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“THERE YOU ARE.” TONY met me in the stairwell. “You took your time getting back.”
“I had some questions to answer with the cops.” I followed him down the stairs and into the hallway. “I wanted to make sure the guy was all set before I left.”
“And was he?”
“Oh, he’s fine. Kendra is very good at healing.” I’d considered asking before if she would become a nurse, but I always held back. Kendra had a different calling than I did. She wasn’t a half-vampire; she didn’t have the debt that I had in my lineage.
Still, she had the power to make a difference in people’s lives. Maybe I’d speak to her sometime soon. She, too, had been distant since my aunt died. It would be good for me to get to know the members now one on one. I’d hid behind Martha’s skirts for far, far too long. I sighed, and Tony looked over at me curiously.
“I...tend to hold myself apart,” I explained. “Things like this make me realize that maybe that’s been a mistake.”
“You’re from the coven,” he said simply, and his voice was so easy that for a second I wanted to ask if he knew what I was. Then I remembered the way Maurice always looked at me. Of course, he would have told Tony.
And no one needed to be reminded of what I was.
“So.” I paused uncertainly. “Where is he?”
“They’re taking him...somewhere.” Tony lifted one shoulder. “I get the sense I’m not allowed to know where that is. I think I’m too new.”
“Maurice doesn’t trust easily,” I confided. Not to sound as if I was criticizing, I added hastily, “Which is good, for someone running a coven.”
Tony nodded. He was obviously uncomfortable about something, and I waited silently while he gathered the courage to speak.
“It’s not normally like that, right?” He shook his head. “Just...going after someone.”
“Well, remember, they wanted to hold off.” I tried to keep the bitterness from my voice. “No, we don’t normally move on someone like that. In fact, I can only remember a few times that anyone has been disciplined.”
“Oh?” Tony still looked troubled.
“People don’t...” I struggled to explain. “What’s worrying you?”
“I don’t know anyone here,” he said in a rush. “I don’t know anything about you guys, and you don’t know me, either. Like with that man in the parking lot. You didn’t know him, did you? What’s to keep someone from deciding that I’m doing bad magic?” He shook his head. “Back in Georgia, everyone knew each other. Here...”
I could tell he was beginning to wish he hadn’t come, and for a moment, dizzyingly, I saw it from his perspective: coming here to a city that was already an assault on the senses for a human, only to be confronted with this. It had only been a few weeks that he’d been here, and he’d already seen four people killed by magic, black magic that was unusually ugly, and a New York City ER. And, I remembered vaguely, there had been that werewolf thing last week. Some sort of leadership challenge. Everyone else had been warned to stay away from a particular neighborhood, and it had all ended in a lot of blood. Tony must think this place was barbaric.
“I think part of what’s different here is that we have to keep close tabs on each other.” I struggled to find words. “Say someone goes crazy up north, or down south or something. There aren’t all that many people. Someone crazy can just go live on a few acres and hide themselves away. Here, if something goes wrong, a civilian is going to notice—and probably, people are going to die. This city has a lot going on, and it’s easy to go unnoticed, but we’re operating on a thin margin. If someone finds out about us...it’s easy for news to spread, and it’s easy for them to disappear before we can make them forget what they saw. So we police each other.”
He stared at me, still worried.
“It’s how it has to be. If it were a werewolf or a fairy getting out of hand and their people didn’t take them in line, we would, right? But no one wants to move in on anyone else’s turf, and no one wants other people to think that they can’t control their kind. If that warlock had run loose for too long, the shifters and the rest of them would come sniffing around. They’d think we were weak.” It’s not that any of us have wars...per se. But everything stays a lot nicer when people believe they’re all about the same strength. There’s a lot of posturing that goes on in our world, and while it’s tiresome, it usually keeps things from outright violence. I like that.
“So you’re going to kill him because...” He was struggling.
“We aren’t just going to outright kill him.” I was horrified. “No. I mean, maybe he’s possessed or something. I have no idea. We’ll find the truth. But just like we don’t want other people knowing we’re weak, we can’t afford to let this go. Who knows what he might have gotten up to if we didn’t go after him?”
I was a little impatient, and it showed. I tend to get this way about issues like this. Maybe it’s that I’ve always been an outside, but I see the way witches sometimes talk about normal humans. I suppose it’s natural. We have talents they don’t. And they usually don’t look at me the same way—it’s not that I don’t have talents, it’s that mine are unpredictable and dangerous. But I still see the contempt. They’d be horrified if anyone outright said that human lives are worth less than theirs...but they still sort of believe it. They feel like policing their own is betraying the pact we hold with one another, and I’ve never felt that way.
My sense of injustice was clearly evident because Tony smiled at me again.
“Let’s go in,” he said. I could see the thought in his eyes: I like you, they said, and I knew my smile answered for me.
He ushered me through the door to where the rest of them were waiting, and from Maurice’s impatient expression, I knew they’d heard the murmur of our voices in the hall, and had been waiting for us. I ducked my head and muttered an apology.
“The warlock appears not to be native to here,” Maurice said. His voice was uneasy. “I believe he may have been cast out of another coven, or perhaps escape it and came here to find prey. Whatever the case, he will be dealt with by our court. Tabitha and Stephen have accompanied him.”
The rest of us nodded.
“Let us consider this a warning,” Maurice said ominously, “of what can happen when we allow evil to go unchecked in our midst.”
I looked up at him, surprised by his tone. It wasn’t like Maurice to be a moralist, but I approved of the warning. We had been at loose ends since my aunt died, and the truth was that we could use more reminders to be good and purposeful. Without Martha’s steadying influence, I worried what might happen. I was pleased to hear everyone murmur in assent.
“We will meet soon to discuss the decision of the court,” Maurice said. “In the meantime, be vigilant. If this warlock had allies...”
He did not need to finish the warning. People filed out one by one, drawing spells around themselves to shield themselves from notice. It would not do, after all, to have people see so many people exit a building like this.
I would have gone as well, but Tony stayed, and I could sense the drift of his thoughts. It warmed me; it sent a thrill of danger down my spine. I shouldn’t do this. I knew what would happen if I stayed.
But I lingered, and as the last of the coven disappeared down the hallway, Tony looked up to meet my eyes.
“Would you come home with me?” he asked.
I smiled. “Yes.”