Page 29 of Peacemaker

Chapter Nine

They’re Coming

I called Shane as Clayton drove us out of the hospital parking lot. “Where are you?”

“I’m heading home,” he replied. “I just got off the phone with Angus. Himself has called a meeting in Willow-Wisp and they’re waiting for us.”

“Oh.” A little ping of nervousness hit my insides. Himself would make anyone nervous. “Did you see Crawford?”

“No.”

I hung up. “Himself called a meeting in Willow-Wisp,” I told Clayton. “We have to get back to Bay Town.”

He nodded and drove a little faster.

I called Crawford. “I did the job. I’m on my way back to Bay Town. If you need me, call me.”

“You and the hunters should stay in the city until we figure this out, Trinity.”

I hesitated. “We have to go back. There’s a meeting.”

“I see.”

“We’ll be back,” I said. “But you’ll want to convince the mayor—and the city—to retract the regulations they’re putting into place. If things don’t start to improve for the supernaturals, my hunters and I are not going to risk our lives protecting you. We’re going to concentrate on protecting Bay Town, instead.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” Frank said. “I know where your loyalties lie.”

“Time is running out,” I said, refusing to rise to the bait. “Tell him, Captain.”

I hung up.

When we pulled up to the way station, Shane was trailing my car, and Angus was waiting out front with Rhys.

Angus held out his hand to me. “We need to go.”

My heart stuttered. “Shane told me.”

I took a deep breath as we walked to the cemetery. Even Jin followed along behind us. And when we walked through the gates, it was packed with supernaturals. They parted for us, opening a path to Himself.

The King of Everything.

He sat on a wooden throne deep inside the graveyard, and Nadine stood beside him. When he saw me, he thumped his walking stick on the ground.

“Caretaker,” Nadine called. “Come.”

I released Angus’s hand and walked toward them. Deep within my body, Silverlight began to hum.

When I reached the mystical old man, I dropped to my knees. It didn’t occur to me to do otherwise. I stared up at him, and when he met my gaze, everything else dropped away.

“Stand at my side.” His face, lost in folds and crevices, was still somehow forbidding, and his dark eyes held only snapping, crackling power.

I did as he asked, then stared out at the throng of silent supernaturals, my jaw clenched, my body shaking from cold. But it wasn’t cold.

There was a sea of power surrounding me, and the power was overwhelming. Power not only from Himself but from the mass of supernaturals who stood watchful and waiting. They were power.

Any one of them could have been taken down by the humans—but together, God, together, they could do some serious, serious damage. I thought they could do anything.

A woman I didn’t recognize strode through the restless crowd and stopped beside Angus, and when she touched his arm, he leaned down to let her murmur something into his ear.