Page 124 of The Dog in the Alley

By my feet, Taavi barked.

“Hello, Taavi,” Raj’s voice replied. “And I am also sick of you, Keebler, but the dead people are terribly demanding and want us to figure out who killed them.”

I sighed. “At least tell me there aren’t any more of them.”

“Not that I know of,” came the answer, which at least provided a hint of relief. “Can I stop by?”

“I just saw you like forty-five minutes ago,” I complained. I’d worked through the whole weekend, I had to show up at work tomorrow morning, and I’d just wanted one fucking night off.

“I know, but I’m running up against a wall and I need someone to talk it through with.”

“What happened to the rest of the fantastic four?” I asked him, earning a laugh.

“I believe Cass has a date, it’s Kurtz’s anniversary, and Drew doesn’t answer his phone.”

“Did you text him?”

“He told me to fuck off.”

“Remind me why I’m not telling you to fuck off?”

“Because you like me.”

I snorted. “Fine, but you’re bringing garlic breadanddessert.”

He brought both and wine.

All three of us ended up on the living room floor, along with my and Raj’s laptops, a stack of files Raj had brought with him, a box of Pearl’s Cupcakes, and our bowls of pasta and mugs of wine. I can be classy, I just chose not to most of the time.

Raj stuck a forkful of pasta in his mouth, then passed me a file.

“Here.”

I took a sip of wine, then set my mug on the carpet. “What am I looking for?” I asked him.

He chewed, then swallowed. “We’ve got a total of four people who came out of North Carolina at the same time, even though only one of them isfromRaleigh-Durham.”

I glanced over at Taavi, who was one of our four shifters taken from Raleigh-Durham. “But all of them wereinRaleigh-Durham?”

“Yes.” He skewered a piece of vegan sausage and ate it. “So whoever tagged them is probably also local.”

I nodded, chewing a forkful of my own, and pulled up the Oldham list, looking for anyone in North Carolina. “Raj, do you know where the fuck Gorman, North Carolina is?”

His fingers tapped across the keyboard. “Right next to Durham,” he answered.

I looked around the side of my laptop screen at him. “Really?”

Raj nodded, chewing.

The person from Gorman, North Carolina was Louise Dunn. I shoved through the files on the floor, accidentally pushing one into Taavi’s hind leg, which he lifted up, giving me a mildly offended look.

“Sorry, bud.” I moved it away from him again, then pushed aside a couple more until I found the Dunn file.

Louise Dunn. Sixty-three years old, mother of three, married to Maxwell Dunn. According to her file, Louise had worked for the better part of the last forty years for a Christian Youth Center called St. Anastasia’s. The file had a printout of the center’s website, which claimed to provide resources and support for families, children, and young people who wanted to live lives of purity.

Riiiight.

‘Purity’ was something that came up on almost every MFM or anti-magic website I’d looked at over the past month and a half—it had nothing to do with things like religion or pre-marital sex and everything to do with ‘pure’ humanity. This one even had a page—about six printed pages in to the stapled packet on St. Anastasia’s about how those with ‘pure human’ DNA wouldn’t become Arc-human or Arcanids if they contracted Arcanavirus, so they had nothing to fear from it.

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