Free Human Nature by Eileen Wilks Page A

don’t always have any more sense than young humans. Some of them became too involved in Adele Blanco’s causes—and Adele was more interested in publicity than I liked.”
    “You want to control the clan’s PR yourself.”
    “Of course. But also, Adele’s ideas aren’t always sensible. I disbanded the lupus portion of her clique after she decided it would be a great notion to infiltrate Humans First. She persuaded one of Mariah’s friends, a human boy, to join the organization. At the time, he was sixteen.”
    “Shit. Sixteen? If he’s a local, they would have found out pretty quickly he’d been hanging out with what they consider the wrong crowd. What happened?”
    “Fortunately, Steve told me what was going on before anything went seriously wrong. I went to the boy and explained that the clan appreciated his courage, but I believed Adele had misjudged her opponent, and his input wouldn’t be helpful. He agreed to drop the project.”
    “Before anyone beat him up, then.”
    “I suspect Friar is too canny to allow that. He knew who the boy was and had been feeding him misinformation. He seemed to be setting up a nice, public confrontation in which Adele’s group would look foolish.”
    She retrieved her notebook. “What’s this boy’s name?”
    He glanced at her, smiling. “Dotting your i ’s?”
    “I never know what I’m going to need to know.”
    “His full name is Keoni Akana. He’s Hawaiian. He lived here for a year with a cousin of his mother’s while his parents were in Uruguay—they work for some alphabet-soup scientific foundation. Something about insects—I don’t recall what. He’s back in the islands now attending college.”
    “That was clear, concise, and useful. Do that for me with Adele Blanco and Mariah Friar.”
    “Not Robert Friar?”
    “Later, maybe. I read up on him on the plane, but the Bureau doesn’t have files for the others.”
    “I…didn’t realize the FBI had a file on Friar.”
    “Of course it does. He started a hate group.”
    Emotions slid through his face, quick and subtle, impossible to read in the gathering darkness. “I hadn’t realized that a group formed to brand us as beasts would be classified as a hate group.”
    “Humans First wants to kick out or keep out everyone who isn’t an officially designated human, not just lupi. But yeah, your people are the main focus. Of course we’re watching them. Not very closely,” she admitted. There was too much going on of greater urgency. “But we have a file on Friar and a few of the others in his group.”
    “That’s oddly disconcerting.”
    “I guess you’re more used to having the government persecute you.” And the government’s policies toward lupi were still a mixed bag, but they were trending toward fair these days. “Now, about Adele…?”
    “Yes. Well. Adele would be forty-four or-five now, I think. She was born in Sacramento to an English mother and Hispanic father, who divorced when she was in high school. She moved here with her father at that time, left for college after graduating from Del Cielo High, then returned without getting her degree when her father was paralyzed in an auto accident. He has since died.”
    Her eyebrows lifted. That was pretty complete. “Her mother?”
    “Returned to England after the divorce. She helped Adele financially, I believe, when she was younger, but they aren’t close.”
    “Speaking of finances, how does Adele get hers?”
    “She owns a small store here—Practikal Magik, spelled with k ’s instead of c ’s—where she sells what Cullen considers crap.”
    That made her smile. “Define crap.”
    “In this case it’s popular books on witchcraft, voodoo, and less well-known traditions, as well as astrology and numerology. She also sells crystals, cauldrons, herbs, and other spell ingredients. The quality of those ingredients, again according to Cullen, varies widely. He didn’t think much of her, ah, professional qualities after checking