Chapter Six #3
“Ojos told you when she shut it down?” EJ asked. If so, Ojos informed Walter when he too went private. Hell’s hounds. Leaning forward, just enough to hold the vamp’s attention, he said, “So we have no privacy. At. All.” He spaced out the words.
This was why they had left coven and queen behind.
“On the contrary, Evan Junior. Pecan Protocol required upgraded security measures and provided Ojos with new responsibilities. If one of you calls out the code word, or a stranger is present inside your apartments, or mine, Alex Younger will be notified for a security evaluation and response. I was notified of privacy mode. Not the queen’s team. ”
EJ had worked under human soul-suckers in the military, and with vamp bloodsuckers since.
He didn’t like it, but he would make it work.
EJ gave Ojos orders for a deep, invasive, no-holds-barred background search on Londyn, her finances, her home, and her tea shop.
He stood. “Let’s go visit my former girlfriend. ”
They left the apartment together, walked down five flights of stairs, and out the back door to the small parking area. Walter nodded to the guard in the tent, and EJ drove from the lot into the night.
“On the surface,” Walter said, staring at his system screen, “Londyn Simms appears to be who and what she claimed. A twenty-six-year-old woman, living frugally, but comfortably, off her earnings from the tea shop, the yoga seminars she runs, the travel events she books, events where she takes handpicked, wealthy, usually aged, tea and yoga aficionados on spa-style trips to foreign lands. The reality just beneath the surface has become slightly different in the past few months.”
EJ frowned. He’d done a mid-level dive on her when he met her, as he did with all his partners, and nothing had been amiss. He made a left, watching traffic, instinctively watching for a tail. The vigilance of war never dissolved.
His tone mild as a spring breeze, Walter said, “The queen’s people did a deep background on her the day she showed an interest in you.”
EJ’s breathing and heart rate remained unchanged. The vamp might smell irritation in his sweat, but that would be the only indication that he was pissed. He’d been well trained.
“My assets’ love and friendship interests are well researched,” Walter said.
“Until now, you had no need to know about the electronic searches. I do not have official permission to tell you this and I am quite certain the queen’s security team will be most unhappy with me.
However, in truth, keeping the two of you safe and healthy in this new world of evolving electronics, the militaristic uses of magic, the epidemics, and the Witch War, require far more than minimally invasive background searches of many people. ”
How deep had the dive been on Tony, Angie’s attacker? Had he been drained dry in a bleed and read? Tortured to death? EJ didn’t ask. Koun’s actions were not his responsibility. “How intrusive were the dives on my lady friends?” EJ asked.
“Thorough,” Walter said. “And though Londyn passed the initial background, things have changed.”
EJ pulled his vehicle over on the far side of the street and down two lots from Londyn’s and powered off, turning off all exterior and interior comfort lights. “What changed?” he asked.
“Ten months ago, before you started dating her,” Alex said, “Londyn’s elderly aunt died.
Funds were placed at her discretion, and, due to the reporting cycle of income taxes and, as they were an inheritance, these funds were not reported on public tax info until she filed, quite late, this year.
In October, in fact. In your own background search, you will discover that, in the last three months, she began using those funds at an unprecedented rate.
We missed that, but it wasn’t the biggest problem.
We also missed extremely expensive upgrades to her home, far more costly than she could afford, even with her inheritance.
Had we dedicated full resources to her this past year, we would have, possibly, caught the expenditure of extra, unaccounted-for, funds. ”
EJ wanted to pound the car’s dash, but he didn’t. Londyn had used a Bes. That cost money and required powerful friends. He had considered her cute, harmless, and fun. Not dangerous. Therefore, he hadn’t kept track. He’d missed it too. He was the stupid one, not Londyn.
Soaking in an ice bath while my sister was injured by my girlfriend. Stupid. EJ pulled on the headset and adjusted the surveillance goggles. “Cams on,” he muttered, switching the headset’s vid on. Beside him, Walter did the same.
As they studied Londyn’s house, Walter slowly vamped out, his sclera turning scarlet, his pupils eclipsing his irises, his fangs clicking down on their little hinges that otherwise kept them against the roof of his mouth.
He was using vampire vision. He was preparing for a fight.
Or to terrify someone into talking. Walter was a seriously scary fanghead.
EJ tapped the MaLLIR specs on the headset, equipped to detect the presence of active magic, low light, and infrared at the touch of an indicator.
Nothing magical or mundane showed. No active magic, no B and Es, no physical attacks were taking place against the front of the house.
He tugged the specs down to hang around his neck.
From his pocket, EJ removed a simple open-hole flute with only four holes.
The number of holes corresponded with the number of magical workings that could be built into the musical instrument.
He placed the flute, shaped more or less like a piccolo, to his lips, and blew a pure C note, the sound soft, rising in volume, and dropping away into silence, enhancing a hearing working, his air-witch way of detecting all kinds of magic.
Nothing. No bells, ticks, drums, nothing indicating magic.
He tucked the steel instrument into his jacket pocket, slapped an ear-patch to each ear, and adjusted each for different purposes.
“Ojos, record,” EJ told the system. “Testing comms.”
Walter tapped his ear-patch, opening Ojos’s dedicated channel.
“Alex Younger listening on comms,” the security expert said from the queen’s residence in Asheville, putting himself on official record, making this situation the queen’s business, should there be problems.
EJ wasn’t surprised to hear him. It was possible that Londyn’s attack had, in reality, been against the queen, with them as pawns. He said, “Case: Londyn Simms.” He gave the address, date, time, and their names, referring to Walter as Walter N.O.N.—no other name.
Back when he had called their protector Uncle Walter, five-year-old EJ had asked if Walter was his first name.
Walter had turned and stared at him for what had felt like forever.
EJ should have turned away from the vamped-out fanghead.
Instead, he had been ridiculously trusting, and had waited, patient, innocently curious, until Walter answered.
“It is the name I chose when I finally was free.”
EJ hadn’t known at the time what Walter meant, but he had understood that this was a very important thing. A bad thing. Not something EJ was supposed to ask about.
EJ examined the op site. Londyn’s home, the residence of his current lady friend, sex partner, whatever people called what they had, and hadn’t had.
“No magical wards or obvious magical trip wire defenses,” he said.
“Brick, with windows and doors replaced in the last upgrade. Not invisi-windows, but good quality. Lights are on inside and on the front and back porches. No obvious signs of visitors, no unexpected vehicles. No sound of loud music or partying.”
Alex interrupted. “According to Chattanooga’s Department of Building and Codes, Londyn’s home’s interior was renovated eight months ago with multiple electronic upgrades, AI, and excellent security.
However…” He went silent for half a minute.
EJ and Walter waited inside the vehicle, protected from the winter cold, EJ’s breath beginning to fog the windows.
Frustration and anger in his tone, Alex said, “There were additional upgrades not on the county’s official paperwork.
The walls were not only reinsulated, they were equipped with passive copper mesh shields beneath the wallboard.
Copper mesh shields prevent detection of heat sources and provided top-of-the-line privacy from outside listening devices, cell signals, and radio waves. ”
“She built a Faraday cage,” EJ murmured.
There was an odd silence as if the queen’s listener and Walter were surprised at his response.
Maybe they were. They still had little idea what he’d done in the war.
Faraday cages—used to block some electromagnetic fields—had been combined with null magic and tested against demons.
Seconds ticked by.
Alex said, “Evaluation: It’s a good cage, if the cost is an indicator.
We are currently tracking her funds and expenditures.
Ah. Here we go. All of this was available in the contractor’s private files, not the city code department.
It was paid for under the table. The walls of Londyn’s house were also fitted with—” He broke off.
“Well, this is a crap sandwich. Her walls were also fitted with null sheets that offer protection from magical attack, again, passive, and well hidden beneath wallboard and paint.
“The updates precede Londyn’s pursuit of you, which is interesting, and cost way more than the bounty on Angelina’s life.”
Angie may not have been the target. Gotcha.