by Lucy Kelly
Josephine was rambling; she knew it, but couldn’t seem to stop. At the same time, she was watching over Sarah’s shoulder as she worked on the computer. She recognized the Finder program, only this seemed to be an updated version. Sarah’s fingers literally flew over the keyboard.
“Okay. Her cell is in San Francisco. I’m nailing down an exact location now,” she said. She looked up at her Ankida and saw Kai speaking into his satellite cell.
“What is the address in San Francisco, Sarah?” he asked.
Sarah immediately gave it to him and he relayed it to whomever he was talking to on the other end.
“Who are you talking to?” Josephine asked him.
“Jack Walthers,” Sarah said. “He’s my ex-business partner. After he bought me out, he moved the corporate headquarters to San Francisco…he’s gay. I hope you don’t have a problem with that,” Sarah said, looking up at Josephine for a moment.
Josephine shook her head. “No, whatever floats your boat. What can he do to help?”
“Well, since you’re not dialing the FBI in San Francisco right now to check on her, we’re making other arrangements. I understand you won’t feel better until you know she’s okay. Why don’t you try her cell again?” Sarah asked.
Josephine did as she suggested and called Aimeé’s cell one more time. The same as last time, it rang and rang, then went to voicemail. She left another message, asking her sister to call her back. She also supplied the number Sarah gave her.
“Jack says it will take them about twenty to forty minutes to get there from Soma. It’s the South of Market area where his business is, out to the avenues where the signal is coming from. He took Tonne and Jorne with him,” Kai said before hanging up.
Josephine started pacing the room. Every fifteen minutes, she’d try to reach her sister. Ishme and Nyal sat on the couch. Every time she tried her sister’s cell and left a message, Kai would call and get a status on how close the guys were to where Aimeé’s cell signal was coming from. She knew as hard as they were trying for her, it might not work out. It was possible Aimeé wasn’t even in the same place as her cell phone. As they waited, her sense of urgency was increasing. She just knew something bad was going to happen.
Sarah was worried about Josephine. She wasn’t even aware she was acting a little over the top. But Sarah knew how it was to act on what her gift was telling her. She knew Josephine’s Nephilim gifts were what were pushing her. That’s why she and her Ankida were taking this so seriously. She could see it as luck that Josephine was here today. She needed Nephilim help today. Jack was available today. Both Tonne and Jorne, two Nephilim she’d sent to San Francisco for some training, were also available to help. If Josephine’s sister were in trouble, there were few who could hold their own against a Nephilim warrior.
The satellite phone rang and Kai answered it. After speaking for a few minutes, he looked over at Josephine. “They’re not sure what’s going on. They have arrived at the zoo; the cell signal is coming from inside. They can hear gunfire in the distance and people seem to be running out of the zoo.”
“Shit. Fuck. Shit. I knew it! She’s okay right now but something’s going to happen. It’s close. And I can’t warn her!” Josephine ranted before kicking the desk.
Kai brought the phone back to his ear. “Go in, use your own judgment,” he said before hanging up. He had been looking at Josephine the entire time he spoke. “Tonne and Jorne are strong warriors. They will take care of the situation. Doctor March is their top priority.”
Josephine rubbed her hands over her face. She wished she were there. This waiting was the worst!
“Josephine, while we wait to hear, why don’t I tell you about that birthmark of yours and what it means,” Sarah said, hoping to distract her.
The distraction worked. Sarah brought up visuals on the computer and told Josephine the story of how the Nephilim came to Earth ten thousand years ago and how within the past year, they’d come back. It was enough to yank Josephine’s attention to what Sarah was saying.
*****
In San Francisco, Jack Walthers acted as a lookout for Tonne and Jorne so they could jump the wall to the zoo. Considering each man pushed seven feet tall; it wasn’t that difficult for them. As soon as they were over the wall, they triangulated the position of Aimeé’s phone and took off. They tried to stay hidden from zoo personnel as they made their way past the exhibits. Many of the animals were agitated and vocalizing.
They decided to split up. Tonne headed to where the gunshots were coming from, intending to stop the problem at the obvious source. Jorne kept tracking the cell signal and hoped the female they were looking for was with her phone. Jack had not jumped the wall with the two Nephilim warriors; he was heading to the entrance. He was a well-known San Franciscan, and was going to try to use his clout to get inside.
Tonne came across the first shooter almost by accident. The man was running off the path through the trees; either trying to escape or heading to another target. Tonne expanded his stun stick and stopped the man in his tracks. When he fell, Tonne took very long zip ties from his pocket and tied the miscreant to a nearby tree. He attached the weapon the man carried to the tree with a zip tie also. He didn’t want security to think he was a shooter.
He could still hear shooting and screaming. He took off running as quickly as he could. Anxious to stop the shooting, he ran on to the main pathway and against the flow. None of the people he passed seemed to be injured and it gave him hope. The shooting was coming from up ahead. He saw security guards grabbing the many children and herding the people away. Ignoring a shouted demand to go back, he ran around the corner in the path. Up ahead, there was a man jogging passed the bear enclosures, shooting at the animals as he ran. Tonne tried to stay out of his line of sight until he was within stunning distance. The man stopped at an enclosure, taking more care in his aim as he prepared to shoot his weapon.
The man shot twice before Tonne was able to stun him and knock him out. Security was in sight; he didn’t bother to tie up the man, though he did pick up the weapon and dropped it over into the enclosure so children or anyone else wouldn’t pick it up and hurt themselves. Now that these shots were quiet, he could hear more shooting off in the distance. He took off running once again.
Jorne could hear roaring in the distance of some type of animal. The cell signal was in the same direction. He started jogging down the path. When a guard yelled at him to go back, he lied and said he had to reach his family. All around him, people were panicking. Suddenly, up ahead, he saw a woman with several small children stumble and fall. She held the smallest child in her arms and tried to turn her body as she went down to protect the child. People behind her were running and looking over their shoulders.
Jorne could see the woman and children were in danger of being trampled. Making two running leaps, he stopped behind her and shouted, diverting the runners behind her, even as he scooped up the little ones and protected them with his own body. He felt a couple of glancing blows on his back as people attempted to change course.
“Hold on,” he shouted, and put the larger child, a boy, on his back. Placing the smaller in his mother’s lap, he picked them all up in his arms and walked quickly off the path and into the trees, where he put the woman down again on the ground.
“You’ll be safe here. Are you injured?” he asked.
“I’m alright, just bumps and bruises. Are we really safe here?” she asked.
He pointed to his ear, "I’m told the shooters are killing animals, not people. Stay here until things calm down. I have to find someone or I’d stay with you. Will you be okay on your own?” he asked. He was torn; it went against everything he knew to put females and children in danger. He knew he could do more as a warrior stay in this place with this one family. He hoped she’d agree to let him go.
“It’s scary, but you’ve already saved us. Go ahead and save your family too,” she said.
He didn’t bother to protest. He just left the way h
e came in. It was hard to hear the child in her arms crying. He contacted Jack and gave him the woman’s coordinates. Jack would see that someone came to help her. Glancing at the tracker, he began jogging once again.
There was a large building up ahead. Most of the roars were coming from inside. Terrified people were scrambling to get out through the doors. When another shot rang out, he knew it came from there. It was going to be difficult to push against the tide of people fleeing.
“Careful, there are children,” he shouted.
A few of the crazed people slowed down enough to take care as they ran. He saw adults picking up children and helping others while escaping.
The exodus had slowed enough he was able to get inside. The sight before him momentarily froze him in his tracks.
*****
Aimeé March had been having a really good day. She had closed her practice for the day and was spending it at the zoo. Even though she spent most of her time working with cats, dogs, and the occasional iguana, she was asked to consult at the zoo often enough to keep her hand in with other species. The San Francisco Zoo employed two full-time vets and four vet techs. There weren’t any openings at the zoo when Aimeé move to San Francisco, but the zoo welcomed volunteer vets. Over the past five years since then, she had gotten her foot in the door because of her strong ability to diagnose what was wrong with any particular animal, and her willingness to work cheap.
Her mom had come from a wealthy family, so her vet practice was state of the art. They could handle anything from exotic birds to elephants. She’d converted an old Safeway supermarket into her practice. Part of the large parking lot was walled off and turned into an outdoor exercise yard for recuperating patients. She had a large boarding facility for family pets. The back of the store, what was once the loading docks and warehouse, was now intake facilities and operating theatres. The actual vet clinic only took up a small area up front. The zoo had its own on-site hospital but occasionally needed specialized equipment.
Aimeé’s clinic and hospital quickly became the favorite. She was the closest, at only a mile away, and she only charged what it cost her to provide the service. Animals made her life whole, so she was happy to donate her time. Some of the people at the zoo felt she was buying her way in. So what if she was? It didn’t bother her. Aimeé’s goal was the care of the animals, period. She was willing to let people gossip about her if it made them feel better. After a while, the staff at the zoo loosened up. Her abilities with the animals won them over. She had been able to prove she wasn’t just a rich girl buying the work of others. She’d only had to perform an enema on a rhino to prove it. When it came down to it, they were all there for the health and well-being of the animals.
The San Francisco Zoo was famous for its gorilla habitat. Now they were creating a wonderful space for their bears and big cats. The regular person in charge of the big cats had a family emergency; Aimeé had been asked to help with their care and feeding, including a tiger cub. She was looking forward to it. The zoo brought the cats inside at feeding time, so the public could see them up close. The smell in the cat house hit you in the face when you first walked in, but you quickly became accustomed.
She and one of the keepers were entering from the storeroom to where the cats were roaring out their hunger, when they heard a loud bang.
That was a gunshot!
“Jeff! That was a gunshot! Open the doors so the cats can get out to their enclosures if they feel threatened,” she said.
She could feel the pain coming from one of the lions down the line. People were screaming and running, trying to get out any way they could. The shooter had climbed over the barrier, which kept the public about five feet away from the heavily-barred enclosures where the cats were fed. The path was used by the keepers as they went down the line with a wheelbarrow full of large chunks of meat.
Now Aimeé used the wheelbarrow as a battering ram as she pushed it down the aisle. The intruder had already shot two animals. He was heading down the line. He would reach the enclosure with the mother tiger and her cub.
“You should be on our side. Keeping them in cages like this is like death to them, anyway,” the shooter shouted.
Since he wasn’t openly shooting at the people or threatening to shoot her, she kept aiming for him. She planned to run him down with the wheelbarrow. When he realized what she was going to do, he went back over the barrier. But he didn’t give up his crazy mission. He headed over to where the tigers were.
He stood and took aim when Aimeé jumped in between, ruining his shot.
“Stop! Just stop this. I won’t let you kill this mother and her cub in cold blood,” she yelled out.
She was pressed back against the cage. It was not the best idea, what with the heavy scent of blood in the air, hungry and wounded animals all around. She felt the cub jump up behind her, putting a huge paw on her shoulder. Any minute now, those claws could rip down her back. She sent calming thoughts to the cub she’d played with often enough in the past several months.
This was the scene Jorne saw coming in the doors. There were a few people scattered over the floor, obviously hurt in the stampede to get out. He broke his stupor and started running across the floor where the shooter was dodging to the left and right trying to get a clear shot. Jorne saw, out of the corner of one eye, Aimeé was carefully moving, and the cub let her go. She tried to keep her body between the shooter and the cats. Another two steps and he whipped out and extended his stun stick. Then he changed his mind. If the man were to shoot as he fell, he might injure the woman. Instead, he closed the distance between them. Grabbing the man’s arm, he wrenched it upwards. A shot rang out, going harmlessly into the ceiling. Jorne, standing at seven feet tall, quickly overcame the much shorter struggling human. He wrestled him over to the barrier and secured him with zip ties. Zip ties were a human invention the Nephilim were particularly pleased with. They were a completely legal and innocuous item that could be used in many ways. All the warriors had taken to carrying several lengths and thicknesses with them at all times. Emptying the bullets, he secured the gun with another two zip ties out of the criminal’s reach, but where the police could easily find it.
As soon as he had the man secured, he looked up. Many of the people were getting to their feet now, since it seemed as if the crisis had passed. As he looked around, attempting to assess the situation, armed security ran in. Pointing to the man he’d secured, he said, “Officers, this is the man you want.”
They might have arrested him anyway, but several of the witnesses started shouting out how he had saved them from the shooter. An officer told him to stick around for questioning, and he agreed, before turning to see where Aimeé had gone. His heart nearly stopped when he saw she had entered the cage of one of the lions. Some of the animals had fled outside when they could. Others were roaring out in pain, hunger, and anger. The lion she crouched over appeared to be in bad shape. He could see two others, a male and a female, were both dead. As he approached her, she looked up.
“I could save her, if I could get in to surgery immediately. But I don’t see how we can. She’s carrying cubs,” she said, with tears streaming down her face.
Suddenly, making this happen was the most important thing in the world.
“How much time do we have?” he asked.
“Not much…I need to stop this bleeding.”
Jorne was worried about her. He could see the lion was calm for now. But a wounded animal was always dangerous. Normally, this was a large lethal animal.
“Why isn’t she lashing out at you?” he asked.
Before she could answer, a buzzing sound went off in her pocket.
“Sorry, that’s my phone. It’s been going off about every five or ten minutes for the last hour. It’s a number I don’t recognize. I wish they’d give up—damn telemarketers! I put myself on the no call list. Sorry, again, I’m rambling. It’s a family trait; we do that when we’re worried or nervous,” she said.
Before he coul
d tell her it was her sister trying to reach her, he heard his brother through his earpiece. There was no more shooting going on. He was showing the security guards where the first of the two men he’d taken down was stashed. He also told him one bear was dead and another wounded. He relayed the information to her and she cried out at the senseless slaughter.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“A miracle,” she said.
“What can I do that’s helpful right now?” he asked again.
“Believe it or not, these cats still need to be fed. Once they have eaten, they will go back outside. While they are currently stressed, the faster they are returned to a normal routine, the better. Also, eating will give them an acceptable outlet for their aggression. In the wild, they would be exposed to life and death all the time,” she explained.
By that time, the other keeper had returned, so the two of them fed those animals that weren’t wounded or dead. The roaring calmed down. Aimeé thought of what she could do.
She needed to find out the extent of the other injured animals. There was one full-time vet available; the other was on vacation. She looked over at the man who had saved the day. He was huge, at least seven feet tall and broad-shouldered. He had also picked up the shooter as easily as if he were a child, so he was strong too. She could work with that. She started to get an idea; it was crazy but it might work. They didn’t have time to bring in a rig to lift the lion. This space was for feeding, not medical treatments. The female lioness weighed close to three hundred and fifty pounds. They had to move her without hurting her. In the time it would take to get a tranquilizer for her and get her to the hospital, she could bleed out. She might bleed out anyway. Still, it was worth a try.