Not that I was coping well, but I was getting through it, second by second. Mostly by repressing anything and everything that might leave me feeling unsteady.
"It happened too quickly," Jeff answered, still chewing his own breakfast. "They didn't know we were coming. And it would’ve taken some pretty serious magick to do that kind of damage. Not something anyone could have put together in a few minutes with no notice."
I hoped he was right since I'd considered the opposite argument a few times already. If people had died simply because I'd showed up somewhere, this was a far bigger mess than I was prepared to think about.
People talked over one another, throwing ideas back and forth, while I finished off my meal and slumped back in a less-than-comfortable chair.
I hadn't heard from Ethan yet that morning, and it was making me antsy. I didn't know if he'd told the other alphas about his connection to me, or what the wolves’ stance as a faction was on any of this. I just hoped he was okay.
I didn't look up in time to catch who spoke next. "The humans are still scratching their heads about what any of this actually was."
"Well, that's fair," I pointed out. "They found seven bodies, none of which they've been able to identify, and one of which disappeared from the morgue within hours." The fae I'd glamoured. "They can't figure out why any of them were in the church, and all of their witness are just claiming they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and went inside after they heard the explosion. No one has claimed responsibility, and no one can figure out why half the town was convinced the building was under construction, despite any evidence. Hopefully we'll know more than they do soon enough."
The one thing the humans might have had a lead on was the one thing they weren't reporting on. So far, no official cause of the explosion had been announced. We didn't know if we were looking at dynamite, magick, or something else altogether. If I'd been thinking more clearly at the time, I'd have tried to have someone look into it while we were there, away from prying eyes and too many questions.
It was possible that the humans didn't have the ability to find what they were looking for, but we were still waiting for an opening to teleport back inside when we were sure there weren't any humans investigating at the same time. We probably weren't the only faction that had eyes on the site, but so far it'd been all humans, all the time. The constant swarm of people seemed to be slowing as the rubble was cleared, and we could all breathe a little easier knowing there wasn't anyone waiting for rescue.
"Do we really need to know more?" Nina asked from her spot on the counter, legs hanging down so low they almost touched the floor. "We all know who did this. It was Aoife. Of course it was Aoife."
My father's voice slipped into my mind, telling me not to jump to conclusions. Warning me against making accusations without evidence. But Nina was probably right. It would explain why Aoife had laid so low for so long, and it fit her agenda as far as we understood it.
"Still. We need proof. Not even proof that it was her, but proof that it was just her, that we had nothing to do with it." Frustration bubbled up inside me. "You should have seen it in there. The summit was working. The factions were listening, were focusing on solving a problem." They hadn't killed me on sight; also a plus. "I felt like I was getting through to them. It felt like we were all on the same side, for once."
"That's easy for you to say," Simon said. I turned around to look at him, startled. I hadn’t realized he was back already. "You've never had to live where they told you to live, do what they needed done, kill who they needed killed. Yes, getting them to see things our way here is in everyone's best interest. But don't kid yourself that we're all on the same team, rowing together for the common good. There's a reason that folk stories everywhere paint these people as monsters."
I guess I could have argued that I'd spent my life living in fear of the factions, hiding from them and my own people alike. Literally playing dead. But that hadn't been the point of Simon's interjection, and I knew it.
When I'd been standing in the center of the church, my hand on the pedestal, talking to a room full of people... I'd wanted to believe I was making an impact and doing some good. I'd wanted to believe it was all simple, that a good idea could be enough to change the world. Or history. Or something.
And maybe it could have been. But now we'd never know.
I still had both my knife and my gun, and honestly, part of me wished this was the kind of problem either one of them could solve. I felt terrible even thinking it. Violence wasn't the answer. Or it wasn't supposed to be. But for most of my life, I'd been prepared to defend myself against anyone who might want to hurt me. I'd mostly been resorting to hiding. But I'd always been ready, should it have come to something more.
In my head, it would have been so easy. The people who had killed my family had been monsters, and I would have treated them on such. A silver bullet to the head, a quick decapitation. The images probably would have stayed with me forever, but I'd have been ready. I'd have survived.
But even after everything that had happened with Nadir, the witches who attacked me, the war against lesser magicks... Violence really hadn't been the answer. At least not in any lasting way. It hadn't been easy to get my hand on either of those weapons, and for so long they'd made me feel safe. But how much good had they really done me? They were on me almost all the time, but when it came to navigating the politics of the supernatural world, easing frayed nerves, or keeping people safe, they hadn't been terribly helpful.
I was even more surprised to find that, even though everything I'd been through so far should have fueled my urge to kill my enemies on sight, I was actually enjoying the other side of the coin.
Getting to know the people who had seemed entirely okay to kidnap and even kill the daughter of someone they thought was their enemy.
Declaring a faction for the disenfranchised.
Dissembling the empire of someone who was content to be my enemy.
Coming clean with my parents about who I was.
None of it had been easy. And it took a lot longer than it would have to just fire a gun.
It was working so much better than any of the interactions with the factions I'd imagined during my teen years.
Yes, I still had to find a way forward. There was a balancing act to be maintained, measuring the needs of the people with whom I'd aligned myself against the power of those who saw them as pawns, all while looking for an answer that would protect everyone. Because in the end, we were all on the same side.
All of us, that is, except whoever had blown up the church. They'd chosen violence instead of debate, and had hurt so many in the process, including our cause.
Someone, and I had an inkling of who that was, was determined to defend their own position using whatever means they thought would scare the most people. And it was working.
People from every faction were hurt, grieving, and afraid, leaving all of them more keen than ever to set things right with pain and suffering, if there was even a chance it would help them avoid more of the same.
Before long, there could be more victims, which would probably ruin our chances of finding a way to move forward as a united front. Or if things went really terribly, expose our existence to the humans well before we were ready.
Through my mother's memories, I'd experienced exactly how bad things could get when the factions decided to lean toward violence rather than peace.
Alliances were broken and superstition reigned.
People died. Many of them had been children.
All in the name of power and control, helped along by an unhealthy dose of prophecy.
"Melanie?" Taya's voice interrupted my thoughts, pulling me out of what could have become a dark spiral.
"Yeah, sorry. Just trying to think this all through." I turned back to Simon. "None of this is easy, for me or for anyone else. And I think we all have a pretty good idea of how bad things will get if this situation continues in the direction it's headed. Not
one of us will ever truly relax again, always looking over our shoulders, waiting for the factions to strike. It's a life I've known for a long time. But we won’t let it get to that point."
"It may not be up to us," Tate pointed out. I held up a hand to stop him.
"But it might be. We've all heard the stories. We know how much damage the factions can do to each other and the world, lashing out if they feel threatened. But we're the new factor in all of this. We're the ones who can keep history from repeating itself."
Which was exactly what I intended to do.
Chapter 11
The humans finally gave in and went home by the time five o'clock rolled around that very same day. There was no doubt that police and investigators alike would be back by the beginning of next shift, but besides a few guards stationed around the perimeter, we were officially in the clear to begin our own investigation. And to finally get the answers we needed, assuming the humans had left us anything worth finding.
The sun was beginning to set as I dialed Ethan's number.
He answered on the first ring.
"Melanie?"
"I'm okay."
I couldn't say why my first instinct was to reassure him, but suddenly it seemed like a mistake to have spent this much time separated from him already. Not that we'd had much of a choice after the way everything had gone down. He'd had his people to look after and I'd had mine. But he was also the strongest ally I had, and the one person who could remind me that all of this would be worth it, one way or another.
"How are things over there?" I asked, not even totally sure where he was.
"Fine. Or as fine as you'd expect. Somehow, we didn't lose anyone. It seems selfish to be grateful..."
"No," I rushed to assure him. "None of your people died. That's exactly the kind of thing that anyone would be grateful for." I swallowed a pang of jealousy. There had been far fewer of us, and still Nico had lost his life. "Besides, it makes sense, you all recover from injury faster than most of us. I imagine the vampire's death toll was pretty low as well."
I tried to push away the memory of Dublin's mistress and the agony she'd experienced, cradling Eduardo's body. It wouldn't go.
But how long did we have before agony turned to rage? And before she and her friends found someone to direct that rage toward?
"Have you heard from them?" I asked. "The vampires, I mean."
"Otto spent most of the day checking in on everyone. A few of the visiting wolves shifted in the panic, trying to protect themselves. Which makes it tricky for them to be around other alphas. But we got there in the end. And Otto's with the other moderators now."
"Do you..." I wasn't sure what to ask. How much could Ethan tell me? Or how much information could I ask him for without putting him in a tough position?
"I don't know much. The other visiting alphas and I have been in a holding pattern for a few hours now. A few of them think Otto will get back and point us at a target. They're getting ready to go retaliate. Or punish. I don't think they care. But there are a lot of hot tempers here." From the hint of a growl I heard in Ethan's voice, he was feeling much of the same.
How much control did Otto actually have over the other wolves? If he gave Ethan and a dozen other alphas marching orders to destroy the faction they thought most likely to be guilty, how many would happily attack?
If it was even one, the answer was too many.
“My people and I are going back to the church after dark tonight,” I told Ethan. I’d gone back a few times on whether I wanted to ask for forgiveness or permission and landed somewhere in the middle. The factions, or at least the moderators probably had similar plans to my own, and I couldn’t stop them from showing up. But I wasn’t about to let them decide whether I was allowed to be there too.
This was my damn city.
“I think we could probably use some help from the witches, but I wasn’t sure how smart it would be for me to be the one to get in touch. We’re willing to offer up Simon and Leda to help get a few people in past security.”
“For their security, or the humans’?”
“Win-win. But we don’t have any way to cast an illusion spell or keep the security team’s attention. Now that we don’t exactly have any walls to work behind, I figured we could all work faster with some cover.”
"I'll see what I can do," Ethan promised. "Now, how are you holding up?"
"Oh, you know," I answered noncommittally. "Okay."
"The only thing I know is that you can't possibly be okay. How can any of us be okay?"
He was right. We both knew it. But I also knew that there was no way I could talk about anything that had happened. Not yet. It would only take one chink in my armor before I'd be crawling back into bed, hiding out from the world, no matter what else was happening.
"I'm hanging in there. I'll feel better once we know for sure who did this. And that they won’t be able to do it again. How are you?"
"Mostly just ready to kick all of these people off our island. We didn't ask to be the center of this."
"Agreed. Galway was picked as the home of the summit because it's quiet here. Because this isn't the kind of place where different factions are picking off humans or making power plays. And now this?" I couldn't imagine a single scenario where life would be able to go back to how it was before, no matter what happened in the next few days.
I knew I'd never be able to go back to pretending I'd been dead for years, or that I didn't care about people whose powers were treated like my own.
It was fair to say that both my city, and I had been put through the ringer.
Ethan and I talked for a little while longer before he had to go and catch up with Otto, promising to report back with good news.
The call came within minutes. Any other time I would have been thrilled to have had a chance to talk to him again. Except, I’d been seconds away from stepping into the shower for the first time in days. I was half inside it already when the phone started to ring from the counter nearby.
I could see Ethan’s name on the screen, leaving me to damp-hop across the bathroom to pick up the call before it went to voicemail.
“Hey, stranger. Long time no talk.” The words came out both breathy and frustrated.
“Melanie Sinclair? This is Otto Mayer. I believe you wanted to speak to me.”
“I, uh.” It took me a good ten seconds to remind myself that the most powerful werewolf in Europe could not in fact tell that I was standing in a very floral bathroom. “Hello.” This was probably the part of the conversation where I was supposed to jump in with an introduction and a sales pitch. “Sorry, just a little surprised.”
On the other end of the line, Otto chuckled. And I swear, even his laugh had an accent. "Understandable. Ethan tells me you're planning on taking a group out to the church this evening, and that your people would be kind enough to help us bypass the human security."
Right. It sounded like Ethan had already let Otto know what I had planned and pitched it well enough to convince him. Now we were just dealing with logistics. This I could do.
"If the witches can manage a spell to keep us hidden, or at least lower the chances of us being seen or overheard, we'll have no problem with the transport side of things."
"How many people were you planning to bring with you?" Otto asked.
"A handful, anyone whose abilities might be useful." Until we knew what we were dealing with, I wasn't really sure who that was.
"If I might offer a suggestion? In our own discussions, my fellow moderators and I had planned to go alone. We had several volunteers to join us, but we wouldn't have been able to take everyone along without the situation getting out of hand. You're welcome to do your own investigation, and to bring in whoever you like. But perhaps, now more than ever, a united front is our best way forward."
My mouth opened to answer, but I wasn't sure what to say. Was this it? Had it happened? I was being invited to participate in an official capacity. At the worst possible time, su
re. But it was something.
"Is this coming from you, or is it coming from all the factions?" I asked. In a way, what he was asking me to do was good news. But he was also asking me to show up, on my own, to a secluded setting with a group of people who didn’t necessarily support me.
"Me, for now. I haven't had a chance to speak with the others. But we won’t go forward with any of this unless we're all in agreement. Despite the devastation that we're dealing with, we've already agreed to continue on with the same rules of non-violence within the city limits. This would apply to you as well."
I tried to think through every single thing that could go wrong, but knew there would always be hundreds of possible disasters I'd never see coming. Simon's words from earlier still rang in my ears. I wanted to trust these people. I'd have loved to think we were really on the same side. But there were also more than a few people who would have loved to see me permanently disappeared.
"I'm going to need to bring at least one person. If that doesn't work for you, we can keep our investigations separate. But Simon will be there anyway; he’s the teleporter who will be getting us in and out. He doesn't need to be involved in the investigation, or any discussions the moderators might want to have. But I'd like to have him close by in case we need backup." Or I needed a quick escape option. Or a witness to my murder.
"I'll need to take it up with the others, but that sounds reasonable. I should go now, but if you think of anything else you might need, or if anything changes, let Ethan know. He speaks highly of you, and I trust his judgement. I do hope that won't prove to have been a mistake."
The line went dead as though there were any chance I would have missed the warning otherwise.
Still, this was progress. First, the moderators had let me speak. Now, they had invited me to participate in their official investigation of the explosion. Okay, no. They had essentially just said that if I was going to show up anyway, they wouldn’t stop me. But that was something. It was something more than I'd ever dared to imagine only a few weeks ago.
Now all I had to do was show up, not get murdered, and not make a mess of the whole thing.
Magic In My Blood Page 7
