by Lisa Olsen
The house phone had been ringing steadily off and on while we visited, but I’d chosen to ignore it while we welcomed Gunnar home. Eventually though, I had to think about getting back to it. The demands on my time had risen since I’d let it be known I was keeping public hours again, and I had a lot of petitions to review that needed my personal attention.
“Well, I’m definitely happy you’re back, Gunnar,” I said, giving him a brief hug. “Don’t feel like you have to rush right into anything, I’m not planning on going out tonight. Try to enjoy your first night back.”
“Glad to have you back home, mate,” Rob echoed, clapping him on the shoulder. “How’s about me and you go out for a celebratory pint long as you’re not needed around here?” He looked to me for approval.
Rob’s impromptu invitation to Gunnar caught me by surprise, I’d assumed he’d be sticking around the house with me. But I could understand his wanting to welcome him home and he could kill two birds with one stone by feeding while he was out and about.
“I think that sounds like a great idea, have fun you guys.” I offered my encouragement. “You can go too if you like,” I added with a nod to Lee. “Like I said, all I’m doing is sticking around here tonight.”
“Naw, I’m good,” Lee waved me off. “I’m fixin’ to watch Two Mules for Sister Sara in a bit. I had enough fun last night to last me for a spell.”
“And I have the correspondence to see to yet tonight,” Maggie said, rising to return to work. “It’s lovely to have you back, Gunnar,” she smiled, leaning up to kiss his cheek.
“See you later, yeah?” Rob gave me a much more thorough kiss before catching up his leather jacket and tugging it on.
“Things are changed here, I see,” Gunnar murmured over the open display of affection between Rob and me.
“You don’t know the half of it, mate,” Rob grinned as he escorted him out.
I went back to work, finishing my aborted phone call with Seattle’s magistrate before tackling my ever growing to do list. Before it got too late I slipped in a phone call to Hanna, but it went straight to voicemail. I was in the process of leaving her a somewhat rambling message when Lee poked his head in, his face somber.
“You’d best come see this.”
I stumbled my way through the end of the message, following him out to the parlor where the TV blared. Instead of a Clint Eastwood movie, there was a special report on the nightly news. The plastic blonde on the screen gave the startling facts with very little expression on her face or in her voice, the words slightly more chilling for that lack of emotion.
Violent deaths were on the rise in the Bay Area, specifically those with horrific neck trauma. There was speculation that it was a variation on the Jack the Ripper killings, as mostly women had been killed, only more brutal methods were employed. Some experts disagreed, stating that the murders were almost certainly carried out by different killers and that San Francisco had become a Mecca for the violently psychotic.
“Well, that’s disturbing,” I murmured, listening as they switched to a psychologist specializing in aberrant behavior who painted the picture of a killer who likely had a god complex, delighting in the seemingly random nature of his victims, and highlighting how there was no way to predict where he’d strike next. The entire report was alarming, but that was the function of the news, not to report, but to stir up public distress.
“I thought this sort of thing would settle down once Lodinn was gone,” I frowned, wondering if he hadn’t been solely responsible for those violent decapitations we’d looked into with Detective Mathis.
“I think you got a more widespread problem with savage vampers than that one Ellri,” Lee pointed out.
“I don’t get it. Why the sudden need for violence? It’s not like we need to kill to feed.”
“There’s some that got different kinds of needs, darlin’.”
I thought about Rob’s words – fear spicing the blood. I knew it to be true, but it hadn’t ever been a necessary component of feeding before. Why had things suddenly taken a turn for the worse? “I don’t remember seeing anything like this before I knew vampires were a real thing. I mean sure, there’s always been our share of crime in the city, but nothing like this.”
And then I remembered Jakob not being all that worried about leaving bodies behind. What if he hadn’t actually left town for New York yet? Was he part of it?
“Excuse me, Lee, I think I need to make a call. Thanks for letting me know about this,” I added distractedly, already pulling Jakob’s number up on my cell. Only he didn’t pick up. When in the history of ever had Jakob ignored one of my calls? It wasn’t all that late on the east coast yet. Was his nose out of joint because I’d asked him to leave town? He’d seemed fine with it that night, even eager to be on his way.
Maybe he was too caught up in the hustle and bustle of New York City to take my call? Hopefully he wasn’t establishing a seat of power in the heart of my biggest rival. If he and Jennike Vendal should ever decide to join forces… I tried not to worry overmuch about having an Ellri ticked off at me as I went back to work.
Things were running smoothly in the West. The Order was still in the process of rebuilding, their new charter being met with relative success among the citizens. The petitions I received asking for permission to turn humans had settled down after an initial surge once I’d removed the exorbitant fees and corruption that used to be attached to the process. More vamps had moved to the San Francisco area since I’d taken power, but we were still well within the quotas dictated by the last Gathering.
Overall the news was very encouraging. Violence between the vampires and the Order was way down, relationships on the mend. So why the sudden outbreak of human deaths?
Maybe there was some kind of law we could pass making it illegal to kill humans? Yes, we’d all made mistakes from time to time, but those should be the exception, not the norm. It had to count for something if one of us took a life. Even if we didn’t have the facilities or the infrastructure to give vamps jail time, we could impose a stiff fine at the very least.
The more I thought about it, the better I liked the sound of it. What good was being the Elder if I couldn’t affect change among my own people?
Felix must’ve been reading my mind as his face lit up the screen on my cell.
“I hate to bother you, boss,” he started to say, and I was quick to set his mind at ease.
“No, it’s good. You saved me the trouble of calling you first.”
“That don’t sound too good. What’s up?”
I tried to ignore the slight that he associated my calls with bad news, particularly since it happened to be true in this instance. I quickly filled him in on the gist of the news report I’d seen, gratified to see he took it as seriously as I did.
“You’re right, that is something to worry about. You want me to make arrangements to send up another team of cleaners to help keep things under wraps?”
Our own team of cleaners was nothing if not efficient, but they couldn’t be everywhere at once. More importantly, they shouldn’t have to in the first place. “No, that would only address the symptom and not the problem.”
“I ain’t too sure of that. The biggest problem I see is drawing too much public attention. I can call Cordelia from the council and have her pull some strings to bury those news stories to start with.”
“No, you’re missing the bigger picture here. I don’t want to bury this story, I want to address the root of the problem. The local vamps are getting way too comfortable with killing humans. I’m thinking maybe I should call everyone together for a local gathering and talk to them about it.”
There was no mistaking the skepticism in his voice. “What would you say to them? There ain’t no law about killing humans.”
“Well, maybe there should be.”
“I dunno, boss. There’s very few laws accepted in vampire society and for the most part, we like it that way. You start making extra hoops for people to jump t
hrough and they’re just gonna move to another place.”
“That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing to me if all the most violent people move away. Shiny, I’ll help them pack.” Let Jennike deal with them all.
Felix let out a long breath. “What does Jakob think of all of this? I gotta think he’d be against setting any laws like that. But hey, if he’s behind you on this, then that’s a horse of another color. All he has to do is proclaim it publically and you got yourself a new law.”
“Oh right, about Jakob…”
Chapter Seven
I realized I hadn’t told Felix about Jakob’s agreement to leave me and the West alone when I’d updated him on Lodinn’s demise. “Ah, the thing is, we both agreed it’s in both our best interests if he moved on.”
“Moved on how?”
“As in he’s not here any more, I think he’s in New York now.”
“When’s he coming back?”
“Never, hopefully. I’m sure we’ll all hear from him when he’s ready to settle down and you can plan a pilgrimage to go see him if you miss his company. But as you can see, we don’t need his blessing to make this thing a new law.”
The line went quiet for a few seconds, and when Felix spoke again, he sounded shell shocked. “I gotta say, I’m sorry to hear that, boss. I was looking forward to his ideas on how to make the West great again, and I know the council was too.”
I hadn’t anticipated that, but I could see I should’ve, given their positive reaction to Jakob’s speech at my inauguration. “Trust me, any ideas Jakob had about our territory are more about his glory than ours. He was more likely to take us back to the stone age, not into the future.”
“Yeah, but most of us were looking forward to working with a real live Ellri,” he added, a touch of wistfulness creeping into his voice.
“There is no working with an Ellri, there’s only working for one. He would’ve made us all slaves in our own lands, mark my words. The only welfare Jakob is interested in is his own.”
“Still, the council ain’t gonna like hearing he’s gone, out of the blue like this.”
His objections started to grate on my nerves, as well as his cavalier attitude toward the violence against humans on our streets. The council respected strength, well, I’d give it to them. “Tough. This is my territory, and I have my own ideas on what’s great. We don’t need Jakob.”
“If you say so, boss.” His tone was instantly contrite.
“I do,” I snapped irritably, counting to ten in Chinese inside my head before I spoke again. I was tired of trying to rely on Jakob to solve our problems. He’d been disappointingly useless up against Lodinn. If not for my plan of attack I’d be sitting at Lodinn’s feet, shackled to my sister, and Jakob would be long dead. “I’m sorry, I just don’t like all this needless death cropping up so often.”
“That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” Felix replied and I could practically hear the shrug in his voice. “We ain’t the PTA, we’re vampires. It’s in our nature to kill.”
“I’m sick and tired of hearing that. We’re not animals, we can control who and where we feed from and whether or not to kill. And if people won’t control themselves because it’s the right thing to do, then they damn well better do it so the Order doesn’t come after them.”
“People ain’t exactly shaking in their boots from the Order nowadays. Breaking the law don’t mean an instant death sentence no more, vamps are growing bolder.”
“Yes, but exposing ourselves to the humans is a bad idea all around. That is one of the laws that the Order won’t pussyfoot around. How many mistakes involving neck trauma have to be made before the humans start asking different questions? We have to do something about it before the Order has to take more direct steps. If this attracts Rome’s attention, Bishop will have no choice but to send more troops to deal with it. I trust our local guys, but I’d rather not have gung-ho soldiers roaming our streets if I can help it, whether they’re shooting to kill or not.”
“I’m just sayin’, since you took away their ability to kill on first sight, a lot of people ain’t sweating the Order’s involvement no more.”
Ugh, was there no way out of this mess? It felt like I kept digging myself deeper and deeper. Every time I tried to fix one problem, another one cropped up in its place. Sure, vamps weren’t being killed left and right by the Order anymore, but at what cost? How many humans would pay the price because of my policy? “There has to be balance in here somewhere so that we can all live together,” I muttered, rubbing my temples at the tension headache that gathered there.
“In peace and harmony?” Felix snorted. “That’s sweet and all, but it ain’t too realistic, boss. I thought you knew that. If Jakob was around…”
“Well, he’s not,” I snapped, tired of hearing his name bandied about. What good had banishing Jakob done if we couldn’t stop talking about him? “Look, I’ll take care of this situation, you focus on finding us a new magistrate. I haven’t received your candidates yet.”
“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” he said contritely. “I’ll have them ready for you within the hour.”
I felt bad about jumping down his throat, but didn’t apologize. There were some things we obviously didn’t see eye to eye on, but I was the one in power, and he needed to remember that. “Why were you calling in the first place, Felix?”
“Oh, right. That hunter buddy of yours is on the move again. Last I heard he’s been killing vamps up in Reno. I thought maybe you could…”
Was he talking about Carter? He was the least of my problems. “I can’t even begin to worry about that right now. Actually – no, on second thought, let’s talk about Carter,” I decided, changing tacks to a course Felix might be on board with. If he wouldn’t get behind me on legislation against violence to protect humans, maybe he’d do it out of self preservation? “How long do you think it’s going to be before he shows up here in town when we can’t keep our kills out of the paper?”
Unexpectedly, Felix’s voice took on a light of excitement. “Maybe we can use these killings to our benefit after all? If we can lure Carter here, then maybe we can stop him from hunting in our territory once and for all.”
“Please tell me you’re not sanctioning these deaths as a means to trap Carter.”
“No, not at all. I’m just saying, we should take advantage of the opportunity it presents us with. If we can plan where he’s gonna pop up next, it’ll make it easier to catch him.”
I worried about the danger to Carter for exactly half a second until I realized he was more than capable of protecting himself. “I wouldn’t be too sure of that, he’s been one step ahead from the beginning. And do I need to remind you again that he hasn’t broken any vampire laws?” It wasn’t forbidden for a vampire to kill another vampire, as long as he kept it hidden from public view. Carter had made a career out of killing vampires who treated humans badly, the only reason Felix cared at all was because some of those vamps were powerfully connected in society. If Carter had been killing off vamps in back alleys, he wouldn’t have cared less.
These days I felt more and more like I was on Carter’s side instead of my own government’s. Except for the killing and all, I didn’t want anyone to die, but I had to admit, his methods were effective. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to try and contact him after all? Trouble was, I had absolutely no idea how. I put that idea aside for later.
“Listen, about the new magistrate candidate,” I asked. “Do we actually have any candidates or were you blowing smoke up my skirt before?”
“I got a few people in mind. I’ll send you over some files, like I said.”
“Thank you.” I paused, still uncomfortable with our earlier blow up, but wanting to end on a personal note. “I’d better get going. Give my love to Bridget.”
“Will do. Sorry about what I said before, boss. I think you’re doing a bang up job, seriously, top notch.”
For the first time I wondered if any of that was true, or if he was t
rying to handle me. “Thanks, Felix. I’ll talk to you later.”
I left a message for Detective Mathis to give me a call. Mostly I wanted to pick his brains about the killings to see if there was anything for me to worry about or if I was getting worked up over nothing but a lot of media hype. I supposed I could’ve contacted Mason or Frost about it since they had access to police records again, but I figured it was better not to tip the Order’s attention to the possibility that Carter might come calling, despite Felix’s wishes.
When I emerged from my office a while later to make myself a cup of cocoa, I was surprised not to find Rob back yet. The night was more than half gone and I hadn’t heard a peep from him.
“Maggie, do you know where Rob is?” I asked on my way to the kitchen.
“No, sorry, I haven’t seen him. Gunnar came back about a half hour past, I could ask him if you like.”
“No, that’s okay.” I waved her off. I didn’t want to make a federal case out of it. He certainly had the right to go anywhere and do whatever he wanted, and I had pointed out that I wasn’t leaving home that night. Still, it felt odd not having him around. More than anything, I wanted to talk to him about everything going on and see if he thought I was making mountains out of molehills.
I loitered in the kitchen to drink my cocoa, avoiding my office, when Lee came strolling in. He took one look at me and straddled a chair beside me.
“Got somethin’ stuck in yer craw?”
Smiling over that colorful turn of phrase, I struggled for a moment how to articulate what had me down. I felt like Buffy at the end of the musical episode asking – where do we go from here? “I guess I just didn’t think it would be this hard. We beat the bad guy, and I sent the other scary Ellri away, but we’re still surrounded by so much death and violence. Now it’s looking like the work I did to reform the Order’s charter might possibly be to blame for some of it. I’m not sure what to do next. There has to be a better way to fix this.”