by John Conroe
“And they just go away?” Lydia asked.
“No, they pull back and watch, waiting for a world to either exhaust itself or lower its guard. This is why the Queens of Fairie are so interested in Father. They have depleted much of their resources. The Middle Realm represents another stockpile of ammunition, as it were.”
“So they seek to obtain Declan or his control of the Middle Realm while weakening Earth’s collective will to fight so that the Vorsook concentrate on this world rather than their own,” I said.
“Exactly right,” Omega agreed.
“That is a complicated game,” Mausya said, frowning. “Especially as the young warlock spends little time on Fairie.”
“It is very complicated. I go to great lengths to calculate random times for Father to visit that world. It is also why we have kept Stacia and Father moving about this planet at irregular intervals, even as he trains and works with this planet’s elementals. Then there is the new base which is hidden, and the location kept secret.”
“How much of a factor is his ability to harness elemental power in the coming fight?” Senka asked.
“The two Queens were able to fight off the Vorsook themselves, with some help from the dragons of Fairie.”
“But we have just one Declan,” Lydia said.
“Who is learning to be much more efficient than the Queens. They are both blinded by ego, to a significant degree. Also, Father is working with some of the more outgoing elementals to work in teams.”
“Teams?” Nika asked.
“Yes. By pairing a Water or an Air elemental with a big Earth or Fire elemental, landfall by Vorsook forces will be in for a real surprise. The Queens have issues delegating control and power, while Father is a natural builder of alliances. Much of what he has been doing when visiting sites around the world is teaching the more active Water and Air beings to sense the difference between humans and nonhumans. They, in turn, notify the bigger, slower Earth and Fire entities to an incursion, then work with them to destroy it.”
Tanya snapped her fingers. “Those reports of fire tornadoes around the Pacific Rim!”
“Exactly. Volcanic beings direct intense plumes of superheated gas from vents, and nearby Air elementals spin it up into what has been observed as twisters of fire,” Omega said. “What hasn’t been observed are the undersea combinations of Water and Earth or Water and Fire. The Vorsook will definitely seek to hide in the oceans. They will be unhappy with the results. The power of an undersea seismic event focused into a cone of ultra-dense water is devastating, even to vehicles that can survive deep space. And then there are our experiments with gravity.”
“When were you going to tell us about this?” Lydia asked.
“When we had perfected it. The idea came from your twins, Tanya and Chris. Vorsook technology works with gravity for flight. By observing what your children do with gravity, we’re figuring out ways to disrupt a Vorsook aircraft in flight, using elemental power.”
“That would seem to be a game changer,” I said.
“When fully realized, it very well may be. One thing the Vorsook don’t seem to do is work with a planet’s elementals. They just drain the planet of resources outright. We are finding that Earth elementals can alter gravity around themselves, something that almost none of them were aware of.”
“You are booby-trapping the entire planet,” I said.
“And anti-booby-trapping,” Omega noted. “One of the greatest threats to any planet is off-world bombardment by kinetic weapons from space, as you demonstrated in New Hampshire, Chris. A strong elemental, or several combined, can likely deflect or repel objects launched at Earth from space.”
“You and the kid came up with all of this?” Lydia asked.
“I have handled most of the work and all of the calculations, but Father has an unexpected talent, genius-level really, for thinking up elegant solutions using energy. At times, so does Stacia. I would call it cunning, but that doesn’t quite do it justice. It’s a bit like Chris’s alter persona’s ability to modify tactics on the fly.”
“Do you even need us?” Lydia asked.
“Absolutely. The quality, number, and power of the forces that will be brought to bear on this world is almost unfathomable. Training Coven forces as hunter-seekers will be enormously helpful in disrupting Vorsook ground and ocean forces. Each Vorsook typically controls the actions of up to a hundred combat units, similar to those you have faced in China and Philadelphia. When leadership is stripped away, those same units become much less effective. Vorsook are not fans of free will among their troops.”
“What about us specifically?” Tanya asked, looking around at the rest of us.
“You fought the Ancient as a group and overcame her. The Vorsook are aware of Declan O’Carroll. He will be heavily engaged in coordinating elemental forces. Stacia and her pack will need to monitor him and keep him from failing from exhaustion and hunger. They will need extensive protection from the forces directed at them. Also, it is not out of the question that one or both of the Queens of Fairie will seek to capitalize on Father’s distraction in the middle of combat to abduct or kill him. I will need as many combat drones as I can field. And Father is, for all his almost unfathomable power, only human. If he is sufficiently distracted, he could be taken out by a kid with a rock. And he will require rest, which will leave him defenseless.”
“You see us as a glorified praetorian guard?” Senka asked in a frosty tone.
“I see you as the penultimate close quarters combat force on this planet, the only ones who can protect our vital and irreplaceable witchborne weapons system. Additionally, as both Tatiana and Chris have been learning to communicate with elementals, having that capability available when Declan is resting is vital.”
“Hmm, when phrased that way, computer, it appears to be a key role,” Senka allowed.
“Will it be as challenging as fighting the Ancient?” Hosakawa asked.
“Oh, I predict it will be much, much harder,” Omega said.
“Excellent,” was the uber warrior’s response.
We decided to take a meal break. Okay, actually I was the only one to take a meal break, but the others had administrative things to do—running an organization of hundreds of thousands of vampires the world over requires not a small amount of work.
When I came back from grabbing four sandwiches at a local sub shop, I found a group of vampires I didn’t know already in the grain terminal. There were ten of them and they all stopped what they were doing, froze like mannequins, and watched me move toward Tanya, Nika, and Lydia.
“That was fast,” I said with a glance at the still-watching vampires.
“There is a large contingent of Guardians here in New York,” Lydia said without an ounce of snark. That put me on edge instantly.
“We’re going to run them in groups of five,” Tanya said, looking at a tablet. “Another ten is en route. By tomorrow night, groups will begin to come in from all over the world. We’re going to be running this drill for the foreseeable future.”
“How’re we running it?” I asked.
“Tanya and I are the judges,” Lydia said. “Nika does her thing. You and Hosakawa are the boogey men in the dark.”
“Sounds like fun,” I said. It did. I love playing the opposing force.
“Yeah well, keep your guard up,” Tanya said. “These fighters are all old, experienced, and will be hopped up and jumpy.”
“Why jumpy?” I asked.
“Because you and Hosakawa are the boogey men,” Lydia said as if I was slow witted. “The Duelist and the Queen’s Chosen who is deadly to all Darkkin, especially the oldest vampires. Rumors have been circulating about a certain fight in China and the oldest vampire ever.”
“Like we all didn’t get our asses kicked,” I said.
“Like all rumors, they miss out on the full truth,” Lydia replied. “The part that is getting the most attention is that the Queen’s Chosen was deadly to a vampire so old that the Elders c
ouldn’t beat it.”
“But they all know this is training, right?” I asked.
“Yes, but it’s training with the individuals who are deadliest to vampires,” Tanya said.
“Shouldn’t they be concentrating on Nika’s mind powers?” I asked, nodding toward the powerful telepath.
“Yes, so this will be an education for them,” Nika said, smiling a slightly wicked smile.
“The point is,” Tanya said, “don’t let your guard down for an instant.”
“Got it.”
I almost did get it—like five times over the next two days. When Lydia said they were jumpy about facing the Duelist and myself, she was sugarcoating it. I almost got stabbed twice, slashed on each leg, and just barely blocked a sword strike that would have decapitated me if it had landed. Hosakawa even came close to injury two times, both uncontrolled strikes by overanxious fighters.
The Guardians paid for that fear, as Nika was able to push past the protective wards on the Declan-supplied amulets we issued and take control of those fighters who let their fear of the so-called boogeymen get the best of them. She then turned them against their teammates.
We decided we needed to run each team through at least two times and even three if they had particular issues. It made for long nights, but I’m not going to lie… it was a blast. Hunting experienced vampire warriors in the massive grain terminal while trying to make sure no one ended up dead or horrifically injured was a challenge for even the deadly Grim. It would have been easier to fight them to the death as opposed to holding back to avoid injury to them and protect against injury to me. My already sky-high calorie intake shot through the stratosphere. Remy calculated that at the end of the first week, I had consumed close to one hundred and fifty thousand calories, or the equivalent daily consumption of about seventy people. But our people learned to deal with both the awful mind pressure of a super telepath and their fear of the two scariest fighters in the Coven.
Each team was critiqued by Tanya, Lydia, and at least one of the Elders, sometimes two. With every team going through two or three times, they all learned a ton, especially as Nika became more adept at copying the tremendous mind powers of the Vorsook. I learned a lot too, as Grim honed our skills at hunting skillful, well-trained vampires in enclosed spaces in absolute darkness. And because Declan was still in Vermont, it was up to Tanya and me to coordinate the elemental help that recharged Nika’s special amulet, which in turn allowed her to ratchet up her formidable powers night after night. And as both of Declan’s elementals were with him in Vermont, we needed to use the locals. With Declan’s help on a conference call, Tanya and I were able to convince the smaller of the two Big Apple elementals to give the Fairie-grown Rowan wood necklace a boost. Interestingly, it was Mack who oversaw the actual recharge spell.
“Much of witchcraft is simply setting up a method of focusing magic energy,” Mack explained as he drew runes around the arc of a chalked circle enclosing a pentagram. Nika’s amulet sat at the exact center of the drawing.
We were in the lowest basement of the Tower, the chalked diagrams on the smooth concrete floor. All three Elders, Tanya, Nika, Lydia, Jetta, and I all watched as Mack confidently set up what he called a charging array.
“There, now one or both of you just need to ask the elemental underneath us to direct its thoughts at the array,” he said, like it was as easy as plugging in a cell phone.
“How do we convey where and what the diagram is?” I asked after a quick glance at Tanya, who looked equally mystified.
“You don’t have to. The diagram will be the easiest thing for the elemental to sense in this whole building. Think of it like a glowing neon sign in an otherwise dark bar window,” he replied. “Just ask it to direct its attention up here and send a small tendril of power to energize it.”
“Easy for you to say,” I muttered. I glanced again at Tanya, but she waved for me to do it. She was far less comfortable than I was with elementals.
“Here goes nothing?” I said, closing my eyes and trying to open my mind to the elementals underneath us.
It took a few moments to sink into the right frame of mind, or rather I should say, mindlessness. But I suddenly became aware of a deep, deep humming, more vibration than sound. As I concentrated on it, the feeling split into two, one deeper, slower, and more powerful than the other. I moved my attention to the lesser of the two and suddenly sensed something focusing back my way, like a pair of giant eyes had just opened and blinked at me. I pictured Declan and Stacia in my mind, interacting with me, talking about the elementals under the city. I thought about the feelings I had had interacting with Robbie, the exact sensation of his particular infrasound vibrations and the communications I had practiced with him.
The presence directed more attention my way and the power of its sendings gave me an instant headache. Then I opened my eyes and looked at the arcane diagram that Mack had drawn, picturing Declan asking it for help.
The searchlight of its will flicked away from me and then back. I got an impression of mild confusion. I replayed my mental image of Declan, the diagram, and of a pulse of power rising from the deep earth to energize the array. Comprehension flooded my mind. Then agreement.
“Oh shit!” I said. “Back up!”
The vampires moved instantly, Lydia pulling Jetta and Tanya grabbing Mack. Their speed was none too fast, as the array suddenly flared like it was being backlit by a welding torch.
Every hair on our heads stood up like all of us were touching the mother of all Van der Graaf electrostatic generators at the same time. The chalk of the diagram burned with the white of the sun, then flared out, leaving a blackened circle, pentagram, and runes. Inside the diagram, the leather thong of the necklace smoldered slightly but the wood of the amulet glowed with an eerie bluish gleam.
The vast attention I felt from below turned away and I almost slumped in relief.
“Holy shit!” Lydia said.
“It worked!” Mack exclaimed, earning himself the undivided attention of all of us. He shrugged. “I know how to draw it, and I’ve drawn it for Declan, but I wasn’t sure about Chris calling in the request.”
“Me either, Mack. Me either,” I said.
It took us the better part of a week and a half to train the readily available teams. The next groups would be coming in four nights, so we had some down time, and we all took advantage of it. Lydia disappeared, but Tanya mentioned Vermont, so I figured she was headed north for a booty call with Bruce Devany who, with Holly and, of course, Stacia, were all guarding Declan. Hosakawa locked himself in his quarters and meditated, the Elders all split in different directions to catch up on their respective global areas of responsibility, Nika checked into a local spa, and the Suttons took off for a bladesmith show in Pennsylvania.
Tanya and I spent our down time mainly with the twins, although her global business empire took some of her time too. On night three, I came back up to our apartment to help put the twins down for the day. First was bathtime, which with various floating and invisible children resulted in both parents soaked to the skin, then came storytime. When your children are born with essentially superpowers, storytime becomes a 3D interactive event. Tanya blames Declan to a degree, but as I pointed out, we begged him to teach them, and our circle of trust for watching the twins is a very, very small group. Beggers, choosers, as Lydia likes to say.
We gave up on the Three Little Pigs when it became apparent that Cora was rooting for the wolf, instead going with the Sorcerer’s Apprentice as a cautionary tale. I asked Declan about his own childhood and he indicated that all of his bedtime tales were cautionary up until he was five or six. His mother and aunt were not afraid to tell him some rather scary stories so long as they taught a lesson in self-conduct. For this reason, his childhood was filled with stories taken from cultures all around the planet. His aunt even gave us the names of various collections of Native American, European, Asian, and African stories. We hadn’t pulled the trigger on the scary ones
yet, instead still working our way through Disney and some tame Brothers Grimm.
In our version, we used vampire powers, as a team, to animate a trio of brooms from the custodial closet on our floor. It was tricky work, but our bond helped immensely. The twins thought it fun, although our reviews didn’t meet our competition’s.
“Unky Dec’an make them fly,” Wulf noted, watching a broom from behind his mother.
“Uncle Declan is a witch who can make dirt run,” Tanya said, drily.
“Yup yup yup,” Cora said, clapping her hands. “So much dirt.”
We got a dispensation because they didn’t really want to hurt Mommy and Daddy’s feelings, and we took it like it was a lifeline. Finally, the twins were in bed, with the lights off, winding down. We listened through the walls, our hearing making baby monitors redundant, as their normal chatter dwindled down to blissful sleep.
When silence had reigned supreme for five straight minutes, Tanya turned to me. “What else should we be doing to prepare? What have we forgotten?”
“Funny you should ask that,” I said. “Are they fully out?”
Her eyes narrowed at me, but she tilted her beautiful head and listened. She nodded.
“Come on,” I held out my hand. “Omega will alert us if they wake up.”
“Correct,” the AI said through a nearby Bluetooth speaker.
I pulled my vampire out the apartment door and into the elevator.
“What are you up to?” she asked, frowning suspiciously.
“Who, me?” I asked, rocking on my heels.
She crossed her arms over her chest and focused her blue eyes on me like sapphire lasers.
The elevator stopped on my chosen floor and I led her off.
“The chapel?” she asked as I pulled her inside.
“Of course,” Barbiel said from behind us.
We turned and found him leaning up against one wall, wearing flip-flops, blue jeans, and a t-shirt that showed one of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel paintings, the Creation of Adam, with God reaching forth to touch Adam’s finger.
