on Delilah in his bed, he might not be able to stand up when it was time.
And then it was and he hoped like hell he did his grandmother proud. He stood and moved to the podium, took a deep breath and spoke from his heart.
“Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, there are very few times in our history that one could truly call seminal or history altering.
“Right now we stand in one of those places. A year ago, my neighbor was a citizen. He and his family have run a bakery in my neighborhood for two generations now. And then when the Magister happened, we learned he was also a witch. One day he’s the guy who makes my grandfather’s favorite cinnamon bread, a third-generation American. A success story with four children and six grandchildren and a thriving business owner. His is the American Dream come true. He pays his taxes and is a model citizen.
“He is no different today than he was a year ago. Or six months ago. Or yesterday. And yet, people like Senator Hayes and his friends at PURITY want you to strip this man of his rights simply because we now know he’s a witch.
“Worse, they make thinly veiled threats of killing off those we don’t like. Ladies and gentlemen, this is not my America. We’ve seen this happen in the world more than once. How is this GPS chip they propose any more than a high-tech version of a yellow star and a tattoo? Or if we want to pretend they didn’t call for extermination of Others, any different from the internment camps my family was sent to during World War II? Or the reservations we sent Native Americans to? Will we post signs at the entrance that say
“We are better than this bill. We are better than the fear Hayes and his friends are trying to manipulate so they can in one flick of a pen eradicate the basic rights and dignity of a large minority of this country. Your friends. Your neighbors. Your mechanics. The teachers, bakers, bricklayers, senators, mayors, bank tellers, hundreds of thousands of every day Americans who have done absolutely
“We stand here on the precipice once again. We can continue to be the better people we are capable of. We are capable of the kind of action history will remember as bold and brave. Or we can repudiate everything we stand for and embrace this murderous bill and accept that our hands will be stained with the blood of innocents. The choice is clear. I will be voting no and I urge all my colleagues to do the same.”
He sat down and the smile Delilah sent him warmed him to his toes.
Delilah, who then took over at the podium.
“When I was six, my father died. Because of ridiculous medical bills, we lost everything and had to move to public housing. And from six until I was seventeen my family and I lived in a not-so-very nice part of Chicago in the projects. To many of you, Cabrini Green was a horror story you read in a newspaper. But for me? It was home. My older brother, who is now an electrician, was big for his age. He walked me and my sister everywhere. To and from school, later to my after-school job and then home again after my shift ended. We often went out together to escort my mother to one of her three jobs.
“Cabrini Green was closed by the city in 2010, but for me, the best day of my life was when we moved away from it to a small house in the suburbs. My mom still lives in that house. My sister, who is a small business owner, lives about three miles from my mother and my brother about half an hour away from them both.
“Senator Sato just spoke about the American dream? I’m living proof. I went from abject poverty and violence to college and graduate school on scholarship. And then I came back home and ran for office at the state level. Openly as a werewolf. And I was elected.”
She looked around the room. “The people of my district knew what I was and they elected me. Not because I was a werewolf. But because they trusted me to represent them and their needs at the capital. I have represented the same area of Illinois now for over a decade. First at the state level and then at the federal level as a senator. As a werewolf. Openly.
“If my constituents feel like I’m not doing what’s right for them, they let me know. They call and they send me letters and emails and let me tell you, my being a werewolf has never stopped any of them from letting me know exactly what they think.
“What I’m trying to say is this: We don’t need camps. We don’t need GPS chips. We don’t need any of this xenophobic, racist hateful rhetoric that attempts to estrange us all from one another. So we didn’t know this time last year that there were witches and now we do. Is this an excuse to simply lose our minds and our dignity? We are Americans. This is a time when we need to come together and be an example of how to overcome adversity, not to act shamefully and hatefully because we are afraid.
“Earlier today, Carlo Powers stood in the hall outside my office and he called me a werewolf whore.”
Gasps sounded as people turned to look at Powers, who shook his head as if she were lying.
“Now, as a strong woman with her own voice, it’s not the first time a man who was threatened by that called me a whore or attempted to use my gender to try to shame me. But he didn’t stop there. He called me a
Tosh was on his feet, applauding before he realized it.
“STOP thinking about that right now and focus.” Faine smacked her butt to get her attention.
“Hey!”
“Hey what? I’m trying to show you how your weight distribution is off with your kick and you’re trying to watch television.”
“There’s a riot in St. Louis, for heaven’s sake, Faine. I’m not watching a sitcom or anything.”
“There will be riots all over the place. You know it. You can’t do anything to stop it, and in an hour you’ll have other things to deal with, so get your head in the game or stop wasting my time.”
She sniffed, clearly annoyed, but turned the news down and gave him her full attention. Which was good. She was distracted and he realized that this thing they were about to do in DC was dangerous enough with her totally focused on it. She needed to let go of everything else for the time being.
“Your pivot is the issue here. You redistribute your weight at the pivot in a way that’s predictable. Anyone who watched you fight for more than a few minutes—and they should because you’re quite good—would see that flaw and they’d anticipate it. You leave too much of your body exposed for those seconds. Kick lower and snap your leg back as you pivot to cut that exposure down.”
He stood. “I’ll break it down here in four parts.” She watched him do it twice from two different angles.
“You’re doing like a hybrid of a few different styles. Instead of that lined-up karate roundhouse, you’re leading with that back leg to change your weight.”
“Yes. For your style, since you’re scrappy, I think it’ll help as you’re already sending your energy into the kick.”
“Scrappy?”
She tried it his way and by the third time she’d perfected it.
“Scrappy. You’re all over the place. Which is unexpected. You have all your focus, of course. But you’re not afraid to get in there and poke eyes or kick some balls.”
She shrugged. “It’s not an Olympic event. It’s a fight and sometimes to the death. If I gotta poke some eyes to stay alive, I’ll do so. And pull hair too.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.” And getting her worked up in a physical way would not only keep her
