Chapter Nineteen.

"George," Lucas looked at his boss in confusion. "What brings you out to our office?"

"Their endgame," George answered, sitting across from Lucas, who gave him a questioning look. "Cam and his friends. We discovered their endgame last night."

"They have been silent for a few days," Lucas nodded. "Just as we were getting ready to put the bounty on them last week. Do we still need to?"

"I'm not sure," George responded. "We should, just because of policy and precedent, but at the same time, those kids delivered one hell of a blow to the mage slave trade."

"What did they do?" Lucas asked. "The guy they were going after was just a magic smuggler – he had a couple of slaves, but that was it."

"He wasn't their goal," George responded. "He was their ticket. The Division of Magical Enslavement has been tracking slave dealings for more than two decades. Around a decade ago, they caught wind of an underground supernat slave arena."

"Let me guess," Lucas said. "They're forced to fight to the death?"

"We weren't sure," George answered. "Just finding out that much was difficult. Six months ago, one of DoME's undercover agents was approached by his 'boss' and offered to visit something. Found out that night it was the arena, and he's been there twice a week collecting information on who he saw the slaves that were there. The bouts ended when one of the slaves was either slain or knocked unconscious."

"How come I haven't heard about this before?" Lucas asked. "And what does this have to do with Cam's crew?"

"We've kept it under wraps," George answered. "On the chance that a mole found out. The undercover agent, his direct supervisor, and myself were the only ones aware that we had an in for the arena. Only a handful of other agents were given information about it. The mages running it went to great lengths to ensure word hadn't gone out, so we'd gotten lucky, and we didn't want them to know we were on to it.

"The last three nights," George continued. "A mysterious figure assumed to be a skinny dwarf showed up. He was cloaked, never spoke, and wore a mask to hide his face. He was with the smuggler Cam's crew were attacking."

"They befriended a dwarf?" Lucas asked.

"No," George leaned back in his seat and sighed. "Last night, he removed the mask and pushed the hood back. It was Cameron. He seemed to know one of the slaves – an ice mage our agent had reported as likely being the strongest slave there. Shortly after, the fire mage showed up with Eden, who then teleported Cameron out of there."

Lucas realized immediately what happened. Cam was looking for the ice mage, and it happened after the fire mage showed up. Those two were related to each other.

"Siblings?"

"Twins, we're guessing," George answered. "Our mage fled as soon as he took the pictures and confirmed they were about to destroy the place. More than two thousand mages from across the world were in there last night when the attack began, and we're estimating that one, maybe two hundred were able to escape the attack.

"Shortly after," George continued. "A building crumbled only a few blocks from here."

"I heard about that," Lucas said. "Do you mean it's related?"

"Our mages so far," George nodded. "Have determined that it was the primary basis for a reality marble. The anchor point. If Cameron had Adam or Callum helping him, they likely dismantled the marble, which would have caused the building anchoring it to collapse. It was an abandoned building, and no one was inside. It seems wards were put up to prevent intruders."

Lucas tapped his chin in thought. If they were looking for the ice mage, then it was probable they were done with their attacks. The traffickers they'd managed to get information out of did mention that he was looking for a specific person.

A boy, one had said. A specific slave who had been captured a few months prior.

"Do you want me to call him to confirm?"

"If you would," George answered.

Lucas dialed Cam on his office phone, using speakerphone so that both men could listen in.

"Hello?" A girl's voice picked up.

"I presume this is Jenna?" Lucas responded.

"You're the agent that was with Cam's friend the other day," she said. "The number's assigned to his name."

"Yes," Lucas said. "I'm Lucas Tules, Greyson's father and the Director of the Anti-Fae Division of the Department of Supernatural Services."

"Does that come with a plaque?" She asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"It does, actually," his response caused George to smile. "Now that you've been reunited with your brother, we were wondering if this little war you all were waging was over."

"Cam'll get pissed if we don't stop," Jenna said. "He wasn't happy that Ty and I killed all those assholes last night. And no offense, Director, but I'm a lot more scared of him and his bodyguard than I am of your entire organization."

You aren't the only one, he thought.

"May I speak with Cameron, please?" Lucas asked.

"He's sleeping," she answered. "He doesn't do much of that lately, it tends to be nightmares for him. After all, your people let him get kidnapped."

"We don't exactly have much we can do when he goes outside the law," Lucas told her. "Especially not when the Fairy Empress and the Fairy Emperor themselves showed up. If Cam's having nightmares, then maybe waking him would be for the best."

He could hear several people laughing in the background.

"Nah," she said. "See, when Cam has nightmares… he tends to use something they call 'mind wave'. No clue what that is, but-"

"We know what that is," Lucas said. "Yeah, it's probably best to leave him alone. Please let him know I want to talk with him, Jenna, and for you – please stop causing destruction, or we'll be placing a bounty on you."

"Try your best!" She told him. "But as I said, Cam's gonna be mad if we don't stop this. We'll hang around for a bit longer to catch up with him more, then we're outta here. Don't worry about our chaos, we'll just go back to what we were before. And yeah, I'll let him know."

The call ended, and Lucas looked at George.

"Callum had to have done some sort of shielding, if this is the first we're hearing of Cam using mind wave during nightmares."

"Definitely," George responded. "Him having an ancient demigod bodyguard is a definite plus in some respects. That sleeping potion they used on the first target was likely his creation as well."

"Speaking of that," Lucas rubbed his temples. "Did you hear what happened?"

"To Tabitha?" George asked, and Lucas nodded. "Do we know how they got in?"

"No," Lucas answered. "They disabled the cameras in the cells, and none of the other prisoners remembered seeing someone. In addition to that, there's nothing to show how she died."

"An angel of death?" George asked.

"No," Lucas stood and walked over to his filing cabinets.

He looked through several folders in one before pulling out one of them, opening to a certain page and handing the whole thing to George, who looked at the page.

"The magical signature of whoever it was?" George asked.

"It permeated her entire body," Lucas said. "It was the only place we could trace it at all."

"This isn't angelic magic," George said. "This is divine magic. A god?"

"Or a demigod," Lucas shrugged. "Tabitha's father is one, and so is her nephew and her own son. One of them could have shown up to kill her."

"I'm doubting it," George shook his head. "Why kill her instead of break her out? That leaves an uncomfortable possibility."

"The ancient assassin?" Lucas guessed, and George nodded. "Everything fits. No surveillance detected them, no one remembered noticing them, and they killed without leaving a trace. This is the first time we've had a read on their magic, though."

"This is the first time we had our hands on one of their victims," George corrected, then checked his watch. "Leave the investigating of those things to the appropriate parties. See if you can get information out of Cam – he might know more than they left on those harddrives. Try to impress upon him the importance of not doing stuff like this again."

"Will do," Lucas responded. "You're leaving?"

"I'm heading to the site of the collapse," George stood. "Give Greyson my best wishes, will you?"

"Will do, sir," Lucas said, then checked his watch. "It's around time for him to be at his magic lessons, I think."

"Still don't know who they are?" George asked.

"He doesn't trust me that much," Lucas sighed. "We pushed him and Kayla too hard. She still goes with our training and follows our rules, but have you tried disciplining a moody teen nephilim before? I'd rather not break out the magic just because he's wandering off or badmouthing me."

"I wouldn't, either," George snorted. "Good luck, Lucas. And I hope you find out who his mentor is soon, so you can at least have some peace of mind."

"Thanks," Lucas said. "I'm going to call Greyson now, have a good day, sir."

George left, and Lucas grabbed his cell, calling his son.

"What?" Greyson answered the call.

"Hey, Greyson," Lucas said. "Is Jenna going to the lesson with you again?"

"Yeah."

"Are you two going for dinner again after?"

"Yeah."

"It looks like I'll be out of work earlier today than usual," Lucas responded. "I can drive you home after dinner, if you want. Just chat and such."

Greyson didn't respond.

"Greyson?" Lucas said.

"Sure," his son responded. "I wanted to talk to you about something. I need to go, we're almost there. I'll text you the restaurant when we're ready for dessert. See you."

"See you," Lucas said.

Greyson hung up the call and sighed, then looked at Jess.

"Going to tell him?" She asked.

"Yeah," he said. "We decided to try, and I might as well make sure he knows he's not going to have control over it."

"Cool," she kissed him on the cheek. "Let's just hope my parents are fine with us dating, too. They've been a bit weird after I told them you were half-angel."

Greyson snorted, then pushed open the door to Elaine's shop.

"Suzanne still gone?" He asked when he noticed Elaine at the counter.

"Yes," Elaine responded. "Get the sign, would you?"

Greyson flipped the sign, then followed Elaine up to the roof. Elaine had Jess sit down and meditate for the first hour in an attempt to access and strengthen familiarity with her inner tree. As Jess did that, Greyson practiced with his magic as quietly as he could.

"Greyson," Elaine walked over to him. "You've been attempting to work your way up to five strands, but you don't let them move very far from you, and never allow them to become too long. I know you can do this and generate liquid 'blades' to cut through things, though those are quite small.

"Why don't you," she suggested. "Focus on controlling your threads of liquid while they're longer? Push yourself to your limits. You're already familiarizing yourself with the spell, doing this will help you with both that and your control."

Greyson nodded, then got to work doing that as Elaine returned to Jess. After meditating for an hour, Jess was instructed to push herself as hard as she could with shaping her force pushes. By the time the two hours were up, both teens were exhausted.

After paying for Jess's lesson with Elaine, the teens left and began walking down the street. Both were ravenous and mentally and magically exhausted.

Had they not been, Greyson might have noticed early enough that they were in danger. He might have been able to put up a fight as they were dragged into an alley. Instead, he was knocked out in an instant, the attack unnoticed to the common person on the street through the assailant's use of illusion magic.

A collar was snapped around his neck as another was snapped around Jess's, who had also been rendered unconscious.

"We got them," one of the traffickers said as he lifted Greyson and slung him over his shoulder. "Let's get moving, the barrier won't last much longer."

"Is he really a nephilim?" One of the other four attackers asked as they all began walking down the alley to their van. "He went down pretty fast."

"He is," the first one responded. "We caught him by surprise, but he'll probably wake soon. We'll need to make sure he's bound before that happens."

They tossed the two teens into the back of the van and got to work tying them up as one of them climbed into the driver's seat and drove off. Only a few minutes later did someone else appear.

A tall, intimidating angel with a frown on his face as he scanned the alley. Only a few seconds passed before he swore in an ancient tongue, the shadows of the alley suddenly consuming everything within it.