..…CHAPTER 29…..
Isaac glared at the receding car, Dillon’s words hot in his ears. He wasn’t sure he was willing to deal with them after all, if they were as big of assholes as they seemed.
His phone dinged and he yanked it from his pocket.
Dillon: get in here.
Isaac complied since their car had disappeared around the bend.
In the back room where they did their day jobs, Dillon had the computer open, files and documents, too.
“They’re part of the Fray,” Dillon said. “It’s a cell inside of the FBW&R.”
“Wow, someone had some balls to set that up. What do we do, then?”
Dillon gave him a patient look that Isaac knew said, ‘the perfect place to set up a cell.’ “We work with them. They know Nate.”
Isaac did a double take. “What? Really?”
“Yup. He recruited the current Director nine years ago????????????next month.??????????? Before that, he recruited the then Director and Assistant Director, who was his Handler.”
“Wait, Nate is a Tame?”
“I told you that term is derogatory and unnecessary, Isaac,” Dillon muttered, annoyed. “Besides. Think about it, boy. He’s in a Federal Retirement home for witches. Of course he’s registered.”
Isaac shrugged at his own inattention. Meetings with the old man were always outside of that little retirement village, but it hadn’t clicked with him that the man was a former federal agent. After all, being there didn’t make a witch a federal witch. Plenty of old magic-users retired there, from household witches to grid-workers.
Isaac lowered his gaze, frustrated and angry. “Fine,” he muttered. “Alright, they contacted us. What made them think they could trust us?”
“Oscar contacted Nathaniel—as he calls Nate—and spoke about finding you. Nate knows your name through me, so they decided to make contact. There’s more here to their research, but that’s what it boils down to.”
“Why? I mean, why now? They should’ve waited.”
“They can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because the feds are watching Oliver.”
“Oliver is a fed,” he snapped.
“An agent under suspicion. Of what, Oscar doesn’t say.”
Isaac chewed on a hangnail. “He helped me get those witches out. They likely know he’s helping the Fray.”
“Maybe,” he said, voice skeptical.
“What else would it be?”
“Don’t know. But I suspect it has to do with him being a Prime. He’s not listed as a such. To hide a talent of that magnitude would get him in deep shit.”
Isaac blanched. Oh yeah. Hiding his powers from his master was likely to earn him a prison sentence. For once, Isaac felt a bit of sympathy for the man.
“Okay, so he’s in danger. Does he need to join us underground?”
“Probably. And you can’t deny having him on our side is huge, Isaac.”
He really couldn’t. That was why he’d been so eager to find out who he worked for. Now they knew the Tame One was a fellow Fray member, they should do everything in their power to protect him and the sheer firepower he would bring to the fight.
Oliver’s taunting about his need for a Handler still burned him up.
“Oh hell,” Dillon breathed.
“What?”
“Oliver isn’t their only Prime,” he muttered, eyes wide. He cleared his throat and continued in a normal voice. “They just discovered a new one. She’s not recruited yet, though. But Oscar thinks it wouldn’t take much to convince her. She’s just been discovered and begun training with Oliver. She’s an adult.”
Isaac nodded. “The woman I saw him leading from that house. Damn. No wonder I felt so much magic coming off that place. Between the two of them…”
He met Dillon’s gaze. Dillon’s power level as an Air witch wasn’t awe inspiring. He was what the government would call a level six. He was, however, a Parallel, which afforded him a lot of flexibility.
More importantly, Dillon was what Isaac would call a guerrilla warrior. Dillon could fight with his magic like no one he’d ever seen. With Isaac’s level at least seven, but honestly was more likely an eight, he’d been taken down by Dillon during practice more times and with more ease than Isaac wanted to admit.
“Alright, we’ve got a link to them, let’s get started making the ends line up. Oscar is the head of his cell. I’ll meet him later at some random location, and I want you to talk to Oliver about him and the woman and how we’ll work them into our cell should we have to merge. You know we likely will.”
Isaac agreed with a grunt. He didn’t want to talk to Oliver, but it was going to happen.
Damn Tame.