Kanishka nodded to her.
“Why are we doing this?” Barbie asked.
She sounded innocent enough, but Vern felt something uneasy stirring in his gut. Surely this question had been asked and answered before, many times over.
“Can you be more specific?” Kanishka said.
“Why are we sending all these supplies to the kith and kin?” Barbie said. “With all the reports of demon activity in our city, and there’s been a lot of that, why aren’t we more focused on protecting our own?”
“We are protecting our own, as you so quaintly put it,” said the being with the black beard and the blue dress—Kim as they had introduced themselves as. “By supporting the kith and kin, we are keeping the demons from overrunning the human plane.”
“The traditional allies of the kith and kin are the demons, not the humans,” Barbie pointed out.
“Not all of the kith and kin races accept that,” Thaxton replied.
“True. However, we need to start focusing more on the human race,” Barbie said. “The only way to protect our world is to start closing the portals. How long have we allowed the divert treaty to be perverted? We need to petition the Host, right now, to change the treaty and close our borders to anyone who isn’t human.”
The bearded men in the long skirts all seemed outraged at such a suggestion. As did some of the leather-clad women.
But Vern felt that far too many agreed with Barbie. It was the nature of the world just then—I have mine and I’m not about to share.
“For those of you newcomers,” Kanishka said, raising her voice to drown out those who had started chattering, “DHIVRT stands for the Demon-Human Interaction and Visitation Rights treaty.”
“The demons are breaking the treaty by coming here, particularly in the large numbers that have been reported,” Barbie pointed out. “This is a matter for the Host. Not the council. The council should be more concerned with protecting the humans in its jurisdiction. Not suppling the kith and kin, who will turn on us and ally themselves with the demons when push comes to shove.”
Kanishka tried to cut off the loud uproar. “The council voted to ally themselves with the kith and kin in the war effort—”
“We need a new vote!” Barbie said, her voice booming across the room. “We need to block them! All of them! Stop the invaders! New vote! New vote!”
Several members of the audience picked up the chant.
“New vote! New vote! New vote!”
Vern just shook his head. There was no way that this was going to end well.
Kanishka was finally able to regain control of the meeting. “There is a procedure for petitioning the council to exercise a vote,” she said sternly. “Disrupting a council meeting is not the proper way.”
Barbie still sat beside Vern, looking unabashed. Her cheeks glowed from all the excitement. A holy fervor burned in her eyes.
Vern felt as though he’d been surprised by a deadly viper in sheep’s clothing, or some such analogy.
“You need to craft a proposal, then get the proper number of signatures from the citizens in order to petition the council,” Kanishka continued.
“Exactly,” Barbie said, standing once again. From a magical pocket that she carved out beside her, Barbie pulled a large collection of papers. “Here is the paperwork, as well as all the signatures,” she said, holding them up. “May I present them to the council?”
Vern felt rather than heard the sigh from Kanishka. She’d been sandbagged. Again. He felt sorry for her.
“You may,” Kanishka said. “At the end of the meeting,” she added before Barbie could approach the group, “when I call for new business.”
Barbie pouted and sat back down, her moment of glory diverted.
Vern smiled and nodded at Kanishka. He was really starting to like her.
The council members went through the rest of the agenda quickly, covering things like expanding the search among the homeless for those who were magically gifted, supplying tuition for the magical who needed extra training, and the start of the planning for the equinox celebration.
Kim gave the report on the studies of the corruption crystals. Mainly, no one had yet figured out how to counteract the effect on the humans. Since they weren’t specifically outlawed by the DHIVRT treaty, there wasn’t anyone the humans could appeal to.
Vern didn’t like the predatory smile Barbie gave at that news.
Just another piece of information that she’d use in her efforts to “purify” the human plane, he knew.
Finally, when everything on the agenda had been covered, Kanishka called for any new business. Barbie raised her hand again, not like an A-student eager to please, but like the smart-ass in the class who had all the answers.
“You may approach the council,” Kanishka said, “and present your petition.”
Barbie gave a smug smile to the entire room as she slipped out of the row of seats and handed her papers to the secretary for the council.
“We will need to verify the signatures,” Kanishka said after the secretary had glanced through the sheaf in front of him and then nodded. “After they’ve been validated, we will schedule a new vote. If there’s nothing else, this meeting is now dismissed.”
Vern felt himself recoiling from the anger now radiating from Barbie. He didn’t like the dark look that she shot Kanishka. She’d really wanted her time in the spotlight again, and Kanishka had just denied it.
As quickly as possible, Vern got out of the meeting room.
He’d found what he’d come for.
And though he had never expected it, it appeared that the best place to put his talents seemed to be into politics, to make sure that the council didn’t vote to cut back the lines of supplies to the kith and kin.
After he went to check out what was happening on the fairy bridge.
Chapter Eight
Ty Brooks, demon hunter extraordinaire, finally felt ready to join the fray again. He’d been severely poisoned while fighting a demon. His black skin no longer had that ashy hue, his arms had stopped shaking after he finished a sparring session with his great sword, and his keen sense of smell had finally returned to him when he shifted from his human form to that of a partial wolf. (He was only one-quarter wolf and had spent some serious time training as a youth, so he wasn’t tied to the cycle of the moon like his werewolf mother and could change at will.)
He’d taken himself to the bailiff’s office, intending to see what was on the charts, possibly plan out his next gig.
What he saw on the wanted board in the hallway sent his hackles rising and a low growl rumbling in his chest.
He pulled the poster for Lars Sorgenfreys off the wanted board and stomped down the hallway to the bailiff’s office, making a beeline toward the clerk in charge of keeping the wanted posters up to date.
“What the hell is this?” Ty demanded, slapping the wanted poster down on the clerk’s desk.
“It’s a poster declaring that Lars Sorgenfreys is a wanted demon,” the clerk said slowly, as if trying to explain something to an overactive two year old.
The clerk looked like a cross between a ram and a human, with a ram-like face and great tusks curled up around his ears, a tall thin body, and knees that operated backwards.
“I know that it’s a poster for Lars. Why did someone strike through it, lowering the priority for his capture?” Ty asked. “He’s the head of the demons leading the attack against the kith and kin!”
The ram-headed clerk—Gerald, according to the nameplate on his desk—heaved a great sigh. He sat back in his chair and chewed his cud for a moment before he finally looked back up at Ty.
“His activities in the Great War have nothing to do with his wanted status,” Gerald explained. “Unless you have documented proof that since his escape he’s personally attacked, maimed, or otherwise harmed another being.”
Ty blinked, feeling the world under his feet shifting. “So leading armies, directing them to attack and decimating entire
races of the kith and kin is not enough to keep his rating higher?”
“The law doesn’t cover that,” Gerald said with a shrug. “It was never meant to cover such an extreme. It was put into place to stop escaped demons who were rampaging through the human population. Not the ones who hid and remained in hiding, technically never hurting a fly.”
Ty was at a complete loss of words. “So you lowered the priority for his capture?” was all he could manage.
The clerk shrugged again. “That’s the law. After ninety days, if a demon hasn’t done any direct, provable harm, their priority gets marked down. The poster won’t be removed from the board, though. So you can still hunt him.”
“But the court will stop assigning people to go after him,” Ty pointed out. And while yes, that meant that there was less competition for him, it still meant that Lars was more likely to stay free for a longer period of time.
“True,” Gerald said. “But there isn’t anything I can do. My hands are tied.”
Ty wanted to insist that the clerk print out a new poster, one with the original priority. He wanted to go petition the court to start a new demon-hunt, one that was focused on finding Lars and putting him back into prison.
He wanted a lot of things that were never going to happen, like for his own people, the lycanthropes and those who generally called themselves werewolves, to stop bickering amongst themselves and go join the kith and kin who were fighting the war.
None of that was going to happen, though.
Instead, he turned and marched out of the bailiff’s office. He wasn’t going to share this news with Christine. She had enough on her plate already.
Nope. It was time for him to get back into action. Sure, the trail was colder than hell when it came to finding Lars.
Ty was just going to have to go seeking the demon other ways. Paying visits to some shady characters. Maybe even laying out a bribe or two.
While many in Ty’s clan considered him an abomination, as he’d been born from a lycanthropic mother and a human father, he still knew a few who would talk with him.
They would have news.
Now, he just had to get his hands on some fresh goat meat.
Chapter Nine
Dennis strode down Madison Street in Capitol Hill, heading toward his next meeting. He’d changed out of his work clothes—nice shirt, chinos, loafers—and into what he’d come to call his game clothes—Seahawks jersey, jeans, and beat up boots.
It wasn’t that Dennis had never been a ’hawks fan. He’d always followed the games, but he’d never been a great believer in the religion, had never owned a jersey or any other accoutrement. He still wasn’t that much of a follower, actually. However, since he’d turned into Christine’s primary recruiter, he’d discovered that most of the kith and kin were into sports. Not necessarily human sports, but their own twisted and wonderful varieties of it.
Wearing a Seahawks jersey made the kith and kin who he was meeting feel more at ease, as if they already had something in common.
Tonight, Dennis was meeting with Christine first before he went out on his usual rounds. There were several restaurants and bars on Capitol Hill who catered expressly to the kith and kin. Dennis had gotten to know many of them, and was considered a regular at half a dozen or so.
When Dennis had realized that he was starting to put on weight from all the alcohol he’d been consuming, he’d switched to plain soda water. Many of the bartenders would put in a shot of something colored for him, so that it appeared he was still drinking liquor even when he wasn’t, just one more thing Dennis had gotten good at—appearing to be loosely drunk while he still had all of his wits around him.
A posse of street kids lined the edge of the sidewalk outside the restaurant. Dennis had no magical abilities whatsoever (and that still pissed him off sometimes), so he edged around the group carefully.
Were there members of the kith and kin mixed in with the humans? Or something else?
Dennis paused at the door to the restaurant while a group of drunk secretaries came out. He glanced over his shoulder and waited for the entire gaggle to come tumbling out.
One of the young men stared hungrily at Dennis. He had blond hair that was probably past the point of washing and should just be shaved off, full cheeks as if he’d never missed a meal, with a contrasting sharp nose and thin lips. He wore the usual street kid clothes, dirty T-shirt, vest, stained jeans with huge tears across the knees, brown sneakers without any laces in them.
While Dennis looked, the kid barred his teeth. Dennis wasn’t close enough to hear the growl, but he still knew it was being sounded. Damned kid was either part demon or possessed.
Dennis felt his back stiffen. His immediate urge was to go and confront the kid, demand to know who he was looking at. Probably get into some sort of scuffle.
Dennis had, after all, been born ready.
However, getting into that sort of fight was the surest way for him to lose the respect of Christine, as well as the beings he was working so desperately hard to recruit.
Funny how his sister’s opinion of him was actually more important.
“See ya,” Dennis said with a casual wave of his hand before he turned and went into the restaurant.
He’d also learned the best way to truly piss off a demon was to treat them like they were inconsequential. To not engage as if they mattered, but to brush them off like lint.
On the scorecard Dennis kept in his head, he knew that he’d just notched another tiny win.
He would admit that he still had bad nights, nights when he felt as though he was completely inconsequential, that he’d never mattered to anyone, not his parents, his sister, even his friends (particularly the ones who stopped calling or trying to get together when he got busy. The ones who he still regularly texted and chatted with—he now knew they were gold. They were a smaller group than he’d like to consider, but they still had his back.)
Just as he had his sister’s back.
Christine was in her full-on human guise. She still looked kinda like the girl he’d grown up with. At least that horrible mop of curly brown hair was gone—really, she never should have listened to Tina and gotten that perm. Her skin was darker colored than his or anyone else in the family. She had the same high, round cheeks that he did, the same small nose and wide-set eyes.
She held herself differently now. Her posture was better and she no longer looked as though she wanted to hide constantly. She looked out across the room, assessing threats and allies with equal skill.
She’d really grown up nice. He was proud of her.
Now, if only they could find a good troll boyfriend for her…
After the war.
She also wore clothes that suited her more than she used to. He couldn’t recall any specific outfits that she’d worn before, just the general impression that she’d always had on baggy things and had been trying to hide herself.
Tonight, she wore a tight, white sleeveless shirt that was something between a camisole and a muscle shirt. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was also wearing a short skirt, something that showed off her legs, whereas before she would have been all covered up.
While she wasn’t his type—he preferred runners to wrestlers—he could understand the appeal.
Dennis wove his way through the scattered booths and tables, seating himself next to Christine. The restaurant seemed really loud to him—he was surprised that Christine had suggested it. Even if they did serve some of the best Mexican food in Seattle.
Before he could say anything, a waitress came up with a large goblet containing a blue margarita.
“What can I get you?” she asked, turning to smile at Dennis.
“One of those,” Dennis said, indicating Christine’s drink.
“Right away,” the waitress said, hurrying away.
“You okay?” Dennis asked after Christine had taken a large swig of the drink in front of her. He helped himself to some of the chips and salsa already on the table.
>
Wow. The chips were made in house—fresh, crunchy, tangy and salty. Plus the salsa was amazing.
Christine sighed and nodded, then rolled her shoulders. “Yeah. It’s just been one of those days, you know?”
“You’re having a lot of those,” Dennis said. The war hadn’t been going well. In fact, now that he thought about it, Christine had been having large amounts of alcohol every time he’d seen her recently.
“Yeah,” Christine said, taking another swig.
How did alcohol affect a troll? Dennis didn’t recall ever seeing Christine drunk. He had to remember that though as a human she was about the same height as he was, as a troll, she was actually much taller and bigger.
“But I might have some good news,” Christine said after a moment.
“Really?” Dennis said, surprised. “That’s awesome!” Had someone else joined Christine’s side? Had they just won a major battle?
“I hope you’ll still think so in a bit,” Christine said.
“Huh?” Dennis asked. He didn’t like the serious look on Christine’s face. “What’s up?”
“I’m going to need your help. Tonight,” Christine said.
“Sure! Whatcha need?” Dennis said easily. He started switching around appointments in his head. He could go see the rowdy boys tomorrow night, and possibly schedule a happy hour with the Sonicasm later in the week, and maybe…
“Excuse me?” Dennis asked when he realized that Christine had kept talking and had just mentioned something about oracles.
“I need you to come with me to visit the oracles tonight,” Christine said.
Dennis blinked. “Why me?” he asked. Shit. Was there some strange cult thing she was going to be asking him to do? Maybe she needed him to be some sort of sacrificial lamb?
Christine blew out a frustrated breath. “Because. They’re the damned human oracles. They won’t address me. And there aren’t any oracles in Trollville, or who specialize in just troll futures. The ones I found are more general, and just foretell things for the kith and kin.”
The Troll-Human War Page 5
