He nodded. “It’s going to take me years to learn about this new world I’ve returned to, but yes, I’ve been warned.”
Next up were Cole and Lewis, two of the nicest bears you’ll ever meet. One’s a Kodiak and the other a grizzly, and I genuinely like both. They’d actually be staying in a home on the other side of the portal until time to hold it open. I waved goodbye to them as they went through, and then took myself back to Trezevant to pick up Nathan and Jess and take them to Nathan’s house. For this trip, I didn’t stay and talk.
I carried Patrick, Briana, and seven members of their pack to Angelica’s apartment, and then took Cora to Homewood and spent an hour with our people, on our land.
Finally, I went to Mordecai’s house on Olympus. Phobos met me when I entered, and I went to my knees to pet the adorable Newfoundland pup. He licked my face and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“What did you name him?”
“Fearless.”
“An excellent name. Do you expect your father back soon?”
He shrugged and didn’t offer commentary.
I stood and stepped out and back twice, fast.
Three minutes later, Mordecai appeared, crossed his arms, and didn’t say anything.
“Are you busy? Can we talk?”
“I’ve been ordered to stay out of this.”
“I miss you. Can we just be the two of us for an hour? No war, no teaching, just us?”
He closed his eyes and sighed. Finally, he opened them and pulled me into his embrace, and I melted into him. So much had happened, and I could be strong when I needed to be, but Mordecai’s arms were safe. Nathan’s had once been, and I wasn’t prepared to deal with whether they could be again.
“You need to work things out with Nathan.”
“I’m not sure I can trust him with my heart again.”
“Did you ever truly get it back from him?”
“I was okay without him. I was working my way towards being good without him. I’m over halfway there. Why go back?”
“Because you love him.” He leaned back and looked down. “You love me, too. It’s okay. You have enough love to go around.”
“You’d be okay with the three of us... I don’t know. Together?”
“I’d want you all to myself occasionally, but yeah. The question is whether he can handle me being an important part of your life along with him.”
I shook my head. “I can’t think about that now.” I closed my eyes and asked for a favor. “Can you check in on Lauren without her knowing? Tell me how she and Smokey are doing?” I didn’t dare call her again. Even on an encrypted connection, the risk of the bad guys finding her by watching my phone was too great.
He was quiet a few moments before he told me, “She’s fine. She’s helping Kells with her little ones. They’re in a safehouse. She’s happy. You risk exposing their location if you go to her.”
“I know. Are my parents still safe?” I’d had to trust they could take care of themselves. They have plenty of food, weapons, and ammo. Not only that, but all of the houses on their dead end street did as well, and I knew the neighbors would band together.
“Your parents are fine. The neighborhood bandits know those seven houses are off limits. They’re good.”
“Thanks for checking in on them.”
“You hate asking for favors, but it’s okay. I’m good.”
I sighed. “Speaking of favors, when is you-know-who going to show up and cause problems? It feels like the hammer I keep waiting to strike.” Mordecai didn’t like for me to say Xaephan’s name around him.
“I don’t know, Kitten.”
“He can interfere, and you can’t?”
“You should go home. Things are churning from all directions and it kills me to not be able to tell you, but I can’t.”
“Since when is the God of War not allowed to influence fucking wars?”
He stroked my cheek and cupped it in his huge palm. “I haven’t been the god of war for a long time. Go, Kitten. When this is over, we’ll stay in bed for days.”
I didn’t step back home, he sent me, and I nearly fell when I landed in my own hallway, just outside the dining room. It let me walk in so I didn’t startle Cora and the other pack members. Much.
I looked around the room and smiled. They were eating burgers, and everyone seemed content. This was our core group — Cora’s top people in power, politics, and strategy.
“You’re back sooner than I expected,” Cora told me.
“Mordecai apparently needs to stay away from me as much as possible until this is settled one way or the other. I got to meet Phobos’ new puppy though.” I blew out a breath. “It’s possible I just miss Smokey even more now.”
“There are brownies in the oven,” Ranger told me.
Because chocolate makes everything better. “That’ll help. I’m going to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and then I’ll join you.”
When I returned and asked if there was news, Mac told me, “Aaron arranged for some other shifters to hold other portals open in and around the city. He mentioned it in the meeting without going into details. Some portals are only open to certain kinds of shifters, or to a certain size being. The portal at Stripmine Falls only lets beings shorter than about thirty or so inches tall through. The Hawks will hold it open while in their animal form. There’s a portal on Homewood land to...” He looked at Cora. “I don’t want to step on toes.”
“It’s fine. Doesn’t matter who tells her.” Cora looked at me. “Aaron told us of a portal to Faerie on our land. It’s close to the spot Apollonius set his camper up. He’s volunteered to hold that portal open, and it didn’t seem a good idea to tell him I should wait and ask you.”
“Apollonius volunteered?” Because Aaron was doing the one on Point Park.
“Yes. Sorry. Is that okay?”
“Yeah. I’d have probably done the same thing. I’m surprised he’s helping, since Mordecai apparently can’t — or won’t — but I don’t think we should question Apollonius too much.” I took a drink of my root beer. “Or, maybe I’m just a great big chicken and don’t have the nerve. Either way, good call.” I looked around the room and back to Cora. “I ordered my personal guard in Alfheim to watch the portal for the next seventy-two hours. If my orders get out, they won’t have the specific time we’re doing this. My question on this side is how we have people around me to protect me while I’m vulnerable. Should we have people both above and below ground?”
Cora looked to Ranger, and he leaned back in his chair, thoughtful. “Let’s have four or five people underground with you, and then have a similar number in the guard shack above. The rest will be at the main house and farmhouse.”
I shook my head. “Just the main house. People are more important than unessential structures. I realize you’re trying not to draw attention to the guard shack by also having people assigned to the farmhouse, but I think it’s okay to show we’re guarding the front and back of the property.”
Ranger looked to Cora, and she ruffled her eyebrows and smoothed them back out. “Front and back of the property makes sense.” She looked at me. “Tell me who you want underground with you, and then I’ll assign everyone else.”
“You and Kenny for sure. I’d like to have Ranger, but if you’re with me then he needs to be aboveground running things. He and Mac work well together, so Mac should be aboveground too. I’ll let you figure out the other two down below with us. Good fighters, but not necessarily good generals? We need the general-types aboveground since I’m being selfish and keeping you to myself.”
“You aren’t being selfish. We’re a team, and I need to be with you while you do this.” She looked at Ranger. “We’ll talk later and work out assignments. Maybe Mac in charge of the guard shack, and you over the main house. I don’t know. I need to think about it, and I’m sure you do too.”
We had some downtime, thank goodness. I felt guilty spending time outside with my cedar because it meant Cora sent
people outside to guard me, but I needed the energy boost. Also, I could sense our entire property while I meditated with my tree. I sensed the power in the boulder in our meadow, the portal to Faerie, and the love imbued into the very wood of the farmhouse from generations of the same family living in it. Cora had contracted with some hawk shifters to help patrol our land, and I felt them when they lit in the trees, but not when they were flying.
I touched my necklace and realized it hadn’t communicated with me in some time. I wished I could talk to Mordecai, but for whatever reason, he wasn’t available.
I stayed outside through the solar midnight because I wanted to get a feel for it. I’m told the vampires always know where the sun is, and the wolves always know where the moon is — even when it’s on the other side of the planet, they can point the general direction. I didn’t feel the solar midnight at all. I’d need someone to tell me when to open the portal.
Chapter 15
I was in place twenty minutes early the next day. I sent Cora up to check on everyone five minutes later, and she was gone six minutes. Our diesel fuel was still holding out, so our security system was fully engaged. I assumed she looked over the monitors for the entire land, but I didn’t ask when she returned. Her energy didn’t speak of any problems, and I was meditating so I’d be able to hold the portal open with the right intentions.
I’d found out that whoever had drawn the map hadn’t known ahead of time how many points of a star we’d have, or even if it would be a star. It could’ve been five points, or six, or nine, or even twelve or more. Seven had worked, and so, seven was the number we were using when we needed an arbitrary number.
So, Cora had me open the portal three and a half minutes before solar noon, and I stood in the center, holding Cedrotrix’s hand in Alfheim and Cora’s hand in Midgard while I meditated for seven minutes.
As instructed, I passed through and came back at the end, without letting it close until I was fully back in the human realm.
And then Cora and I just stared at each other. For some reason, I’d expected something to happen.
“Now what?” I asked her.
“I have no idea. You didn’t pick up on anything?”
“No. Let’s go to the Faerie portal and see if Apollonius is still there.”
I transported all the underground people to the guard shack, and then flashed to the other portal with Cora.
No one was there.
I adjusted my ponytail. “Well, damn.”
“Agreed,” said Cora. She looked at me a few seconds before telling me, “We have nine of the MC’s working girls here. Some of the male wolves have asked me if it’d be okay for them to hire a workin’ girl for an hour or two. I checked in with Brain, and he said whatever dollar amount the girls give them is fine. The MC won’t need to take their cut since they aren’t here to supervise, and he trusts our people will behave.”
I closed my eyes and looked down. “Yeah. Okay. So long as the women are paid and don’t do it out of thanks for being protected, I guess.” I’d have been ticked if Cora had given the okay without asking me, but I was also aggravated I’d been asked. The therapist in me understood that a whole lot more than I wanted to think about, so I merely said, “Thanks for checking in with me. I don’t like it, but I get it. So long as both sides consent and are happy with the deal, we don’t really have a right to tell them what they can do in their down time.”
“As their Alpha, I have the right, but this isn’t something I’m willing to be a hard-ass about.” She shrugged. “If there were a male prostitute on the premises, I might consider paying him to massage me and then maybe go down on me. I get it. We need to remember we’re humans for a little while. Whatever fight is coming, it’s going to be bad. Diversion while we wait is good.”
“Apparently, I risk powering up anyone I have sex with. I’ve been warned against giving Dawg more power than he might want.” When she didn’t say anything, I added, “I need to figure out how to test that.”
“So find someone who wouldn’t mind being powered up and have some fun with him.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t do casual sex. There needs to be a connection.”
“From what I understand, your new powers may create the connection — especially if it’s a shapeshifter.”
“I’d like to visit the spot the boulder used to be, but I think we should walk there.”
She pulled her shirt off. “Do you mind carrying my things? I’d like to walk as the wolf. She needs some time in her woods.”
“Works for me.”
We spent a few hours walking to the site and then just hanging out. I intended to build something there. Maybe a gazebo, or perhaps even a small little stone temple. For some reason, it felt important to get Harrison’s input, so I made a mental note to talk to him about it when everything calmed down.
We went back to the house and ate. I napped and then ate again. At seven o’clock, I was in the underground castle area, talking to the people there under our protection and thinking I still had five hours until it was time to go to the buried container on the back of the property.
And since we were under our hill, I had no idea that the sun set at 7:07 on this day. This battle was all about the sevens, so someone should’ve figured it out.
We never found out how the bad guys discovered our plan, but they streamed into the center of the star the second they could safely do so.
All state and national parks were closed during the unrest, so no one was at Booker T. Washington State Park. With the curfew in effect, there was no boat traffic on the water. This meant they were free to bring their army through all the portals available in the park — and there are a lot. Talk about odd coincidences, I learned there are portals to every realm inside the park. Every single one of them.
Aaron had people watching the portal sites — kind of like the secret service watching places for a few days before the President arrives — to make sure nothing was booby trapped. Three of the four Drake employees were killed instantly, the other shifted into an eagle and flew to warn Randall and Duke.
And so, at seven seventeen, we were brought into a rushed conference video call to decide what to do.
“They can’t have control of the center while we hold the edges,” Aaron explained. “It’ll give them all of the power we put into the other points.”
“So, we have to beat them before the solar midnight?” I asked.
“We don’t have to beat them,” Abbott answered, “but we need to keep them from harnessing the power put into the rest of the star.”
“So a huge battle that keeps them occupied,” said Ranger.
“That should do it.” Nathan rubbed his jawline with the back of his fingers. “We want everyone who’ll be holding a portal open to stay put. The exception is that we’ll need Kirsten to help us transport people to the park, but we don’t want her fighting.”
I shook my head. “You know I’m not going to hide out where it’s safe while ya’ll are fighting for your lives.”
“Transporting so many people quickly is going to sap you, Bug.” I looked to the section of the monitor with Aaron’s face. “You’ll need to recharge before it’s time to hold the portal open. Let’s play it by ear, okay?”
I nodded.
“Mordecai had me purchase a barge a while back,” Aaron said. “While we were regrouping after we got our asses kicked, he casually mentioned to me that you’d be able to move the barge full of people, should we need to move an army all at once. We have all our Chattanooga people capable of fighting heading for the river, and I managed to snag a second barge. If you can teleport the people in Trezevant onto the barges as well, you’ll be able to move our entire fighting force to the park in two shifts. Done back-to-back, it might be enough of a surprise attack to make a difference.”
“Won’t the traffic cams pick up on so much movement in the city?”
“The geeks are handling the traffic cam problem,” said Nathan.
; I looked down and telepathed Cora. You need to be here for the planning stages. I’ll go ahead and start moving people.
I don’t like being separated from you, but I don’t see a way around it. Be careful.
I looked back up. “Okay, I’m headed to Trezevant. I’ll move people while ya’ll work on strategy.”
I needed to see the barges, so I flashed to the back of a liquor store near the water on the north shore and walked down to the water. Sure enough, I could see the barges on the water where Aaron said I’d find them. I figured out how best to bring the truck in, and found a spot with trees in all directions, so no one would see it appear and disappear.
I flashed to the closest barge and looked them over. They were slightly different, as if made by different manufacturers, but were engineered the same. Both barges had a huge mast at the front, and I’d be able to hold onto it and take the barge where I wanted. Each was two hundred feet by about fifty feet. We’d be able to get a shitload of people onto them. Could I carry that many people at once, and then immediately do it again? A single barge could carry eight or ten times as many people as I’d taken in the box truck. Maybe more. Probably more. I wasn’t up to doing the math to figure it out.
I went to Trezevant, but they had me take the truck to the coterie house first, and I tried not to be too smug when eighty-something vampires came out of the house and got into and onto the truck. I’d been right about the bunker.
I made six more trips carrying vampires and shapeshifters in the truck — including a trip to Homewood to transport our people — before they were ready for me to start moving people from Trezevant. Between the wolves and the Drake employees, it took another eight trips to get them all to the barge site. The lions would get there using a shortcut through Faerie. Meanwhile, other people in town had made their way to the site. Both barges were packed full of people.
Unhuman Acts Page 12
