hunched over the keyboard of his Commodore 64. His fingers fly over the keys, making a steady clack-clack sound.
His eyes keep flicking up to his monitor. He can see me standing right behind him, sword pointed down in front of me, both hands resting on the pommel. His face is pale and his hands are shaking. He’s terrified I’ll take his head off if he slips up.
The mood I’m in, I still might.
“Whatever you’re looking for, find it faster,” I tell him.
“Take a chill pill, all right? Hacking into a government database takes time.”
From the computer’s modem, there’s the familiar hiss-click-squeal of his dial-up connection. A screen bearing the police database logo takes up most of the twelve-inch monitor.
Demons usually hate technology. Holdovers from much older times, they just can’t seem to warm up to it. Maybe it’s my human side talking, but I love it. Except computers. Never could get the hang of them.
“How can you stand that thing, Hagor?” I ask, bending over the noisy modem.
“What? The internet?” He glances at me while he waits for some page or other to load. “You better get used to it.”
“Fat chance.”
“Give it a few years and it won’t be only for the government and the filthy rich. It’ll be in every home. You better move on with the times, Arc, or you’ll get left behind with the rest of the old-timers.”
“I doubt it. You think everyone’s going to want that in their homes? It will be like having the government’s eyes on you at all times.” I shudder.
“Give it time. Mark my words. Five years, less maybe, and it’ll be everywhere.”
“We will see. Shut up and hurry.”
Almost an hour later, after scrolling through dozens of pages, he finally turns to me. “Okay, look here. I had a feeling about this.”
“What?” I look over his shoulder.
“This is the database for the police force. They’re still converting a lot of stuff to an online filing system, but they have what I was looking for. Including criminal records for everyone in the state.”
“Where are you going with this, Hagor?”
“I had a feeling I’d heard that name before. Cassidy Morgan. It’s on file here; her sister was kidnapped thirteen years ago, one Saffron Morgan. Her case went cold. Cassidy’s father is in the system. Big-time forger for the mob. He made fake IDs for them.”
I look at the file he’s pulled up. Sure enough, the man on file bears the name Jack Morgan. There’s a photo of him on the record that looks a lot like her, with the same cleft in the chin, the same blond hair, but it’s straight and scraggly looking.
Hagor looks up at me. “How much you wanna bet dear old dad taught her his trade?”
I mull this over, storing the information away for later use. My Cassidy Morgan, good old member of the police force, might have a seedy past. Interesting.
“Is she in there?” I point to the screen.
“We say ‘in the system,’ Arc.”
“What?”
“You gotta say it right. If she’s got a record, we call it being ‘in the system.’”
I give him an impatient look, and he focuses on the screen again. It takes him a few minutes to check.
“She doesn’t have a file, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t in the trade. It just means she didn’t get caught. If she had a record, she wouldn’t have been able to become a cop. You can’t carry a badge if you have a record.”
“That so?” The wheels in my head turn faster. I almost smile at the thought of what I could do with that.
“Anyway,” he adds, “looks like the guys who took her sister had connections to the Mancini crime family, just like her father.”
“But the mob didn’t have her kidnapped. Hazuldar did.”
“Maybe. Or maybe Hazuldar wanted it to look like the mob took her. His royal ugliness always finds ways to tie his actions to people on Earth in order to hide demon involvement.”
I raise a brow.
He holds up his hand. “Sorry, man. No offense. I know Hazuldar is—”
I shrug. “None taken. He is ugly. Besides, I have no allegiance to him anymore.”
“Right.” His eyes flick to my medallion. “That’s still hard to get used to, you know? That you’re working for her.”
“I need other things, Hagor.”
“Like what?”
“Money. A lot of it.”
“Already? Where the fuck is all the money going? What about what I gave you last time you were here?”
I shrug.
“First you kill my patrons, and then you want to clean me out again? You know