by John Conroe
“Yeah, I want to go into the church and see where you found them,” I said. “I find it interesting that every portal so far has been under a church.”
Senka led the way into the Basilica di San Clemente and then down under it. The underground ruins where they had fought the two infected were now even more ruined. Broken rock and brick littered the floor, glaring gaps in the wall where whole sections had been ripped loose. A pair of men in biohazard suits were spraying the stained floors and surviving walls with what smelled to be a powerful acid.
I moved past them and into another ancient room, this one undisturbed by recent combat.
“Barbiel?” I called. “Barbiel, a moment if you please.”
Senka looked at me like my sanity ship had sailed without its captain. A second later, her head snapped around to look at the new person leaning against the far wall. I could almost feel her try to understand how a being had entered a one-door room without her fantastic senses detecting him.
“Yes, oh mighty fallen one and the fallen one’s beautiful better half?” Barbiel said, winking at Tanya.
“Barbiel, why is it that every one of these gates happen to be under a Catholic church?” I asked.
“Are you not going to introduce me to the wise Elder of the Darkkin Coven?” Barbiel asked, looking at Senka.
“This screams for a comment about your recent penchant for reckless exposure to the masses, but it would zoom right over your curly hair,” I said. “Elder Senka, meet the Angel Barbiel. Barbiel, meet Elder Senka.”
He bowed to her as she arched on eyebrow and smiled one of her less lethal smiles.
Tanya turned to me. “Penchant?”
“I try to upgrade my vocabulary when your grandmother is around. I think it’s the Oxford accent,” I said, which earned me one of Senka’s more lethal smiles—the kind that reveal the sharp tips of her fangs.
“So, yes, the portals delivering this attack do happen to be under churches,” Barbiel said with a smirk.
“Let me guess. You had a hand in influencing the church to establish permanent locations at these places?” I asked.
He laughed. “We had a hand. Not just me,” he said.
“You and your brothers, or the we that includes Christian and me,” Tanya asked.
“Yes,” he said, looking smug. I sighed loudly. He held up both hands. “Neither of you will remember, but yes, a group of us used our influence with the church to cover these portals.”
“And I find it highly improbable that a Vatican guard would find the first infected so rapidly without some divine guidance,” I said.
“That would border on cheating, Christian,” Barbiel said, “But I am pretty serious about church security.”
“What I don’t understand is why now?” Senka asked. We all turned to look at her.
“Why not invade back when the pagan religions worshiped those gateways and probably would have offered themselves up to be infected?”
“Perhaps, Elder, the gateways led to a world inhabited by people that the pagans of Rome might feel were gods, but now it is inhabited by a people with better weapons of war than the first group,” Barbiel suggested.
“You’re saying that wherever those gates lead, the original inhabitants have been conquered by this unseen enemy?” Tanya asked.
“There are many children in Yahweh’s universe, or at least, there have been many. Not all are still with us,” he said.
“And some angels are assigned to them, and some are assigned to us,” I said.
He bowed his head in acknowledgement. “And some have to be reassigned when their flocks have vanished.”
“And you don’t want your flock to vanish,” Tanya said, earning herself a nod and a smile.
“Did we kill all the infected parts by burning down the block?” Senka asked.
“I am not omniscient. I cannot answer that. My advice is to be on ultra high guard. This weapon has been very successful for the enemy you face. I can say that I am pleased and not a little surprised at the speed with which you have notified the governments of this world,” he said.
“Digital age and all that,” I said.
“Hah. It was Declan’s machine child that did it,” Barbiel said. “Some of my unassigned brothers are rooting for that new child to thrive.”
“Omega gets his own angels?” Tanya asked.
“That hasn’t been determined yet, but when one’s team has been destroyed, one tends to move one’s allegiance to a new player,” Barbiel said. “The fact that you are both on the same team is a definite bonus.”
“Look at you with all the sports references,” I said.
“I know, right?” he agreed. “Have to go. Keep vigilant and at some point, not yet mind you, but you might look to recall your young gifted friend from his side trip. It might worth extra points.”
And he was gone.
“He’s definitely growing into his sense of humor, isn’t he?” Tanya asked.
I nodded, watching Senka watch the space our angel had occupied.
“Fascinating,” she said, doing a rather appropriate if unintentional impression of another Star Trek character.
Chapter 13
Some forest, Fairie
They moved as fast as they could, but their experience hunting werewolves and their more recent training at College Arcane had taught them to go cautiously. Smooth, careful, and as rapidly as their situational awareness would allow.
The evergreen forest they had landed in was thick with younger trees. As they moved toward the location of the scream, the trees got older and more space appeared between each conifer, at least at ground level. The air was cold, but not too frigid.
The reduction in ground vegetation was a relief to Mack. He had his Socom 16 CQB up and ready, chamber loaded and safety off, finger indexed above the trigger guard. A glance at his sister showed her Mossberg MVP Patrol held in the same condition.
Both rifles had been gifts from Declan after his lucrative summer job at Demidova Corp. Mack’s rifle cost a bundle, but Jetta wanted the short, light, handy, and inexpensive Mossberg. There was enough of a price difference that Declan had bought her the Glock 19 that was back in its hip holster.
A second scream came, closer, now more angry than afraid. And now they could hear snarls—multiple snarls and growls, along with chirps and squeals.
The terrain they followed was gradually climbing uphill, but there were swales and hillocks all around and they found themselves in a natural depression between two raised sections of forest. The micro valley followed a bend and rose up to meet the two hills which leveled out into a flat space at the base of a big outcropping of layered rock.
Halfway up the thrust of stone, two figures were crouched beneath an overhang, fending off a pack of fast-moving two-legged creatures that looked like… turkeys.
Large, lightly feathered turkeys with big claws on their feet, long, wingless arms equipped with more claws, whip-like tails, and arching necks that held up slender, toothy heads. They bounded and leapt at the ledge, their attempts thwarted by a slender, female figure with a long spear. The girl guarded a smaller form behind her.
“Jurassic?” Jetta asked in a hiss. It was quiet and meant just for him, but four toothy heads whipped around their way at the sound. Just as well, because Mack had already braced up his rifle, found one brown feathered body in the crosshairs of his Leupold Scout scope, and was just squeezing the trigger.
A short-barreled rifle, chambered in .308, has a hell of a report and Mack’s rifle held up the tradition with high honors. The muzzle blast and the roar of the shot froze all the vicious little raptors as well as the girl with the spear, froze all except for Mack’s target, which went down like it had been hit by lightning.
Jetta’s shot came next, just a millisecond after Mack’s first and just before his second shot. Two more vicious hunters exploded off their feet. The survivors were quick, though: two immediately starting toward this new threat. Mack’s third shot came two seconds
before his sister’s second, which told him she’d racked the bolt action on her gun not all that much slower than his semi-auto had cycled itself.
Both charging raptors went down and instantly, the remainder took off into the forest in a synchronized exodus that reminded Mack of a flock of birds changing flight at the same time. They were very fast.
The girl on the ledge was staring at them, eyes wide, spear clutched across her body, breathing heavily and ignoring the thrashing of one raptor who hadn’t fully taken to death yet. A smaller face peered at them from around the side of the spear-wielder’s leg and Mack thought it was a little boy.
They approached the youngsters cautiously, eyes roving over the forest, rifles held ready. They stopped twenty feet from the rocky outcrop to look at the first of the dead critters.
“You’re right! That’s a friggin’ velociraptor, or close enough. Look, big toe claw, nasty hand claws, and about a thousand teeth,” Mack said.
“Thought they’d be bigger,” Jetta said.
“Nah, that’s just Hollywood. But don’t think these things can’t F you up in a hurry. Look at those claws!”
“Hey, are you all right?” Jetta asked the girl on the ledge.
Mack looked up for her response and met a pair of bright hazel eyes. At first, he though they were green and then her head shifted and he thought they might be blue, and then they were both. She held her spear ready but her expression was now curious instead of scared. Her hair was a dark auburn, bundled up in a tight knot at the back of her head. The boy had the same eyes but hair that was true brown. Still, they were related, Mack thought as he studied them. The girl said something to them in a heavy accent, but Mack understood none of it.
The boy shifted up to his feet and Mack saw the blood at the same time Jetta gasped. “He’s hurt!” she said, starting to sling her rifle.
“Hold up. Let me reload, then you do the same, then you can try to help him, but I’m not sure his sister’s gonna let you get near,” Mack said.
“Hurry, then. He’s bleeding a lot,” Jetta said.
“I’m done,” Mack said, finishing his mag swap. “Your turn, then see if she’ll let you approach.”
Jetta snapped out the mag on her gun, replaced it with a fresh one, pocketed the partial, and slung her rifle in one fast series of expert motions.
Daddy Sutton had taught his kids marksmanship and weapon handling at an early age, and they’d had a ton of practice since to hone their skills.
Reaching into a little pouch on her chest rig, Jetta pulled out a first aid packet. Mr. Jenks, the College Arcane survival instructor, had put every kid in Arcane through a wilderness EMT course and now all the kids carried small trauma kits with them everywhere, even the fast-healing werewolves. The Arcane kits had some state-of-the-art wound pads that were treated with fast-clotting agents. Jetta held up her bandage pad to the girl on the ledge and then pointed at the boy. Understanding flashed across the face that Mack realized wasn’t much younger than his own and the girl nodded to Jetta, waving her to come up. She spoke more words, but none of it was any clearer.
Jetta looked for a way up; the ledge was about ten feet above them. The girl used her spear to point out a path of hand and footholds and a few seconds later, Jetta was at the boy’s side, smiling and talking softly as she treated a long, deep tear on his left arm.
After watching Jetta work for a few seconds while making reassuring comments to the little boy, spear girl stepped back a bit and turned her eyes to the forest.
Mack had been dividing his attention between the forest and the girl, trying to keep an eye on both. The wounded raptor was still thrashing and now that the threat to his sister seemed lessened, Mack moved over to put it down.
He used the butt of his rifle to knock down its head and hold it against the ground, then unsheathed his bowie to decapitate it. One fast stroke and it was over, the body still vibrating with nerves.
A sharp gasp brought him around fast, looking for danger, but the spear girl was staring at him, not the woods.
“She can’t be shocked that I killed it?” he asked Jetta, confused.
“I think she’s staring at your blade, not you,” Jetta said, wrapping the wound. “Did you notice her spear? It looks like bronze.”
Mack glanced at the spear tip while wiping his blade off on the raptor’s body. Jetta was likely right, it was bronze.
“You think they don’t use iron, or maybe it’s forbidden?” he asked his sister, watching the spear girl as her wide eyes followed his knife blade. He held it up for the girl to look at, giving her raised eyebrows.
“This world does not have iron ore in any great quantities in the surface layers. It is buried deep in the core. That scarcity, combined with the harsh rules of the Winter and Summer Courts, would make iron weapons very rare,” Omega suddenly said.
“Omega! You’re back,” Mack said, touching his earpiece to keep it seated.
“For a bit. I’ll have to come and go till we can get your cell phones powered up. Declan wants me to remind you that you packed a small solar charger. He thinks you may have packed it in the pouch on the back of your vest.”
Feeling like an idiot, Mack reached a hand up to pat the pouch clipped to his vest. He felt the flattish form of the folded-up charger.
“Yeah, it’s official… I’m an idiot,” he said.
“Been official for years,” Jetta said. “Omega, who are these people?”
“Her language seems to be a mixture of Scottish Gaelic and old English, with a few Scandinavian words thrown in. She called the creatures eorbe iolair, which might translate as ground or earth eagle. You were right Jetta—the specimens on the ground appear to be Velociraptor mongoliensis, which lived in the Cretaceous period, not the Jurassic, approximately seventy-five million years ago.”
“How could they be here?” Mack asked.
“The people or the raptors?”
“Both?” Mack asked, staring at the girl, who was looking between him and his sister, eyes wide.
“Earth and Fairie share space. My current theory is that space is folded in such a way that the planets are separated by millions of light years on one hand and a very thin quantum membrane on the other. Natural portals have opened throughout history, and species may have crossed back and forth.”
“Are the others working on getting to us?” Jetta asked as she patted the boy’s good arm and stood up.
The girl with the spear asked a question.
“She’s asking where you got the knife,” Omega translated in Mack’s ear.
“How do I tell her I made it?” he asked.
The phone in his pants pocket suddenly spoke, the language a match for the girl’s—utterly incomprehensible to Mack.
Eyes that were huge looked at his midsection. Jetta burst out in laughter.
“Your friggin pants just answered her,” she said, trying to breathe.
“I told her you made it and that you are a blacksmith. You should hook up the solar charger immediately.”
Jetta climbed down to Mack, who turned so she could get at the pouch on his back. She pulled out the charger and moved away.
“Hey, where are you going with that?” he demanded.
