Woman King

CHAPTER 20

Once I was in my car, I phoned Levi and Gabriel. Despite being thrown off my regular routine, I managed to check in with them by phone at a time that was still within my normal schedule. It was thrilling to have the first part of my day occupied by a make-out session with my boyfriend, rather than campaign duties. I hoped I wasn’t overstating things too much by calling him my boyfriend. Maybe a human man would have said we were dating, but I’d been the first woman to sleep at William’s home. I didn’t believe a vampire would compromise his privacy for a date, especially one that hadn’t involved the removal of clothes.

I quickly put all of my giddiness behind me as I set out on Highway 101. My calls to both men were brief, but important. We were opening a new campaign office in Palo Alto, a wealthy quasi-suburban community that also is home to Stanford University. We were going to open the office with a kick-off party that evening where volunteers could come after work and celebrate with a glass of wine before picking up their supplies. Gabriel and Levi would be arriving at 5:30. The party began at 6 pm

I hung up with both men just as my office called and patched me through to Patrick Wright, the day-to-day manager of the campaign.

“The first shipment of door hangers has arrived,” he said.

“What about window signs?” I asked in response, hoping they too had been delivered.

“Yep, they’re here,” Patrick said. “All 2,000. Now all we need is an army of volunteers to deliver them.”

“Amen,” I said. “I hear you. I’ll be there in thirty minutes and we can go over the rest of this.”

As promised, thirty minutes later, I pulled into a parking spot on University Avenue and walked toward the headquarters, which had already been decorated with “Levi Barnes for Congress” and “Barnes for Seat 15” campaign signs. As I got closer, I noticed a man peering in the window, his hands cupped around his eyes to shield out the glare.

“Can I help you?” I asked as I approached the front door. A set of brown eyes focused on me with suspicion. He was human, I detected very quickly, and very curious.

“Is this Levi Barnes’s campaign office?” he asked.

I nodded, glancing at the dozen posters in the window. “It is but we don’t officially open until tonight,” I said. “Can I help you?”

“I’m JP Ellington,” he said, grasping my hand tightly. “I’m a reporter with the Silicon Valley News. I’ll be covering this race.”

I responded in kind. “I’m Olivia Shepherd,” I said. “I’ll be managing the campaign.” I’d had this kind of conversation dozens of times before, but never when I could read a reporter’s emotions. JP was surprised, about what I wasn’t sure, but I had a few ideas.

“You seem surprised,” I said, deciding to see what would happen.

“I am,” he said, showing no hesitation. “I guess I expected to see someone I know.

“You mean a man?”

“Yes, ah, I mean you’re not from the Valley,” he said, sounding a little sheepish.

I ran through my resume and let him know I had been part of Levi’s staff previously. He seemed satisfied, or at least a little less skeptical.

“Can you come back at 6:15 tonight?” I asked. “I will make sure to introduce you to Levi right away.” I was trying to sound casual, but the truth was that I wanted to begin on a positive note with a reporter who would be covering the campaign. “We’re not open yet,” I said smiling. “I need a few more hours with my staff to get ready.”

JP agreed to return in a few hours. We exchanged business cards and I wrote my cell on the back of mine. We shook hands to seal the deal, but as I turned to leave, he held on to my fingers a second longer than I expected, causing me to look up into his brown eyes. His face was framed by dark, curly brown hair that had been cropped short. He was wearing a blue-green plaid shirt with a navy sweater vest and Levi’s.

“OK, so I will see you in a few hours then,” I said, pulling my hand away.

JP smiled. “You’ll definitely be seeing me again.”

True to his word, JP returned and stayed for most of the party, interviewing guests and, of course, Levi. I kept a close eye on him, but could not detect anything but professional intentions when it came to the candidate. Levi, having already been a congressman, needed very little help with the media.

The kick-off party had been a success, the festivities lasting longer than any of us had expected. As I was cleaning up later that evening, I thought for a moment about how things had gone. More than 100 supporters dropped by to celebrate and take home a campaign sign. It may seem odd, the fixation with campaign signs. But for a candidate they’re important. To drive or walk through an area or a specific street and see a sign in every window is a powerful visual. It’s street-level advertising and it can be quite successful. It also can be intimidating to your opposition, although we didn’t know quite yet who that would be.

Pleased, I went to sleep that night happy that things had begun so smoothly.

The success of the evening was one of the topics I was prepared to review with Gabriel and the rest of the team when we held our de-briefing meeting later in the day. Thanks to the end of daylight savings, darkness arrived much earlier, which meant we could begin our meeting sooner.

At the moment, it was early morning and I was stretching in my bedroom, preparing to go for a run in the park. I pulled on my running shoes and slipped a spare front door key into a small pocket in my running tights. By the time I made it out the door, the pink light of dawn was peeking over the edges of the sky from the east, but racing to beat it was a cold, wet fog. I could hear the horns blowing off the coast as I set off on my run, and by the time I made it to the music concourse near the de Young Museum, the fog had made it all the way into the city. I was curious to know if today’s wet mess was the result of nature or something else. I wasn’t aware of anything special going on, but it was likely I didn’t know everything that went on with the Council. I was only a human consultant for them, after all, and not a full-fledged member. I quickly passed the museum and headed down a side path that cut behind the building and onto another road. By the time I turned the corner to head west and go deeper into the park, the mist was so thick I could not see more than a few steps ahead.

The low pitch of the foghorns could be heard every few seconds now, no doubt warning large cargo ships away from danger out on the bay. I was so distracted listening to the repeating rhythm that it took me a moment to register that there was a man standing on the sidewalk in front of me. I stopped myself abruptly mid-run and waited. Thanks to the fog, he seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. That would have been startling enough, but what was more shocking was his appearance.

Approaching me was a tall man with tight, curly black hair. He wore a garish suit consisting of a bright red velvet blazer, a red shirt and black trousers tucked into cowboy boots. A straw cowboy hat sat perched on his head. He was overdressed for any occasion, but in this situation, his clothing appeared even more absurd. The combination of his attire and physical build gave him the look of a menacing rodeo clown.

But I knew instinctively that there was nothing silly or good-natured about him and I also knew our meeting was probably not a coincidence. The figure in front of me was a demon. I could feel him trying to trip me, to flood my mind with despair. Maybe if he’d dressed like another runner in the park I would have been caught off guard. But his gaudy costume had alerted me immediately. I stopped directly in front of him, prepared for anything.

“Olivia,” the thing purred. “We share a common connection. Stoner Halbert sends his regards.” Ah, so this was Stoner’s demon, I thought privately, wondering how he managed to stay anonymous with such outlandish taste in fashion.

“I’m not sure you can call it sharing,” I said. “But I know Stoner. What does he want?”

The demon smiled, revealing a set of very brown teeth. “He wants you to know that there will be another candidate in the race for Seat 15.”

I’m not sure why, but his involvement didn’t surprise me. Stoner Halbert was after my life, mostly because he thought it was easy to take. But he didn’t know what I’d been up to these last few weeks. He didn’t know about the Council. The fact that I was even able to hold this conversation was proof that Elsa had saved my life.

“You tracked me to the park on my run to tell me this?” I asked. “Why not hold a press conference and make an announcement like other candidates?”

It was a little childish of me to spar verbally with a demon—essentially a bag of bones with bad intentions. After my quip, the demon became angry and I felt the full force of him against my skull. I knew I could hold him off for a while, but not indefinitely, and I began to wonder what would happen if I tried to run past him. In the end, I decided to take a different approach, in the hope that I could cut our visit short.

“Listen,” I said cordially. “You can tell Stoner that I have received his message and that I said may the best candidate win.”

This seemed to take his temperature back down to normal.

“OK then,” I said, “if you don’t mind, I am going to go now.”

Once again I was treated to a smile and the demon pivoted his body so that I could pass on the sidewalk. I slipped by the big red one gingerly, thankful that I noticed a path leading up a hill back in the direction of my house. Curtailing my run and heading directly home to avoid any more trouble seemed like the best idea. I ran at a brisk pace toward my house, glad that I had slipped a key in my pocket.

Now that I had managed to put some distance between Halbert’s messenger and myself, my adrenaline kicked in, causing my hands to tremble as I put the key in the lock to my front door. I closed the door behind me and leaned against the wood to catch my breath. Elsa was not home. She had been staying away for longer periods of time, and I was beginning to wonder whether my roommate would be moving on shortly.

Staring down a demon is tiring business. Feeling depleted, I went upstairs and took a warm shower to calm my nerves and heat up my bones, which felt hollow and chilled from the encounter.

Once I was dressed, I returned to the kitchen to make myself a cappuccino and plopped some bread into the toaster. While I waited for the toast, I checked my phone for messages. I had several texts from William, reminding me that we were supposed to go out tomorrow night. I smiled and texted him back that he could pick me up at 5 pm I had a second set of texts from JP asking me to call him. I clicked through on the number he’d sent, which looked to be his cell and within a few seconds he picked up the call.

“JP, it’s Olivia,” I said.

“You got my texts?” he asked.

“That’s how I knew to call this number,” I said. “So what’s up? Are you calling to tell me that Levi has an opponent?” I could feel his disbelief over the telephone. He thought he was going to be the one to surprise me. I liked being able to surprise him; it almost made the visit from the demon cowboy worth it.

“How did you know?” he asked.

“I ran into someone who knows Stoner Halbert,” I said. “He let me know there was going to be a opposing candidate. But I don’t know who it is.”

“Her name is Lacy Smith,” JP said. “She’s an attorney and a member of the local Tea Party.” I was listening to JP and formulating my statement. I knew he wanted a comment, an official one from the campaign.

“I assume you are looking for a quote from the campaign?”

“Yes,” he said.

“OK. Here it is,” I said. “We welcome Ms. Smith’s entrance into the race, and look forward to a spirited debate about the issues as the campaign progresses.”

JP snorted into the phone. “That’s it? You don’t want to comment on her credentials?”

“I’m really not familiar enough to make any further statements,” I said, knowing I sounded very much the reticent campaign manager. “So...is that it?”

“Actually I have one more question,” he said. I knew before he asked that whatever he was about to say, he felt nervous. “Do you want to have dinner sometime soon?”

His request surprised me. Setting aside William and my already head-over-heels feelings for him, it was a plain old bad idea to date the reporter covering your campaign. It was unprofessional and downright dangerous, since the line between lovers and adversaries can get blurred in a hurry. And let’s face it; the press is often a campaign’s adversary. I decided a work-related brush-off was my best tactic.

“You know, these days my schedule is pretty jam-packed with work,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Why don’t you ask me again in a few weeks?”

This elicited an “OK, will do,” and we said our goodbyes. I turned the ringer volume up on my phone, expecting similar calls from reporters during the next several hours. I decided to make another espresso and work from home until it was time to meet with Gabriel.

After I hung up with JP, I left a voicemail for Gabriel telling him about Lacy. Then I called Levi and briefed him on both Lacy and the quote I’d given to JP. Levi asked if he should make a statement. I discouraged him. “You can comment when she says or does something that deserves your attention,” I said. “In the meantime, let me be the one who speaks.”

When I’d finished with Levi, I called Paul Levant, the head of the Democratic Party, to let him know his prediction had come true.

“Shit, that was fast…Love the name though. Doonesbury has a character named Lacey, except she is a tough old Democrat; nothing like what you’re facing.”

“And what am I facing?” I asked, knowing I would enjoy his answer.

“It’s like I told you before,” he said. “To me, a Bible is something you put your hand on to make a point. With her, it’s a manual for living.”

“I’m not sure if you know, but Stoner Halbert is running her election,” I said, changing the subject.

“Interesting,” he said. “That guy seems to pop up everywhere. It should make for a great race; the two of you will both give as good as you get.”