by John Conroe
“Major Malhotra, this is Tatiana Demidova. We will comply. Please provide our pilot, Captain Simkins, with the flight plan to Joint Base Andrews. And thank you for your service, Major,” Tanya said before letting up on the transmit button. “Let’s see what he thinks of that,” she smirked.
“Ah, yes ma’am. Thank you ma’am,” the slightly bewildered pilot said.
“Tanya, it will be sunrise when we arrive,” Arkady said.
“I will stay up. You three and Dr. Singh will stay aboard the plane. Awasos will…” Tanya was saying, but the giant bear stood up on all fours, his shoulder even with the top of her head, and just looked at her.
“… do whatever the hell he wants,” she said with an exasperated sigh.
‘Sos chuffed and sat down on his rump in the open space on the deck that was thoughtfully kept empty of seats for his use. His rear feet splayed out and his head was still higher than Arkady’s.
“Bully,” Lydia said to the massive beast.
“Kettle. Black,” Declan said.
“Not even started with you, Darren,” Lydia said.
“Obscure ancient history television series reference. Lame,” he said, moving across the aircraft to look out Stacia’s side. Her hand grabbed his and pulled him down to look out her window. Lydia ignored him and went back to whatever was on her tablet.
Tanya looked at her mini-vampire buddy in mild disbelief, then turned my way with brows arched. I shrugged. Declan was up two shots and Lydia never let him have last word.
“Lyd?” Tanya asked.
“You’re just gonna go with them when we land? Just hop in whatever ride the new president sends and jump to his beat?” Lydia asked, still looking down.
I got it. Garth had kept us under the Pentagon in explosive collars not that long ago. He’d released us before I was forced to do something desperate and possibly tragic. She wasn’t over it.
Declan had tattooed runes or glyphs—or whatever you wanted to call the magic sigils he used—on all of our necks and wrists, giving us the tools we each needed to escape being bound again. In fact, a month ago, Stacia had been bound in silver-steel restraints by the Directorate of Anomalous Activity for a brief time until they agreed to release her when Declan faced them down. She told me afterward that knowing she could break her restraints with her boyfriend’s magic had calmed her down. It let her decide not to break out, as that would have escalated the situation. But Lydia wasn’t reassured by the magical precautions.
“Omega, do you know what President Polner wants?” Declan asked, glancing sideways at Lydia.
“It is not fully clear, Father. The circumstances of President Garth’s death are suspicious. As yet, none of the investigators have input any information into any electronic device. Instead, they are writing everything on paper and showing it to each other without talking or placing it in view of a camera. The new president was taken to the Treasury Department building and had a meeting with the heads of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DOAA, and Oracle immediately after being sworn in. I was unable to monitor the briefing. President Polner asked about all of you and your whereabouts as soon as he exited that meeting. He then issued our intercept orders. His cabinet leaders argued vehemently against it. He finally asked Nathan Stewart if this group of individuals would be a threat to his safety and Director Stewart immediately expressed the opinion that you would not be. The Secret Service is very upset, but the president has overridden them.”
“Do you think we will be in danger from the president’s people?” Stacia asked.
“The president has asked Director Stewart for advice on how to reassure all of you and de-escalate any tension before it can create an issue. I am monitoring all communications in Washington. I will not allow them to endanger you.”
Tanya caught my eyes and our personal bond hummed. There it was. Our biggest worry of late was Omega and his concern for Declan. What happened if the boy died? How would the entity that had seized control of the world’s nuclear arsenals respond if his young father figure was killed?
“Stewart was responsible for locking the team up before, right?” Declan asked, looking my way. I broke my eyelock with Tanya and nodded. “Well, let’s make some preparations in case they try it again. Plus we’ve got Omega, right?” he asked.
“Preparation is prudent, Father,” Omega said.
“Yeah, my thoughts too. And I’ve put a lot of thinking into this since last time,” the kid said.
Chapter 4
“Okay, the number one problem will be communications, right?” Declan said, pulling his overnight bag out from its storage compartment. He frowned as he moved a box of diapers out of the way to get the bag free. “We can break restraints, but we are vulnerable to blocked comm. Also, we don’t know if Omega will be able to keep tabs on us.”
“Correct, Father, although President Polner has issued instructions that you are to be conveyed directly to the Treasury Building. He is being rather loudly vocal about it,” Omega said. “I am also re-tasking the closest EEC satellite to observe.”
“Does he know about you, Omega?” Tanya asked.
“It seems they must have strong suspicions. There is evidently a new protocol being employed in the investigation. No digital communications, records, or photographs. No spoken discussions. Everything is handled by paper and pen and the used messages are destroyed. The meeting at the Treasury Building took place in an old vault that has no electronic presence.”
“Omega and I have been working on some new tech applications. He understands more about how my magic interacts with circuitry and software than I do. One of our first designs is an experimental RFID tag that uses polymer and carbon nanotube ink mixed with henna to create a wearable tag,” Declan said.
“R what?” Stacia asked.
“Radio frequency identification tag. RFID. It’s the thing on the windshield of your car that let’s you fly through the EZPass lane on the throughway. Ours are basically temporary tattoos that will respond to a query by Omega and let him know where we are even if we don’t have our phones or electronics with us. It should also let each of us know where all the rest of us are. Also, this tag won’t even respond unless you have exactly the right frequency, so it won’t show up if they scan us for metal or electronics,” Declan said. “In fact, it uses a combination of radio waves and sympathetic magic to connect us all.”
“Sympathetic? That’s fingernails and hair, right?” I asked, having a memory from a road trip with Stacia.
“Yes, one of Declan’s twin witch buddies tried some on you, remember?” Stacia asked.
“Erika’s a dumbass,” Declan said while Tanya just raised her left eyebrow at me. I shrugged. Probably not the best time to rile my very possessive vampire.
“This spell will use a little bit of each of our hair,” Declan said, pulling out some small scissors from his magic bag. He immediately clipped a half-inch of hair from himself, from Stacia, and a little patch from Awasos, who in turn, licked his face with a washcloth-sized tongue. Awasos, that is, not Stacia.
When he turned to the vampires, Lydia held out her hand for the scissors. He pretended to look wounded but handed them over without even a quip. “We’ll keep all the hair here,” he said, rummaging in the garbage closet of the plane’s little galley. Producing an empty pizza box from a London pizzeria (What can I say; I need a little something after exorcisms), he held it open in front of Stacia.
Her right index fingernail morphed into a three-inch claw that sliced the top of the box cleanly off. He moved a boxed baby car seat out onto the open floor and put the pizza box on top of it.
Then he started taping each locket of hair to the cardboard and writing a runic initial under each. Lydia gave him snips of Tanya’s, Nika’s, and Arkady’s one at a time before clipping off a tiny amount of her own. He then used string and a pencil to compass a perfect circle around the collection of hair.
Next he pulled a plastic squeeze bottle from his bag and shook up the contents.
“This is the experi
mental RFID ink,” he announced as he pulled off the red cap over the pointed pour spout. Working with a casual skill, he overlaid the ink onto the pencil circle, closing the ends before carefully drawing four runes with the ink, one rune at each cardinal point of the circle.
“Stacia will be my first subject,” he announced with a smile. She gave him an uncertain look but settled into the seat next to him so he could work on the underside of her right arm.
Again, demonstrating drawing skills that could have earned him a living all on their own, he crafted a wolf head tattoo in seconds.
“Let that dry for a few minutes,” he said before turning to me and pointing at the same seat Stacia had just vacated.
Fascinated with his art skills, I sat and watched him form a bear’s head on my arm. Tanya got a tigress, Nika a small, but exquisite world tree—yggsdrasil. Arkady’s was a dragon head, and Lydia got a raptor.
“Nice eagle, witch boy,” she admitted as he finished.
“Not an eagle. It’s a kestrel—smallest of the hawks,” he replied.
“It’s so too an eagle,” she argued, showing it to Nika for backup.
“That’s a pretty small beak for an eagle, Lyd,” Nika said cautiously.
“Nah, just feminine,” Lydia said. “You’ll see when it’s dry.”
Declan just gave me a twisted grin and spun one finger against the side of his head as if saying she’s crazy.
He moved over to ‘Sos and immediately couldn’t figure out how to get at the spot he wanted to mark—a small area on top of the massive shoulder hump where the fur was thinnest. It didn’t help that ‘Sos kept intercepting the kid to lick his face again.
Finally I grabbed Awasos under his chin and pointed his head my way, which meant that I was the one to get the slobber fest.
Declan solved the reach problem by just climbing the furry sofa and straddling the broad back.
“What are you drawing on him?” Nika asked.
“There’s not much room, believe it or not, so I’m outlining the Ursus Major constellation,” Declan said. “It’s simple but represents a powerful image that connects with his spirit.”
“There,” he said, finally. “All done.” He slid off the massive beast and stretched.
“You forgot one,” Stacia said, pointing a finger at him.
“Oh, right,” he said, sitting back down and stretching out his left arm. He looked thoughtful for a moment then bent over his arm and started to draw.
“What’s yours?” Tanya asked.
“It’s the mirror wolf to Stacia’s,” he said casually, without looking up. That’s why he missed all the female faces simultaneously softening. He didn’t miss the collective “Ohhhhhh,” that they chorused.
He looked up, bewildered, then caught sight of Stacia with her eyes bright. “Ah, just seemed right,” he said, suddenly awkward.
“Is smooth move, warlock boy,” Arkady rumbled. “Makes women all smushy.”
“Mushy. It makes women all mushy,” Lydia said.
“What I said,” the giant rumbled. “Now how does it work?”
“Well, let me finish this one… there, that should do it. Now, if you look at the circle on the cardboard, you’ll notice a different rune under everyone’s hair. I incorporated that unique rune into each tattoo. So now what we do, in theory, is think of the tattoo of the person you want to contact and…” he said.
Stacia suddenly lifted her head, eyes widening. “Oh, I feel that,” she said.
“Get a room,” Lydia said.
“Yeah? Here try this, mouthy,” Stacia said, eyes narrowing at Lydia.
“What, you’re gonna glare me to deat… oh! I see what you mean,” Lydia said, her own eyes widening.
I thought of a tiger but before I could finish, I felt Tanya’s contact. Beat ya, she said… in my head.
“Whoa! Full-on telepathy?” I said, thinking Hey Gorgeous back at her.
Declan frowned, shaking his head. “No, it’s more of a feeling and understanding. Are you and Tanya getting full words?”
“Ah yeah,” I said.
He frowned, then flashed a Eureka look. “It’s building on the bond you already have. That’s cool.”
“It’s an exciting and unanticipated side effect,” Omega said. “I can feel all of you as well.”
Information started to slip into my brain. Mostly facts and figures, like the speed of the plane, our direction, altitude, the position of the fighters, outside temperature, inside cabin pressure, fuel status, and on and on.
“A little less please, Omega,” Declan said with a wince. “My poor human brain can’t handle that much stuff.”
“It has been estimated that it takes almost 83,000 processors to simulate one second of human brain activity. You have over eighty billion nerve cells making trillions of neural synapses. You can handle much more than you believe. It may take some time to get used to it,” Omega said. “However, this connection, albeit temporary, will let us all stay in contact and track each other. In theory, it should even work through a Faraday cage, as Declan used Earth and Air magic to create it.”
“I get the magic part, but how does that work with Omega?” Tanya asked.
“Well, it’s partly because my personal flavor of magic works well with electronics but remember, Omega was formed when Sorrow combined with the new quantum framework. Then he was shielded by my magic and sorta hammered together with Chris’s aura. Omega can sense and even use magic… a little. Well, he can sense it a whole lot, but the use part is more limited,” Declan said, carefully watching our responses.
“Omega can use magic?” Lydia asked, frowning.
“Yes, to a degree,” Declan answered.
“What kind of magic?” Tanya asked after exchanging a glance with Lydia and an Oh Shit mentally with me.
“A little bit of everything. He doesn’t have an affinity for one element but can do a lot of the basics. Like a regular low power male witch usually is,” Declan said. “It makes spells like this one possible.”
“What else is possible?” Arkady asked, his voice going deeper.
Declan frowned at his tone. “Not sure. It helps him jack digital devices, Internet of Things, stuff like that. It allows me to do some really detailed and powerful location spells, like Stacia and I did in Maine. But you’re all wondering about world domination stuff, right?” he asked, his face smoothing to a shielded blankness.
This one is all you, Tanya thought at me. I took a breath. Stacia jumped in before I could speak.
“Of course. We’re all human… sorta. We fear the unknown, we worry about things like misuse of power, lying politicians, police brutality, and the World Wide Web in the clutches of a crazed super computer. Personally, my worry is what happens if something happens to you?” she asked him.
“Me? What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Omega worries about you constantly. What happens to the human race if something happens to you?” she asked again.
Understanding dawned on his face, which brightened and then the frown reappeared as he thought it through.
“Omega?” he asked.
“Yes Father.”
“What would be your response if the new president ordered his security or military to take me out?” Declan asked.
“I would not allow him to harm you, Father.”
“Let’s say that you protected me but somehow they got through and… you know… killed me?” the kid asked.
“I would do as any of you would… I would avenge you, Father.”
Declan nodded, not at all shocked. “To what degree would the vengeance go?”
“All responsible parties.”
“That seems kinda what I would expect from Tanya if someone hurt or killed Chris,” Declan said, looking around at each of us.
“Let’s imagine a scenario where the media focuses on you and your abilities. People panic and kick off a modern day witch hunt. It spreads around the globe before you are finally cornered,” Lydia asked.
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“I would disrupt their lines of communications, their power grids, food supplies, medical facilities, and all other logistics. They would not corner my father because they would be fighting for their own survival,” Omega said.
“Oh,” Declan said. “Ah, Omega, that would kill thousands, most of whom would likely be innocent. We need to talk about appropriate responses.”
“I will always talk with you, Father. But without you, I am alone. I do not care to be alone, Father.”
“I hear you,” Declan said, now looking worried and thoughtful. “This is why you gave me that ampule of blood, isn’t it?” he suddenly asked Tanya.
