I frowned at him. "What do you mean, unrest? I thought there was a peace treaty."
"Peace treaties are broken all the time, Savannah." He said it kindly, like a history teacher correcting his student. "The council needs to know if that is happening here."
"And how are you supposed to figure that out today?"
"Oh, I'm not going to be here for just a day. Your father needs help finding a long list of historically accurate items for his latest renovation project. Who better than me to find and deliver them in person?"
"And while you're making these deliveries, you'll be checking out the situation around here." Great. Just what we needed, council members dropping by Jacksonville on a regular basis. The Clann was going to love that. "You know if any of the Clann see you and learn you're a council member, they're going to have a hissy fit."
He grinned. "Then I guess you and your dad better not tell them who I am, huh?"
I scowled. "Trust me, telling them would only make my life around here way harder."
"Oh yeah? So I take it they're still none too pleased about your dating Tristan?"
"Yeah, they really loved that. Not that they liked me all that much before."
"And now that you two are broken up?"
I shrugged. "They're leaving me alone, at least."
"But they were bothering you before." He made it a statement not a question.
Uh-oh. I might have already said too much. "Not all of them, and nothing too serious. Mainly just calling me names."
Gowin hummed. "Sounds like the Clann could definitely use some supervision around here. Though I'll admit I'm a little surprised. Seems like they would be working harder to get you to side with them against us."
"They kicked my family out of the Clann before I was even born. I doubt they're all that interested in having me join their ranks now." We reached my truck, and I yanked open the driver's side door.
"Maybe." He opened the passenger's side door and got in. "But all the same, the council thinks they need to be watched a little more closely. Your father's not delivering the intel we need."
I froze in the act of inserting the key into the ignition. "You're saying the reason we're here is so he can spy on the Clann for you?"
He shrugged. "Spying. Checking in on them. You say tomato, I say tomahto. Whatever you want to call it, it's past time the council started keeping a better eye on things."
Scowling, I started the truck. "Well, I guess you and Dad have to do whatever you've got to do to keep the council happy. But I'd appreciate it if you could leave me out of it, all right? I kept my promise to the council. I broke up with Tristan. And that's the last of my involvement with the Clann from now on. All this political stuff is just messing with trouble."
Gowin stretched out in his seat as much as his long legs would allow. "Politics is the vampire's way of life. We've been at war with the Clann for centuries. It's only a matter of time before the current era of peace ends. Of course, with a super vamp like you on our side, perhaps the next go-round won't last so long."
"I never said I was on anyone's side."
"So you would remain neutral?" he continued. "Even though your vamp side is growing stronger by the day?"
"I don't see why there has to be any fighting in the first place. Both vamps and witches have to hide what they are from the world. Seems like that would give you a good reason to work together instead of against each other."
Gowin chuckled. "That is a unique point of view. Not sure anyone shares it, though, on either side. Ever heard that song 'Everybody Wants to Rule the World'?"
I clamped my lips shut. The less I said about the Clann around this council member, the better.
It only took half a minute to drive back across the railroad tracks and park in the driveway. But Gowin didn't seem ready to get out. Maybe the heated cab of the truck felt like a relief to his cold blood, too.
"How exactly did you get to be on the council?" Belatedly I realized how rude that was. "Sorry. I mean-"
He waved off the apology. "When a seat becomes available, the current council members tend to choose those they know and trust to fill it. Usually older vamps they personally sired."
"You said Lil-I mean, she who must not be named-was the oldest, and Caravass was the second oldest. What about all the other vamps she sired?"
Gowin's smile faded fast. "God killed them."
"Are you kidding?"
"Nope. It's believed that she was Adam's first wife, and when she got sick of his attitude, she ran off and started hanging out with demons instead. The story has it that she then became something of a demoness herself, or the very first vampire. I guess God could have handled that, until she decided to give in to that mothering urge and started making more like herself. That's when God put the proverbial hand down and began killing off one hundred of her children, or fledglings, a day. Of course, he probably had to just to keep the vamps from wiping out the entire human population back then. Rumor has it she went on kind of a tear and was turning out the vamps faster than the humans could procreate."
"So he killed all of them but Caravass?"
"Well, not completely. A good number of them got caught by human vigilantes over the years. That whole Spanish Inquisition took out hundreds all on its own, and the witch trials didn't help much, either."
I frowned. "Why didn't they just fight back and escape?"
"Between you and me, I think the old ones got tired of living and let themselves be taken. Maybe they were worried about their souls if they did themselves in, so they let the humans take their lives for them. Depression is a problem once you get older. At least, it was. Now that technology is advancing so rapidly, life has kind of gotten interesting again."
After a few seconds of silence, I was about to reach for my door handle when he said, "You know, I really am sorry you and the Coleman boy were forced apart. Not everyone on the council felt that was necessary. But we were overruled."
I froze. "Overruled?"
"By Caravass. The vote was divided, and in those rare cases the council leader can break the tie if he chooses."
So one vote had tipped it all the wrong way.