Jan had seen what his preternatural seducer had done to Tyler. She had seen what became of the Greensleeves, the abandoned human slaves. She had looked into the eyes of the preter consort and seen nothing of compassion or kindness.
A world where preters could come and go freely, not bound by anything save their own whim, was not a good thing. Not for anything born to this world, human or supernatural.
That was why they were here. Four days and counting.
“Talk to me,” she said now, trying desperately to channel some of AJ’s natural take-charge-and-inspire leadership into her voice “Somebody tell me something good, something exciting, something that will make me giddy like a schoolgirl.”
There was a hesitant silence, and Jan wished that she’d gone back to get her coffee before coming in here. Then Kit started talking.
“Well, if nobody else wants to go first, I will. I’m pleased to report that our little rumor-string has hit critical mass and gone fucking viral.” He was clearly running on caffeine fumes at this point, red eyed and rumple haired, but his voice was certain. “Every person who’s ever even thought about using a dating site is going to hear the rumor about the slave-trade ring scouting for likelies.”
AJ hadn’t wanted them to focus any energy on that problem, but Jan had insisted. They didn’t know what sort of magic the preters were using to create the portals—before, portals had appeared at the whim of the seasons, or the stars, or something even more random, but Tyler’s experience with the preter-bitch Stjerne had made it clear that humans were at the heart of it now.
That had been the argument that Jan had used, that had made AJ agree, but Jan would have pushed for this no matter what her pack leader said. These were people being taken. Humans like Tyler. Taken, abused, broken...and, unlike Tyler, not rescued.
Jan might not be able to save everyone, but she would do her damnedest to make sure no more were lost.
“I still say we should have just taken down the dating sites altogether and been done with it weeks ago,” Lisbet said from the other side of the table. Jötunndotter were slow to move, their stonelike bodies heavy and stiff, but they had no patience with doing things slowly otherwise.
“Where’s the skill in that?” Kit was...enthusiastic. Preters or prototypes, he didn’t really care, so long as it was a challenge. Finding a way to warn potential victims without getting laughed off the internet, and making sure that it went viral, had been his personal side project, and he wasn’t paying attention to the bigger picture. Everyone kept sane in their own way, Jan supposed.
“You really think that will work?” Andy asked, dubious. “Human males are not known to be cautious.” Coming from a splyushka—a cousin to Koba, who had died to protect her, back when this all started—that was almost funny. The owl-eyed supernaturals were, she had learned, noted for their impulsive behavior. They were also the ones most comfortable with tech, so she had two of them on the team: Andy and his nest-sib, Beth, who was leaning against the wall at the back of the room, silent but alert.
“True enough,” Laurie leaned into the frame to say, “but they tend to bull in when they think they can handle something. The risk of ending up...well, we made it unpleasant enough to put most folk off risking an easy lay for a lifetime of that.”
“And the rest of them are on their own, and good riddance to idiots,” Glory said, her accent intentionally heavy in a room, however virtual, of Americans, human and otherwise. “Now, can we get down to the important things? Like figuring out how these pointy-eared bastards are even getting connectivity on their side? Because if we can’t figure out how to counter it, then we need to know the bloody power source in order to pull the plug.”
One of the things they’d learned was that the new portals “felt” the same to supernaturals as major human laboratories like Livermore and CERN did, a weird sort of electrical buzz. Somehow, the preters had merged their magic to human technology, using computers and brainwashed humans—like Tyler, her brain whispered—to create and hold these new portals. But they didn’t have the knowledge to figure out why, or how to stop them. That was supposed to be Jan’s job
“I’m telling you,” Glory said, “you need to get someone inside some of those labs.”
This, like everything else, was an ongoing argument. AJ had sent scouts to the perimeter, as close as they could get without being caught. But just lurking, looking, and sniffing hadn’t given them enough information.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Andy said, “and we’re going to get that access...how? It’s not like we go for the hard sciences, generally, so unless you’ve got someone who can turn invisible and sneak in and, oh, by the way, once he’s there knows what he’s looking for and how to explain it to us when he gets back...”
“Are there no humans who would help us?” Beth said. “Laurie, what about your friend from MIT?”
Laurie shook her head. “He hasn’t gotten back to me yet, no matter how many urgent stickers I leave on my messages. I’m hopeful—Larry’s actually the kind of guy where ‘Hey, my buddy the fairy says you guys might be sourcing a tunnel between worlds, want to check that out for me?’ might work. But I haven’t heard anything.”
“Well, we haven’t had any midnight visits from the Men in Black, so he hasn’t said anything to anyone else, either,” Kit added. “Unless they’re monitoring us even now, in which case, get off your asses and do something, NSA!”
“Focus, please,” Jan said amid the laughter. She looked across the table to where Galilia, her nominal second in command, was sitting. Gali wasn’t technically inclined, but she’d been working on some possible inroads among the scientific community. The jiniri shook her head slightly: nothing new to report there, either.
Jan sighed and let the back-and-forth flow over her, listening with one ear. If someone came up with something new or even probable, she would jump in. For now, she wished again for her coffee and tried not to think about her heartbeat ticking off the time.
* * *
Nearly an hour later, the meeting ended with nothing to show except a headache and a bunch of dead ends. Jan waited until they’d all left, then looked up at the screen where only Glory remained.
“You still look like shite,” the other woman said, her normal over-the-top gestures muted with concern. “Are you sleeping at all?”
“Not much,” Jan admitted, leaning back in her chair. It was nice to drop the leader mask; Glory was never fooled by it, anyway.
“I told you staying out there was a bad idea.”
“And where else was I supposed to go, Glory?” After the gnome attack on her apartment, the landlord had revoked her lease. It wasn’t exactly a surprise—apparently the entire apartment had smelled of smoke and meat, and the door had been busted open as if a bull had gone through it—but it had left her effectively homeless, especially since there was no way Tyler could return to his old life right then, and she didn’t want to stay alone in his apartment...even assuming it was safe to do so. If the gnomes could track her on a bus, to her apartment... Well, she wasn’t going to put others in danger—or risk pulling more supers from the Farm to guard her.
So she had packed up her tech and as much stuff as she could fit in a suitcase, put the rest into storage, and gone back to the Farm. Unlike the rest of the troops, who were mostly bedding down in tents or trees or whatever places they preferred, she had a room in the farmhouse proper, in the half floor upstairs. It was small but comfortable, with a window that gave her a clear view over the property and enough sunlight to feel as if she was in a tree house. If anything