by Lauren Dane
Helena guffawed. “You’re sort of dirty.”
Molly winked. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“Ha. It’ll be our secret.”
Shortly after that they heard footsteps down the back stairs.
“Thanks for listening.”
Molly shrugged. “I can say the same. It’s what friends do. Also? Can’t wait to see the looks on their faces as they realize we’ve been talking and they don’t know about what.”
“My respect for you grows every time I see you.” Helena winked and went back to her breakfast as Faine and Gage entered the room.
• • •
TOSH didn’t see much more than Helena’s back and Faine to her right. Big dude, and so not like any shifter he’d ever seen. Then again, it wasn’t like he had a huge amount of experience with shifters.
Speaking of . . .
He looked to his left and caught Delilah’s profile. “You all right?”
The crowd all around them surged, but he trusted his people and Helena’s magick to hold it all back. When things were tense like this, he could sense Delilah’s otherness. The wildness in her eyes, just beneath her skin. It made him a little sweaty. In a good way.
But just then she was angry.
“I don’t spend ninety hours a week working for my constituents to have people call me names. Oh sure, we’re supposed to have thick skins, but how much deeper can these assholes dig, huh?”
He wanted to brush the hair away from her forehead, wanted to ease her stress. God knew there was enough to go around just then. Raised voices buffeted them from all sides, though he was pleased to note it wasn’t all negative. But Marlon knew how to pack a hearing room, he’d been doing it for years, and stupid, fearful people were easily manipulated.
Helena held a hand up, bringing them all to a stop. So serious, his friend. All business as she spoke to the capitol police officer who was at the side door where they’d entered the room. He nodded and Faine went first, two other guards followed and then Helena waved them forward.
“Remember the days when the worst thing about a hearing with Marlon Hayes was having to listen to his asshattery for an hour?”
Delilah giggled a moment and touched his shoulder. “Thanks for that. I needed the laugh.”
They moved to their seats at the dais and Helena settled a few rows higher with several other aides and guards. She’d gone into some sort of watchfulness, still, seemingly calm and relaxed, but he knew better.
“Funny how he doesn’t need bodyguards.” Tosh lifted his chin in Senator Hayes’ direction as the smarmy bastard glad-handed his way over. He shot a glare toward Molly, who was, this time, sitting on the panel with the rest of the experts.
“If he keeps pushing this agenda, he will. I’ve spoken with a lot of my people back home. Things are getting worse. If he pushes, he’s going to get way more than he bargained for. They keep underestimating people they themselves refer to as monsters. Which is a tactical error of epic proportions.” Delilah moved to her seat, just a row behind, and pulled her notes out.
It was and he knew it. The Others were done waiting around to be protected by their government and law enforcement. They were done being patient, and people like Marlon Hayes were too caught up in the power politics of appealing to the hateful fringe that they lost sight of what was really going on.
Toshio feared for everyone. For humans most of all, because they were afraid and he understood that fear. Understood, too, that witches like Molly Ryan were attempting to keep communication open between humans and Others to alleviate the fear.
Sadly, he also understood that it was humans like Hayes who were too eager to label that attempt at openness as some sort of manipulation. In the end, if humans didn’t reject the hateful assurances of Marlon Hayes and PURITY that they only had to corral the Others and detain them, treat them like animals and the problem would disappear—if they didn’t see it for the lie it was, it would be to their detriment.
There was no way. The humans could pass all the laws they wanted, but if they tried to enact them . . . well, there’d be open civil war with an enemy they could have easily kept as an ally. An enemy far more powerful than even hysteria pushers like Hayes could understand.
He blew out a breath and paid attention as the hearing was called to order.
• • •
HELENA kept an eye on the room as she listened to the hearing start up.
“This bill isn’t about harming the nonhumans, as they’ve preached to you. This bill is about protecting natural-born Americans. Real Americans who are human. You saw what they did with their little speech threatening us all. This bill doesn’t call to kill anyone. It will assure us all that these abominations are no longer allowed to live among us and hide their real agenda.”
Real agenda? Goddess, Helena rarely lost her shit, but she found herself having to hold it together instead of walking over and popping this fool in the face. She’d been trying for months now to get the Others to remember not all humans were this way. But people like Hayes and PURITY’s Carlo Powers were gaining traction, and that made it a lot harder to remember that.
It went on this way for some time longer until he finally shut up and it was Tosh’s turn.
“Two generations ago, my grandfather served this country in World War Two. He did so while his family was being held in a camp. He did so despite the fact that his pregnant wife had been removed from their home and his business had been taken from him. My father was born in a relocation camp and my grandmother nearly died because of the lack of real medical facilities and care. All because his last name was Sato. Even after the war was over and my grandfather, who’d been decorated twice, returned home, he had to spend the next several years getting his family’s life back on track because the government refused to return his business and he’d lost his home.”
Hayes interrupted. “You see? His family listened and did what the government told them to. Even served in the military like his kind should have to prove their loyalty. What makes any of you think you’re better than that?”
Sato interrupted, his face hard. “Senator Hayes misses the point, so let me be clearer. My kind, my family’s kind, is American. What happened to my family was wrong. It was a miscarriage of justice. It was not what this country should be. My grandfather was better than the people who harmed his family, yes, but the harm was done. People died. People lost everything and it did not make us safer. It did not make us better people. The Domestic Safety Act does not make us better Americans. It does not make us safer. It takes Americans and strips them of their rights. It depersonalizes them and puts them in camps. Some of the provisions in this bill bear a horrifying similarity to things done to the Jews during World War Two in Germany. Tracking chips. Camps. Restricted movements. Removal of property and redistribution to the government. How long before we put them on trains and steal their gold watches? This bill is wrong.”
Helena wanted to stand up and cheer.
But he wasn’t done. “Two weeks ago a so-called expert panel was here at the capitol to testify about this bill. Not a single Other was on that panel. Worse, when an Other—Molly Ryan—was given time by members of this body, the room was hit with three bombs and Ms. Ryan was severely injured. Today we have an expert panel with actual experts on it and I’d like them to each introduce themselves. Once we’ve got that out of the way we can get to questions and answers.”
The introductions went fine and then the questions from the senators started.
Lynn Reed, Carlo Powers’ second-in-command nationwide, was on the panel, just a few seats down from Molly. Helena caught the shift in her energy, the darkness inside her gut as she spoke. There was a great deal of hate, but more than that, a sheer greed for power. If it wasn’t Others, this woman would be screeching about something else. She liked scaring people, liked using fear as her cudgel to whip folks into a frenzy.
“The proof is that these monsters lived next door to us for generations and never once rev
ealed themselves until they brought down some sort of retribution on their heads. This thing that killed so many of them was divine punishment for their evil. Whatever pact they made to keep the remaining ones safe is what we need to know. Why haven’t they told us about this pact?”
Molly sighed heavily. “We haven’t told you because there is no pact. No divine retribution for existing. What happened to us—to us and not you—was an ancient power. It was not about punishment. It fed on our magickal energy and we were able to defeat it, but not without a heavy cost. It has nothing to do with humans at all. And nothing to do with this bill, so if we could get back to the subject at hand, that would be a better use of our time.”
“You don’t get to decide what we talk about.” Marlon Hayes sneered at Molly.
Sato interrupted. “The hearing is regarding the Domestic Safety Act. As a matter of fact, it’s the topic and it’s quite helpful if we stick to that. We were all sent here to do a job. The people’s business. To get sidetracked by all this other stuff is not helpful. Nor is it the people’s business. So if we can get back to the topic at hand, please.”
Hayes turned, red faced. “You’re insulting Ms. Reed when she’s answering a question.”
“That’s enough, Marlon. The question was asked, we got a bunch of nonsense. Her time is up and so is yours. Moving on.” Delilah Sperry narrowed her gaze, daring Hayes to continue.
Lynn Reed spoke from the table. “You’re going to spend eternity in hell, Delilah Sperry. I don’t have to listen to you.”
Delilah waved a hand, appearing bored. “That’s Senator Sperry to you.” But Helena saw her energy, knew she choked back rage. Her wolf pressed against the woman’s skin, but she held it together.
“My constituents voted for me knowing I was a werewolf. As for eternity, mind your own and get your nose out of mine. Now, back to the question. Ms. Ryan, can you please address the issue of registration and how it would impact the witches in your Clan?”
Molly nodded once and smoothly dove in. Any time Reed tried to interrupt her she simply continued to speak and Helena thought a few times she might have even used her magick to hold the floor. But if she had, Molly was too damned good to get caught, so good Reed had no idea. Which was a positive thing because heaven knew if she thought she was being hexed to shut the hell up, she’d flip out.
“The issue is,” Reed spoke again at the end of the hearing, “we don’t know that they haven’t been manipulating us all along. What if they decide to use their magic to harm us? Make us do something wrong? Maybe they’ve done that since the beginning. We have no proof they haven’t.”
Molly’s mouth tightened, but she didn’t interrupt and Helena wanted to laugh, knowing her friend was annoyed.
“I can only refer you back to reality. The reality where we’re sitting here in a room where some of you want to put us in concentration camps. If we had the ability to make you all our puppets, why would we allow people to bomb our schools and homes? Why would we sit here and listen to this hateful drivel when we could just use our power and make you do whatever we wish?”
“You can’t prove you don’t.”
What was this, third grade?
“You can’t prove a negative. It’s impossible and it makes me wonder what you’re getting out of scaring people and stirring all this violence.” This from Delilah.
“I don’t have to answer to you and your people.”
“My people? United States senators?”
The time was up. Many of the senators, including Sato, needed to be in other hearings, so it broke quickly, if not without some verbal sparring.
Since it was no longer Other business and since Sato had a really busy schedule, his security people took over and Helena headed down to where Molly stood speaking with Cade Warden and Faine.
Lynn Reed hung at the outer edges of the group, watching through narrowed eyes as she waited on Hayes to approach her.
Interesting dynamic there.
“Nicely done, Ms. Ryan.” Helena bowed slightly. “Ready? You have a few hours free and then it’s to the interview.” She didn’t say more than that. Although she’d used some magick to keep what she said quiet, she didn’t want to risk Molly’s safety. The more exposure she had to PURITY and the people at the top, the more she was convinced they were behind the major attacks. Not just the low-ranked idiots who got gung ho, but the very top.
Molly looked back over her shoulder at Reed, who emanated so much negative energy it was palpable, even at a distance.
“Yes, I’m done here.”
“Brace yourselves. We need to go out that way and the hallway looks packed.” Gage came back from the doors where he’d peeked out.
“Absurd that we can’t be safe in the halls of Congress, for heaven’s sake.” Molly sent a glare Hayes’ way, but he was too busy slavering all over Reed to notice.
Helena moved forward. “Faine and I will take point. Gage, you’re on Molly.” They began to move, the rest of her crew taking on their own places to guard the rest of the group.
The hall outside was always loud, Helena figured. Daily work in Congress would be full of contentious issues as well as mundane stuff. Staffers moved through the crowds, some on phones, some heatedly talking amongst themselves. There were protesters for every cause imaginable on their way to hearing rooms.
Normally she’d have found it fascinating. Now she just found it distracting and worrisome. A lot of people to keep an eye on. A lot of energy to try to wade through to get past the normal frustration and anger at issues not related to them in any way.
She put out a low heat energy field around herself and Faine. He cut his gaze to her quickly and then was back on the job once he’d ascertained there wasn’t a problem. She’d experimented with something similar a few days before and it seemed to keep humans back. She didn’t need to hurt anyone; she just wanted to keep a space bubble around their group. Molly moved slow because she was still on crutches and Helena didn’t want her jostled.
When they got to the main doors leading outside it was a whole new level of challenge. Several hundred people had gathered on the steps. Some holding signs with the usual and lame “God hates werewolves/witches/Others” along with the gamut of abomination, warnings of danger and violence, that sort of thing.
A counter-protest was just steps away, meeting at the edges. In some places there seemed to be earnest discussion and debate, but in others there was jostling, angry, raised voices and the chance for far worse than words and shoving.
So much potential for things to go bad in so many ways. She spoke to Faine, knowing that even with the din all around he’d hear her.
“Faine, I’m going to need you to pick Molly up so we can move quickly. Gage, you’re on them. I’m going to clear a path.”
Several of the Weres who’d accompanied Cade Warden showed up, ready to follow her lead. She explained what she needed and even Molly simply sighed and let Faine pick her up. Gage started to argue, but Helena lifted a brow.
“I’m not arguing with your orders. I wanted to tell you something bad is coming. I can feel it.”
She knew his gift was a sort of intuitive foresight of intention. If he felt something, it was out there and it was her job to deal with it.
She nodded. “Keep tight. Keep alert.”
Helena adjusted her spell, speaking under her breath to make the field around them a little larger and a little hotter. She added an aversion spell to overlay it. Nothing that would create an emotional aversion, but enough of a hint to back up and let them pass.
Since the Magister it had seemed a lot easier to bend her magick to her will. One positive from all that negative, she supposed.
She scanned the crowd as they went, her hands free should she need to repel anyone or use her weapons.
Which was good because the moment the crowd recognized them, the angry voices raised and the crowd turned to face them. Helena cut toward the side, making a hole for the group. Her spell held and she only need
ed to push people back twice, more due to crowd surge than anything else.
Helena was glad she’d called ahead for the cars to be brought for them. Having to wait at the curb for their ride would have only exposed them to danger for longer.
They idled nearby. Safe harbor. She hustled the group in that direction, scanning the crowd for weapons, people’s faces for signs of violence, the air all around for any signs of impending negative action.
Later, she figured she was so busy doing that, she’d missed the sick feeling emanating from the vehicle in front of her until a split second before the air sucked from all around them and then blew outward in a hot wave.
Time slowed as Helena moved to respond, trusting Faine to deal with Molly as she called her magick fast and hard, yanking it from the air around her and the ground at her feet. It filled her instantly in a painful slice as she managed it. As she used her magick to push back against the explosion, to repel the flaming metal and burning tires.
Dimly she realized the car behind it had also blown and she managed her magick to repel it as well.
It filled her, raw power. Bright and searing hot. Her filters were down so she could take in as much as she could as fast as possible. It roared through her, responding to her will, but she knew enough to understand that could change.
So much magick she knew she’d have trouble regulating it, keeping it from going wild and burning her to the bone. But she needed all she could get to keep her people, and the crowd behind her, safe from all the flying wreckage.
She held it even as she tasted blood and her nose began to drip. Her skin burned and as the energy around her from the bomb died down, she shoved it all away, back to the twisted metal, which groaned as she hit the pavement on her knees, the blood from her nose and mouth staining the front of her shirt.
Damn it. That much blood would never come out and she really loved that blouse.
Her vision grayed at the edges as she swayed, fighting consciousness and beginning to lose.