“Breaking the law and spying on people.” At that Bartholomew glared at Constantine.
Constantine just smiled.
“I’ll take that. Did you find anyone?” I didn’t want to know the details.
“Nothing. It’s like they dropped off the face of the earth. At least we know what we’re looking for now.” Bartholomew turned back to face the screen.
“Hold it; I’m confused. You didn’t know you were looking for witches. What were you doing in Brooklyn?” I was totally lost.
“We were technically in Chicago. Teck went to New York alone.” Bartholomew was still not looking my way.
“So what did he find?” This was like pulling teeth.
“We have no idea. Teck didn’t share much.” Constantine sounded bitter.
“Ninja Boy was a lone wolf. Great. In that case, what do you know?” It sounded as if Ninja Boy had been your typical intern—special and not well liked.
Constantine stretched out and started talking. “There was a report of a mass grave with over sixty bodies in Los Angeles. Death had no record of any of their passings. It looked like the bodies had been dead for over twenty years. But when Death arrived at the scene, she established that they had been dead only a couple of days. Bartholomew compared their fingerprints to those in the system, and they were a match for missing people. Except the people had been missing only a couple of months.”
“Death had no record of their passing? Where were the souls? Doesn’t Death know when a person is about to die and is there to escort the soul?” Was that lesson in the manual, too?
“That’s the mystery. Death didn’t sense their passing. By the time she arrived, the bodies were empty of souls.” Bartholomew’s voice came out as a whisper.
“How is that possible?” My voiced sounded hoarse.
“It’s not. None of it is natural. Something or someone stole years of life and the souls out of them. We had no leads, and Death was mad.” Constantine was angry. “So Bartholomew started monitoring the missing person reports across the country. But as you probably know, very few reports are filed on homeless or runaways.”
“How did he end up in New York?” I was still not following that part.
“A couple of shelters in the city started reporting suspicious people and their clients missing. It was the only lead we had.” Bartholomew looked at us this time. “Teck went to New York to track leads before more souls were lost.”
“Then I threw him off a balcony, and that never happened.” My cheeks were burning in shame.
“In a nutshell. The next day the police had a report of twenty dead bodies in the ground at a Catholic church. We assumed cult killing.” Constantine was focused again.
“Why not witches?” I needed the CliffsNotes on the supernatural world.
“Witches were an option, since it took place on Ostara,” Constantine said. “The spring equinox and a major Wiccan celebration. But the Catholic angle made that hard to connect.”
“So what do we do now that we know witches are involved?” I needed marching orders before I went crazy.
“Constantine contacted the Order of Witches, but they’re a little short staffed, with Mabon being this weekend.” Bartholomew was pulling up a calendar on his monitor.
“Let me guess—the fall equinox.” Both Bartholomew and Constantine looked astonished. “Don’t be too impressed. My godmother knew a little bit about every major religion and its practices. That included major holidays. So what does that mean for us?”
“It means we need to find them before Saturday and stop them. With Texarkana being a much smaller city, a large group of people missing, even homeless, would be noticed. So far we’re tracking seven, including the girl from today and your friend Bob, but there could be more.” Constantine hopped over to Bartholomew as he spoke.
Bartholomew pulled up a series of photos of the missing people, including Bob. My heart skipped a beat. I had seen most of those people around town, and I had never paid them any attention.
“OK, so what do I need to do?” I had signed up for this madness; I might as well earn my pay.
“You need to start checking all the shelters in town. In other words, you need to start investigating. It’s not like humans are going to talk to Bartholomew and me.” Constantine was right about that.
“We’ll compile a list for you. You should rest. We’ve got lots of work.” Bartholomew was ready to work, all night.
“Are you guys sure about that?”
They both looked at me as if I were crazy.
“OK, fair enough. Good night.”
With one last look at the boys, I headed to my new room. I wanted to help, but I was exhausted. On top of that, I had a lot of stuff to process.
Chapter 13
It appeared I didn’t have that much to process after all. I lay down on the bed, and I was out before I knew it. Constantine woke me up at 5:30 a.m. for our regular training session. He proceeded to inform me this would be our normal time every day, including weekends. He had lost his mind. Day two on the job, and it was obvious this was interfering with my regular life. I needed to ask Abuelita to change my schedule if possible. I was a morning person, but I still needed at least six hours of sleep to function.
Bartholomew was definitely a night owl. He had left me a nice list of potential places to check out on the kitchen counter. He had even prioritized them based on their hours of operation. Most of the shelters, food kitchens, and service organizations were downtown. Downtown was a ghost town at night, and even during the day, it was fairly deserted. Unfortunately, it didn’t have enough residents for one to notice whether people were disappearing. Most of the businesses had moved west following Interstate 30. Many boarded-up buildings and closed-down stores were downtown. The local museum, the Perot Theatre, and funky restaurants were also there. In general,
