Kelly Armstrong - Industrial Magic

"Is it past four?" William said.

"Of course it is."

"Then Carlos isn't here. If you'll excuse me-"

Benicio turned away, as if William had already left. "Where was I? Yes. This other matter. I've convened a meeting in twenty minutes to provide you with all the details. Let's get Paige a cold drink and we'll head to the boardroom."

Twenty minutes later, Lucas opened the conference room door for me. His eyes slanted a silent question my way. Did I want him to go first? I shook my head. Though I wasn't looking forward to confronting what I knew lay within that meeting room, I had to do it without hiding behind Lucas.

As I stepped inside, my gaze swept across the dozen or so faces within. Sorcerer, sorcerer, sorcerer… another sorcerer. Over three quarters of the men in the room were sorcerers. Each pair of eyes met mine. Chairs shuffled and voices murmured wordless noises of disapproval. The word "witch" snaked through the room on a chorused whisper of contempt. Every sorcerer in the room knew what I was without being told. One look in the eyes, and witch recognized sorcerer, sorcerer recognized witch, and the introduction rarely pleased either.

Benicio waved Lucas and me to two empty chairs next to the vacant head of the table.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said. "Thank you for staying late to join us. You all know my son Lucas."

The men within handshaking distance extended their hands. The rest offered spoken salutations. No one looked my way.

"This is Paige Winterbourne," Benicio continued. "As I'm sure most of you know, Paige's mother, Ruth, was Leader of the American Coven. Paige herself has been a member of the interracial council for several years, and I'm pleased to say, in that capacity, she has expressed an interest in the MacArthur case."

I held my breath waiting for some comment about my exile from the Coven or my embarrassingly short term as Leader. But Benicio said nothing. As much as he might dislike me, he wouldn't upset Lucas by insulting his girlfriend.

Benicio gestured toward a stocky man near the foot of the table. "Dennis Malone is our head of security. He's most familiar with the case, so I'll ask him to begin with an overview."

As Dennis explained, Dana MacArthur was indeed the daughter of a Cabal employee but not, as I'd assumed, of the Cabal witch. Like Savannah, Dana claimed supernatural blood from both parents, her father being a half-demon in Cortez Corporation sales. Randy MacArthur was currently overseas establishing a commercial foothold in the newly capitalist areas of Eastern Europe. Dana's mother was a witch named Lyndsay MacArthur. I'd hoped to recognize the name, but I didn't. Coven witches had little contact with non-Coven witches. Even my mother had only taken notice of outside witches when they'd caused trouble. One of the many things I'd wanted to change about the Coven, and now never would.

According to the background information Dennis provided, Dana's parents were divorced and she lived with her mother. Dennis mentioned that her mother lived in Macon, Georgia, and the attack had taken place in Atlanta, so I assumed Dana had been traveling or visiting friends. She'd apparently been out walking by herself around midnight-which seemed very strange for a fifteen-year-old girl, but I'd get an explanation later. The important thing was that during that walk, she'd cut through a park and been attacked.

"Where is Dana now?" I asked when Dennis finished.

"At the Marsh Clinic," Benicio said.

"That's a private hospital for Cabal employees," Lucas explained. "It's here in Miami."

"And her mother is with her?" I said.

Benicio shook his head. "Unfortunately, Ms. MacArthur has been… unable to come to Miami. We have every hope, though, that she'll change her mind."

"Change her mind? What's the problem? If she can't afford airfare, I'd certainly hope someone would-"

"We've offered her both commercial airfare and a flight on our private jet. Ms. MacArthur has some… concerns over air travel at this time."

At a noise from across the table, my gaze slid down the row of faces until it came to the youngest attendee, a sorcerer in his thirties. He met my gaze with a half-smirk. At a glare from Benicio, the smirk changed into a cough.

"Concerns over air travel," I said slowly, trying to wrap my head around the idea that a witch would let anything stop her from racing to her daughter's sickbed. "That's not unusual these days, I guess. A bus ticket might be-"

The smirking sorcerer cut in. "She doesn't want to come."

"There's been some estrangement between Dana and her mother," Benicio said. "Dana had been living on her own in Atlanta."

"On her own? She's fifteen-"

I stopped, suddenly aware that a dozen pair of eyes were on me. I could imagine nothing more humiliating for a witch than this, to sit in a room filled with sorcerers telling you that one of your race, who pride themselves on their family bonds, had let her teenage daughter live on the streets. Not only that, but she didn't even care enough to come to her daughter's side when she lay comatose and alone in a Cabal hospital. It was inconceivable.

"Maybe if I could speak to her," I said. "There might be a misunderstanding…"

"Or we could be lying," the sorcerer said. "Here's my cell phone. Anyone got Lyndsay MacArthur's number? Let the witch-"

"Enough," Benicio said, his voice sharp enough to cut diamonds. I'd heard that tone before… from his son. "You are excused, Jared."

"I was only-"

"You are excused."

The sorcerer left. I struggled to think of some way to defend my race. Lucas's hand squeezed my knee. I looked at him, but he'd turned to the table, mouth opening to speak for me. I quickly interrupted. As much as I longed for the support, the only thing that could make this worse would be for him to jump to my rescue.

"Is Dana's father aware of the situation?" I said.

Benicio shook his head. "Randy has been in Europe since spring. If he'd known about Dana's estrangement from her mother, he would have requested leave to come home."

"I meant the attack. Does he know about that?"

Another head shake. "He's currently in a very unstable location. We've tried contacting him by telephone, e-mail, and telepathy, but haven't been able to deliver the news. We expect him to be back in a major city within the week."

"Good. Okay. Back to the case, then. I'm guessing we're here because you want Dana's attacker found."

"Found and punished."

Somehow, I doubted that punishment would involve the local authorities, but after hearing what had been done to Dana, I couldn't bring myself to care.

"But the Cabal can investigate by itself, right?"

A reedy voice from down the table answered. "Mr. MacArthur is a class C employee."

I looked at the speaker, a specter-thin, specter-pale man dressed in a mortician-black suit. Necromancer. It's a stereotype, I know, but most necros have a whiff of the grave about them.

"Paige, this is Reuben Aldrich, head of our actuarial department. Reuben, Ms. Winterbourne isn't familiar with our designations. Would you explain for her please?"

"Of course, sir." Watery blue eyes looked my way. "Employees range from class F through A. Only class A and B employees are entitled to familial violence insurance."

"Familial…?"

Lucas turned to me. "It's insurance that covers corporate investigations into criminal matters such as kidnapping, assault, murder, psychic wounding, or any other dangers one's family might face as a result of their employment with the Cabal."

I looked at Reuben Aldrich. "So Mr. MacArthur, being class C, isn't entitled to a paid investigation into his daughter's attack. So why bring it to us-to Lucas?"

"The Cabal is offering to hire him," said the man beside me. "The reallocation of resources and man-hours would make the cost of an internal investigation prohibitive. Instead, we're offering to retain Mr. Cortez in a contract position,"