Present Tense (Out of the Fire #3) - Candace Blevins Page 0,23
her new coworkers didn’t need that particular information. She’d done in a few hours what they hadn’t been able to do in nearly two months. They were suitably impressed. No need in explaining why it was so easy for her.
She scented lion before the door opened, and she wanted to drop to her knees when the larger-than-life Amakhosi walked in — the king of every lion on the planet, and every cat in North America. Even housecats, if the rumors were correct. He wasn’t over Kelsey, but she’d recently fed from one of his cats, so she felt his power intensely.
“Kelsey, I recognize you from your picture. It’s nice to meet you. I understand kudos are in order already.” He looked around the room and then back to her. “I need to speak to you in a soundproof room.” He walked to the far wall, opened a door, and beckoned her to follow.
She followed him, and found herself in a soundproofed conference room, locked in with the Lion King. Panic settled in her belly and she tried to keep there, so it wouldn’t spread.
“During negotiations, you told us you’d need to bow out of projects if it was one you’d worked on. We agreed because we respect people with integrity. I don’t want to insult you, but I need to know how you broke in so quickly. Our top people have been working on this for seven weeks. We’ve been putting off an op until we could gain control of this target’s primary vehicle.”
The fist in her gut relaxed a little. He was just checking in with her. She hadn’t fucked up already. “I didn’t work on the project, but I know someone who did. My integrity isn’t involved here. I know how he works. Knew where to look for... not a backdoor so much as a peep hole I could focus on and finesse. Exploit.”
He crossed his arms. “I take it you aren’t friends with the inestimable Harry Jones?”
Kelsey tried not to show her surprise. Harry Jones was his hacker name, and not the one he used for legitimate work. This had been a legit job, so that name should not have been associated with the person who coded this security. She was impressed Nathan knew it.
“Acquaintances. Not many people know he plays both sides.” Meaning he has a white-hat name and a dark-hat name, and Nathan knew them both.
“You have to know we’ve learned all your names, and the fact that you’re barely even grey under your dark-name, despite appearances to the contrary.”
She shrugged. “I believe the correct Americanism is that I plead the fifth, right?”
“That’s only when dealing with law enforcement, and should you have to do so, you only speak to tell them your new name and to ask for an attorney. Tell me the phone number you call if law enforcement has you?”
She recited it back to him, and he nodded. “Yes. No pleading the fifth unless one of our attorneys tells you to. It’s tantamount to admitting to guilt, and it’s a stupid thing to do, most of the time.” He pulled a chair out and sat. “It isn’t necessary to tell your coworkers how you got in. You should know that we have two humans who don’t know about supernaturals. They’re recent additions to this division, and we’re making sure they’re going to stay before we go to the expense and risk of telling them.”
He told her which two, and reminded her he could tell the other humans about her status as vampire because she’d given Drake administration permission in her employment papers.
“They’ll figure it out when I only come in at night. One of them touched me and I got the feeling he was seeing if I was hot or cold. I didn’t bother going in his head to look at his thoughts. His scent told me he was afraid.”
“Give it a few weeks before you make judgments on us. We don’t employ many Strigorii vampires, mostly for logistics reasons.”
“You employ more Lugat?”
Strong Lugat vampires can go out on cloudy days, or during the rain. They don’t like the sun and are easily burned, but it doesn’t put them out of commission for a century or more while they heal. Or, in Kelsey’s case, kill them, since she hadn’t grown close enough to a vampire to make him want to house and feed her unconscious corpse for a century while she healed.
“Still not many, but more, yes. They can stay awake at