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Quayla
Huge explosions spurred my flight toward Vitae’s hotel. I had no idea what was going on. With my amulet transmogrified into my feathers, no statuette in talon, and without any of the tactical gear Sabrina used, I had no way to ask Anima.
A shift of will traded feathers for essence, then shifted back in a version of my true form armored for battle.
Armored personnel carriers and Humvees came into view first. Some kind of tank moved into view next, its main cannon blasting away again and again.
Something in the battle shifted.
Troops fled their position.
Tanks reversed, two knocking into each other in their haste to gain range on their target.
I needed to get to Terrance. Still, if the mortal soldiers were under attack by either Sidhe or Fae Kissed, my first duty required me to help.
I winged toward the soldiers’ rear lines so I could talk to their leader. A massive explosion shoved air out in every direction, the sudden buffeting hampering my flight. A shift of pinions turned me into a lazy circle that allowed me to ride out the turbulence and prevented my landing from becoming a crash.
“Fire!”
I flicked my eyes toward the voice to find tank cannons and soldiers pointing up at me.
“General, stop! She’s on our side.”
The second voice belonged to Colonel O’Curran.
Seeing him shot déjà vu through me. The surrounding buildings filled in enough blanks that I realized where I was. Vitae’s hotel was nothing but rubble.
Terrance!
“You heard me,” the General shouted. “Fire! Fire! Fire!”
The Army force opened fire.
I transmog’d a mere instant before rounds hit me from every angle. Large and small caliber bullets dragged essence along in their wake. Will summoned back my essence, stripping the ordinance of their tails.
Thank you, Mar!
Whatever launched out of the tank’s cannon blew up too close for comfort. An explosive shockwave slapped me from the air with sufficient force to shatter my wing bones.
“General Small, you have to cease fire. That’s Quayla, she—”
“Be silent, Colonel, or I’ll have you taken into custody.” General Small pointed at me. “That thing is an illegal alien guilty of terrorist attacks on the United States of America. Change fire, incendiary rounds!”
Recovering before I hit the ground, I dodged left and right, avoiding several explosive rounds in my attempt to get closer to Vitae’s hotel.
The next round smeared the sky with fire. The sudden inferno caught my tail and one wing. Agony burned through my nerves and ignited my temper.
That’s enough.
Rather than rebalance back to flying trim, I dragged my vaporized essence to the ground. S-blades decapitated hydrants repaired after my last battle in the same streets. Aquakinesis bent the torrents toward the Army.
My body formed mid-march toward the offending mortals. Ice formed around and then inside weapon barrels—including the tanks. “Hold your fire or your weapons will backfire.”
“I ordered you to destroy that thing!” General Small screamed twice as loud.
A tank cannon fired, the front half of the vehicle exploding when the shell hit the ice plug.
Soldiers interposed themselves.
My body liquified, flowed between them and reformed. I stomped up to O’Curran and glowered at the General. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Firing on me after I saved your men?”
“By the authority granted me by these United States, I am authorized to terminate all invading foreign powers.”
O’Curran’s tortured expression gave me some measure of the General before me. “General—”
“You will surrender at once, or I will order you killed!”
Calm. Dappled pools.
The images didn’t quite rob my reply of its bite. “No.”
General Small purpled. “You will—”
“No,” I sighed. “I won’t.”
“Kill her!”
“General, please—”
“Kill the invader!”
I decked him. “I was here first, asshole. You’re the invader, and there’s not a damned thing your men can do to me without killing everybody in the area, so I suggest you stop acting like a toddler and speak to me in a reasonable, respectful tone.”
O’Curran extended a hand to help Small up. “General, perhaps—”
Small slapped his hand away, pulled his sidearm, and shot me in the face three times.
It hurt, and I was really getting tired of pain. A quick assessment of rank and file suggested that appealing to Colonel O’Curran wouldn’t garner me anything.
“You do understand that shooting water is pointless, right?”
General Small got back to his feet, eyes nearly glowing with fury. Words rumbled out in a growl. “Restrain the prisoner.”
O’Curran’s pleading expression stopped me from punching the General again.
“First, I’m not your prisoner. Second, you can’t handcuff water either. Thir—”
“I’ll restrain you if I have to cage you in an aquarium.”
I rolled my eyes, but as much as I wanted to go check on Terrance, I didn’t turn my back on the little man. With enough distance, he’d attack me again, maybe with something that could overwhelm me. Until I had time to tend my nest, there was no need to push my luck.
“America was founded as one nation under God, and you work for that nation, right?” I asked.
General Small grunted in the affirmative.
“Then as a direct report of God himself, I outrank you.”
“You are an enemy of the state. Now, surrender.”
“No.” I’d had enough. “As a member of Atlanta’s Shield, recognized as diplomatic envoys, I am informing you that any further unprovoked attacks on embassy property or its personnel will result in lethal retaliation.”
General Small purpled until his face edged toward black.
I leaned in close to the little man with the huge ego. “Push me, and I’ll drown you right where you stand.”
I wouldn’t.
I couldn’t murder one of my charges for being an insufferable asshole, but he didn’t know that.
Not for a fact at any rate.
“Pull out.” He spun on his heels and marched away.
O’Curran stepped close and lowered his voice so only I could hear. “That was a mistake. The Meatgrinder doesn’t like to lose.”
“I didn’t start this, Colonel. I’m not the one in the wrong here.”
“Colonel!”
O’Curran glanced back at Small. “Well, I’m pretty sure we’re both going to pay for the bruises to his ego.”
The colonel was right.
General Small would be back. He’d return with some plan to make life difficult, but until then, he ceased to be my problem.
The Army behind me, I waded into Vitae’s hotel and started clearing away rubble.
Vitae
The noise of shifting rubble came to me first, easing me back into consciousness. At first, I thought it might be some of my Sidhe, maybe Scurith, or even some of my enforcers. Moistening my lips, I started to call for help.
Instinct stopped me.
Mortal military had leveled an assault against me just as Terrance’s rampage ruined what had remained of my hotel. The resultant destruction brought into question the state of my nest. Even injured, no mortal matched my power or prowess. Still, if the searchers proved to be some of Aquaylae’s agents, there existed the possibility of being overwhelmed.
Transmogrifying into plasma energy offered me a way to burn myself free of the debris but would also draw attention to my escape. The possibility that either the Sidhe or my hell-blighted shieldmates besieged me, demanded caution. Without a ready nest, rashly courting battle served only my enemies.
Thus, I chose the lesser blood form. My liquefied essence slithered through cracks and crannies, searching for a path out of my ruined sanctum.
A muffled sound of voices—both female—interrupted that of shifting rubble. I froze, straining to listen.
I couldn’t make out what they said, but I used the sound as a compass. By time I broke free of the rubble into the night and edged into line of sight, only Aquaylae stood in what remained of my foyer.
Had I chosen my plasmic form, the energetic form would’ve illuminated my position like a neon spotlight.
Aquaylae paced around the fountain, stopping with her back to me. Her arms liquified, shimmering blue in the dark neighborhood. Tendrils of water rose out of my oracle, swelling her body as she drew the oracle’s contents away from the basin.
Anger heated my blood.
Thieving bitch.
Drawing my essence taut as a bowstring, I tensed to spring from cover and assault the larcenous whore. My taste for blood soured as I realized that oozing through twist and turn, crack and crevice had stretched my main mass out too far for a quick assault. I considered rushing her with less than my full essence. Another thought cooled my hot blood.
Viviane claimed Ignis fell before Aquaylae.
I’d never deigned to spar with Aquaylae. Her similarity to Mare made such matches agony, and Aquaylae’s willful ignorance made training a waste of time. During the only true test of her abilities at the Marriott Marquis, she’d beaten me through baseless, underhanded luck.
Better trained and more powerful though I was, the enlarged water phoenix could overwhelm a weakened assault by sheer, thoughtless mass.
Without the certainty of a nest, risking myself against a stronger adversary of unknown, though probably limited, skill seemed unwise.
I’ll spare her until I have the clear upper hand.
Slipping once more beneath the cover of rubble, I slithered to a point outside Aquaylae’s sight line, keeping my senses open for any remaining nodules of trollman flesh that could bolster my forces. When I emerged, she was long gone.
Probably off to indulge in some hedonistic depravity.
I reformed and surveyed the ruins. Without my dwarves, I’d need putti to rebuild. Without the oracle or a nest, I couldn’t have Anima summon any putti. The ruins of my cell phone refused me any ability to contact the Isaac, so I called out to him. “Isaac?”
He’s a Watcher. He will know and answer my call.
He didn’t.
I called out repeatedly as I searched my ruined hotel and the remnants of those surrounding buildings where I’d housed enforcers. The sun rose to find only a single charred but surviving flesh nodule in my possession as the fruit of my long night’s effort.
It’s a start.
I waylaid a passing motorist who didn’t reek of fey taint. It would’ve been more convenient had the mouthy mortal been Fae Kissed. Since he wasn’t, I borrowed his phone with measured force.
I dialed the Isaac, holding the mortal’s insistent demands off at an extended arm’s length.
The phone rang once.
It rang a second time without the Isaac picking up—unheard of since telephones had been invented.
A third ring made me doubt the device’s functionality.
The Watcher’s normally solemn tone carried an edge of menace. “Atlanta Vitae.”
“Excellent. I’d feared for your safety.”
“That is a lie.”
The accusation made my skin prickle. “I require your assistance.”
“No.”
Arctic waters washed over me. “Perhaps my choice of words wasn’t clear. I have need—”
“You require my services to facilitate repair of the taint-drenched enclave you named a Shield sanctum.”
His wording made me hesitate, but I found my voice in short order. “Off on the details, but essentially correct.”
“My services are no longer available to you.”
Heat blossomed like twin suns on the jawline just below each ear. “Now see here. I am the Shield—”
“Incorrect. You are no longer a Shieldheart.”
“I was born to be a Shieldheart!”
The mortal’s struggle to reach his phone offered the only break in the silence.
“I have no care what delusions that infantile, corrupted Watcher told you. I—”
The Isaac’s voice boomed throughout the streets, sending the mortal to heels without his phone. “Atlanta Vitae, your Divine has stripped you of the Shieldheart title.”
“He what?!”
“You have been marked for Destruction.”
How dare they strip me of my rightful title! I protected Atlanta, reclaimed Mare from Lucifer’s whores. Everything I’ve done has been with the best of intentions!
“How dare that incompeten—”
“You have six days to make peace with Aquaylae and the rest of your Shield.”
All warmth washed out of my body. The Isaac had been the first Watcher, the original cherubim charged to guard Eden. His sword had been the model from which all the Swords of Judgement had been made. He made no threat and yet one lurked in the finality of the Isaac’s words.
“No! There’s been some mistake. I am the Hand of the Undying in Creation!”
Hells! I need to speak with Vilicangelus immediately.
“You have been told. Vilicangelus is no more.”
There seemed no reason to keep a sneer from my voice. “I have reason to doubt the source of that information.”
“Then Know my word as Truth. Your Vilicangelus is gone.”
The ominousness of the Isaac’s words physically staggered me. I needed my sanctum rebuilt. Mare needed me to provide her sanctuary and solace in this unfamiliar era.
And now it seems I must clear away these false accusations to do either.
“I demand to speak to whomever Vilicangelus served!”
“He is always listening.”
Silence fell over the street.
The phone in my hand melted to boiling plastic, splattering onto the concrete to form the words: Further Contact Forbidden.
Scurith
Glamour clung to the coyll like a second pelt, disguising his nature with a well-dressed air of propriety. Across the large, mahogany desk, Atlanta’s Mayor reeked of cigar smoke and liquor, sweat and liver failure. If he knew his life was ending, his continued drinking gave no indication.
“Go on,” the Mayor prompted, drawing in another breath of wrapped, burning tobacco.
Scurith inclined his head. “My employer wishes to work in harmony with your administration, but if we are going to go forward with this construction project, we are going to need cooperation.”
“You said something about donations.”
Scurith’s lips peeled away from his canines, but to the Mayor his glamour showed only a wide smile. He drew up a briefcase, setting it on the Mayor’s desk. The lid opened to reveals stacks of cash, gold coins, and rare gems. “We will be happy to donate to any charity you prefer.”
The Mayor’s eyes lit, avaricious glee in his gaze. “And you just want building permits?”
Scurith intertwined his fingers. “Building permits. Business licenses. All the documentation necessary for us to legally do business in your city. The sooner we can get started, the better leg up you have on the other Mayors.”
The glitter in the Atlanta’s Mayor eyes lifted from the displayed treasures to tighten. “Other Mayors are being offered the same opportunity?”
‘Similar,” Scurith closed the briefcase. “But Atlanta will be special...assuming we can do business. Of course, the longer we are delayed in starting, the more likely another Mayor will have a claim to completing their world wonder first.”
The Mayor’s door burst open, bouncing off a credenza as a tall, haughty woman in a dark suit stormed into the office. An older woman in a navy skirt suit followed in the blonde’s wake. “I’m sorry, Mister Mayor. I told Captain Gamete you were in a meeting.”
“Your Honor, we need to talk.” Mary Gamete said.
The Mayor rose. “Captain, I do not appreciate you barging in here while I am with an important—”
Scurith raised a placating paw. “It’s quite alright. The SNat Crimes Captain doubtless has more important matters on her plate. I can wait.”
Mary’s finger pointed at a wall. “That bastard General is refusing to assist us with getting these supernats under control.”
The Mayor scowled, waving his secretary from the room. “What do you expect me to do about it? I already addressed your complaints about Colonel O’Curran with the Governor. The Army works for the federal government.”
“I have a way to protect our officers and better enable SNat to clean up Atlanta’s streets,” Mary’s full force of personality bore down on the Mayor. “If you managed to bring the supernats under control, re-established the safety of Atlanta for her citizens, everyone would remember you come election time.”
Not that he’ll live that long...unless Mistress wishes me to cure him.
“That’s why I agreed to charter SNat Crimes, Captain.”
“And I have thanked you for that by doing my best, but without military support, we need more to get the job done.”
“Weapons?”
“Better intel and more freedom to act.”
The Mayor frowned. “Get to the point, Captain, I’m a busy man.”
“Enact a mandatory registration for all persons with supernatural abilities, where they got them from, their abilities. Then if they misbehave, we know what measures to take to bring them in.”
The Mayor took several swallows of liquor. “That kind of information is going to be a privacy concern.”
“Some of these people are living weapons, Mr. Mayor. We make them register guns and automobiles. As long as they are not breaking the law, registering supernatural weapons is no different, but if they are breaking the law that information will help us deal with them with fewer lost officers.”
The Mayor shook his head. “I don’t like it, Gamete. Are there any other precedents? Have any other Mayors enacted similar ordinances?”
Scurith watched the exchange, thoughts shifting to the possibilities for increased deals caused by the tacit public sanctioning such a registration would garner.
“If I may, Mister Mayor,” Scurith interrupted. “I think Captain Gamete’s suggestion is a good one. Surely, Sidhe interested in peaceful business would be more than willing to trade such information for the right to live and work in the open.”
“Why wouldn’t they?” Mary asked. “And if SNats don’t register, they’re in violation of the law and we can just pick them up.”
“You’d still be in the dark regarding their capabilities.”
“We’re already blind to what they can do,” Mary argued. “This will help, and after a few have been incarcerated, the others will fall into line.”
Scurith offered Mary a predatory smile, patting his briefcase with a paw. “I would need to speak to my employer, but I am sure she will see to it any supernats, as the Captain calls them, in her employ will happily register—paying whatever processing fee Atlanta charges for the registration card.”
The Mayor looked back and forth between them. His eyes dropped to the briefcase on his desk. He took a long pull from his cigar, head sweeping slowly up and down. “All right. If this will help Atlanta, you both have a deal.”