It felt Castor's heart trip momentarily as Liam casually mentioned he'd requested the information from the black box. They had planned for this eventuality, but it was yet another area it had hoped to avoid--data could be faked, but there was always a chance that someone with enough know-how would notice. No forgery was ever perfect, after all.
"Of course," it said. "Let me know what you find out, it's not my area, either."
The demon barely managed to keep the irritation from Castor's face, settling for a grimace instead of reaching over and tearing the exorcist's heart from his body for blocking him.
Men of Letters. Librarians, not strong enough to be Templars, not talented enough to be magicians. The middlemen of the hidden world. Wonderful.
The demon simply didn't have time to embed with them and hope for a lateral movement. But the idea did present an intriguing possibility. A computer worm, perhaps, could be a vector for infection into Templar systems, particularly if it arrived from a trusted source.
The demon had made learning all about these digital defenses its business over the past few years. Many of its kind eschewed any form of high technology, but it was different. It had always been obsessed with fortifications, with towers and with walls. It seemed to him now that the world's treasures were simply being kept behind different types of those very same defences. Data, rather than gold and silver. Firewalls, rather than guardhouses and ramparts.
All it needed was a bit of time alone.
"Yes, that would be good. You'll put me in touch with the right people?" It asked, finally. "And thank you, Liam, for the offer and the support. Katerina moved all of my possessions out before the landlord changed the locks, it's just a place. I can find another. But I appreciate it nonetheless."