Courts and Cabals by G.S. D'Moore (best e reader for academics txt) 📕

of his seat as the lawyer led Dupree out the door. “Cam,” he called over his shoulder, and waited for the young man to turn. “I’d be careful with the Venetian’s. The money might be good, but is it worth your soul?”

From the look on Dupree’s face, it looked like he was actually thinking it over as the lawyer dragged him away. Wood waited a minute before entering the room.

“I don’t know if you got anything,” she sat on the edge of the table and sniffed in the direction Dupree had gone; tracking him by scent.

“I agree,” Vernon cracked his neck to relieve some tension. “If anything, I have more questions.” He still couldn’t shake his gut feeling about the kid.

His pocket vibrated, and he removed his tablet. The lab techs had done their job, and he had the results. A big, red negative glared back at him through the screen. Dupree wasn’t supernatural.

“Then what the hell happened?” Vernon scratched his head. He wasn’t sure what to do now.

Chapter 13

Lilith was waiting for me when I exited the administrative building.

“If they bother you at all, please, call me right away,” the well-dressed lawyer stated, and gave me his card.

“Thank you for getting here so quickly, Wesley. I know I gave you no notice,” she smiled, and the man almost tripped over himself despite the white-gold wedding band on his finger.

“You pay me enough by the hour that I can’t complain, Ms. Venitas,” the lawyer recovered before heading for his sleek, chrome Mercedes.

Lilith watched him go before she turned to me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I wasn’t completely sure if that was the truth. “The guy was just asking me some questions, but he wanted me to take a truth pill.”

“I gathered,” Lilith waved her hand over mine, and a tattoo appeared.

“Whoa,” I had to give whoever designed it props, it looked badass.

“As I said, our agreement goes both ways,” she informed. “With that, I can tell if you’re in distress. If I know you’re in danger then I can help.”

“Legal danger or impending doom apparently,” I grinned. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, but this arrangement has some perks.” That time I was being honest, but my next words stopped on the tip of my tongue.

“Yes?” she could tell there was more.

“The agent said to be careful, and that this was going to cost me my soul,” I let it out.

Most of the time, Lilith played things close to the chest, but even I could see she was struggling not to laugh at that one. “Cam, no one deals with souls. That’s one of the only myths that’s stood the test of time.”

“You know what I mean,” I shot back, not willing to accept that as an answer. “The guy’s a UN agent, and he doesn’t like you guys. That’s a lot of heat that you’re putting on my back.”

“More heat than a Fae noble trying to kill you over a blood feud?” she asked calmly.

“You’ve got a point,” I sighed, and sat down on the curb. She sat down right beside me and kicked her long legs out into the street. I was temporarily distracted by the shapely appendages.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Cam. We’ve run into conflict with the UN, and some national governments, from time to time, but for the most part, those were half-a-century ago,” she explained, and then paused to gather her thoughts. “Have you ever really thought about why the Revelation happened in the first place?”

The question threw me off guard, and as a self-proclaimed history buff, it bothered me I didn’t have an answer. She took my lack of response as permission to continue.

“Governments already knew we existed,” she stated. “There were too many of us, and too many of us caused problems that the government couldn’t ignore. All the different races owned up to those issues, but then it became a matter of the whole suffering because of the actions of a few. It was what governments were doing, and planning to do, that drove the decision for us to reveal ourselves,” her voice was troubled now.

It was before her time, but unlike me, she’d heard this from a different perspective than the human history taught in school. “There were roundups, imprisonments without cause, experiments, exterminations, and everything else any normal person would consider crimes. We weren’t arrested. We didn’t get a trial. We were disappeared, and because we were considered monsters, all we got was a bullet in the head and a shallow grave,” her chin dropped to her chest, and for a moment, I thought she was crying.

I noticed that she used “we” to include me. I was a part of her world now. I’d never been a part of anything larger than myself before, and I couldn’t lie; it felt good. I put my hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

“All supernaturals were suffering because of a few rogue factions that prompted the government to try and take us all down. So instead, we turned the tables on them,” she recovered. “We came out. Under US law, and many others, we were considered citizens. You can’t hunt down an otherwise law-abiding citizen and kill them in cold blood because they just happen to feed off sexual energy.”

Her words made me wonder how many people like her that exact thing had happened to. I suddenly felt very disgusted with my fellow man.

“We revealed ourselves to save ourselves, but the people in power couldn’t let us walk away with a win; so, they came up with the WRA. As you might have guessed, no supernatural wanted the WRA to pass, and my cabal vigorously campaigned against it wherever we could. That got us on the UN’s shit list from the start. That, coupled with some questionably-legal