The Elder Witches

by R.E. Packer

  Chapter 15

  As it turns out, getting into a government build isn’t that hard. Especially if you have a hacker friend that can make key cards for you and a witch who can cast camouflage on you. Eros assured us that he could open any lock made. But I wasn’t going to gamble on the highly sophisticated equipment the government was sure to be using.

  My friend Marvin is a computer whiz. He used to work for the government at one of the big government acronyms. One of his hobbies is monitoring the intelligence communication online to see if anything interesting pops up.

  “Sure, I’ve heard of ORAB, the spy wire has been going crazy with communications about it,” he said spinning in his chair. “What kind of dumbass name is ORAB anyhow?” he rolled his eyes and spun back around typing wildly before I could reply.

  “Here, look at this,” Marvin said.

  Scooting aside to give us a better view, the heading on the screen read “OPERATION ELDER BLOOD”. Scrolling down, there were pictures of vampires. I only knew they were vampires because I recognized them from our earlier meeting as the vampire couple Vladmiri and Zyta. The picture was of them holding hands going into an apartment building.

  “There’s more here than the last time I checked,” he clicked a few more times and more pictures popped up. One picture was of a woman with black hair, a thin face and lips so thin they were almost nonexistent. Under the picture was:

  Name: Vivian Tutino

  Class: Witch / Occultist / Conjurer

  Subclass: Vampire

  More pictures were in the file but one in particular caught my eye. It was of Marianna wearing a business suit and dark sunglasses.

  Near the end of the file in bold red letters it read “IMMUNOTOXIN SERUM: test cells rendered completely inert with 0.5cc of serum.”

  “I’m no chemist but that doesn’t sound good,” I said.

  “Marvin, please print out any information you have on this,” Gwen said like she was asking for him to pass the salt.

  Marv looked overly happy to oblige.

  An hour later we arrived at a plain brick building downtown where Marvin said their headquarters was at. The sign outside read Blue Ridge Excavating.

  “That’s fitting, the government has been shoveling crap for years,” I said making a drum roll noise, smiling. Maeve rolled her eyes.

  We’d left Rutger with James. I still needed to have a talk with him to see how he had managed those witches by himself. It demonstrated a level of skill I didn’t know he possessed.

  “Maybe you and Eros should wait outside,” I said to Maeve.

  “You don’t think Merlin here will blend in?” she said with a smirk. “Maybe we could dress him up like Bigfoot.” She put her arms out doing her best monkey impersonation.

  Without a word, Eros turned and surveyed the people walking by. He approached a man on the sidewalk and put one hand on his jacket and the other on his face. Too shocked to react, the passerby stood there sputtering outrage.

  “Oh, yeah, this is going well,” Maeve said.

  Eros gave a wave of his hand, and his clothes changed from his dark cloak to a pair of jeans and a corduroy jacket that matched what the man had been wearing only darker.

  With another flick of his hand, the air shimmered, his beard changed to a well trimmed stylish look. A pair of black rimmed glasses, much like his ‘model’ wore appeared on his face. He sniffed, pushing the glasses up with one finger.

  “When this is over you and I need to have a talk about how to do that with shoes,” Maeve said.

  “Very impressive, Eros. But I still think two people will be easier to conceal than four,” Gwen said in a way that let him know it was final.

  Walking by the building without stopping I could see cameras placed every 25 feet. There was a guard posted at a desk inside the door, and a key card reader was outside the front door.

  “They sure have a lot of security for an excavation company.”

  “Well, lets go see what we can dig up,” Gwen replied smiling.

  I smiled. I think that was the first time I’d heard Gwen make a joke. A really bad joke, but I kept that to myself enjoying the sight of her smile, and what it did to her as she laughed.

  Before we went in Gwen went over to one of the biggest trees lining the street and put her hand on it. Using my Sight I could see the magic flowing from the Earth, through the tree and to Gwen. It didn’t take long before she was ready and we went in.

  “We can draw our power from nature more quickly,” she said. “Magic permeates the universe but for us of Druid decent, we’ve learned how to use nature to refill our magic much faster than pulling it from the air.”

  “Now lets make us a little less interesting.” Her eyes flashed blue as she took ahold of my hand and spoke in a language I didn’t understand.

  “This will help hide us to casual observers. We could make ourselves cloaked but then the cameras would still see doors opening which would alarm the guards. We could also try what you call a jump, but it’s risky when you don’t know where you’re going.”

  I felt a slight tingle as the spell took affect, but didn’t notice anything different about us.

  I swiped the key card that Marvin gave us and was worried for a few seconds that it wouldn’t work when nothing happened. Rubbing the card on my sleeve I was about to try again when a green light lit by the door handle and and I heard a soft click. And just like that we were inside a secure government building.

  A large guard sat at a desk in the lobby. He was early middle aged, reading a magazine that he lowered enough to look over the top of as we passed.

  “Hold it right there,” the guard said loud enough to echo through the empty hallways.

  “Don’t forget to sign in,” he nodded his head to a clipboard sitting on the counter in front of the guards desk.

  “Of course,” I said doing my best impersonation of a spy. The guard had already gone back to reading his magazine, duties fulfilled.

  Gwen and I both signed in with fake names and headed to the bank of elevators located down a hall past the guard’s desk.

  Pulling out the paper that Marvin had given us, I looked at the map he had printed. By the elevator box he had written the instructions “Push floor 1 - hold for 10 seconds. Release. Push floor 2 - hold for 10 seconds.”

  After putting the paper back in my pocket I pressed the elevator buttons as instructed. The panel with the floor number buttons popped open slightly. I pulled it open the rest of the way to reveal another key card reader, and swiped the card. Again there was a slight pause, this one much shorter than the front door had been, and the elevator started heading down to the top secret levels.

  The elevator took a long time descending. When we stopped the doors opened up to pale green painted walls. It reminded me of institutional buildings from the 60’s. The hall smelled like antiseptic and something else I couldn’t quite place. Our shoes squeaked as we walked on the worn tile floor.

  About 20 feet away a man and a woman in white lab coats walked down the hall toward us. The scientists didn’t give us a second glance as they turned into a room to the chorus of screeching monkeys.

  “Marvin’s map says to go to the end of the hall and around the corner. It’s the last room on the right.”

  As we walked down the hall, more people went to and fro, most of them not bothering to look up from what they were working on. One room we passed had 3 men in army fatigues firing rifles with sound suppressors. I slowed down enough to see they were firing at an indoor range. On closer inspection I didn’t see any form of sound suppressor attached to the rifles. The looked like a Heckler & Koch UMP, but they didn’t make any noise when firing other than a high pitched whistling noise.

  “Interesting,” I whispered to Gwen. “Those UMPs aren’t using silencers but they make less noise than most suppressors with subsonic rounds.”

  We move on before they took notice of us watching. The hall led us past a few more doors all of which were closed
. The room Marvin had marked on the map was right around the corner.

  As we rounded the corner, two armed guards stood on either side of the door at full attention from the moment we came into view. My mind raced thinking of a way to get passed the armed guards. They were obviously there to stop even personnel that belonged in the building.

  Before I could think up a plan Gwen scooted in front of me. Smiling brightly at the soldiers she put her hands on her hips and said in her best flirty voice, “Hi fellas? Catch any bad guys today?”

  It seemed to take the guards by surprise. I probably had the same open mouthed look as I stared at the otherwise no-nonsense, powerful witch putting on her show. The guard on the left, a freckle faced kid with bright red hair showing under his army hat smiled back and nodded. “No Ma’am but the day isn’t— ”

  “This room is off limits to anyone but ORAB and the brass, Ma’am,” said freckle’s partner. His tone of voice indicating that he didn’t think we were either. Then he gave the redhead kid a sideways scowl that stopped his smiling.

  They both had sidearms on their belt and a Tazer on the other side and the door behind them was surely locked tight. Even if we could get in we had no way of knowing if anybody from ORAB was already in there. Any personnel would know we were impostors and trip the alarm.

  Thoughts of spending the rest of our lives in a federal prison flooded my mind. How long would they keep Gwen locked up before they realized she was different? After 20 years and she looked the same, it might peak a guards interest. Of course who’s to say they could even hold her that long. I had no idea what her strengths really were.

  All these things went through my head in a second or two. It was time to grab Gwen and bail out before these guys saw through our camouflage. And hopefully they wouldn’t pursue us. I know Gwen is powerful but just how long can she hold a cloaking spell like this anyway. Note to self, ask these question before getting into a top secret government building with armed guards, that have a zero tolerance policy toward intruders.

  I caught just a slight glimpse of a blue light flashing in Gwen’s eyes before took a step toward the redheaded kid. Looking straight in his eyes she murmured something I couldn’t hear.