by John Conroe
“Won’t you end up spread too thin to be effective, at least for defense?” the girl asked.
“What is it you intend to study in college?” Declan asked, impressed.
“Poly sci with a minor in game theory,” she replied.
“It would seem you are on the right path in your education. You are correct, or would be, if our primary defense system was in any way conventional. The warning system is just that—it will alert us to where an incursion is under way.”
“What kind of defense system ignores the unimaginable distances of our solar system?” Kristin wondered.
“The kind that is currently sitting in the passenger seat in front of you,” I said. Declan gave her a little two-fingered salute to his forehead with his left hand, which flashed the new watch in front of me again.
“Someone has new tech,” I said before Kristin could ask her next question.
“It is a nano prototype based on the architecture of both Caeco’s internal units and the Vorsook technology from Philadelphia.”
“And you risk Declan with it?” I asked, suddenly remembering the horrific details of some of the bodies left behind in Philly.
“It is noninvasive for the most part, instead interacting through contact with his skin. The units are under my complete control and constant attention.”
Omega speak for damn right I know how important the kid is.
“It’s similar to having a microdrone on your person,” Declan said. “But way more capable and useful.”
“How can one person, even him, defend the solar system by himself?” Kristin suddenly burst out.
“Who said I was by myself?” Declan asked with a little smile. “You, yourself used the words defense system.”
“But that… it isn’t… you can’t… no one could,” she protested.
I couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped me, which only caused her to look mildly affronted.
I patted her knee, Alpha to pack. “I’m not laughing at your confusion, Kristin. It’s just fun to see people begin to realize what’s actually going on. You asked why our pack is so focused and we told you, but words don’t begin to make sense of it.”
“In AP Physics, we tackled the question of what it would take to light up the moon with laser pointers,” Kristin said, frowning. “Turns out there’s a whole essay online about it. I don’t remember all the details but some of the power numbers were stupid things like petawatts or burning up the world’s oil reserves in like two minutes or something.”
“Your high school education seems to have been excellent, Kristin. Did your instructor explore the power of an average hurricane? Something approximating six hundred trillion joules per second. The volcano under Yellowstone could power all of mankind’s power needs hundreds of times over by itself.”
“You said you were up last night talking with Mount Saint Helens?” our wonder recruit asked. “Is that why?”
“Yes. I am working with elementals all over the world to be able to direct power in any direction it is needed. Think of me as the guy in the gunner’s seat, aiming and firing a giant laser powered by Earth itself.”
“There is no technology for a laser like that,” she protested.
“You are correct insomuch as it relates to the common definition of technology. Even the Vorsook don’t have weapons capable of that. But my father’s Craft uses quantum energy to convert and focus raw earth energy.”
“You’re saying that he, by himself, could light up the moon?”
“Yes, although such an event would needlessly alarm most of the world’s inhabitants. Instead, we’ve been practicing by having him vaporize the orbital debris from the world’s space programs.”
“You’re burning up space junk?” Kristin asked, eyes wide.
“Mostly single targets. Omega identifies the biggest ones and conveys the information to me, and then I have to pick a willing elemental ally nearest to the direct view of the object, decide how to convert and apply its energy, and then deliver an accurate hit. It’s kind of hard.”
Her mouth hung open.
“This nanotech should help because it can provide me with direct information from Omega’s sensors. I was going to test it out tonight.”
“Tonight? Here?” she asked, overwhelmed.
“Yeah. The roof of the Tower is a pretty good platform,” he said.
“We all go up and watch,” I said. “He requires supervision and protection.”
“Which makes me sound like a hyperactive toddler,” Declan groused.
“Good comparison,” I said with a grin his way.
“Oh, and everyone likes to comment on how bad a shot I am,” he added. “You know… because they all excel at energy conversion and orbital potshots with the equivalent of the annual electrical usage of a hundred thousand homes.”
“And there’s popcorn and snacks,” I said.
“We’re here,” Stevens said as he turned onto the ramp that ran own under the Demidova Tower.
Ten minutes later, I was in the shower, scrubbing the stench of smoke from my hair and body. When I felt suitably sanitized, I dried off and pulled on underwear, sweatpants, and one of Declan’s t-shirts. What can I say? I like the fit and feel of my guy’s shirts. I could hear Declan talking to Kristin as I toweled off my hair and ran my fingers through it. My current bob was designed for ease of care and to limit opportunities for hands to grab it in a fight.
When I arrived in our living room, they were sitting on the stools at the suite’s kitchen island.
Declan had his rarely used divination chips out, rune side down, and was making her pick the little round circles of Rowan wood at random.
He was setting them right side up in his standard layout.
“What’s up? You hate doing readings,” I said, getting a trio of chocolate milks from the fridge.
“Because I’m so bad at them,” he said without looking up from his chips. He typically used nine randomly selected chips, three for the past, three for the present, and three for the future.
I put an open bottle of chocolatey liquid goodness in front of each of them and then slugged a third of my own.
Kristin looked at me nervously, her scent worried. I didn’t know if she was concerned that I might be jealous of finding them out here or dreading what he might find out.
“Again, why?” I asked.
“I don’t like coincidence. Weird things have been happening lately. Did you know that two days ago, some idiot tried to pick Deckert’s pocket? When the cops ran the kid’s name, it turned out he was the runaway youngest son of a Middle Eastern diplomat. Been missing for three weeks. And he chooses Deckert for a victim? Right outside the Tower?”
“I had heard that, and it just sounds like he’s stupid, not fated by God,” I said.
“But what are the odds? No, Omega don’t bother to calculate them. It’s too close to home and too close to whatever is coming. I don’t like it. And now this, today. Hmm,” he finished, leaning closer to the last three chips.
“What?” Kristin asked, almost knocking her bottle over.
“Alright, let me see if I can do this in a way that wouldn’t embarrass Aunt Ash too much,” he said.
“Your past: Gebo, Raido, and Othala. A gift, the road, and heritage. Hmm, were your ancestors Vikings?”
“Like just about every Icelander,” she said, getting exasperated.
“So, in your immediate past you received a gift, one that blends with your heritage, and put you on a new path.”
“I’m a werewolf.”
“Exactly. Viking warrior genes mixed with werewolves, and now you’re here. Which brings us to the present: Pertho, the hidden game. Aeighiz, the sign for defense, and last Telwaz, the warrior.”
She looked at him and then me. “You mentioned defense a whole bunch today and you’re all warriors.”
“And you are learning defense and on the path of becoming a fighter… a warrior,” I said.
“What about the future?”
>
“Sawull, Ehwaz, and… Hagall. The sun, luck, and havoc,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, frowning at the chips. Then he swept them back into the pile and moved them all around randomly, facedown. “Your turn,” he said, turning my way.
He really was worried if he was going to attempt a reading for me. Reading a close family member was extraordinarily difficult and firmly in the realm of expert Air witches only. His aunt was exceptional at it, but while he had all four affinities, Air and Water were his weakest.
I gave him a you sure look and he nodded. No stranger to the process, mostly because of Ashling O’Carroll’s use of the technique, I closed my eyes and randomly selected three chips.
He was flipping them over as I opened my eyes. “Gebo, Urus, Jera,” he said. “Gift, power, and harvest. Next three.”
I picked three more.
“Ehwaz, mannaz, and wunjo. Luck, man, joy,” he intoned, the wheels of his mind visibly at work. He held out his palm for the last chips.
“Eywas, sowull, and… hagall,” he said, confusion flooding our bond as a frown formed between his eyes. “Strength, sun, and havoc.”
“That’s similar to mine,” Kristin said.
“Very,” he agreed. “The past: a gift… the LV virus. Power, from the wolf. And harvest…” He paused. “You—you were harvested.”
“By who?” I asked, confused. This wasn’t like any reading his aunt had ever done.
“More like what? Fate, perhaps? God? I don’t know exactly. Maybe God. His Warrior was on hand to save you the night you were bitten, both from the rogue wolf and from the government,” Declan said.
And his blood and power had mingled with mine, perhaps one of the reasons I could Change faster than any other were I’ve ever met or heard of.
“The present: luck placed you here, with me… the man.”
“Joy is because you love each other,” Kristin said matter-of-factly, eyes focused on the chips.
My own eyes were focused on his. He did love me, and God knows I love him, even if it took me so long to admit it.
“Well I do and she does, so that maybe is what it means,” Declan agreed slowly. “Probably. And last, the future: strength, sun, and havoc. Two of the three that Kristin pulled. Havoc is likely the Vorsook and the coming war. Strength is who you are at your core. And sun… I think sun is a nod to what I do with borrowed elemental power.”
“What do you do with it?” Kristin asked. Declan smiled a grim little grin.
“You’ll see tonight,” I told her.
It was well after the dinner hour when we all gathered on the roof, and I mean pretty much all of us. Chris and Tanya with the twins, ‘Sos, Nika, Arkady, Deckert, Lydia—who was sitting thigh to thigh with Bruce—Holly, Kristin, Chet Atkins, three of the security guys, Doctor Singh—who had insisted on a glancing exam of my non-existent gunshot wound—myself, and, surprise, surprise, Elder Senka. Mack and Jetta were there, of course, having taken a summer job helping with our training facility. Even Katrina, Tanya’s college co-ed-looking fixer with the heart of a sociopath, was there. And, of course, my witch, who was the main entertainment.
Tanya had ordered weatherproof furniture set up in the center of the rooftop, and because regular humans were part of the group, she’d had a railing installed. And she was Tatiana Demidova, so the end result looked like one of those super-expensive outdoor kitchen and living areas that are all the rage with McMansions everywhere—but this one was on steroids. There was comfortable seating for probably thirty people, most of which also rotated back like a zero-gravity lounge chair, leaving the occupants staring up at the night sky over New York. There were also three gargantuan, all-weather flatscreens that had to go over eighty or ninety inches; hell, maybe over a hundred. Each screen folded flat, screen down, on the roof when not in use, but lifted on a telescoping arm so that we could still see them when lying on our backs and facing up. Omega would project the target orbits, live views from spaceborne drones, and any other information germane to the target practice. There had been considerable speculation about watching football in the fall, at least among those so inclined.
And there was food—lots and lots of food. Chef Remy always pushed his kitchen staff hard to provide the best finger foods possible, from mounds of shrimp cocktail and raw oysters to slider sandwiches of all flavors and fillings, and popcorn… bacon-flavored popcorn. With multiple weres, Chris himself, and of course, Awasos, nothing went to waste.
Claiming seats had become a competition early on, which was kind of funny because there weren’t any bad ones. Just what you get when you put so many competitive people in one place.
Declan ignored it all, sitting cross-legged on a twelve-by-twelve-foot white board where he could draw out his spell structures, runes, and target data with dry erase markers. He was already there when I escorted my youngest wolf to the rooftop.
Kristin instantly went super quiet at the sight of Chris and Tanya, and she was completely unprepared when Elder Senka seemed to appear out of nowhere, right in front of us.
“Stacia, dear, who is your young guest?” she asked in her flawless Oxford accent.
“Elder Senka, this is Kristin Vilhelmsdottir. She was bitten on a visit to Iceland and Changed when she got back to her family’s current home in Portland, Maine. Caeco and the Suttons found her. She’s thinking of attending Arcane this fall.”
Senka immediately spoke to her in another language—Icelandic, I surmised. Surprised, Kristin answered readily in the same tongue, earning her a nod from the old vampire who looked and dressed like an upper-middle-class soccer mom. Then the vampire, who was likely, as far as we now knew, the oldest on the planet, turned back to me. “How is he progressing?”
“Scary fast or reassuringly quick, depending upon your point of view,” I said. “He and Omega have been cooking up some new technology that is supposed to help him. We’ll see how it goes tonight.”
Her pale face lit up with a pleased smile, her delight both sincere and infectious. Chris had once told me that one of her vampire-enhanced gifts, the things that humans carry with them over into vampirism, was an ability to affect people around her, at least their emotions and maybe some of their perceptions. So a happy Senka made for happy Coven members and a happy party.
Nika, who had already been introduced to Kristin, appeared and sought a moment of the Elder’s time. We slipped away and headed for the food.
“This is unreal,” Kristin said as she filled a plate with stuffed mushrooms, lobster sliders, and seared curried scallops. “Do you guys always eat like this?”
“Here at the Tower, pretty much yes. Out in the real world, we have to fend for ourselves, but we do pretty well. Tanya’s chef, Remy, is very old and extremely skilled.”
She groaned her agreement around a mouthful of lobster and fresh-baked roll. “This is better than I get in Maine.”
“Which is where the lobsters originated. They’re flown in every couple of days.”
“My family is pretty well-to-do, both in Maine and back in Iceland. My father has an amazing job that pays very, very well. But this level of wealth… it’s crazy. And she’s so young!”
The she in question was bouncing Cora on her hip as she talked with Chet Atkins.
“She is a business prodigy who came to the party pretty well loaded from Coven assets given to her at birth. Vampires are the poster children for compound interest,” I said.
“And you and Declan work for her?”
“Sort of. We both receive a partial salary for stuff we do. Declan maintains all the wards on Demidova property, and I’ve been the model in much of their advertising. We both are members of the team, but that’s not something we need to get paid for. But when you have Omega for an investment manager, your performance numbers are massive, so we’ve got our own money. Come on; let’s get seats. I think the show’s about to start.”
That was more of a feel
ing I was getting from my mate than any visible sign. Sure enough, just as we settled into the plush recliners, the monitors started to rise up on their powered mounts. Jetta settled into the seat on Kristin’s left, and they both started chatting like old friends. Ironic that a pair of highly successful werewolf hunters would have a such an effect on a new werewolf. But then, the Suttons were highly popular with almost every were at Arcane.
“Okay everyone,” Omega’s holographic avatar said, suddenly standing in front of the seating area. “Our first target of the night is approaching. Formerly part of a Soviet lift rocket, the object is orbiting earth at a distance of 20,709 miles and is travelling at just a bit over 17,500 miles per hour.”
The three monitors lit up as he spoke, one showing a computer graphic of the rocket and its orbit around Earth, one showing the live view of the actual rocket tube, likely from a drone that was in a matching orbit, and one showing a magnified view of the night sky above us.
I felt a surge of excitement from Declan and glanced his way. The nano-watch on his wrist had morphed, sending a tendril of thin silver up his arm, under his shirt, out his collar, and forming around his left eye. Whichever way the device was feeding him its information, my witch was clearly tickled with it.
“Prepping for shot,” Declan said, still sitting cross-legged and staring straight ahead at the city skyline. A glow over his eyes told me he was likely seeing a projection and not the Big Apple at night.
“Wait,” Kristin whispered in my ear, clearly forgetting how many supernatural ears could hear her. “Aren’t we supposed to watch his back?”
I gave her a pleased smile. It seemed she might be on board after all. “He’s surrounded by the most dangerous beings on this world, but even more than that… watch.”
No sooner had the words left my mouth than a wave of liminal blue light rose in a dome around him, matching the copper circle set into the concrete pad his white board rested on. Kristin sucked in a surprised breath but watched with eyes wide. The dome closed and then disappeared, fading into invisibility. As soon as it was gone from sight, a second, much larger dome rose over all of us, this one a translucent green. It too faded from view.