Chapter 15

                                    

                                          

By his third cup of coffee Eli was feeling vaguely human again, and had a plan for how to deal with today. Plan might be a bit optimistic, half-baked idea would be more honest, but Eli was forcing himself to be glass-half-full.
"Ready for today?" Amon asked, annoyingly calm as he sat down across the room. 
 Eli shrugged. "I don't know if I would say ready, numbly accepted would probably be a better way to phrase it." 
"Any thoughts on what Benjamin's got up his sleeve?" 
"Who the fuck knows with him. He could be telling the truth and just wants to meet. He could be planning on betraying us. He's smarter than me, so I'll just go in prepared for anything." Eli shrugged. 
"And by that you mean prepared to punch everyone repeatedly if things go sideways?" 
"Of course." 
Amon shook his head. "It's gotten you this far I suppose. We still planning on having Benny pass on the info about the chimera to the Sentinels, leaving our involvement out of it?" 
"Please call him Benny to his face," Eli laughed. "But yeah, I think that's our best bet. With any luck he'll consider the job done and I can move on with my life." 
Amon sat silently for several moments, his pitch black eyes never leaving Eli. "And you'd be ok with that?" 
"Why wouldn't I be?" 
"Last night you were so worked up, talking about how strong the chimera was, how you doubted the Sentinels could take it. Now you're completely willing to sit back and let others deal with this monster." 
Eli's eyes dropped to his empty coffee mug beside him. "I've had a night to calm down, to start thinking rationally. Sentinels are stronger than the teachers at Westmore, magnitudes stronger, and there's a Keeper in the city. That's enough firepower to make even Damien Alard hesitate. The best thing we can do is give them our information so they're not going into this blind." 
"Any word from Francis?" Amon asked, abruptly changing the subject. A twinge of guilt twisted Eli's stomach but he ignored it, plowing ahead. 
"No, I'm hoping Benjamin has some news on that front. This doesn't look good for him though. I can see the Sages setting him up as the scapegoat for this; it wouldn't be difficult to spin this all as the fault of an incompetent Dean." 
"He did allow his students to go missing for months without doing anything, claiming they were just runaways. At the very least he was remarkably negligent." Amon said carefully. 
"No," the word exploded out of Eli, surprising him with its forcefulness. "I know where you're going with this and there is no way Francis is involved. He made a mistake. He was careless, not as focused on his students as he should have been, but that is it. Francis might be a bad Dean, but he is a good man. One who taught me everything I know about magic, but more than that he practically raised me. I saw more of him than my own father most weeks. I know this looks bad for him, but he's my friend and I need to believe in him right now. I at least owe him that much." 
"I hope you're right," Amon gave Eli a small smile before standing up. He grabbed his enchanted necklace, putting it on his black eyes slowly melted to a normal blue. "We should get going, don't want to be late." 
As the two of them stepped out to the driveway, a chill ran its way up Eli's spine. He froze, grabbing Amon's arm and pulling him to a stop as well. They were being watched. It's a natural human instinct, the sudden feeling you're not alone, the hairs on the back of your neck standing up, an itch in the middle of your back. The weight of eyes upon you. Eli had honed those instincts during his time working for Benjamin, it was a skill that had kept him alive almost as much as the Void. Those instincts were screaming at him now that several people's attention was laser focused on him.