, this year was doing an absolute number on my senses of personal direction and self-worth.
My phone interrupted my bitter, self-recriminating thoughts, and I looked down to see that the notification was from the food delivery person, who had just dropped off our take-out from the nearby kickass Indian place. I went downstairs and grabbed it, Taavi waiting with a wagging tail at the top of the stairs.
Once I’d portioned food out and set his on the floor, I settled on the couch to watch the Great British Bakeoff, something Taavi at least paid attention to, although it was a little hard to tell if a dog was enjoying a tv show.
When he finished his food, he hopped up on the couch, then promptly rolled on his back, his head hanging off the cushions with his tongue hanging out and all four feet in the air. When something with lots of fur does this, it’s adorably cute. When a hairless Xolo dog does it, you get treated to a full view of his bits.
I shook my head. “Really, bud? That rather… personal of you, don’t you think?”
He wiggled, watching me with his one brown eye and a mischievous look on his doggy face.
I was tryingnotto look, but I suddenly noticed what seemed like a relatively recent scar on his belly that didn’t look clean enough to be surgical.
“Hey, Taavi, what’s the scar from?”
He whined, then rolled onto his side.
I frowned. “Seriously, doggo, let me see.”
He whined again, loudly, but let me roll him onto his back again. I traced my finger over the line, and he whined once more.
“Taavi, what’s this from?”
He squirmed, not enough to get away from me, but it took me a second to realize he was trying to see what I was touching. I guess it’s kinda hard for a dog to look at its own belly.
