by John Conroe
The sound of racing motors approached from two directions at the same time. One came from much further ahead; the other came from a side street that led back to the Tower.
The two vehicles appeared at almost the same instant. A black SUV that Toni recognized as a Demidova car came from the direction of the Tower, while a white, plain creeper van came straight at them.
Both squealed to a stop, doors opening and men piling out. “Here, take her,” Sidney said, handing Wulf to Toni. Couldn’t he tell them apart? He pulled his gun and moved in front of her just as both groups of men started to fire at each other. Toni backed away, into the park, even as her brain registered that all the men in the van and the ones before all seemed to be of Asian heritage.
Instinctively, she pushed back into a brushy spot by a good-sized tree and kneeled down behind the trunk, both babies in her arms. She glanced down at them. Both looked scared, but neither was crying. Suddenly Wulf went gray, clothes and all. Completely gray, normally dark hair, skin, and everything. Even his bright blue eyes faded to the color of storm clouds. Then she realized her hand that was holding him was gray now too. And it kept spreading, covering all of her and Cora within seconds.
Close gunfire sounded and she looked up and around the tree trunk. It was a full-on battle. She heard ‘Sos roar and he appeared by the white van, smashing it like her dad squished a soda can. Men were yelling and shooting and ‘Sos was roaring.
She felt dizzy for a second and looked down at her babies. The ground was falling away from her—no, she was rising above it. Her feet dangled, not touching anything. She glanced up and found the lower limbs of the tree just suddenly overhead. A second later they were right in among them and she scrambled her legs over the thickest limb, locking them at the ankle to stay in place. Cora pulled up in her arm, like she was going to keep floating and without a thought, Toni said, “Stop that.”
Cora settled back, but they continued to all stay gray. She looked down at Wulf and found him watching her face intently. Bouncing both babies, she spoke quietly. “Shhhhh. It’s okay. Mommy and Daddy will be here soon. Shhh,” she shushed, watching through the leaves.
Her necklace twitched and violet light flickered on the green leaves around them but then died away. It flickered a second time, like a car trying to start, then fell quiet.
She heard a man scream. Looking up from the babies, she discovered why. Tanya and Chris had arrived and were moving among the attackers, moving too fast to be seen properly, pausing here and there, and everywhere they stopped, the attackers stopped too. There was blood, a lot of blood. She looked down at the twins and rocked and shushed them, not willing to look at the violence anymore.
“Toni?” Sidney yelled, standing twenty feet away and looking frantically around.
“Up here, Sidney,” she said. He turned and looked right at her and then around her and then down the tree, face confused.
“Where?” he asked.
“Right here,” she said.
Suddenly, Tanya was standing next to him, ignoring his flinch as she looked into the tree.
“I hear you, Toni, but I can’t see you,” she said.
At her voice, both babies turned to their mother and the color came back into their faces, clothes, and skin.
“There you are. How did you get up there with both of them and why couldn’t we see you?” Tanya said, jumping up lightly to sit on the branch with her. Her beautiful black dress was torn, smooth white skin shining through the rents.
Toni handed both babies to their mother, who jumped lightly back down. It was about eight feet and Toni wasn’t sure how she was going to get down herself, but suddenly Chris was there, standing under her, holding out his hands like he used to do when she was little.
She didn’t hesitate, trusting fully that her godfather, who could cut steel with his hands, would never, ever drop her. Sliding off the branch, she was caught smoothly and easily and placed on her feet, soft as a feather.
A heavily armored limo pulled up, Mr. Deckert jumping out to hold the door. “Ma’am, sir, perhaps we could be going?”
Toni was hustled into the big car, just catching a glimpse of bodies and lots of Demidova security personnel, fit and wounded.
Tanya slid into the car after Toni, and Chris shut the vault-like door, the driver immediately pulling away.
In just a few minutes, they were absorbed into the reinforced underground parking garage and a few minutes after that, they were locked into the old underground apartment, which was much easier to guard than the penthouse. Nika and Lydia were awake and fussing over the babies as soon as they arrived.
Tanya, eyes on her children, finally turned to Toni, who gulped at the deadly expression on her employer’s face.
“Tell me what happened?” the queen of the Coven demanded.
“Ah, Tanya, you’re scaring her,” Nika said without looking up.
Instantly Tanya’s expression cleared, like magic. “Oh, Toni, not my intention. You did everything right and I can never tell you how grateful I am. I’m angry with whoever thought this was a good idea.”
Lydia, bouncing Wulf on her hip, brought Toni an organic, free trade iced green tea of a brand she liked and gave her a huge, reassuring smile. “Girl, you kicked ass!”
“I don’t know. It all happened so fast,” Toni said, pausing to take a sip. Then she took a deep breath and began to retell what had happened. Curiously, being in a room with three murderously angry vampires was reassuring to her, mostly because she knew these vampires and knew nothing could survive entering the apartment to harm her. She told her story between sips and then answered the careful questioning that followed.
“You honestly feel it was the twins?” Tanya asked.
“It sounds crazy, but I do. They got scared, mostly because I got scared and they could tell. Then suddenly Wulf lost all color and then so did Cora and I. Neither you or Sidney could see us until he heard my voice. And Cora lost all weight first and started to float, pulling Wulf and I up too. If I hadn’t got my legs around that branch, we might still be rising,” Toni said, looking at the twins. Both were now on the floor, deep in the middle of their toys, their experience seemingly forgotten.
Dr. Singh arrived, looking sleepy, and gave both twins and then Toni a quick exam for safety’s sake. Then Chris arrived with Arkady and Awasos, explaining that Deckert was handling the police and the after-action cleanup.
“What do we know?” Tanya asked.
A knock sounded on the door and the outside guard opened it to reveal Declan and Stacia, along with a third person, a woman, who Toni didn’t know. The newcomer looked a little wide-eyed but Steclan (as Toni liked to think of them) both looked serious but calm.
“Everyone okay?” Declan asked, glancing at the babies and then closely at Toni. She nodded.
“Good timing. We were just about to get into the whole thing,” Tanya said. “And your expertise is likely needed.”
“First, though, did you leave any of the pack alive?” Lydia asked.
“All good. They expressed their opinions and I expressed mine,” Declan said. Stacia gave him a side-eye glance, clearly not quite down with that description.
Lydia’s eyes lingered on the tall young man for a moment longer, but she finally let it go.
“Hello, Holly,” Chris said to the young woman Toni didn’t know. Then she remembered, because it had been in the news. This was the woman attacked on the street in Vegas. Chris had healed her with his blood and now she was a werewolf. Why was she with Declan and Stacia?
“Ah, hi, Chris,” she said. “Miss Demidova.”
‘Oh, let me introduce you. Everyone, this is Holly Harris. Holly, this is Nika, Lydia, Dr. Singh, who you’ve met, Awasos, who will steal all your food, Arkady, Tatiana, and Toni. The twins are Cora and Wulf,” Stacia said.
“You have Holly with you, because…” Lydia asked, straightforward as always.
“Because the Alphas feel we should give them some space and they see her as
being with us,” Stacia said.
“What?”
“I pissed off Brock a bit and he said Stacia can just stay away and Holly should too,” Declan said.
“I tremble to ask, but just what did you do?” Tanya asked.
“It’s a bit of a story in and of itself. He got pissy about me seeing his wolves behind his back, I got pissy that he let blatant outside interference run rampant through his pack, then one of his idiot wolves stepped up to teach me respect,” Declan said, making air quotes with his fingers, “and I didn’t let him.”
“Oh I gotta hear about this,” Lydia said, eyes gleaming. Tanya shot her a look. “But later, of course,” Lydia amended.
“So what happened here?” Declan asked. Toni figured he must already know much of it, because of, well, Omega.
“Twenty-three individuals of Korean heritage attacked Toni and the twins along with their security detail while they were walking on the streets outside. Between Arkady’s men and my drones, we responded well, although I believe the God Tear activated twice on its own. It did not activate at the end, when a vanload of assailants arrived and were met with a ready response team from this Tower. Altogether, security has seven wounded, two critical although immediate application of vampire blood has stabilized them. All twenty-three attackers were killed. There is evidence that the twins exhibited talents under the stress of the assault.”
“Korean?” Chris asked.
“I have reconstructed much of their paths to America. Some have been in this country for over ten years; some came within the last six months. Ultimately, their origin is North Korea, but they were expertly smuggled into South Korea, provided with strong false identities, and entered the United States legally.
Additionally, I have found that the hotel room occupied by the sniper has been continuously rented for over three months. The room is high enough to see over the intervening buildings, allowing sight of Demidova Tower’s main entrance, as well as a clean shot at several points of Toni’s standard walking path with the twins.”
“Why North Korea?” Nika asked.
“Probably because of Omega,” Declan said.
“Oh!” Lydia said, eureka-like. “Because he locked down all the nukes?”
“Correct. With no access to weapons of mass destruction, governments are looking for alternatives. Kidnapping the twins might give a country control over the only remaining such weapons around.”
“Chris and Tanya,” Lydia said.
A low growl filled the room. It took Toni as second to realize it came from Tanya.
“If you like, Tanya, I could bop over to North Korea and like, I don’t know, wreck their capital or something,” Declan offered, concerned.
The growling cut off instantly as she turned to look at the young witch. Toni could almost see the wheels turning in the beautiful mother’s mind.
“Holy shit, they got the wrong weapon,” Lydia said. Tanya turned her gaze on her friend and mentor. “Just saying,” Lydia said.
“That’s the problem. Nobody should be saying—anything. Not a thing about retaliation or the fact that Declan can, in fact, open portals to anywhere on Earth. Got it?” Chris asked, turning to look at each of them. His hard gaze softened when it arrived at Toni.
“You understand, right?” he asked the young girl.
“If people knew he could go anywhere, anytime, with all his witch spells, they’d freak out,” Toni said with a shrug.
“Exactly. Declan, thank you, but let’s not say that again out loud. It’s probably bad enough that they have you teaching that skill to other witches,” Chris said.
“They’re having a hard time learning it,” Stacia said. “The other witches—they seem to all have a real hard time learning the portal magic.”
“Why? And why did you learn it so easily?” Chris asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe because I learned it on Fairie when I was literally soaked in magic, plus I had to learn it in order to get to Jetta and Mack,” Declan said.
“Speaking of magic, what happened with the God Tear necklace?” Lydia asked.
“It worked twice, then failed during the gun battle,” Toni said, pulling it out from under her shirt to look at it.
“Let me take a look at it,” Declan said, moving in front of Stacia, who was between him and Toni. Stacia was staring at the necklace, a puzzled look on her face, nostrils flaring. Declan got just past his girlfriend when her hand shot out and grabbed the back of his pants, plucking him backward like a pillow. He would have fallen on his butt, Toni thought, except that Stacia’s arm stopped pulling and became a solid barrier to catch him.
“It smells—like sulfur,” she said, turning to look at Chris.
In the blink of an eye, he was right in front of Toni, bending over to look closely at the Tear. Toni watched his famous violet eyes unfocus as he looked the strange necklace over.
“It’s got something on it,” he said. Reaching behind her neck, he plucked the chain up and over her head. Only Chris, Declan, Declan’s aunt, and Toni herself, could take the necklace on and off her. It resisted anyone else.
Chris held the necklace up to the light, squinting at it. “Yup, something is all webbed up on it.”
“I don’t see a thing wrong with it,” Tanya said. “But I smell that brimstone scent.”
“Declan, what do you see?” Chris asked, holding it up, but not any closer to their witch.
Toni watched her friend unfocus his own eyes, much as Chris had, but then he just looked puzzled. “It looks dull to me, like it has a matte finish instead of its normal glossy, wet look.”
“To me,” Chris said, “it looks like it’s webbed up with demon scum of some type.”
Stacia pulled Declan back another step and put herself between him and the dangling necklace.
“Yeah, my thought too,” Chris said.
“You think it’s a Declan trap?” Lydia asked.
“He wouldn’t have noticed it until he’d already touched it, and who else would we likely ask to look at it if it malfunctioned,” Chris said, studying the necklace even closer. Then he abruptly held up his right hand and did something. Toni saw a pulse of purple light, much, much dimmer than the necklace usually made, and there was a hissing sound.
With a grimace of disgust, Chris switched the chain to his right hand and brushed the surface of the black Tear with the fingers of his left. Something black and gooey clung to his fingertips, something that squirmed with a life of its own.
He pulled and plucked it away from the God gem and then lifted his left hand up to the sky. Suddenly there was a loud pop and a massive bird made entirely of smoke flapped gigantic wings just over their heads. Talons like bananas gently pinched the black stuff and then the smoke bird pulled up toward the ceiling before disappearing through it and into it with another loud pop.
“It had a demon on it?” Tanya asked.
“Part of a demon, I think,” Chris said. “Might have been part of a Wyrm.”
“What’s that? What’s a worm?” Declan asked.
“Demons, Hellbourne usually, use them to sort of seed weak humans. They cling and grow, drilling down into the soul of their host, opening the path for a true demon to move in,” Chris said. “I think that whatever was on the Tear was made from a wyrm or wyrms.”
“Toni, dear, has anyone touched the Tear but you?” Tanya asked.
Toni shook her head, scared that they thought she would do something like that.
“Probably not where you would see it yourself, sweetling,” Nika said, understanding on her face. “Maybe when you were distracted?”
Toni started to shake her head, but stopped as a thought occurred. Could it? Nah.
“Your dentist?” Nika asked. “You had a filling done.”
“Dr. Reynolds gave me a filling. My first. I was scared, so he gave me a pill to relax me. It made me snoozy.”
“Did the doctor do anything besides drill your tooth?” Lydia asked after exchanging a glance with Nika and Ta
nya.
“No,” Toni said, shaking her head. “But the nurse was weird. New, I think. It’s hard to remember.”
“Try to remember the visit, Toni, starting with the waiting room,” Nika said.
“Well, Dad took me. He read work stuff and I read a People magazine with Taylor Swift on the cover. Then this new nurse came to get me. Dad was going to come too, but she kinda of laughed and patted his arm and told him it would be fine.”
“Was that odd?” Nika asked.
“Yeah, Dad knew I was scared and he always wants to be with me if I’m scared. But the nurse gave me a little pill and had me just sit in the chair. After a while, the dentist came in and we talked but I don’t remember what we said. He looked in my mouth, poked around a bit. Then he started to work and I don’t really know what he did. The nurse helped him… they talked a lot. Like he was trying to impress her or something. Which is gross, ‘cause he’s married.”