Stand On It

by Jan Stryvant

  "We put him on the other helicopter and sent him to our base, we have healers there," Jon said.

  "How bad?"

  "Umm...."

  Roxy dug her claws in and growled, "I asked you a question!"

  "It was bad," Jon told her as his men started to mill around them. He could see they were getting ready to grab her if she lost it on him. "He had a hole in his chest and he was unconscious, his clothes were burning and we had to put him out."

  Roxy turned her head and looked at Maitland who was still standing there.

  "I have to go to Claudia's. Jolene is in charge, coordinate with her and Art on situating the prisoners. Do anything stupid and I swear I will gut you like a fish when I get back here!"

  And just like that she was gone.

  "Damn, she's fast!" Jester said as he came running up, panting.

  "How far away is Claudia's?" Maitland asked.

  "Too far to run, even for her," Jon said, slowly getting to his feet.

  Just then they heard the sound of a big block motor starting up and almost instantly revving to the red line as a nineteen seventies muscle car came rocking down the road from the compound.

  "I better warn Claudia," Jon said and started to look around, "where'd our radio man get to?"

  The Great Cover-Up

  "What?!" Jolene said as Maitland told her what Roxy had said, before running off.

  "Sean's injured, Roxy went to see how badly, she left you in charge." Maitland replied. "Oh, and we've got the smoldering wreckage of a helicopter to the northwest of us, and at least a hundred dead bodies scattered around the property, possibly two."

  "And you are?" Jolene asked one of the two strangers that was now accompanying Maitland.

  "Jon, I'm the guy in charge of the strike teams that were with Sean in the helicopters."

  "And you?" Jolene pointed to the other one.

  "Art. I'm with the group that was freed from Sacramento."

  Jolene sighed, "And someone said we now had prisoners?"

  "Umm, Ma'am," Art said, "I think you have a bigger problem than that right now."

  "I don't see how that can be possible, Art. But please, go right ahead and make my day worse than it already is."

  "We killed a bunch of mages when we got here."

  "And?" Jolene grimaced, waiting for the inevitable.

  "I think they were blocking most of the noise from the fight. We didn't even hear any of it until we had gotten pretty close. And well, now," Art shrugged while trying to look apologetic.

  "I can almost hear the sirens now," Jolene groaned.

  "Actually," Peg said standing there in her hybrid form, "I think I can hear the sirens."

  "Great, I got a hundred or more dead bodies, prisoners, weapons everywhere, a crashed helicopter, and now the police." Jolene looked at Peg and Cali.

  "Got any ideas girls?"

  Cali shrugged, but Peg was looking thoughtful.

  "I think I might have an idea," Peg said looking around. "Lou! Where's your brother, or more importantly, where's that rabbit friend of his?"

  "I'm over here," Philo said walking out of the kitchen with a rather large sandwich, "and Markey is a Pooka, he's not a rabbit."

  "Great!" Peg said, "Markey, front and center."

  Peg paused and looked at Philo, "Where is he?"

  "He's in front of you," Philo gestured.

  Peg rolled her eyes and sighed, "I need to see you when I'm talking to you Markey."

  Peg didn't even flinch when there was suddenly a rabbit, who was probably a foot taller than her, standing in front of her, wearing a fedora on his head. Grinning. After the night she'd been having it almost seemed normal.

  "Okay, Markey, I want to play a gag on all the police who are coming up here. Want in?"

  Markey nodded.

  "Awesome. Lou, Philo, I'll probably need your help." Peg turned to Jolene, "I got this Jo, just tell the prisoners to grab all the bodies and drag them up the hill to the northeast away from the police."

  Jolene sighed, "Thanks, Peg. Art, I'm gonna need your help. Maitland, get our forces out of sight."

  Peg grabbed Jon, as she headed for the door. "Get the pilot of that helicopter up here; he needs to tell the police what happened."

  "Huh?" Jon said looking at Peg.

  "It's simple, a bunch of you were out practicing target shooting from a helicopter at night, or maybe shooting coyotes, I don't know. You work it out with him. Helicopter broke, he crashed, it burned then exploded and all your ammo cooked off.

  "That'll explain all the noise everyone heard and you can take them over and show them the crashed helicopter."

  "But what about all the bodies? The blood?"

  "If they can't see it, they won't ask about it." Peg looked around, "Sheila!" She yelled.

  "What?" Sheila stuck her head out of the house.

  "Sexy underwear, you and me, and robes. Get out here with it now. We're puttin' on a show!"

  "Sure thing!" Sheila said and disappeared.

  "Okay," Peg stopped and looked around. They were out in front of the house. "This is real simple. Me and my friend Markey here, we're gonna cast an illusion to hide all of the bodies and the blood and the weapons, everywhere but around the helicopter. Jon, have your friends drag off any bodies over there.

  "Lou, Philo, you're going to help us by supplying power, and everyone remember, we heard a loud crash, woke up, came running outside, and wow! Helicopter crash! We don't know what happened. Got it?"

  Everyone nodded.

  "Great, now, Markey, think you can do this?"

  Markey looked around the property. There were body parts, blood, spent shell casings, magazines, some random gear, and even a few dead bodies left as the prisoners were slowly herded up the hill."

  "This'll be fun!" he said in a surprisingly cultured sounding voice and grinned.

  "Yeah," Peg nodded, "and let's keep the improv jokes to a minimum.

  Sheila ran up then with a bunch of undergarments and two robes.

  "Okay, whataya' need this all for."

  "Distractions of course," Peg said and shifted back into her human form. "Now, let's get changed and get to work. I see our guests are about to arrive."

  Sergeant Daniel Howell turned onto the dirt driveway, with five cars following him, all of their lights were on, but he'd turned off the siren when he hit the neighborhood. Dispatch had told him that the state police had a few people on the way as well, and the swat team was gearing up if he needed them.

  "Nora Four, this is Nora Two, I see something burning over there."

  Daniel keyed his radio, "I got it Brett. There's also a group of people standing at the top of the driveway."

  "Roger Nora Four, I see 'em."

  Slowing down as he got near the top of the driveway, by the house, Daniel could see there were a few cars parked here, as well as some construction equipment. He'd already heard two days ago that the place up here had sold and the new owner was doing a bunch of work.

  Stopping the car, he gave the group milling around a look, before he got out of the car, as the other five pulled up behind him and parked. There were two young looking women in bathrobes, an older one also in a robe, and a couple of men talking to them. The men were wearing fatigues, but weren't carrying any weapons that he could see, and several of them were sporting bandages.

  "Dispatch, Nora Four is on the scene, I have a group of eight civilians and what looks like some sort of fire. Dispatch one of the fire trucks up here and have someone do a flyby to make sure it's not spreading."

  "Roger, Nora Four."

  Opening the door, Daniel got out of his car and putting his hand on the butt of his pistol, he approached carefully, fully aware of the other five officers behind him.

  "Do you have a permit for that fire?" Daniel asked as he carefully approached, all of the people were already looking at him. He could see that the two younger women in the bathrobes were rather attractive looking. Even the older one was kind of cute. He
could see that one of the men, who looked a lot like the older woman, was apparently with them. As for the other four, one was in a flight suit and had a bandage around his head with a little blood on it. The other three were in dirty fatigues that were a bit torn up, and one had some obvious scorch marks. Two of them were also sporting bandages, one had the leg of his pants ripped open, and another had the sleeve of his shirt torn off.

  "That's not ours...." one of the young women started.

  "That's not a fire...." the guy in the flight suit said.

  Several of the others started talking and Daniel raised his hand, stopping them.

  "One at a time, you first," Daniel said, pointing to the guy in the flight suit.

  "That's my helicopter, Officer, we crashed," the man said.

  Daniel flinched and looked a little closer at the guy, "Wait, what?"

  "We were out doing some night time target practice," the man looked a little embarrassed.

  "Shooting coyotes?" Daniel supplied.

  "Umm, maybe. Anyway, we were on our way back and damned if I didn't almost run into the biggest damn owl I've ever seen!" the man sighed and shook his head. "It must have hit the tail rotor, cause suddenly I started to lose control and the I guess the tail started throwing blades and one hit the fuel tanks or something. I came down hard, on fire, and then," the man shook his head, "it went up pretty quick, we barely got out. Then the ammo started to cook off, and well, then the helicopter blew up!" He said waving his hands around and looking shocked.

  Daniel looked at the young woman who had been talking before he'd stopped them. Her robe was open slightly, and from the looks of things, she wasn't wearing all that much underneath. He upgraded her appearance from 'attractive' to 'hot'.

  "Ma'am?" he asked.

  "Peg, Peggy Valens," Peg told him. "We were all pretty much asleep, then there was a loud crash and we heard what sounded like gunshots, followed by a loud 'Boom!' and we all came running out to see what had happened. We found these men stumbling around and looking dazed. And he told us what he just told you! Do you think you can umm, put that fire out for us?"

  "I've already called in a fire truck. Do you have any ID on you, any of you?"

  "Well, I'd have to go back inside to get some," Peg said.

  "I have my license," the other guy, the pilot Daniel guessed he was, told him.

  "Who all lives here?"

  "I do," Peg said, "this is my cousin, Sheila," Peg motioned to the other young woman who obviously was only wearing some rather sexy underwear under her robe, "my mother-in-law, and her brother."

  "Where's your husband?"

  "He's out at work. Should I call him?"

  "No, that's okay," Daniel motioned to the pilot, "and you?"

  "I'm George, that's Jon, Gray, and Dirk."

  "Is there anybody missing? Anybody dead in that wreck?"

  "No, Sir."

  "Okay, let's see those ID's gentlemen," Daniel raised his voice slightly, "Brett, take Bob and Walt and go check out that wreck."

  "Sure thing, Dan!"

  Daniel took each of their driver's licenses as they were handed to him, and passed them back to Mike, "Run these please, Mike."

  "Sure thing."

  "Dispatch, Nora Four," Daniel keyed his radio.

  "Go, Nora Four."

  "We have a possible helicopter crash. Please notify the FAA."

  "Dispatch, this is Nora Two, it's definitely a helicopter crash. Thing's a mess, we're definitely going to need that fire truck to put all of this out."

  "Roger that, Nora Two. Are there any causalities?"

  "Negative on that, Dispatch. Sergeant Howell is talking to the pilot and the crew."

  Peg watched as it all went down, all of the police officers were quickly distracted either by the remains of the helicopter, or with talking to the George, Jon and the other members. Her illusion spell was working, and working rather well. She could feel Markey's own abilities augmenting hers, as any signs of the violence had disappeared.

  She ignored the two rabbits that were copulating over by one of the police cars, it was kind of funny and as long as he was helping her, she'd let the Pooka have his fun.

  When the fire department showed up, they were really only interested in the fire, which they quickly put out the smoldering remains of. Sheila went and flirted a little with the four firemen who came with the truck to distract them from looking around too much once they were done. But they couldn't stay long, so thankfully there wasn't much of an issue with them.

  Three of the Reno cops left when the firemen left as well, but a state trooper showed up next, and he interviewed all of them. Peg was getting tired by then, and it took a little extra distraction and work to keep them focused on what she wanted them to see as the sun started to come up over the mountains to the east.

  Thankfully they were all men, and easily distracted as both she and Sheila got a little 'careless' with their robes and exposed the lacy underwear that they were wearing underneath to distract the officers whenever things got a little difficult on the spell.

  Eventually, someone showed up in a station wagon to give Jon, the pilot, and the other two guys a ride back to their home airport, and after they left, the police all left with a stern warning not to touch anything until after the FAA investigator got there.

  Which being a Sunday probably wouldn't be until after twelve.

  "Thank goodness that's over with," Peg said and let the spell drop as the last of the police cars pulled out of the gate at the bottom of the hill. Looking around she shivered, there were still quite a few dead bodies lying around, several weapons, body parts, and shell casings everywhere. It really did look like a battleground. She'd have to talk to Jolene about cleaning up the mess before the FAA guy got here.

  "Thanks, all of you, and thanks Markey."

  Chad

  "Okay," Chad said looking around at his captains, "we've got word that they fled on foot heading north east a good thirty minutes ago. I detailed a couple of scouts to head up to where we believe they parked their vehicles and to keep an eye open for any singletons or groups coming back here directly.

  "Best guess is that once they gather themselves up, they'll return here. I honestly can't see them going anywhere else. We will stop them, talk a little sense into them, and take them with us when we leave."

  "How are we going to talk sense into them?" Max, his girlfriend, had asked.

  Chad snorted, "With clubs if we have to! Just no silver, and let's avoid shooting them too, okay? They're going to be demoralized, they were just routed, and from what I gather, they lost over half of their effective fighting force, between casualties, prisoners, and outright defections."

  "What about any mages that we find?" Baron asked.

  "That depends on if they resist or not." Chad sighed, "Honestly? I'd like to just kill all of them, but Sean's made it clear that he doesn't want this to turn into an 'Us versus Them' war. So, if they run, let 'em go. If they fight, take 'em down. If they surrender, tell them to strip, relieve them of whatever they have, then send them packing in their underwear.

  "Now, here's how I want you to deploy along the road...."

  Chad spent the next fifteen minutes detailing everyone, along with a couple of snipers to shoot out the tires on any vehicles coming up the road towards the Vestibulum's compound, which was a couple miles away from where he had everyone set up.

  He deployed scouts behind him, just in case they became a problem, but after the mess they'd left back there, and with no lycans left on the property, Chad didn't think they'd be feeling very adventurous right now.

  Chad also set aside two groups of men to intercept any singletons his scouts reported coming back on foot, or on paw perhaps in this case.

  It was approaching four a.m. when Chad got the call from Ryan, who he'd sent out with his scouts.

  "Chad, we've got three tractor-trailers heading your way."

  "That's all?"

  "Yup, they left four more behind; I th
ink they didn't have anyone left to drive 'em. Our man Bryce has a wrecker, want me to call him to pick them up?"

  "Do it. Last thing we need is for anyone else to get involved. Did you see any stragglers heading this way on foot?"

  "If any split off, they did it before they got to the trucks. The only reason we found them so easily was because they were milling around them for quite a while. Best I can figure it out there are five or six mages left on foot, maybe another dozen who looked to be wounded, and probably something like a hundred to a hundred and fifty lycans with them."

  "Okay, text me and Max their license plates and a general description of the type of truck, then send some of your people to follow and keep an eye on them. Have the rest sweep the area looking for any incriminating evidence that they might have dropped during their retreat. We've got our welcome ready for them here."

  "Okay, Chad, I'll get right on it."

  After relaying the information to his men, Chad checked on everyone's position one last time then settled down to wait the fifteen minutes it should take the trucks to arrive.

  When they showed up, the three trucks were coming up the road slowly, in tight formation. When the tires on the first one were shot out, the one behind it ran into it as the driver was too slow to hit the brakes when it suddenly stopped.

  The third one stopped in time, but before the driver could even think of backing up, all of the tires on the tractor for that truck were quickly shot out. Thankfully his snipers had suppressed rifles, so the sound of the second truck hitting the first one was the loudest part of the whole ambush.

  The doors of the trucks flew open then, and as the people driving jumped out, they all suddenly noticed that there were bright red dots on their jackets. All but one of them raised their hands, the one that didn't started casting a spell. However, the back of his head coming off as he was shot in the face put an immediate end to that.

  "Do as you are told, and you will be let go," Max called out. "We don't want to kill anyone; we just want to free your lycans. However, if you try anything, you'll be killed. If you trigger any pellets, you'll all be killed.