There’s nothing stopping our master from taking over the council now – so much influence and power.
He doesn’t look like much, but hey, Kirill can always keep the lights off and his eyes closed. Imagine how much power a god’s blood would give to our master. Ooh, I see great things for our coven.
If the coven members weren’t bad enough, the slimeball Yakov made Ra’s skin crawl just being near him. It’d always fascinated Ra, how all beings could be born with a pure soul, and yet some of them turned out to be lower than slugs in terms of their behavior and the way they treated others. Yakov was worse than a slug. He gave slugs a bad name.
“Well, lookie here.” Ra looked over to where Zeus was busy sitting in front of a computer and tapping on a keyboard that was far larger than the one Ra tried using on his phone. “Yakov, you really have been taking advantage of your master’s absence, haven’t you?”
“I adore our master and am supremely loyal to him. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Our master will be furious when he knows someone’s been messing with his computer. No one is allowed to touch it. No one.” Yakov was still bound with the lasso Zeus had fashioned for him. It’s a shame it didn’t come with a gag.
“What did you find?” Ra turned back to the window he was staring out of, suppressing his urge to wipe Yakov’s face off. I have every right. That man chained my mate to the walls of his own coven for a week!
“In the week Kirill was imprisoned, someone, namely Yakov, has been busy sending out missives to other covens, seeking investment in what he’s calling a “pleasure palace” project.” Ra heard Zeus tap a few more keys. “It would seem our little rodent wasn’t content with trying to keep Kirill from his beloveds, he also wanted to leverage Kirill’s name to get money from other coven masters for a building development he describes as ‘a luxurious setting where vampires can be true to their nature’.”
“How do you mean, leveraging Kirill’s name?” Ra swirled, his eyes flashing.
“Exactly that.” Zeus tapped the screen. “Yakov has been writing to coven masters, as Kirill’s representative, claiming that his master felt shackled by the constraints of modern society, and wanted a return to the old ways.”
“Where blood was taken from the source rather from bags.” Ra clenched his fists. “Zeus…”
Ra didn’t get a chance to say anything else because there was a tap at the door, and one of the Anubis guards stepped in. Tapping his chest and bowing low to Ra, the guard straightened. “My Lord, there is something on the grounds we feel you must see immediately.”
Closing his eyes for one moment, Ra allowed himself a split second of Please, no, not what I think this is before snapping his eyes open again. “Get one of your brethren to take him.” Ra pointed his finger at Yakov who was now doing an impression of a grounded fish. “He is to be relocated to my realm and secured with Osiris. Inform the Lord of the Dead this person is not to be released for any reason without my command. And take the vampire he was being intimate with when we arrived too.”
“My Lord.” The guard bowed, and then pushed the door open, revealing two other guards who swiftly and silently did as they were ordered.
Yakov wasn’t going quietly. “You can’t do this,” he screamed as he struggled with the guards who didn’t seem concerned by his efforts. “You have no idea what shit you’re bringing down on your heads. I have friends far more powerful than you – friends who will take two washed up gods and render them powerless. Kirill! Kirill! Save m…” His last word was cut off and Ra sighed as Yakov left the building.
He looked up to see Zeus watching him, a worried look in his stormy eyes. “You sure you know what you’re doing, Ra? That’s awfully close to interference, taking mortals to your realm.”
“I haven’t killed them, and I don’t intend to, at least not yet. This is a matter for my beloved, not me. Are you coming to see what was found on the grounds?”
Zeus stood up, buttoning his jacket. “I’ll come but we already know what we’re going to find, don’t we?”
“I’m not going to be able to live here.” Ra placed one hand on Zeus’s shoulder and one on the shoulder of the guard.
“Earth?” Zeus raised his eyebrows. “I thought you loved it down here.”
“This coven.” Following the lead Ra saw in the guard’s head, he translocated the three of them to a barn at the back of the coven estate. His impression of the coven didn’t improve when he got his first look in the barn.
/~/~/~/~/
Arvyn gasped and then covered his mouth with his hand as the pictures of emaciated humans and shifters alike filled the screen. Their clothing was nothing more than rags. Skull and skeletal bones punctured skin stretched loosely over where muscle used to be. Many of the beings were chained, much like Kirill had been, their bodies hanging limply due to their lack of strength. Cages, some filled with shifters in their animal forms crowded one wall of the barn. In other cages, male and female human forms, some who looked like they’d barely hit twenty, lay huddled on the wire floors, barely moving when Ra and Zeus arrived.
“Why?” Arvyn railed at Paulie who’d turned his head from the screens and was sitting hunched in his chair. “Why, if these damn screens can show this now, why couldn’t they find those poor wretches before? Look at the state of them.”
“Gods cannot interfere in the affairs of mortals.” Paulie was rocking slightly, and Wes and Cass who’d said nothing up until now flanked him, resting their hands on his shoulders. “No matter the horrors we see, or how unjust a situation might be, by our laws, every being is entitled to free will and we have no right to change the outcome of their situation.” He raised his head and Arvyn saw tears pouring down his cheeks.
“The only reason Zeus and Ra can do anything now, is because of Kirill’s mating bond with Ra. Yakov’s actions directly threatened Kirill’s coven, his reputation and his life. If there hadn’t been that connection, then even if this had been something we’d seen, we couldn’t do anything unless the Fates themselves asked us to.”
“But that can’t be true,” Arvyn cried. “Only a being with ice water in their veins could see that amount of suffering and pass on by.”
“You think this is easy for Ra, Zeus, or any of the other gods that watch the earth?” Paulie leapt to his feet, his face still streaked with tears. “You sit there with your moral judgements and condemn the gods who have been around since the beginning of time. This,” he flung his arm at the screen, “this is nothing. The hatred beings have shown towards each other in the name of religion, or science, narcissism, or pure greed, has rippled around earth’s crust for eons. This was just the work of a few. In a global context, it’s a drop in the ocean.”
“How can you even say that?” Arvyn was shocked.
“Do you know how many babies die every single day in various war zones around the earth? Do you know how many innocent people are killed by their loved ones year after year after year? How many people are intentionally murdered, not an accident or by the hand of fate, but intentionally murdered every single year in the US alone? These people die because of hatred - the actions of other people. People hating others. People exploiting others. People who have such rigid views of what society looks like that they see nothing wrong in killing others who don’t fit their ideas of what is right or wrong. The gods didn’t do any of this. The gods are not to blame. It is people doing this to other people, like Yakov and other coven members being responsible for the atrocities in that barn. At least, thanks to Ra and Zeus, those people on the screens will live. Thousands and thousands of others aren’t so lucky.”