It seemed that boys were fascinated by toys, no matter what world they lived in, Sabrina realized.
Once everyone in the two apartments was awake, dressed and functioning with or without caffeine, Damian served up a late lunch—two huge trays of sandwiches and subs, deli cuts, cheeses, fruit and veggies. All of it was finger food and all of it was served on the flat top of the ancient old gramophone against the wall next to the windows, because the table was taken up by bags of gear, equipment and an array of weapons that would have gotten everyone in the room instantly arrested, if a cop had seen it.
Riley and Talia were both hunters, yet they sat on the sofa while Sabrina sat in the armchair and Chloe lay on her blanket on the floor between them. The men all gathered around the table, pawing through and examining Jake’s gadgets and gear. Jake explained the various functions of the netting and fold-away knives, the anti-venom spray and more.
Sabrina only half-listened. She wondered if anyone else in the room realized the toys were all the products of advanced research and tech development, the sort of stuff that came out of experimental labs. It was the sort of weaponry for which governments paid billions to take off the market, so no other country except them could acquire it.
Sabrina had supervised the financing of such deals more than once. It seemed odd to see such products put to such strange uses. Jake had applied some very lateral thinking to skew the end-product to this highly specialized application.
Talia was glancing over now and then. Mostly, she concentrated on eating the enormous amount of food on her plate.
“You don’t want to check out the weapons, too?” Sabrina asked her.
Talia shrugged. “There’s no point.”
“They could help you hunt the gargoyles.”
Talia’s smile was sour. “It’s not like we could ever afford to buy that sort of shit.”
“A sword edge does the job, anyway,” Riley added.
Talia nodded. “Exactly.” She glanced at Sabrina. “Look at you. You’re earning lots, got the nice clothes and stuff that goes with it, yet you spend all your time on the job. You’re probably feeling guilty because you’re not there right now.”
Sabrina pressed her lips together. She was fighting off nagging sensations of guilt and worry about not being at the office.
“We can’t work the sort of job that brings in the money to buy things like that,” Talia said, glancing at the table. “We have to stay fluid. It’s not like demons clock off at five like you do.”
Sabrina shook her head. “Nine to five isn’t the only way to make money.”
Talia laughed. “No, there’s swing shift and graveyard shift, too. A woman’s gotta sleep sometime.”
“No, I mean there are ways to make money that don’t involve any sort of job where someone pays you to do their work for them,” Sabrina said patiently.
Talia just stared at her.
“She’s talking about passive income,” Jake said, from his place at the corner of the table.
“Passive income?” Talia repeated.
Miguel was holding one of Jake’s fold-away knives in his hand, up in mid-air like he had forgotten it was there. He was looking at Jake, too. “Passive sounds a lot like not working, amigo,” he said carefully.
“That’s exactly what it means,” Sabrina said, lifting her voice so Miguel and Jake could hear her, too.
“It’s not something that would work for hunters,” Nick said sharply. “There are no products they could use to generate the income.”
“It just means they haven’t developed them yet,” Jake pointed out.
Sabrina’s gaze fell on the two duffel bags sitting on the table between the vampires and hunters and the devices and tools they were pulling out of them.
“Look at the knife in Miguel’s hand,” she said. “Someone did all the R&D on that and will earn royalties for life when it goes into production.”
Miguel looked down at the knife, his eyes widening almost comically. “This would make me money?” he said, sounding awed.
“Not that one,” Jake said. “You’d have to develop a knife or some other weapon and it would have to be unique enough it could be trademarked and copyrighted. Then you could sell the design.”
“You mean, people make money from thinking up these things?”
“They make millions, amigo,” Jake assured him.
Nick shook his head. “It takes more money than most hunters see in a lifetime to develop just one product. You’re feeding them pipe dreams, both of you.”
Jake sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just used to thinking that way.”
Miguel put the knife back on the table with slow, sad reluctance.
Sabrina’s gut tightened. Thinking in terms of revenue streams and investments was what she did all day, too. None of these people, these hunters, had ever had time to lift their heads and look toward a future with a positive bank balance, let alone their next meal. Even Nick and Damian and Nyanther, the vampires, didn’t naturally think that way. Their vast fortunes came about as a result of time and compound interest. There was nothing remotely entrepreneurial in it.
Of course they weren’t used to thinking about such things. Survival was a higher priority. No wonder Talia wore second-hand boots and 1960s relics and Miguel’s car belched blue smoke. From their perspective, it was an impossible dilemma to solve.
Only, Sabrina spent all her time resolving problems far more challenging this this.
She sat back in the corner of her chair, letting the conversation wash around her. She absorbed the laughter and chat at the table and the little macho challenges and bravado as they flourished the weapons. She thought about everything she had learned about the hunting world and the hunters themselves and applied it to business models.
There had to be a way….
* * * * *
Jake could almost see the wheels start to turn in Sabrina’s head as she sat back in her chair and stared into middle-distance. Something had tripped her off.
His uncle Graham had looked into Sabrina Castillo’s background after Cory Morse had brought her to dinner to meet them. It was standard practice whenever one of the family met someone in a business setting to check the new person out, build a profile and learn what they could about the new contact’s strengths and weaknesses.
“There’s a reason she’s the youngest director Wentworth Kumatsu has ever had,” Graham had told Jake. “She’s driven, she’s smart and she’s creative. Some of the financing she has arranged for projects has been so out there no one believed the deals would hold together. If we can keep her on the team, it will be to our benefit. Maybe you should date her again, just to cement it.”
That had made Jake’s mouth curl down.
Only, the next day Cory Morse had let them know Sabrina had moved onto a bigger project. It was a code even Jake understood without his uncle’s translation.
“They slapped her down for a transgression,” Graham said and shrugged. “Possibly even for fucking you, Jakey. Men can get caught with their dicks in the wrong slot and shrug it off. Women get a completely different set of rules.” He had dismissed the matter and moved on.
Jake found himself wondering if he had somehow screwed up her professional reputation. He’d never considered just sleeping with a woman would impact negatively on her life, before. Although Sabrina was the first high-powered suit he’d ever taken to bed.
As he watched Sabrina go into thinking mode, Nyanther nudged him. “Did you hear Connor’s question?” he asked, his voice low.
Jake shook off his inattention. “No, sorry.” He looked at Connor. “What was the question?”
Connor was hefting the knife that folded up to look like a harmless power bar. “Can you get these anywhere? How much are they?”
“They’re not on the market,” Jake told him. “That’s a prototype and upper management decided it was too much of a novelty to sell well.”
“Which means they were pressured by a government somewhere that didn’t like the idea of covert weaponry,” Nyanther said.
Jake grinned. “That’s almost exactly what happened.”
“Does a lot of weapons development get suppressed?” Damian asked curiously.
“Suppressed or bought outright, so no one else can get hold of it,” Nyanther said. “It’s happened to me twice.”
“You sell computers,” Damian pointed out.
“I develop software,” Nyanther said. “Cyberwarfare is the new frontier.”
Damian snorted. “Humans…. We haven’t finished with the old battles yet.”
Jake glanced at Sabrina once more. She was listening to the chatter with a smooth, absorbed expression, as if she was sifting through every word said.
An hour later, he found out that was exactly what she had been doing. By then, the remains of lunch had been cleared away and the weapons all returned to the duffel bags.
Chloe was settled for a nap and the adults broke up into smaller groups—Nick and Nyanther sat across the chessboard from each other, while Riley laid against Damian’s chest and drifted in and out of sleep, completely relaxed despite the room full of people. Jake had seen Miguel and his kids do the same thing over the weekend. Grabbing sleep no matter where they found themselves was apparently part of the lifestyle.
Connor had his nose buried in one of Nick’s precious books and Talia was breaking down and cleaning a pistol that lived on her hip when she was hunting. Jake hadn’t seen her use it. She was handling it like someone who knew what they were doing.
Jake wondered if he should go home. It was possible he had outstayed even a hunter’s extended welcome. Besides, his other life was waiting for him. Like Sabrina, he had taken a dive for the day. Tomorrow he would have to report in and work like a good little human, although after this weekend of hunting with real hunters, the human world held less than zero appeal to him.
Sabrina came up to him where Jake was sitting at the table, sifting through texts and email messages and feeling guilty about his uncle and the work he wasn’t doing. “Can I talk to you?” she asked softly, for the room had become very mellow and quiet.
“Sure.” He pushed the chair across from him out from under the table with his boot. “Have a seat.”
Instead, she pulled out the chair around the corner from him. The top chair. Of course. She settled in it and crossed her legs. Even in casual at-home wear, she looked polished and groomed and elegant.
Sabrina’s appearance made Jake realize how far he had moved away from Wall Street in just a few days. He had spent a weekend traipsing about woodlands or trolling towns for news of strange beasts or missing people and working with a team that just didn’t know the meaning of the word “quit”. It had been energizing to be among people who had the same goals as he did.
With a jolt, he realized that this was the first time in his life it had happened. He wasn’t an outsider here. No wonder he didn’t want to go home.
Sabrina glanced over her shoulder. She wasn’t looking for eavesdroppers, he realized. Her expression seemed to be saying, “look at them.”
“I’ve been thinking,” she said.
“I noticed.”
“You’ve got access to a lot of cutting edge technology.”
“One of the few genuine advantages to being a member of my family,” he said. “Why do you ask?”
“One of my clients—I can’t say who, of course—I set up a deal for them to acquire a tracking device with over-the-horizon potential.”
“A drone does that,” Jake pointed out.
“Private citizens can’t acquire tracking drones,” she said dismissively. “The tech my client wanted to buy used old satellites. There’s thousands of them up there, no longer used because the corporations who own them have moved on, folded and more. We’ve been putting satellites into space for decades. Anyway, the tech uses old satellite capacity to bounce microwaves from the hand-held device to the surface. The range is fantastic and the tracker can be keyed to look for heat signatures, movement, up to twelve different criteria, including sound.”
“Sounds intriguing.”
“I thought you might know what I’m talking about,” she said softly, “because my client’s bid failed. Summerfield bought the tech.”
Jake shook his head. “So? I work in the corporate offices, not the labs.”
“So, couldn’t that tech be used to find the gargoyles? They’re solitary, they move at night, they stay away from humans unless they’re hungry. They should stand out on that sort of tracker like neon in the dark.”
He stared at her, his heart suddenly racing. Why hadn’t he thought of that? He had seen the bid go through. At the time it had been just another file his uncle had wanted him to read and appreciate. He had appreciated the hell out of the seven figure price paid for the tech. It had helped open his eyes to the sheer volume of money the corporation moved around on a daily basis.
“Do you have access to it?” Sabrina asked.
“I have access to anything I want,” Jake said truthfully. “It doesn’t mean I can walk in and take it. It’s a prototype. They’re going to notice if the only working device they have goes missing.”
“That’s just the one they show you,” she said calmly. “There will be others in development. Scientists don’t like basing their conclusions on the trials of just one device. They’d want to test lots of them to make sure it works across every device and style. They’ll only show you the prettiest and most impressive one to keep their funding flowing.”
He stared at her.
“You don’t believe me,” she said. “It’s okay. Check it out tomorrow at the office. See if I’m right.”
“You want me to steal one?” he breathed, his brain only starting to work sluggishly.
“It’s your company. You’re not stealing when you’re taking something you already own. Taking the schematics would be more useful, though. Then we can replicate it here.”
“On the kitchen table?”
“Damian has a workshop in the basement, I’m told.”
“He does?” Jake was starting to feel stupid.
Sabrina smiled, as if she had noticed his confusion. “He does.”
Jake shook his head. “Even if I did steal the thing, or the plans—and I’m not agreeing to it, not yet—but if I did, then there’s all the satellite relay programming and….”
Sabrina moved her head to look at Nyanther, where he was hunched over the chessboard, his fingers curled into a tight fist. Clearly, Nick was winning.
Then Jake realized. Nyanther had a software company full of developmental coders and an aptitude for mischief.
Jake shook his head. “Even if we can replicate it, what are you doing to do with it?” he demanded in a heavy whisper. “You can’t put it on the open market. All you can do is give them away to hunters. You can’t even sell them. Hunters don’t have two cents to rub together.”
“Oh, I don’t intend to give them away at all.” She got to her feet. “You steal the plans. I’ll monetize them.”
She left him sitting at the table, feeling winded and ignorant…and determined to prove she was wrong.