by T S Paul
“Chuck! Are you all right?” I spoke in a quiet voice.
Cat let out a loud chuff and I thought I could hear a human voice say sorry. Finally using just a bit of my talents, the branches gave way. “Oof!”
Near the front of the courthouse building were three steps down into a cubbyhole. A broken glass door was set into the wall. Chuck lay across the concrete, holding one of his massive paws against a wound to his chest. Blood dripped onto the ground as he breathed heavily. “Oh, my Gods, Chuck!”
About to jump down to help him, a strange woman who was dressed similarly to me hurried out of the courthouse with what looked like an ancient first aid kit. “This was all I could find in there. We couldn’t get into the main building. Oh…”
The unknown FBI Agent saw me and jumped as she passed the first aid box to Chuck.
“How bad is he?” I asked her as I jumped down into the cubby.
“Totally my fault! All I saw was claws and teeth and reacted before I knew he was a Were. He’s managed to heal the shotgun hits to his legs and upper body, but my partner shot him in the chest with her weapon,” the Agent replied.
Kneeling, I checked his body over carefully, noting the small patches of missing fur. “You always do this, charge towards the sound of the guns like an idiot. I’m sure Cat over there is worried sick about you.”
The Sabertooth in question chuffed at me but continued to watch from above. Her massive head with its eight-inch teeth swiveled left and right, looking for trouble. Since she didn’t seem overly concerned, I knew he would heal.
“Let me see it,” I told him, pointing to his hand and bloody wound.
Chuck let out a rumbling growl and what sounded like a “No.”
I stuck my finger in his face and growled back at him. “Charles Winthrop, you might be the Third but I will guarantee you that there won’t be a Fourth if you don’t let me see that wound! Do you understand me, mister?”
The Agent standing behind me actually giggled. My glare shut her up as well.
“Remove the hand, right freaking now!” I ordered.
Wincing, and I do know what a Were wince looks like, he pulled his hand away from his chest. The trickle of blood was slowing and only a few drops came out as I poked and prodded the hole. “You call this a gunshot wound?”
I took the kit away from my teammate and popped it open. Small bandages and some ancient looking cream was all it contained. “Gel or no gel?”
Chuck shook his head no and I put it on him anyway. His whole body shivered and trembled.
“Don’t be such a big baby about this. You could change back, you know?” I explained as I placed numerous small self-sticking bandages on him.
“You must be one of the teams we were promised,” a new voice sounded behind me.
Cat wasn’t attacking, and she hadn’t bothered to warn me of this new person’s presence, so she must be ok. I turned around to see another FBI Agent. This one had her hand out in greeting.
“You must be the partner that shot my man,” I held out my own hand. “Special Agent in Charge and Director Agatha Blackmore.”
“Magical Division? Wow. We’re being saved by the big boys!” The new woman replied, “Special Agent in Charge Anabelle Smith. This is my partner, Agent Alicia Jones.”
“Smith and Jones, sounds like a television show. What’d you shoot him with anyway?” I asked.
“Standard Glock round, a .40 caliber. We weren’t loaded for Paranormals so no silver shot, not that it would have helped against the Horde,” Agent Smith replied.
“Are you the surveillance team we were told about?” I asked. They almost had to be, since they’d been here before us.
Smith hung her head. “Half my unit got taken out on the other side of the park. When the woman started yelling, the little freaky bastards started popping out of manholes and storm drains. The boys didn’t know what hit them. We heard an explosion and boom, no more backup. It was all we could do to stay alive.”
I nodded my head but picked up on what she said about a woman. “What woman was yelling?”
“Our target. Camilla Blackmore, your aunt I believe. She lives in that house right there,” Smith pointed to a large three-story house overlooking the park. A large balcony sat on the roof. “We’ve watched her for a couple of months. She came out and started yelling up at the sky in a strange language.”
“Is she still in there?” I asked.
“Maybe?” The younger Agent replied. “We’ve been pretty distracted with all the Demons and getting the civilians to safety and all.”
Scanning it with my Mage Sight, I found I was blocked. Someone or something inside was shielding the place. “Anyone else in there with her?”
“The house belongs to an Autumn Fredericks and she’s almost always there. We’ve been tracking a lot of communications between her and a motorcycle gang called the Sons of the Devil. They’ve just about cornered all the guns, drugs, and prostitution here in Charleston. We don’t know the connection to either your aunt or the Fredericks girl,” Agent Smith explained.
“Have you seen others around here too?” I quickly explained about Xavier and his team finding out that Director Mills told them we were coming.
“They must have gone somewhere else. It was all a lie then. Shows how much inter-agency cooperation is worth. I need to confront her before we try and arrest her. Do you two want to come along?” I asked.
Chapter 18
“Cat, take Chuck and climb the first balcony. I’ll take Agents Smith and Jones and meet you in the middle. While this might be my cousin’s house, we have no idea what’s inside it,” I instructed. “Hold still a moment and let me put shields on you.”
Closing my eyes, I linked to both cats through the Pack bonds we share and the amulets I placed on them several years ago. Magick and Weres don’t mix all that well unless you have established links with them.
“These will stop a fireball or a bullet but not both. You know the drill. Either take out the bad guy or run for it. I’ll try and back you up.” I waved my hand and watched as my Magick settled over the two WereCats. Turning my attention to the two women beside me, I smiled. “I can’t cover you two quite as well. It would take way too long to establish a connection to you, but I can cast this on you.”
Making a quick hand motion, I cast a rune of protection and defense on both women. Checking my Mage sight, they each had a healthy glow about them. “While not quite the same as theirs, what I put on you might be even better. It will give you the tiniest bit of foresight. If your instincts tell you to run, run. As law enforcement, we learn to trust what our guts tell us. This spell just magnifies it.”
While both the regular FBI Agents smiled, Chuck and Cat made noises of protest. “Stop,” I said. “I don’t use this with our investigations because it’s addictive. Use it too much and you lose all your foresight. You’d be ruined as investigators.”
I turned back to the two investigators. “Relax. One spell isn’t going to hurt you. They both have amulets that allow me to connect to them faster.”
I looked up at Autumn’s house. Harvey Friedlander, Camilla’s third husband, had been a rich man. After his untimely death he’d left each of Camilla’s daughters a small fortune in real estate and trust funds. This, I assumed, was part of that trust. Deep down, I prayed to my Goddess that my cousin wasn’t wrapped up in this mess as well.
“Is Autumn involved in this?” I asked Agent Smith.
“No idea. She’s been up there with her mother a lot. We have…” the Agent paused, remembering the destroyed van. “I mean we had recordings of her meeting with the Sons and some of our warrant searches revealed it was Autumn who purchased the club’s new clubhouse.”
“Ok then. Try not to hurt her if you can. She’s going to be answering quite a few questions both by me and the Witches Council. I’m sure my grandmother will be involved as well. Camilla is different. There is proof she was in Sicily and is responsible for the Demons. She and I have had o
ur difficulties, but this is over and above all of that.” I patted my weapons vest and gave my guns a quick perusal. “Everyone ready?”
The three of us filed out of the cubbyhole next to the courthouse, making our way through the fence and around the downed tree. Broad Street lived up to its name here. Unlike Church Street, this road was extra wide with additional room for parked cars. Not that they were parked, though. Many were blackened and scorched from being burned. It looked very much like a war had been fought here.
“It was bad, Agent Blackmore. That was our van over there.” Alicia pointed to a pile of twisted metal that didn’t look like anything specific. “We think the lady up there wanted us gone.”
“You survived. That is what you take away from this. We just have to finish it,” I explained.
The historic house Autumn owned was tall and shinny in the front. In this area, they call it a Charleston Single house. It had a multi-level porch system which was built to encompass as much space as possible. In summer, the porches and upper windows would pull the air through the house, keeping it cool. Those houses along the harbor had porches called Captain’s walks. Traditionally it was so the Captains of the ships at sea could watch for their vessels.
Looking up, I could see several security cameras carefully tucked out of the way in the eaves of the roof. Focusing my will, I brought it together as a force ball, cupped carefully in my hands. Not sure if anyone was watching, I smiled upward and let it loose.
Wham!
In an explosion of wood, glass, and brick, the front door caved inward, spraying the sidewalk with debris. “Now, Cat!”
I didn’t see it, but in two leaps Cat jumped first to the house’s brick wall then straight up to the second-floor balcony. The weight of her leap collapsed the wall into the park. Chuck went up in a more traditional way. If Bugman was a giant cat, he would look like Chuck. Up the wall and onto the same balcony he went. Much faster than any movie creation I’d ever seen.
Blam! Blam! Blam! Crack!
Several pistol shots and what sounded like an AK-47 firing peppered us as we climbed through the hole that used to be a door. Two heavily armed men stood ten feet or so back from the door, firing at us.
“Get down!” I jumped to the left and tossed a fireball at the one on the left. As he went down he fired at the Agents behind me. Blam!
I felt rather that saw the bullet whiz past me, striking Alicia in the chest!
Turning to help her, I caught a glimpse of the second man as he took a knee and fired his AK at all of us.
Crack!
The gun miraculously jammed! He shook it for a second or two then reached for another and Anabelle shot him.
“Clear!” I called out. “Is Alicia alright?”
The younger Agent was sprawled out across the broken brick as she patted her vest. Peering down at it, she looked for the hole.
“You got lucky, sister,” Anabelle said as she stuck a finger in a hole just below the Agent’s breast bone. “An inch higher and we’d be sticking you in a bag.”
“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of an AK jamming,” I remarked.
Anabelle stood up and helped Alicia up as well. “It happens. Poor maintenance or using an East Asian model and West African magazines might do it. They don’t mix and match well.”
A sudden roar caused all of us to look upward. Loud crashing and screaming broke the silence as Cat and Chuck ran into trouble.
“Stairs!” All three of us spoke as one. We charged forward up the stairs in front of us.
<<<>>>
Cat landed on the balcony with a really loud thump. The men she smelled inside the glass doors didn’t react at all to her presence. She could only assume they thought she was another Demon or had come from above on the third level. That was to be their undoing. Looking to her left, she acknowledged Chuck with a chuff and a head nod.
Three steps and a paw swipe and the doors opened to her. Any door would open to her.
A leather clad biker holding a beer screamed like a little girl and dropped the bottle as Cat’s gigantic form moved through the door. “Aaaaa!”
Swiping her paws first left then right, Cat knocked the man to one side and into the wall, knocking him out. She let out a roar of challenge.
The two other men in the room jumped up from the couches and reached for weapons. Chuck made a crashing dive through the windows, drawing any potential fire from the men. Glass and wood shards sprayed forward, temporarily blinding all the humans in the room.
Cat’s Sabertooth tiger charged! She sank her teeth into the man closest to her, ripping his leg off in the process.
<<<>>>
Screams and roars greeted us as we hit the top of the stairs at a run. Rivulets of blood ran across the finely polished hardwood floors to pool at the edges of the room. Once fine furniture and antiques lay in shambles everywhere. A man lay against the wall with obviously broken bones and heavy bruising.
The man screaming was holding what remained of a leg and was bleeding out fast. Alicia secured a tourniquet on the leg. Pulling out a pencil from her cargo pants she gave it a twist. Grabbing the now glassy-eyed biker she said, “Hold this. If you let go, you’ll die!”
Gasping like a fish, the man’s hands shook but he grasped the pencil anyway. His face was filled with anguish and pain.
Chuck gripped the third man by the throat and held him a foot off the ground against one of the walls. The thug looked to be screaming silently until I looked closer. Chuck’s massive claws were extended and pressed into the man’s throat. One slip and he’d be decapitated instantly.
“Do you have him?” I asked the large Were.
Growling, Chuck removed his claws, allowing the man to drop to the floor. He no sooner stood than I froze him. Similar to the spell I’d used on Blake, this one allowed him to see and speak but nothing else.
“Guard the stairs,” I ordered my team.
Peering into the frozen man’s eyes, I asked a couple quick questions. “Name?”
“Buh...buh… Brian,” he answered.
“How many people are upstairs Brian, and is Camilla one of them?” I asked.
Brian’s eyes got really wide and I could hear his heart beating, it was going so fast. “Kill me… She’ll kill me.”
Glancing at Anabelle, I nodded. “That answers that. Brian, we’re going to leave you here now, so don’t go anywhere, ok?”
Now was the time. Closing my eyes, I drew power from a sleeping Fergus and from a hidden ley line below the house. Autumn’s stepfather had chosen well. Both my bracelets powered up instantly. I could feel as well as see the power running through them.
“Almost over,” I whispered as I started up the stairs, my shield leading the way.
This part of the house was configured into a socialite’s playground. Fine tapestries, furniture, and electronics lined the walls. One-of-a-kind pieces of furniture sat in the middle of the room. Looking out toward the square, I could see I’d found the one person in the world I’d hoped to never see again.
Three women stood on the balcony looking inward, directly at me. They wore fancy dresses and gleamed in the sunlight.
“This is your one and only chance to give yourself up, Camilla. You’re family, and family shouldn’t kill family,” I shouted. There was the faintest murmur in the back of my head. Like something on the very tip of your tongue.
Camilla laughed. Unlike the last time I’d faced her on my grandmother’s lawn, her voice was loud, coarse, and dripping with malice. “Family. You think this is about family? Such a child you are. So much like those you surround yourself with. Pets and servants. Ignorance is bliss.”
My aunt pointed to both sides and the other women moved away from her. I hadn’t seen Autumn in years, but she still favored my grandmother. She and the other much older woman began waving and making intricate motions in the air.
“Autumn. Give up. You don’t want to go down like your mother. She’s only using you. Don’t make me kill you
!” I exclaimed.
“Ignorance abounds. How I love this modern world. You’ve allowed yourselves to become like fruit that I can simply pluck from the tree and devour.” Camilla motioned to me. “Come child. Let me take your innocence and harvest it. You drip with power and it tastes wonderful!”
I involuntarily took a single step forward before the murmuring in my ears became suddenly louder.
Defender spoke a rare single word to me. “Stop.”
Camilla peered at me with sudden interest. “Take them off, child. They seem too heavy for your arms. If you take them off, we can talk. I’m sure you have many questions for me.”
I could hear the voice in my head and it was like honey and wine. Dulling my senses, whispering to me as it dug deeper into my soul.
“Stop. Trap. Stop. Trap. Stop…” one voice made of two began echoing in my ears. Looking down and away from Camilla I could see each bracelet glowing in time with the strange chant.
The words finally registered as I slammed my shields down with sudden force, blocking off the spell that all three women were weaving.
“No!” I cried out.
“So be it. Now you die. I will rip and tear your beating heart from your chest and eat it. The very moment your soul tears itself loose from your body it will be mine! It will join other members of your family, completing the set. You have such potential. Too bad it’s wasted,” Camilla growled at me.
I looked at the woman I’d been calling Camilla with new eyes. “Who are you?”
“Your doom is who I am. Bringing me here was a treat but giving me this body? That was the key. This body actually held the key to the book and with it I can rule,” Camilla pronounced. Raising her arms skyward she began to recite a spell. It was in a language I was unfamiliar with, but it tugged at me in ways that were unnatural.
“Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis’s bethad, do chél dénmha.” Camilla chanted. Power like I’d never felt or dreamed of poured out of her body. Dark-colored energy wound its way around her body in a never-ending spiral of pain and death. She was using her own power for whatever this was.