“It may be time to discuss lobbyists and our friends in Washington,” Luc said.
Ethan nodded. “Let’s put that on the agenda.” He put his hands flat on the tabletop. “I think that’s it for now, unless anyone has anything else?”
Luc shook his head. “I’d like a hot shower and a bowl of predawn soup, but that’s not really in your wheelhouse.”
“No,” Ethan said, rising from his chair. “Nor my jurisdiction.”
My phone rang, displaying a number I didn’t recognize. Curious, I stepped away from the table and accepted the call.
“Hello?”
“Merit, it’s Jonah. Sorry—this is the first chance I’ve had to call you.”
“Hey, I tried to text you earlier, but it didn’t go through. Are you all right? I assume you heard about the riot. Did you get a new phone?”
“I didn’t, actually,” he said, a strange hitch in his voice. “I’m using a burn phone. That’s why I’m calling you.” He paused, which made my stomach knot with foreboding.
“You might want to give Ethan a heads-up—the GP has blacklisted Cadogan House.”
Chapter Six
WE BUILT THIS CITY ON TYPE AB
“I don’t know what that means,” I told Jonah.
“It means, according to the GP—and therefore every vampire under the GP’s control—you’re the enemy. And you’re to be treated like an enemy by the GP and every vampire under the GP’s control.”
Ethan had warned me once, before we’d considered leaving the GP, that they wouldn’t take our leaving lightly. They suffered from a strong case of “if you aren’t with us, you’re against us.”
“That’s why my text to you bounced?”
“Yeah. We aren’t supposed to talk to you,” Jonah said. “Interact with you. Be seen with you. We do, and we get charged with treason.”
I sat down in my chair again and found all eyes on me, phone pressed to my ear.
“I’m guessing that’s bad,” I said.
“The GP has feudal roots,” Jonah said. “The punishments for treason are equally feudal.”
I’d researched medieval torture in grad school. Some of the methods were exaggerated, but some of them were very real and very painful. Metal spikes figured in surprisingly often.
“The GP wouldn’t do this without a plan,” I said. “What is it?”
“I’m not sure. Scott just got the call a few hours ago.”
That explained why we’d suddenly gone from a training session to rejected text messages.
“You’re going to talk to your friend who likes donuts?” I asked.
That secret friend was Lakshmi Rao, a member of the GP, and a friend of the RG. She also had a crush on Jonah, which made her an unusually strong ally. I’d met her in a donut shop in downtown Chicago.
“I am, if I can reach her. She’s been quiet recently. I think Michael Donovan scared her.”
Along with Darius West, the GP’s head, Lakshmi had been one of Michael Donovan’s near successes. We’d managed to find her alive, but it had been a close call, and the experience must have been jarring, especially for a GP vampire who probably believed herself generally immune to threats.
“Sit tight,” Jonah said. “Even if Scott has to let this stand, the RG doesn’t. I’ll use burn phones to contact you, or I’ll reach you through the RG. Just don’t tell Darius. And keep a lookout. If the GP is going formal with this enemy-of-the-state business, there’s no telling what they’ll do.”
“Okay,” I said. “Be careful out there. And, hey, just in case, keep a lookout for a human named Robin Pope.”
“Who’s she?”
“We aren’t sure. But possibly involved with the riot. She had a grievance against Bryant Industries.”
“Noted. Thanks for the tip.”
With that, he ended the call. For a moment, I stared at the phone in my hands, unsure how to break the news to Ethan and the others. I didn’t look forward to advising them the GP was attempting to screw us again, and by a tactic we’d seen before—shrinking the ranks of our friends and allies.
Damn, I thought. But I sucked it up.
I put the phone on the table and looked up at Ethan.
“Merit?” he asked.
“We’ve been blacklisted by the GP.”
The room went completely silent, at least until Ethan and Luc let loose a slurry of creative and invective-filled curses. Some were in English; some were in Swedish, Ethan’s native tongue. And some made me wince.
“Since when?” Ethan asked.
“Tonight,” I said. “That was a friend from Grey House.” Although I trusted the vampires in the room, there was no need to give out Jonah’s name, not when medieval torture was a possibility. “He doesn’t know the impetus, just that the decision’s been made.”