Summoned Chaos (20 page)

“So?”

“That doesn’t happen. The Council debates a lot of stuff, but when push comes to shove, the Elders force a decision down their throats. These messages make it sound like the Council is beginning to push back. They’re supporting Carla’s request for more transparency—both from the Elders and between Skilled and Normal societies.”

“Carla?”

“Ambassador to the Skilled.”

“Oh.” He seemed to ponder this for a moment. “Um, is swaying to her way of thinking really that bad?”

I shrugged. “Personally, I think we
should
be more transparent. Operating in secret like we do, keeping the Normal politicians at arm’s length, only breeds suspicion. But I can certainly understand the reluctance of the Elders. They grew up in a world where the Skilled were outcasts. Integrating with Normals wasn’t an option for most of their lives. Then overnight we’re one big happy family? That has to be a tough change. Add in a tendency for our people to focus on the past and it makes it hard to move forward. We’ve only made baby-steps with modernization.”

“You seem pretty hip to the modern world. Cell phone, computer, indoor plumbing.”

I laughed. “Funny, smartass, but when I was growing up, integration with the Normal world was standard. My generation is more accepting, but a lot of the Skilled are old school. Tradition makes and breaks us in their minds.”

My stomach dropped as that thought sank into my brain.

What if the attack on the Ambassador was a means of slowing or halting our march to modernization?

What if it was designed to drive a wedge between the two worlds?

Maybe the attack on me was for the same reason. I was the Council’s poster-boy for the unity. Elsa was also in the spotlight, but I was the one making headlines recently. Killing me or Carla would certainly cause a media storm and add fuel to the fire of those opposed to the peace. And if that was the case, then someone was playing a much more sinister game than I initially thought.

“So, anything else I can help with?” Seamus asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“Just a printout of everything you have,” I said, unable to shake the dread that was building inside me.

He handed me a large stack of papers. “I figured you’d want to murder a forest. ’Cause you’re old school.”

“Ha-ha. And thanks.”

“Anytime. Hopefully that gives you something to work with.”

I looked at the stack of information, intimidated by the sheer volume of data. “It’s a start.”

* * *

The drive home felt like an hour instead of the actual ten minutes. The nap, although long, had been insufficient after an exhausting day. It was everything I could do to keep my eyes open. I cranked the Senior Mobile’s A/C on to full blast, hoping the chill would get me the last few miles to my house.

Then I turned into my neighborhood and my heart rate rocketed back to “Fully Awake.”

“You have
got
to be kidding me,” I growled.

The crowd outside my place had grown to the point where the lines between the media and protesters blurred. In front of my house were two local patrol cars. The cops stood guard by the barriers keeping the throng from my front stoop. Portable construction lights illuminated the entire scene in a stark, eerie glow.

Unlike the last time I arrived on the scene, the crowd remained stationary. It was a blessing, but the protesters seemed more agitated. Rather than just hold their hateful signs, the crowd was shouting.

As I passed, I gave the men and women my best fake smile.
Don’t let them get to you
, I thought, focusing on the calm inside me.
Just keep smiling.

Andrew would have been proud.

An egg smashed into the driver-side window, splattering the glass with yellow goop. The stillness in my soul was replaced with liquid-hot magma.

I jerked the car to a halt and leapt out.

“Who the hell threw that?” I snapped, charging at the group. The protesters quieted, scrambling backward. Some even appeared terrified.

Good. Maybe if they were scared, they’d leave me alone.

One of the cops intercepted me.

“Sir, I have this,” she said, as the crowd slowly returned to its previous level of agitation. I started to respond, but she simply pointed at a young man dressed in skinny jeans and a hooded jacket. “You. Give me the eggs.”

The kid made a show of pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about, but the cop just glared at him. His cocky grin faded. He bent down and handed her the carton.

“Sticking up for the freak, eh, cop?” he asked as he passed them over. “No wonder our society is so screwed up.”

“Watch yourself,” the lady growled.

“His kind is a threat to all of us,” he replied. “I heard about what happened in Maryland. How those monsters attacked the folks on the highway. You don’t think that was his doing?”

The anger bled out of me, replaced instead with utter shock. “Whoa, my fault?”

The people around him grumbled with approval.

Fueled by the sudden wave of support, the kid perked up. “We were fine until the Skilled showed up. We lived ordinary lives and dealt with ordinary issues. Now we’re forced to operate in a world where wizards and magicians threaten us. Worse, they bring with them
monsters
.”

The fire inside me returned. “We didn’t create the paranormals. They existed long before any of us.”

“Oh really? Then why did they show up at the same time as the Skilled?”

“Because it was part of the Reformation Treaty, you pimply-faced moron. Haven’t you studied history?”

“History that you all
claim
is true!” he shouted back. The crowd cheered. “For all we know, that’s nothing more than clever lies created to protect a society of circus freaks.”

The flames inside reached their peak and I stepped forward with a snarl. The kid’s eyes went wide as the crowd backed away with a gasp. I seethed as the ashen faces stared back at me. Then I realized a number of them weren’t actually focused on me, but on my hands. I looked down.

Electricity popped around my fingers.

I hadn’t been aware of activating the spell. But sure enough, one of the nearby cameras was dead, having been sucked dry by my Skill.

Everyone, even the media people, held their breath.

My emotions swirled, battling for dominance. The rage wanted to be released, but the rational part of me fought it. I’d nearly lost control—this time at a Normal.

What kind of damage would that have done?

To the treaty? To the Council? To me?

Heaviness settled into my shoulders. I’d screwed up enough for one day. I released my hold on the spell, allowing the electricity to dissipate harmlessly into the air.

Then the whispers started.

“
See?
”

“
They really are a danger.
”

“
How can we be safe when someone like that might lose it?
”

And so on.

The cop gripped my arm, redirecting me toward my house as the noise from the crowd increased. “Perhaps you should go to bed.”

Exhaustion from the day weighed on me. I poured myself back into the Senior Mobile, then pulled into the garage.

Once inside my house, I trudged up the stairs, dropping the stack of papers from Seamus on my kitchen counter. Before I switched off the light and climbed to my bedroom, I gave the pile a final glance.

Guilt knotted my stomach.

I hadn’t been completely honest with Seamus. The documentation was helpful in several ways—not the least of which was that it gave me traction in one direction.

If someone really was trying to stir up trouble between the Skilled and Normals by targeting me, then they were about to get a wake-up call. I was done reacting to the situation.

It was my turn to go on offense.

Chapter Fifteen

Meat and Greet

The problem with a good offense is that it usually requires information.

I was three cups of coffee into the next morning, digging through the personal files of Devon and the other Elders, but still completely stumped.

My gut told me that somewhere, buried in that stack, was the right piece of leverage I’d need to start hunting the jackasses responsible.

My shaking hands also told me to switch to decaf.

The information Seamus found was split into several sections, all separated by sticky-notes. In addition to emails, he’d scrounged up browser histories, the names of desktop folders and a handful of personal papers that weren’t behind the archaic structure of the secured database.

Remembering the advice that the only way to eat an elephant was one bite at a time, I’d started with the emails.

Unfortunately, those proved to be completely useless. There was a flurry of discussions about food and sports, none of which mattered to me. So what if Rancin didn’t like chicken salad? Heck, the only email that stood out was a message from Elder Bristol to her husband a few weeks back ranting about the crushing defeat the Orioles suffered at the hands of the Yankees. Her love for the O’s rivaled my own, which made me feel a bit more akin to her.

Not that she’d ever given me the time of day, but still. It was nice to know the Elders were, in fact, human.

A good offense also requires uninterrupted time to process all the information. Halfway through the email traffic, my phone vibrated loudly, startling me.

Thankfully, it was from someone I actually wanted to talk to.

“Hey, Dad.”

“You have some explaining to do, Marcus,” he said without preamble.

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

He grumbled something unintelligible, then took a deep breath. “I’m referring to your friend, Pastor Rado.”

“Oh?” I felt bad that I’d almost forgotten about him.

“Apparently I helped you go behind the back of both the Council and Ambassador Jones. What you did was both uncalled for and disrespectful of her rank. It also makes the Council seem foolish for stiff-arming the Mosaic Group for so long.”

Crap. Maybe I
was
still detrimental to Dad’s career.

“So it’s a no go?” I couldn’t hide my own disappointment.

“Quite the opposite. I spoke with Elder Rancin this morning and she informed me that the reason why the Elders have been delaying this meeting is because they want as much buy-in from the Council as possible. As it stands, we are still almost evenly divided. But, she was able to convince enough of the Elders that the current media attention was a perfect time for us to reach out to the various faiths.”

“Good job, Dad!” The old man could sell snakes to St. Patrick if given enough time and motivation.

Dad sighed. “Honestly, I think it’s good for everyone. The old cadre is still reluctant to trust the Church despite the extension of the olive branch. And with the current make-up of the Elders, we could have gone another ten or twenty years before enough new blood was on board to force the issue.”

“In other words, we made the right call.”

“The right call, yes. But we went about it the wrong way. Certain processes exist for a reason, son. Whether you like them or agree with them, you need to follow them. Failing to do so disrupts the stability of the Council. More important, it angers a lot of high-ranking people.”

Echoes of Devon’s threat rang in my ears. “I’m sorry,” I said, guilt stinging me. “I’ll make it up to you soon.”

“You’ll more than be making up for immediately.”

My stomach flip-flopped. “What do you mean?”

“Rado mentioned you by name, so the Elders decided that you deserve to be part of the initial meeting.”

The coffee in my belly rumbled. “Now is a really bad time. I’m knee deep in research.”

“Sorry, son. But you pulled the pin on this grenade. Now you have to deal with it. Consider this a lesson in sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Be here in an hour. Oh, and Marcus?” he added. “It’s an
official
function.”

He hung up.

I stared at the silent phone for a good minute.

Then I cursed.

* * *

Sixty minutes later I was standing in the entrance of HQ along with almost three dozen of the Council’s finest brown-nosers. The entrance was still under construction, but the majority of repairs were either complete or hidden behind massive, ugly art. Someone probably figured that it wasn’t kosher to have giant holes in the sheet rock, but given the hideous tapestries and paintings, I wasn’t sure our interior designers had made much of an improvement.

We really did need to work on our aesthetics, especially when we were entertaining dignitaries.

Despite me not being the Council’s favorite product, I still found myself participating in the occasional—boring—function. Part of that was due to my father’s rank within the governing body. The other part was because the Shifters were one of the few surviving upper-crust elites from the days before the Delwinn Council.

In the years since returning from my self-imposed exile, I’d worked hard to minimize the number of official functions I attended. I’d skipped most graduation ceremonies, had avoided Skilled weddings, and had in general stayed away from all political meetings.

The only event I actually enjoyed was our upcoming Reformation Ball, but that was because there was an open bar and lots of dancing.

My ability to run from my responsibilities as a Shifter had vanished in the wake of our battle with Quaos. Having been assigned to HQ, I’d been forced to glad-hand with my “peers” more often than I liked.

Being thrust into the limelight recently didn’t help matters. More eyes were on me now. And I hated it with every fiber of my soul.

The entrance of HQ felt stuffy, what with all the bodies crammed into one space. Granted, the room could handle well over a hundred people, but after the recent attacks, being around a crowd made me nervous. I kept scanning the doorways, searching for anything that seemed out of the ordinary.

Unfortunately, that didn’t narrow things down.

For starters, the Councilmembers surrounding me were all high-ranking officials and not the low-level newbies or political strap-hangers that normally attended daily meetings.

I was impressed. The fact that the upper echelon was in attendance gave weight to the gravity of this situation.

Like all professional politicians, Councilmembers were always working an angle. I knew for a fact that most of them didn’t trust or even like the Church—and their faces showed it—but their desire to be seen as major players trumped their dislike.

Granted, the only people with real power were the Elders, but that didn’t stop the rest of the Council from trying to appear important.

In addition to the surprising number of Councilmembers on hand was the number of Elders not present. I’d seen Marquette and Rancin earlier, but that was it. That many absent from something as momentous as this meeting was clearly intentional. Perhaps I was seeing the rift within the Council firsthand.

The frustrating thing about the situation was the mixed message. On the one hand, the Skilled appeared eager and welcoming, but the lack of true authority made it seem like it was all just smoke and mirrors. A person could interpret that as an insult. If that’s what the Elders were going for, then so be it, but I couldn’t help feeling like it was not only unnecessary, but stupid.

The Skilled had spent almost a millennia living in fear of Normals and the organized religions of the world, so the least we could do was act like grown-ups and not pouting children.

But historic occasion or not, the whole thing was nothing but a detractor for me. I needed to be reading Seamus’s files that were sitting in my car, not standing around waiting to kiss up to a bunch of strangers.

“Hey, Marcus,” a familiar voice said.

I tensed.

“Jethrow,” I replied at the man who appeared next to me.

“You lose a bet?”

I fingered the collar of my brown “daily” robes with a grimace. “Official function, official uniform. At least, that’s what I was told.”

“I’m honestly shocked.”

“I’m not a fan of wearing heavy wool in July.”

Jethrow smiled weakly. “I know. Your face is broadcasting your displeasure so loudly, you might as well be wielding a bullhorn.” He nodded at the crowd around us. “You may want to loosen up. It’s common knowledge that you’re the reason why this meeting is happening. Everyone also knows you went behind Ambassador Jones’s back to set it up.”

I glanced at several Councilmembers who immediately looked elsewhere when we made eye contact. If they knew I was behind this, then what did that mean for Dad?

Had I further jeopardized his career because I thought I was doing the right thing?

Could I forgive myself if I had?

“Lovely,” I grumbled.

“If it makes you feel any better, I think you made the right call. Sometimes we need to be pushed out of our comfort zones if we hope to progress. The Council more than anyone.”

His words of platitude struck a chord with me. One that I didn’t want played because I didn’t like the song.

Or the musician.

“No offense,” I said evenly, “but I really don’t care what you think.”

His pale lips lowered slightly. “I—I understand.”

We were silent, me fuming about the collateral damage I may have caused Dad, Jethrow likely wondering why he bothered trying to stay friends with me. Then he cleared his throat. “So, what’s your take on all this?”

I turned, looking him in the eyes for the first time. The edges were strained and the lines deeper. His face seemed thinner than before, his cheekbones more prominent. Maybe the strain of recuperation had been harder on him that I’d thought. Whatever the reason, his tired, older expression caused a twinge in the area of my heart where my old friend used to live.

“I don’t like it,” I said in a low voice.

“Why?”

I shrugged. “My gut is saying something is off, but I can’t put my finger on what. Maybe it’s the fact that only two Elders showed for this meeting. Like it or not, this is a huge deal. This conglomerate represents the organization who started the millennia of persecution against us and they are nearly begging us for forgiveness. Yet here we are, offering them only a fraction of our governing body. Doesn’t that smack of disrespect?”

“We’ve beefed up security,” Jethrow offered.

The guards were certainly dressed in their full battle-rattle. The Normals were decked out like Marines ready to storm the beach while the Combat Warlocks and Mages scanned the room, their long, wooden staffs held at the ready. To the outside observer, the Skilled guards blended into the crowd, but to me, they stuck out like sore thumbs. They were rigid, telegraphing their roles rather than fading into their surroundings. It was something that wasn’t an issue when Arbent was the head of Warlocks. Granted, his talents were needed on the rift repair teams, but the lack of his leadership was painfully evident.

“Security is one thing,” I said, disappointed with the sloppiness of the Warlocks and Mages, “respect is something completely different. We’re half-assing this shindig. What kind of message does that send, huh?”

“Well, three more Elders are in the meeting hall, but I see your point. All the Elders, and heck, the entire Council, should be involved in this asinine dog and pony show.”

“You? Insulting the Council? Color
me
shocked.” My sarcasm was as thick as wet concrete.

Jethrow sighed. “Listen, Marcus, I know you think I’m just a ‘yes man,’ but the reality is that there’s a lot I don’t like about what goes on. Sadly, change is a slow process, one that takes generations to fully complete.”

“So things will be different when you’re an Elder?”

“Yes.”

I glanced at him, shocked by his honesty.

“Assuming I live that long and am lucky enough to enjoy a successful career,” he added with a wry grin.

“Speaking of smart career moves, any word on McCain?”

Jethrow darkened.

The question was a reflex, a snarky way to shoot back whenever the emotions threatened to cause me too much grief. It was a defense mechanism ingrained after years of telling myself I hated Jethrow. But that didn’t make it right. Treble McCain may have betrayed the Council and his Hunter kin, but my old friend had suffered the most at his hands.

My heart ached.

So much for avoiding my feelings.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

“Don’t be. I will live with that mistake for the rest of my life.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “But to answer your question, Treble is good at hiding. We’ll find him, though.”

“Eventually.”

“Eventually,” he echoed solemnly.

The twinge twinged harder this time and I found myself actually feeling sorry for the guy. In an effort to ease both our discomfort, I did what any red-blooded male would do in an uncomfortable conversation—I changed the subject. “So, you coming to the party on Saturday?”