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Well, Argenti wasn’t going to share his full set of power, but he didn’t want to be the one holding out, [color=C0C0C0]“I’m a low level succubus.”[/color] He flapped his hand at this Cain, [color=C0C0C0]“There’s no point in copying my powers.[/color]

That was true for the most part. If he could mimic mundane powers as well as supernatural like he said Argenti’s parkour and free-running skills might be useful, but there was no point in bringing those up. If he got called out later, he would just say he hadn’t realized those were important enough to mention. Could Cain copy knowledge as well? If so, he might like the knowledge of how to efficiently torture a plethora of species, but since he hadn’t mentioned that Argenti would keep it to himself. He didn’t need to know about the Gift. John had given that to Argenti and he wasn’t sharing that!

He might get a few raised eyebrows for calling himself a succubus rather than an incubus since he wasn’t cross dressing today, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t even sure when succubus had come to mean female sex demon and incubus had come to mean male sex demon but that hadn’t always been the case. Oh well, these were supernatural creatures indeterminate age, not some “traditional” idiot born only 5 decades ago. This group had to have more sense. He draped over the table and flashed Cain his flirtiest smile. It didn’t mean anything. It was just supposed to reinforce his statement that he was just a low-level succubus, which was true enough.

Only to straighten and turn serious as The Detective simultaneously handed Juniper the files and talked about Bob. Practically perfect [i]and[/i] completely ordinary? It was possible. Argenti had seen it before. His silver eyes grew hard. It was also extremely difficult. Argenti looked around the table. No one here fit the bill, but if this Bob did, that might explain how they got Innocents away for the crowds to extract their souls. They had to get them away and into a private space. That fact that there were so few victims lent proof to that theory. The Outcast weren’t taking souls in mass. Whatever their plan was they wanted, pure, undiluted, uncorrupted Innocent souls. It was dangerous, but sooner or later, it would also make them trackable.

So, when the witch, Juniper, passed over the files he took one at random. IT opened to reveal a yearbook picture. Argenti steeled himself to look at the age: 16. So, these Outcasts weren’t just taking Innocents. They were taking children too. It was true that most Innocents were under the age of 30 and even more were under the age of 18, but still, it felt worse somehow. The boy did the fairly typical things that Innocents did. He volunteered at a youth sport’s program three times a week, played the same sport at his high school, had slightly higher than average grades, volunteered at a soup kitchen once a week, went to a farmer’s market for most of his shopping, helped his single working mom taking care of his two younger siblings without complaining, and was genuinely well likely. He hadn’t been declared dead yet and his social media was filled with comments about how he wouldn’t have run away and how he was such a sincerely sweet guy. Argenti pulled out his only phone, plugged in his headphones and found the interview with his mother begging for whoever had her son to please give him back, that she wouldn’t press charges. She wasn’t an Innocent, but even through the screen Argenti could tell that she wasn’t an Innocent because of some big choice. Life had just happened to her. The way it just happened to most people. She was at least 98 percent Innocent. That wasn’t exactly how it worked, but close enough. Argenti’s whole posture screamed an increasing rage as he watched it, and his face promised murder.

He scowled as he looked back up, [color=C0C0C0]“There is a pattern here somewhere. They are looking for quality rather than quantity. We can find the pattern and we can stop them. We just need to work together. We don’t have to trust each other. We just have to work with each other.”[/color]