* * *
The drive to meet Croft was filled with anxiety. Cho was making me some freaking anti-shifting potion, Cass was trying to meet up with some demon buddy so he didn’t have to hide out in the underworld alone, and I was pretty sure Brock was about to flip his shit on the American government.
“So what are you thinking?” Croft asked Brock as he paced the length of his private office.
We were in the vampire’s law firm, the very one I’d come to after my gran had died so that I could get my inheritance.
Brock splayed his big hands out on Croft’s desk. “As leaders, we throw ourselves under the bus. We follow curfew and let them tag us, but we tell them they won’t be touching our pack or seethe. We make a full-on threat. Half of my pack runs this town from positions of power.”
Croft stopped pacing and grinned. “You think they’ll listen?”
Brock shrugged. “This is a small town. If I pull all my wolves from their human jobs, it will damn near shut the place down.”
The big vampire rubbed his chin. “I’ve got two ER doctors in my seethe. If I pull them, people will die.”
I gasped. “You have vampires working around bloody, injured humans?”
Croft nodded. “They are old and can control their bloodlust.” He returned his attention to Brock. “I’ve also got over a hundred blood slaves on monthly retainer.”
Yeah, Molly was one of them.Wasbeing the keyword.
“So we blackmail them.” I had to say it aloud, because it was crazy.
Croft nodded. “We blackmail them. It won’t work in the bigger cities, but in Eugene, Oregon, we might just get away with it. For the time being, anyway.”
Brock stood and shook Croft’s hand. “Thank you for the consult. I’ll keep you apprised of the situation in the morning.”
Croft nodded. “And I will do the same.”
As Brock and I walked out to the car, I turned to him and he stopped. “What happens if they say no? If they … try to identify everyone and … tag them by force?”
The muscles in his jaw ticked. “We’re drawing a line in the sand. If they cross it, they’ll be declaring war with the supernaturals, and I don’t think they’ll want that.”
I gulped.
“I’ve been cleared by the council to use lethal force if necessary to get the point across,” he added. “The werewolves are half human, and we won’t be abiding by these archaic rules of theirs.”
Damn. He was right. But I had a really bad feeling about this.
13Oh hell
We spentthe rest of the night figuring out how to best prepare for the human agents scheduled to descend upon us the next day in a “surprise” registration visit. If it hadn’t been for my well-placed friends and colleagues, the registration squad might have caught us with our proverbial pants around our ankles. As it was, we were as ready as we’d get.
Willemena had been the first to take off. Her home in California was entirely off the grid, and so deep in the forest that nobody would be able to locate it without insider information. Since Willemena closely guarded her secrets, she was certain the human agents would never be able to find her, and even if they somehow managed it, they’d need to overcome her impenetrable wards. Preferring her odds alone than in the company of more than a hundred supes, the crone had laid rubber in her sleek back Porsche 911 Carrera, barely bothering with brief goodbyes. I couldn’t help but like her despite her gruff demeanor. When shit got rough, she had our backs, and that’s all that mattered.
Haru, Reo, Molly, and Tianna had left after her to spend the night with the Blacks out at Cottage Grove. Johnny had surprised me by calling and offering my friends sanctuary.
In the eyes of the human authorities, the only thing more dangerous than a supe was a lone, rogue supe, especially one who didn’t fit neatly into their boxes. Tianna wasn’t associated with a coven, so she’d fare better connected to the Black Clan, and Cho insisted that Haru and Reo would benefit from its protection as well. I’d long suspected that the Japanese warriors weren’t entirely human, and Cho more or less confirmed it. There was no way we could allow unfriendly witches to start prodding around what and who the brothers were. My identity as the last remaining kitsune on earth had to remain a secret at all costs.
When Haru and Reo had protested, not wanting to leave Molly behind, Brock had suggested she go with them. As a new wolf, Molly was a bit unstable, and it would be better to keep her from being too closely examined. Johnny was slick, and I had no doubt he’d come up with any necessary reasons to explain away their presence among them. We’d debated sending Cass with them as well, instead of into the underworld. It was possible the police might not bother with Cottage Grove at all since the Blacks were an established coven, but with the recent news that the Blacks were delving in dark magic, it was more likely the cops would be all over them.
My dad and Cho were tucked away in Gran’s cabin. When I asked Cho if she wasn’t worried about being pegged as a lone witch herself, and if it wouldn’t be better to go to Cottage Grove with the others, she’d said she couldn’t shirk her duty to care for my father. She’d insisted she could take care of herself, and after the displays I’d seen from her, I wasn’t inclined to argue. As far as witches went, she was the bee’s knees, and it touched me that she would choose to remain at my father’s side.
In the early morning hours, Cass slipped into the underworld and was now safely hidden away, though I wasn’t even close to feeling comfortable about his location. He’d enlisted the demon bartender, who worked at the bar where Brock and I’d first met, to go along with him. I couldn’t help but worry about the variety of things that could happen to Cass there, but at least this way he was guaranteed to escape the human agents. There was no way I’d stand by and allow them to take Cass away from me and put him in some all-demon concentration camp.
We’d been forced to reveal the existence of the gate to the demon bartender, but we’d had no choice. At least he didn’t know I was a kitsune and the guardian to the gate, and he’d appreciated a heads-up about the feds being after his kind. He and Cass seemed to have struck up a little friendship even though I thought he was a douchebag. After twenty minutes of searching for the crack in the gate that would allow Cass and the bartender entrance, Cass had given up and ferried the bartender away to the other side of the property while I‘d shifted to my kitsune form. Short of flooding Brock’s property the way Calista had, the only way to find the exact opening was with my kitsune sight.
Before I transformed, I’d only had to shift two more times to gain my nine tails so I could seal the gate for good. Now we were down to one more time. My shift to my fox form had come a bit easier, the transformation taking less time and forcing me to endure less pain. That was a big win. I’d also developed an eighth power. I could now tell the exact time just by looking at the sky, night or day. Yeah, I know, not super useful, but with how crazy my life was, there was always a chance the skill could get us out of a scrape—somehow—and now I’d never need a watch again.
