The monitor played through the fight with the bull and the priest, then shifted to normal speed as Kirby pulled the demons to Hell, one at a time. The poisoning of Tanya and my altercation with the armored car rolled out, all from Brian’s vantage point.
“Can you slow down the part where he goes from back there to over by the tank thing?”
“It is slowed down, Melissa. We can’t get it any slower.”
“That’s incredible. One second, he’s over there and then he just appears over by the MRAP. Like he teleported or something. Tell me, Brystol, have you met him?”
“Yes, Keith, I have. I sat across a table from him a week ago.”
“He seems really intense in a serial killer way. How frightened were you?”
“At first I was pretty scared, but I think we are seeing his fighting face. Scary as hell. Normally, he’s surprisingly mild. Here, this is a photo I took right after our meeting as he was leaving.”
A still photo of me and ‘Sos with the kids outside the restaurant appeared on the screen. I was smiling, squatted down next to ‘Sos while the kids petted his thick fur.
“
Whoa
.
”
“You’re right, Melissa. Look at the size of that wolf.”
“Wolf? Oh yeah, Keith, that’s a big wolf alright. Brystol, I don’t think I would characterize him as normal or mild looking, but that is a whole lot of a different look.”
“Brystol, what’s up with the wolf and the bear? Where do they come from?”
“Good question, Keith. But I’ll point out to you that the two animals have exactly the same markings and you never see them together.”
“You’re right about the markings, but what do you mean about being together?”
“No one ever saw Clark Kent and Superman together, or Peter Parker and Spiderman. Just pointing out that I often see the wolf, and sometimes the bear appears, then is gone and the wolf is back. Odd, right?”
“The whole thing is beyond odd, Brystol, including your use of comic book heroes. Tell us your real impression of what’s happening?”
“I think that demons and vampires are real. I used to think that he was part demon, but not anymore. I think he’s here to help us… to protect us from our own folly. I think that particle physics experiments have opened doorways to Hell and until they’re closed, we are all in danger.
“I think that religion has fallen out of favor at a time when we need it most. But he’s here and he can close the Hellgates and send the demons back to Hell. I think our own politicians are afraid of him, mostly because some group took a kid who’s important to him and he punished them… with a rock from space. I think the US government is trying to kill him, and we don’t have many chances left with him.”
“You think he’s somehow responsible for the asteroid that hit New Hampshire?”
“You heard the woman standing next to him, right, Keith? She flat-out says it. Then there’s the satellite that happened to fall out of space right into the same spot in the ocean where the sub launched the missile. Too many coincidences, don’t you think?”
“How could a human make an asteroid fall from space?”
“Who, Melissa, ever said he was human? Can a human rip open a tank with his hands? Can a human move so fast that it takes ultra-high speed recording to see his movements? Can a human banish demons with nothing but his will? I find that harder to believe than the fact that he somehow did them.”
“If he’s not human, what is he? Surely you aren’t going to say he’s a vampire?”
“No, that’s what his girlfriend is. He’s something else. I don’t know what, but I’ll tell you this… if demons and vampires are real, what else is, too? Werewolves? Witches? Angels?”
“You’re suggesting he’s one of those?”
“Then you tell me, Keith. You tell me.”
They stared at her in silence before Melissa suddenly flinched and touched her ear, turning back to the camera.
“Our guest today has been Brystol Chatterjee. You can catch her blog at the Cryptic Review. Thanks, Brystol.”
“Thank you, Melissa… Keith.”
“When we come back from break, we’ll check in with our very own Chuck Upton at the White House, where he’s awaiting the news conference by President Garth.”
Lydia clicked off the volume and turned back to where Tanya and I were lying on the motel bed. The drapes were all shut tight, keeping out the slight gray of light that was an October morning in Maryland. We had driven till we were only miles from Baltimore, finding a rundown motel in the middle of nowhere. Trenton, in a hasty disguise, had rented two rooms with a connecting door under an unused alias and credit card. Tanya was leaning back against me, a small trace of my blood on her lips from her third feeding. Woozy and weak, she was nonetheless on the mend from the silver solution that had been pumped into her neck. Arkady filled one small desk chair, his bulk threatening to crush it flat. Stacia sat on the other queen bed, which she had shared with Lydia while we watched Brystol’s interview. Trenton was asleep in the other room, having spent the last few hours on watch. ‘Sos took up the space between the beds, noisily crunching the chicken bones from the four KFC buckets that Stacia, he, and I had consumed.
“That was about as good as you could hope for,” Lydia said before turning a thoughtful gaze on Stacia.
“What? I thought she might be useful,” the wolf girl said.
“Oh, that was useful. More than useful. She was brilliant,” Lydia said.
“Explain, smallest one,” Arkady rumbled.
“For once, we are slightly ahead of the curve against an enemy. The President has declared war on Chris and, by default, the rest of us. Actually launching attacks against us. They’ve failed and that Chatterjee girl has put us out there into the realm of public opinion in the most positive light you could… as defenders of the people. I think we can expect an image attack in the President’s speech, one designed by Alexis Bishop to discredit and alienate Chris and the rest of us. Chatterjee actually preempted that.”
“We need to proceed with the rest,” Tanya said, stirring sluggishly.
“I will contact Nika and tell her to let Chet off his chain. He had a whole bunch of videos edited and cued up for release to social media before we bolted. I’ll have him send some anonymously to Brystol and put some up directly on the web,” Lydia said, rummaging in her small travel duffle and producing a small black pouch. Unsealing it, she pulled out a prepaid cell phone, turned it on, punched in a text, and hit send.
“Hashtag
that
beeoch,” she said quietly, turning off the phone and pulling its battery before resealing it into the pouch.
“Can’t the NSA track stuff like that?” Stacia asked.
“I tweeted a bland message on a fake Twitter feed that has all of five followers. All of those followers will retweet the message, which will be picked up by about twenty followers each, all of whom will retweet to their followers. Somewhere down the line, maybe ten passes in, it’ll be read by one of our people and get to Nika and Chet by word of mouth. If the NSA can figure out that it was a significant message from their most wanted fugitive, backtrack to the thirty-second interval where the phone was active, then they should be here already,” Lydia said.
There was a knock on the door as she finished talking.
Chapter 18
Almost instantly, I was standing beside the bed, my vampire in my arms and checking Grim’s 3D mental radar. The others were all equally alert, looking at me expectantly.
“Two people, alone. Neither is human, but I’m not sure what they are. Both armed, but I think blades, not guns. Male and female,” I reported, my voice Grim deep.
“Put me down, Christian,” Tanya said, “They aren’t NSA.”
I hesitated and she gave me a look. I put her down, but did so in a manner that left her slightly behind me. Looking at the others, I saw that Arkady had a sword in hand, Trenton was standing by the pass-through door, a tomahawk in his right fist, and Stacia had produced a small, sawn-off double barrel shotgun from her clothes bag. She saw my look and smiled.
“It’s all about the accessories, Chris,” she said.
Still Grim-faced, I moved forward a step, mono-edging my left hand while my right hand pulled a pair of quarters off the nightstand. Ready, I nodded at Arkady, who strode to the door and pulled it open, the thin wood shuddering under his grip.
Two people stood in the doorway. The man was slightly shorter than I, maybe five-nine and lean. The female had to go six-one and was built like a professional wrestler. He was black and she was olive toned, maybe of Mediterranean descent.
“Hey big guy, miss me?” the woman asked, eyes glued to Arkady, a slightly snarky smile on her face. The guy ignored Arkady and instead scanned the room, taking in Trenton, Lydia, and Stacia before locking on Tanya and me. He studied me for a brief second, then concentrated on Tanya.
“Your presence is commanded by the Elders of the Coven,” he said sternly before adding a respectful, “ma’am.”
“Iris, Kagen. How did you find us?” Arkady asked, not budging an inch.
“Your telepath, Nika, was persuaded that it would be in your best interests to be found. She seemed to be able to lock in on you,” Kagen said.
“Yeah, which is interesting, because none of the Elders’ telepaths could do it,” Iris said, ignoring the glare that her companion sent her way. She started to shove her way through the door but the two quarters in my hand blew through either side of the doorframe, two half-inch holes appearing instantly.
Ever so slightly startled, she glanced at the damaged doorframe and then at me with arched eyebrows.
“Hmm, interesting. Gonna kill us with cold hard cash?”
“Don’t toy with him, Iris. He doesn’t know you, has little regard for the Elders, and will kill anything that he thinks is a threat to her. He beat Hosakawa,” Arkady said.
“Oh, so we have ourselves a badass, do we?” she asked, still appearing to be amused.
Arkady grunted and chin-pointed out the door behind her. When she turned, she got an eyeful of the half-ton of fur and claws standing in the parking lot by the Porsche that had to belong to them. ‘Sos had been hanging out in the back of the Subaru, the motel rooms a bit too crowded. Now he was in bear form.
“What, exactly, does my grandmother want, Kagen?” Tanya asked.
“The
Elders
want an explanation regarding your exposure of Darkkin to the human media… before rendering judgment,” he answered.
“I thought so. Tell them maybe later. We’re a bit too busy for a face to face. All three are here? In Baltimore?”
Kagen’s expression was part outrage and part discomfort. “No, they are not physically present in Baltimore.”
“So how were we to meet with them?” I asked, juggling two more quarters in my right hand.
“Probably Skype or some other teleconference, Chris. Right, Kagen? Because I have a hard time thinking they would dare be here in person,” Lydia said.
“We have a conference facility nearby,” Kagen admitted.
“Sooo, are you refusing a command to appear?” Iris asked, looking back at Tanya.
“I’m refusing to acknowledge they have the authority to make me appear, Rover Iris. I thought I was fairly clear about our status with the Coven when we parted ways. I’ll repeat myself, if only for your benefit. We have separated from the Coven, creating our own nation of Darkkin.”
“And how’s that working out for ya?” Iris asked, eyeing the decrepit motel room.
“Actually, we were just discussing our position in the latest negotiations with the US government. It’s better than we expected.”
“Really? Because it looks pretty bad from outside,” Iris said, moving slowly into the room. She pressed one hand flat on Arkady’s massive chest, giving him a wink before turning toward Lydia and Stacia. “But I see you are keeping pets,” she added, studying Stacia.
I didn’t like her and I still didn’t know what she and her partner were. There was enough daylight outside that it should have bothered them, but they ignored the dawn’s light while I could see it beginning to affect Lydia, Arkady, and Trenton.
“What we’re doing is fighting to close out the demon gates. Miss Reynolds is our liaison with the New York Pack, which has assisted us in this battle. How’s Europe, Asia, and the rest of Coven territory doing?” Tanya asked.
“That’s outside of our responsibilities, Miss Demidova,” Kagen answered, then turned suddenly when he felt ‘Sos’s form fill the doorway behind him.
“So what happens now? We’re not complying with your demands. Did you bring enough Rovers with you?” Tanya asked.