A Shade of Vampire 37: An Empire of Stones(25)
Maybe I needed to change my plan.
Rose
The Shade’s Council—and the core GASP leadership—was waiting in the Great Dome for my father and Ben to return. Mom had just received a phone call from them that they were back in the human dimension, and Mona had gone to fetch them. Mom was pacing up and down, her boots making a faint clipping sound on the floor that added to my general unease.
Caleb and I had expanded our search of missing persons files to the whole of Europe, after the British Isles and Scotland failed to come up with anything that resembled what happened at Murkbeech. There was so much material to get through, thousands of incidents, and with each unsolved case we’d looked into, it was near impossible to ascertain whether or not there was any kind of supernatural involvement.
“Are you okay, Rose?” River asked. She was sitting to my right, looking as anxious as I felt.
I could hardly bring myself to nod. “We haven’t managed to get any more solid clues out of the humans from Murkbeech… and there’s so much information to sort through. It just feels like everything’s taking too long.”
“Did the witches come up with anything yet?” she asked.
Corrine had made a visit to The Sanctuary to see if anyone had come across anything similar, but it hadn’t proven fruitful. The incident seemed to be isolated, which made it much harder to even hazard a guess as to what we might be dealing with.
The door to the council room opened. River exhaled in relief as Ben and my dad walked through. My mom stopped pacing and swiftly embraced my father, squeezing him tight before she released him.
“Thank you all for coming.” My dad addressed the room as Ben went to take a seat next to River. My dad led my mom to the head of the table, where they both sat down. “As you know,” my father said, “Ben and I have been visiting Sherus in the fae empire. He seems convinced that there is… activity stirring in the supernatural dimension that is eventually going to threaten both Earth and the In-Between.”
“What kind of activity?” Ibrahim asked.
“That we do not know—nor does Sherus,” my father replied, his dark brows furrowing. “We are trusting his instincts. He truly believes that something powerful and dangerous is coming our way, and I doubt it is wise to ignore his conviction. We met with the rulers of all four fae kingdoms. Sherus wishes for them to align with each other, and to draw on our resources to assist them in both discovering and combating this threat.”
“It sounds like the fae are getting a good deal.” Lucas spoke up, his face set in a deep grimace. “What are the fae offering us? Will they help battle whatever this force is?”
After my uncle’s experience with the fae, I understood his skepticism, but I couldn’t share it. If there was indeed a threat looming, then we had just been given a heads-up.
“They will,” my father replied. “We might one day find that we are grateful for the forewarning as well. Plus, it can only be beneficial for us to have the fae join our network of allies—we know next to nothing about the In-Between, or what creatures might lurk there besides the fae. There may well come a time in the future when the fae can be of use.”
“I don’t trust them,” Lucas muttered, his icy blue eyes traveling the room until they rested on Ben. Lucas raised a brow at him.
All eyes turned to my brother.
“I do,” he replied to Lucas levelly. “I trust Sherus. I also share my father’s opinion that we have nothing to lose here. If the threat does reveal itself to just be a figment of the imagination, then we have only benefited by creating an alliance with the fae that could be used at a later date. And if the threat is real, then we will need them.”
“So what are our next steps?” Claudia asked.
“Sherus will continue to persuade the kingdoms to cooperate with one another,” my father replied. “We will need to start making enquiries throughout the supernatural dimension—see if there have been any other indicators that there might be trouble coming our way.”
“Okay,” I spoke up. “In that case, we need to think about labor division. Obviously the missing kids are our priority, and so far, we’ve not made much headway.”
“Of course,” my father replied. “Corrine and Rose, you will head up one team. Ben and Ibrahim will head up the other. We’ll touch base every six hours for updates.”
The council meeting adjourned, and Caleb and I headed back with Claudia, Yuri, Ashley and Landis to an empty office in the Vale’s school that we’d temporarily taken over to use as our base.