Demon Driven (23 page)

I was so wrapped up in decoding his message
that it took a moment to notice the deep, rumbling growl that he
was producing from the cavern of his chest.

* * *

Nobody had moved the whole time he was
solidifying. His massive nail keg head swiveled around and his big
red eyes were studying General Creek, Duclair and Roma. Suddenly,
Okwari lunged and swatted the big security x-ray machine, sending
it flying across the foyer and into one of the elevators. It must
have been pretty heavy, ‘cause the metal doors on the elevator
crumpled like a soda can. The white shirted security guys were
scrambling every which way. The conveyor belt thingy (the one you
put your watch and wallet and crap through) took the next hit and
it left the ground in a twisted pile of metal and plastic, crashing
into the left hand revolving entrance door. Then he stood on his
hind legs, raising his head fifteen or sixteen feet off the ground,
and roared.

It may have been the single loudest noise
I’ve ever heard. The air was suddenly filled with the smell of
urine, a lot of urine and another odor that made me think someone
had dropped a load in their drawers.

Roar finished, he slammed back to the ground,
his two front paws smashing the DHS emblem along with a goodly
portion of the marble floor.

The soldiers finally reacted, raising their
M4’s and pulling the triggers. Nothing but clicks. Bolts slammed
back and fresh rounds were run into the chambers and once again,
clicks.

“Ah…General, none of the ammo on this floor
will be any good. Probably not the floor above either. Oh and the
agents on the floor you were holding me on will need new ammo as
well. Actually, you should probably have everyone in the building
get new ammo just to be safe,” I said.

“You transmuted
all
the ammo in the
building, Chris?” Roma asked.

“Probably most of it, but who wants to take a
chance.”

Okwari sent me question, then he grunted and
swung away, his form vanishing from sight. A small swirl of air
told me he had left.

“Is it g-gone?” Duclair asked, her voice
unsteady.

“
He
has left for the moment, but I
don’t think he’s ever very far away. At least that’s how it seems
to me,” I answered. “Listen, General, he wanted me to convey a
message.”

General Creek was looking around the lobby,
slightly wild-eyed, but now he turned back to me, his eyebrows
raised in question.

“Sir, he wants you to know that he can go
anywhere, anytime,” I said.

“Meaning?”

“Well, the images he was showing me were
pictures of the White House, the Capitol building, your house, and
CNN studios.”

He gaped at me, processing that info for a
moment.

“CNN?” Senka asked.

“Yeah, see he doesn’t like CNN much. He’s
more of a FOX bear. I think he’s just looking for an excuse to
trash the place.”

“He’s threatening the President of the United
States, if we take you into custody?” Creek asked, his thoughts
apparently in order.

“Actually, it would be more like a
declaration of war on the US government, if you
abduct
me.”

“He thinks he can take on the entire US
military?” Creek asked, incredulous.

“General, he’s a lot more powerful than I
thought. He’s way beyond demigod status, more like elder god. He
can appear anywhere, anytime, his claws cut through anything, who
knows what else he can do!” Roma said, looking at me for additional
information.

I shrugged. Hell, I didn’t know what he could
do. Elder god?

“Christian, you could have avoided capture or
escaped, right?” Tanya asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Okwari knows this?” she asked.

“Yeah, but see here’s the thing. He spent a
thousand years as a slave in Hell.
I
set him free. His math
is pretty simple.”

It was quiet for a moment, except for the
personnel trying to clean up the lobby.

“Major Deckert, how are you hooked up in all
this?” the general asked, obviously acquainted with the security
chief.

“I work for Ms. Demidova, General,” he said,
rocking back on his heels, hands clasped behind his back. “For what
it’s worth, General, in my opinion, I wouldn’t touch Gordon here
with a four-mile pole.”

“You think that monster could really fight
the government?” Creek asked.

“Hell, Sir, I was talking about my employer,”
He waved in Tanya’s direction. “I didn’t even know that thing
existed. But nothing surprises me with Gordon around.”

I gave him my best glare, but it just bounced
right off.

Chapter 24

“
For the female of the species
is more deadly than the male.” – Kipling

Twenty-two minutes later I was sitting in the
living room of an extremely ritzy Park Avenue apartment. I say
apartment but it occupied the top three floors of the building,
which the Coven owned. The ride from the DHS building has been a
little weird. I sat next to Tanya, of course, and she held my hand
the whole way to the apartment. No one said a word. When I tried to
break the silence, she just smiled, a little smile, and put one
scarlet-tipped finger over my mouth. So we rode in silence, not to
Willow Street in Brooklyn, but instead to this new place.

When we got into the penthouse, I saw
familiar faces everywhere, as well as familiar things from the
Willow Street house. It was as if the entire household had up and
moved. In five days.

“Chris, I’m sure you are hungry. Remy is up
and making you some food. Why don’t you get something to eat and
then we’ll get together and talk,” Senka said, turning away before
I could answer.

Tanya smiled at me again, but this smile was
sad, then she followed her grandmother out of the foyer.

Benson was one of the two security guards on
duty, the day shift still on the job. He nodded to me and pointed
the way to the kitchen. Something was going on and I didn’t like
it, a pit forming in my stomach.

Remy, at least, was happy to see me. He
fussed over me, exclaiming in shock at my skinny self. I didn’t
think I was any lighter, but he did. So I sat down to a huge bowl
of bouillabaisse and half a loaf of French bread. I asked him about
the move to the new digs but he suddenly had to place a food order
he had forgotten.

I was just finishing my second bowl, when I
heard a familiar voice.

“So the rumors are true, the prodigal human
is back.”

I turned to find the spiky haired little
vampire who specialized in tormenting me.
“Hi Lyd! How ya doing?” I smiled.

She was grinning at me, looking like a
college freshmen, albeit a Goth one. But there was something
different, something wrong about her carriage. She was holding
something in.

“Lydia, what’s going on? Why did everyone
move to this place? Why won’t anyone talk to me?”

“Well, that’s what we’re going to do next.
Come with me, we want to talk to you.”

We? The pit in my stomach was growing into an
abyss.

She led me through a veritable maze of rooms,
finally ending up what I could only call a library.
Ceiling-to-floor bookshelves of rich cherry, Turkish carpets on the
floor, leather chairs and loveseats set up in a ring. Senka, Tanya,
Nika, Galina and Elder Tzao all waited, frozen like statues. I
wasn’t excited to see Nika, as her ability to dig every thought out
of my head creeped me out. Galina and I had mutually agreed to
dislike each other almost from the start. Elder Tzao was an
outright shock. I had never heard her speak, and had only met her
once. She’s a tiny Chinese woman with an ageless face. She’s also
the other half of the ruling body of the Darkkin. All three were
watching me carefully. Shadows moved in the corner of the room and
the largest individual I had ever seen slid silently into sight.
All of seven feet tall, built like a bull, with heavy Slavic
features, brown shaggy hair and ice blue eyes.

My personal demon lurched in my chest, the
cage door shaking. Another movement in the other corner revealed a
muscular male vampire of Asian descent, about five-six, built like
a gymnast, but he moved like liquid.

Oddly enough, that one calmed me down, as he
was obviously Tzao’s bodyguard, which would make the giant,
Senka’s.

“Chris, we need to talk to you. We need
answers from you – about your actions,” Senka started to speak as
Lydia took a seat near Nika. Tanya said nothing, just watched me
carefully, something vulnerable about her expression. What was
going on?

“W-what actions?” I squashed the tremor in my
traitorous voice.

“The fights..with the weres, for the girl,”
Lydia offered.

“What about them?” I was completely
puzzled.

“You fought for the wolf girl, three times.
Do you mean to claim her? What is she to you?”

What? I paused to think about what she had
said. Wolf girl had to be Stacia. Fought three times, though, was
odd.

“Okay, I’m a little baffled. I’m thinking
that you mean Stacia Reynolds when you say wolf girl. I’m not sure
what you mean about three fights though. And just what the hell
does ‘claim’ her mean?”

Despite myself, I could feel the anger
rising, the dark brooding looks from the bodyguards didn’t
help.

“Did you not fight three times today for this
Stacia?” Galina asked.

“I did not! I fought once, and I didn’t fight
for
her like some champion or something! What the hell has
Afina been saying?” My voice was rising. The deadliest vampires on
the planet looked at Nika, who shook her head without taking her
eyes from me.

Lydia looked puzzled. “Explain.” When I just
kept staring at them she added a “Please?”

“Look, I went to Vermont a few days ago, the
morning after the…ah ... incident. There was a rogue. I ran it down
and killed it, but it bit the girl and now she’s a were. It never
should have bit her. My fault!” I took a breath and shoved the
image of George Lassiter’s final moments deep down in my
memory.

“I called in favors with Brock and Afina to
get her a place with weres that would help her through the change.
I’m trying to make this right!”

“What about the fights?”

“It was one fight. The weres who caused the
rogue showed up to claim her. They’re bad. Loki’s Spawn. Brock said
she would have to go with them unless she fought the leader. She
obviously couldn’t do that, but I could, as her sponsor.”

“Afina said you fought three wolves?” Lydia
asked.

“I did. The other two jumped in and the
werebear locked the door and broke the handle. Didn’t Afina tell
you all this?”

Lydia and Senka exchanged glances. Tanya kept
watching my face and Galina looked stony. Tzao just watched like a
creepy doll.

“She didn’t talk much, she sounded really
upset. She said you fought three wolves, but I thought you fought
them one at time.”

I shook my head. “No, it was all at once.
Brock and his guys couldn’t get the lock undone.”

“You fought three weres in a cage, all at the
same time?” Tzao broke her silence to ask.

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “Listen, I don’t know
what she said to you, but I helped this girl because it is my fault
she is a were. Plain and simple.”

“He’s telling the truth!” Nika said.

Of course I was telling the truth! But it
wouldn’t help to start yelling, which is exactly what I felt like
doing.

“When did you fight?” Senka asked.

“I don’t know, maybe a couple of hours before
I met you guys in the fed building.”

“Are you hurt?” Tanya spoke for the first
time.

I shook my head.

“You fought three full grown weres in a cage,
approximately three and half hours ago and you’re not hurt?” Lydia
asked.

“I said no, didn’t I? Ladies, what the hell
is going on?”

Instead of answering, they all looked at
Nika.

“He feels honor bound to help the girl. There
is something about the rogue that he keeps suppressing, and he
won’t dwell on the cage fight long enough to give me any details.
Both events trouble him – greatly,” the blonde mind reader
intoned.

“Christian, today, when you saw Tanya, what
did you feel?” Senka asked.

I couldn’t immediately answer. The stream of
emotions had been too intense and I didn’t have the language to put
it into words.

“He loves her intensely. He was rocked by how
much he had missed her, and he was and is enormously possessive and
protective,” Nika spoke. Okay, maybe a mind reader could be useful,
especially when the dumb guy couldn’t form words.

“Christian, what happened to your hands today
– when you saw Tanya?” Senka asked.

I shook my head, refusing the question.

“What exactly am I on trial for?” I
asked.

Six white faces stared at me for a moment,
then Lydia broke the silence.

“Among weres it is common for males to fight
for the right to pursue a mate,” she said simply.

“So you all thought that I was fighting a
series of challenges to what? Pick a werewolf for a mate?”

Lydia gave me the briefest of nods. I pulled
out my cell phone and called a number.

“Hi, sorry to bother you, but I could use
some help. Could you possibly explain to Lydia what happened today?
Thanks.”

I handed the phone to Lydia as Afina was
saying ‘okay’. Everyone in the room could follow the conversation
easily enough.

“So, Afina, when you told me Chris fought
three weres today, I took that to be one at a time,” she said into
the phone.

“
What? Like mating challenges? Oh hell no!
Listen, I’m sorry I was so short before but things have been
stirred up since the fight,”
Afina said. “
The wolf
responsible for creating the rogue that bit Stacia, who if you
recall is the girl from Vermont, showed up and demanded that she
belonged to his pack, Loki’s Spawn.”