Page 36 of Take You Home (Redwater Demons #3)

S awyer Solomon is paging slowly through the stack of files that Obie unceremoniously dumped on her living room’s coffee table, her eyebrows climbing higher and higher. “Obie,” she says, “and I mean this with all the respect and affection in my heart: what the hell did you do?”

Predictably enough, Gregorio is much more direct. “Who’s your source?” he demands, his eyes snapping up to meet Obie’s. “Where’d you even find all this intel?”

“A gentleman never tells,” Obie says loftily.

Chester’s answering snicker wafts through Obie’s head. He’s unfortunately the only one who laughs at Obie’s joke, and since the hunter in question is currently invisible and soundproofed next to him, Obie doesn’t think it counts.

“No, really,” Micah says, leaning forward.

“We’ve been working on this conspiracy for over six years, and in that time, we’ve never been able to get anything even close to?—?” He squints down at the folder in his hands.

“Complete transport logs to and from Redwater’s prison for the past six months?

Obie, this is literally game-changing intelligence. ”

“But are we sure it’s legit?” Naomi asks, fixing Obie with a steely gaze. “If we don’t know your source, then we can’t verify anything.”

Chester’s scoff winds through Obie’s head. Yep. That’s the Naomi Gutierrez I remember.

“I’m positive,” Obie says. “I have a source adjacent to the Redwater Sanctum. They’re the one pulling all these records for me.”

Gregorio’s eyes sharpen. “And what are you giving them in exchange?”

“The gift of my scintillating personality.”

This time, Chester’s hand shakes around Obie’s shoulder as he laughs. Obie fights back a smile.

Sawyer looks much less amused. “Seriously, Obie. You’re not selling out anything about our side, are you?”

Obie scowls. “Of course not. Plus, what do I even know besides people’s locations? You’re the ones with the actual Wall of Crazy.”

He gestures at the wall in question for emphasis.

It looks even more deranged than the last time he visited, with Maggie’s discovery about “Teresa Roz” wedged into a corner and a few open lines of inquiry leading to the next wall.

Given enough time, Obie thinks they’ll have the entire living room covered.

Especially if Chester keeps stealing documents at the fast clip he’s picked up since last week.

Micah doesn’t look happy. “You say ‘locations’ like they’re nothing. If the Sanctum or the Chain finds us??—?”

“They won’t,” Obie stresses. “I’m not stupid, okay? I’m not giving my contact anything that would compromise our side. Is that good enough for you?”

“No,” Naomi says shortly. “The only way you could’ve gotten these records is from an actual hunter, Smith. Not someone ‘adjacent to’ the Sanctum. An actual hunter.”

“My contact has connections to ‘actual hunters,’” Obie says, mimicking her air quotes around the words. “Obviously. They wouldn’t be of any use otherwise.”

Naomi doesn’t back down. “Give us a name. Sawyer and I combined knew most of the Redwater Sanctum. If your contact is playing you, we’ll be able to tell.”

“No.”

Naomi stares at him. “What?”

“Did I stutter? No,” Obie repeats. “I’m not putting them at risk. Not happening.”

Gregorio’s eyes narrow. “Not for nothing, Smith, but you’re asking us to take a lot on faith here.”

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 that you’re trying to trick us,” Sawyer says, clearly trying to dispel the rapidly rising tension. “Of course not. But if your contact is tricking you, 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 us something, 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’s head 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 a hell of 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 be lurking. 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 upon pages of 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 a weak 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 and the 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 so sudden. 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 I have vetted 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.

Obie will never admit that he really does.

Hastily, he tunes back in to his verbal conversation just in time to hear Gregorio say, “As long as you’re sure, then we’ll back your play.

Just…” He lets out his breath in a hiss, glancing over his shoulder.

“Try not to antagonize Solomon and Gutierrez. They sort of mean a lot to us.”

A pang twists through Obie. A few weeks ago, he would’ve rolled his eyes at Gregorio and Micah slumming it with their defected hunters, but now??—

Well. Obie has his own semi-defected hunter to slum with now. “I’ll tone it down a bit,” he promises, reaching for the doorknob. “And I’ll be back next week with another haul. Later. ”

Micah’s jaw drops. “Another haul? How quickly can your contact possibly work? Obie??—?”

Obie absconds out the door before either of them can protest, jogging down the steps and escaping across the street. “Well, that was mildly unpleasant,” he says out loud.

Chester’s hand finds his shoulder again. That just seemed like standard Sawyer and Naomi to me. It’s good to know that some things never change.

That same edge is back in Chester’s voice. Obie’s heart twinges as he slows back to a walk, letting Chester match his pace. They’re doing well, I think, he throws out cautiously. It’s still not okay that they left you behind, but it’s good that they’re doing well, right?

Yeah. Especially if they’re helping us burn the Sanctum to the ground.

Obie’s lips twitch. That’s his hunter. Oh, I do love it when you talk dirty to me.

Chester’s laugh is sudden and audible. Obie can’t resist a smile. Ah, yes, Chester drawls, his voice winding back through Obie’s head. The all-important sixth love language: vengeance.

Is there any other love language that matters?

Obie glances around, confirms that no one is in sight, and snaps open a rift, transporting them back to Chester’s room at the Sanctum.

“All right, Locke,” he says, waving away Chester’s invisibility and soundproofing spells. “So what’s the plan for this week?”

Chester sprawls across his bed, grinning up at Obie. He’s been different ever since that night he spent tossing and turning in Obie’s arms, like an enormous weight was suddenly lifted from his shoulders, like he finally had a reason to get up every morning??—

Like he found a real purpose for the first time in his life.

It’s a good look on him. “Well, I can still mine the prison for a lot more information,” he says, pulling his notebook out of the gap in spacetime where he stashes it.

“Some of it will be more complicated to steal or copy without arousing suspicion, but I think we can manage.”

“I can always take pictures on my phone if I need to,” Obie says. “No reason to take unnecessary risks.”

Chester’s smile softens. “Right. Beyond that…” He flips through the book, and Obie sees dozens of pages of notes in Chester’s surprisingly neat handwriting, each of them categorized with headings and subheadings.

Everything in its proper place, as always.

“I want to start digging into the reassigned strike teams?—strike teams like Zeta. It’ll take some finesse to access those records, but I think we can pull it off.

And I want to take a closer look at documentation from six and twelve years ago, too. ”

“From around the times of Kappa’s final exam and the Jackson–Locke murders,” Obie finishes, nodding slowly. “That’s when Sawyer first found evidence of the conspiracy, after all. Maybe we could uncover even more with the benefit of hindsight.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Chester leans forward, focused and mission-driven and eager, and Obie smiles back, shamelessly enjoying the gleam in Chester’s eyes.

“And we need to talk about those power signatures, too?—the ones that Sawyer mentioned a few weeks ago. I know we haven’t had a chance to tap into the Deep again, but do you have any theories about what they might be?

If they’re coming mostly from Redwater and Kingsborough, then… ”

Chester continues to lay out his plans, gesturing with his hands as he talks. His gaze keeps flashing back to Obie, checking that Obie is still in agreement before he moves on to his next idea, and his next, and??—

Honestly, Obie thinks that part of Chester defected from the Sanctum a long time ago.

Even if Chester’s fierce loyalty never let him dwell on treason, it’s clear that he at least considered which of the Sanctum’s weak spots could be exploited?—and he’s using all of those instincts to his advantage now.

With the two of them working together, there’s no way they can lose.

Obie knows that they’re probably rushing a bit, that they should be moving a little more slowly to avoid suspicion, but he’s not worried.

If Chester gets caught, Obie will protect him and get them both out.

Chester will be heartbroken to leave Bryant behind, but Obie will make it a point to come back for her later.

Either they take the Sanctum down side by side, or Obie finally gets to bring Chester back to his house and spend time with him on their own terms.

Whatever happens, it’s going to be a win-win.