Red Skies

by Jan Stryvant

  "Okay, let's go outside so they can torch the place, I want to talk to those people."

  "Something bad was going on down here," Peg said as he followed her up the stairs. "Something very bad. I think they were into some of the proscribed magicks."

  "Well, my team and I killed six of them who had been possessed by demons. You get any?"

  "Only one," Peg shivered, "Roxy beat it to death with a tire iron. It was pretty nasty."

  Sean looked over at Roxy, who looked a little worse for wear. Pulling her close, he gave her a kiss. "That's my Rox! If she can't shoot it, she'll beat it to a pulp."

  Roxy smiled back a little wearily. "That sucker was tough, too. Thank goodness it wasn't any faster or stronger than a human, or I might have been in trouble."

  Walking outside, Sean was passed by a couple of werewolves with large gas cans; apparently Chad wasn't taking any chances on the place not burning of its own accord once lit.

  He could see where all the women and children were being held, so he walked directly over to them. Surprisingly, Ron Williams was already there.

  "I thought you weren't going to attack until later?" Ron asked.

  Sean noticed he didn't look upset, just puzzled.

  "And is that," Ron motioned towards the burning buildings, "really necessary?"

  Sean sighed, and said loudly enough the women prisoners could hear, "I'm afraid so. Frank Watkins had been possessed by a demon, some sort of demonic leach that ate his soul and took him over. So had several of the other men and women. Plus they were doing blood rituals in the basement."

  Sean could see the blood drain from several of the women's faces, the light from the fires getting rather bright. Ron also looked quite shocked.

  "They were summoning devils?"

  Sean shook his head. "I don't think so." Looking back at the women, he asked, "By the way, which one of you is Emily Roy?"

  Sean heard a sob then from one of the older women. He walked over to her. "I'm not going to hurt her, a friend asked to make sure she was okay. Do you know where she is?"

  The woman shook her head. "No," she sobbed, "I'm her mother and she's been missing for two days now! I asked Frank about it, and he told me she'd gone to Toronto for him. But you just said he was possessed and they were doing blood rituals!" the woman wailed and, sighing, Sean squatted down and gave her a hug.

  "I'm sorry. Do you have a picture or something of her?"

  Sobbing, the woman took out an iPhone and showed him the backdrop. It was a young woman, obviously younger than Gail by a couple of years, but not that much younger, and...

  Sean's eyes widened and he felt his heart start to race.

  "I'm so sorry..." he said to the woman.

  "What! Did you kill her?" she said, looking at him angrily.

  "She was already dead," Sean said. "I found her, they were eating her body."

  "What?! Who? Where?"

  "Devils," Sean said, still in shock, "I came across a bunch of devils and they were eating her. It, it wasn't..." Sean hugged her again, "I'm sorry, I'm just so sorry. I killed them all; I stopped them from eating her. But there was nothing I could do..."

  'Now I understand!' the First said. 'They weren't eating her, they were eating her soul. They killed her in that circle to send her soul to the underworld, to strengthen others like themselves, so they could bring them here to infect more.'

  'So I didn't kill her then?' Sean asked a little desperately.

  'No, you killed her, even though her body was already dead. But because you did, her soul passed on to the afterlife where it can find peace. If you had left her there, her soul would have been consumed completely; it would have been destroyed.'

  Sean gave the woman another hug and then slowly stood up.

  "I'm sorry, all of you. Your missing children are all dead."

  The wail that rose up from the women at that point, as well as several of the children, was one of the most heart-rending things Sean had ever heard.

  "Check all the women and children a second time, just to be sure none of them are possessed," Sean said to Chad in a soft voice.

  "What are you going to do?" Chad asked.

  "Question Emily's mother," Sean said with a sour look. "So don't think I'm giving you the hard job." Bending over, Sean took the crying woman's hand. "Could you come with me for a few minutes, please?"

  "Why?"

  "Because I want to know what happened, and I don't want to ever have to do this again."

  Nodding, she slowly stood up as Sean helped her to her feet.

  "Ron, if you could come with us please?"

  "Sure, of course."

  Sean led her away from the others, around to the other side of one of the vans, opening the door and letting her sit down.

  "When did Frank start to change?"

  "I, I don't know."

  "It was a month ago," the female werewolf from the kitchen, the one who had told Sean that Watkins was a demon, said as she approached them.

  "Are you sure?" Sean asked.

  She shrugged. "That was when he started to smell. None of us thought too much about it, but it was only a week after that when Katlyn's daughter Kathleen disappeared."

  "What happened a month ago?"

  The werewolf shrugged. "Beats me, I work in the kitchen. I see them all at least once a day, but I have no idea what they're up to when they're not eating."

  "We had a visitor," Mrs. Roy said. "A very important visitor."

  "Really? Who?"

  "Oh, right, that big wig from Brussels, we really had to lay out quite the banquet for him. Frank wanted to make a good impression. Said the guy was an old friend of his."

  "Who?" Sean growled, a little annoyed.

  Both of the women jumped slightly at his tone.

  "Sorry!" Sean sighed.

  "It's okay," Mrs. Roy said. "His name was Jeremy something. I'm not sure exactly, he was on the main leadership council I think?"

  "Jeremy Mays," Ron said with a sigh. "Has to be."

  "How long after that did they decide to replace the lycans with mercenaries?"

  "I'm, not quite sure? Three weeks ago? Two? He said he was having terrible problems with discipline, that they were causing problems."

  "That's cause we could smell 'im," the female werewolf grumbled.

  "I think he ordered everyone else to replace theirs as well? I think that was last week."

  Sean nodded and turned to look at Ron. "Call Duncan and Troy, let them know what happened, then call Perkins in Vancouver."

  "Umm, are you sure you want me to do that? He'll invoke the Stuttgart treaty."

  "That's not my problem," Sean said. "However, you can tell him that if they kill any of the women here without a damn good cause, I'll have a few words with him, and they're not going to be nice ones. This wasn't a summoning, this was an infection, and all of these people bore the brunt of it.

  "But right now, I'm starting to think that the source of this infection just might be one Jeremy Mays. Tell Perkins he might want to look into that."

  Looking around, Sean sighed. "This isn't going to get any easier," he grumbled.

  "What?" Ron asked, looking at him.

  "They infected the second most powerful member of the Vestibulum in North America. You don't think they stopped there, do you? And let's not even think about what might be happening in Brussels."

  "Oh." Ron shook his own head. "You're right, I better go make those phone calls."

  Sean led the woman back over to the others. The rest of the Sapientia council was there, and it looked like Chad had finished up checking them all out.

  "Find anything?" Sean asked him.

  "Nope, they're all good."

  Sean nodded. "If you need me, I'm going to be in that bar Peg found, O'Keefe's I think she said? Anyway, I'll be there trying to erase a few memories."

  "I thought lycans couldn't get drunk?"

  "It's the thought that counts," Sean grumbled and, flagging down Roxy and Peg, he heade
d for one of the cars to get a ride back to town.

  Greasing Palms

  "So, what do we know?" Steve asked, looking around the room at the members of his investigation and tracking teams. He'd broken them down into teams of four, and put two on each member of Congress who was pushing back against the president's executive order. One team was to track the member, see who they met with, where they went, and what they did, all without getting too close. With four people, all using radios John had sourced, they were having a fairly easy time of it.

  Steve had been careful to pick the ones who were more into outdoor games and liked to run for that job.

  The second team was to research the member. Find out everything they could on the internet, from scouring old news articles in LexisNexis—which they were now subscribed to—to going out around town and floating bribes to anyone and everyone they thought might have a juicy story.

  Steve had picked the ones who were more into gossip and a little larceny for those teams.

  Granite, whom Steve had put in charge of all the teams, spoke up first.

  " Senators Warden, Scheckley, Peters, Markston, and Conway are definitely working together on this; Scheckley and Conway are obviously the most committed, and they're the ones pushing the hardest. Warden, Peters, and Markston," Granite shrugged, "I'm not so sure they're doing it for any reason beyond following orders from whoever pays their bribes."

  "What about the rest of the Senate?"

  "They're just following the party line, which Scheckley and Conway determine and enforce. Rumors abound that, as the midterms come closer, most of the party are going to drop their support, because they don't want to give the other side any ammunition for the election campaigns."

  Steve nodded. "And the House?"

  "We've got representatives Molson and Lewis from Massachusetts pushing really hard against it. I think there's some Vestis pushing behind that, as they're in their districts. From Maryland, representatives Janks and Malone are leading the charge, and we're not at all sure why, though they've met with Scheckley more than the others, so we're thinking they've got the same paymasters or something.

  "The other three representatives leading the charge we're still gathering information on; we haven't had enough people to really devote much time to them, we're getting stretched on resources. The rest," Granite shrugged, "are just following the party leadership. The former speaker is pushing this as well, but we think it's more to embarrass the president than for any real ulterior motive. But again, we lack the bodies to know for sure."

  Steve nodded. "Sean's still out of the country, so I've been browbeating Oak to send us some more people. Roberta's been helping with that as well. I expect to have more bodies out here to help with all of this by Saturday, if not sooner. Now let's go down through the teams. Each of you has thirty seconds to tell me whatever you think is important. Anything you think is odd, anything that stands out."

  "Why?" asked Janet, one of the wolves.

  "Because advertising and persuasion is all about the subconscious mind, not the conscious mind. That's what we always seek to influence. Politics, sales, persuasion, they're all about rhetoric. Feelings. Emotions. If I want the facts, I can get them from your reports. What I want right now are your impressions."

  Janet shrugged, and Steve started to point at people in a random order, so they wouldn't know who was next. He didn't think he'd get much from this exercise, but the real point of it was to try to get them to notice the kinds of things they normally wouldn't have thought of. These things always tended to trend to the outrageous or the absurd.

  "...and boy did he stink!" Star said.

  Steve blinked and held up his hand as she sat down. "Wait, I missed part of that, who stank?"

  "The guy Conway was meeting with. I guess he showers with pigs or something."

  "If he showered at all," said Prince, one of the men on her team. "I caught a whiff of it too. Ugh. I ain't never scented a human with a stench like that."

  "Huh," Steve said. "You'd think people would shower before meeting a senator."

  "I don't think Conway could smell it," Star said. "It was one of those things humans tend to miss with their weak noses."

  "Hey! I resemble that remark!" Steve laughed as Star blushed a little.

  "Nate," Steve said to the jaguar who worked as his secretary. Her real name was Natasha, but woe unto you if you called her that. "Make a note of that. Let's get an ID on this guy."

  "Just because he missed a few showers?" Nate said.

  "If it stands out, it gets written down," Steve said. "Get a name on this guy. If nothing else, it'll be good practice for the ones who don't stink."

  "Okay, I'll talk to John on it. Did you get a picture, Star?"

  Star nodded. "I'll have it in your email within the hour."

  "Great!" Steve said and clapped his hands, enjoying the way they all jumped a little when he did so. Alex had taught him that trick; only Nate seemed immune, but most of the big cats weren't twitch predators. "Now, Billie!" Steve pointed and let the observations go on.

  They were almost done when Clifford, who was in fact a red wolf, stood up and said "Scheckley's campaign manager stinks something fierce, too. I wasn't gonna say anything, but with Star mentioning it, I figured I might as well."

  Steve stood up. "Anyone here smell any stinky people? Above and beyond the normal stench, that is?"

  Steve watched as they all looked around and shook their heads.

  "Star, go with Clifford tomorrow, check out this campaign manager of Scheckley's, and tell me if it's the same stench or not."

  "Okay. Can I ask why?"

  "Simple, if they've got the same stink on them, that means they're both doing the same thing. It links them together."

  "Tracking people based on stink?" Nate asked.

  "No one here's ever smelled it before, therefore it can't be common. I mean, come on Nate, you're a cat, they're wolves, they got you beat in the nose department, even you have to admit that."

  Steve smiled as most of the wolves snickered.

  "That may be, but I still got you beat!" she growled.

  "Okay, let's wrap this up, then you can all get back out there to work!"

  There were a few groans at that, but ten minutes later Steve was back in his office as Terri came back in with lunch, Boz and Nell trailing her like two well-trained dogs. Two large well-trained dogs. They may not be the biggest wolves around, but they were still a lot larger than the average dog.

  "Learn anything interesting?" Sean asked Terri as she set her lunch down.

  "You have an appointment to see the president at seven tonight."

  "That sounds more like dinner," Steve said, surprised.

  "Yes, that was what they called it too," Terri said with a grin.

  "Damn, I'm glad I packed my nice suit! Do you need to get some clothes shopping in first?"

  "Nah, I got it covered. Though this weekend I'm going to need to update my ensemble just a bit. After all, I can't be seen in the same dress twice, now can I?"

  "We've been here three days, and already you're falling victim to the local fashion trends," Steve said with an exaggerated sigh.

  Terri smiled back at him. "Business is business. You know that. And that's all lobbying is, is business."

  "You forgot the blackmail part."

  "Nope, that's business too!"

  Sean stretched and yawned. Sitting up in bed, he swung his feet over to the side, set them on the floor, and looked around the room. They were in a rather inexpensive motel about half a mile from the airport. Chad and Ron had both agreed Sapientia should take in the Vestibulum survivors, and that it would probably be for the best if Sean's troops were somewhere else.

  So they'd found and rented every available room in this place. Most of the wolves were probably ten to a room, but when you're the boss, you rate your own room.

  Roxy came out of the bathroom then, drying her hair. Reaching back behind himself, Sean gave Peg a light smack on
the rump.

  "Shower's open. Go get clean. I think we're leaving soon."

  "Ugh," Peg grumbled and, rolling out of bed, she prodded Sheila, who had been waiting for Roxy to finish. "Let's go."

  Sean stood up and stretched again, rising up on his toes and putting his hands on the ceiling as he did so. Looking down, he saw Roxy and Peg both watching him appreciatively.

  "Yum," Roxy growled.

  "Now, now, we do have to be somewhere in a while!" Peg snickered and, giving Roxy a poke, she grabbed Sheila, who was blatantly staring, and dragged her off to the shower.

  "I swear, when this is over I'm gonna lock us in a room for a month and you ain't getting a minute's worth of sleep," Roxy purred as she leered at him.

  Putting his arms down, Sean walked over to her, placed a hand on her belly, and smiled. "I like the sound of that. How's our kid doing?"

  "He's doing fine," Roxy said, still purring, then grabbed his mane, pulled his head down, and kissed him. "His mother, however, is still getting the occasional bout of morning sickness."

  Sean wrapped his arms around her. "Sorry to hear that, Hon."

  "Eh, I need to avoid greasy foods before bed is all. You know, if we were really quick..."

  Just then Sean's phone rang, and Roxy frowned.

  Sean snickered and looked at the caller ID as he picked it up and put it on speakerphone.

  "Hi, Steve. What's up that you're calling me so early in the morning?"

  "What? It's after ten!"

  "It's an hour earlier here."

  "Yeah, I know, it's after ten where you are! It's eleven here."

  Sean looked at the clock on the table; sure enough, it was after ten.

  "Damn, I need to hit the shower soon; I think Chad wanted to be up in the air by noon."

  "Yeah, I just got off the phone with him. He told me what happened last night, that's why I decided to call and wake you up."

  Sean laughed. "Well, you're in luck, I was already awake. How's things in DC?"

  "We're still settling in and getting the lay of the land. We've identified the main players in the pushback against the president's EO."

  "EO?" Sean interrupted.