by T S Paul
“They do. Parris Island is less than two hours south, and is the East Coast’s training facility,” Gwen answered. “At any given time, there might be ten to twenty thousand Marines in varying states of readiness there.”
“I want them deployed if possible,” said the president. “Tell the generals I want action on their part but try to not destroy one of the oldest cities in our country in the process. Too many Americans have shed blood and died for that soil already. Keep me informed of all fronts, Gwen. Anything that crosses your desk that you find interesting, I want to see as well. Understood?”
“Yes, Mr. President. Anything else?” she asked.
Talbot shook his head. “No. I need to meditate on this some more. Report to me later. Thank you.”
Gwen looked toward her boss with some emotion but caring directly for the president wasn’t her job. Straightening her suit, she strode confidently from the room.
Out of the corner of his eye President Talbot watched his chief of staff leave. His secret service team opened and closed the door for her. He nodded to himself. Everything was slowly falling apart. This was an election year and he wasn’t even trying to run. His own vice president was doing it for him. He muttered to himself. “Paul what am I going to do with you?”
Vice President Paul Montfort was up to something beyond the current election. Talbot had played the political game for more than thirty years, and he knew a dirty campaign when he saw one. Proof was the issue. That and the trust of his own party. This Demonic invasion was just another nail in his political coffin. Nothing he could do would slow it down now. Come November, he was definitely out.
President Talbot looked at the Dragon skeleton in front of him and smiled. Of all the artifacts held in trust by the country for the American people this was his favorite. The long dead beast’s head was almost level with his own. Looking into where the eyes once resided he asked, “What would you do in a situation such as this?”
Not really expecting an answer, the president motioned to his protection team. “Time to head back boys. The missus is probably looking for me.”
Neither the Agents who opened and closed the doors to the Roosevelt Room nor the president noticed the faint glimmer that for just a split second shone in the eye sockets of the skeleton.
<<<>>>
“Why do elders have to be so stupid sometimes?” Anastasia was talking to herself as she and the bus she was driving practically flew down the highway at more than ninety miles an hour. Having lightning fast reflexes and the ability to see almost a mile made all the difference.
Before leaving Jackson, Tennessee in pursuit of the team, she’d called the Vampire Council. One of the tasks they had laid before her the previous year was to bring their communications into the twenty-first century. Learning about world events via pigeon and runner really sucked. With a state-of-the-art facility now in existence, she could connect with Edimmu and Alukah with the touch of a button.
There had been a lot of confusion the previous year when she appeared in America under an assumed name. A name that was already taken by someone. Changed by one of the shadow council in 1917, the real Anastasia Romanov had controlled the country for more than a century.
Secretly eliminating her brothers and sisters, she was the natural successor to her father, Nicholas the second.
Almost destroyed completely by the first Demon War, Russia was in turmoil for years before Anastasia could bring it to bear. Using her underworld and Vampiric contacts, she restructured the country into demises, each under the rule of a Warlord figure. Many of which were Paranormals. The Witch clans were finally coming together and regaining what honor remained amongst them as well. All of it enabled the Vampire Lords to rebuild what was lost during the Purge of 1914.
Officially the American Anastasia didn’t exist. In Russia and on the Council, she was called by her birth name, Aeliana.
“Master, there has to be a Demon Prince at work here. Is this invasion the one we were warned about?” Aeliana asked.
The Elder council appeared as small holograms on the table in front of her. She knew that in the hidden cities of Russia, China, and Japan they too could see her.
“You care too much for these humans. It’s best to forget about them and prepare our own defenses. Let the world above burn. We will rise as we always have and rule them in the end,” Anastasia (the real one) proclaimed.
“But we haven’t, have we? Not yet. Our race barely survived the last disaster.” Aeliana pointed toward the holograms on the table. “Most of you slept through the last Demon incursion. I experienced it in full color. We depend upon the humans just as much as they do us here in Russia. The rest of the world will come around as in the past. But if we allow the Demons to rule, that dream may never come to pass.”
“In the past we have allowed the humans of the time to protect us. The Vampire nation has no standing armies or weapons of mass destruction. We cannot help. Hiding and directing others from the shadows is our best defense. I agree with Anastasia,” Jiang replied.
Aeliana shook her head, “I see the glances among you. Russia is a modern country despite our rustic appearances. If we wished, we could have exactly what the rest of the world does. You are not fooling me. Don’t forget what I do in my other life.”
Lord Clearchus stood up. “In my role as Ambassador to the Species Council I have witnessed much of the last century. Humans are just as uncontrollable as they were in our youth. It is their nature to be that way. Our way of life represents but one path to enlightenment. Whatever the vote, I remain dedicated to the right to stay neutral. Helping or not, we will lose this war.”
“Prophesy is hard to read,” Edimmu remarked.
All the figures turned towards the eldest’s voice.
“Our seers told us that a Purge was coming, and we thought it was our own internal conflict they spoke of. Who knew that outsiders could even conceive of such a thing? During the last Demon War my own seer predicted the fall of Europe. We as a race took shelter and rode out what we could. Now comes a new threat. But is it the one being told of or is it just the prelude? That is the real question. I have studied this thing from all sides,” Edimmu said.
Pausing for a moment, the ancient Father of the Vampires looked out at his children. “Some of the signs have not presented themselves yet. Powers are hidden or in shade. If the dead walk again and old souls fly the skies, then we will truly know what comes. But for now, we will watch and wait. If you wish to lend your skills to the defense, Aeliana, you have my permission. But monitor the situation for us and help us see.”
“Help us see?” Anastasia / Aeliana muttered to herself as she drove. “Agatha is about to face her greatest challenge and I have to sit on the sidelines? I don’t think so.”
Pulling out her cell phone, the Vampire elder and forensic specialist dialed with one hand. “Ivan? I need you to get to Charleston as fast as you can.”
Chapter 7
I can see now why the short bus was so unpopular with school children. There’s hardly any room on them.
The three of us started sliding all over the interior of the bus when Cat swerved to the left. “What the hell!”
“Sorry, but there’s parked cars everywhere!” Cat exclaimed.
We were still on Highway Seventeen but it passed directly through a business district. Shopping malls and parking lots were on both sides of the road. So were Demons. A lot of Demons.
“Agatha, we need to stop shooting!” Chuck yelled to be heard over the sounds of guns firing.
I turned at the sound of his voice. His pack was open, and Chuck was reloading as fast as he was able. “What was that?” I yelled.
“Stop shooting. We only brought as much ammo as we could carry. This isn’t a video game. Finding ammo just lying around isn’t all that common. Who knows what we’re going to need inside Charleston itself,” Chuck explained.
He had a point. South Carolina wasn’t an open carry state and gun stores were few and far between. Unless we coul
d find a police station or National Guard armory we were on our own. I nodded. “Ok. I’ll tell Blake.”
Quickly, I holstered my pistols and approached Blake. Our lone human was firing shotgun blasts to great effect at the massive parade of Demons we had following us. But for every Demon killed, three more took its place. It really was a no-win situation.
Tapping the man on his shoulder I shouted, “Blake?”
Blake literally jumped, bringing his shotgun around towards me as if to defend himself. I stepped to his right to avoid the possible blast and readied my most powerful freeze spell. “Stop!”
The younger Agent turned his head toward me and slowed his reaction to fire. I could still see his finger on the trigger.
“Put the gun down now, Blake!” I shouted at him.
At that same moment, whether it was accidental or not, Cat hit both a large pothole and a flying Demon Bat. She swerved the bus as we bounced around mercilessly in the back. Blake’s finger slipped and the combat shotgun in his hands discharged!
Blam!
Three-hundred and twenty-six lead pellets travelling at a thousand feet per second blasted from the barrel of Blake’s gun, spraying both Chuck and the seat he leaned against.
The sound of the shotgun blast was still echoing as Chuck yelled.
“What the hell?” Chuck slapped at his left leg and face. The steel plates of his ballistic vest absorbed most of the impact, but the pellets had also torn through his cargo pants and into his body. Blood seeped for just a moment down his leg and onto the floor.
I released the spell in my hand, freezing Blake in place. This was combat and not one of my practice spells. Even his eyes were frozen. It was a good thing too, as he was about to meet a very pissed off WereCat in his combat form.
Chuck growled as his natural healing abilities kicked in, slowing the bleeding. Using a fingernail, he picked out the few that had gone into his neck and cheek. Turning away from him to avoid seeing the procedure, I turned my attention back to Blake.
I yanked the Saiga shotgun from Blake’s hands and ejected a round. Checking the color and code written on it, I sighed. Not silver. We had a supply of those, and Blake was supposed to keep a few with him at all times in situations like this but he hadn’t loaded them yet.
“Are you alright?” I asked Chuck.
A loud growl escaped my friend’s lips as he stood up and began stripping off his body armor and other gear. “Once I’ve had a moment to shift I will be.”
Worried, I looked both ways to the scene outside our vehicle. Demonic hordes were still terrorizing civilians everywhere I looked. Stores and houses burned all along the road, and behind us trooped thousands of the enemy. “Do you have to right now?”
“It’s the only way to completely remove the pellets. They don’t burn like silver does, though,” Chuck replied.
I waved at the broken windows around us. “We’re still in a combat situation. If we get a moment I’ll help you dig them out, but can you hold off?”
“Sure, what’d you do to him?” Chuck pointed at Blake.
“Freeze spell. I ought to just leave him like that.” I glared at the frozen agent. “But I can’t. He’d be like a giant popsicle to one of the Demons in the state he’s in now. Blake might be a huge tool but he’s FBI.”
Patting the frozen Agent down, I pulled out a pistol I’d not seen before, along with a pair of throwing knives. “What do you make of these?”
I started to toss them to Chuck but the bus hit another bump, tipping the frozen Agent onto the floor of the bus. “Oops,” I said with a shrug.
Chuck reached down and pulled the frozen man upright and laid him down across the passenger seats. Carefully taking one of the knives out of my hand, he gasped. “These are silver.” Looking closer and thumping the handles with his fingers, he remarked, “Cold iron I think, as well. These are Paranormal killers.”
“And the gun?” I asked.
“Desert Eagle Action Express. I’m surprised Blake could even fire it, much less hold it,” Chuck replied. Clearing it, he dropped the magazine and inspected the rounds. “These are custom. No idea what he’s spiked it with.”
Taking the weapon back, I stuck it in my backpack. “I’m keeping it for now. How far are we from the bridge?”
Cat looked back over her shoulder at us. Using her enhanced hearing, she’d been listening this entire time. “We’re almost to the 526 interchange. Once we get past that, it’s a straight shot to the bridge and Charleston.”
“And the Demons?” I asked.
“Getting thicker and thicker. I’ve been trying to not run them over too much. Some of those larger ones have some wicked looking spikes on them,” Cat explained.
Looking out the windows, I could see there were fewer and fewer civilians in view. They were either barricaded into their homes and businesses, or dead. I dearly hoped it was the former. I’d never seen the official government death toll from the first Demonic incursion, but my grandmother told me it was in the millions. That didn’t even include Europe’s losses. Entire countries were consumed over there. More than seventy years later the devastation caused by the Demons was just now starting to be wiped away by both nature and human means.
“Agatha, are you seeing that?” Cat pointed out her window.
Looking to the horizon I could see a cloud, black as night, covering most of Charleston Harbor. Under it all was an small land mass. Pulsating flashes of red and green shot across the sky occasionally striking downward.
“Is that an island?” I asked.
Chuck moved up behind me. “Fort Sumter. I guess we know where all the Demons are coming from.”
I frowned. “The last bit of intel we had was that Camilla was in town. Is this her work? Or is it the Demon Prince she raised? We’re going to need a boat to get out there.”
“Too bad we can’t take that one over there,” Chuck said, pointing out the window.
Following his finger, I could see a grey hulking behemoth tied up along the shore. It was a very large Navy aircraft carrier. Docked beside it were several other military ships.
“That’s the Yorktown. My dad brought me over here one summer. It’s decommissioned,” Cat told us. “That means it doesn’t move, Chuck.”
“I know what it means. Lots of other boats out there to choose from,” he commented.
And he was right. There were sailboats, motorboats, and what I assumed were fishing vessels all over the place in the harbor. Almost none of them were moving. A few burned. Colonies of Demon Bats swooped everywhere.
“Keep your eyes open for a good one, Chuck. We might still have to go out there and tackle whatever that is,” I instructed.
“Seriously Agatha, it takes a lot of power to close a Portal. If that’s what that is out there. Can you do it?” Cat asked.
“I don’t know. My bracelets help amplify my power, but…” I gazed out at the harbor again. The cloud looked bigger than before. “I’ve only encountered Demons once, and it was way back in our second school year. Remember that mission, Cat?”
“It was when we met Anastasia for the first time. She trusted us almost immediately. The same couldn’t be said for those other Agents. What did you say to those Russian mercs, anyway?” Cat asked me.
“I remember telling them I could enclose them in balls of power and float them into the sky or something. So untrained. The Russians I met in that other realm were much more in control. I told you about Zhanna and her cat. Those two will change their world for the good…” I trailed off as images started to flash in my brain. Pictures of battle, flashes of light, Demonic figures, and shiny scales rippled through my brain. For a moment, all I could see was blackness and then I started to speak again. “Now we just have to survive this challenge ahead of us and move on. I don’t see the future as much as some Witches do, but this I do know. Destruction of all we know is coming. It threatens our very existence. Who we trust and why is the key. We just have to survive what the Universe throws at us.”
Cat looked away from the road and over her shoulder. “Agatha?”
Blinking a couple of times, I looked out at the flickering black cloud. It took a moment before I even registered Cat calling my name. Chuck’s hand was on my arm and the bus was rolling to a stop.
“What just happened?” I asked.
Chuck removed his hand and stepped back. “You zoned out big time there, boss. One minute you were talking about Russian mercs, and then you said something about a key and the end of the world.”
I closed my eyes and tried to remember the last thirty seconds or so. Seeing visions was just something I could do. Oracle was one of the very rare powers a Witch could acquire, especially in my family. The biggest problem was remembering what I’d seen.
As I opened my eyes I saw a flash, but it wasn’t prophecy. It was the red-black wings of a Demon Bat as it swooped down attacking the bus! “Cat!”
My friend and head Agent spun around in shock. Dozens of Demons were in front of us and a swarm of fliers were all around us. The bus had slowed to a complete halt.
“Get us out of here!” Chuck started firing again out the windows with his pistol. Dropping it to the floor, he scrambled for his rifle. It was leaning up against the seats along with bits of his body armor. Grabbing the closest weapon instead, he scooped up Blake’s shotgun. Switching from single to semi-automatic he sprayed the Demons with an unending wall of lead.
Cat put the bus in gear and gunned the engine. The airport shuttle slowly started to move. It wasn’t used to heavy use.
“Aggy, I need your help!” Cat cried out.
Looking around, I could see a wave of Demons approaching and I heard the pounding of others in our rear. Reaching down deep, I checked on my Magick. Shielding the plane and bus had initially tapped me, but not altogether. Fergus was still asleep. When he gave me that surge of power he knocked himself right out. Looking at the bracelets on my arm, I nodded. Concentrating and praying to my Goddess, I cast a circle of flame around the bus in an ever-expanding concentric circle.
Every Demon within a thousand yards of us was incinerated.