“The way we’re fighting with Akiyama,” Mychal quietly said. “You know, this sort of fragmented feudalism always leads to either war or consolidation.”
“Usually both,” his uncle said.
Chapter 46
The shit hit the fan two days later.
My plan to confront Ashvial didn’t survive the meeting with ‘older and wiser heads’ at Osiris’s office. Not only did everyone there think it was a bad idea, but both my grandmother and Whittaker ordered me not to do it.
So, I was puttering around the office without much to do when the first word of the demon invasion came in. Someone turned on the large screen in the main office to the media reports. Whether it was hundreds or thousands of demons was unclear.
“The last I heard, the Rift was sitting in the middle of the Bay,” I said to Mychal. “It had to move for demons to come through.” Most demons didn’t like water. Among the issues fire and frost demons had with water was that they didn’t float, and they did require oxygen. But reports were that some new aquatic monsters had come across.
He was listening to his phone. “It seems to have opened in the Waste.”
Wonderful. No sane human being wanted to enter the area that was still radioactive after multiple nuclear bombings of Washington. The demons didn’t care, of course, and had turned it into the largest demon slum on the East Coast.
My phone rang. I saw it was Olivia and moved away from the crowd watching the screen so I could answer it.
“Hi, what’s up?”
“A lot of things. Three of our ships have been hijacked by pirates in the Pacific. Our offices in Vancouver are under attack by what appears to be a force of mercenaries, our air terminals in France have gone dark, and I’m getting reports of a large force of demons rampaging up the west bank of the Chesapeake. Anything interesting in your neck of the woods?”
“I’ve been watching media reports of that demon invasion.” My phone beeped, telling me I had another call.
Mychal tapped me on the shoulder.
“Hang on a minute,” I said to my grandmother. “What?” I asked Mychal.
“Kirsten says there’s a Rifter riot downtown.”
“Wonderful.” I looked at my phone’s screen and saw the other caller was Kirsten. “Grandmother, there’s also a riot downtown here, and I need to go help Kirsten.”
“Call me when you can. And be careful.”
I hung up and switched the call to Kirsten. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, but it’s pretty scary down here. I closed the shop and have my wards set, and I turned on your little box things. But I’m afraid to leave. I don’t suppose I could talk you into an escort out of here, could I?”
“What happened to your security team?” I asked.
“They called for backup, and were told the cops aren’t letting anyone go downtown. I was hoping you might already be near.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Come to the back door.”
Mychal waited for me at the door and fell in beside me as I trotted to the elevator.
Figuring the motorcycle would be better than the car if the streets were blocked, I headed for it. Mychal got on the back.
“I don’t have a helmet for you.”
“Don’t worry about it. I can cover the whole bike with an air shield.”
We roared out of the parking garage and down the street in the direction of the harbor. Mychal monitored the situation on his phone and twice redirected me to avoid trouble spots. It was kind of unique to ride the motorcycle with no wind. I could easily hear him speaking to me.
A couple of blocks from Kirsten’s shop, I cut down an alley and followed it to the gate in the wall enclosing the shop’s backyard. As soon as we pulled up, the gate opened, and I gunned the bike through the opening. The gate swung shut after us.
I wanted to get a picture of what was going on around us, and that wouldn’t be possible from inside the shop. So, instead of going in the back door, I took the outside stairs to the roof. I could hear a lot of noise coming from the street in front of the shop, including glass breaking and the distinctive sound of magitek riot-control audio weapons. I stopped and plugged my police-issued ear protection into my ears, then resumed my climb.
The audio guns, emitting a painful noise just at the top end of human hearing, were doing their job. When we reached the roof and looked down, the street was mostly clear of anyone not wearing a cop uniform. I say mostly, because there were a couple of dozen people lying about, either hurt or dead—impossible for me to tell.
Beyond the street in front of us, I could see evidence of continued rioting in other parts of the harbor area. It appeared that some humans were involved, but most of the beings I could see were either vampires or minor demons. Normally, you wouldn’t see either of those groups out during the day, but it was completely overcast and threatening to rain.
“Distraction,” Mychal said.
“Yeah. I wonder from what.”
“The demon invasion from the Rift?”
“Possibly,” I answered, “but I bet it’s something closer.”
A massive explosion knocked both of us off our feet. When the shaking stopped, I looked up and saw a cloud of smoke and dust rising into the sky.
“What the bloody hell?” Mychal struggled to a sitting position, and then the world around us suddenly calmed. I realized he had cast an air shield around us.
“Let’s get inside,” I said. “Grab Kirsten and Julie, and get the hell out of here.”
I jumped up and headed for the stairs but ran into something invisible and solid. I had to wait for Mychal to catch up to me and move the bubble we
