Mel's face was grim. It was obvious she didn't agree with what I planned to do. I wasn't sure why-if it was her general hatred of the council or her lack of faith in me. It didn't matter. I had already made my decision.
"You won't get ten feet from where you stand. You move out of this circle and Bubbe's ward will be broken. It's anchored to you, but it won't move with you. The police will remember who you are and why they wanted to talk to you, and they won't look kindly on you leaving without doing it."
Behind Jack, two men lifted my mother's body and placed it in a dark zippered bag. My throat tightened.
"Get Bubbe. She can hurry them on their way."
Mel's lips were pressed into such a flat line now that I could barely see them. Finally she spat out, "They tried to kill her, Mel. Your mother didn't tell you everything. She didn't want you to know, she wanted you to keep your love of the damned tribe, but the council tried to kill her. She had to leave, they were going to kill her son and her if she didn't."
Mel's revelation should have surprised me, but it didn't. I'd already accepted that I didn't know the tribe like I thought I did. .
But the tribe was still the tribe, and I still loved them enough I was willing to die to protect them, even from themselves.
* * *
The police continued to measure and photograph. Then the media showed up. Shootings weren't common in Madison. It was a blessing, though. It drew the police's attention and made it easy for me to step away-even without Bubbe's help.
Back inside Mel's shop, we gathered and discussed our plan.
Jack called the bird son, my half brother's father and my mother's lover. He was at an art shop owned by Makis, the son confined to a wheelchair, but immediately agreed to return to take charge of the baby. Jack went to get him so he could arrive in his human form, clothed. He left the baby with us. I insisted. I was willing for the bird man to watch him, but I wasn't handing him over totally. Not yet.
When I made this clear, Mel shook her head.
"He's his father," she said. "He would give his life to protect him."
"And a son," I replied. This new partnership was too unfamiliar. Besides, my mother had given her life, but that hadn't been enough to save her son. He'd have been lost if Jack, Mateo, and I hadn't been there.
"Makis is a son," she countered. "And I trust him." She didn't, I noticed, mention Peter.
"You may. I don't." In fact, I trusted Makis least of all.
He was higher ranking and older than the other men. He was also Harmony's, Mel's daughter, grandfather-just another of the little surprises we'd discovered last fall. Based on his handicap alone, Makis had more reason than anyone to hate us.
Makis, however, wasn't in town. He was with Harmony and Peter in Michigan. When Mel returned, she had returned alone.
"You let her stay with just them?" Mel was the definition of protective. I was shocked she would trust anyone, much less two sons, alone with her child.
At my question Bubbe, rummaging through a drawer in the kitchen, grunted.
Mel placed a heavy stare on her grandmother, then answered. "Makis is her grandfather." Despite the strong look she'd shot Bubbe, I could see uncertainty in her eyes. She glanced to the side. "She has relatives."
"Relatives? Sons?" Amazons didn't recognize family outside their direct line. We didn't keep track of things like cousins or aunts. They had no more importance in our lives than any other member of our family clan. I knew there were Amazons in the lion clan who shared a grandmother with me, but I didn't give them any thought. I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to visit them.
"Harmony's father had other children-two, both boys. They live in Michigan with an uncle."
"And you let her stay there with them." My mind was reeling. "What if they don't bring her back?"
Bubbe jerked a phone book out of the drawer and slammed it down onto the countertop.
Mel's eyes flashed. "They will." Then she relaxed a bit. "She called last night. They went to Mackinac and rented horses. She's having fun."
A snort from Bubbe interrupted my response. As Mel narrowed her eyes and glared at her grandmother, I stepped away from the conversation. Harmony was out of the picture, which was good. One less child of a son to worry about.
As much as I didn't understand Mel's reasoning for letting her go off with the men, at least we didn't have to worry about the Amazons deciding Harmony was a threat.
A tiny snort of my own escaped. How things had changed. I was actually glad an Amazon teen was with the sons and afraid my tribe might decide she was a threat that needed to be destroyed.
While I waited for the tension between Mel and her grandmother to settle, I approached the members of my camp, or the few who had thrown their loyalty to me over Thea and the high council.
Lao and Tess sat next to Dana, who was cooing and stroking tiny Pisto's back. She hadn't put him down since she and Lao had returned and she'd learned the birders had tried to steal not only my mother's baby, but her own. Even now Dana's voice cracked and her eyes when they met mine appeared manic, reconfirming my suspicion that a hearth-keeper could be just as determined and dangerous as a warrior.
Bern stood to one side, not far from my half brother who was asleep in his seat. The warrior was as silent as always. She hadn't said a word to me since I'd asked her to leave earlier, but she watched all of us with the patience and intensity of a guard dog awaiting an order to attack.
I appreciated her coiled aggression. I felt the same. I couldn't wait to get on with facing the high council, and after that, my mother's killers.
Bubbe moved toward the stairs, a disposable wand-type lighter in her hand. "I build the fire to find the council," she murmured. She scowled at Mel as she passed.
Mel shook her head and stared at the wall.
Content their disagreement wasn't going to get in the way of finding the council, I pulled out a chair at the table and sat down. Tess poured a cup of coffee and slid it toward me.
I sipped and I waited, as did everyone else. Silence fell around us; even Dana quit her cooing; only the sound of her son sucking on a pacifier offered any disturbance.
In an hour Bubbe was back. And I could tell by the expression on her face, what she had to say wasn't going to be good.
"The high council is no more." Bubbe punctuated her words by slamming the end of a short staff onto the wood floor. Then she turned and stalked from the room.
Not knowing what else to do, the rest of us followed her, babies in tow. No one felt safe leaving them behind.
She walked down the front stairs and down the hill that led to Mel's front lawn.
The schoolhouse was set on an acre of land, most of it in the front of the building. While the area around the school was crowded with the main building, the old gym/cafeteria, and a number of large trees, this area was flat and open with a clear view of Monroe Street.
At four in the morning the street was quiet, but Bubbe went about setting a ward to hide us anyway. Once we had sat in the traditional crescent-moon shape, she circled us, chanting. Back at the moon's tip, she stopped and took a seat herself.
I glanced around the group, realizing this was most likely the first Amazon circle a male had ever attended. Yes, they were infants and didn't understand a word that was being said, but it was still huge.
Bubbe held her staff to the side, one hand wrapped around it. "I reached out to the council, felt for their energy." She dug the end of the staff into the earth. "It was broken. . fractured."
I frowned. "Perhaps because my mother-"
"No." She slammed the staff down. "It is more than that. Their power. It is broken." She held the staff in front of her. There was a crack, and the thing split into two pieces.
Mel's eyes found mine. Resolve was there. She'd already known this.
I curled my fingers into the grass beneath my thighs and repeated what my mother had told me, how the council had been divided on what to do about the sons, how the other group had managed to pull those in the middle to their side for the vote.