by John Conroe
“Mr. Chris, there’s a Darkkin man down thataway, and a wolf guy, too,” Toni suddenly added, her little arm indicating the row of cells. I couldn’t hear anything from those guys, but then, they were probably smart enough to avoid catching his attention.
The ground shook and the loudest roar I have ever heard blasted the room as a monster plowed through the cell block doorway. So big and so many teeth filled my view that it took me much longer than it should have to realize it was a gigantic bear. Black fur over brown, head almost even with my own as it raced in, eyes glowing red as it bulldozed the broken doorway wider. It thundered into the room, stopping just behind the man, who hadn’t even twitched. Caeco was simply gone, ten feet or more further back in the room, and my magic had decided to present itself without consulting me first—blue arcs snapping around my hands.
Toni was squirming in the man’s arms, trying to get down, but he turned and lifted her onto the monster behind them. She wriggled around, smiling, and I realized she was getting comfortable! On the back of the biggest bear I’d ever heard of. Like she did it every day.
The monster’s head swiveled back and sniffed her, a massive tongue flicking out to lick her here and there. Its head was so big that if it had liked the taste of child, it could have consumed her whole in one bite. She giggled. Then the head came back around and the eyes, which were now brown, went red again.
“Declan, don’t do anything sparky, okay? You’ll just make him mad,” Toni said to me, a worried expression on her face, and the blue fire on my fingers died all on its own. She was riding at least a half ton of what looked to be a Kodiak brown bear and her godfather stood in front of it watching us.
“Yo? Everyone alright?” a voice asked. A movie star stood in the doorway with a big assault-looking gun in her hands. Blonde, beautiful, and wearing form-fitting black clothes, she was looking us all over, eyes flicking here and there but always coming back to the man.
“I’m with the relief force. We found the mess you left all through this place, so I headed here. Heard fur face here announcing himself,” she said, relaxed and calm, her hair swinging as she threw a nod toward the monster bear. “Hey Toni, you okay?”
“Yes, Miss Stacia. I told them that they would be sorry. That Mr. Chris and Miss Tanya would come and ‘Sos—” she patted the beast under her “—and everyone and it would be real bad. I told them that Mr. Chris would be angry,” she finished, glancing at her godfather with a worried expression. He turned to the giant bear and grabbed it by the jaw, his hand absurdly small against the massive head. Dispite the size difference, when he shook his hand, it moved the keg-sized head.
“You—get her out of here. Do not stop to fight with anything—got it? Just kill anything in your way, but head straight out,” he said, like the bear understood English.
He looked up at the little girl. “You—stay on the bear! Hang on tight; both fists full of fur!” he commanded. Toni nodded, grasping her hands deep into the thick black fur.
Then his violet eyes were on us—Caeco and me. “You two: follow them and get out. There will be people upstairs that’ll help you get home,” he said. His voice was insistent and concerned, and his face was more alive, almost normal. The serial killer had stepped away. The concerned godfather was in residence.
He looked over at the movie star. She had that big combat weapon resting butt-first on her cocked hip, which only emphasized her figure more.
“Stewart upstairs?” he asked her. She simply nodded, eyes glued to his. “Follow this crew and make sure they all get out all right. Stewart should meet these guys,” he said, waving a hand our way, even as we moved around him to follow the bear. “I’m gonna find Tanya and have a chat with whoever took Toni,” he said, his voice changing—getting deeper and more threatening. The serial killer was back.
“Time to go, everybody. Grimmy’s gonna smack somebody,” the blonde said, making shooing motions toward the bear.
The big beast was already headed through the now-almost-circular doorway. I saw Caeco snag a bag from the ground, something that Miseri had dropped when she had come back the second time and found us out of our cages. Then we were out of the cell block and moving toward the stairwell, almost at a full run. The bear plowed ahead, a fur-covered combat tank that knocked any obstacle out of his path.
Caeco was fast, keeping close to the kid and her bear, and it was all I could do to keep up. I glanced behind, expecting to have lost the blonde chick, but she was right there, jogging along effortlessly. Maybe not a movie star.
We passed through a steel door and into a gray room. Blood pooled on the floor around a number of big bodies. Shell casings made the footing dicey for a moment as we moved across the room. The bear ignored the dark doorways on either side, slowing only to cuff something big and black out of his path with a growl. I glanced at it as I ran by and realized it had once been an ape—a giant gorilla with a metal electronic collar. Now it was a broken heap of worm food.
Then we were climbing stairs again, coming out into a confusing space that looked like movie sets. A small forest, a town street, the inside of an apartment building, one after the other, each littered with little machines. Some with legs, some with treads, a few with wings, they all appeared to be robots or maybe advanced drones, all broken, a couple pinned to the walls with what looked like darts. Interesting, but my group didn’t slow down enough for me to get a good look.
Another stairwell approached, this one with people coming out of it. A tall man and a tiny woman, both very pale, stepped out then immediately blurred to one side, giving the bear tank right of way.
“Alright, Toni!” the little dark-haired woman said, giving the girl a wave and a nod. Toni just smiled and hung on for dear life as her grizzly horse ran past. Then the little woman turned and looked at Caeco and I curiously. Tiny points of white, white fang were just visible against the brilliant red of her lips. Another vampire.
She frowned a little at the blonde behind me, but nodded without a word and waved her giant friend to follow her as she headed toward where we had come from .
A string of bodies showed up on the next floor above, getting steadily more numerous as we climbed yet more stairs. They were all clothed in black uniforms and all dead from mainly head wounds. Then we went through a tunnel, into a circular command center, up spiral stairs, through vault doors, and up another tunnel and into a house. Didn’t expect that. Looked like a nice place to live except for the dead bodies around the fireplace. More guards in uniforms. Blood everywhere. A body-less head lying by the wall. White walls splashed red.
The bear went through the average-looking doorway, leaving it looking larger by two sizes of broken wood and sheet rock. We followed, still at a jog, emerging into a wide open space that was humming with activity.
Four black military helicopters were positioned around us on what appeared to be a runway. Heavily armed soldiers in digital camouflage surrounded the area, keeping watch as people and material was being loaded onto the copters. It was like Delta Force had come to rescue us. Or maybe rescue the girl. Or most likely of all… here to mop up after the guy in the torn t-shirt got done dismembering the base.
Chapter 40 – Declan
“Over here, this way,” our blonde escort directed, taking us toward a slim, white-haired man in a black suit. He looked like a really lean Colonel Sanders, with a white mustache and goatee. A compact woman with dark hair stood to his side, working an iPad but watching us approach.
“Director Stewart, got some people for you to meet,” our bombshell said as we got closer. The man had a black cane which he used as he moved forward to join us. He limped very slightly, and I got the impression that the cane was more of an accessory than a needed crutch.
“Miss Reynolds and Toni! Are you alright, my dear?” he asked the girl, looking up at her. He patted the giant bear in an unthinking manner as he concentrated on the little girl. These people were bizarre.
“Hi, Mr. Stewart. Hi, Miss Adine,” Toni sa
id, relaxing her handholds of fur and sitting upright. The compact woman had moved up alongside the man, Stewart, and she smiled, slightly, at Toni. Her expression smoothed back to a serious poker face.
“Okay, fur face. Hunker down a bit,” Stacia said to the bear. He just looked at her, but she huffed slightly in exasperation and he relented, lowering his body so she could grab the child.
As soon as Toni’s feet hit the ground, though, he sat up and wrapped one giant paw around her to pull her into the cave formed by his chest and front legs. His paw covered her entire torso from shoulders to thigh, the cruelly hooked front claws carefully not touching her. She giggled.
Stacia pulled the platter-sized paw away to give Toni a thorough inspection, then let it go when she was satisfied with the girl’s condition.
“Yo, need a blanket over here and some water,” she yelled to no one in particular. Then she turned back to us. “Chris felt you should meet these two.”
I had heard quite a bit about the Director from Mike West, whose tone of voice always indicated vast respect when he mentioned his name. Interesting to meet the man in person. Not as tall as I expected, and older.
“Director, this is Declan and she’s Caeco. They’re...” Stacia started, but he interrupted.
“Oh, I know who they are! Michael West has told me so much about you both. I’m as happy to see you both safe as I am Toni. Not happy that I’ve failed to keep all three of you safe, though. I’m sure you’re as disappointed with me as Chris must be?” he asked, slightly sad but still chipper.
“Chris is upset with himself, Director,” Stacia said as she accepted a blanket from a slightly anxious technician and began to wrap the little girl. “He sees Toni’s safety as his responsibility and his alone.”
The bear growled, sounding like a bulldozer engine. “I know ‘Sos, but that’s how he sees it,” she answered. The growling stopped.
“You have a very good insight with him, Miss Reynolds,” Stewart said, looking interested.
Stacia snorted. “I think you know it’s a bit more than that, Director. But can I leave these two with you? I’m gonna get Toni loaded onto one of the birds.”
“Certainly, Miss Reynolds.”
“’Sos, you can’t get on a chopper like that—you’re too heavy. Change,” she said to the bear as she scooped the little blanket-wrapped girl up and started walking. The bear growled, but then the most amazing thing happened. It shimmered, its outline blurring and pulsing with a violet light. It shrank and a huge wolf stood in its place—a black and tan wolf with exactly the same coloring, markings, and eyes, just much smaller. Smaller as in only Shetland pony-sized instead of Mini Cooper-sized. It trotted after the blonde and the tiny child, its head swiveling to scan the night.
“Most unusual, wouldn’t you say?” Director Stewart observed.
“What is he?” Caeco asked.
“No one knows. Chris calls him a were-bear-wolf. Like so many things in Chris’s life, Awasos defies explanation,” he answered. “But back to you two. We did a poor, poor job protecting you. I am very sorry about that. What do they say? Three strikes and you’re out?”
“Well, Director Stewart, Miseri was a world-class operative and she’s been in charge of my security my whole life. She was very persistent,” Caeco replied.
“Is she no longer with us?” he asked.
“We—I killed her,” she said. “I overheard her being ordered to use Toni hostage against her godfather. Declan was able to free himself and then me. We stopped her.”
I moved over and put a hand on her arm. Not sure exactly why, it just seemed… right. I know Caeco had killed a man before, in self-defense. So have I. But both were strangers—hostile, life-threatening strangers. This woman, Miseri, had been part of Caeco’s entire life. That had to change things.
“Is that her bag?” I asked, patting the desert tan duffle still slung over Caeco’s shoulder.
“Oh yeah. I forgot. I heard something inside it,” she answered, pulling the duffle around in front of her and unzipping the top. A marmalade-colored head popped out with a tiny, almost soundless meow.
“A kitten? She had a kitten?” I asked. Hard to balance a pet kitten with the dangerous agent who had captured and imprisioned us both.
“Talon. Her name is Talon,” Caeco said, reading the tiny tag on the kitten’s collar.
“Well, it appears you are now a pet owner,” Stewart said with a smile. “You’re also both Seniors this year, am I correct?”
“Yes sir,” I answered for both of us.
“College plans, I presume?”
“That’s what I hope, but nothing concrete yet. I’m not sure about Caeco,” I said, looking at her.
“We never got that far in our planning. The goal was just to integrate and disappear,” she replied with a shrug.
“I have a feeling that I’m going to be busy for a while with all this, but at the end of it, AIR should be mostly shattered. I’d like to offer you an opportunity. We’ll pay for college, the institution of your choice, and in return, you’ll work with us on a part-time basis.”
“Doing what?” I asked after a glance at Caeco.
“This and that. Helping train our people. Maybe help with a case here or there. Continue your own training.”
“So what, like an academy or something?” I asked, thinking he wasn’t bald enough to be Professor Xavier.
“Nothing so rigid, Declan. My idea is to help train the next generation of operatives. More of a guided program. College courses mixed with more specialized training, all overseen by a guidance counselor of sorts.”
“Just us?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Oddly, I have recently become acquainted with or aware of an unlikely number of incredibly unique teenagers, most right around your age. I thought I would let the two of you pick a college and, providing that its course catalogue offers enough breadth, then we would set up the additional training facilities nearby. We can talk more later; right now, I think it would be a good idea to get you loaded into a chopper.”
His assistant was already waving over an air crewman to take charge of us. We followed the young guy in a flight suit to the helicopter next to the one that Stacia had taken Toni and the wolf to.
After getting his help with the complicated seatbelt arrangement, we sat back and looked at each other.
“Thank you,” Caeco said.
I tried to remember what I had done. The crewman had done most of the belt work and mainly on me, as Caeco appeared to be familiar with Blackhawk helicopters. So that wasn’t it. Nothing else popped up.
“For what?” I finally asked.
“For clearing the nannites programming. For giving me myself back,” she said, a scary glimmer of something tearlike in the corner of her eye.
“Well, that was complete and utter bullshit!” I said, glancing away, a little embarrassed. I looked back to see she was moving closer to me. Like real close. Her hand moved, wicked quick, and grabbed the back of my head. An irresistible force pulled me to her lips.
It wasn’t my first kiss. But it was the first kiss that really meant anything other than overexcited hormones. She pulled back with sly smile, but her eyes were watching me: careful, vulnerable.
“If you think you can retrieve your lost nannites that way, I’ll have you know it’s going to take a lot more than one kiss,” I said. “Oh, and we should probably double-check that the command phrase doesn’t work anymore.”
Her eyebrows arched. “You mean the command that now makes me take off my clothes?”
“Well, that’s what I think it might do. Wouldn’t want to find out that it still froze you, now would we?”
“Boys are incredibly transparent,” she said with a sniff, but she was smiling when she said it.
A commotion outside stole our attention.
The security personnel were focused on the chalet’s front door, several of them touching their earpieces as if listening.
The door opened and a black-ha
ired goddess stood there, surveying the area. Then she glided forward, too smooth for words to describe. She was average height, but that was the last time I applied the word average to her. Black hair, white skin, and eyes that I could tell were blue from two hundred feet away despite the uneven glare of the security lights. She was wearing boots of some kind, jeans, and a black t-shirt, all of which hugged an incredible figure. She had a crisscrossed harness that probably held the two swords poking over her back but definitely did rather fascinating things to her shirt.
Immediately following her was the tiny vampire we had met below, then Toni’s godfather and lastly, the big guy who most likely was also a vampire by the way he moved.
Chris looked like he had been through hell, his shirt torn completely open at the chest and looking wet with something dark and drippy. But his skin was unbroken, just ridiculously shredded with ultra-defined muscle. That kind of thing can give a kid a complex. I mean, I’m in pretty good shape, even have some six pack definition, but he looked like a damned comic book character. He stumbled once coming down the stairs and the huge guy behind him hovered in a strangely protective manner but didn’t actually touch him. It wasn’t necessary, as Chris’s gait smoothed out within four or five steps and became as smooth as the vampires’.
