'That makes no sense, ' father said over the receiver. I nodded, it was as confusing for me as it was for him.
"And you're certain about the milk?" he pressed. "You said you found bottles of spoiled milk?"
"Mhmm," I replied, leaning against the hallway wall. "The oldest must have been sitting there for a week. I just can't figure out why the milkman kept dropping them off."
There was a long silence on the other end.
"Magnus this isn't 1934, that milkman should have been out of business eighty years ago."
I blinked, and wiped my face. The fact that I was just getting that detail was surprising, especially since my father hadn't missed a beat.
"Whatever hex is on that apartment… It's strong."
"I know. Did Cat…did she say anything useful?" I asked, and turned to Joshua who was pacing the room.
'Nothing that we do not already know. I offered to freeze off a toe, but Askarion…the paranoid idiot.'
I chuckled. I had never heard my father talk this way. I could almost picture him sitting in his office, the entire place packed with frantic workers.
"Yeah. He's paranoid about his powers not working properly." I instinctively flexed my fingers. "i can relate to that."
'Yes I know that.' My father said with a sigh, his voice somewhat calmer. "But making us use phones for communication,like We're some low life mortal."
I did agree on that. The precautions Askarion had asked us to take made no sense. He had spent time with Cathe…the woman, and then came out. Made us promise to hurt the person who had almost killed us, gave us vague restrictions that made no sense, and then proceeded to disappear.
The only reason he even offered an address was because Father had used some emotional blackmail -which I am surprised worked- and made him tell us something for our help in the jungles of South America.
Yeah, that was where we were.
"So what now?" I asked.
"Now you go to that tech genius Joshua was on about. We need to find out about this thaw, and why they want my sons dead."
I nodded, my jaw tightening. There was also the matter of my mother, and his decision to wipe her memories out of my head.
Patience, Magnus.
"Ok." I cut the call and turned to Joshua.
"He's got nothing new."
"Yeah, I could hear you." He replied tensely, finally stopped pacing and sat on the sofa. A pool of water had begun to form beneath our feet, because my genius brother had decided the only way to stop the smell was to freeze the entire bedroom.
And then…his ice was melting…that was not normal.
"Don't you think we ought to at least talk to the Alticans?" Joshua asked.
"Layla said her father had pictures of me in his office. His supposed god daughter almost got us killed. And your lunatic name sake was at his party. No, I don't think there's anything we ought to 'talk' to them about." I growled, dropping the phone down on the counter.
"What about Layla?" Joshua asked, leaning forward.
"What about her?"
"We could talk to her, after all she is the only person who has come clean with us." He replied.
He was right. Between Catherine, My father, the other Alticans and Askarion, Layla was the only person that seemed as genuinely in the dark as we were.
I sighed tiredly and turned to the matter at hand. "Where does this tech Wiz of yours live?"
***
"You're joking." Was all I could manage.
"Enzo Ramirez." a high pitched voice announced whilst offering his hand.
I was looking down at a fuzzy haired fourteen year old kid with braces, his glasses glinting and flashing sunlight into my eyes.
I turned to Joshua "This is the guy?"
Joshua nodded. "This kid is the deal Mags." He walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulders. "Right, Enzo?"
The kid beamed, and nodded.
"You guys sure you don't need anything?" His mother asked from the baseman doorway. Joshua offered a charming smile.
"We're fine Mrs Ramirez." He said with a mischievous wink. The woman blushed before disappearing back up the stairs.
I didn't know which was more disgusting, watching Joshua flirt with that woman, or being in a child's basement, brought this low…
"Ease up Magnus." Joshua said, almost as if he had been reading my mind, which he most definitely most have been. "Enzo has come true for me more times than I can count."
"In what way?" I asked, hardly keeping the anger out of my voice.
"He didn't know how to DM girls on Instagram, or how to create a tiktok account. I taught him everything he now knows." Enzo said with a proud, gap-toothed smile. Joshua immediately clamped a hand over the boy's mouth.
"Let's not go into the details."
I didn't even know what they were on about. What was a tiktok? All that did not matter now. All that concerned me was the fact that Joshua had put the gate of this entire investigation into the hands of a fourteen year old child, whose base of operations was his parents' basement, and had only a dying desktop for equipment.
Joshua smiled, like he had been reading my mind again. I immediately set up a mental block.
"Oh ye of little faith." He removed his hand from Enzo's mouth. "Alright kid. Show him the good stuff."
Enzo smiled at me, his face beaming with pride. And then turned to a shelf filled with old musty books.
"What good stuff?" I impatiently turned to my brother who had the guts to place his index finger to his lips.
"Hush now Mags. Let the child work."
I was already making up the stories I would tell my father about why my brother was missing, when a heavy thud drew my attention back to the kid.
The shelf had been pushed back inward, revealing a dark room that was filled with harsh blue lights, reflecting from a hundred high tech display screens, all centered around a central chair.
"What the he.."