“What is that?” Cage edged around Aidan, walked toward the nearest mat, and leaned over to look at the stack of flyers. “Bloody hell.”
He snatched it up and read it, turned it over, and then handed it to Robin. “Tell me that’s not real.”
“Who is it?” Robin held the flyer up so Nik could see it without touching it.
“It’s Will.” Mirren took another flyer off the mat. On it was a photograph blown up to fill most of the page, showing a man at the end of a torture as brutal as any Mirren had inflicted in his Slayer days—and that was saying something.
The man was clearly Will Ludlam, strapped naked to a chair and beaten black and bloody. His legs were ribbons of torn flesh. One eye appeared to have been gouged out. At least two fingers had been cut off, leaving bloody stumps.
Robin read: “‘One of Penton’s leaders is dead. Who will be next?’” She held the flyer at an angle so the light would hit it differently. “It’s a Photoshop job, I think. The head’s a little too big for the body—they don’t belong to the same person. And I think some kind of filter was applied on his face to make it look so beat up.”
Silence. Robin looked up and seemed surprised to find everyone staring at her—even Nik. “What? Gadget’s been teaching me how to retouch photos.”
Aidan held up a hand. “Good thing to know—it might have saved us some angst. Yes, it’s a fake. I talked to Will and both he and Randa are fine. They’re in Columbus, getting ready for Rob’s funeral tomorrow. The colonel’s flying in there tonight. I told them not to come back until after the Tribunal vote. I think things are just going to keep getting uglier until that’s behind us.”
In Mirren’s opinion, Aidan was naive if he thought becoming a member of the Tribunal would solve their problems. On the other hand, at least it offered some hope, which had been in short supply around there.
“Where’d the flyer come from?” Robin asked.
“I hoped maybe Nik could tell us.” Mirren handed the flyer to Nik, who took it reluctantly and walked over to a corner of the room where he could get away from everyone. Except the damned shifter, who followed him.
“Glory found the flyer tacked to an electrical pole outside the clinic,” Mirren said. “She tore it down and was on her way to bring it to me when she started seeing them all over town—on every surface that was still standing. Too many people had seen it.”
Aidan nodded. “The damage was done. The ones who left called me not five minutes after I talked to Will. Even after they found out it was fake, they still wanted to leave. I can’t blame them.”
“Whoever did this is a fucking coward.” Mirren kicked at one of the mats, sending it sliding across the floor in a flurry of dust. “How do we fight it?”
He’d engaged in every kind of battle imaginable, or so he thought. He’d met men armed with battle-axes and swords; he’d fought wearing chain mail of his own construction. He’d used fangs and his own brute strength to tear opponents’ limbs from their bodies. He’d beheaded, stabbed, shot, burned, poisoned. But he couldn’t fight what he couldn’t see—and that just pissed him off.
“It’s classic psychological warfare,” Cage said, sitting on one of the mats. “The Germans used it a lot in World War II, and so did the Brits and the Yanks. It’s effective from a victim standpoint because there’s no way to fight it except to let people know what’s happening and hope they have the courage and patience to stick it out. It’s effective from the enemy’s standpoint because there’s little risk. Well, normally.”
Aidan had been nodding while Cage talked. “Suggestions?”
Cage shrugged. “I’d say we call a meeting of everyone in town, tell them exactly what’s going on, and warn them not to believe what they hear or see unless it’s coming from one of us.”
“I agree.” Aidan looked at Mark. “Do you feel up to organizing the meeting for tomorrow just after daysleep? It’ll take us that long to get the word out. We can have it here.”
“Will do.” Mark looked up at Melissa, who nodded. “There’s something else you need to know.”
Mirren walked to the nearest wall and leaned against it, arms crossed. He so didn’t want to hear one more piece of fucking bad news.
In halting speech, Mark laid out the scenario: finding the drugs, being tempted by the drugs, deciding he could do without the drugs. While he talked, Melissa stood behind him with a hand on his shoulder.
“So whoever did this knows your background well enough to know your particular poison.” Mirren didn’t like this one bit. “Whoever did it also has access to controlled drugs. And, most serious of all, whoever did it has access to Aidan’s house.”