When the applause died down, the faerie continued,“To the humans who support us, thank you. But I urge you to suspend your meetings until this danger has passed. If you cannot, then ask one of your local faeries to attend as a guard. Do not meet unprotected. And lastly, to whoever is doing this, be you human, faerie, or other,”—he leaned in toward the camera—“you will not hurt or intimidate these people any longer. You are nothing but a coward and a bully. Such behavior will not be tolerated. Be warned, we are coming for you.”
Then the Air-Sidhe shot into the sky.
“Awesome exit,” I said. “Great parting line.”
“Yes, very dramatic,” Kirill drawled. “But is zis a good or bad zing?”
“Only time will tell,” Azrael said. “Personally, I'm glad that the Fey are showing some compassion for the humans. That man is right, it's time for them to show their support and gratitude to those who have welcomed them here.”
“Maybe you could respond to this instead of reminding humans that we can kick their asses,” I suggested.
“You mean, applaud the heroic action of this faerie instead of denouncing the villainous actions of that human mob.”
“Yes. Positive reinforcement instead of negative.”
“I think that's a good idea,” Odin said. “It will inspire more faeries to help humans and also counter the negativity that Jerry is trying to spread.”
“What about the church?” Trevor asked.
“I'll go visit my brother first,” Azrael said. “Then I'll record a message to send to the news stations.”
“Maybe do that in reverse order,” Re suggested. “Then while you're gone, we can send out the video.”
“Yes, all right.” Azrael looked at Torrent. “Can you be my cameraman?”
Torrent's lime-green eyes lit up. Literally. “I've always wanted to make movies!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
After we ate dinner, Azrael shifted into his Faerie God form, and Torrent recorded his message using a professional camera (made with territory magic under Torrent's guidance) and a lot of film production lingo. In his speech, Az praised the faerie who had protected the humans and urged more faeries to follow his lead, then he denounced whoever was attacking humans, vowing to find the culprit and deal with them himself. I liked that little taunt geared at Jerry. Hopefully, he'd hear it just before he eavesdropped on Az inviting Jesus to his first church service. Jerry was going to blow a blood vessel.
“All right, now for my third performance of the day,” Azrael said as he headed to the tracing room.
“Tell Jesus I said hi,” I called after him.
“Will do.”
“I'll get the video sent out to all the news stations,” Torrent said. He blinked. “Okay, it's done.”
I chuckled. “You just sent the message out to the hundreds of news stations we have on our PR list?”
“Yes. With a list, I can send emails to everyone on it at once.”
“Good work, Torr.” I smacked his shoulder. “You two gonna stick around for dessert?”
Torrent looked at Artemis.
“I've got to feed my dogs,” Artemis said. “But thanks for dinner.”
“Anytime. Text if you come across any more relevant videos online.”
“Sure thing, V!” Torr took his girlfriend's hand and strolled to the tracing room with her.
I veered off from them to go out onto the veranda and plop my butt on a Victorian chair. “Ugh! Why didn't I make more comfortable furniture?” I moved to the couch. “I need something soft enough to fall asleep on.”
“Long day?” Samantha, who was outside in her usual chair, asked with a grin.
“It feels as if my entire life has been a long day.” I slid down into a slump as Trevor and Kirill flanked me on the couch. “Where's Fallon?”
