Page 10 of Transfiguration
The small room next to Gabe’s basement bedroom had become a sort of madman’s space. Sam frowned at it, trying to make sense of the mess of pictures, notes, and documents taped to the walls. Gabe leaned against the wall near the door, arms folded over his chest, looking bored or at least uninterested, while Seiran worked, adding bits and pieces to the wall. Taping up things, adding marker lines, and notes that looked like chicken scratches. It was crazy.
“What is this, Ronnie?” Sam demanded. He recognized a handful of things from the most recent rise of the golem. Page’s face smiled from a picture near one wall.
“The families lost in the fire spell and everyone linked to them,” Seiran said. He waved a hand at a section that showed pictures of symbols they’d found at the last site, an area filled with massive death. The vampires and human authorities were still trying to match up all the bones and mutilated bodies with missing people.
“Okay, why is it here instead of at the Fellowship? You have a giant fancy ass office, and an entire space of fellow non-neurotypical folks like yourself to brainstorm with.” Sam hoped the kids didn’t stumble down; they didn’t need to see some of the pictures on the wall. Seiran hadn’t picked the goriest of them, mostly pictures that could have been from IDs, newspapers, and aerial shots, but a few were of blood, symbols painted, and charred remains.
“Because I don’t know if I can trust the Fellowship,” Seiran said flatly.
“Why?”
“Uh, experience? History? That the second anyone grabs power, they go crazy?”
“You have power, Ronnie. Like power to the nth power.”
“Are you saying I’m crazy?”
“If the shoe fits,” Sam shrugged. He understood Seiran’s caution. Everyone wanted a piece of him, to control him, or kill him and take the power he had. Could someone take it by force? Sam suspected not. And anyone who wanted him dead would have to work really hard to keep him dead. Would the earth rage at his death? Probably. Control was key, and the only way to control someone like Seiran Rou these days was coercion. Which is what Hart had implied earlier he thought would happen. Not only Seiran, but Hart as well?
“Caution is always wise,” Gabe said.
“I’m not disagreeing with that,” Sam shrugged. Luca was upstairs eating dinner with Seiran’s kids. He was never as comfortable with little people as Sam or Con was, but now that they were mostly teens, he could joke with them about anime or something and keep it mostly PG. They would both be happier when Con was home, as some of the anxiety from all the turmoil would ease.
Sam did not like the idea of hiding as Hart had suggested but wondered if it was a good idea to get himself, his guys, and all of Rou’s peeps to some hidden fallout shelter somewhere. Something indiscernible was rising. An edge of pressure, or even a tickle of something at the back of Sam’s senses. And the most frustrating part was that he didn’t even know how to describe it to anyone else without sounding like he was insane.
“It’s all connected, right?” Seiran asked. “The fire spell came from this coven, backlashed on them,” he waved at the wall of faces. “An unregistered coven, most members of the Dominion. Some are not even listed as witches.” He pointed at a handful of male faces. “The Fellowship has very little information on any of them, and nothing on this coven.”
“The Fellowship doesn’t know everything,” Sam said. Hart didn’t know everything, as he’d indicated earlier. “They haven’t even been around that long. The Dominion has been in power for centuries.”
“But the Fellowship was the Ascendance,” Seiran said. “And we don’t know how long the Ascendance actually functioned. At least since my grandfather’s time…”
“Longer,” Gabe said. “Lots of resistance to the Dominion over the years. Underground mostly. And the Dominion would never have approved of a coven this large.”
“I know little about witches,” Sam admitted. He hated he was one. Worked hard to control his power and use it as little as possible. He feared that had been stupid on his part. He learned the basics, could control a lot. But he wasn’t the master he knew Seiran or even Con was. He turned his gaze to Gabe. “You wanted me to be a vampire. Here I am, vampire, not a fucking witch.”
“I am both,” Gabe said. “As you are. The line is crossed and cannot be undone.”
Sam cursed.
“I’m trying to dig up more details on this coven and all the connections,” Seiran continued like he was some crazed FBI agent in a TV show instead of a former Dominion Director. “Have you seen anything on theseKresnikpeople?” Seiran pointed to a particular symbol. “Vampire hunters of old, acting as their own coven now? Part of the one hit by the backlash, or something else?”
“I’ve seen none of these outside of this last case,” Sam admitted. “Kresnik? Vampires? Is that why we had so many dead vampires?”
“I don’t know. I keep hitting dead ends. Not like there isn’t more information, but like it’s missing, deleted?”
“You’re saying the Fellowship has deliberate gaps in information?”
Seiran shrugged, looking frustrated. “Maybe? I’ve known they existed for all of five minutes. You’ve been working for them for years.”
“As an enforcer.”
“Which means you beat people up?” Seiran asked.
“Mostly.” Sam crossed his arms, copying Gabe’s posture. Often Sam killed. Very little about the supernatural world was polite, and some of the worst of those Sam got sent after were killers of the serial kind. Though he had to admit the fields of bodies they had found were the worst he’d ever seen. “Sometimes I unalive people.”
He dropped that bomb and waited for Seiran to lash out, worried more that the Pillar of Earth would turn on him and his men for killing anyone. But Seiran didn’t seem shocked.
“No comment, Ronnie?”