I was dressed, standing at my living room window, watching the tree Tessa had hidden behind.
She wasn’t there. People and bikes went up and down both sides of the canal. St. Nicholas Day Eve was not a public holiday, but we’d made a point of having two days off for family time. At least we were trying too, me still holding onto that fragile hope that we could have that once Dean came home.
Pathetic wishful thinking. Tessa was the new shit, and this case of Mrs. Visser was already interfering with our plans.
I’d found Tessa online. Tessa Ricci—an Italian name. The details about her online said she was from Rome.
Tessa was part of the Conclave. She’d given speeches at conferences about the erosion of family values, and the negative impact of magic on the young. According to her vitriolic mind in one video, the use of magic was the first step toward absolute corruption. Magic was a glorious entity to any weak human mind, she’d said, especially those who did not have the Lord in their heart. Magic needed to be eradicated from society, she’d prattled on, needing to be bound in those born with it before more children could be dragged down the road of witchcraft and sin. How she was actually going to achieve binding magic wasn’t something she’d mentioned. It took magic to bind magic.
She was utterly clueless but believed she had the right to cast judgment.
I clicked play on another video I had of her on my phone. This one was a speech at yet another Conclave conference, taking place in London. It was terrifying how packed the auditorium was.
“The existence of werewolves,” she said, “is spitting in the eye of Him. God did not make these creatures; man did with its science and experiments. Do not believe what the sinners tell you, that God made us all in His eyes. He did not. Magic is evil, of Satan and man. God would not suffer a human to become a beast. That is not in His pure vision, in how He made the world. A wolf is a wolf; a man is a man. Science and Satan. Say it with me! Science and Satan!”
The crowd said it with her and cheered. The blend of science and the devil was commonplace in Conclave doctrine when explaining the supernatural world now.
Once everyone had settled down after their cheering, Tessa carried on. “These abominations must be purged. There is no saving them, no binding them. The filthy magic within them cannot be tamed.”
Bullshit. Ninety percent of wolves were born with their werewolf gene, and they pretty much had a handle on their other nature from the start. Werewolves weren’t out of control monsters at all.
“They will change when the moon is full, hunt down our children.”
I waited for the evidence of werewolves eating kids. Nothing was mentioned, just the excitement of the crowd.
Whipping up a crowd was easy. All it took was charisma and having some skills at social engineering. You could sell anything with the right words, with the manner in which you put your bollocks across to those who were waiting to lap it up. And, man, did the people in these videos lap that shit up.
Tessa had the gift of crowd-pleasing verbal tosh. Because that’s all it was. Tosh. She was speaking without actually saying anything.
That’s what was so scary.
How many werewolves had she purged herself? There had been murders of supes by those who loathed them—a lot of the time in the name of the Conclave’s version of God. But the truth was, the only name those supes were killed in was the name of hate. Like love, hate was a powerful fucking force that could tear up the world.
I’d put a bet on Tessa never having confronted a werewolf in her life. She wouldn’t have the courage.
Let the minions do the dirty work.
I shut the video down. It went on and on about werewolves being rapists, hungry for your daughters, lusting after the blood of virgins, all that vile shite.
My attention went back to the tree. Tessa wasn’t out there.
What did she want with me? Was it Dean she wanted to hurt? I wasn’t really a supe. My smoking spear didn’t really count. It didn’t do anything but smoke. I still had the strength I’d had when I was a weapon of the Goddess, but no magical abilities. She’d know about Dean’s half-fae nature. Was it him she really wanted? If so, she’d been seeing her own blood decorating the pavement. No one came for my man.
Lou wasn’t a supe either. Her mother had been human, and Dean hadn’t passed on any of his fae DNA to her. Not that we knew of.
As I went to sip my tea, Cherry came striding up the canal path. She was wrapped in a fluffy brown coat that fell just below her knees. Her legs were bare, her heels luminescent yellow. How the hell she didn’t slip over on the frosty ground was beyond me.
She was heading up my stoop.
I hurried to the door. “Cherry? What’re you doing here, luv?”
She pushed her messy red hair out of her face. Trails of dark mascara had run down her pale, freckled cheeks, and her lipstick was smudged. She was a mess.
“What’s the matter?” I stepped back, letting her in. “Has someone hurt you?”
Fresh tears rolled down her face. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I closed the door.
“I’m a drowned rat.” Her coat, which she’d been holding together in her hands, fell open. Beneath it, she was in a sheer, white nightie, a pink dayglow bra, and knickers showing beneath.
“You must be frozen. Where’s your clothes?”
She wiped at her tears as I led her to the kitchen. “I was in a hurry.”
“Have a seat.” I handed her a tissue and put the kettle on. It must have been a client who’d upset her. “If anyone’s put a hand on you—”
She shook her head, dabbing at her eyes with the
