by Dee, Bonnie
“No! I saw the magick of the Book … and my son was there—in Indiana.” Miller paused, gasping. “You didn’t warn me, Algernon! My son could’ve died!”
“I was unaware that I reported to you, Ben.” His tone was cutting and rife with his Speaker power.
Miller’s resulting gulp could be heard clearly over the speaker. Brody smiled at how easily the idiot was put in his place.
Stammering, Miller continued his report. “Uh, Lily Redfern … the Earth Keeper on the dig Darcy supervised … is the Talisman. She … she single-handedly diverted the energy to take the quake down to a more survivable level. She saved my son—saved the Midwest.”
Damn and blast. An Earth Keeper who could deflect that much energy was unusual. No wonder his scientists’ predictions had been undercut by so much. But the Earth Talisman? No. Not possible. The Book was full of mythological crap.
“I saw the damage on CNN,” Brody said. “So … she’s a powerful Keeper. She still couldn’t avert it entirely. The damage will serve for my purposes. I already gave the go-ahead for the Air catastrophe.” He paused, then added with a smile twisting his lips, “If your son is still in the area, he might want to get out. I expect several F-5 tornadoes to hit the quake area after gaining momentum out of Tornado Alley.”
Steed’s sharp gasp had Brody turning to look at his aide full on. The man was angry—no furious—at him—at his actions. Yes, dear old Trent definitely had to go.
Miller’s voice, filled with dread, blasted from the speaker phone. “What have you done, Algernon? The Book’s prophecies … the Earth Talisman has come … the others will follow.” The older Terran turned Destroyer wailed, “You’ve initiated end-times with your ploy for power and money. My son was almost killed. If it hadn’t been for Redfern…”
“Get a grip, Ben,” Brody ordered. “What we’re doing will not carry over. The Book is full of shit.”
“Gaia effect.” Steed’s voice, stern and stronger than Brody had ever heard it, interrupted.
“I heard that,” Ben shouted over the phone. “Trent’s right. Earth seeks balance. Your actions have thrown…”
“Shut up!” Brody yelled. “Both of you are over-reacting.” He turned a frigid gaze at Steed. Using his Speaker’s power, he ordered, “Shut up, Trent. Not another word out of you.”
Steed opened his mouth and shut it. Not a sound emerged, but Brody feared it had more to do with Trent not revealing his hand than Brody’s power. When had he lost control of the man?
First he’d deal with the imbecile on the phone, then with Steed. “Now, Ben, I want you to answer my questions and only my questions,” he said, using his strongest magick. “No tangents. Can your son get his hands on the Redfern woman and bring her to me?”
“I don’t know,” Miller answered.
“Does he know where she is?”
“Yes, he left her at the dig site controlling the quake.”
“Can he get back there?”
“I think so.”
Brody thought for a few seconds. If this Redfern woman could control huge amounts of Earth energy, he wanted her where he could use her for his own ends. Power of any kind attracted him. His cock hardened at the thought of having her under his control—under him. Plus, he wanted to take her away from KOTE.
“Tell your son he’s to go back and find her. If she’s alive, he is to bring her to my New York country home. If she isn’t, I want confirmation she’s dead. Understand?”
“Yes.” Ben’s voice strained to say more, but couldn’t while Brody used his Speaker voice.
“As for you, I want you to keep me informed of what KOTE is doing to countermand my measures. The tornadoes I’m initiating should hit the Midwest after 12 noon, Central Time.”
“I’ll let you know.” Miller struggled and managed to add, “KOTE is under a Code Talisman.”
“Good-bye, Ben.” Brody stabbed at the speaker button, disconnecting the call.
Shit. A Code Talisman was the highest emergency protocol KOTE had and would have all Keepers and Protectors on high alert.
If any Air Keepers had been paying attention to the Aleutian low pressure system his operatives had manipulated, they might be able to alter the lower atmospheric conditions enough to kill his supercells. They couldn’t do anything about the “short waves,” the upper levels of agglomerations of heaving air akin to airborne tsunamis, coming down to the lower forty-eight states, but they could cool off Tornado Alley enough to make his planned F-5 swarm just a bunch of heavy thunder showers. Fuck and damn! He’d have to hope the Air Keepers in the Midwest were behind the curve on his next disaster.
He swiveled in his chair and glared at Steed. “What am I going to do with you?”
Steed said nothing, just glared at him. His aide’s gaze was icy hot. Who knew that old Trent had such fury in him?
“Answer me, damn it!” Brody stood and stalked over to his aide, then slapped him across the face. “Where’s your loyalty? Your father was one of my best friends. I hired you straight out of college, groomed you to be the perfect spokesperson for my company. Gave you a comfortable lifestyle—and this, this bleeding heart…”
Steed cut across his tirade. “It’s wrong to tamper with Earth’s balance for your own gain.”
“Well, what in the fuck do you think Destroyers do, Trent? Pet bunnies and save the fucking whales? We use our elemental abilities to profit ourselves, not benefit mankind.” Brody shook his head. “What in the hell did you think your father and I did all day at Brody Industries? Recycle and reclaim? You knew—and you went along with it. So why the conscience now?”
“The Book’s prophecies.” Steed’s face, his whole posture, strengthened. “If you destroy the world, there’ll be nothing left for you to rape and pillage for your bottom line. We’ll all be dead—or living on a dying planet with nowhere else to go.”
Brody ran a hand through his hair. “You believe that bullshit Miller was dishing?”
“Yes. Mostly because nothing … nothing … should have been able to bring that quake down. No Earth Keeper has that kind of power to do so alone. No one could have done it but the Earth Talisman and her Protector. And the Book is clear—with the coming of the Earth Talisman in the 21st century, a series of catastrophes will commence and the other Talisman will arise. They’ll either save Earth or not. That is yet to be written.”
“Get out of here, Trent, before I do something we’ll both regret.” Brody turned his back and went to the French doors overlooking a highly manicured lawn. “Go to your quarters until I call for you. You need to think about where your loyalties lie—to me—or to Earth.”
The sound of a chair being pushed back, the soft swishing sound of steps on the thick-piled carpet and the almost silent snick of the door closing, indicated Steed had left the room.
Sighing, Brody strode to his desk and picked up the phone. “Security? In an hour, send someone to Trent Steed’s suite of rooms and have him killed. What? I don’t care what you do with the body. Just make sure his death can’t be tracked back to me.” He slammed the phone down.
It’s a good thing his old friend David Steed hadn’t lived to see his son turn traitor to their cause. What was the younger generation coming to? Speaking of coming, he had business to finish in the Chamber—and a punishment to deal out. He imagined Autumn was getting tired of her awkward position. And he had the need to unload all this tension he’d built up.
* * * *
Trent hurried to his office where he had a duffel packed for just such a day as this. He didn’t have much time—even now Brody probably had his security people looking for him in order to kill him.
Pulling the duffel bag out of his storage closet, he laid it on the desk and packed up his laptop and the flash drive with a terabyte of memory containing all the memos, e-mails, and written documentation of Brody’s plans he and Autumn had gleaned from their respective dealings with the old bastard. That done, he had to get to his hiding place on the expansive estate grou
nds. He’d lie low, contact KOTE and send them the info he’d just learned about the proposed Air catastrophe. When darkness hit, he would rescue Autumn. Even the randy old devil had to sleep some time.
He hoped she would be in condition to travel. He’d carry her to his hidden vehicle if he had to. They were leaving tonight no matter what he had to do or who he had to kill.
He patted his pocket where he had a packet containing morning-after pills. There was no way he’d start their new lives with the demon seed of Brody in Autumn’s womb.
He only hoped the information he and Autumn had discovered would help KOTE stop all of Brody’s planned disasters. He prayed it wasn’t too late to reverse the Gaia effect. He left his office through the French doors and headed out onto the extensive grounds.
Chapter Six
Monday, 12:00 noon CST, KOTE staging area, New Madrid, Missouri
With a ground-eating stride, Carr headed for the mobile home being used by KOTE for its headquarters. People scrambled to get out of his way. As he approached, one of the two men standing outside the headquarters shouted. He recognized the bastard—Darcy Miller. Miller’s anger was underlaid with a childish petulance contrasting with his size and supposed maturity.
“Fuck you, Callahan! I’m going back for her. She’s mine. I don’t care what the damn Book of Sorhineth says. I’d never have left her if I hadn’t had to save a bunch of worthless humans.”
Clouds of red colored Carr’s vision. He jogged the last few yards separating him from the two men. He grabbed Miller by the shoulder and turned him into his fist—aimed right into the bastard’s groin.
Miller hunched over, vomiting whatever he’d managed to stuff into his gullet while Lily lay unconscious and in danger somewhere in Indiana. Carr turned to salute Donovan Callahan. “Mr. Callahan, sir! Captain Carr Madoc, U.S. Army Recon and Protector for Lily Redfern, reporting for duty and asking permission to immediately ship out to find her.”
Donovan held out his hand. Carr took it and shook, liking the strength he sensed in the leader of KOTE.
“Carr, we aren’t following military protocols. Call me Donovan. What was that,” he pointed at Miller lying in a fetal position on the ground at their feet, “all about?”
“That pile of pig excrement attempted to rape Lily last night. Plus, he left her—all alone—to fight the quake by herself.”
Gasping to catch a breath, Miller managed to whine, “The bitch told me to go. To save the humans.”
Carr ignored the man’s excuses for the rationalizations they were. While saving the humans was necessary, nothing would have kept him from immediately returning to find her—especially if he knew where she was. And the only thing keeping him from her now was the piece of pathetic crud lying on the ground—and his duty to his leader. “As I was saying, he left her. Plus he’s denigrated his job as a Protector by calling his charges worthless humans. Finally, he claims Lily is his. She’s not—she’s mine.”
Donovan shook his head, his hands fisted at his side. “He sexually attacked a woman under his care?” The KOTE leader growled. A strawberry-blonde woman came to Donovan’s side and grabbed him by the arm, holding him back.
“Yes, sir.” Carr admired a man who could zero in on the important facts. He glared at Miller who now lay quietly, his eyes closed. The coward played possum well, but he always had, especially when his team needed him on an op. Miller was a lily-livered, scum-sucking useless pile of garbage.
“Lily was in a very fragile physical and emotional state at the time of the quake. It was amazing and a testament to her courage that she was able to do … uh … um … what needed to be done to halt the quake.” No way would he detail the intimacy of Lily’s and his astral connection while Miller was present.
Miller leaned up on his elbows and almost hissed. “I never raped her. If she said so, she’s a liar. Besides, even if we’d had sex, she wanted it, always flaunting her tits and ass in skimpy tanks and shorts. And she’s not yours, Madoc. I saw her first. So back the fuck off.”
Donovan muttered, “The stupid fool deserves what’s coming to him.”
The woman beside Donovan gasped when Carr lifted Miller off the ground and punched him in the face, breaking his nose, before throwing him back to the ground.
“She never asked for it.” Carr was so mad he snarled the words, clenching and unclenching his fists at his side. “No woman asks to be attacked while she’s asleep. Lily’s not, nor ever will be, yours. And if I find that you’ve ever come within a yard of her again, I’ll break every bone in your body. For a beginning.”
“He threatened me!” Miller sought Donovan’s eyes. “Are you going to let him get away with that? My father is an Elder on the Council. I—I single-handedly saved ten humans from being quake fodder.”
Placing the woman at his side behind him, Donovan bunched his fists and stepped toward the downed man, only to be drawn back once more by the woman, who Carr now recognized as Brenna, Donovan’s wife and the famed Warden of the Book of Sorhineth. “Darling, I think Miller has been punched enough,” she said. “Send him home to his father with a report of the incident. We have more important matters to handle. You and the Captain need to rescue his lady.”
Donovan sighed. “Brenna, my voice of reason, you’re right.”
“Mark?” Donovan called out. A tall, blond human who’d been standing in the shadow of the mobile home stepped forward. “Send Miller home—with an escort. Have Claire find someone to place him under house arrest until I decide what to do with him. If Lily wishes to press charges, we’ll convene the Council—if we survive the disasters to come—to determine his punishment.”
“Got it, boss.” Mark leaned over and lifted Miller to his feet. “Come on, let’s go, shit for brains.”
“You’ll all regret this,” snarled Miller. “The slut asked for it—was hot for me. You’ll see, she won’t press charges, ’cause she asked for it.”
Carr gritted his teeth, growling low in his throat. No man accused his woman of being a slut. No man. With his fists clenched, he stepped forward to reinforce this point with one more punch to Miller’s groin.
Donovan touched his arm lightly. Soothing warmth moved from the Spirit Talisman into him, alleviating the rage bubbling through his veins, allowing him to cool down, become more rational.
“Let it go, Carr. We all know he’s lying. He’ll be in San Francisco after all this is over. I’ll let you have some private time with him. Okay?”
Carr nodded abruptly. “Fair enough.” After casting one more searing glance over the coward as he was led away by Mark, he turned to look Donovan in the eye. “Do we have any idea where Lily is—exactly?”
“Pretty good idea. The piece of offal who just left had managed to record GPS coordinates before he lifted off from the dig. We’re pretty sure the electromagnetic energy in the area, a side effect of the quake and whatever equipment was used to set off the seismic activity, has dissipated enough for us to use the coordinates to find her position. The terrain might be different, but the coordinates are still the same.”
“So, you’re sure the quake was induced?”
Donovan nodded. “One of our recon planes over Illinois found a truck on top of a house with two dead Terrans inside. They stank of Destroyer. In with them was a piece of equipment we recognized as a prototype of a machine that could produce enough electromagnetic energy to disrupt a fault line.”
Carr frowned. “But wouldn’t it take more than just a machine sending electromagnetic energy into the ground to start a quake?”
“Yeah, but we know Raymond Brody, or maybe his father, had planted some receptors in southern Indiana, not too far from the quake’s epicenter.”
“I thought the plot by Raymond Brody was disproved by Justin Foster and his mate?”
“It had been, but there was always something odd about what happened.”
“Odd how?” Carr asked.
“When Justin and Elyse were out planting devices, they’d come across o
ther crews doing the same thing. Both Justin and Elyse swore Raymond was shocked by the news they’d seen other people doing what he’d ordered them to do.”
“You think these other people were working for Algernon?”
“That’s what it looks like,” said Donovan. “Maybe after we find Lily, we can attempt to find the receptors. We need to make sure they can’t be used to wreak any more havoc in the Wabash Valley—or what’s left of it.”
“Havoc is right. Lily told me the Ohio River has shifted ten miles north to where she is now. She’s on a cliff… I got that much info before she slipped into unconsciousness again.”
“You’re talking to her telepathically?” Shock and awe crossed Donovan’s face.
“Yeah—since the amulet appeared and we connected astrally. I dreamt of her before that.”
“You know what that means, don’t you?”
Carr nodded. “According to the legend, I’m her Protector—and her Consort.” He paused, his lips twisting into a grimace. “I think she’s okay with the Protector part. But … because she is pretty much an innocent … and because of what Miller tried to do to her … the Consort part might be something of an uphill battle.”
“Damn the man!” Donovan swore foully under his breath. “Ben Miller is a pain in the butt—and I suspect not loyal to KOTE. Darcy is also suspect. However, they seemed redeemable; they did not reek of Destroyer yet. I should’ve put them away when I first surmised they’d gone over to the Destroyers. This is all my fault.”
“It’s not your fault, sir.” And it wasn’t. Terrans and Destroyers were the same species and until a Terran committed terrorist acts and his soul began to rot, no one could tell one from the other. “Plus we have one Miller in custody, and the other can be easily watched. When we get Lily safely back, there will be time to confront both Millers and find out what they know—and what they’ve done to harm KOTE.”
“And we will—I won’t let them endanger any more people.”
Carr ran a hand over his tired eyes. “The earthquake in Indiana was just a test-run for Lily and me, right?”