Chapter Five
Marcus
Well, that was a thing. Of a sort. Maybe. I follow Rob outside, confused as fuck as to what just happened.
One of the side effects of being a beta surrounded by alpha wolves is that I’m pretty good at reading the room. My survival has always depended on picking up subtle nuances and getting out of the way when I need to.
When I came across John, back in the wilderness, he liked me. My gut didn’t lie about that.
Now, though?
What the fuck did I do to piss him off?
Rob leads me to what must be the barn. It sits at the end of a gravel drive and looks the same as the house, a sturdy, craftsman-style construction painted creamy yellow with white trim.
A heavy wooden bar crosses the big double doors, with a chain and padlock looped around one end.
Next to that, though, a scanner on the wall hints that it’ll take a badge or the correct palm or thumbprint to open the real lock.
We don’t use the main entrance, instead going through a small door near the rear of the building, and yes, Rob does some tricky sleight of hand before he opens it.
The room feels like a computer lab at school, with a central table and a handful of workstations around the perimeter.
Two flat overhead LED panels and a series of spot task lights give the windowless room a clear, cool vibe.
Sonny sits at one of the workstations, his hair working its way out of the tie attempting to hold it out of his face. Under the artificial light, his hands are pale enough to belong to a vampire.
“I’ve got your new assistant,” Rob says brightly.
I raise a hand. “Not yet.” I keep my tone easy; I don’t want to make anybody mad. “Let’s treat this more like a job interview.”
Sonny spins around, his chair’s rollers rumbling on the wooden floor. He’s pretty muscular for a guy who’s so pale he wouldn’t have to get too dressed up to play a ghost on Halloween. “Got it. Interview. Grab a chair and let’s talk.”
Before I do more than shift my weight, Rob stops me with a hand on my arm. “I mean it when I say I want you to join us.”
Aw, damn. The combination of his overwhelming charm and my innate need to make people happy almost drags the words whatever you say right out of my mouth.
Weirdly, it’s only the memory of John’s angry “No” that keeps me quiet.
If nothing else, John’s attitude shift makes me think there’s more going on than Captain Charisma here wants me to know.
“Thank you,” I manage to choke out. “I need to know more before I commit to anything.”
Arguably that was too honest, but Rob pats my shoulder and leaves me with Sonny-who-might-be-a-vampire. I should be better at identifying various supernaturals except most of my experience has been with wolves, at least until I moved to LA.
The Collins pack has a stronghold in Seattle, which is where me, David, and his sister Abby were raised. We mostly hung out with each other at school, and it wasn’t until I got to college that I met anyone who wasn’t either mundane or a wolf.
I did date a Nyad junior year, though the relationship was a nonstarter. Watersports aren’t my bag.
David’s the one who introduced me to the wider world of supernaturals.
He’s got two boyfriends, a vampire and the fae-adjacent one who reminds me of Rob.
Through them, I’ve met an , a djinn-and-hippie hybrid, and a witch who’s powerful enough to make my skin crawl, plus a pack of lesbian biker werewolves and more vampires than I ever needed to know.
I’d have sworn there weren’t that many types of paranormal creatures in Seattle.
Maybe the rain keeps everyone inside, so I just didn’t meet them.
Taking a seat, I roll closer to Sonny, glad my bits are covered, even if I feel like I’m dressed for a Shakespearean play.
Sonny watches me with an intensity that makes his vampiric nature clear. There’s no obvious tell, except the possible fang when he smiled earlier. It’s more subtle, a way of looking at anything as if they have forever to do it. Either way, I won’t risk insulting him by asking.
“So.” He stretches the word. “Rob thinks he can glance at someone and know their soul.” His shrug makes another lock of hair flop down into his face. “For me, I must rely on more prosaic means. Tell me something about yourself, something that would make me want to bring you onto my team.”
The sleeves of Will’s silk blouse—and it is real silk—hang almost to my knuckles, and I play with the narrow hem on one of the ruffles, rolling it between my fingertips.
I take my time with his question, in part because the seductive attraction of being needed has had time to fade.
While I might be young, I’ve seen some things and know better than to jump into anything too quickly if I can at all help it.
Also, as far as I can tell, he has a team of one.
I must spend too much time thinking because Sonny clears his throat, a subtle prompt.
I repeat the vital statistics I already gave Rob: name, place of birth, college degree.
“I’ve been living here with my cousins for the last few months.
” And please don’t ask me why. Before he can, I change the subject.
“Tell me a little more about what you think you’re doing, and I’ll tell you why I think I’m a good fit. ”
This time, Sonny’s grin reveals the tips of his fangs. “Good. You’re smart enough not to go in blind. I like it.” He makes a half-hearted attempt to get his hair out of his face with a black hair tie. “Do I wish I’d had shorter hair when I was turned? Yes. Yes, I do.”
Okay, so that question’s answered. It’s also rhetorical, so I keep my mouth shut.
“So Rob and de Lisle go way back. Like, hundreds of years.”
I sorta figured that out already, and my lack of response must encourage him to keep talking. “That kind of enmity has deep roots, and thus, when we move against him, we go balls to the wall.”
Only his strong professorial vibes keep me from laughing. I mean, it takes someone who’s been alive a very long time to use “thus” and “balls to the wall” in the same sentence.
“Sure,” I say. “From what I can tell, billionaires aren’t very nice people.”
“He’s worse than most.”
“Which makes me inclined to agree that someone should take him down. I guess my main question has to do with how you intend to go about it.”
“Hacking.”
I blink, unable to handle the intensity of his flat stare. “Yeah?”
“All of this”—he waves at the larger room—“is connected to the mainframe at the Securitas headquarters by a VPN. That shields us and gives us access to much of their resources.” Seriously, he’s got the college professor vibe down cold. “We—you and me—will bring de Lisle down from the inside.”
“Damn.” In theory, I know there are viruses that, if applied in the right place, can really fuck up a system. At the same time, I’m laughing to myself because it’s like he thinks every computer geek under the age of twenty-five has a black hat in his pocket. “How is that even possible?”
“Well, young man, if you look right over there”—he rotates the chair and points at one of the other computers—“you’ll see a machine with two terabytes, sixty-four gigabytes of RAM, and a top-of-the-line Intel processor, just waiting for someone to come along and put it to work.”
“What kind of graphics card does it have?” I ask, mainly to be an asshole because, like, that all sounds like a good time. I’d love to take that race car out and see what it can do.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Seriously, this is all very cool.”
“Like I said, once we have the right software, we’ll rob from the rich and give to the poor, just like the old stories say.”
I nod, a slow affirmative. Do I believe that’s what he intends? Sure. Do I think he’s maybe a bit overly ambitious?
Also yes.
“So now you tell me what you’d bring to the table.”
Knowing he’d ask the question and organizing my thoughts are apparently two different things in my head, so I take a minute. I don’t want to sound uncertain, but.
“I’m not sure you can use what I’ve got. Like, cybersecurity and AI are the sexy buzzwords, but my focus was on UX, or user experience. I’m more likely to be able to tell you what your Big Bad is going to do next than break into his piggy bank.”
It’s a beta thing, and it makes me sound pretty lame.
If Sonny thinks so, though, he’s got a great poker face, and he shifts in his seat so we’re facing each other.
“Do you know how to code?”
“I mean, sure.” That’s sort of basic, and the fact that he’s asked makes me wonder how much he really knows about computers.
“So you’re familiar with JavaScript?”
Feeling closer to solid ground, I nod. “Yeah, and I’m also familiar with React.”
He goes still the way Trajan does sometimes. “Have you ever hacked into a strange computer system?”
I rub my forehead, subtly adjusting my eye patch.
This is where it’s all going to fall apart.
“No, not really.” Say something to sell yourself or bail right here.
“Think about it this way. Most people are creatures of habit. You say you’ve been fighting this de Lisle dude for centuries, so you must know him pretty well.
I might be able to help you figure out his patterns.
You know, an outsider coming in with an objective point of view. ”
“And what does that get us?”
“If you recognize his patterns, you’ll see his weaknesses, so you’ll know where to target.”
He settles back in his chair, his entire body relaxing. “How do you feel about rules?”
And the ground shifts under me. “I guess it depends on the circumstances.” In general, I like rules, though I have a love/hate relationship with “do what you’re told.”
“What if our intentions are honorable?”
“I mean, obviously.” Obviously? Do I mean that? It’s possible to be quite sincere and think you’re being honorable and still plan to do terrible things. I know that from personal experience.