FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Zikabar looked away from the financial reports he had lined up on his desk to the window displaying news of the conflict going on around the world. To listen to the news channels, the conflict between the church and gay community was a small thing; an occasional altercation here and there, caught by someone's phone, or a city camera. The people in power, and Zee included the Society among them, were working hard to ensure as many of the confrontation remained hidden.

Zee agreed with Denton on this; running this war in secret was a mistake. Secrecy hurt them, not the church. The church was the one always operating in secret. They needed the public rallying behind them, aware the church had initiated the attacks.

But that wasn't even true. It wasn't 'the church' it was the Gray Church, and that wasn't even representing the Catholics anymore, if it ever had. Now that Damian had control of it, they were his agents. But Zee couldn't tell anyone that, because like so many things in this conflict, magic was involved, and he did agree that needed to be kept out of the public.

The world wasn't ready for magic. Probably never would be.

The display showing the conflict scrolled by too quickly for him to read them. That was how many of them there were in the world. Each entry was color-coded to indicate how relevant they were to Zikabar. White was the rest of the world, and the more red it was, the closer to Denver it had happened. If it was in blue, it meant one of the names involved was from the Society.

Most of them were in white, or pale blue. Denver was a small place in the grand scheme of thing. Pink was occasional, meaning it was somewhere in the country, and of those the ratio with a blue tint were higher. The concentration of Society families in the US was higher than elsewhere.

As he watched, a darker red entry scrolled up. He stopped it with a finger. It wasn't dark enough to be Denver, but it could be in the state.

No, Nevada. Las Vegas. A medical clinic focusing on the at-need gay communities was bombed by a group of people screaming made up bible verse about how being gay was a sin in the eye of God, capital 'G', the only real one. They probably didn't know there were actual gods, they were too disorganized to be part of the Gray Church, but the more extremist branches of Christianity had long been in a fight against other religions trying to convince them, by force when needed, that theirs was the only real god.

Zee sighed. This one was going to make the news, possibly already had, according to the time stamp, the attack had happened last night. At least this would cast the religion as the bad guys. Who in their right minds attacked a medical clinic, no matter who they catered to?

He let the scroll restart and stretched. He smiled as he met Marcus' eyes. His husband was talking with Rosenburg, not work-related by the way he and her were laughing.

Zee went back to the waiting reports. It had taken some finessing, but he'd managed to use his position within the task force still looking into the group who had murdered the cardinals, to get the dead men's finances.

Church official had much more money than Zee had expected, with all those things about vows of poverty. He knew the church, as an organization, was rich, but he hadn't expected that to be a reflection of its highest members. And the murdered cardinals did have money.

Then again, they were Gray Church, so maybe he shouldn't be harsh on the rest of the organization; maybe those were poor pious men and women.

Zee annotated the file, marking accounts he recognized as belonging to identified lieutenants within Damian's organization. He might have taken over the Gray Church, but he was bringing in more and more outside people. Some of them had tactical training gained fighting ugly wars.

Motion in his peripheral vision made him look up as Marcus raised a hand to knock on his door. He paused and took out his phone, grimacing at the display. He gave Zee an apologetic smile and stepped away to a group of unoccupied desk to take the call.

Zee went back to the accounts.

What he was looking for was an account he could trace back to Damian. The tiger had to have accounts. The man was far too full of himself to only let his subordinates handle the money. They might run off with it.

He'd marked three new accounts to send to the financial team to trace when the knock came. Marcus entered, looking annoyed.

"Bad call?" Zee asked.

"Do you remember Dion?"

Zee shook his head.

"Black bear, bottom, subby as you can't believe. He was at Nails last month when they had the orgy party."

Zee grinned. "There were a lot of men there, hun, and I only had eyes for one of them."

Marcus dropped in the chair. "Well, he was all over me during the orgy to fuck him."

Zee smiled. "Oh my, should I start questioning your faithfulness?"

Marcus froze, looking like a deer caught in headlights.

Zee burst out laughing. "Oh, hun, you should see your face."

"I--Zee." Marcus looked like he was in pain. "I'd never do that. You know that, right?"

Zee reached over and took his husband's hand. "Marcus, love, I was joking."

The red deer forced a smile. "Of course." He relaxed. "Sorry, I just worry sometimes I don't show you enough how much I love you."

"Oh Love, if there is one thing you never have to worry about, it is that." Zee leaned over the desk to kiss his husband. "Just the way you look at me now tells me how profound your love for me is." He sat back. "So stop fretting about some bear trying to steal you from me. I know it would never happen."

Marcus relaxed then. He nodded to the desk. "What are you working on?"

"I am still trying to work out where Damian is hiding."

"Isn't that the task force's job?" Marcus tapped one of the reports and turned it. He made a face. "You know the Brain has programs to go through finances, right?"

"I do, but I'd have to program in what I'm looking for, and that means I'd have to explain who Damian is. Remember, the task force still hasn't identified the mystery man behind the group of murderers. It would be difficult for me to explain how I know without also mentioning what happened in San Francisco. I mean, how do I tell Director Patterson the man we are looking for vanished twenty years ago, was murdered three years ago and was brought back to life only a year or so later?"

Marcus' mouth hung open.

"Love, please close your mouth, someone might put a cock in it."

The red deer smiled. "Are you offering?"

Zee laughed. "Oh hun, don't think that tryst in the showers is the start of something, anyway, everyone would see."

"It would be a reason to buy blinds," Marcus offered. He returned the file with the others. "Have you made much progress?"

"Not really." Zee brought up the accounts he'd marked. "These are new, so maybe one of them will trace back to the tiger, of not, then hopefully someone closer to him so we can triangulate where he's hiding that way." Zee looked around to make sure they were alone in the office; a reflex he'd gained with all the secrets he now had to keep. "I know he has magic, but I can't believe how good he is at remaining hidden. The man was locked away in a cave for twenty years. There is no way he can know so much about the technology we're using now."

"Clearly he's smart enough to find people who do know. As we know, the magic he uses can make people obey him."

Zee sighed and leaned back. "I know. But I refuse to believe he is smarter than the whole of the FBI. We have some of the best mine, and many of those are working only on finding him."

"Maybe this is something Denton and his friends will take care of for you. After all, they are who he is after, not us."

"Yes, but how many will be caught in the crossfire?" Zee scrolled back through the list until he found the attack on the medical clinic. "Even if Damian didn't order this, he is polarizing the extremists. It's like the eighties again with them proclaiming Aids was god's punishment on gays for the sin of loving other men. Only now they are actively killing us. We should be better than that, Marcus. All of us. Why is it that we keep falling back to violence anytime things don't go the way we want them to?"

Marcus took Zee's hands in his. "Love, it's not everyone, like you said, they are extremists. It'll pass. One way or another, this will end, and in the meantime, we will keep things from escalating, right?"

Zee opened his mouth to agree as another dark red line appeared on the scrolling list. This event was only thirty minutes old. Zikabar cursed.

"What?" Marcus asked, looking at it.

"Someone just blew up a Catholic Church in Las Vegas." Zee looked at his husband. "The escalation has started."