Chapter Twenty-Three #4
“When we break through the encryption on Gertrude’s unicom,” EJ said, keeping his first cousin in sight, “or we find the lair’s address another way, we’ll act immediately.
They won’t expect an attack tonight, as late as it already is, with the ice refrozen and the city still shut down.
The weather will warm tomorrow afternoon and the city will open back up, so they’ll expect an attack tomorrow night. ”
“Unless they knew about Gertrude being here and knew she had their location, and also know she’s true-dead,” Angie said. His sister was sitting on a sofa, head back, eyes closed, armor loosed, still too pale. Raccoon was sitting beside her, wearing the tiara. EJ’s lips twitched.
“They know she’s dead,” Shiloh said. “I claimed the bounty. Your half has been deposited into your account, EJ.”
EJ turned in his chair to her. “What?” he demanded.
“Half of the bounty was deposited—”
“That is a clear invasion of privacy,” EJ snapped. “How do you even know my bank account information?”
“Oh,” she said, turning her eyes from her treasured head to him, counterfeit surprise on her features.
“I asked the queen. She handled the bounty, and I told her you get half. She put the money into your account.” Her tone bitter, she added, “Surely you don’t think access to your monies is private.
Nothing owned by the rest of us mere mortals is unknown to the Queen of Darkness.
” Shiloh rolled off the coffee table without spilling a drop and placed the mug on the table.
She stretched and opened the door to the stairs.
“She lets me kill, however, so I’m good with it.
I’m going hunting.” The door closed behind her.
“Great. We’re left to deal with a vamp head,” Grizz muttered. “Holy hell, that bloodsucker stinks.”
At two a.m., EJ pinged Walter’s unicom with the words, Ojos broke Gertrude’s encryption.
Actually his program had broken and crushed the electronic-storm-walls on the unicom.
The data was compartmentalized within his own system, so that if it had contained a Graboid—a mega virus named after a mutated worm in a very old film—it couldn’t take over Ojos and replicate itself before he could separate it.
He’d never be an electronic wizard like the queen’s pet genius, but he had been taught by the best and his skills honed in the war efforts of the military’s Section Seven. SecSev had been trying to combine electronics, virtual reality, and magic. EJ had been in the middle of some of that R&D.
Walter replied, The code-breaking has been reported to the queen’s HQ.
That pissed off EJ, but reporting to the queen’s people was Walter’s job, after all. Walter had a contract to fulfill.
On my way. Walter’s text ended.
EJ checked the security cams for Shiloh’s location.
Ojos was tracking her movements. Cousin Wacko was on the roof, her head lifted to the dark sky, her wildly patterned armor catching the few lights in patches of brilliant color.
Despite the disco-era wardrobe, this looked like a moment of personal reflection.
EJ tapped open the door and Walter entered.
The bodyguard stopped in the doorway and studied the assortment on the kitchen island/table.
It was filled with amulets made from musical instruments, as well as feathers, leaves, wooden disks, polished stones in various shapes, crystals, a paper map printed from Ojos in eight-by-eleven sheets and taped together to form an outline of the entire city.
Walter got a strange look in his eyes and said, “In my day, paper maps were quite useful and kept on hand for years as reference guides. Dare I say, that I’m deeply intrigued that you created one, Evan Junior. ”
The words came out unbidden, all by themselves. “During the war, online maps were worthless in the field because the Rus and their cronies kept hitting the net with Graboids. Paper was the only secure guide when we were on the ground.”
Walter reached out and touched a rooting from the Everhart ever-living rosemary, its pot holding down one corner of the map. He said, “I’ve seen the original tree at your mother and father’s home. It’s massive.”
EJ had no idea Walter had met his parents and didn’t trust this sharing of information Walter was likely supposed to keep secret.
“It stands twenty feet tall,” Walter said, “and takes up a good portion of their spacious backyard.”
“And you’re telling me this, why?” EJ said, more than asked.
Walter picked up an empty elixir bottle and studied the silver bowl on a tripod with a flame beneath. Hanging above the silver bowl from its own taller tripod, was a clear, greenish quartz crystal.
“Evan Junior,” Walter said. “You have been dowsing. Using a paper map. Why?”
“It’s an old method. Doesn’t work with electronics.
I dowsed with the elixir to track all the remaining bottles.
It took a while because some were moving.
” He gestured to the wall screen, where a sat-map of Chattanooga was displayed, every street, business, and home.
Satellites were as safe and protected as they could be now, in a time of peace, and he zoomed to street level.
In one location was a star. “All the vials of the elixir are now at this address.”
Walter smiled slightly. “That is the location for the lair? Oh my,” he said, sounding weirdly proud. “Good work, boy. Very good work.”