“Wow they caused some damage didn’t they! This is going to cost a fortune to fix! The drywall alone is going to cost 20 to 30 grand. Damn!” I say spinning to take in all the destruction.
“Most of this was Meena and I. So we will pay for the cleanup and repair.” Lycaon says.
“You? What about Vlad?” I ask knowing he was pissed too.
“I drank and then threw the bodies in the fire. I think there was seventeen of them I fed on before even coming remotely close to being blood thirsty. I just did it outside instead so not to cause more of a mess. I let Meena and Lycaon have fun instead.” Vlad says, which causes my eyebrows to raise in shock. We make our way into the dining hall, which was filled with leaders and advisors. All eyes turned to me when we walked in.
“Thank the gods you are all right Kathrine!” An elder man comes over and hugs me tight. I start to laugh and pull away to look at him.
“Hello Grandfather! I think you are going to confuse people by calling me that.” I say giving him another hug.
“Well this old man knows best! And Kathrine should have been your first name not your second. Stephan was always such as selfish, ignorant prick of a child. I honestly wish your grandmother would have let me drown the little fucker!” My grandfather says, causing a few shocked faces and some laughter.
“Damn I like him a lot Aretha! Pleasure to meet you sir, I am Vlad Dracula or Vlad the Impaler. Whichever you prefer, and this stunning woman is my bride, Meena.” Vlad says shaking my grandfather’s hand and bringing Meena forward.
“Ah yes the infamous Prince of Darkness! The pleasure is truly mine; I am William Foster. Patriarch of the Foster Watcher clan, and you are quite right she is a stunning beauty. But I am biased, my granddaughter is exquisite in comparison.” Grandfather tells them, causing Meena to giggle and give me a squeeze, as her cheeks flush pink.
“Your grandfather is such a charmer! Too bad we couldn’t have met him sooner and turned him. He would have made a great vampire like Helix. Strong, caring and a brilliant mind.” Meena whispers in my ear, oh if she only knew how true that is. His brilliant mind is what gets him into so much trouble at times though.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome his Lord Vlad Dracula, Prince of Darkness. His beautiful Queen, Lady Meena and their nephew King Matthias Orion Van Helsing!” Grandfather says as Matthias steps away from me to take his place at the head of the table with Vlad and Meena. The leaders applauded and cheered for the three of them. Once it quieted down a bit my grandfather went on with the welcome.
“Now please welcome, King and first Lycan created, King Lycaon and his Royal guards Jason and Alexander!” My grandfather said and again there is applause and cheers. “Finally to our last host, please welcome my granddaughter and Atlantean Battle Warrior Ianna Foster!” He says and that is when I notice both my short blade and long sword are brought out by weaponsmiths. Within feet of me the blades fly to my hands and my brace shoot out the ejector blade. The room erupted into roars of cheering and applause. I bow to the guest and Leaders before taking my seat just off the right of Matthias.
“Miss Foster how are you feeling? It was quite a shock when we all heard they attacked with the help of now Exiled Coven Leader Marcus Valarian. I hope whatever they wanted was not obtained and you were not hurt too badly by their bad choices.” Rose Red Tear Coven Leader Natasha says giving me a hug. She is sitting beside me and looks hurt.
“Natasha, what’s wrong? Are you ok?” I ask looking at her.
“No I am not; they have my son. I was supposed to slip a sleeping drug into your drink at dinner. So they can grab you again. I don’t want to do it, but I want my son safe. Ianna what do I do?” She answers as she starts crying. I stand up abruptly, causing everyone to look at me again.
“Who else has a family member in harm’s way because of Marcus Valarian and Soren Thaddeus? They have taken Coven Leader Natasha’s son and told her if she wanted him back she had to drug me for them to get a hold of me again. So who else have they done this too? SPEAK!” I roar the last part and see a few heads drop. “I will not let them suffer, Tanner and Eli, you two come with me after dinner. Natasha, get a hold of them however they told you too. Tell them it is done, the three of us will figure something out.” I say, just as I am about to walk away from the table, Vlad does a mass compulsion on everyone to make sure no one is going to give this new plan away. Two of the Advisors failed miserably, and their leaders killed them quickly.
“Ianna, don’t take Tanner and Eli. We need them here as back up.” Kya says looking confused as she comes out of the compulsion.
“No they have to go with her, they will die if they don’t. They need to take their birthright and the only way is to prove it in battle. After all, she’s the start to their bloodline, aren’t you Zoe!” A seer says from down the table, she smiles at me. I give her a nod and smile. I mouth thank you to her, this is one of Rumara and Iverus’s children. Although she doesn’t look like she took after her dad any.
“Tell daddy Iverus and momma Rumara that I love them please.” I bow before I leave with Tanner and Eli following me. As we wall down the hall, I hit a panel that leads to a protected room. It’s part of the original house and I guess no one knew about it because Maxum forgot it was here.
“Ok so what is going on? I am confused, you originally wanted us to stick close to Vlad or Lycaon, so what has changed?” Tanner asks me, while I open the panels in the walls. I turn to see the boy’s eyes shine with excitement at the weapons I have stashed in here.
“One or both of you are the next Atlantean Battle Warrior, if Soren and Marcus have figured that out then they will come after you first. We know where they are hiding with their army. Hive Leader Vakor came to see me while I was out for those six or seven days. He told me, not to put anyone I hold dear with Lycaon, Vlad or another powerful race leader. He told me in his experience the powerhouses are who they attack first. I won’t be excluded from this, but if you two are with me then you can prove you are worthy of carrying these weapons.” I tell them as I start placing guards and sheaths on my body to hold more weapons, including my 9 mm with silencer and spare clips.
As the boys are loading up too, I hit the one panel I hadn’t opened yet, once it finally opened I looked over to see Tanner smiling. He hits Eli on the arm and then nods towards me. I watch as Eli’s eyes grew in size and his mouth hits the floor. In the case behind me, I have his original Legionnaire uniform, the one I stole to keep him from battle in Pydna. Eli slowly walks over to it and starts to run his hand on the leather. In each life I have waxed and cared for the leather and polished the metal to keep it in the best shape. His sword and shield are also in perfect condition.
“H-how did you get these? Where did you get them?” Eli asks looking back and forth between me and his armor.
“Well I got them from you when I stole them to keep you away from the war in Pydna. I have placed them somewhere safe and keep coming back to them to take care of them. I thought it was the least I could do. It’s the only thing I had from you in that life, I kept Dorian’s bow and three of his arrows in the quiver too.” I say as Tanner looks at the left panel seeing his bow and quiver.
“Wow, this is such an honor Ianna. I am so appreciative of you doing this, oh my god I can’t express how honored I am.” Eli says starting to break down from the overwhelming emotions. He grabs me and brings me into a tight bear hug, as he keeps saying thank you over and over again.
“You did good kid, really good. Proud of you.” Tanner says running his finger down the bow string, but he never lifts it from its resting place.
“Don’t you want it for the battle?” I ask looking at Tanner.
“Oh no, this honor needs to stay right here with the person who immortalized us without us even knowing. We live through the memories held in these weapons. I would hate to take them into war, and they get broken. You would lose that then and I could never hurt you like that. You gave us an amazing gift by keeping these for two t
housand years. Thank you.” Tanner says giving me a bear hug also. As Tanner and Eli finish getting loaded up I, pull up a screen and bring Leader Vakor up in web chat.
“Hey Vakor, what do you have for us, by the way amazing work on getting a demon possessed enemy in there to find out tactics! Although I am sorry they were killed last night in a raid.” I tell the Hive Leader.
“Hey Ianna, thank you, but don’t be sorry. He was leaking information to them. Found out just before he was killed. I was able to control him up to just before. He wasn’t able to give them anything new because we hadn’t discussed anything new, we were hoping you would wake up for us to develop a new battle strategy.” Lead Vakor says.
“So what were you able to get before this demon died? Will it help us?” Eli asks.
“Here is the map of their planned attacks. I sent this to Matthias and Vlad too. Everyone is meeting right now about it to get a plan in place. Once you three figure out what is the best way for you to kill Theron, they will base their plans and attacks around that. The meeting is going to start, so I best go so I can be there to help. Just message me and I can relay any information to and from you ok?” He says.
“Perfect, thank you so much! This will help and hopefully we can get the leader’s family members out safely too.” I say looking at the map.
“We have a separate team going after them. We know where the children are being held, so that is taken care of. According to Natasha, the sleep meds should start to affect you in about two hours. If you had of actually taken them, so she will need to contact them in three hours.” Vakor says looking at his watch.
“Ok then let’s get this going then.” Tanner say.
“Good luck! And I want an invitation to your wedding and coronation Ianna. I already told Matthias too. See you all soon and may the Wolf Blood Witch protect you sister!” Vakor says and then his screen goes black.
“Well let’s get this going. I want that fucker dead like last year!” Tanner says causing Eli to roll his eye and shake his head, while I snicker.
Chapter 13
We stand looking at a map on a digital tabletop, there are a variety of different colored flags marking the enemies positions in and around the Crimson Star territory. As it looks now, there is roughly a thousand in total to our enemies army, but they are spread out and if we send enough of a mix to each placement then they will have a harder time.
“Ok from the notes here, the yellow marks are less than a hundred enemy troops, and they are geared towards the wolves. So that means silver in many different forms. The green are 150 to 200 in an area, and they are geared towards demons, lots of sacred salts and holy water then.” Tanner says looking at the information.
“So that means so far we have roughly 600 troops accounted for. The red marks I am taking it as vampire based gear and how many are there since they have two red marks.” I say looking at Tanner.
“Up to 300 in one spot, but that could changes as them move from place to place for battle and backup.” He answers me.
“Ok I have an idea, give me a second.” I say walking over to the computer screen. I open up a private link and wait for it to show systems check and security. This line no one knows about for a reason.
“About time you called! What do you need Ianna?” Sasquatch asks.
“Hey Sasquatch, I need satellite information if possible. I need these locations and numbers of bodies in each.” I tell him.
“Is this what I think I have been hearing about? The human army rising to wipe out supernatural’s?” He asks.
“Yes, we have checked around the world with other ruling leaders and no one is having this problem. Any human that figures out about this world is immediately wiped, so they don’t get hurt. Problem is here there is a lot of reborn souls, and I don’t know why.” I say as I watch Sasquatch work.
“Well I am a bit ahead of you on this. I heard rumors last week, so I have been keeping tabs. The yellow marks each group there is 50 to 60 at most, to be safe I would say 60. Over estimating numbers is not a bad idea. Red marks the one group has 250 in it and the other took a major hit in the last week. Two different attacks and the numbers dropped from 500 to less than 200, so again say 200 for sure.” Sasquatch says.
“How do you know about the attacks?” Tanner asks.
“Well the one, I was actually hacking their systems and got a full camera feed of what happened. Seems someone was trying to get information too, without being caught. I would say the camera was in their clothing or jewelry. The second one was right at their base of operations. Two very powerful people, I would say a witch and warlock but totally not sure, came in and wiped out a lot of people. The guy used dogs to help, and they were freak ass looking dogs. Again I got all this when checking on hacked security feeds I was using to help Kane get information for you guys. He said you got hurt Ianna, so I had no problem doing this for free, no fee charged. Those fuckers hurt my girl!” He says.
“You do know she is bound to Matthias Van Helsing right? The King of Vampires.” Eli says.
“Wow Matthias is gaining the thrown?? That is so cool! And he isn’t the King of Vampires dude. He’s taking over the Underworld!” Sasquatch says in total awe.
“Ok we are going to talk about that piece of juicy information later, after I kill Marcus and Soren. What I need to know is numbers for the green marks.” I say trying to draw him back into the conversation.
“Oh yea, those guys are groups of nuns and priests. There is about 30 in each group and the groups consist of 120 people in total. Oh and there is six groups in total also, three of them got taken out too by attacks, but those where hunter raids.” Sasquatch says.
“Why would hunters kill them off?” Tanner asks looking confused.
“If word got out about us, then that would make the hunters a target too right. They have special gifts too, which in turn makes them a supernatural as well. They could end up being exterminated just like the rest of us, but they have it harder because if a human attacks them, they can’t fight back to defend themselves. They are screwed five ways from Monday.” Sasquatch says.
“Shit I never thought about it like that. We can fight back again the supernatural’s if we need to, but not the humans. Damn! Ok we definitely need to stop Theron!” Eli says looking at Tanner.
“Wait Theron is behind all this? Give me ten minutes and I can have a location for you, and an easy way in and out.” Sasquatch says typing like a mad man.
“Why the interest in killing Theron off? Besides the obvious.” I ask, and his response was not what I was expecting.
“He’s my dad, stupid fucker never claimed my three brothers and I, even after he was found guilty of raping my mom. She became a powerful witch and seer, so when he did it, it was against the laws of the gods. So yea he needs to go.” He says and the look of determination on his face tells me that I have found one of the four witch’s sons.
“I met your mother. She was there the night Theron and some of General Octavian’s men killed General Octavian and Captain Orion. She watched as I killed some of them in their camp. I wish I had of taken her with me that night. I am sorry I failed her and you, Sasquatch.” I say looking at him.
“Don’t be, he may have done horrible things, but my brothers and I wouldn’t be here if you had of saved her. She took us to Momma Rumara and Poppa Iverus, do you know they still look like they are in their early 20? The spell used to hide their temple also keeps them from aging. It’s pretty cool.” He says with a smile. “Gotcha you fucker! Ok I have his location and he is on the move. I would say you are going to have some company soon.” Sasquatch says.
“How many in the group?” Eli asks looking worried.
“The whole attacking army there is 1500, again I am overestimating to help you plan. The group with Theron in it has 15, small tactical unit.” He tells Eli.
“That must be the group coming to get you with taking that “supposed” sleeping pill. We need to get this information to the other leader and
Matthias.” Eli says looking at me.
“Don’t worry I, linked them into this call. See bottom right hand of the screen. They know all the same stuff you do. Good luck, I will keep tracking the movements and send you information as it comes.” With that Sasquatch disconnects the call.
“Ianna, we need to plan something, we only have 30 until Natasha has to call them.” Vlad says.
“Ok, I have a plan and you are going to love it.” I say, we disconnect our end and leave to go back to the hall. When we walk into the conference room, it’s full of the leaders and video calls of any not able to come.
“The lines are all secure, Sasquatch checked them already. Now what is this plan?” Helix says looking blood thirsty, actually all the vampire coven leaders do.
“We know what each group is set up for right? Yellow for wolves, green for demons and red for vampires. Well why not switch the groups they are going to battle?” I say and Vlad starts to smile.
“So you mean demons here, vampires at the yellow marks and wolves at the green?” He asks.
“Yep and as each group kills off the enemy they join up as reinforcements for other groups. Just try to stay away from the group with ammunition that can do the most damage to you. If the High Witch Council will help with transporting the different groups, then it would make it faster for us to get into the fight.” I say ask there are quite a few nods of approval.
“Ianna, he has thought of that. We need another way.” A young seer says.
“Who are you? I don’t think I have ever met you before.” Lycaon says.
“Alexandrea, I am apprenticing under Grand High Witch Elianna.” She says.
“Really? Then please come up with something else because otherwise, I slit my own throat here and now to keep him from getting these weapons.” I say causing her to laugh.
“No you wouldn’t. So don’t make empty threats.” She say laughing. Then her laughter stops as she watches me bring the blade to my neck and draw blood. “No stop. Please I get it, it’s not an empty threat. Please don’t.” She says with her hands held up to get me to stop. The wound heals immediately from having Matthias’s blood in me, but it’s not the point.
The Call of War: The Watchers Chronicles: Book One Page 15