Obie almost laughs with disbelief. “And what, exactly, would I have to gain by giving you fake documents? I have better things to do with my life than fabricate false intel for a prank. There are TV shows to be watched, after all.”
Chester’s voice slips through Obie’s mind.You’re in rare form today.
Yeah, well, they’re pissing me off.
“We’re not saying thatyou’retrying to trick us,” Sawyer says, clearly trying to dispel the rapidly rising tension. “Of course not. But if your contact is trickingyou,then?—”
“I’ve been alive for almost seven times longer than anyone in this room,” Obie says. “You think I can’t tell when someone is conning me?”
“Then give ussomething,Smith,” Gregorio bites out. “Listen, Solomon and Gutierrez still know the Sanctum inside and out, okay? They’ll know if your source is trustworthy or not, and?—”
No, they knew the Sanctum of six years ago.Chester’s voice in Obie’shead is flat, maybe even a little hard. Still bitter about his mentors walking out on them.A lot has changed since then.
“Right,” Obie says, smiling tightly at the glowering demons and ex-hunters in front of him. “Because nothing at all has changed in the past six years, right? It’s not like we’ve had multiple high-level defections since then, or strike teams being reassigned for no discernable reason, or every Sanctum in the tristate area and beyond sending their neophytes straight to Redwater. Right?”
Sawyer’s jaw works. Naomi looks downright murderous. Neither of them answers.
Look.There’s an edge to Chester’s voice.I don’t like the idea of them knowing my identity, but you said yourself that JJ and Roma thought I’d be the most likely to defect next. If telling them who I am makes them believe us, then—then I’ll try to be okay with it.
This time, Obie ignores him. “I’m only going to say this once, so pay attention,” he says, leaning forward. “I trust my contact ahellof a lot more than I trust you four. So all this delicious intelligence that I’m dropping into your laps? You can take it or leave it. I don’t care. But my human is legit.”
For the briefest of moments, Chester’s fingers tighten on Obie’s shoulder. Obie feels perversely proud of them.
As he should, he figures. In the week since Chester woke up with red-rimmed eyes and shook Obie’s hand for the cause of tearing the Sanctum to the ground, they’ve been working towards that goal with a single-minded viciousness that took even Obie by surprise. It does make a certain amount of sense—they’d already established a regular research schedule while trying to break the binding spell—but making the cause so personal to Chester clearly changed the game.
He’s a man on a mission now. He’s been mapping out every computer network he has clearance for, every cabinet where sensitive documents are stored, every restricted area where secrets could belurking. He’s written down locker combinations, passwords, system overrides?—
The Sanctum might have spent the past twelve years looking down their noses at Chester, but they didn’t realize that giving him all the grunt work made him startlingly adept at zipping through their systems. He may not have access to anything that would unambiguously prove that the Sanctum and the Chain are working together—nothing that would convince Bryant, which is the standard they use to judge all their intel nowadays—but he can deliver pages upon pages uponpagesof lower-level information without blinking.
He’s very nearly frightening in his intensity and commitment to the bit. Obie is valiantly trying to ignore how much it kind of turns him on.
Right now, though, he has more immediate problems than the strange turn his relationship with his spellbound hunter has taken—namely, the four glaring parties in front of him. “So?” he asks, raising his eyebrows in challenge. “Will that be a ‘take it’ or a ‘leave it’?”
“We’ll take it, obviously,” Sawyer says, her voice clipped. “But if this goes south, we’ll know exactly who our weak link is.”
Obie temper spikes. “He’s not aweak link,”he snaps. “He’s the most valuable asset we have.”
I think she was referring to you, Nostringvadha.
“I was referring to you,” Sawyer drawls, and Obie chokes back a laugh at their similar phrasing. “But we can always do some fact-checking on our own, too. Thanks for the files.”
“Yeah,” Naomi says shortly, scowling down at the folder in her hands. “Thanks.”
Abruptly, Micah pushes himself to his feet. “We’ll walk you out,” he says, giving Gregorio a pointed look; sighing, Gregorio stands up from the couch, as well.
As casually as possible, Obie keeps himself between Chester andthe two demons as they walk down the hallway to the door. “You’re not happy about this,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Oh, is it that obvious?” Gregorio asks flatly.
“Look, Obie,” Micah says, his eyebrows furrowed. “We trust you, okay? We really do. But this is—this is just sosudden.And the fact that you’re not willing to tell us who your contact is…” He trails off. “We’ve gotten double-crossed a lot lately.”
Obie’s heart hurts. He knows that being forced to leave their longtime homes when Roma accidentally compromised them to the Sanctum took its toll on Micah and Gregorio, and in the end, they’re probably exactly as suspicious as they should be. “Five months ago,” Obie says quietly, “I broke into the Sanctum’s prison to find one of my best friends cut open on an interrogation table with his soul ripped to shreds. I’m not about to double-cross you. And Ihavevetted my source, all right? They have a score to settle with the Sanctum, too. They’re out for blood just as much as we are.”
Damn straight.
Puppy, I could really do without the running commentary.
Oh, please. You love it.
