by Lauren Dane
“I... I... Who are you?” she asked, her back to the wall in the entry.
“I’m Genevieve Aubert. You’re Julie Cheng and you’re not only feeding witches to your boyfriend, you’re one yourself.”
Well, then.
“My friend here is Rowan Summerwaite. She’s feeling a little grumpy because last night one of your boyfriend’s friends’ spells hit her and would have killed her if she’d been human and I were only a moderately talented witch. Now I’m feeling cross with you because you’ve been up to some very naughty things.”
Genevieve made a few hand movements and Julie made a croaking sound as she struggled to move, pinned against the wall by whatever Genevieve had done.
“The wards here are terrible. I know you’re a teacher and you get paid next to nothing even though teachers—present company excluded—are wonderful. But you should know how to barter for some better work to protect yourself.”
With another wave by Genevieve, Julie slumped before jumping away from the wall.
“Why are you here? You can’t just barge into my house and assault me.” Julie would have sounded far more outraged if her voice hadn’t been shaking.
Genevieve spoke over her shoulder as she entered a room on the left. “Rowan, do feel free to talk with our Julie. I’m just going to have a look around. Make sure we don’t have guests. Or traps.”
“Don’t waste your breath with threats to call the cops.” Rowan looked her over carefully. Taking her measure. “You know why we’re here. You might not know how we found out, or even just what information we have. But you know what you did. And I know what you did.”
Julie put her hands up and Rowan realized she was about to cast a spell and dived from the way. But it wasn’t necessary because the witch had no juice.
Rowan watched Julie realize that as she tried to cast again right before Rowan got her wish and punched that bitch right in the face.
“David!” she called out.
“Right here. Just closing the front blinds.”
“Julie, what the fuck?” Rowan pushed teacher girlfriend through the same door Genevieve had gone through. A living room. Good enough.
One hand gripped on teacher girlfriend, Rowan grabbed a chair from the nearby table and sat Julie down. She pulled her backpack free to get the rope she’d brought along for this very situation and set about fastening Julie in place.
“I mean, really, there was no call for that business there in the hallway. We could have just talked. You could have just answered my questions without you having to be tied to a chair.” Rowan strolled through the room now that Genevieve had checked it out.
Genevieve returned while Rowan was still getting a feel for Julie.
“Found two spell traps in the guest bedroom. Some don’t-look spells around a wall safe. Easily opened.” Genevieve had a handful of documents. “All manner of incriminating evidence.”
“Thanks for neutering her,” Rowan said. “She tried to use magic on me.”
“How very rude,” Genevieve said before flouncing down onto the couch in a flower scented heap.
“Picture of her with Bob over there. You might want to take the photo albums. She’s got dozens of them. Maybe you’ll see some familiar faces.”
Genevieve took a stack Rowan handed her way.
“Bob? Where is he?” Julie asked.
“How long have you and Bob been together?” Rowan asked instead.
She started to clamp her mouth shut but Genevieve did something and snapped her fingers. It must have hurt because teacher girlfriend yelped, struggling against her bonds for a moment.
“How long have you and Bob been together?” Rowan repeated.
“Two years.”
“How’d you meet?”
“Why do you want to know this?”
“What did I tell you about just answering my questions?”
“Just say what you think I did.”
Rowan sighed. “We all know what you did. How did you meet Bob? He had a place in Santa Monica. That’s a ways from West Covina.”
“He’s just a guy I date from time to time. I met him in a bar when I was out with friends. Whatever he’s done, I have no part in it,” Julie said. “I’m just a high school biology teacher.”
“You’re a witch though.”
“Yes. I only tried to defend myself from you. You guys came in here and hurt me. I don’t know what this is about.”
Rowan looked over to David and then to Genevieve. “Any of those photos look familiar?”
Genevieve held out three pictures. “The missing witches. She’s going to be quite the hit at our opening Senate meetings this evening.”
“What? No. I’m not going anywhere. I haven’t done anything.”
Genevieve stood and moved to where Julie was tied up and touched her fingertips to teacher girlfriend’s temples.
Julie’s eyes rolled up into her head as she slumped forward.
“I cannot abide a liar,” Genevieve said, disgust clear in her tone. “I’m taking her in. She’s clearly connected to our missing witches. In the safe she had multiple home addresses with personal tokens of each witch. Hair, nails, that sort of thing. I will share everything with you as it regards your investigation. There will be things I cannot share and so I must ask you to trust me that if it is relevant in any way, I’ll tell you.”
“This is a violation of the Treaty. Surely you know that. There are so many levels of complicated inter-supernatural community bullshit.” As frustrated as Rowan was, she knew she’d do the exact same thing in Genevieve’s place. “All right. I trust you. I’ll be sharing information with the Vampire Nation as it impacts their investigation as well.”
“We all have secrets, I suppose.”
They parted ways then, with teacher girlfriend in the trunk of the car that showed up to drive Genevieve to her meeting.
“Where to next?” David asked as they got back into their rental.
“I want to look at some office space and then I want to run down an old source to talk to. You can come to both meetings.”
“Office space?”
“Hunters need a more official setting. Right now we’re working out of Pru’s house but it’s safer to have an administrative space that the Hunters here in Southern California can use. I want it to be a fortress like the Motherhouses in Europe are. We need them in key cities. We’ll need basic training and the space to send new Hunters to learn the ropes.”
* * *
“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” Pru said as Rowan went over the same information.
They stood on the fourth floor of a nondescript building near freeways, several airports. More importantly, she thought capable of some major fortifying. They’d take the whole building. The parking lot would give them a buffer from their neighbors and was already walled in.
“I’ve been tasked with the creation of a Motherhouse here in the United States. But what I think we really need are several chapter houses instead. We need an organization that’s limber. With a reach. You’re already really good at your job. You know the Southland. You’ve got sources in place. Relationships built with the other paranormals in the area.”
Pru nodded. “After that mess with so many full partners betraying Hunter Corp., I’d definitely support that. Spread us out and keep the Hunters out in the field.”
“Good. You can start today.” Rowan handed her the keys. “David will coordinate with you on getting started with all the necessary construction we need here.”
“Since we got such good intel from the interrogation of the Vampires, it reminds me we’ll need a room here for that sort of thing,” Pru said.
“I knew you were the right choice. Yes, we will. At least one. Now let’s get back to work. We’ve got some background to do on the people we found today. I want names and addresses. I
want teacher girlfriend’s every move. I want to know how she and Bob met and if it was purposeful or happenstance,” Rowan told them over her shoulder as she headed for the stairs.
“Do we need a cleanup at the chick’s house from today?” Pru asked.
Rowan told her, “Witches seem to have it handled. Let them take the risk and deal with disappearing stuff for a change.”
“You got it. I’m heading out to the Valley to talk to a few people about the black market.”
“Excellent. Check in with you later on,” Rowan told Pru before turning her attention back to David. “Let’s go talk to a crusty old bounty hunter. You’ll be horrified by him but he’s going to love you.”
Chapter Twenty
Clive was up, in a suit and on his phone when Rowan arrived back at their hotel room. David split off to his room so she let herself watch her husband in Scion mode. Damn.
He knew she was there of course. He’d most likely known when she entered the building downstairs. Their bond seemed to have a weird sort of ping when one of them came into the vicinity of the other.
Currently his ridiculously handsome face wore a scowl and she was glad it was pointed at someone else.
When he hung up, he stalked over to her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her senseless. “Hello there,” she managed when he stepped away.
“Welcome back.”
“I feel very welcomed and slightly concerned you might think this is a way to greet anyone but me.”
His smirk was just exactly why she’d said that. It wasn’t that she was actually worried, but he loved her jealousy so she gave him a little from time to time.
“I just got a very long email back from my friend the folklorist. Let me get my laptop out so we can read it together. Before that, you can tell me why you looked as if you were going to rip someone’s arms off on that phone call.”
“Sometimes people need their arms pulled off and then used to beat them about the head and neck. Alice has found a significant data breach within our computer database.”
“Oh. Shit.”
“Indeed.”
“Carey was my amazing hacker. He could have gotten in there and figured things out easy. I need a new hacker. I can’t have a new Carey because there was only one. Goddess I miss him so much. I’ll be all right and suddenly it just occurs to me that he’s dead and I get swept off my feet by it.”
Clive hugged her again, kissing her temple. He didn’t tell her he was sorry. He just held her until she was ready to stand on her own again.
“One step at a time. First this email. Then back to my search for a new amazing hacker computer person who is most definitely not a replacement for Carey but a new addition to our team.”
* * *
Clive sat back after they’d both gone over what it had laid out.
“Ancient Norse house sigil. First it was one thing and then see, they added this little squiggly thing here a century or so later. According to Thierry, that little squiggly thing means blood.”
A chill passed through him at the translation at the bottom: Lyr.
“When I was like five, maybe six, Theo got into some sort of beef with a Vampire named Lyr. I take it that’s him we’re talking about unless there are multiple Vampires named Lyr. What I think we need, getting back to the hack idea, is for Alice to help David run a search through your genesis database just to make sure. Thank Goddess his name isn’t Lucian or Dimitri since there are like a billion and five Vampires named that.”
“There’s one.” He loosened his tie before ripping it free and throwing it across the room.
Rowan said nothing. She just waited for him to explain.
“My grandfather was a warlord as you know. My father was at his right hand but he had other Vampires he fought with all over Europe and into Russia. Lyr was one of them. He was a contemporary of my grandfather in that he was vicious and powerful. Feared.”
“Until?”
“He became power mad. Began to abuse his daytime staff and the people in the villages and towns near his home. He began to overfeed, killing humans and risking exposure. My grandfather had to push him back because he started in on our territory and because once the Treaty was in place, Lyr was doubly dangerous. Over the centuries he’s gotten insular. Keeps to himself and the others of like mind.”
“Lovely. So he’s like a founding member of the Blood Front. I wish your grandpop would have killed him and saved me the trouble. I don’t suppose there’s any link here to magic?”
“I need to contact my father. He’ll have more details.”
“I bet the Nation’s historians would be helpful too,” Rowan said.
“Let me see if I can make the inquiry without alerting your father.”
“If you think that might be an issue for real, talk to Nadir. Your dad will probably have more gossip though.”
“You’re every inch my match,” he said, leaning over to kiss her.
“Duh. Okay so we’ve got ourselves a very old Vampire who most likely has magic. Blood Front is definitely back and they still hate humans and the Treaty. And they were successful at keeping us all fighting amongst ourselves while they kept moving toward their end goal.”
“Before I call my father, tell me what happened today,” he said.
Rowan laid out her afternoon, including the scene with the girlfriend and the established link to the Conclave and the missing witches.
“I shudder to imagine the type of questions she’ll be asked by the Conclave witches,” Rowan said. “Well, not the questions themselves but the questioning. This bitch tried to zap me and then she lied a lot. I don’t think she’s a true believer but she seems motivated by something and I don’t think it was love. She asked about Bob a few times but she didn’t seem shaken on a romantic level. Just that she’d been busted. I’m just waiting to hear back from Genevieve. I looked at what I think will be one of two California chapterhouses. The building is for sale and it’s pretty reasonable. I want to have Genevieve look at it, tell me how she can ward it to the gills. I also have good connections here for security enhancements so a crew will come out to give me an estimate on what it will take to make it into a fortress.”
“Busy girl today, I see.”
“I figure since we’re here, I might as well do my job and stuff.” Rowan shrugged.
“Indeed. Let me make my calls. Don’t leave without me.”
She made a sound in reply that was rude, but he accepted it as a Rowan style agreement though she was annoyed.
Clive figured his father was still awake. It was just shy of sunrise and at his age, a Vampire wasn’t driven to daytime rest until an hour or so after that.
“Tell me about Lyr,” he said when his father answered.
“Lyr? That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long while. What’s happening?”
Clive gave him a quick rundown.
“Well, let’s see. He and your grandfather had a falling out, which you said you recall.”
“I take it he’s not on board with The First and the rules that regulate the Nation?” Clive asked.
“The First disciplined him and there were rumblings that it was as a result of Lyr challenging him for leadership.” Clive’s father sniffed at what a stupid idea that had been. “Even so, if I recall correctly within the last fifty years or so he made another run at it, but it was mostly talk.”
Talk he was sure The First heard about and then dealt with. That was most likely the fight Rowan recalled from earlier in her childhood.
They spoke a while longer before Clive rang off and contacted Alice, who was tasked with tracking Lyr down. Then he had to deal with the data breach, which was no fun at all.
He found Rowan sometime later in the living area of their suite, David across from her as they worked.
“Got some key information about Lyr from my father. As y
ou assumed, yes, he had excellent gossip. There’s trouble between him and your father that’s very old. Alice is looking for him now through our databases,” he said. “Any word from Genevieve?”
“Nothing. David just managed to find some excellent information about the Blood Front. I spoke to Rex and he’s working with Susan to check some of the safe houses and meeting places in Europe that we located the last time we dealt with these assholes. I really hope I don’t have to fly back there to kick some ass. It’ll be nice if this can happen in North America somewhere. I mean, in case anyone asks for my opinion on such things.”
“I’ll make a note of that, darling.”
“We’re doing other things but you don’t need to know about that because it’s potentially hacking the Nation and you’d have to report us or whatever.”
Normally he’d have scowled at her and tried to talk her out of it. He’d have said Alice was on it. And she was. But the truth was, there was a giant leak within the Nation and Rowan getting her information on her own that way meant she could probably trust the data and fly under the radar for it.
Clive had no desire to make the target on her back any larger than it already was.
So he left it alone. “As you’re engaging in activities I’d find questionable, I’ll leave you to that. I have a meeting with Rita and some of the local Vampires. I have some lessons to deliver. I’ll return in no more than three hours. We’re going to have a meal. You two stay out of trouble while I’m gone.”
Rowan rolled her eyes. “Make sure to eat something before that, please.”
Because he could, he went to her, bending to steal a kiss. She allowed it and he got away with minimal damage.
* * *
Rowan smirked as he left and then turned back to David. “We need into those files. I want to know who this Lyr is and what his issues are. I want to know everything I can so I can end him.”
David’s friend also knew Carey from hacker circles. David gave his total assurance that this friend was trustworthy and good enough to get in undetected. As Rowan needed a tech savvy person on her team and Carey had known her, it felt like the right thing to do.