He thought what he’d heard would have prepared him for what he’d see. But nothing could have. Nothing in the world could have prepared him for seeing a United States senator not so subtly call for the extermination of a sizable minority of the American population. It was more than sickening, it was outrageous.
Worse, that the president wasn’t on television immediately afterward was even more outrageous.
“Get me some time on the shows.” He didn’t look up from his screen as he spoke to his assistant. “We’ll need to get a statement up on the website within the hour, condemning any calls to violence and encouraging a real dialogue that includes listening instead of threatening. Get me Meriel or Molly from Clan Owen.”
“On it. Oh, and Senator Sperry is here.”
Well that was one nice thing at least. “Send her back. Get me immediately with the rest of this.”
He stood as Delilah swept in and sat in a chair across from him. “I suppose you’ve heard.”
“I was waiting to meet with the president when it happened. Porter came out to tell me she had to cancel and why.”
Delilah only barely managed to stop from rolling her eyes. Tosh could see the effort it cost her to do so. “What’s her story then? Did I miss her speaking on the issue?”
“The president believes that taking a position cuts the process of input from Americans short.”
“Did Joe say that to you with a straight face? Because he should be ashamed if he could.”
“He’s got a job to do. I understand that.”
“I don’t. Come on, Toshio, they called for our extermination! How is the fact that anyone can stand there with a straight face and say the president won’t condemn such a thing an acceptable
“I refused to meet with him instead of the president. I want her to look me in the eye when she says she’s not going to stand up for all Americans.”
“Well, good luck to you. I can’t even get my calls returned.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Do I sound like I’m joking? This is how it is now, Tosh. From a lot of people. That a colleague would stand up and call for my extermination in front of cameras without any sense of shame is telling. I’m here to let you know I will be on the floor tomorrow. I may get ejected.” Her smile made him a little sweaty, in good and bad ways.
“Should I set aside bail money?”
She laughed and took the teacup his assistant handed her with thanks. “No, I don’t think I’ll be marking that off Marlon’s Christmas list. He wants us to be that. But what I will be doing is calling this what it is. I will not wear a yellow star. I will not let them send me to a camp or exterminate me if I’m difficult, and I will say out loud to the American people that if they support this bill that’s what they’re doing. This is not going down the way it did in the thirties in Germany. I am a motherfucking werewolf and if I’m going down, I will take as many as I can down with me. “
He nodded. “I agree. I’ll be saying the same. Well, not the werewolf part.”
“Yeah? You stepped out of the middle then?”
“I was never in the middle, Delilah. I have always been on your side. But I will not be silent about this. This is unconscionable.”
His assistant popped a head in. “Senator Sato, I just sent the text for the press release to your email if you want to look it over. I’m also going to place a call to Molly Ryan in five minutes. She’s on another call right now.”
“Great. Thank you. Tell everyone we’ve got a long night ahead of us. Order in some dinner and let’s get this show on the road.” He looked to Delilah. “Want to combine efforts?”
“Yes. Let’s get some others in on this too.”
THREE hours after the press conference, Helena found herself in front of the Defense arm of the COO, who’d called an emergency meeting after the speech. Familiar faces showed up on the screen, but she found herself shocked by what Lex Warden had just said.
“Can you repeat that?”
Lex Warden smirked but it was gone in moments. Damn he was pretty.
“I said we’ve elected you. You’re now in charge of this body. You know, you make the decisions as to all the military and defense coordination between Others.”
“Why?”
“I’ve watched you do your job. I’ve watched you do a job in what have been extraordinarily difficult times. You consistently make good decisions. Your judgment is sound. You are vicious, but not without reason and logic. You are well trained and fully capable of training others. You understand what it means to delegate and yet you do not hesitate to take responsibility when you need to. Now, more than any other time in our history, we need to work united. And to do that, we have to make use of our best. You are one of those. As Meriel will run the main body of the COO along with Cade, you will run this body.”
She kept her sigh inside her head. There were no other choices to be made. She would accept, of course. But fear trickled through her veins. The stakes were so high she just decided to pretend not to think about it.
“All right. I accept.”
Lex tipped his chin. “Good. Now, what do you need?”
Thank heavens she’d already thought in detail on this. “This is how it’s going to be. Our current teams of three will go to teams of five. These teams will be mixed with at least two witches. I believe the mix of different skills and gifts will be best used in that combination. The magickal backup is imperative, especially on any type of sweep or investigative work. Each enclave will have constant security. At least one team at the gates and another to sweep through the neighborhoods. That’s twenty-four hours a day. All leadership, wolves, witches, cats, Vampires, whatever, needs to have added protection. I can help with that should you want my assistance.”
She knew how tricky that part was. Others had been on their own for so long, they really hated to take direction from anyone outside their group. Plus, there were so many alpha males that it was difficult to tell them they needed to be protected.
Still, before Lex became the Alpha of Cascadia, he’d been his brother’s Enforcer for years before Cade went on to lead National, so she hoped that gave him perspective from her side of the table.
“Within three minutes of the end of that speech Hayes made, the first official death threat came in. Senate, House and White House servers went offline due to the overwhelming traffic. The phone lines were choked. Not all that was negative, I want to underline that. It is not our belief that a majority of humans feel the way Powers does. But there will be movement after this latest stuff. Our leaders need to be kept safe. Every public appearance should include a team that goes to the venue first and does a sweep and then locks it down until arrival. If they don’t like it, too damned bad. We can’t trust anyone else to keep us safe.”
“You’re right. I’m happy to start out and set that example. Tegan has been on me to up my guard anyway. I’ll get the news out to the rest of the Packs.”
Gibson agreed to do the same for the other shifters. She was meeting with The Gennessee right after this so she’d tell Rebecca then.
“The Vampires will do as you ask.”
Okay then.
“I’m working with Owen and the other Clans to make our people available to send to Others who need them for their security teams. The new enclaves have begun to consolidate our populations, which is helpful on many levels. But for areas that may not have a lot of Others of different types, we want to be sure they’re being protected. My assistant, Sasha, is keeping the list so please have your people contact her directly and we’ll get on that. Lark will continue to work on cross-training programs. The wolves and cats are particularly good at tracking and we have a great deal to learn from them. Faine and Simon Leviathan have graciously volunteered to continue to help train on all things battle and combat.”
She went over a few more things before everyone signed out and went their own way.
