Chapter 24

I worked diligently on locating all of the abandoned buildings in town. There were a lot, way too many for us to search. So, I started narrowing the list down, taking out places in densely populated areas. I was about a quarter of the way through the list when there was a knock at the office door. Kerberos growled softly and glared at the door. I motioned for him to stay as I got up from the desk and made my way to the door.

"Who is it?" My voice was cautious. I wouldn't have been nervous if it weren't for the fact that the dog was on edge.

"It's Barry. Can I come in?"

I opened the door for the other Reaper and gave him a relieved smile. "Hey. What's up?"

"I heard Thanatos was missing. Hel thought I could help you out with the trying to find him."

"Thanks," I nodded and let the man into the office, closing the door behind him. Kerberos continued to growl, red eyes fixed on the man. "Kerberos, stop it. Barry's here to help find your owner," I said in a stern voice. The dog growled again before resting his heads on the floor, still shooting the Reaper that had joined us dirty looks.

I sighed and shook my head before leading the dark-haired man to the desk. "I was just narrowing down the number of abandoned buildings in town. Removing all of the ones in densely populated areas. If I were smarter, I'd have it narrowed down to one building, and it would be the right one."

"Hey. You're pretty damn smart. Don't set unrealistic expectations for yourself," Barry said, gently patting my back. "Do you want me to see if I can hack into their computer system and find out where he's being held?"

"Can you actually do that?"

"Yeah."

"If you're able to hack into their system, could you hack the live feed of Thanatos and find out where he's being held from that?" I asked, hopefully.

"I could try."

"That's good enough for me." I motioned for Barry to sit at the desk and gave him the address, including the suite number, of where I met with Azrael.

While Barry worked on hacking the system, I grabbed my laptop off the desk and got back to work on narrowing down the list of abandoned buildings. We both worked in silence until Hel brought in the dinner I'd ordered for us.

We chatted while we ate, going over different ideas and theories about where Thanatos could possibly be. Barry told me that if he'd brought his laptop in, things would be going quicker since it already had the software, he needed to hack a system. Since Thanatos' computer didn't, he had to do it all manually. When I asked why he didn't grab his laptop, he informed me that it was still at home. He said that tomorrow he'd bring it in so that he could continue and hopefully get into the system faster.

When we were done eating, we both went back to our tasks and worked diligently. I fell asleep while going through the list, fatigue catching up with me. I don't know how long I slept, but Barry was gone when I woke up. He left a note telling me that he would find a couple of Reapers that we could spare and have them start searching the abandoned buildings that I had found. I was grateful that he was getting started on the search. Though I felt bad that I fell asleep and didn't get much done, maybe a third of the list by that point, and it was still a long list. Stretching my hands over my head, I let out a yawn. I then gathered up the list and woke up my laptop; I was lucky I had plugged it in last night so the battery wouldn't be dead. I resumed narrowing down the list, feeling my brain go numb as I did so.

"I brought you breakfast," I looked up to see Hel walking in with a Dunkin' Donuts bag and a coffee in her hand. "I know it's not healthy, but, hey, it's food," she said with a chuckle, setting the bag and coffee down on the coffee table. "Did you guys have any luck?"

"Thank you. No. Not yet. Oh. I meant to thank you for telling Barry to come and help me."

Hel gave me a confused look, frowning slightly. "I didn't tell him to come help you. I was at my desk when he came up and told me that you had called him to come help."

"What? Why would he lie?"

"I don't know. All he had to do was say that he wanted to help you. I'm sure you wouldn't have turned down the assistance."

I nodded. "Hey, you've been working here a long time, right?"

"400 years next Tuesday. Why?"

"Have you ever known Kerberos to growl at anyone?"

"He used to growl at Frank, but once he got rid of his cat, Kerby was good with him. Why?"

"He kept growling at Barry. I had to repeatedly tell him to stop. Does Barry have a cat, maybe?"

"No. He's allergic."

I nodded my head and took a sip of my coffee. The caffeine woke me up even more. "Keep an eye on Barry, Hel. I don't trust liars."

Hel nodded her head and headed back out to her desk to continue working. I nibbled the coffee roll she had bought me as I got back to work.