Scintilla

by Elizabeth Noble

  “Thank you. And thank you for letting him stay here.”

  “From what you’ve told me there are some very nasty men doing despicable things around here and I want them gone. Brandon needs to be safe while you get rid of them. And they will be gotten rid of.” This time his grandmother pointed at Raul. Her expression was deadly serious. “Understood?”

  “I will. That’s a promise.” He felt a little silly thinking his grandmother, or anyone in his family would give him grief over changing his duties at club El Corazon.

  By the time Brandon reemerged from his room Raul’s stomach had passed up rumbling and was roaring at him.

  “Sorry I took so long.” Brandon looked over the table and the steaming dishes Natty and Raul were arranging. “This looks great.” He rubbed his tummy and Raul bit his lip to keep from moaning.

  “I thought I was going to start chewing on the table soon,” Raul teased and pulled one chair away from the table for Brandon. “You are here.”

  “You could have just eaten without me,” Brandon said.

  Raul pulled a second chair out for Natty, but she slipped into another one, so Brandon was between them. She said a short blessing for their meal before she began to put items on Brandon’s plate.

  “In Spain it is the custom for everyone in the family to sit and talk while they eat. My grandfather came from Andalusia, Spain and settled in Honduras when he met my grandmother and her brothers. One of the brothers was quite the chef, in fact so much so that the El Corazon Club there has a popular restaurant associated with it. They taught me to cook, so our meals aren’t traditional Spanish or Honduran or American.”

  “Yaya heard how much you enjoyed Sangria, so she made her special recipe for us.” Raul stood and retrieved the pitcher from the refrigerator and poured a glassful for each of them.

  “Tell me, Brandon, what’s it like being a scintilla?” Natty asked. Raul should’ve expected her to ask Brandon something like this, but her directness often took him by surprise.

  Brandon grinned. “Sometimes it’s shocking.”

  Natty laughed and reached up, squeezing Raul’s arm.

  “I like him.”

  “I’m not sure anyone has ever asked me that before,” Brandon continued. “People ask me if I can do this or that, but no one has ever asked me what it’s like. I’ve always been one, so….” He shrugged. “I don’t have much to compare it too. Sometimes this thing I have, that I am, can be difficult, but really, I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

  “Even if there are people who’d take advantage of your ability—and you?” Natty continued.

  “Aren’t there people who’ll do that no matter what someone can do?” Brandon asked softly between bites of his food.

  “There are,” Natty agreed.

  Raul watched them while he while they ate. He saw Brandon was winning his grandmother over without even trying.

  “Raul’s not afraid of me, of touching me, or just being near me,” Brandon said.

  Natty sat back and studied Brandon. “Are people actually hesitant to touch you?”

  Brandon nodded. “Yes, sometimes. They think I’ll electrocute them.”

  Raul smiled and sipped his Sangria when Natty made a point to put her hand on Brandon’s back for a few seconds.

  “You won’t find anything like that nonsense going on in this house,” Natty said.

  “Considering how Raul is, I didn’t think so. Most people get prejudices from their families,” Brandon said. “The men who kidnapped me were very afraid of me.” He looked from Raul to Natty and back again. “The feeling was mutual.”

  “It seems to me you had good reason to be,” Natty said.

  “Thank you. Now, you were kind enough to make this wonderful meal, I should do the cleaning,” Brandon said.

  Raul saw how Natty’s approval of Brandon doubled. He breathed an internal sigh of relief. His grandmother’s consent was important to Raul.

  “Normally I’d take you up on that offer. However, there are horrible men that need to be caught and what they’re doing needs to be stopped. You and Raul have things to do, so I’ll take care of the dishes and house,” Natty said.

  “And to that end, we should get started.” Raul carried his plate to the sink. He took his notebook out and sat back down. “Let’s start with the kids. What do you remember about them? If we can find something they have in common, we might be able to figure out where they’re being snatched from.”

  “There were always five at a time, but the mix of boys and girls wasn’t always the same,” Brandon said.

  “Okay, race, nationality, age?” Raul asked.

  “They were all around fifteen, give or take a year or two. I don’t think any of them were old enough to drive, I remember talking to a few of them about how they had that to look forward to. I tried—” Brandon’s voice cracked, and he looked away.

  Raul put down his pen and scooted his chair closer to Brandon’s, taking his hand. “You were ready to take on a large group of armed people you had no idea were friendly to protect the children we found with you. Don’t try to tell yourself you didn’t do enough.”

  “But all the other ones, the ten or fifteen other kids, I can’t remember how many groups.” Brandon stopped and chewed on his lower lip for a few seconds. “There was always one that seemed familiar, like she’d been there before. There were little things that were different, hair, skin tone.” He shrugged. “I can’t be sure it wasn’t my mind playing tricks.”

  “It could be useful. Maybe some sort of ‘type’ they were looking for. Always a girl?” Raul wrote that down in his notebook.

  “Yes.” Brandon nodded. “I’m almost positive.”

  “We’ll do all we can to find them. The first step is finding the men who’re taking them,” Raul said softly. He pulled his hand away, so he could write more, but didn’t put distance between them. “You talked to the kids, you saw them, tell me about them.”

  Brandon nodded and took a swallow of Sangria. “Some of them talked as if they knew each other and mentioned the names of other kids I think were in there, too, but at different times.”

  “Were any of them related?” Natty asked.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “How long was there between one group being taken away and the next arriving?” Raul asked.

  Brandon shook his head. “I’m not sure. A day, maybe two. The way they had me drugged up so much, time is fuzzy.”

  “Why five?” Natty interjected. “Isn’t that pretty specific?”

  Raul and Brandon looked at each other. “That’s an excellent question. Why not grab three or six or even one?” Raul asked and made another notation in his book. “And where were they taken from? That’s what bothers me the most.”

  “Um… a bunch of kids all roughly the same age. A school or maybe some sort of trip they’d be on?” Brandon suggested. “I went to Washington D.C. in the eighth grade, there was probably seventy of us.”

  “That would’ve been all over the news, particularly if they were being snatched from the same place. I would believe one kid being taken from a school group, but not five. Five is a herd of teens. They’re loud, they’d fight back, they’ll gang up on someone posing a threat and schools usually have pretty tight security for those things, there’s chaperones and… I think grabbing a pack of kids from a school group would be more bother than it’s worth.” Raul wrote as he talked. “And all of them didn’t need to be grabbed at the same time, but I’m guessing they were picked up in quick order and in close proximity to one another.” He chewed his bottom lip and leaned back in the chair, bouncing the end of his pen off the notebook. “I want to get another look at the warehouse, that whole area and there are databases that keep a registry of missing children.”

  “Provided they were reported,” Natty pointed out.

  Nodding, Raul huffed a breath. “Exactly.” He looked at Brandon. “You wouldn’t know if any of those children are queer, would you?”


  Brandon tilted his head and rubbed his cheek, clearly struggling to remember details. As the seconds ticked by his expression sobered and color drained from his face.

  “Gay, lesbian, a couple were trans I think. And religious.”

  “What religion?” Raul asked.

  Brandon shook his head. “I’m not sure. I can’t even say it was one religion. A few had tatts that were things like crosses, angel wings, even scriptures. Others talked about churches, but I don’t think the same kind of church.”

  “Where do children get tattoos?” Natty asked them. “Those are expensive.”

  “There’s ways someone who lives on the streets can get them and some of the older kids might have had them already,” Raul explained. “They weren’t kidnapped or runaways, they’re probably not in a database, at least not most of them. We’ll check what we can anyway.” He stopped and looked at Brandon and then Natty. “These are children that no one reports. If I were a betting man I’d put a week’s salary from both jobs on the fact these children were all LGBTQ and all of them were booted from their families because of that fact.”

  “That is a horrible thing to do to your child,” Natty spat. “No better than the people who spirit them away from the streets and sell them.”

  Raul closed his notebook and stood up. “Unfortunately, it happens all the time, Abuela.” He rested a hand on Brandon’s shoulder. “We need a starting point, time to work some computer magic. Up to it?”

  “I am.” Brandon stood up. “Lead me to the room full of tech.”

  Chapter 7

  Brandon stopped far enough into the room that Raul could close the door. “This is your tech room?”

  “Do you need something else? I know it’s small and….”

  “Are you kidding me? This is what you have for a hacienda and an adult club? What are you people growing, gold bushes with diamond berries? This is a pretty awesome set up. I’d expect this in a huge law office or stock brokerage, a bank maybe.” He paced around the room, looking at the equipment as he went. “Server, back-up server, batteries—big ones—security monitors, fax machine…cute.” Glancing at a board of wires with blinking lights he added, “And state of the art phone system.”

  Raul breathed a sigh of relief. “I was sure you were going to laugh at our setup. My sister and aunt run their practices from here, though they have offices in Green Valley and Rio Rico. We have everything backed up by a cloud service. I’m not sure how all this works, we hired a guy—three actually—to put this all together.”

  “Do they provide the cloud storage?”

  Nodding, Raul said, “Yes. Yaya wants us to have our own cloud but that would still mean hiring an outside person.”

  “I’ll set one up for you and be your IT department. It’s the least I can do for you after what you’ve done—are doing for me,” Brandon said. The smile that spread over Raul’s face warmed Brandon. He pulled a chair up to one of the servers, cracked his knuckles before he popped open the back panel and used all the fingers of one hand, placing each fingertip on a different component including two USB ports.

  “What do we need?”

  Raul took his notebook out. “Somewhere all those kids could be snatched from for starters. A geographic location they all had in common.” He tapped his pen against the paper. “It would take a day, maybe two before a new group was brought in?”

  Brandon nodded. “I think so.”

  “Three groups in all?”

  “Yes.” Brandon sagged in his chair a bit. “Again, I think so.”

  “So, search half a day’s travel by car from here.”

  “Half a day?” Brandon asked.

  Raul nodded. “Yeah. You wouldn’t snatch all five at once. You’d have to have a way to bait them. So, you take half a day to do that, maybe overnight. You’re not going to take too long because you need to stash the kids as you get them, then transport them. Moving them from one place to the other while you’re collecting is an unnecessary risk.”

  “They can get away?”

  “Yep, or cause a ruckus and attract unwanted attention.” Raul paused and wrote in his notebook. “We’re looking for somewhere near a church—or a place that would have a minister, rabbi, social workers, people that would provide religious counseling at least part time.”

  “Even south into Mexico?”

  “Yeah. First can you get photos of the kids with you when we rescued you?”

  “Sure.” Brandon took a few deep breaths and positioned his fingers so the tips covered different ports. It took less than a minute before photographs appeared on one of the monitors. “Those are from the police.”

  “Are there names, any other information with them?”

  “Uh huh, give me… another….” Brandon shifted to look at the monitor and grinned. “And to answer your next question, no missing person’s reports…” He fell silent for another minute then said, “Not in any database I can find.” Brandon suddenly went very still. “Raul, look at this. They all have the same tattoo.”

  The images on the monitor shifted and more were added. Small circles appeared on each of the kids’ arms just under their right elbows. Raul stepped closer and peered at the screen. The children were all in the same age group, which he already knew. Two were white, one African American, two Asian. He concentrated on a small tattoo each had.

  “Look, see the small red spots?” Raul touched the screen.

  “The tatts are fresh.”

  “Uh huh,” Raul said. The tattoos were no more than an inch or two in diameter. Each was a single curled wing that resembled a quarter moon and a tiny cross with one single star in the center. “Except for this one girl.” He pointed to the monitor.

  “There’s a lot of detail for something so small,” Brandon said.

  “There sure as hell is. Whoever did those knew what they were doing and had the right equipment.”

  “So, we need to find somewhere with a tattoo artist nearby?” Brandon asked. “That might narrow things down.”

  “It’s better than we had ten minutes ago,” Raul pointed out. “Look for some sort of homeless shelter, especially ones teens gravitate to. Maybe search for a building or business in the area with a logo similar to the tattoo.”

  Brandon nodded and set to work. Raul watched the monitors as different images and what looked like search words flashed onto the screen, some moved to one corner, others vanishing as fast as they appeared.

  “Won’t the police be doing the same thing?” Brandon asked.

  Raul shrugged. “Maybe. They’ll probably be more focused on finding the other men first and getting them to give up their hunting ground. They’ll want confessions. I think if we cut them off at the source we’ll flush out the whole gang.”

  “Will that work?”

  “I have no idea. However, they probably spent some time setting their operation up and this is the best I can come up with right now. If you have any better ideas, go for it,” Raul said.

  Brandon shook his head. “Not yet.” He looked up at Raul. “This might take some time.”

  “Can you put the victims’ files over here so I can read through them?” Raul pulled one of the chairs up to another desk and sat down, his notebook went beside the keyboard.

  “Sure.” Brandon moved two of his fingers and five folders popped up on Raul’s monitor.

  Before opening the files, Raul e-mailed Janey an image of the tattoos and his theory about them. He began reading the files. Four of them were as expected, teens from different parts of the country who’d landed in this part of the country. Three were traceable through finger and foot printing done when they were much younger. “And again, I’m in debt to parents who took precautions when their children were in preschool.”

  “Huh?” Brandon didn’t turn away but kept watching the other monitors.

  “Lots of people get finger and footprints done and keep with safety kits.”

  “Where I went to school there was a system that used biometrics—the scho
ol had my finger prints,” Brandon said.

  “Sometimes that information, for a number of reasons, makes its way into the system. No one—parents—reported these children missing but depending on the state, and school system they might have been reported as truant. Sometimes homeless kids still want to attend school, so their information is available if one knows where to look. Others might’ve had previous offenses, shoplifting, run away, all sorts of things and their prints end up being traceable.” Raul paused and leaned forward, staring at the screen. “That can’t be right.”

  “What?” Brandon asked.

  “One of the girls is from the Philippines.”

  Brandon stopped what he was doing and moved to look over Raul’s shoulder. “How the hell did she get here? With family, some sort of exchange student?”

  Raul shook his head. “Doesn’t say. See if you can find a passport.”

  That task didn’t take Brandon long to complete. “Nothing from the U.S. or Philippines. That name and photo doesn’t match any I could find.”

  “She told the cops she’s from the Philippines and that’s something verifiable,” Raul said.

  “Why lie about that? They were victims, not criminals, they did nothing wrong,” Brandon pointed out.

  Raul laced the fingers of both hands together, leaned his elbows on the desktop and rested his chin on his hands. “Maybe she’s not who she says. Maybe she’s not even a teenaged girl.” He sat back so he could make eye contact with Brandon again. “Were any of them magical humans, or not human at all?”

  “I really have no idea. If any were, they didn’t put their abilities to good use and break out,” Brandon said and sighed.

  Pointing to the monitor Raul asked, “You said you felt as if one girl was in each group. Could she have been in all the groups?”

  “No,” Brandon said after another few minutes staring at the girl’s image. He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m not sure. Prism maybe?”

  “Or Leprechaun, or selkie, hell maybe even female jinn, though my money is on a selkie if she’s really from the Philippines, or anywhere near the ocean.”