by John Conroe
“That bit of magic would cost you the price of this car if you knew the right circles to commission it,” Stacia said, smiling.
Declan started to disagree, then sat back, thinking about it, before nodding slightly. “Give or take.”
“Give or take, my ass. You know I’m right. I do all the Pack’s liaison work with Mitzy’s circle. I know the costs pretty well,” she said.
He raised his right eyebrow at her turn of phrase and gave her a bit of leer. She snorted and turned back to Marcia. “We also should ask the girl a couple of questions. There was an… oddity… anomaly? There was a problem at the end when the witch escaped. We need some answers.”
“My job is to get you to Bangor soonest. You’ve as much as said you’ve already protected the girl,” Marcia said, shaking her head. “We’re not stopping here,” she said firmly.
They were entering Dover-Foxcroft when she said it, and the sheriff’s office was right on the main street. “Your employer will absolutely want the information that girl has,” Stacia said reasonably.
“No. Barry, keep going,” Marcia said.
In the makeup mirror, she saw the two in the back exchange a nod. The boy reached out and touched the frame of the car. Barry swore softly almost immediately and then wrestled with the steering wheel, pulling the car out of traffic and to the curb.
“I told you not to stop,” she said mildly, anticipating his anwer.
“Engine quit. Power steering and brakes went too,” he said, bewildered.
“We’ll be right back. Just a couple of minutes,” Stacia said as she and Declan popped their doors and jumped out.
“Wait, wait,” Barry said. Marcia reached over and touched his arm, watching the young couple walk briskly across the street and down the block to the front of the sheriff’s building. They were dirty, disheveled, and Stacia still had bare feet. They almost caused a traffic jam. At her worst, Stacia’s lithe, lycra-clad form still captured and held the eye as she wove with athletic grace between cars, parking meters, trees, and pedestrians. The tall, fit young man by her side may not have been movie star handsome, but Marcia thought his bright blue eyes made up for it. And his hands. He had large, strong hands that worked with careful precision. If a girl liked hands, his got high marks.
“Should I call someone?” Barry asked.
“I have a feeling the car will be fine,” she said with a tight smile.
“You knew they’d do that?” Barry accused.
“I tested to see what they would do, Barry. Like science, much of practicing law is about logic. I formed a hypothesis and tested it,” she said.
“What’s the other part of law? The part with the politics, glad handing, improvision, and theatrics?” he asked.
“Apparently it’s a bit like witchcraft,” she said as the kids disappeared into the building.
Chapter 37
The deputy at the window buzzed them through, recognizing them both on sight. Deeper inside, they found it was just the sheriff’s people guarding the prisoner, all of the feds deployed to Fetter.
They started to explain the problem to the two deputies actually guarding the werewolf girl but ended up with the whole station crowded around.
“So what do you need to do?” an older deputy who seemed in charge asked, holding a cell phone to his ear.
“We need to give her this,” Declan said, holding up the hand-drawn paper. “She needs to have it inside her jumpsuit, touching her skin if possible.”
The older guy nodded and held up one hand, then proceeded to relay the situation to the sheriff on the other end of the phone.
“Grable says do it,” he finally said, nodding to the two by the door, who proceeded to unlock it.
Inside, they found the werewolf girl sitting cross-legged on the floor, a bottle of water by her right hand.
“Hi Karen. The pack is toast but the witch got away,” Stacia said. The girl sat up straighter, her face going pale.
“We want you to keep this ward on you at all times, preferably touching your skin,” Declan said. “It’ll block any attacks she sends your way.”
The girl, Karen, didn’t need any convincing or further explanation, reaching out to grab at the paper.
“Don’t tear it,” Declan warned, pulling it back. Then he folded it up and handed it to her. She unzipped her jumpsuit, uncaring that she revealed her bare stomach and breasts, and jammed the folded paper against her stomach. Holding it in place, she zipped back up and looked between them, on the edge of panicking.
“You should be good to go. That’s high-quality work and the girl is on the run, deep in the woods and with a child. Which we want to ask you about, by the way. Is it hers? What’s the deal?” Stacia asked.
“She was pregnant when I joined up. I was told it was hers and the Alpha’s. Tomas’s. She had it a month later or so. A boy,” she said, eyes darting around a bit.
“How long ago was that?” Declan asked.
“Two… two and a half months, maybe,” she said.
“No, we’re talking about a kid of five or six who can wolf out and is extremely fast and agile,” Declan said, annoyed.
She nodded. “That’s him. Dragan. He grows noticeably every day. He walked a week after birth. Turned at three weeks. Mastered the third form at a month. He’s a scary little shit, but he always stayed near her. His eyes… they’re fucked up,” she said with shudder.
“What’s her deal? Do you know her name or where’s she from?” Stacia asked.
“Her name is Louanna. She’s from the south somewhere. The rumor was that the boss man snatched her from wherever she lived. He was part of a gang,” Karen said.
“Loki’s Spawn,” Stacia said.
“You know of it?” Karen asked.
“Our boss pretty much ended it. Killed most of the members,” Stacia said.
“Oh,” Karen said, thinking it through. The light bulb went off behind her eyes. “Oh! You work for him.”
“Chris Gordon? Yes, we do. What else can you tell us about Louanna?” Declan asked.
“She’s fucked up. I mean, her head wasn’t fastened on the same way as most people, and I think she was like that long before Tomas grabbed her. When we joined the pack, we all thought he was in charge. Then, after it was too late, we found out that she had him jumping at her beck and call. And the kid? Scary little shit. Always catching birds and biting their heads off. At like two months old. What’s that shit gonna be like in a couple of years? And the smell? He always smelled like…” Karen trailed off, thinking.
“Sulfer?” Declan prompted.
“Yeah, I guess. Say, what’s going to happen to me?” Karen asked.
“I think you’ll be a guest of the US government for at least a while,” Stacia said. “Anything more you can add?”
“Not really. I tried to keep my head down and under the radar, if ya know what I mean,” Karen said.
“We do. Keep that ward with you and preferably against your skin,” Declan said.
“It’s warm… I mean like really warm all of a sudden,” Karen said, eyes getting wide. She unzipped again and looked at the paper pressed against her flat stomach.
“Let me touch it,” Declan said, putting his hand out. Stacia was suddenly right there, eyes narrowed on his hand, and he felt immediately nervous as he lightly touched the paper with one finger. The girl, Karen, looked at him with scared eyes, while Stacia was tense and watching his expression like a hawk.
He carefully and quickly pulled his finger back, making sure he didn’t brush any body parts, exposed or covered.
“She’s taking a shot at you. Probably burning your hair in a fire, which would be the easiest spell in the woods. You’re fine and if you’re lucky, she’ll use up her whole sample,” Declan said.
“She wore bands made from our hair on her arms. Told us it helped bind the pack together,” Karen said, standing there still unzipped, looking at Declan with desperate hope. Stacia reached over and yanked the zipper up with a sharp, qui
ck move.
When the girl jumped and looked at her in surprise, Stacia smiled. “Don’t want that ward to fall out of your clothes along with the rest of you, now do we?”
“You should be fine with that ward. We have to go. Good luck to you,” Declan said, backing quickly away and heading out the door.
The girl watched him go for a second, sighed, and then turned and froze when she saw Stacia’s expression.
“Mine,” the platinum blonde said in a scary, quiet tone. Karen lowered her eyes immediately, nodded, and backed to her sitting place against the wall.
A few minutes later, they were back in the SUV, which started at Barry’s first turn of the key.
“That what happened to the helicopter?” Marcia asked Declan, unable to stop herself.
“That was a military aircraft with an encrypted avionics package,” he said. “I’d have to touch it to knock it out.” He settled in and closed his eyes again.
Marcia, surprised by his answer, turned and looked at Stacia, who just leaned back and returned her gaze with wolfish eyes. Unsettled, Marcia turned back forward and kept her questions to herself for the remainder of the ride.
Chapter 38
Two hours and twenty-five minutes later, the Demidova chopper touched down on top of Demidova Tower in Manhattan. Dusk was descending over the city. Four people got out. The first was a tall, well-built black man in a two-thousand-dollar suit, the second a barefoot blonde in black athletic clothes, third came a tall young man with dark hair in black combat clothes, and finally, a very muscular man of average height and abnormal grace, wearing jeans, a loose-fitting tee and looking about the roof with piercing violet eyes. The two security men who met them on the roof nodded at each of them, holding the entry doors open to the building.
Twenty-two seconds later, all four entered the penthouse office suite on the top floor.
Three women and a giant waited for them at the luxurious seating area at the end of the room nearest the door. One of the women, the most striking and beautiful, had a rather conspicuously large and rounded stomach.
Chris Gordon crossed the room just slightly faster than a normal human could, his movements easy and fluid. He looked first into his mate’s eyes, then tilted his head to listen, eyes on her stomach, smiling as he did.
“Wow. Things have sure changed around here,” Declan said, eyes on the tight, rounded stomach.
“Not as much as you think. She’s only twenty pounds heavier than her normal weight. Bitch can’t even get fat when she’s supposed to,” Lydia Chapman said with a grin from her spot next to Tanya on the couch. “Nika and I had a bet, and she hasn’t even reached the low end of our guesses. It’s pissing me off, Junior.”
The other woman, a cornflower blonde, nodded at them with an easy smile but said nothing. The giant stood behind the couch, feet spread in parade rest, every inch a warrior bodyguard on watch.
“But you, and Snowflower the wolf girl, have been pretty busy your own selves, haven’t you?” Lydia asked, one eyebrow lifted.
“Oh, you caught that, did you?” Declan replied.
“Ahem, settle down, children,” Tanya said. “Him, he’s nineteen. It’s expected. But you, you’re like ninety-five, Lydia.”
“I’ve managed to hang on to my youthful outlook, that’s all,” the smallest vampire replied.
Turning back to the two youngest, Tanya raised both eyebrows. “So, what happened?”
They both sat down on a loveseat, packed pretty close together, which was noted by more than one observer. Stacia spoke first, slowly, carefully, telling the story, right up till they boarded the Demidova jet in Bangor. Declan sat quietly, eyes on the floor, listening and nodding in places but holding his tongue. The room was quiet except for her voice, the vampires frozen in place like mannequins. Even Chris and Darion, the lawyer, were still.
“The child is the offspring of a werewolf and a witch?” Chris asked when she finished.
“That’s what the sole surviving pack member told us,” Stacia said, looking at Declan. “Declan saw more of it than I did. I was fighting with its father.”
They turned to him and he lifted his eyes from the spot he’d been studying on the carpet.
“About the size of a five or six-year-old. Utilized the middle beast form. He was very fast, extremely coordinated. In fact, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to fight him at this age without my magic. Strong, too. Killed an agent with one of my steel and silver balls. Held the damned things even though they must have burned. So add a high tolerance to pain to the list. I got a round into his leg, but it barely slowed him down. Oh, and his eyes flashed red… like demon red, and they look like snake’s eyes. Plus he stinks like sulfur.”
“You’re implying that he’s demonic,” Tanya said.
“Yeah, I am. Look, according to Karen Lyon, he’s all of two to three months old. Yet he’s the size of a kindergarten kid, quicker than shit, can catch steel and silver balls moving faster than a race car, and is strong enough to throw one of those balls through an adult human’s head,” Declan said. “And then, why would a group of secretive weres suddenly make some pretty spectacular kills and draw the entire national media’s attention to themselves? Because a demon would thrive on shit like that, right?”
The group was pretty quiet. Darion cleared his throat after a couple of seconds. “About that ball in the head. It’s not on the camera footage.”
“Yeah, well, Cochran was probably turned a little the wrong way. The others were kind of caught up in the carnivorous bug problem,” Declan said.
“Well, no one but you saw it. Yet the autopsy is pretty clear the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head from a weapon exactly like your steel balls,” Darion said.
“I just told you it was,” Declan said, sitting up and frowning.
“You’re saying that they think Declan used one of his weapons on Cochran?” Stacia asked.
“That’s the implication, and that’s the reason they are giving for the use of the Apache. Flying balls of death powered by witchcraft are grounds for heavy military weapons,” Darion said. “There is also the question of what really happened to the Apache.”
“I’d have to physically touch the thing to do anything to its systems,” Declan said.
“Do you know what happened to it? Either of you?” Darion asked.
Declan looked down again and Stacia looked over toward one of the big windows. Neither said anything.
“That’s a yes,” Darion said. He looked at the blonde vampire, Nika, his eyebrows raised.
She shook her head, first frowning, then her eyes got really wide. “Not Stacia’s story. And Declan’s keeping me out.”
They all turned back to the kid. He was looking at his hands, flexing them, shaking them like they were sore. He looked up and saw them looking from his hands to his face. “Damned skin got burnt a little when the bugs went up. Me… getting burned… shit’s not right,” he said, looking back down at his hands.
“Declan…” Chris started but stopped at a touch from Tanya.
The kid lifted his eyes to the ceiling and sighed. After a second, he spoke. “Well?” he said, addressing the ceiling. “Isn’t it time?”
Stacia was watching him with a calm expression, but the others all looked confused, maybe questioning his mental health a bit.
Seconds ticked by and Chris started to speak again. He was interrupted.
“The M230 Chain gun fires 30mm by 113mm light cannon rounds at 300 rounds per minute. That particular helicopter was loaded out with M809 High Explosive, Silvered Anti-Supernatural rounds. I calculated that my father’s shield would not hold for more than one round. Perhaps not even that.”
The voice was evenly modulated, like a man trying to be reasonable, and it came from the overhead speakers and the wall-mounted television monitor.
“Who the hell is that?” Darion asked.
“Father?” Lydia asked looking from Stacia to Declan for an answer.
“Ha,
I’m a baby daddy, Lydia. You can’t tell me you’re surprised,” Declan said.
“Is that… Omega?” Tanya asked.
“Yes Miss Demidova. I am Omega.”
“Omega as in our new computer?” Lydia asked, eyes wide.
“Omega as in the sentient artificial quantum intelligence who was born on the computer room floor last summer,” Declan said.
“You said who. Who was born. Don’t you mean that was born?” Lydia asked.
“Nope,” he said.