A Devil of a Job

[TennyoCeres84]

Aislinn sighed and nodded. "Yeah, we're going to find a happy medium so that he'll work with us. I mean, judging by the alternative name, the Christmas Devil, I'm guessing a previous version of Oberon found a demon to help him, and then that demon just became a staple part of Fae culture over time," she mused, shrugging. "How do you deal with something like that?"

[Karl the Mad]

Preston flinched and looked away, as he always did when faced with recognition. He had met this man only twice, at soup kitchens in the area, pausing only to mutter his name and a thank you before scurrying off to a table. It was unnerving how Curran recalled his name and face, and even more unnerving how he seemed to attach some significance to them beyond making eye contact across a pot of stew.

Charles, on the other hand, greeted the man cheerfully and with a jovial handshake. It was Curran who had given the vet shelter some years back upon his first arrival in Hope, and Jenkins was not one to forget such things. "Father," he said with a smile. "Hate t' say but we're about on business. Coupla kids been killed recently, we're checkin' 'er out. We gotta scope th' tower, aye? Anyone else been sniffin' around up there?" He scratched his nose. "We're thinkin' a sniper kinda fella, aye? Sorta like Winters."

-------------------------

That had not been her most pleasant shuttle trip, but Katherine still remembered the days before they were common, and so she held her tongue over the myriad retorts and complaints that wanted to get out. The cab over to Griffin's place was uneventful, and she was soon shaking the chimp's hand. "Your sentiments are appreciated," Starr replied politely. "This is a rough time for all of us. I do not wish to waste time, however." Jet lag was a consideration here; mid morning in Hope, here in London it was getting toward evening. "You know why I'm here, yes? Let us get down to it."

[IamLEAM1983]

Father Curran's eyes briefly shone with mirth at the sight of Preston's bashfulness, but he quickly refocused on Charles. "It's good to see you, too," he said, after which he looked over his shoulder to the heavy wooden panel of the bell tower's door. "I haven't noticed any signs of forced entry, in the least. I was told that the Forensics department found bullet casings on the upper catwalk, but none of the homicides are reported as having been perpetrated with a firearm."

Three frowned at that. "Sounds like our guy wants to throw the cops off his tail, slow them down a bit. He knows they wouldn't just ignore the actual shooter angle, even though everything suggests no actual sniping was involved. What we're working on is the idea that our guy might have used the bell tower as a crow's nest of sorts. Not to shoot through windows, but to laser-paint security system keypads. If the painter model has the right encryption algos, he would've been able to beam shutdown orders straight to the houses he wanted to target. Standard GrifSec procedure."

Curran frowned lightly. "I have every confidence in Nigel's people, of course, but why resort to remote diagnostics like this? Couldn't the network hub simply call households in need of testing and tell them to disregard any alarms for a few minutes?
- Painting systems with a laser makes it so you don't have to disturb anyone, and you can do it from a company van. No need to send people at the clients' doors, no need to stress the locals out by imposing fake alarms on them. The uplink is remote, all the tests are remote - it's clean and easy.
- And exploitable, by the sound of it."

Three pursed his lips together. "Yeah, I'd assume Nigel wants it like that. He's never really given up on the Robin Hood business, so he keeps back-doors into his own systems that only he can use. Looks like the painters are a little too easy to hack, then. He told me those light-guns are connected to GrifSec's central services via LTE connectivity, a while back, but anyone with the right connections could crack the network keys. If the Voice can use something as a back door, then someone with less charitable goals can do it too."

Xavier headed towards the back of the cathedral and unlocked the door to the tower as Three spoke. The trio was left staring at a sizable climb of some five or six stories along aging wooden platforms and several ladders. Seeing that, the soldier grinned.

"Makes you sort of wish for a grapnel gun," he said, as he adjusted his pointer's shoulder strap and started up the first ladder.

* * *

"You barter, I'd assume," noted Matthias. "Unless you're the Krampus' intended target, at which point there's no point in trying. You'll be hauled to London no matter what."

A low buzzing sound was heard a few moments later, d'Aubignier reflexively moving to the side of the door. He pressed a button next to the door, a slat opening in its lower half. An anthro hand of some nature was slid through, a plastic-wrapped tome hanging from it. The vampire had sidestepped largely to avoid the sunlight that streamed in from the opening.

"Le Marteau, Monsieur d'Aubignier," said a male voice in French. Matthias nodded even though he couldn't be seen and also offered a smile that would go unnoticed. "Merci, Étienne," he said.

A few awkward seconds passed, during which Matthias realized he couldn't risk putting a hand inside the ray of sunlight to grab the book. Giving a self-conscious and somewhat amused scoff, he looked to Aislinn with a smirk.

"Would you be so kind as to...?"

* * *

"Of course," Traynor replied. "Right this way, please. We'll talk in my office."

A short walk later, Starr would be treated to a stylish if still fairly simple office, a place that reflected Griffin Securities' general ethos quite well. Professionalism with no ostentation - something that was rare for a company started by a former superhero. The few other varieties that existed on the world's corporate spectrum tended to enjoy incorporating visual themes reminiscent of the vigilante-turned-CEO's personal motif, but Nigel wasn't so much literally invisible on the social scale as he enjoyed being unobtrusive. Ironically, he'd always been at his most flamboyant while utterly intangible and completely in the buck. With a suit on, he tended to stick to a pleasantly sedate attitude - something his London seat of operations suggested quite well.

Katherine was treated to a cup of coffee and to a stapled pile of expense accounts and employee absences. They weren't in any chronological order, someone having already gone through the trouble of correlating the England-based murders with corresponding flights or drives out of the city. The first five or six pages of both printouts had been heavily covered in Magic Marker, making the initial observations to be made much easier to reach.

"I did most of the cleaning-up myself," Traynor said. "Human Resources did a first pass, but I had to make sure things would be properly arranged for the Yard. You'll find all the incoming and outgoing business trips as well as our received and sent deliveries. As you know, most of our production is American in origin, but we do keep a minifactory in the basement - largely for prototype-phase assembly. Mister Griffin occasionally locks it down to work on his, er, personal projects remotely."

[TennyoCeres84]

Aislinn smiled lightly and retrieved the book from the slat. "I take it that feature was designed before you started working here?" she asked.

[IamLEAM1983]

"Er, yes. The man who used to own this office, some ten years back, lost himself. We research in the occult, so some risks are to be considered. Contingencies and safeties are part of the job. My predecessor didn't follow along with our protocols. I'm told he did consulting work for the HPD, too."

Concern briefly outlined his deeper wrinkles. "I don't need to tell you who he was. Just look to the old grain silos."

[TennyoCeres84]

Aislinn snorted. "Never met him, but he's the reason I don't pay rent in that area. The insurance rates are higher around that silo than where my home is. Who knew consorting with demons could have such a domino effect, huh?" she joked, understanding his concern but trying to deride the seriousness of it.

[Karl the Mad]

Katherine accepted the cup and papers, and sat down to inspect them. "Personal projects?" she asked, although most of her attention was on the papers before her. Not everyone had her set of abilities, the mental clarity that allowed connections and inferences to rise out of the murk of coincidence and drivel. Carefully she flipped through them, alert for patterns and relations.

---------------------------

"Has the ol' man said anythin'?" Charles asked of Curran before they started up. If anyone would know of Winters' visions, it was the man's confessor. Right?

[IamLEAM1983]

"He sends schematics to our automated factory line," explained Traynor, "usually when we're locked down for the night. Express courier flights ship everything back to America in the same day. All I'm personally aware of is that mister Griffin still enjoys a spot of vigilante work, on occasion, and he enjoys keeping those few tools he can carry with him up-to-date. He has his own codes, however. He wouldn't willingly share them with anyone."

There was a nervous pause. "Not even with your friends and allies, I'd suspect. Trade secrets."

* * *

Xavier smiled and joined his hands together in front of him. "I'm not at liberty to say. Confessions are confidential, as you can imagine. They're for me, mister Winters, and the Lord. However, I am required to notify the adequate authorities if I suspect anything. I regrettably haven't had the chance to divulge anything of importance to the police."

He shook his head. "Jimmy has been having a few sleepless nights, as of late, but his visions aren't as clear as they could be. He sees blood and innocence lost - but no face. No uttered name. I'm given to understand that someone might have found a way to dampen his foresight. He's already called for someone to sniff out the Harp and Blackthorn as well as his residence, but the local Hounds can't smell any interfering wards that could have been placed near him. This is perplexing."

Three called down from up above. "There's a lot of haze in the air so we won't be able to aim straight, but I think I can see the house! Get up here!"

* * *

The vampire briefly grinned as he unwrapped the big tome. "I live in a condo near the Pedway," he said. "The rates are good and having an all-undead neighborhood makes the tower's administration easier to manage - but yes, unruly mages tend to mess with land value..."

He opened the Witches' Hammer with the sort of careful reverence you had to pay for tomes who sported aged and thinned-out pages. One errant hand motion could open small rips and tears along the edges of each page, and several could already be seen.

Spotting an ornate drawing of a pointing hand, the Guildmate smiled. "I remember the last time one of my younger assistants researched this," he said. "He didn't speak or read Latin. The poor kid was quite surprised to learn that even English Jesuits from the sixteenth century wrote tawdry comments in the margins of their library's books. This looks important, for instance, but it really isn't much more than the monastery's cook remembering to add more leeks to his stew, after Vespers..."

He coughed, seemingly remembering that they weren't here to geek out over the book. "Ahem. Considering how your culprit mentioned punishment as a concept, I think we'd be better off reviewing the standard torture procedures. Right away, I can tell you that killing a suspect's child was never in the Hammer's offered repertoire, however. Drowning her, having her guzzle water, burning her alive... All those are well known. I never did check to see if there was an index on the potential procedures for Changelings, however..."

[TennyoCeres84]

Aislinn shook her head and snorted, watching him look for an index. "You'd think this murderer was some inquisitor that just time traveled to our century. Yet those ignorant idiots would've thought a time travel device was a temptation of the Devil, but still used it. However, our culprit is a lot closer to the mundane, even if they might be a cantor," she mumbled.

[Karl the Mad]

"We all have our secrets," Katherine remarked, glancing up at Traynor. "Codes... backdoor access. Is it possible, even remotely, that a third party could acquire such access and use it?"

-------------------------

Charles frowned, knowing that Curran's words were important. Someone who could fog Jimmy Winters' sight? The old Irishman was one of the best Diviners alive; anyone who could obfuscate him had to be equally powerful, if not much stronger! It was a spine-tingling thought, but he couldn't consider it properly right then. "Perplexing indeed," he noted gravely. "Thanks, Father. Gotta go." He clasped the priest's hand briefly, then went after Aidan and Preston.