“All of them. And I’ll bring ‘Sos with me.”
She looked at me over the rim of her glasses, pale hazel eyes and curly brown hair, super serious expression. “That’s… actually good. I like it.”
I expected more pushback about bringing a three-hundred-pound wolf into hospitals, but no one said a single word. They were all too shocked when we came through the doors; myself, ‘Sos, my security contingent, Jules and Kyle, and the hospital PR person. I don’t like pictures or events, but the kids were so sick and so brave that I felt like a chump. So I jumped into kids’ selfies, nurse selfies, doctor selfies, and posed for the camera everywhere. Awasos was, to no surprise, a big hit. Kids wanted to pet him, lie down with him, even ride him. That left my security guys forgotten, so no one noticed Deckert gleefully dripping a drop of my blood into an IV here or a carton of juice there. Took us two days to hit all seven hospitals.
It was possible that by next week, whole floors might be cleared of horrifically sick children. People would notice and wonder, but there wouldn’t be any evidence.
All of that was overwhelming. It was surreal stuff, but not as surreal as watching my grandfather give an interview to
Sixty Minutes
, one of his favorite weekly shows.
We watched it as a group in the hotel we’d taken over until our new residence in the corporate tower was ready.
My grandfather took the attractive blonde correspondent with the nice foreign accent on a tour of the farm.
“So Alex Gordon, you’re the man who raised Chris Gordon?” she asked.
“Guilty as charged, Lara,” he answered.
“What was he like, as a child?” she asked.
“He was always quiet. Even as a baby, he didn’t cry much. His eyes were always purple, a bit darker than they are now, but very different than other kids. And he had this thing with dogs,” Gramps said.
“Dogs?”
“To an animal, they all love him. Used to have this cattle dog, a mix of Rottweiler and Australian Shepherd. Meanest dog I ever met. He stayed with the cows, guarded them from the coywolves… eastern coyotes, ya know. Anyway, he had no use for people, would barely listen to me and growled at everyone else. Except Chris. When his parents brought him to visit, that dog would leave the fields and hang around us, eyes on Chris the whole time. Wouldn’t get close or anything, he’d just stay nearby and watch. It was odd.”
“So he was normal, with a few quirks, is that right?” she asked, then continued at my grandfather’s nod. “So what happened when he was eight?”
“You know what happened, Lara. His entire family was massacred while he lay in hiding. Chopped to pieces by a demon in human form. We didn’t know it at the time but it was hunting him.”
“That’s horrific,” she said.
“You have no idea. I was a Marine Raider in Korea, you know. Saw lots of things… did lots of things. I never saw anything like what that monster did to my son and his family,” Gramps said, voice trembling. “My son was a kind man, but he was tough. He grew up here on this same farm. Worked hard from sun up till sun down. He was strong. The police said that it looked like his attacker had thrown him across the room like a bag of rice. Full body imprint in the sheet rock. He fought hard, my son. But how does a normal man fight something like that?” Gramps asked.
‘You’re saying he was like one of the ones we saw in Washington, DC?” she asked.
“No Lara, I’m saying he
was
one of the ones in Washington, DC. Did you see the bald one that my granddaughter-in-law fought? Chris tells me that was him. Tanya absolutely destroyed him, Lara, and I’ll tell you what. I watch those clips on Youtube over and over almost nightly. She
[bleep, bleeped]
him up good.”
“You’re saying that the demon that killed your son and his family, Chris Gordon’s parents and brother, was killed in Washington by Tatiana Demidova?” she asked, incredulous.
“Exactly what I’m saying. Chris knew him; he even announced himself.”
“Why didn’t Chris fight him?”
“Because Lara, Chris had to fight the big one, Amaymon. He couldn’t indulge himself with revenge. But Tanya could… and boy, did she. Love that girl,” he said, wiping his eye.
“Love you too, old man,” Tanya said to the television from her spot snuggled next to me.
“That’s… that’s incredible. I don’t think anyone knew that before now. Your grandson never said anything about it, did he?”
“No Lara. If you haven’t figured it out yet, he’s not much for talking about himself. Never was.”
“So wait, let’s back up. His family, your son, daughter-in-law, and oldest grandson are all murdered. Chris comes to you. What was he like?”
“Here, let me show you this photo. I carry it in my wallet always, so that I’ll never forget, not for an instant. The police took it when they got to the house. I think maybe the social services person took it.”
My grandfather holds up a small crumpled photo showing a little dark-haired boy wearing a blood-spattered t-shirt and equally bloody pajamas that may have once been covered in prints of the Transformers (the cartoon, not the movie). He’s holding a stuffed animal—a black bear cub, not a normal teddy bear—by one paw and his odd purple eyes are vacant. A set of uniformed legs are just visible on the side of the photo, but the camera is aiming down so the cop’s upper body isn’t in it.
I’ve never seen that photo. Never. It hits like a trainwreck. The stuffed bear I had forgotten about until this moment. It was too bloody to save and somehow, like much of that night, I had put it out of my head. I called it Baby Bear. Not too original but hey, I was a kid. I felt a touch on my arm, noticing that it was rigid, my hand crushing the stuffed chair arm to scrap. Tanya was looking at me, then back at the photo on the screen. Everyone else in the room was looking at me too. Nika, Lydia, Stacia, Arkady, Deckert, three of his guys, two of Arkady’s guys, Jules and Kyle. All wide eyed. Most with pity. ‘Sos was against my legs and he pushed up closer, like he knew something was wrong.
I focused on my arm, willing it to relax, forcing it to relinquish the busted chair.
“This is a photo of the whole family. It rides in my wallet right next to little Chris,” Gramps said, holding a photo of my family—Mom, Dad, Marcus, and myself on Dad’s lap.
“So he was traumatized,” Lara commented.
“You could say that. Barely spoke at first,” he said, leading her out of the barn to the woodpile.
“What did you do?”
“I put him to work. It’s a farm; everybody works. He became my shadow and I gave him jobs. Feeding the cows, feeding the dogs, shoveling manure, forking hay, that sort of thing. Then one day I went to this woodpile and started to split some wood. I’m a farmer, Lara, and a soldier. I’m not what you would call sensitive. I never thought about the effect the sight of the axe might have on him.”
“What happened, Alex?”
“I turned and noticed him pulled back as far as he could get from me, eyes wide. So I stopped, realizing what I was doing. But before I could conceive of any words or a plan to fix my terrible mistake, he pulled himself together. He came right over and touched the axe handle. Touched it like it might bite him, but he touched it. Then he looked at me and said ‘I hid, Gramps. I can’t hide anymore.’ He asked me to show him how to do it, but the axe was much too big, so I found the boy’s axe that his father used to use,” Gramps said, reaching back into the doorway of the barn and pulling a small axe down from a nail. “This one, in fact. And I taught him to use it… just on very small rounds of wood. Only had to show a swing once, Lara, and he’d copy it exactly. It was like dealing with another kid altogether, a real, real serious one. He spent hours and hours out here. Eventually he moved up to the big axe and the splitting maul. He’d tackle the biggest pieces, chunking them down bit by bit.”
“When did you find out about his abilities with demons?”
“He was just twelve, I think. Had a friend, maybe his only one. The friend got dared to go into a local house that all the kids thought was haunted. Chris went with him. Turns out the house was more than haunted, it had a demon in it. One thing led to another and Chris banished the demon, almost by instinct. Scared his friend to death. That kid never came around again. After that, he couldn’t be stopped. Haunted houses, possessions, whatever came along. So I started to train him, seriously train him to handle himself, to handle weapons and combat. He developed something of a reputation locally among the folks who pay attention to this kind of thing. Moving to a big city after college seemed like a natural idea. That’s where he met Tanya and well, that’s that.”
“So as a twelve-year old boy, he dealt with haunts and possessions?”
“Well, haunts were no big deal. Spirits won’t hang around him, you know, so he could just show up at a house and basically cleanse it. And we don’t get huge numbers of demons up here, but he got enough to learn his trade, so to speak.”
“Do you think he’s an angel, Alex?”
“That’s the first silly question you’ve asked, Lara. Of course he’s an angel. Isn’t it obvious? Don’t you think he’s one?”
“I don’t know what to think, Alex. Most people don’t know what to think,” she said.
“Chris is fond of the expression
actions speak louder than words
. My thought would be for you and most people to sit back and watch his actions. It shouldn’t take you a great deal of time to reach a conclusion.”
“Thanks for the tour, Alex.”
“My pleasure, Lara.”
I came out of my reverie to see Travis watching me from across the van. He looked away.
“You’re new?” I asked.
“Yes sir. Came from out West. Colorado.”
It had only been a week, but vampires had begun to trickle into town, requesting to meet with Tanya. They all had a common look—like they were searching for something. As soon as they met my vampire, the look changed, from searching to having. Whatever they were looking for, they seemed to find it in her.
“I’m guessing you were a Guardian there?”
“Yes sir. Arkady wouldn’t have me here otherwise, sir.”
“Oh he might, if only to mess with me,” I said with a smile to show I was kidding.
“Ah, you know him better than I do sir,” he said, clearly not believing that Arkady would do any such thing.
“It’s happened before, especially if Lydia is involved. Have you met Lydia?” I asked.
“Tiny, sassy, with the loud voice?” he asked.
“Yeah that’s her. Mouthy,” I said.
“Yes sir. Met her first, sir.”
The van pulled into the hotel’s underground parking lot, the steel gate rolling down behind us.
I thanked the security detail and headed to the elevator. Travis followed like a shadow.
“I can make it from here,” I pointed out.
“Yes sir. No doubt, sir,” he said. Then a moment later, he added, “But if I don’t step out of this elevator before you, then my job here is gone. Arkady was very, very clear, sir… about your security. Deadly clear, sir.”
“Oh.” Things were a bit different. My people did seem a bit more… intense. Serious. Some of their irreverence for life had slipped away.
The elevator opened and Lydia was standing in the doorway, Arkady looming behind her.
“Whew, what’s that smell? East River Odour? You need a shower, stinky,” she said to me, obviously not one of the less irreverent ones.
“Yeah, that’s my thought too,” I replied, smiling.
I stepped out and turned to find Tanya striding down the hall.
“Well?” she asked.
“It’s gone. The tube, the weights, the booby trap bomb, everything, just gone. The Book of Darkest Sorrow is somehow missing and I have no idea who took it or how they found it on the bottom of the river or what we’re going to do to get it back,” I said.
She didn’t look at all surprised. “I felt your confusion and anxiety. We hid it and booby-trapped it as best we could, and our best is very, very good. So it’s gone. We’ll deal with it. We always do, and we’ll do it the way we do best. Chunking it down bit by bit like one of your logs and then at the end, we’ll smash the very heart of the problem and that’ll be it,” she said, pulling me into a hug.
The most powerful occult handbook on earth was missing and in unknown hands. But I wasn’t panicky. She was right. We would deal—bit-by-bit, chunk by chunk. It’s what we do.