Chapter 55: Never-Ending Catch-Up Game
After the organized confusion of several teams leaving, the small group sat down to discover
everything they’d missed.
“Where does the time go? How can it take so long to get everything done?” Aria stared at her
phone in wonder.
“Because we are the least magical creatures of the supernatural world. A one-trick pony, if you
will. We got the party trick of turning into a critter. What do we have here, anyway?” Ynda pulled a
yellow envelope from a pile Gregory tossed their way before storming into his office. He wasn’t angry
with him. No, that anger’s reserved for the mother of his future pups. He’d found out she’d made a
break from their apartment without Catherine or another Hell Hound beside her. He’d informed Ynda
she wasn’t to worry about it. Her instructions were in the envelope in front of her. There’d be no
screwing around since this was now an all-out war.
With the Fae now boldly entering human towns, a video began showing up on various websites
and news outlets. They needed tobat this before it got out of hand. The mages imed they
possessed various solutions for that, and tonight, the Vampires would send out their people to fix
things.
There was something frightening Ynda felt at the thought of an army of vampires would go
about changing humans’ memories. But what else could they do? The mages could alter technology
and make things disappear. But they couldn’t alter a poption’s belief in monsters as a vampire could.
But between a mage and a vampire, now that was truly frightening. Suddenly, no one saw anything and
there’s no video to prove it ever urred. Murdered people became ident victims and victims of
muggings by assants that never existed. It was far from perfect, but it’s easier to ept than the
truth. Far safer for everyone, too. How many rtives of these victims would seek justice on the Fae?
How many police with heroplexes would make it their life’s mission to deal with administrating
justice to the Fae? How many of those woulde home in the end? Ynda knew the total of
survivors to return would be zero. They couldn’t let that happen.
“They have me fielding a campaign of disbelief in the video with a group of mages. Not sure
what I can do that they can’t.”
“Find the crap hiding in the dark recesses of the? You’re very good at that.” Jaxon stated as
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he looked down at the papers before him. “They have me working with our old division once they are
up and running here to field this away from conspiracy theory territory.”
“Now I’m questioning all the conspiracies we’ve dug into. How much did we miss the first time
around?”
“I know it’s weird with an insider’s perspective now. It’s a simr job but with a whole new
outlook and mandate. Keep them dumb, not find the truth.”
“Well, not quite. We find the truth; we just don’t advertise it to the public. Look at it this way. We
find out the truth, fix it, and it’s a need-to-know basis. You encountered what happens when the public
sees what’s real. Your division made you the brunt of their jokes. You’re not taken seriously, passed
over for promotion too, I bet.”
Ian looked at Desire. “I’m hoping you’re assuming a few things.”
“It happens far too often, not to be true. Just remember now we’ll respect you in the morning.”
She tried to joke, but Ynda growled at Desire. “Sorry, poor joke. Okay, too early for that.” Desire held
her hands up to disy her acquiescence to Ynda.
“What about you Aria what do they have you doing?”
“I’m with Hal in searching the and media sources.”
“Ynda? What about you and Ian?”
“As expected, we’re in the basement, keeping the weapons flowing with the Fianna down
there. I don’t think they’ll be disappearing anytime soon.”
* * *
Shah watched through the Bogart’s eyes at the hunt as they searched for even a tiny shred
of magic. What happened to this ce after they left? This realm should brim again with magic.
Everywhere they’ve gone so far, the magic elusively evaded them. The humans appeared to know
nothing about magic or where to get it. The few wells they’d visited didn’t even possess a spark of
magic. It’s like when they left, they took magic with them. How could that be? The elders always
imed magic flowed like water here. They’d lied to everyone. This was an insult that she couldn’t
tolerate. The hunt found no reference to the existence of their serfs. No wolves or witches. No
vampires, or any annoying druids. This wasn’t the world of gold and honey. It stank, humans ruled
everywhere, and the wilds weren’t wild. This world bored her already.
The humans were pathetic. They didn’t believe what they saw standing before them. Many
used Shah of being a human in a costume, and her disys of magic were slights of hand. She
removed them from her path with an irritated flick of her hand.
* * *
The Council of Ambassadors met formally now for an evening session. The session possessed
all the high drama of a reality television program, and somewhere the formality disappeared. For a
moment, Edith pondered whether the addition of the zoom calls contributed to theck of formality.
Either way, for Edith, it was a wee respite from it all.
“I say we need to clear this blight from the Earth and let the chips fall where they may
regarding the humans finding out about our presence. It’ll be easier to change their minds if they see
we are looking after more than just our interests.”
“Have you forgotten about the mass panic of the witch trials? There are still locations where it’s
epted practice to this day to hunt for vampires.”
“They hunt vampires in regions we left centuries ago, and we would prefer they continue
hunting there and not here. I don’t believe it would be helpful to out ourselves right now. I don’t believe
anyone would benefit from it.”
“It’s happening now. The Fae don’t care. They believe they can walk in and take over. With the
use of their magic, they will take over in no time. If this happens, there’s a benefit for anyone, and no
saving the humans or us from huge losses.”
The nging of a gong reverberated from theputer’s speakers. She’d need to rmend
they change to something not so disruptive for their next meeting. With a series of wincing expressions
and a few hisses, silence finally reigned again.
“Thank you. I believe we’ve established the need to control this narrative rather than let the
Fae do that. Currently, we have one of the few sources of wild magic hidden from them. However, with
that said, we now have magic-starved Fae monsters roaming the world, exposing our presence to
those who know nothing of us. We don’t know their numbers, how long they’ve been magic starved,
how desperate they are to get magic, or what skills they have to locate such magic. We have records
that some can change the life force of other supernatural creatures into wild magic. This may or may
not work with a human’s life force. We can’t allow that to happen, period, end of the story. Now,
currently, there are only a few incidents right now. I rmend we continue along those lines for now.
They have brought it to my attention that we can truly hit the Fae where it hurts by cutting them off from
the dream realm. If we cut them off from that realm, it will hamper their travel and ability to hide or use it
to spy. I implore all with records or research in this line of inquiry to find out whether your faction may
have any record of this being done in the past, or theory of how we can do it now, toe forward as
soon as you can with this information.”
Edith watched the speaker of the council reign, everyone, in and redirected the session into a
far more productive direction. Gaining the attention of the speaker. “Remember, we have the Fianna on
our side this time. We are currently not fighting two wars, as we did in the past. If the human poption
reacts badly to us, then we would again fight two wars at once. Are we strong enough to risk that?
Please, everyone, think before doing anything that willplicate this for everyone. Many of our
numbers have mated, married, or bound to humans. We would force them to pick a side between their
life partner and their family if the human poption reacts badly. There are young caught in the middle
of that war if ites to be. It’s logical to weaken them by removing what little wild magic is within this
world from them and deny them the advantage of the dream realm. Weakened with only their weapons
and fighting skills, will be hard enough, but with modern technological weapons being blended with
magic by the Fianna. I believe we can remove these Fae from this realm. I believe we must work
together as a show of strength. Turn them back so that there’s nothing but strife awaiting them within
this realm. Send them back and block them again. The ambassador of the Mages believes he’s located
the human group that opened the portals. A group’s gone to find out more about these humans. We
aren’t sure what they believed they were opening or what they’d obtain for doing so, either. The rituals
used obtained their magic from blood and magical items imbued before the Fae left this realm. I’m
curious how these humans obtained the magical items and knowledge of these rituals. I’ve been told
we kept them well hidden from the humans.”
That sent a titter through the group while Edith waited to speak again. To Edith, this wasn’t
something she often did. Speaking to the assembly wasn’t something she did well. It took her off her A-
game. An spoke while she sat back and read the crowd. He spoke her words, announced their
intents, and debated like a champion.
“Please have any information you wish to impart ready by tonight. We willpile and
disseminated it to everyone by morning. As always, please submit it to the speaker’s office before
midnight tonight. Thank you.”
The meeting broke up shortly after that. They’d found a human cult connected to these rituals
and sent a group to investigate the leader of the cult. As far as Edith knew, they found no supernatural
ties to this cult, and it was a rather new cult.
An popped his head in once the silence took over. “You finished? I think everything’s packed
and ready to go. I just want you to do a once over to make sure I got everything.” After all these years,
her mate still didn’t know where all her hiding ces were. It made birthdays and yule presents a
surprise.
“I’m just making a couple of notes right now, and I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Is our
portal still green-lit?”
“As of an hour ago, yes. I’ll check again in the next twenty minutes.”
“It’ll be good to be home. I feel exposed here.”
“I get it and feel the same way. Home is safe. But what ce is truly safe these days? It’s not
the old days where it took weeks or months for news to spread. Now it’s minutes. You know that better
than I do. The Fae won’t be able to keep up. They don’t have anyprehension of what technology is
or how it works. They won’t have any way tobat it or block it without help from the humans. The
Fae has nothing to offer a human, really. I can’t wait for the first one to find out about a gun. Bet that’ll
hurt.”
“I knew I mated you for a reason. You, sir, are vicious.”