Page 55 of The Mermaid's Bubble Lounge
Russell didn’t respond, so Clive said, “She’s been traumatized by her captivity and abuse. She hasn’t yet shifted to her other form, so no one has spoken to her yet.”
Joao shook his head. “We have to make this go away before that happens. It can’t get out that she was taken and tortured by vampires.” He threw his hands in the air and began to pace again. “We’d end up at war with shifters.”
Pablo raised his eyebrows. “Did you miss the part about her being protected by dragons?”
“What?” Joao stopped and looked between Pablo and Clive. “She’s a jaguar. Will they care?”
It’s a good thing I’m not in that room. My fingertips are tingling. I want to separate his head from his body.
I know, but stay where you are and let me handle it.
“They will care very much. If anyone tried to get close to her, they’d die a fiery death. We have five dragons living in this town who are very protective of this shifter. What you have to understand about dragons is that they are an ancient force and though there are different clans in different parts of the world, they are all dragons and would drop everything, sacrifice anything, to come to the aid of another dragon. The clans are very tight-knit families, and this jaguar is now under the protection of the Drake clan.”
Clive gestured to Ahmed. “A very large part of the reason we won the Battle of Alcatraz against a far greater number of Master vampires is because we had dragons working with us, flying over the island and the ocean, burning any of Garyn’s people that they found.” Clive glanced at the others. “So, no, we can’t just silence the shifter to hide our own culpability.”
“We need to tell her family,” Adaeze said.
“Now, wait—” Joao began.
“Enough,” Cadmael grumbled. “Have your people investigate,” he said to Joao. “I would think an American, and a Texan no less, would stand out in the rainforest. If he wasn’t the one who stole her—and given what Russell has told us about him, I’d assume he acquired her later—then we need to trace the trafficking. We need to know where and when our people were involved in the supernatural trade.”
“Yes,” Vlad agreed. “We also need to look into other missing shifters. I doubt this was an isolated incident.”
Thi cleared her throat. “Why would any of our people be involved in this? It seems more likely to be warfare between shifters.” She gestured to Joao. “I understand this happened in your territory, but so has a great many other things that have nothing to do with us. I don’t think it falls to us to spend our time and effort on shifter concerns.”
“It was a vampire imprisoning the jaguar,” Adaeze reminded her. “We are involved in it. And if we had been paying more attention to what was happening around us, we would have figured out what this pooka was doing long before now.”
Thi inclined her head. “Assuming there is a pooka and it’s killing to mimic us. There seem to be a great many unknowns and assumptions being made.”
“Yes, exactly,” Pablo said, tapping the table near Thi’s elbow. “They’re presenting conjecture as though it’s fact.”
Vlad slumped back in his chair. “Now I remember why I hate this job.” He checked his watch. “I think we’ve reached the end of our productive time. If we’ve moved into the bickering phase of the meeting, I have a book to read.”
Cadmael closed his eyes a moment. “Unhelpful. Agreed, but unhelpful.” He looked up at the clock on the wall. “It’s after three. We have phone calls to make for the Counselor candidates we’ve discussed. Let’s break now, contact who we need to contact, and regroup tomorrow to continue the discussion. We have a monumental amount of work to do to rebuild the Guild. I don’t want us getting bogged down in unnecessary arguments.”
Adaeze and Ahmed nodded and stood. Pablo looked ready to continue fighting, but when Thi nodded and stood, he knew he’d lost his ally and so stood as well. Joao was still looking harassed, standing by the fireplace.
“You all know where your rooms are,” Russell said. “Your people are downstairs, though I assume you can call them to you, if you’d like them up here. The nocturne’s facilities are at your disposal. If there’s anything that you need, please feel free to ask one of my people.” He inclined his head and left the library.
“I’m going to go find my wife and wake her up.” Turning to Cadmael and Vlad, Clive added, “We’ll be out at the car in a few minutes, if you two would like a ride.”
I’m in Russell’s office.
I know, darling. On my way.
I blinked my eyes open and realized that Audrey had stayed with me. Pushing myself up to a seated position, I said, “Thank you. That was kind of you to stay with me.”
She waved away my thanks and came over to fix my hair. After she’d gone to the trouble to put it up for me, I’d proceeded to lie down on the bench for a few hours. “I wasn’t going to leave you vulnerable, missus. Has the meeting broken up, then?”
I nodded as Clive walked in. “There’s my little sleepyhead.” Play it up. You’ve been asleep for a few hours, remember? “Come, Fergus.”
Right. Sorry. I yawned loudly and Clive grinned before picking me up and carrying me to the door, my head tucked into his neck.
Russell and Godfrey were standing in the entry as Clive walked by with me in his arms. My head was down, but I felt the interest of a few vampires as Clive walked us past the stairs.
“Tell her we said good night,” Godfrey murmured. “And tell her to come back tomorrow so we can finish the docuseries. We were at a good part when she fell asleep.”
“I will. Thank you,” Clive said, walking out the front door and to our car.
