Taming The Hunter. Michele Hauf

of bits and bytes.

      “Yes, that one. Let me text you the address. It’s currently owned by an antiques store called Stuart’s Stuff. Hang on.”

      Dane smiled at the flock of seabirds swooping over the beach. But his levity was more for the discovery he’d made weeks earlier while going through some of the Agency’s old files.

      Dane was head of Weapons. Well, he was the only one in the department. It was newly created because there had been a need. Their crew was small and distributed across the United States and Europe. Tor Rindle was the head of the Agency and had been visiting the States when he and Dane had met—over the disintegrating fur, flesh and bones of a werewolf.

      Yeah, that had taken a lot of philosophy-changing faith on Dane’s part. He was a geologist who had never met a conspiracy theory he didn’t want to debunk. But the werewolf? Dane had no choice but to believe. And he had been strangely thankful when Tor had told him about the Agency and offered him the job. Such work aligned with a weird memory he’d had from when he was eight. The Agency was secretive, which was cool. James Bond gadgets were not in abundance, though. They used science to debunk myth and the paranormal—to keep humanity safe from the real monsters.

      Whether or not the dagger listed on the file card possessed any sort of paranormal powers hadn’t been recorded. Dane’s job was to rule out that sort of stuff. Or if not, to put a spin on it. Not that this was an official job. He was simply curious. Or rather, compelled after he’d seen his father’s name listed on the card. A man he had known only for the first few years of his life, and “known” simply meant that he’d been his son and had existed in the man’s life.

      And to think the word compelled set his heart racing. The first time he’d learned the meaning of that word he had been eight. And the few times since then that a compulsion had come upon him, he’d always been whisked back to that time when his mother had found him standing in the basement, sword in hand. She’d been so angry. Outraged. He hadn’t understood.

      But he was compelled to understand now, because it might fill in some integral knowledge he required to become completely whole. To simply know.

      “Sent it,” Jason said over the line. “Do you know this one has a legend attached to it of belonging to a witch hunter? Not sure if the blade itself is supposed to possess magical capabilities. But you know, witches.”

      “Yeah. Witches.” Dane chuckled. “It’s always something.”

      Though he’d not encountered witches in his service to the Agency, he was always up for an adventure, both physically and mentally. And learning about new creatures? Fascinating stuff. Because really? The world was a better place thanks to the Agency’s ability to think fast and to explain away the unexplainable with complicated scientific terms and theories.

      “So why this blade,” said Jason, “if I can ask? I mean, this isn’t an assigned job. What’s so remarkable about this item?”

      Dane twisted at the waist and turned, which flexed his abs. His muscles were rapidly cooling, even with the warm suit to protect him from the chilly temperature. He wasn’t much of a sharer. Then again, Jason was an okay guy, and it wasn’t as though he was going to call up the boss and tell him Dane was using Agency time to pursue personal issues.

      “The last known owner was my father.”

      “Oh man, cool. So, was he the witch hunter?”

      Dane chuckled. “I doubt that very much.”

      On the other hand, what did he know about his father? Edison Winthur had died during a cave spelunking expedition. He’d fallen five hundred yards down a narrow chute, and his body had never been recovered. It had occurred a year after Dane’s mother had divorced him. Dane had been three when Edison died.

      And still his mother’s words resounded loudly in his thoughts. Don’t be like your father. He was such a dreamer.

      “Should I schedule you for a weeklong vacation so we don’t overbook you?” Jason asked.

      Dane had to shake himself back from the haunting warning his mother had issued so many times. “Uh, sure. Give me a few days, at the very least.”

      “Fine. I have a contact name for the shop owner. I’m texting that to you, too.”

      “Where is this place?”

      “In a northern suburb of Minneapolis.”

      “Seriously?” Dane winced as a sea breeze skinned his face with a cold kiss. “Isn’t it, like, thirty degrees in Minnesota right now?”

      “Do I sense an inordinate fear of the weather from the guy who surfs in January?”

      “Never. But you know, anything below fifty is crazy cold.”

      “Ha! You’ll have to bring along a sweater. Give me a call when you have the dagger in hand. Unless...you’re doing this one under the radar?”

      “Not at all. The dagger wasn’t an assigned job, but I have no intention of keeping it a secret. Whatever I find will be documented, and I’ll address any issues regarding spin or how it should be stored when I’ve had a look at it.”

      “Cool. I’ve got you scheduled through the week. I can arrange a flight for you, as well. Will text the details.”

      “Thanks, Jason.”

      Dane hung up and tugged at the zipper on his wet suit.

      The key goal in finding this dagger would, with any luck, answer the questions he’d asked himself since he was eight. Was this the same dagger?

      The secondary goal was more emotionally rooted in the limited knowledge he’d been given about his father. He’d always wanted to learn as much as he could about a man his mother had described as “having his head in the clouds.” And he’d lost track of how many times she’d admonished Dane not to be like his father.

      Having one’s head in the clouds didn’t sound dangerous to Dane. Only if one also lacked logic and rationality, which he subscribed to. Always.

      What an opportunity that would be, to hold something his father had actually owned. Or rather, to hold it once again.

      But had the old man been a witch hunter?

      “Doubt it,” he muttered, and grabbed his board.

      * * *

      Dane had joked with Jason about Minnesota being thirty degrees on this January day. Actually, it was two. Degrees. He’d left the beach for two degrees. And he felt both those single digits breeze through his lightweight wool jacket and permeate his tweed vest and the dress shirt beneath as the chill fixed itself into his skin and sent out wicked feelers for the network of his once-warm veins.

      He rushed down a sidewalk edged with dirty snow heaps the city plow had pushed up as his cab had parked in the nearby lot. The concrete was white from the chemicals added to the sodium chloride used in abundance on the roads. The first time he’d ever heard the term “salting the roads” Dane had imagined a large kitchen saltshaker suspended from the back of a truck. His childhood imagination had been so vivid (when his mother wasn’t aware).

      He had that very imagination to thank for being here right now. And he wasn’t sure whether or not it was something he should be thankful for. Fantasy was best served in small doses, and even then, only on the silver screen or the pages of a novel. Very well; his mother had been right.

      Dane whispered his thanks when the antiques shop door opened to whoosh a welcoming warmth across his frozen cheeks. He huffed and clapped his gloved hands together, stomping his feet, even though there was no snow on his leather loafers. The weird stomping-clapping performance managed to get the warmth flowing through his system.

      A kind-looking woman, who looked to be in her eighties, appeared from behind a glass case and sailed over to the counter, which was littered with an assortment of Halloween ornaments and wooden black cats, bright orange Halloween Festival buttons and a plethora of orange-and-black