Meta Marshal Service 4

by B N Miles

  32

  Wind whistled through nearby trees and bushes as Jared felt the beautiful, incredible, amazing ground beneath his feet. He looked around and saw Cassie a few feet away, huddled with Lumi, both girls hugging each other—and he realized they were crying.

  He ran to them. At first, he thought something horrible had happened, but then Cassie smiled at him, and Lumi laughed, and they pulled him into an embrace. He hugged them, breathed their smells, kissed them, and only then did he brother to look around.

  They stood in the woods that bordered the facility. It rumbled in the distance, half a mile away at least. The fencing around the building had been steamrolled and torn to pieces, and large chunks of the facade were missing—Bea’s work, if he had to guess.

  The desert was quiet and dark. He pulled away from his girls and scanned around, desperate to find proof that his girls were still okay. He opened his mouth to speak, when the building erupted in golden light that made the night seem like day. He staggered away, then grabbed onto Lumi and Cassie, wrapping a shield around them. Nothing happened though: the building simply glowed brighter, and brighter, until it simply disappeared in the night. And when the awful white slowly faded into gray again, the facility was gone, replaced by a single enormous stone monolith, black as anything he’d ever seen. It disappeared once the night returned again.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked.

  “I have no clue,” Lumi said. “But I have a feeling whatever that thing is out there, it has something to do with the gods.”

  “Was that really Lycanica we saw?” Cassie asked.

  Jared laughed, relieved. “I thought I hallucinated that whole thing.”

  “No, it definitely happened,” Lumi said. “Otherwise we’d be trapped inside that monolith thing right now, and very much dead.”

  “Jared!”

  His shouted name pulled him away from the girls. He turned and spotted Jessalene running toward him, her hair streaming out behind her. She slammed into him, knocking him back, and he wrapped his arms around her as he hugged her tight, relief flooding through him.

  “Jessalene,” he choked. “Gods, you’re okay.”

  Allie came next, with Izzy and Penny, then Nikki appeared, though she kept her distance, being covered in blood and all. Lumi and Cassie joined in, and he hugged his girls, feeling relief flood through him, relief so strong that it threatened to overwhelm him. They’d all made it out in time, and though he was sure people had been in the building when it transformed into that stone thing out there, none of them were his people.

  “Hate to break this up,” Bea called out. “But we got a bunch of scared folks out here.”

  Jared kissed each of his girls, and as they pulled away, smiling at him, he knew he made the right choice. Bea put her hands on her hips and gave him an annoyed look.

  “Let’s get everyone back to the city,” he said. “Something bad’s going to happen soon.”

  Bea grunted. “Worse than whatever the hell that shit was?”

  “Much worse.” Jared glanced at Lumi and Cassie then sighed. “The Accords are broken.”

  Bea sucked in a breath. Jessalene shook her head and touched his shoulder. “You’re joking,” she said.

  “I’m not. Wade’s gone. Lycanica spoke to us, and—”

  “Lycanica?” Bea asked. “You mean the Shifter goddess? You’re kidding me.”

  “They’re back, Bea. All of the gods and goddesses are back. I have a feeling you’ll meet the Dwarven god soon enough.”

  She frowned at that. “I don’t know any Dwarven gods, but praise him, I guess.”

  “We need to get back to the city. The world’s going to plunge into chaos soon. Humans are going to know about magic and Metas, and it’s going to be bad. We need to hurry and get prepared.”

  “I’ll get my girls on it.” Bea gave him a sharp nod then turned and marched off. Good old Bea, she’d turn to action instead of breaking down in the face of massive upheaval and uncertainty.

  “What are we going to do?” Izzy asked. “I can’t imagine what’s going to happen if this is real. If the Accords are really done.”

  “We’ll do what we have to,” Jared said. “We’ll protect the girls we’ve saved and try to save more. We’ll help people understand that Metas aren’t monsters. We’ll try and avert the worst of it.”

  “But we won’t save them all,” Allie said, her face almost neutral. “That’s not possible.”

  “No, it’s not. But we’ll do that we can.”

  She nodded with a sigh.

  Nikki’s expression darkened as she paced. “The Vampires are going to move,” she said. “I have to get back to them.”

  “What about Roth?” Jared asked.

  “He’s dead now.” She shook her head. “There’s a power vacuum. He wasn’t exactly the most popular Lord among them. If I can get back…” She stopped paving. “I might be able to help.”

  “I don’t want you to go.” He said the words, even though he knew it was the wrong thing to say.

  Nikki softened a bit and smiled at him. “I know you don’t.”

  “Then stay with us.” He stepped toward her. “You don’t owe them anything, you know that. You don’t owe them yourself.”

  She smiled, and he saw hundreds of years of sadness in those lips. “I don’t belong anywhere, Jared Bechtel, my darling. I’m a dead girl trying to find a life among the living, and it will never be right. I belong with the Hierarchy.”

  “Nikki—”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I have to do something, and if I wait, it’ll give my enemies more time to consolidate their strength. I need to go now and make my move, or else I’ll always wonder if there was something I could have done differently. The Vampires are going to start hunting again, and unless there’s someone in leadership that can reign them in and argue for moderation, your people are going to get slaughtered.”

  He nodded, frustrated, but didn’t argue. He wanted her to stay, desperately needed her to stay, but he understood why she wouldn’t. “This isn’t goodbye then.”

  “Of course not,” she said, strutting over to him. “You’re still all mine, Jared Bechtel. You and all your pretty girlfriends are all mine. I’m not giving that up.” She kissed him gently.

  “You talk a big game, but we both know you’re mine, not the other way around.”

  She grinned, kissed him again, then turned and walked off. She disappeared in a blur of motion. He watched her go, feeling a strange, panging sadness. He knew that was going to happen—not that exactly, but something like it. His family couldn’t stay together perfectly forever. Jessalene had her Dryads to look after, Penny and Izzy both had families that would need help, and he couldn’t expect them to stay with him, even if he selfishly wanted that.

  Jared surveyed his family, his beautiful girls, and some part of him wondered what it might have been like if he’d taken the other choice and left this world with them. He imagined Allie and Penny working together in a lab, laughing and flirting, and Jessalene and Cassie pregnant with his babies, and Nikki lounging about, making jokes and ordering them around, and Lumi smiling again. But that wasn’t what they chose in the end, even if it hurt like hell, even if they all deserved that future together and he wished he could give it to them. Even still, they had each other, and although the world might plunge into chaos—at least they wouldn’t be alone.

  They’d never be alone.

  That was the decision he’d made. He couldn’t walk away from this world, because in a big way, he’d helped create it. Maybe he’d worked hard to try and stop those with power from breaking the Accords, and he’d failed at that, but what was left over was his fault. Roth was dead, Maurice Medlar was dead, and there was a gap in leadership at the exact moment when leadership would be most necessary.

  The Magi had to step up then, and Jared wasn’t sure they would. He wasn’t sure anyone could expect them to, not after thousands of years of doing nothing but consolidating the
ir control and their power base, only to see it all wiped away in a single night.

  He’d have to help with that, too.

  “Come on,” he said, taking Cassie’s hand, and gesturing for the others to follow. “We need to help Bea. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  A lot of work. That was an understatement.

  But it was good work. Happy work. Something he could look forward to.

  Maybe he wasn’t a Marshal anymore, and never would be again, but that didn’t matter.

  He would always help people in need.

  33

  Nothing seemed different. Not at first, anyway. The first few days remained quiet, but there were whispers in Humans media: monster sightings, hints of magic, suggestions of something bigger happening.

  Whispers turned into grumbling, and soon the news went wild as Metahumans came out of their hidden slums, their basement dwellings, their tiny rural towns, their underground bunkers, their remote islands, their desert oases, and began to show themselves to the world for the first time ever.

  People went fucking wild. It was about what Jared expected: Humans were not prepared to find out that a bunch of non-Humans lived among them and had done so for thousands of years. The existence of magic was simmering beneath it all, and although that hadn’t quite broken through the logjam of dropped jaws and people losing their shit in the street, it’d come out eventually.

  Jared wanted to be ready for that. They reinforced their small block and kept the wards humming along, and although it was uncomfortable, everyone understood that it was good to have a safe zone.

  The refugees from the final Medlar facility joined their group. Some opted to leave and try to find their old families, and Jared gave them money and whatever support he could, but most wanted to stay and help out. Even a lot of the internet troll teens they’d rescued chose to stay, and he set them up in their own house, wired and packed with technology, and told them to go nuts, but with one caveat: they were to calm the world as best they could using their own networked, decentralized, logarithmic methodologies, or whatever the hell they did.

  In the second week, he called an all-hands meeting, and stood up on the stoop of his house as everyone gathered on the sidewalk and street before him.

  It was surreal, to see them all arrayed outside. There were way more people than he imagined: hundreds of Metas, men and women, and more Magi contractors than before. People had heard of what they were doing, and they were flocking to him, some for safety, and some to help fight the chaos that was coming.

  He spread his hands for quiet, took a deep breath, and spoke with a magically-enhanced voice.

  “Thanks for coming out, everyone,” he said. “And thanks to Izzy for teaching me this sound spell so you can all hear me.”

  Some laughter from the crowd. They were one large mass, he realized, and although they were individual faces, each of them important, they were stronger together as one linked organism, capable of digesting and creating. He stood there for a moment longer and let the sight sink in: a couple hundred people, almost all of them Meta women that they’d saved over the last few months, all of them refugees looking for help. They were his priority now, his family, his people.

  Now that the world was falling apart.

  “As you all know by now, things aren’t exactly going great here in the city.” Some more nervous laughter. That was the understatement of the century. There were riots, and looting, and burning all around them, and the only reason their little oasis hadn’t been touched yet was the batteries Jared kept powering their wards. It kept everyone out, even those powerful enough to realize the wards even existed.

  He continued, “People are angry and confused, and they’re lashing out in destructive ways. Now, I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: none of you are a prisoner. You’re free to go whenever you want. Come to me, or if you’re not comfortable, go to Lumi, or Allie, or anyone else in leadership, and they’ll give you supplies to help your journey. I mean it when I say this: we don’t want anyone to stay that doesn’t want to stay.”

  He let that sink in for a moment, but nobody moved. They’d lost some girls over the past few days, but it seemed as though the bulk of his family planned on staying.

  Including Bea and her mercenary army, which was a damn good thing, because he had a feeling he’d need them in the coming weeks, months, and years.

  “I didn’t gather you all out here just to reiterate the same old thing, so let me get to the point. The world around us is crumbling, and the old guard isn’t doing enough to prop it up. The Magi families are the only structures powerful and knowledgeable enough to educate average Humans about Metakind, and yet they’re doing nothing but squabbling amongst themselves, trying to take over the infrastructure the Medlar family left behind. They’re doing nothing, and it’s time we stepped into that role.

  “Beginning today, I’m announcing a new Magi family. This is going to be a unique family, one born not of blood, but of bond. Our family is going to be a mixture of Humanity and Metakind, and we’ll show the rest of the world that we don’t have to eat and murder each other, that we can coexist peacefully if we’re willing to learn about each other first.

  “This won’t be easy. I think a lot of you know that judging by the looks I’m getting. Also, I’m sure many of you hate the idea of calling this a ‘Magi’ family. I’m happy to discuss alternatives, but right now, the term Magi holds more weight, and it’s what we’re going with for the time being.

  “Beyond just the general upheaval all around us, the Vampire Hierarchy has begun to make its move into the world. They’ve been taking Humans, killing and drinking their blood, breaking all the rules that have been in place for thousands of years. The Hierarchy is strong, and so far, the families have done nothing to rein them in. We’re going to have to step up, which will pose a great risk to all of us. I won’t ask any of you to fight if you’re not willing, but remember this. If we let the Vampires run loose on Humanity, this war will never end, and we’ll live in a constant state of struggle.

  “There’s a lot of work left to be done. There will be a lot of pain and suffering moving forward. But remember, you’re all free, free to come and go, free to be yourselves in public now. The Accords are gone—the new world is here. Nothing’s holding any of you back from being who you are. Embrace the change and help me usher in a new world.”

  He stopped speaking, and silence greeted him. He didn’t know what he expected: wild cheering, maybe, or at least some scattered applause. Instead, faces stared back, some of them blank, some angry, some confused. He saw the wide range of emotional responses and he knew even this wouldn’t be a simple process, but it would be an important one.

  “What’s the name?” someone from the back shouted out.

  “Name?” Jared asked.

  “The name of this new family!”

  He smiled a little and glanced over at Cassie. She stood with Lumi and Penny in a tight group, and she grinned back at him and nodded once. He turned toward the crowd.

  “We’re going to be called Grim,” he said.

  There were some murmurs.

  “Isn’t that Cassie’s clan name?” someone shouted.

  “That’s right,” Jared said. “We’re naming our new Magi family after Cassie’s old one.”

  More murmurs, and them some applause. That applause grew into cheering, and soon the crowd seemed genuinely delighted. He grinned and waved at them, hands up into the air, until he got quiet.

  “There’s work to be done,” he said, voice still magically altered. “For now, if you want to be a part of this, speak to your block leaders. If you want to leave the block, please do so soon. Otherwise, we’re going to start our tally and get things organized. Thank you all for listening. I hope we can make a difference.”

  He stepped down off the stoop as the crowd turned in on itself and began talking, a loud murmur of voices. He dropped the voice spell and joined Cassie off to the side. Penny put an arm arou
nd his shoulder and kissed his cheek.

  “Good job, boss,” she said.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Sorry, do you prefer big daddy? Or maybe just magic daddy.”

  “None, please.”

  Penny laughed and shrugged. “I gotta get back to the lab. Good speech though. Really inspiring stuff.” She kissed him again then stalked off. He figured he’d see her again in a few days when she emerged stinking like body odor, slightly emaciated from not eating, and completely happy.

  “She’s right, it was a good speech.” Cassie hugged him and kissed his cheek. “Do you think they’ll stay?”

  “Some will leave,” he said. “I bet a lot hate the idea of being in a Magi family.”

  “Should’ve called it a Pack then,” Cassie said.

  “Maybe, but Magi holds more weight right now. We can always change it.” He kissed her and held her tight. “It’s a new world now.”

  She nodded and smiled up at him.

  He heard his name, and Jessalene came through the crowd, tugging Lumi along. They both hugged and kissed him, and Izzy joined the group, followed by Allie and Kerrin. They gathered around, talking to each other, hugging, kissing, and he felt a momentary pang for Nikki—he wished she could be with him, but he knew she was doing important work inside the Hierarchy. She managed to step into the Lordship role by killing several rivals, but her voice didn’t mean much yet, and the Vampires were still running amok.

  He hoped she could help get them under control before things escalated even more. The government was threatening military action against any Meta group that harmed a single Human. It was sword rattling all around, puffed-up macho bullshit, and Jared knew the Vampires would ignore that. The military couldn’t do shit against a bunch of immortal monsters, no matter how badass they thought they were.

  There were more problems, local problems. Humans were having a hard time accepting the new order of things, and gangs were forming, anti-Meta groups radicalized against Metakind. Violence broke out every day lately, and Philly’s police force didn’t seem to give a shit so long as the violence was directed at Metas. Things were crumbling down around them, and Jared was about to thrust his family directly into the center of things.