Page 52 of Peacemaker

Suited men and women stepped back, allowing me to stand beside Delaney, and he offered me a huge smile and a hearty handshake when I reached him.

I shook his hand. “Mayor. Did you get my message about tossing out the new supernatural regulations?”

“Now is not the time.” He turned to the microphones, the reporters, and the watching crowd. “I’m sure you all know our famous vampire hunter, but for those of you who have been living under a rock these last few months, allow me to introduce Ms. Trinity Sinclair.”

“Sir—”

He put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed my upper arm. “Play nice,” he murmured.

I shrugged his hand off my shoulder. “I’m not playing anything, Mayor.”

Reporters and onlookers alike were yelling questions—not only for the mayor, but for me.

“My wife was turned and then killed,” a man yelled. “The hunters killed her!” He clenched his fists and took a step closer to us, an older man with wrinkled clothes and red eyes, a man full of grief and devastation. “You killed her!”

“She killed my child. She killed my boy.” A woman stepped up beside him, and I remembered her. The mother of the teenaged boy Josh.

“No,” the mayor said, before anyone else could speak. “Trinity didn’t kill your loved ones. They were killed by the vampires. She simply ended their suffering.”

“What now?” someone called. “What about tonight? Will the vampires be back?”

“What kind of vampires are they?”

“Why are they attacking us?”

I leaned toward the microphones, interrupting the stream of questions thrown at me. “My hunters and I will do everything we can to protect you.” Were there things they could do to protect themselves from the coming rifters? Maybe. But I wasn’t going to be able to suggest anything while standing on the steps being yelled at by a hysterical crowd. “I need to talk to you in private,” I muttered to Delaney. “There are things you don’t know.”

Delaney stiffened but kept his smile firmly in place. “I can take care of my people. You shouldn’t be creating more hysteria. I’ve got it under control.”

“You can’t control these creatures, Mayor.” I didn’t bother keeping my voice down. “You can only hope I kill them before they kill you.”

Anxiety rippled through the crowd like a shaky wind, and Delaney turned to glare at me, the shine of anger in his eyes. “You can behave yourself, or I can have you removed. Your choice.”

“Shit,” I whispered. I looked out at the growing, noisy crowd, and saw Crawford standing at the edge, his body stiff, his lips pressed together in a line of displeasure. Whether at me, the crowd, or the mayor, I couldn’t have said.

He began to walk toward me, then pointed away from the crowd, silently urging me to join him. Maybe he was worried the people would turn on me.

“Mayor,” I said. “I need to talk with you privately about what happened last night. Those vampires weren’t—”

“Go back to Bay Town, Ms. Sinclair,” he interrupted. “I’ve got this.”

Finally, I backed away from him and the microphones and the frenzy of the crowd, and I went to join Crawford.

I needed to explain the situation to him. He could pass the information to the fucking mayor.

“He’s not willing to listen,” Crawford said, taking my arm. “You’ll have to call his office. Maybe they’ll get him to agree to a meeting.”

“Or I can talk to the press.” We walked back down the steps, and I took a deep, cleansing breath once we were away from City Hall.

“I’ve struggled with vampires my entire life. Those things last night…I’ve never seen fangs like those. And they were faster. Bigger.” He looked at me. “What were they, Sinclair?”

I blew out a tired breath. “I have a lot to tell you.”

He guided me into a tiny diner called Edna’s. “Let’s talk over breakfast.”

That was okay with me—I never felt full enough anymore.

The restaurant was one of those old tucked-away treasures that had somehow managed to stay the same over the years. The city had moved on, grown up, and changed, but the diner stayed stuck in the past.