Rising Storm

'Unanimous!' he said aloud, and laughed. New Mexico probably hadn't hurt…

This was heady stuff. Should I expect to hear from the Democrats next? he wondered. Not that he would accept an offer from them. He didn't think his support would be unanimous with the Democrats.

His support! He was definitely thinking like a politico already. Must mean this was meant to be.

As Ron pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of the cheap motel, he frowned. I'll have to be more careful, he thought. A lot more careful. Maybe this should be the last one.

The last of hundreds of clandestine meetings that he'd held over the last few years. Meetings designed to give the last little nudge to people who didn't need very much in the way of a push in the first place.

But his presence had helped. Had helped to keep even the most aggressive and angry extremists from becoming too violent. While at the same time offering direction and ideas, ideas that had been making headlines for a long time now.

Some people called it a 'terrorist network.' but that wasn't how things worked. It was more in the nature of an umbrella.

He sat in his car looking at the cabin where the meeting was being held. Maybe he should just not show up at all. The truth was, of all the crazies he'd had contact with over the years, these people were the only ones who truly scared him.

At least they haven't killed anybody. Yet.

No one that he knew about anyway. But when he looked in their eyes he could see that in their hearts they'd murdered thousands.

Hell, they were so misanthropic that the only reason they could tolerate one another was because of their dedication to their cause.

A cause which Ron had gradually come to see was not quite the same as his own.

His fingers tapped the steering wheel and he felt his reluctance grow the longer he sat. Ron frowned. He was cagey enough to know that he wasn't worried about what effect being seen with these people might have on his potential political career. He could always say he was trying to rein them in, and he thought he'd be believed.

The problem was that he didn't trust them. They looked at him like they hated him; even as they hung on his words and did as he directed, he could feel their loathing, like an oily heat against his skin.

He pictured them in his mind's eye as he'd seen them last. They were all young,

all white, seven of them, three women and four men. He didn't know their real names; they certainly weren't born with names like Sauron, Balewitch, Maleficent, Dog Soldier, Death, Hate, and Ore. They were pale, and underfed, with stringy hair and a slightly swampy smell about them, as though they lived underground.

Ron smiled at the thought. They most certainly did.

And they were angry. Their bodies were stiff with rage, even though their faces were usually blank, until you looked at their eyes. There was emotion enough in those eyes all right, none of it wholesome.

They didn't talk about their families or their pasts, so he had no idea what forces had molded them into the dangerous people they'd become. But they spoke freely of their education. Each of them was brilliant, each had received scholarships and had attended prestigious universities.

And each one thinks he or she is the smartest one in the group and should be in control, Ron thought.

They thought they were smarter than he was, too. It didn't take a genius to guess that they were jealous of him and resented his influence— on them and on other people. Influence they wanted for themselves.

He gave a shudder and pulled the keys from the ignition with a jangle of metal.

This wasn't going to get any better with waiting.

He strode to the door of the cabin and gave the prescribed knock. Two knocks, pause, one knock, pause, five knocks, pause, one knock.

'Who is it?' a surly male voice demanded.

'English muffin,' Ron said wearily. There was a peephole in the door for crissake!

The door swung open on a darkened room and Labane entered with an audible sigh, He closed the door behind him. 'May we have some light?' he asked with exaggerated patience.

Maleficent turned on the lamp beside her chair and glared at him with what appeared to be heartfelt contempt. 'You're late,' she said coldly.

'Yes,' he agreed. 'I was delayed starting out.'

Ron went over and sat on the bed, almost landing on Sauron's legs, since that worthy disdained to move them. 'It's been a while,' Ron said.

'Meaning?' Balewitch snapped in her foghorn voice, ice-pale eyes blazing. She, more than the rest, was inclined to take every remark personally.

'Just an observation,' Ron said, his voice carefully unapologetic.

He decided to say nothing more. They'd asked for this meeting; therefore, let them talk. The old Buddhist stuff about the power of silence had something to it; if you made the other guy speak first, you had him off balance. He waited, and waited, feeling like a mailman surrounded by Dobermans on speed. After what felt like an hour of charged silence— in reality about five minutes—Ron got to his feet and moved toward the door.

'Thanks for inviting me to your meditation session,' he said sarcastically. 'But I've still got a couple of hours of driving to do and a great deal of meeting and greeting at the end of it. So if there's nothing else you wanted —'

'Sit down,' Hate said, his uninflected voice weighty with threat.

'No, I don't think I will,' Ron said, clasping his hands before him. 'I will give you a few more minutes. What do you want?'

'Now you're meeting with political mavens you think you're too good to spend time with us?' Sauron asked.

Ron's head snapped around to glare at him, hiding the curdling horror he felt inside. For the first time he realized that Ore was missing. How long have they been watching me? he wondered, feeling the back of his neck clench with a sudden chill.

Sauron sneered at him. Sauron was the smooth one; he was able to hide his feelings most of the time. He wasn't bothering now. 'MacMillan and his school of sycophants,' he drawled. 'But they didn't linger.'

'No,' Labane agreed. 'They said what they came to say and they left.' He looked at each of them. 'Their arrival was as much a surprise to me as it was to Ore.'

'We weren't surprised,' Balewitch said. Her graying bristle-cut clean for a change, she stared at him as if he was a spot on a white wall.

'Is that why you asked me here? To discuss their proposal?' Ron asked, trying

not to let them see how disturbed he was.

'Have you sold your soul yet?' Death asked, looking at him sidelong through a dark curtain of her lank hair.

Ron snorted. 'They offered to sponsor me as a candidate for the Senate from New York,' he told them. Even though they probably already knew that.

'And?' Dog Soldier asked, his voice disinterested.

'And, I'm considering it.'

Maleficent actually hissed. Ron looked at her, one brow raised. 'That's where the evil is,' she said.

'That's where the money is,' Dog Soldier corrected.

Maleficent shot him a glare that should have singed his hair.

'That's where the power is,' Ron interrupted.

'The power to change things?' Dog Soldier asked, a smirk playing on his lips.

'The power to right all the wrongs, cross all the ts, dot all the