Agent Anderson blew out a breath. “I understand that. I truly do. But this task force is in place to try and stop all that.”
She nodded. “I’m Helena Jaansen. I work for Clan Gennessee.”
Anderson looked up into Faine’s face. “Faine Leviathan. I work for her.”
Faine caught the ghost of a smile flitting over her lips. Just a brief flash before it was gone.
“You’re a Were of some sort?”
“Of some sort.” They’d all decided not to reveal the existence of anything beyond the Veil. For the time being, no humans needed to know a damned thing about Lycia or the packs of Lycians, part man, part giant wolf, who dominated it.
Helena decided to forge ahead. The FBI guy appeared to want to ask more about Faine and she didn’t want that.
“At four p.m.—prime after-school time, by the way—the guards noticed a group of humans who seemed to be casing the building.”
“How did they know to identify that behavior as casing?”
Helena just shot him a look. “Really, Agent Anderson?” There was no need to let on just how well trained and militarized Clan Gennessee was, or the level of training of those Others who made up their new unified defense force. Or hell, even the existence of such a defense force. However, they did need to understand the Others were not going to allow themselves to be victimized any more.
He sighed. “Fine. Go on. But don’t think I’m not going to want to know just how well your people are trained.”
He could want it until the sun burned out. She’d tell him what she wanted him to know and nothing more.
“They watched, notifying me and my people. One of the guards came out to get a closer look.” Her mouth flattened briefly as he cast a look toward the body, covered by a sheet, that they’d moved out of the way of traffic. “He was attacked by two humans, shot in the head before he’d had a chance to react. The guards inside then began an evacuation of the Others inside the community center out the back as those humans threw what we later ascertained to be firebombs through the front windows of the community center.
“By this point, we’d arrived, having only been in La Habra. They have automatic weapons, but we also have our own mode of protection. One of the men you took away is Gentry Fenton, one of the lieutenants for PURITY.”
“How many of them were there?”
“Fourteen at the first.” Faine broke in with his rumbly voice. Despite the stress and grief of the situation, it still made all her parts tingly. “Then a van approached with six more.”
Anderson interviewed her people, spoke to his own after they’d viewed the video and left two hours later.
PURITY had thrown twenty people with guns and bombs at a building full of kids and elderly people. It had been bad enough that some humans had gravitated toward the bigoted message of groups like PURITY and Humans First. But this sort of violence was on a whole different level.
And becoming rapidly more common. Her sister, along with one of the witches from Owen, Molly Ryan, had been injured multiple times, most recently in the bombing of a legislative hearing room.
The human separatists clearly had no problem killing and maiming, nor with harming humans who happened to be nearby. Things were escalating and they had to answer the threat with a defense of their own. She hated it. Hated that it was necessary.
Worse, she wasn’t sure how much longer things could go on without erupting into full-blown civil war.
Chapter 2
THREE hours later, after she’d been interviewed many times over by law enforcement, after many calls from her own Clan leadership as well as leadership from several other Clans, Packs, Jamborees and other organizations, Helena blew out a breath and turned to face her people.
Despite their exhaustion, covered in soot, blood and no small amount of dirt, they waited for her to give them orders. Willing to do whatever she told them to, to protect their people.
Her gaze flitted over to the sheet and the two witches who’d been standing over it. She’d failed him. That Were who’d volunteered to be on her team. Who’d been doing his job and ended up dead for it. His pack members had shown up just a few minutes before, and as they were finally able to get past the police tape, were preparing to remove his body.
“I’ll be expecting your detailed reports. Tomorrow morning. Alix, Sam and Marcus, I want you to be lead on this. Get all the pertinent info to me. I need to speak with The Gennessee, to brief her and the rest of the Governance Council about this. She’ll then relay that information to The Owen.” More calls, more conferences, more everything.
The Enforcer from the South Bay Pack approached.
“I’m sorry for your loss. He was a good soldier.” Helena carefully spoke, knowing grief was expected, but that wolves felt it was an honor to die protecting Pack.
He inclined his head just slightly. The wolves in Southern California had just undergone a huge leadership shake-up. They’d been falling down on the job for years and recent events had made it clear to National Pack that wolves who understood what it meant to lead needed to be in charge.
The new alpha families had been much better in the months since the Magister. But they had a lot of neglect to undo. Sending people to help with the protection of all Others was a great start.
“We appreciate the honor you paid him by having your people watch over him. We’ll be sending two replacements tomorrow.”
She wasn’t going to argue. She needed every body she could get. But it was hard, she knew firsthand, to put your people in the line of fire.
“Thank you.”
“As my Alpha has made clear, we’re in this together. We can’t afford to let this break us.”
She nodded. “No, we can’t. But thank you anyway.”
He turned, his wolves carrying the body away as they left the scene.
She returned her attention to her people. “Let’s go. Get some rest. This all starts again in six hours.”
Helena noted their emotional exhaustion, the shock on their faces as it melded with rage and fear. She hated that she couldn’t fix it. Her life was jammed with so much stuff she couldn’t fix that it filled her with a sense of impotent rage all her waking hours. She was a doer. That’s how she was made. And to not be able to attack a problem and fix it was slowly wearing her down.
Faine walked ahead of her, opening the car door for her. The passenger side. Hm. She allowed it because she was beyond exhausted and driving in that state wasn’t advisable. He pulled away from the curb and away from the scene. But it was still in her nose. In her head. The faces of all those Others who depended on her to protect them.
And the sheet covering the one she couldn’t protect.
“I need to go back to the office.” She pulled her phone from her pocket as she spoke to him. Eleven new messages.
She listened to them, returned a few, sent a dozen emails and texts, and when she looked up again to take a breather, she noted he was getting off the freeway far short of Pasadena.
“Why are you getting off here?”
“You’re about to pass out. I’m taking you to my home.”
“I have a couch in my office.”
“You and your sister are very much alike.” He grumbled this under his breath, but she heard it and it made her smile.
“She has blue hair and an atrocious sense of fashion.”
“The outside doesn’t matter. Your insides are the same. Stubborn. Do you think you’ll be more effective if you work until you literally just fall over? Who will you be helping then?”
“You know how long I’ve been awake because you’ve been with me the whole time. I don’t see you getting into your jammies.”