“Better,” Helena said, pleased, when Owen emerged from her bathroom, clean, bandaged, and walking under his own power. She kept a small collection of clothing for her Coven tucked away in case of emergencies, and that included suits in several sizes. As she suspected, he had the shoulders to wear one well, even if the sleeves and legs were somewhat short on him. “Much better. You rally well.”
“I have to,” Owen said tiredly. His short brown hair was wet, and the scruff on his cheeks now looked intentional, rather than messy. “Josef will figure out I survived pretty soon. If I don’t have my shit in gear by the time he does, I’m toast.”
“He did not stay to assure himself of your fate?” That was just sloppy. These days it was rare that Helena had to deal with a problem in her coven, but when she did, she made sure it was done properly and with finality.
“He might be crazy, but he knows most of the Hunters in the city will listen to me. I had to vanish, and he had to be seen in public when I did.”
Ah. Deniability. That did make sense. Helena nodded and gestured to the entry. “My driver is waiting. The Elders of the city will hear you out, and respect that, until I decide otherwise, you are under my protection.”
“Thanks for that,” he said, and Helena was surprised to hear that he meant it. When he saw her giving him the side-eye, he cracked a weary smile. “Look, I’m a Hunter who’s about to walk into the middle of a Vamp meeting. I’ll take any help I can get, and you didn’t eat me when you had the chance.”
“I like my prey clean and well dressed,” she replied dryly as they walked out of the office. She had called her driver and the other Elders while the Hunter got cleaned up. “At the moment, you are barely either.”
The limo pulled up and Helena spared a nod for her driver as she slid in, followed by her errant hunter. He was quiet, and moved well, for all that he had a number of weapons concealed on his person. That was alright. If she was in his place, she would wish to be armed as well.
If he made a move against her or the other Elders, she would rip his throat out herself.
“What should I expect?” Owen asked after long minutes of quiet. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, unused to the luxury that now surrounded him. Helena debated with herself for a moment, and pressed a button on her armrest. A panel slid open and revealed a small tablet. She pulled it out and turned it on.
“A great deal of our usual formality will be set aside in favor of urgency,” she explained, and pulled up the most recent photo of all the Elders, herself included, so that he could see them. “Believe it or not, this isn’t terribly uncommon, although the threat usually isn’t city-wide.”
Owen took the tablet and looked over the faces. Some vampires could read minds, but Helena wasn’t one of them, and wondered what he was thinking.
“I knew about most of them,” he decided at last. “And the ones I didn’t know about aren’t a surprise. Will they listen to me?”
“Some won’t,” Helena admitted. “Some members of the Council are old-fashioned. Many are wary about any alliance with the other factions in the city, especially Hunters, and you are not unknown to us.”
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“That’s what I get for killing Henri, huh?”
Henri hadn’t been especially popular on the Elder Council, but killing an Elder got attention, and not the good kind. Owen had put a stake through the Elder’s heart, killed nearly a dozen of his top-ranked Coven, and lit their coven-hold on fire.
Needless to say, there weren’t many vampires in the city who were inclined to look kindly on such a notorious Hunter.
“You killed an Elder,” Helena said frankly and not without faint annoyance. “And burned a Coven. The power-vacuum that left made a lot of trouble for all of us, me included.”
“Hope you don’t expect an apology.”
“I don’t, although an explanation might help your case. You Hunters don’t usually go after Elders.” She hadn’t especially liked Henri, and his death did make room for her rise in power. All the same, he was an Elder, and his death made it difficult to believe anything Owen had to say.
“Usually you Elders keep a tight grip on your people,” Owen told her uncomfortably. “I don’t like vamps, but I can admit that. Unlimited killing is bad for everyone. I found out that he was arranging massacres for his favorites. Lots of dead. Some turned and left to figure things out on their own. It was a mess.”
“And you killed him for it?”
“No. I killed him because my best friend was one of the dead. He told me who turned him, and then we watched the sunrise.”
Owen’s voice was bitter and pained, and Helena considered his angry, but steady, heartbeat. Older vampires could stand sunlight. Oh, it always burned, but by the time a vampire reached their first century, their healing factor was usually fast enough to hide the damage from human eyes. Fledgling would have burned in minutes. Not a good death, and not a painless one.
“A lawful vendetta,” she concluded after considering the factors. The other Elders hadn’t been unaware of that particular habit of Henri’s, and had been in the process of deciding what to do about it when Owen quite literally burned everything to the ground. “That will help. We take vengeance seriously.”
“If it helps, it helps,” Owen told her, and stared out the darkened windows. Helena wasn’t concerned about him memorizing the route. The Council changed their meeting place every month. “I’m serious about Josef. He’s going to kill us all if he can.”
“I believe you,” Helena murmured, and turned the new problem over in her mind even as they drew near to the appointed meeting place. “Do not pull a weapon in this place. No matter how they threaten, or what they do, none of them may lawfully touch you while you are under my protection. If they do, it is for me do deal with them.”
“Are you fast enough to keep them from taking my throat out if I say the wrong thing?”
He was dubious. Helena smiled coldly.
“I forget,” she said, deceptively mild but with a very smug edge. Plenty of challengers took her pristine white suit and sky-high designer heels as a sign that her power was purely political. “That we have never fought, you and I. Yes, I am fast enough to keep you from harm if they attack you, but if you break our laws at an Elder Council, you will die, and possibly so will I.”
“Vampires and your laws,” he grumbled, but relented. “Can I go in armed?”
“I would rather you did not.”
“You’re asking a lot of me to walk into a vamp lair without a stake.”
“You asked much of me when you showed up half-dead in my office.”
He winced, but began pulling weapons off his person with remarkable efficiency. Helena gestured to one bench of the limo. They would be leaving together. He could pick them up after the meeting.
“Is that everything?” she asked when he seemed to be done. He hesitated and looked her in the eye.
“Are you sure?” he asked slowly, callused hands clenched. “We met less than an hour ago. How do I know I’m not going to get eaten the moment I walk through those doors?”
“You don’t,” Helena told him flatly, and sat back as the limo came to a stop. “You will have to trust that I will protect our alliance and the information you represent.”
“Is it weird that I’m comforted by being too valuable to kill?” he joked, and finally pulled out the gun that Helena could smell and hadn’t wanted to take off him unless she had to. It joined the rest of his weapons in the pile. “Okay. Let’s get this done. Josef is gonna be looking for me by sundown.”