His hand dropped to his lap. Curled into a loose fist. “After the zombies were eliminated, demons would have been the next target of violence. Acts of vengeance by the government, outraged common humans, or both.”
“It wouldn’t have stopped there.”
“No.” Weary resignation filled his voice. “There are too many common humans, both in the government and in everyday life, who distrust Supernaturals and would welcome any reason to slaughter all of us. Enhanced humans would be considered fair game too, most likely. Because of your cooperation with Supernaturals and because your power makes common humans fear you.”
Her own power was too scant to inspire fear, but she agreed with his overall point. He simply hadn’t taken that point to its inevitable conclusion yet.
She’d help him get there. “Even if the blame got rightfully pinned on the fae, there would be bloodshed. Maybe outright civil war.”
As he considered her words, she distracted herself from her worry by studying the sofa’s upholstery. She’d assumed the pattern was abstract, but nope. It was ravens. Wearing crowns. Each with a single wing tip tucked inside its waistcoat à la Napoléon.
Clearly he’d installed the entire My Family Is the Greatest accessory line at Rich People Lowe’s. It was fortunate that he hadn’t gotten into, say, clowns instead. She could only imagine the horrifying frescoes that would have resulted.
“So Max and Edie didn’t want word of the breach to leave the Zone,” Hugh said.
Gwen nodded and raised her gaze to his. “They gathered up a few Zone residents, including me, to help fight the zombies. We hoped to stop the creatures before the fae conspirators opened up Wall Four and let them out into the wider world, if that was the intended endgame, and before SERC and the government finally came to check on us and discovered the breach.”
“A very dangerous plan.” His jaw worked. “But it evidently worked, from what you said earlier. All zombies have now been killed?”
“Yes.”
He accepted her answer without evident distrust. “This happened…when?”
“We battled the zombies last night.” Sighing, she waved a dismissive hand. “Well, I didn’t do much.Theydid it. Max, Edie, two trolls, a couple of other Enhanced humans, and a troop of half-fae Girl Explorers.”
As they’d prepared to confront the zombies, misery at her utter uselessness had left her near tears. She couldn’t fight worth a damn. Even worse: With the continued existence of humanity at stake, her most helpful prophetic guidance had involved wayward craft supplies.
She’d wished—pleaded with the gods and goddesses—for enough power to truly help.
Then her wish had come true, and if she’d felt terrible before? Terrible wasnothingcompared to how she felt now.
Hugh exhaled slowly. “No wonder you’re exhausted.”
“Yes.” And the current state of her oven—bunned—had only added to the fatigue of an intensely frightening and sleepless night. “Now, let me circle back to why we excluded demons as the breach’s perpetrators.”
He nodded, listening attentively.
“Before the battle, our group had decided that once the zombies were gone, we needed to contact a trustworthy representative of the common human government.”
“Because a SERC official might be part of the ostensible fae conspiracy.”
“Yes.” She’d let thatostensibleslide. For now. “But there was a problem with our plan.”
His fingertips scritched absently through his beard. “You don’t have sufficient knowledge of common human governmental officials, so you couldn’t figure out whom best to contact?”
“No.” She paused. “Well, yes. But not just that.”
Here it was. The most unbelievable part of her entire story, even after all her wild-eyed talk of zombie escapes and pitched battles for humanity in the dead of night.
“Toward the very end of the battle, I apparently cried out and fell to the ground unconscious.” The mere memory chilled her anew. “My nose bled profusely. I twitched. No amount of noise roused me.”
In her final breath before unconsciousness, channeling so much power had felt like dying. Like her body was too fragile a vessel to survive the onslaught and she would crack into a million jagged, unrecoverable pieces, an oracular Humpty-Dumpty who’d finally reached the top of her personal wall and barely lived long enough to regret it.
She had no idea why she’d experienced such a massive vision after a lifetime of piddling predictions. Didn’t know if it might happen again or if she could actually believe what the Power had told her. Couldn’t even say whether such physically and mentally traumatic visions might harm her unborn baby.
But there had been no time to see a SERC-trained doctor. When it came to saving the world, she had one job and one job only: getting Councilor Hugh Blacke on their side. She was damn well going to do that job, come what may.
At her latest revelation, he’d jerked ramrod straight in his chair, and his sharp eyes scanned her from top to toe. Searching for physical evidence to confirm her tale, no doubt. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t find any. Sabby had done too good a job healing Gwen, and Gwen had done a too-thorough job of cleaning herself. Apart from the visible exhaustion he’d already noted, he wouldn’t spot any signs of last night’s trauma.
