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Dante nodded grimly and gestured for Rick to follow. They didn’t speak until they were sitting back outside the chamber.
“Thank you for your support, my friend.” Dante dug into his pocket and handed Rick his car keys. “I want you to go. If their decision goes as I fear, I do not want you caught in the middle.”
“I’m not leaving.” Rick pushed Dante’s gloved hand back at him. "What kind of partner would I be if I bailed on you the moment things looked bad?"
"I appreciate your loyalty, but..." Dante leaned closer to Rick so that Arges couldn’t overhear. "For nearly a century, Vikas has led with the best interests of the mythic community in mind. And for nearly a century, I have been able to persuade him that PNI is part of that." He tucked the keys into Rick's hand and closed Rick's fingers around them. "If my failure, and Lynch's video have convinced him otherwise, I fear what the less peaceable factions may persuade him to do. He feels no duty to humans, and certainly none to you. Besides, someone needs to warn Charles, no?"
"I'll send him a text." Rick pocketed the keys and pulled out his phone. "Wharton has already tried to kill you permanently once and that vampire chick –"
"Would just as soon see both of us dead. Charles cannot save us, PNI has no jurisdiction inside this building. He can only be warned that unrest is coming.” Dante’s voice took a hard tone and his grim expression made his face appear older. “I outrank you, Agent McCoy, and order you to leave immediately. I will handle the Council alone, and face their judgment alone.”
“If PNI has no jurisdiction here, then you don’t outrank me here either.” Rick looked up from his text as he hit send. “So, I refuse.”
“Humans are only welcome in this building by invitation. If I say the word, Arges will escort you out.” Dante raised an arm to signal for the bouncer at the door.
“You wouldn’t.” Rick grabbed his arm and pulled it down, grimacing a little at the sharp movement.
“If it saves your life, yes.” Dante jerked his arm free.
“You signal for that one-eyed brute and I will punch you in the face so hard, Arges will be wondering if he should clear the building for a resurrection.” Rick hissed. “You’re not cutting me out. The only way I’m leaving is if you’re with me. Partners have each others’ backs. If our roles were reversed, Satan himself couldn't drag you from that room, a few of his minions aren't going to scare me off.”
Dante sat back and glared at him for a moment, as if trying to decide whether to push the argument further. Rick rather hoped he wouldn't, since getting in a knock down fight with the phoenix in the mythic guild house wouldn't really help their cause right now. Finally his partner shook his head.
"I pray you live to regret this decision." Dante pulled the rosary from his pocket and put it over his head.
"If we both live, I won't regret it at all." Lord, please help us both to walk away.
Dante chuckled. "I suppose not." The door opened and one of the inside cyclops bouncers stuck his head out and spoke to Arges. Dante crossed himself as he stood. “Either way, our time is up."
The cyclops bouncers escorted them to their places standing at the foot of the table, and stood guard closer than before as Arges closed the door behind them. Rick scanned the faces of the Council members. The leprechaun and something else that seemed to favor Dante stared down at their hands. Wharton and Laysha and a couple of the more vicious looking members looked at Dante triumphantly. Vikas looked grim. Rick drew himself up taller. That the wrong side won was clear. Whether there was any way he could keep his partner from being killed wasn’t so much. Show me the way to help him.
“Dante Brand, fae cursed phoenix, step forward to receive your judgment,” Vikas intoned solemnly. He continued after Dante silently complied, “This Council finds you guilty of Annika Moore’s murder by negligence and of choosing humans over your own kind."
"Thanks to my curse, humans are equally my kind," Dante replied softly. "Perhaps more so because there are no other phoenixes left for me to prefer."
"Then your sentence is from your own mouth." Vikas glared. "Either you will resign from PNI, swear allegiance to the Council, and take your place as an enforcer for the Council; or this Council will summon the fae that cursed you and demand she release your curse and return you to your natural form."
Dante laughed aloud. “She will no more submit to you than I will. The terms of my curse require me to admit her to be the most beautiful, and I will not. She will not release me from the curse any other way.”
“Then resign from PNI and take your place here.” Vikas’s face was getting red and his voice was frustrated.
Dante was silent for a long moment, his hand still in the pocket with the rosary, and Rick held his breath. Dante had said that he had found his purpose as a human and had no desire to return to his natural form. But helping the humans was his purpose, so Rick couldn’t see him resigning from PNI either.
“I will not.” Dante finally answered, his face pale and his voice firm. “I have done nothing wrong, and will not consent to be the slave of those who would use me as a soldier rather than a peacekeeper."
# # # # #
“I RECOMMEND YOU RETHINK that, Dante. The Council will not allow you to continue in opposition to the interests of the mythic community.” Vikas tapped the table with his finger. “One last time. Do you choose to return to your natural form or to work as an enforcer for the Council?”
Dante finished a Hail Mary. Returning to life as a phoenix was worse than death, and placing himself under the authority of council members like Wharton and Laysha defied his purpose in living. He had no choice. He could only pray they took it out on him alone. He gave Rick an apologetic look, pressed the crucifix at the end of his rosary to his lips and took a deep breath. “With God as my witness, I will not yield.”
“Then may your God have mercy on your soul.” Vikas gestured to the cyclops bouncers that had escorted Rick and Dante in.
The pair of cyclops pulled Dante’s arms out to his sides before he could react and leaned against his back between his shoulder blades to force him to his knees. Their grip kept him from reaching his gloves, and the awkward posture disrupted his balance enough to keep him from retaliating. Rick made an indignant noise beside him, so he twisted his neck as much as he could to flash his partner a warning glare. The less attention Rick drew to himself the better chance he had for survival.
“Your refusal to submit to your sentence has left the Council with no choice.” Vikas’s tails flicked behind him as he stood and rounded the table to stand before Dante. “You are condemned to death by beheading. To remove the risk of you resurrecting, your head and body will be buried separately from each other after the vampires have sufficiently desecrated them.”
Dante’s heart stuttered and a cold chill ran down his back. The time he’d been dumped in Lake Michigan, he’d resurrected the moment his resurrection fire could ignite. They meant to corrupt the virtue that allowed him immortality in the first place. Fear that whatever they did to prevent his resurrection to this world would prohibit his resurrection to the world to come spread the ice of terror through his veins. Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me.
Laysha crouched in front of Dante and lifted his chin so she could look into his eyes. “Representatives of your faith have often used sacred icons such as crosses and holy water to keep our kind from resurrecting. I have often wondered what it would take to return the favor to you.”
“Suffer me not to be separated from thee. From the malignant enemy protect me,” Dante picked up the middle of the ancient prayer out loud and she dropped his head in disgust.
“Perhaps replacing his heart with that of an innocent man.” She circled around to Rick and drew a sharp fingernail across his chest.
“Vikas, no!” Dante grunted as he struggled in vain against the two cyclops. “Agent McCoy is not under your jurisdiction. Send him on his way in peace.”
“He made his choice when he returned to the council chamber to await your judgment.” Vikas turned his back on them and went back to his chair. “They’re yours, Laysha. Do what you must, but don’t do it here.”
Two vampires flanked Rick, grinning at him stupidly. The icy terror threading Dante’s veins turned quickly to the fire of burning rage. Not again. He’d lost Wes to vampires, and had nearly lost Rick in the attack a few weeks ago. He would not let them touch him. Vikas and the whole council could burn in his resurrection fire as the building crumbled at his feet before that happened. He pushed up with his feet and snapped his elbows up and back into the faces of the cyclops guards, blinding them both. One let go, but the other wrenched Dante’s shoulder as he staggered back. Dante turned to keep from getting his arm pulled from its socket and put all his displaced weight into a jab to the cyclops’s exposed throat. Now the cyclops let go with a howl, but Dante was too off balance to keep his feet. He fell to his hands and knees with his back to the council.
“Subdue him, but don’t kill him here!” Vikas yelled as the room buzzed with cries of fear and anger.
“Hold the human!” Laysha screamed. “Surrender, Dante, or you lose another partner to my men.”
“If my partner is harmed, I will burn this whole accursed guild house to the ground after I incinerate everyone in it.” Wrath threatened to blind Dante as he pushed himself to his feet, stripped the gloves off his hands, and threw them to the marble floor. The two vampires held Rick on either side. One of them had him by the hair to bare his throat to the other. “Let. Him. Go.”
The two stupid vampires looked from him to Laysha in fear, unsure of who to obey. Dante didn’t wait for them to decide. He grabbed them both by their own throats and held them as they turned to ash in his hands. He turned his attention to Laysha
“Stop him!” Layash shrieked as she scrambled behind Vikas’s chair and cowered there. “Vikas, do something!”
A cyclops guard grabbed Dante by his right arm. Dante spun and grabbed his face. The second got smart and fired a gun at Dante twice instead of coming in arm's reach. Dante formed a ball of fire between his hands that he used as a shield to melt the incoming bullets, then flung the ball at the cyclops, who screamed as it engulfed him.
"Yes, Vikas, call them off." Dante stepped to the heavy council table and leaned on it with both hands. Council members scrambled away as the fire swept down the table toward Vikas.
“How dare you!” Vikas stood, glowering through the flames at Dante.
“How dare you!” Dante pointed a bare finger at Vikas as he formed a ball of fire in the other, taking care to keep his partner in sight to ensure one of the council members scattering from the conflagration like cockroaches didn’t get a foolish idea to touch Rick again. “You listened to evil council and corrupted justice to the extent that you were a consenting party to the attempted use of dark arts against an innocent man and to the foul experiment of corrupting another’s soul. With God as my witness, I should use my fire to purify this council of any mythic who voted to approve this abominable act.”
“This council does what it must!” Vikas slammed his fist into what remained of the still burning table. “If you cannot support that, may you be doubly cursed to be banished from the guilds. Embrace the humans. You’ve clearly chosen them anyway.”
“Knock it off, both of you!” Rick stepped between them and raised a hand to Dante. “I know why Ms. Moore was killed.”