Trying Times (The Valens Legacy Book 14)

by Jan Stryvant

  "Yup. Any idea who set that gear up?"

  "My first guess would be the Russians. They love that kind of stuff. Do you know who lives at the house?"

  "We haven't gotten to that stage yet. We wanted to find out what this is."

  "Well, get someone from Sapientia or Eruditio to help you question them. If the stuff is hooked up to the internet, it'll be hard to find out who put it there. If it's going to a recorder of some type, someone will be there to service it probably once a day.

  "What was it pointed at?"

  "The windows of four lovely young ladies. One of whom tends to entertain members of the staff of different high rankers in the Senate in her bed."

  "Wow, people are still falling for that, huh?" John laughed. "That's the oldest trick in the book."

  "They're young girls and they're picking on the young staffers, I think."

  "I don't think it's our problem. Countries spy on each other all the time."

  "What if the group who's spying has been compromised by the Demons?" Tisha asked.

  "Good point," John said after a moment. "Should I ask Sean to send me out there?"

  "Not yet," Steve told him. "First let's see what we can find out on our own."

  "Okay. Call me if you need me!" John said and hung up.

  "Granite," Steve said, turning to him. "I want a complete stake out of that house. I want to know who owns it, who lives there, and who's coming and going from the place."

  "Do you think the girls are in on it?" Billie asked.

  "They'd have to be." Steve sighed.

  "Maybe we should question them?"

  "What's the point? I doubt they know all that much."

  "I'm surprised the FBI hasn't tipped to this yet," Granite said.

  Steve shrugged. "I'm sure that house has been searched, probably more than once. That's why they put all this gear in another location; there's nothing in the girls' house to arouse suspicions, and they're only dealing with the low-end staffers. They're not sleeping with the actual policy makers."

  "It must be working," Terri said, "or they wouldn't be doing it."

  "So what do we do once we find out who's behind all of this?" Clifford asked.

  "That depends on whether they've been compromised or not," Steve said. "If this isn't our leak, I'm not sure it's really any of our business. Right now we have much bigger fish to fry."

  #

  "Hey, Dae, got a few minutes?" Sean asked, walking out to her workshop.

  "Always!" Daelyn said, coming over and giving him a hug. "Whatcha need?"

  "I wanted to take a quick trip into town to check up on Alex," Sean said. "I feel guilty that I haven't visited him yet."

  "It only happened yesterday, Sean. Besides, aren't you supposed to be waitin' on a gate?"

  Sean sighed and nodded. "Yeah, I know, I should be. But he's one of my best friends, and well, Adam can fill in for me if something happens while I'm gone. Not like I won't catch up with them." Sean looked down at her and, pulling her close, he laid a nice long kiss on her. "Please?"

  Daelyn took a moment to catch her breath; she still got lightheaded when he did that.

  "I guess so, give me a minute and meet me out by the car."

  "Thanks, Hon."

  "Oh, you can thank me later tonight, lion-boy!" Daelyn said with a wink.

  "Already looking forward to it!" Sean smiled and went out to the car.

  Daelyn showed up a couple of minutes later, with Cali in tow.

  "Really, my husband," Cali said frowning at him, "were you just going to leave without me to protect you?"

  Sean smiled and opened the door for her. "Sorry, Cali. After being gone for a month, I forgot. It won't happen again."

  "I also called Travis to let him know what's going on," Daelyn told him.

  "We're not going to wait for them, are we?" Sean sighed.

  "No, it's not like anyone can catch me," Daelyn said with a grin. "But they'll have a team ready with a helicopter if we need it, they warned Demon you were coming, and they'll be watching the route on our trip back."

  "While I appreciate the security, I don't want anyone going overboard, Daelyn."

  Daelyn snorted and got in the car. Sean got in and buckled his seatbelt as Daelyn started the car. "Sean, sometimes you can be hella thick, and right now is one of those times. It's not just because you're my husband, but because you're a big ass target. You're still the leader of everyone and everything here. And if you don't like it, I'll not only tell Rox, I'll also tell ya' mom."

  "Okay, okay!" Sean said, holding up his hands. "No need to get nasty on me!"

  "I'm sure the sad cat eyes would be more than enough, Dae," Cali said from her seat behind Sean.

  "Not you, too?" Sean sighed.

  "I have seen them, my husband. They truly are most effective."

  Sean just sighed and shook his head while Daelyn pulled out of the driveway, laughing at him the entire time.

  The trip downtown didn't take very long, and as Daelyn parked, Sean looked over the building. He hadn't seen it in months. Daelyn's uncle's construction crew had really done a nice job. The place looked even nicer than it had when they'd bought it. Apparently there was even an enchanter's workshop down in the basement for him now; they'd rebuilt his old one. One of these days he'd have to check it out to be sure everything he needed was down there, in case he ever had to use it.

  Several of the workers came over to the car and stood around it, nonchalantly, as Sean, Daelyn, and Cali got out. Sean took a minute to shake hands and greet everyone. Since they'd finished the rebuild, all the werewolves and other lycans who worked at the shop or worked downtown had moved in here. Demon and Alex ran the place, having taken over Sean and the girls' old room up on the top floor.

  "Here to see Alex?" Bess, one of the women working there, asked.

  Sean nodded. "Care to show me the way? I haven't been here since it was finished, so I have no idea where anything is anymore."

  "Sure, follow me!"

  Sean looked around as they went through the building; the staircase was still in the same place, but the floor plans had been altered a fair deal. The main kitchen was now on the ground floor; they were going to open a small diner there as well. Each of the floors above that had a shared living area, which only made sense, because most of the people living here were wolves, and spending time together was a very important part of pack life. All of the bedrooms for the apartments had therefore been redesigned, which meant a lot more people could live here without it feeling crowded.

  A lot of the lycans who weren't a good fit for the combat teams for one reason or another had been moved in to the building to free up space at the ranch.

  "Hi, Sean," Demon said, opening the door when Sean got there, with Daelyn and Cali following closely behind.

  "How is he?" Sean asked.

  "He's fine!" Alex called from inside the apartment. "But a certain worrywart won't let me out of this bed!"

  Sean almost laughed as Demon rolled his eyes.

  "You should take him to the park and make him play fetch," Sean said as Demon welcomed them inside.

  "I tried, he won't go!" Alex called back.

  "I wasn't talking to you, Alex!" Sean called back.

  "You know," Demon said with a wicked grin as they entered the bedroom, "I think I just might. It'd be fun to watch Alex chasing the ball for a change!"

  "Sounds like somebody doesn't want a biscuit," Alex grumbled from the bed.

  "You already told me I'm not getting any biscuits until next week," Demon reminded him.

  "So, how are you doing?" Sean came over and sat on the bed.

  "Actually, I'm doing fine," Alex grumbled. "But everyone is apparently afraid I'll shrivel up and blow away or something."

  "You were shot up pretty bad, Alex."

  "Yeah, but that was yesterday! I'm all better now! I'm a werewoofie!" Alex grinned.

  "Werewoofie?" Daelyn asked.

  Demon blushed. "Umm, it's sort of his pe
t name for me."

  "Ahhhh!" Daelyn said with a giggle and Demon blushed even more.

  "So how's your wolf doing, Alex?" Sean asked.

  "Good, he's doing well, I like him. You should see what he looks like, he's gorgeous!"

  Sean and the girls noticed that Demon positively smirked at that statement.

  "But he also wants to know why the big meanie there won't let us out of bed!"

  "Why don't you just take him out for a run?" Sean asked Demon.

  Demon sighed. "Because everybody in the entire shop and half the building wants to go out with Alex for his first run. I'd have to shut everything down, and we're just way too busy. Because somebody," Demon grumbled and stared at Alex, who suddenly pulled the covers up to his chin and looked about as guilty as Sean had ever seen somebody look, "told everyone that he had a secret stash of biscuits out in the desert, and everybody who went with him would get one!"

  Sean, Daelyn, and even Cali started laughing.

  "I didn't know they could hear me," Alex mumbled.

  "All I know is, you better deliver on that promise!" Daelyn said, still laughing.

  "I live with several hundred of the best noses in the state," Alex said, grinning suddenly. "Where the hell else am I going to hide them?"

  "Good point," Sean agreed. "Well, I'm sorry you got forced into this, Alex, but I'm happy to see you're okay. I was worried about how you were gonna take it."

  Alex snorted. "My big meanie over there has been dropping hints for the last three months. He claims he was just worried about any of the demons..."

  "Djevels," Cali interjected.

  "...whatever, getting me. I think he just wanted to make sure I was his."

  "Oh, yeah!" Demon said with a big ass grin. "Guilty as charged! You're definitely mine now!"

  "Annywaaay," Alex said, giving Demon a look, "I figured sooner or later I'd probably have to do it. Who knew getting shot hurt so damn much."

  "Want me to kiss it and make it better?" Demon snickered.

  "And on that note, I think we're leaving!" Sean said, bending over to give Alex a hug. "I'd say don't do anything I wouldn't do, but I suspect you've done it already. Have fun, you two!"

  "Bye!" Alex called, and as they were closing the door, he heard a very loud growl.

  "What, don't you want to watch?" Daelyn teased.

  "Umm, no. I'm not a voyeur, and honestly? Watching other people have that kind of fun never really did anything for me. Besides, I seem to recall somebody else not wanting an audience!"

  Daelyn blushed furiously then, as Cali snickered. Even now there were times when Daelyn could be incredibly shy. "Umm, what do you say we go home?"

  #

  "Stew!" Sean said as he came into his workshop. "Glad to see you had a few minutes!"

  "What?" Stewart said with a laugh. "Didn't you expect me to drop everything and rush right over here? You're not just my teacher, you're the guy in charge of everything!"

  Sean grinned back, a little embarrassed. "I'm still getting used to it, honestly. Have a seat, make yourself comfortable."

  "What's that you're working on?" Stewart asked as he pulled a stool up to Sean's workbench and sat down.

  "With all the lycans we're getting, I'm making another machine to churn out those protection medallions," Sean told him. "I kinda hate flooding the market with 'em, but to be honest, they need the protection."

  Stewart shook his head. "I'd love to know just how you do that."

  Sean laughed. "Oh, you will, don't worry. You will. So how's college going?"

  "It's going okay. The programming classes are interesting; seems I have a bit of a knack for writing them, and so does Rachel. I have to thank you for having her go with me, she's been a great help. But I'm still not sure I see the reason for any of it, especially not the compiler course, but, well, you told me to do it. So I did it."

  "What about the object-oriented programming? How're you doing with that?"

  "We just started learning it and wow, that's been tough. There are a lot of opportunities to screw up with that. I think it's going to be even worse than learning C was."

  "And the Unix systems, you did okay with that?"

  "Oh, yeah, that was easy."

  "Tar files?"

  "And sed, awk, C shell, T shell, Bourne shell, pipes, sockets; yeah I got all of that."

  Sean nodded and smiled. "Okay, how's the ASL lessons going?"

  Stewart smirked and shook his head. "That is pure genius. I'm relearning all my spells with new semantics based on it. How the hell did you come up with that? Why haven't any of the other magic users discovered it?"

  Sean shrugged. "Rox helped me with that one when I was going over how it all worked. As for the other mages out there? Well, think about it. Knowledge is power, and anybody who's figured out something like this isn't going to be sharing it with the average caster, right?"

  "Keep us stupid and keep us weak," Stewart said with a nod. "Typical magic user politics."

  "That's what I pretty much figured," Sean agreed. "I don't see how I could have come up with that one before anybody else did."

  "You came up with a magic system that allows you to enchant things instantly!"

  Sean shook his head. "I didn't come up with it, I just figured out a different way to look at it. Remember when I told you that using magic was the same as programming a computer?"

  Sean watched the expression on Stewart's face. He looked skeptical, then confused, then puzzled. Then he scowled.

  "It can't be that simple!" Stewart said, looking up at Sean.

  Sean grinned. "That's only because you haven't taken the object-oriented classes yet. Once you start digging into C++ and some of the others, trust me, you're going to be shocked."

  "I'm already shocked!" Stewart said, shaking his head. "But I still don't see how this lets you enchant so quickly."

  "Oh, that's easy. I created a magical spell that lets me tar magical spells the same way the tar command does on computers. I just turn them into tar balls and play them back into items."

  Sean tried not to laugh as Stewart stared at him, his eyes so wide that Sean wondered if they were going to pop out.

  "I... I... But how?"

  "Actually, it's quite simple," Sean said. "Tarring spells, that is. Un-tarring them is a bit more difficult, because you have to supply all the power required to make the item at the time of creation. Then you get about a third of it back, so you have to be prepared for the backlash so you don't get fried."

  "That's why you have all those batteries!" Stewart said, pointing to the stack by Sean's workbench.

  Sean nodded. "Yup. Now let me teach you the tar spell and how to use it."

  It took Sean about an hour to teach it to Stewart. Stewart understood the concepts quite readily now, after having taken the courses. Sean, however, had never had to teach magic to another, so that hindered him a little at first.

  "Just remember, only untar small things at first, and pay a lot of attention to your teacher and textbooks when you hit that course."

  "Oh, I think I'm gonna start on those textbooks tonight!" Stewart said. "This is just all so amazing! And it looks so easy! But how do you do the new spells? And how do you know how much energy is needed?"

  "I built a virtual workshop inside the virtual classroom," Sean said with a shrug. "That's why I want you to take the courses on logic emulators. Once you understand how all that works, I'll set you up with the same gear and show you how to use it."

  Sean paused a moment. "Just how good is Rachel with this stuff?"

  "At least as good as I am. Why? Do you know how to turn lycans into magic users as well?"

  Sean shook his head. "Actually, we're going to need someone to teach any new lycan enchanters we might end up with. I'm thinking she might be the one to do it. Otherwise someone's going to figure out that I'm sending all our people to college to learn coding."

  Stewart nodded. "I see your point."

  "Okay, next lesson I'll teach you h
ow to put a lock on your stuff so no one else can possibly copy it."

  "Oh, I already know that one. It's one of the few things my grandfather taught me before my step-dad pissed him off."

  "Trust me, Stew. If you think the tar spell was cool, you're gonna love this. My dad came up with it, and it's sheer brilliance. I'll also teach you how to estimate power levels for a spell. My dad did a bunch of work on that, too."

  "Thanks, Sean!"

  "Anytime!" Sean smiled and waved to Stewart as he headed out.

  'Well, Dad. there goes the first of them...'

  Sean stopped then and realized he hadn't talked to the First since he'd gotten back! True, it had only been a few days, but he suddenly missed him. Getting up, he walked over to one of the easy chairs in the back that he used when taking a break, or the girls would sometimes coax him into when they wanted him to take a 'break'.

  Closing his eyes, he relaxed. A nap wouldn't hurt, and he could use the time to check in.

  §

  "Dad!" Sean laughed while padding over to the First, who was sitting with a bunch of others, including Keairra. "Hi, Mom!" he said and ducked his head in her direction.

  "I was starting to think you'd forgotten about us," the First said and chuckled.

  Sean dropped down to sit next to the First, then leaned against him and grinned. "Forget about you, Dad? Hardly!"

  The First snorted and the others all laughed, but Sean noticed he didn't get swatted either.

  "So what brings you here, Son?"

  Sean shrugged his leonine shoulders; they were all in full lion form today. "I just missed you."

  "Wait, you missed having him in your head?" said Howarth, who was lying nearby.

  Sean grinned. "Yeah, I know, hard to believe, right? But honestly, I'm not sure I would have gotten anywhere near this far without him."

  "Nice to see somebody appreciates me," the First grumbled, but Sean could see he was smiling.

  "So how goes the war?" asked Kearu, another lion.

  "We've started infecting soldiers, I think we're up to twenty thousand, and honestly, after seeing how many djevels are waiting for us, I'm not planning on telling anyone to stop until we've got a couple hundred thousand, maybe even a million."