fifty feet hex

“Ixnay,” I growled. “I know what I’m doing.” I turned to Thomas. “How many bugs does Lara have on this place?”
“Harry,” Thomas said in a scandalized tone—one that was just a little bit too well projected to be meant for me. “I’m her brother. She would never behave that way toward her own flesh and blood, her own kin, her own dear sibling.”
I growled. “How many?”
He shrugged. “It changes. New ones come in sometimes when I’m not home.”
I grunted. I put the phone on the counter, unplugged it, and grabbed a pepper shaker. I put a circle of pepper around the phone, and sealed it with a gentle effort of will. “You’re set for money, right?”
“With Lara’s money, yes.”
“Good,” I said, and then I unleashed a burst of will with a mutter of, “Hexus,” that burned out every bit of electronics within fifty feet. The apartment’s lightbulbs all winked out at the same instant.
Thomas groaned, but he didn’t otherwise complain.
“Grasshopper,” I said.
“On it,” Molly said. She rose to her feet, frowning, her eyes mostly closed, and began walking slowly around the apartment.
While she did that, I broke the circle of pepper with a brush of my hand and plugged the phone back in.
“If you were going to do that,” Thomas asked, “why not do it before you made the phone call that absolutely did set off every flag Lara’s security teams have to wave?”
I held up a hand for silence, until Molly had wandered down the hall and back. “Nothing,” she said.
“No spells?” Thomas asked.
“Right,” I said. “Anyone who came in uninvited wouldn’t be able to make that kind of spell stick. And no one you’ve invited in has . . .” I frowned. “Molly?”
“I didn’t,” she said quickly.
“. . . has planted a spell to listen in on you,” I finished. “And I wanted Lara’s people to know who I contacted. When they try to follow up on it, they’ll betray their presence and he’ll be alerted to how they operate.”
“It was a payment,” Thomas said.
I shrugged. “Call it a friendly gesture.”
“At my sister’s expense,” Thomas said.
“Lara’s a big girl. She’ll understand.” I considered things for a moment and then said, “Everyone be cool. Something might happen.”


Cold Days Chapter 20, Page 195-196