Summoned Chaos (27 page)

“Elders, Ambassador, Father.” I dipped my head respectfully to each, flinching as Watkins made eye contact. For a heartbeat, I worried he might recognize me, but he waved a dismissive hand.

“This is a night for enjoyment, not formality. By the way,” he added, “I hear you have a surprise for everyone. I can’t wait to see it.”

Devon and Rancin gave me cold glares.

“It’s nothing big,” I lied. “Just something to get the party started.”

“I’m sure we’ll all enjoy it!”

Watkins was off the mark. The evening would certainly be entertaining, but I doubted anyone would enjoy my performance.

Everyone shook hands, but I could see the trepidation in the Elders’ eyes and the tension in Quinn’s jaw when they came around to her. The air between them crackled with electricity, but thankfully no one mentioned the pink elephant in the room that was her father. Or the fact that the Council was still hunting him.

Rancin especially seemed agitated. No surprise there since she’d inherited R&D in the wake of Simeon’s trial, as well as the blight the case had brought to the department.

That embarrassment was brought back into the limelight when Simeon vanished from the Skilled radar with the zombie, Anthony Banks.

It didn’t matter that Quinn had nothing to do with her father’s disappearance, she was a stark reminder that the Council—specifically the Elders—had condemned a man to death for a crime that everyone knew he didn’t commit.

Despite uncovering proof of the man’s innocence, I’d discovered that pride ran deeper than justice.

It’d be a cold day in Hell before the Elders would admit they were wrong.

Which was why I was hoping to brew up one hell of a winter storm later.

Dinner was pleasant, but painfully awkward. Our attempts at small talk fell apart when everyone, including the Elders, realized they didn’t actually want to mention the events of the past week. Or the past year for that matter. I was saved by the buzzing of my phone.

“Excuse me,” I said, standing.

Rancin frowned. “The ceremony is going to start in a few minutes.”

“Sorry, but it’s my hairdresser. I
have
to take this.”

Carla covered her smile, but Devon and Rancin scowled. I simply turned my back to them, then slalomed through the tables toward the exit.

The call went to voicemail, so I dialed the number back the second I entered the lobby.

“Please tell me you have good news.”

“I do,” Seamus replied. “It took forever thanks to the dinosaur of a computer you plugged me into. But hacking into your Elder’s account allowed me access to the Council intranet. I pinged the server for various account log-ins. When that didn’t turn up anything, I checked the IP addresses.”

I loved Seamus, but he sometimes forgot how to talk to us mortals.

“Smaller words, bud.”

He sighed. “I found your report.”

My heart quickened with excitement. “Send it.”

“Done. I have more, but will let you read that first before sending the rest.”

My phone dinged and I opened the message. Sure enough, R&D’s official findings from the first blue rift popped up. The report detailed the various opinions and recommendations of the inquiry boards. What was interesting was the complete lack of data. Where were the numbers I’d given to Pell?

“Is this it?” I asked, going back to the beginning of the document.

“Yup.”

“But it’s missing a ton of critical information.” It just didn’t make sense.

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg, dude. Someone has been removing tons of data.”

“Deleting?”

“Hiding. But they don’t seem too hip on computer security, so it didn’t take me long to find the files. Forwarding what I found.”

My phone almost blew up with the deluge of information. Message after message poured in.

Reports from rift teams, personality profiles, R&D analyses—the works. Out of curiosity, I opened Arbent’s original report to R&D about “our” rift. It was a clunky, heavy read with broken sentences and odd numbers. It took a second reading before I realized it had been heavily edited.

If he’d ever made an official statement about the one in Maryland I’d asked him to investigate, it never made it to paper.

While it appeared as if someone was muting the danger of the blue rifts, they had increased the volume of another threat.

Message after message rolled in, but all of the data centered around decades worth of birth certificates from both Skilled Healers and Normal hospitals. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of names matched to their parentage.

Reading over the various graph and chart attachments, I slowly began to make sense of the information. Numbers, analysis, forecasts. The briefings highlighted one very terrifying result.

The Skilled were on the decline.

My stomach tightened the more I read. “Seamus, are you sure this information is accurate?”

“I can’t speak to the accuracy, but I can guarantee those birth certificates are copies of the real thing. And it’s all from the same person.”

My phone buzzed again. I froze when I saw the name in the message. My mind whirled, struggling to connect it to the events of the past few weeks.

“This doesn’t make sense,” I muttered.

“Sorry, bud. I just find the data. You’re the one who has to interpret it.” When I didn’t respond he said, “So, need anything else?”

I stared. “No. This is good. Thanks.”

“Anytime. Hey, before I go, who is Shannon?”

I racked my brains. “No idea. Why?”

“That name showed up a lot with the account. Thought you might find it interesting.”

I nodded numbly. “Oh, I do.”

“See ya’ around,” he said, and hung up.

I stood in the hall, dazed.

The evidence was damning, but not solid.

Removing data was one thing—proving that a person was behind an assassination attempt was something completely different. I had a name, Monroe’s report and a lot of “unrelated” charts. All of it confirmed my own suspicions, but it wouldn’t hold up in a court of law.

Which meant I’d need a confession. Or something close to it.

I’d promised theatrics, but hadn’t expected anything like the performance I was about to give.

The ceremony was well underway by the time I weaved back through the tables. Several diners grumbled when I bumped into them, but their complaints were distant and muted.

“You feeling okay?” Quinn asked as I rejoined her. “You’re very pale.”

I glanced to the podium where Elsa was in the middle of her speech. She had a pretty voice and her confidence in front of the crowd was impressive. I didn’t bother paying attention to what she was saying.

Instead, I scanned my table, the audience, and the media folks at the back of the room before turning back to my date. “Interesting call.”

She slipped her fingers into mine. “You sure you want to do this?”

“No,” I said, firmly. “But I have to.”

She squeezed my hand.

Elsa spoke for another minute or so, then wrapped up to a standing ovation. Cameras flashed as Ambassador Jones walked up to the podium, shook her hand, then stood in front of the mic.

“On behalf of the Office for Skilled Relations, I’d like to present Ms. Klein with a newly minted medal. The Unity Award recognizes those persons who go above and beyond the call to help build relations between our two societies. Having risked her life to defend both Skilled and Normals during the attack at the Delwinn Council’s headquarters building, we feel that Ms. Elsa Klein represents the qualities inherent to the spirit of this award and are honored to make her the very first recipient.”

Carla took an opened box from one of her staffers on stage which she then presented to Elsa. The latter beamed and the two shook hands, pausing for several photographs Elsa shook the Ambassador’s hand once again, then descended the short staircase gracefully, rejoining us at our table.

“Congratulations,” Elder Watkins said to her.

Carla smiled at the crowd. “Our second, and final speaker needs very little introduction. He not only helped save many lives that same night, including my own, but has also been in the media quite a lot ever since. Sometimes that’s been a good thing.”

The audience chuckled politely.

“Please welcome to the stage, Warlock Marcus Shifter.”

Nausea swept over me, but I fought it. I put on the mask of an entertainer to cover the fear that threatened to consume me.

Show time.

I hopped up the stairs, shaking Carla’s hand as I reached the podium. She walked off the stage, leaving me alone with the crowd, the lights and the cameras.

I paused, collecting my courage as I drank in the sight of the audience. Skilled, Normals, and even several representatives of the religious conglomerate all looked up at me with interested, sometimes annoyed, expressions.

But tucked within the crowd of skeptics were people who radiated love or support. Quinn, my folks, Healer Jenkins, Arbent, Councilman Monroe, even Jethrow and Carrie. Their gazes fixated on me, silently filling me with the courage to step out on a limb and take a leap of faith.

My hands shook as I removed my prepared speech from inside my robes.

These were no longer the words I needed.

“I bet most of you think Hell’s frozen over at this point,” I said, setting the papers to the side.

Laughter.

Good.

“When the Elders asked me to say a few words this evening, I wanted nothing to do with it. Part of that is because I hate public speaking, the other part is because I really,
really
hate public speaking. So if I screw up or fall short, please forgive me.”

Light applause. Camera flashes.

“Let me begin by saying that this night is special. Not only because it is the anniversary of the formal Reformation between the Skilled and Normals, but also because it is a night where we honor a unity that’s been decades in the making.

“For countless generations, the Skilled lived in the shadows, hiding from the persecution brought on by fear, hate, or greed. We learned to trust only ourselves, staying hidden in the corners or pretending to be Normal just to fit in with society. Yet we all carried the secret of what we were and with it the terror that someday we would be murdered because of it. To say we had trust issues is an understatement.”

The audience rumbled with amusement. A decent start.

“I was just a kid when the peace accord was signed, so I barely remember what it was like to live in that world of fear. But many of the Skilled do.” I looked at the Elders seated at my table. “For some, it’s a scar that will never fully heal.”

All three Elders seemed entranced—Rancin even had tears in her eyes. Father Pierce gazed on, listening intently.

Okay, I still had their attention.

“It’s been twenty years since that momentous day and I think we can all agree that our worlds have come quite a long ways since then. Pop culture seems obsessed with the paranormals while Normals are accepting of the Skilled way of life. Hell, I’ve even gotten to know a handful of kids that would sign up for our training if they were allowed. Obviously that’s not possible, but the sentiment is meaningful. We’re not pariahs anymore. We’ve been accepted within the fold of humanity.”

I turned to the table where Jethrow and Carrie were seated, pausing to look them both in the eyes. “It warms my heart that the generations of Normals and Skilled who follow us will never know a world where they are not considered human. It’s the reason why so many of us work so hard to protect the peace. Because our future generations deserve it.”

I glanced at Quinn. She smiled up at me, filling me with resolve. My hands calmed and I returned my attention to the crowd. “Which is why it boggles my mind that anyone would want to screw with it. Sure, there will always be friction, but I’m talking about actively trying to drive a wedge between us.”

The audience murmured and several people shifted uncomfortably. I spotted Arbent and nodded at him. He rose, walking to the table where Helga was sitting. Cameras swung to photograph him as he passed.

No
,
stay focused on me.

“You see,” I said, raising my voice slightly, “something’s been bothering me since the attack at HQ. The Mimics we faced weren’t run-of-the-mill. They were aggressive. More important, they knew where to go. They killed several of Ambassador Jones’s staff. Then they came after me.”

That got everyone’s attention, including the media.

Keep it up.

“I take that kind of thing personally, so my friends and I started doing a little research. What we uncovered were more questions than answers, but the one thing that kept popping up were these annoying rifts. As many of you know, I’ve been working with the repair teams and, over the past few months, have encountered a surprising number of them. These rifts, however, were unstable, created by fractures in the fabric of our reality. Imagine my surprise when my friends and I discovered one that was the opposite. One that was man made.”