“As opposed to now?” I countered.
“Right, but one demon—unless you—can’t do that much. It takes precision and a team,” Ally muttered. “The team we have here and how we—we’d need to train a team like us. What we did and how to work it all. But yes, to help the ancients—therightancients, it would be priceless.”
“Yes, but other ancient groups would come for us to make us want to do the same for them,” Elijah argued.
I gave him the look he deserved, glad when others did too. “We’re not putting up billboards offering the services. That would get us caught by others. We work with them like we have with Ricco. We have a treaty with Ricco that we’ll help them for a price and blah, blah, blah. I know I’m a hammer swinging too wildly, but this is a scalpel precision idea.”
“We’d need to discuss it further,” Elijah said after a moment. “But it’s needed now forus. We should have it more for certain clubs and to work the areas. In Germany even. Too many outside influences are paying to try and take down our economy and make us bend to their will.”
“We agree and that is how part of this came up,” I told him, gesturing between myself and Ally. “Tracey will be my director of club security, IDs, and papers. That will tie into Ally and Arthur’s work. We need a department getting people reinvented, but the legwork and actual assignment of those documents will solely stay with Tracey.”
“Because he has that level of experience and we can’t have it tied to the German government,” Arthur checked, nodding when I did.
“Kyria will be my director of dancers and yes, we are starting with a full audit of their routines,” I continued. “And yes, I heard about using my routines. It will now be a monthly fee and they can only use certain ones, unlimited. Making sure the same people at the club aren’t using them. Time to move them on.”
“And you’re going to make new ones?” Natalia asked hopefully.
“Yes, I plan to during this case on my downtime,” I drawled.
“Wonderful, I will work with Kyria on her promotion announcement and getting in touch with…” She chuckled when I just waved her off on the details. I didn’t care. Whatever.
“Kyria will also be in charge of the safe house moms. The safe houses will always be under her purview, and she will have a budget for that. Anyone who feels unsafe can stay there for any reason. A demon or shifter that works for us and is being hassled in their lives. They can stay there. Ones we rescue. I also want to have a transition period—”
“When we reinvent ourselves instead of jumping into a whole new life. Yes, good, much better than flipping a switch since most aren’t good actors and mess up,” Rita said with annoyance.
Mostly at herself. She was very vocal that she was one of the worst at keeping her covers and new life straight each time her IDs had to be changed.
I smiled at Elijah. “You’re everything legal. Corporate legal which just got more complicated. Demon legal with ISLE. All the councils legal now. Shifter laws—all that fun,funbullshit we hate. You’re also Germany legal with legislation—new legislation we’re trying to implement or reasons to fight against the bullshit stuff. I think you’re trying to kick some judges out or—”
“Yes, and always a good time and yes, I will need more personnel. A lot,” he grumbled. “I want to request funding to send a lot of our recovered demons to law schools around the world for long-term plans. I think we should have one legal in every country at all times. With a background. You keep getting into trouble in different countries after all.”
“Done,” I said easily. I shrugged when they all seemed shocked. “It’s not like we can’tafford it. Hell, I’ll go play some illegal poker and win a bunch more houses and condos to sell for millions and yeah, send whomever to school. Give all the ones we rescued better lives. College—whatever they want as long as they don’t fuck us over in the end.”
“Yeah, the ones who forget years later how much we helped them always hurt the worst,” Natalia said gently, knowing I was talking about Lisa. The club manager from the Jackson club we’d just had to handle was… Yeah, it stung.
We hadn’t rescued her like we had others, but we’d always been fair to her. She thought she was better than everyone else and wanted more than she worked for or deserved and screwed so many people in the process.
What a piece of shit and so destructive to herself and others. It really made me sick that there were people like that in the world. More than that, she would never understand that she was actually the villain of it all, not the victim.
That was truly the most pathetic part of it all.
“The six between Ally and Arthur we can discuss and add to, decide who is under whom, or just you both handle all six,” I prefaced, moving into that part now. “First, intelligence. Not the German intelligence. None of this is Germany’s infrastructure. We are the structure behind the structure. We are not changing that and let me be clear.”
“You want more of our people in the military as eyes and spies for us,” Ally muttered, jotting down notes. “We agree.We’re not getting the same level of intel, and I think we need more of your genius to spy on others. We need more information to stay ahead. We’re barely going to pull off putting in our next person in power.”
That was pushing it, especially when we still had a few more years and people were fickle.
“Yes, spies in Germany—especially the military and government organizations to get us more intel so we don’t risk a coup,” I confirmed. “We also need to develop more relationships in other councils—like with Gavin or Bain’s mom. And other governments. The magics behind the French government have done an impressive job.”
“We did want to develop that better before we came out, but everything always falls to the side too fast,” Joshua muttered. “What else?”
“The public at large,” I answered. “Here in Germany and around. We were blindsided by that group that popped up and had a lot of power suddenly that was outside-funded. We’re seeing more of that from other governments to interfere and we will see more of it still. Also, around the clubs. We need to put normal demons into good positions to keep their ears open.”
“And subsidize their incomes because baristas make shit, but the ones at certain health clubs hear a lot of good information,” Elijah muttered, giving me an impressed look. “Done. Even if it’s striking out, it’s good training for people to adapt and—done.”
I was glad when they all agreed.
“Next is public relations,” I told them, knowing they would all agree that would be a category.
