Whiskey Storm

by F. J. Blooding

  A few people raised their voices in alarm.

  She raised her hands for silence. She didn’t get complete silence, but with the help of the microphone, she was confident she could be heard. “What you need to also understand is that Troutdale has been the center of several attacks, DoDO being one of them. So, we have protections in place. Protections that can be used and installed just about everywhere. And I’d like to walk you through them now.”

  She invested the next few minutes into showing the people where the wards were. She set them off so they could see. She had someone attack and had them disappear through a door that suddenly opened up.

  “They’re being sent to a detention facility in Utah.” She had a long talk with Eldora and decided not sending them to North Korea was a good idea. “So, if there is an uprising or if we are attacked within the protections of our wards, then DoDO, or whoever the aggressor is, will be sent to jail. Of course, the President will bail them out, but that isn’t the point. The point is that we’re safe. Here.”

  Kinda.

  “But the President wants us in cages. It will start with a forced registration. I’ve been informed that we’ll then be chipped and the more dangerous ones will be forced to wear collars. And I’m sure that makes many of you feel safer. But there are creatures in this world who are not answerable to the President; demons and angels and demigods. Yes, demigods. Thor is real.”

  That elicited quite a few chuckles.

  She’d had to check the library records on that one. He was real. He just wasn’t really on this planet.

  She gripped the podium and whispered, “Bal, I need you.”

  A cloud of black smoke appeared beside her and Balnore stepped out with Bastet by his side in her full regalia.

  Paige sent him a thank you with her eyes, hoping he caught it.

  He nodded a greeting to her, but kept familiarity out of his look.

  “Try collaring the gods. See how that works for the President. She—”

  An explosion interrupted her.

  Mario looked at her with a frown of confusion.

  Paige had set this up as well. If DoDO was going to play it safe—which was something they could do especially when she’d so publicly called him out about it—then she’d force it to happen. But she had to make a good show of it.

  She stepped back, her hands raised, her magick out.

  Bal and Bastet reacted as well as only they could as demigods, ready for anything.

  Paige shook herself as if reminding herself that they were safe. She stepped up to the podium again, not releasing her magick. Mostly because this was a gamble. It could blow up in her face. It could set Mario into actually responding in kind.

  A demon walked toward them, the crowd parting for him. “I got the invitation.”

  He didn’t say that to her. He said that to Mario.

  Wait. What? She had summoned him. She had told him to stir up a fuss. To make a display so that the wards would kick in on the news.

  What was Mario planning?

  Mario smiled and nodded, but his brow furrowed as if he was still confused.

  Oh. Thank goodness.

  The demon shook his head at her. “You really think you can outsmart the likes of me? We’ve been on this earth a lot longer than any of you.”

  “Gerriel,” Bal said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Teaching these people a lesson. The paranormals are very dangerous.” He smiled wickedly, and then a chuckle bubbled out of him, exploding into a rolling laugh. “Oh, I so do enjoy this President.” He sobered and launched a fireball.

  The people screamed.

  Paige reached out with her witch hand to… she didn’t even know what.

  But before she could, a door opened and swallowed the demon up, closing with a whoosh.

  The fireball went straight into the sky and was eaten by the wards.

  The street was quiet.

  Well, that hadn’t gone exactly to plan, but it was good know that the wards really worked.

  She swallowed hard and released her magick. “We’re living in a new era,” she said, her voice a little hoarse. She cleared her throat and tried again. “One where we can’t blindly believe that our government is trying to protect us. They’re vilifying us and creating a war in our backyards, in our homes. Our families and friends.”

  Mario shook his head, staring daggers into her.

  “It starts with chips and collars,” she said, staring daggers right back at him. “But where will it end? In prison camps? Laboratories? Death camps?” She turned her attention back to the crowd. “We don’t want war, but it certainly feels as though the President of the United States of America does.” Fear thrummed through her, wondering what in the hell she’d just said and why and what the consequences would be. “And we will not go quietly into the night.”

  And that was all she had to say.

  Mario, however, looked like he was ready to explode.

  Chalk one up for their team.

  16

  It took hours for get the media circus to filter out of Troutdale. A few news crews decided put down stakes and take up residence.

  DoDO blockaded the roads again, so it might be forever or never to regain access to the town.

  People asked if Paige had staged the attack. She stuck to her story of innocence. She lied to them, of course. She totally had, and Mario performed perfectly, which had been a risk.

  Calling them out like that? They might back down to make it look like the President was being unreasonable.

  But if the President of the United States could create fake news, so could she.

  And that… frankly, that irritated her beyond measure because doubts entered into everything at that point. What if they were blowing this out of proportion? What if this wasn’t the war the President wanted?

  Bal approached her after the crowd dispersed and mingled on the streets. “That demon was summoned by DoDO.”

  “But Mario looked so surprised.” And he had.

  “Yes, he did, didn’t he? He wasn’t the one they wanted, or expected.”

  Paige frowned up at him. She was still getting used to the fact that her father figure was a demigod. He’d always been a demon, and that big reveal was still a little startling to her. “Coincidental?”

  “Not really.” Bal stopped her and gave her a very dark look. “This game you’re playing is dangerous, but still needs to be played. I simply put measures in place to ensure that he was the one to answer the call if anyone summoned.”

  “All ties go back to DoDO?” That wasn’t the real question, though. This really is the war they wanted?

  Cawli growled his response.

  Bal nodded, gave her a kiss on the forehead, then placed Ember on his shoulders and disappeared into the crowd.

  Mario took Bal’s place. He scanned the crowd once before speaking. “That was one hell of a stunt.”

  It was. It really was. “I had a feeling when you allowed everyone in that you planned to test the wards. But a demon? You decided to summon a demon to test them? That’s pretty extreme lengths to go to just to prove we’re bad isn’t it?” Demons weren’t the end-all, be-all of bad stuff. She was the demon summoner. But he didn’t know that.

  The look he gave her demanded she tell him the truth. Requested. Closer to begged.

  So, she would. “Okay. Maybe it wasn’t you.” She stepped closer to him. “But someone in your organization did. You’re out of the loop, Mario. You know what that means?”

  He narrowed his blue eyes, his platinum blonde eyelashes invisible.

  “You might no longer be necessary to the President’s cause. That makes you an invading force.” She pleasantly tapped his chest with a finger. “No protections for you.” She smiled and walked away.

  That was the highlight of the after-party, if that’s even what she could call it.

  The streets were festive enough. People milled around,
gawking at the famous surroundings. Outsiders asked questions, requested tours. There were places they’d seen on social media or people they’d seen, and they wanted up close and personals.

  Michelle pulled Paige aside as the party was dying down. “Any word on Dexx?”

  Paige shook her head. “How’s the investigation?”

  “You’re not going to believe it.”

  Oh, she was almost certain she would. He was now a unicorn! Okay. Yeah. Anything was possible.

  “He’s in fucking Europe.” Her body shivered. Her skin resembled bark for an instant.

  Right. Of course he was.

  Crap. She really wanted him there with her.

  But she had shit to do first and wandering around wondering why the hell Dexx left for Europe wasn’t it.

  She mentioned Dexx whereabouts to Merry who got this look on her face, said nothing, and just left.

  Whatever that meant.

  The sun hit the treetops and the party wound down, she came to Paige again. “Are you ready?”

  “For?”

  Merry simply spun on her heel and led the way to the parking lot behind downtown, which was this weird, little diagonal thing that was ridiculous to park in with anything bigger than a Mini Cooper.

  Eldora was there with a door open. The blackness shimmered. “They’re waiting.”

  Who was waiting?

  Merry disappeared through the other side, and Paige didn’t wait. She followed.

  Eldora closed the door behind them.

  Paige stood in a rather large room with several people she knew, and a few she didn’t.

  The room could only be called grand. The vaulted ceiling had an immense chandelier of crystal, and polished wood gleamed everywhere. The floors were white stone, and the table in the center of it all had the feel of something King Arthur might have commissioned.

  All four of elementals were back, water, air, earth , and fire. Duglas, Ryo, Krin, and Diya already sitting along one side of the table. Showing solidrity?

  Another fae-looking woman stood off to the side with a small retinue who—well, they looked fae only because of their unique features, if that made sense. It was like looking at creatures from a Jim Henson movie.

  Brack—the dragon she knew—was there with another two men who looked remarkably like him. Other dragons, she assumed. He took one of the three seats along the end of the table. So he either owned the place or his family did.

  Chuck next to two other power people, alphas she didn’t know, a mated pair with matching scars.

  Cawli squirmed in her head.

  Dammit, Dexx. He needed to be at the meeting so Hattie could push back. Everyone here was an alpha in their own way.

  Bal and Bastet were there, regal and commanding even though stood close to the corner.

  It appeared as though a number of the paranormal races were gathered.

  Time to get this party started. “What are we discussing now? We hoping to accomplish something today?”

  The older version of Brack sank into a green chair next to Brack. He had salt and pepper hair that was mostly salt. He rested his ankle on his knee and draped one arm over his leg. “We’re here because Merry gathered us.”

  That didn’t help. “And your reason for showing up?”

  He put both feet on the floor and leaned to the table. “She pulled a favor.”

  He talked like the kind of person who knew what power was. Real power. Not this fly-by-night, oh-we-have-unbreakable-wards-and-a-pack. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who needed his ego constantly inflated. So, she didn’t buy it. “So, you’re telling me you came all the way out here just because Merry-Merry-Quite-Contradictory—” Which she wasn’t, but Paige was certain Dexx would approve at her attempt at snarky humor. “—snapped her fingers? You don’t look like a lap dog to me.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  The scarred mated pair who had been talking with Chuckat the far end of the large room over by the baby grand piano—it could have been a baby grand. She was so out of her element, she didn’t even have names for everything—turned toward her, interest lighting their eyes with a distant amber glow.

  Chuck raised an eyebrow as if trying to tell her to calm her jets.

  There was entirely too much going on to calm her jets. “You’re not here out of charity or favors. You’re here because DoDO and the government pushed us into a situation. So, let’s stop posturing and get to business.”

  “The situation you put us in,” Ryo said, his dark hair moving with a breeze Paige didn’t feel. His business jacket pulled away from his slim hips as if someone was trying to pull it from his body, as if the air itself was having a love affair with him right there on the spot. As the air elemental, it might be. Who knew?

  Paige couldn’t refute his statement, so she shrugged. “I could have just let Sven destroy the world, I guess. That’s what he was intent on doing.”

  “What happened to the days of caution?” asked Krin, the curvaceous, dark-haired woman with dark skin that seemed to gleam. It gave a whole new meaning to the term healthy glow, and since she was the earth elemental, that, too made a bit of sense.

  “You try hiding someone trying to separate Earth from the gates of both Heaven and Hell.”

  Duglas, a red-headed man, short in stature but supremely dressed tipped his head to the side as he took a seat in one of the uncomfortable looking grey-blue chairs. “I did wonder what they were doing.”

  Paige didn’t feel the need to get too into the details just then, but she had a feeling that each of these people were leaders of their respected areas. So, maybe filling them in wouldn’t be a horrible idea. “Sven Seven-tails was a demon who sought power, a lot of it. He got it and found a way to tear the gates from Earth. He would have made a kingdom all his own with absolute control over everything.”

  “Which would have destroyed everything,” Krin said, her voice low. It sounded like seductive pillow talk, even though there was nothing hot or sexy about what she said.

  “Exactly. As it stands, he nearly succeeded. The gates are…” She didn’t even know how to explain what they had been able to do. “Tethered, I guess. It’s temporary. How temporary? I don’t know. But it’s handled for now.”

  “For now?” a woman demanded, walking toward her, her bright red hair rising and cascading from her in flames.

  It wasn’t hard to guess that she was the fire elemental, Diya. “Are we done sizing our dicks?”

  The older dragon stood and went to a table along the side wall, pouring himself a drink. “Are we going to war?” He took a sip and sat down in his spot.

  Paige didn’t like that option. “What options do we have? I’m tired of fighting.”

  A tall, lithe woman who was so obviously a fairy of some sort stepped into the room. “Daenys said you would try a path of peace. How is this working?”

  Realistically? “It’s too early to tell, but we’re putting a good face out there. Popular opinion is shifting.”

  “You do not win a war with opinions.”

  “You obviously don’t know the American people,” Paige shot back, feeling the woman’s power rise within her. Paige didn’t feel the need to call on her own. “Opinions are our greatest strength.”

  The fairy queen frowned slightly and raised her chin. “We can’t all flee like the elves. We don’t all have places to hide where the humans won’t find us.”

  “True. We can’t hide like them. So we have to deal with this head on. DoDO has been spying n us for a long time.” She told them about the recovered surveillance cameras throughout the town. “We don’t know what they know or what they don’t know.”

  The older dragon steepled his fingers and shook his head. “Tell us about your wards.”

  So, Paige filled them about those as well. “I’ll draw up a plan to see if we can get enough of these set up around all or most of the paranormal communities.”

  The female
half of the power couple strode toward them, with the look and feel of a lioness, and stood beside the man who owned this monstrosity of a home. “That would paint a target on each of them.”

  She wasn’t wrong. “But if we—"

  The woman slashed her hand and shook her head violently. “You think too small, something Chuck tried to warn us about.”

  Paige looked at Chuck, giving him a what-the-fuck look.

  He gave her a look that read what did you want me to do? Lie? and shrugged.

  She is our High Alpha, Cawli said inside her head. She and her husband are a mated pair. They govern the North American continent. So, tread carefully.

  Oh. Well… She swallowed. Shit. Dexx really needed to be there instead of her.

  Kendall and Hadwin Wilcher, Cawli added.

  Oh. Finally, names. “I hate to disappoint, Kendall.” Paige smiled tightly. “But those wards are the only things keeping DoDO from running around and kidnapping people off the street. Let’s say we create wards in random locations, on private land that we have access to.”

  “Like the Whiskey property,” Chuck offered.

  Okay, maybe this wasn’t a great idea. She suddenly pictured people invading the sanctuary of her property, her home. But they couldn’t use Federal property. Unless they went to really remote Federal property. They still paid taxes, registered or not. “Yeah. Like that. But we put the wards up and invite paranormals to come to us.”

  “Create our own concentration camps, you mean,” Krin said, stroking her own leg with dark seduction.

  Paige hadn’t thought of that.

  Neither had Kendall, though. It looked like she’d been slapped in the face.

  “This is not a bad idea,” Hadwin said, coming to stand beside his mate. “Small, but not bad.” He raised his blonde eyebrows at his mate and silenced her with a wide-eyed look. “We claim a territory and then rule it.”

  “The government did that with the natives,” Kendall said, her blonde hair almost rising as it darkened.

  Was her shifter spirit a male lion?

  No. She is a lioness, but much more powerful, but there are times when she chooses to invoke a mane when in half-form to subdue the wills of others.