Delia gave me a satisfied nod. “I think you’re right. This is new to us both. I think I speak for both Maudlin and me when I ask the council to be patient with us. We’ve got a lot to sort through and so much of this is still a tangle of confusion.”
“Then we untangle it one knot at a time,” Leonard Wolfbrane said. He was leader of the Alpha-Pack and represented the werewolves who lived on Bedlam. Each of the major shifter groups had a member on the town council. Two members belonged to the Fae world—one from the Summer Court, one from the Winter Court. Ralph Greyhoof, who represented the satyrs and centaurs, was noticeably absent. I was the representative of the magical community—the witches.
Goblins, ogres, and their ilk weren’t allowed to sit on the council. Technically, they weren’t allowed to live in Bedlam but more than once, a grungy little nest of goblins had been found and ousted, and the occasional ogre or troll ended up hiding out on the island and had to be deported the hard way.
Delia cleared her throat. “By now, you all know Linda Realmwood has left her post as mayor and vacated the leadership of the Moonrise Coven. The coven has voted Maddy in as their new High Priestess. Therefore, she’s takes her place on the town council. I’m acting as the interim mayor until we figure out what to do about the position.”
“Can you elucidate as to what’s brought on these changes?” Elsa Liftwing, the Avian shifter representative, asked.
“Yes. Over the last couple of days we have discovered that Linda was being blackmailed by Essie, Pacific Northwest Queen of the Vampires. Essie had been threatening a daughter whom no one knew about to tighten her hold over Bedlam. We have reason to believe that Essie has been making a power play for control over the town.”
The room erupted then, everybody talking at once. Delia glanced at me and I shook my head. We knew this was going to happen. Sandy jumped up and, two fingers in her mouth, let loose with a whistle that almost pierced my ears. As the room fell silent, she stood on her chair, hands on her hips.
“Yo! Hold it down. Let Delia and Maddy talk.”
“Thank you, Sandy.” Delia shuffled some papers and I realized she was trying to figure out where to go with this.
“We’ll be launching an investigation as to how far this goes. I strongly suggest that if any of you have made similar deals, you stand up now and walk out of here before we find out. Because we aren’t going to be lenient on anybody who’s been selling Bedlam over to the vamps.” I sounded more confident than I was, but the first rule is always: fake it till you make it.
Delia picked up the thread immediately. “Maudlin is correct. We will be starting our investigation as soon as this meeting is adjourned. Leave now if you have something to hide. Essie’s going to know the jig is up by tonight, if she doesn’t already know, so you have one day to figure out what to do.”
I glanced around. Blackthorn, a werebear, was shifting uncomfortably in his seat, tugging at his collar. “Anything you want to tell us?” I asked.
He slid down in his chair a little, then gave an impatient shrug. “No. I—I’ve got nothing to say.” But then, he jumped out of his chair and headed for the door, the scent of his anger filling the room. As he slammed the door behind him, more chatter broke out.
Delia slammed her gavel on the table. “Come to order! Now!”
One by one, people quieted down.
“Anybody else need to leave?” She looked around the room, her eyes narrow. “We will discuss what to do about the vampires in a bit, but if anybody else has been colluding with Essie, then let them leave now.”
“What about Ralph?” Ateria, the representative from the Winter Fae Court, spoke up. “Is he off the council, considering he’s being held for murder?”
Delia shook her head. “No, we’ve found evidence that Ralph is innocent. He’s being held right now for his own protection until we can sort out exactly what happened.”
“Who’s responsible for Rose Williams’s murder, then?” Brentwood, a rabbit shifter, asked.
I jumped on that one. “We’re not sure, but it wasn’t Ralph. We are fairly certain that I was the target, and that the killer mistook Rose for me.”
“Will Linda ever be coming back?” Ateria asked. It struck me that I needed to make some contact with the Fae courts if I was going to be the coven’s new High Priestess. There was a long-standing tradition of the Fae and witches uniting for various magical purposes, but Linda had kept relatively clear of them. I wasn’t ever sure why, but I decided that isolation would come to an end.
“No.” I debated on how much to tell them, then finally added, “The Aunties smuggled her and her daughter to safety. Linda sold us out, but you have to understand the predicament she was in. Her daughter’s life was being held forfeit. Now, they’re together and safe. While I totally disagree with the choices Linda made, I do understand the stress under which she was working, and why she made the choices she did. I may not have children, but I’ll bet any one of you who do can see that she was between a rock and a hard place.”
“That’s probably why Blackthorn left. His family has been under a lot of economic stress the past few years. Want to make a bet that Essie bought him off? I do know his business recently made a drastic turnaround and he was making money hand over fist.” Brentwood shrugged. “I have a huge family. I can see the appeal if things aren’t going well. It would be easy at first to say—Oh, I’ll just give in a little. And then a little more.”
“What does Blackthorn do?” I couldn’t help but wonder just what Essie had found useful in a werebear.
Brentwood leaned forward, frowning. He shoved his coffee cup back on the table. “Blackthorn trained as a general contractor and structural engineer. But there hasn’t been a lot of building going on here on the island, and we’re too far away from the mainland and Seattle area for him to commute down there. He’s been focusing on odd jobs for the past year or so, and I know that he was trying to take out a second mortgage on his house so they could pay off some sort of medical debt they incurred when their eldest was in a car wreck and needed surgery.”
That would do it, all right. Medical bills? Fear of losing one’s home? Not knowing how to get out from under a mountain of debt? Those were all grim prospects facing too many people and when a parent was desperate to protect their family, options that seemed unthinkable suddenly became viable.
“I empathize, but we can’t have anybody on this council sneaking around with the vampires. If we deal with Essie, we do it aboveboard and in general agreement.”
“What about your boyfriend?” Ateria asked.
“I’m very open about Aegis. He’s not in collusion with Essie and she’s been trying to lure him into joining her court, but he wants nothing to do with her. He’ll come talk to the council if that makes you more comfortable, though obviously it will have to be a meeting called after sunset.” I knew this was going to come up.
Apparently, Delia was thinking along the same route because she suddenly stood and clapped for attention. “As the interim mayor, I’m going to make a suggestion that we include two representatives on this council from the vampires. One unaligned—Aegis would be a good choice for that. And the other from Essie’s court. Then they couldn’t argue that they weren’t being fairly represented and we could keep an eye on what they were up to.”
Even I hadn’t been prepared for that one. I stared at Delia, open-mouthed, along with everybody else.
“But don’t you think they’d just go right along working against us? It would be so much easier to lull us into a false sense of security by pretending that everything was all peachy while behind the scenes they were making plans for taking control of the island.” I wasn’t sure of where Delia’s head was, but the idea seemed ludicrous to me.
“Listen, one of the problems is that vampires have no real rights. They’re still not included under the Pretcom Equal Rights Treaty, and they are always shunted to the side.”