“And what exactly is our move?” Ronnie asked hesitantly.
Jeremy snorted. “I’d forget it, too, if I could. Our move sucks.”
Logan growled something admonishing under his breath.
“Well, it kind of does,” Keagan admitted, “considering our move is to save people who are more likely to kill us than the Damned.”
“When we release the Day Reapers, they aren’t going to kill anyone, not the Damned and not us. They’re going to help us save the Damned.”
“In the interest of full disclosure, the Day Reapers may very well kill me,” Dominic added.
Bex raised her hand. “And me.”
I forced a grin and hoped it looked more pleasant than just a baring of fangs. “That’s why it’s in your best interest to convince them otherwise.”
Rafe crossed his arms over his chest. “We should just leave them to rot in the Underneath, where they belong.”
Bex growled low under her breath.
Dominic sighed. “Rafe—”
“They’re tyrants, and you well know it!” Rafe said. “No offense,” he added as an afterthought to Bex and me. “But if Jillian hadn’t locked them up when she did, they would have hunted down Lysander for transforming you and killed him for it, even though he saved you. Screw them!”
“We need them,” I said calmly. “Jillian has transformed dozens of night bloods into the Damned, and there’s only three of us here who can fight them. Bex, Nathan, and I need all the help we can get. We can’t do this on our own.”
“You entranced every Damned vampire in her coven. Dozens upon dozens of them paused at your command,” Bex said, her tone half wonder and half disgust. “Y’all don’t need jack shit.”
I sighed. “I will, of course, attempt to entrance them again, but Jillian won’t make the same mistake twice. She’ll deflect the command next time, I’m sure. In which case, I need to be careful with my commands, and we need backup,” I insisted. “Hence the Day Reapers.”
“We may still take Jillian by surprise. There’s still a chance—miniscule but possible—that she believes we are dead,” Dominic said.
A slow grin spread across Bex’s face. “Considering she adopted only some of your Master’s power, we have much more than a miniscule chance. She’s never been a Master and has no idea the all-encompassing power she should have obtained. She may think whatever fraction of power she obtained is the full power and therefore an indication that you indeed died at the Leveling.”
“Nevertheless, we should stay the course,” Dominic insisted. “If we release the Day Reapers ourselves, rescuing them from the Underneath and Jillian’s reign, the Lord High Chancellor might be grateful.”
“So grateful as to absolve you of your crimes and not execute you?” Neil asked, his voice nearly childlike with hope.
Rafe grunted, unconvinced.
“The Day Reapers might help us; they might not. We can’t predict their mood, so let’s move on to something we can predict,” Nathan said. “How we are going to leverage Kaden after we ambush him?”
“We restrain him, bring him with us into the coven, and when the timing’s right, we threaten his life, forcing Jillian to back down.” I raised my eyebrows. “I thought that part of the plan was pretty straightforward.”
Nathan shrugged. “Do we really want Kaden in close proximity to Jillian, giving her the opportunity to save him?”
I cocked my head to the side. “What did you have in mind?”
“Something simple and effective, like video chat. We keep Kaden at the apartment and threaten Jillian with his death from across the city.”
Greta nodded. “Sounds simple and effective to me.”
“That would be brilliant,” Dominic agreed, “except that we don’t have service everywhere in the coven. It’s spotty at best in the great hall and nonexistent in the Underneath.”
“We don’t need service for video chat. Just Wi-Fi,” Nathan said.
Dominic grinned. “Wi-Fi we have.”
I blinked. “Since when does the coven have Wi-Fi?”
“Since you showed me the necessity of carrying a cell phone. Do you know how much data one hundred and fifty-three vampires accumulate?” Dominic sighed, shaking his head.
“Wi-Fi was a necessary evil,” Rafe agreed ruefully.
“Finally,” Neil muttered.
I shook my head; the generational differences in Dominic’s coven were mind-boggling, only rivaled by the logistics of attaining Wi-Fi in an underground lair. “But it would be near impossible for the signal to penetrate the coven’s stone walls. I have enough trouble getting a decent connection in my apartment! You would need a wired connection to a Wi-Fi—”
“To a Wi-Fi access point in each room,” Neil finished for me. “I know. I did most of the drilling. Do you know how much fishing wire it takes just to—”
Rafe clapped him on the shoulder. “She doesn’t. And she doesn’t want to know.”
I did, actually, but not today. “Jillian may have changed the password,” I pointed out.
Neil shook his head. “She didn’t.”
I frowned. “How do you know? She could have—”
“The password can be changed?” Dominic asked.
Neil held out his hand, his expression near comical. You see what I live with? his face said.
“Just because Dominic’s Kryptonite—besides the sun—is technology, doesn’t mean that it’s Jillian’s, too.”
Rafe nodded. “Neil drilled everything into place, and Sevris waved his techy wand over everything until it worked. No one cares how. When was the last time you changed your home Wi-Fi password?”
“Okay,” I said, regrouping. “We have Kaden. Miraculously, we have Wi-Fi, and—”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think we have Kaden,” Theresa interrupted. “No mother would willingly give up her own son. Something’s up there.”
“He murdered her baby granddaughter,” I said. “She’s good for it.”
“She’s unreliable, but I agree, she’s good for it,” Greta said. “What I’m not sure I agree with is why we’re wasting our time and risking our lives breaking into the coven. Why not use Kaden as leverage to coax Jillian out?”
I narrowed my eyes on Greta. Her face was neutral and sincere. Too sincere. If she wasn’t human, I’d suspect her of deliberately kaleidoscope-confusing her emotions, like Dominic had taught me, so I couldn’t get a read on her. Then again, considering Greta and her many talents, I wouldn’t be surprised if that was exactly what she was doing.
“There’s nowhere else we can keep everyone contained,” I said, “and we’d be showing our hand too early if we sent—what, a ransom note?” I shook my head. “We’d lose the element of surprise, and we need every advantage we can get. You want another Prospect Park massacre on our hands?”
“Of course not,” Greta said.
“Because that’s exactly what we’d get. The moment we held Kaden hostage and made our demands, Jillian would hone in on Kaden’s location and descend on us with all the rage of her Damned army,” I said. “This time, we’re bringing the battle to Jillian, and any casualties will be people who signed up for this craziness. No innocent bystanders.”
Greta nodded.
I looked around the table—Nathan, Meredith, Rowens, Keagan, and Jeremy were all grimly nodding their agreement, too. Theresa and Logan shared a look, but they didn’t voice an argument. For the first time during this entire meeting, everyone was actually in agreement.
The telltale wind chime of Greta’s pleasure lit the air between us as she took in everyone’s nodding heads, and I suppressed a grin. Greta was good.
“So…we ambush Kaden, infiltrate the coven while the majority of the Damned are out hunting, and confront Jillian after they return. Then—”
“It’ll be easier to subdue Jillian
without having to simultaneously battle the Damned,” Nathan interrupted. “If we can confront her before the Damned return for the day, we have a better chance of surviving.”
“Yes,” I conceded, “but we don’t know how much control she has over the Damned. What if she has a mind connection with them like she had with me? She’d be able to warn them that we’re there.”
“Let them be warned,” Nathan said. “Whether they come with the knowledge that their master is in distress makes no difference. They’re too consumed with bloodlust to care about anything else.”
“If Jillian has the ability to communicate with the Damned, what’s to stop her from communicating with Kaden?” Rowens asked.
“Jillian transformed the Damned with her bite and blood,” Dominic explained. “She created that connection with them, but she doesn’t have that connection with Kaden, because I transformed Kaden.”
I raised my eyebrows at Dominic.
“Not one of my better judgment calls, I’ll admit,” he said, his tone grim. “I’m lucky Jillian was a stronger vampire, or he might have inherited the position of Second.”
“Yeah, you’re so lucky that Jillian—your betrayer and the force behind the destruction of New York City—became your Second instead of a serial killer,” I said, my voice saturated with sarcasm. “After we confront and overthrow Jillian, Bex will release the other Day Reapers from the Underneath and convince them to help us subdue and drain the Damned. The humans will feed the Damned their blood to transform them and…” I paused to steel my nerves. This was the part of the plan that no one really liked—as if there were a part that everyone actually liked. “And then Dominic will kill Jillian to seal the transformations.”
For the second time in as many times as I’d outlined the plan, the room erupted, everyone arguing and no one listening.
“We can’t force the public to help. They’re the innocent bystanders we were just talking about protecting.”
“Technically, ‘sealing the transformation’ isn’t real. You know that, right? There’s nothing to support that Nathan hasn’t fully transformed back from being Damned because Jillian is still alive. Not that Jillian shouldn’t face the consequences of her crimes, but—”
“Dominic just wants the full Master’s power to transfer back to him.”
“As former Master, that power is mine by right.”
“With Jillian’s death, it’s likely the Master’s power will transfer to her Second, not the former Master.”
“It’s possible it could transfer to the person who actually kills her, former Master or not. We’ve never had a new Master claim the hearts of the coven following a Leveling in which the current Master lived. It’s unprecedented among our kind, and we can’t predict how the power will transfer. If it transfers cleanly at all.”
“All that is irrelevant. The Day Reapers will just slaughter us and call it a day.”
The various bullhorns, bird squawks, thunderclaps, and sirens—the sounds of everyone’s anger and annoyance and frustration—drowned out the sounds of their words as they argued over one another. I covered my ears, feeling trampled by their emotions, and when that didn’t work, I lifted the table and threw it over everyone’s head and across the room.
The table pounded a hole in the drywall and cracked in half when it hit the floor. People in the waiting room on the other side of the wall shrieked; the sounds and smells of their fear lit the air. Rowens and Greta cleared their guns from their holsters, but I’d already sat back down, my hands neatly folded in my lap, still and waiting. Everyone was tense and uncertain, but the move, although perhaps a bit dramatic, had had the desired effect.
The room fell quiet, and I could actually hear my own thoughts and feel my own emotions instead of being swamped by everyone else’s. The silence was a reprieve after such sensory overload, so I breathed in that feeling, the peace of quiet, if not of serenity, and steeled myself to face everyone’s concerns, one by one.
I turned to Greta first. “The public will help because their loved ones need saving. They’re not innocent, because they know exactly what they’re signing up for, and they’re not bystanders, because they want to help. They left the false security of their underground bunkers and safehouses to report their family and friends missing. They’re primed for this plan.”
Greta lowered her gun. “What if no one is willing?”
“Then their loved ones die. Either way, after tonight, there won’t be any more Damned in New York City.”
Greta nodded.
I flicked my eyes to Dr. Chunn next. “I don’t care if sealing the transformation is necessary or not. Jillian does not come out of this alive. After everything she’s done, after everyone she’s killed and tried to kill, she cannot rule the New York City coven, and the only way to strip her of the little power she’s stolen is to kill her.”
Dr. Chunn nodded. “That, I support.”
Then I met Bex’s gaze. “Do you have a problem with Dominic reclaiming his position as Master vampire of New York City?”
Bex shook her head. “No problem here. Just an observation: he lost that power once. Doesn’t seem wise to allow him to have it again.”
Dominic narrowed his eyes. “Looking to expand your kingdom, Beatrix?”
“Just an observation,” Bex said again, and she let it go at that.
I glanced at Rafe last. “You’re right. We can’t predict how the Master’s power will transfer. We just need to stick to the plan and roll with the punches, but”—I glared at Ronnie, who’d shrunk in on herself—“no matter what happens, we will not panic. None of this is irrelevant. We will adapt as needed and survive. Jillian and Kaden will not. Agreed?”
Everyone, even Theresa and Logan, nodded this time.
Rowens tapped a finger on the table, thinking. “The earlier in the night we infiltrate the coven, the better. Our plan is established and well planned, but it has a lot of moving parts that may take time, especially when hiccups arise.”
Greta nodded. “What are your thoughts on countering that?”
“Currently, we can’t control when we infiltrate the coven because we need to ambush Kaden first. He may decide to stalk the city all night before visiting his mother, in which case, we’d get a late start infiltrating the coven. We need to split into two teams, so our timing isn’t based on his. Team one ambushes Kaden while team two infiltrates the coven. By the time team two confronts Jillian, team one will need to have Kaden subdued and detained.”
“We won’t be bound by Kaden’s schedule,” Greta said, nodding. “I like it.”
“I don’t,” Dominic growled. “The only people in this room capable of confronting Kaden are Nathan, Cassidy, Bex, and me. We need Bex with us to release the Day Reapers from the Underneath, and I refuse to be separated from Cassidy for such an extended time. So…” Dominic lifted his hands, waiting for more suggestions.
“That leaves me,” Nathan said. “I can do it.”
I shook my head. “I need you in the coven with me to confront Jillian and subdue the Damned.”
“You’ll have Dominic at your side for Jillian, and the Day Reapers can handle the Damned without me,” Nathan reasoned. “There’s no one else here who can ambush and subdue Kaden.”
I opened my mouth, determined to find a solid reason for him to remain on team two, my team, besides pure selfishness—when the meeting-room door opened.
I didn’t need to watch Greta and Rowens clear their guns only to relax; I didn’t need to witness Ronnie’s face bloom and blush only to shutter closed again. Nor did I need to turn around to know that Walker had just entered the room. He was standing behind me. I could smell the peppermint effervescence of his scent. Honestly, I should have smelled it earlier, but considering the many overwhelming sounds and tastes and smells battering my senses, I wasn’t surprised I’d missed it.
“I beg to differ,
” Walker said, his drawl low and smug. “I can damn well ambush and subdue anything I want. Isn’t that right, DiRocco?”
I closed my eyes, keeping the hurt and rage and stabbing betrayal locked inside the padlocked safe hidden deep inside myself, but I was the only one. The last thing I heard before the soft whoosh of air being punched from Walker’s gut was Dominic’s unmistakable, rattling growl.
Chapter 25
Greta and Rowens had their guns out and aimed—a second time in as many seconds—at Dominic, but had Dominic intended to inflict permanent damage to Walker’s person, he could have done so before anyone even processed his movement, let alone retaliated with bullets. Instead, he’d only punched Walker in the gut with his closed fist. He hadn’t sliced open Walker’s throat with his fangs or eviscerated him on his talons. And he’d pulled the punch. He was restraining his strength and power to human proportion, and in acknowledgment of that, Greta and Rowens kept their aim but held their fire.
“Lysander,” Greta said, her voice low but sharp in warning. “Don’t force my hand.”
“I apologize for interrupting the meeting with violence,” Dominic responded, his voice nearly unintelligible though his rattling growls, “but he forced my hand.”
I stood and turned to face the brawl behind me, putting eyes to the scene I’d already envisioned from its sounds. Heedless of the guns and the futility of fighting Dominic, Walker punched back, clipping Dominic on the chin with a strong left cross, and Dominic—eager for any excuse to pummel Walker—snatched Walker by the neck and slammed him into the wall. But even that movement, as theatrical as it was, had been measured. The drywall behind Walker didn’t even crack, and Dominic was careful to prevent Walker’s head from whiplashing.
Their noses nearly touching, Dominic snarled in Walker’s face, “You are not welcome here!”
Walker grinned and then spoke, proving that Dominic’s hold on his neck was pretty much for show. “I was invited.”
Day Reaper Page 26