Kiss of Snow

Chapter 3

COUNCILOR HENRY SCOTT had made the decision to sacrifice San Francisco two months ago, regardless of the economic and financial upheaval such destruction would cause. Now it was simply a case of putting the final pieces in place.

With that in mind, he turned away from the view of the busy streets visible through the window of the office he kept at his London residence, and to the man he’d placed in charge of coordinating his military resources—all of which had now been integrated into the streamlined structure of Pure Psy. The original civilian personnel had been quietly moved out of command positions.

Henry didn’t need a political party. He needed a weapon.

Which was why Vasquez was now in charge of all Pure Psy operations. There was nothing prepossessing about the man—he stood a bare five feet four inches, with a build more akin to that of a gymnast than a soldier, and a face so unremarkable people forgot him within minutes of meeting him.

“How long,” Henry asked, “before we can move on San Francisco and the surrounding changeling-held areas?”

“A month.” Bringing up the files on the main comm screen, Vasquez gave Henry a précis of their current status as regarding men and weapons. “What the wolves call ‘den territory’ will be the most difficult to take, but I’m working on a possible solution.”

Henry nodded, left it at that. Vasquez would be useless to him if he didn’t think for himself—something Henry’s “wife,” Shoshanna, would do well to emulate when it came to her own advisors. She surrounded herself with flunkies, none of them with the intelligence of a gnat. Which was why Henry was running this, while Shoshanna thought she held the reins. “Are there any problems I need to be aware of?”

“No.”

“In that case, we’ll meet again in a week’s time.”

It was only after Vasquez left that Henry brought up another file. It was his investment portfolio, and once again, it was in worse shape than warranted. He didn’t have to be an expert to realize whose hand lay behind the slow, untraceable strangulation of his finances—Nikita Duncan was a master at manipulating money. However, while her actions were certainly problematic, the losses were nowhere near enough to stop him. He’d take San Francisco soon enough, obliterating the base of her empire.

As for the changelings . . . they could not be allowed to live, not after their constant and continuing defiance. They believed themselves immune to the Council’s reach to the extent that they’d encouraged the conception of a hybrid with changeling blood, a fetus that if it came to term, would result in the dilution of the psychic abilities that made the Psy race the most powerful on the planet.

Henry wouldn’t permit it.

It was time the world went back to the way it had been for over a century, the way it should be, with the purest of Psy in power, and the other two races allowed to exist only so long as they followed Psy rule. When people thought of SnowDancer and DarkRiver, Henry wanted them to see the blood-soaked cost of noncompliance.