part0011

The next day after lunch, they all met up on the backyard patio after their morning work outs and lunch. It was a crisp day, but the warm sun on her face and the clear skies overhead made it worth it. The back patio was large, with an outdoor table for eight, and several lounges nearby. The pool was still covered, and probably would stay that way for another month or two. It was still March.

Carl and Allison were sitting rather close, with his arm around her, so she assumed their date had been more than a success last night.

She sat against Jacob as well, and Cinna was practically in Jace’s lap.

Caroline asked, “What’s going on today?”

They didn’t normally all gather after lunch like that, unless there was something major going on. As far as she knew, there wasn’t, at least not in Chicago. She hadn’t felt a thing on the life-web worth even noting.

Jacob cleared his throat, “Things have been getting worse in the press, not better. Worse than that, there’s been new video. The humans are confused by it, because there’s no blood, but there are videos of a soul eater feeding, and the human dropping dead afterwards without a mark. There’s also a video of a rogue witch facing off with police officers in a loud public argument, the police shoot each other at the end of it. As far as we can tell, those two and others have all happened in Washington, DC.”

Jacob grunted, “There are others, a shifter rogue killing rather violently, a soul eater caused a mass fight in a movie theatre where many humans died. The killers in that case were described as filled with a rage. Most of this happened last night, but there are more being added even as we speak.”

“There’s no team in DC?”

Jacob nodded, “There is, and they’ve been run ragged taking down threat after threat, it’s like every rogue on the east coast decided to go to DC and start trouble.”

Meri scowled, “Why are they doing that?”

Jacob shrugged, “I’m not so sure, but the council believes they’re trying to out us. Maybe they think if the supernatural is back on the radar, that our teams will be hampered in hunting them in some way, or we’ll be too busy dodging the humans hunting us that we can’t focus on what they’re doing. I know it sounds insane. That’s the one thing we all agree on, even the rogues, but apparently not anymore, or at least, not all of them.”

She tilted her head, “Fear and panic is a good way to topple a civilization, lead people by the nose until they destroy themselves.”

Carl grunted, “It’s not that way anymore Lily, not really, outside of maybe the ones like Jenna, the warlocks who’ve been corrupted by hell. Most evil soul eaters don’t want to end the world, they like the rich hunting grounds, and are evil mass murderers, if the world ends all of that goes away. That said, they aren’t trying to end the world. Neither do rogue shifters or witches, they usually just hide among the human scum for their own twisted reasons.”

She hadn’t really thought about that at all, but it sounded right. Without Samael around anymore to keep them on track, she could believe the true purpose of their creation had been twisted. Free will was a bitch, apparently as much as one for him as it was for the other side.

She replied, “They also seem to be coordinating, and working in a large group. I didn’t think they did that anymore either. Back when Samael kept them in line, large scale battles were far more common between sides, than single soul eaters out on a binge.”

Jacob grunted, “That’s another of the council’s concerns, they believe there’s one unifying person behind it, which leads to our orders. The council wants us to go to DC for two reasons. One, they want us to investigate the cabal going on there, and to figure out who’s holding it together and end them. Second, they’ve decided that it’s time to reveal ourselves and our purpose on this world. They feel that if they wait too long, the humans will have already closed their minds and believe us all to be evil, as no doubt the enemy hopes they will. Since we’re the ones that are already half-outed being caught on tape, we were volunteered for the mission, and I agreed. They used a lot of the same arguments we did yesterday for coming out as well. The world has changed, and we can try. If it doesn’t work, and the shit hits the fan, we can hide until it passes, and the rest of our people will just stay where they are in the shadows.”

Meri snorted, “If we don’t get ourselves killed.”

Jacob nodded, but otherwise ignored Meri’s comment.

“Caroline, it’s up to you if you want to stay with the team when we expose ourselves. You’re set to retire soon, and we already have a witch to expose, not to mention Lily. You can either be our hidden backup, or you can share the limelight.”

Caroline frowned, “I’ll think about it. It could be useful to have me hidden, in case things go wrong, but conversely if the humans find out about me anyway, they’ll think you’re hiding other things too. It could backfire.”

Jacob shrugged, “I will be hiding things. I don’t plan on telling them anything about the council or our town in Montana, or where the witch covens and good soul eater groups are in the cities. Oh, we’ll tell them they all exist, not to do so defeats the point, the humans must learn about what we do, what the witches are, and even that some soul eaters are good people, just not about where they are.”

Lily tilted her head, “I think we should avoid stories of the ancient past, and our origins. It will be hard enough already, and humans hate to have their beliefs challenged about religion and our origins. It could cause a violent response.”

Meri teasingly accused, “You just don’t want to be in the spotlight, and brag about how hot you look after a hundred and fifteen thousand years of life.”

Lily smirked, “That too. You think I look hot?”

Meri snickered, “Vain creature! That’s what you focus on?”

She tossed her hair, and teased right back, “Is there anything else?”

Cinna’s tinkling giggles filled the yard.

“I think Lily’s right, we should stick to the facts about the races, and the exceptions like myself, or a rogue shifter or witch. We don’t want to overwhelm them with facts and too many changes at once.”

Allison smiled, “Caroline and I are kind of exceptions too. Most witches are neutral and just live as humans for the most part, only the rare ones work for either side.”

Jacob nodded, “Those suggestions are already in our orders, but we’re also directed not to lie. If they ask a direct question about it, we need to answer honestly. Chances are they won’t, they’ll ask about us, not the origins of humanity and the supernatural races.”

“When do we go?”

Jacob said, “The council is sending us a plane. We also need to restore our faces to what was caught on camera, best do it on the plane.”

Jace asked, “We’re going to be quite busy, and under a microscope, they want us to look for the leader of the mess at the same time?”

Jacob frowned, “They’re sending three more teams to put out fires, that will be five teams of us in the city. In truth they want Lily more than the rest of us specifically for that part of things. With her help, we can all hunt them directly, instead of waiting for more deaths and videos. If she can monitor them all for a while, as we hunt, then maybe she can triangulate a base of some sort, where the leader must be. Right now, they’re assuming it’s another warlock, and I’d have to agree. I don’t think a soul eater or rogue witch could hold a large group of selfishly evil and sadistic predators together. Plus, only a warlock would want to destroy humanity and be able to put the soul eaters back on track.

“In short, DC is a war zone right now, we’re lucky they haven’t gone for congress or the president yet, and the council believes it’s just a matter of time before they do. That’s why we’re moving on this now.”

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She knew she had skills that way the others didn’t, and those would come in useful. On the other hand, she’d never liked being in the spotlight or a hero to her own people. She loved that her team, Jacob’s team, just treated her as one of them, no more and no less. She hoped that wouldn’t change, but realistically it probably would. Not her team, her team saw her as a person with foibles, a woman with a mission but just another woman in the fight, but the other teams didn’t know her at all, they just knew the legends. Worse, that’s all they knew, only her team knew the truth of her life, and she had a feeling that could cause problems as well.

Shifters were human too after all, and she’d been judged wrongly in the past out of ignorance. It would happen again.

Jacob paused for a few more seconds, just to make sure there were no more questions.

He ordered, “Alright, let’s move. Pack a bag, grab knives but no guns, not even Tasers. We don’t have badges yet, and even if we did, we’d probably be arrested if we tried to use them. There’s no doubt this is going to cause problems, and we’ll have to work out with the humans on our hunting and the rules of engagement we follow.”

Meri smirked, “I bet some will say we’re evil and cruel, and all we have to do is love our enemy and that will fix everything.”

Cinna snorted, “Only the crazy ones.”

Jacob grunted, and they all got up to head inside and pack.

She looked in the bathroom mirror and was satisfied at what she saw. Her severe cheekbones had softened again, and her lips had returned to normal, her normal anyway. It felt far more natural to her, but she wondered if they were doing the right thing. Not that they really had a choice, the enemy was forcing their hands. That was never a good place to be, fighting a war the enemy was dictating, but it was what it was.

She was wearing a pair of black jeans, calf high black boots with a knife sheath, and a pink sweater shirt that softened her appearance somewhat. She looked good, and she figured that looking less intimidating would help when dealing with humans. Her hair was down at the moment, but if they ran into trouble she had hair ties in her pocket to put it up quickly.

She left the bathroom and returned to her seat. It was a nice plane, a private jet, gulfstream. The council was pulling out all the stops to get them there quickly, and without identification, commercial airlines hadn’t been an option and the drive would have taken too long. They’d be landing soon, and she had some butterflies in her stomach.

“How are we doing this?”

Jacob said, “The council informed the press we’d be turning ourselves in to the FBI office, to explain who we were, to make a statement about the fight in San Antonio, and to address the new threat. The press is kind of just a foil at the beginning, so the government doesn’t try to put us in a dark pit somewhere to suppress the truth from the general public.”

Jacob shrugged, “Not that it would work, we’d have to escape to deal with the threat, which is to be avoided if it can be.”

Caroline interjected, “I think I will sit that part out. I’ll make contact with the local coven instead and see what I can find out. Allison or Lily can use a communication spell if you need me, and of course I can update you if I learn anything new.”

Jacob nodded, “That’s fine, and probably the best plan anyway. We’ll be staying in the plane for a little while, to give Lily a chance to brief us on how many enemies are around and where they are. We can turn over that information to the other teams before we go in.”

That was fine with her. It would also be similarly problematical if there was another warlock, since they most likely wouldn’t be on the life-web. It was possible they were though, if he or she hadn’t figured out how to shield from it yet. She doubted they’d be that lucky though. She wasn’t really a pessimist, just a realist. It was never smart to plan for the best when going into battle.

She also didn’t want to assume, they had no proof it was a warlock at the center of things yet, just conjecture and an educated guess.

Jace asked, “Is it really necessary to expose Cinna?”

Jacob nodded slowly, “It is a risk. But while we want to stress how dangerous the evil and sadistic soul eaters can be, we also want to show the humans they can be as good as humans can be as well. Cinna is… perfect for that.”

Cinna smirked, “I am?”

Jacob gave Cinna a look, and she giggled.

It was true enough. Cinna was bright, cheery, and truly sweet. Not just her looks with the light blonde hair and blue eyes, but also her dress. She was also exquisitely beautiful and dripped sex appeal without being arrogant. She was the perfect poster child for the good soul eaters.

Lily said, “Stop fishing for compliments.”

Jace sighed, “I guess you’re right, but I don’t like it.”

Cinna patted his knee, and they shared a brief kiss.

She couldn’t blame Jace, shifter men tended to be overprotective, even more than human males, and Cinna was currently carrying his child.

Jacob said, “Also, no blood for testing. By their own laws they can’t force it, but it’s a deal breaker. If they try and force it, we escape and fall back to coming out in the press. Hopefully that won’t happen, coming out in the press is even riskier, I suspect they’ll try to make us look as dangerous as possible just to get more ratings. Truth doesn’t matter.”

Meri said, “We are dangerous.”

Jacob shrugged, “But not to humans. At least, not our hunter teams.”

She frowned, “What can they do with the blood, without us drinking theirs first it wouldn’t be a true blood exchange, and they’d stay human.”

Jacob nodded, “Our scientists haven’t been able to figure out how to bypass that, but who knows what a human geneticist could figure out.”

She tilted her head, “I’m not convinced. I know they’ve come a long way with DNA, but it isn’t that simple. There’s a supernatural component to it, magic, our blood really isn’t that different from a human’s, our life force, our soul, is. But yeah, I won’t be giving any of mine up.”

The plane quieted as they started to descend for landing, and she closed her eyes to quiet her mind and relax for a minute, before all hell broke loose. She wasn’t sure what she was more worried about, the humans finding out about them, or the organized enemy they were about to hunt. She couldn’t imagine anyone but a warlock could hold the rogues of other races in thrall, probably with threats and demon watchers, but that wasn’t usually a warlock’s style either.

She also wondered why then. Maybe the warlock had been planning for years, and when he saw another go down on television, he or she decided to make their move? She could speculate forever and never be right, she pushed all that down, she’d find the truth soon enough.