by John Conroe
He blinked once and exploded into action, the pick spinning my way as his body burst its clothes, growing larger and now completely covered in black fur. I dodged left, caught the rock pick and threw it back. The wolf-man-demon hybrid moved and the ax ripped into the male revenant. It had no effect on the undead robot.
Until now, I would have said that Stacia was the fastest werewolf to change forms on this planet, but Dragan was just at least as fast, growing and twisting in a split second until he stood nine feet tall, covered in black fur with massive arms, shoulders, and legs. He growled something and the three dead bodies turned in unison to bend over whichever pile of rock was closest. Grabbing fist-sized rocks, they spun and threw with both hands, completely ambidextrous in death. Strong, too, as the rocks exploded when they hit the canyon walls where we had just been standing.
Tanya moved at the same time I did, jumping to the top of the jumbled boulders that formed the cave’s roof while I leaped down into the midst of the rock throwers, tearing into them with mono-edged arms.
The two in the cave shuffled toward the opening and Dragan seized the first, another male, grabbing its arm with one hand and swinging it right off its feet like a medieval flail of bone and flesh. Tanya easily jumped over the feet of the revenant and screamed a single word at Dragan. He twisted, both his body and the human-shaped flailing. Her sonic package hit the revenant, exploding its chest and upper torso in a spray of black blood.
The three by me were now just squirming piles of body parts as the second cave worker reached me. A right open-handed slap removed its head and a downward, left-hand slice cut it from one shoulder to the opposite hip. The remains fell over, but like the others, continued to twitch and flex.
Dragan never missed a beat, continuing his turn and throwing the lower half of his undead weapon at me, then bounding up and kicking off the canyon wall where Tanya had clung mere moments before.
I ducked the legs and hips of what had once been a man, twisting and jumping straight at the massive werewolf as he landed on the trail behind me.
He spun and stopped my forward motion with his free hand, stiff-arming me while the other arm still cradled the rock like an NFL tight end in a forward rush.
He was like no werewolf I’d ever fought—faster, stronger, with reflexes that matched my own. But even as he stopped me cold, Grim reached behind him and Pulled the closest boulder while Posting my body to the ground.
Two things happened; my feet were yanked down to the rocky trail and the three-hundred-pound rock left the ground and smashed the demon werewolf from behind.
Caught between my immovable body and the heavy rock, he took damage, bones snapping loudly in the dark. Up close and personal, I saw his eyes flare first with pain and then with rage. Next, he was going to lean down and try to bite me in half with his massive jaws. My hands and arms lined themselves with mono-edged aura in anticipation, but a strange thing happened. The monster wolf’s own aura flared black and his jaws slid off the violet-limned arm I shoved in his mouth with no apparent damage… to either of us. Even as that rocked my world, I recalled Barbiel’s words: He was resistant to my aura. But the hesitation was just me—Grim never even blinked. Instead, he grabbed the fallen boulder with my other hand, palming it with Cling and swinging it at the monster wolf. Dragan was forced to block the deadly blow with the rock in his left hand. The boulder met the plate-sized rock with a loud crack, Dragan’s arm flexing back to absorb enough of the impact that only a piece of his shield broke off.
Sudden pain flared through my stomach, a bolt of white hot fire that threatened to tear me in half. Grim reflexively shoved us away, Pulling us back toward Tanya, my body curled in reflex. As I hit rock, I realized the pain wasn’t mine… it was Tanya’s. Taking a chance at ignoring the demon wolf, I glanced at my vampire, finding her curled in a fetal position on the boulders above the cave.
When I looked back, Dragan was gone, the demon taking immediate advantage of my distraction.
I ran over the still-twitching revenants and leapt to up to my vampire’s side.
“What is it? Where are you hurt?” I asked.
“The babies,” she panted, her whole body shuddering.
“Are they coming? Are they hurt?” I asked, feeling a touch of panic like I’ve never felt before. One hand was pulling my smartphone even as I crouched by her side, my other hand touching her stomach. It rippled under my palm and a short sharp scream of pain ripped from her throat.
“Chris, we’re on our way,” Lydia answered the call I hadn’t even had time to make. “Omega just warned us something was wrong.” The next sounds were the distinctive kind that indicated the phone was being yanked away and then Doc Singh’s voice took over.
“Tanya, what are you feeling?” he asked.
“Pain. Sharp pain in my uterus,” she hissed, breathing harder and more labored than I had ever heard in all the time I had know her.
“Lie down. Are you lying down? And breathe through it like you’ve been taught,” Doctor Singh said. “Chris, you need to get her flat and as comfortable as possible till we get there. What was she doing when the pain started?”
“We were fighting,” I said.
“What were you fighting that could have put her into labor?” Lydia’s voice asked in the background.
“We found Dragan. He had some of the undead revenant things digging for the fossil name. We fought him and she suddenly had sharp pains,” I said. “Wait, is she in labor?”
“Possibly. Possibly not,” Doctor Singh said. “We are speeding your way now. You have to get her as calm and quiet as possible. Leave her there; we’ll come to you. If you carry her at any speed at all, you’ll shake those babies right out of her.”
I froze my reaching arms, my intention to carry her out stopped dead by the image of our children bounced right out of their mother by my actions.
Currently, she was lying on hard rock and the winter desert air was cold. About thirty-eight degrees or so. Normally, drastic temperature variations, either hot or cold, didn’t effect vampires. But the case studies were kind of slim on vampire pregnancies—try none—and she seemed uncomfortable. The phone hissed and the connection died.
“The power level of Lydia’s phone has dropped below the lowest necessary to carry a call. They are three-point-two miles from the parking point. I will establish a connection to Nika’s phone,” Omega said.
“Thank you,” I said, glad to hear his perfectly modulated voice. Time to get my mate comfortable.
Chapter 20
A glance at the digging area below us showed twitching body parts, black blood, piles of rock, and a hissing Coleman lantern. I leapt down and grabbed the Coleman, noticing another lantern inside the cave. Darting in, I found a small daypack, the lantern, and a four-foot-diameter section excavated from the fossil-ridden side of one of the boulder walls.
I placed a lantern on either side of Tanya and held her hand while rummaging through the pack one-handed. An insulated metal bottle of water, a map of the area, gloves, a pocket first aid kit, two energy bars, a knit cap, and a metallic space blanket.
The blanket wrapped around my vampire, the hat went on her head, and the pack became a pillow. After sniffing and tasting the water, the flask provided her a drink. I ate the energy bars.
Her pains were less now. I could see it in her face and feel it through our bond. She lay back exhausted, staring up at the night sky, trying to breathe slowly and carefully but with a scary shudder each time she breathed out. I still held her hand and after another couple of minutes, I felt her relax a bit, her grip, which previously would have crushed a steel pipe, now loosened.
“He got away,” she said. It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes,” I said.
“And got the name,” she said, still staring up, her eyes looking at the stars.
“Yes, but I think it broke,” I said, reminded of the fight’s conclusion. I let go of her hand and leapt down to the scene of my very brief fight
with the demon werewolf.
“Oh, meteors!” she said, still staring at the sky.
“The Geminids, most likely. If you point this phone’s camera at the sky, I will be able to tell you,” Omega said. I continued to focus on the ground.
“Another one,” my vampire said, her voice more even as she shakily pointed the phone’s camera at the sky.
“Definitely geminids. That one originated right near the star Castor. The brighter star to its side is its twin, Pollux,” Omega said.
There wasn’t much of anything on the ground, it being bare, hard rock but after a few moments, I finally noticed a sharp-edged chunk of stone lying against the base of a massive boulder. When I touched the jagged stone, it made my finger tingle.
“Christian?” Tanya called as I picked up the rock, my whole hand buzzing.
“Let me guess. You want to name the twins Castor and Pollux?” I asked.
“Don’t be absurd. At least one of our babies is a girl. Those are boys’ names. No, I was going to ask what you are doing.”
“I’m finding a rather large chunk of what I think might be the fossil name of the Yellowstone elemental. I wonder if Dragan and his mom can do much without the entire thing,” I said.
“Nika, Arkady, Doctor Singh, and Lydia have reached your vehicle. It appears to be destroyed. They are running the trail now. I expect them at your side within sixty-five seconds,” Omega reported.
“Where are Stacia and Declan?” I asked, back at Tanya’s side.
“They have ceased distraction efforts and are headed to the new safe house,” Omega said. “They have Awasos with them.”
“What safe house?” Tanya asked. Leave it to the mention of a safe house to get her attention. Vampires and their secret hideaways.
“After studying all emails originating from Las Vegas and the surrounding locales, I have found seven properties currently uninhabited by their rightful owners. Two are in crowded neighborhoods, one is a condominium, but four are houses on the outskirts of the city. Two of the four are large estates with complex electronic surveillance systems. I have selected the one with no scheduled property maintenance in the near future,” Omega said.
“Let me guess: The more complex the security, the better?” Tanya asked.
“Yes. I have completely subverted all systems in the selected house. Declan and Stacia will stock it with supplies and prepare light-free sleeping quarters for all of our Darkkin team members,” Omega said.
Tanya and I exchanged glances at Omega’s possessive tone regarding the team. It was both worrisome and reassuring. The idea that a computer was including itself on our team was shocking, but the fact it was the world’s most powerful and it was on our side was the reassuring part.
“How did their distraction efforts go?” I asked.
“The estimated total losses attributed to Father’s distributed spells totals twenty one million, two hundred seventeen thousand, six hundred forty-nine. Seven of the Strip’s major casinos have temporarily shut down all slot machine operations. Casino management used sophisticated surveillance software to analyze CCTV footage and have found that two individuals were common to each of the scenes of loss. Descriptions and photos of the couple have been issued to all security personnel, including both vampire and human staff.”
“And you’re okay with that?” I asked.
“The descriptions are for a male from the Indian subcontinent and an Asian female of advanced years. The photos back this up,” Omega said. The damned machine sounded almost smug at its manipulation of technology.
We both looked up at the sudden sound of feet approaching at high speed. Our four friends appeared in the shocking manner of fast moving vampires, just magically appearing in our clearing.
Lydia and Singh came straight to Tanya, Arkady went to the twitching revenant parts, and Nika moved to the highest point near us, settling into an overwatch position. She was our best security for detecting anything or anybody trying to get near us. It’s extremely difficult to sneak up on a powerful telepath. Even if you can block your thoughts, they can still detect your existence from ‘brain wave leakage.’ Not to mention her vampire eyes, ears, and nose. I’m sure she was worried about Tanya, but let’s face it… she’d know everything we knew as soon as we knew it.
“Is she in labor?” I asked Singh.
“I don’t believe so. Maybe a false labor,” the doctor said after examining his patient with all of his vampire senses.
“What would cause that? Those smelly, twitchy things?” Lydia asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe the demon’s presence. They are the children of the most powerful exorcist in existence. Or maybe that odd piece of stone I can feel humming in your hand,” Singh said, pointing at me.
“I don’t think it’s this thing because she’s calmed down even after I found it,” I said, not at all certain I was right.
“Probably not. Although, if I’m not mistaken, that looks like just a part of a greater whole,” Singh said.
“True. The whole thing was much bigger but it got banged up when Dragan and I fought,” I said.
“We know he got away because he smashed the shit out of your ride,” Arkady said, poking at a twitching arm with one of his big blades.
“You’re doing the whole Russian accent thing just to mess with Declan, aren’t you?” I asked, carefully putting the fossil shard into one of my cargo pants pockets.
“Da. Like you, at beginning,” he said, smiling, accent back full force. “What do we do with these things?”
I looked at the revenant parts with my Sight. They were gray with spiderwebs of witch black crawling over them. I sent an experimental blast of aura their way, making sure I didn’t get Arkady in the blast, and the webbing just blew away, leaving the body parts still and truly dead.
“We just leave vivisected bodies lying around?” Lydia asked.
“Maybe an anonymous tip to our federal friends,” Tanya suggested, now sitting up with Singh supporting her.
“I will take care of it. An untraceable email to Oracle. They are in town in force.”
“What are they doing, Omega?” I asked.
“Collecting evidence from the airport fight, monitoring the area, waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” Lydia asked.
“I do not yet know. Director Stewart has been very careful in his communications and conversations,” Omega said.
“Let’s get out of here. I feel well enough to move. Omega says there is a new safe house and I want to see it,” Tanya said.
“New? Where did it come from? Who owned it?” Lydia asked.
“He kinda made it on the spot. Come on; we’ll explain in the car,” I said, scooping up my vampire in both arms. “You still have the Odyssey?”
“Yes. Omega sprung it from the police before it even made impound and we put a different set of rental plates on it. That poor rental company’s gonna have major issues after we leave,” Nika said, dropping the twenty feet from her perch in one leap.
“That’s nothing compared to the hurting the kid has put on the casinos. Twenty-one million and counting, plus they’ve shut down all the slot machines while they check them out. That could easily tank the corporate stock prices when it gets out,” Tanya said as I began to run back down the trail, the others spread out around us.
“It made national news. Futures dipped an average of two percent on both MGM and Wynn Resorts,” Omega said from the phone in Tanya’s hands.
“You shorted both stocks, I hope,” Tanya said.
“In many different accounts,” it said.
“What? Can’t stop making money for a second?” I asked without looking down at her in my arms. I could have run and looked down and still not fallen, but carrying my wife and unborn babies made me hyper alert and intensely paranoid about her safety.
“Old habits are hard to kick,” she said, shrugging in my arms.
“Tell us more about this new safe house,” Nika said, Lydia coming closer to get the i
mportant details.
Tanya began to speak of vacationing homeowners and conscripted security systems, her ladies hanging on every word. Even Arkady and Singh were paying attention. Have I mentioned that vampires are nuts for secret resources, bail out kits, and untraceable hideaways? It’s like some kind of Darkkin crack habit or something.