Chapter 16
Magnum
Mad Dog received the summons through official channels, and terror stole my breath when he handed me the fancy card commanding me to come to Brooke’s main residence in two days at four in the afternoon.
“What the fuck?” I asked. “She hasn’t suddenly taken on a craving for turtles, right?”
“Doubtful,” Squatch said, since Mad Dog had apparently asked him about why I was being summoned before he’d called me into his office.
Our chapter’s agreement with her involves sending tribute once per month, on or around the full moon, which had been the week before.
One of our hang-arounds was wanting to be a prospect, and Mad Dog had asked him to go — he’s a sloth bear, and it’s well-known Brooke likes the taste of bears.
He’d gone without arguing, and now he’s a prospect.
So this was likely something else.
Not much scares me, but the idea of having to go to Brooke sent terror flowing through my veins, and I sat in one of the chairs in Mad Dog’s office to keep from just getting on my bike and driving to another state.
Brooke looks like a seven-year-old, but she’s thousands of years old, and she is terrifying.
“I’ll go with you,” Squatch said, and I met his gaze. He and Kitty are friends with the powerful, ancient Master of Alabama.
“Is that allowed?”
“Doesn’t say to come alone. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“I talked to Dev a while back, about what it would take to tell Storm about my true nature, but I haven’t told them she’s put her house on the market. I figured I should wait until she actually moves in.”
He shrugged. “No sense guessing. We’ll find out when we get there.”
And now it was two days later, and the two of us were riding our bikes on a crisp November day. We stopped at the gate, and ten seconds later, it opened.
I felt the vampire’s power as we crossed onto her land, and goosebumps traveled up my spine and down my arms.
A skinny wraith of a man answered the door, and Squatch said, “Julien. It’s good to see you.”
“The Mistress is awaiting you,” Julien said, and we followed him through the house and down many, many flights of stairs, then through a maze of hallways.
Eventually, he led us into a sitting room, and we were suddenly standing before Brooke, who was dressed in a pastel pink-and-purple frilly dress with matching purple shoes and a huge pink bow in her hair — and ancient eyes that sent shivers down my flesh.
She was seated in an adult-sized chair. The kind someone would curl up in to read, but she was sitting upright, so her legs were out in front of her, straight. She looked tiny in the chair, and I focused on her forehead, rather than looking into her eyes.
I showed her the gift I’d brought. Kitty had told me to wrap it in colorful, sparkly paper. Squatch had told me to put a big, fancy bow on it made from expensive ribbon. I’d done both.
“Oh, how pretty,” Brooke said, and she floated to the floor and then skipped to me. She handed the ribbon to a female wolf, and then tore into the paper to find the Dapper Barons Peppermint Schnapps inside.
“Thank you, Magnum. It’s a thoughtful gift.” She handed it off to the wolf shifter, and floated up, so she was the same height as me.
“Storm McIntyre has twenty-three million followers on YouTube.” She tilted her head to the side. “The Senatus does not wish for humans with a large audience to know of us.”
My stomach fell to my feet, and my heart felt as if it was made of concrete. Was she saying I’d never be able to tell Storm?
“I love her, ma’am. She needs to know what I am. Please, is there anything I can do to make that happen?”
“I’ve been going through your mind, but I couldn’t get inside until you passed my gate. Turtles, with all your shells and walls, it’s annoying, is what it is. I need more time in your head. I see that you know the game of backgammon. Come, let’s play.”
She easily beat me the first two games, but I was trying very hard to only think about the game, and nothing else. I was off-balance, and I didn’t like it.
I tried to forget she was reading my memories, my life, while we played, and managed to win the third game.
“Fun!” she said while Mirabelle, the wolf shifter, set the board up for a fourth game.
Partway through this game, she said, “Years ago, I knew a turtle shifter who fell in love with a cheetah. They were both men, and the relationship fascinated me. One person needed routines and schedules, and he plotted out every last detail. The other was spontaneous. Hated routines. Completely impulsive. They loved each other and made it work, and I believe both were enriched by being forced out of their preferences.”
I had no idea what to say to that, so I remained silent.
She knocked four of my pieces off the board and said, “You and your Storm both thrive on routines and details.”
“We do, ma’am.”
“Are you so sure she’ll accept the supernatural without it breaking something in her mind?”
“I don’t know,” I told her, because lying would be stupid after the tiny vampire had been all through my memories and thoughts.
“She’s open-minded with new data, and accepts things that have proof, even if she doesn’t like it.
” I sighed. “But I was asking for Dev’s help in case she can’t handle it.
In case we need to make her forget what I tell her. ”
Technically, it’s legal to do the binding ceremony without a vampire overseeing it, but if the person doesn’t follow through correctly so the binding properly locks in, you have to either kill them, enslave them so they don’t have an opportunity to tell anyone, or sequester them somehow until you can pay a vampire to wipe their memories after the fact — and the human will often lose more than the one memory if a vampire has to come in later to clean up.
“You understand Dev would be pulling on my powers to make her forget, yes?”
“I do, ma’am.”
She threw the dice and made her move. I threw the dice and made mine.
No one said anything the rest of the game, and when she beat me again, she stood and walked to Squatch, climbed into his lap, and made herself comfortable. He held her as a father would hold a child, complete with a quick kiss to the top of her head.
“I like Storm,” Squatch told her. “I think it would be sad if she can never know the truth about her new friends. Not just what Magnum is, but the rest of us, too. She’s all about digging for the truth and learning the uncomfortable facts about people, and if she never knows our true natures? She’ll never really know us.”
“Our Kitty likes her, too,” Brooke said.
“Your Magnum’s time in prison fundamentally changed him.
He’s a different person now than he was before.
Slower to trust, and he values his life in a way he never did, before.
He is harsher with women now, and I’m not a fan of the rigidity, but based on what he sees of Storm, she seems to be. ”
No one said anything for several long moments, and then Brooke said, “I must meet your Storm before I can make a decision. I will leave it up to Squatch and Kitty to make that happen, so you don’t have to bring her here.
Will the two of you have a tea party with me now?
I want to enjoy the fun peppermint treat you brought me. ”
It turns out, this meant all schnapps and zero tea, but that was okay. We sat at a fancy table and used fancy manners, and twenty minutes later, Squatch and I drove out of the gate.
I didn’t breathe easily until we made it to the interstate, though.
“Kitty and I can have Brooke over to our house, and we can invite you and Storm over,” Squatch told me through our headphone microphones. “We’ll tell Storm we’re babysitting Kitty’s niece.”
I was about to agree to that when he said, “Actually, we might do better by giving Brooke a special treat. Maybe a ride on your boat. Something she doesn’t often get to do. Can you make that work?”
I blew out a breath. “Sure. Any chance we’ll be able to tell her on that night, if she agrees Storm can be told? Also, is there someone else we can go to, if Brooke won’t do it?”
“The Chattanooga chapter is close to Cora and Marco. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to it, but they’d probably be able to get you an audience with him.”
Marco is the leader of the new Senatus ruling body, so that would get me to the top person, but fuck, I hoped it didn’t come to me having to go to him.
“I’m thinking you invite us over to grill steaks and then go out in the boat,” Squatch said, “and we have to bring Kitty’s niece at the last minute.”
- - - ? - - -
Magnum
Three days later, Skippy had helped Squatch, Mad Dog, and me gameplan the best way to tell Storm about us, and how to get Brooke to our house. Kitty had run our plans by Brooke, and we were, supposedly, ready to go.
“Do you know what Mason feels he needs to tell me?” Storm asked while we chopped the veggies for the huge salad we were making.
The steaks were marinating in the fridge, the oven was working on the baked potatoes and the squash casserole, and we had plenty of snacks to take with us for the boat ride planned after our meal.
Before I could answer, she added, “I can’t believe Kitty and Squatch are bringing a child with them. I mean, I get it, that Kitty’s sister had a work emergency while her husband is out of town, but maybe we should’ve just put this off until another night.”
“Brooke isn’t a brat. She’s smart and quiet. It’ll be fine.”
Brooke sat in front of an empty plate while the rest of us ate, but she was making it so Storm didn’t notice her not eating.
She’d come dressed in a white dress with large turquoise polka dots, a turquoise bow with smaller white polka dots, white patent shoes, and cute little turquoise socks with white ruffles.
Her hair was curled in perfect ringlets, and she looked like something out of a magazine or movie — as long as you didn’t look at her eyes, which were clearly ancient and wise, with so much power behind them it made my teeth and jaw ache.
But dinner, and the conversation around it, was good and seemingly normal despite my nerves.
“I’m looking forward to the boat ride,” Brooke said near the end of our meal. “Do you believe in bigfoot, Storm?”
Storm’s brow furrowed, and she said, “I believe there has to be something to the myth and the stories, but I’m not sure what that something is. Do you believe in bigfoot?”
“I am undecided. What do you know of the myths? Can you tell me about them?”
“A lot of Native American tribes have stories of a creature they call by different names, but it seems to be the same… whatever it is. Animal, I guess. Not just American traditions. It’s all over the world. Even the Yeti, in the Himalayas, seems similar, though it’s a different color.”
“But you investigate things, right? Would you investigate Sasquatch?”
Storm shook her head. “I focus on things with an answer. Facts. Not myths.”
Brooke smiled. “Yes, you do, and this means it’s okay to tell you of myths.” She looked at me. “It’s a loophole.”