Chapter Two
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DANIEL MARSH HAD BEEN a hunter for twelve years. Archie wasn’t sure if that meant anything, but Daniel had left suddenly after a specific operation. Archie didn’t have any details yet, but he hadn’t reached out to his contacts within the hunters.
Because yes, he had contacts within the hunters.
Just like Jasper, not every hunter thought that what the hunters did was good.
It could be sometimes. Archie would be incredibly happy if the hunters managed to get their hands on Kester and lock him up, or even better, kill him.
Kester was a danger, both for humans and monsters, and he wasn’t someone that Archie could take care of like he would a regular monster.
Kester would easily kill him, which wasn’t something Archie wanted to happen.
He’d rather let the hunters deal with the guy, but of course, they never were useful when it counted.
Anyway, he hadn’t yet reached out to his contacts because he’d hoped to find more about Daniel using his usual methods.
He had a way to get into the hunters’ archives, and he used it sparingly, mostly because usually, he didn’t have a reason to.
It was the first time someone had asked him to investigate a hunter’s death, and usually, his clients were monsters, and the people he dealt with were, too.
But not Daniel. Daniel had been human and a hunter.
He’d worked on operations within the organization, and Archie had hoped to find proof of that.
He thought he’d find documents and reports that would give him an idea of who Daniel was, and he had, but nowhere was there any mention of why Daniel had left.
The only thing Archie had been able to find was that he’d done so after a specific operation, but he couldn’t even find out what had happened during that operation.
Something had to have happened. From what Archie could see, Daniel had been a good hunter.
He’d closed many cases, and unlike a lot of the people Archie had to deal with when it came to the hunters these days, Daniel had seemed to be good at his job.
He’d listened to people, monsters and humans alike.
He’d written down reports for every witness and every person involved in the cases he’d worked on, no matter what they were.
More often than not, monsters were dismissed, but not by him.
It reminded Archie of Jasper, which was probably why he’d accepted this case. Archie was very different from Petra, but they shared loving an ex-hunter. They both knew what it was like, except Petra also knew what it was like to lose her hunter.
But Daniel hadn’t just been a hunter. He’d been a partner, a son, a sibling from what Archie had been able to find.
When he was a hunter, he’d taken his job seriously, and the fact that he’d left suddenly and that Archie couldn’t find any details about that made him nervous.
It was clear something was wrong, but he didn’t know what.
The records on the last operation were vague. There were no details, be it about what had happened or why Daniel had left.
Archie scrolled down the page, eager to find a signature. Maybe if he could find out who Daniel’s superior had been, he could get a little further in his investigation.
He stopped scrolling, then went back up to stare at the symbol on his screen.
It wasn’t big, but it was there, and it was undeniably the symbol Petra had photographed.
This one was steadier, as if whoever had drawn it hadn’t been in a rush or overwhelmed by emotions.
It was right there in the corner of a scanned document, right in the middle of the report on the last operation Daniel had worked on with the hunters.
Archie continued scrolling until he reached the bottom of the page.
The date of the report was from twenty years ago, but it didn’t help much, either.
He needed more information, and the only way to get it was to reach out to the hunters he knew.
He didn’t like to do that because it meant calling in favors, but he might not have a choice.
If he wanted to find out what happened to Daniel, he’d have to make that compromise.
“Archie?” Jasper’s voice called out from the entrance of the office.
Archie instantly relaxed. “My office,” he called out.
Jasper appeared there, a smile on his face. “Of course you’re in your office. When are you not?”
“Are you telling me I work too much?”
“What do you think?”
“I think that even though I definitely do, you understand why I do it, and you’re proof.”
Jasper shrugged as he walked around the desk.
He leaned down to kiss Archie, and Archie pressed up, meeting him halfway.
The kiss was short and sweet, and while Archie wished he could deepen it, he could hear that Braith was on the phone in his own office and Cullen was probably there, too.
Maybe if the office had been empty except for him and Jasper, they could’ve had some fun.
As it was, Jasper was just a distraction.
An extremely welcome one.
“What are you doing here?” he asked Jasper, but Jasper was looking at the computer.
“Is this about the case you’re working on right now? The hunter?” Jasper asked.
“It is. I’m trying to find out what happened that pushed him to leave the hunters suddenly. So far, I haven’t had much luck.”
“But you’re looking at a twenty-year-old report.”
“A little more than twenty, but yes. It’s the last case he worked before leaving, so I figured there might be something there.”
“Did you find anything?”
“Nothing that helps me find out who killed him.”
“Maybe we can look into this together.”
Archie was only partially surprised that Jasper was interested.
He hadn’t left the hunters because he hadn’t liked investigating.
He’d left because he hadn’t liked the way the hunters were guided by what the higher-ups expected them to do.
He’d never been the kind of person who disliked monsters and would be more than happy to find a reason to imprison a lot of them.
In fact, he’d been fighting against that even when he was a hunter, before he knew that he wasn’t fully human.
It was one of the reasons Archie had fallen for him.
But as much as Archie wished he could keep Jasper out of this, Jasper might be a good source of information, and, more importantly, probably wouldn’t want to be kept out of it. If he could help Archie, he would, even if Archie didn’t ask for it.
* * * *
ARCHIE HAD TOLD JASPER about the case, but he hadn’t gone into details. Jasper hadn’t asked because it wasn’t his job or his case, but maybe he should. It was clear that something was bothering Archie, and if there was anything Jasper could do to help, he wanted to do it.
He sat in one of the chairs on the other side of Archie’s desk and gestured at him. “Tell me more about the case.”
“Are you sure?”
“I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you say that you’re just a mechanic and that you’re going to stay out of hunter business from now on?”
Jasper wrinkled his nose. It was true that he’d said that, and he’d meant it. He still did. He wanted nothing to do with hunters, especially not his father.
But he was curious. He remembered Daniel, and he wanted to know what had happened to the guy, even though they hadn’t been friends.
He supposed that he was intrigued by the fact that Daniel had been dating a monster, just like Jasper.
In a way, they’d been very similar. They were both hunters who’d left the family, as Leroy liked to call it.
They were both ex-hunters who’d fallen in love with a monster and had accepted it for what it was.
Well, Jasper didn’t know how Daniel had felt about that, but it seemed like he and Petra had been together for a while, so obviously, he’d been fine with it.
It was impossible to ignore the parallels between them, but Daniel was dead. Jasper had almost died several times recently. He’d come way too close, and he could imagine what it would’ve been like for Archie if he had been killed. They hadn’t been together that long, but it would have hurt.
“So what are you looking at for Daniel?” Jasper asked.
Archie turned his computer screen so that Jasper could see it, too. “Like you said, this is an old report. There’s not much in it, which is surprising.”
Jasper leaned forward. It was surprising, yet at the same time, it wasn’t. “I’ve seen this kind of report before. Someone is trying to hide something.”
“These are the hunters we’re talking about. When are they not trying to hide something?”
Jasper huffed out a laugh. “True. But someone’s trying to hide something, and that’s when Daniel left the hunters, right?”
Archie nodded and scrolled. “As you can see, someone scanned handwritten documents. They added them to the file, which is the only reason I found this.”
Jasper squinted at the symbol on the screen. It was in the corner of one of the documents, and clearly didn’t belong. Hunters didn’t use symbols. It was in the case file, but it was impossible to tell how it was involved with just the few details in the paperwork.
“I’ve seen this before,” Jasper murmured, still staring at the black mark.
“Oh?”
“Before you get too excited, I don’t remember where or what it means.” Jasper glanced at Archie. “Can I get a picture of that?”
“I’ll send one to you. Petra found the symbol on the wall when she found Daniel’s body.”
Jasper leaned back in his chair. “She’s the one who found him?”
“She was.”
“God, I can’t even imagine what that was like. Is she okay?”
“As okay as she can be, considering. She wants to know what happened to Daniel, and I don’t blame her. She was really scared that I wouldn’t want to help.”
“That makes sense.”
“Unfortunately, it does. I told her about you, though, and she relaxed a bit.”
Jasper grinned. “Proud of me, are you?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? I’m proud to be with you and that you chose me of all people. You’re a good person to be with, Jasper.”