Chapter 1 #2
The building wasn’t especially tall—five floors, maybe—but it was impeccably maintained and landscaped.
Aside from the entry lobby, no light shone through any of the enormous windows generously dotting the cream-colored brick exterior.
At this hour, if she somehow managed to reach the demon’s apartment, she’d be waking him from a sound sleep, which wouldn’t improve her odds of success.
Didn’t matter. Shyness and trepidation be damned, she marched up to the entryway without hesitation, because they were running out of time to avert catastrophe.
The twentysomething doorman’s posture straightened still further as she approached. Plastering her most reassuring smile across her face, she halted directly in front of him. Then slapped a hand atop her sliding wig so momentum didn’t fling it from her head.
“Excuse me…” A quick glance at his name tag helped her out. “Excuse me, Haziq. I was hoping to talk to one of the residents of this building. Councilor Hugh Blacke? It’s an emergency.”
Against her own better judgment, she’d followed the demon’s life from afar over the years.
When they’d first met, he’d been a twentysomething law student, one trusted enough by the Supernatural and Enhanced Ruling Council to serve as an oracle verification panelist. Or so she’d eventually discovered, once it was far too late to prevent her hurt feelings and injured dignity.
After participating in the most humiliating moment of her entire life, he’d gone on to have a very successful, very public life.
Summa cum laude in law school. A decade working at his high-prestige family firm, Blackes, before he’d left to pursue politics.
Five years—and counting—as a SERC councilor.
He’d already been reelected once, and all signs pointed to his being voted into office again by the Supernatural and Enhanced community next year.
She’d cast her ballot for him. Both times.
In the twenty years following their last encounter, he’d earned a reputation as an intelligent, no-nonsense enforcer of rules. Unbending, almost to a fault, but honorable. His political power remained on the rise, so he was expected to chair the Council at some point in the not-so-distant future.
The main reason she’d voted for him, though?
Shortly after her verification test, the rules governing Delphi Academy had changed.
Sick students and faculty could suddenly choose to recover at a well-guarded private medical facility outside the campus, where their loved ones could provide succor.
Family emergencies had elicited prompt permission for students and faculty to leave the campus, accompanied by school-provided security.
And every prophetic skills classroom began to stock basic healing spells, ones strong enough to mend the painful slices left by students’ athames across their palms.
Gwen knew exactly who’d prompted those changes.
Hugh might have deceived her—probably at the demand of his SERC supervisors at the time, which was why she’d forgiven him long ago—and he might have refused to grant her a second verification test after her first one went so disastrously wrong, but he’d also listened to her and acted on her concerns, precisely as he’d promised.
That was enough to earn her vote…and also to cause her to seek him out when she needed someone powerful and discreet to help save the world.
Despite Max’s vampiric SERC ties, he hadn’t been able to find Hugh’s phone number or his personal email.
Just his physical address. Even if she’d had the councilor’s other contact information, though, her story was one best told in person if she hoped to convey its urgency and maintain its secrecy—and maybe even convince him to believe it.
This was her best and only shot at reaching the demon and securing his assistance quickly.
And as far as the poor doorman knew, she was just some rando in sunglasses and a gargantuan Guy Fieri costume rolling up to a bougie apartment building at four in the morning, requesting the attention of one of the most powerful politicians in the country.
“I’m sorry,” the young man said politely but firmly. “Talking to Councilor Blacke won’t be possible.”
Haziq didn’t sound sorry in the slightest. She couldn’t blame him.
“Could you at least tell him I’m here?” Even though she couldn’t give her name, she could definitely offer an unmistakable clue to her identity in a message. “If you do, and he doesn’t want to meet with me, I’ll leave. I promise.”
What she and the trolls would do then—where they could turn—she had no clue. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. Coming up with good ideas on the fly or under pressure had never been a notable skill of hers, as her history with Councilor Blacke would confirm.
“I’m sorry,” the doorman repeated, then placed himself directly in front of the door, arms akimbo, leaving zero room for her to sprint past him. “No.”
Unable to summon a persuasive reason for him to change his mind, she stared blankly at his name tag and tried to think. Haziq. Haziq. That name sounded so familiar, but…why?
Wait. Hadn’t Gwen’s neighbor mentioned a nephew named Haziq who worked as a doorman at some fancy apartment building? Mentioning the connection would probably reveal far too much about Gwen’s identity, but if she didn’t take the risk…well, she guessed she’d be dead soon enough anyway.
She had to try. “Are you Farhanah’s nephew?”
“Yes.” The young man’s thick brows drew together. “You know my aunt?”
Gwen nodded. “I live on the same street, four buildings down from her.”
Distantly, she noted the roar of the taxi driving away and the muffled squabbling of two very hungry trolls attempting in vain to be discreet.
After a quick glance in her companions’ direction, the doorman exhaled heavily. “We lost contact with her days ago. Since the Containment Zone entry door is malfunctioning, we can’t visit to check on her either. Do you know whether she’s okay?”
Last Gwen had seen, Farhanah had been safely tucked away in her attic, where her zombie escape room was stocked with ample supplies. Hopefully the sweet human woman hadn’t ventured downstairs before Max and Sabrina had eradicated the last of the creatures, but Gwen couldn’t swear to that.
“Telecommunications have been down for everyone in the Zone. When I visited her two days ago, though, she was fine.” The most honest answer Gwen could give him.
Clearing her throat, she added the necessary falsehood.
“Uh, the entry door started working for just a minute, and my friends and I managed to get out. But then it closed again. Sorry.”
Even she could hear the uncertain waver in her words. Jeez, she sucked at lying.
“Who are you?” Haziq’s eyes narrowed on her. “If you truly know my aunt, tell me something specific about her.”
There was no point prevaricating. All Gwen could do was avoid using her legal name and hope her utter insignificance in the Supernatural and Enhanced world would benefit her for once.
“I’m the oracle she hires every so often.” Biting her lip, Gwen thought back to the previous month. “In our last session, the Power revealed that her roof would leak in new places during the next rainstorm and irreparably damage her cookbook collection.”
After the vision had concluded, Farhanah had proudly, charmingly bragged about her close-knit family—including her favorite unmarried nephew.
Then she’d inquired as to Gwen’s exact age, relationship status, and desire to bear children.
At which point, Gwen had beat a hasty retreat, because she wasn’t ready to share her status as a single mother-to-be with clients.
Much less explain that her baby daddy, Vic, had signed away all his parental rights and was no longer in her life.
“After your prophecy, she finally told us about her roof issues.” Haziq’s arms dropped to his sides, and his tense posture visibly relaxed. “We patched a few bad spots the next morning.”
“Good.” Gwen had hoped her vision was revealing not an inevitable outcome, but simply what would happen if remedial action weren’t taken. “Did that fix the problem?”
Somewhere in a shadowed doorway down the street, a far-too-loud throat-clearing drifted their way. The trolls, who were growing impatient. Which, okay, fair enough, but she was pursuing her only available path forward, so they needed to shut it.
“There hasn’t been a visible leak since, even on rainy days.” The young man’s face softened. “Under one of the patched spots, there’s a shelf where Auntie Farhanah keeps a cookbook passed down from her grandmother. If that got ruined, she’d be devastated.”