Author's Note
As a sequel to my very AU Mercyverse novel Earth Shaken (posted here in early 2019), this tale will make precious little sense without it; and as that AU was already confessedly out-of-control, thanks to Medicine Wolf, so this one cheerfully goes even further west. I add the warning that it's also a wish-fulfilment because I've given our favourite coyote-girl all the cards she needs to bounce into the White House, and then some more, so things do Go Her Way rather more than is reasonable. Mea culpa.
I had fun writing it, and I hope you have fun reading it, but please don't complain that my Mercy is by now more than a tad OOC in various ways —that's what happens if you start giving characters AU experiences, because they have to change to meet them. Oh and rather than retcon myself, I'm mildly adjusting canon to say Asil the Moor was born somewhat before the Battle of Tours, rather than just after it, making him 1300+ rather than 1300-.
It's insanely long, of course, but I don't do much that isn't, and Mercy had to do even more fast talking than usual in this one. I'm also well aware I'm taking many liberties with all sorts of things, including the electoral processes mandated by law in the USA, but this is fiction, and anyway I'm hardly the only one. And while my outgoing POTUS firmly remains namelessly 'the Man', with no stated party, and Mercy is even more firmly an Independent, I will say that I'd greatly prefer her to the present incumbent, and writing this was a form of escape from his deeply disturbing un/reality, as well as my own on this side of the pond. As a result it's differently comic than Earth Shaken, though not, I hope, less enjoyable, and Mercy still repeatedly Drops People Right In It.
One warning. You can't write a novel about a presidential election without being political, even if the preternatural is heavily involved. I refer only to the main parties, never using names, but it's obvious, and for anyone with any knowledge of present RL representatives, so are two unnamed but implicit individuals. And while there are plenty of US political topics about which I as a non-citizen know little and care less, there are others, from race relations to gun control and mitigating pollution, about which I do care, and inevitably make my position clear when Mercy is giving major speeches. And as I am politically more-or-less covered by 'liberal', a term weirdly damned in US political discourse, I ask readers who dislike such politics not to complain but rather to go read something else more congenial. Sincere criticism is welcome, but I will not respond to objections that seem primarily political, there being no point.
I know the politics also makes for what some may find boring bits, but alas, I couldn't see any way round it, given the scenario. And there is action too. Please note also that this was completed before Covid struck, and well before the violence that began in Minneapolis, and I haven't changed anything: this is upbeat, in the end, even for those pesky vamps.
As before, in telephone conversations the present speaker's words are in the usual "inverted commas", but the voice over the phone is in angle brackets (or, at FFN, /forward slashes/, as its interface removes angle brackets), because with wolf and fae hearing it may matter whether anyone present can hear both sides of the conversation, or only one. This does not apply, though, to calls using Adam's encrypted system, which has full AV.
B'jack, May 2020.
I: Madness and Method
5th – 27th April
Chapter One
EVEN thinking about running for president was eating into my down-time, and there wasn't anything not immediately fatal I wanted to do less — but here I was all the same. Jesse started it with #MercyForPresident, which to my horror trended for months, picking up likes, retweets, and whatever well into nine figures and still climbing, while people I trusted started giving me thoughtful looks. Nor had my all-too-nearly father been of much use, thinking it a splendid joke on me and everyone else that augured well, and pointing out at length that however I might feel about politicians, coyotes were tricksters too, the difference being that politicians had forgotten the important distinction between cleverly counting coup and telling bare-faced lies, so wasn't it time someone reminded them? Especially as none of the main-party hopefuls jostling for position as the electoral cycle began to run hot gave any sign of being worth spit even if you were human, never mind of use to preternaturals?
That was unhappily true, and though the Medicine Wolf Accords had been ratified, and the Columbia Restoration had enough momentum I doubted it could be derailed, I was very disappointed with the line-up of candidates. Blinkered by corporate interests, or their own fossilised SOP, they were mostly trying out lines about needing to get back to business as usual after all the excitement caused by Medicine Wolf, which was about wanting to head off green initiatives the Man and Glen Sawyer were pushing because they hurt short-term dividends. Having had a coronary, the VP was retiring, and the Man pointedly hadn't endorsed anyone or done any fundraising, saying in several major speeches that while of course safe hands were needed, so was vision, just now, and fierce integrity, to make sure what had been purged couldn't come back, and what had been gained could continue to grow to benefit all.
The deep national shame of Cantrip's hundreds of murders and ghastly experiments, with the Man's mind-expanding experiences in Kennewick, had given him an unexpected cause and motive, rekindling enthusiasm for getting things done, and even Adam admitted he really had risen to a challenge — as his ratings confirmed. He kept in occasional touch with Adam and me, asking sensible questions about putative appointees to Deputy Directorships of the new Federal Bureau of Preternatural Affairs, and lately spending a day he called a wonderful break from the Beltway meeting a bunch of First People and watching integrated magic, troll strength, and engineering remove the top layers of The Dalles dam. With Bonneville dam reduced by more than half the lower Columbia Gorge had started to drain, and if the party when Celilo Falls finally showed up again was going to be a lot bigger, the Yakama Nation had been happy to make an early start. I was saying it was all excellent publicity for interspecies cooperation when the Man quietly remarked it was also excellent publicity for me, and I really should think about using that fact.
"I know you're not taking that hashtag seriously, Ms Hauptman, but you'll have turned thirty-five by next January, so there's no bar, and for my money you could at the very least scare the pants off everyone who's already announced. I also think that while every president gets to tear their hair out often enough, for reasons good, bad, and plain silly, you're a lot better qualified than you think, and even if you didn't win you could shake things up to everyone's benefit. Our party system is unfit for purpose, and most of us know it. Money alone has never been enough for an independent candidate to push its dead weight aside, but I wouldn't bet against you being able to do just that this year, and you could deal better than anyone with preternatural affairs and problems, so do please think about it hard." His voice dropped to a murmur. "And you would have my endorsement, for whatever it may still be worth."
You could have knocked me down with any feather, never mind the one of Thunderbird's I had in my hair, but the interview Medicine Wolf was giving with a pleased expression ended and I had to go back to making nice for the cameras. On the way home Brent, the lone-wolf black-belt bodyguard Adam insisted on, politely agreed it was a ridiculous idea, but added he could see why people would like it, and I'd certainly have his vote. When I vented to Adam that evening he worried me by looking unhappily thoughtful some more. And four days later, with the full-moon hunt past, the Man's private suggestion was followed by a surprise visit by Bran to see what I thought of it, so I knew I was in real trouble. He found me in the kitchen, because although I'd had the garage rebuilt, on principle, I'd stopped accepting new customers, for security reasons, so it was open only one day a week, if that, and while I now had Clean Up the Basin! to run, cooking took up some slack as well as being useful and soothing me. I put down a knife very carefully and gave him a look of shocked incredulity.
"Bran, have you lost your mind? Coyote girl, remember? Peanut butter, wrecked cars? All-round chaos and tears before bedtime?"
Bran waved a hand. "That was a while back, Mercy, and you were not then remotely what you are now. The Man is quite right about those poll numbers — you remain exceptionally popular and strongly admired in ways that would translate into a high share of the vote. Whether it would be high enough no-one will know unless it happens, but it is not a foolish idea."
I stared some more, trying to process, and as nothing was yet in need of stirring made myself hot chocolate and sat opposite him.
"Isn't it, Bran? I'm a mixed-race female coyote who'll barely be of constitutional age, has never held elected office, and has only the most impromptu political experience. My only paying job in the last decade has been as a mechanic, the garage would be bankrupt if Adam and I weren't treating it as an overhead, and you think I should apply to run the country?"
He smiled. "I am beginning to, Mercy. Your identity and outsider status are very much the point, and while your opponents would doubtless harp on youth and political inexperience I strongly suspect they would find it gained them very little traction. More-or-less everyone on the planet has seen you dealing, superbly, with intense and sustained pressure, so they know you can cope. They also know you drove the prison search, were instrumental in putting Heuter on death row, and were the principal broker of the Medicine Wolf Accords, so you would have a great deal of domestic and international authority. Diplomatic clout, as well — who else can say they've pioneered inter-species treaties? As to the economy, it is what it is, always, but the Columbia and Cascadia projects are mandating major infrastructural investment, federal, state, and private, while the need to absorb the costs of getting greener is beginning to be accepted, so unless the bankers do something stupid again it should look after itself well enough. And there is the symbolism — which as that is a real talent of yours would be … something else. The first female, Amerindian, and preternatural president, and second non-Anglo, as well as the youngest ever, never mind since Kennedy. The inauguration would be spectacular."
That was a very un-Marrok-like argument, even recalibrating for a post-Medicine-Wolf Bran, and I drank chocolate while doing some belated sideways thinking.
"Bran, even knowing how devious you can be, I don't think you'd be pushing this at me without having talked to Adam. So, some straight answers please. Did you overrule him?"
"I didn't have to, Mercy. He's not happy about it, of course, but most of that's reflex, wanting to lock you in the house and snarl at anyone who dares approach, and he sees as well as I do that there is real potential here, of a kind it is not wise to ignore. He also agrees someone has to make you think about it properly, and was not unwilling that should be me."
As I'd been quite grumpy about it, in pure shock, that made unhappy sense too, and I sighed.
"And what will other Alphas have to say? I can't believe most of them wouldn't have seizures at the mere thought."
Bran grinned. "Some, yes, but many might surprise you, Mercy, as Hank Dawson did. Alphas are of necessity pragmatic, whatever their feelings, and you generated a great deal of respect among them, as well as astonishment and deep gratitude for the way you dealt with Paul Harris."
"Huh. At his court martial half of them seemed to think the way I'd treated him was a mitigating factor."
"A little, yes, but that was more to do with your inventing the rule about those on final warning having no right to challenge their Alpha than anything else. They saw the sense, but it was still a fast one to pull, and they all knew the capital sentence was going to have to be commuted, so reasons to do so were at a premium."
"And huh again." I hadn't been amused at the time, but that did make sense of a sort. "So you're saying I'd have real wolf support without any order from you?"
"I do not tell wolves how to vote, Mercy, ever. But while you'd need to talk to assembled Alphas before anything was announced, yes, you would. Very real, and not least because destruction of Cantrip and Bright Future, with the crippling exposure of the JLS, has signally eased the lives of most wolves and all human spouses and children. And there is the green element. Wolves who survive to lead tend to be conservative, yes, but they also know exactly how bad the environmental damage is, and like Charles have no objection whatever to rolling it back in any way possible." He gave me a slyer smile. "A coyote may still affront wolf sensibilities, but you are mated to a well-liked wolf, and human politicians are a greater affront."
"So I'm the best of a bad bargain?"
"Or the pick of the bunch, by a long way."
"Of a dreadful bunch." But he had points, and I shifted to bigger issues. The Fae had appointed an ambassador, in the unlikely shape of Baba Yaga, but while she made occasional appearances by flying mortar she had no more wish to live in DC than the reciprocal human ambassador to live Underhill, so it was still a more symbolic than practical arrangement and if I ran I would once again be playing coyote in the middle. "And the Gray Lords?"
"Have indicated that they too think you should consider it seriously, though ap Lugh told me that while they were glad to take every advantage they could of your refusal to acknowledge the debt they owe you, none would pressure you in this against your will. One does not repay any debt with blackmail, Bran Cornick, and Mercedes Elf-friend would not take kindly to it." Bran's imitation was pretty good, and I suppressed a snort at ap Lugh's wording while noting that 'Elf-friend'. "But they would be glad to see you step forward again, and have strongly implied a willingness to help."
"Un huh, Bran. Foreign powers, campaign donations."
"There is that, yes. But that concerns money."
"Which would be another whole can of worms. This kind of thinking eats millions of dollars for breakfast, never mind lunch, and I'm damned if I'm risking Adam's or Jesse's financial security, or my own, for a left-field presidential bid. But I'll agree there's money and then there's magic." And fae magic might matter a lot. I faced the thing that was really bugging me squarely. "Vamps?"
His face sobered. "Yes indeed. What of them?"
I went back to chopping, setting a wok full of what would become stir-fry or pasta accompaniment to simmer while I thought. Then I replenished Bran's coffee and leaned against the counter, giving the wok an occasional stir.
"It all still seems lunacy to me, Bran, but one bottom line is that I could not be in national authority and do nothing about the way most vamps treat their sheep. I could live and let live, if they did, but except for Stefan and Thomas Hao, they don't. Right now my obligations are to family and wolves, Medicine Wolf, avatars, and in some measure fae. I can't do anything effective about vamps and their horrid habits, and much as I regret their victims I have nothing beyond general pity as a motive to take the staggering risks involved in trying it on. But being elected, or even asking to be elected, would change every one of those parameters."
"And so more than me have calculated, Mercy. It's a big reason for Adam's wariness, and I agree there would have to be trouble. But there is trouble anyway. You are about the cost to those preternaturals who have reached accord with humans of continuing to conceal the existence of vampires, and right again that sooner or later the lid will come off, painfully. Ap Lugh will not speak to the Undead unless he must, but I have told Marsilia and others more than once that they need to be prepared for exposure, yet they still equate it with sunlight, their gerontocracy is a lot more rigid than mine, and I have no particular reason to enforce any … deadline."
The penny dropped. "Which you actually want, and I would provide?"
"It is a possibility, yes. Packs already hold down seethes in a dozen cities, which wastes our time, and while I grant that Stefan Uccello and Thomas Hao are not unreasonable beings, the rest would not be missed." He shrugged. "Forgive the analogy, but it's a burning fuse and someone is going to have to piss on it sooner or later."
That was also very un-Bran, and I shook my head. "Medicine Wolf may have made you a bit too mellow, Bran. But I'm not equipped like that Belgian kid they turned into a statue, my desire to make myself a target of enraged vamps everywhere is nil, and who says they'd only target me? Exposing them here will expose them everywhere, so it's the Master of the Night who'd have to be put on notice, not just Marsilia and Wulfe."
"True. And you are very right to be wary. But you have a remarkable track record against vampires, Mercy, and that was without anything like the kind of support you would have if you do this." He gave me a shrewd look. "And if something would be very good for wolves, avatars, and fae, as well as humans, do vampires get a veto?"
I nodded reluctantly, but waggled a hand. "Point. But how about good for me? And even more, good for Jesse? And Adam? The pack?"
"Mmm. Only you can answer about yourself, Mercy, but I doubt you would be bored in office, and former presidents have many interesting opportunities." I blinked. "And for Adam and Jesse, there would certainly be pros as well as the obvious cons. An Alpha as First Gentleman would be no bad thing, especially one as good at security as Adam, while Jesse would have four years of the best non-magical protection there is, whether she finished high school here or in DC, and for the first three years at any university she got into, all without any bills." He gave an austere smile I thought was entirely calculated. "I agree you would not want the pack living at the White House, but why should they? In the event, you would no doubt make this a western White House anyway. A lot of travelling, yes, but you have the cloak, and there would be no problem with Adam accompanying you. Nor with Jesse, I would imagine."
I did some more thinking while I decanted the wok into Tupperware boxes, sealed and labelled them, and set them to cool. Then I sat back down, and gave Bran a hard look.
"Answers, answers. Alright, Bran, I get that you really do think this insanity is a good idea, and I will try to process it beyond saying WTF? at regular intervals. I will also talk to Adam and Jesse, who each have absolute vetoes, and if we get that far Adam and I will talk to the pack. But I tell you straight, I see far more serious problems than opportunities."
"Such as?"
"Besides vamps and the constitutionality of fae contact — and it's all very well you talking about using the cloak, but would it even be legal for a sitting president to commute via foreign territory several times a week? — try funding, inciting all the haters to get re-organised at top speed, finding someone silly enough to serve as a running mate, and all the other campaigns that would be necessary, federal and state, because sticking me in the White House" — it sounded so absurd — "while leaving the Senate and House in main-party hands is just a recipe for legislative gridlock. Trying to wrangle them would leave no time for anything else, and for all I might have some big POTUS sticks to wave around I'd have no real leverage with either party. And they'd all be in shock anyway, besides having no reason whatever to be co-operative." Seeing difficulties pile up impossibly I warmed to the theme. "And if we're pushing that Constitutional amendment about preternatural rights, it'll be state legislatures that need to ratify it, and that's a hundred more chambers and fifty governorships to think about. So add funding, funding, and funding, again, as well as any number of campaign staff, and what platform anyone, including me, might be running on besides be nicer to preternaturals, Amerindians, women, and the environment, hey?"
Irritatingly, Bran just waved a hand again. "Mostly true also, Mercy, and yes, there will be many very real problems. But thought through properly as legislative, social, and ecological intents, those are no bad policies, and the fact remains that the immense popularity and respect you earned last year has been remarkably sustained by every measure anyone can think of. Your display of power during the Heuter trial and high visibility in managing First People affected by the Columbia Restoration have added to it. And if you won, both main parties would not only be badly shaken and as chastened as is possible for them — they would have no partisan reason to oppose an independent president, and every reason to try to win back some of the territory you would have taken from them. You would also have cabinet posts to fill, and many powers they would wish to court." He offered a more genuine smile, with some warmth in it. "It is not a thing I would force on anyone, not that forcing you to do anything has ever worked well, but as Marrok I cannot ignore such potential, so I do ask you do that serious thinking and consulting, without further delay."
He did stop pushing, but a carefully restrained Bran was not much less of a weight to deal with, and after he'd headed back to some private airstrip outside Burbank where he'd parked the Cessna I tried thinking about it some more, gave up with a snort, and after warning Honey and George, who were on guard shift, I collected an amused Brent, went coyote, and spent the afternoon giving some local rabbits a hard time, which entertained our resident brownies and pixies. I didn't kill any rabbits, but they got some much-needed exercise and so did I.