Go for the Juggler
Page 18
“I’m not! That’s not what I’m doing it all!”
“Isn’t it, though?” Gunther said as he sat back down. “If you want me to believe that you’re not questioning me because of your own discomfort with the situation, I respectfully suggest you stop cutting off my words while I am speaking so that you can tell me what my motivations are.”
I groped through my angry and defensive brain looking for a snappy comeback, but I couldn’t find one.
“Am I interrupting?” Aidan asked from the door.
“Why can’t he read anyone’s mind but mine?” I shot at Aidan.
“Because you’re both lawgivers,” Aidan answered calmly. “Were you both unaware that you are the only two lawgivers left?”
My jaw dropped, and Gunther shook his head no sadly.
“We knew there weren’t many, but we didn’t know we were the only two. Or maybe we did, but I don’t know that we stopped to think about it.”
“The Witches' Council made sure that there were no lawgivers,” Aidan told us as he made his way over to a chair in the sitting area. “If there were more lawgivers, they would be sitting on the Witches' Council as well. Clearly, they are not.”
“What are lawgivers?” Kyle asked as he poked his head in.
“The paranormal world’s version of a police officer, I suppose,” Aidan told his centaur ex-police officer boyfriend. “Charlotte and Gunther put on the lawgiver rings, and so they now operate as officers of justice after a fashion in our world.”
“The two of them?” Kyle laughed as he pointed. “And these two are literally the only two cops you have to keep law and order? In the entire paranormal world?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that. The Witches' Council has their own security force, but those law enforcement officers are not lawgivers. They don’t have the power of the lawgiver ring, but they do have the political power of the Witches' Council behind them.”
“But not the political power they are supposed to have as representatives of justice,” I added. “At least as the role was designed.”
“That’s because they’re not justice seekers. There simply enforcers of the Witches’ Council’s will,” Gunther added.
“So if you have the ring, you’re on the Witches' Council? Just like that?” Kyle asked.
“Lawgivers used to be a parliamentary body that advised the Witches' Council as well as voted on issues,” Aidan told him.
“That’s amazing. Police officers helped make laws… I mean, that’s kind of brilliant,” Kyle mused. Then his face changed. “Frankly, that also sounds dangerous. What happens if you get a bunch of cops on the take? Laws can get twisted really fast when corruption takes hold.”
“That’s part of the power of the rings,” Aidan told him as he pointed to my hand, and then Gunther’s. “The rings don’t enforce ethics, but they can indicate them. I suspect that’s why the Witches' Council wanted to do away with the lawgivers in the first place.”
“What do you mean ‘indicate’ them?” I asked as I looked at the ring.
“Your ring is gold, and so your motives and ethics are pure. Well, at least as far as the magic of the ring can sense,” Aidan told me. Gunther quickly looked at his own ring to ensure that it, too, was gold. “If your ring turns red, or black? I’d suggest a meditation on the righteousness of your intentions.”
“What’s the difference between black and red?” Gunther asked.
“Red means that your motivations are questionable. Your powers will be suspended, but the ring will remain on your finger in hopes that you can work through your issue and return the color to gold. If the ring turns black? Your lawgiver powers are removed forever, and the ring will fall off at the next rising of the sun. You have no recourse, and no way to come back from that. The magic has deemed you unrecoverable.”
“I wish I’d had those back in Mickwac,” Kyle said as he stared wide-eyed at my ring.
“So it’s an ethical mood ring?” I asked him.
“Perhaps a bit more complex than that, but yes. In any case, your telepathic connection is because you’re both lawgivers,” Aidan said.
“And no more than that?” Gunther asked.
“Not that I’m aware of, no.”
“I guess it’s like a magical CB radio,” I told Gunther.
“What’s a CB radio?”
Everyone other than Gunther laughed.
“With so many paranormals from the human world, the human in-jokes are going to become a little bit annoying,” Gunther grumbled.
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Also by Leanne Leeds
The Magical Midway Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series
Witchiest Circus on Earth, Book 1
Life on the Lion, Book 2
Unbearable Magic, Book 3
Go for the Juggler, Book 4
Irrelephant Omens, Book 5