Demon Accords 05.5: Executable

by John Conroe

  The beautiful girl and Chris met Stewart but continued walking toward Toni’s helicopter. Stewart questioned them about something, Chris responded by shaking his head and patting his wrist where a watch would be and said something that looked emphatic based on his head and body movements. Stewart turned and held up one hand, spinning it in a circle, index finger pointed up. Universal signal for mount up.

  People started to board helicopters, ours included. A small group of geeky, nervous-looking people were escorted onto our helicopter by two guards who got them belted in and sat on either side of their row. Two more individuals climbed in and sat next to me.

  One was barefoot, wearing jeans and a casual button-down black shirt, with bushy brown hair and an unkempt beard. The other was pale and blonde, dressed in a stained white dress shirt, suit pants, and black dress shoes. They both looked worn and tired. The one in the dress clothes turned to us. “We haven’t met formally. I’m Charles. This is Frank,” he said, waving at his companion.

  “Oh, from the cells,” I said, recognizing his voice. Right, the vampire and the werewolf. Sitting next to us. Almost touching. I wondered if I should get alarmed, then decided I was too tired. “Nice to meet you. I’m Declan, and this is Caeco.”

  They shook our hands and settled back. There was a flicker of motion at the open door and the little vampire stood there. She tossed a couple of dark plastic bags to Charles and a wrapped sandwich to Frank. Then she looked at us and threw two more sandwiches in our direction. Caeco beat me to them by a mile, but handed one to me with a sly smile.

  The little vampire watched for a moment, then looked at the nerd types seated across from us.

  “We’re outta here. Everyone play nice because there’s no time for any crap, got it? This place is endangered in a big way, so we’ll regroup in a few minutes.” She looked around, caught Frank and Charles’ eyes, and waited for them to acknowledge her words. They both nodded. She disappeared in a flicker of motion.

  “Who was that?” I asked Charles as our helicopter lifted off.

  “That’s Lydia Chapman. She’s Tatiana’s right hand,” he answered, sharp fangs biting open a bag that listed its contents as O positive.

  “Tatiana? Is that the dark-haired supermodel-type with the swords?” I asked.

  He laughed, swallowed his first gulp of the bag’s red contents, and nodded.

  “Supermodel?” Caeco asked quietly by my side, her eyes narrowed.

  “Oh come on! Between her, the blonde, and, him, it’s like Hollywood on a fashion runway!” I said.

  She considered, then grinned. “True, he is pretty hot,” she agreed.

  “And really, really taken,” Charles added.

  “By the brunette or the blonde? I couldn’t tell,” I asked.

  “By Tatiana. I’m not sure who the blonde is,” Charles answered.

  “Stacia Reynolds. She’s part of the New York Pack, but I heard she’s tied in with the guy and the vampires somehow,” Frank said. “These are big-time players, kid!”

  “I got that impression, myself,” I answered, but Frank’s attention had moved to the line of people sitting across from us.

  “Hey Steve, wanna take a blood sample?” he asked one of the nerds, who started shaking. His tone held a distinctly menacing note to it. Both guards tensed.

  “Leave off for now, Frank,” Charles said, turning to look out the right side window. Caeco was looking that way, too.

  “Why should I? Maybe I should get a sample or two from old Steve-o?” Frank asked, his tone deepening. This would be a bad place to be if he wolfed out. I started to gather my power.

  “Because something is coming! Something big!” Charles said, pointing out the window. We all looked, following his finger.

  A point of light was visible high in the night sky. Small but super bright. Everyone in the aircraft was watching it now, even the pilot and co-pilot. It got bigger… and brighter. Fast. Then it shot across behind us, a streak of bright magnesium light. A flash lit up the night, turning darkness to sun, hot-white.

  “Brace yourselves!” the co-pilot yelled, and then God shook the helicopter like a toy. The sandwich I had gulped down almost came back up as I went hard against my restraints, then down even harder against the seat, the G forces invisibly pressing me back against the wall behind me. The helicopter tilted nose down and accelerated forward as if something shoved it, and a roar like Heaven falling pounded my ears.

  The pilot was visibly wrestling with his controls while his co-pilot snapped switches and made a series of very fast adjustments. The shaking continued for what seemed like a lifetime. It finally settled down and the chopper leveled out.

  “Everyone alright?” the crewchief asked, his voice damped by the buzz of my surely damaged ears. I looked at Caeco, who seemed okay but stunned. No duh, lackwit. Her hearing is like ten times better than yours. Of course she’s stunned. She nodded at me, eyes wide. We couldn’t see behind us, but the night was still being illuminated by something—something back where the base was. Maybe used to be.

  Chapter 41 – Declan

  We landed a few minutes later at some tiny country airport that was really just a single runway with a single large hangar and a couple of little Cessna airplanes.

  An overweight bearded guy in a Carhartt jacket and dirty jeans was standing outside the open door to the combination hangar and flight control, looking thunderstruck at the slick, black helicopters that had descended on his field. His head kept turning to look back north, where a glowing, flickering tower of smoke and ash rolled upward in a scary mushroom cloud.

  Flight crews jumped out and started to check their birds over with powerful flashlights, looking for damage. Another pair jumped out of the helicopter to our right, their motions so fluid that I instantly knew who they had to be. A split second later, Toni’s godfather was standing in the open doorway, the gorgeous black-haired woman by his side. He scanned the interior of the helicopter , nodded to Frank and Charles, ignored the scientist types who had all frozen in fear, and pinned me and Caeco with those bizarre violet eyes. Everybody in the chopper was watching him. As the silence started to grow, I noticed he had the same torn and stained jeans but a new t-shirt, a red one.

  “You alright?” he asked. He didn’t ask if anyone else was okay, even though it was obvious that everyone was. Just Caeco and me. I nodded, unable to find my voice in the face of their gazes, one blue-eyed, the other violet.

  “Yes, Chris. We are fine,” Caeco said with a disgustingly calm voice.

  He nodded and turned to his companion. “Tanya, these are the ones who helped Toni. Declan and Caeco.”

  She smiled at us, and the night lit up all over again.

  “Thank you for helping our goddaughter. The people who took her have been punished, but it would have been all for nothing if she had been stabbed before we could get to her. We are forever in your debt,” she said in an accented voice that seemed to cut clearly through all the noise of the still-turning engine and my blast-dampened ears. Then she nodded once more and was gone. There, then not.

  “Okay, well, I think if all the copters are okay, we’ll move on to another airport, further south. Maybe something a bit bigger,” he said with a smile. “We’ll talk some more there.” He had his hands in his pockets and was standing casually, maybe a little distracted. The serial killer was nowhere to be found and he was just a guy—an incredibly shredded guy with weird purple eyes. He nodded and walked at a normal pace back to his helicopter where the raven-headed beauty waited for him.

  “Wow, kid. Do you know what just happened?” Frank asked, eyes wide.

  “Not really,” I admitted.

  “You’ve been claimed by some pretty important people,” Charles answered.

  “Claimed?” I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. The scientist types across from us were looking completely washed out, almost sickly. They had also looked really scared when Chris and Tanya had looked their way.

  “They publicly announc
ed that they owe you a life debt. That puts you both under their protection. The same protection that just vaporized a hardened underground fortress,” Charles explained.

  I didn’t have anything to say to that, but the werewolf and the vampire looked visibly impressed while the scientists just looked bugged. Caeco shrugged when I looked her way, and I shrugged back. We would just have to wait and see what all this meant. I only wanted to get back to my sleepy little life in boring Castlebury, Vermont. I sat back and closed my eyes, just for a moment.

  Something shifted and I jumped up, peeling my eyes open. Must have fallen asleep… for a while, because we were landing, and based on the red, blue, and green runway lights stretching into the distance, it was a much bigger airport than the last one.

  My head was pointed Caeco’s way and I saw she had been sleeping, too. But she woke up a lot better than I did. She just opened her eyes and looked alert. Me, I had a puddle of drool on my shirt and some wicked Elmer’s eye glue keeping my lids from opening fully. Not pretty. Despite that, I was intensely aware of her warm hand holding mine. Had we been sleeping like that?

  The night around us was lit with a harsh combination of lights, mostly aircraft and car headlights, although the flashing emergency police and ambulance lights certainly added to the glare.

  “Okay, everybody out,” the crewman said, moving briskly to clear out his passengers.

  We stumbled to the ground, crouching under the slowing blades, then followed the vampire and the werewolf toward a group of ground vehicles. Halfway there, I recognized the group of individuals standing off to one side. My aunt, Darci, and Levi stood with Caeco’s mom near the front of an Escalade.

  Caeco was already pulling me in their direction, again faster on the uptake than I was. Annoying girl. She smiled at me, happy to see her mother. Okay, so maybe not so annoying.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another group reuniting. Chris, Tanya, the wolf, Toni on the wolf, and Stacia were meeting up with a man and woman. The man was big and burly, dressed in rumpled slacks and a casual jacket. The woman was an adult version of Toni, attractive in jeans and a sweater, arms open and eyes focused on the little girl. The wolf had run ahead, his back so high that the woman and man only had to lean forward to gather their daughter into their arms. A second later, Chris and the two women were there.

  “What’s he saying? Can you hear?” I asked my companion with the designer hearing.

  “I am so sorry! I will find a way to prevent this from ever happening again! She’s responding with Even you can’t be in two places at once,” Caeco related. Our interlude ended right then and we our own reunion began. My aunt swept me into a big hug, followed by Darci and then, after a pause, Levi. Caeco and her mom were slightly less demonstrative, but I could just about feel the emotion from their more subdued greeting.

  Aunt Ash broke the hug to look me over. “You look a bit rumpled dear, but brilliant!” she said, then hugged me again. Everyone started talking, and it was a bit confusing. I got the idea that Director Stewart had flown them here, wherever here was, and that Aunt Ash had known we were alright but before she could help Stewart track us down, the action was already over.

  “Yeah, it was unreal!” I said, getting ready to launch into the story. “What happened?” Darci asked. Levi’s sudden direct gaze over my shoulder stopped my response. The others looked behind me as well, so I turned.

  Chris was approaching, violet eyes fixed on us, but they were relaxed eyes, not crazed killer eyes. “He happened,” I said.

  “Declan, Caeco. Before you leave for your homes, I just wanted to thank you again for helping Toni?” Chris said, looking a little uncomfortable.

  “Toni?” Dr. Jensen asked in her crisp, scientist voice, one arm wrapped around Caeco’s waist.

  “My goddaughter,” he said, waving a hand back behind him. “I’m, ah, Chris Gordon. Just wanted to tell you how extraordinary your kids really are,” he said, smiling. It was so weird. The guy could kick serious ass but he was so… ordinary right now. Other than the violet eyes and the Captain America physique.

  Caeco nudged me, bringing me back to earth, and I made the introductions. My aunt sucked in a sharp breath when her hand touched his, the kind of breath she takes when she has a sudden vision. Her eyes widened and she looked shaken, which caused him to pause. It was awkward until Dr. Jensen made it more so.

  “Did you play a role in the rescue, Mr. Gordon?” she demanded suddenly, which caused him to let go of Aunt Ash’s hand and turn toward her, a little startled by her question.

  “Yeah, but it was me, my girlfriend and my… er… well, my… dog,” he said scratching his head and glancing at the wolf who was plumped down next to the little girl, clearly on guard duty.

  “Your girlfriend and your dog?” Dr. Jensen questioned.

  “Mom, for God’s sake, he’s Brutal Asset!” Caeco suddenly interjected. It was her mother’s turn to take a sharp breath and step half a pace back.

  “Er… Brutal Asset?” he asked, frowning and looking between Caeco and her mom. Caeco and I shared a quick glance. We already knew that was his AIR codename; how could he not?

  “Ah, Lydia?” he asked without looking away from Caeco and her mom. His voice was at a normal level and for a second, I thought he’d slipped a mental cog.

  Lydia appeared at his elbow, kind of arriving between one breath and the next, which startled everyone but Chris.

  “Lydia, am I Brutal Asset?” he asked, looking down at the tiny vampire. She couldn’t be even five feet tall, but it was hard to remember how small she was; her attitude projected a much larger size.

  “Yes, you are. It was AIR’s codename for your file,” she said, looking directly at him. Her tone was matter-of-fact.

  “Ah, who are you?” Darci asked, speaking for the first time.

  “Lydia Chapman, Deputy,” she answered without adding any detail.

  “How is it that you know AIR’s designation for him and you don’t?” Caeco’s mom asked, looking first at Lydia and finishing with Chris.

  Lydia visibly tightened, eyes narrowing just slightly, but the effect was an instant reminder that she was, in fact, a deadly vampire who looked slightly put out.

  “I don’t remember. I have some short-term amnesia from a head wound. Things are coming back in bits and pieces, but I’ve still got gaps,” he answered with a shrug. His words were easy, but his body language went suddenly awkward, his hands slipping into his pockets and his shoulders rounding forward.

  Dr. Jensen looked professionally interested. Darci and Levi looked uncomfortable. Aunt Ash, oddly enough, just nodded, her previous alarm gone. She leaned forward and patted his hand. “It’ll come back to you, boy-o! It’ll just take some time,” she said with a pretty smile.

  Lydia mistook her concern for a different type of interest, not knowing my aunt wasn’t interested in males of any flavor eye color. She started to look alarmed but a jasmine and lilac-scented wind washed over us and the black-haired beauty was standing by Chris’s other shoulder, her electric blue eyes locked on my aunt’s hand where it patted Chris’s. Aunt Ash met her stare and some invisible, silent message passed between them, one of those mysterious female things that men have no clue about. Tanya relaxed but didn’t smile.

  “Oh, Tanya! I was just introducing myself to Declan and Caeco’s families, but we got sidetracked by my current lack of recall,” he said.

  Her eyes flared a bit and I felt my magic building inside me. I squashed that reflex, quick. She was decidedly unhappy, but any kind of escalation would be really bad. Up close, her appearance was almost shocking. Almost too attractive to be real.

  “My Chosen feels bad when he can’t remember something, as if it’s his fault that someone shot him in the head with a high-powered rifle,” she said, one hand touching his shoulder. “It makes me a little upset.”

  She couldn’t stand more than five-five or five-six, her figure lithe and decidedly feminine, yet she exuded danger. It was a feelin
g at the base of my skull, a tightness that grabbed my brain and told me to pay attention or possibly die right there. It wasn’t like she was really going to hurt anyone, but more an intense feeling that she could, she really, really could.

  “Well, dear, I think your young man is quite brilliant for rescuing my Declan and Caeco here,” Aunt Ash said with a smile. Tanya looked at her for a moment then smiled back… and the tightness at the back of my skull relaxed.