Chapter 13
“I’m very confused, but you are truly beaming with pride,” Rita whispered. “What just happened here?”
“Grieving,” Joshua muttered. “She wants demons to grieve their lives as humans if they didn’t know or the lives they had before they reinvent themselves like she did—or now has accepted as Jasmine.”
“Maybe,” I mumbled. “I wouldn’t recommend people taking as long as me, but… Maybe that’s not what I realized what I was doing, but there should be some type of decompression between lives. Closure. I thought of it like between my assignments and the team. Just—mental health stuff.”
“Because if it’s always go, go, go and surviving, how can they ever ask themselves what they want to thrive?
” Natalia surmised, nodding when the others did.
“Love it. Truly love it, Jasmine. And yes, these are the next steps and stages of what we never got to dream of, always focused on just making this work.”
“Agreed, sincerely,” Arthur praised, giving me a proud look.
“They can have the calm time to look into education and different options. Different countries and languages. Why limit themselves? We can be anyone. We should start pushing our people to be extraordinary instead of ashamed we feed on sin.”
I beamed at them, feeling like the child among them but also loved and seen.
“Yeah, like that.” I cleared my throat and looked back at my notes.
“And the last of bureaucratic is portals. They’re everywhere and even the maps we have are outdated.
Now that we’ve rescued so many—we have to formulate a program and fast.”
“Already in the works,” Ally promised, gesturing between herself and Elijah. “So I will take that bureaucratic piece under me for sure. We had the idea, something offhand your right hand said. The always amusing Lewis.”
I sat back with a chuckle. I could only imagine then. “Oh?”
She smirked at me. “Yes, he said he hoped we made it profitable and a lot of good jobs because it could be bigger than Uber Eats with tips. That we’re already looked down on enough as demons, so why not have pride demons on call to activate portals and get the feed from assholes?”
I burst out laughing and I wasn’t the only one. That was such a Lewis thing to say.
And a fucking genius idea.
“Last is risk assessment,” I told them. “And this was actually Aidan’s brainchild. Kind of.” I frowned and then sighed when they all looked at me in shock. “He made a comment about actuaries and almost needing insurance premiums with all the risks we take and how much we’ve undertaken.”
“He’s not wrong, but I think I see his logic too,” Elijah muttered, waving for me to continue.
“First, the lives of average demons,” I explained.
“Not to judge, but how are they feeding and yeah, that could be a problem or again, transferring their bank accounts or which portals are they using?
Okay, well, do it this way. If we had teams—knowledgeable teams that could point out risks, then they could learn what to work on.
“The average demon might not even know what they’re doing wrong or maybe even that they’re not feeding enough.
So it’s not like ‘big brother’ government, but a brothers and sisters program to help someone get on a better path.
But also that no one is doing shady shit that could get us outed or cause trouble for us now that we are a council and that could be a goal. ”
“Will absolutely be a goal to challenge us because we haven’t had that in a few months and that’s shocked all of us,” Rita drawled.
“I think the other ancients were shocked we shut down that first challenge so fast and easily,” Ally admitted.
“Plus, we’re not just council and they still don’t know how much we have in place under their noses too.
No matter how jealous they might be or want what we have, we’ve all had the dream at one point that we be a council and have this. ”
“They might want our spots, but more than that, they don’t want to be the ones known to have ruined it for all demons,” Arthur added, clearly having discussed it with Ally on the side.
Fair enough.
“With risk management is expansions,” I continued. “We need more information before we expand. I’m gathering information while undercover, and we can go back. We can always go back or just take an area over. We need to be extra smart and we got lucky with Rome. We—we’ve all discussed this.”
“Yes, yes, we have,” Joshua sighed, rubbing his tired neck. “It was overdue to reorganize, but fuck is this going to be a lot to implement and I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Finding the right people—fitting the ones we’ve called in to help to make this work.”
“They’re not stuck there forever, and some might not be the right fit or will step down from director positions to be one of the deputy directors or however we label it,” I told him, channeling Ally a bit that not everything was written in stone.
“I could totally see one helping Natalia in PR for the company and then realizing that maybe they’d rather handle council PR or something. ”
“She listens to us sometimes,” Elijah teased.
I was very mature and stuck my tongue out at him.
“And the last part of risk management?” Ally asked. “Leaks?”
I nodded. “Leaks. We have to accept that not everyone will be loyal, and after seeing how many the vampires have fucking had alone… We need to prepare for it. Do better.”
I was glad when a few snorted and all agreed. We’d all been through too much to trust blindly.
Ever.
“Leaks, but not just traitors,” Joshua muttered. “Other supe groups trying to hint something is wrong with the German government now to destroy us as a council. They’ve tried that with France. Also, anyone who might be thinking to out demons as a whole is a problem.”
“Yes and yes,” I agreed.
“This is fantastic, Jasmine,” Ally praised. “Honestly, way better than where we last left it, and not only covered everything Arthur and I discussed—it’s everything I had and more. Well done.”
Relief swarmed me as they all agreed. We spent a bit adding details and filling in this and that.
Also deciding on how to divide between Arthur and Ally. Given Arthur would be front and center in the next few years, he was going to take intelligence, public relations, and risk assessment. Which left Ally with health and social services, new demons and education, and bureaucracy.
Both seemed very pleased with the split and how it would all tie in together. Fan-fucking-tastic.
“I also would like us to each have an ancient council aide—or seven total—that can and will go handle anything council at any time,” Elijah added with a bang.
“Like you did with that demon who the supe started trouble with in public and ISLE was there. You cannot just run all over all the time for that. We can send—we know enough people who would do that.”
“Who would do it and not let the power go to their heads nor want it. But they would want the position for the new IDs and papers—the help to come into this century,” Rita added.
“The safety to learn to adjust and tech—all of it. We will make it clear that is the deal. A decade helping us really form and strengthen the council to protect the young ones and we will teach them this new world. No more in the dark.”
“If you think we can find them,” I agreed when they all seemed sure.
“You haven’t met that many you can trust, but you haven’t lived as long,” Elijah said gently.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “I’ve met enough to know five years can completely change a person, and some you will reach out to you haven’t spoken with in centuries. That’s a risk, not an ally in my child eyes.”
“She’s not wrong,” Ally cut in. “We will choose carefully, and any problems we will do better to communicate and stop being so full of fucking pride. We made it this far. We deserve the pat on the back. Now we are out and have to implement new plans or we’re all dead.”
Well, that made us all a bit nervous.
But she definitely wasn’t wrong.
“I also want three ancients working with a team of younger ones to audit everything,” Elijah continued.
“Clubs. Corporate. Anything we’re putting into place.
Not to be harsh or the law. It’s the only way things stop falling through the cracks.
It’s the way to get better and always be on top of things.
Talk to people and learn what’s really going on. ”
“How is that different than risk assessment?” Arthur asked, his tone tight like he was insulted Elijah was undercutting him.
“Business side,” Elijah clarified. “I’m talking more like secret shoppers and…” He sighed. “I guess it does tie in, but I see it not as—it’s not risk but more gossip. Keeping an ear to the ground and making sure the menus are working out and the kitchen is really doing their job—”
“His head is how much we’ve learned from Ricco playing a whale at clubs with his people,” I cut in, feeling their exhaustion and not wanting to get off track. “Nails in parking lots trying to get tires of mostly human dancers. That’s not government or council.”
“Yes, of course. My apologies,” Arthur told Elijah.
“I would never undercut you and certainly not like this,” Elijah told him. “And even if I misspoke—this was a lot to take in. I was thinking of other things to add in the future.”
“Yes, something to add later,” Natalia muttered, nodding when they all agreed.
Okay, goals for later and I didn’t disagree.
And just like that, we were reorganized.
Yeah… Just like that.
Fucking nightmare and I wasn’t even sure it could fit into a standard fucking organizational chart without a million fucking footnotes, color-coded chaos, a logistics degree, and a bottle of whiskey to put the damn Monet together.
It was a bit longer, but then it was done… But I wasn’t. I walked out of the meeting to so many messages my head about spun off. Luckily, the first message I received was from Kyle saying they had a hit on the victim’s credit card.
And it was for a nail salon.
Lovely.