Anton frowned at his phone, sliding his finger down the screen and reading the e-mail he’d been sent. He’d yet to convince his bosses of the potential of social networking, but he himself made sure to have multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts. They had possibility as corrupting influences, but more than that they were like an instant plug in. It was amazing how handy they were for gathering information – sometimes however, like today, he didn’t like what he was seeing.

Drumming his fingers on the table top, he barely even looked up when his long awaited guest finally slid into the seat opposite him. Instead he merely raised his latte in greeting before taking a sip.

“What news on the Rialto?” His newly arrived colleague asked.

“None.”

“So why do you look so pissed?”

“Because no news is not good news, especially when we’re talking about high profile musicians with important roles in the apocalypse. You got anything for me?”

“No.” Alastor shrugged, running his finger around the rim of his mug rather than drinking the coffee. “It’s odd, it’s like the guy just vanished. Even our people on the inside haven’t heard from him in three or four days.”

“Hmm.” Anton’s eyebrows knitted together in an exasperated glare. It was amazing enough that he’d managed to convince the bigwigs to keep him on the job to begin with, after he’d let himself get caught and tortured – he was under no illusions that they’d keep him there if he screwed up and lost Timberlake for too long. “Is this usual?”

“Not completely unheard of, but still pretty weird. His cousin was due in town to see him and he doesn’t usually skip out on her.”

“Okay.” He let out an irritated sigh. “What’s the betting this isn’t a coincidence?”

“Coincidence with what?”

Sometimes, he really wanted to scream. Every time he had to deal with one of these dim witted foot soldiers with no appreciation for the bigger picture, he cursed himself for screwing up and getting demoted. He was so much better than this.

“The guardians worked out we were following him. They caught me and tortured me for twenty four hours straight trying to wheedle information out of me, and then the demon we sent after our boy disappears into thin air along with said boy. Do you really need me to spell it out for you?”

He took Alastor’s blank eyed silence as a ‘yes.’

“Starts with ‘av’ and ends in ‘enger.’ My bet is they iced Malachi and took Timberlake.”

Alastor’s expression hardened. “I thought you said you’d told them nothing. How would they know to go after him?”

“And I did tell them zippo, but you’re not connecting the dots here.” That was a lie, but then Anton wasn’t stupid enough to admit to giving up information. The strict rule was to give up nothing no matter how much they bled you, but nobody ever seemed to see that the better strategy was to use a little selective truth in order to send them on the wrong path. He knew far more than he’d let on but as far as the guardians were concerned he’d told them all he knew, thus ensuring they’d leave him alone for at least the time being. He was a very good little actor.

“Enlighten me.” Alastor may have been a little slow but he was well muscled and aggressive, staring Anton down with the eyes of an impatient predator.

“If they took me in the first place then obviously they know something is up – but they don’t know what, that’s what they wanted to get out of me. But of course as a precaution they’d tip the avengers to look out for greater demon presence, even if they didn’t know why, and if they caught a demon tailing somebody of course they’d kill it and take the target into protective custody. It’s not like these white hats are anything but boringly predictable.”

Alastor snorted. “Take a hell of a fighter to take down Malachi, even for an avenger.”

“Well since Charmian was in town not more than a week or so ago, betting is if it wasn’t her it was one of her faithful lapdogs. They do tend to follow her around like puppies.”

Anton was amused as Alastor spluttered on his coffee, losing a little colour. “Charmian’s in town?”

“Was. Whether she still is I can’t be sure, but best to assume the worst.”

They were so afraid of her, it was funny. People thought Anton was afraid of her after she had wrecked his career and kicked his ass multiple times, but it wasn’t true. He had more than enough respect for her ability to kill him, but he had something the rest of the cowards he worked with didn’t: a brain. Staying safe from Charmian was as simple as staying out of sight out of mind. He’d managed that for centuries before she finally noticed him, and even now she had she regarded him as an irritating but not particularly troublesome little gnat.

Although it had cost him dearly to give her that impression, it had saved his life. He’d quickly realised by the damage she’d done that he could either fight her in an attempt to maintain his reputation and probably die trying, or he could quickly surrender thereby convincing her – but unfortunately also his bosses – that he wasn’t a threat. He’d worked very hard to downplay just how dangerous he was, and even though it had left him rotting in the pit for a century or so it had kept him alive. The problem with the rest of the idiots he was forced to deal with was that they were far too obvious, they all wanted square up to a legend under the delusion that they could take her and they all paid for it with their lives. It wasn’t like her astounding successes hadn’t been publicised, they ought to know better.

He often wondered if they’d still underestimate her so spectacularly had she been a man.

“Well,” Alastor swallowed, trying not to give away just how nervous the idea of Charmian made him, “whoever it was I’m betting they took out Ipos too. I figured he’d just slipped off the radar, but if the Dream Team are in town then makes sense that he’d be dead.”

“When did Ipos go missing?”

“Yesterday.”

“Hmm.” Anton took a pensive gulp of lukewarm latte before continuing. “Little too early to assume he’s dead but you’re not wrong, if he did bite the dust that means they’re probably still around. Which means wherever they have JT it’s local.”

“What good does that do us? You know they’ll have him holed up somewhere covered in sigils where we can’t get in.”

“You have many talents, Alastor.” He silently commented to himself that none of them were intellectual. “But you do suffer myopia.”

“My what?”

It wouldn’t have been a good idea to directly call him short sighted, so Anton pressed ahead instead. “They can’t keep somebody as famous as Justin Timberlake locked up for too long without people reporting him missing. We just have to watch out and let them bring him back out to us. In the meantime, I go to the bosses and bargain for a few reassignments up top.”

“Why?”

Lord, if only he could stab the idiot through the heart and be done with him. Why was he reduced to working with such pond scum? Back in the day he’d been partnered with people who understood him, who were his equals. Sure they were all bloodsucking bastards who constantly sought to claw their way up the hierarchy at his expense, but at least he didn’t have to spoon feed them.

“Because the avengers know we’re around, so they’ll be hunting us. They can’t tell Timberlake what’s going on but they’ll probably have fed him some cover story that’ll put him on his guard – they’re a government agency, he’s on a terrorist target list, some bull like that – and warned him not to trust anybody new. Right now we need people with a little more ability to blend in.”

“You saying my boys can’t blend in?” Alastor bristled.

He raised an eyebrow at him and then rolled his eyes. “You’re all hulks with buzz cuts and tattoos; most bystanders would assume you’ve done hard time. No offence but you don’t exactly scream ‘look at me, I’m trustworthy.’”

“What are you saying?”

If he wasn’t a demon, Anton would have been asking God to save him from the moron opposite. “We need to get close to Timberlake, not send him running to his bodyguards. We need a little more subtlety which means lower profile agents.”

“So you want me to ask Abbadon to switch out our guys?”

It simply couldn’t be possible to be any slower. It was like the man had a negative IQ. “That’s exactly what I want you to do.”

And in the meantime, as per usual, Anton would be forced to do all the important stuff himself because nobody else had the requisite brain cells to do it. Woe was him.