As it was, by the time he’d realized that part of the plan, the big military transport had been in the air. Now he was committed to riding an air-dropped pallet of thaumaturgically-enhanced drugs and fragile auto-injectors down onto the Great Lakes.
In the dark.
Riley’s people had better be there.
He checked the canisters on the pontoons and the release valves on the parachute as well. This was a terrible plan.
“Drop in ten!” the Air Force man barked, hitting a lever to open the back of the plane. “Thanks for flying USAF, cargo. Have a nice drop!”
The big grunt kicked the pallet, a solid impact that sent the cargo—and one Michael O’Brien—sliding down the deck of the suddenly angled aircraft and out into the open air.
If Michael spent most of the slide and the ensuing free-fall drop cursing the airman’s parentage and family history, well, no one would ever hear him.
His harness held. He checked the air canisters again as cold air whipped around him and he counted out the seconds in the back of his mind. He reached out for the rip cord that would manually activate the parachute…but this wasn’t a setup that was designed to have a human onboard.
The parachutes fired with a bang that hurt his ears even over the howling wind of the drop, massive white mushrooms blasting past him to fill the air above him as he sighed in relief. As the hurtling descent jerked to a slower pace, he carefully positioned himself to see the shore and the water beneath him.
There were no visible boats on the water. Or was that a boat? He wasn’t sure…
How high up was he?!
The truth was somewhere between his expectations and his fears, and the cargo slammed into the water with a surprisingly gentle landing, the self-inflating pontoons hissing to life to keep the crates of expensive equipment dry. They were now bouncing on the mostly calm surface of Lake Michigan as Michael looked around for the lights that would mean someone was coming to get him.
Hopefully, the Air Force crew hadn’t screwed up their timing and someone was coming to get him. It was going to be a cold night if he had to spend it out on the lake.
By the time the boat arrived an hour later, Michael had given up on being picked up before morning and was seriously considering getting into the water and pushing the pallet to shore.
Boat wasn’t giving the ship that arrived enough credit. Michael’s night vision was even better than the wolf he could become, and he could pick out the details of the hundred-and-fifty-foot-long cutter swimming out of the night.
Searchlights flickered out in a careful pattern as the ship tried to be somewhat clandestine despite her size. Most of her running lights had been doused as she cut a search pattern through the chilly Great Lake waters.
“There!” someone shouted, clearly audible to Michael’s hearing, as a searchlight swept over the floating pallet. The cutter changed her course, slowing even further as she swung about to close with Michael’s raft.
He unclipped the harness he’d worn for the ride down and stood up to wave.
“Ahoy there!” he shouted back—to find himself the sudden focus of several machine guns he was quite certain were supposed to have been removed when the ex-Coast Guard vessel had been decommissioned.
A pregnant pause filled the night, and then a different voice echoed out from the boat.
“Commander O’Brien?”
“I’m not sure who else would be dumb enough to be sitting on a floating raft of supplies in the middle of Lake Michigan,” he replied. “So, yeah, it’s me. Can I get a ride?”
He heard the answering chuckle.
“Stand down, ladies,” the boat’s captain ordered the gun crews. “The boss would be thoroughly grumpy if we shot up Mr. O’Brien here.”
He turned back to Michael.
“We need to be careful getting in close,” he told the werewolf. “This is the only boat we’ve got with a crane, but we’re also big enough to risk swamping you. You going to be okay to hang out for a few more minutes?”
Michael sighed.
“I haven’t died of exposure yet,” he admitted. “Let’s not test whether dumping me in the water will fix that!”
Michael O’Brien had commanded the Office of Supernatural Policing and Investigation’s High Threat Response Teams. He’d help design the ONSET Campus when the HTR teams had been transformed into their own organization. He’d been a Marine, a cop, a general, and had seen more military and paramilitary bases than he could count.
This was not the first time he’d seen a luxury hotel used as one, but he’d never seen quite so comfortable an arrangement for the personnel. As the cutter swung into a dock that had clearly been built for entertainment craft, it was clear that most of the amenities of the hotel were still functioning. It was late, but the bar was open, and the big TVs were running.
People were wandering the beaches in twos and threes, chatting amicably. If he hadn’t known he was being brought to Riley’s base, he would have wondered if the hotel was still open.
And then you looked more closely.
Some of the twos were couples, yes. But even the couples were keeping a wary eye on the water and the sky. Some of the pairs and trios were outright patrols, still chatting as friends and tourists but armed and hyper-aware.
There were no real heavy weapons, but several concealed machine gun nests covered the marina, carefully tracking the ex-Coast Guard ship. He couldn’t see much of the parking lot, but the density of the vehicles he could see suggested that much of the parking he couldn’t see had been coopted for other purposes.
“I radioed ahead,” Captain Neumann said from behind him, the swarthy and gray-haired ex-Coast Guard officer a reassuringly solid presence. “Lord Riley should be waiting for you.
“Ah, there’s your welcoming party.”
Michael followed Neumann’s gesture and picked out the familiarly short stocky and slim shapes of White and Mason. Both had made it, it seemed.
“Thank you, Captain,” he told Neumann. “I was expecting to spend the night on the lake when you showed up.”
“Now, that, Commander O’Brien, would have been rude.”
“I’m not a Commander anymore,” Michael pointed out.
Neumann smiled.
“Talk to Lord Riley before you sound that certain, Mr. O’Brien.”
Michael was more than a little surprised when Kate Mason wrapped him in a tight bear hug. He hesitated for a moment, then returned the hug from the much younger woman before stepping back to study her for a moment.
White offered him a firm handshake, a wry smile on the other man’s face. There was something different to the squat ex-cop today. A new grace to his movements. A smoother hue to his skin.
“It’s good to see you both,” he told them. “I never expected this to go quite so sideways quite so fast.”
“It could be worse,” White rumbled. “We’re all still breathing. Task Force Sigma was being spectacularly trigger-happy for a bit.”
“I’ve been informally advised that they’ve been told to rein that in,” Michael replied. “General Purcell seems to have ended up handling everything ONSET used to.”
White winced.
“I’d sympathize with the bastard, but he did try to nuke Charles,” he said. “That’ll take some digging upwards for him to get much from me.”
“That…I hadn’t heard,” Michael admitted. “I’ve been out of the loop since New York. Other than the news, of course.”
“Which has been bad enough,” Mason said as she tucked herself into White’s arm. The pair apparently didn’t feel the need to hide their relationship anymore, which was a small silver living to this whole mess.
Michael didn’t think they’d needed to hide it before, but who was he to tell kids what to be paranoid about? He’d grown up in the fifties, after all!
“The Elfin have a bloody website now,” White added. “It’s been an interesting few weeks. You ready for what comes next, boss?”
“I’
m not your boss anymore, David,” Michael replied. “Right now, I’m technically an unemployed, wanted bum. I don’t know what I can count as ready for.”
“Pretty sure Ardent will get that wanted fixed,” the younger man said. “And Riley has plans for the unemployed, because we know you, boss.
“And we need you,” he continued. “Come on, Riley is waiting.”
“You work for him now, do you?” Michael asked.
“Welcome to Black Echelon, boss,” White said quietly. “The last line of defense at the end of world.”
Michael O’Brien had known Jamie Riley since a fresh-faced twenty-two-year-old graduate from the FBI training program had been co-opted by OSPI, over thirty years ago now. Michael had been middle-aged then. Riley was working on middle-aged now, which made Michael feel old.
Anyone looking at the two of them would have guessed the twenty-odd-year age gap went the other way. With the long hair and beard Michael had grown out to conceal his identity, he didn’t look much past his mid-twenties, where Riley was showing every one of his fifty-plus years today.
The Elfin Lord looked tired and worn, but he greeted Michael with a smile and a warm handclasp.
“You have no idea how glad I am to see you,” the Mage told him. “I can make this work—I think—but having you at my side makes me a lot more confident.”
“I haven’t signed on yet,” Michael warned Riley, pulling up a seat and glancing around the room. Mason and White had followed him up and taken seats of their own. The other two people in the room were strangers to him, though the man looked vaguely familiar…
“Reginald?” he asked suddenly. “Joseph Reginald?”
“The one and only,” the vampire confirmed with a bow. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet the man on the other side of the chess table.”
Michael swallowed most of a growl. He understood the need for peace. He agreed with it. He’d supported it…but the Familias had killed a lot of agents under his command over the decades, and the patriarchs like Joseph Reginald had orchestrated that war.
“Peace, Michael,” the second stranger, a white-haired woman in a wheelchair, cut him off before he could say more. “You and Joseph have both killed more of each other’s protégés than you can count. It was war.
“Now we face a common enemy, one who will eat both of your damned souls if you decide to fight each other rather than what’s coming. Sit. Breathe. Accept what’s in front of you.”
Whoever she was, she knew what to say to take the wind out of Michael’s sails, and he nodded shakily to Reginald.
“I apologize,” he said quietly. “Memories die hard.”
“For all of us,” Reginald agreed. “You neither did nor said anything requiring apologies, regardless of what Walker may have foreseen.”
“Michael O’Brien, meet Leila Walker,” Riley interjected, gesturing to the blind woman in a wheelchair. “One of the most powerful Seers I have ever met and the true mastermind behind Black Echelon.”
“I’ll accept instigator, boy, but this is all your work,” Walker replied. “I’ve neither the wealth nor the contacts to assemble this.”
“Okay, so I caught the name,” Michael told them. “I’m not necessarily on board yet, but you have my attention, Lord Riley. Brief me.”
The Elfin Lord smiled and gestured for a construct to provide Michael with a drink.
“Black Echelon was supposed to be an insurance policy,” he began. “After the New York Incident, I anticipated the Committee’s decision to dissolve Omicron, so I called on every contact and resource I could think of, including the Arbiter, to pull together the gear and personnel to take on whatever supernatural incidents occurred before our government got their act back together.
“We have a small force of APCs and two Pendragon helicopters, plus some civilian aircraft,” he concluded. “I think I’ve got a line on a couple more Pendragons, but even if that falls through, I’ve got half a dozen Ospreys lined up to arrive shortly.”
“Aren’t those still restricted?” Michael asked.
“So?” Riley replied bluntly. “The Conclave has its resources.”
“But this isn’t an Elfin operation, I take it?” Michael noted, gesturing to Reginald.
“No. It’s mine,” the Mage admitted. “Just me. Conclave and Familias have put up money and connections, but I’m the fall guy. If this goes to hell, I’m the one who the government is going to come after. I’m the cut-out.”
That was familiar to Michael. He’d intentionally put himself in the same position during the New York Incident, covering for David White.
“So, we’ve built a private supernatural army. An insurance policy, huh?”
“Except that young David has Seen what is coming and we have no way to stop it,” Walker said flatly, her eyes seeming to look into Michael’s soul, for all that she was clearly blind. “The Herald will be born. A gateway unlike any we have seen before will be opened. A new Incursion, but in a major city, not a desolate wasteland.”
Michael sighed and looked at White.
“I don’t suppose she’s exaggerating?”
“No,” the younger Seer confirmed. “We’re going to see an invasion in a major city that the government will throw conventional troops at…and those troops will fail.
“Which means that Black Echelon isn’t an insurance policy,” he said levelly. “It’s a necessity. And we need you.”
Seers, Michael reflected, were far too damned good at knowing what buttons to push.
“What do we have?” he asked quietly.
“Two hundred supernaturals, about the same in mundane volunteers,” Riley said instantly. “Only about sixty of the supernaturals are what ONSET would regard as ‘combat-grade,’ but that’s enough for five well-staffed assault teams.
“With the Seraphim Wings you brought you with you, we’ll be able to bring a hundred of our mundane volunteers up to the same standard as our other supernaturals. They’ll form a base of fire and support to enable our main strike teams to hit the heavy concentrations.
“I hope to be able to coordinate with SOCOM’s new supernatural and Seraphim forces—and the regular military, if push comes to shove—but I also have to plan for the possibility that Black Echelon may be the only thing left by the time we go after the Herald.”
“And you want me to lead one of your teams?” Michael asked.
“Yes. I’ll lead one and hold overall command. White, Mason and Reginald will each lead one. With you on board, that gives us five teams I’d put up against the worst Hell can throw at us.”
Michael shook his head.
“The Masters Beyond aren’t Hell,” he noted. “We can beat them. I’m certain of it.”
“We, huh?” Riley picked out.
The werewolf laughed.
“Fair enough, Lord Riley. I’m in.”
26
“David! Wake up!”
Kate’s urgent voice woke David up with a start. He blinked away sleep and rose from the bed, following Kate’s voice to find his lover standing next to the balcony window of the penthouse suite Riley had given them.
Her nakedness distracted him rather thoroughly for several moments, but she gestured urgently for him to come join her at the window.
With waiting for O’Brien to arrive and then briefing him, the previous night had run very late. He wasn’t entirely sure what time it was beyond “too early to be awake after last night,” but he wasn’t going to argue with Kate if she thought it was important.
He reached the windows just as a massive shadow swept over it, an immense winged shape blocking out the sun as a dragon circled above the hotel, clearly studying them.
“Please tell me that’s Charles,” he said quietly, Kate’s nudity forgotten as he studied the creature above them. “He’s…grown.”
“I think it’s him,” she said cautiously. “Can’t you tell?”
Seer. Right.
David sighed and focused, summoning his Sight as he focused on the d
ragon flying overhead. It was more than just “zoom,” though he was suddenly seeing Charles—and it was Charles, thankfully—from very close up.
The dragon wasn’t just bigger. He was much bigger.
“Did I miss a memo about summer pounds for dragons?” David asked, projecting his voice through his Sight so the dragon would hear him.
“Do you know how much effort it took to stay a size that fit in that damn cave?” Charles asked. “I miss that cave. I miss the Internet…but it’s nice to actually be able to fully be myself.”
“You found us, I take it.”
“I worked out where Riley was assembling his little emergency army about two days after he started,” the dragon replied dryly. “Once you told me what was going on, I knew where to go. It just took a while to fly here.”
A very toothy grin spread across Charles’s immense face.
“I may have posed for a photo or two along the way,” he noted. “Or…two thousand. Maybe more. I wasn’t counting. My arms aren’t big enough for selfies.”
“I’d say that’s going to be a headache, but I’ve been watching the news this week,” David told him. “Get your scaly behind down on the ground. We need a plan.”
The dragon shrugged, a massive gesture on a creature now nearly fifty feet long with a two-hundred-foot wingspan.
“I’ll contribute, but I know where my place in this is,” he told David brightly. “If you think you are going into battle in a helicopter this time, I have news for you, Mr. Battle Seer!”
David sighed.
“Did everyone know what I was except me?” he asked.
“Nah, just those of us who predate the Seal,” the dragon told him. “That’s a pretty damn short list.”
By the time Charles finished showing off and actually landed, David and Kate had found clothes and made it out to the parking lot—along with just about everyone else who’d joined Black Echelon. Several hundred people were gathered around the back of the hotel, watching Charles land.
It was a sizeable crowd, but it also drove home just how small the Echelon was compared to ONSET and Omicron. They only about half-filled one midsize hotel, but this was the force that they hoped would stand off the end of the world.
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