by Jan Stryvant
"Somehow I don't think God is going to see it like that."
"The Lord has forgiven me! He has told me so himself!"
"Oh, you talked to God then, did you?"
"Many times, the Lord has confided in me a great many things!"
"Then maybe we should go talk to him, you and I?" Geoffrey said in a suddenly soft voice.
"Yes! Let me go, we will go down to our church and pray, and I will reveal the wisdom and the words of the Lord to you in private!"
"Actually," Geoffrey said, leaning into Pastor Cross's back, "I was thinking more along the lines of the both of us going to meet him. Say right about…" Pastor Cross felt Geoffrey's hands wrap around him.
"NO!"
"…now," Geoffrey said and jumped off the side of the building, holding on tight to Cross. There was no way he was going to let that bastard get away from this.
Pastor Cross's eyes widened as the ground rushed up faster and faster to meet them.
"Holy shit! He jumped!" Sean swore, watching as the two men fell all the way down to the ground. The Grand Sierra's roof was about forty floors above the ground. It was a long drop.
"I've got Roxy's dad on the radio," Trey said.
Sean reached over and switched his headset to the radio. "What's up?"
"Two things. First, that guy with Betty's father? It's Pastor Cross, the guy who's leading them."
"Was leading them," Sean said.
"Oh, well. No great loss. Second, the police found an address written on a pad in the room Betty's father had been renting. The words 'Truck Bomb' were written under it."
"Oh, great. Where is it?"
"Off of Joule St., behind the airport. I'll text it to you so you can find it on your phone."
"I take it the police are on their way?"
"The police are waiting for the bomb squad."
"Okay, I'll get on it right away!" Sean said and, pulling out his phone, he looked at the address Bill had just sent him. Turning back to the intercom, he relayed the message.
"Where are we heading?" Trey asked.
"Joule Street, just west of Edison Way, and before South Rock. Look for a bunch of trucks with people milling about them."
"Okay, what's in them?"
"Ever hear of ANFO?"
"Damn…" Trey paused a moment. "Better cast some silence spells on us. If they hear us, it ain't gonna be safe unless we're way the hell up high."
"Well, I guess this means we found the missing fertilizer," Sean said and cast a silence spell on the helicopter.
"Let's get the doors open," Peg said. "Once we've found our target, hopefully a mass sleep spell will be all it takes to render everyone down there unconscious."
"Check your seatbelts, everyone," Sean warned, unlocking the side doors and sliding them back as he shifted into his hybrid form to help with night vision.
"I think I see something," Roxy said and pointed.
Sean looked over to the area and saw two trucks with a couple of people working on them. One was a straight truck, but the other was a large tanker truck.
"How the hell did they think they were going to get that up the hill?" Jolene said, peering over Peg.
"Look what's written on the side," Roxy said, shaking her head.
"I can't, I don't have night vision."
"It says 'Aviation Gas'," Roxy growled. "We have trucks like that coming up every day to fill up the helicopters!"
Shaking his head, Sean prepared the sleep spell. "We got lucky tonight, very lucky. We're going to need to up our security."
"Again," Roxy sighed.
"Yup," Sean said and cast the spell, then leaned back, panting a little. From all the way up here, it wasn't an easy spell.
"Call the police on the radio, Trey," Roxy said. "Tell them we slept everyone, and they need to get in here quick. That's one very massive bomb they've got sitting down there."
"On it!"
"Now what do you say we all go home?"
"I like that idea." Sean sighed. "Think maybe you could finally show me where my new office is?"
"What, can't find it on your own?" Roxy teased.
"Well, if you don't want to help me christen it, I could always ask Jo over there for help…"
"Oh! Well in that case, I'll be more than happy to!"
"Hey, don't forget about me!" Peg laughed.
"Me either," Jolene added.
Strange Bedfellows
Karl sighed and looked at the stream of people coming down the road. There were a pair of wolves sitting to either side of the road, and ten paces back from them there were two men with automatic rifles. All four were werewolves, and they were looking for demons hiding in the crowd, those poor souls who had been possessed, or worse yet, those traitors to the human race who were now willingly in league with the demons.
The last group was the hardest to spot, because they didn't give off any telltale scent. Supposedly the local mages were working on magical devices to detect them, but Karl wasn't exactly privy to that conversation. The dead bodies along the side of the road made it clear that they'd been finding people in at least the second category. He didn't see any spots of tar that showed where a demon had died.
"See anything?" Otto asked
"If I turn around, I see the road to Italy," Karl grumbled. "Which I should be on. Why am I doing this again?"
"Because you've got a guilty conscience that won't let you run away, and Raban has been using it to make you stay?"
"Is that why you're here?" Karl grumbled.
"Oh, no. I'm here because he ordered me to stay, and you don't argue with lions."
"Why not?"
"It's not allowed—as in, he told me I couldn't, so I can't."
"Just like that?"
Otto nodded. "Just like that. They made us, so when they want to, they can control us. Since Raban was ordered to hold Munich, he's been, well, how's that expression about fecal matter and hills go again?"
Karl nodded, he knew the one.
"So, tell me again. Who orders Raban around? Who gets to tell lions what to do?"
"The head lion, who else?"
"Where's he at?"
Otto shrugged. "No idea. Hell, until I met Raban, I'd never seen one in my entire life. I'd only heard the stories."
Karl shook his head and sighed. "I'd say you're all full of it, but I've seen too much not to believe you're telling me the truth. So why are we here again?"
"We're waiting for members of the Kitesh Korps."
"What a name for a gang," Karl said with snort. "They must be quite the characters if I've never seen anything about them in all my years of law enforcement."
"They're a magical gang, so I'd be surprised if you had."
"And what's magical about them?"
"Well, first off, Kitesh is an invisible city someplace on the border of Russia, I believe."
Karl raised an eyebrow and looked over at Otto. "Seriously?"
Otto nodded. "Yup. Some great magician, or group of them, cast a spell on the city a long, long time ago. I think they were hiding from the Mongols or something like that. Unfortunately rumor is, if you weren't a magician, you disappeared as well, so they lost a goodly part of their mundane population. That forced them to start preying on the neighboring cities and towns for their survival, and, well," Otto shrugged, "they never gave up that lifestyle."
"So they're all magic users?"
"Magic users, lycans, mythical beasts, fey, elves, goblins, what have you. Most magical gangs tend to be a mix-up of people who were either born into in, roped into it, sold into it, or joined willingly because they liked the lifestyle."
"Sounds like the kind of people we'd normally want to do without."
"But?" a voice called out.
"I don't see anything normal, and haven't in far too many days. Now show yourself so we can stop sitting on the side of the road."
"It's a strange day when I start taking orders from a constable," the voice said, and suddenly there was a slender and
short, but incredibly handsome, older man with green-tinted skin.
"And a stranger one when he lets you ride in his car without arresting you," Otto replied. "I'm Otto; I'm a werewolf. That's Karl; he's a police officer and quite human.
"I'm Bilkie, call me Bilk for short."
"You're already short," Otto said with a grin.
"Yeah, 'cause people been calling me that all my life and I grew into it!" Bilkie said with a laugh.
"Let's get in the car," Karl said with a shake of his head. "If it's not impolite to ask, what are you anyways? I get the feeling you aren't human."
"Nope, I'm half goblin, half forest elf."
"You favor your mother's looks," Otto said.
"How'd ya' guess?"
"You're half elvish and you had to ask?"
Bilkie laughed again. "Clever punter, aren't ya? So where are we off to?"
"To see the lion in charge of Munich," Karl told him as he started up the car.
"Ah! I see the rumors are true; they've decided to put a hand in, haven't they? So what's your story, officer?"
"So many years of government service that I no longer have the brains to quit."
"So," Otto said, turning in the front seat to talk to Bilkie in the back, "how bad is Berlin?"
"In all me days and nights, for as long as I shall live, I will never ever forget what I saw there," Bilkie said in a voice that made shivers run up and down Karl's spine. "The city is gone, completely gone. The buildings may remain, but the people? They're all cattle now, them's that're still alive, that is. We lost half our crew gettin' out of there. Me friend Horace, he was a wolf just like you, he died saving the lot of us that got away from there."
"So they've taken over the government?" Karl asked, though he knew the answer.
"Oh, yeah, they've either taken them or eaten them. Honestly, though? Looking back? I think they got a lot of those government types years ago. Years ago."
Karl just shook his head and drove them back to the mayor's office Raban had co-opted.
Karl followed Otto and Bilkie up to Raban's office after he'd parked the car. He found he was doing a lot of that nowadays.
"Ah! So you're from the Kitesh Korps!" Raban said, coming around the desk and shaking hands with Bilkie. The size difference between the two, as Raban openly went around in his hybrid form at all times now, was rather shocking.
"You must be Raban. Bilkie's the name. So what brings you to summon'in our help?"
"If there's anybody who knows what's been going on in the magical as well as mundane underside of the cities around here, it'd be you. We need to know what we're up against, and what little secrets are out there that we can put to our best use."
"Ya' must know that there are Lithos in this city already?"
Raban snorted. "We're still more than a bit pissed at the Lithos; they should have known better than to go after one of our own."
"Well, I hate to be the one to stand in their defense, but I don't think they rightly knew it be a lion there were chasing. And, begging your pardon, but considering how many of them said lion killed, I'd think they'd be lookin' for any chance to make amends. Before ye' kill the rest o' them."
Raban snorted. "I had no idea you two even talked to each other."
Bilkie gave them a weak smile and shrugged. "We do some business, it's just the nature of our particular occupations."
"Well then, you can tell them if they apologize, all will be forgiven, though I would caution them to steer very clear of Valens. Guy has a bit of a temper."
"Oi, not like any other lion does, am I right?"
"Oh, some of us are downright reasonable, though of late he rarely is." Raban laughed then. "Our leader stuck him in something of a position, and he doesn't waste any opportunity to give him grief over it. In fact, he's why I'm here."
"Does that mean you don't want to be here?" Karl asked.
"No. He made a good argument, only reason why he won it. I'm just glad I wasn't the one who made it. Now, how many did you bring with you, and where are they?"
"Twenty-three of us from Berlin, and another couple dozen we picked up on the road here. They'll all be on the way to a place we keep here for when we trade with the Lithos."
Raban nodded. "Tonight I'd like to gather those of you with the most knowledge on the area as well as find out what you saw. We don't just need help with our northern borders, we need help with rooting out anything or anyone those djevels have touched or corrupted."
"And who knows the corrupted better than the corrupt, right?" Bilkie said with a chuckle.
"The magic users are producing items that will help track them down, but you know they're not the type to go to the places where they need to, to find these things."
"Oi, you got that right. Well, I'll take my leave then and find me mates, and we'll be back about an hour after nightfall."
Raban nodded and smiled. "Thank you."
Otto and Karl watched him leave.
"You know he's going to want something from you after this is over," Karl said, looking back at Raban.
"Of course he will, and we'll make sure to give them something fitting."
"There'is another thing that's occurred to me as well."
"Oh?"
"How much longer do you think we'll have gas for our cars? Or even electricity for the lights? Things are going to start falling apart any day now with no one to maintain things."
Raban sighed and nodded. "Guess I better call in the city engineers and see what they can figure out. Otto, find the horse clan head and tell them we need him to gather all the normal horses in town for when the fuel runs out."
Otto nodded and left the room.
"As for you," Raban said, turning to Karl, "as long as the phones and radios continue to work, check in with the officers still alive to the north. Find out what they know, warn them when you can, and invite them here if you think they'll come."
"You want to bring them here?"
Raban nodded. "We're going to need a lot more police officers here to keep the peace with the number of refugees that have been pouring in. If I put any of my soldiers on it," Raban grimaced, "the results won't be at all pretty."
"I'll see what I can do," Karl said.
Ξ
King Sladd sat in his throne room as his six princes entered. Each of them moved quickly to their customary position in the room, then prostrated themselves before him. Usually he would have waited for them to be here first, but what he had to tell them was important. So by avoiding that little display of power, they would get the message and be in a more receptive mode.
Lately his spies had been telling him things about Prince Talt that had him growing concerned. During this last storsindet gateway, Prince Talt had committed even less of his forces than the others had, and none of his most experienced leaders.
King Sladd waited until they'd all found their places, their advisors forming up and prostrating behind them. Once they'd settled into position, their eyes on the floor, King Sladd made a short motion with his hand.
"You!" one of the guards called out, "Eyes down!" and he stepped forward and hit one of Prince Talt's advisors in the back of the head, driving him down.
"I meant nothing by it!" said Svatick, the advisor, surprising King Sladd with his response; he had obviously realized a denial would be useless here.
"Then you admit to your impertinence!" King Sladd roared. "Bring him here before me!"
Another guard stepped over, and the two of them grabbed Svatick by the shoulders and literally dragged him forward, not giving him a chance to get to his feet. King Sladd had his own spies in Prince Talt's forces, and two of them had shared their suspicions that Svatick was the advisor who was pushing Prince Talt to consider revolt.
"The law is clear!" King Sladd said, standing as the guards threw Svatick to the ground before him.
"I meant no insult, Your Majesty! Your commanding presence…"
Svatick's voice stopped instantly as King Sladd's iron-
edged sword came down and split his skull. King Sladd looked around the room as he all but inhaled Svatick's essence, dealing him a true death.
Everyone else's eyes were riveted to the floor. He doubted he had fooled any of them, but perhaps Prince Talt would take heed and realize there were limits upon him.
"Arise!" he called and sat down as they stood.
"I have called you here today to inform you my wizards of the helliges have forecast that this most recent storsindet was the last one we'll see. That means from this point forward, we shall utilize the lille helliges."
"Why, Your Majesty?" Prince Lykta asked. "You have counseled us until now to avoid wasting resources on them."
"Because now we may gain from them, where before we did not," King Sladd said, looking over the room. "The amount of damage we could do before was nothing; it would not make a difference, because all we had to deal with was more of the lille gates. But the master gateway will open soon. The lions have arrayed their strength all around it. If we can weaken them enough now, they will not be able to respond in full strength when we deploy through the master gate."
"What will our order of deployment be, Your Majesty?" Prince Skarm asked.
"Princes Talt, Skarm, Spis, and Lagereld, you four will line up your forces to go through the gateway and fight until they have either succeeded or been removed. The rest of you shall sally forth through the lille helliges as they should appear, to harass and weaken the enemy. I do not think they will be able to deal with the two gates being open for long, so they will have to abandon either guarding the master gateway, or the lilles. My thoughts lead me to believe that those using the lille will see our first success."
"And what of your soldiers, King Sladd?" Prince Lagereld asked.
"My troops will be behind yours. I am sure by the time you are finished with them, Prince Lagereld, the resistance of the lions will be no more.
"Does this mean you plan to personally take the field?" Prince Spis inquired.
"Eventually, yes, I believe I will. It has been a long, long time since a permanent gateway has been bound to one of the sacred hunting grounds. I will be giving this my personal attention to make sure we do not fail.
