2

“I got fired today.”

Molly hung her coat up and turned to her mother, who stood at the table, pouring a glass of wine.

Eliza’s eyes went wide and then narrowed dangerously. “What?”

“Partners’ meeting. They ambushed me before I even had a sip of my coffee. I go in and they tell me I’ve violated my agreement by not disclosing my nationality and for bringing negative attention. Risking clients.”

Eliza held out the glass. “You need this more than I do.”

Molly took several bracing sips.

Her mother waited until she’d done so before she continued. “Tell me the rest.”

Eliza Ryan was the strongest person Molly had ever met. Her mother was her greatest hero and role model.

“Well, you know PURITY outed me two days ago. Apparently this morning Bright and Cleen called. Said they’d dump the firm if they didn’t dump me. I’m told I’m an abomination.”

Eliza’s brow rose. “I can guess who said that. Does Angelica still have a stick wedged up her butt? Puritans, the whole lot of them. Oh, you were just fine to get them out of trouble a month ago. But now?” Her mother sniffed before gulping her own wine.

“Not everyone is acting that way. Paige volunteered to quit and follow me to a new firm if I started it. She threatened to quit anyway. Don’t worry, I told her not to. She’s pregnant and she needs the benefits. It wouldn’t make a difference to them if she quit and it would only hurt her. Plus the Troys—you know my neighbors with the house across the street? Anyway, they came over when I got home today. With a big basket of baked goods. She hugged me and said it would be all right.”

With that, the tears came. Because it wouldn’t be.

Eliza put her glass down and moved to gather Molly up into her arms. “Let it all go. This isn’t right. It’s not fair and it’s not even American, for heaven’s sake.”

“I d-don’t think things are going to be all right. Everything is different. Anthony is dead. Emma is dead. The guy who did my yard? Turns out he was a shifter. He’s dead too. I don’t think I’ll be able to stave off being fired. My firm. I built that firm, damn it.” Anthony Falco had been a father to her, Emma her sibling in everything but blood and she missed each one of them every damned day.

Her mother rubbed a palm up and down her back. Up and down, over and over, just like she did when Molly got sick or when she got dumped.

“I’m not dead. Nana Ryan isn’t dead. Rosa isn’t and she needs you now more than ever. We all need you, Molly. If you can’t stay at the firm, you’ll do something else. It’s who you are. I’ll help you in any way I can.”

“You have your own problems.”

Her mother snorted. “Thank goodness for tenure. The rest of the faculty—for the most part anyway—are supporting me. I’ll get through this. Don’t worry about me.”

“Of course I worry about you! This is happening to you because of me.” Her mother was being persecuted for no other reason than being a parent to an Other. It was absurd and horrible and Molly felt responsible.

Her mother stepped back, holding Molly at arm’s length. “No. This is happening because people are scared. And because people with no values are using that fear to whip them up into this frenzy that’s wrecking everything. You are the best thing I’ve ever done. I won’t let a bunch of small-minded bigots make you think anything else.”

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. The song told her it was Rosa so Molly mopped up her face and answered.

“Hiya, Mom.” Rosa Falco had come into Molly’s life when she was thirteen. She’d been the one to teach Molly about the other side of her heritage. The magickal side. The Falco family had become hers too. So much so that she’d been calling Rosa Mom since she was fifteen.

Together with Eliza, they’d guided her, loved her and supported her. That her biological mother shared her daughter without any apparent jealousy was a testament to Eliza’s strength and love. And a powerful reminder that no matter how much Molly had lost, she still had them.

“Turn on the television.” Rosa’s voice held a lot of anger.

“What? What’s going on?” Molly found the remote and turned the television on as requested.

“Watch and call me back.”

“Okay.”

She sat, her mother at her side.

On the screen, Carlo Powers, the leader of PURITY, sat across from a news anchor, smiling. That smile made Molly curl her lip. A smiling fascist was still a fascist.

“Well yes, Bridget. We love everyone of course. But that doesn’t mean we have to tolerate their behavior, or let them threaten our families.”

“Heard that one before,” her mother muttered.

“A few million times.” Eliza reached out to take Molly’s hand.

Bridget Patterson, the local network anchor, frowned. “Mr. Powers, there are those who say your group’s weekly outing of different paranormals is only adding to the increase in violence in communities across the country. They say outing is dangerous for those you’ve exposed. Others have been fired as a result of your show. Attacked in some cases. How do you respond to that?”

He cocked his head, the mean shining in his eyes briefly. “These paranormals are abominations. They’ve lived among us for all this time secretly. They can’t be trusted. Can you blame decent Americans for wanting to defend themselves against that?”

Molly’s stomach heaved.

“This man is dangerous, Molly.”

“No shit. Um, no crap.” She grimaced. “Sorry.”

“You get to use all the curse words for this sorry excuse for a human being. I’ll write you a note.”

On the television, Bridget soldiered on. “Is that what you call it? Defense? Yesterday in Kentucky a couple’s store was burned to the ground. They lived above it and the doors were blocked from the outside so they couldn’t get out. They managed to escape only because they jumped from a second-story window.”

He spread his hands, still wearing that smile. “Of course that’s wrong, Bridget. We at PURITY don’t condone that sort of violence. I’m just saying that I’m siding with decent human beings who feel threatened by these creatures. Decent Americans, human beings who want to protect their children against monsters like werewolves. We dealt with them a few times in our history, it’s only reasonable to expect we will again.”

Loathing made Molly’s lip curl. “Yeah, by drowning us or burning. Is he aiming for a new Inquisition?”

Eliza squeezed Molly’s hand. “Don’t joke. This guy is dangerous.”

And he’d been the one who outed her. This filth sat there with his smile talking about decency this and that and he’d been personally responsible for the loss of her job. Clearly they owned two different dictionaries when his definition of decent meant people got killed and had their businesses burned down.

It went on like this for another minute or two before the interview was over and Molly sat back, finishing her wine in one gulp.

Her mother shook her head. “You can’t stay at your house anymore. Stay here with me. It’s too dangerous now.”

“I’d say the same of you. It’s not just Others being targeted.” Molly flipped the channel and paused on a different news show. “Isn’t that the witch who runs Clan Owen?”

The interviewer tapped a pen on his knee a moment. “There are those who say the paranormals are dangerous. That you’ve kept hidden because you have an agenda.”

The Owen, as the witch who led Clan Owen was called, took a deep breath and maintained her calm. “I can’t speak for all Others, any more than you can speak for all humans, but I can tell you most of us kept our identities secret in fear of this exact reaction. If protecting my people is an agenda, I suppose those making such claims are right.”

The interviewer smirked. “Meriel, if I can call you that, werewolves came out several years ago. Some of the other shifters have been making that slow process. They’ve been all right.”

“Ms. Owen is fine.” Meriel smiled and Molly snorted a laugh. “All right is a relative term. While there haven’t been the same sorts of murders we’ve seen recently, they’ve faced job, health care and housing discrimination. Unfortunately they’ve also been the targets of hate groups like PURITY as well. The shifters who led the original coming out have been a model of how to do it, but they’ve not been unscathed.”

They were sidetracking her, Molly realized. “They’re muddying her message.”

“She needs a public relations whiz, clearly.” Her mother gave her the side eye.

And then she sat back as Meriel Owen continued to be directed off the topic only to fruitlessly try to get back on track. “She totally does.”

* * *

GAGE stood off to the side, gaze flitting around the studio. Meriel had received a death threat just that morning. He’d advised against the appearance, but Meriel did what she wanted. Especially when she felt it was important.

She’d finished her interview and he cleared the exit, checking in with the people posted outside to bring the car around.

“You ready?” He took position in front of her, blocking anything that might come their way.

“Dumbasses,” she muttered. “Yes, yes, let’s go.”

Lark was there as well, and she got them all out to the newly armored car Meriel and Dominic now had to use.

“I don’t think that guy likes you much.” Lark meant the interviewer who’d treated Meriel like she was overreacting, while simultaneously making her feel as if it was the fault of Others for remaining in the closet about their identities.

They drove through a large protest of PURITY members, who banged on the car as they did. Decent of them.

“He was photographed at a PURITY fund-raiser just a few days ago. So no, I doubt he likes me much. Which makes us even. Because I think he’s a scum-sucking pig.”

Dominic Bright, Meriel’s husband, grunted, kissing his wife’s hand as he kept his gaze on the fracas outside.

Lark gave him a look when Gage moved a hand to the window toggle. He really wouldn’t have rolled it down, but he wanted to.

“Ignore them.” Meriel shook her head.

“I’m ignoring my impulses, Boss.”

Lark laughed a moment but quit on an intake of breath. She’d been shot multiple times just a few weeks before as they’d fought off the Magister and its minions. So had Gage. Lark had been in the hospital for several days and was still healing. She liked telling everyone she was too stubborn to die and too pressed to let anyone stop her from doing her job.

Gage believed every word.

There was a counter-protest just across the street, which gave him hope, even in such a dark time. Not all humans were bad and wanted to kill them. The humans out there protesting in support of Others could be the majority if they played it right. But it was hard to play anything when every single Other on the planet had lost someone when the Magister manifested itself. Hard to be smart and rational when they were getting firebombed and picketed and attacked.

PURITY had picketed his uncle’s funeral. The thought of it still outraged him.

Meriel spoke again, her voice strong and sure. “We need to continue a presence out there, keep going. Keep our message in the public eye. We’re going to get a few hits over it. But that interviewer in there can’t scare me.”

Like so many others, Meriel had suffered a loss due to the Magister. Her mother, an incredibly powerful witch and the former Owen, had been assassinated just moments after Edwina had aided in shoving the Magister out of their world. Meriel had been trying to get her life back on track, but it’d been difficult when all this external stuff kept happening. When she had to go to funerals and meet with Clan members who’d been outed and faced problems keeping jobs and relationships.

Gage had been giving self-defense courses, along with Lark, to their membership. First it had been to protect against the bands of mages who’d been bent on stealing their magick. But that had been before the Magister. Now it was also about protecting themselves from violence and intimidation from the humans like those in PURITY.

And they’d grown more adept at using their power. All of them had. His powers seemed to have sharpened. What he’d been good at before, he was excellent at now. Desperation could do that, he supposed. Still, it seemed to be something many other witches were experiencing. Again, he wasn’t sure if it was that desperation gave them all a focus they hadn’t had before, or if it was some odd side effect of the Magister’s manifestation in their world.

He squeezed his hands into fists. Needing the sharp pain of violence and not having an outlet. “I don’t know what they expect. We’re just living our lives, for fuck’s sake.” Maybe he should shoot a few fireballs at them, just to give them what they seemed to crave so much.

“It’s fear. Fear makes people irrational. They’re scared and people like Carlo Powers manipulate that fear to their advantage.” Meriel sighed.

“Whatever it is, it’s got to be dealt with. They’re not going to find it as easy to kill us this time.” Lark’s face darkened as she looked out the window.

Gage understood that sentiment very well.

Lark had them stop at the Owen offices to drop her off before he continued on to escort Meriel and Dominic home.

Once they’d arrived at Meriel’s, Gage did a quick check with the guards posted full time, before heading out to do a sweep of his own around their property. Seattle hadn’t been nearly as bad as other cities across the world. While Meriel and Dominic had had to deal with threats and pickets, there’d been no overt violent acts or attacks on their home. That was something, he supposed.

Still, Meriel’s father had set ward upon ward, all around the property. It was a magickal Fort Knox and it had given him something to do as he’d grieved over the loss of his wife.

In addition to magickal protections, there were snipers stationed strategically as well.

They would not simply lie down and let themselves be victimized. No one was going to harm Meriel and Dominic, not without a great deal of blood and pain.

He checked in one last time before leaving and heading back to the office.

He wasn’t surprised to find Lark was waiting for him there. “You need some downtime.”

For a tiny witch with blue hair, she still managed to be authoritative. And she knew what she was talking about.

“Says the witch who is here as much as I am. I’m going home soon. I just wanted to do one last check-in.”

She looked him over carefully. “You’re here all the time. And when you’re not here, you’re on a patrol. Take some personal time. God knows you need it. Hook up with someone. Sex is a good way to blow off steam. I know . . . I know you’ve not been with anyone since Rose left. It doesn’t have to mean anything. But everyone needs some affection.”

Rose. He snorted. They’d barely even started to date when the Magister had . . . happened. It wasn’t that he was heartbroken at her absence. She’d bailed, left town out of fear of what might come. But the guilt of her being right echoed through him.

“This is not me being heartbroken over Rose. In case you hadn’t noticed, things got real around here lately. I don’t have time for fucking. Casual or no.”

Lark rolled her eyes at his tone and it made him laugh. She didn’t take his shitty moods seriously. But she listened to him, was a damned good friend and someone he was proud to have at his back.

She was also good at seeing right through any crap. Which meant he got away with little when it came to her. It made him miss his old partner Nell a little less.

She tucked a pen behind her ear. “Your only stress relief can’t be this job. It’s going to eat you alive. And then they win. Right?”

He shrugged. “I’ll probably stop by Heart of Darkness later on tonight. Maybe you can line up some suitable company for me.”

She laughed. Her soon-to-be husband, Simon, was part owner of the Other-centric nightclub. Since the Magister, the club had expanded the small Others section at the back to the entirety of the space.

“Ha. I’ve got enough to do with this job and handling a control-freak alpha male. I can’t be your pimp too. Anyway, you’re too pretty to need any help.”

The club was full every single night. Turns out all this drama and threat was good for business. Many Others in the community were driven to be out and public, as if to say they were part of the city and would continue to be. A celebration of life. Some came to gawk at the spectacle of the pickets outside. Most just came to drink and dance and hook up.

“How’s the new security protocol going?”

All the attention had been good for business but also hell on security. They’d had to add more bouncers and the clan had to send out witches to place wards on what sort of magick could be worked there and by whom.

But none of that stopped firebombs and bullets. So the bouncers had to wear body armor and carry weapons themselves.

He was so over being on the defensive. Over being threatened. It was time for them to turn the tables. Others weren’t weak. They should stop acting like it.