24. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
Emmett stood on a wide stage next to the existing members of the Council, smiling as though he hadn’t just survived attempted murder. Wesley Lake, well-groomed and confident, stood on the other side.
Between them, the other members of the Council lined up shoulder to shoulder.
I could tell which one was the shifter. They were all built strong with an edge of vigilance, like the wolf was always just under their skin.
The fae representative had fingers just a little too long and knobby to pass for anything else, tipped in red fingernails that may or may not have been stained with blood.
The vampire and human representatives could have gone either way if I hadn’t been able to sense the lack of magic under the human’s skin and the woman next to him wasn’t bleached white from forsaking the day.
The gathered crowd of diplomats and important personalities hushed when the human stepped forward toward a podium at one edge of the stage.
Someone had added its twin on the opposite side.
“I am Representative Andrew Clark,” he said.
“We’ve called this meeting to discuss the upcoming election for a magicians’ representative and the recent attempt on one of our candidate’s lives.
Presently, we do not have suspects, but there is a pattern.
The killer is targeting magicians working for the Council. ”
Rook snorted beside me. “They know that’s not entirely true.”
“They look bad if they don’t have it under control,” I whispered.
“As far as we can tell,” Andrew continued, “the killer’s motive is to stop the election. Despite the attack on Emmett Graves, the election will proceed as planned.”
The crowd murmured and a tremor of uncertainty vibrated through it.
“Please know that all the representatives are working hard to ensure the safety and security of everyone involved in the election. Tonight, Emmett Graves and Wesley Lake would like to speak on this issue.” He took a few steps back and gestured for Graves and Lake to step forward. Each settled at one of the podiums.
Emmett leaned forward, flattening his palms on the podium and flashing an appealing smile that made pink spread across the cheeks of the woman to my right.
“Hello everyone, and thank you for attending this meeting. I apologize for the delay due to the circumstances of my attack. In these uncertain times, it is more important than ever that all of us—not just magicians—band together and cooperate on finding this person spreading fear through our world.”
“So you want everyone else to stick their necks out for something that only affects us,” Wesley interrupted.
Emmett turned slowly toward him, that smile flickering. “I am saying that a threat to one is a threat to all, and we have formed this alliance between species for exactly this reason.”
Wesley took one step away from the podium toward the center of the stage and addressed the rest of the politicians. “Do you agree with this? Do you want to risk your people—your lives—to catch a killer who isn’t targeting you?”
He sent them a withering look. The fae’s hands curled just slightly, its gruesome fingernails flashing. The fae had never wanted the alliance anyway; their real politics took place in their courts. A few of the others moved in place, discomfort bubbling to the surface.
“We don’t know they are only targeting magicians, just that they have only killed magicians so far.”
“Their hands were cut off. Their tongues were cut out,” Wesley scoffed. “The killer wanted to send a message—he wants no one casting. Only magicians cast that way.”
“Then what do you propose, Candidate Lake?” asked Andrew Clark. As a human, he was the weakest of all of us, the most likely to lose his life or the lives of people he represented, should they all decide to help us.
“Strengthened legislation to keep all our problems separate, with the Ashbruck Council serving only as an intersectional point to handle larger issues that affect the supernatural peoples as a whole. Keep our own problems just that.”
“And undo two hundred years of alliance between us?” Emmett asked, his voice growing louder.
Wesley shrugged. “We needed a different alliance back then. This is 2005. Humans aren’t hunting us anymore.
Most of them aren’t even aware we exist in this city, so tell me—what is the point of us bearing each other’s risks?
The Council exists to mediate overarching conflicts between our communities.
There is no reason for it to handle isolated issues within those communities. ”
“If we don’t help each other, it sets a precedent.
No one will help each other when the need arises in the future, and it weakens that intersection.
” Emmett stayed obediently behind his podium, making his point from his designated place, even as Wesley stepped fully into the middle of the stage with all the flourish of a showman, or maybe a salesman.
He continued his pitch, addressing the audience.
“Let’s be realistic,” he said. “We all know most of us handle our own problems already. I simply want that written into law.”
“Candidate Lake, if you would please remain at your podium,” Andrew Clark said from behind him.
“Think of your own communities,” he said, ignoring him. “Do you want to bring others’ problems into your neighborhoods, your homes?”
“Candidate Lake—”
Wesley turned halfway and raised his hands in surrender before stepping behind the podium again.
Andrew Clark placed himself between the feuding men and said, “Candidate Lake will have his proposed legislation on each representative’s desk Monday morning.
Candidate Graves, you will have an opportunity to draft counter-legislation before the election.
The election will be held one month from now. Dismissed.”
The people around us shuffled and whispered, as if they’d been paused and someone had pressed play, setting them back into motion. I tapped Rook on the elbow and motioned for him to follow me outside.
“It will be an interesting election,” he said once we’d stepped into the chilly air. He blew into his hands and rubbed them together. “Candidates with completely opposite goals? Some people are about to show their true colors.”
“They’ll vote for Wesley Lake,” I predicted. “People always have their own interests in mind.”
“Emmett seems to believe what he’s saying.” We fell into step as we made our way to my car and I opened the passenger door for Rook. When we were both inside, I turned on the heat.
“He has to have some kind of angle,” I said. “No one gives that many fucks about everyone else, least of all politicians.”
“We’ll see what comes out when the laws are drafted,” he said, sliding his hand across the center console to rest against my inner thigh. His fingers drifted back and forth across the seam of my pants. “You know what would be more fun than talking about politics right now?”
How did he do that, I wondered, as he kissed me and pumped my cock with his hand in the front seat of my car?
How did he take anything gloomy or dull or heavy and pull me out of it with a smile, a joke, or an incredibly well-timed hand job?
By the time I spilled on his fingers and we hunted through my glove box for napkins to clean up, I’d nearly forgotten how morose the Council meeting had left me.
We wiped up and buckled in, and Rook fell into his usual lazy yammering about whatever came to mind.
You need to go home. Now.
I paused halfway to putting the car in drive. Rook noticed; he seemed to notice everything I did, and when we locked eyes, I pressed one finger to my lips.
“What’s happening at home?” I asked, wondering why I was hearing about it from the dead before Gray or anyone else.
There’s a message there. Hurry.
“Your dead friends?” Rook asked when I finally set the car in motion.
“They’re not my friends.”
That’s rude.
“Well, you’re not,” I told them.
Rook laughed and shook his head. “You should see how weird this looks from my perspective.” His smile melted. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know yet. Something bad is happening back at my building.
” I drove faster toward an unknown threat, contemplating how many times this had happened to me over the years.
I would get a secretive message from the dead and investigate it without question.
For all the ways they obscured important information, they had never steered me wrong.
And they apparently loved the idea of me and Rook, which was why it was so unsettling that they’d interrupt us for whatever waited for me at home.
***
Someone had graffitied the front of my building from the ground to the second-story windows, the sleek glass tainted with white paint that hadn’t dried yet.
Looking over the doors to the lobby was the eerie face of an owl, enormous eyes slitted in the white of its facial feathers.
Masked man. The spirits whispered as Rook and I climbed out of the car and let it idle along the street. A small crowd had gathered across the road, and one man snapped a photo with his phone.
“What’s with the bird?” Rook asked.
“I don’t know. I’m more worried about that.” I swiped my pointed finger from left to right across the building.
To all the sevens. Large and small, dozens of them scattered over the windows, stark against the darkened building.
“‘One evil with seven faces,’” he quoted the killer’s message.
“He’s escalating,” I muttered. “He’s not watching anymore. He wants me to know he’s here. He’s marking me.”
Trepidation twisted down my spine, then boiled into anger. Magic hummed at my fingertips, responding to a threat I couldn’t see.
A car door slammed behind me and Rook and I turned at the same time. Gray stepped from his vehicle and rushed over to observe the spectacle.
“When did this happen?” I demanded. “How did this happen?”
“Shit,” he cursed, staring up at the graffiti. “What the fuck is that? This is the first I’m hearing about it.”
“Then where were you? Where was security?” Someone somewhere fucked up and allowed this to happen.
“There was an explosion on the other side of the building,” he said. “Everyone had to evacuate, and security spent the last two hours trying to figure out what caused it.”
“He was trying to create a distraction,” Rook said, “and it worked.”
Gray turned slightly toward Rook, his gaze traveling up and down his body as he assessed him and realized who he was.
I cleared my throat. “This is Rook. Rook, meet Gray.”
A grin that was wholly inappropriate for the situation we stood in the middle of brightened Gray’s face. He extended a hand and shook Rook’s. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Focus,” I grumbled. “Was there any damage from the explosion?”
“A dumpster,” he said, “and one of the guard’s trucks blew up. Nothing major, and no one was hurt.”
“But it bought him time for this.” I stared up into the bird’s hollow eyes and an involuntary chill wracked my body.
Rook lifted his hand toward my shoulder and then thought the better of it, letting it fall to his side as more of my men gathered on the sidewalk. “Let’s just get inside.”
Inside, where I could warm up and maybe fold myself into Rook’s embrace to chase off the chill that wasn’t entirely from the weather. No, I refused to be rattled by this killer. Let the arsehole leave his messages. I would make myself the last person he wanted to fuck with.
“Hire someone to clean it up,” I told Gray. “Take photos of it first. I want to examine them in the morning, so meet me in my office at eight.”
Gray would make sure it all went smoothly now, but even as Rook and I rode the lift to the penthouse, I could not shake the tension that had gathered in every molecule of my body.