“Haven't you had breakfast?” Diana asked as Jesus snagged one of the home fries from the takeout dish he had just brought her from her favorite deli. Being confined to a hospital bed meant a severely limited menu, so she frowned at the thievery. She and her boss had shared many a meal together at work, and Jesus had stolen his share of her fries, but usually not before she had eaten her fill.
With a shrug, he pulled out a foil-wrapped sandwich and said, “Michaela's not much of a cook.”
“Yeah, I can tell you're just wasting away,” she drawled, and dug into her Greek omelet with a moan of pleasure. “Mmm.”
He set his sandwich on her hospital tray table and unwrapped his own breakfast. With a very male grunt of satisfaction, he said, “I can see I won't get any sympathy on that front. What about that file that I left you?”
“My notes are tucked inside the folder. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.”
“Me too, but I didn't want to take any chances.”
The guilt woven into his tone communicated volumes. She forked up more of the omelet and said, “What happened to me and David on the last assignment had nothing to do with your decisions. I hope you know that.”
Jesus shook his head and around a mouthful of ham, egg, cheese, and muffin, then said, “Bullshit. I should have foreseen the possibility that our suspect would escape near your position.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered. Nothing bad came of it. In fact, David is back on his feet thanks to his first werewolf transformation.”
Literally. It was pretty much a miracle. Her FBI partner, David Harris, had been paralyzed from the waist down for several years due to a severe injury during a raid gone wrong. But while pursuing their latest case, he and his fiancée—Diana’s best friend, Maggie—had both been bitten by a werewolf and were currently undergoing massive changes in their bodies. One amazing side effect of shapeshifting was that David’s injuries had been totally healed during the transformation, and he was now able to walk again.
“You could have lost the baby,” Jesus said with a pointed look at her rounded belly, bringing her back to the present.
“Yeah, but I didn't. And don't feel guilty about my hospital stay, because I would have been in here anyway for those damn tests.”
Tests that had turned out badly, Jesus knew, so he changed the subject to another issue that was troubling him. “What do you know about the Council of Slayer elders?”
Diana’s brows went up. “Other than that they exist and are ruthless, not much. Is something going on with them?”
He gave a short sharp nod. “Michaela has a meeting with them later this afternoon to learn about her punishment for failing to protect Benjamin.”
“Seems to me it was their own Council member who put both her and Benjamin in harm's way.” Diana jabbed at the fries, speared one, and chewed it with a frown. “She's not going alone, is she?”
“Not if I can help it,” he said. He bit off the last of the sandwich and wiped his hands with a napkin.
“In manspeak, I suppose that means that she doesn't want you there, but you're going to ignore her wishes and go anyway.”
Jesus chuckled. “In womanspeak, I guess you think I'm wrong to want to protect her.”
Diana narrowed her eyes, considering him carefully. “You love her, that's obvious.”
“To everyone but her,” he muttered.
She shook her head. “No, she knows. She's just not ready to commit. She's afraid it'll mean giving up her independence. Having to answer to you if she's late. Worrying about how you'll react if she were hurt and of course, being afraid for you.”
He pursed his lips. “Eerily on the money.” But then, Diana was his top profiler, and she seemed instinctively to understand Michaela—possibly because they were very similar in some respects. “She'll be pissed that I'm going with her.”
“Totally. Even more upset if you interfere somehow,” Diana confirmed dryly. She pushed the takeout dish toward him, and nodded at the home fries.
He snared one and considered her comment for a second. “So I'm damned if I do—”
“And damned if you don't. I think Ryder has felt like that on many an occasion,” she said with a smile that left no doubt about her feelings for her newlywed husband.
Still, Jesus had to rag on her a little. “So how's that working out for you?” He snatched the last home fry.
She slapped at his hand. “You better be prepared for Michaela to give you an epic ass-kicking. But afterward...” Her brows waggled.
Oh, yeah.
He was sure Michaela would be only too eager to kiss away his boo-boos.
***
Michaela entered the underground chamber where the Slayer Council of Elders waited for her, Jesus trailing closely. They were all seated in a row of chairs in the underground chamber beneath Grand Central Terminal.
No matter how hard she had argued with him, he had insisted on coming with her. Stupid man. In reality, she was more afraid for him than for herself. The Slayer elders would not appreciate his intrusion, and her fear could prove a dangerous distraction yet again.
As she came to a halt in front of the Council, she took note of the two Slayers in training positioned for protection at each side of the group of four members. Also painfully obvious were the two empty seats vacated by the deceased elders. Clearly, the process of finding replacements had not been concluded. That surprised her. They should have named replacements by now.
Evangeline, a tall, muscular black woman whose body gave testament to her battles with the undead, rose from her chair and stepped away from the other elders. “You dare bring a stranger here?” she challenged, her head at a regal angle. Her right hand rested deceptively loose against a lethally long knife at her hip.
Michaela bowed her head and assumed a submissive posture that grated, but she understood was necessary. “ADIC Hernandez assisted Elder Benjamin and me when we were both badly injured. He helped you deal with Elder Aja's death as well. He is no stranger.”
“He's an outsider, and he has no say here.”
Jesus laughed, drawing their attention. Shifting aside his jacket, he revealed the FBI ID on his belt and the weapon tucked along his ribs. Not his usual Sig Sauer, but a Tec-9 semi-automatic assault pistol with a high-capacity magazine, which was incredibly powerful but compact enough to disappear under the jacket. He tapped the badge and then motioned to the gun. “These give me a say here.”
Color bloomed over Evangeline's face and the two Slayer guards moved toward them, along with Anthony, one of the younger male elders—and Evangeline's lover, Michaela suspected.
She whipped her arm across Jesus's chest and urged him back as Anthony nocked an arrow into a crossbow. “He means no harm.”
“We see it differently,” said Anthony as he came to Evangeline's side, his hand gripping the crossbow, which he pointed at Jesus's chest.
Evangeline slashed a hand through the air and commanded sharply, “Enough. This is getting out of control. Which is precisely the problem we have with you and your friends.”
Friends. Michaela barely controlled a smile. It occurred to her that with friends at her back—especially the kinds of friends she had—she was much stronger than she’d been before. She lifted her chin and said, “Who my friends are is my business. Not the Council's.”
“Wrong,” Evangeline retorted. “Your friends, especially the vampires, are a real threat. They’re making you forget the vows you've taken to this Council.”
“Vows like those that sentenced Bartholomew to death? Or like the one you intended to fulfill by terminating Benjamin, simply because he was mortally wounded?” Michaela challenged with a stab of her finger at Evangeline.
The revelation drew shocked gasps from the other elders. Evangeline bristled. “Benjamin was dying. I only meant to end his suffering.”
There was a hollow ring to her words that was not missed by anyone in the room. There had been more to Evangeline’s desire to rob Benjamin of those final minutes of life than she was letting on. Possibly a wish to hide the events of that night altogether. But then Michaela had gone and spoiled that possibility by inconveniently surviving.
Thanks to her friends.
Seizing on the disquiet her last comment had created, Michaela took command. “You called me here, Evangeline. You and the rest of the Council. I know you intend to punish me, but I was not at fault for what happened.”
“You failed your mission,” Evangeline snapped.
With a calculated smile, Michaela got right in the other woman’s face and said, “My mission was to stop a rogue Slayer. I did that in the best way that I could.”
“But it wasn't good enough,” Anthony shot back, earning a warning glare from Evangeline at his interference.
Michaela glanced from the two of them to the rest of the Council elders. There was an unease there that went far beyond Jesus's presence, or hers for that matter. Unease and, if her Slayer senses were picking up on it correctly, fear.
Of her?
“We called you here to answer for your failure,” Evangeline said, “but it's a complicated issue. Your position as a Slayer has always been fraught with dissent.”
“Because I'm an abomination,” Michaela taunted, using the insult the other woman had called her once too often.
With a disdainful sniff, Evangeline ignored the jibe. “Your involvement with the vampires has weakened your resolve to do what is right. We cannot tolerate that in one of our members.”
Members? Did she mean Council members?
She must have misunderstood. “Well, I am one of your Slayers, whether you like it or not. And there’s nothing wrong with my resolve, nor my sense of what’s right.”
“I didn’t say Slayers. I said members,” the elder snapped. “Are you dense on top of being reckless?”
Michaela blinked. And said in astonishment, “Wait. You want me on the Council? Me? You despise me. You all despise me.” She swept her gaze over the group.
Evangeline’s eyes narrowed dangerously. The other elders shifted in their seats and looked at one another uncomfortably.
She felt Jesus's gentle touch on her back, warning her to be calm. Impulsiveness, which was her general state, was a weakness that had already cost her far too much.
Sucking in a deep breath, her tones more neutral, she put her hands on her hips. “Well. Not the punishment I expected, being on the Council. But trust me, still a punishment.”
“You are insolent. The most powerful usually are...until someone cuts them down to size,” Anthony warned.
“Is that the plan, if I don't go along with this? You'll cut me down? End me like you planned to end Benjamin?” She was treading on thin ice, but needed to know what she was facing. She hadn't survived this long on her own without being prepared.
“You have one month to give us your decision. One month to rid yourself of any trappings that may affect your judgment,” Evangeline said, eyeing Jesus as though he were something on the bottom of her shoe to be scraped off.
Michaela wanted to tell the elder straight away that she didn't need a month to decide. There was no way she’d renounce Jesus or any of her other newfound friends. Certainly not in exchange for the cold and deadly embrace of the Council.
But she suspected such a response would seal the sanction for her death. Better she take the month, to plan. To find a way to protect herself, and Jesus and those friends who had come to mean so much to her in such a short time.
“Fine. You'll have your answer in one month.”
With a nod, the elder dismissed her.
But Michaela was not about to be dismissed. She took a moment to meet the gaze of each of the elders, directly and without fear, so they would understand that she would protect what was important to her. Then she did a slow turn and met Jesus's gaze. She saw pride in his eyes, as well as concern.
Join the club.
Side by side, she and Jesus walked out of the chamber, into the service tunnel located far below Grand Central Terminal. Inside the meeting chamber it had been tomb quiet, but out here the rumble of trains overhead and low drone of the dynamos that powered them were nearly deafening.
And there was something else. The air was charged with electricity from the generators, and it interfered with her being able to detect the elder powers just feet away. Maybe that was the reason they’d chosen this location to meet.
They were afraid.
Once again she wondered why they had not yet found two elders to replace those who’d been lost.
And why, of all people, Michaela had been one of their choices.
“Are you okay?” Jesus asked, the hand that had been at the small of her back slipping around her waist.
“Something is wrong here. With them.” She urged him from the room, needing to be somewhere else where the noise and electricity wouldn't interfere with her senses and her thoughts.
They hurried up a level and ducked down a small access hall until they reached a door that opened onto the lower-level dining concourse. Late-afternoon diners scurried from one food stand to another, either lingering for lunch or planning ahead for a takeout dinner.
Michaela had barely gone a few steps when Jesus tugged her to a halt. She turned a questioning look at him, and he offered her a smile as he drew her into his arms.
“You're not alone,” he said.
“I know, J.” Although he had been silent for the meeting, his hand at her back had been a constant, grounding her. Providing her silent support. “It's just...confusing,” she admitted.
“Yeah, I can imagine. So what do you want to do now?”
“I want to go home,” she said, surprising them both that his apartment was the place she wanted to be.
Jesus smiled. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”