Secret Treaties

by Jan Stryvant

  "What about you?" Ethan asked, eyeing Sam warily.

  "You let me worry about me."

  "You do have a talent for surviving when those around you are dying," Ethan said a little sarcastically. "Owen was a good man; he'd helped me for many years."

  Sam sighed. "I told him to get ready. No, I didn't expect them to have guns, but I put up a shield anyway, and I thought he'd done the same. They started shooting when the van stopped outside, so I cast a fireball to try and distract them. When I turned to look, he was already dead.

  "Look, once we kill this lion, we'll hunt down the rest of them and kill them all. That should at least pay them back for Owen."

  Ethan nodded slowly. "You're right, of course."

  "Well, I have a phone call to make."

  Ethan watched Sam leave the room and wondered if the man was just lucky, or if there was something else at work here. Owen had never been careless, but then again, four of the ten magic users on the assault team had been killed as well. Sam had warned them the lion was not to be taken lightly, and today's deaths were proof of that.

  Sam shook his head as he found a quiet spot to make his phone call. Owen getting himself killed hadn't helped him. Apparently living up here in the boonies had weakened their survival reflexes or something.

  Opening up the phone, Sam pressed the link to call Sean, and then waited. It wasn't long before a young man answered.

  "Who is this?"

  "Who do you think it is?" Sam said. "I have my daughter, and if you want her back, you're going to have to agree to switch places with her."

  "And why would I do that?"

  Sam thought he heard a bit of a growl.

  "Because if you don't, I'll kill her."

  "You'll kill her anyway," Sean replied on the phone.

  "She's my daughter! Why would I kill her? I'm not the one you have to worry about anyway! It's Ethan, the leader. He's really unhappy about you killing his friend today, and he wanted to kill Peggy the moment I brought her here!

  "But I got him to hold off by telling him I could get you instead. I mean, everyone says you lions are supposed to be gods! Surely you aren't afraid of a simple exchange!"

  Sean sighed into the phone and wondered if people really fell for this crap.

  "When and where were you thinking?"

  "Tomorrow night, someplace public; this way you can't show up with an army."

  "Let me get back to you once I've found a place."

  "Oh no, I'm not going to give you an opportunity to set up an ambush. You've got the bigger army. I'll pick the spot, and I'll be sure to make it something where, if you try anything, I'll see it coming."

  "Fine, just call me back. And when you do, I want to talk to Peg to make sure she's okay."

  Sam smiled. "Of course," he said and hung up the phone.

  Sean turned to the others in the van. "Wilston wants to do an exchange."

  "We heard," Chad said. "Do you know what that means?"

  "No, but I think you're going to tell me." Sean sighed.

  "We have more time, that's what it means!"

  "Chad," Sean warned.

  "If we hit them just before sunset, that means we'll have full dark when it comes time to retreat. It also means we can hit the other two homes at the same time! Look, sunset is around nine pm here tonight. We hit them at eight, do all our shit, then if anything goes wrong, we have the cover of darkness to pull out. We'll still get the element of surprise because they won't be expecting this."

  Sean looked at the monitor, they were driving by the outside of the Gradatim compound, and it was well guarded. Apparently everybody was on alert because of what had just gone down in town.

  "We'll wait, but I don't know if we'll wait that long," Sean told Chad while looking at his watch. It was a few minutes after two. He looked over at Steven. "When's the height of rush-hour here?"

  "Six. It starts to slack off after that," Steven told him.

  Sean looked at Chad, who sighed.

  "We've got helicopters, and we've got a lot of woods," Sean said. "Look, the police are gonna hear this; it's going to be noisy no matter what we do. Someone's gonna investigate. With the traffic a complete mess, we'll be the only ones with any mobility at all."

  "Ass." Chad sighed. "Okay, we hit them in four hours. I'll start making phone calls. It still gives us a lot more time to move more people into position." Chad turned to Steven. "Steven, where's a good mall around here? Something popular, but not in the middle of downtown."

  "Why?"

  "We need a counter-proposal for Sean to call them back with for the exchange. We know it's a setup, but let's act dumb and give them something they'll want. Something where they figure they'll have a good shot at killing him."

  "Well, there's Jantzen Beach just north of us. It's on an island, only one road on and off, I-5."'

  "Great. Sean, call him back now and tell him you want it to be at Jantzen Beach."

  "Shouldn't I wait for him to call?"

  "No, let's give him something to think about. They'll have to start moving people and planning stuff tonight if they don't want us to see them coming."

  Sam put Sean on hold and ran to find Ethan.

  "What's wrong?" Ethan asked as Sam caught up with him.

  "They want to move it to Jantzen Beach, do it in the mall there."

  Ethan smiled. "That's even better than the previous idea. In fact, it's perfect. Tell them outside the building at the old Carousel."

  "Shouldn't we be worried? It's a mall! There may be too many people there."

  "Everything closes at six on a Friday night, and even better, there's only one road in and out of the place. We can set up your high explosives on the road and just annihilate them before they even get there."

  "What if they don't take the road?"

  Ethan shrugged. "Like I said, the mall closes at six. Set the trade up for after five, the place will be almost empty. We can use your car bomb idea there, as well. Tell them it's okay, and I'll send some people down there to start preparing things."

  Sam nodded and, getting back on the phone, he told Sean it was acceptable as he headed back to where Peggy was.

  "Wake up, Peggy, your boyfriend wants to talk to you!" Sam said and put the phone on speaker.

  "Peg?" Sean asked over the phone.

  "Sean! Are you okay? How is everyone?"

  "Everybody's fine, how are you doing, Peg?"

  "I'm, I'm okay. They haven't hurt me, yet. Look, whatever my father said, don't trust him! I'll be okay, Sean! Please don't fall into his trap!"

  Sam turned the speaker off and put the phone to his ear as he moved away from the cell door.

  "As you can see, she's still fine."

  "I'll call again in the morning, and she better still be fine," Sean growled. "Understand?"

  "Oh, don't worry, she will be!" Sam chuckled and hung up the phone.

  "What are you going to do to him?" Peg asked from inside the cell.

  "That's none of your concern, Peggy. Now go sit down and be quiet, and I'll see if maybe I can talk them into giving you some dinner tonight."

  In the West Hills

  "You know this is going to be a complete mess," Chad said as they hid in the trees, just out of sight of the people in the Gradatim compound.

  "Aren't they always?" Sean sighed. "Hopefully we'll at least have the element of surprise."

  "Oh, they're going to be surprised, alright," Chad said with a snort. "We've got people dropping bombs into the middle of their compound; of course they're going to be surprised!"

  "Don't blame that one on me," Sean protested. "It was all John's idea!"

  "John's got the moral restraint of a six-year-old. You told him he could do it, I'm blaming you. Now get ready, they're almost in position."

  Sean nodded and looked back towards the wall. He could see the black dots off in the distance; they'd actually managed to get their hands on several helicopters. Steven's wife was apparently very rich, as none of the pil
ots were asking any questions about the heavily-armed people in the back.

  "Go!" Chad called out, and as one, they all broke out and charged the walls of the compound. They were seen, of course, and the alarm was immediately raised. As the guards took aim on the crowd charging the walls, a small black helicopter darted in quickly over the eight-foot walls.

  John had a pair of VR goggles on his head and was enjoying the view from the broadcast head on his latest project. He'd actually gotten the idea from the military; they had a number of dumb bombs they'd just put fins on, and the difference between a fifty-gallon drum filled with a mix of diesel fuel and fertilizer and a large dumb bomb was really only a camera, a cheap nose cone, and some steering fins.

  Nothing he couldn't whip up in an hour or two.

  He saw it as it came into view, a white van sitting in the middle of the compound with a bunch of men overseeing some others loading stuff into the back of it. Stuff that looked like barrels with bright yellow labels on the sides.

  Stuff he bet would go perfect with his little bomb.

  "Bombs away!" John chuckled and pulled the cord that released the bomb.

  "Better get us out of here, quick!" John warned the pilot as he fought the controls to keep the bomb on target. The bomb was slowing down, fast, and he was having to keep shifting his aimpoint to make the van as it quickly grew larger in his goggles. It didn't help that the pilot had taken his words literally, and he was now being pinned to his seat. One of the workers turned, said something, and suddenly they were all fleeing while one of the magic users looked like he was casting a spell.

  John pushed the control forward hard and thumbed the trigger circuit, hoping to drop it in a few feet short of the van as the feed suddenly cut off.

  A moment later, as he pulled the goggles off, there was a very loud noise and the helicopter started to rock as a number of smaller explosions started to sound off back behind them.

  "What the hell was in that thing?"

  "Oh, just a little anfo," John chuckled.

  "That was not a 'little'!" the pilot growled.

  "I think they were loading explosives into the van."

  "What?"

  "It looked like barrels of black powder. I think I just ruined somebody's day!" John chuckled.

  Sean picked himself up off the ground, they'd all hit the dirt when the helicopter had gone overhead.

  "What the hell did that jackass do this time?" Chad growled as smaller explosions went off all over the place, some of which were outside the walls.

  "It worked, didn't it?" Roxy laughed.

  All the guards had turned to look at what happened; several had actually been knocked off the wall. Those with their backs turned were quickly taken out by wands as the attackers hit the wall and, leaping up, grabbed the top and pulled themselves over.

  As Sean pulled himself over, he scanned the grounds, there was a big hole in the ground by several parked vehicles and what looked like the burning remains of some sort of, well, something that was now in lots of pieces. There were also small fires all over the place where the other smaller explosions must have gone off.

  All of the buildings showed signs of damage; one even had a hole blown in the front of it. Just then another explosion went off, and everyone flattened a moment as several small barrels went flying up in the air. One of them exploded in the air, and the other two exploded when they hit the ground.

  "What the hell?" Sean said.

  "Black powder," Roxy said, shaking her head. "These people really are living in the stone age. Come on! Attack!"

  As per the plan, they all jumped down from the walls and mobbed any defenders that were inside the walls. Thanks to the size of the initial explosion, the defenders were mostly stunned or wounded. Those that weren't dead, at least.

  As they cleared the center of the compound, the first helicopter swooped in. It didn't even touch the ground, it just hovered a second as everyone jumped out the back, then it took off again. Another one was doing the same on the roof of the main building. They'd been using the helicopters all day to ferry everyone up into the woods, but the last hundred were going to be dropped directly into the fray or placed on the tops of the higher buildings so they could work their way down from inside.

  Most of the buildings were only two stories, but they were all rather large. Clearing them was not going to be fast, or easy.

  Sean triggered a scrying spell as the others ran forward. He'd forgotten that his scrying protection spell had a backdoor specifically keyed to Jolene and himself. She'd located where Peg was located on the property. Now he was just going to verify the information before he charged ahead.

  It only took a moment, but he found her. However, she wasn't in the same spot she'd been before, and she was moving.

  Growling, Sean took off in her direction, with Roxy closely following.

  Sam was jolted out of the conversation he'd been having with a very promising young woman when the alarms suddenly went off.

  "They can't be!" he said, surprised.

  "Who can't be what?" the young lady asked, and just then he heard the sound of a low-flying helicopter, which was immediately followed by a loud explosion that shook the building.

  "Stay here!" Sam told the panic-stricken woman as he raced out of the room. There was really only one place they'd be going for, and he had to get there first!

  Running down the hallway and out the back door, he dashed across the open space between the two buildings. Werewolves were swarming over the walls, the van they'd been loading the explosives into was no longer there, and small fires and body parts littered the ground.

  Throwing up his shield as he dashed for the other door, Sam got it up just in time, as several spells deflected off of it, then he was through the door and into the other building, the one that held both the security office and the cells for the prisoners.

  "What's going on out there?" someone yelled at Sam as he ran by.

  "Lycans are attacking us!" he yelled back, then slid to a halt in front of the cell his daughter was in.

  Peg smiled as her father stopped outside her cell. She still had her hands behind her back, though they were no longer tied; she'd broken her bonds as soon as the alarm had gone off. The only reason she hadn't broken out of here was she was afraid to touch the cell door. She didn't doubt there were some very nasty spells on it.

  "Move away from the door!" Sam commanded her.

  "Oh, I like it right here where I am," Peg said, grinning. "I see Sean decided not to wait for whatever little plan you were making."

  "Move back from the door, or I'll hurt you!" her father warned.

  "But not kill, right? Because if you kill me, what will you trade to Sean for your pathetic little life," Peg said with a smile, but she moved back.

  The moment she was back from the door, Sam undid the lock as well as the spells on it and pushed it open.

  "Step out," her father told her and moved back from the door.

  Shrugging, Peg did as he said, walking up to him and staring at her father.

  "You know, I used to love you, Daddy. Just like a girl is supposed to love her father. Too bad you never felt the same about me, isn't it?"

  "Shut up!" Sam said and slapped her across the face. Then grabbing her by the left upper arm, he dragged her along as he ran for the back of the building.

  Peg was momentarily shocked when her father slapped her. In all of their years, he'd never hit her, never, not once.

  "You hit me!" she said accusingly.

  "You're just damaged goods," Sam muttered as he stopped to peak around a corner; seeing it clear, he ran on, dragging Peg with him. "Do you really think anyone is going to want to have anything to do with you now that everyone knows you've been sleeping with a lion?"

  "Oh, is that so?" Peg said angrily. "But I wasn't so damaged that you left me behind."

  "I needed bait, and you're it. That's all you two have ever been, you and your sister. Just something for me to use so I could get ahe
ad. If you hadn't been so quick to give it up for your animal boyfriend, I probably could have gotten you married to some important man like I did for your sister."

  "He's not my boyfriend!" Peg growled, and planting her feet, she stopped dead and shifted into her hybrid form. "He's my husband!"

  Sam had a pretty good grip on Peg's arm, and when she suddenly stopped, he was caught by surprise and almost lost his balance. Turning back to look at Peg, his eyes widened in shock; where he expected to see his daughter, there was now a werefox. An incredibly attractive werefox, one that reminded him very much of his toy Sheila.

  "Peggy! What happened?" he blurted out.

  "Sheila infected me, Daddy. It was the only thing that could save me at that point. Sean told her to bite me, so she did."

  "What that..."

  "And you know what, Daddy," Peg said, cutting him off, "I'm happy he did! I'm stronger than you, faster than you, and I have more magic than you. The only reason I'm not going to kill you, here and now, is because I want to watch as Sean rips you into tiny little pieces as he kills you.

  "If I were you, Daddy, I'd run like the devil himself was behind me. Because he is!"

  Letting go of her arm, Sam cast a sleep spell on Peg, who just smiled at him, showing lots of very sharp teeth in her muzzle.

  "Did I mention that my husband also taught me all sorts of new spells? Better run, Daddy, I think I hear him coming now!"

  Sam swore, this was his last trump card, and suddenly he couldn't play it! He could cast something nastier on her, but if that didn't work, then what? Even with all the multipliers he'd stolen from her, he'd still be...

  Sam spun around as Peg hauled off and slapped him across the face.

  "That's for hitting me! Now I suggest you run, before I decide to kill you myself!"

  Shaking his head and gathering his wits, Sam turned and ran, heading for the back door. The attack had come from the front; maybe if he was lucky he could get over the wall and hijack a car or something. He had no doubt at all who was going to win this battle. Ethan's people just weren't up to the kinds of combat his old council had been, and they hadn't stopped this damn kid, either!