I sighed, holding little hope of coming out ahead here. “Why didn’t you come see me? We could’ve settled this over coffee. It would have been less dramatic than Vivian destroying some store’s produce section. The FIB was there and everything.” I mentioned it only because I wanted them to know there was a report filed. This wasn’t going to simply go away.
Sure enough, the woman looked up, cool and unshakable, but her finger twitched.
“Brooke? ” the older man said in sharp warning, eying my strawberry-tangled hair. “We agreed Vivian was there for reconnaissance only.”
Oh! It really is her name then, I thought. Brooke barely shrugged, but I could tell she was pissed at me. Yeah, this is all my fault.
“The subject’s pattern changed. I was afraid we’d lose her,” Brooke said. “There wasn’t time to ask everyone’s opinion. It was a calculated risk, and Vivian was willing to take it.”
The subject’s pattern changed, eh? Al sending me home early, perhaps? Just how long had they been watching me? Angry, I rubbed an ash-coated chunk of strawberry off my sleeve. “I don’t care what Kalamack told you, I’m not a threat,” I said, and there was a nervous shifting among them. Clearly they were surprised I knew he was involved.
Brooke’s lips tightened, and she glanced back at them, irate. “We think you are.”
“I’m not,” I shot back, glancing at the witch with the long blond hair listening to the oldest man whispering in her ear. “Trent’s a big drama queen.”
Damn it, I was going to smack Trent. I was going to smack him good. I was not a demon to be pulled around like a pull toy.
Peeved, Brooke turned to the whispering behind her. “Will you do that later?” she griped, and I tested the barrier to find it still strong. The line I was connected to surged, and I scrambled to handle it. Earthquake, maybe?
The oldest man, the one with the useless amulet, gestured mockingly to Brooke to get on with it, and she gave him an equally sour look. Is there a schism? Can I use that?
The sun-bleached tips of Brooke’s short hair swung as she focused on me. “What an elf thinks is of no concern. Your actions are. You have undergone the sentence of shunning but have not changed your ways. You leave us little choice, Rachel Morgan, and are hereby formally charged with willfully allowing a witch to be taken by a demon.”
This was so full of crap, I almost laughed. I’d been cleared of this by the I.S. months ago. “Which one?” I shot out. I was being railroaded. This was so unfair.
Brooke looked annoyed by the interruption, but it was the oldest man who said, “You call him Al, I believe.”
I grimaced. “Not the demon. Which witch?”
The gawky young man with the off-the-rack suit stammered, “There’s been more than one?”
There had, but if they didn’t know about Tom’s dying and Pierce’s taking his body, then I wasn’t going to tell them. I pressed into the barrier, finding it wasn’t humming anymore, but I jerked back as if it was. “I don’t want to be blamed for someone else’s stupidity. If we’re talking about Lee, then yes. He dragged me into the ever-after and tried to give me to Al. I fought Lee, and lost. Al took Lee instead.”
Brooke’s smile was a bare hint of one, but it was ugly and I felt a shiver. “The better witch,” she said, and I nodded, realizing she was not an honest, upright woman. I didn’t care if her aura was a clean, almost clear blue; her morals were gray.
“Bet that didn’t end up in your report,” I said bitterly. “I saved the witch who tried to give me to a demon. Is that why you’re doing this without a jury?”
The witches behind Brooke looked discomfited, but she simply glanced at the screen. “You are accused of calling a demon into a court of human law,” she continued.
“To put a murdering vampire behind bars, yup. I did.” No jury on earth would convict me for that. “What else you got?” My foot was shaking, and I pressed down on it to get it to stop. Brooke was starting to sweat, but it wasn’t fear. It was excitement. She liked something.
“You are accused of giving a rare artifact to a Were to further your position in his pack instead of turning it over to us for proper reinterment,” she said.
“You never told me you wanted it,” I said, hand on my hip. Hey, if I was going down, I was going down bitching. “And I was David’s alpha before I had the focus, so you can cut the crap about using it to better my position in a group that no witch cares about anyway.” Worry for David rose up, and I felt my back pocket, ready to change my plan. “If you touch him …”
Brooke’s eyes fixed on mine. “You are in no position to make threats, Morgan.”
Not yet anyway. I exhaled, pretending to be subdued. Just relax a bit more, and maybe I will be. “Look,” I said, feeling sticky, “the I.S. cleared me, and you shunned me. Case closed. You can’t shove me in a hole to be forgotten.” I hope.
The head earth witch with his salt-stymied amulet smiled, and the lonely sound of gulls crying came faintly as they settled on cliffs for the night. “Yes, we can,” he said. “All of the listed crimes could be dismissed as the youthful exuberance of a young, talented witch. With the right conditioning, you might even be a candidate for my job when I step down. But with certain incidents coming to light, it becomes increasingly clear what you are.”
Damn you, Trent. If I get out of here, I’m going to smack you so hard you won’t be able to find your ass using both hands. “And that is?” I asked, knowing what he was going to say.
Facing me squarely, Brooke said, “You are demon spawn, Rachel Morgan. Survivor of the Rosewood syndrome, demon in all but birth.”
Shit. Hearing her say it hit me hard, and I shouted, “I am not a threat to you!” I almost followed that with “and Trent can’t control me,” but I was scared. I wasn’t ready to burn that safety net just yet, and I hated myself for it.
Brooke snapped her laptop shut with a sound of finality. “You are a threat, Morgan,” she said loudly. “Your very existence is a threat to the entire witch society, and sometimes we are constrained to act on our society’s behalf without them knowing. That’s why you’re here and why we are going to stick you in a little … tiny … hole.”
Oh, ma-a-a-an, this is so full of crap! “You’re afraid of me, isn’t that it? Well, you should be if this is how you treat people!” I was shaking, but they weren’t impressed, chagrined, or otherwise moved. Stymied, I crossed my arms over my middle and exhaled loudly, helpless.
“So all that is left is your sentencing,” Brooke said, sounding happy about it.
Sentencing? Fear slid through me, and at my alarmed expression, Brooke smiled. They were railroading me into custody because a trial would bring it out into the open that witches were an offshoot of demons. Humans would massacre us in our sleep like they once had vampires.
This was so stupid. I was a good person. Shaking, my hand went back to my phone and pulled it out. I wasn’t sure what to think of Nick right now. What was going to follow next was his idea. Did he stick around to help me? “Mind if I make my call now rather than later?” I asked, and the heavy man with the amulet paled. “You get a lot of bars out here, right?”
“Sweet Jesus, she has a phone!” he shouted.
Yes, I had a phone, something demons didn’t. I wasn’t a demon, and to treat me as such was going to be their undoing. Pulse racing and angry with all of them, I hit Ivy’s number.
“Rachel?” Ivy immediately answered, and a knot of worry eased. Finally something was going my way. She was alive and sounded fine.
“Strengthen