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businesslike feel here at Owen. The hunters had their own floor as their force was roughly five times the size of Owen’s hunter team. Not better or worse necessarily, just different. Different enough that she knew simply her presence ruffled feathers.
    No one liked change. Especially when the change was due to a bunch of scary junkies prowling the streets looking to kidnap witches to kill them for their magick. Lark understood their hesitation. But at that point she was frustrated that people would cling to the past when they knew those times were long gone.
    The world was changing for everyone. It was silly to imagine you could just pretend otherwise.
    You adapted or you died. Lark knew which she preferred.
    “So we’ve seen a distinct reduction in overall crime in our community since we’ve instituted this system of tactical units.”
    Edwina Owen, the previous leader of Owen and still a very important figure there, looked Lark over, one brow up. “Your hunters use human firearms and weaponry. That’s a complicated matter and raises the chances of discovery by human authorities when we obtain the necessary licenses.”
    Another bone of contention. Why Others were so wussy about guns she could never really understand.
    “It does indeed bring us into more contact with the human authorities. Clan Gennessee can’t afford to lag behind what criminals of all sorts use to commit crimes. We have a higher concentration of incursion into our community by outside groups. Drugs and organized crime are on the rise. I can use magick of course, and I do. But everyone gets depleted and a bullet does the trick in a pinch. The Hunter Corps are staffed by commonwealth witches, we don’t have the same power levels full-council witches do.”
    Sometimes full-council witches, those witches with the most power—magickal and political—in a clan forgot that the majority of clan functions were performed by the general population—commonwealth witches. As a commonwealth witch, Lark didn’t have a bond-mate, or super-duper power levels. She was strong and smart, but bullets helped tip the balance in her direction and she had no problems at all using all the tools she could.
    “And now the mages are working with turned witches and human separatists. They use guns. The human organized criminals we found last year had been working with witches to run a brisk business in prostitution and drugs—they use guns too. They use guns and explosives and they’ll hit a crowded street party filled with children just as easily as choose a military target.”
    Meriel, Edwina’s daughter and the new leader of Clan Owen, looked to Nell. “What do you think?”
    Lark respected Nell a great deal, especially when she backed Lark up. “She’s right. And permit me to remind you all that Meriel bears a scar that underlines Lark’s point about guns.”
    Meriel touched the place on her side where she’d been shot only two months before in a deadly clash with mages and turned witches.
    Nell continued. “We found explosives in that warehouse. Homemade timers. Several small frag bombs. These people want to hurt us, kill us, take everything they can from us and they’re not only going to use magick. In fact they won’t because we’re superior at it.”
    Lark nodded in total agreement.
    “This isn’t Los Angeles.” Edwina Owen said it and though she had no actual lip curl, it was in her voice.
    “No. It isn’t. You have a fairly decent relationship with your local wolf pack. Ours can be contentious at times. The largest vampire population in the United States is concentrated in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Overall your crime rate is lower. And yet your leader was shot in an attack by mages. Here on Owen land.”
    “And this wouldn’t have happened on your watch?” Edwina Owen was clearly insulted.
    Lark took a deep breath. Politics were Helena’s job. She was better at not getting people upset than Lark was. But she had no need to play