Chapter 7 #2
“Homeschooled?” Aidan asks. Most community children are homeschooled, according to human governments, but in actual fact, we run our own “unofficial” schools.
It allows our kids a degree of freedom they wouldn’t have if they had to share classes with humans, plus gives us a chance to educate them on our history and society.
The number who are actually homeschooled, as in taught at home by their parents, is dramatically lower than amongst humans, especially for shifters. We like to be social—even the cats.
“No. They attended a community school. There was very little teaching about the magic, and none on community history. As far as they know, human history is entirely correct and the community has always lived in fearful hiding. This supports our theory that everyone in Beker County is aligned with Tish and the CCA.”
Fuck.
“Just as an aside,” I ask, “were you able to find out anything about their teachers? Tish’s project only really got off the ground within the last half century.
It seems unlikely that the CCA would have infiltrated the school in Beker County and begun changing what education was delivered prior to that. What reason would they have?”
“Since when has the CCA needed any reason for what they do?” Ellie asks bitterly, but then she shakes her head. “Sorry.”
“You’re right,” David tells her, “but in this case they did wait until they had a reason before acting like batshit freaks. Noah and I have reviewed the census information for Beker County and the CCA membership files that we confiscated from their compounds. There’s a definite change beginning forty-eight years ago.
Before that, the population split between species in the county was what we’d expect it to be, given the location and the geography.
But forty-eight years ago, an influx of hellhounds began.
It was gradual at first, then picked up speed a couple years later.
At around that time, other species started to drift out of the area.
Several key members of the local community moved away, including a few schoolteachers. ”
“I can’t believe we missed this,” Andrew says.
“I just can’t get my head around the fact that they’ve been planning for this for fifty years, and if Sam hadn’t run away from home when he was a teenager, we might never have understood exactly what was going on.
How could we have missed an operation of this scope?
They’ve literally been taking over civilian townships and indoctrinating children while still assimilated with the rest of us. ”
“You need to let it go,” Noah tells him, and it has the rhythm of something he’s already said several times.
“Get past it, Andrew. We can fix our intelligence systems so we don’t fuck up again in future, but that’s not our primary objective right now.
Focus on what we’ve discovered, not how we missed it before. ”
“Listen to him say ‘we’ and ‘our’ like that,” I tease. “Noah’s joined our super-special club, and he’s ours forever!”
Heads slowly turn in my direction, and I’m drilled with incredulous stares. I think the joke might have fallen flat.
Possibly a timing issue?
“So, getting back to our detainees,” I say.
Gideon glares at me but picks up the conversation. “The boys—”
“Sorry to interrupt, but can we stop calling them that?” Sam asks. “I mean, one of them is older than me. Do you seriously think of me as a child?” That last bit seems to be directed at Gideon, who pales and shudders.
“Point taken,” he mutters. “They just don’t seem as mature as you.”
Sam is pretty mature for a cat his age. Actually, now that I think about it, most of the people I know who were raised thinking they were human—and thus had a shorter lifespan—are much more mature than those of the same age raised within the community.
Huh. Interesting, but really not relevant right now.
I tune back in to what Gideon’s saying.
“…understanding of the magic is limited to the fact that it exists and makes up the fabric of the universe. They had no knowledge of the fact that it selects, invests, and guides our leaders.”
“But they would have had some contact with their pack leader,” Ellie protests. “Surely they felt something then?”
Percy makes a face. “We didn’t want to drill down on details too much yet,” he admits. “We did ask about pack gatherings, and they both became more cautious, so we left it alone. When Gideon asked about government, though… it was pretty clear that they’ve been taught to think the worst of CSG.”
“How so?” Andrew asks.
“Right from the start, one called me the henchman of a corrupt and dictatorial regime,” Gideon says dryly, and beside me, Aidan chokes on his fruit. “It was at that point I decided not to introduce Percy to them.”
Without taking my eyes off the screen, I reach over and smack Aidan on the back a few times. He’s nice and warm, and I’m tempted to let my hand linger. I add him an extra smack to give myself an excuse.
“Thanks, I’m good,” he murmurs, squirming away from my hand. Maybe I was a bit enthusiastic.
Gideon’s still talking. “They were both happy enough to talk about their schooling in exchange for more privileges, and we were able to get a lot of information I don’t think they intended to give.
We’ve inferred some facts about their local hierarchy and lifestyle.
There’s a full briefing file and some charts saved in the drive—the subfolder is called Beker County.
” I minimize the video screen and flip over to the secure shared drive while Gideon gives us a quick rundown of the documents he put together.
I click into them, skimming quickly through, looking for anything I might want to ask questions about in this meeting.
Aidan’s warm breath brushes the side of my neck as he leans in to read too, and I inhale the scent of him.
I never paid much attention to it before, but I really like it.
There’s the soothing scent of species leader—comforting, friendly, dependable—but that’s not him .
It’s part of who he is now, but the scent that’s uniquely his, that he was born with and that will be his until he dies, is separate from that.
And I want to cover myself in it. Just roll around in it and breathe it in. Maybe after he falls asleep I’ll steal one of his shirts so I can just smell him whenever I want.
Is that creepy? That might be creepy. I’ll just have to fuck him so often that I’ll be able to smell him on myself all the time.
Yeah. That’s a much better idea.
Gideon finishes his overview, and I say, “I’m just looking through the docs, and would you say it’s safe to say that Beker County is hostile to CSG, to the lucifer, and to any and all magically-invested leaders of our people?”
“Yes.” Gideon barely lets me finish before he replies.
“I’d go beyond hostile and consider the entire county to be part of a terrorist organization and actively dangerous to anyone associated with CSG or community leadership.
I’m going back tomorrow to interview the detainees again, and I expect to have further information after that, but in my expert opinion, that status is only going to be confirmed. ”
Gideon’s been in this job for decades, and prior to that he worked extensively in several different parts of the world identifying and analyzing terrorist and anti-government organizations.
David is our go-to for planning and research, but there’s nobody better than Gideon when it comes to assessing and neutralizing threats on this scale.
If he says Beker County is a terrorist hotspot, I’ll take that as fact.
“That’s going to make things trickier here,” I advise.
“We were hoping to ask around in Beker County and try to identify the three hellhounds that helped Tish take Noah. Plus, I wanted to sniff around and see if Tish or any of the elves were in the area. But I can’t risk taking Aidan anywhere near there now, and I’m not that happy about leaving him here alone either. ”
“Beg pardon?” There’s suddenly a whole lot more Irish in Aidan’s voice, and his scent has shifted slightly. Waves of annoyance assault my nostrils.
“Yeah, I get that, Alistair,” Gideon says, “but there’s not much we can do about it. There’s a CSG office in Seattle with an enforcement special ops team—I could have them come down and stay with him, if you want?”
“You what ?” The scent of annoyance changes to pure pissed-offedness. “I don’t need a feckin’ nanny! And I don’t need to be left safely at home. Those are my people in Beker County, and I’ll be going out there to talk to them.”
“No.” It’s not just me who says it—there’s a chorus from my laptop speakers.
“We talked about this, Aidan,” I continue. “Remember? I’m in charge when there’s a threat to your safety.”
“There’s no threat,” he insists. “I was just in Beker County a few days ago. They might not have welcomed me like a long-lost loved one, but I was in no danger.”
“That you knew of,” Andrew points out. “They might have been willing to placate you so you’d leave without poking around too much. Going back there now would be announcing that you have suspicions about them, and they’ll probably act at that point.”
“Not likely,” Aidan scorns. “They’d have to know that if I ‘had suspicions,’ as you put it, I would have discussed them with CSG.
The very fact that I’d be accompanied by Alistair would tell them that.
They’d be better off continuing to placate us while they hid all the evidence.
In the meantime, Alistair could have a good sniff around. ”