Bloodlust - Helen Harper Page 0,1

image and stared back, finally deciding it was time for me to enter the fray.

“If any of you wish to leave, then do so now. No-one will be held accountable if their respective organisations decide to pull out of this…” Waste of time? Utter catastrophe? Destruction of what could have been the rest of my happy life? “Council,” I finished. I congratulated myself on my calm tone of voice.

They all just looked at me. I pointed over to my left. “The door’s right there.”

Nobody moved a muscle.

“Okay then. No more complaining about who should or shouldn’t be here then. No more snide comments towards each other. No more bickering. You don’t say anything unless it’s going to help us find and destroy Endor.”

Acquiesced silence bounded back at me. I noticed, however, that the vein in Staines’ forehead had begun bulging again. Whatever.

“What is the status with the tree nymphs?”

Both Max and Lucy began to speak at once. I held up a hand to silence them, wishing I had thought to bring along some painkillers.

“Max?”

“We’ve placed wards around all of their main habitats. They are being maintained by a considerable amount of power that is depleting our…”

“Five words or less, Max.”

His shoulders sagged. “No activity on the wards,” he muttered.

“Lucy?”

She kept her face studiously blank as she answered. I guessed I was no longer considered a friend of the shifters then. I tried not to let it bother me. It didn’t bother me. Not at all. Not one teeny iota. That sudden ache in my chest was definitely because of indigestion, not because the cloud of held-back tears was building up again at my heart.

“No sign of any nasties.”

“Beltran?”

“The same.”

“Have there been any reports from any other Otherworld species? Anything untoward whatsoever?”

They all shook their heads.

“Has everyone been warned?”

Staines cleared his throat. I nodded at him to speak. At least all that Brethren hierarchy shit was good for something.

“All the leaders, lords, ladies and councils have been notified of the situation. There are also alerts on the Othernet with numbers to contact should there be any suggestion that the necromancer has reappeared.”

“Good. Re-route any calls that sound promising to me.” I flicked a glance at Beltran. “How would you go about narrowing down the list of potential planes where he might be hiding?”

“It’ll depend on who is already there and where we think he might feel comfortable. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack, admittedly, but we need to start somewhere.”

I pursed my lips. “Agreed. As soon as you have a workable list, divide it amongst yourselves, the mages and the shifters to begin searching.” I stared at them all, hard. “A minimum of one representative from each group needs to enter each plane together. If there is any doubt as to safety, then use your own discretion and bring more people. But if I hear of one, just one, infraction or disagreement or cross look, then I will be severely fucked off and I will personally deal with those involved myself. And they won’t like it. We need to work together if we are going to track Endor down and beat him into fucking dust.”

They all looked unhappy at that, but didn’t disagree.

“Keep the Divination spells up, just in case he decides to suddenly show his face back here again,” I instructed the mages. They jerked their heads in agreement.

“Unless there are any other developments, then let’s meet back here again in a week.”

For a split second, nobody moved. I glared at them all, irritation blazing out full wattage. Everyone stood up and began to leave. For a moment, I thought that the arguments were going to break back out again when Larkin stepped on Beltran’s foot and a spasm crossed the Fae’s face. But the mage apologised clumsily and Beltran instead made a gesture of irritated dismissal. Lucy took the long way around the table to make her own exit, pausing for half a second to drop a small note next to me, then left herself. All that remained in the room was the lingering odour of the mages’ aftershave, which they’d probably only put on in such large quantities to piss off the shifters’ sensitive noses, the blissful silence, and Lucy’s note screaming up at me.

I stared at the small folded piece of paper. It had to be from Corrigan. It had been just three days since that awful meeting in this very room when I’d effectively dumped him in front of half of the Otherworld’s great