Child of Darkness (The Federal Witch Book 8)

by T S Paul

  The lone human member of our team looked at me in horror. “I’ll wait for the ladder.”

  “We’ve discussed this before. No ladder. Either Chuck or Cat will catch you, I promise.” I pointed at the door.

  Blake shook his head and looked toward Cliff, the steward. He looked back with a raised eyebrow and a slight head shake.

  “If you don’t want to go, that’s fine, but you’ll be under review and have to help protect the plane. Is that what you truly wish?” I asked angrily.

  Blake looked helpless for just a second and then walked over to the door and looked down. “I’ll go.”

  As Blake jumped, I looked back at the flight crew. “Be careful. We’ll try and pull the Demons with us.”

  Using my telekinesis, I stepped out into the air and floated to the ground. Chuck and Cat both smiled at me. “We could’ve caught you as well.”

  “Sometimes a girl’s got to change it up. Are we good to go?” I replied.

  “How are we doing this?” Cat asked as we both took in the increased Demonic activity. A large mass of Imps was pressed up against my shield like kids at a candy shop.

  There was a thunk sound above us and we all looked up. The flight crew was closing the door. Pointing up I replied, “I said I would draw the Demons off as much as possible. I plan to incinerate this bunch as I move the shield over to the bus.”

  “Chuck, I need you to really move when the shield comes down. Take Blake and get that bus started. Cat and I will keep them off you,” I instructed.

  Blake asked, “Why can’t you make like a tunnel shield or something?”

  Enouncing slowly, I explained it to him, “It’s possible to do just that, but the energy drain isn’t worth it. I need to be close to full power when we get to where Camilla is. We don’t know what the city is going to be like.”

  “Take energy from that little creature in your pocket then. Isn’t that what he’s for?” Blake replied.

  Fergus stuck his head out of the pocket in question and yelled at Blake. “Who are you calling a creature? I oughta jam my horn into a part of you that will make you scream in agony so loud your ancestors will hear it!”

  Chuck coughed and turned away so I couldn’t see him laugh.

  “Is that a threat?” Blake asked.

  I shook my head. “Calm down. We need to finish the mission.”

  Ignoring Blake’s protests, I waved the lot of them behind me and readied my spell. Once upon a time this could have gone horribly wrong and blown up the airport or something. But that was then. I’m an adult now, and control is the one thing I’ve been working on. I thought about my summer vacation and how Fergus and I accidentally visited the mystical library. The training that resulted from that trip increased my weapons awareness and steadied my aim. I hoped that all the spell drills and practice we got defending that place helped Zhanna as well. Her Magick needed about as much work as my aim did.

  Muttering, I spoke the word of power to myself and channeled the resulting power through the bracelets. There was a surge of energy as the shields around me dropped and fire like a gigantic flamethrower burst forth from my hands. Like spraying water, I directed the flame into the howling mass of Imps, frying them.

  “Agatha, the shield!” I could hear Cat, but I ignored her as power poured through me. It was the sound of gunshots that broke me from my trance. Cat, Chuck, and Blake were firing into the mass of Demons, keeping them off my back.

  Pointing my finger, I directed a shield spell at the airport minivan sitting off to one side near the flight line. “Shield is set, sorry Chuck.”

  Drawing my pistols, I joined Cat in firing at the encroaching Demons. Chuck, much faster than Blake, reached the new shield first. I watched as he easily passed right through it. The locator necklaces I’d given each team member allowed them to pass through and enter most of my spells. Most. There were some, like my lab, I kept much safer.

  Looking over my shoulder, I could see Chuck’s head under the hood as he tried to start the bus. Blake, like the Demons before him, was pressed up against the shield. “Oops.”

  Cat looked over at me with funny look and saw Blake out of the corner of her eye. “He’s going to be pissed.”

  I waved one of my guns in the air and Blake dropped forward into the shield. “I keep forgetting to add him into my spellwork.”

  “Just as well, he might quit after this mission,” Cat exclaimed. “You ready to move?”

  “Yes,” I replied. Back to back, we started walking toward the bus. The majority of the Imps on the field had been fried by my first spell but the stragglers were still running toward us.

  Scuttling like a couple of crabs, we would shoot, walk, shoot, walk. I exclaimed a sigh of relief as I felt the shield envelop us.

  “You did that on purpose!” Blake yelled from inside the bus. He had his gun out but wasn’t pointing it at anything or even covering Chuck.

  Speaking to him through the bus’s open door I replied, “I do apologize, Blake. I forgot you weren’t keyed into the spell. I’ll fix it first chance we get. Is the bus ready?”

  “Just about, oof...” Chuck raised his head up and whacked it on the hood of the bus. “It should work now. Give it a try now, Blake.”

  Blake shook his head and glared at me. He went so far as to step away from the driver’s seat.

  “Odin’s balls! Do I have to do everything?” Cat pushed past me and took all three of the steps up into the bus with a single bound. Grabbing the ignition, she gave it a wrenching turn.

  Vroom!

  “That’s it! Let’s get out of here.” Chuck yelled as he slammed the hood closed. He gave Cat a jaunty salute of success.

  “Can you hold the shield while we drive?” Cat asked. She’d unholstered her guns and was trying to find a place for her short swords on or around the seat.

  I shook my head negatively. “Nothing to hold it in place. The force generated by the ley lines requires…”

  Cat turned in her seat and held up both hands. “Yes or no works. Got it. You coming with us or staying?”

  I love Cat dearly but there are times that I wonder just who is in charge around here. Looking over at Chuck I could see him gesturing to the door as well. “I can take a hint, thanks.”

  The airport bus was the sort used to transport passengers from one terminal to the other, so instead of individual seats it was a single long bench on each side with poles in the middle. The windows along the sides didn’t appear to open but that could be easily fixed. Climbing aboard, I took my place at the front, right behind Cat so we could talk.

  Chuck took a look around before grabbing the railing to pull himself inside. His large bulk just fit. The entire bus shook as he climbed in. Dropping his massive pack, he began pulling out reloads and extra weapons for the drive.

  “Agatha, more rounds for you,” Chuck tossed me a box of pistol ammunition. “Blake, do you need anything?”

  Blake stood at the rear, looking out at the Demonic Horde. He shook his head negatively and sat down.

  Quickly, I stripped my automatics looking for jams and then reassembled them. Cleaning would have to wait. Chuck was our gunsmith and he kept them finely tuned. “Just as soon as you start moving, the shield will drop, Cat.”

  “Gotcha, do you want me to go roundabout or direct?” Cat asked.

  We’d looked at the maps on the plane. This airport was set away from the smaller city of Mount Pleasant, out in the marshes. We could either go around through a bunch of neighborhoods or cut through town to get to the main highway. Only then could we cross the bridge into Charleston proper.

  I winced. The number of Demons was increasing noticeably outside. “Direct.”

  If we cut through all the housing developments, we would risk leading the Demons right to the civilians. Either way, we would do them a disservice but this was the only place we had been able to land. The main fight was in Charleston, anyway.

  “All right hold onto your cheese!” Cat gunned the engine and w
e began moving. Slowly at first, the bus began moving off the tarmac.

  There was a slight twinge as the energy from the shield came back to me. Already the Demons were charging after us.

  “We need to go faster, Cat. They’re catching up!” Chuck yelled.

  “My foot’s on the floor already. Indy car this thing is not!” Cat slid the driver’s window open and began firing at the Horde.

  Hundreds of Demons were now chasing after us. Sliding around, Chuck smashed the window open with a crash. Shards of safety glass sprayed across the interior of the bus. Using the barrel of his carbine he knocked the loose shards away and began firing. The pow, pow, pow of his battle rifle echoed in the small space of the bus.

  Not wishing to have to use a healing potion unnecessarily, I slipped on a soft pair of noise-cancelling earplugs. As we left the small community airport, we went past a few gated communities and at least one golf course. Stray Demons were everywhere. They were a plague upon the Earth.

  “Chuck, can you help that guy!” Cat pointed to a human on a golf cart trying to get away from a small pack of Imps. The back of the cart read ‘Back-to’Ney-ture’. The occupants were an older grey-haired couple. Putters in hand, they were chopping at the Demons that chased them. Even though they were getting in some good chops, the Imps were relentless.

  Dropping his carbine, Chuck pulled out his stealth recon sniper rifle and started picking off the Imps. Cat tried to keep the bus as steady as she could but couldn’t really slow down.

  The older man jerked his cart to one side, suddenly taking advantage of the reprieve we gave them. Both people waved as they drove out of sight.

  “Good work Chuck. They might just make it to safety now,” I told him.

  Chuck ejected the magazine and reloaded it before picking his carbine back up, “I hope so. The best they can do right now is find a secure room and barricade themselves inside it.”

  “I should have stayed on the plane where it was safe,” Blake muttered to himself.

  Chuck shook his head and gave me a look of shock and resignation. I didn’t bother to even look in Cat’s direction. Blake was again forgetting that we could all hear him.

  “Want me to have Cat just drop you off someplace, Blake? If you don’t wish to help, just tell me now,” I asked.

  Blake turned to see us staring at him.

  “I’m sure the locals around here would love a trained FBI Agent to give them a hand here.” I waved at Chuck and Cat. “We’d stay as well but if I don’t stop Camilla this is going to get way worse.”

  “I’m fine. Finish the mission. That’s what’s important,” Blake replied in short but bitter sounding sentences.

  I shook my head. Why did Madeline stick us with this guy in the first place? “Start helping, then. See if you can reduce some of that group back there, because when we stop, they will mob us.”

  Following Chuck’s actions, Blake broke out the rear window of the exit door and began firing.

  “I can’t fire him. We’re in the middle of a serious situation and every gun, even a lousy one, is needed. If we find any sort of resistance in Charleston, I’ll dump him. Is that cool with you guys?” Even though I was speaking low, I expected Chuck and Cat to hear me. Weres could hear a mouse outside the house and across the street if they wanted to. Cat once told me that selective hearing was one of the first lessons they practice. Nobody wants to hear their own parents in the throes of passion or what the neighbors do late at night.

  “We’ll deal. Making the first turn. Choose your shots carefully,” Cat exclaimed. We were exiting off of Falson road onto highway seventeen. We had to go through several miles of commercial buildings before we reached the bridge.

  South Carolina isn’t an open carry state, and it showed. Near helpless civilians were fighting a losing battle against Imps and the larger Cambion Demons. A few camo clad soldiers fought here and there, but most may have been off duty or unarmed to begin with.

  A State Patrol cruiser sat astride the two middle lanes. It was fully engulfed in flames. Imps were dancing around the fire like it was a game. Chuck corrected them of that impression.

  Ka-thump!

  The bus shook for a moment as Cat ‘accidentally’ ran something over. “Sorry about that. It ran the wrong way.”

  Whenever possible I fired out my own windows. “Sure it did. If we get a flat I’m making you change it.”

  Cat jerked the bus to the left suddenly. “Sorry.”

  “Just get us there,” I told her.

  “That is my goal. Once we get to the bridge we’re free and clear,” Cat replied.

  I hoped those wouldn’t be famous last words.

  Chapter 6

  “Why Charleston?” President Lawrence Talbot tossed the file back to his Chief of Staff, Gwen Ankers.

  Gwen shook her head. “We aren’t sure. The FBI had a woman under surveillance there associated with the Strega. It was they, as you know, who are suspected of unleashing the Horde in Italy.”

  “Who is she?” Talbot asked.

  “Camilla Blackmore. The aunt of the Paranormal working for the FBI. Before you ask, we checked both out extensively. No collusion between the two is possible. Camilla was thought to have been killed more than a year ago in some sort of Magical battle. Her appearance in South Carolina was what prompted the FBI investigation to begin with. The FBI and the Magical Division were already enroute to confront her when suddenly there were Demons everywhere,” Ankers explained.

  President Talbot closed his eyes for a moment as he mulled over the facts. “What about the tornado? Is it still the bigger threat out there?”

  Gwen opened up another file and flipped to a timeline chart. “We’re trying to get ahead of it with evacuations. So far we’ve moved over a hundred thousand souls from the projected path.”

  “That’s it? Didn’t you say yourself that millions were affected?” President Talbot asked.

  “Our projections are actually closer to five million, sir. The biggest issue facing us is our current highway system. Initially they were conceived as a way to move troops and supplies rapidly in case of something just like this, a Demon invasion. But we’ve grown complacent and allowed the State Governments to add on to the system,” Gwen explained.

  The president shook his head. “Walk with me, Gwen.”

  Talbot stepped toward the outer door, prompting a bevy of secret service agents to scatter in all directions. They were used to him walking around the White House at random times and prepared as such.

  “Walking Stick is moving,” the head agent spoke into his sleeve. Code words were created “randomly” according to the Treasury department, but President Talbot suspected they gave him that one on purpose.

  The Roosevelt Room was Talbot’s favorite in the House. It wasn’t unusual to find him there at all hours of the night. Unlike many of the other named rooms this one was like a mini-museum. Relics from the former president’s military career as well as trophies decorated the walls. The center of the room was the biggest draw. An actual dragon skeleton in the act of launching itself airborne. It was discovered by the former president’s party while exploring Yellowstone.

  “This entire episode worries me. Just like back in the 1940’s, these Demons have split the country. We stopped them in California way earlier than last time, but now we have this… Tornado. Is there a pattern or something? What does the FBI really say about this woman in Charleston?”

  Gwen sighed and said, “That she may be the one who raised the Demons in the first place. As I said before, she’s supposed to be dead. It was pure chance that she was spotted in Charleston. A tourist snapped a picture with her in it and facial recognition spotted it online.”

  “And we know this for sure how?” the president asked.

  “Director Mills and the Magical Division. She’s been on top of things since Sicily,” Gwen replied.

  “And Arcane? What do Left and Right have to say?” President Talbot asked.

  Shocked at th
e breach, Gwen waved at the room. “Sir?”

  “Calm yourself. My team has been read in and this room is swept daily,” Talbot replied. Not looking at his chief of staff he peered closer at the skeleton in front of him.

  “They agree. The Mage Storm is a result of one of their operative’s actions. According to Mr. Left it was both necessary and a complete accident on the part of the Mage. Because of losses related to the Sicily operation, Arcane doesn’t have anyone who can stop the storm. Or that is what they are telling us,” Gwen replied.

  The president rubbed his forehead. “So we have no one who can stop this thing?”

  Gwen shook her head. “Not that we control. There is a suspected Fae community in the current path of the storm as well as several Were Pack areas. We suspect they will either stop or deflect the storm to protect themselves.”

  “They say that hindsight is twenty-twenty. As a country, we’ve made so many mistakes when dealing with a population we don’t understand living beside us. I look back and it almost brings tears to my eyes. If we hadn’t done the things we did, we would be able to ask for help rather than beg. Do we have anyone working that side of things?” Talbot asked.

  “Not directly. There was mention of a conversation Director Mills had with Marcella Blackmore, but we’ve approached her before with nothing to show for it. The American Witches Council has stopped talking to us and we aren’t sure why. They’ve always been extremely prickly to any of our inquiries. Do you want me to send out more feelers?” Gwen asked.

  President Talbot looked sideways at her and remarked, “Not yet. Let’s see what happens with the Fae. If they stop it, we will be in a position of thanks. Allowing them to think they have an edge over us is a negotiation point. Send a message to the war room at the Pentagon. I want them to send naval units to Charleston. Don’t the Marines have a base there?”