The Shikari Box Set

by Dora Blume

  “So, what are they doing that they needed to take over the entire college building?” Mike looked to Erik for the answer but his eyes widened when Amy spoke.

  “Demon training, I saw the woman from the picture teaching them how to make chemical bombs to kill humans en masse.” Amy started walking faster, that reminded her of what was happening in there and she was genuinely frightened.

  “Holy shit, I wasn’t expecting that.” Mike shook his head in astonishment.

  “Yeah, can we get the hell out of here before they realize we’re here? They’re already suspicious.” Erik quickened his pace. The order needed to hear about this. Sending in the cavalry was their only chance at stopping them.

  They met Sloane at the car. Erik began shaking a finger at Sloane. “Thanks for having our backs, weren’t you supposed to make sure that we made it here?”

  “What?” She shrugged, “No one was following you. I figured I’d start the car so we could get the hell out of dodge as soon as possible.” She smiled at Mike and her heart did a flip in her chest. “Nice to see you, Mike. Need a ride?” She raised her eyebrows and bit her lip as she studied him. She could see his muscles flex under his black t-shirt. He flexed each peck under her appreciative gaze. Raising her head to meet his eyes she smiled.

  He winked. “Lovely to see you too, Sloane, I would love a ride. I parked a little closer to that building then I’d like but I’m not leaving my car there. My baby’s not getting towed." He stared into her eyes. He wanted to walk over, put his arms around her and pull her body flush to his. It’d been a long time since he’d seen her and they had unfinished business. He moved his eyes up her body. Her jeans were tight and ripped giving a slight suggestion of the smooth, lean legs beneath. He crept up to her tight dark t-shirt pausing at her perky breasts. He moved his eyes up and wanted to taste her full red lips. He lingered a moment, staring knowingly into her cobalt eyes. She missed nothing, her cheeks turned pink before she broke their gaze. He could stare into those beautiful eyes for hours.

  Erik shook his head, “The love you have for that car astounds me.” He got in the back seat next to Amy. He reached out to take her hand and pressed slightly, then he began to rub his thumb over her knuckles again hoping to sooth her nerves.

  “You just don’t appreciate fine craftsmanship.” Mike smiled crookedly through the window at Erik. He walked around the car and got in the passenger seat.

  “Yeah sure”, he looked over at Amy, his eyes searching hers. “Are you alright?” he asked in a low voice.

  “She’s fine, stop being so dramatic.” Sloane looked back in the mirror at Erik then Amy.

  Amy looked to Sloane and shook her head. “I’m fine, thanks.” She squeezed his hand to reassure him.

  Sloane stopped and Mike jumped out of the car, he looked back and met Sloane’s eyes. “Meet you at the pub, we need to talk.” He shut the door and got into his own car quickly. As soon as he had it started, Sloane darted off toward the freeway. She wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

  Chapter 10

  They reached the pub and jumped out immediately. Sloane looked to Erik, “Have you gotten a hold of Bryant yet?”

  “No, I’ll call him as soon as we get inside.” Erik pulled out his phone and began scrolling through his numbers. His father wasn’t the only call he wanted to make, he wanted to warn every one of the hunters in the city. If they were to happen upon that place they’d be in big trouble.

  “Come on, we need to go figure out what the hell is going on here and some kind of plan for how to deal with this shit. Demons are taking over the college. How did this shit happen and no one even noticed?” Sloane flung the door open and went inside. Mike was waiting for them. He was standing at the bar, Fireball bottle in hand, pouring it into four shot glasses.

  Sloane smiled wide but shook her head, “Really Mike? Getting wasted is your answer?” Sloane pulled a stool out and sat down. Amy sat next to her, the whole ordeal was catching up to her. She held her hands out in front of her and they were shaking. She placed them on her lap before anyone noticed. Holding Erik’s hand in the car had calmed her down but now she was starting to lose it after she started processing what happened. The images from the college rushed through her head and she clutched her hands into fists. She heard a rushing sound in her ears and could feel her heartbeat in her chest.

  “No, but if you haven’t noticed, your girl here could use a drink, and after that shit I could use one to calm my nerves too.” Mike slid the shot to Amy, and she took it in her shaking hands and downed it.

  Sloane hadn’t realized that Amy was freaking out until she saw her shaking as she took that drink. “Oh shit, Amy, everything will be fine, it’s over.”

  Erik went up behind her and rubbed her back, “Shh, everything’s okay. You’re safe here.” He could feel her whole body shake under his hands and her heart was racing. “Mike can you get her another one.”

  She couldn’t help it she was still shaking even after the drink, “I’m sorry I just can’t stop.” She tried to steady herself but was having a hard time.

  “No problem, love,” Mike poured more Fireball into the shot glass, “you guys were raised around this stuff, she’s not like you. Here love, this should help steady your nerves.” Mike pushed the shot in front of her and she downed it.

  Erik continued to rub circles on her back and she started to calm down. She felt cold and wasn’t sure why or what was happening to her. She took several deep breaths to try to calm herself down, it was working. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. Erik took off his coat and wrapped it around her. He continued to rub her back.

  “Okay, now that we’ve dealt with our immediate problem. What are we going to do about our bigger one?” Sloane looked at both Mike and Erik hoping they had an idea what to do next.

  Erik shrugged his shoulders, “I’m not sure what to do next; we need to alert everyone and get the order to send us some help. With the number of people possessed here we’re going to need more than the few of us in town. We might need the entire Midwestern division of the Shikari to fight them.”

  Sloane pondered what Erik said. “That might not be an option, those robberies were happening around the country. You think they did all that for just the people here in Minneapolis? No, my bet is there are problems everywhere, not just here. We may need to figure out how to deal with this issue ourselves.”

  Mike downed another shot after listening to Sloane and she rolled her eyes at him. “What? I need a few drinks when you start talking crazy like that.”

  “Seriously Sloane, we can’t deal with this shit on our own, we’ll die trying. I know you think you’re invincible but we live in reality and now we are far from invincible.” Erik moved to sit next to Amy and took her hand in his. Her grip felt weak in his hand and he squeezed. She looked up into his eyes, he could see the fear and exhaustion there.

  “I hate to admit it but she might be right. I can feel the Shikari and we’re certainly not the only ones having problems Everyone is buzzing right now and we might not have much of a choice. If we want to take care of our city, we may have to do this ourselves.” Mike looked down at the bottle and wanted to pour another but thought better of it. He shouldn’t be wasted when they were about to enter hell. On the other hand, he might want to be drunk if they were all going to die anyway, might as well go out having fun.

  “Erik make the call to Bryant, we need to meet with everyone in the city as soon as possible. Let’s all meet here at the pub.” Sloane was all business now. She knew that they may need to take care of this themselves and she was ready.

  “On it,” Erik walked, with cell in hand, over to the window while he dialed.

  Sloane looked to Mike. “So how many hunters are in town? We need to get them together right away. Also, are there any from greater Minnesota that we can call in? Maybe some people with some talents. I know you can sense them, so who should we start calling?” Sloane took the shot Mike put in front of h
er. She shrugged, couldn’t hurt she thought as she raised it to her lips and downed it.

  “That’s my girl,” Mike smiled. “Yeah, I’ll get on it. I’m going to sit in the back for a minute. I need to try to concentrate to see who I can feel out and what they can do. I’ll be back in a few minutes with a list of those I think will be the most helpful to us.” He stopped on his way to the back and turned to look to Sloane. “Why aren’t we having the Shikari leaders contact everybody? Why me?”

  Sloane stared him in the eye, “Because I trust you more than I trust them, you’ll also be able to tell what power they have which could be helpful in planning our next move. Now go.” She watched him intently as he turned and walked back to his office. She turned her head to the side slightly and watched his ass as he walked. She bit her lip. She wanted nothing more than to follow him back to his office and have her way with him or more appropriately let him have his way with her. It’d been so long since she’d seen him but the same heat was there which surprised her. She could feel his intensity in the room when he was looking at her. She shook her head and rubbed her hands on her thighs to dry them. She looked over at Erik still on the phone filling Bryant in on everything that happened.

  “You want to pass me that bottle?” Amy asked from the stool next to her. Sloane had forgotten all about her as she watched Mike.

  “Oh, yeah sure,” she handed her the bottle and watched as she poured herself another drink.

  “You okay?” Sloane asked turning to face Amy. She placed her hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I shouldn’t have let you go in there today.”

  “Yeah, I’m fine, sorry about before. I know you’re strong no matter what and I need to work on that. I just kinda freaked out after. I’m not used to this kind of thing, you know.” Amy looked down at the table feeling ashamed of not being able to handle herself like Sloane. She knew she was the weak one of the group and should probably go home before she got herself killed.

  “It’s okay Amy, we grew up with this and you did great in the heat of the moment.” She patted her shoulder and put her hand back in her lap.

  “Yeah, I told you she was in there, right?” Amy couldn’t remember what information she’d told them after she got out of the building.

  “Yes, she was teaching them.” Sloane confirmed.

  “Yeah from what I could tell she was teaching them how to make some kind of chemical bomb to kill numerous people. But at the same time the pictures shown were of a gas cloud rushing through the air after detonation. Yet, the ingredients seemed weird, wouldn’t chemicals be written in their molecular form, this was written in what looked like maybe Latin. I’m not sure I couldn’t read what was on the board just saw the pictures.” Amy tried to remember the classroom, she thought what they were learning was strange. That’s part of what freaked her out. She looked to Sloane and said, “if they were learning to make bombs to kill people wouldn’t they try it here first, since this is where they’re learning it?” Her body shook.

  “Huh, good point. The writing was in a different language? I wonder what language they’re using, it could narrow down where these demons are from.” She pondered that. “Could you remember it enough to try to draw it for me?” She studied Amy.

  “I don’t think so, it made no sense to me. I just remember it was something I didn’t understand.” Amy wished she could be more helpful, but she wasn’t studying the board. She was trying to get the hell out of there.

  “It’s okay. Maybe I can see it with my gift. Give me your hand.” She reached out to take Amy’s hand.

  “What? I thought you could only see the future?” She gave Sloane her hand but didn’t understand how that would help anything.

  “Well my power is a little more multifaceted than that, I would love to explain it but right now I need to see what you saw.” She took her hand and closed her eyes to concentrate. If her powers were truly back to full capacity, she’d be able to see what Amy saw when she was in the building. She was happy they were alone though because she didn’t want the others to know she could do this. Seeing the future was a gift many coveted. Some would try to enslave her if they could. After concentrating, she could see the building and she smiled, it was working. She followed Amy down the hall and when she darted into the classroom. Her heart started racing as she saw her target at the front of the class. Amy was right they were using another language; it was an old Celtic language, one few would even know. The markings were of the materials they had for the bomb Amy talked about but it wasn’t for destroying humans, it was for destroying hunters. Without hunters around they could wreak havoc as they saw fit. The Shikari were their first target. She watched the woman continue her lecture until Amy left the room. She was disappointed that they hadn’t given away where they planned to use the bomb. Sloane knew they had to get rid of these demons. If the information spread, the Shikari wouldn’t stand a chance. She only hoped this particular education wasn’t being spread everywhere. At the same time, she knew chances of that were slim considering the robberies happened in over nine different states, all with large concentrated populations of hunters.

  “So, what did you see?” Amy could see by Sloane’s furrowed brow she’d figured something out.

  Sloane continued to stare off into space. “That cloud bomb isn’t for humans it’s for Shikari hunters and if they’re teaching that information we’re truly fucked.” Sloane hurried over to fill Erik in so he could tell Bryant.

  Sloane leaned in to whisper in his ear and his eyes got wider and his mouth dropped open as she continued. Erik dropped the phone after Sloane moved away from his ear. Erik scrambled to pick it up again and then handed it to Sloane. She took it and repeated to Bryant what she’d just said to Erik. Erik walked over to the bar and took the bottle of Fireball and moved it to his lips, chugging before setting it back on the counter. His eyes were still wild and wide.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered and looked over to Amy. Erik reached for the bottle again.

  Amy reached her hand out and placed it gingerly on Erik’s hand holding the bottle. “Don’t Erik, you need to keep your head on straight, getting drunk right now is not the answer. I think you’ve had enough for one day.” She smiled at him but he held his hand in an iron grip over the bottle. She glared at him and pulled on the bottle trying to get him to let go. He stared at her then pressed his mouth into a hard line and finally let it go and sat down.

  He huffed out a heavy breath, “Sorry, but this shit is getting intense and I think I’d like to just get wasted rather than have to think about the craziness. Do you even realize what this means, the demons have a way to destroy us? They’ve never had that before. I didn’t even know it was possible to destroy us with some gas bomb. Well I knew we could be killed by a bomb but I didn’t know they could strip us of our abilities and leave us weakened. I mean who keeps that kind of information secret from people who need to know that kind of thing, like me. How come I didn’t know any of this.” He was rambling on so fast that his words ran together.

  “Yeah, but drinking isn’t going to help anyone and they need you right now.” Amy reached for Erik’s hand and he gave it easily. He was the one in need of comfort. She ran her thumb over his knuckles just as he’d done for her. She wanted to take him into her arms and hold him. At the same time, she wanted to run out of this bar and forget she ever knew any of them.

  Mike came back from his office with a notebook in his hand. Noticing Erik at the bar he said, “Hey, you don’t look so good.” Erik looked drawn and pale with wild wide eyes that darted around the room.

  Erik took a deep breath before he answered. “I’ll be fine this is just getting nuts.”

  “That’s an understatement; I have a list of the most powerful people in the area. We’ll need to start making calls; some of them are up north but would certainly come if we call them. I’m especially interested in getting Jessie down here; she can stop time, which can be especially useful in a fight. In fact, I think I’ll go call her now. We
go way back. Here give Sloane this list when she gets off the phone.” He set the notebook down in front of Erik.

  Erik looked even more shocked for a moment then dropped Amy’s hand instantly. “You’re calling Jess?” his voice was low.

  “Ah, yeah, we’re going to need her power.” Mike studied Erik a moment then nodded. “You good?” he asked.

  “Ah… probably. I think I’ll step out for a smoke.” He followed Mike passed his office and went out the back entrance.

  After a few minutes outside Erik returned and sat next to Amy. He looked into her eyes and took a deep breath. “I think I’m good now,” he said. She nodded and looked over at Sloane.

  Sloane was pacing while talking with Bryant, she seemed to be getting worked up. She hung up the phone and threw it. “There’s no reasoning with that man,” she yelled.

  “Um, that was my phone,” Erik said as he looked to the phone that was in pieces on the far wall.

  Amy slapped him on the knee. “What’s up Sloane?”

  “He is being ridiculous, he doesn’t think we need that many people here right now, they’re investigating the robberies and so he thinks they should focus on that instead of the massive group of demons learning how to destroy us here. Who the hell thinks like that. I mean, why won’t he listen to reason. He needs to tell the order what’s going on here right now so they can send help.” She stopped pacing and took a few deep breaths to stop from hyperventilating.

  “So, we’re not getting any help from the Shikari leaders?” Erik was confused.

  “No, Bryant won’t even call them about this. According to Bryant,” she held up her hands making air quotes, “they’re too busy right now dealing with more pressing issues. What the hell could be more pressing than this?” Sloane walked over to the bar and grabbed the Fireball bottle next to Erik. Her hands shook as she tipped the bottle to pour a shot. Whiskey spilled onto the counter as she poured, but she didn’t stop pouring until the glass was full. She raised it to her lips and finished it in one gulp. She slammed the glass back down and braced herself against the bar with both hands, dropping her head between her arms. “Ugh!” she yelled out.