“You have ten minutes and eighteen seconds,” Omega announced with the resigned patience of a schoolteacher.
We gathered our food and beverages, resettled in our seats, and watched my witch blow a0n old French satellite in half. He was dissatisfied that his blast had only destroyed thirty-eight percent of the dead spacecraft, but his final shot of the night obliterated the entirety of the second-stage portion of an Indian PSLV rocket, right down to the paint on its surface.
“Where is he getting the power?” Kristin asked. “It’s gotta be crazy enormous.”
“He has options, especially in a city as vibrant and active as New York, but for these shots, he’s borrowing from a couple of Earth Elementals deep under the bedrock below us,” I told her as we helped finish off the last of the snacks.
“These are baby shots,” Chris said, wiping his rib-sauce-covered mouth with the back of his hand. “He could do them from his own sources, but the point is to learn to harness and use the power of elementals.”
“Imagine if he tapped into a volcanic elemental,” I said to her.
“He could clean up the debris fields up there,” she said.
“He is… one target at a time,” Omega said, suddenly standing next to us. He didn’t always walk his avatar, instead sometimes just disappearing and reappearing as fast as light.
The party was breaking up, Chris and Tanya already gone with the twins. Lydia and Bruce had disappeared, and the security folks had all vanished as well.
“That was really cool,” Kristin said with a yawn.
“Yes, it was,” I agreed. “We’re hitting the range tomorrow and we’re going to do live action shooting. Kind of a combination of IDPA targets and steel plate shooting. You don’t have to join in.”
“Oh, I’ll be there,” she said, nodding. “And I’ll never pick on you about your shooting again!” she said to Declan.
“Well, never again is a long time. You might want to reserve some trash talk for emergencies,” he said easily, still humming internally from his success.
“Okay, well, goodnight. See you at training tomorrow.”
“Yeah, see you at training,” I agreed, lacing my fingers in Declan’s.
She left and we lingered for a moment to let the rest head out in front of us. Finally, he turned to me. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s doing great, and only going to get better. Now, stop talking about my pretty protégé and kiss me.”
He did as I ordered.
The Webs We Weave
Just what does it take to be the right hand of the Coven’s future?
Sometimes I leave the Tower on foot and sometimes I choose a driver from the security staff, but my favorite method, given the choice, is Brunhilda. Hilda’s a BMW G310 motorcycle, fast and powerful, and not so big that I look ridiculous on her. Like I would hand ammunition to Chris or Declan. Gotta make those clowns work for it.
Momma Chapman, God rest her soul, warned me over and over about the dangers of riding on a motorcycle. I’m sure she stayed awake many a night picturing me roaring off into the dark on the back of some hooligan’s Indian or, gasp, Harley. But I sincerely doubt she ever pictured me actually driving a two-wheeled road rocket. Don’t worry, Momma, I’m much more durable than I used to be back in your day.
I pulled into Manhattan traffic, which almost instantly came to a complete stop for no reason known to man. That’s the other good thing about Brunhilda—she doesn’t do traffic jams, which is perfect because I can’t stand being late.
A fast weave through frozen cars for three blocks and then a right turn brought me into active traffic, which let me open her up a bit. Tanya was in Lisle’s capable hands for the moment, with Omega watching over her shoulder, so I was free to focus on tonight’s meet. Honestly, she could just rely on Omega, but our young vampire queen prefers the personal touch. She worries she has too little humanity, which on the face of it seems reasonable, as she’s never been human—regular human, that is. But if you know her, if she lets you see through the armored business face that she presents to the world, then you realize she’s more human than most. Certainly more than the average narcissistic sociopathic CEO you meet these years.
Quickly enough, I loaded onto I-478 and then down into the tunnel that would bring me to Brooklyn. Traffic was busy, but we already established that Hilda sneers at traffic, and I got to Brighton Beach at least ten minutes early. I’d prefer fifteen or twenty, but you take what you get. Ten would let me do a fast recon of the area around the Russian restaurant where the meeting was set.
I can hear you, ya know? Recon the meet, Lydia? Really? With Omega on overwatch? Hey, technology is awesome and I’m the first girl to jump on that bandwagon, but Papa Chapman didn’t raise no frail daisy. “Always do your own homework, pumpkin. Be your own person, stand on your own feet.” Eighty years later, his advice sticks with me more now than it did then.
Was Omega close at hand? Yup. Dark shadows in the night sky had followed me all the way from Demidova Tower, but keeping my own eyes open and my own nose to the wind had saved me too many times to count long before Omega was a line of code in his punk-ass father’s mind.
Nice to have backup though.
Rodnaya Strana was hopping tonight, the cuisine a hit with locals and tourists alike. Nevermind that its name translated to Motherland and that it was owned by a prominent Russian gang. Happy families dining in the main part would be horrified to know some of the things that went on in the private, gang-member-only parts.
I passed the venue twice before pulling up to the main entrance and parking Hilda in a spot too narrow for even a European-sized car. I didn’t bother to take her key. Nobody would
