"He has become a secondary target, although this is puzzling," Calhoun admitted. "My associates have laid traps, and we saw results recently. We may focus our attentions there, and on promoting worship of the true god instead."
"I counsel against naming the new churches that," Wildrif sniffed.
"After what happened in Dallas? We are not stupid," Calhoun snapped. "We are more subtle than that, but the doors to those churches will open soon, and ours will effectively control and instruct the congregations. They are still seething over the bombings, so we will hand them those we have no use for, and tell the worshippers that they are responsible for the bombings. I await the carnage eagerly."
* * *
"Are you sure this is wise—withholding information?" Saxom asked his twin. Moxas, the Khos'Mirai, offered his brother a beaming smile.
"Chaos, brother. Isn't that what we want?"
"But it could result in our deaths," Saxom hissed.
"Have faith. I know the quarter-blood slave to Calhoun is having trouble seeing the opposition. We can claim similar troubles. They cannot fault us, when they know these difficulties are happening with others."
"Their fault, as I see it, is that they cannot see their foes either," Saxom nodded. "Brother, you have the true vision."
"We'll keep that to ourselves," Moxas grinned.
* * *
Breanne's Journal
I didn't realize it was Sunday morning until Hank hauled me to breakfast after a lengthy, shared shower. We found Charles already there, reading the Sunday comics. He'd gone through the rest of the newspaper already.
"Good morning," Charles closed the paper and offered me a smile.
"Hey," I leaned in and kissed his cheek. "What's for breakfast?"
"I was waiting for someone to join me," he said. "I'll order with you."
We did. A waitress walked to our table and took our orders, after pouring coffee for Hank and me. "See this?" Charles tapped a section of the newspaper he'd left on top of the others. I saw it was the religion section of the local newspaper.
"Attendance at the nation's churches still up," I read, scanning the headline.
"Yeah," Charles nodded. "They're still up in arms about those church bombings. There are interviews with several militant pastors in the article, and they are encouraging their congregations to carry weapons to services."
"Those guns won't do a thing against vampires, lion snake shifters and chimeras," Hank muttered.
"Not to mention the more powerful," I agreed.
* * *
"Well done, Acrimus," the General purred. "He was a target, and you managed to kill him with barely half a thought."
"It was a pleasure, General," Acrimus bowed with false modesty. "I have no idea who Ildevar Wyyld might name as his replacement, but I imagine that there will be a period of adjustment. Meanwhile, they have learned to respect our traps."
"A confused and frightened population is easy to control," the General agreed. "How is your newest minion doing?'
"Moxas suggested making the traps expandable. He also says that the Larentii and the Elemaiya would be the only ones who might detect their properties, outside the godlings or the Three. The Larentii will not consent to interfere, and the Elemaiya are now mortal and powerless. He says this is his revenge against the bitch who removed their power."
"I feel it is a great flaw in your kind that the Larentii are not traceable," the General grumbled.
"They were created when my kind was created," Acrimus grimaced. "They were created benign. Curious and powerful, but noninterfering. It was a calculated toss of the dice when I sent the Sirenali after them," he added.
"The Sirenali were created with a particular talent, although their creator considered it a flaw after the fact, that they could detect all worlds. They cannot detect the Larentii themselves, but their world was not properly guarded at the time. That has since changed and it is now closed to all, with few exceptions. It's too bad the Larentii were given permission in the beginning to protect themselves and their mates. That's how the Sirenali fell."
"The Law holds us back, but that will change once we destroy the Three."
"The Three made the Law—saying the Larentii are inviolate and to kill one will bring the wrath of the One," Acrimus shuddered. "The One has vowed to leave everything else to the Three, thinking they might be strong enough to withstand us."
"The Larentii will stand aside and observe while everything else falls," the General smiled. "They will live and the One will watch while we rule everything."
* * *
Le-Ath Veronis—present
Lissa's Journal
"We don't have a body to bury," I shook my head at Rigo. "Just as we didn't for Gavril."
"Tiessa, that was a necessity for your child," Rigo offered softly. "We must never allow the enemy to know that they have scored two hits against us, instead of one."
"If we live over this, we'll have a memorial for both," I sighed as Rigo pulled me against him. "Norian wasn't the best mate, but he was still a mate, when all's said and done."
"I know. The rest of us feel the same—he was one of us, although not the most popular."
"Rigo, he was the least popular, admit it," I sighed, pulling away. "The last time I saw Gavril alive, we argued. I may have done the same with Norian."
"Lissa, let that go. Don't you think they know that those are just foolish words and mean nothing? Stop wounding yourself with that. It no longer matters to them. It shouldn't matter to you, either. Focus on your love for both. That is what they have—what they take with them."
"I think I want to talk to Tybus," I said, hugging myself.
"Why?"
"To see what's left of my son."
"Are you sure that is wise? Tybus has his own worries and an Alliance to run."
"I know. I still want to see him."
"Then I will call your Falchani to transport you."
* * *
Campiaa—present
Tybus' Journal
I knew what she wanted when I received mindspeech from her. She didn't say it, but she had suffered another loss—a second, heavy blow. It grieved me that this was so. A part of me, too, recognized the daughter/mother that Gavril and I shared. The two were so much alike.
Drake and Drew, Lissa's Falchani mates, accompanied her inside my study shortly after I assured her that I had time to see her. So many things required my attention, but they could wait. This visit was far more important.
"Lissa, how are you?" I rose and held out my hands. She surprised me by walking around my desk and pressing herself against me. Wrapping my arms about her as tightly as I dared, I smoothed her hair.
"This will pass," I crooned. "I promise this will pass. Tybus is here. Gavril is here as well. You must trust that I am both. We care for you. You have no idea how strongly."
The first sob rocked her body. I held on tighter and murmured nonsense in the ancient language of the vampires.
* * *
Earth—past
Breanne's Journal
"What is your schedule for today?" Gavin asked when Bill took a seat at the breakfast table. I got the idea that Gavin had been doing something similar to Bill and talking with Wlodek while Wlodek and he were both awake. He'd arrived five minutes before Bill.
Opal and the others had joined us while we ate—Charles had wisely asked for a table large enough to accommodate a crowd. Ashe and Kay sat across from me, and Kay seemed happy to eat beside him and talk occasionally to me, Hank and Charles.
"We have more information, but I'm worried it'll be similar to the useless intelligence we received on the sites in Arkansas and Colorado," Bill said. "Bree, this is yours." He handed an envelope down the table to me.
Those are your new credit cards—with your alias on them, Bill informed me in mindspeech. Your accounts have all been moved, he added. To the outside world, it still looks as if Breanne Hayworth's accounts are frozen, except those attached to your charity. Terr
y is still working with those. I watched him smile as he relayed the last bit of information.
Bill, you're a genius, I sent back. Bill's cell buzzed the moment we stopped mindspeaking. He stared at the screen for a moment before rising from the table and walking rapidly away.
"Jennings, here," he answered tersely. I knew it wasn't good news the moment he said those words.
* * *
Bill, Opal, Hank, Jayson, Charles, Gavin and I waded through the carnage. I felt ill, but forced my breakfast to stay where it was. Our goal was the captive who'd caused this.
Funeral attendees had been gunned down outside a chapel in Monroe, Louisiana. Few survived, and most of those were wounded.
"We have one who managed not to kill himself after emptying his gun," Bill growled as we walked inside the chapel. "The others saved their last bullets for themselves so they wouldn't get caught or questioned."
I took one look at the young man local police had captured and knew—he was obsessed. He sat on a chair before the altar—where a soldier's coffin had been only an hour earlier.
"He's from that church—you know the one that pickets funerals, hospitals and stuff," I sighed, dropping onto a nearby pew. "Instead of protesting and waving signs from the designated three hundred feet away, the attackers left the signs at home, carried concealed weapons beneath baggy clothing and opened fire as mourners were leaving the church." I saw that much, although I couldn't get to the reason for all of it—why they'd chosen this route—or been obsessed to choose this route.
"It's time to visit that church," Bill muttered. "Although this is being broadcast from one end of the country to the other by now. They may have started running like rats already."
* * *
"You fool!" Calhoun shouted at V'ili. "You know how the weak-minded react to an obsession! They'll do anything to please you, and as picketing this event was in their plans before you placed the obsession to kill, they modified their intentions in an effort to make you happy."
"You instructed me to lay the obsessions," V'ili hissed. Janine, terrified, huddled at V'ili's feet. Anger, fueled by power, vibrated from Calhoun and washed over her. If her mind remained her own, she'd have run away. Instead, she cowered at her master's feet, unable to move away from him.
"Be ready to relocate in two minutes, or I will leave you behind," Calhoun snarled and folded space to get away from V'ili.
* * *
The church in question was located in Kansas, but not many there were willing to acknowledge its existence. The building was small, too, and it amazed me that so much hate could be generated inside such a tiny space.
"There is," Kalenegar began when the structure exploded in front of us. If Ashe hadn't shielded us, we'd have been obliterated with the building and the massive dungeon built beneath it.
* * *
Half the neighborhood had been destroyed with the church and what lay beneath it. Ambulances and emergency teams were everywhere, crawling through the massive crater left behind after the dungeon collapsed. The immense dungeon had been hollowed out beneath streets, houses and other structures, most of which were now small bits covered in dirt and debris.
"There are none left alive in the crater," Kalenegar observed with the Larentii version of a sigh.
"I'll order rescue workers back and ask them to concentrate on those still left above ground," Bill nodded before walking toward the local police captain to share information. Gavin went with him, in case compulsion was required.
Ashe had taken Kay away from the scene, once he made sure the rest of us were all right. I was shaky as hell, but I didn't want to leave in case Bill needed me for anything. Surprisingly, Kalenegar was the one to wrap his arms around me. I looked up at his face—it was grim, and I'd never seen that expression from a Larentii before. Larentii seemed to take most things in stride, probably because they'd seen just about everything before and it no longer shocked them.
"Lara'Kayan, you are shaking," Kal turned his face toward mine. "There is nothing to fear—my shields were up, just as the Mighty Hand's were. I know you grieve for lives lost, but I feel they would have been lost anyway—this was a quicker death than the one planned by those behind this disaster."
"Yeah. I was thinking the same thing." If this dungeon held the same things the one in Dallas had, nobody is safe. They'd die—some of them happily—because a Sirenali had commanded it. Kalenegar had known there was an underground cavern and he'd been attempting to warn us when the explosion occurred.
"If there's nobody down there alive, we can wait until we get better equipment," the police captain said as he walked up with Bill. Gavin was right behind them, so I knew without reading the poor man that compulsion played a part in his cooperation. He wanted someone in that hole to be alive. Sadly, that wasn't the case.
"There's no need to risk your officers and emergency workers," Bill shook his head. "That ground is too unstable to send them in."
"You will not find whole bodies," Kal said from his position above my head. He still held me, my back to his front.
"Not good," the captain brushed back extremely thin hair, his eyes worried and sad.
Journalists and news vans were beginning to show up, too, and the captain's officers had another job to do—holding back the curious and the media. This was the local media—national news would take a bit longer, but they would all come. Likely, reporters were already flipping back and forth from the carnage in Louisiana to the cavernous, smoking pit here.
Connections between events in Louisiana and Kansas were being made, too, without any assistance from authorities. This time, the speculation was accurate. Kal, do you think this is going on elsewhere? I sent.
It is likely, my heart.
* * *
The confirmed death toll in both states currently stood at three hundred seventeen, with more coming. Heavy equipment had been moved to the Kansas site and authorities were sifting through the rubble for what remained of bodies. Teeth, bits of bone, a few pieces of jewelry—that's what they were finding. It could take a while to identify all of it. There was no sign that any of our enemy had perished in the blast, however. No surprise there.
"Was this small church behind the bombings in all fifty states?" One station—the least reliable one, was taking their speculation to a different level.
"Turn that shit off," Bill commanded when we trooped into the meeting room at the Kansas FBI office. An assistant rushed to obey, snatching the remote off the conference table and snapping off the television hanging in a corner of the room.
"We're not looking for visible construction," Bill announced, sitting heavily on a chair at the head of the table. "They're building dungeons."
"I don't think this explosion was planned," Hank began.
"I agree," Ashe said. He and Kay walked in—Hank had probably called Ashe when we left the bombing site. "I think the church members who went to Louisiana took things too literally and too far, and since one of theirs lived over it, the destruction of the source was necessary."
"Where is that one, now?" Gavin asked.
"In a secluded prison cell, but they can't get anything out of him. Breanne supplied the only information we got."
"We have one survivor, and who knows how many dead at the bottom of that pit," Opal shook her head. "These people are nothing more than murderous psychopaths."
"Psychogods," I muttered, "with dangerous minions."
"You will not recall that statement," Ashe laid compulsion on the assistant and two other FBI employees in the room. "Breanne," he admonished, "what the hell are you doing?"
"Speaking the truth," I dropped my head into my arms at the table.
"Did I hear the word gods?" Jayson said. I raised my head to find him blinking at me.
"Yes," Hank nodded, drawing Jayson's attention to him. "Do you think this is a one-sided fight, mortal?"
"Did you call me a mortal, bro?"
"Yes. High Demons are immortal, but that is irrelevant. You have gods amo
ng you here, at this table. Do not believe that all of them have turned against you. Many fight for you now."
"I guess that's good news," Opal breathed. "Are we outing gods at the table?"
"Not as yet. That time will come," Hank blew a curl of smoke. "Have patience. All will be revealed in time."
"Which way is this fight gonna go?" Jayson asked.
"Jayson, stop asking questions that have no answers," Hank muttered.
For just a moment, he'd been Li'Neruh Rath. In a blink, he was Hank again. I moaned and dropped my head into my arms a second time.
"We're scoping out the churches, religions and fringe groups that are a little on the extreme side," Bill said after we'd settled down and were served tea and coffee by the assistants.
"It may not do a lot of good to send locals out, since we may be dealing with Sirenali," I offered. I was tired, had been exposed to too much death during the course of the day and it was now early evening. "I suggest not sending anybody after dark, since their vampire allies will lay compulsion and send investigators on their way.
"You said before that there were four Sirenali left—that the one Hank killed in San Francisco had four buddies?" Jayson pointed out.
"Yeah."
"Doesn't it make sense, then, that there are—or were—a total of four targeted churches or facilities?"
"Sounds logical," Bill agreed.
"Even if there are more, it would make sense that those four are the most dangerous," Gavin suggested.
"True—good point," Bill said.
"I hypothesize that many of the extreme cases, as you put it, are here in this country," Kal said. "Although others might be found in additional parts of this world."
"I think we should talk to those ministers who did interviews for that article—the one in the Sunday paper," I offered. "I'll check them for obsession, too—when I'm not so tired."
"That's good," Charles agreed. "Their names and locations are listed in that article."
"I'll call Dan Kelsey. Find a place to eat. I'm starved," Bill ordered and pulled out his cell as he walked away.
* * *
Le-Ath Veronis—present
"Cass," Trajan walked alongside Casimir, "how about coming back to SouthStar for a little while? Bill and I are working on something, and we have a houseguest who needs to be entertained."
Blood Love (God Wars, #4) Page 18
