Blood Games

Debate

"You let Timothy be taken?" I asked. "Are you crazy? I thought we agreed to use him as bait to catch Dubois, not let the boy get kidnapped."

Harding sighed. "How did you think we were going to find Father Serrano. From what you know of this guy, do you think he'd just tell us where the Father is?"

"Don't you have ways of making him talk?"

Harding rolled her eyes. "This is not a bad movie. I don't have any special interrogation techniques that will get an insane Blood Mage to tell us anything."

"Does the FBI generally allow a twelve year old to be stolen by the bad guy? Does Mr. Goodman know that this is part of your plan?"

"You can ask him yourself."

Harding and her agents had set up their headquarters in the Principal's Office. She was sitting at the desk as I stood. There was a knock on the door and it opened on Mr. Goodman.

"I couldn't stop him, Mam," the young FBI man said.

"It's all right, Smith. Mr. Goodman is welcome to join us. Please close the door."

"I hope the tracking is working like you say it will. We're dealing with my son's life," he said.

"It's working fine. We're letting them get far enough away that he won't expect us to be able to track him."

"What are you two talking about?" I asked.

"Timothy and his father agreed to us using a new tracking device so that we could follow Dubois without him knowing. No matter how hard he searches for it, he won't find it," Harding said.

"They injected it in to him. Agent Harding doesn't think that the Blood Mage is up to date on FBI technology."

"They're probably right," Nick said; appearing only to me. "My only concern would be his experience with Blood Magic. A tracker that's in the boy's blood might set off some sort of warning to him. But, you also have the ability to track Timothy. Now that you cast the spell to protect people's spirits, you can find them through the Magic."

"Mr. Goodman, I'm going to ask you to stay here, but Genevieve and Nick, you're coming with me and my agents," Harding said.

"How does she do that?" Nick asked.

"She's very good at inference. Where are we going?" I asked.

"To the van. We're going to follow the Mage and rescue the Father. Any problems or questions?"

"I guess not," I said. "Lead the way." I whispered to Nick, "Can you tell me how to use my magic to track Timothy?"

"It's not that hard, but let's wait until we're in the van. You need to be sitting down so that you can concentrate on the connection."

"Welcome to the van," Harding said as we approached a nondescript black vehicle.

The side door slid open and the guys inside looked surprised to see me. I was a little excited to be riding along with the FBI on this kind of mission. If only it wasn't a kid in danger. I would have rather used myself as bait, if given a choice.

Nick seemed to sense what I was thinking. "Don't worry, Timothy can handle himself."