Our council of war was held at a picnic table in a park in the Maryland suburbs. Thea’s idea.

Around the table – myself, Thea, Kanesha, and Lugenia.

“Femme force,” Kanesha quipped.

“Yes. I’ve noticed how everyone remotely useful is female too,” I said, punching her arm.

“We need some guys around here.” Lugenia’s voice was really quiet.

“Why?” Thea asked, laughing. “Okay. So, Lugenia’s ex is causing trouble.”
“And what about your wannabe?”

“Him too, but I can deal with him. He’s just a loser. He doesn’t have friends with guns.”

She had a point. Odd how the mortal was more dangerous than the supernatural. Or maybe it happened that way. None of which I could voice.

“So, how do we get rid of the friends with guns? The cops aren’t much more than useless.” I glanced at Kanesha, who was often good for ideas on these things.

Kanesha hrmed. “The cops aren’t much more than useless, but it still might be worth getting them involved. At the very least they’ll get in the way and more in their way than ours.”

She had a point. I glanced at Thea, who nodded.

“Okay, Lugenia. You file a complaint. I’ll back you up on the smashed window. That’s not going to please certain people anyway.” Namely social services. Of course, it was insured.

“They might move me.”

“That might not be a bad thing.” Thea leaned on the table. “Look, this guy is serious. He might kill you. And if you defend yourself, you might end up in jail. Happens all the time. We need to put so much of a scare into him that he moves on.”

Or, I knew, Thea would take him out and make it look like an accident. Or I would. Shouldn’t be that hard. I couldn’t believe I was contemplating murder, but if the guy deserved it?

More like we couldn’t do this the right way, which would be to call him out and then kick his butt clear to Hel’s Realm. Which I meant quite literally. As duels were frowned upon, we’d have to be more subtle.

“I’ll defend myself. Better jail than dead,” Lugenia said, quietly. “And I know about jail. It scares me, but I still don’t want to die.”

I forced my dark thoughts out of the way. No. I wasn’t going to kill this guy in cold blood, no matter how much I wanted to. “Do you know how to use a gun?” I asked her.

“That would land me in jail for sure.”

“I meant his gun.” I smiled a little. If you had a gun it could always be taken away and used against you. If we did this right…