Under Pressure

by Isobella Crowley

  Taylor still hadn’t returned, though. He wondered where she’d gone.

  Presley wandered in with a large bowl filled with ice cubes. “Since you’ve already taken to raiding Miss Steele’s liquor cabinet,” he began, “and, under the circumstances, I don’t think she’d mind too much. I’ve taken it upon myself to aid you to properly chill your drinks if such is your taste.”

  Smiling subtly—as though secretly, he was almost as ecstatic as they were—he set the dish down on the foyer’s central table.

  Remy raised his glass, which was already half-full with a lovely brandy slightly older than he was. “Thanks, Presley. You’re the best,” he stated. “So good, in fact, that I’ll make a real, serious effort to keep calling you Presley instead of Jeeves. Even if the latter is traditional and all.”

  The butler straightened and folded his hands behind his back. “Why, thank you, sir. Did I hear some mention of pizza? If you’re all busy, I can take your requests and place an order myself.”

  “That,” urged Alice as she sloshed some of her brandy and barely avoiding a spill, “sounds like an excellent idea.”

  Everyone interjected with their preferred toppings. Out of the chaos of this vast profusion of choices, Presley created order and suggesting three variations in a combination that ensured that everyone would find something to their liking.

  Bobby raised her hand, and Remy wondered if he ought to suggest to her later that she didn’t need to keep doing that when she wanted to make a comment. “You know,” she mused, “it’s funny that pizza has become basically the world’s most popular food and the go-to for parties and such. It’s weird when you think about it—a base that can have anything on it, but almost always seems to include unrecognizable tomato guts and fermented cow’s milk.”

  Conrad cracked up laughing at that for a second before he caught hold of himself again and Riley cringed. “Did you have to put it that way?” the fairy complained. “I like pizza. I don’t want to start disliking it.”

  It occurred to Remy in that moment that Bobby had made another of the kind of curious, thoughtful—albeit weird—comments that often came from highly intelligent people.

  “Hey,” he commented, “have we discussed how to handle the spell on you yet? As in, will it simply wear off eventually and you’ll be—” He almost said stupid but stopped himself in time. “Uh, back the way you were before?”

  He looked at Alice, who merely shrugged. Then, he noticed that Bobby looked at him with a subtle hint of hurt on her face.

  Damn, he chastised himself. I’m glad I didn’t use the s-word, at least, but that still would have been a good time to plan what I was going to say before I opened my mouth. High-quality brandy will do that to a man.

  Fortunately, the witch broke the awkward silence when she turned to the receptionist and posed a few questions.

  “Along that line,” she said, “have you felt any…different lately?”

  Bobby stared at her and said, “No, not really.”

  “Any slowdown in consciousness? As if, for example, it seems more difficult to reach conclusions or parse information, or seems to take longer than it has been these last few days, or you find yourself forgetting things that you thought you’d remember? Anything of that nature?”

  “No,” the receptionist went on, “not really, as far as I could notice. Hell, if anything, I think I feel a little sharper after all that excitement but that might only be the adrenaline. It must be an evolutionary advantage, speeding up our thoughts in times of desperation and struggle.”

  Everyone nodded and her face suddenly went blank. “Unless…shit. Maybe all the stress is what’s kept me smart. Maybe if things go back to normal, I’ll wake up one day and be dumb again. That day might even be tomorrow.”

  She looked downright forlorn.

  “Well,” Remy interjected quickly in an attempt to cheer her up, “you could always stop sleeping. It’s basically a waste of time, anyway.”

  Volz looked at him with amusement. “I do not think it works that way. Your species—like most—requires sleep to survive. And as I understand it, it’s rare for an enchantment of this kind to simply vanish overnight.”

  Well, Remy thought, the spell sure as hell wore off in his case. Then again, Alice sabotaged it, so that’s different.

  “Okay,” the witch snapped, “I’m hungry. If we get back to the business of ordering pizza—if—I promise I’ll look into it in the morning. Fair?”

  No one argued.

  She furrowed her brow. “Although I cannot make any promises as to the outcome. My suspicion is that Moswen had the spell concocted by someone far away and through multiple intermediaries, so I can’t comment on its properties based on the caster. But I can try.”

  Remy noted how easily Alice had already become part of the group. Her standoffishness when they’d first met her was obviously a defensive gesture. Beneath that veneer, she was a sweetheart, if a little individualistic and eccentric.

  Presley cleared his throat. “Very well. I will place the order.” He produced the house’s cordless phone.

  No sooner had he hung up than the front doors opened. Standing upon the threshold, silhouetted against the night beyond, was Taylor.

  “Miss Steele,” the butler intoned. “Welcome home. And congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” she said quietly and trudged in.

  After his initial elation to see her again wore off, Remy was almost alarmed. The vampire looked about as worse for wear as he’d ever seen her. The monstrous form she’d worn had disguised how badly Moswen had hurt her and the stress of the fight, not to mention the transformation, seemed to have taken its toll, too.

  He almost jumped out of his chair when she stumbled against it.

  “Jesus, Taylor!” he exclaimed. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “Mostly. I will heal. Presley, please prepare my tea.”

  The old man bowed. “At once, madam.” He was already halfway to the kitchen.

  “Well,” Conrad remarked, “the danger should be over, at this point, so she’ll have time and breathing space in which to recover. Her remaining thralls will have snapped out of it. Any other preternaturals riding her coattails will probably panic and scatter. Her outfit wasn’t the sort of organism that can live without a head.”

  The vampire closed her eyes. “Yes. We won. And…” She coughed. “I wanted to thank you. All of you. I could not have done it alone.”

  “Aww,” Alice quipped. “Humility. From the great queen of New York? Seriously, though, it’s been both a pleasure and an honor.”

  Riley buzzed over, landed on Taylor’s shoulder, and hugged the side of her neck. Not too long before, Remy recalled, the fairy was afraid of getting too close to her out of fear of being eaten.

  The vampire opened her black eyes again and seemed to drink in the sight of them all. “In truth, you saved my life along with many others. I had spent a long, long time assuming that what I needed to do could only be done by me, alone. I grew used to being self-sufficient. But now…you all stood by my side, holding the fort even when I rudely departed and left you to your own devices without warning.”

  He had never seen or heard her behave quite like this and slid his hand over hers. “I think, Taylor, that we’re mostly glad to have you around. Knowing you’re back and seeing that we’re all alive.”

  The others agreed and all of them smiled to varying degrees. The smallest smiles, though, were the ones on the faces of Remy and Taylor herself. They exchanged a brief, knowing look.

  Then, it struck him. Remy understood, finally, what had happened during the terrible struggle. Before they’d gone to the library, his talk with her—his assurance that everyone was with her and that they were all in this together—had planted a seed in her mind that had germinated just in time. That knowledge had stayed with her and allowed her to trust him at the final moment when he tackled her out of the way.

  Without it, she might have killed him and Russel and his men
would have had no choice but to send Moswen and Taylor to hell together. And they both knew it.

  “So, then.” Volz grunted and shifted in his chair. “what do we do next? Besides eat, drink, and be merry, of course.”

  A few joking suggestions went around as Presley returned and handed Taylor a steaming cup of red salt tea.

  “You know,” Remy interjected, “it’s actually kind of nice having everyone together like this at the same time. It’s almost like a family gathering. Of course, we all get tired of our families.” He thought briefly of his own, who didn’t seem to miss him much. “But for now, let’s all stay here a little while. If Taylor’s okay with it, obviously.”

  She half-smiled and half-grimaced. “That is fine.”

  Bobby asked, “Will we close the agency for a day or two? We had at least two outstanding cases but then again, the last time I talked to them, they weren’t expecting a resolution until next week, anyway.”

  “Yes,” Taylor agreed, “I think we all deserve a little time off.”

  The vampire straightened her posture and her gaze grew distant before she went on. “There have been reports that the Vampiric Order in Europe had thrown its support behind Moswen. We don’t seem to have encountered any of their agents, but they could have provided her with money, guns, contacts… It’s a disturbing prospect.”

  “The Vampiric Order?” Remy marveled. “That sounds like one of those horrible mail-order fan clubs. Just when I think the rabbit hole has gone deep enough—”

  Taylor waved a hand brusquely through the air. “They are not supposed to interfere in our affairs. We can hope that, with their champion dead and her operation essentially powerless without her, they will realize that New York is not in play and leave us be. Still, we must be vigilant.”

  “Right,” he said. “But not tonight. First, we party, then we pass out, then we do basically nothing for most of tomorrow. And if anyone needs any advice on how to do that,” he proclaimed, “I am definitely the man to ask.”

  Taylor sighed as the others snickered.

  “But of course.” She squeezed his hand. “David.”

  Epilogue

  Sub-Basement Beneath a High-Rise, Midtown Manhattan, New York

  The building above them that scraped the sky was impressive if not excessively distinctive, and those who met far below ground level preferred it that way. In the unlikely event that someone saw them going in and out of the place, they would grasp instantly that they witnessed people of power and influence on their way to discuss important things.

  At the same time, it did not draw undue amounts of attention from those with a more discerning eye. Regular businesses, legitimate affairs that operated in the sunlight where all the mortals could see, were located in its many high-stacked offices.

  Now, the seven members of the Preternatural Council were meeting again. The general understanding was that, for once, the gathering would not be a mere formality. Something big was happening.

  Each member of the council represented a different preternatural species—the most numerous or at least most influential of those found in New York. Elves, dwarves, lycanthropes, shapeshifters, gnomes, and fairies each had their spokesperson, who was understood to advocate for the overall welfare of his or her species.

  The one exception was the Council’s de facto leader, Taylor Steele. Vampires never seemed to get along with one another. Like cats, they were territorial and usually regarded others of their kind as their greatest potential foes.

  This was the one saving grace of Taylor’s lopsided dominance of the organization. No one really believed that she abused her position on behalf of the rest of her kind. It made it easier to tolerate her.

  She now sat in the middle of the crescent-shaped black table, itself located in the center of the glossy black marble chamber. Dim lights gave the room an intimate feel. Plants sustained by sunlamps—always aimed carefully away from anywhere she might walk—bloomed in the corners, and the chairs were large, plush, and comfortable.

  Taylor folded her hands in front of her, her gaze moving from side to side to collect the attention of the other six members.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she began. “I will assume you’ve all heard the news. The would-be usurper Moswen Neith is dead. It is possible that some of you may have been privy to ill-conceived whisperings that she would represent some kind of improvement for our domain, but nothing could be further from the truth. She came as a conqueror, and when she could not conquer purely by open force, she aimed to subvert through the mental enslavement of humans. In essence, she represented a return to the bad old days of outright vampiric tyranny, beside which my own tendencies would seem very lax indeed.”

  They all nodded. She had no reason to suspect that any of them were truly sympathetic to Moswen but she also knew well that they resented the fact that their own power on the Council was effectively a privilege that she allowed them.

  Margda Helfschmer, a stoic dwarven woman who always wore a chestnut-colored hooded cloak, responded first. “Congratulations on your victory, Taylor. My people were not pleased when the details of what Greyhammer’s cartel was involved in leaked out. That this Moswen was also involved in distributing Snow White did not endear her to dwarfdom.”

  The vampire nodded. “I am glad to hear that.”

  “Yes.” Oliryan Shelluvis, the willowy but dignified elven representative, sighed. He ran his narrow fingers through his long, straight hair. “It would seem we dodged an arrow and no one on this Council is prepared to challenge the justice of destroying Moswen. We have, however, been led to believe that there is some further announcement you have in store. Much eagerness and a speedy revelation of the news would do wonders to quiet the gossip.”

  Taylor readjusted her position slightly. Her wounds, still not entirely healed, ached terribly. She ignored the pain.

  “Very well,” she stated, “I shall cut to the chase. I am temporarily stepping down as head of this council, effective as of the coming dawn. Frankly, I need a vacation.”

  The gnomish member, Dossemant, chortled. “Why ever might that be?”

  Clearly, it was a rhetorical question, so she did not bother to answer it.

  “Furthermore,” she went on, “ a series of events, conversations, and personal reflections have led me to believe that a more democratic approach may be beneficial, particularly since I’ve had ample opportunities to demonstrate during this last half a year that wanton breaking of the rules shall not go unpunished.”

  She spread her hands wide. “You have governed well enough when called upon to do so, and your people trust you. Until further notice, I leave the preternatural affairs of Greater New York in your care. Do not abuse that trust.”

  As she’d expected, the six were quiet for a moment, all stunned by the revelation.

  Shelluvis was first to break the silence. “Taylor, thank you for your confidence. We appreciate the notion of…movement in a more equitable direction. At the same time, only the willfully blind can question that New York has remained at relative peace in part thanks to the example you’ve set. We shall keep that in mind.”

  She thanked him. He was something of a double-talking bloviator, but not an evil or untrustworthy man. Merely a highly diplomatic one. There was a place for such people in the world of modern leadership.

  Taylor pushed her chair back and stood. “As I have things to do, I shall depart and leave the six of you to the rest of your business—namely, your plan for governing our city for at least the next month or two and quite possibly longer. You will have updates before I return.”

  Almost in unison, the others said, “Thank you, Taylor.”

  She smiled and walked toward the elevator. Before she reached it, she stopped and turned to face them. “Thank you, as well. And remember—I’ll always be watching.”

  Author Notes from Isobella Crowley (AKA Ell Leigh Clarke)

  Written December 9, 2019

  Thank Yous

  I’d like
to start by thanking the team of suppliers and collaborators for making this happen: Nathan, Brittany, and Chiara, as well as our team of beta readers and JITers. Thank you for all your efforts… And of course making sure our jokes not only make sense… but are also at least a little bit funny ;-)

  I’d also like to thank my collaborator, MA, and for his encouragement. You have no idea how much it helps to get back a section, or a set of beats and have him laughing because it was entertaining. It also makes me more confident we’re on track if he finds it amusing. He’s a good humor barometer! Thanks MA!

  Brittany, JIT and Beta

  Huge thank yous also go to Zen Steve and the JIT and Beta teams who work tirelessly to make sure that all slips are caught and corrected, the files are uploaded on time.

  Thank you so much folks. I truly appreciate all your efforts. :)

  Reviewers

  Massive thanks also go out to our Amazon reviewers. It’s because of you that we get to do this full time. Without your five-star reviews and thoughtful words on Amazon we simply wouldn’t have enough folks reading these space shenanigans to be able to write full time.

  You are the reason these stories exist and you have no idea how frikkin’ grateful I am to you.

  Truly, thank you.

  Readers and FB page supporters

  Last, and certainly by no means least, I’d like to thank *YOU* for reading this book… and all the others. Your enthusiasm for the world, and our renegade, broken characters, is heart-warming. Your words of encouragement, and demands for the next episode, are the things that often stay in my mind as I sit down to write.

  Thank you for being here, for reading, for reviewing, and for always brightening my day with your words of support on the fb page. You’re best!

  This is my last set of Author Notes…

  …

  …

  For the year. ;-)