Firestarter

by Jan Stryvant

  Card could have smiled. Instead he gave Howard a serious look, it was time to reel him in. "I don't know, Bro. This is serious stuff. You ever shot a man before?"

  "Course I have!" Howard lied. "But this ain't no man! This is a dirty, fucking animal!"

  Card hesitated a moment, weighing it, then looking around to make sure no one was watching, he palmed one of the derringers over to Howard. There were two shots in it, both silver, but one of the bullets had been rigged to misfire so when the derringer was found, they'd know he'd been using silver bullets.

  Howard puffed up then and smiled.

  "Okay," Card said in a low voice. "We wait until he comes out. Stay close by me; when I make my move, pull your gun out and follow me, and we'll kill those bastards!"

  Howard smiled, thinking about Julie. Oh, he was so going to score with that hot little babe!

  Sticking close to Card, he gave Julie a wink and mouthed the word 'nasty' to her the next time they passed by her, and she smiled right back at him, not even looking at Card!

  The door opened shortly after that and as Steve came down the stairs with his bodyguards, Howard followed Card to the front of the group, Card moving the others out of their way.

  "Now!" Card shouted as the other three drew close. Running forward, he shot one of the bodyguards once, and then tackled him.

  Howard suddenly found himself with a gun in his hand and a clear shot at Steve, the leader of those filthy lycan bastards! He paused a moment as everything slowed down, thinking suddenly of Julie, naked in his arms. He'd never had a girl that sexy before!

  Raising the derringer, he shot Steve right in the chest, the bullet making a hole in his nice white shirt. Pulling the trigger a second time, he frowned as nothing happened.

  He heard it then as Steve stumbled back into the other bodyguard—the screaming. People all around him were screaming! Looking to either side, he saw that there were police, guns out, running towards him! Dropping the pistol, he turned to run, looking for Card, who was nowhere in sight.

  Just then the hand of the bodyguard on the ground at his feet grabbed his ankle and pulled him down to the ground.

  "Somebody call an ambulance!"

  "Don't shoot! Don't shoot! We got him!"

  Howard felt something sting him in the back, and then passed out as a bolt of electricity surged through his body.

  Card ducked around the corner and dove into the back of the car waiting there.

  "Is Steve okay?" he asked as they slowly drove off.

  "Yeah, he's fine. Boz has already told us he's just hamming it up, playing for the cameras."

  "How's Clifford?"

  "He's fine; he grabbed that other guy with you. I can't believe you talked him into shooting Steve!"

  "Eh, he was hot for Julie, and she's been playing up to me to get me to 'do something' for days now. Howard thought he'd beat me to it and score with her instead."

  "Wow, it's already on the news!" said Kyle, the other guy in the car, holding up his cellphone. Sure enough, there was a live feed coming from in front of the TV station.

  "Mission accomplished, huh boys?" Card said with a smile and a feeling of satisfaction he hadn't felt in a very long time.

  "Oh, yeah. I think Steve is gonna be beyond pleased."

  Learning to Fly

  The ride back to the ranch was quiet. Sean was too involved in his own thoughts. Peg, Cali, and Estrella were talking about something without using the intercom, and he didn't feel like interfering. Trey and Daelyn were going over a bunch of stuff on 'angle of attack' settings and something called 'autorotation' as she flew, and Sean wasn't really all that interested in that, either.

  He just kept coming back to what he'd gotten himself into, and how in the hell had he ended up here. Sure, this was the kind of thing Chad lived for. Steve was as happy as a pig in shit in Washington. Even John had been doing what he'd loved, right up until the end.

  An end Sean hadn't been able to do a thing to prevent, either. That bothered him. He'd sent a lot of people off to their deaths, especially back when all of this got started and they'd had to take on often overwhelming odds, but in order to keep things from spiraling out of their hands, they'd had to, no, he'd had to, accept that some of the people who were looking up to him like a god were going to die.

  For him.

  For their people.

  For people they didn't even know, but who were they same as they were. But it had been march or die, kill or be killed. He hadn't had much of a choice in the matter, either, with damn near every magic user in the world out for his head.

  Now? These djevels, these demons, they weren't gunning for him. It wasn't anything personal. He was just the guy who had the bad luck to be in the right spot at the right time and got awarded the job.

  John had died on his watch; hell, he'd died sitting just a few feet away. Had they really needed to go to DC? Would it have made any real difference if they hadn't bothered tracking down that loose end? With the current state of affairs in Germany, odds were the embassy would have been found out anyway. If they hadn't been recalled back to Germany first when everything back there started falling to pieces.

  And Alex…well, he wasn't exactly sure how much of the blame he could take for that. Still, it had been a huge failure in their intelligence, their leadership, his leadership. He'd known they were having problems in DC, he'd seen it with his own two eyes. It should have occurred to him they'd be having those same problems here and he should have ordered measures to be taken.

  But the magic users had caved, and everyone was one big happy family now. Well, maybe not happy, but no one was trying to kill each other anymore. So he'd let his guard down. He'd figured that the only enemy he had to worry about now were the djevels coming through the gates.

  And now he spent his days dealing with paperwork, approving all these plans for the future, and sitting in meetings with petty bureaucrats who wanted their asses kissed as they refused to do their jobs.

  Sean shook his head, not for the first time missing having the First to fall back on. He could have just gone to sleep and let him deal with the whole thing. No doubt he'd have had a way to get that asshole back in line without pissing off the government of Reno.

  Yeah, he wasn't looking forward to dealing with that mess. Politics just wasn't his strong point. Maybe he'd call Steve back and let him deal with the mayor and the governor. Then he could just go back to killing things and building stuff in his lab. Things he could understand.

  "I'm going off for a run," he said as they landed, and as soon as the door opened, he shifted into his lion form and did just that. He hadn't stretched his legs in days. Maybe that would help him clear his head.

  "What's with Sean?" Daelyn asked as she shut the engine down, looking back at the others.

  "Let's just say the meeting didn't exactly go as planned," Peg said.

  "They were rude to him," Cali grumbled.

  "I miss being able to kill underlings who don't know their place," Estrella growled.

  "Bill?" Daelyn asked, looking at Roxy's father.

  "I've worked with those kinds of people for so long, I've become immune to it, and I'm not so sure that's a good thing."

  Getting out of the helicopter, Bill went in search of his daughter. He wasn't sure what was up with his son-in-law, but if anybody would know, she would.

  Getting out of the helicopter, he went directly to her office.

  "Roxy?" he said, stepping inside.

  "Claudia already called and filled me in," Roxy said with a sigh. "Where is he?"

  "He ran off, said he needed to stretch his legs."

  "Sean has got to be the hardest person in the world to piss off, yet they always seem determined to try." She growled then. "Just how bad was it?"

  "He told them he was pulling the troops out of Reno and was going to let it fall."

  "He told them that?"

  "Well, I'd say it was more of a heavy-handed warning. But he didn't really seem all that mad,
just, well, sad. Apologized for wasting their time, then left."

  "What did Cali, Estrella, and Peg do?"

  "Cali and Estrella just left. I don't think they were happy with what had been going on either. Peg, however," Bill sighed and then laughed. "Peg told them there'd be a competition tonight to see who got to kill Justin."

  "Justin?"

  "That was the guy who was doing all the talking about why none of what Sean asked them to do was going to get done."

  Roxy shook her head and chuckled. "Wonder if I can get in on that action?"

  "Roxy!"

  "What?"

  "You can't be serious!"

  Roxy snorted. "You're not a cop anymore, Dad. The sad truth is, some of these people either need to get out of the way, or be moved out of the way. Is that why you came here? To get me to stop Estrella or Cali from killing him?"

  Bill shook his head. "No, it isn't that. Though I will talk with them later."

  "Don't waste your time, Dad. They're not going to listen. So why are you here then?"

  "We can't just give up on Reno. There are too many people here, and it's too important. We need to at least try and save it."

  "And?"

  "Could you talk to him? Please, Roxy? It's not like him just to throw up his hands and walk away from something like this."

  "It's what happened to his friend, John," Roxy told him. "It's been eating at him for a while. He still feels a lot of guilt for John's death. He's been second-guessing himself a lot over it, too. They were pretty old friends; they went to junior high school together."

  "I didn't know."

  "No, of course not. Sean doesn't share a lot with anyone beyond me and the others. I'll go talk with him, Dad. You're right; we can't just walk away from Reno. But you might want to warn everyone that if I get him to come back, he's not going to be all nice and polite about it. Heads are definitely going to roll."

  "I think there are probably more than a few that need to be moved on." Bill agreed.

  "I was thinking more along the lines of what Adam did to that colonel," Roxy said with a laugh. "I may have been pissed as all hell at him for it, but it sure did work."

  "It did?"

  "Course it did! Adam's the nice one! Everyone here has at one point or another seen what Sean's capable of when he's furious! Hell, they even love telling stories about it!"

  "But he always acts like such a calm and polite young man," Bill said, shaking his head.

  "That's because he is. Right up until he isn't anymore. Now, let me go find him and see what the deal is."

  "And Cali and Estrella?"

  "I'll deal with it."

  "Thanks, Roxy," Bill said, giving his daughter a hug.

  "Anytime, Dad."

  #

  "You doing okay, Hon?" Roxy asked, walking over to Sean as he sat outside in human form, just staring off into the distance. She'd found him about a mile north of the ranch.

  "It's getting harder to hold it all together, Rox," he said with a heavy sigh. "Lately I keep asking myself how I ended up with all of this on my shoulders." Sean waved his arm around behind him, indicating the ranch and everything else.

  Roxy laughed. "Yeah, it is kind of a lot now, isn't it? We've got what? A couple thousand people living back there at our little compound?"

  Sean snorted. "Little, hell. We've got hangers for two dozen helicopters, workshops, and repair shops everywhere. I've lost count of just how many barracks we've got built now. That place isn't a ranch anymore; it's a freaking army base. Did you hear Daelyn and Estrella talking about building a wall?"

  Roxy nodded. "Yeah, they came to me after you told them no. They were just a little miffed. Why did you tell them no, anyways?"

  Sean shook his head. "We're not going to be here next month."

  "We're not?" Roxy said looking a little surprised.

  "If that gate opens anywhere near where Deidre's predicting, that'll put us less than a day's march away. Even if they don't know where we are, they're gonna find out soon enough, and we're going to be number one on their hit parade. There's no way we'll be able to hold this place. I've already told Colonel Tibbets that I want him out of Stead by the fourth. His position is even worse than ours."

  "What'd Chad say?"

  "That I was right. Claudia's going to be pissed; so are most of the lycan clans, I'm guessing. I've decided to tell them all to be ready to evacuate by the fifteenth and to start sending anyone not involved in the fight south to Vegas by the end of this month."

  "That's only a few days away."

  "Yeah." Sean sighed and nodded. "I know."

  Roxy nodded. "Yeah, I'm sure I'm gonna hear them grumbling about this one." She stepped over in front of him then and dropped down into his lap, looking into his eyes. "And that's why you're the one in charge, Hon. Because you know what needs to be done, and you're doing it. You're not feeding everyone a line of bullshit about how it's all going to be alright. You're preparing for the worst, and you're kicking ass when it needs kicked."

  "I know, I know," Sean sighed and looked back at her. "Still, I wish I had the First here to back me up sometimes."

  "I'm sure he's very proud of just how well you're dealing with everything."

  Sean laughed. "You should hear some of our arguments now. He didn't want to send Raban to Munich. Hell, he didn't want to appoint anybody to take over the mess there."

  "Why not?"

  "He told me he had it covered, and when I asked them what that meant, he told me it wasn't any of my concern."

  "And you of course made it your concern," Roxy said with a snicker.

  "Damn, I hate it when he won't tell me what he's up to, and I unloaded on him in front of everybody. I told him his biggest problem is that he still thinks he's a god at times, and he needs to hear from us 'mere mortals' because some of his ideas are just stupid."

  "What'd he say to that?"

  "He reminded me that I'm a god now, too," Sean said and looked embarrassed.

  "What about the others?"

  Sean grinned. "We've both told them they're not allowed to take sides in our little dustups."

  Roxy raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

  "The First doesn't take well to rebellion in the ranks, and after having him in my head for a year, I can't say I disagree with him. He may be a self-centered ass at times, but he's still better than damn near all of them."

  "Well, regardless of your little fights, he still sent Raban in, and from what I've heard from Jack via his intelligence briefs and Estrella, it's made a huge change in morale for the people fighting there."

  "I just wish we could do something about Berlin."

  "Didn't you just say the First said he had a plan for that?"

  "Yeah." Sean shook his head and gave her a worried look. "And that's what bothers me. He can be cold at times, Rox, damn cold. And calculating. He really does have the whole god thing down."

  "You're afraid you're going to become like him, aren't you?"

  Sean nodded. "There are times I think I already am."

  Roxy wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder. "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. I've heard that expression so many times from my father whenever there was something going on in Vegas he had to deal with that he wasn't looking forward to."

  "So you're saying I need to become like him?" Sean grumbled and put his arms around her.

  "You adopted him as your father, Hon. I got to know him fairly well back when he lived in your head. We all like him, he was kind and considerate, and I think he really does love you like a son."

  "Yeah, but that's not who he is now; he's gotten a lot harder these last few weeks. Meaner, tougher."

  Roxy nodded her head as she leaned into him. "He's gotta do the bad stuff now, like it or not. And so do you."

  Sean sighed again and dropped his head. "And that's the part I hate. I gotta become just as big a bastard as he is."

  "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, he's had what? A hundred thousand ye
ars to work on it? You've got a long way to go before you'll be anywhere near as good!" Roxy said with a small laugh.

  "You're not making me feel better about it, Rox," Sean growled half-heartedly.

  Roxy pulled back and looked him in the eyes. "I married a lion, Sean. A lion. A big, buff, dominant, do it my way or I'll pound you into the fucking highway lion, named Sean Valens. The First is right; you are a god now, Sean."

  Roxy put her finger on his mouth as he opened it to protest, stopping him.

  "You can't deny it any more than I can. I sure got one hell of a lot more than I expected when I tracked you down that afternoon after I stopped you from killing Dean. And I haven't regretted a single moment. Why? Because you are who you are, and you're mine. I've seen you at your best, and I've seen you at your worst. Well, a week from now the doors to hell are going to open up, and they're doing it in our very own backyard. Like it or not, we need you, and we need you at your worst.

  "We need, no fuck that, I need for my lion, my god, the one who takes me to bed and makes me his every night, to get his head in the game and punish the ever loving hell out of those fucking demons for coming here and thinking they have any right at all to mess with that which is his! Have I made myself clear?"

  Sean looked up at Roxy; she was all but growling now. If she'd been in her hybrid form, he was sure she would have been. Grabbing her head, he pulled her close and kissed her. He had no idea what he'd done in life to deserve a woman like her. All he knew was he was glad he did.

  Breaking the kiss, he smiled at her as she gasped and melted against him. He then shifted into his hybrid form. She was right, he was a god, and these were his people.

  It was time to start acting like one.

  "We need to go see Arthur," he growled.

  "Why?"

  "Because I need to give him his orders," Sean chuckled, "along with the rest of the magic users and everyone else. You're right, I'm a god. It's time to make sure everyone knows."

  "Should I alert Dae to get one of the helicopters ready?"