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“Young pups jump on construction sites all of the time without a lick of knowledge,” he told me. “Day workers without any training just to lug shit around. Anyone can paint. Painting well is a different problem, but we can train them. So it’s a way for them to get an honest job right away and keep them out of trouble.”
“If you think you can manage all of that and babysit, good luck to you,” I said with a dark chuckle. That was not a job I wanted.
The man gave me the same look.
Fair enough.
6
The restructuring was a fabulous idea that was clearly needed. The other VPs all agreed and were all over it to get more “adult” help under them, all like Chun who they knew well and debts were owed to them. And no one was saying they were in for the long haul or committed to the cause.
No, they weren’t signing up for this war, only to defend the kids if needed and protect what we’d built. They were a thick line of defenseif neededso we could go out and fight the battles needed.
Plus, a lot of them needed jobs and their lives cleaned up. They’d gone too far off the grid, and that just wasn’t possible to live nowadays. They couldn’t travel besides with portals. Everything was tracked. They couldn’t cash in stuff or even get at their safety deposit boxes without risking issues as you needed to show IDs for shit like that.
So they were getting a lot out of the deal, as well as we were going to unentangle a lot of shit they had going on too.
Tracey and his team were all in, especially the extra contractors that wanted stability and protection. They were in a spot where they were taken out too often for knowing too much or trusting the wrong person, just like the vampire council even said was a knee-jerk reaction after putting security in place.
Yeah, great for those of us who worked in security or knew how to handle bad situations. I really wanted to help you if there was a chance you’d kill me after instead of just fucking paying me.
Thanks.
But now that we were public, there came annoyances as well. We all agreed that we weren’t going to be like normal councils and only be around when it was time to punish, but there to help as well. So we let all of the councils and ISLE know that if a demon was picked up in something or involved in anything, we were to be informed.
Immediately.
If they didn’t, they wouldn’t like how we responded.
So Sunday afternoon, the first of those situations happened. ISLE was called in by the local police because it seemed like a shifter hurt a human but was a demon. It meant there were eyes and we had to be careful. Fine, it ended up that I was already heading out of corporate after dropping off something, so I was going to deal with it.
There was no chance Dylan was going to be involved in some random violence like that, so it should be fine. Even if he did stick his nose in it, I wasn’t going to hide from him or ISLE when I hadn’t done anything wrong.
Hell, I still had to speak with Director Stevens, but he’d been ducking me since he was busy too.
So nothing shocked me more whenhewas actually at the scene.
I arrived and was glad to see it was all contained, no one taking pictures or any chance of the demon’s face being plastered all over. It also meant I didn’t have to worry about mine. I went over to the guy, squatted down where he was sitting, and introduced myself, checking he was okay.
He blinked at me for a full minute, unable to get his mouth to work before simply nodding.
I handed him Lewis’s card. “Call him later this week and touch base, okay? We’re going to start offering our people safe ways to get their papers updated and handled so they don’t put themselves in dangerous situations to survive.”
“Um, thanks,” he mumbled, taking the card from me. “We really have a council? Wow, I never thought that would happen.” He cleared his throat and seemed to realize himself. “Councilwoman.”
I smiled. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
He snorted. “I just couldn’t pound the guy back because humans were around. He knew that. He wanted to start shit with me because there were witnesses and I would out myself as not human. Luckily, there were cops right there and they tased the guy, but then ISLE came and here we are.”
“Good. If you need to feed to heal or just need a safe place to feed, Lewis can fill you in on what we’ve got set up.”
“You’re going to help us feed too?” he whispered, his eyes going bug wide.
“It’s not free, but yes, we have a lot in place.”
He snorted again. “Nothing in life is free.”
“No, but this issafefor us,” I promised, tapping the card. “We’re trying to get the word out before we have more get trapped by covens and packs.”
