Whiskey Storm

by F. J. Blooding

  “They still die when they’re scrappy.” Because that was a word often thrown around in fiction novels to describe characters who were armed with nothing more than sass and mouth. “We’ll figure something else out.”

  “No.” Suzanne pointed to the TV. “They’re murdering us out there and you were sleeping for a day and we had no story. We tried. We really did. But that woman—Eldora isn’t good for TV. And Merry is a convicted murderer, so we can’t even think about putting her on the screen. And your sister?” Suzanne’s dark eyebrows shot up, disappearing behind her bangs. “That mouth. We can’t put that mouth on TV.”

  “Talk to me about the refugees.”

  Suzanne settled down after that and filled Paige in on the town situation.

  Things were running smoothly for all the fuss. Seriously, the mayor was doing a fantastic job.

  After the first round of inadingdemons came through with Sven, a lot of people had cleared out, leaving homes abandoned. Granted, those homes still belonged to other people, but they weren’t being “lived in” at the moment, so she was assigning people to live in them. The proviso required them to respect the previous owners and box up things that didn’t belong to them.

  ”How is the issue with the supplies going?”

  “Glad you brought that up. I actually have funds coming in to help offset the costs of supplies. Diffferent organizations and corporations are contacting me— the office rather, to set up supply deliveries and donations of goods.” She half sat on the corner of her desk.

  “That’s all pretty great. Things seem to be coming together.” Paige adjusted the blanket on Rai’s car seat.

  I even have a drug company donating insulin because we have three Type One diabetics.

  That would be beyond terrifying if the supply was cut off.”

  Paige didn’t know much about diabetes, but she did know it was scary bad. How? No clue. But it was bad.

  But the town was being taken care of. That was the bottom line.

  However, the President was winning and Paige needed to get the word out. On her Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Whatever. Pinterest. Paige was really good at Pinterest, but had no idea how to get the word out there. She could pin a thousand posts on craft projects she’d never do, though.

  But also on YouTube.

  So, she collected her kids, grabbed a sandwich from the deli—which… how amazing was it to go to the store and not have to use money? Everyone’s accounts were frozen. F-R-O-Z-E-N. And not in the Disney way where they could sing a song about a snowman and feel good about themselves. No one there had any money.

  But they were still functioning as a collective of prisoners in the comforts of their own homes. Or homes because some were borrowed.

  Then she took the twins to the park bench where she, Eldora, and Merry had found a way to tie the gates of Heaven and Hell to tether points while defeating Sven, and pulled out her phone.

  She clicked the live stream option, which seemed really dumb. She didn’t understand how people could just turn a camera on themselves and talk like what they said actually mattered.

  But what she had to say did actually matter.

  She started the stream, and began showing the park and retelling how they fought against the demon horde. That led to other things and she divulged information the elves would prefer remain secret, but the time for secrets was passed. They didn’t have that luxury anymore.

  She told the people watching—and there were a lot. It started off as a couple. And then there were more hearts flying across her video and likes and mad faces and… it was distracting. She told them what happened. What really happened. She couldn’t really read the comments. There were too many of them. They were okay, but how long would that last?

  The paranormals on the outside needed to keep their heads down. She and the other leaders were developing plans to keep them safe.

  And she reminded the mundanes that they’d been safe for generations, for thousands of yeas from the paranormals and the only way they’d not be safe now was if they attacked the paras. She warned them that if anyone was attacked, people would defend themselves. That’s the way things worked.

  She closed it off with a note of warning, and not a lot of hope. She was too damned tired for hope, but she knew they needed it.

  “Be safe out there, guys,” she said into the camera, staring only at herself, feeling like she was talking to a mirror. “Keep yourselves safe. We’re doing the best we can but we have no real idea what the President is intending to do or how far she’ll go. But if the attack on the elves was any indication—”

  Paige stopped, blinking as she recalled the number of bodies, how she’d stepped over the toddlers, how many people had died to the barrage of bullets. A lump formed in her throat. She swallowed, pushing it aside, but her tone was deeper.

  “I don’t think she intends on being humanitarian. What I witnessed was a slaughter.” There was no way to put a hopeful spin on that. The only thing she could do was to give people real information and arm them with it. “Don’t attack. But if you have to defend yourself?” Use lethal force? Don’t stop because the person attacking you was your neighbor? What? What should she say? “Do it.”

  By the time she finished, the twins were awake and were fussy. They didn’t like being human, but she appreciated the fact that they were remaining so.

  Chuck and Faith waited at the edge of the park until she finished her stream,then helped calm the babies.

  But Chuck looked rattled. Paige had never seen the regional high alpha look rattled before. “What happened?”

  He put Ember to his shoulder and bounced him. “Dexx.”

  Seriously? “What did he do?”

  “He—” Chuck’s eyes widened, then narrowed as he sucked in his lips and bit down on them. “He attacked me and I could not feel Hattie. It was as if she was being repressed.”

  That couldn’t be good.

  “But he did let me go.”

  That was a good sign. Right? “Do you think he was on orders to attack you? Kill you? Capture?”

  “I don’t know, but the way he looked at me?” Chuck shook his head as Rai nursed. “He didn’t know me.”

  That hit Paige in the gut. Hard. She was tired, so the emotions were stronger. She knew that, but to hear that the man she loved didn’t recognize his alpha? There was no way he would remember or recognize her. Or Leah. Or Bobby. Or Rai and Ember?

  She shouldn’t have taken the kids to Washington D.C. Granted, they were a huge pain in the butt a lot of the time, but it was possible that they could have helped. They did that sometimes.

  “This situation got a lot bigger really fast,” Paige said, swapping twins for nursing.

  Faith grunted as she took Rai. “This situation was always bigger.”

  “To some.” Who could grasp just how big this was. “But we’re in the trenches with our town and we see our town.”

  Chuck nodded, his tongue on the roof of his mouth making his lips look weird as he dropped his jaw. “How do we respond?”

  Paige shook her head. “I really don’t know. Where are all the leaders? The big alphas. Kendall and the other one. Can’t they step up and help out here?”

  Chuck shook his head and shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. “They’re looking out for the packs.”

  “Okay. What about the elf queen. Where is she?”

  “She returned to Underhill to help the resistance there. She’s leading the fight, but she wanted me to tell you that she is very grateful, and that she will allow Kate to remain with your family.”

  That was really gracious of her. For an elf.

  But that wasn’t what Paige was getting at. “Why is it falling on me?”

  Chuck was quiet for a long moment and then he took a seat beside her on the bench. “Do you know what you did in the elven city?”

  What she always did? “I fought DoDO.”

  He shook his head. “
You showed us all that you are the strongest of us. You are the most versatile. You can tap into everything we can. You are a shifter. You control the elements and magic. You can talk to the plants and to the animals. You can tap into the other dimensions.”

  She knew all of that, but it was like telling her she knew how to put on pants.

  Not… well, not really like that. She knew she could do all that, but it wasn’t that big a deal because she was just doing it.

  “And you’re tapping into something else, something none of us have seen and we don’t understand yet.”

  What? “I don’t understand.”

  He raised a hand to push aside her questions. “Neither do we, but I talked to Eldora and the elves who were there. We’re trying to find someone who can help you.”

  “Help me with what?”

  Chuck met her gaze and kept his alpha will to himself for the first time since she’d met him. He didn’t try to rise to answer her alpha will. He didn’t rise to be her equal or better. He just looked her in the eyes.

  That was a humbling moment because she needed Chuck to be her alpha. She needed him to know what to do when she didn’t. She didn’t want to outgrow him.

  He didn’t seem to care.

  “When I have answers, I’ll share them. When I have someone you can use as a mentor, I will introduce you. But until then, do not push yourself too far. Do not overextend yourself like you did earlier.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He released a long breath. “You shouldn’t have been able to withstand that fight for that long on your own. And you should not have had access to the animals you shifted into. And you should not have been able to combine them the way you did.”

  “But…” There was a hint of fear in his gaze.

  Her alpha had a little bit of fear… of her.

  She blinked and sat back, Rai releasing her claim on Paige’s boob. Paige focused on tucking everything back in and getting her human baby back into her car seat, while she worked through the maelstrom of emotions overwhelming her. With Rai and Ember both strapped into their seats, she stood. “When you have someone I can talk to, please let me know.”

  He nodded and rose with her. He offered his hand. “I will always be here for you, Paige.”

  But their roles were changing and she didn’t like it. It was like stepping out onto a tightrope without a safety net.

  Without saying anything further, they turned and left.

  Paige stood in the park with her babies for a long moment, her emotions crushing her. She was so alone.

  And so overwhelmed.

  But really alone.

  She’d make it. She would.

  She just didn’t know how.

  20

  Paige went home and walked into an empty house.

  That was rare. Really, really rare.

  She put the twins to bed and then she went to the living room with a steaming cup of hot cocoa and watched TV. Not live TV with the commercials. She was so beyond being a slave to the market. The only thing she was good for was to be advertised to. No. She watched Netflix.

  But then a wave of dread washed over her. She didn’t know why. She just knew that something horrible was taking place right then.

  She switched over to the news and nothing was on. She tried a few different channels. She even had CNN.

  But there was nothing.

  Then she pulled out her phone and went to her social media platforms.

  That’s where she saw it.

  The President sat at her desk in the Oval Office, surrounded by reporters and other people. She signed something and held it up for people to see. “This is the Executive Order mandating the Paranormal Registration Act.”

  No.

  The President smiled. “And as you can see, things can go very, very peacefully.”

  The video cut over to a group of people in what looked like a city. The DoDO agents walked in without guns. They did wear their normal black utility uniforms and they did have other weapons on them. But they walked into the town and the people who were already there weren’t fighting back.

  There were several tables lined up along the sides of the street. The civilians walked up to the table, gave their information, and were handed a collar that they then put on themselves. The cameras even cut over to a woman putting it on her child, telling him that everything would be okay and that this would be better because he “wouldn’t have to fight it” anymore.

  Why wasn’t this on the TV? Why did she have to go to the internet to find this?

  The first person she called was Chuck. She told him about it and asked him to spread the word.

  But then she called Danny Miller.

  She knew that he was just an average reporter, but he was the only reporter she knew who could tell her how the President had been able to do this.

  It took him a minute to catch up, though, but once he did, he was pissed. “I’ll call you back.”

  The twins were still sleeping when she went to check on them. She didn’t understand why they were still sleeping when the two rarely slept at all. But she did know that it was convenient for her because the world was falling apart and Mommie needed to go fix that. She’d worry later. For now, she’d hope that one thing went right because that’s what she desperately needed. Hopefully, they’d just tuckered themselves out earlier.

  She called Margo, but she was busy with patrols.

  Leslie wasn’t even answering her phone. Which… okay. That woman was busier than crap. Paige understood that. She sincerely did.

  So, she called her brother, Nick. He said he and Mark would be right over. They talked briefly. She wasn’t going to say that they were close. They might never be, but he was a good guy and his boyfriend was too. And they made great dads. Well, most of the time. Paige still thought they went a little too easy on the kids, allowing them too much leeway on everything.

  With the twins taken care of, she prepared to head over to the mayor’s office. That was a much better place to use than her house. She enjoyed the comfort of being able to stay in her own house for meetings, but she didn’t necessarily want everyone there all the time, either. It was supposed to be a home. Not a conference center.

  She tried a shift, But something inside didn’t want to shift. Her animal spirit energies were tapped out.

  You’re not tapped out, Cawli said in her mind.

  Then, what is this? Because if she couldn’t shift anymore then she was in some serious trouble if it came to a fight. She was still a seriously powerful witch, but she had gotten really used to being able to shift to fight.

  I do not know, Cawli said, his voice dark. But something has shifted inside you and I do not understand it. I will be back.

  She tried to ask him more questions, but he’d left. Where? No one ever knew because her spirit animal was the only one who just periodically—okay, most of the time—left her alone to go wander around as a spirit. Everyone else bonded to their spirit and stayed stuck together.

  But most people were either born together or had been bitten. She’d been neither. Cawli had come to her as a fog in front of a church in the middle of nowhere. He’d agreed to join with her and helped seal the door to Hell burned inside her bones.

  But they’d never truly been together in the same sense that everyone else was with their shifter animals.

  So, she searched for her keys, something she’d gotten out of the habit of doing. She’d just had them, so she retraced her steps.

  They were in the refrigerator.

  Of course, they were.

  She drove down to the mayor’s office quickly, her mind and heart working through the issues plaguing her, but nothing concrete came of it. It was most just the dozing workings of a person with too much stuff on her mind.

  Chuck, Sheriff Tuck, Suzanne, and Duglas met her.

  “What is going on?” Paige demanded.

  Chuck shook his head. “My conta
cts outside say that this is streaming on all the news channels.”

  “And it’s interrupting already scheduled programs,” Danny said, barging in, holding his phone aloft. “But they’re running a shadow TV service for areas like ours.”

  Wait. “Areas?” Plural? “Is there someplace we can all see?”

  “This way. The conference room.” Suzanne led the way through the small maze to a room with a middling size table large enough ten to sit.

  Danny went to the laptop and started typing.

  Suzanne didn’t question it. She just reached over and jacked the HDMI cable to it and turned on the projector.

  Danny looked exuberant. “They’ve got these shadow networks over eighteen different areas across the U.S.”

  “Why are you so happy?”

  “Because,” he said, looking at her with a grin, “we now know what they know. These are the areas we need to target because these are the areas they’re targeting.”

  She hadn’t thought of it quite like that.

  Leslie burst in. “We’ve got a problem.”

  Really? “We’ve already got one.”

  “Well, then you have two.” Leslie gave Paige a fuck-me-running look and reached behind her, pulling a young woman through the door. “Tell them what you told me.”

  The young woman broke down in tears immediately, but she painted a pretty horrible picture of the cities that weren’t being shown. The ones being hidden by the shadow TV network.

  War.

  DoDO had come into her home with guns drawn, had taken her entire family. Her dad had resisted and was dead. Her mother had been taken somewhere else for “war crimes.” She and her brother had been herded away with a truckload of others.

  They’d taken their names down, fingerprinted them, DNA swabbed them and were installed chips in them. She’d watched it happen to her brother.

  And then she’d just blipped here and appeared in Leslie’s shop.

  Leslie just gave Paige a what-the-fuck-do-I-do-with-this-shit look. “She’s not the only one. She’s the second one, but the first one was wounded and Barn’s taking care of him.”

  They had a location. Lawrence, Kansas.