Torment (Soul Savers Book 6) (9 page)

“If you are ready
to plan and execute a true, physical war for humanity’s souls,
I invite you to remain on my council and join us in defeating the
Daemoni. If you expect me to lead as my grandmother did, however, if
you cannot support action and involvement and doing whatever
necessary even when sacrifices must be made, then please leave.”
I looked at the few faces who had been involved in accusing Tristan
of treason. “If you cannot respect me as your matriarch and the
decisions I make as such, then consider yourself dismissed. This is
the very reason Julia is not here today. I appreciate advisement, but
I will not tolerate disrespect of me or of Tristan as my second. If
you have a problem with our style of leadership, you may leave now.”

“You mean making
rash decisions for ill-planned missions such as the one last night
that has backfired in our faces?” Armand asked. The French
vampire with the dark widow’s peak had been one of Tristan’s
accusers, and I knew full well he had no confidence in me as a
leader.

“The mission was
well-planned,” Charlotte corrected. “We initially
achieved its primary purpose.”

“Which, as Armand
put, backfired in our faces,” Robin, the were-falcon, said.

“We didn’t
know the full extent of Lucas’s infiltration into the world’s
major powers, such as the United States,” Tristan said. “Russia
would be expected because the Daemoni’s major cities are
located in her borders. We knew Lucas had been dealing at some level
with the U.S. and other militaries, but not so overtly with the
executive branch. He used to lie low from them, working behind the
scenes. Now we know that has changed, too. So, we have more
information than we did twenty-four hours ago, which is a benefit.”

“Four humans were
killed because of it,” Armand said. “Including two
children!”

“Which is
terrible,” Charlotte agreed, “but we don’t know
where those bodies came from. They may have already been dead. Or
they could have been fake. The Daemoni mages may have been creating
an illusion for the Normans.”

“Or, they could
have killed four innocents to make their point against us,”
Robin said, her dark, beady gaze bouncing among my team’s
faces.

“Yes, they could
have,” Tristan agreed. “But they would have anyway. Maybe
not at that exact place at that exact time, but they will continue
serving the media whatever Lucas fancies to make us look bad, no
matter what we do.”

“But your actions
last night only helped them,” Attair, a Middle Eastern warlock,
said from his end of the phone line in Jordan. “How can we know
you two aren’t serving Lucas? That vampire, too.”

Vanessa glared at the
black device in the center of the table.

“Attair, you’re
dismissed from the council,” I said without further ado. Such
outright finger-pointing couldn’t be tolerated. I looked at
Owen to disconnect Attair’s line into the conference call.

“He has a point,
though,” Armand said. “You’re willing to risk
yourself, the only matriarch we have, and look at the results.”

“You may go,”
I said.

He stood up. “Of
course you want rid of anyone who disagrees with you. You only want
sock puppets.” He looked around at my core team. “You all
have ties to the Daemoni, including that boy of yours!”

I jumped to my feet and
glared at him. My words came out through a clenched jaw. “I
said you may go.”

“Behavior like
this will be the downfall of the Amadis,” he declared. He
returned my glare, his eyes hard as marbles. “
You
will
be the end of us all.”

Now Tristan rose to his
feet and leaned over the table toward the vampire. I couldn’t
see Tristan’s face well or the look in his eyes, but I was
pretty sure I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end. “Leave.
Now.”

“Gladly,”
Armand snapped. “I will not be a part of this fiasco.”

He strode out of the
council hall.

“Anyone else?”
I knew full well there were more as thoughts screamed accusations at
Tristan and me. I looked at Robin and waited with a lifted brow.

“I’m not
accusing you of working with the Daemoni,” she began, “but
I do have to question your actions. You are the last of your kind.
Our
last hope. You should be kept safe at all times,
concerning yourself with making a baby, not making war.”

A few others agreed out
loud.

“Here here,”
Marta, who had replaced Adolf when he’d died in battle, said
through the speaker. “We need another daughter. A
true
second. Tristan should not be your second. If something happens to
you, do you really expect him to lead the Amadis?”

I chuckled darkly and
shook my head. My patience was waning.

“Are you people
serious
?” I demanded. “Have you seen what’s
going on in the world? Do you realize that if we don’t act—if
I
don’t serve my purpose—there won’t be a
need for the Amadis? The world as we know it will be over. Norman
souls—the very ones we are here to protect—will cease to
exist! And so will we. It won’t matter who’s next in line
to lead if we’re all gone anyway!”

“We can’t
just focus on the here-and-now,” Savio, an Italian were-shark,
argued from across the table. “We must look to the future,
too.”

“If we
don’t
focus on the here and now, we won’t have a future,”
Charlotte said. “Alexis is right. We’re at true war here,
fellas.”

Solomon sat back in his
chair and crossed his thick arms over his chest. “Agreed.
Katerina saw this coming when she knew she’d be ascending. She
knew the Amadis needed someone who could fight a full-on war, not
quiet, covert tussles. She saw what could be our final battle on the
horizon and knew she was not the right matriarch to lead it. Neither
was Sophia. Alexis is.”

Warmth flooded my heart
with his support, spoken in his deep voice with the beautiful island
accent. I hadn’t felt such confidence in me from Solomon
before, and this meant a lot.

“Of course you
would say that,” Marta said. “You don’t see things
the way some of us do. How convenient that Ms. Katerina
and
Ms. Sophia were fed right into Lucas’s hands at the same time.
How nice for him that his daughter instantly became leader of his
enemy, and how fortunate that a Summoned son was allowed to return to
the Amadis, which has never been possible for a son to do before.”

“Dorian has not
officially been summoned,” Solomon said, but Marta ignored him,
carrying on with her horrid accusations.

“How interesting
that our leader is the enemy’s daughter, and her second had
once served as the enemy’s second. I could continue with those
whom you just swore in as your counselors—the son, in some
weird, twisted way, of a Daemoni sorceress who caused the murder of
our matriarch, and who’d been serving the enemy that very
night; the wife who supposedly didn’t know her husband had been
possessed by said sorceress for
decades
; a half-sister who’s
also the daughter of the enemy’s leader and whose twin brother
is that leader’s new second …”

Her words felt like a
knife to the gut. As much as she twisted everything around, enough
truth remained that her accusations could be believable. Did others
really believe such things?

“Enough!”
Tristan barked, cutting them off. “You will not disrespect your
matriarch and my wife like this.”

He glared at them all.
The room fell quiet, but with a tension blanketing us. After another
peek into everyone’s minds, I realized the futility of this
conversation. Some of Rina’s council would never trust me or
anyone else as their leader. Their minds would never be changed, and
they’d constantly be nitpicking at everything we did.

“You all are
dismissed,” I said. “Savio leave now. Robin, I hear the
doubt and distrust in your thoughts. You’re dismissed, too.
Attair and Marta, you’re being disconnected, and you can
consider yourselves off the council. The rest of you on the
conference call, I can’t tell what you’re thinking from
here, but if you have any doubts in me or my second or the rest of
the council that does support me, be done now. We have more serious
topics to discuss and worry about than petty accusations. I didn’t
ask
for my grandmother and mother to be murdered before my
very eyes. I didn’t
want
for them to leave this world,
to leave me and my family and all of you. I didn’t have any
desire to become matriarch so soon. But it is what it is. None of us
can change what happened regardless of how much we hate it. What we
can do is stop arguing amongst ourselves and start planning to battle
the real enemy. If you can’t see that, then I’m done with
you.”

I sat down and waited
for the room to clear out and the callers to disconnect. After the
first three left the room and a few calls dropped, several minutes
passed as I studied those who still sat in their seats. I couldn’t
get a feel for the callers, but when Owen told me who remained
connected, I felt like I could trust them.

“Okay, then,”
I finally said. “Now that that’s over, let’s get
down to what’s really important—discussing our strategy
in this war.”

“Do you want to
replace any of the vacant seats?” Solomon asked.

Oh. I should have
expected that question.
Although we’d already discussed it,
I looked to Tristan to be sure he hadn’t changed his mind.
What
do you think?

“
I still think
you should wait for any fallout from today’s meeting before
making a decision. We have the most important positions filled now
and a streamlined leadership team will be able to move faster.
”

I gave him an
appreciative smile, and said aloud, “For now, I’d like to
keep my council as it is. Those who have been dismissed can still
command their regions, or their seconds-in-command can take that
responsibility, but I don’t want to add anyone to the council.
If I think we need to expand it later, I know I can trust you all to
help me find appropriate advisors. We have a war to plan, and the
more nimble we are, the better. So let’s get down to it.”

“Should we get an
update on where things stand with the Amadis and the rest of the
world first?” Charlotte asked, her tone indicating she was
making more than a simple suggestion. She was reminding me of normal
procedure.

“Of course,”
I said hurriedly, giving her a mental thank-you. Damn. I was doing a
lousy job already, and we hadn’t even started the strategy
making part. “We all know the Daemoni have revealed themselves
worldwide and have brought us into the fray in the worst way
possible. We tried to counter them last night, but Lucas pulled out
his trump card.”

“Oh, that’s
not the worst of what he has,” Vanessa muttered.

“No, it’s
not,” I agreed, “but it certainly beat our first move.
Those of you on the phone, any more news from your regions?”

“Nothing I
haven’t reported yet,” Jelani, a wizard from Africa,
said. None of the others had more news to report either.

“Many of our
business interests have suffered,” Tristan said, bringing up
another topic I almost forgot to address. “We’ve lost
almost every business we own. As of yesterday, the millions in stocks
we possessed were sold off at my direction.”

“Just in time,
Tristan,” Jelani commented. “Even in Kenya we know the
stock markets are crashing.”

Tristan nodded. “We
need to stockpile resources while we’re able to so we can be
prepared to support our people. The world is definitely changing and
headed for war.”

Taking that as my cue,
I turned toward the large vampire sitting on the other side of Owen.
“Solomon, can you tell us about the U.N.?”

He nodded and leaned
closer to the phone device.

“For those who
haven’t seen it on the news right before this meeting, the
United Nations has officially collapsed,” he said. Someone on
the phone must not have known because a gasp sounded through the
line. “The vote was made and confirmed this morning. All
treaties and alliances are officially null and void.”

“This is the work
of the Daemoni?” I clarified.

“Indeed,”
Solomon said. “They have been working on tearing down the U.N.
for many months. The attacks and bombings the other day almost
backfired on the Daemoni. The Normans started the meeting with a
proposal to ban together against the supernaturals, and I thought for
a moment the world might actually see complete unification among
humans. But Lucas’s people quickly interfered with their
powerful influence, putting a stop to that kind of thinking. They
convinced the delegates that all countries should have autonomy to
handle this situation as each sees fit. Many are already prepared to
go to war, blaming each other for harboring the monsters, as they
called us.”

“Which is exactly
what the Daemoni need,” Tristan said, resting his forearms on
the table. “They need chaos, not any kind of unified fronts.
They need Normans slaughtering other Normans, not making treaties
with each other and playing nicely.”

“But if they’ve
turned the Normans against us, and don’t need their huge army
to defeat us anymore, why are they bothering?” I asked, my
naïveté about politics and strategies for taking over the
world showing.

“They need the
world to hit rock bottom so they can come to the rescue with promises
of a new and improved society,” Vanessa said.

Solomon nodded. “I
agree that is exactly what they’re doing.”

“Very
Hitler-esque,” Sheree murmured.

Charlotte let out a
quiet huff. “Who do you think was behind that movement?”

“Aren’t
most of the countries in the U.N. sided with the Daemoni?” I
asked, ignoring her rhetorical question. Mom had mentioned this
several months back. “Wouldn’t the Daemoni just be
fighting each other?”