Date: 2010-05-11T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Vampires; Fantasy; Werewolves
Description: Book 2 of the Demon Accords. It's been seven months since Chris Gordon met Tanya Demidova, and a lot has changed. He's stronger and faster and has the senses of a vampire and the appetite of a werewolf. But even as he settles into his new position with the Special Situations Squad and his relationship with Tanya, new threats appear. From south of the border, north of the city, inside the NYPD, and the federal government. But the hardest fight Chris will face is with himself. Sometimes the demon inside is the most dangerous! **
Publisher: lulu.com

DEMON DRIVEN

John Conroe

Smashwords Edition

This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2010 John Conroe

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

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ISBN: 978-0-557-46609-2

“Cry ‘HAVOC’ and let slip the dogs of war!” – Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar

Chapter 1

The corridor was long, dark and musty. It ended at a 'T'. The werewolf was waiting around the left corner – at least that's where I thought he was. I couldn't smell him or hear his heartbeat, which was really frustrating. It’s amazing how fast you come to rely on hyper acute senses. But all I could smell was the sharp ozone odor of overworked electric motors. The only sound I could hear: a faint whirring that seemed to come from everywhere. The clock was ticking and I couldn't wait any longer. Sliding silently down the hallway, I hugged the right-hand wall with my back, and kept the full-auto Glock 18 in my right hand pointed ahead, the smaller Glock 19 in my left pointed behind me.

I didn't use to handle two pistols at once, so-called two-gun mojo. But that had changed. A lot had changed. I've often carried two guns, but it was more of a backup kind of thing, I only ever used one at a time. A couple of months ago, the ability to handle two at once had just sort of manifested. Odd? Just the tip of the iceberg of odd.

Close enough to see part-way around the corner; I began to 'slice the pie'.

That's what the Academy instructors call it. When you are clearing a building, corners and doorways are deathtraps. So cops are trained to gradually move around a corner, getting an ever-increasing view (or slice of the pie), while presenting as small a target as possible. Clearing a 'T' is a two person job. But there was only one of me and I had to make the best of it.

My leading shoulder was just about on the edge of the right corner and there was nothing waiting on the left side of the intersection. Uh oh! A slight rush of air from the right was my only warning and then my fight brain took over. The big toothy thing charging from the right should have taken my right arm off at the elbow. Instead, it rushed into empty space as I instinctively flipped over it, my legs pointing toward the ceiling, my head and gun hand pointing down at the shaggy shape below. Without conscious thought my finger feathered the trigger, ripping a three round burst into the skull below me. Viscous red fluid sprayed the white institutional walls and gray floor, as the monster slammed headfirst into the wall, crunching through sheet rock and wall studs. It collapsed in a spasming heap, while I landed lightly on my feet. My attention shifted to the door at the end of the left hallway, which was opening violently. A six-foot humanoid figure with red eyes and two-inch fangs rushed at me from the doorway. Four rounds to the chest, two to the head, sidestep into the first hall to let it rush by, and double tap the back of its head with the left hand gun. How I can shoot and hit a moving target in the dark with my left hand while looking the opposite direction is as big a mystery to me as anyone. I just can. Of course, the V-squared virus might have something to do with it.

I moved quickly toward the open door, shifting first left, then right to gain some view of what lay on the other side. The echoing gunshots that should have deafened me, instead painted a sonar-like picture of the room ahead in my head. Three people occupied space in the room. My mental picture had the doorway coming into the room at a corner, where one of the long walls of the rectangle met a short wall. One person was seated and two were standing close together, one large, one small.

Slowing down wasn't an appealing option, so instead, I dove through the opening, body horizontal to the ground, guns pointed at the seated figure and the larger of the two that were standing. Sharp flashes of light and concussive waves of sound washed over me. I could feel tiny bits of burning gunpowder touch my skin, as their bullets slammed through the air behind me. A four round burst found the large standing vampire, at the same time that two rounds from my left hand gun hit the sitting vamp in the forehead. Rolling to my feet, my fight brain automatically scanned for threats as I reflexively dropped the smaller model 19 into its left-hand thigh holster, while my right hand ejected the partial mag from the Glock 18. A fresh thirty-three rounder was just seating home in 18s grip when the double doors at the other end of the room slammed open, revealing a nine-foot tall, shaggy monster. It charged.

Long burst to the chest, short burst to the face, dodge right. The sasquatch slammed into the wall behind me and I reflexively fired a third burst into the back of its head.

Turning to the small female figure that was the purpose of all my actions to this point, I was just in time to see another flash of light and feel a sharp jolt to my chest. Her face snarling and framed by flaming red hair, she was bringing her silver handgun back on target, when a long burst from my gun knocked her off her feet.

Instantly bright light from high overhead illuminated everything, and a voice like God's boomed:“You're dead! And so is your hostage!”

“You're half right,” I replied to the trio of people sitting two stories up in the bulletproof control room.

“How do you figure?” Steve Sommers asked.

“My vest stopped the round,” I answered, pointing to the red spot on my chest armor where the Simunitions training round had impacted.

“Then why did you kill the girl you were supposed to rescue?” asked the female form leaning over Steve's shoulder.

“ 'Cause she was shooting at me! It was obvious she had been Turned!” I answered, angry at the thoroughly frustrating nature of the simulation.

Gina Velásquez's sharp brown eyes studied me like a scientist with a strange new bug.

“Chris, the scenario states that the girl has only been missing for a day. You, yourself, have told us that it takes at least three days for a human to be Turned,” she stated.

“Then why did she attack me?” I asked.

“Easy, she was mind controlled,” Chet Akins, the third of my tormentors, explained.

“What? Where the hell did that come from?”

Now I was really pissed off. The shoot house simulations I had been running were becoming harder and harder to win. My trainers in NYPD's Special Situation Squad were understandably handicapped by a lack of direct knowledge of the supernatural world, the dark, violent societies of vampires and weres. It’s hard to get good information when the object of your interview is ripping your throat out or using your arm as a toothpick. But when they started to make up stuff, it made me crazy.

“Chris, we have numerous documented cases of humans being....enthralled would be the word, by vampires,” Gina said.

“Well, that's a new one for me. I've never heard of that from any of my vamps,” I said.

“Have you ever asked?” was her calm reply.

“And what the hell's up with the sasquatch? I asked, still angry, but starting to feel like a bit of a jerk.

Steve and Chet looked at each other, both shrugging as Chet answered.

“We found him on eBay. Left over from a B grade movie, 'When Bigfoot Attacks'.”

Coming down a bit from my combat high, I was becoming more and more uncomfortable with my own actions.

“Well, it's actually kinda cool,” I allowed.

Sommers was already half way down the metal ladder that provided the only access to the shoot house control booth. Aikens was waiting impatiently to follow and Gina was still watching me, her damnably perceptive eyes continuing their cool evaluation.

The Squad's shoot house was an old Brooklyn warehouse that had been seized by the NYPD after it had been taken in a drug lab raid. I had been along on that raid, as had the entire Special Situation Squad, because the building had housed the laboratory that had manufactured Hance, a potent street drug derived from vampire and demon blood. That raid had been a pivotal point in my relationship with the squad, as well as my introduction to one of my more unique friends. That's saying something, as I have some extremely unusual friends.

The shoot house was located on the lowest level, three stories underground. The concrete floor had been mostly empty when we had raided it, now it was a veritable maze of movable walls and doors. Separated into three, distinct shoot zones, it could host all manner of scenarios involving everything from terrorists to the more exotic supernaturally themed situations like I had just run. Chet, our technical guy, had enlisted the help of his robotics club to build our 'vampires' and 'werewolves'.

“Dude, what the hell have you done to my wolf?” Chet asked.

He was looking down at the bullet shattered head of his most prized creation.

“Sorry, Chet, but it startled me and I just ... reacted,” I said.

He had built the life-size werewolf robot according to my limited knowledge of them. Since the head was chest-high on a human, he had built the skull to absorb 'kill' shots from the front, not through the top. My burst of nine millimeter slugs had exploded intricate mechanisms, spraying red hydraulic fluid all over the place.

“What was that move? We couldn't quite follow it and we haven't reviewed the footage yet,” Steve said.

I explained my twisting, head-down jump over the wolfbot. Steve and Chet looked impressed, Gina, who had joined us on the floor of the shoot house, just watched me, her arms crossed. I knew the signs. She was working up some words for me. Words from Detective Sgt. Velásquez were not usually enjoyable and the thought of enduring a blistering ream-out contributed to my sour mood.

I grabbed a broom and started sweeping up expended brass while Chet looked over the robots and Steve cataloged the damage to the walls and doors. The only real problem was the wolfbot and the wall it ran into. The other bots had taken slugs in the foam-filled portions of their anatomy that were designed for such abuse. Sensors in the gel recorded damage 'points' from successive hits and when a proper number was reached, the computer that ran everything would 'kill' the bot.

“Wolffie is down and out,” Chet said. “It's gonna take a week to fix this mess.”

I sighed. “Chet, I'm really sorry.”

“Yeah, well, me too!”

Chet, with a hand from the brawny Sommers, began loading the heavy robot onto a dolly to transport it to his workshop. I sensed Gina's approach, although my back was to her.

“Chris, let's chat a minute.”

Oh boy, here it comes, I thought. Gina is my handler, so to speak, a position assigned to her when the previous Police Commissioner had begun to realize the extent of my abilities. That's not to say that they knew the real extent of what I could do. Hell, I was still learning that, even seven months after my 'transformation'. But they knew enough.

“Chris, I'm disturbed by your actions. I can't believe you shot the hostage.”

“Okay, I'll admit, I probably shouldn't have capped her, but you gotta understand just how frustrating these things are.”

“Frustrating how?” she asked.

I kept my voice down as I answered. Chet was already mad at me, I didn't need to insult his handiwork on top of the damage I had done to his wolf.

“There's no scent, no life sounds, the movements are slow and jerky,” I said. “Even the echoes I get are obviously from non-living objects. It's hard to make believe it's real, when all my senses tell me it's not.”

“You can hear the difference in the echoes from a living body to a mannequin?” she asked.

I nodded. My whole echo-sonar ability was a fairly recent development and I was still adjusting to it.

“Look, if she had been real, I wouldn't have done that, but it all seemed too game-like to me. Now, I'm going to go from this -- “I waved my hand around us” -- to sparring with Tatiana. Not even remotely similar. If the girl was real, even if she had been Turned, I could have taken the gun from her and secured her without much chance of damage to myself.”

Gina knew my abilities as well as any of the squad, better even, and she certainly suspected more, but she looked a little shocked at my confession.

“You're that much faster than a new vampire?” she asked.

“Yeah, at least fast enough,” I answered.

Truth be told, I'm that much faster than a hundred-year-old vamp. I'm nowhere near as fast as Tanya, but I'm head and shoulders above anyone in the New York coven, except maybe Arkady, Tanya’s giant chief of security.

“Is it that useless then?” she asked.

“No. It's not useless. It's good for my shooting. I mean, I can't go around shooting at real vamps or weres, now can I? It’s also as good as we can get for training the rest of the team,” I said. “Look, you’re right. I shouldn’t have shot the hostage, even if I was taking fire. But these things are just so damned frustrating!”

She pursed her lips as she thought about my words.

“Chris, I get what you’re saying about the simulations, but your response still seems excessive. And on top of that, you have been really edgy lately. Quick to blow up, so to speak. People have noticed.”

I was aware of her careful gaze as I reflected on the truth in her statement. I had been running a short fuse lately, and I had absolutely no idea why. She read my own lack of answers on my face. Gina is skilled in reading micro expressions, the result of intensive training in what’s become known as facial coding.

“Look, let’s talk about this some more later. The Inspector is due here in a few moments, hopefully with the new Commissioner in tow. Are you ready for a demonstration?” she asked.

The squad’s leader, Inspector Martin Roma, had been trying for two months to get the new Police Commissioner to learn more about our group. The NYPD Special Situations Squad is off the official org chart, but has been in existence in one form or another for decades. Formed to deal with the unexplainable world of the supernatural, the head of the squad always reports directly to the Commissioner. When the new mayor had swept into office last November on a platform of social issues, he had fired the old Commissioner and brought in his handpicked replacement. Said replacement hadn’t taken his Department of Homeland Security briefing on things that go bump in the night very seriously. DHS has their own paranormal combat team, and they are responsible for coordinating and educating each of the big city teams. Each new commissioner gets their own dog and pony show (or maybe I should say – wolf and bat show) from the feddies. Commissioner Kane hadn’t believed a word of it and thought our squad a waste of money and man power.

In a way, we were victims of our own success. Crimes that fit a paranormal MO had fallen off drastically, the result of Tanya’s control of the New York Coven and my own recent liaison with the city’s Pack. Even demon activity, my personal area of expertise, had dried up since the events of last Halloween.

I heard Roma’s voice greeting Aikens and Sommers in the stairwell, but it was too faint for Gina to hear. She noticed the tilt of my head as I listened and guessed the reason.

“Roma here?” she asked.

“Yeah, but I don’t hear any other voices.”

“Dammit! If we can’t convince Kane how important the squad is, he’ll do something stupid,” she said.

“You mean like shut us down?” I asked.

She didn’t say anything but her grim look was answer enough.

The stairwell door opened and Inspector Martin Roma stepped out. Lean and athletic, average height, dark hair, neatly trimmed goatee, he alternately reminded me of either a corporate attorney or a college professor, depending on his manner of dress. Today he was channeling the corporate image with a charcoal Armani suit. He smiled at the two of us, but the lines in his forehead never relaxed.

“No Commissioner Kane, I see.” Gina greeted him.

He shook his head and sighed before answering.

“I was really hoping to show him the plastic explosive thing at least. No end of uses to that one,” he said.

The unique ability I was born with, the violet energy I used to banish demons, had undergone almost as many changes during my transformation as my body had. One of the results was a rather nifty ability to change the chemical structure of a compound with nothing but my will. Among other useful applications, it was great for rendering explosives inert (although I had once used it to change Sommers’ sunscreen to pink dye to nice effect). It put a whole new light on bomb defusing, especially since I could do it from a short distance away and no one around me would have any idea of what I had done.

“Well, I’ll just have to keep after him, won’t I? Now, how did the latest simulation go?” he asked.

After a quick glance at me, Gina answered him. “We have some more bugs to work out and the wolfbot took a really bad hit.”

It seemed that part of Gina’s role as my handler was to shield my personal issues from everyone else. I had no doubt that she kept Roma informed of my mental condition, abilities and stability, but she steadfastly protected me from undue criticism. As much as she would take me to task over my temper issues, she wasn’t going to embarrass me in front of our boss. I’m pretty sure that Roma was aware of this.

“What manner of abuse did you heap on the poor, defenseless wolf, Gordon?” he asked.

“Um, it wasn’t where I thought it was and it startled me, Sir,” I answered.

“He jumped over it, upside down and shot it through the top of its skull,” Gina said.

The Inspector arched one aristocratic eyebrow as he looked from her to me.

“If I recall, wolfbot doesn’t have any gel on top of its head,” he said.

I grimaced as I responded, “No sir, it doesn’t. I’m afraid that Chet is not real happy with me at the moment.”

He chuckled as he thought about it. “Oh don’t let him fool you. Chet is mostly upset that his design has a flaw. I’ll bet you that will be changed when the wolf comes back.”

“I don’t think I’ll take that bet, Sir,” I answered.

He looked at his watch. “Well, since we don’t need you to perform any magic tricks, why don’t you head out early? The sooner you start, the quicker your girl will be done beating you up, right?”

“Thank you for reminding me of the pain that awaits me.”

He laughed. “She only wants you to be prepared to protect yourself. I’m sure she won’t hurt you too badly.”

He obviously had never worked out with Tanya before.

Chapter 2

Perhaps this is a good time for some background. It should be apparent from some of my actions and comments that I'm not quite normal. Actually, freak of nature would be a good term to use, except that I don't think nature has much to do with it. Maybe freak of the supernatural would be better.

But I digress; the short version goes like this: My family was murdered by an axe-wielding stranger when I was eight. I, being a paragon of bravery, hid in the back of my brother's closet in a quivering mass of fear. That the monster in a man's body didn't find me seemed a miracle. But when I was twelve and living with my grandfather, I discovered an ability to banish demons, and learned from the demons that I exorcised that the stranger who murdered my family had been a demon in a body that was empty of a human soul. I call them Hellbourne. So, I embarked on a life of demon hunting; both the housebound kind that form the basis of all those horror movies that teens love to watch, as well as the more dangerous, mobile kind, the Hellbourne (think Jason from Friday the 13th). Eventually, I left the northern New York farm of my childhood (or maybe junior demon hunter-hood is more apt), and moved to the Big Apple to increase my odds. Makes sense; more people, more demons.

I joined the NYPD, mostly because it was the only legal way to carry a gun, and started hunting. A week before my twenty-third birthday, I encountered a demon intent on killing a girl at a nightclub. I saved her, only to discover she was a vampire. Actually, Tatiana Demidova (Tanya to her friends) was more of a vampire princess, being the only known naturally born vampire. Oh, and her birthdate just happened to be the exact same as mine. Halloween....at midnight. Creepy, huh?

We exchanged cell phone numbers, as well as large amounts of blood (well, large amounts of my blood, just a little of hers), and just like that we were an item. Only her blood had a pronounced effect on me physically. I got stronger, faster, healed quicker and developed acute senses, not to mention, a really heavy-duty appetite. My body lost almost all of its fat, something I had little of to begin with, and apparently, my outward appearance changed as well.

Growing up as a demon hunter adds a whole new level of school outcast to the list. In high school, I fell below the audio-visual and math club geeks on the social ladder. My exceptionally strange violet eye color hadn't helped in the slightest. So I learned to stay unnoticed, under the radar, so to speak.

Tanya's blood pretty much shot that all to pieces. My skin got darker, like a Native American’s (I'm Scottish, Irish, and some Russian), my cheekbones seemed more pronounced and my eyes got even freakier, which all together, somehow made me a lot more noticeable. Women (and some men) stare at me, pretty much wherever I go. Gina says it's because I'm 'hot'. Whatever the reason, it makes me nervous. It’s not like I could ever act on their attraction. Okay, that’s a lie, I could, I just wouldn’t. First and foremost, I have Tanya. I never expected to find anyone I could have a life with, but then she dropped into my life. I don’t deserve her, I didn’t dream someone like her would ever choose me and I would never seek another. But if I did, the women I went out with wouldn’t like the results. They would all be pretty much demon targets. Or worse, Tanya targets.

So, where was I? Oh yeah. Tanya. Five foot five inches tall, raven hair, sapphire blue eyes, smokin' hot body. Gorgeous? Too lame. Stunning? Completely inadequate. If she walked, completely dressed, into a Victoria's Secret lingerie fashion show, all eyes would be on her, even the thong- and bustier-wearing models'. None of which matters much to her. She's kinda serious much of the time, intent on helping her people. That's not to say she can't laugh or enjoy a good joke, she just concentrates on things she deems important. Like fighting. At age twenty-three, only the two surviving Elders can beat her in close quarters combat. Barely. Being a natural born vampire, well, being the natural born vampire, she is as fast and strong as a thousand-year-old vamp. She inherited her mother Galina Demidova’s business mind, and is easily able to manage the New York Coven's sprawling investments and real estate holdings. But the topic she is most serious about is ... me. On a scale of one to ten, I rank about twenty. That's what Lydia says. Lydia is the young vampire (eighty years old) who is Tanya's confidant, assistant, de facto sister, and all around Girl Friday. She's also a major league pain in my ass. Not that we aren’t good friends, we are. It’s just that she takes major delight in tormenting me. She says a girl has to have a hobby.

But back to Tanya. See, vampires tend to fixate on one mate and their focus is extremely intense. And once a vampire has decided, by whatever internal reasons they value, on their mate, well, that’s pretty much it. They don’t waiver, stray, or lose focus. Ever. At least, that’s how it’s been explained to me. I’m not a vampire. Not a were either. Nope, I’m an altogether new kind of freak. So I keep waiting for Tanya to come to her senses and realize I’m not the one. But that hasn’t happened in the seven months we’ve been together. She’s just as attentive and loving as when I first met her, as well as protective and territorial. Very territorial. Scary territorial.

Chapter 3

I cleaned up my guns and gear, the red Simunitions dye on my armor carrier taking the longest, then headed out. Since our training facility was already in Brooklyn, getting to Tanya’s was quick and easy. So quick that I stopped for a snack, sort of a pre-dinner dinner. My caloric requirements have diminished but it still takes work to eat eight thousand calories a day. I opted for a smoked turkey club with fries from a deli two blocks from Tanya’s house.

The Demidova residence is a five-story brownstone on Willow Street in Brooklyn Heights. Expensive, stylish and furnished with priceless antiques, it was home to Tanya, her mother Galina (when she was in the US), Lydia, and a rotating number of other vamps. As near as I could figure, the New York Coven numbered between three hundred and five hundred vampires, spread around the city. It sounds like a lot, but in a city of eight million souls, several hundred beings of any type are a drop in the bucket. The Willow Street residence was the headquarters for the Coven and the center of the Demidova business empire. Being a vampire in the Coven means more than being part of a family. In addition to providing a sense of belonging and emotional support (yeah, vampires and emotional support don’t seem to go together), every vampire in the Coven was also a share member in the Coven’s wealth. Structured like a supernatural privately-owned corporation, vampires accrue shares in the Coven as they age. Elders Senka and Tzao were the largest shareholders, naturally enough. Galina owned many shares, due to both her age (two hundred-seventy years) and her amazing business sense. Shares could be earned or awarded based on service to the Coven. Tanya owned almost as many shares as her mother, the result of gifts from Senka, her mother and other vampires, who treated my young vampire as pureblood royalty.

The house has massive front doors that look vintage, the biometric lock, however, is state-of-the-art. The panel scanned my palm and admitted me entrance to the house’s front foyer. I nodded at the human guard on duty, Jeff, or maybe Justin, I thought. I actually knew most of them on sight, but this one was new. All ex-military, mostly special forces types, they protected the Coven during the daylight hours. Hired and vetted by Arkady, with help from the human supervisor, Deckert, they were extremely well paid and had great benefits. And after many years of service, some were even given the opportunity to Turn, becoming vampires themselves. Most chose not to, but all remained loyal. Disloyalty was a real, real bad idea.

Near the rear of the house a stairway leads to the below-ground levels. As I headed down I could hear a sound like machine gun fire coming from below. Not exactly like full-auto gunfire, but sharper, more metallic – the sounds of vampire combat. Most likely Arkady sparring with my girl. He was the only one currently in residence who could give her much of a workout. Or maybe a good warmup. The lowest level is one big open room, with nine-foot ceilings and a concrete floor. It was originally designed for cold storage, but the vampires had knocked down the internal walls and opened the whole thing up into a sixty by ninety-foot room.

As I came out of the stairwell, I could see Arkady’s giant back, bare and overly muscled, covered in sweat. It takes an enormous level of activity to make a vampire break a sweat. Arkady was perspiring rivers. He shifted left and I spotted the current head of the coven, and the only girlfriend I’ve ever had.

Midnight black hair, skin the color of fresh cream, eyes so blue they almost spark. She was dressed in black volleyball shorts and a sleeveless red performance tee shirt. Silver colored bracelets gleamed on each taut forearm, exactly matching the silver shine of her twin swords. One hundred and twenty pounds of girl vampire faced at least two hundred, sixty pounds of mean, killer male. Her eyes didn’t flick my way, but she knew I was there. Hell, she had known exactly where I was the moment she awoke at dusk.

Arkady suddenly blurred forward, his great two-handed sword swirling in a flashing arc of steel. Tanya met his overhead strike with her blades crossed, not moving an inch. Then she exploded in counterstrike, her blades hitting his in a superfast staccato of sound, almost like…wait for it….machinegun fire. She pushed him back by main force and fury, then skipped to the side, sweeping his right leg at the knee with the flat of her left blade. He fell backward, the edge of her right blade right at his throat the whole way to the ground. He froze, his eyes black rim-to-rim, the razor-like sword at his jugular. Tanya paused a moment, then stepped back to let him flip to his feet. The black left his eyes and the yellow that was his normal color returned. Tanya slapped him on the arm with a blade flat, dropped both swords, then spun and pounced on me in a running leap that left her legs wrapped around my waist and her lips covering mine. My normal greeting.

“Hi gorgeous!” I said, when she let me up for air.

“Hi yourself, handsome.”

Conversation stopped for a moment as we looked into each others’ eyes. I have no idea what she was thinking about, but me, I was busy wondering at fate, that this girl should choose me.

“Ahem!” Arkady cleared his throat.

We both looked at him. He wasn’t even slightly uncomfortable with interrupting us.

“Can I ask what manner of beating you have in store for the mortal?” he said, referring to me, even though I’m not really mortal anymore.

Our first meeting had been rocky, but Arkady was completely devoted to serving Tanya and if she chose me than that was good enough for him. But, like her other close advisors, he seemed to enjoy tormenting me.

“I’m thinking we’ll work on hand-to-hand this evening,” she answered.

Goody. Getting my ass kicked in close quarters combat was always such fun.

“Excellent choice, Young Queen. I’ll just alert my security guys. They do so like to observe.”

He moved to an in-house phone on the wall to call upstairs. Most of the human security force would still be on premises, as one of their benefits was a chef cooked meal each shift. They also loved to watch me spar with Tanya. Not comfortable watching her fight other vampires, they seemed fine when it was just me. Maybe I’m the most human of the freaks in the house. I usually eat with them and talk guns and cop gear with them, and I don’t drink blood or stare at their throats the way some of the vamps do. Arkady’s vampire security guys got along fine with the humans, but there was always a steady stream of visiting Darkkin in the house and many viewed all humans as food. It was enough of a problem that all the security guys had a tattoo like mine on their necks -- -- Tanya’s initials in Greek . A simple, yet highly effective ‘hands off’ sign. The one time a vampire had ignored it, Tanya had thrown him headfirst through the ceiling before he had more than touched my arm. With her training and my constantly improving speed and strength, I’m more than capable of defending myself. But Tanya rules the NY Coven, by brains, birthright, and might. And as I mentioned, she’s territorial.

While I helped her put away the swords and metal impact weapons (wood doesn’t survive first contact when wielded by vampires), a small group of humans and vamps lined the walls.

I had just finished putting her tungsten carbide swords in their case, my back to the rest of the room, when I felt she was ready. I slid to one side, her attack just barely missing. Immediately, I punched her, hard, in the back as she went by, then jumped back to make room. It sounds like a really harsh way to treat your lover, but I simply can’t convey how tough and strong she really is. She is arguably the third most deadly vampire on the planet. She can go toe-to-toe with just about any were, vampire, or other monster and win. My punch, which will break a two-by-twelve pressure-treated beam, slammed her into the wall. Poor wall.

Vampire hand-to-hand fighting uses kicks, punches, throws and joint locks like human martial arts, but that’s where the similarities end. The V-squared virus that causes vampirism changes the DNA in the host’s mitochondria. These little cellular powerplants change to using blood for fuel and they act as tiny generators, allowing the vampire to harness energy not available to other animal life. Dr. Singh, the vampire doctor who treats the NY Coven, is of the theory that Darkkin, as vampires call themselves, tap into Dark Energy, the current darling of the particle physics world. Likewise, weres tap into Dark Matter to give them their increased and much modified mass, as well as rapid healing. Whatever the source, vampires can use this etheric energy to move in ways unnatural and unlikely. Ever watch a vampire movie and the vamp will be depicted as moving in a blur, and you can tell they just speeded up the film to get that effect?

Well guess what? It’s actually pretty accurate. But just try walking across a room at regular speed, then retry it at double speed. It takes a lot of work and feels..well..weird. Try taking off from a standing start as fast as you can. If your footing is at all slippery, your feet will slide out. If you’re on dirt, you’ll kick up a pile of debris. Vampires don’t do any of that. The reason is that they can use Dark Energy to anchor and to obtain leverage in unique ways.

The vampire martial art uses at least five methods of energy control. Post, Push, Harden, Lighten and Cling are the principal techniques. How they are applied is endlessly adaptable. Oh yeah, and it turns out that I have enough vampire attributes that I can use the same techniques, even though I burn regular food, not blood.

Tanya Pushed off the wall, in effect sending energy into the wall as she shoved with her arms, spinning around as she did so, coming at me in a blur. I feinted to the left, but stayed where I was and Posted, anchoring myself to the ground with a thought. At the same time I Hardened my skin to the point where a wooden spear would have bounced off. My goal was to have Tanya slam into me and use her own momentum against her. Not so lucky. She chose a combination of Lighten, Push and Cling to reduce her body weight, repel off my immovable body and stick to the wall on my left. Clinging is close to Posting, but instead of sending a column of energy into the ground, tiny spikes of power are used like a rock climber’s pitons to stick to a wall or ceiling. She immediately sprang back at me as I turned, slamming me to the ground and getting a really solid punch to my head. My fight brain was still working, despite the stars in my vision, and I Pushed off the floor, straight to the ceiling nine feet above. Tanya was on my back and she only managed to spin us partially around, so she took most of the impact, but not as much as I wanted. Not enough to keep her from Clinging to the ceiling with her back! Didn’t know she could do that, but I shouldn’t be surprised. So she held us up there, her steel strong arms and legs wrapped around me and her razor fangs at the back of my neck. Game over. I tapped out, lightly patting her arm to show I submitted. She let us drop, Lightened her weight and mine and we landed on our feet softly.

“That was pretty good,” she said.

“Good? It was like four seconds!” I said.

“Actually, three point two,” Arkady supplied from the sidelines. “That might be your new record.”

It really wasn’t too bad, considering that Tanya was the best, and vampire combat is fast.

“How the hell did you Cling with your back? I thought it always took hands or feet?” I asked.

“That’s what most Darkkin think, but you can project the energy from any part of your body,” she replied.

She spent the next five minutes showing me how. Then we had another bout and I surprised her by Pushing through my back to come up from the floor, kinda like Dracula rising from his coffin without touching anything. I made it just over four seconds that time. It should be tough on my ego to have a girlfriend that can kick my ass at will, but we’re not as unevenly matched as that. Fighting purely vampire style, she’ll hand me my head every time. The only two who can beat her are Elder Senka (Tanya’s grandmother) and Elder Tzao, and soon even they won’t be able to.

But that’s if I play the vampire way. If I use my power, my unique violet aura or chi, I can best her two outta three times. We usually spend the first half of a workout using just Darkkin techniques, but after that she insists I use all my abilities. Tonight with so many observers, we just stayed with vampire fu.

The workout over, I toweled the sweat and concrete chips off my head (the walls are going to need to be reinforced in a couple more workouts). Tanya was talking to a group of visiting vampires that had watched part of the workout. One vampire caught my eye. Sleek and dark, he reminded me of a vampire Antonio Banderas, all suave and cool. He was staring at Tanya intensely, like a bum looking through a bakery widow at all the pastries. I hated him on sight. Standing next to him was a short vampire who somehow managed to look ratty and shifty. Vampires have a natural attractiveness, sort of bait for their human prey. If this one looked this bad as a vampire, he must have been a real prize as a human.

“Yo Northern, you’re staring holes in the visitors. Don’t want to make them nervous, ya know,” said a peppy voice from just behind me.

“Hey Lydia. Who’s Rico Suave’ over there?” I asked.

“Why Christian Gordon, I believe you’re jealous,” she said.

“Ya know what? I am. I don’t like the way he’s looking a Tanya and I’m thinking of going over there and shoving his head thru the wall.”

“Whoa Chris! I was just messin’. You can’t go beating the crap outta the visiting Darkkin for no good reason. Where’s this sudden hostility coming from?” she asked.

She was right. A sudden wave of intense dislike had welled up from deep inside me, like a geyser bursting from the ground. Across the room, the dark, handsome vamp was pointing at Tanya’s chest and I was suddenly aware of the pooled power in my right hand, microseconds from blasting an aura spike across the room and through his slick face.

Tanya pulled her amulet from under her tee and was apparently explaining it to his politely smiling face. He held his hand out and asked a question. His words were easy to read from across the room.

“May I see it?”

My dislike ripened to hatred. Tanya shook her head no, then turned to look at me, a question on her beautiful face. She had sensed my emotions. Her eyes widened, then she smiled of all things, a knowing smile, gave me a wink and turned back to the conversation. Don Juan was looking my way as he followed her gaze and his expression was contemptuous. Go ahead, keep sneering, asshat! Watch what happens when the human (sorta) blasts you back to preschool!

Being a combination rock/movie star and royalty to the Darkkin society made Tatiana the target of many a vampire suitor. Most of those hopefuls were confused by her selection of me as her chosen mate. The ones from neighboring covens knew enough about me to be wary, while the vamps from more distant locations thought I was just a human blood donor. But the New York Coven locals wouldn’t cross me for all the blood in China. They knew that Tanya didn’t pull punches with me when sparring, they knew I had blasted a young vampire right back to being human (for a few days) and most of all, they knew the stories about Elder Fedor’s gruesome death. Of course, I had had almost a ton and a half of paranormal ursine help with him, but all that mattered was he was dead and I wasn’t.

Mr. Tall, Dark and Smarmy across the room would likely think me a pushover. Anyone watching my sparring match with Tanya might be excused for thinking that, at least until they had a round with her, themselves. Hand-to-hand matches with my vampire princess usually ended for most vamps in under two seconds.

“There, ya see? You got nothing, I repeat NOTHING to worry about,” Lydia said.

“I guess, but I don’t like him. You never did tell me his name.”

“Desiderio Reyes. He is representing one of the Central American covens. So you can’t blast him into atoms, got it?” she said.

Lydia knew me well and had as firm an understanding of my capabilities as anyone.

I nodded and headed to the shower.

Chapter 4

The Demidova household has a massive commercial grade kitchen which would seem unlikely in a vampire household, but understandable, as the daytime security was human and the Coven employment policy for all persons was to reward loyalty handsomely and punish treachery harshly. So it was not coincidence that one of the coven was a former master French chef named Remy, who still retained his love of cooking, if not his appetite for human food.

Dinner that night was escargot in garlic and butter, Romaine salad with Roquefort, walnuts and apples; and veal scallopini with Madeira shitake sauce. Pretty normal.

“In my opinion? The FN SCAR-L is bad ass. Clean, piston-driven, so it’s reliable as hell and handles great! ” Benson said, in between bites of veal.

“Where the fuck did you handle a SCAR?” Hedges asked.

“I gotta buddy at Bragg who’s been part of the test team. He got me in the last time I was down visiting,” the beefy Benson replied.

“Listen up ladies! The L version is 5.56 millimeter. Our upgrade WILL be a 7.62. We can’t afford a lack of power, ‘specially if we’re facing weres,” Deckert said.

Responsible for security during the daytime hours when vampires were sleeping, tranquilized by the ultraviolet rays of our sun, the humans had to be prepared for anything. Potential problems included weres, human vampire hunters (nicknamed Jackmans), organized crime, and other types of supernaturals.

Weres often fill the role of assassins, and Jackmans (named after Hugh Jackman, who played the lead role in the movie Van Helsing) were fanatical, quasi-religious types on self appointed missions from God. Darkkin society runs at the fringes of the human world, right next to the mob, gangs and other organized crime. The two interact enough to result in potential conflict from time to time.

But the single largest threat faced by the security team was the paparazzi and other celebrity seekers. The more private and reclusive a wealthy person is, the higher the price for photos and stories. The Demidovas were super wealthy and super private. The bids for a photo of Galina would start at a cool million. Shots of Tanya – one to two mill.

The current conversation centered on upgrading the teams urban rifle model, which was currently the venerable Fabrique Nationale FAL in hard-hitting 7.62 mm ( essentially the same as the commercial .308 Winchester round that was popular with big game hunters across the nation). Some of the team were not fans of the FAL and kept up a steady petition for a change.

“What do you think, Gordon?” Benson asked.

Everyone paused to listen to my reply, although they all have far more practical experience with modern weapons than I do. What I do have, is direct knowledge of facing weres and vamps in close quarters.

“I am familiar with FAL’s, and M-16 variants, but I’ve never handled any of the new high tech stuff. The Department uses Mini-14’s and M-4s,” I answered with a shrug.

“What would you pick?” Deckert asked.

“Well, I was raised on the Springfield M1A, so I’m pretty comfortable with those. My personal rifle at home, is a SOCOM 16, the 16 inch barreled version. But…..I wouldn’t go with any of those for supes.”

I took a bite of my veal, then looked up to find them all watching me expectantly.

“So, what, are ya going to make us beg? What would you use?” Deckert asked.

I gulped my food and answered.

“I like shotguns. And I’d really like to get my hands on an Auto Assault-12.”

“We have shotguns – Benellis,” Deckert said, a frown on his face.

“Yeah, well I don’t like rifles for the city. Rifles are good at a distance or maybe in the woods, and, of course, in regular urban combat they’re great,” I said. “But here in the city against weres and vamps, the ranges are gonna be short ‘cause supes are too fast. Spraying highpowered rifle bullets won’t get much done, but heavy loads of silver buckshot are great stoppers. We’ve started looking at silver flechettes – make ‘em from extruded wire.”

“So you think we should get rid of our FALs?” Benson asked.

I shook my head. “No, why would you get rid of them? There are lots of reasons to have them handy. But I just think if you’re gonna look at new weapons, a full auto shotgun with silver buck or flechettes would kick ass. Did you know they make a high explosive round for the 12 gauge now? Youtube has some videos up showing them. Really cool!”

They all froze and looked at me warily.

“Chris, full auto is illegal in New York, even with a class 3 license.” Deckert said.

“Hey, you asked what I would use and I told you,” I said.

Of course they already had full automatic weapons, but they were very careful to keep them hidden from my sight, so as to avoid any conflict with my law enforcement career. I, frankly, wasn’t gonna rat them out. They protected my lady; as far as I was concerned they should have rocket propelled grenade launchers.

My cell chose that moment to play my ringtone – Rhianna’s Disturbia.

“Hi Chris, it’s Olivia. The Inspector has called a meeting for tomorrow at 8AM. Conference room. Mandatory.”

“Okay, ‘Liv. I’ll see you there.”

“Night, Chris.” She hung up. I looked up to see the whole table of hard-ass ex-special operators looking at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Rhianna? Really?” Benson asked for all of them.

“Hey, you have to admit that song fits my wacked life.” I replied

I got a few nods at that. Deckert shook his head, then steered the conversation back to the original topic. “Gordon, you’re not gonna sit there and tell me you believe any crap about not having to aim a shotgun, shot patterns that cover a room or any of that shit are you?” he asked.

At close range, shot patterns don’t spread out much. Across a room, say under ten yards, a typical load of buck will still be in a clump.

“Of course not. But weres and vamps are really tough. Even a direct hit won’t likely stop one. Shotguns pack lots of power. I’d be just as happy with slugs as buckshot, but silver is hard to work with. I’ve thought of using modern fifty caliber muzzleloader bullets, melting the lead out of the copper jacket and repacking them with powdered silver sealed with resin. But if I’m gonna do that, I might as well go with the same bullet in a .50 Beowulf round and use a M4.”

Thompkins, an ex-SEAL, asked: “A fifty what?”

Deckert answered before I could.

“Alexander Arms in Virginia created a .500 caliber round that fits in the magazine of an M4. The upper replaces the standard 5.56 and you’ve got a modern self loader with the ballistics of a .45-70 buffalo gun. Mags hold seven to ten rounds.”

“That’s not many!” someone interjected.

Again, the human leader spoke before I could (which gave me the opportunity to get fourths of the scallopeni).

“You don’t need thirty .22’s when you’re shooting bullets the same weight as shotgun slugs with the power to crack an engine block or destroy cinderblocks. Makes body armor pointless.”

My Tanya sense flared and I automatically looked toward the door. The others noticed and having witnessed me do it enough to guess the reason, they all quieted and looked in the same direction. A moment later, she ghosted through the doorway, wearing a black dress, her night-black hair brushed out and gleaming, white gold and sapphire pendant at the hollow of her throat. I could hear the intake of breath and the change in heartbeats around the table. My own heart beat faster as well. She smiled at me, then took a moment to greet the men. She knew all their names and frequently sat with me when I shared their table. Those meals were notable for the politeness of the conversation.

“Chris, I have to play hostess tonight to the Central American delegation. Knowing your lack of enthusiasm for these things, I didn’t think you’d want to be there. Was I right?”

I paused before answering. On the one hand, she was exactly right. Having a bunch of strange vampires stare at you, while they try to figure out if you’re a meal or not, is disconcerting, to say the least. It doesn’t help that my AB positive blood makes me smell delicious to them. I normally avoid these things unless my presence is warranted. Some vampires have heard of the gifted (or cursed, depends on your viewpoint) human who believes vampires have souls. They generally want to meet me. Some have heard of the death of Elder Fedor and then my presence lends weight to Tanya’s authority.

But I wasn’t real happy about Desiderio and thinking that maybe I should stay.

The decision was made for me, quite suddenly, by the vision. My sight went black and a graphic, horror show of a video played across my mind’s eye. A demon-influenced father, terrified mother and children, a large chef’s knife.

I snapped out of it, already knowing roughly where it would happen. Tanya understood, from experience as well as her intimate connection to me, what was happening.

“How bad?” she asked.

“If I go immediately, not bad. If I delay? Bad!”

“Mr. Deckert, Chris will need a good driver.”

“No problem Young Queen. Stevens here was a Secret Service driver,” he said, pointing Stevens toward the door. “Benson and I will go with him.”

I was already drawing the vision on the back of a piece of paper that Remy had food orders listed on. Kind of a cross between psychic drawing and cartoon art, the snapshot drawn usually provides important information. Since my introduction to the vampire virus and my own unique transformation, my visions have become more useful. This one was blocked into three parts. The first showed a street sign (Eleventh Street) and an apartment building. The second showed a door, number 3B. The third showed the father threatening his wife and two small boys with a big kitchen knife. Above his head, in the left corner of the doorway behind him, a demonic face was just visible, floating in the darkness.

I had everything I needed. I gave Deckert the address, 11th Street, Brooklyn, in the 600’s. As we headed out, I called Gina Velasquez and gave her the details: a father, pushed to tragic murder by a demon. She assured me she would meet me there with the some of the Squad. A quick kiss for Tanya and we were on our way.

Chapter 5

Stevens drove the Mercedes sedan like he had stolen it, weaving through traffic without regard for the integrity of the seventy-five thousand dollar vehicle or any known traffic laws. We were on scene at least as fast as a squad car would have been, but with much less noise.

The building was a three-story brownstone in a decent part of the city. My problem was on the third floor, and once I was out of the car and after checking carefully for witnesses, I moved, clearing the stairs with inhuman speed. The father’s angry voice carried through the walls, telling me that he hadn’t been driven to slaughter his loved ones quite yet. I moved up to door 3B and listened, my eyes closed to concentrate on forming a mental picture of the scene within. He had them cornered in the living room, their rapid little hearts pounding out the rhythm of their fear. His larger, thundering blood pump pinpointed his location exactly, his voice rising in a wave of rage that would crest with his rapid, violent action and end as their lives did.

The door was locked, but I was through it in a sharp snap of splintering wood, and his knife hand held firmly in my own before the sound registered in his ears. Big, six-three, well over two hundred pounds, fired by his unnatural anger, he was temporarily as strong as two men. I’m a lot stronger than that, but it made subduing him without injury difficult. So I broke his wrist (along with several hand bones..oops) and choked him out with a front carotid hold that he couldn’t break. The fact that I was holding his entire weight several inches off the ground with my choking hand didn’t go unnoticed by his wife. Gently, I set the unconscious man down and gave the small, terrified woman a finger over the lips motion for silence. I winked at the two tousled brown heads that peaked from under her arms and turned to the doorway behind the prone form of the father. Holding my left hand up, I pulled with my unique power and a noxious, greasy black lump of floating hell sputum flew from the darkened doorway and to my hand as if yanked by a giant rubber band.

It writhed and screamed its anger as I held it captive, its cries turning to fear as the black shadow hawk form of Kirby winged through the apartment walls, answering my unspoken call. I tossed, Kirby caught and it was over. The entity that I alternately think of as God’s Hawk or Satan’s Raptor, depending on my mood, popped out of our existence and back to its own, dragging its bundle of squirming excrescence with it, leaving only the foul smell of brimstone and sulfer.

Deckert and Benson were just reaching the top step of the stairwell, Sig Sauer .45s drawn. The security team was licensed for full carry anywhere in the Big Apple.

“Status?” Deckert asked, his eyes scanning for threats.

“Adult male, early thirties temporarily incapacitated. Adult female with two male children shocky but uninjured. Causative agent dispersed,” I replied.

“Huh?” Benson asked.

“He knocked out the father, banished the demon and the wife and kids are copasetic,” Deckert translated. No dummy, that Deckert.

I heard two SUVs pull up outside and the distinctive voices of my team filled my ears.

“Mr. Deckert, my team has arrived. Would you relay to Stevens to relay to them that it’s all clear up here? Please.”

The stocky ex-Force Recon major nodded and spoke into in his throat mike. Benson was looking a little wide-eyed.

“Mr. Benson? Would you be so kind as to cuff the father with my handcuffs and hang near him until my guys get up here?”
He looked at me in question.

“It’s really much better for me to disappear from the family’s sight. Less questions,” I explained.

He nodded, took my pre-offered cuffs and slipped into the apartment. I headed downstairs, meeting Sommers and Gina on the stairwell. I paused to fill them in, then continued down to the street to hide in the tinted safety of the Mercedes. Gina would take charge, smooth over the wife’s fear, council the husband when he awoke and liaise with the beat cops when they inevitably arrived. Me, I would hide and let the victims forget me as quick as possible. The husband would be easy, he barely caught a glimpse of me. The wife got an eyeful, but the human mind is an incredible machine, capable of amazing feats of rationalization. With Gina’s considerable help, the young woman would find easy to believe reasons for everything that had happened. It’s the way we humans choose to ‘overlook’ the supernatural world. More comforting to ignore and pretend.

As usual with these kind of things, the aftermath took longer than the action did. I told Deckert, Benson and Stevens that I was fine with my people there and not to hang around. I was holding them up from their downtime.

None of the three were even slightly interested in leaving me alone. Part of it was their sense of professional ethics, part was knowing they would have to report to Arkady that they had left me alone after assuming responsibility for the 'Young Queen's' mate. But I think the biggest part was simply curiosity. Benson had been present when I had taken out a Hellbourne that attacked the Demidova household in broad daylight. Deckert had been in the house but not a direct witness. Stevens had heard the stories. Now they had another story to add to my mystery and they were loath to let it go. Benson wasn't shy about asking questions and Deckert did nothing to shut him up, indicating his own level of interest.

“So where do these visions come from?” Benson asked.

I shrugged. “I don't have a clue.”

He looked at me for a moment, before finally speaking, “C'mon! You have to have some idea?”

I smiled, “Well, some of my priest and rabbi associates feel the visions come from God. I like to argue that it could just as easily come from Old Scratch.”

“The Devil? Why would he send you a vision of one of his own?” the big security agent asked.

“I don't know, maybe, he doesn't like them roaming around on their own,” I said.

“You really believe that?” Deckert interjected.

“Well, truth be told, I sorta favor the Heavenly message theory, myself, but my point is that we just don't know for certain,” I admitted. “It would be bad to get suckered into believing the visions are Heaven sent only to be misdirected by Hell.”

All three ex-military operators nodded. Deckert spoke all their thoughts aloud.

“Yeah, lure you in with solid intelligence, then misdirect you at the last and most important moment,”

he said.

“If you don't mind me sayin', you don't seem like a real bible thumping type,” Stevens observed from the front seat of the car.

“I'm not. I don't get along real well with Himself,” I said, pointing my finger skyward.

“Well, I get what you're saying about false intelligence and all that, but frankly, the feeling I got when you did whatever it is you did to that thing upstairs, was that God was looking over our shoulders and nodding his head,” Benson said, looking a little uncomfortable, but certain.

“You know, I don't, as a habit like to agree with army types,” Deckert said, poking his thumb in Benson's direction. “But I had the same feeling.”

Now I was uncomfortable with the conversation. I had never thought that anyone near me during one of my experiences felt anything at all, until Gina had filled me in on the phenomenon. She had said much the same thing, which led me in the whole religious God type direction, one path I hated to go down. I hadn’t forgiven Him for sacrificing my family. Where the conversation would have gone next I'm not sure, but just then there was a knock on the window and I lowered it as fast as I could hit the button, grateful for the distraction.

Gina's pretty features filled my view, her face reflecting fatigue, but she still had a small smile.

“Chris, we're all done here. Why don't you head out and I'll see you in the morning,” she said.

“Right, the Inspector's mystery meeting. Any new ideas on what that's about?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing new. Good night Chris, I gotta get home myself.” She nodded at the three men in the car and turned away, heading back into the dark.

“She married?” Stevens asked from the front seat.

I nodded, but Deckert spoke. “What, did you somehow miss the rings on her fingers?”

“Frankly, boss I was too busy looking at her face to notice her hands. Pretty tough to have to work with someone who looks like that every day, ah Gordon?” he said with a wink.

“Gina's been married for ten years, husband teaches here in one of Brooklyn's public schools. They have a four-year old daughter.” I provided.

“A school teacher?” Benson questioned in disbelief.

“First of all, Roy is a real good guy. Most cop marriages don't make it past the fifth year. But he's real patient, understanding about her odd hours and stable as hell. Second, Gina has an unreal ability to read people. She can tell when you're lying about ninety-eight percent of the time, Roy is fine with that.” I said.

That sank in for a minute or two, then Stevens shuddered.

“Right, okay, so she might not be my perfect woman with that little trait. Still a looker though.”

Chapter 6

Deckert and his men dropped me back at my place. Tanya would be up till dawn and I needed some sleep before the early morning meeting that Roma had called. I ate a late night snack and hit my futon. I still need sleep, but I seem to thrive on only four or five hours now, unless I’ve been hurt or used too much power. I can also offset lack of sleep with more food, but my diet is already ridiculous enough and I’m trying like hell to keep the small amount of weight that I’ve managed to put back on. It’s not much of a protection against my overwrought metabolism consuming my own body, but it’s something.

The morning dawned bright and fresh, a classic example of spring in the Big Apple. I made it to the squad’s offices in the underground section of Police Plaza well before eight AM. The lights were already on in Roma’s office and I could hear him talking to someone but even my hearing had difficulty with his sound proofed walls. Fran DeMarco, our Medium, was already in. She waved to me through the glass wall of her office. Aikens, Sommers and Brian Takata, our close combat trainer, all filed into the conference room, helping themselves to the coffee carafe and the Dunkin’ Donuts box in the center of the table. Out of habit, Chet fired up the big LCD wall monitor and got out his wireless keyboard and mouse. At two minutes till eight, Roma's door opened and the Inspector emerged, followed closely by Briana Duclair, the head of Homeland Security's Directorate of Anomalous Activity, as well as her second in command, Eric Adler and lastly, Gina.

Roma moved to his usual spot at the head of the table, but remained standing. Duclair stood right next to him and the flash of annoyance that slid across his face indicated that she was pressing on his personal space. Based on the aggressive federal agent's personality, this was most likely on purpose. Always keep the other guy off game.

His face once again resuming its professional set, the Inspector greeted us.

“Good morning everyone!”

Like a well practiced choir we all responded with a synchronized “Good morning boss.”

“First of all, good job to everyone involved in the Eleventh Street incident last night. Well done!”

Duclair raised an eyebrow as she heard this and I knew she would be tracking down the particulars of that event.

“Secondly, I've called you in this morning as Agent Duclair has some information to share with us about a potential threat. Additionally, she has asked for our help and I have approved it in a related matter. I'll let her explain. Briana, go ahead.”

Tall, blond and athletic, Briana Duclair moved with arrogant confidence. She stepped just slightly forward and tossed a thumb drive to Chet.

“Good morning everyone. Chet, would you open the file marked Loki on that for me,” she said, crisply.

While Chet slotted the drive and prepared to open the requested file, Duclair surveyed the rest of the squad, her sharp eyes lingering on me for a moment or two longer than the rest. She had been trying to recruit me to her team from the moment we met. A tad Machiavellian in her approach to obtaining her ambitious career goals, Duclair was tenacious in getting the best of everything and everyone for her team. Without knowing much about me, she had attempted to lure me to the federal group, simply on the basis of the value that Inspector Roma placed on my contributions. She had been completely unsuccessful for two reasons. One, her team traveled the country, which would play havoc with my relationship with Tanya, and two, her brassy style annoyed the crap out of me. My lack of interest did nothing to dissuade her, but only spurred her to keep trying.

She moved around to stand under the monitor as the presentation opened.

“The information I'm about to share with you is sensitive and not for dissemination outside of this room,” she warned. “The FBI MS-13 National Gang Task Force has been tracking a relatively new group based in New Mexico for the last four years. Their threat assessment for this gang has gone off the charts in the last year and they have lost contact with five undercover infiltrators during that time.”

The monitor showed a photo of a group of motorcycle riders sitting and standing around their bikes somewhere in what looked like the southwest. Dressed in typical leather and torn denim, they were all markedly young. One with his back to the camera sported the outline of a wolf’s head emblem on the back of his leather vest. At least four of the seven gang members were sneering at the camera in contempt.

“This photo of a small group of Loki's Spawn, as they call themselves, was taken by telephoto lens at approximately seven hundred yards. The photographer, a trained sniper, was completely camouflaged in a sniper blind. Yet as you can see, the gang was well aware of his presence. Odd, yet potentially explainable,” she said. “Next picture, please.”

This shot showed in graphic detail, the bloody remains of something that might have been human at some point, but you would be hard pressed to convince anyone of that. I was still trying to figure the photo out when she continued.

“This, believe it or not, is the pelvis and torso of one, Armand Cuirez, a rancher in Arizona. This photo, ladies and gentlemen, and seven more similar ones are the reason my team is interested in Loki's Spawn,” she paused for effect. Chet automatically flipped each of the other photos across the screen.

“The autopsies of each killing indicate death by animal mauling. Wound marks conclusively match the fangs and claws of wolves, mountain lions and bears. And each killing showed signs of all three animals!” Duclair said.

She let that sink in for a moment. The odds of three completely separate species of carnivore simultaneously attacking a human were astronomical. The odds of it happening eight times were crazy. I had a better chance of growing wings and flying to the moon.

“These attacks occurred in eight different locations in four different states. The only thing in common was a group of Loki's Spawn happened to be nearby each time,” she said.

“I haven't seen anything on the news feeds about these,” Chet commented.

“And you won't. The Bureau squashed it and following protocol, passed the autopsies on to us as soon as the first one was conclusive,” Duclair said. “ Now that I have your attention, I don't suppose any of you are puzzled by our interest in this group?”

“They're all weres!” Steve Sommers responded. “Which explains the first photo. They smelled the photographer.”

“Yeah, and it explains why the Fibbies keep losing agents. Can't fool a wolf's nose!” Chet said.

Briana nodded at each of these comments and then went on.

“The reason we're here this morning is twofold. First, Loki's Spawn members seem to be moving in a northeastern direction, with quite a few members already visiting New Hampshire and upstate New York for various motorcycle events.”

“Americade in Lake George and the Laconia motorcycle week in New Hampshire,” I said.

Her eyes locked on mine as she nodded, “Exactly. Which brings us to the second reason we're here. Twenty-eight days ago an attack occurred in Southern Vermont, just outside of Bennington. The victim, George Lassiter, survived what he claimed was a wild animal attack. Mr. Lassiter has since disappeared into the Green Mountain National forest. The attack coincided with three Loki members passing through.”

“You think they came back for him?” Fran Demarco asked.

I answered her question, “No, they think he's infected and the moon will be full tomorrow night. He'll go rogue without another were to guide him.”

Without the guidance of another, experienced were, infected humans invariably went berserk during their first change. A natural born were could handle the change without aid, but not so the bitten ones. The pain and terror of the transformation, along with the animal instincts of their new form were too much for an unguided human psyche.

“Very good Chris. It's funny you should be the one to put the pieces together, because you'll be helping us track the rogue down tomorrow night,” Briana said.

The squad looked as one to Roma for verification. The Inspector grimly nodded and addressed us all.

“A rogue were is just too big of a problem. Chris, I have agreed that you will help the D.O.A.A. Group with tracking down the were and I have insisted that Gina accompany you, as Agent Duclair's group are unfamiliar with our protocols.”

His gaze was serious as he said this, looking directly at me. I nodded, thinking it through. A rogue were was a nightmare for a human-only group to track and destroy. Human intelligence, animal ferocity and senses, superhuman strength and speed, all controlled by a mind driven insane.

Briana's eyes gleamed in triumph and I felt a little queasy, despite knowing I needed to do this.

“I'm sure we'll have no problem finding the rogue with your tracking skill,” she said, sarcastically.

Eric Adler, a large presence against the wall, snorted.

When we first met, I had introduced myself as a tracker, which was completely true, if woefully incomplete information. She had swiftly dug around enough to know that I was a lot more than that.

“Ahh, anyway, Chris, you and Gina will be at the Downtown heliport tomorrow at seven-thirty AM for a joyride in a federal helicopter. I know you'll be properly prepared.”

He nodded to Agent Duclair to continue.

“Loki’s Spawn have grown to over eight hundred members, and while not the largest motorcycle group, they are easily the meanest. Super violent, well-armed, and completely ruthless. Since the Bureau has been aware of them, they have managed to intimidate virtually every other gang in their area of control. They have also cleaned out several smaller covens of vampires in Mexico and we think they’ve killed or driven away two large werewolf packs out west,” she added.

I hadn’t heard anything about lost covens from Tanya or Lydia, but we didn’t always talk business, not to mention that they were really only running the New York Coven. Elder Senka, on the other hand would most likely be concerned.

“Being as they are a gang of weres, they are tough in a fight and extremely hard to kill with standard ammo. The human gangs either accede to their wishes or cease to exist,” Briana said.

“The only information we have on their leader comes from an FBI agent who has infiltrated a human gang that has chosen to submit to the Spawn. They call him El Bastia”

“The Beast,” Gina translated.

“Fitting name for a were leader.” Fran remarked.

We spent another hour on material, but there really was very little hard intelligence on Loki’s Spawn.

Chet provided some Wikipedia background on the god Loki – a Norse god, who was among other things a shapeshifter and who fathered the Fenrir wolf. The wolf was foretold to be the killer of gods, including Odin. Not hard to see why the gang had chosen that name.

Chapter 7

I went to lunch with Chet, Fran, and Brian, after assuring Gina that I would meet her at the helipad by six forty-five in the morning. Chet wanted to run some experiments with me as the test subject. He had apparently designed and built some kind of charged particle detector and wanted to see if my violet aura generated any detectable particles.

After lunch, Chet took me to the Nevis lab at Columbia University, where he had been working on a neutrino detector with some physics grad student friends of his. Security in the building was excellent, with a magnetic passcard required not only at the main entrance, but at various control points throughout the building. When he finally ushered me into the High Energy Particle Lab I was expecting something that would look like the offspring of an illicit relationship between a MRI machine and Robby the robot.

The device he pointed at triumphantly was considerably different.

“Dude, that's a trash can!” I said.

“Correction, that's a portable neutrino detector that was built for under $500 bucks,” Chet said.

“It's a trash can. A pimped-out trash can, but still a trash can.”

The device had started life as a galvanized steel waste can with a fitted lid, the kind that had been kicked around and thrown by garbage men for decades. A soup can sized metal tube entered the thirty-inch high pail about mid-way up one side, a thick bundle of wires running from it to a computer on a nearby desk.

“It was designed to test an idea for creating a city wide detector here in New York using rooftop water reservoirs,” Chet said.

My expression must have said it all because he launched into further explanation without me saying a word.

“There are thousands of water tanks on the top of New York's buildings. It has been a long standing way to deal with poor water pressure from city mains. Pump the water to the roof, let gravity provide pressure for the buildings inhabitants,” he said. “Four or five years ago, a group of university physicists came up with the idea to harness theses rooftop pools of water to capture and detect neutrinos.”

“Water captures neutrinos? I thought they went through entire planets?” I asked.

“Well, the water doesn't so much capture them as slow them down and cause a bit of detectable radiation to be emitted.”

“So this R2D2 wanna be is filled with water?” I asked, pointing at the shiny can.

“Yup, and special photo voltaic sensors inside will pick up charged particles that pass through.”

“And you get a read-out or graph or something on the PC over there, right?” I asked.

“Right in one,” he agreed.

We started slow with me concentrating on moving my aura or chi or whatever it is from my right hand to my left with the garbage can in between them. The monitor immediately showed Chet
figures that had my geeky friend more excited than a lunch date with William Shatner and Leonard Nemoy.

Next he had me stand back and give it simple aural blast from my right hand, maybe as strong as I would use to snap a Wyrm from a victims back. The numbers on the monitor jumped exponentially.

“Now give it a little harder pulse,” he directed.

So I did. The numbers jumped for a moment then went to zero across the board.

“Uh oh! Try again,” Chet said, looking worried.

This time nothing happened at all. The lanky technician sighed.

“That's what I was afraid of. I think it's fried.”

“Chet, I didn't use much juice at all. How can it be fried?” I asked, worried that I had broken yet another of his technological toys.

“But even your little pulses were almost off the charts,” he said, examining the log of the previous successful attempts. “I have been thinking of what your doctor friend suggested and this proves it. You are somehow generating mad crazy amounts of charged particles of all types!”

He was smiling despite the evident demise of his detector.

The lab door lock snicked, the door opened and a thin grad student type came in, raising his eyebrows when he saw us.

“Yo Aikens! How're your Buckys hanging?” he greeted Chet. He had East Indian features and a pure New Yorker accent.

“Hey Jacob! They're low and blacker than soot! You?”

“Concurrent,” Jacob replied, moving off to another section of the lab.

“Er, what was that all about?” I asked.

“Physics humor. Buckys are buckyballs...you know fullerenes?”

I just looked at him.

“Buckyballs are spherical clusters of carbon atoms, also known as Carbon 60 or fullerenes. They've been found in soot, and so well, it's a physicist thing,” he finished. “Anyway, let me just save this data to my thumbdrive, delete it and we're done for the day.”

“What about the trash can?” I asked.

He held his finger to his lips. “We'll just let the others think they did it.”

Finished with his work, we were headed toward the door, when Jacob's head popped up from the rear of the lab.

“Hey Chet, can I use Trashy later?”

“Yeah, but don't break it. It's been acting sketchy today.”

He winked at me and we left the lab.

“Trashy?”

“What do you expect? It's a trash can!” he said.

We headed our own ways outside the lab, Chet back to his computers at Police Plaza; me back to my place to get my gear ready for the next morning. Despite my general dislike of Briana Duclair, I was genuinely interested in seeing how her team operated in the field.

My trip home took me, naturally enough, through a corner deli for a meatball parm sub and then an order of perogies from a Polish place near my building.

My gear was already in good shape, but I always like to go over it before a raid or field case. My handguns were already cleaned and reloaded with silver-filled hollowpoints, but I re-holstered both in my vest rig. Tactical vests are all the rage with law enforcement types for the simple reason that they keep everything handy and organized. Mine has a cross draw holster for one of my Glocks and an attached thigh holster for the other. The many pouches hold multiple pistol mags, as well as a flashlight (don't seem to need that much anymore), first aid supplies (use that more for other people now), protein bars (need more of those), zip ties, handcuffs, evidence bags, latex gloves, industrial grade handiwipes(great for getting blood off your skin) and all the other paraphernalia of modern law enforcement. A long narrow pouch under my left arm was intended for a collapsible baton, but I had re-purposed it. Snugly tucked inside were two silver spikes roughly the length of knitting needles, the butt end of each wrapped with black parachute cord to form handles.

Tanya had presented them to me as one of my Christmas gifts. Whether it is odder that vampires celebrate Christmas or that Tanya choose to give me the silver darts that had pinned her to a cinderblock wall when we first met, I'll leave to you. To her, they were sentimental good luck symbols of our first meeting. She had carefully wrapped the ends to provide me a solid handle whenever I should use them as the weapons of self defense she intended them to be. She had had to wear latex gloves to protect her skin from the almost pure silver content of the spikes. The fact that I could handle them without gloves had been a huge surprise to the vampires. As I am riddled with the V-squared virus that makes a vampire…well, vampy, everyone felt I should have the same allergy to silver. But for whatever reason that I'm not a vampire, I’m also not sensitive to silver as weres and vamps are.

Tanya had also given me the long silver plated bowie knife that the Hellbourne had dropped at our first meeting when I smacked it with a plastic crate. The knife was strapped to the vest's back, upside down in a very tight fitting kydex sheath that I had ordered for it. I could reach the handle with either hand should its use be necessary.

My roll out bag got a once over to make sure it had sketch pad, pencils, extra clothes, raingear and more food. That food part isn’t just ‘cause I like to munch. My pimped out metabolism will literally consume me from the inside out if I don’t keep it fed, especially if I engage in fighting or chasing bad guys.

My gear set, I kicked back and watched some tv and generally puttered around, waiting for darkness so I could attempt to explain my coming absence to Tanya. Her connection to me started to fade at about two miles distance. She didn’t much care for anything less than a full signal. Can you hear me now? Good.

The only time I had left the city in the last seven months had been a Christmas visit to my Gramps back in St. Lawrence County. Tanya had done just fine with that, mostly ‘cause she had gone with me. Her and like about thirty of the Coven. Well maybe only ten, but it had still been funny to see them all bunked out in the back building at the farm. Gramps had been concerned as that building has no heat, but Darkkin aren’t much bothered by cold. It’s got to be well below zero to force them to put on a jacket and even then a windbreaker will keep them just fine.

Just before twilight I headed out the door, figuring to time her awakening to my arrival. The trees lining the streets were well on their way to being fully leaved, and all the smells of spring washed across my face as I walked. I was upbeat, pretty sure Tanya wouldn’t have too much trouble with me taking a quick helicopter ride to Vermont. My senses automatically dialed up in the warm evening gloom. I could hear conversations in every residence I passed, could smell a thousand dinners being cooked, see everything that should have been hidden in the deepening shadows. The Demidova residence was oddly muted as I closed in on the front doors. Not that it’s ever loud, but I usually hear the soft sound of classical music as I get near. Today, nothing.

The main door unlocked itself at the application of my hand to the reader and I walked in. It was dark enough now for security to have transitioned to the ‘night’ shift, but no one was immediately apparent.

Then I spotted him, across the foyer, his back to me, peeking into the main ballroom. It looked like Trenton, a tall, lean versatile vamp who was in Arkady’s circle of trust. He didn’t turn as I approached, absorbed in whatever he was watching. My scent must have reached him before I did, because he suddenly stiffened and spun in a blur, his expression scared, his body tense. What the hell?

I raised my eyebrows at him, then flicked my glance at the door behind him. My connection told me with certainty that my girl was on the other side of that particular door. I motioned him aside, still puzzled at his reaction. At first he didn’t move, as if reluctant to let me through. When my expression hardened, he rethought that and suddenly fled in a burst of vampire speed. What was he scared of? Me? That I could take him in a fight, even though he was one hundred and forty years old, was never in question. But I got along just fine with Trenton. My elated mood gone, I moved to the partially closed door with the tiniest bit of dread forming in my stomach.

The door, tall and made of heavy wood, was well balanced and moved smoothly at my touch. I looked through. What I saw didn’t make sense for about two seconds. Then it hit with all the force of freight train.

Sitting on an ornate French chair with his shirt off was the Central American emissary, Desiderio Reyes. Straddling him, wearing nothing but a sleep shirt, which his hands were roaming under, was Tatiana.

Chapter 8

“Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are your own fears.” - Kipling

I knew it was her, even if she was hidden by his mouth, which seemed to be attempting to suck her lips off her face. At that moment she lifted her head and stared at me, her face blank for a moment before hissing at the interruption.

I’m usually pretty quick on the uptake, but I couldn’t seem to make sense of what I was seeing. It didn’t help that I couldn’t breathe or that my heart had stopped in my chest. Desiderio choose that moment to look my way, a contemptuous sneer on his face. The rage exploded in a black geyser through my chest, my hate focused on his dark features like a laser beam. My right hand slammed forward on its own, a bolt of deep purple power blasting the Latin vampire right out from under Tanya and slamming him twenty feet across the room and into the wall beyond. His body embedded in the sheetrock, his eyes unfocused and non-comprehending. Tatiana was sitting on the floor where she had fallen when my bolt dumped her on her ass. She shook her head to clear it and looked my way. The rage had hardened into a cold lump of coal in my chest and the glare I gave her told her all she needed to know about where we stood.

Not willing to physically hurt her for any reason, I turned my back on her and headed back to the entrance. Lydia and Arkady were standing in front of my exit, a nervous Trenton [at] their side.

“Chris, wait! It’s not what you think! No matter what you saw….” Lydia managed to get out before I flicked my hand at the three of them, sliding all three away from the door without touching them. Spinning to her right, Lydia slammed her hand on the emergency lockdown button. Bank vault thick bolts of steel slammed into place around the edges of the titanium reinforced doors, sealing the exit in armor.

Part of me seemed to be observing from a long distance away, watching as some other part of me operated my body. My right hand came up again and the deep purple, almost black aura that shot from it tore through the locking bolts like a hard wind blowing away smoke. In moments the steel had eroded to nothing. The doors are designed to open into the house. My violent exit 'redesigned' them to open out, with one of them hanging from a single hinge. I was distantly aware of Lydia and Arkady staring at me as I stalked out into the night, but the black bubble of rage was too deeply in control for me to acknowledge them.

* * *

I came back to myself sort of gradually, lying on my back in the damp grass looking up at the night sky where the field of stars was slowly being covered with a soft blanket of puffy gray clouds. My head was pillowed on something warm and furry. My cheeks were wet. The rhythmic sound of large amounts of air moving in steady rushes, like some kind of great forge bellows, filled my ears. Gathering my perceptions, I slowly came to the conclusion that I was in Owls Head Park, my 'head rest' the torso thick forepaw of a VW-sized spirit bear.

It was deep night, but I could see clear as day. As I could for every night of the last seven months.

Since I had met her. My brain refused to offer up her name, for fear the awful scene from the dining room would replay itself on the movie screen in my mind. Turning my head to look at my giant companion, I could see nothing of his form, just his lava bright eyes gleaming in the dark, about four feet off the ground. He was looking at me calmly, sending no images, just a feeling of concern. I tried to remember when he had found me and what I had done since I had left her. Just a hazy stream of Brooklyn streets, a few people out and about.

My jeans pocket started to buzz. I pulled out my cell phone and looked at the display. A text from Lydia. There were seven voice mails and eight text messages awaiting my attention. I turned it off and stood up to take stock. My clothes were damp from the ground and a bus-sized hole seemed to have opened up in my chest. My jaws ached like I had been clenching my teeth and the black lump of rage had taken up residence in my gut. Okwari watched me patiently from where he was curled up on the ground, still not bothering to 'say' anything. What would there be to say? What could there be to say?

“Eh, pendejo! ¿Qué haces aquí?”

The voice came from across the park where a group of five males had pushed out of the trees lining the field. Just enough high school Spanish remained for me to understand they were questioning my presence. The five all wore loose fitting clothes that hadn't seen a washing machine in days, each different but all having the same black, blue, white and red beads on them. They squinted at me, trying to pick out my form in the dark. I had no such problem, their every feature clear and crisp. The black lump in my gut wriggled at the tense hostility that their bodies broadcast .

“¡Coño! No sabes nada, mojao” the leader said.

I got none of that one so I requested a translation.

“Huh?”

“Listen, fucker! This is our property! Comprende? Understand?” he said, his voice thick with intent.

The speaker was actually smaller than all the rest, the others being tall and heavy. They moved up close to me, spreading in a rough semi-circle, just right for confrontation, none of them noticing the invisible form of the giant bear. My fight brain was calculating distances and noting which ones had their hands out of sight. I noticed the rapid pulses in their throats, and while it held no attraction to me, I still felt the predator-prey thing that vampires live with constantly.

I had nothing to say, the young men’s menace having little impact on my apathy.

Then one of them pulled a blade to get my attention. It did. Or more accurately, it got the attention of the roiling black lump in my gut that suddenly expanded to fill my chest. Some primitive part of their brains was able to sense enough danger to alert them, but pulling more weapons was the wrong response. The absolute worst. I felt a smile grow on my face. It didn’t seem to make them feel safer. Again I was an observer as another part of me broke them. It really took no time at all. A wrist crushed here, knee snapped there, some broken ribs, a splintered clavicle and pretty soon the ground was littered with writhing bodies. But it was too quick to satisfy the rage. When my hand pulled itself back to take the kill shot on the leader’s skull, observer-me objected, and the death blow stopped. Instead, I let him drop among the others, his sounds of pain meshing with theirs.

“Hey, what the fuck?” another voice yelled from the same tree line and eleven more bodies rushed into the grassy field. The lumpy black bubble was ecstatic. Eleven with weapons meant that at least a few would die, right? I mean it would, after all, be self-defense, wouldn't it? Part giddy at the prospect, part appalled at my own eagerness, I prepared to face them.

The rushing gang members skidded to a sudden stop, their anger changing to fear as they looked behind and above me. A quick glance back and up showed Okwari's lantern eyes fifteen feet off the ground, his now-visible form blocking out the night sky behind me.

“Madre de Dios; es brujo!” one of them yelled.

Something about a witch?

Their motion reversed itself and leaving their fallen fellows behind, they disappeared back into the dark, screaming like schoolgirls at a Freddy Kruger movie marathon.

The black bubble retreated and I looked at the groaning young men on the ground, unable to summon any sympathy for them.

“Awwww! You scared them away!”

A low growl was Okwari’s only response.

My giant bear disappeared into a swirl of wind, but I felt him with me the whole way back to my car. Little gusts lifted my hair and tugged my tee shirt as I walked, head down, finally letting myself think about Tanya. The memory of her on the lap of that…man? Vampire. Male. It seemed surreal, coming out of nowhere, no warning. Seven months of the only relationship I’d ever had and it was gone within twenty-four hours of Reyes’ arrival. My attack had been instant and overwhelming. I had never thrown that much force at an entity … hell, I didn’t know I could. With any luck it would knock him human for a year. The twisted black inside me wished I’d done more, the rest of me agreed. The thing with the door was new as well. In my mind’s eye, I replayed that image. It was easier to stomach than the one of Tanya and Reyes. The massive steel bolts, designed to stop an attack by weres or vamps or even a car, had blown away like dust, particle by particle. Like a sandcastle taken apart by a leaf blower. A really big leaf blower.

I shoved that thought aside, uncomfortable with what I had been able to do. My thoughts turned back to Tanya…Tatiana as I must now think of her. Tanya was reserved for friends, those that knew her well. It turned out that I didn’t know her at all.

* * *

My stomach rumbled. I shouldn’t have been hungry, not for days, not with the nausea inducing image in my brain. But the V-squared virus was not to be denied. I could either feed it or it would eat me.

I found an all-night McDonalds within a block of my car (and her house) and raided their dollar menu for cheeseburgers (ten) and a chocolate shake. The Rastafarian behind the register looked a little incredulous at the burgers, then shook his head and went back to bullshitting with the skinny old dude cooking in back.

I ate the burgers as I walked, a cold spring rain falling from the purple sky, the blanket of cloud having fully covered the stars. Dumping the empty bag and cup in a city garbage can, I turned the corner of Willow Street, Brooklyn Heights. The Tonka-yellow Xterra waited for me just up the street, about two houses back and across the street from number 119. Shadows shifted as I approached my car, pale figures sliding back from their watchful positions. The front doors of 119 were patched with 4 by 4 pressure treated timbers, no doubt awaiting repair when daylight returned. Two figures appeared on the front entry, one massive, the other tiny. I ignored both as I key fobbed my door and slid into the driver’s seat. They watched me, just visible in my peripheral vision as I drove off.

Chapter 9

“You’ll never know how your face has haunted me. My very soul has to bleed this time, another hole in the wall of my inner defenses…” – Disturbed.

Sleep was impossible. Every time I closed my eyes, images of Tatiana with Reyes would pop up, no matter what I did.

So I headed to the basement, where a number of residents had contributed to a basic weight training setup. As long as I had access to lots of calories, workouts weren’t too much of a problem. Weight training actually helped me add mass, but the problem was getting enough weight on the bar to do much good. That’s why I dropped my gym membership and pitched in with a few of the buildings muscleheads. The advantage of having the weights in my own building was late night workouts like this one. No one was around to see me heft loads that would handily break world records. I had contributed more than anyone else just so I could be sure there was enough poundage. While I worked out I swilled protein shakes instead of water. So with music set low but pumping, I proceeded to pound myself into the floor, running an aggressive circuit load until I was finally tired enough to catch an hour’s catnap.

Mind numb, I got my gear together, dressed in black combat pants, boots, black UnderArmour tee shirt and threw my combat vest on my gear bag, ate a huge omelet and headed to Manhattan.

* * *

The heliport in downtown Manhattan sees lots of use. NYPD, Homeland Security, New York State Police all land there on a regular basis. A dedicated air traffic control staff handles flight approach at all hours, on all days of the year. Most of the aircraft are of the Bell series choppers, 206B’s and a Bolkow BO 105 that belong to the NYPD, State Police 407’s and 430’s mainly. I was waiting near the flight control room, my gear piled under my feet, leaning back with my eyes closed, listening to the controllers talk. I felt/heard/smelled Gina come into the room, but I didn’t open my eyes, preferring to pretend sleep rather than face her eagle sharp perceptions.

“Downtown, this is DHS Nightstrike, inbound to pick up two, over,” came a radio call on the operator’s speaker.

“Nightstrike, this is Downtown heliport, the pad is clear. Please land in transient, advise on the go,” was the calm reply from the controller who had been called Mitch by the other controller.

“Do you have a visual on Nightstrike, Ian?” Mitch asked.

“Not quite yet…gottem! Holy Shit! Nightstrike is a Blackhawk!” Ian said.

“No shit? Let me see!” Mitch answered. Then a second later: “Crap, you’re right. Big mothers, aren’t they?”

I opened my eyes and looked at Gina who was, oddly, not staring at me. Gina was always evaluating me; now it looked like she was avoiding my gaze, which immediately told me she had been talking with Lydia.

Why I chose to introduce those two, I’ll never figure out. All I can say is it seemed harmless at the time. The human police sergeant and the vampire confidant had hit it off instantly, the two immediately making my life hell. Apparently, my human handler and Tanya’s vampire handler felt the need to confer on virtually every detail of my bizarre life.

I settled my Oakley sunglasses on my nose, grabbed my gear and stood up just as the one named Ian poked his head out of the control room and said: “Looks like your ride is here. You’re going in style!”

I merely nodded and headed out to the heliport, ignoring Gina as she came calmly along behind me.

The D.O.A.A. helicopter was a black UH-60 Blackhawk, the utility workhorse of the U.S. military.

The standard Army version could carry a crew of four and eleven other passengers. I knew Brianna’s group was well funded, but I hadn’t expected this.

The crew chief jumped out of the bird and waved us over, the rotors spinning and hitting us with heavy blasts of air as we ran over to the door of the helicopter. The chief, who was female, directed us to our seats, the only two left open. Looked like a full flight. She got us buckled up, jumped back out to check her bird, then hopped into her own seat after a quick signal to the pilot. The big copter spun up to full power, lifting off with a forward tilt like a giant dragonfly.

Normally I would have been enjoying myself immensely. I love flying and have always wanted to fly in a Blackhawk. But I wasn’t really capable of generating enthusiasm for anything at this point.

I settled back in my seat and looked over my fellow passengers. Agent Duclair was setting closest to the cockpit and wearing a crew headset so she could confer with the pilot, which she appeared to be doing now. Eric Adler loomed to her left, his ice blue eyes watching me appraisingly. Seven other pairs of eyes were checking us out as well. Two sets belonged to male and female agents, dressed in khakis and polos, with the look of crime scene technicians. The other five were dressed in [wore] combat dress much like my own, but dark blue instead of black. I knew them immediately for what they were. A strike team. Armed with assault rifles, body armor, and tactical vests, they were the team’s hunters. Their guns would be loaded with silver tipped bullets, their job would be to terminate the rogue when it was located and cornered. Four men and one woman, all hardened operators, probably with military backgrounds. They would all have a cool team nickname for instant use in a firefight. The names would also help bind them as an elite group, helping them feel and act as a unit.

I recognized Agent Simmons, he was probably something like Snake. The giant refrigerator-sized black guy I had met as well. They probably called him Dozer or Brick or something. The girl, who had Eurasian features, was easy. They would call her Angel – as in angel of death. The tall, rawboned white guy had to be Crane or Tex. The wiry average-sized dude, who was snapping gum aggressively, would be Mongoose or some other fast and nasty predator. They were sizing us up, although Simmons rubbed the side of his nose with his middle finger while meeting my eyes, then started to leer at Gina. The big black guy nodded and leaned back with his eyes closed. The girl was working the tough chick thing as hard as she could, a slight sneer on her otherwise attractive features. Gina pulled out a notebook and started to study the contents and I, being in a window seat, stared out the heavy plexiglass, watching the ground go by at a hundred and seventy miles an hour.

It was cathartic, the steady change of scenery. I suppose it would be blurry for the others, but my eyes didn’t perceive it as too fast. The sprawl of the city gave way to the outlying suburban terrain and then to mostly trees and forests. Occasionally, a village or other island of civilization would pop into view and then be gone again in moments. I put my earbuds in and cranked up my iPod, letting the dark, heavy tones of Disturbed wash out my brain. I drifted, afloat like an empty barrel on Niagara, headed for the falls.

The flight was fairly quick, taking just over an hour to reach the little airport on the north edge of Bennington. The pilot circled the tiny field, finally landing on a spur of runway, coming to halt next to a small armada of black SUVs. Local police were parked nearby, the officers standing next to their cars, watching our arrival and trying hard not to look impressed. The crew chief hit the door and Duclair’s strike team piled out like they were entering a hot zone. Show-offs.

Adler followed, then the technicians, Gina and myself, and finally after a quick word with the pilot, Agent Duclair descended to the ground, projecting the very essence of a self confident Special Agent. We moved as a group to the vehicles where drivers stood ready to help load gear. Briana headed toward the lead vehicle, stopped, turned and reversed till she was right in front of Gina and me. Adler moved up next to her, his eyes fastened on mine, the rest of the strike team closed around us in a tense circle.

The blackness inside me reared its head, sensing possible violence like a dog sniffing steak.

“As this is Vermont and you’re NYPD, I’m afraid I need your sidearms.” She said with a tight little smile.

“Vermont has no restrictions on carrying side arms. Briana, and Chris and I are trained officers,” Gina countered without hesitation.

Duclair frowned, a small furrow forming between her brows.

“Well, this is a federal operation and you haven’t been cleared by our people. Hand them over.”

“Briana, Inspector Roma agreed to our participation with the distinct understanding that we would be able to follow OUR protocols. Going unarmed after a rogue were is NOT protocol.”

“Detective Velasquez, YOUR COMMISSIONER agreed in writing to your following ALL of my orders,” Duclair replied, waving a piece of paper at Gina, who took it and started to read.

Simmons chose that moment to step forward from behind and grab Gina’s left hip with one hand and her holstered gun on the right hip with his other. She started to react, but I had already joint-locked his right wrist, spun him around and stiffed-armed him away. Immediately, he spun back with a vicious back fist, fast enough to tell me he had been anticipating my reaction. He didn’t anticipate my catching his fist in one hand, stopping the blow like it had hit a tree and squeezing his hand hard enough to drop him to his knees.

In the next instant, the rest of his team started to move, and the black berserker inside me crowed with delight and shook its restraints.

“STOP!” Gina commanded, freezing everyone in their places. “Chris, this letter is legit, we have to comply.” Her eyes were worried as they watched me.

I went completely still for a moment as I contemplated going unarmed after a rogue werewolf, but the blackness inside, although irritated at the cessation of violence, was utterly confident in our/my/its abilities, not to mention I was still carrying enough silver to serve tea to the Queen of England.

I let go of Simmons and he jumped to his feet, his face red with rage and pain, but Adler stepped between us. Gina handed over her Glock, then turned to me.

Again I paused for a moment, then I drew, pulling both guns at once, reversing them so I was holding them by the barrels, butt forward, then spun in place and offered them to each team member faster than they could follow. None of them had a chance to react before I came back around and finally offered them to Duclair, whose face had gone white. I could have shot the entire team before they could react.

* * *

“If we’re done playing bullshit kindergarten games, let’s get this clusterfuck underway”, I said. “The faster we put this puppy down, the quicker I can get home. I gotta see some people, about some bullshit orders.”

I started to walk toward the second vehicle, but tossed a final comment over my shoulder.

“I call shotgun,” I said with a chuckle.

Behind me I heard the female, Angel or whatever, say, “That went well,” in a sarcastic tone.

Duclair spoke to Gina, “Is he insane?”

Gina answered her quietly in a low hiss: “You have no idea what you’re dealing with, Briana. Why do you think Roma insisted I be here? My full-time job is him. And he started the day on a razor’s edge. Oh, I know, you’re playing dominance games, trying to show him who’s boss, but all you’ve really done is piss him off.”

“If he’s that volatile, then I’m glad we disarmed him,” Duclair came back.

“Disarmed him? Listen, if he wants a gun, he’ll just take one of yours. And there won’t be a damned thing any of you can do about it.”

Chapter 10

I grinned at the driver of the second SUV, who knew something hinky had taken place, but was unsure what, and then climbed into the front passenger seat. Three of the others climbed in back. My senses told me they were the huge guy, the tall guy, and the average guy. Starting to sound like the three bears, only I ain’t no Goldilocks.

The others distributed more or less evenly in the other vehicles and we headed out.

* * *

The William H. Morse State Airport sits on the west side of Bennington at about 800 feet above sea level. State Route 9 traverses the village from west to east, then climbs up into the Green Mountain National Forest, where the road reaches elevations of 2600 to 2800 feet. Led by Vermont State Police, our little convoy of black vehicles roared through town, breaking every posted speed limit along the way. Of course we drew the attention of everyone. I was real glad for the tinted windows, ’cause I was embarrassed to be associated with Briana’s little circus.

The road climbed quickly in elevation until we turned onto another road, Harbour Rd.– according to the sign, which had police vehicles blocking access. We went on for what seemed like a mile or mile and a half till we came to a cluster of official vehicles, which included another couple of government SUVs. The driver pulled right into the middle and screeched to a halt.

Briana dismounted the lead car, striding into the group of approaching officers and agents, and began to receive their reports. Agents wearing FBI raid jackets were combing the woods along the eastern side of the road, searching the ground carefully for evidence.

Gina had gotten out of the back of the lead vehicle as well, but she chose to wait for me, rather than get towed along in Duclair’s wake. The two technicians hurried into the mix, but the strike team slowed up, obviously keeping an eye on me.

“How ya doing?” Gina asked in a low voice. I didn’t think she was referring to the gun confiscation thing.

“I’m here and I haven’t killed anyone,” I answered.

She didn’t take it as a joke, which was good, ’cause it was a heartfelt response.

She nodded, pushing a strand of long brown hair back behind her ear. I kept walking toward the little hive of worker bees circling around the queen, Briana, and Gina fell in beside me, not saying anything else. I was grateful for that, because I had nothing to say and didn’t want to talk.

Eric Adler moved up next to us, his long legs making short work of catching up.

“I need to introduce the team,” he said simply, as if nothing had happened earlier.

We stopped and turned to look where he was pointing. The five-member team was moving up behind us, eyes wary, tricked-out M4 rifles slung patrol style across their torsos.

“I believe you already know Simmons, his team name is Rattler.”

Blockhead said nothing, just gave me a flat stare and Gina a head-to-toe appraisal.

“The big guy is Books, our heavy weapon specialist. Next to him is Data and Splitter.”

That covered the wiry little guy and the tall lanky dude.

“Finally, we have Balls,” he said, indicating the girl.

Gina asked the obvious question, “Why Balls?”

“’Cause I got brass ones!” the girl answered, with a cold grin.

“Okay, Data is your technical wizard, Splitter is a sniper who ‘splits hairs.’ But I don’t get ‘Books.’ ” Gina said.

Adler shrugged. “He’s always reading one.”

The niceties’ out of the way, I turned away and moved over to Duclair, who was in her element, issuing orders and asking questions. She noticed our approach and stopped an agent in mid-sentence to speak to us.

“Mr. Lassiter was found by a passing car, right over next to the woods, twenty-nine days ago. He was unconscious and had severe bite wounds to both legs and his right arm. The responding EMT’s felt he would expire before he got to the hospital, but he made it and subsequently healed at a near astonishing rate,” she said. “Lassiter lives about two miles up this road, but he hasn’t been to his house in days and so we’re checking both the house and here for possible fresh sign. You know… revisiting the scene of his attack and all that. Chris, I’d like you to see if you can find anything we’ve missed.”

She looked at me closely as she said this, but my poker face was on lockdown and I simply turned and moved toward the attack site. I didn’t miss her questioning look in Gina’s direction. Whatever sign Gina gave her must have reassured her, as she turned back to her covey of agents.

I hadn’t gone more than a dozen feet when the vision hit. Unlike my demon visions, this one was slower and without a sense of urgency. I quickly saw, as well, that it was also a vision of the past, not the future. I stopped and dropped to one knee, the other leg folded under me, while I dug out the sketch pad and pencil.

About five months ago, I had the first of these new type visions. It was the scene of a vampire attack, and the events of that attack played on my mind’s movie screen and then across the pages of my sketch pad, detailing the assault like a movie director’s storyboard.

My hand started drawing of its own accord and I watched to see what it revealed.

This one had six scenes laid out. The first showed a skinny middle-aged guy with too-large glasses walking on the side of the road, a small mixed-breed dog on a leash. It seemed to be late afternoon by the shadow of the speed limit sign. I looked ahead and slightly to my right, spying that very sign about twenty-five feet away. Looking back at the rapidly evolving picture, I could see three pairs of eyes that peered from the forest edge behind him. The next showed the dog looking back in fear, the man (I assumed this was Lassiter) staring myopically at the dark forest. The third scene showed a huge blur, streaking across from the wooded shadows, where the other two sets of eyes remained. Lassiter was in the midst of dropping the leash and the little dog was bolting ahead.

Number four was filled with a wolf the size of a black bear, Lassiter’s thigh in its mouth, the animal holding him off the ground as it savaged the leg. Scene five had the man on the ground, with both legs torn up, the wolf now chewing an arm. The final scene showed the wolf moving off to the woods, only one pair of eyes still waiting, Lassiter unconscious.

My hand stopped drawing and I became aware of an audience. I smelled Gina, Duclair, Adler, the female – Balls – and the male technician; all looking over my shoulder at the carefully detailed, cartoonish drawing.

“That’s…amazing!” Duclair said in a thoughtful voice.

“Yeah, they are incredibly useful,” Gina said.

I handed the sketch up and over my shoulder to Gina, then stood up and shook out my leg which was just a little stiff from sitting. The five were all crowded around the sketch, studying it for clues or just fascinated. Gina and Duclair both looked up at me. I directed my comments to Gina.

“I’m gonna look in the woods where the wolves were standing, see if there are any old tracks or anything.”

* * *

The ground at the edge of the forest was thick with leaf litter, too thick to hold any kind of track, but knowing where they had stood made a good starting point for starting an arc search. I moved in ever increasing semi-circles, scanning for any sign, until I finally found a print. It was about sixteen or so yards back, pressed into soft earth and well hidden by leaves that had blown over it in the month since it was made. The very leaves that had hid it had protected it from the elements. First I laid a six-inch flexible ruler from one of my vest pockets next to it to add size perspective and then snapped a couple of pictures of it with the digital camera in my cell phone. It was almost as big as a salad plate and perfect in detail.

Next, I laid my gloves over it to mark it and then searched for more, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

I went back to the vehicles and raided a crime scene kit for dental plaster, a mixing bowl and a wooden spatula. Back at the track, I mixed the powder with water from my Camelback hydration pack and worked it smooth with the spatula. Holding the spatula down into the print cavity, I poured the pancake-batter like plaster down the length of the spatula and into the print. Doing it this way protected the print from impact damage by the heavy plaster. Then I marked the casting with a couple of sticks pushed into the ground and crisscrossed over the track.

I found Gina with Duclair, the sketch spread out over the hood of an SUV, a small army of agents studying it and then moving to the real locations to search for possible evidence. Gina looked up at me and raised her eyebrows in question.

“I found one track, about fifty feet in. I’ve got a cast drying in it as we speak,” I said, holding out my cell to show her the picture. She reached for the phone, but Duclair got it first, snagging it from my hand. She did allow Gina to look over her shoulder at the picture.

“Damn big track! How big would the wolf be that made it?” Briana asked.

She knew damned well how big werewolves were. She was sucking up to me, making me feel important, trying to undo the damage she had done earlier. I wasn’t gonna play that game.

“Bigger than a bread box,” I said with a snort, then turned toward the scent of donuts. I could feel her eyes boring into my back, but I ignored it and instead hunted down the tantalizing odor of coffee and donuts.

Someone had set up a little break area on the folded-down tailgate of a Bennington Police SUV. Two state troopers were chatting with their hands full of coffee and donuts. They took in my tactical appearance and I could tell the exact moment that the first one spotted my empty holsters. He elbowed his companion and moved ever so slowly out of my way.

“Hey, nice rig you got there. Maybe when you’re old enough, they’ll let you carry a gun!” he guffawed, his friend joining in.

Great! More stupid cop games. Not in the mood.

I smiled in turn, then snatched my knife from behind my back, jabbed a hole in the bottom of each of their paper coffee cups and re-sheathed the big blade, all before they could react. I kept it slow enough for them to see the knife, but just faster than their reaction time.

They froze and coffee spattered on the ground, splattering their shiny shoes with mocha colored drops.

“Guns are for pussies! No sport!” I said.

The comment maker came back to himself, and covering his fear, started to bluster. I took off my glasses and looked at him long and level. Apparently, they didn’t like the color purple, because their faces went ashen gray and they stumbled away without another word.

That left me alone to wreak havoc and destruction on the donuts. A moment later another presence joined me, but I recognized the footsteps before she spoke.

“You’re getting pretty reckless with your displays, don’t you think?”

I gave Detective Sergeant Velasquez my coldest stare.

She held both hands up in a placating gesture and said, “Just sayin’!”

She wasn’t really intimidated by me. I suspect she knew I wasn’t capable of harming my friends. Despite my generally piss poor mood, I still liked that she never smelled of fear around me. Smell is such a good indicator of true feelings. She pointed at my mouth and offered me a napkin. I realized that the powdered sugar around my mouth from the jelly donut might have ruined the effect of my glare.

“Chris, I realize a lot has happened in the last twenty-four hours and from your perspective it’s really bad, but it might not be as it seems. When you’re ready, I have some information that you don’t.

‘Kay? ‘Kay,” she said, grabbing a donut and coffee and heading back into the fray, before I could respond.

I grabbed a coconut flake and a Boston crème donut and refilled my cup with cocoa – who ever heard of cocoa at a crime scene? Then I crossed the road to the non-busy side and sat on a big glacial boulder that had been there since the Ice Age. Sitting cross legged, I studied the swarm of agents while I ate. Gina’s words forced themselves back into the forefront of my thoughts. I was displaying too much of the wrong kind of ability in front of the wrong kind of people. If I wasn’t careful, Briana would try to put me in a lab somewhere to study me. The operative word would be try. Even Gina didn’t know all my abilities and nobody (except Lydia and Tanya) knew that Okwari was never very far away. I wondered at the cryptic comment about information that I didn’t have. What more did I need to know? Tanya had chosen another – a vampire more to her liking.

Something else was pushing for attention, another thought that had been prickling the back of my mind for awhile now. The image of the crime sketch popped into my head and my internal eye focused on the little dog. The dog! What had happened to the dog?

The third scene had shown the dog bolting ahead. The final scene had shown only one pair of eyes waiting on the attacking wolf. Had the other wolf gone after the dog?

I popped the last bite in my mouth, drained my cocoa and hopped off the rock. I wandered up the road, away from the crime scene, in the direction the dog had gone. I watched the shoulder of the road, where years of road sanding by snow plows had left alluvial type deposits. Lots of tracks in that moist, compacted silicone. Bird, deer, a fisher track, running shoe imprint and finally, small canine prints. In a C-shaped gallop pattern, with the hind prints in front of the fore-feet prints. Little dog moving fast! Bingo!

Trouble was, my sand deposits were intermittent, so I ranged forward until I found another set and then another. The little guy had run along the edge of the road, panicking and following familiar territory. He would have done better in the thick forest, where the underbrush and trees would give his small size an advantage. On a straight run, the bigger, faster wolf would probably catch him….there! A huge canine print in the sand intersecting the little dog’s, then no more little dog prints.

The wolf track came in at an angle from the road. Acting on a hunch I searched the ground in direct line with the vector of the track. Sure enough there was a partial print heading back into the forest. I noted the vector on my compass and followed the line. Thirty feet into the woods I found another partial and then a fluff of white and black fur. Lassiter’s dog was white and black in the sketch, or I should say, had been. I followed the line for a mile, hitting tracks intermittently. Suddenly, I could see daylight through the trees ahead. I came out on Route 9, east of the Harbour Road turn-off. A long black streak ran on the concrete into the road from the shoulder, about like the track from a motorcycle smoking its tire. My cell phone has one of the GPS applications so I made note of the exact coordinates in my little notebook.

I tracked back toward my starting point and about a third of the way back I found another track – a man’s size nine or nine and a half walking shoe. It crossed the line of the wolves and headed northwest, which gave me an idea. I noted its location in my little book before trudging back to the attack scene and helping myself to the big terrain map laid out on the lead SUV’s hood. Our location was marked, as was Lassiter’s house. I rough guessed the GPS coordinates on the map and noted the direction that the shoe print had been heading. It almost lined up with Lassiter’s house.

Next I looked through the report folder on Lassiter. George Lassiter was thirty-eight years old, lived alone, worked as a salesman at a men’s store in Bennington. The hospital report had a detailed list of his possessions when he was brought in by ambulance. Bingo – size nine men’s Rockport walking shoes were listed.

“Gordon, you find anything?” Eric Adler asked from his spot in a group that included Duclair and Gina. I nodded.

“I found where the wolves left their motorcycles on Route 9,” I offered.

The entire cluster of people came over and I showed them on the big topographical map. One of the technician types popped open a PC on the hood and snagged the coordinates from me. He plugged them into the laptop and then let the program draw a more exact map. Duclair took one look, then detailed Adler to take some agents and check out the Route 9 location.

“What else?” Briana asked, looking at me.

“I want to go check out Lassiter’s house. I’m starting to get a feel for him and I think his home will help me dial in.”

She nodded and motioned one of the drivers over. “Take Gordon here, up the road to the house.”

“I’ll go with you,” Gina said, climbing in the back seat.

Chapter 11

Lassiter’s house was small, with wooden clapboards in need of fresh white paint. The trim was a dark green that had seen better days. But overall, the house was fairly tidy. The yard was well groomed and a large garden plot had been laid out with care, freshly tilled, with cold weather broccoli and cabbage already planted. George was a gardener, a plant lover.

Gina moved into the house while I prowled the back. The property rose almost immediately behind the house, climbing to become Maple Hill, with a summit above 2600 feet, according to what I remembered of Briana’s map. A path from Lassiter’s back door headed straight for the back of his lot, but stopped at a fairly sheer cliff face that rose about thirty feet above the yard. There was no obvious way up it and the foot path just sort of ended.

After glancing around to be sure no one was watching me, I jumped to the top of the cliff. Cool? It’s sooooo freaking cool! Still can’t get used to being able to do that.

I looked around my perch. The top of the cliff was bare granite, but dirt and moss started just a few feet back from the edge. A narrow little trail was pressed into the moss, heading straight up into the forest on the mountain's side. I glanced back down the face of the clifflet and noticed something – a nine-inch-wide ledge of rock angling up the face of the cliff, just big enough for a person to climb. I hadn't seen anything of the sort from the ground and my vision is sharp.

I jumped back down, not bothering to Lighten at all, just bent my knees and touched one hand to the ground on impact. Reducing my weight, would slow my fall, if only a little, and I didn't want to be seen jumping thirty feet in either direction.

Back at the base, I turned and looked at the cliff. No ledge. I walked closer and put my hand up to feel the rock. There it was, but the outer edge was higher than the edge closest to the cliff face, effectively hiding the easily climbed trail, from ground view.

I heard Gina come out to the back porch, so I turned and waved her over. After pointing out the trail, I stood back and watched her climb it. Piece of cake for the fit detective. I jumped back to the top and met her as she finished the climb.

“Show off!” she accused.

“Hey, I'm great at parties!”

She smiled at that, probably because it was the first wiseass remark I had made all day.

I pointed at the footpath leading up the mountain.

“I think old Georgie has a little spot up there to take in the scenery and maybe hide out from the world. I'm gonna climb up and see if I can nail him down.”

“Wait up a sec,” she said, pulling her own patrol bag off her shoulder. She opened it and pulled out a Subway bag with three foot-long subs in it, sat down and patted the rock next to her. Where and when she had gotten those I hadn’t a clue.

“How about lunch first, eh, Skinny?” she asked.

Gina was in league with my stomach, constantly reminding me to eat and be careful of my burn rate.

She grabbed a six-inch section of the Italian meat combo on wheat for herself and pulled a bottle of water from her bag.

I'm not hard to sell on eating, ever, so I quickly polished off one seafood, one turkey and the other half of the Italian sub, finishing up before she was done. She shook her head but didn't bother to comment.

My ability to eat is legend in our squad. Chet Aikens, skinny beanpole that he is, is no slouch, but he is in complete awe of my regular intake.

“How are we going to play this?” she asked, wiping her mouth with a napkin from her seemingly inexhaustible patrol bag.

“Well, seeing as you're not packing, I'm gonna bounce up there on my own and see if Mr. Lassiter is available for lodging in the local jail cell, hopefully with one of Brock's weres flown up to talk him through the change.”

If that were to happen, and we had one of the New York wolves handy, Mr. Lassister would be fine. Without that tricky set of conditions, he was gonna go insane. Gina shook her head.

“Briana won't let the New York pack near him. I overheard them talking, they want to capture him for study, even though he won't be sane. They have zoo-grade tranquilizers, heavy tasers and bullets filled with diluted silver nitrate.”

Wow! Talk about stupid! Pharmaceuticals didn't affect weres, tasers only pissed them off, and good luck getting enough diluted silver nitrate into the bloodstream without overdosing and killing your subject. Not to mention keeping an insane were around at all. Like crossing Hannibal Lecter with a grizzly bear.

“Chris, he'll have to be put down,” she said softly.

“You sure?” I asked.

“Lydia and Afina both told me a rogue were can't be saved.”

Afina was the Alpha female and she had also met Gina, another of my stupid ideas. Lydia, I had finally discovered, didn't date vampires. She had a soft spot for weres and regularly went out with members of the New York Pack. Between what she learned and Afina, Gina's information was solid.

I glanced at the sun, rather than my watch. Holding my fist at arms length, I counted about four and half hand widths from the sun to the horizon. Less than five hours till dark. I stood up and dusted off.

“Okay, I'm gonna track him down. I've got my squad radio on my vest here, so I'll call you when I've got him,” I said.

“You’re not packing either! You need to be real careful. I'm not gonna be the one to explain to Tanya and Lydia if something happens to you!”

I frowned at Tanya’s name and she went on immediately.

“We're not going to get into that right now, but you don't know what you think you do!” she said.

I looked at her for a long time, then nodded once.

“Alright then, I’m gonna go catch me a wolfie, and yes Mom, I’ll be careful.”

* * *

I found his hideaway about five minutes later. The two miles I had traveled had been straightforward and I slowed when my nose picked up the scent of unwashed human. My senses told me he wasn’t in residence.

His lean-to was tucked on the west side of the mountain, about fifty yards from the proper summit. It was built near the slope of the hill, a flat ledge in front of it that peered out with a great view of what Briana’s topo map had named Bald Mountain. It was a nice spot, easy to imagine George coming home from work, climbing up with a beer and his little dog and watching the sun set over the mountain.

The lean-to had been there a while, maybe years. The sorry pile of clothes and old blankets was a newer addition. Dirty cooking gear was strewn about, flies buzzing on the moldy cans of Dinty Moore beef stew. Lydia had told me that some weres, mainly the young and newly made, got moon-drunk as the full moon drew near. It sure looked like a drunk had live here. The fire pit was warm, as if a fire had burned in the morning or maybe the night before, the coals only now dying out.

I searched around the little campsite, my nose helping me avoid his latrine. One of his twisty little trails led around the hill to the north side. That’s where I found his clothes, the ones he had been wearing today. The scent was fresh.

The sun was lower, and it occurred to me that in these mountains, it would be dark quicker than I had thought. My senses were hyper alert, picking out all the birdsong, insect sound and scents of the Vermont forest. I had forgotten how alive the woods make me feel, the thin skin of civilization sliding away just a bit. The moon would begin its chase of the sun soon, rising in the east as the sun set fully in the west. I could feel it, pulling on me. George must be half mad with it already.

His trail led north along the saddle of the hill, following the terrain to the next hill over, Hager Hill. His scent was everywhere, stinky body odor mixed with an unsettling odour of wet dog.

His trail was meandering and I remembered that I was currently hunting a moon drunk, a naked moon drunk at that.

I climbed logs, jumped boulders, splashed through streams. I was really starting to feel the hunt, the blackness in my gut pulsing with anticipation. It was a gradual kind of thing, the sort of feeling that sneaks up on you and suddenly robs you of your wits. I found myself sniffing the ground, tree trunks, moss-covered rocks.

The night was coming on fast, but I hadn’t noticed, as the change in light slides right by you when you have night vision like mine. Then I felt the moon, just starting to edge over the horizon, and almost at the same time I heard him change. I was above him, high on Hager Hill, and his screams of pain echoed from below. The pitch started to change, lowering and deepening until it became a snarling growl of rage.

The sound tripped the hairs on the back of my neck, stirred my very cells with the inherited memories of my prehistoric ancestors. At the same time it triggered a powerful instinct to hunt the predator that was below me. The human part of me was a little scared, the virus parts excited and the deep black rage in me was hungry to prove who was the top predator in this forest.

I doubled my speed downhill, bounding over gullies and fallen trees with abandon, slowing only when I reached a part of the forest that was already silent.

Chapter 12

“I feel it deep within, just beneath the skin. I must confess that I feel like a monster.” – Skillet

All the night-time inhabitants had gone dead quiet in this part of the forest, frightened by a large unnatural predator. My ears could tell the size of the silent zone, my hearing acute enough to pick up the beginnings of crickets and spring peepers fifty yards away on either side of me.

I started to follow the tunnel of silence, my brain forming an image of the path the newly made monster had taken by the vacuum of sound it had created.

I was moving slower now, all my senses quivering like antennae. The path led further downhill, toward the sounds of cars on Route 9 below me. To my right I could hear the early evening sounds of a small development built on the south base of Hager Hill. The monster I chased steered around it, and I wondered at its avoidance of such easy prey.

The road appeared in front of me, the trails of scent crossing and heading south. I jumped the road in one leap, landing in a tree forty feet off the ground (forty-three-point-two actually, but my ability to gauge distance had gotten so creepy over the last few months that I started to annoy myself with the precision of it, so now I round).

He was headed over the next hill, the one named Prospect on the map in my head. If I remembered right (and I did), there was a state campground on the other side. It should be too early in the season for campers, but one never knew, so I hurried, leaping from my tree to the ground and accelerating up the hill.

Cresting the hill, I heard him, less than a quarter mile ahead, grunting and growling softly. The campground was laid out before me, wrapped around a small body of water. Lassiter’s path headed straight for the rows of empty tent sites and I suddenly heard voices, laughing and giggling in the dark. One was deep, the other high and wind-chime clear.

I raced forward, bounding in twenty- and thirty-foot jumps, the voices growing closer and louder, the monster just ahead.

The trees thinned and I saw a tent – a small two person dome, glowing with the meager light of an iPod or cell phone that might as well have been a Colemen lantern to my eyes. A fire burned in the little firepit and an older model Chevy Blazer was parked nearby. Lassiter’s outline blocked the light of the tent as he charged toward his prey.

A number of things happened in rapid sequence. The girl’s voice changed pitch as she heard something in the dark, then the beast that had been George Lassiter tore the tent like tissue paper. The figure of a half-naked male jumped up and turned to run, slamming headfirst into the tree on the other side of the tent and falling unmoving to the ground. The girl screamed, scooting backward as the malformed monster’s teeth touched her leg, and then I landed behind old woolly George. He finally sensed me, starting to turn, but I Posted my body in position, grabbed his hind leg and twisted, throwing the three-hundred pound creature against a tree fifteen feet away.

Enraged, the were leaped to its feet, giving me my first clear look at poor George. Experienced weres generally turn into perfect examples of their animal, albeit very large ones. They can, over time, learn to stop the transformation half-way into a wolf-man, bear-man or what have you. George Lassiter hadn’t been able to make a full transformation. But his beast form was misshapen and wrong to the eye. One arm too long, one leg slightly twisted. His head looked partially melted, the fur not fully formed on one side. He was a mess, an insane, superhumanly strong, enraged mess. His teeth and claws had turned out well, though.

Observer-me noticed all this, as the black rage was in full control of my fight brain. Here was an opponent to give me a real fight. Not some poor gang members in a city park, but a real monster of tooth and claw.

Were-George charged me, missing when I dodged to the right, grunting when my left fist impacted his ribs, snarling when my right hammer fist slammed into his back, shattering the vertebrae.

He started to pull himself forward with his massive arms, his broken back already mending itself with audible snaps and crunches of bone. Poor George! He shouldn’t have to work so hard to get to me, a dark part of me thought, so I went to him.

His bear-trap jaws snapped in rapid fire, his baleful eyes almost popping out of his head with rage. I offered an arm for him to bite, but snatched it away, slamming his head with my other fist, pounding it into the ground with a crunch. He rolled to one side and swiped me with a huge paw-hand, his claws shredding my nylon vest as I was thrown backward. I back flipped over, landing lightly on my feet, a dark chuckle forcing its way from my mouth. The blackness was amused.

Weres and vamps are tough to damage with regular weapons, only silver makes a real impression. But physical injuries from hand-to-hand combat are different somehow. It’s far more damaging and can be ultimately lethal. George was healing but slower than a steel knife wound or gunshot with lead. He was a brand new were and his instincts were skewed, mixed as they were with human ones. Up until this point he had fought as confident predator, but now some part of him was realizing he was losing this fight, and badly.

His spine re-grown, he shot from the ground, charging me head on. At three hundred pounds and almost seven feet tall he was not something to go-toe-to toe with. So, of course, I did, and I laughed.

Holding his throat to keep those deadly jaws at bay, I took the beating of his claws on my torso, my ribs and skin Hardened. With my free right hand I uppercut, hard, fast. Like a jackhammer. My vest was shredded, my skin cut, healed, and cut again. He, however was beginning to fade. My blows were crushing and recrushing his ribs, sternum, bursting organs and blasting bone fragments throughout his torso.

It’s a fact of life that older weres and vamps heal faster than newbies. George couldn’t keep up.

His blows grew feeble and finally, I threw him down in disgust. Now he lay on his side, panting, and instead of a growl, he let out a whimper. A whimper! Like a lost puppy, hit by a car.

That whimper cut through the blackness like a razor, cut straight to observer-me. Cut me to the core.

I was back in control, the rage snuffed and shoved away, locked down by my self-disgust. My job was to put down a rogue. That’s it. Clean, precise, merciful. This was nothing like merciful. I had never even grabbed silver. No, my intent, it seems, had been to beat the poor, insane, desperate, man-creature in front of me to death with my hands.

The yellow light of insanity dimmed in his eyes, leaving a very human-looking pupil in an oversized socket. That eye, light blue in color, begged for release. Release from the pain, release from the madness, release before he could murder.

The silver dart found its way into my hand without thought, and I approached him with my side turned away to hide it. He focused on me, his eye hopeful, and when I slid the needle through the back of his skull, he didn’t seem to feel it. But as the light faded from his gigantic eye, the look changed from begging for release, to pity. Pity for me.

I turned my head and puked.

Chapter 13

“My secret side I keep hid under lock and key. I keep it caged, but I can’t control it, ‘cause if I let him out, he’ll tear me up, break me down…”- Skillet

I returned to the campsite, unsure of what I would find or not find. The young guy was still lying on the ground, hopefully just knocked out. The girl had found a flashlight and was shining it about, trying to find the monsters in the dark. It suddenly struck me that she had had to listen to unholy combat, completely unable to see what was happening. Her heart was beating as fast as a scared rabbit, but she wasn't panicking and when she pinned me with the bright beam of her light, I decided she wasn't very rabbit-like.

“Do you mind? The light?” I asked, keeping my voice low and quiet.

She dropped the beam to my chest and legs, giving me a chance to get my first good look at her. It was quite a look. She was naked except for a pink thong, and not especially aware of it.

Some people will run out of a burning house with nothing on and not be aware of it for a while. This was different. She wasn't so much unaware of her lack of clothes as she was unconcerned. Her eyes were wide and green, alert and nervous, but not blank with shock or catatonic with fear the way most people would be after an experience like that.

Her hair was platinum blond, as were her eyebrows and it looked to be her natural color. Her face was beautiful, with the smooth perfection of the young. I put her age at seventeen or eighteen. Pixie-like features. Her body, well, her body was a problem in and of itself.

Very few people should go naked. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is. All that crap about the body is a beautiful thing in all its shapes, forms and ages is just that – crap! Now, of course, if you're gonna seek out people who look good naked, girls in her age range are prime candidates. But this girl was another level or three altogether. Let me put it this way: if the United States had an Olympic naked team, this girl would be a captain.

In addition to her naked beauty, she also had a bleeding wound on her left calf, with a werewolf-sized tooth puncture right in the middle. My focus, which had been decidedly distracted, suddenly snapped back to a sharp point. I re-looked at her wound with my Sight, and found it crawling with green. The LV virus liked her, no, scratch that, it adored her.

Immediately, a dozen things ran through my head. Primary was the image of this girl in a cage, deep in an underground government lab, mad as a hatter. If Briana Duclair discovered Miss Soon-to-be Teenaged Werewolf, the girl's life was over.

I looked her in the eyes.

“What's your name?” I asked, softly.

She licked her lips to wet them, then answered with only the slightest tremble in her voice.

“S-stacia. Stacia Reynolds,” she said. “What's your's?”

She wasn't the stereotypical blond cheerleader type; this girl had cojones.

“I'm Chris. Listen Stacia, we don't have a whole lot of time before others arrive. I have a lot to tell you and no time to be delicate about it,” I said. I took out my own light and lit up the body of poor Mr. Lassiter, who was as he died, still a werewolf.

“That is a werewolf. A rogue. It bit you and in one month you'll be a werewolf too.”

“Like that! I'll be like that!” she hissed, her eyes glistening with moisture and one little tear leaking down her tan cheek.

I shook my head. “No, not like that. I guarantee it. He didn’t have anyone to guide him. You will have the best of help, you'll be guided through it and you'll be fine!”

I realized that I meant every word of it. If I had to move the planet, I would get this girl the help of the most powerful weres in this part of the world. And she would make a great wolf, because the virus fit her like a glove. I had screwed things up enough, this I would make this right.

I explained how I would get her help, and what would happen when the feds arrived. That she couldn't let them know she had been bit and not to trust them. As I spoke I looked at her wound, almost in a panic about how to hide it, but then the knowledge came to me. It was like something unfolded in my head, sort of unpacked itself, and then I was reaching for her calf with both hands. I put my right palm over her wound, my left at the other side and I poured clean violet power through her leg, telling her cells what I expected of them.

She jumped a little as I did it, and when I pulled my hand away, the wound was gone, just pink skin. I wiped off the blood, both hers and mine where it had dripped down my arms from my own now healed wounds, using an antiseptic towelet from my vest.

“Now, I need your help with two things,” I said, swiping my hair with a shaky hand. “First, I need you to get dressed, ‘cause you’re distracting as hell, and second, where are those hot dogs I smell?”

* * *

The others arrived fifteen minutes later, the result of my radio call to Gina. The Blackhawk swooped in low overhead and five ropes dropped, followed by five bodies fast-roping down. It would have been an impressive display, but it's hard to be impressed when you, yourself can just jump the twenty feet to the ground.

The five strike team members fanned out, rifle lights lit and shining in every direction, looking for threats.

The black SUVs roared up thirty seconds later, followed by the state trooper cars, and another fifteen or so agents, weapons at the ready.

I was kneeling by the fire, roasting the last two hot dogs. Stacia and her boyfriend, whose name was Dan, were sitting on the remains of the tent a few feet away. Dan had some cooler ice in a towel and was holding it to the egg-sized knot on his forehead. Stacia was sitting a little apart from him, her watchful gaze finally lifted from me and now on the dog and pony show.

Agent Duclair stormed up in federal fury, planting herself, hands on hips, on the other side of the fire from me. Gina was moving more sedately behind her. Adler went straight for Lassiter's remains, a half dozen CSI types on his heels.

“Explain!” Duclair demanded.

“Well, the hotdog rolls are all gone and these are the last of the franks. Why do they always give you eight rolls and ten hotdogs? It's criminal, really,” I said.

She froze, unable to work up words, just this side of a really decent sputter.

The girl, Stacia, answered my question.

“It's economics. If you never have the same amount of rolls or dogs, you'll have to keep buying one or the other. Unless you buy five packs of rolls and four packs of hotdogs, then you'll be even,” she said.

I glanced at her, surprised. My contact information as well as Afina's, were in the girl's back jeans pocket. The cell reception at this campground was adequate and I had called in every favor I had with the Pack. Stacia had even spoken a bit with Afina , and the Pack would do absolutely everything in its considerable power to make her transition to her new life smooth. But it was her calm, almost eager acceptance of this major life change that was unnerving. Perhaps it was the invitation from Afina to come to the Big Apple and work directly for the Pack while she learned their ways. Aside from her beauty, clear head and obvious intelligence, Stacia Reynolds did not appear to have much in the way of material things. Her clothes were clean, but worn and not the latest fashion or even last year’s fashion. I don't think her family had much money, but we hadn't gotten to that.

* * *

Duclair could finally form sentences.

“What happened to the wer...bear?” she hissed, glancing at the teenagers as she covered her slip.

“It died,” I said with a shrug.

“HOW did it die?” she asked, her eyes bugging out a bit.

“Well, I encouraged it to.” I answered, pulling a greasy dog off the stick and eating it in two bites, while I watched her.

Gina had moved up and was studying me carefully and I felt surprisingly uncomfortable under her gaze. She always stared at me, it was her job. But I was feeling soul sick and lower than pond scum.

Duclair was just about to rip into me at the loss of her hoped for lab project, when Adler moved up to her and whispered in her ear. Didn't matter, I could still hear him.

“Ma'am, before you go…ah…expressing your opinion of him, you should maybe consider this: he just ran down and beat a werewolf to death with his bare hands.”

Her eyes widened as she took that in and she turned to him.

“You sure?”

“That's how it appears to the techs, Ma'am. And I agree.”

Her eyes turned thoughtful as she turned back to me. I didn't much care for her expression. It would seem that the cat and its bag were miles apart.

Abruptly, she turned and strode toward the were, with a “Show me!”

A couple of EMT types went to the teenagers to check them out, quickly concentrating on the wounded boy. Gina stepped up as I ate the final hotdog.

“You – outta that vest! Let's see the damage.” she commanded.

I wiped my greasy fingers on my pants and stood up, unbuckling the vest with my other hand. I shrugged out of it and then at her gesture, stripped off my shredded tee shirt. This is pretty standard for cases where physical contact has occurred, but she has yet to find an unhealed injury on me. I was aware of a whole lot of faces turned our way. I'm pretty freaky looking in clothes, with my shirt off I'm worse. At first glance an observer would notice that I'm ripped, like a bodybuilder just before competition. But closer inspection will show something is off, at least if you know your anatomy. My muscles are arranged just ever so slightly differently, the attachments and insertions just a bit off, one of the V-squared’s little gifts.

I don't like it, so I keep my shirt on whenever possible. Sometimes I can’t help it.

Stacia was obviously getting an eyeful, but she had barely taken her eyes off me since the fight. I couldn't blame her; some guy beats a mythical monster to death almost in front of you and laughs while doing so. Then he tells you that you're gonna become one too. You might wanna keep an eye on that dude.

Aside from her, the entire strike team and most of the techs were staring as well. I ignored them all. I had something important to address.

“Gina, you have a plan, don't you? You and Lydia?” I asked, softly.

She stopped her damage assessment and looked at me carefully.

“What are you talking about, Chris? What kind of plan?”

“You know, like this,” I waved my hand at Lassiter's body. “For when I...you know?”

“No Chris, I don't know. For when you what?”

“For when I go rogue! For when I go bad...worse. Gina, tell me you have a plan to put me down!”

She took a deep breath. “What happened, Chris? Why do you think you'll go bad?”

My freakin' voice shook like a ten-year-old's.

“This...all this..it shouldn't have happened the way it did. And I shouldn't have handled it the way I did. It's wrong Gina ... I'm wrong.”

“Well, Chris, you didn't have a firearm. So you had to go close quarters.”

I shook my head vehemently, “Not like this! I could have thrown a spike through his head at fifty feet! Did I? No, I beat that poor, miserable, half-mad bastard to death with my hands and I enjoyed it!”

She stood back and crossed her arms. Then she nodded, as if to herself. Finally she spoke and I was dreading her words. But they weren't what I expected.

“Chris, do you remember last Halloween?” she asked.

I frowned. “Of course!”

“Do you remember getting a hypodermic full of demon blood?” she asked.

Now I rocked back, surprised.

“I didn't know that Lydia shared that with you.”

“Chris, Lydia and I get along so well because we share a vision. That vision centers on you and Tatiana, and it transcends our jobs!” she said.

“What? Okay, you've already lost me.”

“Lydia has always known that Tatiana was destined for something big. When you came into the picture, she knew pretty quickly what it was. I have known that you were destined for something special since I saw you go into a demon-ridden house and eradicate one of the worst I'd even seen,” she said, her voice a whisper, “So, the answer is yes, we discuss the two of you all the time, and, yeah, I know about the demon blood,” she said.

“And?”

“And we've been sorta waiting for something like this. Hell, we thought it might come sooner,” she said. “Chris, the demon blood has bound to you, added itself to your DNA, at least that's what your doctor thinks.”

“You know Dr. Singh too?” I asked.

“Yup, and so this new addition feeds your darker side, the side every human has. It actually makes you stronger in some regards, but you have to fight it, control it.”

“And if I can't, you have a plan?” I asked.

“Well ...our plan has always been Tatiana,” she admitted.

I thought about it, then nodded. “Yes, she would be best. I probably wouldn't even fight her. Just let her bleed me out. She'll be happy to do it, what with what I did to her boyfriend.”

The slap was right-handed and fast. It made a resounding smack that echoed into the night. Everyone in the area turned to look, but I kept my eyes on Gina. It hadn't really hurt, hell, she'd need a baseball bat for that, and I could have avoided it, but I was shocked enough to let it fall. The black beast inside me surged at this aggression, but I crushed it ruthlessly. Retaliation against the few friends I had would never be allowed.

Her eyes were hard and her lips had become a thin, angry line. “That's enough! It's time you learned to listen and think rather than react. What you saw the other night was rape! Mind rape! And Tatiana was the victim, not you!”

I stared at her stupidly. “Mind rape?”

“Yes, Christian, mind rape! The very concept we were talking about at the shoot house,” she said.

“How is that possible?”

“It's a talent, like any other. Reyes was abnormally compelling or persuasive as a human. As a vampire he was a nightmare of a magnitude higher. Only, he couldn't influence Tatiana while your necklace was on her. So, his associate managed to 'accidentally' snag himself on it and break the leather.”

My mind was having trouble dealing with her words. My understanding of recent events was turned on its head, and if I followed the new information to its conclusion, I came to two opposing thoughts. The good one was that Tanya hadn't chosen another, she had never betrayed me! The bad one, the one my mind tried to sidle away from, was that it was I who failed her. By jumping to a poor conclusion, I had not only broken faith, worse I had left her behind to handle it on her own!

Gina's fierce expression softened as she read my thoughts on my face.

“Chris, in your defense, Lydia told me they kept the knowledge from you, that some vampires could do this, because they didn't want you doubting your own feelings for Tatiana. And when you blasted Reyes, you completely smashed his power over her,” she said, quickly.

It didn't help. I've always thought of myself as one of the good guys. You know, helping people against evil, that sort of thing. But between my betrayal of Tanya, the only woman I have ever been able to form a relationship with, and my brutal treatment of Lassiter, my self-image was pretty much shot to shit. Ripped right down to dregs. I sat down (it's called sitting even if you fall on your ass right?). My vision was a little blurry, as it will get when you look through water.

“Is she okay?” I finally asked.

Gina knelt and sighed. “Physically, she's fine. Reyes was probably dead before you left the house, although Lydia isn't certain if you killed him or Tanya, the pieces weren’t big enough to tell. But emotionally, she's a mess. Thinks it was her fault, that sort of thing,” she said softly.

“How long had he ...you know?” I asked.

“Very short. A few minutes. Lydia was going to catch you on the way in and then sic you on him, but you got there early.”

“Instead, I made it a thousand times worse, when I stormed out,” I said, remembering the look I had given Tanya. “Oh my God! Can I be any stupider?”

“Chris, if someone was loaded with PCP and they misinterpreted something, would you hold it against them?” she asked.

“No,” I answered, getting her point. “But I've been living with this for months. And I should have known better. Lydia is always telling me that Tanya won't change her mind.”

“And you've never fully believed that have you? It isn't a human thing after all,” she answered.

“Oh, by the way, how did your 'dark side' like it when I slapped you? Did you want to hit me back?” she asked.

I frowned. “Well it didn't like it much.”

“And how did you handle that?”

“I choked it down” I said.

“So maybe the answer is that you just have to teach that dog to heel?” she suggested. “Now tell me about the girl who can't take her eyes off you.”

I explained about Stacia, giving Gina all the details. She watched Stacia watch us while I talked.

“Alright, I'm gonna go chat with her myself. Maybe I can nip this in the bud,” she said.

I had no idea what that meant, but I had enough to think about. I grabbed a new tee shirt from my patrol bag, which Gina had brought with her. Stirring up the fire, I added some more wood from the boyfriend's pile.

Campfires always have a calming effect on me and this time was no different, especially with the full moon rising over the treeline. But before I could get far with my thoughts, I noticed movement near Gina and Stacia. One of the Vermont troopers was edging closer to the two of them. It was the shorter of the two I had encountered at the coffee station, the one who had commented on my lack of firearms. He was watching Stacia in particular, and he was frowning. The black beast raised its head, wondering at violence. I promised it free rein if anyone or anything threatened the two women.

The cop's name tag gleamed in the firelight, and I could now read it – P. Reynolds. Looking from one to the other I could see some resemblance, making him possibly an uncle?

He finally moved over and spoke, “Stacia?”

“Hi Uncle Paul,” she replied without over much surprise.

“What are you doing here? Oh, I see – Dan is it?” this was directed at the boyfriend.

“Er, yes sir,” Dan said, a bit nervous.

“Trooper Reynolds, is it?” Gina said. “Your niece and her boyfriend have been attacked by a bear.”

The trooper snorted, “That’s no bear! I was born and raised here, Ma’am, I’ve seen a hundred bears. That’s a monster!” he said.

“Hmm, do yourself and your niece a favor and think of it as a bear from now on.”

“Uncle Paul, it is a bear! Please!” Stacia pleaded.

“You all right, Stace?” he asked.

“Yes….but…” she trailed off, uncertainly.

“Trooper Reynolds, your niece experienced a traumatic experience, one that will most likely require therapy. We – “Gina gestured back at me where I was staring at the fire while shamelessly eavesdropping – “my partner over there and I, know a group of people who specialize in helping victims of this kind of attack. The victims often need help of a…particular kind.”

He frowned, looking from one lady to the other.

“Therapy, huh? I’m tempted to call you crazy and ignore this…circus, except for two things; that monster over there and your freak of a partner. How much will this help cost? Stacia’s mother does the best she can and I try to help out, but ever since my brother, Stacia’s father, died in Iraq, there hasn’t been much money.”

“It won’t cost a thing. In fact Stacia will most likely end up with a college education and a career out of it. There may be a chance for her mother to relocate to the city as well, with employment of course.”

Trooper Reynolds was looking at Gina like he was waiting for her to pull the other leg.

“Why? Why would you and this group do this for my niece?” he asked.

“I understand your skepticism, and you’ll have an opportunity to meet these folks, most likely in the next week or so, but they are sincere in their efforts to help victims like your niece.”

Movement out of my left eye caught my attention. One of the senior CSI type agents was showing Duclair the damage to the werewolf and I caught her looking my way. I had screwed up all day long. Allowing my temper to get the best of me and pulling one stunt after another was more than stupid, it was potentially life-altering (or ending). Duclair had lost the wolf but now had a good idea that I might be a better lab specimen altogether. I was getting a real bad feeling that got worse when Simmons started walking over to the teenagers’ group, frowning, a nasty glint in his eye. I glanced at Duclair and found her watching me. My stomach clenched with tension and the black thing inside stirred restlessly.

A mental image came, unbidden, from the darkness beyond the portable lights that were set up around the were. Okwari. His mental picture was a scene of Federal bodies strewn in broken, torn piles about this very site. Blood, bone and guts, shattered skulls, shredded flesh. The blackness inside me was unimpressed. It could promise the very same image, if Simmons continued on his current path. My options were many and violent, and I had at least one major bear-shaped surprise lurking in the dark. He wouldn’t even leave the choice of action to me, not if he thought I was threatened. I looked back into Duclair’s eyes and let my resolve harden. If she chose this, so be it. A flicker of something that looked suspiciously like fear flashed through her eyes, and after a moment she slid her gaze from mine to where Simmons was advancing on Gina’s group.

“Simmons, leave off there and get over here,” the Special Agent in charge ordered, one last glance skimming past me.

Chapter 14

The McDonalds cashier checked the bulging bag of burgers one last time, then handed it to me, her expression half disbelief and half disgust. It was a lot of food, but I have a minor revelation for you. If you need to lose weight, try hunting a werewolf on foot, then go hand-to-paw for several minutes. The calorie burn is crazy. I had been shaking in hunger the whole ride down into town.

The convoy was back in Bennington, stopped while Briana arranged the final logistics of poor George’s body. As the helicopter had needed refueling anyway, the pause gave us (me) a chance to grab some food.

I walked across the dark street and sat on the front steps of the Presbyterian Church, absently checking my re-holstered Glocks by habit. Briana had handed them to me in a large sealed manila envelope when we had climbed into her SUV. Stacia had left with her uncle in his cruiser, and Dan (“He’s not my boyfriend, just a mistake!”) had driven himself home in his own Blazer.

I took a big slurp of my chocolate shake and started to unwrap a Big Mac.

“Well! Glad to see that you're about on the other side of that whole Darkness thing!” said a voice next to me.

It was all I could do to keep from spraying my mouthful of shake across the church's steps. A blond man was sitting next to me, and he hadn't been there a moment before. I've gotten used to sensing other beings before they can get remotely near to me, so my feeling of shock was most unwelcome. At least I recognized him. He called himself Barbiel and I had a sneaking suspicion that he was an angel.

“You alright? You don't look so good,” he said. It might have been my bulging eyes that did it.

“Jes....eez!” I amended quickly, “you just took ten years off my lifespan!”

“But your lifespan is pretty much infinite, so how is that pertinent?” he asked.

Our last conversation had been like this as well.

“I meant that you startled me. You came outta nowhere!” I explained.

“Weren't you expecting me to appear? This is a church.”

“Well I didn't really think about it, I just wanted to eat outdoors and these steps looked ... right, somehow,” I said.

“Of course they did! All Holy ground should look inviting to you!” he said.

I couldn't get my thoughts ordered, and it took a lot of energy to have a conversation with him, so I took a big bite of burger and chewed slowly, while I thought.

“Is that actually pleasant to do? Eating, that is. 'Cause you look like you enjoy it.”

I swallowed and answered, “Yeah, it is. Especially when you get as hungry as I do.”

“Well, I can see how that might be, what with all your upgrades and all. Amazing really and still abides by the Accord.”

I could just about hear the capital 'A' in Accord.

“Listen, Barbiel – right?” He nodded, so I forged ahead. “I don't have any idea what you are talking about most of the time. Could you maybe help me out with this stuff? Accord? What Accord?” I asked.

“You really don't remember, do you?” he asked, amazed.

“See there you go again. Remember what?” I asked.

“I had heard that you would be blocked from the knowledge, but it didn't sink in.”

I was beginning to think that my angel wasn't the brightest. He continued before I could prompt him.

“The Accord is ancient, between Yahweh and Lucifer. The ones you call Hellbourne are allowed to walk this world, if they can get here. And Yahweh is allowed one such as you in every generation. Well, one such as you were before. You're the first of the new you's.”

See what I mean, although I was actually starting to follow his explanations. That, itself, was cause for worry.

“So, Lucifer can send Hellbourne here to wreak havoc, and God gets just one like me to stop it?” I clarified

He nodded, so I continued: “That's crazy! There is no way I can police up all the Hellbourne in the world by myself!”

“Of course not! You aren't supposed to!” he said.

“Then what am I here for?”

He opened his mouth to speak, then paused and thought about his answer first.

“As difficult as it may be to believe, it is okay for demons to be here. They are part of the test of life. But Lucifer will always go too far. God's Warrior” – he pointed at me – “ is here to control the numbers of Lucifer's minions, to reduce their lot. You are a ... demon predator! Yes, that's the way of it!” he said, excited with his own answer. “Only, Yahweh was tired of losing Warrior after Warrior and Lucifer has been bending the rules here and there. So, Yahweh has upgraded you! Now you are a predator of all the predators!”

“You're saying that God intended that I meet Tatiana and that this” – I waved at myself – “would happen?”

“Of course! All happens as Yahweh intends,” he said, his brow furrowed. “Why else would your other half be here with you?”

“My other half? You mean Tatiana?” I asked.

“Of course! It is why you both are here! You really do not remember?”

“How could I remember what I didn't ever know?” I said, thoroughly frustrated.

He snorted. “Because it was all your idea in the first place!”

I didn't know where to begin with that. My head was reeling from too much information, as well as the circular nature of his thought pattern, not to mention a serious lack of sleep and food. I gulped down the rest of the burger while I thought. Maybe it was time to change the subject.

“Barbiel, you are an Angel, am I correct?”

He started to laugh, hard enough that it took a moment for him to recover.

“I am sorry, Christian! I am not laughing at you, just that you of all would ask that! Yes, that is what I am! Hah!” he said, enormously amused.

Something suddenly occurred to me.

“Wait, aren't I tainted now? By the demon blood?” I asked.

“Christian, I told you ... all is as Yahweh wishes. But I am very happy that you did not succumb to the Taint. You must always force it to your control,” he said. “Is it greatly horrible? The demon blood?”

I took my time answering, pausing to eat another burger while I pondered his question.

“It makes me short tempered, sometimes, and it is prone to cause violence. “

“Painful, then?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No, that's the problem. When I let it out, when I open the cage door for it, it feels...good...powerful...enjoyable!” I shuddered at this admission.

His face was serious and he nodded. “Yahweh said that this is the greatest burden that you face in this service. I do not envy you.”

Footsteps clattered on the pavement and I looked up to see Gina heading our way. She was locked on me and didn't appear to notice Barbiel. We both watched her walk up and take a seat on my left side.

“You getting enough to eat?” she asked.

“Ah ... yeah. I was getting shaky there for a while.”

I took a big slurp of shake to show her I was packing in the calories.

“This one is very special, Christian. It is interesting how you and your other half...er..Tatiana, Tanya, draw the special ones in,” Barbiel said from my right side. Gina didn't seem to hear his words.

“According to Adler,” she said, “we'll be heading to the airport in a minute or two, so you might want to come back to the car. You wouldn't want to walk back to New York.”

“Okay, I'm coming,” I said, standing up as she did.

“Remember Christian, I will be at any church, temple, synogogue, cemetery or holy ground that you might step into or on,” Barbiel said, starting to fade before my eyes. “If you need me, I'll be there.” And just like that he was gone.

“You okay? You look like you saw a ghost,” Gina commented.

“Yeah? Well, churches have that effect on me.”

* * *

The flight back to the city was uneventful, I spent some of it contemplating Barbiel's words and my own sorry state but most of it thinking about Tanya. The helicopter was too loud for a cell phone call, but I could text.

C: Are you there?

Nothing happened for about ten minutes, then my phone vibrated in my hand, snapping me out of a mental self beating.

T: Whr R U?

Tanya tended to write very full, complete sentences. This abbreviated version spoke poorly for her mental outlook.

C: Heading back from Vermont.

T: Couldn't feel U.

C: Too far away.

T: Couldn't feel U right after IT.

It took a second, until the realization struck: she hadn't been able to feel me right after I blasted Reyes.

C: Oh.

T: L says link damged or week after UR blast.

The misspellings and poor structure of her writing really bothered me, but I was relieved that she was at least having a text conversation. It's possible that the impersonal nature of texting was actually a benefit in this case.

C: That is probably true. Should be okay as more time goes by.

T: Maybe. Not sure.

C: Tanya, I'm sorry!!!!! I'm an idiot!!! A moron! Really, really, really stupid! I should never have doubted, even for a second. I left you...ARGHHHHH! I love you!

My phone stayed quiet for such a long time that I was about to send a second text when she wrote back.

T: We R broken, r'nt we? Both broken. I have to go. Sorry.

C: We can fix! Don't go! You have nothing to be sorry for. None of it is your fault. My fault, all of it. Tanya, we can fix this! Please!!!!

She didn't respond for the rest of the trip. The Blackhawk dropped us off at Downtown heliport and I was on my phone as I left the helipad.

“Hello Chris.”

“Lydia, how is she?”

“She's not great, but who would be. Listen, you need to give her some time. Keep the texting going. That's the first I've seen her respond to much of anything. But not now, she's resting again.”

Her voice sounded weary.

“How are you doing Lyd?”I asked.

“Well it's never boring! I should have let you kill the bastard when you wanted to,” she said.

“I've thought about that a bit myself,” I admitted. “But mostly, I keep thinking about the awful look I gave her, when she hadn't done anything, and then I left her!”

“Yeah well, I've been doing some hind sight looking of my own. Probably should have told you about Benders.”

“Benders?”

“Like Reyes. Bend people to their wishes. Nasty stuff.”

“Lydia, I want to see her.”

“Give it a few days, Chris. She's not ready to see you yet. Try texting again. It lets her decide if she's up to answering or not. She'll get there. Her grandmother and mother are here now. They'll help.”

I could see Senka , Tanya's 'grandmother', who was also one of the two remaining vampire Elders left in the world, helping her. But her mother, Galina? I couldn't quite picture that ice queen being of much use. Maybe she had depths of emotion I wasn't aware of. I wouldn't put money on it.

* * *

Roma met us at the squad's offices, debriefed us and sent us home with orders for me to take the next day off and rest. Great! Now I would have a clear twenty-four hours to rake myself over the coals and wonder about Tanya.

Oddly, I was able to fall asleep, but after only three hours or so, I woke back up. The rest of the night was tossing and turning, with only bits of fitful sleep. I finally got up and made breakfast and a big pot of coffee. About five-thirty, I called Gramps, knowing he would be having breakfast.

“Hello?”

“Gramps! It's Chris! How ya doing?”

“Chris? Chris who? I don't know any Chris, do you, Len?” he asked his top hired hand, Len Lafluer.

“Well now, I seem to recall a scamp named Chris, but he left and moved on,” Len said in the background.

Len Lafluer had been with my Gramps for longer than I've been alive. I think they knew each other in
the Marines, and when Len had shown up on Gramps’ doorstep back when my dad was a boy, Gramps hadn't wasted a second taking him in.

Len was the kind of guy that every good farm seems to have – rock solid dependable, capable of any task and always there, but sort of in the background. Average height, skinny, but strong as hell, Len could deliver a calf, fix a tractor or fence a pasture. And he was a really deft hand at skinning anything that needed skinning. As a matter of fact, Len had been my first knife instructor. First as a sad, orphaned eight-year-old, I had gotten my first knife from him, a Schrade folder. Made me give him a penny for it, which is the old country way. Give a friend a knife and you may 'sever' the friendship, sell it to them for a pittance, and they stay true.

Later, when I had begun to train to fight Hellbourne, he taught me the secrets of knife fighting and years later when Tanya had begun to coach me, she had been impressed with my technique.

“Yeah, sure! Let's beat a guy when he's down,” I complained.

“Down, huh? What's got ya down, boy?” Gramps asked.

I laid out the story, avoiding using any words like vampire, werewolf, angel, Directorate of Anomalous Activity, Special Agent or any other catch word that could trip a National Security Agency computer watch program. One never knew when old Uncle Sam might be listening in. Hell, Duclair had probably ordered my phones tapped from the helicopter.

Gramps listened without a word, letting me get through the whole thing. When I finished, he thought it through for a moment, then spoke in his deep rumbling voice.

“Well, that about sucks, boy! But listen, I'm not gonna tell you to stop beating yourself up, because I know you're gonna no matter what I say. And I know you're gonna give that wonderful young lady of yours some time and space, but you're also gonna stay close for when she's ready. But I will tell you to watch that snake oil federal lady, 'cause she's absolutely liable to come after you,” he said. “You still got those tools I left you?”

He was referring to my father's .44 magnum and the shorty pump shotgun he had left with me last fall.

“Of course!” I said.

“Well, keep 'em close. You might be needing 'em.”

We chatted about the farm and the adjoining farm that we had bought in January. Gramps had dialed back his own operation to just a small herd of dairy and beef cows, and still planted corn, mostly to sell to other local farmers for feed. I think he kept farming the little that he did, just to keep his men employed. I also know that he sold the feed corn at greatly reduced prices, his way of helping other local farmers. He certainly didn't have to farm at all, his income assured from a very healthy investment portfolio. The farm we had bought had been an investment as well, and he told me he was renting the fields to another local farmer for hay and looking for a tenant for the farmhouse. Deftly turning my attention away from myself and my troubles, he made sure his detailing of the small bits and pieces of life in the North Country was surprisingly therapeutic. I finally let him go so he and Len could get their regular chores done; even a small farm is hard work.

* * *

I spent the day on my own chores. First I looked up cop stores in the area and located one that sold vests like my ruined one. That wasn’t hard to find, everything imaginable is available in the city.

I cleaned up my gear, did laundry, checked over my guns (I didn’t trust Duclair’s people to not mess them up), did some bill paying and, of course, ate as much as possible.

That evening I was able to get Tanya to text some more, nothing too dramatic, just inconsequential conversation about what was on television, what I was eating, things like that.

Finally, I went to bed after she indicated she was going to look at some business stuff, which I took to be a good sign.

Chapter 15

I was up early and out the door, bored with sitting around. I ate breakfast on the way, picking huevos rancheros from a Mexican place near the subway entrance. They served the food wrapped in a flour tortilla for commuters on the go.

I beat everyone but Olivia into the squad’s offices. To my knowledge, nobody ever got in before Olivia.

My office is also the copier and file room, which is what happens when you’re the last to be recruited. I didn’t mind, ‘cause I didn’t spend much time there and if I had a lot of paper work I would spread it out on the conference room table.

I worked on my report to Roma. Our group couldn’t really file regular reports on our cases. Oh, we filed reports, but they were works of literary fiction, totally divorced from the truth, as the real story wasn’t ever fit for consumption by the unknowing. We also filed our own reports, internally, on a secure system of Chet’s design. The system was stand alone, disconnected from any other computers and had layers of security, including biometric identifiers and advanced fuzzy logic software that would ask you a series of questions based on your username. The questions were specific to each user and the code was sophisticated enough to never ask the same question twice. At the end of the layers of security sat a nasty computer worm designed to completely erase the hard drive in the event of a severe breach.

Finishing up my detailed recap of the rogue werewolf incident, I stored it on an encrypted thumbdrive and then brought it out to Olivia to be inputted into the secure system. Only Olivia, Roma, Gina or Chet had access to the system. Finished with her upload, Olivia wiped the drive clean and returned it to me with a smile.

“Thanks ‘Liv”

“No sweat, Chris. Listen, are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Well, if you need anything…you know…any help or anything at all, just ask. Okay?” she finished with a shy bob of her head. We’re a small unit and personal issues are hard to hide, especially when they involve the freaky part-vampire demon hunter guy. I’m sure most small units are the same.

“Thanks Olivia, but I’m okay, really,” I said.

The outer door opened and Roma entered, followed by two large, dark suited guys. All three looked surprised to see me and Roma was especially ill at ease. It didn’t take calculus to figure something sketchy was up.

“Ah Chris, you’re already here. Well, I didn’t expect you in this soon, but here you are,” he said with an awkward pause. One of the suits cleared his throat. Roma continued, “Right, well, come with me, please. These officers want to speak with you.”

He flashed a strange little glance at Olivia and then led me through the inner door, the two serious looking guys careful to follow me. Really large, serious looking guys. A pit was forming in my stomach. These guys had the air of Internal Affairs about them and the stares they were directing my way were not friendly in the least.

We entered Roma’s office and he immediately settled behind his desk, a most unusual move. Roma always conducted conversations in the small four-chair sitting area in the front of his spacious office.

The Inspector indicated I should sit in one of the two chairs in front of the desk and when I did, large guy number one moved to stand at the side of the desk, his back against Roma’s floor-to-ceiling bookcase. I could feel the other one looming behind me with obvious menace. I arched one eyebrow at Inspector Roma, who looked back at me apologetically.

He cleared his throat and began, “Chris, these officers are with Internal Affairs and they are investigating some allegations. Serious allegations.” He looked at the suit by the bookshelf, in effect, giving him the floor.

Built like a linebacker, with a bad comb-over, IA number one started to speak without introducing himself. “Officer Gordon, you are facing two separate sets of complaints, all stemming from the last several days. The first is from a family on Eleventh Street in Brooklyn, alleging that you broke into their house and assaulted the husband, breaking his wrist and hand in four places. Dispatcher records indicate a patrol car was called by Special Situations to the residence in question, where the officers interviewed a terrified family – the Larouch family. Eye witnesses place you at that scene.

The second set of charges originate from five individuals who claim you attacked them in Owls Head Park three nights ago. All five were hospitalized with serious injuries. All five have positively identified your photo. Comments?”

I just looked at him for a moment, my mind reeling. I looked back at Roma, a question on my face. He shrugged without answering. “Inspector? What’s this all about? The Eleventh Street call out was documented by the squad. Hell, Detective Velasquez wrote the report herself.”

In a demon case like that, we invariably wrote the report as a domestic disturbance. The street patrols knew damn well that something much stranger would have occurred to bring out Special Situations and so they help corroborate the reports. For a complaint to be filed as an unprovoked assault, something must have been changed. Someone must have changed it.

“Chris, the reports indicate that Mr. Larouch came in and filed this complaint yesterday afternoon.”

The IA goon spoke again: “The incident report filed by the patrol car officers doesn’t mention anything about Detective Velasquez.”

My brain was running in overdrive, trying to figure out the part of the puzzle I was missing.

“The five gang members in the park attacked me. I was just defending myself. You really think I could attack and beat up five guys? They probably got most of those injuries in a territory squabble.”

“Did you file an assault report, Officer?”

“Er..no, there wasn’t really time. I had to be at the Downtown heliport for a joint case with Homeland Security. Agent Duc …” I petered off, my brain turning the image of Briana Duclair around Three-D in my head. She was the missing piece. She was the reason for the complaints and changed reports. It had to be her!

“Officer Gordon, our investigations have already turned up enough information that we can press charges against you. A hearing will be set in the near future. You should retain legal counsel as these charges are serious felonies if you are convicted. In the interim, you are hereby suspended without pay, till this matter is decided either way.”

His voice left no doubt which way he thought it would go.

“We will take your badge and weapons now!”

Roma was looking down at his desktop, unwilling to meet my eyes. He smelled of fear, like he thought I might explode or something. I was devastated to discover his lack of backbone.

I stood up, a little fast, enough to startle all three. I took a deep breath and centered myself, then pulled out my credential case and threw it on the desk, next drawing both Glocks and setting them down gently.

I ignored the IA goons, as that's all they were, but I focused on Roma, who was having a great deal of trouble meeting my gaze.

“So that's it? The sum total of your support?” I asked, crossing my arms and waiting.

“Well Chris, there is really nothing I can do,” he answered, ashamed.

I had no doubt that Duclair was behind this, but I had expected some fight out of the Inspector.

“Seeing as how the Special Situations squad doesn't exist as of today...there isn't anything for him to do,” said the comb-over guy, with an unpleasant smirk.

“Is that true, sir?” I asked Roma, who nodded unhappily.

“The squad is being shut down? By Commissioner Kane?” I asked.

I sensed the big guy behind me, moving up and a meaty hand landed on my shoulder and pulled. I didn't budge, not even a twitch. Comb-over frowned and the hand behind me pulled harder, but with no effect.

I snorted, “Let me guess...you two are the biggest clowns in IA? The Commissioner asked for you special, didn't he?”

“Yeah, but....Hey listen, fuckface! This can go hard or harder!” Comb-over was mad that he had slipped up.

Beefy-hand was still tugging and I was still rooted in place.

“Would you care to tell them just how it might really go? Sir?” I asked Roma.

He blanched white.

“Ahh..Detective Khol? I don't believe force will be productive in this case and I'm sure that Officer Gordon will leave without trouble. Right, Chris?”

I looked at him for a couple of seconds longer, disgusted that I had ever considered him worthy of respect. The hand flew off my shoulder when I spun on my heel. Meaty Hand was rubbing his suddenly sore hand and standing between me and the door. I headed out. He put his good hand up to slow me down, but instead bounced off and flew backwards to the floor. Comb-over...I mean Khol, jumped forward, grabbing my arm with the obvious intent of arm-barring me into submission. The fact is, however, that arm-bars only work if you can actually move the arm in question. My hands at my side, I continued forward, Khol dragging along like he had grabbed hold of a tractor. Meaty Hand was trying to get up, but I was already past him and opening the door, Khol getting brushed off on the door frame.

Sommers, Takata and Demarco were all clustered around Gina's office door and they all turned when Roma's door opened and Khol clattered to the ground.

I was mad and the black beast inside was rattling its door, but I had my temper well in hand as I stopped by the huddle. “Looks like we're being disbanded!” I managed to get out before Khol came charging out of the doorway, his partner stumbling behind him.

Sommers straightened up, staring hard at Khol.

“Well, well, if it isn't Submission Khol, king of the tap-out. What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice derisive.

Khol was flustered from my brush-off and now really unhappy to see Sommers.

“Submission?” I asked.

“Yeah, that's the title he's earned himself in the inter-deparmental mixed martial arts tournaments. Why's he chasing you, and what's this about getting shut down?” Sommers asked.

“Shut it, Sommers! Gordon here is officially suspended for two excessive force charges and now faces assault on Internal Affairs officer!” Khol said, voice hissing in anger.

Sommers, Takata and Aikens burst out laughing, Aikens having to lean against the wall to hold himself up.

“If he’d assaulted you there would be broken bones at the very least,” Sommers said between chuckles.

Gina had moved up to the door.

“Chris, what was that you said about us being shut down?” she asked.

“The Commissioner has ordered us shut down as of today, and he ordered these two to suspend me on charges from the guy on Eleventh Street and some trumped up assault charges from a group of Dominican gang members that attacked me the other night!”

She didn’t say anything to that, but I could see the curiosity in her eyes at my last piece of information.

“DDP? They still alive?” asked Chet, which wasn’t what I wanted Khol to hear.

“Of course! They were barely scratched!” I answered, but none of my own squad believed me.

“Enough! Gordon, you are leaving now!” Khol yelled, his hand moving to his holstered pistol. Instantly, all four of my fellow squad members put their own hands on pistol butts.

“Easy, guys! I was just leaving. No need for anything too crazy,” I said, my hands making placating motions at my friends, my heart in my throat. There had been no hesitation, zero. They had all moved as one to protect me.

Nobody moved for a moment, then I slowly headed for the door, not even reacting when Khol grabbed my arm. Meaty Hand was keeping his distance and still had his hand on his gun, his eyes slightly fearful.

We hadn’t gotten to the outer door when I sensed Takata and Sommers following along, their postures casual, their eyes sharp, ensuring my escort would be peaceful.

Chapter 16

Left with nowhere to go and nothing to do, I ended up at the Museum of Natural History. I wandered the exhibit halls, spending most of my time in the fossil exhibits and the animal dioramas. My favorite was obviously the Alaskan Brown bear exhibit. It’s the closest thing the museum had to my prehistoric friend, and sitting there looking at the incredible realism, I could picture his world as it had been when he was top of the food chain. I felt a gust of cool wind in the otherwise still museum and knew he was there, following me from exhibit to exhibit. I was looking at the picture of Pleistocene life, when an image flashed through my mind. It was as similar to the museum picture, as a High Def full sound video is to a cartoon.

The western plains swept away from me as far as I could see, mountains just visible in the distance. An ocean of tall grasses, dotted with individual windswept trees. A single ribbon of silver water wove through the gentle hills and swales. Horses galloped from left to right, in a thundering herd, while a large group of bison grazed the grasses a quarter mile away.

He was showing me his memory of the world as he had seen it. It was a fascinating look at the ancient ecosystem, one that any of the museums curators would have killed to recreate. Imagine an IMAX movie in the museums theatre, touring the Pleistocene from the eyes of a giant short-faced bear. That would sell admission tickets.

* * *

I took the subway back to Brooklyn, eating my way across the city. My tastes were running to Asian foods, mostly Thai and sushi. Without much surprise I found myself back in Owls Head Park, which seems to be my thinking place. My personal breeze, which had followed me across Manhattan and swirled around the inside of my subway car (bewildering my fellow riders), now slid away and spun up a small cyclone of leaves in a copse of maple and birch trees. My Sight showed the giant green, red and purple form of my bear, nestling into his favorite spot. But now, instead of herds of bison and horse, he watched groups of children and nannies, cavorting on the pressure-treated wood playground. It used to make me nervous, him watching the children, but he had no predatory interest in them. Okwari never ate food here in our world. What source of sustenance he consumed in his own dimension, I’ll probably never know. I was pretty sure he had to leave this world from time to time to replenish himself, but that was just a guess. So Okwari watched the children and I watched the sky, leaning back on the soft spring grass, the odor of damp earth, and new plants mixing with the human scents.

I had a lot to think about.

The first was that Duclair had just effectively cut me from the herd, separating me from the agency that sheltered and protected my freakish self. She had successfully refrained from a knee jerk reaction in Vermont, one that would have ended in bloody wreckage.

This approach was much more sophisticated and therefore, much more effective. No doubt, she had sent her minions scurrying, seeking out the young family on Eleventh Street and manipulating them into making a complaint. If the Dominican gang members had ended up at a local hospital, her spies both human and computer could have tipped her off. A quick interview might reveal that the source of their pain had been an average-sized white guy with freakish eyes and some kind of demonic pet monster. Who would that sound like? Hmmm.

Some more threats, promises and flexing of Big Brother muscle, and presto, she would have an instant complaint. As for disbanding the Special Situations squad, it would have taken very little to push Commission Kane over the edge. Hell, Duclair was probably the one to deliver his initial briefing in the first place, an easy time to instill doubt and uncertainty.

The other squad members would be assimilated back into the big NYPD machine. Takata and Sommers would be snatched up by special operations teams. Chet was a technical wizard, worth his weight in gold. Demarco could do wonders for a homicide investigation and Gina was probably the best profiler on the force. The vast administrative pool would pull in efficient Olivia, leaving just myself adrift.

A federal job offer baited with the promise of criminal assault charges being dropped, and I could be expected to fall on her plate. Failure to accede to her wishes would result in a rapid conviction, federal charges of threat to national security or some such crap, and she could have me hunted by the entire U.S. government law enforcement apparatus.

What were my options? I wasn't on the best of terms with Tanya at the moment, although I would find a way to change that. My finances were pretty solid, but could be frozen at the mere mention of Patriot Act. If forced to run, all I would accomplish would be the high probability of injuring or killing an appalling number of law enforcement personnel, almost none of whom would deserve it. On one hand, I had to admire the skill and bureaucratic savvy that had boxed me into this corner. On the other hand, the black berserker inside wanted me to storm the federal building and lay waste to everyone who dared attempt to control my fate.

My pocket vibrated. The cell display showed Gina's face.

“Hi,” I answered.

“How ya doing?” she asked in a careful manner.

“Well, I've been thinking.”

“Not your strong suit. You might hurt something,” she joked softly.

“Yeah, well I haven't gotten any job offers from Mensa today, so you might be right,” I said.

“Although I'm expecting a job offer of another sort.”

“Oh? Of what sort?” she asked.

“The federal sort...you know...the kind that comes with the wave of a magic wand to make all your troubles disappear.”

“It appears I was a little hasty. Maybe thinking isn't so bad for you. How might you respond to such an offer?” she asked.

“Well, my gut tells me to utilize high explosives and incendiaries. But my brain is suggesting trying to find a less....pyrotechnic approach,” I said.

“Really? I thought all you special ops guys favored using explosives to solve virtually every problem, from domestic issues to acne?”

“You have me confused with the SWAT guys. I am special, but it's more of a short bus /Rainman kind of special. And this whole thinking thing is really frustrating – nowhere near as satisfying as blowing stuff up!”

“So what have you come up with?” she asked, the humor in her voice sliding away.

“Still working through options. I feel like Harry Potter facing the dragon test in Goblet of Fire,” I said.

“Well as I recall, Mad Eye Moody told him to play to his strengths!”

“Okay, first of all, it wasn't really Mad Eye Moody, and secondly, I can't ride a broom for shit!”

She laughed out loud. “Right! But you have a whole arsenal of clever tricks that Auntie B doesn't know about. Maybe you should let her know just how big a pain in the ass you would be to have around,” she suggested. “But not go overboard and hurt anyone.”

“You really think I could convince anyone that I could actually be a pain in the ass?”

“Please! You’re such a PITA that it takes a vampire administrator, an Alpha werewolf and a Detective Sergeant to get you squared away, not to mention a vampire princess to keep you in line!” she said.

I was surprised she would mention words like vampire and werewolf on a cell line that was almost certain to be monitored by Duclair's people. But then again, she might just be sending a message to Duclair about the resources I did have. Or used to have. Whatever, as long as Duclair believed the Pack and the Coven might be in my corner, it could be leverage of a sort.

“Hmm, you know, you’re pretty good at this thinking stuff. You're giving me all kinds of ideas,” I said, my brain rolling through possibilities.

“Of course! That's why you need to let us four ladies do the thinking for you!”

“Changing the subject, what's the story with the Squad?” I asked.

“As you said. We've all been reassigned, pretty much along the lines you would imagine.”

“I never thought Roma would cave like that!” I said, disgusted.

“Listen, he did what he could, but he was completely stripped of power and just so you know....he resigned his position with the department effective immediately!” she said sharply.

“Oh, well...I just thought he should be able to do more,” I replied.

“See, there ya go with that thinking stuff again. When you going to learn to leave it to us?”

“Yeah, I guess I should at that,” I answered.

“Chris, the squad isn't going to just fade away. We're all going to keep in touch and meet out of school. Keep an eye on things. So don't go thinking you're all alone, okay?”

I allowed that I wouldn't, although I already had. She told me that she had been reassigned to an old boss of hers and that he would give her a lot of leeway and understanding. We said goodbye and I lay back down to consider her suggestions, a plan forming itself almost immediately.

* * *

I was well along in my diabolical scheme, or at least I had the framework of a scheme, when I heard some odd voices. Really, it was the accent that caught my attention. Male and female voices speaking with an Irish brogue.

Sitting up, the oddest sight greeted my eyes. A man and woman were swinging on the swing sets. Virtually all the kids and nannies were gone, the gloom of evening indicating that the hours had swept by while I was plotting.

The pair would have gotten my attention if they had just been standing there, but the swinging really did it. Something about it was kind of creepy, maybe the serial killer smiles the two were wearing as they stared in my direction. The man was tall, with curly red hair and freckles that stood out from a mile. He was wearing leather pants, a long leather duster and an honest to God plaid tam hat. The woman was more noteworthy, tall, with wavy brown hair and dark brown eyes. She was also dressed in leather; pants and a bustier, and she was wearing the hell out of them. The terms ‘built’ and ‘stacked’ popped into my head. Definitely a head turner.

But the creepiest thing was the dogs – if in fact they were dogs and not horses. Huge, at least two hundred pounds each, and black as coal. The five of them were lounging around the couple in a semi-circle, all their attention on their masters. One dog turned its head to look at me and its eyes were gleaming red, like lava. Uh oh! I quickly scanned with my Sight. The dog forms shone with red, purple and black stripes; the couple – blue mixed with streamers of greasy black.

I was on my feet in an instant, as was Okwari. The man swung back high, let go and jumped to the ground, laughing as he did so. The woman slid gracefully to her feet and all seven were suddenly headed our way.

I got the oddest feeling from Okwari, one I had never detected before – fear.

“Well, and just what do we have here now, Mary?” the Irish gent said, strolling casually.

“Sure and it’s the very lost soul what we’ve been seeking, Colin. Although I am a might perplexed at his human companion there,” the woman answered, swaying alongside him.

The hell dogs or whatever they were fanned out and charged up the hill, the two on the outside circling around us. Okwari roared out a challenge, but it seemed unsure to me.

The woman, Mary, pulled a black crystal necklace from the depths of her cleavage, holding it in both hands and beginning to chant in a disturbing, guttural language. The hairs on the back of my neck went up at the sound of it.

Okwari did the strangest thing. He shuffled his weight on both front paws side to side and let out a tiny whimper. My three thousand-pound invisible killer spirit bear was terrified of that black jewel.

I had no idea what she was doing but it couldn’t be good.

“Listen, lady, I don’t know who you are or what you want, but you better be staying away from the bear!” I said, moving toward her.

Suddenly, I was frozen where I stood, unable to move a muscle.

The man, Colin, moved in front of me, his strangely disturbing grin still in place.

“Now then, that bear over there is very valuable. Seems he slipped his leash and his owners want him back, ya see. So me and me wife Mary here are just going to be taking him back where he belongs. And you’re just going to be sitting this out, ya hear?” he said, pleasantly, his hands weaving in a strange pattern. Spellwork?

I opened my Sight, spotted the black bands that held me in place. I sent a bubble of will out from my core, like an expanding sphere of violet light. The black bands were blown away like smoke, freeing my limbs. Instantly I lashed a backhand at Colin, sending him flying back ten feet and spiked a burst of aura at Mary’s jewel. The blast rocked her on her feet, but didn’t knock her down, which surprised me as a similar one had thrown a vampire waiter about seven feet into a wall. But her chant was broken and she turned to me with a hiss that only increased when she noticed her husband lying on the ground, shaking his head. She shoved the jewel in my direction and a black beam of light struck me in the chest, igniting a fire in every part of my body. It was the most excruciating pain I had ever felt. Every cell felt like a black spike was being shoved through it. I was remotely aware of Okwari fighting the hellhounds, and, I could hear a screaming voice. Oh…wait, that was me.

“Ya know Mary, I’m thinking that this here fella might be the one our employers spoke of. Ya know, the fella that broke free the damned great beasty in the first place?”

“If ya don’t mind me saying Colin, you’re bloody daft! Of course he’s the one! Now we can take both back and get all the reward!”

Okwari roared in rage, there was a meaty thunking sound and a heavy, dense body slammed into me, knocking me out of the beam’s path. Instantly, the pain abated to merely horrendous, a huge relief from the completely disabling agony of a moment before. I didn’t waste the moment, moving as fast as I could, which was a damned sight slower than normal, but still fast enough to slam the gem from Mary’s hand, her arm and hand breaking in at least three places. They were still moving molasses slow as I spun and slammed my palm into Colin’s chest, cracking his sternum and flinging him into the children’s playground. I scooped the gem from the ground by its heavy gold chain and turned to the helldog that had hit me. It moved faster than its handlers, heavy jaws dripping with ectoplasmic saliva, leaping at me. I dropped below it as an image flashed through my head – my right hand with a gleaming bright line like the inside edge of Okwari’s claws.

Shaping my aura into a mirror of the mental image, I shoved my right hand into the chest of the hound as its blocky black body flew over my crouching form. There was no resistance as my bladed hand slid into the dog’s torso and cut straight through to its groin. The partially bisected beast slammed into the ground beyond me and I leapt on it, chopping my ax hand through its neck. The head and body separated, starting to dissolve as they fell to the dirt.

I turned to my bear, finding his rippling, transparent form covered in giant dog forms. Each hellhound had expanded to the size of a Shetland pony, and one hung from where each front paw would be, with two clinging to his back with long retractable claws. The hounds seemed to be writhing around in empty air, but the air shimmered in a bear-shaped outline. I acted by instinct, projecting indigo-purple bands of power out from each hand, one band to either side of a dog on his back. Then I slammed my hands together in the mother of all claps, and my targeted hound on Okwari’s back imploded into black, red and purple dust. Again on instinct, I called out mentally – Kirby!

The shadow form of God’s Hawk swooped onto the dog remaining on Okwari’s back, the smoke talons gripping the hellhound and pulling it off. Apparently, it was too heavy for the spirit hawk, who slipped back out of our world with a keening cry. The dog slammed into the ground and bounced to its feet, just in time to get hit with the hound that got flung from Okwari’s right paw. The remaining dog received all of the giant spirit bear’s attention and apparently didn’t like it. That one hung in empty air for a moment before it came apart with a wet ripping sound, the individual chunks vaporizing as they fell to the ground. There were just two now, and they stumbled toward the witch, Mary, who was just finishing a crude circle in the dirt around her and Colin. Her face twisted with pain, fear and hate, she looked me in the eyes as she spoke a guttural phrase and all four of them were sucked into a swirling column of greasy air the color of thunder clouds. The swirl corkscrewed into the ground and was gone, leaving Okwari and I standing in an empty park.

I looked at my right hand, a faint gleam running all around the outside edge of my bladed palm.

Okwari had once cut some handcuffs apart for me with a single claw. Bear claws are like meat hooks, pointed but not sharp in the inside curve. Chet Aikens had analyzed the cut links and theorized that they had been cut with a monomolecular edge. That somehow, Okwari could form his claws with edges a single molecule in width. Such an edge, Chet told me, could cut through pretty much anything.

I pulled my aura back into my hand and the silvery line disappeared. Whether Okwari had sent me that image or some part of myself had figured it out, I couldn’t tell.

I Sighted my bear and found his normally smooth mixture of purple, red and green to be rent and shredded on his back. Once before I had healed him with projections of my aura and by concentrating on maintaining a very light violet color, my projected energy had the same effect this time. At least until my aura sputtered and faded.

The times I have been bone weary tired since taking Tanya’s blood could be counted on one hand. Today was the worst. I dragged myself home, slugged down a six pack of protein shakes and collapsed into bed.

Chapter 17

I woke the next morning to find a large visitor on the apartment floor. Okwari sometimes stayed with me, especially in the evenings. At such times, he somehow compresses his form to the size of a mere inland grizzly, say six or seven hundred pounds. Even then he has to stay curled up on the floor or it’s impossible to move around my tiny studio apartment. This was the first time he had spent the night.

I threaded my way around his invisible bulk till I could get to the kitchenette and the coffee machine. Once the java was dripping, I turned my attention to the object sitting on my kitchen table. Flat, light-sucking black, crudely cut, the witch’s gem was the size of a child’s fist. It was set into a ring of gold, the edges of which were carved with glyphs and runes that hurt to look at. The whole combination raised the hair on my neck and made my stomach turn. At the same time, the blackness inside me was fascinated by it, wanted me to touch it and hold it close. Which I didn’t, thank you very much!

I needed to get rid of it or destroy this thing, but I didn’t know the first thing about it.

There was really only one source of information, but I wasn’t up to that conversation today. The witch and warlock battle had left me drained.

We spent the day hanging out, me eating non-stop and him sleeping. I placed one call to a friend in data entry, looking for some information to help me with my plan. She promised to see what she could do.

I splurged on a Movies-on-Demand order of Transformers, thinking the giant robots would be as far away from vampires and weres, hellhounds and warlocks as possible. Tiny problem…Megan Fox looks a little too much like a certain vampire princess I know.

My bear went back to wherever he goes and I went to bed early, but sleep evaded me for hours, blue eyes accusing each time my eyelids closed.

* * *

The day was warm, sunny and smelled of growing things. My fellow New Yorkers were springing with every step, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of gloom and depression that clung to me. It emanated from the black jewel, and it didn’t just affect me; people that got too close cringed without knowing why, shying away from my presence without conscious thought.

The Church of All Saints loomed ahead, the largest building in sight. The giant stone saints sculpted at the top of its outer walls looked down at me, their granite eyes seeming to follow my every move.

I entered the front and found my way to the sanctuary, sliding into the last pew. The room was lighted but empty.

“WHAT is that stench?” Barbiel asked from my right side.

I had promised myself that I wouldn’t jump this time, but damn! He just came out of nowhere!

I hefted the plastic bag in my lap and opened the top.

“I suspect that it’s this, ’cause I showered today!” I said.

He peered warily at the silk-wrapped bundle I pulled from the Walmart bag. Not owning any silk myself, I had borrowed it from my neighbor, Paige. She had looked at me oddly when I asked to borrow an old silk scarf that I would replace with a new one. Somehow I didn’t think she would want this one back after it touched the gem.

Barbiel sucked in sharply when the flat black jewel appeared.

“Oh my! Oh! Where did you get that?” he asked.

I explained my encounter with the witch, the warlock and the five hounds of hell. It sounded like a children’s book title. But my angel liaison looked grim when I was done.

“It is a Tear of God. Yahweh shed them when Lucifer betrayed him,” he said.

“A tear?”

“Yes. Yahweh’s tears are filled with the despair, grief, disillusionment, anger, and fear that he felt when his best and most loved angel attempted to wrest Heaven from him. The tears fell with Lucifer Morningstar as he crashed down to Hell. They are powerful. This one has been used to enslave and damn countless souls and spirits. I can feel it!”

“Well, can you take it and destroy it?” I asked, not wanting to be near it.

“No! It can’t be destroyed! And I cannot touch it!” he said, his expression panicky.

“Well, what do I do with it?” I asked.

He paused for a moment, for once thinking before answering.

“I’ll be right back. I need to ask the others about this.”

He blinked out of existence before I could protest, leaving me sitting there alone, a stupid expression no doubt gracing my face.

But he was back a second later.

“Okay, we have to take it out of its setting. You’ll need to pry it free,” he instructed, like we were baking brownies.

I pulled out my Emerson CQC tactical knife and flicked the blade open one-handed. Gingerly, I slipped the tip into the tiny gap between the jewel and the crude gold setting.

“What are you doing?” he asked, just as my favorite knife snapped into two pieces. “You can’t pry it out with tools!”

“Why didn’t you tell me that before I broke my knife?” I asked. I had barely touched blade to gem when the high quality stainless steel had shattered like ice.

“I didn’t know what you were doing,” he said.

“So tell me, oh angelic one, just how am I supposed to pry this thing free?”

“With your aura, of course!” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“My aura? Riiight! How the he…heck do I dig it out with my aura?”

He looked at me like I was the slowest student in the class.

“You really don’t remember any of this?” he asked, exasperated.

“See, this is exactly the point in our conversations when I get completely lost! How could I remember something I never knew?”

He sighed, then pointed at the necklace.

“Hold it in your right hand … ” he instructed. “Good! Now put your left hand over the top of it….that’s it! Now, push up through your right hand and pull aura with your left, visualizing it popping out of that setting.”

I did as instructed. The ugly gold setting felt somehow foul and unclean. Nothing happened, so I upped the amperage, and then upped it again.

The jewel came free from the ugly gold setting with an audible pop, driving up into my left hand. I quickly dropped the old setting back into the Walmart bag, then looked at the plump jewel in my hand. My skin tingled where it touched the gem, which seemed to vibrate at some superfast, ultrasonic frequency. It was black, black, black, the light in the room just sinking into it without effect. Like holding a black hole in your hand.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now we make a new setting!” he looked around the sanctuary, for what I have no idea. “Hmmm, I’ll be right back!”

I expected him to disappear again, but he just got up and walked into the side room where the priest pops out at the start of Mass. The sounds of intense rummaging came a moment later. It sounded like he was ransacking the place. The noises stopped and he came back into the sanctuary, a wide smile on his face. He was clutching a silver cross, about seven or eight inches high, in his right hand.

“What are you gonna do with that?” I asked.

“Make a new setting!” he said, puzzled.

“We can’t use that! It belongs to the church!” I protested.

“Actually, I believe it belongs to God. It has been consecrated in his name.”

“But the church will miss it!”

He frowned at me like I was simple, then started to shake his head.

“No, it will be as if it was never here,” he said.

Sitting next to me, he held the cross on his lap and began to just kind of run his hands across it. The solid piece of silver started to sort of slump, then flow into new shapes. First a long chain formed, the ends connected to a lump of formless silver. He held the lump in both hands for a moment, his head down, lips forming words that seemed familiar but unintelligible at the same time.

“Okay, now hold the silver in your left hand, and press the gem into it with your right,” he instructed.

Doing as he said, I felt the gem vibrating against the palm of my right hand. He covered my hands with his own and spoke a word. A flash of light blinded me for a moment, and I could feel intense heat flow through my hands. The sparkles gradually vanished from my eyes and I looked down expecting to find black char marks where my palms used to be. They were fine, but I didn’t waste much time looking at them, ‘cause the black jewel was now centered in a tear shaped setting of gleaming silver, slightly smaller than a playing card.

Looking at it now evoked a sense of something lost, not the skin-crawling revulsion it had before.

The chain links were tiny drops of silver, somehow flowing from one to the next. Try as I might, I couldn’t quite see how they linked together, they just did.

“Okay, now what do we do with it?” I asked.

“We don’t do anything with it. You, however, keep it with you. It will come in handy, I’m sure,” Barbiel answered.

“You just told me that this was used to enslave beings and now it’s somehow okay to have around?”

“The Tear is neither good nor bad. It just is. Within it resides a small measure of Yahweh’s grief, disappointment, anger and despair. The demons used the despair and the depression brought on by it to enslave others. You can use the anger and loss to help you in your fight.”

“How? Point it at someone and make them angry?” I asked, thoroughly confused.

“You misunderstand. I mean the fight with yourself … your dark side. This jewel, as we have set it, can help you stay … yourself. To not become that which you fight. Do you understand?” he asked.

“But won’t the depression part hit me too?” I asked.

“In its old setting it projected those emotions. This setting enhances the need to prevent loss, and will strengthen your resolve. Now put it on, please,” he directed.

I hesitated. Fighting a rogue werewolf, banishing a demon, sparring with a vampire – easy. Putting on the Tear of God – scary as anything I’ve ever done. But I did it, and the links seemed to weight a ton, the pendant with its galactic black gem was like a Buick, sitting on my chest. Then, after a moment, the weight evaporated, to the point where I had to check to make sure it was still there. I stood up and walked, checking how it carried. It was as if it wasn’t there. I looked a question at Barbiel.

“It is adjusting to you, and given time, it will become useful.”

“How?”

“Each is different; each forms a unique relationship with its user.”

“You mean like the witch?”

“Well, that was with the old setting. Think of the jewel as a kind of …..battery? Yes, that is the word, battery. The setting is like a machine of sorts, the Tear is the source of its power. You will see,” he said.

Chapter 18

I left him a short time later, and headed toward Manhattan, my new bauble feather-light around my neck. I checked my phone and found a text message from Sharra, a data entry specialist in Police Plaza that I had gotten to know during my time with the Squad. I had asked her for a favor and she was responding.

S: I have what you asked for, but it will cost you.

C: What is your price?

S: Lunch at Steiner’s.

C: Done!

Steiner’s was a popular deli near Police Plaza and a favorite of many officers and Plaza administrators. Entering the German deli about an hour later, I spotted Sharra sitting with two other data specialists that I had seen around. From their nervous glances at one another, I figured out that the real cost of my information wasn’t just paying for lunch.

I greeted her. She smiled nervously.

“Hi Chris,…ah, meet Leia and Tara. They work with me in the data center.”

Sharra was of Mediterranean descent, with thick curly dark hair and dark eyes. Her features were not so much pretty as strong and she had a confident presence. Her skin was beautiful, a dusky olive hue. Her friend Leia was a tall, shapely girl with dark mahogany skin and almond shaped eyes. Tara was average height, average looks, mousey brown hair, and a touch on the plump side. All three were giggly and nervous, in that high school kind of way that girls get when their around a guy they find attractive. It wasn’t lost on me that I was that guy, but it made me kind of sad, because they obviously had some mental image of who I was, and whatever it was, it couldn’t be remotely near the truth. I was absolutely certain that I didn’t measure up to it.

“So Chris…word is, you’ve been suspended and your group was shut down?” Sharra asked as I got settled at the table. The waitress was on me before I could answer, asking for my drink order. I went with chocolate milk, which had the girls exchanging a glance and smirk. They seemed to think it was cute, but I just wanted whatever had the most calories. Wait till they got a load of my lunch order.

“Yeah, that’s all true. Broke up a domestic squabble and got a complaint, got attacked by some Dominican gang members and had a charge of assault,” I explained as nonchalantly as I could.

“Word around the Plaza is that IA was gunning for you and the Commish was looking for excuses,” Tara said, excitedly. When I looked her in the eye, she got shy and looked down, quickly.

Damned violet eyes!

“Well, that’s most likely all true,” I agreed.

“But with your squad gone and you out, who’s gonna take care of the … ah … cases that you guys worked on?” Sharra said, her eyes big.

“Does it matter?” I said, wondering just what she knew or thought she knew about the squad.

She nodded, the other two nodding along with her.

“Of course it matters! Who else can handle the mon…..the cases that you guys handle?” she answered.

I was certain she had stopped herself from saying the word ‘monsters’.

“And just what kind of cases do we … er … did we handle?” I asked.

She paused and glanced at the others, suddenly a little uncertain.

“They call you guys the Monster Squad,” Leia said suddenly.

“Who? Who calls us that?”

“Pretty much everyone. We all know that you guys handle the occult stuff, the vampire wannabes, the freaks that think they’re something else. And some cops say that you handle things that are real, things that regular cops can’t!” she finished, her voice more confident, her glance daring me to disagree.

“Really? I had no idea people talked about us,” I said, which was true.

“Is he for real?” Tara asked Sharra.

“Yes, Olivia says he’s a little clueless,” Sharra replied to her, then turned to me. “They talk about you the most, Chris,” she said. “They say you can do things, that you have connections. The guys outta Brooklyn say you saved a whole bunch of men from…something….something really, really nasty last year!”

The waitress was back with my milk, saving me from answering, and was ready to take our orders. She was going to start with me, but it’s always ladies first, so I pointed to Sharra to lead off. She ordered a salad, Leia ordered soup and half a sandwich, and Tara ordered a salad as well. Then it was my turn.

I ordered a bratwurst on a roll with sauerkraut, a Black Forest ham and swiss on pumpernickel and a bowl of potato soup. Both sandwiches came with chips so that would help. And I asked for a refill on my chocolate milk, which was gone.

The three at the table looked at me with huge eyes and the waitress just shook her head and grinned.

“What? I’m hungry!”

“It’s not fair that some people can eat like that and not gain a pound!” Sharra said.

I didn’t tell her that I was planning on a big slice of German chocolate cake for dessert.

“So, Shar…were you able to get what I asked for?”

She nodded while sipping her Diet Coke and handed me a piece of folded paper.

“Leia and Tara helped with hiding my inquiry. Files like this one are flagged. Looking them up can get you fired,” Sharra said, with a shrug.

“Oh, I didn’t know that! Listen, Sharra, I didn’t want you to do anything that would get you in trouble!” I said.

“Relax! With my girls here covering my tracks, no one is gonna know. Why do you want her info anyway?” she asked, her eyes slightly narrowed. “You’re not going to ask her out are you?”

I choked on my milk, almost spraying it across the table.

“Briana Duclair? Me? Out? Are you crazy?” I sputtered.

She smirked and the other two giggled.

“Actually, the word is that she has been very interested in you,” she said.

“Yeah, well the police grapevine is nothing if not efficient,” I replied.

“So that’s all true?” Leia asked. “She’s interested in you?”

“Well, if you mean interested as in ‘dissected and under a microscope’, then yeah!” I said, but almost instantly regretted my choice of words, especially as all three leaned back, eyes wide.

“Er…maybe not dissected,” I tried a retraction.

But all three were exchanging glances and then leaning forward again. Sharra arched one eyebrow at me.

“No, I think you meant dissected in every sense of the word. And just ‘cause your suspended on some bullshit charges doesn’t mean you’re not still a member of New York’s finest,” she said with a fierce glare.

It took me a second to realize that her anger wasn’t directed at me. The other two smelled angry as well.

“No federal bitch is gonna mess with ours!” Tara said. “She’s gonna regret this!”

“Ah ladies what are you going to do, ‘cause I don’t want any of you getting in trouble for me,” I said, then backpedaled as I read their expressions. “I mean, I’m already in trouble, don’t you go getting fired or anything.”

“Sugar, no one’s gonna know nothing! But dragon lady gonna have a hell of a time!”

“Chris, the feds are always yanking our chains, especially after nine-eleven,” Sharra said, “But this bitch Duclair just got an entire squad eliminated! I’m getting a psychic vision…of huge fines, unpaid taxes, traffic violations!” She held her hands up dramatically, like a gypsy palm reader at county fair.

The waitress brought our food, which stopped me from getting any details, and by the time she was done dispersing it, the ladies had all changed topics, as if by common agreement. I dug in, but after a few bites a thought occurred to me.

‘Hey, do any of you guys know where Oliva from my squad ended up?” I asked around a bit of bratwurst.

“Yup, she’s in IT, we see her all the time,” Sharra said.

That explained a lot of their information.

“Well, say hi to her for me will you?” I asked.

“Sure thing, Chris!” Sharra answered. Then, looking casually at her salad, she threw out a question.

“So..you still with that Russian girl?”

I frowned. They knew I was seeing Tanya?

“Er…yeah.”

She looked up quickly. “You don’t sound too certain?”

“Well we had a little issue, a miscommunication,” I said, “Turns out I’m an idiot! Who knew? But we’re getting past that.”

It sounded lame to me and I was the one spinning it. They had the courtesy to drop that line of questioning, although I could read the disbelief and worse, hope, in their eyes. The topic changed to the Yankees prospects for the upcoming season and we continued our lunch without referring to my suspension or my romantic situation. I paid for the bill, added a good tip for the waitress and said goodbye to the ladies.

Before heading back to the subway, I stopped at a branch of my bank and withdrew $8,000 in cash from my savings account, then hit the ATM just outside for a $1250 withdrawal (the max the bank allowed) from my checking. Realizing what the Sharra and her girls could do to make Briana’s life miserable had reminded me of what she could do to me. Going to cash might not be necessary, but Gramps always said having it and not needing it was better than needing it and not having it, which applied to many things in life.

The slip of paper Sharra had given me listed three important pieces of information: Duclair’s address, her phone numbers (home and cell) and last, the description and license number of her car. I needed all that to put my plan together. She wanted a lab rat, a lab rat she would get.

Agent Duclair lived in a twelve story apartment building on West 30th street in Manhattan. A nice, upscale building and based on her apartment number, 10G, she was near the top floor.

I found her address and walked around it, snapping a few pictures with my cell phone. It was surrounded on two sides by taller buildings, situated near Chelsea Park. Very nice locale, with an underground parking garage and a lobby security guard. The building was architecturally interesting with an asymmetrical roofline. In fact, the building only had nine full floors, the top three being broken up by design into fewer, but larger apartments, culminating in two large penthouses.

I had spotted a Dunkin Donuts two blocks back. I walked back, got a large black coffee and a half-dozen donuts. I wasn’t hungry, but any surplus of calories I could build is important.

* * *

On a sidebar, my doctor, Dr. Singh (he’s a vampire), has a theory that I wouldn’t have been a viable offshoot of the V-squared virus a hundred years ago. Maybe not even fifty. Not enough food to support me. The very over-abundance of cheap, frivolous calories that makes our nation obese, allows me to survive. Vampires use human blood to fuel their use of whatever energy they use. Blood is concentrated and actually, more efficient than regular food for this purpose. But I don’t drink blood, which he theorizes, keeps me from preying on the population I was designed to protect.

So instead of blood, I use regular food, but a lot of it. Dr. Singh had done a number of tests on my metabolism, and found my body was much more efficient at using food, burning it more completely then it used to, like a woodstove versus a regular fireplace. My stomach acid is about four times more corrosive than it used to be (which makes me hope I don’t get acid reflux). My enzymes, are all more brutal, able to break down even cellulose if I have to. So far I seem to have an iron stomach. Good thing ‘cause somehow I don’t think Pepto-Bismol’s gonna cut it.

* * *

The girl behind the counter got flustered as I paid for my order, dropping my change all over the counter. That seems to happen a lot nowadays. I smiled to reassure her, but that just caused her to get beet red and slightly breathless. Her heartbeat was going a mile a minute. Could I be any more of a freak? My hand absently checked to make sure my sunglasses were in place, which they were.

Finding an empty table by the back wall, I settled in with my back to the door. Not tactically sound, but I just couldn’t take anymore staring. The caged thing inside me perked up, automatically providing one part of my brain with a sound and smell coordinated schematic of the restaurant and its inhabitants. That was new. I let it assume watchdog status over my senses, while I reviewed the pictures of the building.

It would be a ridiculously easy climb, the outside walls rife with handholds. Briana’s apartment was on the tenth floor, and once I figured out which side of the building it occupied, it would be a snap to break in. Now I just needed to get some supplies. I called Chet Aikens while I scarfed the donuts, and was rewarded with information on the best sources for my needs. But before I could hang up, he offered another tidbit.

“Hey Chris. Sommers, DeMarco and Takata and I are going out for beers and maybe shoot some pool…you in?” he asked, his voice tentative.

I had never been one to go out much, and over the last seven months, most of my free time was spent with Tanya. But I hadn’t seen anyone of them in a couple of days so I agreed. He gave me the pub address and we hung up.

With the first part of my plan figured out, I finished my coffee and left, walking as I do now, my head down and not making eye contact with anyone. Cold weather is better, ‘cause I can hide in layers of hoodies and jackets. These spring temperatures were too warm for me to cover up. My body temperature is higher than a human’s, about 103 degrees Fahrenheit, making light jacket weather for me about thirty degrees. Warmer than that and it’s tee shirt time. I’m not sure how I’ll handle the summer temps.

Chapter 19

I got back to my apartment with a couple of bags of groceries, checked my mail and did some domestic crap. About five ‘o’clock I threw a black short sleeve button down over a fitted grey tee and a pair of decent jeans and headed out. It wasn’t dark yet, but I sent a text to Tanya anyway. She wasn’t nearly as affected by sunlight as the others and was often up early. Sure enough she answered right away.

T: Hi your self. I can feel you again.

C: Heading to a pub in Manhattan to meet the guys from the squad for some beers. But I’d rather come see you!

There was a rather long pause before she came back.

T: Not yet Chris. Soon. Who’s going tonite?

C: Steve, Chet, Fran and Brian. What are you going to be doing tonight?

T: I’m doing some research for my grandmother. She thinks it will help me.

C: What’re ya researching?

T: She’s got me translating some old Russian and German documents from WW2.

That was interesting. My own family history was partially tied up in WW2 Germany. My Russian grandfather had been a prisoner of war.

C: What’s it about?

T: Nope. Not gonna say. My secret!!!!!

C: Awww, come on? Not even a hint?

T: I already gave you too many hints. Maybe when I’m done, if you’re good, I’ll share it with you.

We continued to banter back and forth, which was a good sign, but she wouldn’t give me any details. I had to wonder if it had to do with my grandfather. The vampires, Tanya’s grandmother especially, were extremely interested in the origins of my mutated genetics. Somewhere in my mother’s or grandfather’s past, someone had been exposed to the V-squared virus and it had left a change in my DNA. When I ingested Tanya’s blood seven months ago, the powerful dose of virus had ‘changed’ me, making me a not-vampire, not-werewolf, but something new….a unique freak.

* * *

I found my way to the pub, which was a fairly classy Irish type, with high ceilings, a thirty-foot bar, red brick walls and Celtic ambiance. The others were already there, which wasn’t surprising as they mostly lived in Manhattan. Besides the four from the squad, there were two others, Steve’s wife Edie, along with Brian’s partner, Sean.

It had been a complete shock to meet Sean at a squad Christmas party, as I hadn’t a clue that Brian was gay. Nothing about the quiet, blocky combat instructor would lead one in that direction, but there it was nonetheless. Obviously, a close-quarter combat instructor might want to keep his homosexuality a secret if he was training mainly heterosexual men in grappling and hand-to-hand martial arts techniques.

But Sean was a really nice guy, and Brian was as solid and dependable a cop as you could hope to find, so really, when I analyzed my feelings, it didn’t make a bit of difference. Better to have somebody, than go through life alone.

The others greeted me loudly, and Steve shoved a beer into my hand as soon as I had accepted my hugs from Fran, Edie and Sean (who was just going for a laugh, which he got). They had claimed a couple of tables in the back, right next to the two big pool tables. Further back against the rear wall, a four pack of guys were playing darts.

Steve had poured the last of the Smithwick’s into my glass, so Chet shoved the empty pitcher into my hands for a refill. The bar wasn’t too packed but I still needed to thread through patrons on my way to the bar where I waited for the barmaid to notice me. She was chatting with a couple of guys while she cleaned glasses and it gave me time to appreciate the view. Nice jeans! Finally, glancing my way, she sauntered over, taking her time to pick up a tip, wipe the bar, and generally do anything but wait on me. When she got around to my corner of the bar, I was starting to get annoyed. Pretty, brown hair and brown eyes, slight dusting of freckles across her nose and cheekbones. She arched one eyebrow coolly and waited for my request.

“Can I get this refilled with Smithwick’s and maybe another pitcher as well?” I asked.

She nodded, picked up the pitcher and started to fill it, all without a word. What bit her in the ass?

A couple of girls to my left were looking my way, but after a quick smile, I avoided their glances and ignored the bartender ignoring me. The wall behind the bar had pictures of celebrities with a guy that was most likely the owner, so I studied them while trying to figure out what I had done to alienate someone I had never met before.

“Hey Gordon, what are ya doin’? Brewing the damn stuff yourself?” Fran said from behind me.

“Just getting it now. I’m gonna get another ‘cause this one won’t last long,” I answered as she slid up next to me.

“Good idea, better get two more. We’re thirsty tonight!” she said.

The bartender brought the pitcher over, smiled at Fran, then gave me a look and asked, “Did you figure out that ‘maybe’ pitcher or not?”

“Yeah, I’ll take two more.”

She nodded and turned to fill them. Fran glanced from her to me and then elbowed me.

“Chris, take off your sunglasses. They make you look like a poser,” she said.

“Aww, Fran … I don’t really like to do that.”

“Listen, Gina’s not here to kick your butt, so it’s up to me to keep your nose clean. Off with the shades, you’re among friends. Not gonna bother anybody back there!”

The two girls next to us were blatantly listening to our conversation, but I ignored them, and with a sigh took off my glasses, putting them in my shirt pocket.

“Happy?” I asked.

“Nope, not until you get those other pitchers over to the table and I kick your ass at pool! Then I’ll be happy!” she said with a smile, heading back to the table.

The bartender handed me one of the pitchers and after a glance at me, started to fill the third. The girls next to me were staring, so I went back to looking at the photos, recognizing a couple of celebrities who had been at Tanya’s club, Plasma.

Sally Surly, the barmaid, brought me the last pitcher and I started to hand her two fifties, but she waved them off.

“Your friends started a tab,” she said, her tone less chilly than before.

“Okay, thanks,” I answered, thoroughly puzzled by her behavior.

Retreating quickly to our table, I slid in next to Fran, who watched me with a bemused expression.

I shook my head and she laughed.

“You’re a piece of work, Gordon! Totally clueless, aren’t you?”

“What the hell did I ever do to that ice queen bartender?”

“She gets hit on about a thousand times a week. You stand there with poser sunglasses on, looking like a player, and you wonder why she might be a touch standoffish?”

I hadn’t thought about it that way. It’s been difficult getting used to all of my changes. It took me two months to stop breaking door handles and shattering glasses. Then, another month on top of that to learn to move slowly around people.

Newly turned vampires are only several times stronger and faster than humans, and have years to adjust before they gain even more power. I had rocketed past most four- and five hundred-year-old vamps in seven months time. Then I had the headaches of hyper senses, not to mention the temper that came with my dose of demon blood. So you’ll pardon me if I concentrated on those and ignored the changes to my looks. Having people, especially women, notice me after years of living below the radar, was last on my list of things to deal with. I didn’t understand women, probably never would.

“Okay, I guess that makes sense. I’ll just stay back here and that way she won’t have any issues with me, right?”

Fran sighed and shook her head, “You’ll brave the demons of hell, but a barmaid scares you silly, is that it? Chris, I hereby designate you official beer getter for the rest of the night! Gotta face your fears!

Now, c’mon we’re up,” she said, pointing at the pool table.

Chapter 20

“Every broken enemy will know that their opponent had to be invincible. Take a last look around while you’re alive. I am an indestructible master of war.” – Disturbed.

Takata and Demarco were getting creamed by Chet and Sean, and I was on my fifth pint, when the werewolves walked in. Male and female, dressed casually, but definitely hunting. They spotted me, and the male, who was younger and probably lower in rank, did a little fist pump of victory. His partner, about five feet, ten inches, lean, and Scandinavian looking, gave him a level stare, stopping him cold. She swiveled through the crowd, ignoring the looks she was getting, her eyes focused on me. Not really even pretty, but very striking – sort of the Nordic huntress type. My very slight buzz burned itself out as the thing in my chest perked up. Her manner wasn’t threatening, but very direct and self-assured. The male was about an inch shorter, well-built, with curly auburn hair and blue eyes.

“Mr. Gordon?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

My group was feeling very little pain, but they straightened up at the sight of her and her partner.

“I have something for you,” she said, handing me an envelope of thick cream-colored paper.

It was an invitation.

Please join Brock and Afina Mallek in welcoming Lupine Industries’ newest employee, Ms. Stacia Reynolds, at a luncheon in her honor at the Lupine corporate offices.

The date listed was tomorrow and the time was twelve ‘o’ clock noon. The offices were located in downtown Manhattan.

I looked up, bewildered, at the female.

“It’s common to welcome a….newcomer to our…group with an event like this. You, of course, are invited as you sponsored Ms. Reynolds’ placement with our corporation,” she explained. Her tone left little doubt that she didn’t think much of my involvement in her Pack’s business.

I nodded, but she stood right in front of me, waiting. Finally, she sighed and spoke: “I’ve been instructed to wait for your answer.”

“Let me check my social schedule,” I deadpanned, pausing a moment before continuing. “Oh gosh, it looks like I’m free. I’d be delighted.”

“Wonderful,” she said in a droll tone.

Her mission accomplished, she swiveled fluidly and stalked out, the younger wolf following in a self-important manner.

“Dude, what’s up with the Viking goddess?” Chet asked.

“Were,” I said in explanation. “Just invited me to a Pack function, although I don’t think she was excited about an outsider being involved.”

“Do you know her?” Fran asked.

“No, but then I really only know a couple. Mainly, Brock, Afina and their son, Bryce.”

“Well if you’re gonna know only a few, those would be the ones!” Chet said.

* * *

We finished up about eleven and I was placed in charge of taking the money up to pay the tab. The bartender didn’t make me wait this time; she and I had reached a truce of sorts, although I had never fully understood the conflict. Then we all headed our separate ways.

I called Lydia as soon as I was on the street and headed for the subway.

When she picked up, I explained the invitation and asked for pointers.

“I’ve never been to one, as they usually exclude outsiders, other than the new pack member’s family if any.”

“Is it formal? Suit and tie?” I asked.

“No, probably business casual. Wear some khakis and a nice button down or a polo.”

“What goes on? What can I expect?”

“Mostly just a meet and greet for the bulk of the Pack. She’s pretty much already in, but technically, pack members have the opportunity to object if they wish.”

“Is there much chance of that?”

“Not with Afina and Brock already greenlighting her. Listen, Chris, I talked to Afina about this girl. What’s your connection?”

“Well, she’s a were because I fucked up and didn’t stop the one that bit her, even though I could have a dozen times over. So I screwed up her life and that means I gotta make it right.”

“You sure that’s your only interest?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Afina tells me she’s a knockout and she’s been asking all kinds of questions about you!”

“Whoa! Okay, she’s pretty good looking, but I’m totally hooked on Tanya. ’Sides, she’s a kid, seventeen or eighteen, tops!”

“Hmmm yeah, alright. Just double checking.”

“Come on Lyd, you know me! You know how I feel about Tanya!”

“Alright, alright! It’s just that this girl has apparently knocked the males of the pack for a loop and all she’s interested in is you!”

“Lyd, I really doubt she has the hots for me. I mean, she most likely thinks I’m a monster!”

Laughter filled the earpiece as Lydia hung up.

* * *

Lupine Industries occupies a four story building in lower Manhattan. It was an older building, but the exterior had been updated, making it fit better with the new buildings on either side. The entire first floor is the flagship of the company’s chain of sporting good stores. I had researched the company the night before and found that it was private, no public stock to be had, and had three lines of goods. The first and founding line was traditional-type sports; soccer, football, basketball, lacrosse, hockey, gymnastics, basically if a school offered the sport, Lupine had the supplies. The second line was outdoor gear, for hiking, backpacking, hunting and fishing. The third and newest line was mixed-martial arts supplies, which went hand-in-hand with a handful of dojos or martial arts schools owned and run by Lupine.

At the back of the store, a burly werewolf in a suit checked my name off a very short list of special guests and directed me to the elevator. A fit looking couple came along behind me and the guard just waved them through, but not before I had noticed him sniffing the air in a subtle manner. I held the elevator door for them and we rode to the second floor together.

A female wolf greeted us as the elevator doors opened and directed us through a cubicle farm of office spaces to a very large room filled with extremely in-shape, slightly feral looking people, mingling in cocktail party fashion. I had hoped to slide in and go unnoticed, but I hadn’t counted on scent. The buildings climate control system was blowing right at the entry point and I could see the exact moment my scent hit the people nearest the door. Almost as one, they turned and looked at me, their faces aloof, their eyes gleaming. Okay, so the whole sneak in, sneak out thing wasn’t gonna fly.

A tall redhead in a clingy mini dress was the only one to smile, turning my way and beginning to move her long athletic legs toward me. But she hadn’t taken two steps before my radar indicated an incoming missile, this one with black hair and weighing perhaps eighty pounds.

Nine-year-old Bryce Mallek launched himself when he was still seven feet away, a feral grin of excitement plastered across his face.

I first met Bryce and his redheaded mother, Afina, who was still closing on us, about seven months back. They had survived an attack by drug crazed killers in Central Park and I helped them cover their retreat to the safety of the pack. I hadn’t actually done a great deal, just offered food to help Afina heal wounds she sustained killing the druggies that were stupid enough to endanger her child. Hell hath no fury like a momma werewolf.

“Owww! Chris, you’re hard!” Bryce said, rubbing his head where it had impacted my chest. I’m a lot denser today than I was seven months ago (Lydia would argue that my head has always been denser than lead).

Afina raised one eyebrow and gave me a wicked grin at Bryce’s words.

“Really, Gordon! You just got here!” she said with a chuckle.

“Jeeze Mom! You’re such a perv!” Bryce responded in disgust.

Werewolves have little modesty, something to do with getting naked before changing, and wolves are an amorous lot. Sex is considered very important to a healthy pack. Consequently, young werewolves are remarkably blasé about the topic. I wasn’t sure if I was more embarrassed at her comment or that her nine year old son understood the joke.

Bryce’s greeting had garnered a degree of notice among the Pack members nearby and as I held the squirming eighty-pounder at arm’s length, I could feel them reappraising me.

I’ve only met Bryce three times. Once in Central Park, once at a joint vampire and were gathering in January (to reestablish mutual goodwill between the Coven and the Pack), and once when I was meeting Lydia and Gina after they had lunch with Afina and her son.

Despite that limited amount of contact, Bryce had decided I was both trustworthy and a friend. It was one of those instant judgments that children are so good at making. Too bad we tend to lose that skill as we age.

I squatted down to his level and reached in a pocket, pulled something out and put both hands behind my back. Finally, after making a production of shifting the unseen object from hand to hand, I brought them both out in front of me, palms down, fists clenched.

Black eyes looked at me from under black bangs, as if to say, C’mon, you gotta be kidding me!, then he shook his head and tapped my left hand, which of course, had the soapstone wolf carving in it. I buy Zuni Indian fetishes by the box and use them as protective talisman when I banish demons from a home. This particular specimen was jet black, sitting with its ears perked and its big teeth on display.

“Cool! Mom, look what Chris brought me!”

Then he was gone in a flat run to tug the pants of a much larger, adult version of himself. That male listened intently to his son’s comments, then lifted his head and regarded me with predator’s eyes, before heading our way.

“Wow, is he always that energetic?” I asked.

“He’s actually trying very hard to be calm right now,” his mother replied with a sigh.

“Kids are a handful, huh?”

She laughed, her voice deep and rich. Afina is tall and handsome, rather than pretty, but she is extremely charismatic, as is her husband, who was rapidly closing the distance to us with long strides.

“Actually, it’s the older ones that are more trouble,” she said, just as her husband arrived.

Six-three, maybe six-four, two hundred twenty pounds, with black hair and black eyes like his son, Brock Mallek is built like a professional soccer player, albeit a bit more muscular. He has an intense personality that can be felt when he enters a room, even if you’re not looking in his direction.

“Chris!” he greeted me, his big mitt completely enclosing my hand.

“You’ve managed to completely stir up my pack, you know!” he accused, deadpan, before grinning to show he wasn’t truly put out.

“Well, I’m honestly sorry about that sir, just as I’m sorry I let the rogue bit the girl in the first place,” I replied seriously.

Afina put a hand on my upper arm and admonished her husband, “Brock Mallek! You are tickled to death by our new addition and you know it!”

He turned his head to look across the room and just snorted, but not before I had caught a wink.

I turned where he was looking and caught my breath. The blonde across the room was obviously Stacia Reynolds, but she looked quite a bit different than the scared girl I had last seen.

Her hair was shorter, professionally styled, shorter in the back, the cut angling down to hang on either side of her face. She too was wearing a curve-hugging mini-dress, in blue, which set off her tan skin and emerald green eyes. A small army of males were hovering around her, all vying for her attention. Not hard to understand that, as she was absolutely spectacular! She looked poised and confident, comfortable with the testosterone cloud that swirled about her. I hadn’t managed to look away when she lifted her head and caught me staring. Her mouth curved in a slight smile and she tucked one strand of hair behind her ear, then turned her attention back to the were she was listening too.

“Cleans up pretty well, wouldn’t you say?” Brock said.

“Yeah, I can, er… understand the upheaval! Wow!”

Afina gave me another raised eyebrow, and I remembered she was friends with the terrible twosome.

I quickly changed topics.

“But back to what you were saying….older kids are more trouble?” I asked Afina, angling my body to keep from glancing at the gorgeous blonde across the room.

Brock snorted again and shared a look with his wife.

“Our oldest boy, Brett, is reaching an age when young weres have trouble with their parents. He’s an Alpha like his father and at twenty-one, he’s probably ready to set up a pack and territory of his own,” she said.

“It’s not that we don’t want him to, it’s just a terribly dangerous time for a young Alpha. Too old to stay, too young to make all the right decisions,” Brock explained.

“Ideally, we need to find him a range nearby, but not too close, where he can grow into his abilities and not be killed in a challenge fight by an older wolf,” Afina said.

“How does he go about building a pack?” I asked.

“Oh, he already has the framework of one. The other Pack children that he has grown up with all look to him as their leader. They’ve even gone so far as to present a plan, sort of like a business plan,” Brock said.

“So the problem is one of … finding a place?” It didn’t sound that difficult to me.

“It’s harder than it sounds,” Afina said. “Too near the City and another older wolf might happen through and challenge him for the pack. He’s a good fighter, but just so young!”

“So what are the requirements? City? Wilderness?” I asked.

“Wilderness would be best, but they’ll need some modern access too. They need to earn a living, establish a territory, solidify their pack bonds and then attract new members,” Brock said.

“What about the Adirondacks?” I asked.

“There are a few old wolves living back in the mountains who might object to a pack of young wolves nearby,” Afina said with a sigh.

“How about up by the border?” I asked, an idea forming.

“What are you thinking, Chris?”

“St. Lawrence County. There are a couple of colleges up there…SUNY Potsdam, Clarkson University, St. Lawrence University. Decent infrastructure. How much land would they need? Would six hundred acres do?” I asked.

They exchanged a glance.

“You know someone with land?” Brock asked.

I nodded.

“Me! Well, my grandfather and I own an abandoned farm on six hundred acres, which borders Gramps’ four hundred-acre spread. I know he wants to rent the property. House is a little dated, but in move-in condition.”

“Come on! Let’s get a map up and you can show us!” Brock said.

“Show you what, Father?” a voice said.

I turned and looked up at a very tall young man with auburn hair.

“Chris Gordon, meet our oldest son, Brett. Oh and his mate, Kelly,” Afina said.

Brett was about six-five, leaner than his father but carried himself in an identical manner. The young blonde at his side was my height and muscled like a beach volleyball player.

“Brett, we’ve told you about Chris, right?” Afina asked.

“Hell, I’ve heard lots about you. My little brother thinks you’re the best cop in the city!” Brett said, his voice sincere.

“Brett, Chris was telling us about a piece of land he owns up north that might be an option for you and the others,” Brock explained.

“Where?”

“We’re going to pull it up on the conference room monitor now,” his mother replied.

* * *

We filed into a glassed-in conference room situated along one side of the big room. Looking at the layout, I realized the room the party was in was another office space that could support cubicles, but the wolves had either moved them or the company hadn’t yet grown into the space.

Afina’s hands blurred across a wireless keyboard as she brought up Google maps online. The flatscreen on the end wall zoomed to the address I gave her, and suddenly my grandfather’s farm and the adjoining property were revealed in satellite image.

A couple of other wolves poked their heads into the room, all young like Brett, and watched as I pointed out the property lines and main farm structures on the big plasma screen.

“So it has the one large main house, the main barn with attached milk room, and an equipment barn. Currently the south field is rented to another farmer for corn, and we were considering planting several of the other fields in hay and selling it for feed,” I explained.

“What do you think, Dad?” Brett asked, his eyes gleaming with barely repressed excitement.

“I think it has possibilities. Chris, how would your grandfather feel about this?” Brock asked.

I looked at my watch. Gramps and the hands might be in for lunch.

“Let me try to call him and I’ll find out. I assume you’ll want to drive up and see it?” I asked.

“Actually, we would fly up and see it,” Brock corrected. “We have a company Cessna that’ll speed the trip up considerably.”

I nodded, impressed, and moved outside the room to call Gramps on my cell, wandering toward the buffet table.

“Hello.”

“Hey, old man! How are my dogs?” I asked in greeting.

“Your dogs! I’m the one what feeds ’em and takes care of the mangy curs. What’s up?

“I have a lead on renters for the Bennington place!” I said.

“You don’t say? Tell me about them.”

I gave him the rundown on Mallek and company, at least as much as I knew, and explained that we would need to come up and look it over, provided he had no objections to their unique nature. In typical Gramps fashion he went quiet, processing the information. I knew better than to interrupt his train of thought, so I looked around the big room full of weres.

Of the roughly 300 people present, the majority belonged to the Pack, but I saw three really big, burly men across the room that I thought might be werebears. Another group was all lean and rangy, could possibly be cats, four of them. In the corner, farthest from everyone else: a group of thin, pointed feature individuals who had to be of the weasel clan. I shuddered looking at them. I don’t like wereweasels – bad memories.

“Long as they mind the cattle, I think we might be able to adjust. You trust ‘em?” Gramps finally said.

“Yeah, Gramps, at least the leader and his family. But we would come up and check it out and you could make up your own mind,” I said.

“Well, let me know when you all are coming up and I’ll be ready. They all right staying here or they got fancy needs?”

“If they need fancy, they won’t want the property. Speaking of which, can you email me some photos of the house and barns?”

“Actually got a memory card full of photos already. Been placing some ads, but times are tough and I haven’t had so much as a nibble!”

We said goodbye and hung up. I moved back into the conference room where the Malleks were in deep conversation, some of the young observers joining in. They all went silent and looked my way.

Let me tell you, it’s a little unnerving to have the complete attention of seven werewolves at once. I kept my expression blank even as I shoved the black monster inside back into its cell. It wasn’t impressed.

“He’s okay with the concept. He’ll need to meet you of course, but we’re welcome to stay with him and see the property at a moment’s notice. He’s also going to send photos of the house and barns,” I said, directing that comment mainly to the women. My phone chirped with an incoming text. It was Gramps telling me he had sent the photos to my email.

“Can I sign on to my email? He’s already sent the photos,”

“Works fast, your grandfather does, or is he desperate to rent?” Brock noted, a predatory gleam in his eyes. But it was the gleam every successful businessman gets when he senses a weakness.

I snorted, “He doesn’t need the rent, or even to farm for that matter. But he hates waste and he’s very efficient,” I said, opening the first photo on the wall monitor.

I found myself moved away from the keyboard by a wave of estrogen as Afina and Kelly took control.

They asked questions as photos flipped by.

“We would, of course, have to redo most of the interior!” Kelly said a little scornfully.

“Yeah, the Benningtons never updated. Not a lot of free money for small dairy farmers,”

“Chris, would your grandfather consider selling the property?” Brock asked, before Kelly could continue in her derisive tone.

“Possibly…down the road. I think he would want to get a good feel for his neighbors first. That’s part of the reason we bought the property. Control,” I said.

He nodded, control being a concept that Alpha wolves understood at a genetic level.

Turning back to the women, I addressed a concern I had with Kelly’s response.

“You need to understand that St. Lawrence County is as far from New York City as you can get in all ways. The services you take for granted are nowhere near as plentiful, much less in the way of shopping, and…..” I trailed off, Afina’s cold look and Kelly’s glare effectively stealing my words.

“I’m just saying!” I finally finished, hands placating.

They turned back to the photos, ignoring my comment as unworthy of an answer.

I looked to the men, who wore matching bemused expressions, until Brett gave me a sympathetic nod.

Of course, Alpha weres of either sex would be formidable.

“Right, then, I’ll just grab a bite to eat while you all continue on,” I said. The domination games that all wolves play, especially Alphas, are not my cup of tea. On top of that, every time they implied a challenge, it sent the beast under my skin into a rage. Completely unnerved and as always, hungry, I headed to the buffet line, loading a plate with shrimp, stuffed mushrooms, pasta alfredo, and cheese cubes. Then I filled a second plate at the carving station with rare beef, turkey and ham slices. Apparently, Pack functions leaned heavily toward the carnivorous side of the menu. I stood to one side, chowing down and talking myself out of my annoyance. What the hell was I doing here anyway? And what the hell was all the attitude from the females. Screw it! I would finish my food and hit the road. Fucking wolves! My self-pep talk wasn’t going well.

“Excuse me? Are you Chris?” a voice asked.

I turned with my mouth stuffed full of food to find a petite blonde woman, who was probably in her late-thirties or early forties, and almost certainly Stacia’s mother. Very pretty, even through the tired, world-weary demeanor of a single mom. I gulped my food down and answered.

“Yes ma’am. Are you Stacia’s mom?”

She nodded briskly, and it struck me that however hard this was for me, meeting the Pack like this had to be extremely intimidating to her.

“Yes, I’m Lisa, Lisa Reynolds. Ah..Stacia has told me all about how you saved her from that…..” she gulped and looked around before lowering her voice, “thing!”

“It was a rogue, ma’am, and I never should have let it get to your daughter. I’ll be sorry about that the rest of my life!”

“But you saved her! You can’t blame yourself for the bite!”

Actually, I could and did, but she wouldn’t understand that part of it and I was still raw from thinking about it.

“Anyway, I’m really happy to meet you. Stacia talks about you a great deal. She’ll be glad to see you here. I’m sure she wants to talk to you…” She glanced at her daughter and the attendant swarm of males “… when she gets a moment.”

I didn’t think that was a great idea, but before I could think of an answer, one of the security wolves moved quickly into the conference room and spoke to Brock. Everyone in the room came alert at whatever he said and they all turned to look at the elevator, just as a commotion broke out. Five newcomers shoved into the room, dressed in motorcycle leathers and grungy, torn jeans. The Pack members around them spun toward them, outraged and angry at the invasion.

My gut told me who they were even before I caught sight of the Loki’s Spawn emblem on their jackets.

Brock and company headed for them, the crowd parting like the Red Sea before the angry Alpha’s advance.

I found myself moving across the room, my food plates dropped on the first handy table.

The newcomers were pointing at Stacia and started to head her way. There were four males and a female. Three of the men were likely wolves, the fourth big and burly in a bearish way. The female had tawny brown hair, a cold, harsh face and a lithe, lean figure that put me in mind of a cat.

Over the uproar of the Pack, I heard the leader of the Spawn as he yelled at Brock.

“I claim Progenitor’s Right!”

The crowd went silent for a moment, then roared in outrage.

“What’s going on?” Lisa asked.

“I honestly don’t know,” I replied.

The Pack was angry, but Brock, who looked troubled, was frozen in thought for a moment.

“Come with me!” he commanded the Spawn leader. All five followed, surrounded by hostile Pack members itching for a fight.

Lisa and I had arrived just behind Stacia and her admirers, and we ended up with front row positions for the drama that unfolded.

Brock led the invaders to Stacia.

“Stacia, this ... were has claimed Progenitor’s Right. Under Pack Law it means that as the originator of your bite, he can claim you for his pack first.”

“But he didn’t bite me! The one that bit me died. Christian killed him!” she said, swiveling to point unerringly at me as she said the last.

The Spawn looked at me, sniffed and sneered. “This…hairless one killed my get?”

“Yours? If he was yours how come you weren’t there to guide him? He died because he turned without guidance by the one who bit him!” I said.

It didn’t seem possible for the atmosphere to get more hostile but it did. The Spawn ignored them, instead growling at me and letting his inner wolf peek through. It was meant to intimidate, but instead it brought my own beast straight to the surface.

“What does this Right, or whatever, mean?” Stacia asked Brock.

“If we determine that he originated the LV virus that infects you, then he has first right to claim you for his pack,” he said, his tone bleak.

“Don’t I have a say?” Stacia asked.

“Only if you’re willing to fight him for the right to make your own choice!” he said.

“Can she substitute a fighter? Say her Sponsor?” I asked, not looking away from the leader.

Brock was thoughtful and he glanced at Afina, who looked apprehensive, before he answered.

“I suppose she can, because of the circumstances of the rogue and all.”

“ ’kay, let’s get to it!” I said, the beast inside raging to get loose.

“You’re not even were!” the Loki leader spat. He sneered and turned back to his people.

“You hear that? This ape wants to climb in the cage with me! Me!”

They laughed, and then right on cue, he whipped back with a hard right punch aimed at my face. Backed by werewolf strength it would have killed me seven months ago. But not today.

I had expected something of the sort, and while he moved much faster than a human, he was still molasses slow to me. I Hardened my face and stepped into the punch, meeting his fist well short of full extension. The snap of his arm bone was loud enough for the entire room to hear.

“Oooh! You’re gonna want to put some ice on that!” I said with a chuckle, the blackness seeping through me.

He howled in pain and his group shoved forward to get me, but were held back by the threat of the surrounding Pack guards.

“Where’s this cage? Let’s get Billy Bad Ass here accommodated!” I snarled.

The weres around me had pulled back, their expressions indicating they had just discovered something dangerous in their midst. Afina looked worried.

“Chris, this isn’t like a newborn rogue. The cage is basically a death match, and he’s an experienced fighter!” she hissed, her voice pitched to reach only me and those around me.

“Afina, I thank you for your concern, but frankly you know very little about me. I swore an oath to see this girl safe in her new life and I’ll keep it over his dead body!” My voice was pitched deeper than normal, the beast affecting my vocal cords. She pulled back, her own inner animal sensing something about me that she hadn’t before. I had had it. Suspension, disbanding of the Squad, my own failings as a person, and all of Briana Duclairs machinations. Not to mention the superior air of the weres around me.

Chapter 21

So that’s how I found myself, stripped to my boxer-briefs and standing in the center of a huge steel fight cage. Glad I listened to grandma and wear clean undies every day! The were would fight naked of course, but I’m never excited about fighting with my privates flapping in the breeze. Way too vulnerable. The only other thing on my body was the Tear of God, which frankly I kept forgetting I even had on.

The Pack’s ceremonial fight cage was located underneath the corporate building in the old sub-cellar. The ceilings were twenty feet high and the arch of steel mesh over my head reached within four feet of it. Poorly lit by six ancient double tube florescent lights fixtures, the cavernous room was dark and dank. The concrete walls had balconies and theatre boxes of chain link fencing and rusty iron rods along the sides, providing seating for the hundreds of weres in attendance. Like an Ultimate Fighter octagon on steroids, the cage itself was set into the concrete of the floor and made of zoo quality cage steel. Basically a forty-foot-diameter circle with one entrance of heavy duty steel. The concrete floor was stained in ways best ignored and the industrial drain in the center didn’t escape my notice. Brett was standing with me while Brock arranged the final details with his staff and the Loki leader.

“He’s gonna be fast and merciless! I know you killed the rogue without firearms and I saw you take that punch, but don’t underestimate him!” he said, a frown of worry creasing his forehead.

“What about his arm?” I asked.

“It’ll heal as soon as he Changes,” Brett replied.

“Brett, will there be betting going on?”

He looked at me for a second, then answered, “Yeah there will be.”

“Do me a favor? There’s about nine grand in the pocket of my pants. Bet it on me, please. Thanks!”

He nodded, his eyes raised at the amount. I hadn’t figured out where to hide my emergency stash yet, so I was carrying it around with me.

Part of me was a little nervous, as I had never faced a full-grown, experienced werewolf before. Hell, I’d never seen a full-grown werewolf before. The black beast inside was humming with excitement, completely confident.

The Spawn leader stepped into the cage, naked, flanked by his other two pack members, who were clothed.

“Ready to die, asswipe?” he sneered.

I shuddered.

“Scared?”

“No, I’m hoping you’re better looking as a wolf, ‘cause you are one ugly motherfucker!”

The weres crowded around the cage laughed at that, although it was a nervous laugh. I understood; they didn’t expect me to survive. I could see Stacia and her mother, both looking terrified and worried standing next to an anxious Afina. Kelly, Brett’s mate, stood arms crossed, frowning next to the Alpha female. Brett left the cage, heading to a couple of wolves who appeared to be taking bets. Brock nodded to me and stepped away from the entrance to talk to Afina. Suddenly things began to happen at high speed.

The Spawn werebear shoved the door attendant out of the way, slammed the steel door shut, shot the bolt and bent the rod, all in one move, effectively locking me in with all three Spawn wolves. The other two wolves began to strip, the leader sneered and the Pack wolves went crazy with anger. Brock and his staff moved the bear away and tried to unbend the locking bar. The three naked men in front of me began to change, and I watched in fascinated horror as limbs and spines buckled and twisted into new positions. It only took about thirty or forty seconds. The three enormous wolves in front of me were each the size of a big black bear, running close to four hundred pounds apiece. The leader was coal black, the wolves on either side running to brown. I had done a lot of research into the Pleistocene Era, the better to understand my giant spirit bear, and I remember seeing skeletons of Dire wolves, along with artists’ renditions of how they would have looked. These things looked like hulked out Dire wolves, with legs that were shorter and thicker than those of a timber wolf. Their teeth were also bigger, in fact, it looked like they might have trouble closing their jaws completely.

I put my head down, eyes closed and reached deep inside. The monster demanded release and I opened the door, letting the berserker loose. My head raised, my eyes opened and everyone went stock still. The blood rage slammed through my body and I felt unholy power course through my veins. I felt indestructible.

The wolf pack paused at the sight of me, catching the first glimpse of what they were really facing. I could feel the monomolecular edge form itself around both hands, and when the wolves growled, I growled back. A glance at my hands showed a glittering line running around the outside edge and across each set of knuckles.

Shaking himself into motion, the leader sprang, blurring forward. Time slowed, the wolf’s motion like a football replay, my own perceptions normal. I jumped over him, flipping in the air, my feet impacting the steel mesh overhead and driving me off it like a spring board. A mental image filled my fight brain, a three dimensional outline of the cage, my opponents, their movements and myself. I leapt at the two remaining wolves, who were just starting to move. They split in opposite directions, but I caught the hind quarters of one, slicing his back legs off at the thigh with a side swipe of my right hand. He howled in pain as his legless hips hit the ground. The fight schematic in my head showed the other wolf changing direction and coming back at me from behind, the leader coming from my right side. The rear wolf darted at the back of my neck, but I accelerated, ducking, turning and slamming both hands deep into its chest. Pulling in opposite directions, I thrilled at the feeling of the giant wolf ripping down the middle. My left hand executed a reverse knife hand strike, slicing its skull from below the ear to the opposite temple. The leader slammed into my side, knocking me away from his mortally wounded partner. Instinctively, I Lightened and Repelled, sling-shotting to the cage wall. Still moving at speed, I bounded to the legless one, landing on its back. My fist rose and fell. Shards of skull bone drove deep into the old pitted concrete floor. Were bones are dense!

I straightened, turning to check the leader. He was circling against the far cage wall. I moved steadily toward him, shifting back and forth to match his turns, narrowing the arc of his path. Finally, he stopped his pacing and faced me full-on, heavy body crouched low to the floor, ears back, nightmare teeth bared. He lifted his head and howled a long hair-lifting, primal cry. The call of the apex predator, facing the end. Without any pause, his howl turned to a rage-filled snarl. A deep evil laugh met his battle cry, and I realized it had come from me.

His charge was the fastest he had moved yet, straight for my throat, oversized jaws wide as death’s door. He expected a dodge, jump or evasion, his yellow eyes watching for any shift in my posture. I didn’t budge, my body Posted, waiting till those slavering teeth were almost to my face and then jammed my flattened upright hand into his mouth. Feeling contact he bit down with thousands of pounds of force, driving the mono edge on my thumb right through his own pallet, effectively bisecting his own skull. My left hand caught his dense chest and stopped the impact of his charge cold, the heavy chest bones crushing under his own momentum.

I dropped the body and looked around the cage. Blood pooled and glistened in the florescent light, bits of fur floating in the air and sticking like dandelion fluff, caught in red glue. I turned, my rage free and unchecked.

I bounded to the door and struck it once with my right hand, hard. The heavy metal tore and the door slammed open as I rounded through it onto the were bear and cougar.

“Next!” I said, my voice unrecognizable even to myself. Everyone near me scrambled backwards, the Loki members showing terror on their faces. “No? No more claims on the girl? Pity!”

Several hundred faces showed almost uniform expressions of shock and, on some, horror. The rage wanted more, but a heavy weight on my chest and neck made itself known. The Tear of God seemed to weigh as much as a pickup truck, hanging on my neck. It had been weightless mere moments ago. My hand touched it, to ease the weight, and instantly, my rage turned to sorrow. Loss. Sadness. Resolve.

Faced with each wave of emotion, the beast sought shelter in its own cage, shuttering itself in and returning me to myself. The aural mono edges dissolved, leaving a tingling feeling on the skin of each hand.

No one said a word for a moment, while I came back to myself. Then Brett stepped forward.

“Dude! You’re a mess! Let’s get you cleaned up!”
The kid had balls. I looked down and had to agree. My torso and hands were spattered with blood, gore and bits of fur, and I could feel something hot and wet dripping through my hair and down the right side of my head.

He led me to a locker room, the crowd evaporating in front of us like water on an Arizona pavement. A dark cloud of self-loathing was creeping over me, and when I looked behind me at the bloody footprints I was leaving, I saw Stacia’s horror-stricken face, matched by her mother’s, next to the wide shocked eyes of Afina and Kelly. Well, so much for her little crush!

* * *

Brett sent someone up to the store for some Powerbars while I scrubbed myself raw in the shower. I wasn’t sorry for killing the Spawn members, but I detested myself for enjoying it so.

Forty minutes later, I was dressed and above ground, standing in the hiking supply section of the headquarters store. Brett had stayed near me the whole time, and now he straightened upright as his parents headed toward us. A pile of crumpled ration bar wrappers lay on the counter next to us, and the next victim, a squeeze tube of chocolate GU was just about finished. One of the store clerks was watching us from the corner of his eyes, a little shocked at my feeding frenzy. Brett’s calm, slightly amused presence kept the employees at bay.

“Chris, are you alright?” Afina asked as they drew closer. I got the impression she wasn’t asking about my physical health.

I nodded, swallowing the last of the GU, before answering.

“I’m okay. Just didn’t want to disturb the party any further,” I said.

Brock was frowning slightly, but he nodded at my words.

“Hey Brett, did you manage to place any bets?” I asked while opening the wrapper of a Cliff bar. The hiking stuff tastes alright, but it’s low in fat and I’m a huge fan of fat. Saturated, unsaturated, poly whatever, bring it on.

“Oh yeah! About that….I got about half of it bet,” he said while digging a wad of cash out of his pocket. “Here’s the part I couldn’t get to. Things went to hell kinda fast, but don’t worry, I’ll collect the … er ... rest of it,” he said.

I stuffed the cash in my pocket and finished off my energy bar.

“Yeah, that’s cool. You still interested in the farm up north?” I wasn’t at all sure he would be. Every were in the building was watching me like a rabid animal, but careful not to give offense. Ya know, ya chop three experienced adult weres into chunks the size of a kitchen garbage bag and people start to treat you different. Go figure.

“Hell yeah! Dad can we go up tomorrow?”

Brock paused before answering, his eyes flicking to me and then back to his son.

“Tomorrow looks bad, but maybe the day after. Excuse me a moment,” he said, moving off to speak with a threesome of weres leaving the luncheon. They watched me from the corner of their eyes as they spoke with their Alpha.

“Chris, please forgive my husband. Your … fight rather shocked him. I’ll admit that despite what Lydia and Gina have told me, even I wasn’t prepared for that!” she said, touching my arm as she spoke.

There is something oddly comforting about women who casually touch during conversations. Nothing sexual, just calming. Some men even can get away without it seeming effeminate, you know, the guy that gives you a manly shoulder smack. But with women it tends to be kind of grounding.

“Yeah, I’m actually more of a laugh at kids’ parties. Not so much the adult, fighting and bloodshed kinda of parties,” I replied, my tone trying for light.

She smiled and Brett snorted, so I must have gotten part of the tone right.

“Listen, I’m gonna get going. Brett, let me know when you want to go north. My schedule is pretty much wide open these days. Oh, and whatever my winnings are, take half and use it to get Stacia and her mother set up, okay?”

He nodded, and Afina crossed her arms and gave me a smile.

I stepped out the front doors, put my hands in my pockets and started to walk.

That’s when the helicopter swooped down overhead and the black SUV’s slammed into every intersection, men in black SWAT gear boiling out like ants.

Chapter 22

Duclair! It had her written all over it. My brain raced, multiple options flooding through it. I rejected almost all of them. They all had a common thread, federal agents injured or dead. A dozen green laser dots danced on my chest (green lasers are easier for the human eye to see, they’re all the rage with tactical types), and the Bell helicopter circling twenty-five feet over my head had a sharpshooter on each side, belted in, feet on the skids. I had heard the helicopter some time ago, but there is always a copter or two fluttering around the city, particularly Manhattan, so I hadn’t thought much about it.

Tac teams continued to swarm, but one large figure held a megaphone instead of a rifle.

“HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD, GORDON!” Adler’s voice boomed over the sirens and rotor wash.

I complied, slowly, struggling to control the beast inside. It was screaming for blood and death.

“KNEEL AND CROSS YOUR ANKLES!”

Footsteps pounded across the pavement at me from two separate directions, the battle schematic in my head showing two very large football player types charging my position from behind. I ignored them, wrestling myself, the cage door almost undone.

My face mashed into the pavement as a combined five hundred pounds slammed into and drove me down. I almost lost it then. Almost tore them apart. But by luck or chance, my face ended up looking back at the Lupine building, where people crowded the windows of the second-floor party room and the first floor store. I saw Brett, Brock, and Afina on the ground floor, and above them, Stacia, her mother, Kelly and young Bryce, all staring as the federal storm troopers took me into custody. That alone gave me the strength to close the cage and chain it shut.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in the federal building that housed the Department of Homeland Security, about fifteen stories up, locked in a standard federal issue interrogation room. Metal chair, metal table, big one-way mirror window, just like the movies. My arms were bound behind me with at least three flex-cuffs. The only addition to the room were the four tactical team members standing in each corner of the room, M4 rifles slung across their chests. Books, Splitter, Data and old Rattler himself, Agent Simmons.

They had searched my pockets, relieving me of my cell, cash, wallet and pocket knife (I still carry one, mostly out of habit, despite the mono-edge thing), but they completely missed the Tear of God necklace. My cell phone had been going crazy, even as they pulled it out.

“Whoa …would you look at her!!” Splitter said, showing the others the photo of Tanya that comes up when she calls me.

“Maybe when we’re done with you, we’ll go see her!” Simmons leered.

I laughed in his face.

They didn’t know it, but if I didn’t leave in the near future, she would come to them. My guess is that they wouldn’t enjoy it.

I knew I could leave at any time, but again I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Plus I was interested in where this was going. So I waited, amusing myself by sending aura bursts in ever expanding spheres to transmute the ammo in their guns. I couldn’t be sure, but there was a real solid chance that not a single gun on that floor would fire, and probably the floors above and below as well.

The door to the observation room behind the mirror opened and I heard voices through the wall.

“-he was actually kind of a letdown! Not a single squawk or problem when we took him,” Duclair’s voice said.

“Took him? Brianna, what have you done….oh no!” I hadn’t expected Inspector Roma’s voice. “Are you insane? I told you to ask him to come, not use a takedown!” he said, real worry in his voice.

“Inspector, much as I hate to admit it, Duclair did get him here without a scratch on her agents.” That voice was deep and gravelly, completely unfamiliar.

“How long ago did you grab him?” Roma asked, his voice urgent.

“About twenty-five, thirty minutes ago,” Duclair said.

“Chris, I’m sorry, this is so not my idea!” he said. The sonic picture in my head showed him looking at me through the glass as he said this.

“What are you doing? He can’t hear you, the microphone is off and these walls are sound…” Duclair was speaking when I interrupted.

“That’s okay, Inspector, it was classic Duclair,” I said staring right at his position behind the one-way mirror.

“Shut up clown!” Simmons said. He couldn’t hear the others in the observation booth.

“He heard you?” the deep unknown voice asked.

“Of course! General, if you’re not going to listen to anything I tell you about him and his…companions, then I would like to leave. Now!” Roma said.

“Settle down, Inspector. So he can hear us, what’s the issue?” the ‘general’ asked.

“How much time do we have, Chris?” Roma asked me instead of answering.

“It’s hard to tell, Inspector. I won’t know ’til she is closer. I don’t have her range. But she’s only half the problem,” I answered

“Oh no! The D.T.?” He was really scared now. D.T. was the team’s nickname for Okwari. I didn’t love the name, short for Damnedthing, which Okwari wasn’t anymore.

“Yeah, he’s getting impatient. I’ve been waiting for you guys to show up. A few minutes more and all Hell would have broken lose.”

“Inspector, what the hell are you two talking about?” the ‘general’ asked, getting impatient.

Simmons moved to smack me, but the intercom came before he could.

“Belay that, mister! He’s talking with us, now get back to your station!” the ‘general’s voice snapped.

Roma spoke as soon as the general was done.

“Sir, as soon as Brianna grabbed him, his…ah…girlfriend knew. She’ll be coming for him if we don’t let him call her. The more immediate problem is the elemental class entity that I told you about.”

“The bear thing or damn thing or what have you? And it’s broad daylight! How is the vampire girl gonna get here?” the general’s voice said.

“Sir, again, you need to listen to me about this stuff. The older ones can move about in daylight if they choose. She will come. But the D.T. will have long since destroyed the building and everyone in it if we don’t let Chris go. Speaking of which, Chris, why did you let yourself get nabbed?”

“Well, I figured we might as well get this out of the way. Although, honestly, I was expecting more of a job pitch than a snatch and grab. When that went down, I figured you would be taking me to some underground high security lab. I’m a little offended that this is all you think of me,” I said, waiving my arms around to indicate the room and guards. Pieces of plastic flex cuff fell around my suddenly free arms. I must be getting stronger, ‘cause the cuffs broke easier than I had expected.

Briana’s men started at my unbound arms and immediately pointed their useless carbines at me.

“Sir, if you want your men here to survive the next few moments, you’ll want to tell them to stand down. I’ve about had enough for one day,” I said.

The general paused for a moment, then spoke.

“Well sheeeeit! Agents! At ease!”

I heard the observation door open and then the door to my interrogation room opened. The man who came through was wearing street clothes, razor-creased khaki’s and a black turtleneck, but there was no mistaking that he was military. Salt and pepper buzz-cut hair, ramrod straight posture, and clear grey eyes that bore right into you. He was lean and whipcord tough, the endurance build of a Special Forces type. About my height but less muscle mass. Duclair and Roma followed after, each moving to a different side of the room.

“Gordon, I’m General Tobias Creek, and the D.O.A.A. is now under my command.”

His right hand shot out to shake mine and despite my disenchantment with both local and federal law enforcement leadership, I found myself shaking it in mild admiration.

“Now, explain!” he ordered.

I took that as a request for illumination of the overall situation.

“My mate or girlfriend, whichever you prefer, can track me pretty much anywhere in the city. She probably was already awake when Duclair threw her little SWAT party, but since it occurred right outside of Lupine Industries headquarters, I’m sure she had a phone call or two. She is most likely on her way. Okwari, on the other hand, is already here.”

“One thing at a time! How can the girl be out in daylight? She’s only twenty-three.”

“She was born a vampire. The only one ever. She’s more advanced than pretty much all of them except the Elders, at least one of whom will undoubtedly be with her,” I said.

“One of the three Elders is coming here?” he asked, his tone indicating someone was in trouble. My money was on Duclair.

“One of two Elders, Sir. Fedor died last year. But Senka is Tatiana’s grandmother in a very real sense of the word, and she will be with her.”

“What happened to Fedor?” he asked.

“He was the last person to kidnap me,” I said with a glare at Brianna. “Okwari crushed him into paste.”

I really didn’t need to add that detail, but I was getting a lot of perverse enjoyment out of educating the general.

“Okwari is the elemental bear thing?” he asked. Roma started to speak, but General Creek just waved him to be silent.

“Okwari is my name for him. I’m not really certain what he is. Twelve thousand years ago, he was the largest bear on the planet. He became something a great deal more. Personally, I think he’s the Great Spirit bear that Native Americans speak of in legends, but I don’t know.”

“He was a pet of the demons?” Creek asked. I had to give him kudos for the casual way he used ‘demons’.

“He was bound and enslaved about a thousand years ago, by demons, becoming a Damnedthing. I freed him last year so he is not damned anymore. He’s extremely ….attached to me. I’m trying to keep him from destroying the building, but he’s pretty stubborn about some things. Me being held captive tops the list,” I said with a shrug.

The general stared at me for a moment, then turned and pinned Brianna with his glare.

“So to recap, you could have gotten away or free, but you didn’t want to hurt anyone. Your girlfriend and one of the most dangerous vampires on the planet are coming here to get you. A demigod class entity that you freed from a millennium of slavery is here, now, getting ready to destroy everything in his path to free you?” he asked, never looking away from Duclair, who was frozen in place. Roma was white as a sheet. He at least, understood the enormity of what was coming.

“That’s pretty close, sir, although frankly, I think Tanya is even more dangerous than Senka. And Okwari is probably a lot more than demigod rank…..” I trailed off as he turned his glare on me.

“Just saying,” I finished with a shrug. “But that pretty well covers it … sir!”

I have a lifetime of conditioning to respect strong leaders, starting with my Gramps, and General Creek definitely fit the bill.

“Can you stop any of this?” he asked.

“I need my phone to call Tanya. Okwari will likely settle down as I leave.”

“Give him his phone,” Creek ordered.

I started to place the call, but suddenly, my ‘Tanya’ sense flared. I kept dialing.

“They’re here,” I said as I lifted the phone to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me,” I said, “I’m headed out now.”

The general nodded at my raised eyebrows and led the way to the elevators, ignoring the stares that we were getting from the busy agents on the rest of the floor.

“Better be quick!”

She meant that she wouldn’t wait long before she came for me.

The elevator doors closed as I spoke.

“Listen, wait right there, we’re in the elevator now.”

“Is Agent Duclair with you?”

I looked at Brianna as I answered.

“Yeah, she’s here!”

“Good, I want to explain some things to her!”

Then she hung up.

Everyone was looking at me, questions in their eyes.

“They’re in the lobby, and Tanya wants to talk to you,” I said directing the last to Duclair. “She’s pretty unhappy. Actually I don’t think I’ve ever heard that tone in her voice before.”

Hmm, now I was getting a little worried. I had hoped for a zero bloodshed outcome.

Chapter 23

The elevator opened into an eerily silent lobby. The main foyer of the federal building is quite large, in order to accommodate the metal detector that all visitors must go through. The design is open, with marble floors and high ceilings. The two main entrances funnel visitors to the security checkpoint, which looks just like the airport setups.

Tanya and Senka, as well as, Mr. Deckert, faced fifteen M4 armed men wearing military digital cammies. Seven uniformed security personnel watched, eyes wide. None of the federal people even turned our way. I understood, completely. My own eyes were locked on Tanya’s from the moment I stepped out. I hadn’t seen her in five days. The sight of her hit me hard, emotions flooding me from head to toe. Relief, guilt, love, lust and the strongest protective urge I’ve ever had. A single word popped into my head – Mine! In that brief nanosecond, the door was open, the beast was out and I froze, every threat catalogued, every person on the floor plugged into a combat schematic in my head. Instantly, I released an aural burst, a sphere of violet energy visible only to myself and Senka, that would disable every round of ammunition on the floor.

Creek, Roma and Duclair kept walking, never noticing the change that had come over me. I knew, with absolute certainty that I would kill every being in the room that was a threat to her. Part of me noticed that the mono edges had formed around my hands without my conscious thought, part of me heard Senka’s whisper across the room “Extraordinary!” and part of me tracked each individual heartbeat and body motion, in the room. There were fifteen soldiers, two vampires, seven security officers, one female technician type and Deckert, not to mention Roma, Duclair, the General, and myself.

Tanya blurred across the floor, much too fast for the humans to see, but it looked normal to me, stopping immediately in front of me. Her scent, lilac and jasmine, broke over me like a wave.

“Christian,” she said, the weight of her voice wrapping around me.

Just that fast, I was back from the abyss, mono edges gone, pooled power retracted, berserker caged. It took the humans a moment to realize one of the vampires was no longer by the door, but standing two feet from the senior officers. Professional soldiers are hard to surprise, but these men were seriously shocked at her speed. Tanya finally released my eyes, turning her head to pin Duclair with her gaze. Her eyes went black rim-to-rim, canines lengthened to two inches long, and when she spoke, it was in a quiet voice that was all the scarier for its lack of volume.

“If you ever go near him again, I will flay your skin from your body and drink you dry!” she hissed, the words distorted by the massive teeth in her mouth.

All three instinctively jumped away, Brianna backed against the wall, her heart racing in terror, handgun completely forgotten. Just as well, the ammo in it was useless. Rifles around the room came up and locked on my vampire, grounds for instant death, but for the fact that there was no viable ammo anywhere nearby.

Tanya’s eyes slipped back to brilliant blue, her fangs retracted and she turned to General Creek, holding out her slim white hand, its nails ruby red.

“General Creek, this is Tatiana Demidova, my sputnik jetzni,” I said as he dug deep and found the courage to shake her hand. Tanya’s head snapped around to look at me, her eyes widening ever so slightly, mouth sliding into a brilliant smile. When she turned back to him, still smiling, I heard the stutter in his heart beat. Welcome to my world, general.

Senka was suddenly next to us, watching me and Tanya with a strangely possessive look, and when her gaze slid to Creek, I took my cue and introduced her.

“General Tobias Creek, this is Senka,,” I said, “ and Mr. Deckert.” The former marine had walked up almost unnoticed. General Creek was still at a loss, but when he heard Deckert’s name, he flicked a quick glance at the stocky security specialist and nodded in recognition.

The humans were at a complete loss of what to do. On one hand I could commiserate, meeting the oldest living predator on the planet is a tad intimidating. But on the other hand, I couldn’t give a damn. Let ’em wallow.

“General,” Senka said in her wonderful Oxford English accent. “I’m breaking several rules by speaking with you today, but seeing as how I made the rules in the first place, I think we can probably bend them a bit.” Her tone was cool and utterly confident. “Although I might ask that you do something to keep the foot traffic down during our little chat.”

Still at a loss for words, Creek tersely ordered his second-in-command to block the two main entrances and lock down the elevators.

“Now then, General, I really must ask for your word, as an officer, that you’ll refrain from any further abductions of young Christian here. We’re really quite attached to him. In fact, my granddaughter was perfectly willing to slaughter the lot of you, but I think we’re most likely past that.”

Her tone was mild up until she got to the slaughtering part. She might have been admonishing a bad waiter for all the threat her tone implied, but then it somehow changed. When she spoke the word slaughter, her tone carried an underlying message, like some subliminal note that the primitive part of the human brain recognized from a time when we cowered in caves from things that roamed the night.

The room smelled of fear, it sounded of over two dozen thundering hearts as the humans responded.

“I trust that my point is made?” she asked.

“Ma’am, it’s not my habit to negotiate with threats!” The general had collected himself enough to stand his ground. My estimation of his intelligence had just dropped. Although he was a U.S. general, so I could understand some of his attitude, but frankly, he obviously didn’t have a great grasp of what he was dealing with.

“Nonsense, general, the very heart of armed conflict is dealing with threats. This is just a question of you understanding the nature of this threat,” she responded. There was that tone again. I shivered even knowing I was on her good side.

My attention shifted to a sudden change in the air currents in the room. Our group was just on the outside of the checkpoint about fifteen feet from the large embossed Department of Homeland Security emblem centered in the floor. A swirl of air had fluttered the papers at the checkpoint and now spun up into a familiar twister pattern near the emblem.

Tanya was studying me, looking for any wounds or marks, although those had healed in the first few minutes after I got them. She noticed my attention and immediately knew what was happening.

“Is Okwari here?” she asked.

“Yup,” I said, using my Sight to observe the green, red and purple bands of energy that were rapidly forming a giant bear shape.

I noticed that the vampire-federal government talks had stopped and all the participants were now looking at me. I waived at the spot where I could see Okwari.

“You might need to table your discussion,” I informed them.

Senka could see him, I was certain, her eyes were bright with first interest, than astonishment as he reached his full size. No one else could see him, though, and they all looked confused.

”Chris, you said he wouldn’t appear if we got you out in time?” Roma questioned.

“I said he ‘probably’ wouldn’t appear. He has his own ideas.”

Those ideas were streaming through my head in a series of images and emotions. This is Okwari’s method of speech. It was much faster than usual and the underlying theme was one of intense anger.

I was fluent in Okwari’s form of communication after seven months of it, but this was really fast and I was still working out his meanings when he started to become visible.

He can, of course, turn visible as easily as he stays invisible. But he is at heart a predator, and what predator doesn’t like to be hidden from view?

There was a rapid exodus from the immediate area, which left just me and Tanya standing near the giant as he became fully visible. I rarely see him like this and Tanya has only seen it one or two times. He is impressive.

Born a short-faced bear on the Pleistocene plains of western North America, his preferred form is only slightly different than it was in life. On all fours, his shoulder is over my head, about six feet, five inches off the ground. His eyes in this position are at about seven feet. The truck scales at the NYPD impound yard in Brooklyn, tell me he weighs just a few pounds shy of one and one-half tons. That makes him twice as heavy as a really large Kodiak or polar bear. But Arctodus simus is built for speed, longer of limb and rangier than modern bears. His snout is shorter and wider, built to crush bone. His fur is black and tan, the black on his head and back, running down to a point on each limb. The fur on his lower half and underside is a wheat color. The overall effect is as if he had a black Kodiak skin draped over his skull and back. The only real differences from when he was just a bear are the two backswept horns that protrude from his skull. Leftovers from his time as a Damnedthing. His eyes are deep brown when he is relaxed, red when agitated. Today they were molten lava red. He was pissed.

I was so wrapped up in decoding his message that it took a moment to notice the deep, rumbling growl that he was producing from the cavern of his chest.

* * *

Nobody had moved the whole time he was solidifying. His massive nail keg head swiveled around and his big red eyes were studying General Creek, Duclair and Roma. Suddenly, Okwari lunged and swatted the big security x-ray machine, sending it flying across the foyer and into one of the elevators. It must have been pretty heavy, ‘cause the metal doors on the elevator crumpled like a soda can. The white shirted security guys were scrambling every which way. The conveyor belt thingy (the one you put your watch and wallet and crap through) took the next hit and it left the ground in a twisted pile of metal and plastic, crashing into the left hand revolving entrance door. Then he stood on his hind legs, raising his head fifteen or sixteen feet off the ground, and roared.

It may have been the single loudest noise I’ve ever heard. The air was suddenly filled with the smell of urine, a lot of urine and another odor that made me think someone had dropped a load in their drawers.

Roar finished, he slammed back to the ground, his two front paws smashing the DHS emblem along with a goodly portion of the marble floor.

The soldiers finally reacted, raising their M4’s and pulling the triggers. Nothing but clicks. Bolts slammed back and fresh rounds were run into the chambers and once again, clicks.

“Ah…General, none of the ammo on this floor will be any good. Probably not the floor above either. Oh and the agents on the floor you were holding me on will need new ammo as well. Actually, you should probably have everyone in the building get new ammo just to be safe,” I said.

“You transmuted all the ammo in the building, Chris?” Roma asked.

“Probably most of it, but who wants to take a chance.”

Okwari sent me question, then he grunted and swung away, his form vanishing from sight. A small swirl of air told me he had left.

“Is it g-gone?” Duclair asked, her voice unsteady.

“He has left for the moment, but I don’t think he’s ever very far away. At least that’s how it seems to me,” I answered. “Listen, General, he wanted me to convey a message.”

General Creek was looking around the lobby, slightly wild-eyed, but now he turned back to me, his eyebrows raised in question.

“Sir, he wants you to know that he can go anywhere, anytime,” I said.

“Meaning?”

“Well, the images he was showing me were pictures of the White House, the Capitol building, your house, and CNN studios.”

He gaped at me, processing that info for a moment.

“CNN?” Senka asked.

“Yeah, see he doesn’t like CNN much. He’s more of a FOX bear. I think he’s just looking for an excuse to trash the place.”

“He’s threatening the President of the United States, if we take you into custody?” Creek asked, his thoughts apparently in order.

“Actually, it would be more like a declaration of war on the US government, if you abduct me.”

“He thinks he can take on the entire US military?” Creek asked, incredulous.

“General, he’s a lot more powerful than I thought. He’s way beyond demigod status, more like elder god. He can appear anywhere, anytime, his claws cut through anything, who knows what else he can do!” Roma said, looking at me for additional information.

I shrugged. Hell, I didn’t know what he could do. Elder god?

“Christian, you could have avoided capture or escaped, right?” Tanya asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Okwari knows this?” she asked.

“Yeah, but see here’s the thing. He spent a thousand years as a slave in Hell. I set him free. His math is pretty simple.”

It was quiet for a moment, except for the personnel trying to clean up the lobby.

“Major Deckert, how are you hooked up in all this?” the general asked, obviously acquainted with the security chief.

“I work for Ms. Demidova, General,” he said, rocking back on his heels, hands clasped behind his back. “For what it’s worth, General, in my opinion, I wouldn’t touch Gordon here with a four-mile pole.”

“You think that monster could really fight the government?” Creek asked.

“Hell, Sir, I was talking about my employer,” He waved in Tanya’s direction. “I didn’t even know that thing existed. But nothing surprises me with Gordon around.”

I gave him my best glare, but it just bounced right off.

Chapter 24

“For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.” – Kipling

Twenty-two minutes later I was sitting in the living room of an extremely ritzy Park Avenue apartment. I say apartment but it occupied the top three floors of the building, which the Coven owned. The ride from the DHS building has been a little weird. I sat next to Tanya, of course, and she held my hand the whole way to the apartment. No one said a word. When I tried to break the silence, she just smiled, a little smile, and put one scarlet-tipped finger over my mouth. So we rode in silence, not to Willow Street in Brooklyn, but instead to this new place.

When we got into the penthouse, I saw familiar faces everywhere, as well as familiar things from the Willow Street house. It was as if the entire household had up and moved. In five days.

“Chris, I’m sure you are hungry. Remy is up and making you some food. Why don’t you get something to eat and then we’ll get together and talk,” Senka said, turning away before I could answer.

Tanya smiled at me again, but this smile was sad, then she followed her grandmother out of the foyer.

Benson was one of the two security guards on duty, the day shift still on the job. He nodded to me and pointed the way to the kitchen. Something was going on and I didn’t like it, a pit forming in my stomach.

Remy, at least, was happy to see me. He fussed over me, exclaiming in shock at my skinny self. I didn’t think I was any lighter, but he did. So I sat down to a huge bowl of bouillabaisse and half a loaf of French bread. I asked him about the move to the new digs but he suddenly had to place a food order he had forgotten.

I was just finishing my second bowl, when I heard a familiar voice.

“So the rumors are true, the prodigal human is back.”

I turned to find the spiky haired little vampire who specialized in tormenting me.
“Hi Lyd! How ya doing?” I smiled.

She was grinning at me, looking like a college freshmen, albeit a Goth one. But there was something different, something wrong about her carriage. She was holding something in.

“Lydia, what’s going on? Why did everyone move to this place? Why won’t anyone talk to me?”

“Well, that’s what we’re going to do next. Come with me, we want to talk to you.”

We? The pit in my stomach was growing into an abyss.

She led me through a veritable maze of rooms, finally ending up what I could only call a library. Ceiling-to-floor bookshelves of rich cherry, Turkish carpets on the floor, leather chairs and loveseats set up in a ring. Senka, Tanya, Nika, Galina and Elder Tzao all waited, frozen like statues. I wasn’t excited to see Nika, as her ability to dig every thought out of my head creeped me out. Galina and I had mutually agreed to dislike each other almost from the start. Elder Tzao was an outright shock. I had never heard her speak, and had only met her once. She’s a tiny Chinese woman with an ageless face. She’s also the other half of the ruling body of the Darkkin. All three were watching me carefully. Shadows moved in the corner of the room and the largest individual I had ever seen slid silently into sight. All of seven feet tall, built like a bull, with heavy Slavic features, brown shaggy hair and ice blue eyes.

My personal demon lurched in my chest, the cage door shaking. Another movement in the other corner revealed a muscular male vampire of Asian descent, about five-six, built like a gymnast, but he moved like liquid.

Oddly enough, that one calmed me down, as he was obviously Tzao’s bodyguard, which would make the giant, Senka’s.

“Chris, we need to talk to you. We need answers from you – about your actions,” Senka started to speak as Lydia took a seat near Nika. Tanya said nothing, just watched me carefully, something vulnerable about her expression. What was going on?

“W-what actions?” I squashed the tremor in my traitorous voice.

“The fights..with the weres, for the girl,” Lydia offered.

“What about them?” I was completely puzzled.

“You fought for the wolf girl, three times. Do you mean to claim her? What is she to you?”

What? I paused to think about what she had said. Wolf girl had to be Stacia. Fought three times, though, was odd.

“Okay, I’m a little baffled. I’m thinking that you mean Stacia Reynolds when you say wolf girl. I’m not sure what you mean about three fights though. And just what the hell does ‘claim’ her mean?”

Despite myself, I could feel the anger rising, the dark brooding looks from the bodyguards didn’t help.

“Did you not fight three times today for this Stacia?” Galina asked.

“I did not! I fought once, and I didn’t fight for her like some champion or something! What the hell has Afina been saying?” My voice was rising. The deadliest vampires on the planet looked at Nika, who shook her head without taking her eyes from me.

Lydia looked puzzled. “Explain.” When I just kept staring at them she added a “Please?”

“Look, I went to Vermont a few days ago, the morning after the…ah ... incident. There was a rogue. I ran it down and killed it, but it bit the girl and now she’s a were. It never should have bit her. My fault!” I took a breath and shoved the image of George Lassiter’s final moments deep down in my memory.

“I called in favors with Brock and Afina to get her a place with weres that would help her through the change. I’m trying to make this right!”

“What about the fights?”

“It was one fight. The weres who caused the rogue showed up to claim her. They’re bad. Loki’s Spawn. Brock said she would have to go with them unless she fought the leader. She obviously couldn’t do that, but I could, as her sponsor.”

“Afina said you fought three wolves?” Lydia asked.

“I did. The other two jumped in and the werebear locked the door and broke the handle. Didn’t Afina tell you all this?”

Lydia and Senka exchanged glances. Tanya kept watching my face and Galina looked stony. Tzao just watched like a creepy doll.

“She didn’t talk much, she sounded really upset. She said you fought three wolves, but I thought you fought them one at time.”

I shook my head. “No, it was all at once. Brock and his guys couldn’t get the lock undone.”

“You fought three weres in a cage, all at the same time?” Tzao broke her silence to ask.

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “Listen, I don’t know what she said to you, but I helped this girl because it is my fault she is a were. Plain and simple.”

“He’s telling the truth!” Nika said.

Of course I was telling the truth! But it wouldn’t help to start yelling, which is exactly what I felt like doing.

“When did you fight?” Senka asked.

“I don’t know, maybe a couple of hours before I met you guys in the fed building.”

“Are you hurt?” Tanya spoke for the first time.

I shook my head.

“You fought three full grown weres in a cage, approximately three and half hours ago and you’re not hurt?” Lydia asked.

“I said no, didn’t I? Ladies, what the hell is going on?”

Instead of answering, they all looked at Nika.

“He feels honor bound to help the girl. There is something about the rogue that he keeps suppressing, and he won’t dwell on the cage fight long enough to give me any details. Both events trouble him – greatly,” the blonde mind reader intoned.

“Christian, today, when you saw Tanya, what did you feel?” Senka asked.

I couldn’t immediately answer. The stream of emotions had been too intense and I didn’t have the language to put it into words.

“He loves her intensely. He was rocked by how much he had missed her, and he was and is enormously possessive and protective,” Nika spoke. Okay, maybe a mind reader could be useful, especially when the dumb guy couldn’t form words.

“Christian, what happened to your hands today – when you saw Tanya?” Senka asked.

I shook my head, refusing the question.

“What exactly am I on trial for?” I asked.

Six white faces stared at me for a moment, then Lydia broke the silence.

“Among weres it is common for males to fight for the right to pursue a mate,” she said simply.

“So you all thought that I was fighting a series of challenges to what? Pick a werewolf for a mate?”

Lydia gave me the briefest of nods. I pulled out my cell phone and called a number.

“Hi, sorry to bother you, but I could use some help. Could you possibly explain to Lydia what happened today? Thanks.”

I handed the phone to Lydia as Afina was saying ‘okay’. Everyone in the room could follow the conversation easily enough.

“So, Afina, when you told me Chris fought three weres today, I took that to be one at a time,” she said into the phone.

“What? Like mating challenges? Oh hell no! Listen, I’m sorry I was so short before but things have been stirred up since the fight,” Afina said. “The wolf responsible for creating the rogue that bit Stacia, who if you recall is the girl from Vermont, showed up and demanded that she belonged to his pack, Loki’s Spawn.”

“I see,” Lydia said.

“Pack law forbids us from interfering in such a rare event. Stacia had the choice to fight for her right to choose, but obviously that wasn’t an option. However, her sponsor to the Pack could act as a stand in. Chris wasn’t willing to let the Loki’s have her. Between you and me, I think he feels like he has to help her, as if her bite was his fault somehow.”

“Yeah, I’m beginning to think the same thing,” Lydia said with a glance at me.

“Anyway, it was a cage fight between the Loki and Chris, which I was worried enough about, but then the other two wolves went in the cage and a werebear that was with them locked the gate and broke the lock. I, well hell, we all thought Chris was toast,” she took a deep breath. “But, boy was I wrong. Lydia, I’ve never seen anything like it. Nobody in the Pack has ever seen anything like it. He killed all three full-grown weres in less than a minute! Less than half a minute! He moved so fast it was hard to see what he did. He just seemed to touch them and they fell in pieces. And he laughed while he did it!

Scared the crap out of most of the Pack. We’ve been reassuring people all afternoon,” she gave a little, desperate kind of laugh. “Do you believe it? He scared a room full of werewolves!”

“What about the girl?” Lydia asked.

“That’s the thing. I don’t think he even talked to her once!”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he seemed upset as well. The only one halfway calm was my son, Brett.”

“And your people are still upset?” Lydia asked.

“Well between the Loki’s Spawn, which we’ve been hearing a lot of rumors and stories from the southwest and western packs, and the fact that this human that none of the pack but my family really knows turns out to be a holy terror, then yeah, lots of commotion. Although Chris might be providing an answer to our junior pack member problem.”

“Listen, I’ll ask him about that, you sound pretty busy.”

Lydia said her goodbyes and hung up, staring at me thoughtfully. The vamps were all quiet and still in that spooky ultra motionless way they have. Finally, Tanya spoke.

“She is really quite gorgeous.”

I didn’t have to ask who she meant.

“Yeah, I guess she is,” I allowed. “But she’s blonde, I’m partial to brunettes.”

“Oh?” Tanya replied.

“Yes, and she’s got green eyes. I prefer blue ones. Really blue.”

“Hmm,” was her only response.

“I’m pretty sure that Reynolds is not a Russian name. I like Russian girls,” I continued.

She just arched one eyebrow.

“Blue-eyed brunettes from Russia, oh, and they have to be vampires! Natural born vampires!” I concluded.

“Shooting kinda high aren’t ya Slim?” Lydia quipped.

“Way, way over my head!” I held my hand up to show how far out of my league I was.

Tanya’s mouth quirked up in a smile, a small smile, but still a smile. I felt a whole lot better.

Of course, Galina chose that moment to shatter my mood.

“So, somehow he’s scared the entire New York Pack, and you still think he should be around my daughter?” she said to Senka.

The Elder gave her a small nod to acknowledge her point and then turned to me.

“Chris, I don’t think I have heard of this level of skill, speed or destructiveness from you before. Last I knew, you were doing well in your training, but hardly at the level the she wolf described. How is that?”

This was exactly the direction I didn’t want to go. Talking to this particular group about the monster inside me couldn’t result in anything positive. If I frightened them, I would be barred from Tanya for good. I took a deep breath and attempted to minimize the damage.

“Well, the laughing thing is just a left over from the demon blood, I suppose.”

Their eyes widened at this tidbit. Ooops! Not a good start. A public defender I had worked with once, had given me some advice. If you’re being questioned by lawyers or authorities, never offer additional information, never embellish, and never, never get nervous when they’re silent and waiting!

So I waited, letting the silence grow. It’s tough to outwait vampires, but I was desperate. Not able to stay still like they could, I rocked on my feet, the old foot patrol officer’s heel-to-toe rock. The Tear was swinging on its chain and suddenly, Tanya focused on the movement under my shirt.

She moved, a smooth blur, pointing her finger at the bulge under my shirt.

“What is that?”

I pulled the Tear of God out from under my tee shirt and they all leaned close to look at it.

“Did she give it to you?” Tanya asked with a chilly voice.

“No, I got it from the witch!” I said.

Even the males’ eyebrows went up at that.

“Witch?” Tanya asked, voice like ice.

“The witch and the warlock had it. It didn’t look like this of course, but Barbiel and I re-set it, and now it’s much different!” I explained as fast as possible.

“Warlock? Barbiel? Is that the angel?” Lydia asked.

“Yes, he said it was a Tear of God.”

Crap! I just blurted that out, didn’t I?

“Tear of God?” Senka asked.

“Yeah, the demons used it eons ago to trap Okwari. The witch and warlock were bounty hunters sent to retrieve my bear. We argued the point with them and the Tear was left behind.”

Senka raised one hand palm out.

“Chris, let’s back way up. Why don’t you give us a complete rundown of the events of the last five days, okay?

So I haltingly explained about the gang attack in Owls Head Park, the hunt for poor George Lassiter, my suspension and the disbanding of the Squad, the witch and warlock encounter, Barbiel’s refashioning of the Tear, and finally the Pack luncheon and cage fight. They already knew about the DOAA abduction, so I ended with the cage fight.

They were quiet when I finished, each working through the information I had given them. I used the time to help myself from the tray of pastries that Remy had delivered part way through my story.

I had deliberately gone light on details of the rage and blackness inside, hoping they wouldn’t push down that road.

“So you have spoken to the angel twice?” Tanya asked.

“Three times if you include last November,” I said.

“And he knows who I am?” she continued. Tanya has an issue with the topic of vampire souls. I know they have them, she’s not so sure.

“Yes, he calls you my other half, but he knows your name. He’s very pleased that we found each other.”

“This Tear of God, it was used for evil? And now you carry it?” Galina asked.

“It was shed when Lucifer betrayed God. It is a repository for God’s anger, sorrow, despair, loss, sadness, and resolve. At least that’s how it was explained to me. Depending on the setting, one can harness the despair and sorrow to weaken almost anyone or anything. Conversely, with a different setting, it can harness the resolve part,” I explained.

“Why?” Galina asked, “Why would you harness resolve?”

“Because daughter dear, it would strengthen your backbone, your determination. It would be a very powerful thing,” Senka interjected, her eyes still watching me thoughtfully.

She turned to Nika. Damn! The mindreader.

“He’s mad at me for telling, but his biggest fear is a discussion of what he thinks of as the ‘monster’ inside. The rage that takes over when he is pushed too far.”

Senka turned back to me, and raised her eyebrows.

I sighed, looked down at the floor and began to explain.

“Ever since the….dining room incident, I have this…this…black rage that explodes up inside me when I lose my temper. I sorta Hulk out, but without the green skin and huge muscles,” I explained, not sure if they would get the reference.

They did. Senka motioned for me to explain further.

“It likes to fight and kill. It makes me stronger, faster and much, much meaner. I let it loose on the three wolves earlier today and as Afina said, it was a slaughter.”

There, it was out and on the table. My gut churned the pastries, but my hyper active metabolism wasn’t gonna let me hurl, even if it would make me feel better.

“Can I see the hand thing?” Senka asked.

I raised my right hand, concentrated, and the monomolecular edge formed around the perimeter of my bladed hand. To my Sight it looked like a purple line around the outside edge of my hand, one that glittered when the light struck the edge. I have no idea what it looked like to Senka, but her eyes widened slightly. So did Elder Tzao’s. The head of the Asian continent’s presence at this interrogation was more than a bit odd. She hadn’t paid much attention to me before and seemed to recognize Senka’s right to supervise her granddaughter, yet here she was.

Senka said something in another language, one I didn’t recognize, and the giant in the back moved up, drawing a black collapsible baton from somewhere in his clothing. He fluidly snapped the baton open and moved out in front of the lady vampires to confront me, holding the long metal weapon at an angle, so that the rounded tip pointed at my face.

Senka gestured at the baton and gave me a sharpish nod. Clear enough.

I swiped the rod with my bladed hand, clipping the top quarter clean off, the haft not even quivering in the giant vamp’s hand. Senka’s slim white hand blurred, suddenly holding the piece that had fallen away. The others leaned in to exam the cut with eyes that could read the date on a nickel from fifty feet away.

“Amazing!” Lydia said. The two Elders didn’t speak, but exchanged a glance instead.

Senka tapped her bottom lip with one finger. It was her thinking pose, one she adopted when faced with a dilemma.

“How did this come about?” Tzao asked.

“Okwari showed me how to do it. He does the same thing to the inside of his claws.”

“Okwari being the elemental?” Tzao asked.

“Ah yes, well about that,” Senka started, “I actually saw the bear first hand today and I’ve been forced to drastically revise my estimation of it. I believe it is much more than an elemental. It may in fact be a minor god.” Her voice was calm and matter of fact, as if discussing a variety of tea.

“A god?” Tanya asked.

“Most religions recoginize a supreme being, a creator, God if you will, Allah, Yahweh. But almost all religions have minor gods as well.”

“Huh?” Lydia asked.

“In answer to your eloquent question, Lydia, even Catholics pray to angels and saints. Christianity has Jesus, son of God and the Holy Ghost, which is somehow described as all part of the same, yet really isn’t. It’s the same with all the others as well. There are multitudes of lesser beings of various power levels. Native Americans describe many powerful entities, and I think Okwari might be one of them,” she said.

“Which brings us to the crux of the situation,” she continued. “Chris, as I see it, there are two problems here. Actually, a whole multitude of problems, but they all fit under two thematic descriptions. First, and I assure you the irony is not lost on me, but it seems you have become extraordinarily dangerous. I had anticipated that you would, but I imagined a process that spanned decades, not months. The ‘rage’ you struggle with makes you a potential danger to all around you. The weapons and abilities that you have manifested are unprecedented. Imagine my surprise when I realize that you are dangerous even to us.”

“I won’t hurt any of you!” I protested. “Hell, I’m more likely to let it out to protect you than to ever hurt you.”

She nodded. “Yes, I saw that very thing today. The soldiers’ rifles were pointed at us, and I actually could see the change come over you. I also saw it reined in by a simple touch of Tanya’s hand.”

She took a breath, something I rarely saw older vampires do.

“But the point remains that you have possessed these extraordinary abilities for a very brief time. In vampire years you are a baby, a mere seven months old. Yet you have abilities beyond even mine and Tzao’s. Vampires take centuries to gain strength and speed, and they learn control along the way. Tanya is the exception, but it has taken her twenty-three years to get to this level, plus being a vampire is all she has ever known. You haven’t had the time. Nowhere long enough to develop control. For all we know you could have a nightmare and kill Tanya in your sleep!”

I rocked back, completely alarmed. I hadn’t thought of that. It never occurred to me that I could be dangerous to her. Again, as always, I was a danger to anyone I loved. For the first part of my life, it had been demons, now I was the demon!

“Christian will never hurt me, asleep, awake, enraged, or by reflex!” Tanya stated, matter-of-fact.

“You can’t know that, Tanya!” Senka argued.

“But I do! I know it to my core!”

Tanya suddenly reached, her hand blurring for my own, which still wore its glittering edge. Her grab caught me off guard, too fast to pull away, yet when her hand touched mine, the death’s edge was gone.

“See! Christian is unable to physically harm me. Period!” she said, with a triumphant tone.

Senka looked at her in exasperation, glanced at Tzao and then started to speak.

“ Impressive, yes. But I’m not convinced. However, the second problem is even more important,” she began. “We, the Darkinn, have survived as long as we have by remaining unnoticed by humans. Relatively unnoticed. Sure there are the legends and folklore, books and movies, yet no human really believes it.”

I started to speak, but she waved me to silence.

“Yes, Chris, I understand that parts of the human government know about vampires, weres and other supernaturals. At least a small faction did. But what happened today changes everything. You, my young friend, just became National Security problem number one. Tell me, how much damage could your god-bear do? What weapon in the human arsenal could touch him?” she asked.

I shook my head, “I don’t really know. Guns don’t hurt him. The Tear is the only thing I’ve ever seen him afraid of and I have that.”

She had a point. I hadn’t thought about him as too big of a threat because he only seemed to be interested in me. Hell, I didn’t think he was even aware of the White House, the Capital or any human government. Which was fairly stupid on my part and possibly a little bigoted. I had known he was sentient, but he was so bear-like that I assumed he only thought about bear stuff and paid little attention to human stuff. Today’s demonstration had altered that perception, quite thoroughly.

Senka continued her train of thought.

“Could he appear inside the President’s quarters, inside the House or Senate Chambers and destroy everyone? He seems to favor physical form, but does he need it?” she asked.

"Well, he could certainly wipe out the politicians. As far as other powers I don’t know. But he showed me images of bombed out government buildings, so maybe he could attack in a different manner.”

“So you see my point? General Creek will have reported up his chain of command. The whole thing will have been made ultra secret and enormous resources are, most likely, being brought to bear. Oh dear, no pun intended!”

“Chris, your movements from here on out will be tracked by every asset the government has. You, and your god-bear are as dangerous as those backpack nuclear weapons that terrorists are so interested in. The humans will be racking their brains, trying to come up with counters to the threat you pose. How could they control you?” She turned her head to look squarely at Tanya.

My stomach dropped below my feet. Grabbing Tanya would be almost impossible, but what if they put everything behind it? To stop a threat to the entire country? Or control me and therefore, Okwari, as a weapon against whomever they chose.

“So Chris, you can see why we will need to disappear, why you can’t be with Tanya? You do, don’t you?”

“NO! I won’t allow it!” Tanya yelled, her eyes flickering between blue and total jet black.

But I did see the problem. They were right. I would be the subject of whole teams of agents, hell, they might re-task a satellite to watch my movements.

Tanya was on her feet and facing off against her mother, Senka and Tzao. Nika and Lydia were standing to one side, looking very unsure. It may have been the only time I have seen the spikey-haired little vampire speechless. The two males were wisely hanging back.

Before the situation devolved completely, I spoke the worst words of my life.

“They’re right, “I said, barely above a whisper.

Tanya spun to me.

“What?” her eyes incredulous.

“I think they are right. Not about me hurting you, but about me being front and center on the Homeland Security hotplate. If they find you….” I shook my head, unable to finish the sentence.

“So what? I’ll fight them! Bastards won’t know what hit them!”

That was another ugly mental image. She would kill them by the score.

“Tanya, this is the US government we’re talking about. Their resources are ridiculous. But what if they don’t grab you? What if they grab Lydia, Nika or your mother? They’ll come in the daytime. Most vamps won’t be functional.” I shook my head again. “Senka is right. You have to disappear!
Leave the country! Anything but stay near me!”

“Lydia? Tell them!” Tanya begged.

Lydia’s eyes were huge and very sad. “Tanya, I ... I can’t think of a way around this. We need to hide ... at least temporarily! With some time, we can figure something out! But now we need to leave.”

“You two have tonight, but then we’re gone. Chris, Arkady still has your phone?” Senka asked.

I nodded. I had understood when Arkady had requested that he hold on to my phone and keep driving the Mercedes limo, after dropping us off at this new (and soon to be old) residence. My cell number was undoubtedly being tracked and the GPS locator inside it would just show a constantly moving target. The Coven had enormous assets, buried inside of twisted trails of corporations, trusts and partnerships, spread across the globe. I had no doubt they could successfully disappear, but where would that leave me, I wondered as Tanya led me to her room.

Chapter 25

I got back to my place somewhere in the vicinity of three AM. Tanya and I had spent the night, our last for an unforeseeable time, making love and holding each other. There wasn’t a whole lot to say, although I told her I loved her about a thousand times.

One of the security vamps dropped me near my apartment and moments later, Arkady tossed me my cell phone from the driver’s window of his car. My place seemed unbearably empty and cold, even as I smelled her lilac and jasmine scent on my shirt. She had kept the shirt I had been wearing and I had swapped it for her sleep shirt (which was also one of mine). She had a thing for my clothes, ones that were saturated with my scent. I was beginning to understand that concept.

Sleep was almost impossible, but I finally drifted into an uneasy slumber only to hear a heavy pounding on my door.

I went from drowsy and on my stomach to wide awake and standing next to my bed in the blink of vampire’s eye. Ready to fight.

Then I heard a familiar voice – “Chris, get up!” Chet’s voice demanded.

I yanked the door open and he stormed in, heading right to my closet and grabbing my tac bag.

“What the hell Chet?” I asked.

He started throwing clothes, black combat pants and a long-sleeve black tee, in my direction.

“C’mon, we gotta fly! Your skills are needed!”

“What happened?” I asked.

Instead of answering, he flicked on the TV and found a morning news channel.

‘-the Mayor’s office has not responded to questions at this time but our on scene reporter, Jennifer Nadu, is live outside Intermediate School 341 in Brooklyn. Jennifer, what can you tell us?’

‘Good morning, Harry, we don’t know a great deal at this time, but what we do know is that police were called to four schools across the city this morning. Witnesses claim to have heard shots fired in three of the four, and one of those was stormed by NYPD Special Operations teams. At least one small explosion was heard. Here at IS 341, local and federal law enforcement have sealed the access streets and have the school on lockdown’-

“Terrorists?” I asked, already knowing the answer in my gut. This was exactly the type of scenario that had been war-gamed by Homeland Security and NYPD since Nine-eleven occurred.

“Yeah, what we know so far is that four groups of terrorists began simultaneous operations at about seven-o-five AM. In-school police officers almost immediately foiled two of the attempts, although at least three officers were killed. The third school was being assaulted when Special Ops got there and finished the job. The fourth team was entirely successful and has locked down IS 341. Based on what we know from the other three, they have booby trapped every entrance and egress with explosives. The feds and our guys are trying to get a plan in place, but the fear is that the terrorists are just gonna blow everything any way.”

“Chet, I can get in and disable the explosives!”

“No shit, Sherlock! That’s what I’m here for. Takata and Sommers are on the team securing 341 and they think you can get in through a roof mounted heating and cooling system.”

I moved, dressing in the space of several seconds, then grabbed Chet’s arm (gently) and raced out of the building.

He had a patrol car waiting out front, its lights dancing in multicolor strobes on every surface around us. The two officers in the front turned to look as we came flying out of the building. Scott Henderson and Jim Pella, my old Sixty-Eighth precinct squad mates. Old as in, about seven and a half months ago. Felt like a lifetime.

“Hey Chris, hop in. Special delivery service at your beck and call,” Henderson said, his tone light, but his eyes tight with tension.

The squad car wove through traffic, siren blaring, with the occasional angry honk from Henderson at some particularly uncooperative New York driver.

I had barely nodded to the two in the front, when Chet grabbed my attention and started to dump info in my direction.

“Okay, listen up. Intermediate 341 has approximately 895 students, grades six through eighth, fifty or so teachers and another thirty-five administrative and custodial staff. As near as we can figure, a group of between six and eight individuals with full automatic weapons took over the building during the morning announcements. Based on what we know from the other three attempts, plus what they have told negotiators, they’ve wired the building with explosives. Any entry attempt will blow up the entire school. Plus they have command detonation ability, according to the leader, who is broadcasting live on the web.”

“What kind of explosive?” I asked. I needed to know in order to transmute it. Each explosive had a different formula and what I did was to change that formula enough to render it harmless. Not that I understood the chemistry of what I did, I just somehow felt my way through it. Chemistry was not my best subject in school.

“Military grade, C-4,” he answered.

“U.S. stuff?”

“Chris, it is likely that these guys are homegrown. U.S. citizens that have trained in camps in Iran or Afghanistan, then come home to wreak havoc,” he said, carefully, his eyes watching mine for reaction.

“Really? Well I guess I don’t really give a shit. Domestic, foreign, Muslim, Catholic, male or female; doesn’t matter. Take kids hostage in my city and you will learn about terror!” I said in a tight whisper, clamping down on the berserker inside. Something must have peeked out of my eyes because Chet went pale, at least as pale as his dark skin would allow. He busied himself with his laptop, pulling up floorplans of the school. IS 341 was an old multi-storied brick school, that occupied the corner of Grand Ave and Park Street. The rhomboid shaped building had a neighbor on the front left(Grand) and one on the rear (Park Street) side. Chet’s plans showed a large combination gymnasium and auditorium where the bulk of the hostages had been herded by the terrorists. The building behind, on Park, was four stories high, about the same height at the school, giving me a jumping point to reach the roof. Climbing the outside of the school was out, as I would be exposed to the FBI and NYPD personnel surrounding the school. My involvement was entirely unofficial and unsanctioned .

Chet informed that Sommers had the sniper spot on the four story neighboring building, where he would be expecting me. Nice to be able to concentrate on the assault without worrying about getting shot by my own sniper.

The section of roof over the gym had a mass of HVAC equipment mounted almost in its center. It was considered to be wired with explosives, but if I could transmute the plastic explosives around it, I could gain entry.

Chet next showed me footage from the in-school cameras, as well as some provided by the terrorists themselves, ostensibly to convince authorities of the futility of attempting a rescue. As near as anyone could tell, the leader was holed up with the school principal in the office at the front of the building, along with one or two other scumbags to help. The remaining goons were keeping the teachers and students under the gun, in and around the gym. If I could enter through the gym roof, defuse the bombs, kill the terrorists with the kids, I could then head to the office and clean up the leader and his lackeys.

Piece of cake. As long as old Mr. Murphy and his law stayed quiet, everything could work out.

* * *

I pulled on patrol gloves, a black balaclava and tinted eye goggles to hide my very unique peepers, continuing to study the plans as we went careening through the city streets. Chet handed me a Motorola radio tuned to a side channel that Sommers and Takata were monitoring. Two blocks from the school, Henderson slowed down and killed the siren, approaching from the street that ran behind and parallel to Grand Ave. I would approach by roof top to avoid the rest of my law enforcement coworkers. Just before I left the car, Chet leaned over and gave me one last piece of information.

“Chris, IS 341 is Roy Velasquez’s school. He’s one of the assistant principals. Just so as you know,” he said, his tone a little bleak.

No pressure there, just the husband of one of my only friends. Great!

Looking around, I found an alley between the buildings, worked my way to a slightly less open spot, and after a quick check for observers, climbed the building.

Vampires can just about run up a sheer wall, using the Cling technique to anchor their feet and hands. It takes some practice to get the anchor and release pattern down, but I had spent countless nights playing follower to Tanya’s leader around the Big Apple.

The building I was on was three back from the the school. Flashing lights and swarms of FBI raid jackets and blue NYPD uniforms filled the streets and alleys around the school. Moving to the edge of my building I looked down and around for anyone who might see me jump. Not spotting anyone, I jumped the forty feet to the next building, moving just about as fast as I could to avoid detection. This building was closer and much busier. I keyed the mike on my radio,

“Almond and Rice, this is Barbarian, are we clear? Over,”

Chet had nick names for all three of us. Takata was an ‘almond-eyed bastard’, Sommers was ‘whiter than rice’ and I was an ‘ignorant barbarian from the north’. Chet had assigned our call signs, and they were ones unlikely for outsiders to recognize.

“Barbarian, this is Almond, we’re clear and expecting your company. Over.” Takata’s voice was tinny over the radio.

I waited for a few moments, gauging the activity below, and especially keeping an eye on the police helicopters that were circling the area. Those were keeping a pretty good distance, probably a combination of terrorist demand for back off, and keeping the airspace clear of the media choppers that were patrolling an invisible line about a block back in every direction. When everything seemed clear, I moved, jumping to Sommers’s and Takata’s building. This one had a raised brick edge all around its roof , with a water tank, heating equipment and elevator motor housing on top. The highest point was the water tank, and as I saw a black-clad arm waving at me from on top of it, I couldn’t help remembering Chet’s enthusiastic description of neutrino detectors made from water tanks. This time I climbed the ladder set against the back of the tank like a normal human would and found my two squad mates hunkered in a makeshift sniper blind.

Takata was spotting for Sommers, who was flat on his stomach with his McMillian stocked, Remington 700 ,heavy barreled, .308 caliber sniper rifle. A 7 to 20 power Schmidt and Bender scope that seemed half the length of the rifle, provided him with an intimate view of the school, its roofline, as well as the side and rear of the building.

Sommers stayed on scope, consummate professional that he is, and threw in side comments while Takata gave me the run down.

“Okay, here’s what we’ve come up with. That shiny aluminum heating and cooling pod on the roof over there is directly over the gym. If you can cut your way in, after defusing the explosives that are attached to the gym ceiling, you’ll have a straight drop into the hostage holding area,” Takata lectured, raising his eyebrows in question at my ability and, more importantly, confidence.

I was slightly nervous, although I hadn’t had enough time yet for the whole thing to really hit me. But the dark destroyer under my skin was completely confident and eager to be set free. Oddly, that part of me was perhaps the most incensed at the idea of kids being held by explosive wielding terrorists.

“Here is some gear,” Takata said, handing me a gear bag. Peering inside I found rope, an NYPD raid jacket, battery powered saw, and some first aid stuff.

“You need a weapon?” Takata asked, after looking me over. I hadn’t actually thought about that. But the answer popped into my brain instantly. The fighter side of me had already figured it out.

“No, I don’t want any bullets flying and I won’t need a gun for these guys,” I answered.

He raised his eyebrows in question, but when I didn’t answer he just nodded and looked at Steve.

“Okay, it sounds like a fed negotiator type is arriving on scene,” Sommers said, pointing at his earpiece. “That’s gonna provide some distraction. Get ready, I’ll count you down!”

I jumped lightly down the eight-foot drop to the roof, then moved into position for a running start. Ignoring everything else, I concentrated on two things; where I was going to land on the school, and building up the pool of aura in the center of my body. I would need every bit of my power to defuse the massive amount of explosives that were thought to be inside.

“On my count! Three, two, one..go!”

I pushed off my left foot, automatically Clinging with each step to keep traction on the dirty surface of the roof. Six fast steps brought me to the edge, where I sprang out of my sprint.

“Holy shit, look at that!” Takata exclaimed.

Time slowed to a crawl. Glancing down I could see an ant hill of activity on the street level; flashing squad cars, black SUVs, Special Ops vans, raid jackets, blue uniforms, balaclava clad SWAT.

Both feet touched down and I Clung, arresting my forward motion, then dropped to my knee and sent a focused arc of aura into the roof of the school. Setting down the backpack of mostly unneeded gear, I approached the big silver shape of the air conditioner unit. It sat off- center on the roof, a blocky square of aluminum, covered with arcane grills and ducts. The side that interested me was all of three and a half feet tall, and Takata had shown me a computer generated blueprint of the thing, so I knew if I cut my way in it would lead me into a short run before taking a ninety-degree turn straight down. The unit pulled hot air from the ceiling of the gym and that intake was right below the ninety-degree downturn.

I pulled on my balaclava, yellow tinted goggles and gloves, then closed my eyes and focused inward. Pooling my aura, I pushed it into the roof below me, feeling for the unique flavor of Composition 4 or more commonly C-4. The lump I could feel attached to the grill below me had changed with my first aural burst, becoming just different enough to be harmless. But I could sense more explosives further away. I pushed another band of aura, then a third. Satisfied that I had done what I could for now, I formed a mono edge on my right hand and tentatively sliced the metal box open. I say tentatively because while my ability to render C-4 harmless was pretty well established under lab conditions, doing it here, for real, with over 800 children’s lives hanging in the balance was different.

I gently peeled down the rectangular piece of duct work and peered inside the AC unit. A thick coating of dust greeted my hands and the air was hard to breath, but it had a quieting effect on my movements, as I dealt with the choking clouds of particles. I tried to Lighten myself to prevent the aluminum under my hands and knees from popping as I shuffled forward to the downturn in the duct.

Three feet below me a mesh grate pulled warm stale air, soured with the scent of fear, from the gymnasium. I could feel hundreds of people, scores of young strong heartbeats pounding in terror. Most of the school’s eight hundred plus children were assembled in clusters and groups, sitting on the polished wood floors. Their teachers were spread among them, each wrestling with their own fear, while attempting to reassure their charges. Two heartbeats were slower than the rest, two forms moving slowly down the open lane between the kids. It only took two terrorists to control the hundreds of children and adults whose spirits had been swiftly and expertly broken by terror.

My reaction surprised me. I had expected to feel anger, well more anger, but not quite like this. It was the demon blood-tainted fighter in me that I had worried about. Maybe it would find the children’s fear attractive. But it didn’t. It was angry, an arctic anger so cold it burned.

The fighter-berserker part of me brought up the mental image I had begun to think of as my sonar heads-up display, a three-D image of the building and inhabitants below. The cold ball of rage seared my chest, the fighter part moved into control and I began to move.

Chapter 26

“No explanation will matter after we begin. Unlock the dark destroyer that’s buried within. My true vocation and now my unfortunate friend, you will discover a war you’re unable to win.” – Disturbed.

I stepped forward and dropped down the three feet to the grate below, my feet smashing through and my body Pulling directly toward the two terrorist below. It wasn’t a straight drop as they were not cooperating, instead standing fifteen feet away from the spot directly below the ventilator. The grate was twenty-eight point four feet above the floor of the gym. Pythagoras said that they were therefore thirty-three and a third feet from me on the hypotenuse of the triangle. Good old public school education.

I covered that distance in less than the blink of an eye, moving much, much faster than gravity could account for. The Dark Energy of the V-squared was moving me faster than I had ever gone before, yet I seemed to perceive myself as moving normally. Everything else was glacially slow, but I was normal. Kids and teachers were crowded on the gym floor, some sobbing, some glaring, all terrified, and none yet noticing my presence.

My booted feet met the left-hand terrorist, his soft body providing little help in cushioning my impact. In fact, he crunched and squished rather nicely, while I flexed my legs to absorb the landing. His partner hadn’t really begun to register my arrival when my backhand caught him on the right side of his face. Part of me noted that his head exploded from his body, exactly like a fifty caliber sniper rifle round would do. But the rest of me was already in motion, sprinting to the doorway, each foot automatically Clinging and releasing to provide the traction necessary to move that fast. As I breezed through the doorway, two things happened simultaneously. The first was that a third killer was just approaching the entry, as I came through it, the heel of my palm impacting his chest, collapsing his ribs and sternum against and through his backbone, crushing his heart and lungs into paste. Second, as his body launched backward, smashing into a row of lockers, I heard the metal grate from the ventilator clatter to the floor of the gym behind me.

Turning to the left, I saw two more terrorists coming through the archway that separated this hall from another. They were just beginning to perceive a problem, gun arms moving ever so slowly. I ran down the hall, extending both arms out to my sides in classic clothesline position. Passing between them, I heard their spines snap as my outstretched arms slammed into them, lifting them from their feet and carrying them with me. I raced through the archway, but Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum stayed behind, each smashing into the concrete block wall on either side of the arch with satisfying crunches. My dark side was enjoying this and a chuckle broke my lips.

Two more hallways brought me to the front of the school, and I continued to send pulses of aura out around me, each tailored to render C-4 inert.

The map in my head showed the front entrance just around the next right hand turn, the school’s administrative offices guarding the entryway. My heads-up display filtered the sounds from ahead. Three more terrorists and several adults, possibly one child. Not slowing at all, I spun around the corner and slammed the first rifle toting asshole into the solid wall behind him. My visual perceptions caught up with my audio ones as I palmed his face and shoved hard enough to embed him in the wall.

The obvious leader was standing in front of another terrorist, this one holding a palm corder, which was hooked to a laptop. The leader was clutching a device of some type firmly in his right hand, while his left waved a pistol around, which I idly noted was a Beretta 92, probably nine millimeter. Off to his left side stood three figures, one large and sturdy with a beard, one female and slightly overweight and one child-sized but actually an adult female of middle years.

The big bearded guy was familiar to me: Roy Velasquez, one of two assistant principals for IS 341. The younger woman would probably be the other A.P., because I knew the tiny woman was Principal Schmidt. Roy had mentioned her several times, always with a great deal of respect. About the same size as many of the sixth-graders she oversaw, Dr. Jeane Schmidt was a thirty-year veteran of the City’s public school system. She was highly intelligent], fierce and much beloved by pupils, teachers and parents. It was easy to see why, as she was faced-off from the black-eyed leader, her body rigid with anger. That’s all I had time to perceive as I continued to sweep into the entry foyer where this drama had been unfolding. I jabbed a left fist into the ribcage of the camera holder, sending him flying to the sound of ribs snapping. My fight brain declared him down for the count, and I concentrated on the last standing terrorist, the leader. By now, I had decided that the object in his hand was either a dead-man switch or a remote detonator or both. Grabbing his hand to keep tension on the device, I yanked, intending to strip it from his grip. Instead, his right arm ripped free from the socket. Oh well, I wasn’t overly concerned about his personal well being. I was concerned when his remaining hand convulsed and his pistol went off. Something swatted my right thigh, but I concentrated on crushing his gun and throwing him backward through the big window that separated the office from the school’s foyer.

Turning to the doorway, which was loaded with explosives, I sent another big aura burst in its direction.

Only then did I glance down at my leg, which had a small hole in the front and a larger hole ninety degrees on the side. Blood was seeping out, but I could already feel the wound clotting and closing.

The bullet must have entered straight in and bounced off my very dense thigh bone, exiting to my right. I glanced up to follow the bullets path to find Dr. Schmidt slumped in Roy’s arms, a wet glistening spot of red widening across her stomach.

Chapter 27

Motion around me resumed normal speed, Roy and his counterpart both jumping slightly at my rather sudden appearance. I was still holding the leader’s remote device, complete with attached hand and arm. I wasn’t at all certain that I had disarmed all of the explosives in the building, so I needed to handle the bomb remote first. I stripped it out of the hand, being careful to keep a steady pressure on it, but then noticed it only had an arming switch (which was on) and a red button. I presumed bad things would happen if the button got pressed, so I turned to the female AP. Dark brown hair, almost black eyes and East Indian features.

“Here, hold this carefully and don’t let anything press on that button!” I said.

She nodded, her eyes a little wild and her hands shaking as she took the remote from me like it was a live grenade, which, actually, it kinda was.

Somewhere, in the last few seconds, my goggles had gotten knocked askew, so I pushed them up and out of the way while I looked Dr. Schmidt over. My own wound was just starting to make its presence known, but the bleeding had stopped and I could feel the muscle tissue knitting itself together. It itched.

Dr. Schmidt didn’t have the assistance of the V-squared virus to help her, so it was up to me. I glanced first at Roy, who after his first flinch at my appearance had only widened his eyes slightly. I didn’t doubt he recognized my eyes and voice. I also had a feeling he might know a bit about my abilities, being married to Gina and all. The slight figure of his boss rested firmly in his arms and I moved my gaze to her face. She regarded me calmly, her eyes bright, her skin very pale. Meanwhile the white of her blouse was fast being overtaken by the widening pool of red.

I had spent my aura lavishly to make the explosives inert, and the reserve I had left was scant. Nonetheless, I reached deep inside and gathered all that I could, then pushed it through my right hand and into Dr. Schmidt’s abdomen, closing my eyes and commanding her body to respond.

For the space of a double handful of her rapid heartbeats nothing happened. But ever so slowly, I felt a response. The bleeding slowed, blood clotted and bacteria released from her digestive tract died. It wasn’t a lot, but I hoped it would save her long enough for the professionals to get to her.

“You, what’s your name?” I asked the assistant principal.

“Sssonja,” she said with a shaky voice.

“Well, Sonja, I need you to stay with Dr. Schmidt. I’m gonna just pop those front doors open and then Roy and I are going to get the kids in the gym moving out of here. You need to make sure the EMTs get to your boss as soon as they come in. Okay?”

She looked at me, her brown skin going pale, till I thought she might faint. Then she shook herself, blinked a few times and finally, nodded.

“Roy, let Sonja hold Dr. Schmidt. Her bleeding has stopped and help is just outside this door,” I said, not mentioning that the help had lots of guns pointed in our direction.

* * *

The double doors to the school had been wrapped in heavy steel linked chain, the ends welded together. There was no sign of the welder lying around and I didn’t want to waste time looking for it, so I blocked the others view with my body. Then I formed just enough of a mono edge on my right hand to slice through the links. It was about all I could do, as my aura was spent and my energy was flagging quickly.

The police band radio that Takat had given me was still in my pants pocket, so I pulled it out and pressed the talk button.

“Building is clear. EMT assistance required for one female, aged fifty-five, abdominal wound. Students will be egressing immediately.”

I turned off the volume as the immediate request for identification came back, kicked open the front doors and then grabbed Roy by the arm(gently), leading him back to the gym.

* * *

The students and faculty were only too happy to leave and they quickly blocked the hall from wall-to-wall in a steady, but basically calm rush out of the school. The teachers were impressive. Virtually every one of them concentrated on getting their young charges out of the building, although more than a few shot anxious glances at my black garbed appearance.

I stood in the back, blocking the bodies of the first two terrorists as best I could. Nothing to be done about the rest of them, but the kids were averting their eyes pretty much on their own.

“Are you okay?” Roy asked, pointing at my leg.

“Yeah, I’ll be just fine. You need to get your students out and Roy….It’ll go a lot smoother if you don’t mention that you have any idea who I am,” I said.

He nodded after a moment, then stepped forward and grabbed my hand.

“Thank you!” he said simply.

“Not a problem. Glad I was handy,” I said.

He pointed at my head, reminding me that my googles were still off my eyes and then turned, shepherding the last of his kids out the door.

* * *

I waited till he had gone around the corner, then moved under the heating duct. I needed to jump about thirty feet straight up to get my arms over the lip of the duct. Normally, that would be easy, but my right leg wasn’t a hundred percent, or even eighty percent. Nothing for it but to try.

My first attempt got me about halfway, the landing sending searing pain through my thigh. The berserker was back in his cage and the sensation of pain had arrived as he left.

I was still thinking about my dilemma, when a breeze swirled around me, and an image of myself leaping spastically toward the ceiling and failing popped in to my head, accompanied by an amused feeling.

“Sure, very funny! Ha ha! Go ahead, laugh at the wounded guy!” I said in mock anger to the giant invisible form of my bear.

His massive head butted my chest, about knocking me off my feet. He sniffed my leg, snorted loudly and sent another image. This one had me standing on invisible shoulders and being lifted toward the ceiling above. I found that one more to my liking.

If someone had walked in and seen me hovering fourteen feet above the floor of the gym, no amount of bullshit slinging would have gotten me out of it. But no one showed, and with the added height of a standing Okawari, I made the jump to the top of the duct, my arms Clinging to keep from slipping back on the dust covered aluminum.

The bag of gear came in handy now, the blue NYPD raid jacket covering my black form and lending me some credibility for being on scene. I secured the climbing rope to a handy tie down spot, then threw it over the rear wall of the school. Holding it in my hand, I pretended to fast-rope down the building to the street. Someone was bound to see me and this made it look like a normal SWAT type descent, rather than what it was, a freaky human-vampire hybrid running down a wall. Pulling off my face mask, I headed away from the building as quick as I could without running or looking suspicious. The mass of children in the front of the building were absorbing most of the attention, although a few law enforcement types glanced my way. I made it to the next street over before a squad car pulled in front of me and a pair of slim arms grabbed me and yanked me into the back seat. Lilac and jasmine scented air swirled around my head as a quiet voice said:

“Drive!” and the car peeled away.

Chapter 28

A small part of me noticed that this time, Chet was driving. Most of my attention was centered on the very intense, very concerned blue eyes that were alternately examining my wound and flashing with anger.

Tanya shook her head at the speed of my healing. It obviously wasn’t fast enough, as she nipped her right wrist with her razor sharp canines and pressed it to my mouth before I could blink. So that’s what fast looks like. I was so used to slow humans, slower weres and young vamps that I had forgotten how fast she was.

Her small hit of blood had its usual effect, massively accelerating my healing systems. She pulled her wrist back and shook her head.

“You are an idiot!”

Not the loving declaration I was hoping for.

“Look someone had to help those kids, and I am the only one who can diffuse explosives from fifty feet away!” I responded.

“Christian Gordon, I didn’t wait my whole life for you just to have you blown up by terrorists!” her eyes blazed cerulean blue with anger. Then she softened a little. “But you’ve spent your whole life basically saving people, haven’t you?”

“Everyone but the ones that counted,” I said, seeing my family’s faces in my mind’s eye.

She nodded in understanding, her face so beautiful it almost hurt to look at.

“What I really meant, Christian, was that you’ve just added fuel to the fire. The government will know it was you and this will just scare them all the more!” she said.

“Scare them? I just solved a terrorist problem for them! Why would that scare them?” I asked, astonished.

She shook her head slowly, then looked to the front seat.

“Chester, would you explain? He doesn’t seem to being hearing what I’m saying.”

I realized that I hadn’t heard anything from the normally loquacious Chester during the whole trip.

His nervous eyes met mine in the rear-view mirror.

“Ah, well, dude, I think Tatiana means that you, like, just wasted eight heavily armed dudes, who had a fortified, booby-trapped position, in like less than a minute! And they, the feds, don’t control you, you’re a wild card!” he said.

It struck me that Chet was scared. He had only met Tanya twice, briefly, and she would probably have been somewhat…forceful…in requiring his assistance. But his eyes were watching me, more than her.

“Thank you, Chester! Just what I wanted to say. And you must call me Tanya, no?” she instructed.

He nodded and kept driving, with Tanya giving him turns and directions occasionally, while I thought about what she had said and Chet’s reactions.

I had just killed eight soldiers in the terror war. Armed men, with training and preparation. And it had taken considerably less than a minute. My balaclava and gloves would have prevented direct identification, but I had left a little blood behind and God knows how much information CSI types could pull from a scene these days. And that scene would be locked down and examined with a microscope. The transmutation of the explosives would tell General Creek and his new buddies, Roma and Duclair, who the operator had been long before any test results came back.

So, the government now had an individual running loose, with the abilities of a vampire (a fairly old one) plus this freaky purple aura power, and a companion who was essentially a minor god, one that could penetrate any security and destroy any target at will! I was screwed!

I started to get panicky, my mind racing through all the possible ways they could come at me, all the assets they would throw in my direction.

Tanya was watching my face and she could tell the direction of my thoughts as easily as she could feel my terror.

It’s funny that seven months ago, I had faced imminent death without much concern, but now I had so much more to lose, most of which was sitting next to me. Before going too far down that path, I became aware of warmth on my chest. The Tear of God was suddenly noticeably warm to the touch.

Almost immediately my panic slid away, washed from me by a wave of determination. I would find a way to make this all work.

Tanya looked at me in surprise as she felt my emotions change, then she reached over and touched the Tear through my shirt.

“Wow! Is that what it does?” she asked, astonished.

“You felt something from it?” I asked. I knew she could feel my emotions, but I was surprised she could feel the Tear.

“Dude, I felt it from up here!” Chet said.

“Chet, let’s drop Tanya off and then drop me at my place. I gotta call some wolves about taking a trip. I need to see my adviser! No offense to Lydia or Senka, but I will do better with Gramps.”

Tanya nodded.

“I think Senka might be a bit too rattled to give you the best advice. Seeing your Gramps is a really good idea, plus it’ll get you out of the city.”

“Senka is rattled?” I asked.

She looked at me for a moment then sighed.

“Lydia is right. You’re smart, except when it’s about you, then you get kinda dumb,” she said, in exasperation. “Chris, how old am I…in vampire years?”

“Huh? You’re twenty-three, same as your birth years, ‘cause you were born a vamp,” I replied.

She nodded like I was slow witted. “And would you say I’m advanced for twenty-three, vampire wise?”

“You’re kidding, right? You’re just about equal with the two oldest vampires on the planet!”

“And how advanced are you, in relation to your vampire type abilities?” she asked.

“Well not probably to your level….” I petered off, starting to get her drift.

“Actually, I think you’ve just had a burst of growth, ‘cause you’ve been doing things that I’ve never heard of before. But how old are you….in vampire years?” she asked.

“Well, I’m not yet a year old…if you look at it from that point of view.” Which I hadn’t.

“So, vampires have been amazed by my progress, but they understand there is something about being a born vampire that caused it. You, my dearest, aren’t even a year old and you scare the hell out of Senka and Tzao! Well, not so much Tzao. She’s kinda proud, actually.”

I turned this over in my head, wondering why I hadn’t ever thought it through before.

“But if I’m not a year yet, what will I be like in five years? Or ten?” I wondered out loud, appalled by the thought.

“Exactly! That’s what’s freaking Senka out!” she said.

Something she had said earlier popped back into my head.

“Wait! Why is Tzao proud?”

“Well, that research I’ve been doing, the stuff with the German records, has indicated that there was a vampire in the camp where your grandfather was kept. A Japanese vampire.”

“So, Tzao thinks that the viral change in my DNA came from a Japanese vamp -- one of hers?”

She nodded. “In a way, it would make her your Great-great-great grandmother or something, at least in vampire lineage terms. That why she’s suddenly so interested in you. Plus she’s always been a little put out that I was born into Senka and Fedor’s lineage. Now you pop up!”

“Oh, I’m a prize alright!” I snorted.

She smacked me on the shoulder, but the corner of her mouth was fighting a grin.

“Oh, here, I have something for you!” she said suddenly.

She handed me a cardboard box a little smaller than a shoe box. Inside were rows of cell phones lined up like little toy soldiers. I pulled one out and noted that it was a prepaid Tracfone. They all were. She answered my unspoken question.

“Each phone is already activated and good for a year. Each has a preprogrammed number under the contact name ‘Night Angel’. Soooo, when you want to call me, just grab a phone, hit the contact and it’ll ring through a secure line to me! Then you throw the phone away,” she said with a shy grin.

“Actually, Dude, you should probably destroy the phone as completely as you can. The system is about as secure as can be done, but better not to leave those feddie bastards any help!” Chet said.

“Let me guess! You designed the system? And I’ll bet you came up with the contact name ‘Night Angel’!” I said.

He nodded, his grin proud as hell.

“You’re not gonna give me any crap about that nickname, are you?” he asked, his voice certain.

“Nope! That one is exactly right! Is it really safe for her if I call? I asked.

His look was offended, but I was unabashed where her safety was concerned and he knew it.

“Yeah, actually it is. The number each phone calls is a onetime Voice Over Internet Protocol that bounces all over the world. When I designed it I mentioned that it would be cool to get some access to the Russian server network. Did you know that Tanya’s family owns a big chunk of the Russian computer network?” His voice was incredulous.

“Not really, but she is Russian and they own lots of stuff..” I drifted into a couple of interesting thoughts about the fact that the Coven was immensely wealthy. Globally wealthy. Hmmm.

Chapter 29

The Adirondack Mountains gleamed in the afternoon sun, the forests greening rapidly after a long cold winter. The Pack’s Cessna 172 purred smoothly as we winged northeast across the ancient mountain range, guided by Brett’s deft touch.

The young Alpha had answered my call on the second ring and agreed to leave just after noon. My impression was that he had things well in line for a trip north, and was anxious to see the land next to Gramps’ farm. However, every news station in the country was carrying the story of the terrorist attacks on the schools, and the government was receiving massive kudos for its swift decisive handling of IS 341. I couldn’t help but think he had a decent idea of who the real operator had been. The fact that no one in a position of authority had offered an explanation of how the school was cleared hadn’t bothered the mainstream media pundits from pontificating on the possibilities. Delta Force and the Navy SEALs were tied for getting the credit, with the FBI Hostage Rescue Team a distant third. The actual site was under intense lockdown and the word I had received from Chet was that a microscopic examination of the school, hostages, and the terrorists was underway. The official word to the media was that a covert operation had cleared the school, but the details were top secret in order to protect the nation’s anti-terrorism capabilities.

“Of course, all the grunts know that’s bullshit. These guys are scurrying around like frightened mice, trying to figure out how eight bearded freaks got turned into paste!” Chet had said with a snicker, over what he swore was a secure cell line.

One of the media choppers had caught about five seconds of me on the roof of the school as I left the scene. The balaclava and bulky raid jacket had done a good job of obscuring me and the footage, while surprisingly good, was too blurry to get any detail. Thankfully, the helicopter had been swinging around on the far side of the building from where I pretended to fast rappel down the side. That particular act would not have stood up well to examination. I hadn’t been wearing a rappelling harness, which might have piqued the attention of some retired special operator acting as media consultant.

Brett seemed excited, carrying on a steady conversation the whole trip. His girlfriend, Kelly, was seated behind me, and another young wolf, named David, was behind Brett. I had offered the shotgun position to Kelly, but she had rapidly and rather forcefully insisted that I sit up front. My honest assessment was that she didn’t want me behind her. Kelly and David were both visibly nervous in my presence, although Brett seemed okay.

I hadn’t thought I would be willing to chat much after my gruesome morning. But I didn’t seem to be bothered by what I had done, and I surprised myself by getting into the conversation with Brett, talking about everything from high school football, to deer hunting. The property was close enough to Potsdam Airport that we were able to take a swing over it before landing. David snapped numerous shots with a sophisticated looking digital camera and telephoto lens. Dark haired and rather somber, David had been quiet the whole trip, his eyes watching me when he didn’t think I would notice.

* * *

Gramps met us at the tiny airfield, his crew cab Ford pickup ready to haul the lot of us to the farm. Two other greeters were with him. One was stocky and dark, the other blond with the long legs of a runner. They both hit me at a dead run, a combined one hundred and seventy-seven pounds of excited dogs slamming into my chest. I caught and held them while they fought to wash my face with their doggy tongues. Sherm and Semp, short for Sherman (as in the tank) and Semper fi. Sherm was the younger at six years, a mix breed with a large chunk of Rottweiler in his beefy frame. Semp was mostly Golden Retriever, but not a pure breed by any means, and was the senior at eight.

Gramps cleared his throat and I realized that holding almost two hundred pounds of squirming dogs was extremely unusual behavior if anyone was looking, so I dropped them to the ground and petted them fiercely. It’s hard to describe how important your pets can be, but the impact is greatest at reunion. My dogs never judged me, never shirked me, didn’t think I was weird or freaky, they just loved me, completely and without reservation. They didn’t like werewolves though, a fact that became apparent a few seconds later when they caught wind of Brett, Kelly and David. Erupting into a ferocious frenzy of snapping teeth and barking, it took both Gramps and I to get them under control. Brett had warned me that only dogs raised from puppies would tolerate the presence of weres, the predator scent too strong for canines to ignore.

We got them loaded into the bed of the pickup, along with our luggage, introduced Gramps to the weres, then squeezed into the truck. I claimed shotgun, the other three packed in the crew seat, and we headed to the farm.

Gramps’s land lies east of Potsdam, bordering a little chunk of woods named Whiskey Flats State Forest. With the state forest on one side and the six hundred acres of the old Bennington farm on the other, it creates a tract of about two thousand acres. Should be enough for a small pack of werewolves, if they’re careful.

You would think that I would have known better, but I was still surprised by how easily Gramps got on with Brett and Kelly. David remained a dark, quiet presence, leaving the talking to his two Alphas.

Gramps explained the boundaries and we drove the roads that surrounded the property first, giving the wolves an opportunity to get a grasp of the size and layout of the land. Most of Gramps’ land was used to grow fields, with only about fifty acres reserved for the twenty-five head of dairy and beef cattle that he maintained. Of course, the farm had supported a much greater herd in the years past, but while I would undoubtedly inherit the land, it had been obvious for years that I would never live the life of a farmer. The little herd left on the farm gave Gramps an excuse to keep his men employed and he frankly enjoyed the work.

Our perimeter tour complete, we drove straight to the Bennington property, gave the wolves the nickel tour and then let them investigate on their own. It gave me a chance to catch my grandfather up on recent events. We occupied the front porch chairs, Sherm and Semp staying huddled at our feet. It would have been easy to tell where the junior wolf pack was at any moment, even if I didn’t have my vampire senses. The twin perked ears of the dogs swiveled to track the sounds of exploration, like radar.

“They’re not what I expected,” Gramps allowed, referring to the young wolves.

“Yeah, they are mostly normal, ambitious twenty-year olds, right up until they do something wolfy.”

“They can earn a living here?” he asked.

“From what I understand, four of the nine are computer programmers of one sort or another. One consults on video games, one is a nurse and Brett does website design and search engine maximization.

I’m not sure about the other two, but I think one might be a mechanic. As long as they can get access to the internet, they’ll be fine. I explained about using a satellite based system for internet and television,” I shrugged. “We’ll have to see what they think.”

He rubbed the side of his head for a moment before responding.

“Actually, we have DSL out here now,” he finally said.

“DSL? How the hell did that happen”

“Well, I convinced the phone company it would be worthwhile,” he said, simply.

I didn’t doubt that for a moment. Whether he had organized a group of local residents to all buy access packages from the phone company, paid a huge sum to get it installed or some combination of the two, Gramps would find a way.

“Why?”

“The dish system got spotty in bad weather, and I needed to stay connected, in case, you know….you needed me.”

Alex Gordon would pick up soda cans by the road for the nickel deposit, and his clothes hadn’t been replaced in years, but he would spend thousands of dollars to stay connected to the internet on the off chance I might need to reach him that way. I had trouble speaking for a moment so I just kept quiet.

After a moment he changed the subject.

“Looks like you got out of the Big Apple at the right time, what with all these terrorists roaming around down there. Glad to see our law enforcement people put a stop to it. Course, there seems to be some mystery about that school with all the explosives. The government’s being all kinda quiet about that one!” he said, eyeing me sideways.

I smiled, not looking at him directly.

“Well, people shouldn’t be messing with our kids!”

“Certainly not when north country boys are on the job!” he agreed, still watching me for reaction.

He knew! The cagey old bastard knew I had been involved!

“Wanna talk about it?”

Surprisingly, I did.

It took about twenty minutes to discuss the morning. It took another two hours to discuss the ramifications of my adventures.

“You’re screwed!” he agreed with a nod, after hearing my tale. He relented that after seeing my bleak expression.

“Well, not really screwed, but you’re in a pickle. Let me think about this for a time and we’ll come back to it,” he said. “Why don’t you check on your friends and then we can head to the farm. I imagine they’ll want to explore in their ‘other’ forms when it gets dark?” he asked obliquely.

“Probably. That’s a big part of the whole thing, having the ability to run,” I answered.

* * *

We collected Brett, Kelly and David, interrupting a conversation about the quality of the interior. David didn’t think it was too bad, a view that Kelly vehemently opposed. Brett was carefully appeasing his mate, although I think he didn’t care much about the old farmhouse’s decorative condition so much as he did the solidity of construction. It seemed to be well built but old. Frankly I agreed with Kelly. The old seventies era wallpaper was rather sad.

Back at Gramps farm we showed them around, introduced them to Len and got them settled in the spare room. David would sleep on the pullout couch in the family room.

Gramps and Len threw together an excellent dinner of steak, potatoes, gravy and green beans. The three city bred guests were amazed that every bit of the dinner had been produced right on the farm, with the exception of the Sam Adams beer that we drank with it.

After dinner, the young pack members changed forms and I gave them a quick tour of the property lines, running on two legs to their four, but keeping up easily enough.

Satisfied that they had their bearings, I left them to run the land on their own, while I returned to the farm.

* * *

Both men looked up as I entered the family room. They had obviously been deep in discussion. Len looked much the same as he always did, just a bit grayer, a bit more weathered. They had served together in the Marines and I’m fairly certain they both saw action in Korea, but details had been in short supply.

“Chris, I was filling Len in on your situation. We have a few ideas for you to think about,” Gramps said.

I nodded, handed out the beers I had grabbed on my way through the kitchen and sat down.

“First, let’s talk about your situation, what the feds might know, what they might guess. Then we’ll discuss what they might do with that info. And last we’ll brainstorm about what you have to work with and what you can do to block them. Okay?” he asked.

I nodded, sipping my beer.

“Okay, at some level or another, the feds are well aware of vampires and weres, as well as Hellbourne and that ilk. They know you have connections to both groups. They also know you can dispel demons, run down and kill werewolves with your hands, render explosives inert, and kill heavily armed, fortified humans in seconds. They must suspect you can do many of the things that vampires can do, except you don’t drink blood, and daylight doesn’t affect you. Do they know that silver doesn’t bother you?”

“Yeah, they would know that, ‘cause Roma knows that,” I said.

“Alright then. They also know that you have an additional ally in the form of Okwari. They must have a pretty good idea that he can go anywhere, find anyone and is pretty much unstoppable. That he will kill anything or anyone he thinks is a threat to his only friend, right?”

I nodded in agreement.

“Alrighty, what else? They know you have family up here, ‘cause they’ve been snooping around, asking questions and eyeballing the farm here.”

I must have frowned at that because Gramps hastened to reassure me.

“Don’t worry about us. Len and I have been dealing with government types for decades. We’ve been on pretty strict security around here since all this started last October. Len sweeps the house twice a day for bugs, and we have several white noise generators to mask voices. Also, we’ve have extra heavy drapes over every window to block any vibrations that they might pick up off the glass with directional laser mikes,” he said.

“You sweep for bugs? Directional laser mikes?” I was incredulous.

Gramps chuckled and a quick grin slid across Len’s otherwise somber face.

“You don’t think we keep up to date? Hell, boy, remember who trains all the local law enforcement types in search and rescue. I got friends in every department, particularly the Border Patrol. They keep me apprised of what’s going on. Fact is, I’ve even seen the Predator drones they use to monitor the borders.”

“They’re using Predators on the Canadian border?” I asked, shocked.

“Of course! Too much land to cover with just people. They just don’t advertise it, that’s all,” he said with a sly grin. “Now, what else do they know? They have any idea about your speed or strength?”

I thought about that, then nodded grimly.

“How?” Len asked.

“When they talk to the teachers and kids from the school, the speed part will be pretty obvious, although they might struggle a bit with believing it,” I said. “The strength part is self-evident.”

Gramps raised both eyebrows in question.

“I would have been difficult for the kids to see. The human eye has difficulty registering older vampire movements. The strength part will be obvious from the damage to the terrorists’ bodies,” I explained.

“Difficult to see?” Len asked, incredulous.

“Yeah,” I said with a shrug.

“Show me.”

I was tempted to go get three more beers but I didn’t trust myself not to pull the fridge door completely off its hinges. I’m still trying to get the hang of things and moving at that speed makes it hard to control my strength. But we had left some bags of chips on the counter in the kitchen. So I went and got them…..at Darkkin speed.

I was back in my spot and the breeze generated by my movements had just ruffled Len’s thinning gray hair when he realized he had a bag of Lay’s brand potato chips (cheddar and sour cream) in his lap.

It was one of the few times in my life I had seen Len with a startled expression on his face. Gramps was gazing at me thoughtfully.

“You’re faster. A lot faster!” Gramps finally said.

“Yeah, I seem to gain ability in spurts. Like this last week or two.”

“Are you as fast as Tanya?”

“Getting pretty close,” was my quiet answer.

He nodded, still thoughtful. Len said nothing, just glancing from me to the bag of chips and back again.

I cleared my throat into the silence and looked pointedly at the chips.

“You gonna open them?” I asked.

A puzzled expression flashed across his face, then he chuckled. “Damn, kid! You really can put the grub away, can’t you?”

“Actually, I have to. My metabolism is crazy.”

Gramps frowned at that.

“That’s your major weakness. Food! You don’t need blood, silver doesn’t bother you, sunlight just gives you a tan, the moon isn’t a factor, but food…lots of food is something you have to have. If they starved you, what would happen?”

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “I get weaker and slower. I don’t heal as quick, can’t do as many things with my aura and if it goes on long enough, the virus will most likely eat me alive.”

“That’s your kryptonite. You need to protect against that. How?” he asked the room in general.

It was a topic I had given much thought to.

“Well, I’ve been trying to add weight, both muscle and fat, by eating myself silly and lifting weights. I also use a bunch of body builder products to try and pack on weight. I carry portable food… nutrition bars, shakes and that kind of thing with me, along with change for vending machines. I schedule myself to eat every half hour whether I feel like it or not. I tuck candy and sugar bags in pockets and bags,” I said.

“Good start. But you need to carry even higher energy stuff. Candy doesn’t have enough empty calories,” he said thoughtfully. I laughed at the thought of candy not having enough energy.

“Okay, we’ll work on that. Now that covers what they know – what don’t they know?” he asked.

“Well, they know about Okwari, but they don’t really have any idea about what he can do. I’m not even sure about what he can do. I think he is way more than I originally thought,” I said, registering Gramps’ surprised look. He had met Okwari several times and been impressed. I continued on.

“They don’t know all the things I can do with aura, they have no real idea how global or wealthy the Covens are, or that Kirby can be useful beyond demon snatching. Hell, I don’t think they really know how much a middle aged vamp can do,” I was ticking items off on my fingers. “Also, I don’t believe they understand much about the Pack. None of them know about the Tear of God, and none of them know about my..er…conversations with Barbiel.”

The room was silent again. Finally, Gramps cleared his throat and spoke.

“Anything else?”

I pondered discussing the dark thing inside me, the berserker or what have you, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. I was ashamed that part of me was demon derived. There was no way I could face his disapproval on top of my own.

“That’s it,” I said.

“Okay, that’s a helluva lot. Let’s do some planning! But first show us the Tear and tell me again what it does,” he said with a determined look.

So we got down to serious work.

Chapter 30

Several hours later, Len retired to his quarters, leaving Gramps and I to do some talking.

“Here’s the thing, Chris. You are too dangerous and have too much power. The government is going to be obsessed with three things; controlling you, killing you and cloning you!” he said.

“Cloning?”

“Well, perhaps duplicating you is a better term. Creating super soldiers and spies and that sorta thing.”

“Sounds like a bad Syfy channel movie!” I said.

He laughed. “As corny and clichéd as it is, it’s also very real.”

“No matter what, always keep in mind, that those three goals will be driving them. You can’t ever let your guard down. And periodically, you are gonna have to throw the fear of God into them…or if your friend Lydia is right about your bear, fear of a god!”

“So I have to what? Threaten them?”

“Yeah, that’s a little blunt but pretty much it in a nutshell. Listen, the kind of guys employed in the NSA, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security are all professional paranoids. They’ll always believe the worst about you, never the truth. So you might as well play to that paranoia,” he said with a shrug.

“I suggest that your best defense is a good offense. Approach them first, take away the initiative. Set up a meeting, plan for them to have excessive force options available, then trump them,” he was on a roll now.

“Also, don’t be surprised by the level your negotiations take you too. They’ll start with a hardboiled type, the kind of guy that wins staredowns with pitbulls. You’ll need to shake him up, bypass him and get to the top.”

“Wait a minute. You’re not suggesting I’ll be dealing with someone at the White House level, are you?”

“Chris, Chris, Chris! You have presented them with a national security issue that is beyond anything they’ve ever dealt with. An individual with the abilities you have displayed, with the allies you have and with a god on Overwatch is probably more dangerous that a missing nuclear weapon!”

“What?” I couldn’t reconcile that he was talking about me. I was no more dangerous to the United States than the church ladies at St. Mary’s. But as I pulled myself out of the equation and looked at it from a distance, I could see his point. I had killed terrorists just this past morning. But what if I was the terrorist? What agency or department could stop me if I went bad?

“Listen, I’ve gotta get to bed. Four-thirty AM comes quick, and those cows don’t milk themselves!”

I said goodnight and cleaned up the snack debris. Then I made up a bunch of turkey sandwiches, along with a plate of cheese, fruit and crackers for the weres when they got in. Were metabolisms raced at almost my level, especially when they changed forms.

About an hour later, the three young wolves came bounding into the house, in two-legged form and in various states of undress. The males’ lack of shirts didn’t bother me, but I had trouble figuring out where to keep my gaze directed when Kelly came in wearing bra and panties, carrying her pants and tee shirt. I chose to focus on the pemmican recipe that Gramps had given me, a modernized version of the old Native American emergency ration that had helped man explore the arctic.

All three were excited, with Brett and Kelly taking turns telling me about the features of the property that they liked best. Even the reticent David was smiling.

“You know, don’t you, that you’re violating the first principle of real estate negotiations by admitting how much you like the property, right?” I said.

“Yeah, but your grandfather is in bed, right?” Kelly asked, still blithely unaware that her state of undress was difficult for me to deal with.

“Ahhh, but you forget that I’m the other owner!” I said, staring into my mixing bowl.

Brett snorted. “Like you didn’t know we loved it when we toured earlier!” he said, nodding in thanks at the sandwich I handed him.

I nonchalantly gave one to Kelly and David each, trying to cover my embarrassment, but Kelly frowned as I avoided looking in her direction. My peripheral vision picked up a slow, sly smile spreading across her face as realization struck home. Brett and David were completely unaware of either her near nakedness or my discomfort, both raised with almost no nudity taboos.

Kelly struck an exaggerated pose, leaning back against the counter with her back slightly arched, her chest thrust outward.

I turned back to my pemmican, dropping the rounded ball of my current batch onto a piece of waxed paper. Another sheet went on top, then I rolled it out into a long, mostly rectangular bar, all the while trying to ignore Kelly’s teasing.

Brett frowned, looking from his mate to me.

Great, now he’ll think I’ve been hitting on her or something. He’ll blow up and I’ll lose a new friend and a renter all at once.

He started laughing.

“Dear One, why are you taunting our host?” he asked, a knowing gleam in his eye.

Kelly smiled a wicked smile. “Because I can! I found his secret weakness. The mighty fighter is scared of naked women!”

I spun around. “I’m not scared, I’m just not used to it, is all.”

“Dude! You’re the most dangerous fighter I’ve ever seen, and you’re blushing! We have got to work on your cool factor!” he laughed.

Relieved that he hadn’t gotten mad, I was able to laugh with them, but I quickly attempted to deflect the whole thing by handing out pemmican bars for them to sample.

“Hmm, what’s this?” Kelly asked around a mouthful.

“It’s a modern update of the old Native American pemmican recipe. I burn calories even faster than you guys, so I’m looking for ways to carry energy dense foods with me,” I explained. “My grandfather was given this recipe by one of his search and rescue guys.”

“Damn, that’s really good! What’s in them?” Brett asked.

“This batch has ground up dried beef, mixed with honey, chopped almonds, raisins and peanut butter. It should have about 400 calories for two ounces. Whatta ya think?”

They had gobbled down the first sample and were raiding the other chunks I had cut from my ‘loaf’.

Eyes wide, they nodded and groaned in delight. The bars did taste good, but the flavor was probably exaggerated by the weres need for calories. I experienced the same craving for calorie dense food whenever I got really hungry. In other words, about five to seven times a day.

“Chris, you oughtta market these! I know the weres would buy them!” David spoke up in a rare moment of excitement.

“No, I should get you guys to market them. You’re the ones with the sporting goods chain!” I laughed.

Kelly’s eyes got huge.

“Brett! I could make them! I could convert the old milk room in the barn and produce pemmican bars. Lupine Sports could sell them to hikers and kayakers! Hell, the Pack alone would buy enough to make it worthwhile. Marissa could help me, at least until she gets a nursing job!” she said, bouncing up and down in excitement.

She still didn’t have a whole lot of clothes on so that had the effect of distracting myself, David and Brett. They may have been used to near nudity, but some things are just hard-wired into us males.

“It would actually be a good use of the milk room. Plus I know a certain beef farmer that might give you a good deal on meat,” I said, warming to the idea. “There is also a local guy who has honey bees. You would need to order the peanut butter and whatever berries and nuts, but that’s easy enough to do.”

“Whoa, wait a minute! This is a great idea and all, but you’ll need money for startup. Meat dehydrators can’t be cheap, not to mention the packaging and ingredients!” Brett protested in mild alarm. “We are gonna need the money we have to move and get set up.”

The gleam in Kelly’s eyes dimmed and it struck me that she was leaving her job as Afina’s administrative assistant to move north, with no certain employment prospects.

“Ahh, Brett? Do you have the rest of my money? From the fight?” I asked.

“Yeah, I almost forgot. It’s in my suitcase..I was going to give it to you but the property distracted me,” he said, embarrassed.

I waved away his chagrin. “Well, I don’t know if it’ll be enough, but why don’t I supply the capital, Kelly can supply all of the work, administration and marketing, and I’ll end up with a cheap supply of these bars!”

“Ah Chris, the money is like twenty thousand. And we don’t know if these will even sell!” he protested.

His mated slapped him on the arm in annoyance, but I quickly spoke up before any further damage was done.

“Brett, as far as I’m concerned, that was found money. And I really, really need to have a large supply of portable food! Besides, the more I think about it, the better the business plan sounds,” I said.

“Kelly has tremendous experience organizing things, the actual manufacturing part is easy, most of the supplies are local and there is an immediate market named ‘the Pack’.”

Kelly was jumping up and down again and I had to look away, although David just leered with a grin, causing Brett to laugh.

“All right! All right! It does sound like a plan. Now Kel, put some clothes on before Chris has a meltdown or something, and David you better stop eyeballing my mate!” he mock growled.

Chapter 31

The next morning Gramps agreed that the pemmican production plan had merit. He quickly offered some additional ideas over breakfast. He, Len, and two of the regular hands had finished the morning chores and come in for breakfast, which I had been busy preparing. The three young Pack members came downstairs in sweats, looking sleep befuddled as they beelined for the coffee pot.

“In addition to beef, you could offer some made with venison,” Gramps suggested.

“Venison!” the three wolves said in unison, clearly entranced by the idea.

“Good idea! You must have noticed all the deer on the property last night?” I asked.

All three nodded.

“Well, your sausage this morning is made from last fall’s deer,” I said.

“Is it legal to take them?” Kelly asked, grabbing a plate and filling it with eggs, hashbrowns, sausage gravy, toast and the aforementioned venison sausage.

“Well, if each of your pack members gets a license and applies of deer management tags that would give you eight to sixteen, plus you could buy deer meat cheap from local hunters,” Gramps offered.

“Also there is a guy locally that raises bison and some elk, although the meat is somewhat expensive, but maybe it would make a premium line.”

“Ummm, bison. Elk.” Brett had a wistful look in his eyes.

“So, what time are we supposed to head back?” I asked.

Brett exchanged glances with the other two, then shrugged. “Later this afternoon. Maybe three or four? Any rush?”

“Nope, just wondered how much time we have. I thought I would give you a tour of the local towns and some of the colleges. Give you an idea of resources, that sorta thing.”

“Great idea.”

I gave them the grand tour of the North Country, showing them the colleges, shops and other facilities. Compared to New York City, the resources were laughable. But all three weres had long since decided on the move, so they looked for the positive where they could. And to be truthful, Clarkson and St. Lawrence are both considered excellent schools, SUNY Potsdam is an excellent value and houses the Crane School of Music, which has supplied the Big Apple with many of its better musicians.

The basic stores are there and the wolves could visit the City at will, although I sensed a fierce determination to achieve independence.

By the middle of the afternoon it was time to head back and after graciously thanking Gramps and ironing out the details of the proposed lease, we flew back to the City. This time I sat in back, Kelly demanding the shotgun position. Her attitude toward me had undergone a complete change in the last twenty-four hours. Leary and cautious had been replaced by a seemingly genuine comfort level and maybe even a friendly like. Perhaps my embarrassment had convinced her of my human nature in a way that no amount of discussion with Brett ever could have. The fact I was going to back her pemmican venture didn’t hurt either. She and I had agreed that I would be silent partner, official tester and disposer of any failed product lines. We would split the profits equally to begin, although I didn’t expect to draw any of mine from the operation. Better to reinvest and let the operation grow.

* * *

Large swaths of the Adirondacks are without cellular coverage and it wasn’t till we got closer to Albany before our individual phones would work with any reliability. The preflight weather report had indicated a large storm system moving up the coast and Brett was very interested in beating it home. As we each checked voice mail and messages, we could see clouds forming way to our South.

I had several messages, both verbal and text. Gina had sent me a big thank you all in capitals and bold text. Chet had left a cryptic voice mail that I was pretty sure informed me that he, Sommers, and Takata were all facing a ton of hard questioning regarding I.S. 341.

I also had a message that I almost deleted; one of those offers for increased service plan coverage or some such. At first it appeared to be from Verizon, but looking closer I found some suspicious phrases.

For only $10.31 each year, you get downloadable photos of all your favorite celebrities from Brittany to Jessica Alba to  Call now to Trac 71 for this special offer.

The price caught my attention because it was mine and Tanya’s birthday, and the flat out obvious initials for Tanya did the rest. Checking my supply of Tracfones I found one numbered seventy-one.

The call went through quick but it wasn’t Tanya that answered.

“Hello?”

I was pretty sure the voice belonged to Anna, a young vamp who I knew only slightly.

“Anna, it’s Chris. I got a message to call. Or at least I think I got a message,” I said.

“Yeah, er …Tanya isn’t here. She’s at the meeting. That’s what she wanted to talk to you about.”

“What meeting?” I asked.

“The meeting with the weres! Aren’t you there, you are supposed to be there!”

“Slow down, I don’t know about any meeting. I’ve been up North. What are you talking about?”

“The weres called a meeting at the Tunnel. You’re supposed to be there too. Tanya and Lydia wanted to know what it was about. But they’re gone, along with Senka and Galina.”

“Hold on a second,” I said, holding my hand over the phone. “Brett, is there some meeting with the Coven that your father called? At some tunnel or something?”

“Not that I know of…” he began to answer, but Kelly interrupted, having been checking her own messages.

“Brett, there’s a message from Afina on my voice mail asking about a meeting with the Coven. Apparently they called it?”

“No, the Coven says your parents called it!” I corrected.

All three of us reached the same conclusion simultaneously.

“It’s a trap!” I said, just as Brett swore and Kelly’s eyes widened.

“Anna, call Tanya and stop her. The weres didn’t call that meeting!” I said into my phone.

“I can’t! They don’t get cell reception underground!”

“Then tell Arkady or whatever security guys are around to get to them fast! Stop them from that meeting!”

“Arkady is with them, but I will send Trenton and some others!”

“Anna, listen, this is important! Send EVERYONE that you can find! Got it?”

I hung up from her and turned to the others. Brett was visibly frustrated, having to fly the plane and unable to get on his own phone. Kelly looked alarmed and David was even quieter than normal.

“Who would do this?” I asked.

The plane was quiet for a moment, then Brett spoke.

“Lots would do it…if they had the knowledge and the connections. Only a handful actually could hope to pull it off. My father will bring at least a standard security team with him. Some armed in two legged form, some in four legged form. I’m not sure about the Coven, that’s your area, but I strongly suspect that there will some really formidable individuals there,” he said. “I doubt any of the normals would be so daring. The fey could try something, but it doesn’t seem their style. I don’t know any other were group big enough to attempt it.”

A cold knot formed in my stomach. “I think I do! Loki’s Spawn have the numbers if they shifted enough people up here.”

“Your mother was suspicious that the Spawn knew about Stacia’s party, and had five members handy to show up. She’s been wondering about a leak,” Kelly said.

“In the Pack? Are you crazy?” Brett demanded, outraged.

“What’s this tunnel that was mentioned?” I asked.

“Atlantic Avenue,” David said quietly.

“Atlantic Avenue is a street!” I said, confused.

“Under Atlantic Avenue is an abandoned train tunnel. It’s been bricked over for years, but it was built in the mid-1800’s by the Long Island Railroad company to get the train out of the city’s traffic. Some guy ‘rediscovered’ it in the seventies and now they give tours to normals, but the supernatural community has used it for meetings and such for decades,” David explained.

“Wait…did you say ‘fey’ a moment ago?” I asked Brett.

“Yeah, fey..you know, elves, fairies, goblins and that sort,” he said puzzled.

“Really! They’re real?”

They all nodded without answering.

“Okay, back to this tunnel. How fast can we get there?”

“We need to land at JFK. We’ll get a Pack security team to pick us up,” Brett said.

It wasn’t fast enough. My chest was getting tighter with every breath and the beast was rattling his cage at the thought of Tanya in a trap. Unbidden an image popped into my head, while ahead of us the City loomed. A wall of roiling black clouds rushed to meet us like a sky-high tsunami of rain.

“I have an idea,” I said, although actually it was Okwari’s suggestion.

Chapter 32

“That’s insane!” Kelly said, after I had detailed the plan.

“Your Alphas and my mate don’t have any time to wait for us to land. And they don’t even know there is a problem yet!”

“You’ll be killed!” David said with certainty.

“I’ll be fine. You’ll have as much danger landing in this storm. By the time you get there it’ll be over one way or the other!” I replied.

The little plane bucked as a sudden gust shoved us sideways, Brett grimly fighting it back on course. I reached up and touched the Tear on its necklace, mentally trying to evoke the stores of resolve and determination locked within it.

“Alright! We’ll try it,” Brett said suddenly. “But don’t blame me if you get killed!”

Maybe the Tear had worked or possibly, his math had work out the same as mine. There just wasn’t time for anything else.

“I’ll have to do some fast talking with JFK flight control, the storm gives me some excuse. I’ll get as low as I can, but the winds over the city are strange on a normal day. This storm makes them deadly!”

He got busy with the radio, while I reviewed the plan. Not a lot to go over, really. It was simple – Brett would fly directly over Atlantic Avenue, getting as low as possible, and I would jump out. Nothing to it! A quick drop of somewhere around 500 feet and then I would need to get through about four or five feet of brick, asphalt and dirt. Of course, I would have considerable help. Ursine help. Okwari had sent me images of me falling slowly through the sky, supported by my own ‘wind’ as he eased me to the ground. I could Lighten myself with vampire techniques and I had easily survived drops of over fifty feet, but still, leaping out of a fully functional aircraft without a parachute seemed insane. My knotted heart said otherwise. Tanya was in real trouble, despite having Senka, Tzao and the others with her. Enough weres, fighting in close quarters could overwhelm almost anything.

I opened my mind as much as I could, straining to feel my connection to Tanya. If only my ability to sense her was as strong as hers to find me.

I felt a tug, just a slight pull, but Brett chose that moment to speak.

“Chris, we’re just about over Atlantic Ave. You’re gonna need to move quick!”

“Listen, just land this thing safely. I’ll take care of your parents and my crew!”

“By yourself?” Kelly asked.

“Kelly, what you don’t know about me is that I’m never by myself!” I responded, yanking the door open and leaping into the wet blackness.

* * *

Immediately, I was flipped end over end, bullets of rain smacking my exposed eyes. I was falling fast, and at first panic threatened to overwhelm me. A weighty tug on the chain around my neck righted me into a facedown sky-diver’s fall, the Tear also lending me determination, even as it straightened my descent. I focused on Lightening my weight and as my speed slowed, a cushion of air formed under me. Okwari simultaneously sent an image of us falling directly toward a massive multi-lane street. The pull I felt from Tanya matched his image of where we were headed, although the connection was now flavored with her rage. She was fighting!

* * *

Normal night vision was useless in the torrential storm, but my version of thermal vision offered small details from below. There were few cars on the wide road below, the storm working to keep people off the streets. A couple of tractor-trailers passed each other, headed in opposite directions. Ground was rushing up fast and suddenly, my supportive wind disappeared from under me, my fall accelerating. I put my arms out in front of me, hands together in a classic dive pose, but with mono edges formed over both hands. Aiming straight at the pavement below I returned to normal weight, letting gravity speed the last fifty feet or so.

* * *

My plan was to use my mono-edged hands and momentum to slam through the asphalt, dirt and bricks. My plan sucked!

I sank elbow deep into the street, slammed to a halt, flipping over onto my back, smacking my head, shoulders and spine hard enough to black out for a second or two. Pain and disorientation disappeared as panic took over and I leaped to my feet. I had made a mini-crater about a foot deep, but before I could do more than glance at it, the sound of screeching tires and a blaring horn interrupted me. Looking up right into the blinding headlights of an onrushing SUV, I could see the driver’s panicked expression as he tried to stop.

It was a big vehicle, part of my mind automatically deciding it was an Escalade, from the Caddy emblem on the front. Twenty feet from impact, it hit something else, something really big. The front grille, bumper and hood caved inward toward the engine and the back wheels came up off the ground, as it slammed to a halt. I switched to Sight, noting the giant green, purple and red form of Okwari, his head pointed at me, not even bothering to pay attention to the machine that had totaled itself against him.

Below me I sensed Tanya’s rage changing to exhaustion. The berserker inside smashed free of his cage, just as car doors slammed and a voice heavy with Brooklyn accent said: “Are you fucking crazy! Whaat’s the fucking matter wit you!”

My head tilted up, the berserker and I looking at three brawny-Italian looking guys, whose expressions of anger flashed over to fear.

“Run!” I said in a voice not my own, just as Okwari rumbled a warning from his invisible position right in front of them.

The three changed directions fast, turning and running back into traffic, where the other oncoming cars were slowing at the sight of the wrecked Escalade.

My attention turned back to the barrier of stone and dirt below me, but I was pushed out of position by three thousand pounds of furry power.

Okwari stood up to his full height, hunched his massive shoulders forward and brought both trashcan-lid sized paws down on the ground like a polar bear breaking the ice dome of a seal’s den.

I’d like to tell you that I loosened it for him, but anyone who saw the road buckle down into a sudden depression would know the truth. A five foot wide hole had opened into a pit of darkness, a gust of damp, moldy air rushing up, smelling of vampire and wet were, fear and blood. Lots of blood.

No sooner had Okwari pulled back then I dove past him into the hell hole below his feet.

Chapter 33

I can’t tell you a lot of detail of my fall into that pit, but some things managed to get seared into my memory. My fighter-self was in charge, dropping twenty feet to the dirt floor of the old tunnel, my body already oriented in the direction where I sensed Tanya.

We had come through right on top of the combined Coven and Pack group, twenty-seven all together, according to my fight brain. The tunnel extended on either side of them, filled wall to wall with Loki Spawn weres. Wolves, bears and cats mixed with Spawn in human form and beast-man form, all fighting to get at the vastly outnumbered vampires and Pack members. Two hundred, thirteen was the number that popped unbidden into my head. The fighting had paused for a microsecond as my bear punched through the ceiling, but was now back in full frenzy.

I had already oriented on Tanya, who was out on the edge of her group, fighting fifteen weres by herself as Lydia pulled a wounded Senka back to the slightly more protected center of the group.

A were bear bit down on my mate’s left arm and just before his massive teeth crunched shut, my mind detected the gleam of silver – painted onto his teeth.

From here it gets sketchy. All I can tell you is that the sight of those brutal teeth closing on my Tanya’s slim arm broke my sanity and I went nuts.

The first six Spawn in front of me exploded into shreds as I shot through them, my entire body wreathed with mono edges, my arms spinning in arcs too fast for even the weres to see. I went through another ten enemy, like a mower through grass. Arms, legs, torsos, heads, gun barrels, parts of machete blades all parted like air as I spun forward.

But as fast as I was going, I still wasn’t to Tanya as I saw a giant wolfman pull back his silver-clawed arm to swipe at Tanya’s exposed head. A purple-black bolt of aura from my right hand completely removed his head before he could swing. The bear still had her arm in his jaws and I pulled with my left hand. Most of his brain and part of his spine ripped clear of his body, shooting across the thirty feet to my hand. I threw the remains into the face a rushing wolf, then crushed its skull with a front kick.

Behind me I heard Lydia yell. My internal heads-up display showed two giant cougars, each the size of a tiger, feinting at the young guardian, who was doing her best to protect Tanya’s grandmother. Without conscious thought, a bolt shot from my hand and speared both cats, one through the chest, the other through the hips.

Tanya was struggling with five, no, six new weres. I wasn’t going to make it, not before they killed her. Not before she was torn apart by silver tipped claws and teeth. Not before I lost her for good.

Any anger or rage I had ever felt before, at the loss of my family, at Hellbourne, at Reyes, at poor George Lassiter, at the forces of my own government, all paled before the geyser of purple-black fury that exploded from deep inside me. The Tear on my chest went white hot, I screamed in rage and the world exploded into violet light.

* * *

The sound of dripping water is the first thing I can clearly recall. That and the awful smell of burnt hair. Then the warmth and weight of a slim body held in my lap. My vision returned just as I realized cool lips were fastened to my right wrist and a steady pull was suctioning blood from my arm.

She was draped across my lap, her right hand, bloody and grimed, holding my wrist to her mouth. Both eyes were closed and I had an immediate flashback to my first meeting with her.

This time, just as then, her eyes snapped open, startling me with their glowing blue irises.

I was sitting cross-legged on the ground, my head bowed over her broken form.

An enormous presence was looming over us both, but I knew instantly that it was the protective bulk of my friend.

“Chris?” a voice spoke softly, yet with an urgent tone.

I lifted my head and saw Lydia facing me from twenty feet away, Galina, Nika, Arkady, Senka and Tzao arrayed behind her. Further back, Brock and Afinia watched with me with wary eyes.

Nika moved up next to Lydia, her gaze locked on me.

“Chris?” Lydia said again, more urgently.

She was looking at me like someone might watch a rabid dog, with fear and wariness.

Why would Lydia be afraid of me?

I opened my mouth to speak, but the sentence in my head failed somewhere between my brain and my mouth.

“Mine!” I stated in challenge.

Lydia’s expression changed to shock and she involuntarily stepped back half a pace at my utterance.

Nika’s expression didn’t change. “He’s puzzled by your fear. He’s also having trouble talking. He meant to say ‘She is mine and I am hers’ but all that came out was ‘Mine!’ ” the slim mind-reader reported, never taking her eyes from me.

I’ve always thought Nika was just a major pain in my ass, but I had to admit, she was handy to have around when my brain and mouth came unwired.

Lydia stepped forward, slowly, her face firming with resolve.

“Chris, we need to get to Tanya to help her!” she said.

I cleared my throat and mumbled my way around a response.

“S-so come on, all-lready!”

Why were they waiting? Where were the Spawn? What the hell had happened?

Lydia and Nika surged forward at my words, and after a wave from Lydia, the rest moved up as well.

Okwari woofed once, nudged me with his snout and then spun out of the tunnel in a swirl of wind. The remaining vampires and Pack weres looked around wildly, as they felt rather than saw his departure.

Lydia began to examine Tanya, but Nika kept her attention on me. I glanced around the tunnel. Not a single Loki’s Spawn were remained in sight. The tunnel arched up over my head, reaching about seventeen or eighteen feet, its walls and ceiling made of brick. The floor was dirt, which was turning into mud in the center, right under the compact car-sized opening that Okwari had punched through the curved ceiling. Above, on the street, I could hear sirens and see flashes of light from cars and approaching emergency vehicles. Water dripped and ran in through the opening in mini-torrents.

“Lydia, we are leaving NOW!” Senka said firmly from fifteen feet away. Most of the other vampires had kept their distance from me and now were headed toward an opening in the brick wall that I was pretty sure the normal world was unaware of.

Tanya released her grip in my arm as Lydia slipped a needle into her arm, the other end connected to a bag of O positive blood. Then the tiny vampire scooped up Tanya like she was weightless and looked at me.

I climbed unsteadily to my feet, suddenly dizzy. Lydia looked concerned.

“You alright there, North boy?”

“Yeah I’m fine…” I heard myself say as I took one step, the tunnel spun, then everything went gray.

Chapter 34

I woke from a bad dream. In my nightmare it had been dark and raining, much like the night before. I had felt an urgent need to get out of the downpour and so took refuge in a handy culvert. But the culvert became a grave and the rain changed to blood, then became filled with chunks of weres, falling on my head and shoulders. I huddled at the bottom of the grave, staring at the dirt where the blood puddled and flowed. The tiny rivelet under my gaze washed away the moldy grave dirt and something white shown through. More dirt eroded and the white object grew larger and took on the features of a vampire. My vampire. I dug around her to get her free, but she began to sink into the earth. Her eyes flashed opened, then the dirt pulled her below with a squelching, sucking sound and she was gone.

That was the part where I woke up.

* * *

A cool, powerful hand was squeezing my arm and I knew instantly that she was alive, wounded yet recovering. I sat upright and pivoted to look down at her. Tanya’s eyes were alert and bright as she questioned me with a look, yet her left arm was bandaged around the elbow and bicep. An IV entered the same arm, pumping O positive from the bag hung next to the bed.

“Nightmare,” I said, in answer to her unspoken question. “How are you?”

She cleared her throat first. “Alive and healing…thanks to you!” she said with a smile, weakly.

Checking her over, I found just the one bandage, the rest of her healed back to perfection.

* * *

Then I looked around the room. It was obviously a bedroom, decorated in an opulent fashion with very expensive furnishings. Other than that it looked like a bunker. The walls were poured concrete, buttressed ceiling massively solid.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Safehouse,” she replied, tapping a small button next to the bed. A microsecond later the door opened and Lydia blurred through, followed by Nika, who was carrying a tray.

I smiled at the spikey-haired vamp and the beautiful blonde, but my focus zoomed in on the cloth covered tray the mind reader was carrying. Food! I was suddenly, overwhelmingly hungry. Starving, famished. Potentially the hungriest I have ever been.

Nika put the tray down on the little hardwood table at the foot of the bed and pulled the cloth covering it off as she backed gracefully away, a small smile on her face.

I was suddenly standing next to the bed, my entire attention on the tray of food that smelled amazing. Then I was at the tray, trying to decide what to eat first. There was a huge bowl of oatmeal, which smelled of butter, blueberries and brown sugar. A stack of maple syrup (real!) covered pancakes and a plate of Canadian bacon vied for attention, as did the the bowl of scrambled eggs.

“Ahem!” Lydia said with a throat clearing sound.

I glanced up at her, then followed the direction of her gaze, looking down to discover I was stark naked. Lydia arched one eyebrow in amusement, the corner of Nika’s mouth twitched slightly as if she might actually know how to grin. I was too hungry to care, so I grabbed the whole tray and zipped back into bed, the food on my lap.

“Tanya, he’s a keeper!” Nika said quietly, her grin fully evident.

I’ve known Nika almost as long as I’ve known Tanya. But I never got to know her, not really. She is one of Tanya’s closest friends, placed with the pure bred vampire to help monitor her condition during the long years when Tanya refused to speak.

The Coven considered her worth a thousand times her own weight in any precious metal you care to name. True mind readers are rare. Ones with Nika’s ability are almost unheard of.

But I never spent much time around her, too nervous of her abilities to feel comfortable. Now she was picking on me almost like Lydia.

“Oh, he’s a prize, alright!” Lydia said, in a sardonic tone.

Okay, so the blonde has a long way to go to get to Lydia’s level.

“Is that a challenge?” Nika responded to my thought.

I held one shaky hand up in submission while I shoveled eggs into my mouth with my other, not bothering with a fork.

“Holy shit Chris! Slow down! They aren’t gonna outrun you, ya know,” Lydia said, taking in my performance.

“He’s hungrier than he has ever been,” Nika explained for me.

“Ah, Doc? Could you come in here, please?” Lydia asked in a normal speaking voice.

Nonetheless, the door opened and the dark, lean doctor glided into the room.

“Ah, Chris, how are you doing?” he asked calmly.

I nodded around the mouthful of sausage (they had been in a little covered dish) then swallowed.

“I’m starving! But other than that I feel pretty good. Maybe a little tired, but overall, just really hungry,” I said, then wrapped a pancake around a wad of bacon and stuffed the whole thing in my mouth.

Lydia looked half fascinated, half disgusted. It had been a long time since she had ingested normal food and the whole thing seemed to make her queasy. I swallowed half my food, opened my mouth and pointed at the chewed mess inside, before swallowing again.

“Look, Lyd! SEE FOOD!” I said.

“Never mind, Doc. He’s fine…as big an asshole as ever!” the green-eyed little vamp said.

Doctor Singh ignored our attempt at banter, instead giving me a professional once over, then checking on Tanya. I got serious.

“How is she, Doc?” I asked, food forgotten for the moment.

“She’s doing great, Chris! It’ll be some time before she’s back to full specs so to speak, but she’s healing at her normal phenomenal rate,” the vampire physician said. “The surface damage has mostly healed, it’s the silver poisoning that is taking some time. But your application of your own potent blood helped immensely!”

“So what happened? I don’t remember a lot, just seeing Tanya get bit by a bear with silver teeth. The rest is blurry or just plain gone.”

“Hmm, well, it’ll probably come back to you at some point, but I’ll leave it to the Elders to fill you in,” he said. “I will say that fighting weres with teeth and claws painted with silver nitrate is nasty business. They would have eventually died from the very stuff they painted on their own teeth!”

He left with a wave, leaving me to look a question at Lydia while I polished off the last of the food. She didn’t need to read my mind to know what I wanted.

“Senka and Tzao want to…discuss things with you. When you’re ready and dressed I’ll take you to them. We don’t want to expose you to anyone else!”

“Alright, but I need more breakfast first,” I said, popping up to grab a pair of jeans that were stacked near the bed. Tanya always makes sure I have a supply of clothes handy.

“Jeeze, Chris! Warn us next time, we could go blind!” Lydia protested at my nakedness.

“Yeah, like I don’t know it was you two who undressed me in the first place!”

Nika and Lydia exchanged glances with each other and Tanya who shrugged, still too weak to say much.

“Oh come on! You two are the least afraid of me and the only ones Tanya would trust!”

“I’m not afraid of you! Who are you calling afraid?” Lydia said.

“I saw your face in the tunnel, Lyd! You were scared of me. Why”

She started to protest, then stopped herself. After a moment, she went ahead.

“Listen, I couldn’t tell if you even knew who I was let alone what you would do next!” she said.

“What I would do next? What does that mean? What did I do in the first place?”

She looked uncertain. Just then, Tanya’s cool hand touched my arm and I snapped around to look at her. She took a breath, then spoke, softly, with effort.

“You killed them, all of them…the other weres,” she said.

“I killed all of the Spawn? How?”

Nika spoke up.

“We’re not sure. The ceiling exploded and you came in like a bolt of lightning, ripping through the weres like rag dolls, then Tanya went down under a bunch and you freaked. There was this flash…like a burst of purple light. It came from you. We couldn’t see for a moment…when our vision cleared, there you were. Holding Tanya on your lap…growling,” she said, a puzzled look on her face. “All the weres had disappeared – gone like smoke. At first we couldn’t figure it out, but then we realized there was dust covering our clothes, hair, everything and it wasn’t dust…it was ash!”

It was by far the longest speech I had ever heard her make. And I didn’t know what to make of it. I could almost remember a flash, but not much else.

“The growling would have been Okwari. I seem to remember him standing over us,” I said, to clear up that part.

Lydia shook her spikey haired head. “No, Chris. He was at the other end of the tunnel where he had been tearing apart Spawn. He only came over when you growled.”

“I growled?” I asked. All three nodded. “Weird! So you thought I might go…what? Nuts on you or something?” I looked at Lydia as I said this.

“Chris, you had just wiped almost two hundred weres off the planet like so much mold and you were growling and not responding…so yeah, I was a little concerned!”

I thought about that and then nodded, before turning my head to look at Nika.

“I wasn’t scared. I could read your thoughts. You were only interested in protecting Tanya and to a degree the rest of us. Your blast or flash or whatever didn’t harm any of the Coven or the Pack weres!” she said.

“How the hell did I manage that?

They couldn’t answer.

“Come on, the Elders would like to speak with you,” Lydia said.

As I pulled on my shirt, Tanya started to swing her legs off her bed. Her Hello Kitty pajamas were fairly incongruous.

‘Whoa! Where do you think you’re going?” Lydia asked.

“With him,” Tanya replied through gritted teeth.

“You’re not supposed to be going anywhere,” Lydia said.

Tanya gave her a level look and her sister in essence sighed, acknowledging the inevitable.

I swooped in and scooped my little vampire princess up in my arms. She started to protest, then suddenly changed her mind and snuggled into my chest. Nika grabbed the bag of blood off the IV rack and handed it to Tanya, who simply held it in her hand.

The four of us traversed the underground fortress in this manner, with Lydia leading, me carrying Tanya in the middle and Nika following close behind. The vampires we met in the corridors, moved quickly out of the way, most craning to glimpse the young full-blood, but quick to avoid my gaze.

Finally Lydia opened a steel door that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a battleship and led us into a well appointed sitting room, where Tzao and Senka sat motionless.

Senka raised one eyebrow in Tanya’s direction, but said nothing as I settled her into a loveseat, with me next to her. The other two found seats and sat quietly while I bore the silent inspection of the two ancient vampires. I seem to know a vampires age at a glance, and my eyes told me that Senka was over twelve hundred years old with Tzao around thirteen hundred. Yet they appeared to be in their thirties.

“Chris, we wanted to have a word with you,” Senka began in her crisp British accent, but stopping when I held up my hand.

“Elders, if I may. I need to express something first,” I said, touching the Tear to fuel my determination. “I belong to Tanya and she belongs to me! I will not allow anyone to separate us again.” I said evenly, then waited for the shitstorm to hit.

Neither of the Elders reacted, then Senka continued.

“We agree,” was all she said.

“You do?”

Both nodded once in unison, like eerie twins that looked nothing alike.

“We do. Chris, I’ve told you how the Darkkin feel about Tatiana. How every member of the Coven has felt she was destined for important things?”

I nodded and she continued.

“When you came into the picture, waking her and claiming her heart, I felt you might be the key. The individual who would ground her and keep her stable,” she said. “But Lydia felt differently. Lydia felt that Tanya was here to ground you…to keep you from, what’s the phrase? Going off?”

“More like going Postal,” Lydia supplied from her spot.

Senka gave her a look, then turned back to me.

“I couldn’t begin to understand her point of view. That you would somehow be a force to contend with,” the blonde Elder said. “Oh, I held you in high regard. Your abilities were amazing. But I never grasped what you would become.”

I was following her but their rapid change of heart from our last meeting had my head reeling.

“Chris, there were over two hundred Spawn in that tunnel. When you screamed and …..flashed..or whatever it was, you flash fried everyone of them, including their dead into ash.

There has never been any vampire or being, that we” she looked at Tzao, who nodded, “have any knowledge of, either directly or in our rather extensive archives, that could do that.”

Tzao spoke in a crystal toned voice. “The ones attacking Tatiana were destroyed first and fastest, the rest from there.”

“How do you know that? Which died first?” I asked.

“We found two self-contained cameras, set by the Spawn, likely to provide proof of our demise,” Senka said. “Fairly sophisticated units, I’m given to understand, with a relatively high rate of recording. Our technicians have processed the information. Let me show you.”

She picked up a remote and pressed several buttons, which caused a large high-def LCD flatscreen to rise up from an unassuming chest. Another click of a button and two images were displayed side by side. Taken from each end of the tunnel, the videos displayed all the events before I got there right up till the vamps found the cameras after my ‘flash’ or whatever it was.

They were right, the weres on Tanya simply exploded into ash, then a concentric circle of violet fire flared through the rest of the Spawn, sparing any Pack or Coven members that were around them. In one case, a Pack were was on top of a Spawn and ended up falling when the Spawn vaporized underneath him.

“Wow…that’s pretty freaky!” I said, feeling a bit surreal.

“Ya think?” Lydia said absently, still staring at the screen.

Senka gave her a glance, then looked back at me. “You don’t remember how you accomplished that?”

I shook my head. “I remember seeing Tanya go down under a wave of weres, and no matter how many I killed, I knew I wasn’t gonna get there in time. I can also remember thinking ‘No! Not gonna happen!’ with incredible determination and rage. Then, nothing…till Lydia was calling my name.”

Everyone was silent, each processing the videos and my words internally.

“Okay, so that will remain a mystery for now,” Senka said. “What’s your next step, Chris?”

I looked at five expectant faces, took a deep breath and told them.

Chapter 35

I entered Washington Square Park from the Southwest corner, off West Fourth Street, as it was closest to my destination. The sun was not quite directly overhead. It’s not a big park, only about six or seven acres tucked in lower Manhattan, a block or so from the Avenue of the Americas. General Creek had chosen this location for our meeting.

After my conversation with the Coven leaders, we had agreed on this course of action. We had planned madly, drawing the Pack into it as well. Once we had the framework, I had called General Creek and asked to meet, letting him pick the time and place. That was important, because the only way the government would get my message would be if they controlled the details of the meeting as much as possible. The impact would be that much greater when I took away their advantages, one by one.

* * *

To the casual observer, the lower corner of the park appeared to be closed for renovations, yellow ‘DO NOT CROSS’ tape cordoning off the area. I ducked under the tape, my internal fighter noting the dark blue van on McDougal Street and the two black Chevy Suburbans parked on Fourth, engines running. This part of the park was famous for its built-in chess tables. Ahead of me, at the furthest chess table sat two figures. I had expected one, but wasn’t all together surprised to find the other.

General Creek rose from his seat at the table and crossed to shake my hand, his posture stiff, his face expressionless. He was wearing khakis and a dark green commando sweater. He looked military even in casual clothes, contrasting with my jeans and blue runners jacket. The other man stood more slowly, his movements managing to convey a sense of self importance. Black suit, a lean five feet, eleven inches or so, with dark hair and black eyes. His ethnicity was difficult to pin down. A slight tilt in his eye structure spoke of Asia, his olive toned skin—the Mediterranean.

“Chris Gordon, this is Mr. Kincaid,” the general introduced us.

“General, I was expecting to meet with just you?” I asked, although I wasn’t really surprised.

“The powers that be and all that,” he explained negligently.

>Bartholomew Kincaid, special envoy from the President< Nika’s voice said from the collar of my jacket. The tag inside would tell you that the jacket was made in Russia, not China, and the sophisticated electronics built into the shell would tell you this wasn’t your average jacket. It was built for Russian intelligence services and my Russian vampires had excellent connections with all levels of Moscow’s government. The headlight reflective patches on the back and arms were actually sensors, designed to pick up the infrared laser beam being directed at it from the fifth floor window of the building on the corner of McDougal and Fourth. One of Deckert’s men was keeping the laser locked onto my back, so that the secure carrier wave contained within the coherent beam of light would carry Nika’s messages to me with no fear of interception.

>He’s going to play tough, feels safe with two…no make that three snipers and the fast reaction guys in the cars<

I decided that having a mind reader in the family was worth the lack of privacy, although Tanya had promised to teach me how to block Nika’s abilities.

>You’re welcome!< Nika’s voice answered my thoughts.

“Ah, Officer Gordon. I don’t normally get to meet with fugitives from justice,” Kincaid said with a light voice. He didn’t offer to shake my hand, instead simply point to the chair across the chess table from his own. We both sat and the general sat on the bench next to our table.

“So Mr. Kincaid, who doesn’t meet with fugitives, can I assume you represent the White House in this?”

He frowned, just slightly, and only for a micro second. Ah, good…take that you smarmy bastard!

“Yes…” he said, but I interrupted.

“Good, because I would just as soon get this done in one sitting. I don’t want to waste time.”

His eyes flashed darkly, not liking my control of the conversation.

He paused to regroup, taking a drink from his Starbucks coffee, and adjusting the angle of the laptop that sat open in front of him on the chess table. I noticed that the little camera clipped to the top of the computer was facing me, not him.

“Officer Gordon, you are facing eight counts of murder. I assure you the evidence is overwhelmingly against you. You need to turn yourself in.”

>He’s just trying to rattle you. There is no intention of ever bringing charges for the school incident<

“Listen, Barty…do you mind if I call you Barty? Let’s cut the federal charges crap and get down to business. You, and by you I’m talking about the White House, want to control me, clone me or kill me. That’s why you’re here.”

He started at the mention of his first name, frowned and tried to gather his thoughts. I forged on ahead.

“If you’ve listened to General Creek here, and by you I’m again referring to the White House,” I nodded in Creek’s direction, “then you’ll know that I’m actively opposed to all three. So let’s get to the part where you lay out the daunting resources piled against me.”

He wore a perpetual frown now, the conversation not going anything like he imagined.

“For the sake of argument, maybe it’s a good idea to do just that,” he began. “The President has authorized the use of any and all resources of the United States government to bring you to justice. We will utilize all of our military, law enforcement, legal and economic capabilities. Granted, you appear to have formidable abilities, but you are just one man, albeit one with a rather large pet.”

“Economic? Really? Tell me about that,” I asked.

“As we sit here, operatives are in the process of seizing forty-seven of your….girlfriend’s properties. We have frozen your trust accounts, your credit cards, and have seized your apartment and vehicle. You have no resources and your ‘friends’ won’t either. We may even seize their sleeping quarters.”

I paused, fingers steepled in front of me, elbows on the table.

>Forty-seven? Tell him that the Coven is selling forty-seven billion in US Treasuries, one billion per property. Explain our economic power< Galina’s voice said. I knew she was a part of this, but I was having a hard time reconciling the fact that she was on my side. Mothers-in-law weren’t known to be supportive.

“Barty, do you even know anything about the Coven? Anything at all?” I asked

“I am the President’s Advisor on anomalous phenomenon. I am considered the country’s foremost expert on the vampires,” he said, drawing himself up.

“Really? Did you know that the Coven is the second largest holder of U.S. debt after China? Did you know we have members in every country on the planet? That our liquid assets total in excess of one trillion dollars?” I asked. “I can see that you’re having a hard time swallowing those little factoids so, if you want to pull up the bond markets on your laptop there, you can watch as we sell off forty-seven billion in treasuries in the next few minutes. One billion for every property seized. The average volume of treasuries traded daily is about 450 billion, so we’ll be selling a bit more than ten percent of that number. China took an entire month to sell thirty-five billion. Wonder what it’ll do to the markets?”

“Please – your bluff is ridiculous! Don’t you think we know who holds our debt? There is no corporation or organization that owns more than a billion without us knowing all about them. You’ll have to do better than that!” he said.

“Okay Mr. Vampire Expert, what’s the average age of a Coven member? What’s the average wealth?

How many portfolios do we run, domestic and international? How many corporations do we own outright? How many American jobs do we provide?”

He just looked at me, his face reflecting an epic struggle between anger and confusion.

“Don’t know? Here, I’ll help you out: 206 years, seven million dollars, over ten thousand portfolios, several thousand corporations, and the big number of the night…well over a million jobs!”

“Ttthat’s impossible. We would find that sort of thing!” he insisted.

“Vampires follow two sets of laws – the laws of the country they are in and the laws of the Coven”

“What the hell does that mean?” Kincaid asked.

“He means that vampires have first allegiance to the laws of the Coven, so their individual wealth becomes part of the Coven without leaving paper trails in the laws of our world,” General Creek explained.

I looked at him with fresh respect. Somebody had been listening to the real experts (he probably learned it from Roma and maybe Gina).

“Now let’s talk about your military power while we wait for the bond sales to go through. You’ve got what? Three snipers? Couple of car loads of special operators? Some of those exceedingly fit young men I see meandering about the open part of the park, each with a rather suspiciously large book bag?” I asked. “What else?”

>He is thinking about two ‘Reapers and Spooky’?< Nika said.

>Reapers are MQ-9 Reaper drones outta th 174th Fighter Squadron in Syracuse, Spooky is most likely an AC-130U gunship on station a mile or two out – watching you on high resolution cameras< Deckert’s voice chimed in.

>the weasels snagged the snipers< he added.

We had hired the weasel clan to help with outside action, as the daylight tended to distract all but the eldest vampires.

>Okay Chris, the boys in the Suburbans are asleep!<

Someone, most likely one of Deckert’s men had rolled a sleepy-time grenade under both Suburbans. The vehicles were standard make, right off the assembly line and had no special air filters. He hadn’t mentioned the blue van, ‘cause that’s where Nika and company were hanging out.

>Not sure what you can do about the air assets?< he commented.

I wasn’t either, not being sure even where they were. Okwari chose that moment to slip an image into my head, well three images, each showing one of the aircraft. He also assured me he could rip them all from the sky. I thanked him, my mind taking over the images and keeping track automatically. I didn’t want him to smash the gunship as its entire crew would be killed and they were just doing their jobs. Likewise the drones could end up smashing down on inhabited spaces in the city.

“You brought two armed Reapers and a friggin’ AC-130?” I rounded on Kincaid.

He was alternately taken aback by my anger and knowledge of his assets. Eventually his smugness returned.

“I told you, Gordon, any and all resources!”

“So you’re gonna what? Blow up lower Manhattan? Are you a moron?” I glanced at Creek, who looked tense.

Kincaid’s face turned red with anger. “I will if you or your pet get out of line!”

>He’s also thinking of ‘any other opportune targets’< Nika said, suddenly.

Other targets? That could only be Tanya and the Elders. The beast slammed his cage door at the same time my fist destroyed the side of the table closest to me. Both men jumped back.

“You’re thinking of blowing up Tanya?” I said, but it wasn’t my voice. It was much deeper and much, much rougher.

>Christian! Calm down! Handle the aircraft and try not to kill them< Tanya said, speaking for the first time.

I was still furious, but the beast wasn’t in danger of breaking free.

“Well…lucky for you, Kincaid, my better half has talked me out of anything precipitous. But I gotta tell you – the President almost lost his ‘special envoy’!”

From inside the cage, the dark beast offered an amazing idea. Figuring what the hell, I tried it. Calling to Kirby, my shadow hawk friend, I sent him the images of the plane and two drones. The concept was that maybe if he flew through the fuselage it could disrupt the avionics. The concept turned out to be great, although I had expected him to fly through them one at a time. Instead, my minds image showed a smoky raptor form the size of a car, fly through all three at once. Either Kirby could be in three places at once or there were more than one Kirby. Either way, the effect was instantaneous. The Hercules airframe that was the gunship started to fall from the sky as all systems crashed. After dropping several hundred feet, the power came back on, at least enough to get the engines restarted. The repowered plane immediately left station and turned toward the nearest airbase, probably Stewart in Newburgh.

One of the drones had a similar experience, falling, then restarting and returning to base. The other drone just fell. And it was falling toward apartment buildings on the other side of the East River. Without conscious thought of what I was doing, I reached out with my aura and pulled the drone over the river, letting it fall into the water.

“Listen, Kincaid, we’ve rounded up your snipers, the guys in the Suburbans are knocked out, and the Spooky gunship and one of the Reapers are headed to emergency landings. The other Reaper is sinking to the bottom of the East River. You’ll want to get some diver to retrieve it. Can’t have Hellfire missiles floating around New York Harbor, now can we?”

Kincaid just stared at me, then suddenly scrambled to find his cell phone that I could hear vibrating in his pocket. “Yes?” he answered, his face going sheet white as he listened. “Er..yes Sir…nnno Sir! Okay, Mr. President!”

He reached out with his free hand and turned the laptop toward me. The screen was filled with the very famous image of our current President.

Chapter 36

“Hello Officer Gordon. I think it’s time I played a direct role in these discussions,” he said, after Kincaid upped the volume.

It was surreal to see the President of the United States on an LCD screen and have him addressing me!

I shook it off.

“Mr. President,” I acknowledged guardedly.

“Well, you’ve made some strong points, Officer Gordon. General Creek advised us not to take this tack, but frankly we felt he was overly impressed with your abilities. Now it seems you have proven him correct.”

I nodded, still gathering my thoughts. It was one thing to speak to Barty – the President’s representative. It was altogether different to speak directly to the Man himself, even if I wasn’t a fan of his.

“But as impressive as you’ve shown your resources to be, our commitment was just a tiny fraction of what it could be.”

“Mr. President, your administration has always projected a message of outreach and discourse. Yet, the government’s approach to me has been hostile to say the least, to the point of almost declaring war against the Coven and the supernatural world,” I said.

He frowned, but motioned for me to continue.

“The purpose of this meeting wasn’t to start a fight, but to provide some solid information to replace the crap you’ve been given to date,” I continued, part of me noting that I had just said ‘crap’ to the President.

“The view I’ve been getting from Kincaid here and before him, Agent Duclair, was that the supernatural world was wild and lawless, chaotic and out of control. My message today was meant to reinforce that the supernatural world is organized and follows rules and laws – albeit different laws than our own.

“You seem to have a valid point, Officer Gordon,” he said, frowning in thought. “I’ll admit that nobody mentioned the depth of the economic impact before today. To my knowledge it hadn’t been considered.”

“Sir, the Coven is the oldest government on Earth. Thousands of years of continual service. Darkkin, as vampires prefer to call themselves, are mostly very careful about following rules and avoiding unnecessary killing. Mind you, their nature is completely predatory, but it makes more sense for them to live among and with humans than to be at war with them. It’s a kind of symbiotic relationship. We, humans, although I’m not sure I can include myself anymore, provide food. The Darkkin in turn use their resources to provide jobs and economic stability. Mr. President, did you know that the Coven controls almost all the private blood banks in this country and abroad? That most of the blood that supports our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan comes from their supply? It’s true!”

“I would like to believe what you are telling me, Officer, but the evidence I’ve seen has shown me nothing but murder and horror,” he said, a micro shudder running through him involuntarily.

“Of course, Sir. Vampires are first and foremost predators, and there are always those in any society that break the rules. The Coven punishes those Darkkin, as any murder draws unwanted attention. The punishment is generally death.”

I was careful not to say that all killing was punished because that would have been a lie. Vampires were killers, it was only the kills that drew public attention that would be punished. A homeless person drained and left to look like death by exposure would be frowned on, but not punishable by death.

“So you are warning dire consequences from the Coven if we seek to bring you to justice?” the President said.

“What justice? I killed eight terrorists that were holding 900 people – mostly children, hostage with explosives. Bring that case to trial and watch your poll numbers plummet. But that would never happen would it? No, my so-called trial would occur out of sight with the decision fixed ahead of time,” I said, unable to keep the bitter tone out of my voice. “Actually, Mr. President, I was trying to convey the Coven’s place in things so that you would leave them alone. Mr. Kincaid here was looking for an opportunity to unleash his firepower against my fiancé. That would put you at war with both the Coven and myself.”

“So I get the Coven’ s power, Gordon, and you are a formidable individual to be sure, but you’re only one man,” he said.

“Ahh! Now we get to the heart of my message, Sir. I keep telling you folks, and I would have thought the lobby of the Homeland Defense building would be enough, but apparently not. Mr. President, I’m really never alone.”

“Oh I haven’t forgotten your pet, Officer, but again, it’s just him and you against the U.S.”

I sighed, rubbed the bridge of my nose, while receiving a message from Okwari. I sent him my own thoughts in the form of a request. The response was a grudging acceptance.

“Mr. President, for the last time – he’s not a pet. He’s fully sentient and not really even a bear. Or maybe I should say, he’s way more than a bear. Maybe bear-god would be appropriate,” I said.

“But it’s out of my hands. Mr. President…he tells me you’re in your bunker.”

>It’s called the Presidential Emergency Operations Center –PEOC< Deckert said.

“Mr. President…how’s your heart? I hope you’re in good shape, Sir, because he’s coming to make his point in person!” I said.

The President had time to widen his eyes at my statement, then Okwari was there…in the room with him, off camera.

The next few minutes were chaos, as Secret Service agents fired ineffective rounds, and the President was hustled as far back in the room as possible. I could follow it in my head, the view from Okwari’s eyes better than the one from the camera.

Within a couple of seconds, all the humans were against the far wall and then having made his point, Okwari turned to the bunker’s locked, armored steel door and ripped it from its hinges like wet soggy paper. Then he was gone.

The scene on the laptop was blank, just the Presidential Seal on the wall, behind where the President had been sitting. Voices were jumbled among the confusion, but I could hear the tones of panic edging back to a semblance of calm.

Kincaid looked ready to hurl, his face a sickly green color. General Creek was alarmed, watching me warily, but far from any kind of panic.

“They’re all right, General. Okwari promised me he wouldn’t hurt them, but he insisted on delivering his own message.”

He brushed a hand through the bristly stubble of his crew cut, sighed and spoke: “I tried to tell them. But it’s difficult for people to believe unless they’re there and see it with their own eyes.”

I nodded, but before I could answer, the President resumed his spot in front of the camera, which oddly hadn’t been so much as jostled during the chaos.

“You all right, Mr. President?” I asked.

He had a slightly wild-eyed look going, but I could see him bringing it under control.

“Okay, Officer Gordon. I think your point is made.”

“Sir, not to belabor the point, but it’s really, really important that you understand that was his point!” I said, somewhat urgently.

He held up one hand and nodded. “Yeah, I got it!”

“I’m hoping so, Sir. Because it could have been enormously worse,” I said.

“Forgive me if I fail to see how, Officer,” the President said.

“Sir, he could have just yanked the satellite that’s sitting overhead, counting the hairs in my head, right down on the Capitol building or the White House, or if it wasn’t big enough, he might just use an iron-nickel asteroid.”

His eyes widened and my peripheral vision noted the thoughtful look that came over General Creek’s face.

“So what are your demands?” the President asked, his face reflecting defeat.

“Well, first of all, leave the Coven, especially Tanya alone! That’s vital.”

“Okay, leave the girl friend alone, got it.”

“There is an old man upstate who needs to be left alone as well. He has the same last name as I.”

“What else?”

“There are some rather bogus charges against me…I would like them dropped.”

“Already done, Officer Gordon,” General Creek said.

“We can dispense with the Officer part, as effective today, I’m resigning from the NYPD,” I said.

The President just raised his eyebrows in question.

“I won’t work for someone who breaks faith with me,” I said with a shrug.

“What else?”

“Mr. President, I love my country, which is why I have insisted that none of the law enforcement or military people involved have been hurt. What I need is some leeway. Some room to work.”

He frowned. “Room to work what?” he asked warily.

“The Southwest portion of this country is facing a gang problem that I am uniquely qualified to handle,” I said.

“Mr. President, he’s talking about the Loki Spawn gang problem,” Creek said.

“The weres?”

“Yes Sir!” Creek said.

“I thought you wanted to protect the weres, Offi…Gordon?” the President asked.

“Only the New York Pack, Sir. The Spawn are something altogether different, and they have declared war on the Coven. They tried to kill Tanya,” I said, struggling to control the anger that statement elicited.

Something must have shown on my face because the two men near me edged back and the President’s eyes widened.

“Would that have anything to do with Atlantic Avenue?” he asked.

“About 300 Spawn attacked a small group of my people.”

“I see. And those Spawn are where right now?”

“They are about two inches of ash on the floor of the tunnel,” I said, my voice roughening.

>Christian!< Tanya’s voice said, settling me instantly.

“All three hundred?” he asked, incredulous.

“Yes, Sir, but I only killed about 190 of the or so. Okwari took out like thirty-five to forty, and the Coven killed like maybe seventy.”

>Seventy-seven!< Tanya interjected in my ear.

“Seventy-seven,” I corrected.

“What turned them to ash?” the President asked.

“Ah, I did.”

“You burned them to ash?

“Well, Sir, they were killing my fiancé. I sorta snapped,” I said with a shrug.

“Gordon, you burned 300 werewolves to ash?” General Creek asked, unable to control his curiosity

The President frowned his famous frown. “Mr. Gordon, you have entirely too much power!”

I chuckled, “Sir, that seems funny coming from the most powerful man in the world!”

“Gordon, my power is granted by the people, controlled with checks and balances! Yours is completely personal, uncontrolled, without any boundaries!”

“Actually sir, I have numerous checks and balances,” I said. “The most important of those stands about this high,” I held my hand at Tanya height, “has black hair and truly amazing blue eyes. You know? The one Kincaid here was thinking of cannoning to death with his gunship!” I finished with a glare at Kincaid.

“You’re saying that Tatiana Demidova acts as a counter balance to you?” the President asked, ignoring my glance at Kincaid.

“Think of her as my artificial conscience.”

“So a vampire is your guide for right and wrong?” he asked, frowning.

“Wow, it sounds bad when you say it that way. I have my own principals of right and wrong, pounded into me by my grandparents, and my parents before them. Basic Judeo-christian principals. But Tanya acts as a control on my temper,” I said. “You see Mr. President, things could get really bad if I lose my temper. I’m doing a decent job of controlling it, but Tanya can calm me with a word or a touch. There are some other checks, but she is the most powerful.”

A quick montage of images scrolled through my head, showing the Tear, Barbiel, my grandfather, Gina, Lydia, and Okwari.

“So, in summary, you want me to not only let the most dangerous man on the planet roam free, but keep law enforcement out of your way while you slaughter a gang of furry bikers, while leaving your self control in the hands of a twenty-something vampire princess?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

He scratched his head, then rubbed his chin while he considered.

“How in hell are we supposed to keep the police out of your way?”

“Well, Sir, I kinda thought I could coordinate with General Creek here, maybe through an intermediary.”

“I see. Do you have such an intermediary in mind?”

I smiled. “It happens that I do.”

Epilogue

Truth be told, I was a bit nervous when I got off the elevator, shuffling my packages awkwardly. I can pick up a car but that extra strength and agility doesn’t give me extra arms or longer fingers. Awkward boxes and objects are still a pain to handle. Of course, if I drop them, the package will never hit the ground. My save rate is awesome.

* * *

Gina and Roy Velasquez lived in a Brooklyn apartment building that was well kept and lovingly maintained, although the neighborhood had seen better days. Both public servants, they made solid middle income wages but the City is expensive at the best of times and they were raising a child.

Apartment forty-seven loomed in front of me and the sounds of laughter were loud to my ears. I had been hearing dozens of conversations as I walked up the four flights of stairs, my acute hearing making the walls paper thin.

* * *

The Velasquez apartment was generating the sounds of a party in full swing, a riotous mixture of both adult and child voices. I paused, my hand frozen in door knock position, suddenly gripped with uncertainty. The sounds within scared me more than the growl of a were or the hiss of a pissed off vampire. The easy laughter and voices warm with friendship were alien to my experience.

The door opened before I could bring myself to knock and Roy’s smiling face and stocky frame filled the doorway.

“Aha! I knew I heard the ding of the elevator door!” he exclaimed in victory.

“Hi Roy,” I said.

“Chris, I’m…we’re really glad you came!” he said, his eyes filled with some emotion that I had difficulty identifying.

“Oh hey! Let me grab some of this from you,” he said, breaking into motion after that uncomfortable pause.

I let him take the bottle of wine and the twelve pack of Sam Adams beer, but kept hold of the large box tucked under my right arm.

“Roy, who’s at the doo….Oh Chris! You’re here! Great!” Gina said, from the archway to the living room.

I had been here exactly one time before, when Gina had thrown a squad holiday party. The door opened into a hallway that led to the kitchen straight ahead. A big archway in the left wall of the hallway led into a large living room that also held the dining room table. The right hand wall held four doors, the first a closet, next the master bedroom, then the single bathroom and finally, Antonia’s room.

Antonia was five today and that momentous occasion was the primary reason for the party.

* * *

The birthday girl herself came zooming around the corner, laughing and bumping into her mother’s jean clad leg. The adult dress code for the party was decidedly casual, but Antonia had other ideas about what she would wear. With long black hair and dark chocolate brown eyes, she was her mother’s daughter to the core. She was dressed in a white party dress with poofy sleeves and a light blue ribbon around her waist and another blue ribbon in her hair. Spotting me, she straightened up, her face becoming serious.

“Hi, Mr. Chris,” she intoned in an exact copy of her mother’s voice, only higher. The squad had nicknamed her Mini-G, because she was so much like Gina.

“Hi yourself, Toni. Happy birthday!” I said.

Deep, dark brown eyes fastened onto the box under my arm.

“Is that for me?” she asked, her eyes never leaving the package.

“What this?” I looked down at the square box wrapped in shiny red party paper like I had only just noticed it tucked in my arm.

“You know….I think it is!” I said with my best attempt at surprise in my voice. “ I found it on the street and thought it must belong to you!”

Now her glance met mine and her expression changed from intrigued curiosity to disdainful disbelief.

“Pah! You brought it for me and you know it!” she said with grave certainty.

“Okay, you got me, I did!” I confessed. “You’re as tough an interviewer as your mother.”

She smiled at that, her face lighting up at the comparison with her cop momma. Several unknown adults in the kitchen were watching our conversation, sipping cocktails with bemused expressions. I did my best to ignore them, concentrating on Toni and her parents.

“I think you should open it immediately, although I would really rather be far away when your parents see what I brought you,” I said.

Gina’s eyes narrowed, but ignoring her I set the box on the ground in front of Toni and helped her slip the fitted top off. I watched her face while she peered over the edge, listening to her sudden intake of breath as she recognized the contents. “Ooooohhhh!” her face lifted to look at mine, eyes big as quarters, mouth forming a perfect ‘O’. Then she spun to her parents, jumping up and down like only a five-year old can. “Momma, Daddy, it’s a mouse….my very own mouse!”

Not daring to meet Gina’s eyes, I pulled the El Grande Mouse House plastic habitat out of the box and pushed the box out of the way so I could set it on the floor. The little white rodent inside was crouched in the corner scrubbing his face and whiskers with his paws as if in a hurry to clean up before meeting his new owner. Chet had told me that was a sign of nervousness, so I explained to Toni.

“Toni, he’s still pretty young and he’s very scared right now. See how he washes his face like that?”

She nodded solemnly. “It means he’s really, really scared. So maybe we could put him in your room and let him calm down before you show you friends. Okay?”

She nodded and I carried the cage into her pink and white room, setting it on her desk.

Finally I turned to face the music. Gina had her arms crossed, staring at me in her careful unreadable way. Roy, however, was smiling broadly at his little girl’s delight and bent over to listen as she explained to him, exactly what I had told her.

“A mouse? Really, Gordon?” Gina said.

She called me Gordon, instead of Chris, so I was either in big trouble or she was faking.

I added gas to the fire. “Actually, he’s a rat. Still a pup. He’ll be bigger, which is why I got the biggest cage.”

“He’s a rat?” Antonia asked, her little brow furrowed. Toni was a city girl and to her a rat was a brown ugly thing, best avoided.

“He’s a white lab rat, Toni, the youngest in a batch that my friend Chet had. I thought he should be rescued and figured you were the best one to raise him.”

The fact that he was cute and hers was more than enough to decide in his favor. “Will he bite?”

“Not this one. He’s been handled almost from birth and now he likes it,” I said, opening the cage and picking him up in the palm of my hand. I had handled him before so he knew my scent and began to climb around.

I showed Toni how to hold him, how to pick him up, and how to be gentle. Then I took a bottle of hand sanitizer from my pocket and cleaned her hands, explaining why she should do that after every time she picked him up.

“What are we supposed to feed him?” Gina asked.

“Tanya is bringing up the supplies. We got you about two years worth of food and bedding,” I said.

“Tanya is here?” Roy asked, his tone and expression startled enough to tell me he knew what she was.

“Yeah, we have a date night tonight and she wanted to meet you and Toni.”

Gina patted her husband on the arm and spoke to reassure him. “It’s good, Roy. I don’t think Tanya knows many children.”

“Try none!” I said.

“Where is she now?” he asked, nervously.

“She’s finding a parking spot. She’ll be right up.”

“You left her to find a spot? On our street? She’ll never find one!” he said.

I laughed. “Roy, Roy, Roy. Ye of little faith. I’ll bet you a cold beer that she’ll find a spot inside five minutes and it’ll be no more than two buildings away in either direction.”

He frowned at my confidence, but having no downside to the bet he nodded. He would understand when she entered the apartment. All the men at the party would understand and probably the women too. I’ve seen a street gang pick up and move a VW by force of numbers just to let her have a parking spot. A quick smile and a grateful laugh had been their only payment, but apparently she had change coming because when we returned an hour later, the gang had been keeping an eye on her car, protecting it with a vengeance.

* * *

“Chris, I want to introduce you to some people,” Gina said, holding out her hand to lead me into the living room like a shy child.

The main living space of the apartment held seven adults and what appeared to be thirty-seven children but was actually six, multiplied by their birthday cake stoked frenetic play.

There were four women and three men, five girls (not counting Toni) and one lone boy who looked a bit bewildered. I liked him immediately, our expressions probably matched.

One very small woman was talking with three others, her back to me. Her audience included Roy’s counterpart from I.S. 341, Sonja as well as another woman and one man. All three stopped paying attention to the tiny form of Roy’s boss, Dr. Schmidt, and looked at me as Gina led me over.

Sonja’s eyes widened as she saw my eyes, and her expression alerted Dr. Schmidt who turned, glass of wine in hand to see who was coming.

“Jean, Sonja, Peter, Carol, this is Chris,” Gina said simply.

Peter and Carol just gave me the normal stare I get when meeting people. Sonja’s dark skin went pale and Jean Schmidt jumped at my violet eyes, which she had last seen while bleeding from a bullet wound.

Her wine glass dropped toward the floor as her hand involuntarily opened from the shock of seeing me.

I leaned around Gina, putting my hand lightly on her back and caught the glass, letting it fall a whole four inches before snagging it. It wouldn’t do to move too fast.

“Nice to meet you all,” I said, mildly, handing the small, shocked principal her glass of red.

Peter and Carol greeted me in a distracted way, both trying to figure out the reactions of the other two.

“And these ladies are Liz, Karen and Denise. Three of the girls running around us belong to them,” Gina said with a laugh, pointing out the other three adults, who all smiled with the interested expressions of women sensing a juicy story. I nodded and said hello.

“Chris is to be Toni’s new Godfather,” Gina said, announcing one of the other reasons for my visit.

Roy’s oldest brother had been Antonia’s Godfather, but had passed away from a virulent form of brain cancer about four months prior. Gina and Roy had popped this question on me after my meeting with the government. Probably payback for what I had done to her.

“He’s also the reason I left the force and went to work for Homeland Security,” she added.

Gina’s name had been the one I gave the President as my choice for intermediary and he had not only given her that position, but also made her the new Presidential Advisor on Anomalous Phenomenon. Apparently, Kincaid was looking for a job.

Gina seemed to be keeping the Presidential part quiet though.

Acknowledging the round of polite exclamations at this news, I suddenly became aware of a fierce grip on my outstretched hand, the hand that had returned the wine to Dr. Schmidt. Her expression was as fiercely grateful as her grip was tight. She looked me squarely in the eyes and whispered “Thank you!”

Two words that carried the weight of a building or maybe the weight of a school. Behind her, Sonja’s head gave a sharp nod of agreement, her face reflecting the emotions that had locked her tongue.

Peter and Carol figured it out first, awe flickering across their faces from one to the other like a shadow crossing a wall.

“You’re the….” Carol trailed off when I glanced at her. Twin ideas warred in her eyes. Yes – I was the one who saved the school, but I was also the one who pulped eight armed men into pink mist in almost the same amount of seconds. As much as she was grateful, she was also afraid.

Dr. Schmidt had no such conflict, pumping my hand and reclaiming my gaze with her own. “We are more grateful than you can know,” she said.

I am not comfortable with gratitude. I do whatever I do because it seems to be right, at least according to the principals my parents and grandparents drummed into me. I don’t ever do it for thanks or accolades. Eyes brimming with tears, faces aglow with thanks, all these make me nervous, and this time was no different. Tanya chose that moment to save me yet again.

“Ah, Gina, I think Tanya should be at the door almost anytime now,” I said, glancing at my watch like I needed its aid in calculating her closeness.

The rap at the door came right on cue.

“Oh, excuse me, I need to let Chris’s fiancée in,” she said.

The word fiancée was enough to break the ring of emotions, curiosity replacing the rest.

I had felt her in the building, on the floor and at the door. Now I felt her enter the room behind me and I got to watch the reactions of the others. Even the children stopped playing to stare. The adults looked thunderstruck. I spun around.

She stood in the archway, Gina just to her side. Wearing those clingy black lycra spandexy pants that I like so much. Just a little heavier than leggings. You really can’t wear them well if you’re not in shape. Tanya wore the hell out of them. Her top half was covered in a deep burgundy sweater, the color so rich it would turn to black in low light. Black, calf-high boots and a tiny black Coach purse completed her outfit. As always, her eyes found mine instantly.

“Any trouble parking?” I asked, innocently.

“No, a young man came racing out of the building and gave me his spot. Said he had to run to the store or something. Odd though…he didn’t seem to have a wallet or anything with him?” She frowned in remembrance.

I laughed and looked at Roy, who was as star struck as the rest. He caught my eye, breaking out of her spell long enough to realize he owed me a beer.

“Tanya, this is Roy, Gina’s husband,” I introduced her. Then I introduced the rest. It was interesting to watch their reactions. At some unconscious level, they seemed to sense something different about her, as their facial expressions reflected fascination edged slightly with trepidation. The primitive human animal sensed the presence of an apex predator. But her beauty and allure attracted them. I had noticed the same effect with almost all vampires, but it was greatly magnified in Tatiana’s case.

A small gasp of air announced Antonia, who was peeking at Tanya from around her father’s leg.

“Tanya, this is the birthday girl herself, Antonia!” I said.

“Oh! Such a beautiful name, for such a beautiful girl!” Tanya said in her exotic Russian accent, as she moved across the room like smoke. She gracefully dropped to one knee; bringing her face to Toni’s height.

Tanya hadn’t been around human children before and I could tell she was fascinated. That sincere interest and attention brought Toni out from behind her father to shyly shake Tanya’s outstretched hand.

“Christian, you lied to me!” Tanya said, in mock outrage. “You said Antonia was pretty! She’s far too beautiful to be merely pretty!”

When a goddess pronounces you beautiful, it has impact. Toni’s face lit up with amazement.

“Are you a princess?” the little girl asked.

“Oh no! I’m just a girl,” Tanya said.

I snorted, earning myself a look from the vampire princess.

“She’s my princess, Toni!” I said, with a huge grin. The adults all laughed, breaking the tension slightly.

Tanya ignored me, still concentrating on the little girl.

“Did Christian give you his present?” she asked.

“Oh yes! My very own mouse.. rat,” she corrected.

“Do you like it?” Tanya asked tentatively, not having much use for rodents herself. Of course the fact that the little thing went frantic with fear when she came near it might have influenced her.

“I love it! I’m going to name it Sebastian!” she pronounced.

“Well good. But I brought you a present as well,” Tanya said. I cleared my throat, causing her to flash her cerulean eyes in my direction.

“Actually, Christian helped, but it was my idea!” she amended. She held her hand out to me without looking and I slapped the little blue wrapped box into it like she was a surgeon. I had been carrying the little gift in my cargo pocket of my black pants.

Tanya handed it to Antonia, who looked at her mother for permission to open it. Getting the nod, she carefully pulled the paper off, revealing the kind of little black box that all women love to get.

Opening it she stared in wonder at the necklace within.

Tanya reached in and pulled it out, holding up before Toni so she could see the whole thing. The adults around us oohed and ahhed in appreciation. The tiny silver bear was standing upright, its arms and legs slightly exaggerated, its eyes chips of red stone.

“Ah Chris? Isn’t that a lot for a five year party?” Gina asked carefully.

“Well, it’s a combination birthday and new godfather gift,” I said, giving her a meaningful look. “We,” I pointed to Tanya and back at myself, “are taking the god parent thing very seriously.” Her eyes widened a bit and she nodded.

“Wow, it’s beautiful! Is it pewter?” one of the mothers asked.

“The bear is platinum, the chain is white gold,” I said.

“Really! Platinum and gold?” she went on.

“Yes and the eyes are rubies.”

“She’s only five,” another mother said, shocked.

“We will get her a bigger one when she gets older,” Tanya said, misunderstanding the concern.

“What if she loses it?” Carol, the teacher asked.

“Listen, I’ve never had a goddaughter before, you’ll just have to excuse my excesses,” I said, hoping to put an end to the questions. The necklace was impossible for Toni to lose; that was the main reason I wanted her to have it. I had made it myself, with Okwari’s help. I would always be able to find her if she had it on.

“It’s a bear!” Toni exclaimed, holding it in her hand.

“That’s right,” Tanya agreed.

“Does he have a name?” Toni asked.

“Okwari,” I told her softly.

Beside me I heard Gina suck in her breath.

“Ah Chris….” she started to say, suddenly uncertain.

“It’s really, really okay, Gina,” I told her, giving her a meaningful look.

“Oh-kwal-lee,” the little girl said, pronouncing the word carefully.

A breeze swirled through the apartment, lifting the girl’s hair and blowing wrapping paper up and around.

“Oh! I must have left the front door open!” Tanya said, overplaying it just a bit. She stood up and went to the front door.

“Actually, we need to run along. Date night and all!” I said. That brought a nervous chuckle from the group. Gina, Roy and Toni followed me to the door where Tanya was looking casually dangerous. Toni ran to her and unabashedly gave her legs a hug. The vampire girl looked surprised, first at the little girl, then at me. I gestured for her to hug back. Bending at an exaggeratedly slow pace, Tanya gave her a careful hug. Strange emotions flitted across the beautiful face that centered my world.

Beside me, Gina was slightly stiff at the sight of one of the most dangerous vampires on the planet hugging her baby. I patted her arm, “Relax, your daughter is better protected than the President’s kids!” I said. “We can find her anywhere and send help to her instantly. The predator who targets Toni won’t see what hit him!”

“Yes he will!” Tanya hissed, angry at the thought.

“Ookay,” Gina said, still uncertain.

“That’s what you get having me as a godfather. Any way we gotta go. Presents to deliver.”

“Presents to who?” Toni asked, not liking the competition.

“We’re going to give a lady named Brianna some friends of Sebastian’s,” I said. “About 299.”

“In her apartment?” Gina asked, a gleam in her eyes.

“Yup!” I responded.

“She lives on the tenth floor of high security building!” Gina said.

I glanced down at my black clad self, then at Tanya’s dark clothed, lithe form.

“And your point would be?”

“Oh nothing. Give her my love!” she said with a wicked grin.

“Count on it,” I said, ushering Tanya out into the welcoming night.

Table of Contents

- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 30
- Chapter 31
- Chapter 32
- Chapter 33
- Chapter 34
- Chapter 35
- Chapter 36
- Epilogue