Into Focus (Focus Series Book 1) (5 page)

And they wanted it completed out of sight of
any surveillance satellites.

Mass graves. Burning trenches.

Thousands of people. The population of
several large towns, or a small city was going to die.

This was something that someone would want to
cover up. This was worth attacking a facility like Blackstone’s, if
they were looking to erase their trail—or if they were trying to
track down whoever was responsible.

But no, that didn’t track. They had had grins
on their faces, and two of them had actual burst into laughter. If
they were looking for clues, they probably wouldn’t be so happy
about it. Unless they were insane or something.

Information. I need more information.

Resolute, I began searching for other
messages pertaining to the chain of emails.

***

A few hours later, I had only learned a few
things. First, the estimate request didn’t have a fixed date
attached, which meant that the buyer wanted to know Blackstone’s
capabilities, but didn’t have the plans in place yet. That was
good; it meant that whatever was going to happen might be
preventable. Second, I learned that I was never going to uncover
the identity of the person or group who was going to do this on my
own.

The email address used was relatively
anonymous, hidden by virtue of being freely available to anyone. I
didn’t know enough about cyber… things? Cyber security? Whatever
you call it, I didn’t know enough about it to track it down without
help.

So I called a friend. Max wasn’t the most
stable person on the planet, but he owed me one, and he was way
better with this kind of thing than I was. He’d either be able to
tell me something, or would be able to put me in touch with someone
who could.

“What do you want?” his watery voice demanded
when he picked up.

“Hello, Max,” I said calmly. Half of Max’s
personality was bluster.

“Rick,” he acknowledged.

“Max, I need your help with something.”

I heard a soft groan. “Rick… the kind of
things you get mixed up in, I’d rather not be anywhere near.”

“Max,” I cautioned.

“Don’t give me the sales pitch, kid. I know
all the moves already. You can’t just—“

“Max, you owe me one. Istanbul,” I reminded
him.

He was silent for a few moments. “Istanbul,”
he growled. I let him remember what had taken place that night, and
the scars across his chest he had acquired there.

“Fine,” he finally said. “What do you need?
It’ll be a few days before I can meet you in the field.”

“I don’t need anything like that. I just need
you to track an email address for me.”

He grunted in surprise. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. I need to know who sent it, or at
least where it was sent from. Can you manage it?”

“Depends. Do you have the address?”

“Better. I have archived message files.”

“Good. Send them to me.”

I considered for a moment how much Max should
know. He’d be in danger if it got out that he had done this. Hell,
I was in danger for reading it.

But he’d be able to do the job faster if he
was given the whole file.

“Max,” I said after a few seconds. “I’ll send
you the files, but trust me on this one: don’t read them.”

He snorted. “I’m not interested in getting
mixed up with anything that’s got your panties in a twist. Just
send the damn files.” He hung up on me.

***

A few hours later, Max called back.

“Okay. So whoever sent those messages bounced
their IP address through a whole bunch of proxy servers before they
even made the email account. I had to go through and eliminate
everything that I know for a fact operates as a proxy for the
public.”

“For the public?”

“Yeah. Anyone who wants to can use a proxy.
Whoever sent these messages used ones that were publicly available
and accessible to just about anyone. Sloppy.”

I grunted. That was good. It meant that
whoever was behind it was cautious, but not an expert. “Okay. Give
me the rundown.”

“I don’t know what these emails are about to
make an educated guess as to exactly where they came from, but I
narrowed it down to three points of possible origin,” he went on,
his voice professional. For all of his complaints, Max liked his
work, and liked showing off. “One of them is a listening post
operating in the middle of the Pacific. Listening to whales or
whatever, I guess. Another is in the middle of Australia, somewhere
in the Outback, I think. And the third is linked to an office
building registered to Focus Incorporated.”

My heart just about stopped.

Focus. Oh God, no. I was right. Oh God, I
wish I wasn’t right.

Max continued, but I wasn’t really listening.
“I did a little digging, and I think this Focus outfit is probably
what you’re looking for. They’re some kind of philanthropic
organization, trying to save the planet or whatever. Like Green
Peace. Or PETA. One of those stupid little places with more hope
than funding, probably.”

“Max,” I said quietly. He stopped talking
immediately. “Thank you. I want you to delete everything I sent
you. Don’t mention this to anyone, please. And…” I sighed. “And you
might want to take a quick vacation.”

He grunted in acknowledgement. “I guess this
means you heard something you don’t like, kid?”

“Yeah. This could get ugly.”

“I’ve seen ugly before,” he said, his voice
steady. I recognized the statement for what it actually was: an
offer of help. Max liked to complain, bluster, and annoy just about
anyone who worked with him, but he was both competent at his job
and was more than willing to stand by your side if he liked you. He
was offering to come and give me a hand with whatever came
next.

But he couldn’t stand with me on this. Not
against Focus.

“Not like this, you haven’t,” I said.
“Consider us square, Max.”

He was silent for a few moments before he
responded. “Okay, kid. Play it how you like. But if you need
something… well, you know how to reach me.”

“Thanks, Max. I’ll keep it in mind.”

We hung up, and I just about dropped the
phone as mind-numbing panic threatened to send me running into the
street in fear.

Wizards. Freaking wizards.

Focus was, by all appearances, a simple
philanthropic organization. They were mainly focused (pun not
intended) on conservation efforts, trying to save the rainforest
and the pandas and all other kinds of warm and fuzzy things.

They were also wizards.

Wizards, like skinchangers, were born with a
degree of magic, though theirs was dramatically different, and
infinitely more terrifying. I could shapeshift, heal rapidly, and
basically can take on just about anyone in a one-on-one fight,
because… well. I can shift my body however I want, pretty much, and
can make my muscles insanely dense, and can rearrange the carbon in
my skin to something like organic diamond if I have enough
time.

Wizards could slap me down without barely a
thought.

They were able to control the elements: Air,
Water, Fire, and Earth. From what I knew about them, some of them
could influence minds. A wizard who knew what he was doing could
level a city block in a few minutes. They could cause earthquakes,
rain fire down, create tornadoes, and bring forth freaking tsunamis
if they so desired. If a wizard felt like it, he could make any
terrorist attack look like a mild disagreement.

The three unarmed people who had attacked
Blackstone were wizards. I had suspected that they might be,
because they were the only thing I can think of that could take on
twelve armed men without firing a shot, or being shot in return.
Even I’d be likely to get hit if I fought a dozen professionals.
Those three didn’t have a scratch. And it’s no wonder why they
didn’t carry guns; they were weapons. A single candle, to a wizard
who could use fire magic, is enough to incinerate a small building.
Air wizards always had access to their medium, and earth wizards
didn’t need to do much to start an earthquake. I doubted that they
used any water magic, considering that they were in the desert,
but… well, the human body is mostly water. Do the math.

If my instincts were right, and I had been
through enough to trust them, then it wasn’t just three wizards who
had attacked Blackstone; it was three wizards who worked for Focus
who had attacked Blackstone in order to cover up a message
inquiring about how to dispose of tens of thousands of bodies.

They were certainly capable of creating that
many.

My family… didn’t like wizards very much.
Wizards and skinchangers knew of each other, but we basically kept
to ourselves. We left them to their own devices, and tried to live
quietly, in peace. My grandfather had had a run-in with one who
almost killed him—something about a disagreement over a woman, if
he told it right—and had hated them ever since. My dad had
inherited the old prejudice, and so did my brothers.

I didn’t particularly care one way or the
other. My brothers were too busy pretending to be Bigfoot to screw
with people to learn much about the world. I was really the only
one in the family who used my abilities for profit. They all worked
regular, honest jobs, salt of the earth kind of people. They made a
hell of a construction crew, though.

But I’d seen things in my line of work. I’d
seen people get hurt, seen the evidence of violence often enough to
hate it.

And Focus, up till now, stood against it.

Though they looked like a regular old
non-profit, they weren’t. They were responsible for saving
thousands of lives—probably millions, actually. I knew that Focus
had been around for centuries, in one form or another, and they had
always stood for humanity. When a natural disaster struck, they
sent people to mitigate the damage. Half the time, when a hurricane
looks like it’s about to hit the East Coast before suddenly
changing its path and heading out to sea? I’d bet dollars to donuts
that Focus is responsible.

From what I knew, they also were the people
who had kept the polar ice caps from melting all the way. And
violent despots were mysteriously killed in the war-torn areas of
Africa from time to time, usually in freak accidents involving
fire. Hell, California might have fallen into the Pacific if it
weren’t for them, for all I knew.

Focus helped people, at the end of the
day.

So why now? Why plan to kill thousands of
people? They could certainly do it if they decided to, but it
didn’t make any damn sense.

I didn’t understand it. They were good
people, or so I had learned over the years.

I sat in my hotel room, trying to puzzle
things out. I stared out the window, considering what I knew, what
I had learned, and what I was going to do.

Why Focus wanted to do these things didn’t
matter, I decided. Either they had decided to go from philanthropy
to world domination without anyone realizing it, or there was a
separate faction gaining who knows how much support within the
organization. I didn’t know if I was about to go up against all of
Focus or just a few insane members of it, but someone had to do
something.

And, at the moment, it looked like that
someone was going to be me.

I went to the mini bar, and pulled out
several tiny bottles of liquor. I twisted off the tops one by one,
and drank swiftly without bothering to look at the labels.

God. Wizards.

When I finished my drinks, I dumped the empty
bottles in the garbage can. Then I gathered up my things, went to
the front desk, and checked out.

I had work to do.

A couple of days later, I was perched on a
power line across the street from an unassuming office building,
home to Focus. Wizards, or agents, as they called themselves,
bustled in and around the place, hurrying from one job to the next.
There was certainly no lack of activity, and I hadn’t seen any
slowdown since I had started watching the building the day
before.

I stretched my wings in discontent. I had
taken on the form of a sparrow, which had excellent distance vision
and even sharper ears. I had been watching the activity, trying to
spot one of several people, but none of them had shown up yet.

I tallied up everything I knew about the
organization once more, keeping my eyes peeled.

There were about six hundred wizards working
for Focus, though the real number could have been higher. They
recruited young, mostly, which made sense. I figured that a young
wizard going through puberty with access to power over the elements
might be dangerous if that kind of thing isn’t taken care of
quickly. Skinchangers were similarly trained young.

Each wizard was aligned with one of the
elements when they grew up, which seemed odd to me. From what I had
been able to scrape together between stories from my family and a
few contacts who were clued in on the supernatural world, wizards
of a certain age could only do magic with one element. Apparently
there was some kind of tradeoff, though, because they were
universally stronger than those who were younger, though whether
that was age and experience or something to do with the way their
magic developed, I wasn’t sure.

The younger ones, the ones who were trained
but whose power hadn’t fully developed, were called initiates. They
were on a kind of rotating apprenticeship, according to a
skinchanger friend who knew a few wizards. They worked with the
agents of different elements, trying to figure out what kind of job
they’d do when they finished growing. I didn’t really understand
all of it, but I knew what it meant: access.

Initiates were expected to travel between the
different branches of Focus, doing different jobs and seeing
different people. It might have been odd for an Air wizard to work
with a Fire wizard, I reasoned, but not for an initiate to work
with both.