by John Conroe
Suddenly a point of light, just a pinprick of white, appeared above the top of the big dome, glowing like a newborn star.
“Don’t look directly at it,” I warned my young charge.
“It’s hard to take my eyes off it,” she whispered back.
“Look at the monitors,” I suggested.
On the tracking screen, a red dot representing the rocket tube was almost directly over the little diamond of blue that represented our position.
“Firing,” Declan said, sounding distracted.
A tiny star over our heads suddenly shot upward, gone in less than the blink of an eye. The tracking monitor showed a white spot rising rapidly toward the red target. The real-time view of the tumbling rocket tube suddenly flared white, so bright, it blotted out the picture for a microsecond. It cleared rapidly, forming into a ball of glowing gases that disappeared almost as soon as we saw them.
“Direct hit,” Omega said, a pleased smile on his avatar’s face. “Approximately ninety-seven percent consumption of target.”
“Yes!” Declan said, jumping up and looking back at us.
“Is lucky shot,” Arkady rumbled, frowning.
“Don’t care,” Nika said to him, holding out her hand. “Pay up.”
Grumbling, the giant vampire reached into a bag at his feet and pulled an ornate knife in an equally ornate sheath and despite his clear annoyance, gently set it in her outstretched hand.
“Any other wagers that need to be settled at this time?” Omega asked.
“Ours are based on the first three shots,” Chris said, his eyes gleaming, “And we’ll settle them privately.”
“Retch,” Lydia said. “Get a room.”
“I’ve got the whole building,” Tanya replied.
“Use it, and be mindful of my niece and nephew,” the tiny vampire shot back.
“Next target in thirteen minutes and six seconds,” Omega said. “Avail yourselves of the snack buffet now please or hold your peace.” A countdown timer appeared on all three of the big screens.
My witch dropped his personal circle and exchanged high fives with Mack, Bruce Devany, two of the security guys, and, very oddly, Katrina, as he headed straight for me.
“I did it!” he said, grabbing me in a tight hug. The satisfaction I felt through our bond was palpable. He’d been carrying a lot of doubt these last few weeks.
“Was that the first successful shot?” Kristin asked.
“I clipped one last week, but that really was a lucky shot. This nano stuff is exactly what I need. Like having a red dot sight on a rifle or handgun.”
“What was it? That thing you fired. It wasn’t a laser beam; it moved too slow,” Kristin said.
“Plasma,” Chet Atkins said from just behind Declan, who turned and high-fived him.
“Isn’t that extremely difficult to control? And how did you contain it through over twenty thousand miles?”
“He can generate and control extremely complex magnetic fields,” Chet said.
“Get your snacks, folks. Father, time to prepare,” Omega said.
Long-fingered hands slipped up to cradle my head and then my witch’s lips were pressed against mine in a long kiss. He tasted of smoke, rich earth, the tang of the ocean, and the clean air of the mountains. I love kissing my witch when all of his powers are in full force. He moved to pull away, but I grabbed him and returned the kiss with one of my own. His eyes read the promise in mine and he grinned as I finally allowed him to back away.
“Double retch,” a snarky voice said from behind me.
“Watch the mosquitoes,” I warned Declan without turning around. “They’re buzzing quite loudly tonight.”
“But they bite so deliciously,” Bruce Devany said quietly.
“Ewww,” I said simultaneously with another female voice. I turned and saw that Tanya was staring at the werewolf and the pixie-sized vampire, her expression a mirror of my own.
“You have ten minutes and eighteen seconds,” Omega announced with the resigned patience of a schoolteacher.
We gathered our food and beverages, resettled in our seats, and watched my witch blow a0n old French satellite in half. He was dissatisfied that his blast had only destroyed thirty-eight percent of the dead spacecraft, but his final shot of the night obliterated the entirety of the second-stage portion of an Indian PSLV rocket, right down to the paint on its surface.
“Where is he getting the power?” Kristin asked. “It’s gotta be crazy enormous.”
“He has options, especially in a city as vibrant and active as New York, but for these shots, he’s borrowing from a couple of Earth Elementals deep under the bedrock below us,” I told her as we helped finish off the last of the snacks.
“These are baby shots,” Chris said, wiping his rib-sauce-covered mouth with the back of his hand. “He could do them from his own sources, but the point is to learn to harness and use the power of elementals.”
“Imagine if he tapped into a volcanic elemental,” I said to her.
“He could clean up the debris fields up there,” she said.
“He is… one target at a time,” Omega said, suddenly standing next to us. He didn’t always walk his avatar, instead sometimes just disappearing and reappearing as fast as light.
The party was breaking up, Chris and Tanya already gone with the twins. Lydia and Bruce had disappeared, and the security folks had all vanished as well.
“That was really cool,” Kristin said with a yawn.
“Yes, it was,” I agreed. “We’re hitting the range tomorrow and we’re going to do live action shooting. Kind of a combination of IDPA targets and steel plate shooting. You don’t have to join in.”
“Oh, I’ll be there,” she said, nodding. “And I’ll never pick on you about your shooting again!” she said to Declan.
“Well, never again is a long time. You might want to reserve some trash talk for emergencies,” he said easily, still humming internally from his success.
“Okay, well, goodnight. See you at training tomorrow.”
“Yeah, see you at training,” I agreed, lacing my fingers in Declan’s.
She left and we lingered for a moment to let the rest head out in front of us. Finally, he turned to me. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s doing great, and only going to get better. Now, stop talking about my pretty protégé and kiss me.”
He did as I ordered.
The Webs We Weave
Just what does it take to be the right hand of the Coven’s future?
Sometimes I leave the Tower on foot and sometimes I choose a driver from the security staff, but my favorite method, given the choice, is Brunhilda. Hilda’s a BMW G310 motorcycle, fast and powerful, and not so big that I look ridiculous on her. Like I would hand ammunition to Chris or Declan. Gotta make those clowns work for it.
Momma Chapman, God rest her soul, warned me over and over about the dangers of riding on a motorcycle. I’m sure she stayed awake many a night picturing me roaring off into the dark on the back of some hooligan’s Indian or, gasp, Harley. But I sincerely doubt she ever pictured me actually driving a two-wheeled road rocket. Don’t worry, Momma, I’m much more durable than I used to be back in your day.
I pulled into Manhattan traffic, which almost instantly came to a complete stop for no reason known to man. That’s the other good thing about Brunhilda—she doesn’t do traffic jams, which is perfect because I can’t stand being late.
A fast weave through frozen cars for three blocks and then a right turn brought me into active traffic, which let me open her up a bit. Tanya was in Lisle’s capable hands for the moment, with Omega watching over her shoulder, so I was free to focus on tonight’s meet. Honestly, she could just rely on Omega, but our young vampire queen prefers the personal touch. She worries she has too little humanity, which on the face of it seems reasonable, as she’s never been human—regular human, that is. But if you know her, if she lets you see through the armored business face that she presents to the wor
ld, then you realize she’s more human than most. Certainly more than the average narcissistic sociopathic CEO you meet these years.
Quickly enough, I loaded onto I-478 and then down into the tunnel that would bring me to Brooklyn. Traffic was busy, but we already established that Hilda sneers at traffic, and I got to Brighton Beach at least ten minutes early. I’d prefer fifteen or twenty, but you take what you get. Ten would let me do a fast recon of the area around the Russian restaurant where the meeting was set.
I can hear you, ya know? Recon the meet, Lydia? Really? With Omega on overwatch? Hey, technology is awesome and I’m the first girl to jump on that bandwagon, but Papa Chapman didn’t raise no frail daisy. “Always do your own homework, pumpkin. Be your own person, stand on your own feet.” Eighty years later, his advice sticks with me more now than it did then.
Was Omega close at hand? Yup. Dark shadows in the night sky had followed me all the way from Demidova Tower, but keeping my own eyes open and my own nose to the wind had saved me too many times to count long before Omega was a line of code in his punk-ass father’s mind.
Nice to have backup though.
Rodnaya Strana was hopping tonight, the cuisine a hit with locals and tourists alike. Nevermind that its name translated to Motherland and that it was owned by a prominent Russian gang. Happy families dining in the main part would be horrified to know some of the things that went on in the private, gang-member-only parts.
I passed the venue twice before pulling up to the main entrance and parking Hilda in a spot too narrow for even a European-sized car. I didn’t bother to take her key. Nobody would be taking Hilda on me, not with an insectile microdrone living under her plastic skirts, not with the runes that Witch Wonder had carved into her very frame. She would only start for me, and anyone touching her would likely get only one electrical shock before Omega escalated his punishment.
I entered the front door, ignored the Russian model playing hostess, and smiled for the security camera near the ceiling over her station. The uberskinny thing flinched when she saw me but said nothing, choosing to look at her phone instead, attempting to look bored and above Earthly matters.
A right turn led me through an employees-only door and into a long hallway. More cameras monitored my progress and I gave each one my brightest smile. But no fang. I’m not that kinda girl.
The hallway took a sharp left and two big bruisers stood guard over the door at the end. Neither said a word as I approached but both of their heart rates picked up and I don’t think it was due to the motorcycle leathers I was rocking… at least not entirely. One of the sides of beef looked straight through me but the other one gave me a wink and a flicker of a smile. Ah, adrenaline junkie.
Winky pulled the door open for me and I never even slowed down. I found myself in the reception area, another Russian beauty manning the secretary’s… excuse me… personal assistant’s desk beside the only other door in the room.
This one looked me dead in the eye with a thousand-yard stare that promised she had seen things that would make a homicide detective lose their lunch. She raised one eyebrow in a cool manner, in a way that said she knew both who and what I was, but still wasn’t even slightly impressed. “Svetlana Kuznetsova, former Russian Foreign Intelligence Service operative, recently employed by Michail Yahontov,” said a tiny voice in my ear, the words accompanied by the creepy crawly feeling of the microdrone hiding in my hair.
“You’re new,” I said in Russian. “Svetlana, is it? I heard there were cuts in the SVR budget, what with the government regulated to being just a computer’s puppet.”
She was young, not even thirty, and I was impressed that her poker face stayed in place even as her heartbeat stuttered.
Her blank expression become downright stony and her right hand twitched ever so very slightly toward the blank screen embedded in her desktop.
“I’d ask you announce me, but it’s been taken care of,” I said, still in her birth tongue as I breezed past her and through the door just as her telecom gear chimed.
“Michail, how’s things?” I asked the man himself, switching to English. His finger was still touching his intercom button.
Michail Yahontov had been the boss of this particular sub gang for over ten years. He was now in his mid-forties, trim and fit, at the peak of his facilities, showing just a bit of gray at his temples.
His office was ultra-modern, minimalist with a glass-top desk that was more table than office furniture. The whole top was a touch-sensitive screen and there were no drawers or privacy panel to hide his suited legs.
Sitting to my left were his right and left-hand men, Sacha and Timofey. Sacha was his numbers and information guy, Timofey his number one enforcer. I had dealt with them, many times.
“You should take care, Lydia. Not all of my people are intimidated by your special nature,” Michail said with a frown. “I would hate for an accident to happen.”
“Who? Your ex-SRV vamp hunter, Svetlana? Please. And we both know that if anything happens to me, you would all die, accident or no accident. Hell, the ramifications would go all the way back to rodnaya strana.”
He frowned, as did Timofey. Sacha kept his face passive.
“You take the protection of your computer overlord for granted. Has no one ever told you that’s not wise?”
“Computer schmooter. I’m talking about the Coven, Chris Gordon, Tatiana, and, oh yeah, the Warlock who can kill you all from his bedroom. Wouldn’t even have to change out of his pajamas.”
Michail smiled thinly, but his eyes were unamused. “As amusing as it is to exchange threats, to what, pray tell, do we owe the dubious honor of your visit?”
“You just started trafficking girls. Stop.”
He was silent while his business guy, Sacha, narrowed his eyes at me. Timofey was trying for a death stare but once you’ve seen an extremely old vampire do it, mere humans pale by comparison.
“While not admitting to anything you’ve accused me of, I would say you should touch base with your own people first.”
“Next stop on my list, Mikey,” I said. “Your first and only shipment was intercepted at sea. The girls have all been freed. Your shipping partners did not survive the experience.”
A jolt of worry crossed Sacha’s face while Michail’s went blank.
“And before you point out that rescuing the girls at sea was a rookie mistake and we should have waited, well, we already know who ordered the shipment in Europe. They won’t be ordering any more, so you can go ahead and delete them from your contacts. Free up a little memory on your phone.”
“You meddle in things that have a delicate balance,” Michail finally said.
“See, you got it wrong, but you’re using the right word. Balance. It’s pretty important to some of us. Ending sex trafficking is a great way to help balance the universe.”
“You spew philosophical gibberish,” Michail said.
“Actually, no. Let’s say you’re about to fight a war with an ancient race of space-faring beings and you anticipate killing huge numbers of them with violence on a scale never seen on this world. It’s entirely possible that if you found yourself in such a situation, you might seek to balance the scales of karma by ending certain crimes against humanity. Every little bit helps, right?”
Michail frowned at me. “She’s talking about the witch,” Sacha said. His boss turned the frown on him. He shrugged. “Witches are always going on about balance. This kid’s the one that shot that space saucer outta the air in Philly.”
“You are interfering in our operations because of a twenty-something witch?” Michail asked me.
“Interfering because it’s the right thing to do. And it’s more of a team thing. Our witch might have come up with it but we’re all looking for a little balance here.”
“This warlock doesn’t have enough enemies… He’s gotta pick us too?” Michail asked.
“You got this all backward. It’s not about us having more enemies, it’s about you having us fo
r enemies. I mean, we have some doozies, like the Queens of Fairie and the Vorsook themselves, but oddly we’ve been eliminating all the other ones, not adding to them. You know… minimize the distractions before the big game and all that? Those guys in Europe? Or the ones on the ship? They’re not our enemies… not anymore. They’re not anything. So that’s why I’m here. Stop grabbing girls or you won’t be anything anymore either,” I said, tilting my head while I waited to see if they understood.
The muscles in Michail’s jaw clenched and unclenched and Timofey started to stand up. I moved behind him and shoved down on his shoulders. His butt hit the seat hard and he would have fallen over backward but I held him in place, my feet Posted to the ground.
He tried to stand but found he couldn’t move me at all. “You think I can’t end this discussion with all of you here and now? By myself?” I asked, looking over Timofey’s head at the other two. “And your ex-spy too? I gotta say, Mikey, I’m a little hurt. Sure, I run with the big dogs, but I’ve been bleeding out guys like you since before your parents forgot to practice safe sex.”
Sacha’s right hand was straying toward his waistband. I moved again, swatting Timmy into unconsciousness and then picking Sacky up by his neck and removing the 9mm he was going for. I threw him across the room while I examined the gun. It was German, I think, but then I’m not a gun geek like Chris. It had a nifty suppressor on it which came in handy when Sweaty Lana came through the door with a tidy little machine pistol of some kind in her hands. I shot her through both shoulders before she could even focus on me. Then I moved to Mikey and put the hot business end of the suppressor up his left nostril.
“Do I take your people’s actions at face value or are you the guy who actually calls the shots?” I asked him.
“I’m in charge,” he said.
“Then tell me… are we enemies?” I asked.
Slowly, so slowly, he shook his head. I let him sweat a second, then pulled the gun from his nose. “Good to hear. It’s way too early in my night for a bloodbath,” I said. Then I reached up and plucked some hair from his head. After tossing the pistol across the room, where it stuck grip-first into the sheetrock, I put the hair in an envelope from his desk. On my way to the door, I plucked some from the two henchmen.
