Chapter 3 An Entrepreneurial Omega
An Entrepreneurial Omega
“Well?”
I stared at the photo in the file again, committing every line of her face to memory.
Sage Hexwood… You’re going to make me very rich.
I looked up when the valet brought up my car, cringing at the sound of her gears shifting horribly. Didn’t anyone know how to treat perfect classics like her these days?
The valet hopped out and gave me my keys, holding his hand out expectantly.
“Oh, you want a tip?”
He nodded.
“Learn how to drive stick.”
The smile dropped from his face and he rolled his eyes, heading off to get Garrick’s car next.
Garrick still stared at me, waiting for an answer.
“Well, what?” I asked.
“Can you do it? I want my fifteen percent.”
My jaw ticked in annoyance. “I’ve never taken a job I couldn’t handle, and considering I’m still standing here, alive and breathing, it’s rude of you to even ask.
” I got in my baby, cooing and apologizing for the valet’s rough handling as I patted the dashboard.
Then I rolled down the window and yelled out to him.
“And it’s fifteen percent of the original amount, by the way—your cut doesn’t include negotiations. ”
His mouth dropped open before his eyes narrowed. “Oh, you son of a—”
I revved the engine and peeled out with a satisfying screech, leaving him behind and chuckling to myself.
Every second was costing me, and as much as I reveled in pissing Garrick off, I needed to get to work and deliver, the sooner the better.
I pulled up outside of a nearby coffee shop, grabbing the file and my laptop and heading inside to snag a table in the back. Then I bought a green tea, put on my headphones, and got to work.
The report the Premier had provided me with was scant at best, and most of the pertinent details were from five years ago or earlier. He didn’t have anything more recent on her?
I mean, it wasn’t that hard to gather intel these days.
Anyone could type a name in a search engine and find almost limitless results.
Most Magiks probably weren’t even aware of how much free information was available about themselves online, as long as you knew where to look.
And for a young omega who grew up in the digital age, she’d likely have several pages worth of results.
So imagine my surprise when nearly nothing came up.
I found an old blog post from a high school “young entrepreneurs” club in Cindralis mentioning her as an officer, and an article about the soft opening of a new cafe from the newspaper for Umbris University, The Midnight Quill.
According to the reporter, she had gone there on a date with an elf named Kaleb Evandell.
Date… a weird knot formed in my stomach that I suppressed with a sip of my tea.
“The Pistachio Latte is really good,” said third-year business and computer science double major Sage Hexwood. “I’ll definitely be back.”
I clicked on the link for the cafe just in case, but it had shut down last year.
“Hm,” I said to myself, moving on to the friend.
A search for “Kaleb Evandell” yielded a player profile page for a local chapter of a Starlight Dominion guild, a niche tabletop RPG that was growing in popularity these days.
I fought a swell of jealousy and the urge to snort and call him a nerd. Why would I even care? Besides, I’d always wanted to try playing myself, if I ever found the time. Or the friends.
But that page was also from several years ago, and included a picture of him from a city-state-wide event promoting the game. I spied a familiar head of brown curls at the table next to him and smiled.
“Interesting…”
I duplicated the page to keep it open, and then went back to click on more links about this Kaleb guy.
The next one was his obituary. From five years ago.
Ah. Well, that was sad. Wasn’t it?
No mention of the cause of death, though, which wasn’t surprising. I made a note to check his autopsy records, just in case, and then went back to the page with the search engine results for Sage, but the links were less and less useful the further I went down.
Next, I logged onto my dummy MagikGraph account, but she didn’t have a profile, which was also weird. I thought most women her age, especially cute little omegas, loved posting pictures of their lives online.
I tapped my finger on the table, my other hand cradling my chin as I thought.
I’d only just brushed the surface, so I wasn’t out of ideas yet. It was just strange for someone like her to have such a small internet presence.
An idea crossed my mind, and I went to the Echo Archive, a site that stored snapshots of websites across the years. I typed in the URL for MagikGraph with her name, and sure enough, there were steady records of her having a regularly updated account right up until about five years ago.
Her posts were pretty mundane, but I still found myself entranced by each one.
Mentions of books she was reading, video games she was playing, and recipes she’d tried.
Then the few selfies were of her and a merfolk, tagged as Nellie Delmar.
I wrote down the name and kept going, also jotting down a reference she’d made about her job at the Sable Mansion.
But I was surprised not to find any of the vapid, omega party girl pictures or updates I’d expected to see.
Okay, yes, that was a stereotype, but cute omega business majors weren’t usually homebodies in my experience.
I saved the links and finished my tea, checking the clock. It was past one in the morning, which for most of Lundaria meant the dead of night. But for Noctis, it was right after lunch.
Someone, probably Sage herself, had tried hard to cover up her digital trail, and while I hadn’t even started looking into her bank accounts or anything a little more complicated yet, I figured it was time to hit the pavement the old-fashioned way while I was here.
It wasn’t that long ago that she had been a student, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to get a hold of some of her records.
I blinked my eyes slowly and stretched. I was running on adrenaline and fumes, so I got another tea to go and walked the fifteen minutes to the Umbris University campus.
Umbris U was the best college in Lundaria, followed closely by the Aureum Institute in Halcyon, and despite the need to adapt to vampire hours, Magiks from all over flocked here for the prestige and opportunity.
I’d never gone to college myself, since until I’d left Ignareth I’d been expected to take over the family business, no degree necessary. But I’d been to this campus a few times before for work.
The air always carried a crisp edge, cool no matter the time of year. Towering Gothic spires loomed overhead, their stained-glass windows catching the glow of the city lights.
Perfectly manicured lawns adorned with night-blooming roses and fairy lights filled the space between the buildings, and I walked down a winding cobblestone path, flanked by statues of vampire scholars long dead.
It had been nearly a century since they’d opened their doors to other types of Magiks, but the celebrated legacy of the school hadn’t caught up yet.
I narrowly avoided students with their large backpacks and travel mugs full of caffeine or blood as I made my way to the newer business school, its sleek, modern edges and glass walls a stark contrast to the ivy-covered, gargoyle-adorned towers of the more storied departments.
The registrar’s office was on the third floor, and a bored-looking student worker greeted me as I approached.
“Can I help you?” the witch beta asked.
“Yes, I was wondering if I could see the records for a student who was here five years ago. Her name is Sage Hexwood.”
The witch raised an eyebrow. “And you are?”
I flashed my bounty hunter license. While Premiers refused to extradite their own citizens, they also very much wanted some recourse to punish Magiks who committed crimes in their city-states.
So they tacitly allowed our existence, acknowledging the “necessary evil” of having cross-border agents who could collect offenders.
As long as we were registered with a handler and didn’t get into trouble, we were allowed to do our jobs without too much interference or red tape.
She studied it carefully, finally sighing and opening up a program on her computer, typing quickly.
“She’s not here.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean there’s no record of her being here.”
That didn’t make sense. This was basically the only fact that the Premier had given me. I doubted he’d be wrong.
At least, not purposefully wrong, because what would be the point of putting me on the wrong track? He wanted her found soon, so every second wasted due to incorrect information was screwing him over, too. “Are you sure you spelled her name right? Last name is Hexwood, H-E-X…”
The witch rolled her eyes. “Yes, I spelled it correctly. She’s not here.”
I leaned over the desk to see her screen. Sure enough, a little window had popped up front and center:
No record found.
“Does this only search for students from the business school? She was double majoring in computer science. Would that make a difference?”
She shook her head. “Any student who took a business class would be here, and there is no Sage Hexwood.”
“Sage Hexwood?”
A werewolf beta in his late forties walked in, brown leather messenger bag strapped across his chest and bicycle helmet in his hand. A reflective band was Velcroed around his pant leg, and small circles of sweat had formed under his armpits.
He pushed up his glasses, his graying curly hair an artful mess on top of his head. “I know Sage. What do you mean there’s no record?”
He walked around the desk and the witch rolled her chair out of the way, letting him give it a go. Leaning over the keyboard, he hit enter after typing her name and then furrowed his furry brows. “Huh, that’s really weird. I know she was here. She was one of my best students in that cohort.”