The Gathering

by Michael Timmins

  At the far end of the room rested a bank of monitors, several computers as well as a couple of tablets. On the bank of monitors were news shows from various networks on mute.

  Shae studied the room and the face she turned to them held a little bit of fear.

  “What is this?”

  Samuel offered a warm smile and moved to sit at the kitchen table and offered her a chair as well.

  Hesitantly, Shae joined him and sat down.

  “As you know Shae, you are very important to Kestrel. However, these next coming months will be full of conflict. Since you have expressed your desire to not participate in the fighting, Kestrel found a better way for you to help.”

  He gestured to the room they were in. “This was originally built as a bomb shelter during the cold war, but I repurposed it to make it a safe house for us and a monitoring station to keep track of what is going on in the world and what, if anything, the news is reporting about Kestrel and her activities. Or even Sylvanis and her Weres.”

  Joseph could see Samuel’s words were easing the girl’s anxiety some. Her curiosity and interest were overcoming her unease.

  “That is where you come in. Because the rest of us will be fighting out there, we need someone we can trust here to let us know what we can expect from the rest of the world.”

  He shook his head. “We just won’t have the time to do it ourselves.

  “Kestrel has a lot of faith in you. And she cares about you, deeply. She wants to keep you safe, but she still needs your help. There was no one else she felt would be better for this job than you.”

  Joseph leaned his back against the wall and watched as Samuel charmed her down.

  Shae bit her lower lip and side-eyed the room.

  “I can leave when I want though, right?”

  Samuel leaned back into his chair; his smile wide.

  “Of course. Do you remember that little coupe outside?”

  She nodded.

  Samuel reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of car keys, placed them on the table and gave them a little push. They skidded across the tabletop to come to rest by Shae. Her eyes were wide in astonishment.

  “All Kestrel asks is that you do this until she can be sure that the fighting has sufficiently turned in our favor. Then, she will come and get you herself.”

  Shae tentatively reached out and placed her hand on top of the car keys. A slow smile spread across her lips.

  “O.K. I’ll do it!”

  Samuel offered her another smile.

  “Kestrel said you would.” He stood.

  “As you might have noticed, there is plenty of food in the next room. A kitchen for you to make any food you wish. I think you will find the bed in the other room extremely comfortable. Kestrel made sure to put plenty of clothes for you to wear in the dressers.”

  Joseph knew it time to leave. Samuel was finishing up his explanation of the place. He would explain how to use the monitors. How to pull up different news feeds. None of it mattered.

  “So, do you have any questions?” Samuel asked after explaining the last of equipment in the room.

  Shae looked a little shell-shocked by all the information Samuel had unloaded onto her.

  “I don’t think so. But if I think of anything, I can just call, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I guess that is it then.”

  “Very good, Shae. We will leave you to get accustomed to your new surroundings.”

  Shae had already sat in front of the monitors and scanned between two news programs.

  “Yeah. See ya,” she said, giving them a backward wave.

  Joseph followed Samuel out. They came to the first steel door and closed it, the second one and closed it as well. Samuel set down his travel bag and began rummaging through it.

  Joseph turned back toward the steel door and the girl they had left behind.

  “It just doesn’t feel right?”

  “What doesn’t?” Samuel asked, his voice distracted.

  “This. What we are doing.”

  “Well, it really isn’t your concern anymore, is it?”

  Joseph turned, “Why would you say . . .”

  The sword punctured his side, slid between two ribs, then tore through his right lung. Joseph could feel momentary resistance as the blade reached his spinal cord before it eased and abruptly, he fell, all feeling to his legs gone. The blade Samuel held, slid out of his body as he fell, and the man lifted it quickly before bringing down in a wide arc.

  Joseph willed his body to fix what was damaged, but the spinal cords and nerves that ran through it were complex and not easily fixed. As Samuel brought the sword down, he shifted and managed to attempt blocking the blade with his clawed hand.

  The sword cut right through his fingers and slammed into his neck. Slowed, the blade only cut a quarter of the way into his neck. Panicked, Joseph put all his will into repairing his spinal cord. He would see to the severed artery in his neck after he could get to his feet.

  Feeling returned to his lower extremities as Samuel raised the blade again and Joseph roared to his feet, swiping at Samuel.

  In one swift motion, Samuel shifted, rolled over Joseph’s swipe and a scaled tail slammed into the side of his face, knocking him back to the ground. In a slight daze, all he could do was watch Samuel dexterously land on his feet. He swung around, the sword, a blood-covered doom, curved down once again to strike him on the neck he had only begun to repair.

  The pain was momentary, as was his vision, as it tipped, then, nothing.

  Samuel stood over the headless corpse of Joseph, cleaning his sword. It had been a long time since he had used the thing. Centuries, in fact. He had always made sure it was sharp though. You never knew when you might have to draw it.

  With Joseph gone, there would be no one to tell Blain about this place. Samuel wished things could be different, but this was how it must be, for now. He didn’t regret killing Joseph. The man was vile and annoying. There would be some explaining to do though. Blain would undoubtedly sense the man’s death.

  Moving to the steel door, he brought up the menu and punched in his code. There. What’s done, is done.

  With one last look at the steel door, Samuel climbed the stairs, locked the outside door and drove away.

  Chapter Thirty

  He knew what had happened the moment he felt it. A sudden… absence. That was the only way he could describe it. It is true, the longer you are linked with your Pures, the less you notice the connection. But it is still there. THEY are still there. And now, one of them was not.

  This had to do with what Kestrel had been hiding from him and Blain was furious about it. True, he never cared for Joseph, but Joseph was his to do with as he saw fit, not Kestrel’s.

  Like a terrible storm front, Blain’s fury rolled before him, sending anyone in his path scurrying for shelter as he stalked the halls of the hospital.

  They had taken the hospital that morning. It had been easy. He, Gordon and Taylor had locked it down quickly enough. There had been no security and almost no resistance. There had been one civilian with a gun who had tried to be a hero. Gordon had let the man unload his clip in him before breaking his neck.

  After that, everyone complied.

  Once they had everyone rounded up. Kestrel, Zach, and those who had chosen to become Weres joined them. Kestrel had everyone taken to rooms. The hospital was seldom used, and a vast majority of rooms were unoccupied.

  The members of E.A.R.t.H were confused and frightened by this move to the hospital and the fear was palatable in everyone he had dealt with since they had taken up residence. Blain hadn’t cared.

  He knew Sarah was here in the hospital, working with the other health care providers to begin monitoring everyone. He had confronted her about what had happened when she had gone with Samuel and Joseph. She claimed they had put her up in a hotel and had left her there. That the main reason she had been sent with them had been to keep her away from him.


  He had gotten the feeling she was not telling him something, but as much as he had tried to force her with his will to tell him, her story never changed. The problem with making someone tell you the truth, you had to still ask the right questions.

  So, he still had no idea about where they had gone, or what they had done and now, the one person who would have told him was . . . dead? That seemed to be the only possibility, but how could it have happened?

  Blain knew they weren’t unkillable, but they were damn close. Whatever happened to Joseph, there was one person who could answer him. Kestrel.

  He found the office she had taken over and burst into the room, not bothering to knock.

  Kestrel sat seated at a side desk, her head bowed slightly, the long tresses of her dark hair falling to cover her face. Her right hand rested on top of the office phone’s receiver, as if she had just hung it up.

  The moment he had opened the door, she glanced up at him and he could see she had been crying, for her eyes glistened and were red. More telling was the lone tear travelling down her cheek to fall upon the desk when she raised her head.

  His breath came in forceful huffs. Anger and the exertion of his brisk walk to this office had him like a bull fighting a bullfighter.

  His mouth opened to rail at Kestrel, to demand she explain herself, but she spoke first.

  Tapping the top of the receiver, she turned her head back to it. “They were set upon by some members of the military, or police, Samuel didn’t know. They threw everything at them, and Samuel barely escaped.”

  She turned back to him, “Joseph, and . . .” she swallowed, “and Shae . . .” Her head bowed, and he could tell she began to cry again, “and Shae, they didn’t make it.”

  Blain knew Kestrel and Shae had gotten close, but he was still surprised by this show of emotion by Kestrel. It seemed so out of character. She was as cold hearted as they came, and Blain couldn’t help but wonder if this was for his benefit and not because she cared if the girl died or not.

  The idea, Joseph had been killed by ordinary men, let alone Shae, a fellow True, seemed absurd to Blain. Shae wasn’t a fighter like he was, or Gordon, but Trues were harder to kill than a Pure, or a Were. It had to have been one hell of a fight.

  Kestrel stood, wiping the tears, fake or no, from her cheeks with one delicate hand. When she spoke, there was steel back in her voice.

  “They will be coming here next. We cannot be caught unaware. I will not lose another True!”

  There was enough intensity in her voice that Blain didn’t doubt her anger. But that could be a holdover from her loss from two millennia ago.

  “What the fuck were they doing?” Blain wasn’t going to let the news of the loss deter him from getting answers.

  Kestrel stared him down for a long moment, before sighing. “I sent them to secure a base of operations. Somewhere formidable enough, if the need arose, we could hold out there for some time.”

  She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter now. The place is compromised and no longer useful to us.”

  Seemed plausible. But he still had doubts. The answer had been surrendered too easily. After keeping it secret for so long, he was to believe, with the deaths of Joseph and Shae, she would simply tell him? Why keep it a secret at all?

  Blain watched Kestrel, as she in turn, watched him.

  He wasn’t going to get answers from her. He should have known better. She didn’t trust him. Didn’t like him. She needed him, yes, but it went nowhere beyond that.

  He snarled, wheeled about and left her there.

  Samuel would know, but the man is as slippery as the snake he became. He would not get his answers there. He would get his answers nowhere it seemed.

  Well, it was a matter for another time. If at all. He hated not knowing. Hating not knowing all the variables. He hoped this little secret of hers wouldn’t end up biting them all in the ass.

  Blain had done all the preparations he could to prepare the hospital for the eventual attack. They had boarded up most of the lower windows and barricaded all but the front door.

  Most of the members of E.A.R.t.H had been moved to the upper floor rooms to keep them out of harm’s way. None of them had gone through the rejection stage yet, and so, were still vulnerable.

  They had barricaded the parking lot and posted signs indicating the hospital was closed due to quarantine. Many people were still coming to the hospital, mainly relatives and loved ones of workers from the hospital itself. They were concerned about their loved ones and why they hadn’t heard from them.

  After they had turned several of them away, and as soon as Blain realized no one from news stations had arrived to investigate, he knew they were already under surveillance.

  It was only a matter of time before they were attacked.

  Samuel had arrived late the night before. Blain had tried to interrogate him about what had happened, and the man had given him a full account of what had occurred.

  Or at least, what he had been instructed to say had occurred. The story seemed flawless and believable. But Blain knew it was bullshit. There was nothing he could do about it, so all he could do was prepare for the attack.

  After doing a final inspection of the hospital defenses, he entered the lobby where Taylor and Samuel were. He had not seen Kestrel this morning, or Sarah, though he knew the latter was upstairs. Undoubtedly checking on the soon to be dying patients.

  Morning sunlight barely lit the tiles on the floor of the lobby. The border of light and dark gradually crept its warmth farther in as the morning progressed.

  Blain crossed his massive arms across his chest and was about to ask Samuel if there had been anything new, when a car pulled into the near empty lot. He recognized the car.

  “What the fuck is Gordon doing?”

  Samuel shrugged. “He wanted coffee. So, he went to get coffee.”

  Blain fumed. “Of all the motherfucking stupidest things . . .”

  As they watched, Gordon exited his car, a cup holder with four cups of coffee precariously balanced in one hand as he shut the door with the other. He began to make his way across the parking lot toward the front door.

  He only made it about halfway.

  A red mist plumed from the side of Gordon’s head. Knocked to one side, the man went down in a shower of coffee as the cups went flying into the air.

  “Fuck!” Blain roared and shifted instantly. He sensed his companions doing the same.

  “Here they come,” Samuel said calmly next to him.

  True to his word, a black van with tinted windows barreled toward the building down the street.

  “To your positions!” Blain commanded and to his surprise Samuel and Taylor moved to comply.

  “Where is Kestrel?” he questioned the Weresnake as he left. The man shrugged and exited the lobby, Taylor on his heels. Blain growled after the man. They could use the Druidess’ help in this, but he hadn’t seen her this morning.

  Blain watched as the van, which had been approaching, zoomed into the parking lot as two others converged from either side, forming a half circle in front of the building. Blain could no longer see the body of Gordon in the parking lot as it was obscured by the vans.

  Blain smiled a wicked smile. Won’t they be in for a surprise.

  Men dressed in black body armor and armed with assault rifles poured out of the back of the vans, spreading out before the building, weapons raised.

  Blain offered them an obscene gesture and roared.

  Six of the men held larger cannon like guns which they aimed at the building; a thumping came from them followed by smoke. Shooting caused their bodies to be pushed back slightly as their weapons fired pop can sized cannisters. Two crashed through the windows in the lobby, sending glass falling like rain as the panels shattered. Four more arched higher and were lost from Blain’s sight.

  The cannisters bounced into the lobby and Blain spun, dropping low and covering his eyes. Even with his eyes closed, the flash burned bright and the bang acc
ompanying it was loud.

  Simultaneous bangs reverberated from above as other flash grenades found their marks in upper floor windows which had been left uncovered for just this reason. They led into small offices which had been closed and isolated so any assault would be stunted.

  A loud hiss, and gas started filling the room. Blain had seen enough. Not that he could see much now anyway. Like he walked from one room of his home to the next, Blain strolled out of the lobby and into the hallway where he would make his stand. He knew Samuel was in the opposite hallway leading off from the lobby doing the same.

  The rapid popping of rifle fire rang out and Blain could hear more glass shattering. Clearly, they weren’t going to take any chances. Or prisoners.

  Which was fine.

  Blain wasn’t planning on it either.

  Desks and doors were piled into his hallway to create a makeshift barrier. While bullets couldn’t kill him, a decent amount of them would slow him down, his body needing to repair the damage they caused. So, as much as he hated hiding behind things, it was the best strategy to weather the initial onslaught of gunfire.

  The crunch of glass under boots alerted Blain of the men’s arrival into the lobby. Seconds passed before someone shouted, “Clear!” Echoed by two others.

  Any second now.

  Blain stared at the twin doors at the end of the hallway as one of them parted slightly. A silver snake-like object was pushed into the space and before it could tilt its head toward Blain, he ducked down behind the barricade.

  No need to let them know I’m here. Yet.

  His acute hearing heard the door click shut again after a moment. Their camera was drawn back. What assumptions they had made of the barricade, Blain would find out soon enough.

  Another click and the door was opened again followed by rapid shuffling as bodies flooded into the hall.

  Blain didn’t give them time to form up. With a mighty thrust and rise of his body, he sent the barricade flying. Desks and doors were turned into projectiles and slammed into the mass of men at the end of the hall. The agents in the front took the brunt of the attack as one desk smashed into the man’s chest, snapping his sternum and ribs.