Drink Deep - Chloe Neill [37]
“Oh,” she said with a fake smile. “So the usual stuff.”
“Pretty much.” I took a seat at the table. “He also asked me about the night Ethan was killed.”
I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Lindsey’s shoulders stiffen. She glanced back at me, concern in her expression, and I nodded in thanks.
“As it turns out,” I said, “Tate gave the GP a different version of events.”
“Why, in God’s name, would the GP talk to Tate about that night? I mean, there were tapes of Tate’s involvement in the drugs. Why would they take his word over yours?”
“Because he’s not me. And for whatever reason, they don’t trust me.”
“Jerks,” Lindsey muttered.
“Agreed. But we’ve heard from Darius, Charlie, and now Frank that the GP really does think we’re creating problems for ourselves. They have this idea we’re cowboys in the American wilderness, randomly stirring up trouble with humans.”
“Instead of laying the blame for that at Celina’s door?” Kelley wondered.
“My thoughts exactly. Silent assimilation is only a viable strategy when you haven’t been dragged kicking and screaming out of the closet.”
Kelley sighed and tapped her crimson nails on the tabletop. “And yet, what can we do about it? Whenever the GP gets information in front of them, they ignore it.”
“We defect,” Lindsey said.
Kelley’s gaze snapped to Lindsey. “Don’t say that out loud,” she warned. “God only knows how secure the House is with him here.”
“Is that even an option?” I quietly wondered. I had a short version of the Canon—the laws that bound North American vampires—but I didn’t recall having seen anything about defection. Not that the GP would advertise that kind of thing.
“Only twice in the GP’s history,” Kelley said, “and never by an American House.”
“Never say never,” Lindsey muttered.
“Lindsey,” Kelley warned again, this time with a tone of authority in her voice.
Lindsey glanced back from her computer, brows lifted. “What? I’m not afraid to say it aloud. This House is governed by the GP. The GP is supposed to keep things stable and protect the House. Is that happening now? Hells to the no. Instead, they’re criticizing and investigating our vampires when they should be working to keep these crazy-ass humans away from us.”
She pointed to one of the monitors in front of her, and both Kelley and I moved closer for a better look. The screen showed the sidewalk outside the House, where the number of protestors seemed to have tripled since dawn. They were marching up and down with signs that blamed the still-dark waters of the lake on Cadogan House. As if we’d created the problem, instead of trying to stop it.
“They blame us,” I concluded. “They have no evidence we have anything to do with the lake; they just don’t know anyone else to blame. That’s the only reason they’re here.”
“Oh, no,” Kelley said. “That’s not the only reason.” She walked back to the table, tapped a bit on the tablet, and handed it over to me.
The screen displayed a video of Mayor Kowalczyk, wearing a sensible red power suit and a bouffant of brown hair, and standing in front of a podium.
“Press conference?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Kelley said, then swiped the screen to start the video.
“You know what?” the mayor asked, leaning over the podium. “I don’t care. You did not elect me to this office so I could spend my time in office kowtowing to special interest groups. And rest assured, my fellow Chicagoans, that these vampires are a special interest group. They want to be treated differently. They want the rules that apply to us to not apply to them.”
“Was that even English?” I quietly wondered. Her linguistic skills notwithstanding, she kept going.
“There’s more to this city than a handful of fanged rabble-rousers—good, old-fashioned, hardworking folks who know that everything isn’t about vampires. This is one of those things. The lake is ours. The river is ours. They are about tourism, about fishing. I won’t allow this city to be co-opted. And I will tell you one thing—the registration law is