"Ashe, don't be depressed about that. Look, I have to go. I'll bring chicken and dumplings home from Betsy's." Ashe hung up when his mother did.
"Dude, that sucks," Sali said sympathetically, holding the popcorn bag out to Ashe. Sali had vacuumed up more than half the bag in the space of a few seconds. Waving the nearly empty bag away, Ashe slumped onto a barstool at the kitchen island. The house wasn't even a year old—the last one had been blown up by Paul Harris, the former English teacher for Cloud Chief Combined—with a little help from the Dark Elemaiya. The Anderson home had also been destroyed; Paul Harris was prejudiced against anyone that wasn't werewolf and Nathan Anderson, being vampire, was a prime target.
Aedan Evans and Nathan Anderson, the community's two remaining vampires, rebuilt afterward. Aedan had built a larger home this time, giving Adele the spacious kitchen she wanted and a deck outside the solarium. Ashe liked the kitchen, too; windows lined the walls facing east and north, but the north window was wide and curved at the top, overlooking the sink. Just as before, the garage was through the kitchen door on the west side of the house. Ashe and his parents had spent the past year replacing personal items destroyed in the blast. The loss of his library grieved Ashe the most; he was still struggling to find copies of favorite books that had gone out of print.
"Come on, dude, let's watch TV," Sali pulled Ashe toward the door leading to the lower, underground level of the house. They clumped downstairs and settled on the sofa in the media room. His mind wandering instead of focusing on the program Sali had chosen, Ashe wished he were anywhere except where he was.
* * *
"This is all that's left?" Bill Jennings, Director of the Joint National Security Agency and Homeland Security Office glanced up at his assistant. Six names on a piece of official letterhead had been passed to the aging Director. Bill was two months away from retirement and the president and other high-ranking officials were already vetting candidates to fill his position.
Bill shook his head at the list of children still living. Another piece of paper resting under his hand listed the names of the dead. There were nearly seven hundred of those and he still wasn't sure they'd gotten information on all the children involved. He worried about many other children listed as missing—had they been abducted? How could he explain these things to the president, let alone someone coming in to take over his job? Bill sighed heavily. "Where are they now?" he asked.
"These six," Vince Jordan, Bill's assistant, tapped the paper containing the names of the half-Elemaiyan children still living, "are relocated, but we've seen how unsuccessful that has been in the past. You know where the seventh one is, through Mr. Winkler."
"Yes. I do know where the seventh one is," Bill agreed. His once dark hair was now completely white and had thinned over the years. His brown eyes now required glasses to clear fading vision. His face, too, he barely recognized in the mirror most mornings. When he had time to examine it, that is. Wrinkles and lines—that's mostly what Bill saw when he looked.
Winkler, the werewolf security mogul who provided the government with facial recognition software and other security measures, being what he was, still appeared quite young. Most people would think him thirty or so, although Bill knew the Dallas Packmaster was more than one hundred years old.
"Do you think, sir," Vince mused aloud, "that we might put these six," he tapped the paper again, "where the seventh one is?"
* * *
"Director, what do you need?" William Winkler saw Bill Jennings' phone number displayed on his cell before answering right away.
"I have an unusual request," Director Jennings said. "I need your help. And the help of a few folks in Oklahoma."
Chapter 2
"I think it would only be for a short while, and there's always compulsion afterward," Winkler spoke with Weldon Harper on his cell. He had to get the Grand Master's permission first and then obtain permission from the Head of the Vampire Council before calling Director Jennings back with an answer.
"We need the support of the community, too, don't forget that," Weldon pointed out.
"I think most of the community would agree. There might be a couple of holdouts."
"True. I can override those. I realize those kids are in danger—how many are there?"
"Only six families, Grand Master. One family has an older child that's eighteen from the mother's first marriage. The child the Elemaiya are after is sixteen. The other families have children ranging from fifteen to seventeen. That seems to be the age the Bright Ones are taking them."
"I'll allow this and have a word with a couple of people in Cloud Chief," Weldon said. "Do you want to contact Wlodek, or shall I?"
"I'll let you handle that," Winkler said. "And I'll arrange for temporary housing inside the community. If we're lucky and can place those families in Cloud Chief, maybe the summer is all we'll need to throw the hunters off their trail."
"I hope the same thing; I'm not sure how those kids might fit into a paranormal school, although I'll instruct the Principal to allow it if necessary."
"Understood, Grand Master. Perhaps Bill will have something else worked out by that time. What I still don't know is whether those families understand exactly what we're dealing with." Winkler blew out a frustrated sigh.
"Will they understand werewolves and vampires? Not to mention shapeshifters," the Grand Master said dryly.
"There's that," Winkler agreed. "I'll talk to Bill again. Let me know what Wlodek says."
"I'll leave a message—he's asleep at the moment. Do you think Ashe Evans might be able to help with those children? He's the same, except for his parents."
"Yeah. Those other kids don't have a vampire father." Weldon snorted a laugh at Winkler's comment. "Or a mother that flies whenever there's a full Moon," Winkler went on, grinning. "I have to go. I'll call Bill and get back with you."
"Good enough." The Grand Master terminated the call.
* * *
"Charles!"
Charles nearly dropped the stack of files he carried two floors below Wlodek's private study. Wlodek, Head of the Vampire Council, and his staff occupied a rather large manor house in England, hidden in the countryside of Kent. Wlodek seldom shouted—Charles could hear a near-whisper from the ancient vampire while standing on the ground floor of the spacious home. Dropping the files on his desk, Charles sped through the house, up two flights of stairs and stood in Wlodek's study in less than three seconds without a hair out of place.