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It had to work. That's all there was to it. It had to. Wipe the knights' memories, induct them into The Order and get them on her side. The fight with Edward was far from the first battle for the soul of the Order and it wouldn't be the last. Four powerful practitioners dedicated to keeping people safe... They'd be on her side. Of course they would.
The first three were easy to understand.
Jack Morton was a golden retriever in human form. Someone had to call out orders and tell him he was a good boy. Better her than someone with less noble intentions.
Lilith Bathory had powdered out of The Order for the same reason she'd switched from Fine Art to Art History. She had great potential and a fear of failure she turned outward as aggression. Left unchecked she'd graduate in debt, work at a coffee shop, and be the edgy girlfriend to a series of men or women with practical careers who'd sooner or later get tired of her judging glances. Teaching her was doing her a favor.
Randall Carpio was a soft jock, what they were calling a himbo now. Too gentle for football, too much energy for ultimate frisbee, and not enough of a smoker for hackey sack, he flitted through pick up games and ground his way through his curriculum. The Order could use an MD if he managed to stick with both, but he had a decent set of values. Eventually what he knew was possible would clash with what he was allowed to do. His long term prospects weren't great in The Order, but he didn't have any short term prospects at all if he couldn't be brought in line. It was worth a try.
And then there was Hamish Duke. Her eleven o'clock meeting. Her usually reliable people reading skills were useless when it came to him. Today was decision day. Could he be brought in line? Were his memories *fully* wiped? Could she be professional about this and not get lost in thoughts of what she could do with six feet of sexy librarian/beast?
Damn him and his tailor. The way he dressed. The way he spoke. Impeccable. Carefully considered. She understood him, and that was why she didn't trust him.
He was bantering with her receptionist now, casually dropping the fact that he had a meeting with the chancellor. He was as perfectly polished as if he'd just rolled off the line at the old money factory and she wanted him ruined. Covered in smears of her lipstick, hair a mess, and sweating. Not perspiring like he'd just come from a tennis lesson. Utterly worn out. The fox at the end of the hunt rather then the hunter.
He crossed the threshold and his step faltered just a fraction of a step. In anyone else it would be meaningless. In this one it meant something was breaking through. Some memory. Some threat.
He offered his hand. "Chancellor. I think we've crossed paths a few times but I can't recall every having had a conversation."
Can't recall? "We can remedy that today."
"Your office is --" he faltered again. "Eclectic. Streamlined in the modern style but with significant nods to history and your specialty."
"And what do you think of my specialty?"
"Translations of colonialist diaries are hard to come by. There's so much culture hinted at but obscured by prejudice. As an epistemological knowledge that's barely in reach is the apple in the garden. I think your decision to focus on medicine and religion in your dissertation was an excellent choice. It's not trendy, but the continuity throughout human history and cultures is how we care for our bodies and souls. That's the core of who we are."
"You read it?" He was probably the only one who ever had. Her masters degree was in academic administration. In most of The Order's eyes the PhD was barely more than a necessary vanity to allow her to hold the title of chancellor. There were a few in who'd hoped she'd unearth a few spells in her work. Too bad for them she hadn't published every text she'd translated.
He leaned forward as if sharing a secret. "I'm citing you as a source for my own work."
"What work?"
"My dissertation is focused on contrasting the difference between lost knowledge, undiscovered truth, and information that's merely inaccessible. We don't expect anything to be more than a few clicks away in the internet age but much of humanity and human history is out of reach to any given person."
"That's a fascinating subject." She hated that she meant it.
"It is. For example right now there's a certain smell in this room. I know I know it, but the identity eludes me. It's out of reach even though I can describe the elements of it. Musky, sensual, erotic -"
"Mr. Duke, it's an air freshener!" Oh God, the wolf could smell her arousal.
He laughed. "Well, now that the mystery is solved I won't be able to use that example in my dissertation. Or perhaps I'll keep it as a lesson. Sometimes you should just ask instead of fumbling blindly forward."
"Indeed." Vera reached for the threads of her composure and tried to weave them back together. She needed to think clearly. She needed to evaluate this wolf and instead she was revealing everything to him.
"In the spirit of just asking, why am I here, Chancellor?"
"You're headed into your fifth year working on you doctorate?"
He tensed and she relished it. A student who knew he'd been caught lingering. Good. That's who he was supposed to be. All he was supposed to be.
"Our Ethics Professor, Doctor Clarke, seems to have taken an unauthorized sabbatical and I need to fill the position. You should know all the players in the philosophy department by now, and I'd like an insiders view on which of these candidates should be added to the tenure track staff. Which will best grow the department without causing the sort of waves that make my job harder."
"I'm honored, and I'd be happy to help." His grin spread to his eyes. He meant it.
She told him the names of the three leading contenders and he confirmed he knew each of them and their work.
"No one's position will be reduced as a result of anything you say, and I may take your advice or not, so you should speak freely. Whatever comes to mind." Let him babble. Let him reveal what he knew.
An hour later she knew more about the candidates and the balance of philosophical positions in the department than she'd have ever thought to ask, but she didn't know who to hire. She had learned enough about Hamish though that she took his opinion seriously. It was an unexpected perk of the evaluation. Not just a memory wiped wolf but an intelligent man. He'd have been an asset to The Order even without the convertible fur coat.
She should have ended the meeting there. She let him keep talking.
At the two hour mark she still didn't know who to hire, but her cheeks hurt from the involuntary smiles that kept sneaking onto her lips. She asked for his final recommendation, and he suggested they order lunch in and continue to work the problem. The difference between bold and fresh is how the recipient takes the attention. Vera appreciated his boldness.
Her 11 o'clock meeting was still going when the folk music club arrived at 3 to contest their permit denial.
"Don't get up," she told him.
When the students came in she held out her hand for the permit request then leveled the leader of the vegan pack. "You want to take over the largest campus performance space for an entire weekend during February and you hand me an all white performers list for the whitest art form ever invented? Did you intend to be this offensive or are you just clueless?"
She handed the form back to a girl quickly fading to paler than her blonde dreadlocks and the group left without another word.
"Could have been a teachable moment," Hamish said with a grin that revealed he wouldn't wish to change a thing.
"It was. They won't make the same mistake again."
"Do you have a suggestion for edgy Gen Z'ers who think quoting Diogenes is a gotcha?"
She deadpanned, "Hit them with a rubber chicken."
He shook with laughter and despite herself Vera laughed with him. People didn't usually get her humor.
She continued a half serious rant, glad for the rare moment when she was allowed to feel and express instead of guide. "What is the obsession with Mediterranean men? Achilles and Patroclus, Sappho and her gal pals, Alexander the Great and Hephaestion. That I understand. It's all love stories and speculation. A human constant."
"I'd like to delve further into that idea of love."
"In a moment. I need to complain that ancient Greece and Rome have been given an undue amount of weight and regard because of meme culture. Why? Has the business department so thoroughly co-opted The Art of War that we can't even glance at it?"
"Don't forget what the theater department did to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance or the English department ruining Kerouac."
Vera rolled her eyes. "Kerouac's writing is better viewed as an historical documentary than a philosophical or literary achievement."
"That's the sexiest thing I've ever heard a woman say."
He caught her gaze and Vera tried to catch her breath. Her mouth was somehow dry and watering at the same time. The only thing to do was smother the fire he was trying to spark, but the thought made her ache. "If that's true then you don't get out much."
"Where should we go then, Vera?"
The shift to her first name didn't go unnoticed, but she chose to leave it unacknowledged. "You're a tuition paying student, Mr. Duke. This has been a memorable meeting but we don't have and aren't going to have a social relationship."
He took a minute to process that but didn't look nearly as distressed as he should. She was a little insulting actually that she'd shot him down so firmly and he hadn't slunk away. Her carefully organized life relied on people being a bit afraid of her.
Finally he said, "I'm trying to figure out how to say what needs to be said without sounding like an asshole."
"Have you considered that trying to manipulate how others perceive you makes you an asshole?"
"Fascinating but separate topic. Like love, let's come back around to it after we get this next bit out of the way."
She pressed back into her chair and gestured to indicate the floor was his.
"As you noted, I've been pursuing a philosophy doctorate for four years and counting. Others would have finished by now. I... have little incentive to finish. Tuition is about the same as the cost of membership at a good country club and I don't much care for golf. Here I'm surrounded by people actively pursuing self-betterment. There's simply no where I'd rather be."
"An interesting revelation, Mr. Duke, but I'm not sure how that relates to what we were discussing before you decided to drop your pants. Guard! I meant drop your guard!"
He smiled but let her denial stand. "The point is there's no ethical barrier to us having a drink. Or more. Your sole power over me is the power to kick me out my country club, which isn't much of a power at all. It would be inconvenient, but I can buy my way into another one."
"You were right to worry about sounding like an asshole."
He shrugged. "Won the battle lost the war?"
"I didn't know we were at war." A voice inside her screamed. You are at war. Constantly. Always. Within The Order and outside it. With the Wolves if this plan doesn't work. What are you doing?
His teeth grazed his lower lip. "The harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph." She'd heard plenty of Thomas Paine quotes, but that was the first time anyone had made his words sound sexual.
"What specifically are you suggesting for the near future, Hamish?"
"When I was in Panama last year I bought a journal alleged to be from a Spanish settler circa 1650. I'd like to get your opinion on it."
Not the answer she expected. At all. "Is that really what you want?"
"In 'Baby It's Cold Outside' were either of them genuinely worried about the weather?"
"You haven't heard about that song?"
"That it's trendy to strip it of its historical cultural context and overlay modern sensibilities on it? I've heard. An accurate interpretation recognizes that reputation saving cover was necessary and they planned their stories in a way made each of them instantly understandable and forgiven in the eyes of their contemporaries." He leaned towards her but didn't leave his chair. "Vera, would you, please, stop by my place on your way home from work and... take a look at some papers?"
She purred her answer, putting as much innuendo into it as he'd plastered on the Paine quote. "You want me to consult on your dissertation?"
"That sounds amazing."
She was definitely going to have to powder him, but that could wait til morning.