The Pike: Ships In The Night (17 page)

Something told me that however unlikely it seemed, she probably could and would.  It was something in the way she said it had zero fear, zero emotion.  I think I liked the woman.

She released my hand and stepped back with a sweet and innocent look on her face.  Her eyes daring me to comment.  I inclined my head slightly and said with a smirk, “Nice hair blondie, what box did it come out of?”

Both Imme and the other mystery woman took in sucking breaths.  Missy eyed me a moment then she broke out into a toothy grin and chuckled out, “I like this one, Liya.”

Then she looked at the other woman before saying to me, “This pasty little freak here is Sandra Callahan, she's just here as a favor to Liya.  Same rules apply hose jockey.”  Hose jockey?  She knew who I was?  Imme hadn't told her had... no, she wouldn't have.  I growled internally at the media again, smearing the low point of my life around like it was entertainment.

Sandra Callahan, that sounded as familiar as her face looked to me.  I just couldn't place it.

The short woman looked up at me with such a beaming smile that you couldn't help but smile back at her.  The two looked to be around the same age, but when Sandra spoke, there was something innocent in her tone as she offered her hand.  I shook her small hand as she said, “Pleased to meet you, Allison.”  Then she asked with a little awe in her voice, like an excited kid, “Were you really a firefighter?”

I hesitated and nodded once, swallowing.  Imme took my hand, and I relaxed and said, “Used to be.”

She said with enthusiasm, “Solid.”

Who said solid?  Wasn't that like from the seventies or something?

Then she looked at my girl and said, “You and Penny were right Liya, she's perfect for the job.” Then she looked up at me with that innocent smile that sort of reminded me of Imme's, and said, “Let's go see Zoey and Eve, I want to tell you about my Foundation.”

My girl hugged my arm as we followed the older women, my mind racing.  Sandra Callahan? Foundation?  Penny?  Oh my god, this was THE Sandra Callahan of the Callahan Foundation.  She was the woman who was married to my rock idol, Penny Franklin.  She seemed almost simple to me, but there was a fierce intelligence in her eyes like she was sizing me up.

I found myself smiling as we entered the Pike when I thought of the foundation, and why she looked so friggin' familiar.  One of the things the foundation did was bring therapy animals to children's wards around the city.  She had been the woman I saw getting tied up by the gaggle of puppies across from the medical complex all those weeks ago.

I absently wondered what I could possibly contribute to her foundation as we all sat at a table and Eve came rushing over with a big grin on her face.

I hurried my overly cute fiance along from the University lecture hall where her team had been given the highest award in physics and won the Feynman Prize that had remained unclaimed for twenty years.  It was awarded to the first team to come up with a viable and stable quantum computer.  It wasn't just prestige, though, there was also a fifty million dollar bounty that accompanied the prize.  Imme would be splitting that five ways with her team.

I've never seen a prouder looking group of geeks than Liya's team as they accepted the award.  Not just geeks, but my geeks.  I had half of the Five in attendance to help me cheer and whistle and make fools of ourselves in the sea of stuffy intellectuals when the award was announced, and Imme took the stage.  I had to snort when Vince pulled out an air horn to add to our chaos.  Lili was in tears.

You would have thought we were at the Superbowl or something the way we carried on as Imme blushed a crimson red.

I was antsy as we had to hang around for the pomp and circumstances that followed.  She had to hobnob and rub elbows with the University's board and others that funded the grants for her research. The university was about to get a huge windfall as they would receive fifty percent of all the proceeds for licensing the new quantum technology.

And I hustled her saying, “Come on short stuff.  I gotta get to the burn ward.  Sandra will be waiting.”

She scrunched up her nose and nodded then asked hopefully, “More data?”

Without slowing, I smiled down at her and gave her a quick peck on the lips.  She looked like a pleased chipmunk.

I slowed and locked eyes with her and said, “I'm so proud of you, Imme.  And I love you so much.”

She blushed and looked down and said in a squeaky voice, “I love you too, Allie.”

We paused as we reached the parking lot to find a weasel... I mean, a man standing by Beast.  The man who had spent the last two years trying to tear down Liya and her work.  Imme said in a cool tone, “Kowalski.”

He matched her tone and responded in kind, “Hannigan.”

He exhaled as I moved slightly in front of my girl.  He offered a hand. “I just wanted to tell you congratulations and to say I'm sorry for trying to discredit your work, and let you know that it wasn't personal.”

My girlfriend looked to be calculating a well thought out and reasoned response, but I found myself snorting a moment later when she gave a toothy grin and said, “Go fuck yourself, Ben.  You're impeding our egress.”

We moved past the stunned man, and it wasn't until Beast was prowling out of the lot that she turned to me and asked, “Did I use the term properly?”

I chuckled long and hard and nodded, “You used it perfectly, love.  I couldn't believe you said that... and I kiss that mouth.”

She sighed at the word kiss, and then said, “Just so you know, I'll need more data tonight.  Much more data.”

I nodded and smiled.  I had worked her up to second base in the last two years, and she drove me crazy with need.  I replied with a chuckling, “More than happy to oblige, my lady.”

She looked far too pleased again then said, “Then let's get you to work.  The children in the burn ward are waiting.  If the accepted schedule is adhered to, then this would be the day that...”

I cut her off with a smile of my own as I responded, “You know darn well it is the last Friday of the month, that means Penny Franklin is going to be singing to the kids.”  She knew how much I enjoyed Penny's music, and she was teasing in her own way the little minx.  I sighed as I looked at her, wondering just how I got so lucky that the brainy girl chose me.

She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and glanced at me before looking at the ratty canvas shoes sitting between us.  She had taken them off when we went into the University earlier and put on a pair of dress flats for the ceremony.  The first time she wore something other than those shoes since she made the promise to her father.  And now she had fulfilled her promise.  It was almost like the end of an era for her.

She said in a wavering voice as she stared out the windshield,  “After we help mom close up tonight, can we... can we go to your place?  I'm... I'm ready.  I need all the data you can provide.”

Sweet mother of all that is holy, hallelujah!  I watched as her blush spread across her skin as I warmed up in all the right places.  Now this was a fire I welcomed into me.

I grasped her hand as she drove and said, “I love you Imme.”

She said in a tone full of wonder, “I love you too, Allie.”

As we drove off to the next chapter in our lives, I thought of the two playful sisters at the Pike and sent a silent thank you to them.  Without their particular brand of meddling, I'd never had made the connection with the most amazing woman I have ever met.

I glanced at that impossible girl beside me, “Hey Imme, want to hear a joke?”

She nodded.  “Yes please.”

I smiled and said, “I hear there is a fine line between a numerator and denominator.”

She processed it for a moment, and then the car was filled with the innocent giggles I loved so much.

The End

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Romance Novels by Erik Schubach

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Books in the Music of the Soul universe...
 

(All
books are standalone and can be read in any order)

Music of the Soul

A Deafening Whisper

Dating Game

Karaoke Queen

Silent Bob

Five Feet or Less

Broken Song

Syncopated Rhythm

Progeny

Girl Next Door

Lightning Strikes Twice

June

Dead Shot

Music of the Soul Shorts...

(All
short stories are standalone and can be read in any order)

Misadventures of Victoria Davenport: Operation Matchmaker

Wallflower

Accidental Date

Holiday Morsels

Books in the London Harmony series...
 

(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

Water Gypsy

Feel the Beat

Roctoberfest

Small Fry

Doghouse

Minuette

Squid Hugs

The Pike

Flotilla

Books in the Pike series...

(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

Ships In The Night

Books in the Flotilla series...

(All books are standalone and can be read in any order)

Making Waves
(Fall 2016)

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Novels by Erik Schubach

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Books in the Djinn series...

Cursed

Books in the Urban Fairytales series...

Red Hood: The Hunt

Snow: The White Crow

Ella: Cinders and Ash

Rose: Briar's Thorn

Let Down Your Hair

Hair of Gold: Just Right

The Hood of Locksley
(Summer 2016)

Books in the Techromancy Scrolls series...

Adept

Soras

Masquerade
(Fall 2016)

Books in the Drakon series...

Awakening

Dragonfall

Books in the Valkyrie Chronicles series...

Return of the Asgard

Bloodlines

Folkvangr

Seventy Two Hours

Titans

Books in the Bridge series...

Trolls

Traitor

Unbroken

Books in the Fracture series...

Divergence

Books in the Paranormals series...

Fleas

This Sucks

Jinx
(Winter 2016)

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Short Stories by Erik Schubach

(These short stories span many different genres)

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Lost in the Woods

Rift Jumpers: Faster Than Light

Scythe

Snack Run

Something Pretty

Sample Chapter from Urban Fairytales: The Hood of Locksley

Chapter 1 – Ambush

Rachel looked at me and asked, “Amanda?”  She wanted me to verify her own suspicions as she sniffed around.

I sniffed the air too, pulling air through my nose and over my tongue, a low growl rumbling from me as I sneezed then exhaled.  There was damn demon magic everywhere, it had that brimstone scent that tickled my nose.  It was so similar to the magic that corrupted my blood, making it different than the other black magics in our world.

As I looked around, my hands twitched, ready to grab my dual Glocks with their extended magazines from my rig hanging at my sides.  Just what in the hell happened here?  I examined the nearest body to me, where it lay slumped against the wall of the five and dime, an arrow sticking out of one of its three eye sockets.

I leaned in and sniffed closer and sniffed again, and growled again.  I glanced over to the other women who were examining the destruction and the other bodies.  I yanked the arrow from the dead creature in front of me and sniffed the blood as I watched the demon aspect melting off the flesh it was somehow bonded to.

I stopped myself from addressing Snow and Rachel first, the wolf pack mentality that was part of my genetic makeup.  I knew rationally that they were my alphas, but I hated being beta to anyone, even though I loved them.  Instead, I told Red, the leader of our group of avatars, “Human, and demon.”

She looked up from where she and Daria were sniffing another body in a similar state of decomposition and nodded as she drew in air through her own nose and over her tongue.  Once a demon was vanquished, the shell of flesh they left behind, rapidly dissipated, turning into black ichor and sulfur.

Mari looked past her mate, the giant werewolf who stalked the day and to Snow, who's eyes were solid white as she called upon her Perchta form.  She looked so damn cute with those stubby white antlers poking out above her stark white hair.  She pulled the arrow from the body she was examining and looked at the tip as she asked our pack-mate.  I mean our ally.

“She's right.  They seem to be some sort of human and demon hybrid.”  Then she added almost silently as she looked at her own hands, “Like me.”

I understood the hesitation.  Those of us in our group with the lycan curse, Rachel, Mari, Daria, and myself are the product of a pact with a demon that a group of men made centuries ago, in their attempt to rule the world.  We are the result of being infected with that demonic magic.

Then she prompted Gretta, “Is it happening again?”

Gretta Snow was our nature elemental who had access to the power of the nature goddess Perchta, who sacrificed herself so that Gretta would live.  That power had a life and consciousness of its own.  It was just as old and just as dangerous as the power the demons commanded when they were summoned into the mortal realm.

I hated when Snow called upon the magic, she lost a little bit of herself each time, as the magic tried to remake her in Perchta's image.  It was almost a symbiotic relationship.  The only reason she hasn't become totally lost in her Perchta self is that both Gretta and the sentient magic are in love with Rachel.  They always come back to her.

Gretta nodded but Perchta spoke, “These men and women show similar signs of a demonic infestation similar to the lycan curse.  Though some have a true melding.  They willfully took in the evil like the Alpha Werewolves did.  A pact with a demon.  It tastes of Styche's magic.”

We all looked around.  The demon hybrid forms were so varied.  I let her words sink in as I watched the others sifting through the macabre scene of the slaughter around us.  Rose pulling a couple arrows from the bodies and examining the tips.  I knew she was looking for poison, that was her domain as her touch was death due to the poisons in her body and the black, thorny vines that writhed around her in a living cloud.

I asked in morbid curiosity, “Some chose to be like this?  To willfully work with demons, with the trickster?”

Perchta nodded and said, “Humans have always craved power.  There will always be those who will give their very souls to obtain it.”  The white faded from her eyes as her blue irises and black pupils reasserted themselves.

She looked around and mumbled, “It's happening again.  We can't let it happen again.  The world almost didn't survive the last time.”

Parker looked to be in shock as she just stood in the middle of all the death near Ella-Marie.  I worried about her.  She was the most innocent of all of our group, and she couldn't understand mankind's propensity for self-destruction.  She was sort of our moral compass.  Most of us have forgotten what it was to be human.  She reminded us.

She whispered, “So most of these people didn't choose this?  It was forced upon them like the werewolf curse?”  Then she added something that we hadn't thought of, “And in daylight?”

We all paused and looked around.  We were just absently picking through the bodies of demons from a recent battle in the city of Issaquah.  We hadn't even given any thought to the fact that some of there were essentially innocent people.  I noted the realization on everyone else's faces.  Had we become so desensitized to violence and death, we hadn't considered the cost?  Most of the dead were innocents that had some sort of demonic contagion thrust upon them without their consent.

Raz spoke from beside me as she moved through the street,  “We can't allow another group of humans to make pacts with Styche like this.  He must be desperate if he is agreeing to work with and impart power to humans again.”  She turned in place, her hair jingling with the hundreds of razor sharp silver feather blades that adorned her ankle length locks.  “And we need to find out just what in the hell happened here.”

She dropped the arrow she had in her hand, to the ground.

We all growled or nodded in response, Ella saying, “Oui.”

We had been called at Parker's place in Seattle, where we were listening to her read some of the journals of past avatars.  There was a demon attack in Issaquah.  More and more frequently, Styche had been sending different types of probing attacks into our back yard.  He was getting bolder, which didn't bode well.  He was getting better and better at hiding from us, and we feared he had built up an overwhelming army of demons by now that even us Avatars might not be able to stop.

But these probing attacks told us he was scared of us.  We were the only thing powerful enough to kill his mortal shell and banish him back to the underworld where he was spawned.

I paused at that thought and looked around again.  Well, almost the only thing apparently.

It only took us fifteen minutes to get from Parker's to Issaquah as the national guard started evacuating the city's residents and quarantined off the area.  But when we arrived, this is what we found.  A battlefield littered with at least two dozen bodies, all with arrows in them that shouldn't have been able to kill some of the hybrid forms we saw.  Yet they did.

The grouping told us that it was over fast, they hadn't had much time to spread out.

Ella-Marie stepped up to console Parker, then asked.  “Love, can you call in to see if any other disturbances were reported in the area?  Were they contained by whoever did this or did some get out?”

Parker nodded and took a deep breath, pulling out her cell as half our group, including Ella, moved away from her so their innate magics didn't interfere with the electronics.

The only warning we got was the whistling sound of a projectile an instant before Rose's vines whipped up to shield her and bat the arrow away from her face.  She hissed almost like an enraged snake and twisted in the direction the arrow had come from.

Everyone was suddenly in motion, weapons being drawn.  Rose batted away two other arrows that were coming in far too fast, faster than Maireni's bolts from her crossbow even.  I witnessed something I had never seen nor thought possible as one of the arrows actually severed one of her vines which crumbled to dust.

I had both Glocks in hand before I realized I had drawn them as our Goldilocks bellowed in challenge like a bear.

I was firing on instinct as my wolf senses, and reflexes kicked in, and I rapid fired, knocking the fourth arrow from the air.  I ejected both empty magazines and slammed my weapons to my rig, the empty receivers sliding over fresh clips.  In a cross-hand swipe, I chambered rounds into both my weapons simultaneously.

Raz and Eve took cover, with Rapunzel draping her tough, steel strong hair over her girl.

Mari said, “There!”  And she and Daria were off at wolf speeds that I couldn't match in my human form, even with my enhanced speed.

I saw a blur of motion on the rooftops of Gilman Village, a single assailant in a dark green cloak.  Two more arrows came sailing in toward Rose.  Nicole stepped in front of her, her swords drawn and deflected one, the other blasted into splinters by a hail of crystals thrown by Ella.

Ella spit out an epitaph that would make a sailor blush as she swung her arm like a great wing, sending thousands of razor sharp crystals slinging toward our ambusher, leading them well.  But the assassin dove over the onslaught, sailing through the air in a somersault and landing on the roof of the adjacent building.  Somehow firing off another volley.  The arrow ricocheted off of Ella as it met only solid crystal.

I noted a chip of crystal fly off of Ella's face from the impact.  What in the hell could chip her living crystal like that, short of a bear demon or charging elephant?  She roared out a challenge worthy of a wolf, and she pulled the earth up into herself.  Oh shit.

She dove into the air and came down in a crouch, her fist impacting the ground in an immense whump that shook the ground and sent a shockwave toward the building the assailant was on.  It crumbled under the impact, but the figure had already dived and flipped to land on another rooftop.

Snow held her hand out to me and without thinking I holstered my Glocks and pulled the sniper rifle off my back.  I smirked.  It was over.  Snow was possibly the most accomplished sniper on the planet.  She'd bring down our prey so that we could question them.

She swung the barrel up as she chambered a round and released the safety in one smooth motion.  Gad she was spectacular.  If Rachel hadn't claimed her, I would.  As she moved to look through the scope, she fell back on her back as an arrow came through the scope, shattering the lenses.  What kind of an insanely lucky shot was that?

Gretta looked incensed as she growled and dove into the air, her eyes going white as her hair became feathers while her antlers grew to an impressive rack in mid-air. She took to the air in a swirling mass of white feathers.

The rest of us fanned out and took off at our best speeds to try to box the archer in.  How the hell was one person taking on the most dangerous predators on the planet?  I drew and checked my Glocks, then roared out my own challenge as I sprang twenty feet over the carnage at my feet and took off at near wolf speeds, the primal thrill of the hunt pushed me and I felt so alive.

I often wondered if I had any humanity left in me, I felt more like myself in situations like this.  Hunting in a pack.  I glanced back to see Parker on her cell watching us all attempting to box our prey in.  No... I still have a small measure of my humanity.  Parker, our conscience, reminds us each of that every day.

I leapt sideways swatting a hand to the side and batted away an arrow I instinctively knew was coming.  And I twisted in the air to plant my feet on the wall of a building and push off, sending me soaring into the air and flipping to land on top of the building.

I just caught a motion in my peripheral vision, the figure pulled their hood back, and I got a glance of copperish red hair dropping down behind a building a block away.  I bared my teeth in a grin, my canines a little more pointed than a normal humans were, almost little fangs.

Oh yes, I did enjoy the hunt.