Demon Days

by Jan Stryvant

  "That should help. Anything you want me to tell the president?"

  "A half billion dollars would be nice."

  "I do that, and they're gonna think all you want is money, Sean."

  "Good point," Sean acknowledged. "Okay, ask him for logistical support. I got a lot of people that need to be moved around, and I don't have enough stuff to do it. Part of our problem yesterday was that we're relying on the cars and trucks our people own to move our army around. While we've got close to twenty helicopters now, between me, Chad, and Claudia, that's still only two hundred or three hundred troops, and we had to take on a thousand yesterday."

  "What, no sharks with frikken laser beams on their heads?" Steven teased.

  "It's a desert, Steve," Sean sighed with false exasperation. "Now maybe if they could flood it first...

  "So anything else before I go back to bed?"

  "Yeah, don't go back to bed," Steve warned him. "I suspect you're going to be getting a lot more phone calls here this morning."

  Just then Sean's phone started to beep in his ear, signaling another call.

  "And there it is, right on schedule." Sean sighed. "Bye, Steve."

  "Don't kill anyone! I have a meeting in two hours!"

  Sean hit the button on his phone.

  "Sean here, what's your problem?" he growled.

  "This is General Baker, young man, and I'm very unhappy with you about what happened yesterday! You allowed seventy-two civilians, the very people who count on us, to be murdered!"

  "Yeah, and I lost twenty-two of my own people trying to stop it," Sean said as he slid down the wall to sit on the floor in the hallway. "We're still getting a feel for their tactics; they're not doing things the same way they've done them before."

  "I'm not used to getting excuses, young man," General Baker warned.

  Sean sighed and tried not to growl into the phone.

  'Got any advice?' Sean asked the First.

  'He's a tank; he's trying to roll over you. Tanks only respect tanks. Get in his face and tank him right back.'

  "So does this mean you believe what I said, that there's a war on? Does this mean that maybe we can get some support? Like maybe some more helicopters? Ammunition? Fuel? Weapons? I'm fronting this whole operation out here out of my own pocket, General! So far I don't see anyone from the good 'ole US of A chipping in to help. Yeah, we had bad things happen yesterday, but if you're not gonna help us win the game, you don't get to bitch when you don't like the score."

  "Don't take that tone of voice with me young man!"

  "First off, it's Sean, not 'young man'. I don't know how much combat you've seen, or how many of your people you've had to watch die, but over the last six months, I can guarantee you I've easily matched it. So I'll take any damn tone I please," Sean growled. "Now if you want to help me, that's great, I'll take all the help you can give me. If you want to give me advice, hell, I'll take that, too, I'm sure you know a hell of a lot worth sharing. But if you're just calling up to bitch at me, well you ain't earned that right.

  "So which is it?"

  Sean heard the general huff a moment before he continued.

  "How the hell did they get by you? I thought you had a couple thousand up there?"

  "I don't have the ability to move that many people around yet." Sean sighed. "We weren't expecting a thousand of them to come through the gate this early in the game, and we sure didn't expect them to split their forces and run in two different directions.

  "So yeah, mistakes were made. I understand that, and I take responsibility for it. My biggest problem is that three quarters of my fighters have day jobs, and they have mouths to feed and bills to pay. It takes time to mobilize them."

  "So if you pull them out of work, you run into money, morale, and supply issues," General Baker said, sounding thoughtful.

  "Exactly," Sean agreed. "Once the war gets going, they probably won't have jobs anymore, because I suspect this whole place will turn into a war zone. Of course, that means my supply issues will get even worse."

  "Logistics is the biggest problem any army will ever face," General Baker said, "and Sean, my boy, I know logistics!"

  'Now, ask for his help, but don't be sarcastic, because we're probably going to need it.'

  "Well, General, if you can help us with that, it would go a long way towards us winning this damn war. I need to pull my people out of their jobs until this is over. I need to get all the other lycans in the country to come here so I can train them and arm them. I need an expert, General. I need somebody who knows how to make that happen."

  "So what you're saying is, you need my help."

  "If I didn't need your help, I would have hung up the damn phone already, General!" Sean grumbled.

  "Well it's nice to see that you recognize your own shortcomings."

  Sean wasn't sure if the general sounded smug or not when he said that.

  "So you'll help us then?"

  "I'll have to get the president's approval first, of course."

  "Of course," Sean agreed.

  "But I'll get my staff working on it immediately, so we can have something ready for you once we get the okay."

  Sean nodded to himself.

  "Thank you, General. I appreciate your help."

  "Think nothing of it, my boy!"

  Sean sighed as the general hung up. He was just thinking about going back to bed when his phone rang again.

  "This better be good, or you're a dead man." Sean yawned.

  "I have the president on the line, is that good enough?" a woman's voice said.

  "And you're not a man," Sean acknowledged. "So either way, you're safe. From the hour of the morning, is it safe to assume that this isn't a social call?"

  "Hold on and I'll connect you," the woman's voice said. There were a series of clicks, and then the president came on the line.

  "Sean, I have some people here who are very upset with you this morning," the president started off.

  "Yes, Mr. President, I've gathered as much from the phone calls I've already gotten."

  "Ah, so you understand the problem then," the president said, making it more of a statement than a question.

  "Yes, I do, and I'm hoping your people will start to appreciate just what I'm up against."

  Sean spent the next hour or so going over with the president everything that had happened yesterday, and reminding him, a lot more politely, that his resources were limited and he was going to need help.

  "What if I were to send you some infantry units?" the president finally got around to saying.

  "The devils would just eat them," Sean replied with a grunt. "Humans just can't stand up to them the way we can. They want to eat you, and they have all sorts of things to help them do it. Mental attacks that cause fear and panic, or even just paralyze you.

  "Then there's weapon issues; only magical weapons and iron can hurt them. Everything else just they just pretty much ignore. That's why we're putting together this lycan army."

  "My experts are still having some issues with that," the president admitted.

  "Send a few of them out here to observe. I'm sure they'll change their minds soon enough."

  "Your man Bryson will be here in a little while. I'll discuss it with him. I'm hearing that you're going to be supplying my secret service agents with some upgrades?"

  "Yes, sir," Sean said. "As the leader of the country, I think sooner or later you're bound to be a target."

  "Again," the president said.

  "Yes, again," Sean agreed.

  "Okay, I'll try to get everyone working in the right direction, but Sean, I need you to keep what happened yesterday from happening again."

  "I'll do my best, Mr. President," Sean said with a heavy sigh, "but there are no guarantees in war."

  Ending the call, Sean set the phone down and looked up at the window. He could see the first traces of light in the sky, which meant it had to be around six. He really wasn't tired anymore, but he was feeling pretty frustrated.
Apparently there were suddenly a lot of people who felt they could do his job better than he could, even though they had neither the disposition or the experience, and had been claiming this was all just some sort of scam or con job until they'd gotten the word on what had happened yesterday.

  "How the hell do you put up with it?" Sean growled.

  'That's what I have you for!' The First laughed in his head.

  "I was hoping for a better answer than that," Sean said while standing up and stretching.

  'Well, you know what they say?'

  "Enlighten me please."

  'A man with six beautiful wives has better things to do than complain.'

  Turning and looking at the bedroom door, Sean smiled.

  "Now that's more like it!"

  Opening the door, Sean walked back into the bedroom. Crawling up onto the bed, he grabbed Peg and started kissing her.

  "Hmm? Is it time to get up?" she mumbled.

  "No, it's time to play," Sean said and let his hands stroke down over her nice tight ass to her thighs.

  "You'll wake the others," Peg warned as she cuddled up against him, her hand finding him quite rampant.

  "Well, we wouldn't want them to miss out, now would we?" Sean chuckled and tweaked a nipple, causing Peg to inhale sharply.

  "No, no we wouldn't..."

  Sean yawned and walked into the new 'situation room' that had been put up at the ranch. Oak or Roxy must have ordered it, or at the very least approved it. One of his wolves was still painting the walls as Sean walked over to the head of the large conference table and dropped his ass into the seat there.

  There were monitors on the wall that another wolf was just finishing wiring up, with John watching over him as Cenna was doing something at a computer.

  "Morning, lazy," John said and checked something one of the wolves who now worked for him was doing.

  "It's before nine; this isn't lazy at all," Sean said and yawned again. "I hope they attached a kitchen to this place, because I suspect I'm going to be living in here before long."

  "What, no beds?"

  Sean grinned. "That's what this nice long conference table is for."

  "I don't know, I'd think you'd get tired of something that hard," Cenna said from over by the computer.

  "Not if you're on top!" Sean snickered. "So, are those feeds direct from the outposts?" Sean asked as the screens all suddenly came to life.

  "Most are," John said. "Some are from the National Guard base; they're feeding us their data, as we don't have access to their satellite streams." John paused a moment and then smiled. "Well, not legally at least. Also, I've got us tied into a lot of webcams in the area and downtown. Just in case we need to take a look."

  "What's that one over there?" Sean asked, pointing to one monitor that had a spreadsheet on it with two columns; one was full of dates, the other only had three entries so far.

  "Deidre's been doing a statistical analysis on the dates and timeframes of the gates that have opened so far and is using that to project the start of each three-day window, based on what you've told us so far," Cenna said without looking up from what she was doing.

  "Really? That's pretty impressive," Sean said while looking over the dates.

  'You need to have somebody call her,' Sean told the First.

  'Why?'

  'I'm sure one of you knows the rules a lot better than I explained it.'

  Sean felt the First mull that over a moment.

  'You're probably right. My youngest sister, Felicity, knows the rules better than most of us. I'll tell her to call.'

  'Isn't she the cute one in China?'

  'Yes, that would be her.'

  'Any chance you could get her to visit?' Sean asked with a mental chuckle as he turned his attention back to his friend.

  "So, John. What are the conspiracy nuts saying about what happened yesterday?"

  "That we're being attacked by demons from another world." John laughed. "What did you expect?"

  "You told them, didn't you?" Sean said shaking his head, grinning.

  "Course I did. I even provided pictures and a couple of videos. Right now they're all debating what kind of rig I must be using to generate such realistic fakes."

  "What's the news media saying?"

  "Well, they're under a partial blackout."

  "What? Why's that?"

  "Sean, would you believe any of this was true if you heard it on the news? And I'm talking back before you got infected."

  Sean thought about it. "Umm, no."

  John nodded. "Exactly. So the government slaps 'secret' all over it, but makes sure things leak out. Eventually the cover will be blown off it, and folks will be so pissed at the cover-up that they'll accept what happened instead of thinking it's a big fraud."

  "Who came up with that?"

  "Bunch of guys at the White House. Some of those folks over there are actually pretty smart."

  Sean looked up as Roxy, Bill, Oak, Claudia, and Chad all came into the room.

  "Morning, dear." Sean smiled up at Roxy. "Hello to the rest of you, too," he added as Roxy came over and plopped down on his lap.

  "I called a meeting," Roxy said.

  "I noticed." Sean smiled and kissed her.

  "Who else is coming?" Claudia asked.

  "Maitland should be here shortly," Roxy said, getting comfortable in Sean's lap. "Dae, Roberta, Cali, Jo, and maybe Peg."

  "What about Deidre?" Sean said, motioning towards the screen with the spreadsheet on it.

  "She's busy wrangling with Sawyer over ammunition and weapons."

  "Why not Cali?"

  "Cause Cali's your wife, and therefore above such things as haggling over money," Roxy said with a grin.

  "Oh, that reminds me," Sean said, thinking about yesterday. "Those machineguns in the helicopters, the M-twos I think they are?"

  "What about them? They didn't jam, did they? They're ancient, but it was all Sawyer could get his hands on easily."

  Sean shook his head. "No, not that. It looks like they were doing some serious damage to those djevels."

  "They're machineguns, what'd you expect?" Bill grunted and sat down as Maitland entered the room and found a seat.

  "A lot less than what happened. Regular weapons go through them like they're jello or water. They take even less damage than we do. But some of them got pretty torn up, and one even was killed I think."

  "So, you think it was because we used machineguns?" Roxy asked. "Too much damage too fast, like what can happen to us?"

  "I don't know," Sean admitted. "I asked Trey what kind of ammo they were using, and he thought it was all armor-piercing stuff. Maybe that does more damage because of the way it's designed?"

  "I'd think AP would do a lot less damage," Bill said. "That's how it works with people, at least. It doesn't expand at all, just sort of punches a clean hole right through."

  Sean shrugged. "Just saying what I saw."

  "I'll get someone to look into it," Roxy said as Roberta, Cali, and Daelyn entered the room.

  "Where's Jo and Peg?" Roxy asked.

  "Hauling in food," Peg grumbled as she and Jolene came in next, each pushing a cart of food.

  "That looks good," Sean commented, licking his lips.

  "Good, because that's all we could bring." Jolene laughed and they both started to unload the carts, placing a good deal of the food up by Sean first. Then they parked the carts against the wall.

  "It's self-serve for the rest of you," Jolene said.

  "You don't want to see what Sean would do if we served the rest of you," Peg said and then added with an evil grin, "even if it might be fun to watch."

  "So," Maitland said, getting up and pouring a cup of coffee from the urn on one of the carts, "if that spreadsheet of Deidre's is correct, we don't have anything to worry about until tomorrow when the next window opens.

  "Do we have any way of knowing when in a window the gate will open?" Claudia asked.

  Everyone looked at Sean, who shook h
is head. "Not yet, but maybe Deidre can figure it out given enough samples?"

  "Where else are the gates opening?" Maitland asked as he returned to his seat.

  "South America."

  "Who's dealing with them?"

  "The rest of the lions. That's why I'm the only one around. The rest are all down there. Or looking around for any other gates that might pop open elsewhere in the world."

  "Great, so we have other places to look out for now as well?" Claudia said with a heavy sigh.

  Sean nodded, "'Fraid so. But if I understand it right, those don't start happening for another four months and won't really become big enough to be an issue until the large gate opens."

  "Do we have any idea just how they're planning on making a permanent gateway?" Bill asked.

  Sean shook his head again. "Not really. Our best guess right now is that they're planning to move as many of them over here as they can. Hence the massive invasion."

  "But don't they need people from here to go over there?"

  Sean shrugged. "Maybe? Like I said, I don't really understand it fully. We've never dealt with something like this before. The djevels seem to know way more about it than we do."

  "What about the dark elves, Cali? Your people have a permanent gateway there, don't you?"

  "No, it is not a permanent gate. It is a recurring gate that opens in the same area every ten years or so. We view it as a cause for great celebration."

  "Really?" Bill asked, looking surprised.

  "Of course, how else can our warriors and fighters prove themselves in combat without a worthy foe to fight?" Cali smiled slowly. "I'm told that our folk come from thousands of miles away for the right to kill a djevel. Sadly, I do not think the djevels view it with the same amount of celebration and enthusiasm as our warriors do."

  "I'm not sure if she's having one over on us or telling the truth," Maitland said with a laugh. "And I'm not sure that I want to know, either."

  "So who else can we ask?" Sean said, looking around.

  "I'll talk to Sawyer," John said as the wolf he was watching finished up and started putting his tools away. "I have to run by there this afternoon anyway."

  "I'll call my uncle," Daelyn said.

  Sean nodded. "Does anybody know any elves we could ask?"