Aidan didn’t want the job, but as usual, he was putting his overdeveloped sense of responsibility before his desires. In nine days, it would be official—as long as the Penton supporters on the Tribunal continued to outnumber the haters. Aidan thought he could help the vampire population weather the pandemic vaccine that had made human blood poisonous to them. He had a lot of ideas; a Tribunal seat would give him the influence he needed to put them into action.
“Think this has anything to do with the vote coming up?” Mirren asked. “I mean, that old Austrian sonofabitch Frank Greisser is not going to just sit back and welcome you onto the Tribunal without doing something to hurt you or keep you in Penton or skew the vote.” Or all of the above.
“We definitely can’t rule it out.” Aidan stared out the window at the burned ruins that constituted pretty much all that remained of downtown Penton. “Whether it’s the Tribunal or just buzzard’s luck, we need to find out what’s wrong and do damage control so people don’t freak out. Then we’ve gotta speed up the rebuilding efforts, even if it means hiring human crews. We need places for people to live and work before this town can really recover.”
The idea of bringing in humans made Mirren’s muscles twitch, but Aidan was right. They’d been licking their wounds for three months. It was past time to get Penton on track. No reason Mark couldn’t supervise human crews, especially with the Rangers helping.
He pulled the Bronco in front of the last community house before the turn to the job site and leaned on his horn. Might as well have a little more muscle. Plus, their resident psychiatrist probably knew all kinds of damage-control mind games.
“Good idea.” Aidan motioned to Cage, who had stepped into the doorway of the house he’d moved into with Hannah and Max—and now, Fen Patrick. “Might be nothing, or it might be another Penton clusterfuck. In which case we’ll need him.”
Before Cage cleared the porch, Fen followed him out. Mirren’s first instinct last night had been to lock the guy in their silver-lined room back in the old Omega underground facility. He’d suggested it, in fact, and had even gone to retrieve the key. Glory had guilt-tripped him until he reluctantly agreed to have Cage babysit the guy instead.
But some long-lost buddy, suddenly turned vampire, shows up in town at the same time Cage happens to be returning? Rotten fish weren’t the only thing that smelled like shit.
Cage turned and spoke to Fen, who shrugged his shoulders, flashed his smarmy grin, and went back inside. Mirren got the sense that Cage didn’t trust the man, either, which made Mirren think more of the shrink, even if he was an Englishman. Aidan wanted Fen under surveillance, though, which was easier to do if they let him stay in town, under their noses.
“What’s up?” Cage slid into the backseat and gave Krys a hug. “The air smells like open house at the blood bank.”
Aidan filled him in on what he knew. “It might not be serious, but any bad news at this point can shake people’s confidence. Everyone’s nervous.”
“I think people are wondering if we should’ve come back and tried to rebuild this soon,” Krys said. “If we lose any more feeders or familiars, we’ll have to start recruiting again. We probably shouldn’t have let Shawn and Britta come in, although I like both of them. And now, Cage is back, and Fen.”
Cage nodded. “Yeah, two more sets of fangs to feed. Pity I couldn’t have brought a feeder or two with me from London, but Edward wouldn’t allow it. Things are worse there than here. Who are Shawn and Britta?”
Mirren hadn’t formed an opinion on the Penton scathe’s two newest members. They’d come together, both newish vampires who’d tracked Aidan down at the Atlanta community clinic where he volunteered and scouted for fams.
“Both of them moved to Atlanta from Mobile, thinking it would be easier to find feeders there, but it wasn’t,” Aidan said. “They seem okay. Still too early to tell.”
The two new women were under surveillance, too, although they’d relaxed it in the last week or two. There wasn’t enough manpower to watch everybody.
As badly as he wanted Penton to be the way it had been before the siege, Mirren had wondered if they should even try to rebuild before the whole pandemic vaccine crisis was resolved. No one trusted the Tribunal members to keep the vampire population calm and at peace in exchange for the humans setting up the blood bank and keeping their mouths shut.
Colonel Rick Thomas didn’t trust the Tribunal members who weren’t Penton allies, either, or he wouldn’t have parked this many of his Ranger operatives in town. Rob and Max, and the two new guys due in tonight, were now full-time Pentonites, whether they liked it or not.