by John Conroe
“How?” Gramps asked the young witch. “You were talking to earth elementals, right?”
“The electricity?” Declan asked, caught off guard. Gramps nodded and the witch turned thoughtful. “When earth shifts back and forth, like in a quake, particles of sand, quartz, and what have you rub against each other, building electric charge. I just borrowed it.”
My grandfather’s question had derailed his temper and he turned back to his werewolf, who was still staring at him, hands on hips—unconcerned with her lack of clothes. “I might have pulled the trigger a bit fast. I heard Kristin howl and I pictured you all being swarmed. I couldn’t see what was happening.”
“Which is why I would have signaled,” Stacia said, her own voice calmer.
“Unless you were swarmed too,” he said. “How bad was it?”
“Well, they are tricky. All aggression, no caution. Strong, fast, and tough. We have to keep moving and we have to fight as a unit or that swarming thing would be a real issue. Dog-sized ones would be a real handful. And Chris was right about the little needles.”
Devaney was just finishing his Change, but Holly was done. Kristin lay on her wolfish side as her wound knit itself back together.
“The venom seems to slow healing too,” Holly said. “I’m gonna rinse this goop off me in the surf,” she said, turning and trotting naked into the waves.
“Good idea,” Devaney said, following. Stacia studied her witch for a moment, then nodded. She turned to Kristin. “Stay in that form till you are fully healed. Holly is right. Those wounds should have healed already.” Then she too trotted off to wash up.
I opened the cooler I had carried through the portal and pulled out a raw steak, which I threw to Kristin. She snapped it out of the air with a flash of sharp white teeth and began to gobble it down.
“We should roast a few of those,” Gramps said, staring at the cooler with hunger.
“Good idea,” Declan said. In moments, the two of them had a fire going on the beach and chunks of meat skewered on sharpened sticks. I used the distraction of the food and fire to find Stacia.
She was mostly dressed, as was Devaney, but Holly seemed to take her time toweling off. I kept my eyes on Stacia’s eyes, ignoring the volatile werewolf next to me. Holly Harris, attacked by a demon werewolf hybrid during her Vegas bridal party, healed by my blood, and abandoned by her fiancé. She had a lot of anger, certainly with some just cause, but the effects of the demon part of her werewolf lineage had yet to be seen. Stacia had helped her adjust and survive but also had to whip her into submission a time or two. And Holly seemed to enjoy taunting men, particularly me, although she was subdued when Tanya was around.
“We had it under control,” Stacia said to me.
I nodded. “Yup. He didn’t know and his anger was instant and extreme,” I said. “Like Aunt Darci held by a demon extreme. I was worried he might have fried you all by accident.”
“The lightning wrapped around us, over us, under us, but never touched us,” Stacia said. “How can he do that but not know if we’re really in danger?”
“I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure you recall the centipedes in New York?” I asked. She nodded. “He is a bit volatile where you are concerned and has taken this pack thing to heart. He knew it was Kristin, but that might have been worse in some ways.”
“The youngest, most vulnerable, least experienced,” Devaney said.
“Hell, that girl’s so innocent and cute, I’d protect her myself,” Holly said. “And those krays ain’t no joke,” she said, pointing to her right calf, where a three-inch-wide circle of flesh was still knitting together.
“How you two figure things out is up to you, but I’m just advising a bit of caution. He’s always been powerful, but now… he’s orders of magnitude beyond that,” I said.
“You are correct, Chris,” an orb said suddenly from a few feet away. “With his connections to elementals, he is as far beyond regular witches as I am beyond normal computers. Also, the steaks are ready.”
“Steaks?” Devaney asked, but the other weres were already racing back to the campfire.
By the time the ex-deputy and I made it back, the others all had big steak kabobs in hand, chewing the meat down in chunks. Gramps handed a couple to each of us, nodding slightly at the witch of mass destruction, who was packing the remains of the kray carcass in a plastic zip baggie, while explaining something spell-related to Mia and her mother.
“U.S. military units are inbound now. Naval and Marine,” Omega warned.
Moments later, my ears picked up the sound of V-22 Ospreys headed our way at high speed. The minipack all heard them too, heads swiveling to the northeast. I noticed my grandfather did too. Declan looked up from his lesson, turning to look in the direction that we were watching. Blinking lights became visible to my ultrasensitive eyes a bit quicker than the weres and much, much faster than the humans. The sound grew as the tilt-rotor aircraft raced into the immediate airspace out over the ocean.
“I am providing targeting information to the air crews. Be advised they will soon be dropping guided bombs into the ocean when sufficient numbers of krays are located.”
“Omega, are ground units coming?”
“Yes, Chris. There are helicopters transporting Marine units currently seven-point-five minutes behind the tilt-rotor craft.”
I looked at Declan, who nodded but then looked at Stacia. She nodded as well, her expression hard to read. “Well then, we’ve done what we came here to do, right?” I asked.
Declan checked with the young witch Mia and her mother. They seemed a bit nervous but just then, the first bombs started to go off out in the ocean, possibly farther out than a half mile. The young witch’s expression firmed up as the night lit with flashes of light, and she nodded, clutching the wooden magic battery and a small stack of premade spell sheets from Declan’s bag of goodies.
Fifteen minutes later, we were back in the Tower.
Chapter 45
“He zapped all the krays? At once?” Lydia asked. At Stacia’s nod, she gave her own nod. “Reminds me of the centipedes.”
“That’s what I said,” I said.
“It’s like he didn’t trust me to handle it,” Stacia complained to Lydia, Nika, Tanya, Chet, Deckert, Arkady, my grandfather, and me. We were all seated in the Demidova cafeteria, debriefing from our excursion. It was highly likely we’d need to head out again, and soon. To that end, Declan was restocking his magic bag while the three wolves of Stacia’s pack were either getting more ammo, in Devaney’s case, or getting looked at by Doc Singh, in Kristin and Holly’s cases.
“Not it at all,” Gramps said, sipping a chocolate shake. Stacia gave him a hard stare, crossing her arms over her chest.
Gramps held up one hand, finishing his sip. Then he gave her a nod. “I get it. I’ve been in your shoes more times than I care to count. It was always my job to step out on the pointy end. But we always had overwatch if we could at all help it. Usually Len.” He paused, losing his train of thought, his eyes suddenly a bit moist. Then he shrugged it off, much as he’d taught me to do, and carried on. “Having someone you trust looking through a scope while you stick out your neck is very comforting. But occasionally, they overreact. Len did, more than a few times too. I tore into him the first time and he came right back at me. You do it then. You look through the scope from hundreds of yards away and try to guess how things are going to go sideways, he said. So I did. Once. Hated it. Turned it right back over to him and never gave him shit again.”
“But he could wrap us in frigging lightning, for Heaven’s sake,” Stacia protested.
“I could put the bullet four inches over your shoulder at a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards. Still couldn’t tell if things were hinky or not though,” Gramps said. “Len was even better, but even with modern communications, I wouldn’t want that job.”
“I agree,” Deckert said, “for whatever it’s worth. Overwatch is a gut-wrenching job even for the very best traine
d. I’ve done both sides and I agree with Alex.”
“Omega was feeding him information with his nano tech,” Stacia said.
“I had just two drones on site. They were both on overwatch on him, as you all were too far away. I too could not determine the extent of Kristin’s wounds,” Omega said from Lydia’s tablet.
“You did a good job of sidetracking him after,” I said to Gramps, changing the topic.
“Listen, he’s one of the very finest young men I’ve ever met, and I’ve trained thousands and led hundreds,” Gramps said. “Never met anyone I would trust with that kind of power, yet here’s this humble kid from upstate Vermont who, aside from Omega, may be the single most powerful being I’ve ever met. No offense, you two—I know you’re crazy fast and strong, sudden death in every direction—but that kid created a one-hundred-percent-effective kill zone in a few seconds that cleared two square miles of thousands of monsters. And he used shifting sand, for God’s sake.”
“It would be more accurate to say that Father killed hundreds of thousands,” Omega said.
“You’re saying I’m being pissy?” Stacia asked, her tone even.
“I’m saying that leading small units into combat is a crazy, unpredictable thing,” Gramps said in a placating tone. “The speeds at which you all move, the speed of those krays, it’s beyond anything I saw in Korea or after. But the fog of war is very real. Friendly fire can kill you just as well as the enemy. With him, that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“You seem to get along with him,” Tanya noted.
“First, he’s very easy going. Second, I have the advantage of years of experience with young men and even with young men of prodigious power,” he said with a glance my way. “And I’m not Chris.”
“What’s that mean?” Lydia asked.
“He looks up to Chris, models himself on the way Chris acts and conducts himself. Easy for an outsider to see, but maybe not if you’re too close. That creates a weird kind of dynamic. But I’m new to all this, and I’m kind of Chris’s mentor. Gives me credibility.”
“Would you keep doing what you’re doing?” I asked.
“Of course. I would anyway, but listen, if you’re getting worried, you should be pulling in someone else,” Gramps said, taking another sip.
“Who?” Lydia asked. Gramps kept slurping, raised his eyebrows, and held one hand behind his ear like he couldn’t hear her.
It was her turn to cross her arms at him. He grinned and swallowed his shake. “Mothers, grandmothers, and aunts are all important to young men, but there are times when they need an older male, a father figure. I’d call that Levi guy and have him drop in for a visit.”
We stared at him, speechless, till Lydia put her forehead on the tabletop. “Argh, I expect it from Chris, but I hate when the obvious rears up and bites you.”
“You really think he’s that important?” Nika asked.
“I do. His mother and aunt taught him magic at a master level, but it generally takes another man to teach teenaged boys how to be men themselves,” Gramps said. “Whoever did it with that kid deserves a medal. I can’t believe how much power he has, yet he’s quiet, respectful, and humble. Called his student’s mother ma’am. How does he not have a galactic-sized ego? And it’s incredibly lucky he helped create Omega or he’d have been kidnapped or killed as soon as the world became aware of him. Having a pack of weres as bodyguards is the bare minimum.”
“You think so?” Stacia asked.
“Omega, how many attempts have you thwarted?” Gramps asked the tablet on the table.
“Seven hundred and eighty-four to date for Father. That includes both active intervention as well as persuasive deterrence.”
“Who?” Lydia demanded.
“It might be easier to list who has not taken a shot,” Omega began. “Forty-seven countries, including this one, seven corporations, sixteen criminal organizations, four major terrorist groups, nine radical fringe groups, and both courts of Fairie.”
“And you killed some of them?” Stacia said.
“Humans are not easily deterred. I am responsible for the deaths of four thousand, forty-one individuals who took steps to kill or capture my father.”
“Good,” Stacia said. “But I wish you had killed them all.”
“It was wasteful, yet necessary. Also please note that my numbers did not include attempts at Alex Gordon, Toni Velasquez, or several important friends and extended family members of this group.”
“You never reported any of that?” Tanya questioned.
“I suppressed each attempt as soon as it became necessary. I will not allow anyone within this organization to be leveraged. But as not one attempt got close to Father or any members of your close groups, I deemed that it wasn’t necessary to bother you with the information. The only lapse on my part was Darci and the Hellbourne.”
I could tell that it didn’t sit well with Tanya, but when I thought about it, my own feelings were fine with his actions.
“Does he do that often? Make up a spell that has the power of a naval barrage?” Gramps asked, changing the topic back to Declan. I could tell Gramps was absolutely fascinated. Almost as one, we turned to Stacia.
“His aunt says magic is probably Declan’s first language,” she said. “And he has a genius for it that exceeds even his mother’s.”
“But still, how does he convince those spirits, those elementals, to just hand him energy?” Gramps pressed.
“He doesn’t have to,” Stacia said. “He grew up understanding his ancestral Circle’s unique technique for borrowing power and transforming it. Like children growing up completely tech savvy. He also grew up with two elementals for playmates. He converses with them easily, but he doesn’t have to ask them for power.”
“What do you mean?” Tanya asked.
“It’s like this: If Lydia lets me into her house and I need to use the bathroom, it’s not like she monitors water usage or the electricity I burn turning on the lights, right?”
“Actually, she has a spreadsheet for that,” I said, earning myself a flipped middle finger from the smallest vampire.
“You mean he just skims off the top?” Chet asked.
“Kinda sorta. The elementals might be aware on some level that we’re there, but they don’t react if he takes the excess power that they radiate like we radiate body heat,” the werewolf girl said. “At least some of us.”
“You’re just sweaty is all,” Lydia said.
“I thought, from the interviews, that he could tap their full power?” Gramps asked, ignoring the byplay.
“Mostly no, but for a few, yes,” Stacia said.
“Is that enough?” Deckert asked before anyone else could. The retired Marine had been paying close attention to Gramps’ questions and he was now frowning.
“Yes, because the ones that do notice him are doozies,” she said. “He’s popular with some of the biggest earth and volcano-based elementals on the planet. Very popular.”
“Which volcanoes?” Chet asked.
“Taupo in New Zealand, Fuji in Japan, Toba in Indonesia, Vesuvius in Italy, are just a few of dozens and dozens. His very best connection is with Yellowstone.”
“The supervolcano?” Gramps asked, eyebrows up. “The one that will reshape the world when it next erupts?”
“Yeah, but don’t get all worried about it going off. It won’t erupt anytime soon,” Stacia said with confidence.
“Because the kid asked it nicely?” Deckert asked.
“He didn’t have to ask it. It likes him, remember. Chris and Declan met it in the desert. We’ve visited Yellowstone Park like twenty times since.”
“What could he do with that much power?” Chet asked, his expression both excited and slightly anxious at the same time.
“No idea,” Stacia admitted. “More like what couldn’t he do.”
“Stacia is correct. It is exceedingly difficult to predict exactly what Father might be able to accomplish with the power of the Yellowstone
supervolcano, which has had several estimated Category VEI-8 eruptions over the last several million years. As I indicated, his innate understanding of manipulating quantum physics is unprecedented. He has found ways to leverage quantum mechanics to achieve results greater than the power used would seem to support.”
That pronouncement was met with silence as everyone absorbed the implications.
“You’re saying that he is a living force multiplier?” Gramps finally asked.
“In the simplest terms, yes. And he is currently on his way up from the medical floor. He has handed off the biological specimen to Dr. Singh for DNA analysis. I requested him here, as I have an update on the kraykenast infestation.”
A goodly number of us heard the elevator stop on our floor and the doors open out in the hall. Seconds later, the familiar tread of Declan’s booted feet signaled his approach.
“It seems like just yesterday he was wearing Nike sneakers. Now he’s in combat boots,” Lydia said with a sigh, head tilted to listen.
“Actually, Salomon hiking boots,” Stacia said.
Declan came in as Lydia rolled her eyes at Stacia, who just gave her a snarky grin before smiling at her witch.
He pulled up short, expression surprised as everyone looked his way. “What… oh. One of those is Declan going off the cliff sessions, huh?” he asked, nodding to himself.
“After-action chat, and yes, your name might have come up,” I said. “Something about frying a hundred thousand krays with ground lightning.”
“Which is cool AF,” Chet said with an excited grin.
Declan absorbed our resident computer geek’s enthusiasm for a cautious second, then nodded. “I’ve practiced it a bit on our excursions,” he said, glancing at Stacia.
Heads turned her way. “What? I don’t know what he gets up to when he’s kum ba yahing with earthquakes and lava flows.”
“She’s usually suntanning,” Declan admitted, pulling another chair from a nearby table. “Something about being immune to skin cancer.”
Tanya looked at me and our bond felt like she was satisfied that the tension had been alleviated. I took my cue accordingly. “Omega? You have an update?”