This story plays fast and loose with Ancient History and Linguistics; be warned.

I apologize - No sex this chapter

*****

(The Lowest Moral Denominator)

My first week at Havenstone, I'd biked to work alone on most days and I'd enjoyed that. I'd have treasure it more if I had glimpsed my future. I loved people, not crowds. I knew about violence, yet I had no affection for it. I was a confirmed bachelor. Now I was staring down both barrels of marriage. I had had also become a walking arsenal with a lethal omnipresent entourage.

This situation was so fucked up that I had to stop by Caitlin's place just to see Aya. My favorite sprite gave me a hug and reminded me that I had to do what I could, not worry about what I couldn't do. She was my 9 year old Svengali. She was my little Valkyrie. In truth, she was the only woman knew I loved and that was the love of a father for his daughter.

On the elevator ride up to the penthouse suite of the Midtown Hilton, I thought about Dad. What would Ferko Nyilas do in my shoes? It would be easy for someone who didn't know him to imagine my dad getting up on his high moral horse and telling me to just do the right thing...except that wasn't him. What he'd tell me was to not pass the buck. I had to deal with this, unless I knew someone else who could and would do it better.

It wasn't about 'being a man'; it was being a member of the Human Race. We all pitched in and got the job done, or it didn't get done ... and millions died because we refused to accept any responsibility for what was going on. That was my Dad - 'do what you can' and 'never be afraid to ask for help if you need it'. After the age of ten, he never told me I had to do anything. He'd tell me what needed to be done and leave it at that.

So I wouldn't forget the pictures I knew I'd be seeing before too long - the innocent dead. If the sorrow broke me, it broke me. Until it did, I could not turn away. I had to 'do what I could'. That put me heading to a meeting at three o'clock in the afternoon in the penthouse suite.

After my non-breakfast with Iskender, we had driven straight to Havenstone, where I demanded an immediate, private meeting with Katrina. This wasn't an info-dump and then out the door. No, I was part of the process now - one of those fools who were responsible for the lives of others. Katrina and I had argued about compartmentalizing my terrifying news.

Her reasoning was clear. We were at war with the Seven Pillars. The basis of the 7P strength was China, so anything bad that happened to China was good for the Amazon Host. I nixed that. It was Katrina's job to think about our security. It was mine to juggle how we related to the rest of the planet. Absent the Golden Mare's opposition, Katrina couldn't stop me from doing my job as I saw fit.

The Golden Mare was out of immediate contact, so we moved forward on my proposal. Katrina called Javiera, validated Vincent's call, and then suggested she bring in someone from the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Ft. Detrick. Katrina wouldn't tell her why.

I dispatched Delilah to talk to her MI-6 guy while I made my way to Nicole Lawless's law offices. I need to talk to my Aunts. An hour later, I dismissed a somewhat piqued Nicole from the room, then laid out the upcoming crisis to my Mom's clones. I hesitated a minute before dropping the other bomb - Grandpa Cáel was back.

Was I sure? I countered with, "Do you know who Shammuramat was?"

Why, yes they did; Grandpa had a bust of her in his main office.

"Well, she's back, in the flesh and that spells all kinds of problems".

The six aunts present agreed. They invited me to fly to Europe with five of them. Much to their surprise and joy, I agreed. I told them I would be a party of twelve with plenty of firepower. They were less pleased about that.

I exited that scene, only to engage in another, somewhat unrelated, bit of diplomacy. I met with Brooke and Libra for lunch. They brought Casper, who was seeing a specialist in New York and had expressed an interest in seeing me again. Into that volatile mix, I placed my request: 'Could Brooke put up a friend for a couple of weeks while I made other arrangements?'

Yes, this was a 'bizarre' friend. Yes, this was a violently bizarre friend. Yes, she walked around with enough weaponry to scare a seasoned SWAT officer. And yes, she was a mass murderer. Cool..., if I agreed to stop by and see how this 'friend' was doing - and gave Libra advance notice too, then they were fine with it.

Thus Shammuramat - Sakuniyas - Saku became Brooke's roommate. Insane? Not really. Putting Saku inside Havenstone on a regular basis was going to result in a blood bath. Saku was abrasive and she was a criminal in the minds of her 'sisters'. This gave her an 'out', some space and time with a civilized person who she couldn't emotionally bowl over.

If Saku got physical with Brooke, we both understood that House Ishara was going to cancel her return performance. Amazons could defend themselves, so we were fair game for her rude behavior. Brooke couldn't, so she was hopefully out of bounds. Saku had agreed to the arrangement without comment.

She'd already figured out that no other Amazons wanted her around and there simply wasn't room at my place. With that chore done, I was able to see Miyako off before her flight to Tokyo by way of Seattle. Selena was with her, but not going. Miyako did have three Amazons in case things got rough.

The Marda House guard woman looked mature and humorless. Her age wasn't a problem. She was a grandmother, yet if she thought she couldn't keep up, she'd have taken herself to the cliffs before now. It turned out she had been in Executive Services before returning to House Marda. My diplomat ... I didn't know her, but she seemed eager enough. The member of House Ishara was a brand new recruit named Jenna.

She was from Acquisitions and spoke seven Asian languages, including Japanese. She looked absolutely thrilled to be heading off into danger. I instructed the younger two to obey the Mardan. In private, I 'advised' the Mardan that our main mission was to be of aid to the ninja. Information gathering would be secondary. More Amazons were on the way. She gave me a nod.

For this critical mid-afternoon meeting at the Midtown Hilton, Wiesława lead the way off the elevator. Buffy went next, then me and finally Saku. Delilah and Vincent had already arrived with their appropriate factions. Katrina took a separate elevator, with Elsa and Desiree. Pamela was...somewhere. After she'd pointed out a half-dozen people from four different agencies in the lobby, she told me to not wait while she went to the bathroom.

At the door of the Penthouse were two familiar faces from the NYPD, Nikita Kutuzov and her partner, Skylar Montero. When Javiera's investigation followed me to New York, they had been drafted into the taskforce.

"Hey ladies," I smiled. My last meeting with Nikita hadn't gone well.

"Cáel," Nikita smiled back. "How have you been?"

"More trouble than normal," I shook her hand.

"We can tell," Skylar relaxed somewhat. As Nikita's partner, she had to know that our relationship had soured when she started investigating me. Katrina's group came up.

"I think you are the last to arrive," Nikita informed us. This time, Desiree was the first one through the door. I could hear the conversation trail off. Wiesława went next, then Katrina, me, Buffy, Saku and finally Elsa. I decided to toss 'civilized' behavior out the window seconds after entering. Virginia Maddox of the FBI, the initiator of the Amazon children's airlift, was here.

I hugged her and after a moment, she hugged me back.

"Priya says hey and," she blushed slightly, "she's counting the days - all forty-five of them."

"Don't forget - I owe you," I grinned then patted her shoulder. Javiera was next.

"Cáel," she headed my familiarity off. She was a Federal Prosecutor after all.

"This is the head of this taskforce, Jonas Baker (deep breath) Associate Deputy Undersecretary of Analysis for Homeland Security {ADUAHS} (deep breath)." I extended my hand, so he shook it. He looked somewhat annoyed by this whole encounter. Javiera was duly nervous because of his poor initial attitude. The introductions went around.

Half way through it, Pamela showed up...from where, I didn't know. Delilah, her MI-6 boss and the British professional killer Chaz were there, much to the chagrin of the Americans. Vincent was there with Javiera. Cresky was representing the CIA plus there was ATF, ICE, Riki Martin (?) from the State Department and a man in a civil servant's salary suit and a military demeanor - Captain Moe Mistriano.

"Fine," Mr. Baker began. "I hope you aren't wasting our time." His gaze flicked between Katrina and me.

[Old Kingdom Egyptian] "May the Blessed Isis bring understanding to our meeting," I intoned.

"What was that?" Baker turned on me.

"Praying for guidance," I replied. Isis wasn't in the Amazon pantheon, but I could sure use her help at this point. Baker was going from put-out to pissed-off. If that is how they wanted to play it, their choice. "Are you the specialist from Ft. Detrick?" I asked the Captain.

"Yes, I am and I hope this is worth my time as well," he gave me a steady gaze. Oh, I really needed that.

"Anthrax - China," I stated and weighed his response. Oh yeah, I had his attention now ... which meant his bio-warfare unit had some idea about what was happening in China.

"Care to enlighten me?" Baker inquired. He had gauged his medical expert's reactions as well and he didn't like what the biological warfare specialist was not saying.

"Mr. Baker," the Captain decided to go first. "Roughly fifty-five hours ago, we got wind that there was a massive Anthrax outbreak in Western China. Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia and Nei Mongol administrative regions have all reported outbreaks.

"Holy Shit!" Riki Martin gasped. Her dark, whip-like, Hispanic features noticeably paled.

"That sounds suspiciously like bio-terrorism," Jonas Baker turned on me.

"You'd be right about that," I refused to evade. "It is and it is about to get a whole lot worse."

"The PRC has a robust vaccine program," the Captain stated. "That is why they aren't making a public stink about it. They have the problem well under control."

"Damn..." I closed my eyes and lowered my head. In some deep section of my mind, I had fanned the feeble flames of hope that somehow, the Earth & Sky program had derailed. "That is the 'whole lot worse' I was talking about. The terrorists aren't terrorists. They..."

"What do you mean they are not terrorists," Baker snapped. "They..."

"Shut up and let the man speak," Katrina said calmly.

"Who are you again?" he glared at Katrina. "If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem and I'm here to make sure this problem is dealt with. I am not here to play footsie with you. I am going to be asking some tough questions and you had better answer them."

"I'm Cáel's boss," Katrina smiled. "Since we came here to help you and you don't want to let us speak, we are leaving. Cáel."

The Amazons didn't turn and leave. No, we backed up toward the door.

"You can't start talking about an ongoing terrorist threat and then walk out the door," Baker argued.

"Javiera, I apologize," I looked her way. "Mr. Baker, Javiera's a smart cookie. I'm sure she's given you every bit of information that has come across her desk. That means you know we consider ourselves an independent nation-state without borders. You can't intimidate us. We feel no obligation to obey your legal system and we operate internationally," I kept going.

"Now, as we are trying to repay Javiera's kindness in our time of need, you are treating us like criminals currying favors. Blow it out your ass, you pompous bureaucrat" I concluded. "We aren't the problem here."

"If that's the way you want it," he shrugged. "Javiera, arrest them." Pause.

"Sir, you do realize that if I give that order, there is a good likelihood they will resist with force?" Javiera replied calmly. Baker looked around the room.

"We outnumber them and these are law enforcement officers," he insisted. "Now..."

"I wouldn't count on that 'outnumbered' thing," Delilah chimed in.

Chaz and MI-6 dude didn't seem to be onboard with his plan. "I have reason to believe Cáel has information on a highly virulent weaponized Anthrax program. If our US allies aren't interested, Her Majesty's government certainly will be." That did interest the MI-6 senior officer.

"That is all the more reason to put these people into federal custody," Baker stated.

"Then what, Mr. Associate Deputy?" Chaz said. "Are you going to torture them for time sensitive data? In my military service, I've met some truly hard characters. Some people you can put a gun to their child's head and they'll tell you what you want to know. Not this group. They'll memorize your face and wait for a chance to make you pay ... whether you kill the kid, or not."

"That's my read on them as well," Agent Vincent Loire added.

"Mr. Baker, I worked under you when we were both in Counter-terrorism," Virginia spoke up. "I think you are mishandling this. Invoke the Patriot Act and all we get is a roomful of statues. I've fought beside these...Amazons and I'm reaffirming my report to Ms. Castello (Javiera) - they do not believe their behavior is wrong.

At some point in their fifties, they commit ritual suicide. They make their twelve year old daughters fight for their lives. They murder their male infants. Sir, they are an alien society, indoctrinated at birth to believe they are spiritual inheritors of the ancient Amazons mentioned by Homer during the time of the Iliad.

They fanatically believe in a pantheon of goddesses and possess very little inclination for integration. They think they are superior to everyone in this room - except for Cáel - he's an oddity," Virginia pleaded.

"That legion of crimes is yet another reason to arrest them," Baker just wouldn't give up.

"What you have described, Agent Maddox is a right wing nut cult, like the Branch-Davidians at Waco. Arrest them."

"What are the charges?" Javiera's face blanked out.

"Conspiracy to commit terrorist acts; aiding and abetting an international terrorist organization," Baker snapped.

"Everyone, put down your firearms and blades," Katrina ordered. I didn't have the status to give that order except to my own. For that matter...

"Team - disarm," Elsa commanded her Security Detail people. Technically, Katrina couldn't order those girls to forego their primary mission - defend the Host. Out came the guns.

The group of us went over to one wall, put our backs to it and sat down. Pro forma, Virginia, Vincent and the ATF guy drew their firearms. By this time, both Riki and the Captain looked ready to explode.

"Tell us what you know about this terrorist conspiracy and..." Baker said.

"We invoke our Right to Council," I raised my hand.

"You are being charged under the Patriot Act, smart-ass," Baker sneered. "We can hold you indefinitely if we can show a risk to National Security - such as a terrorist attack in China."

"I apologize for dragging you into this," I turned to Katrina. "You too, Saku." Saku shrugged.

"I told you there is no benefit in helping 'these people'," Katrina comforted me. She meant non-Amazons and it was rather sad that it was looking like she was right and I was wrong.

"Unless you want to grow old and grey in Guantanamo, I suggest you start talking now," Baker threatened.

There was no bravado on our part. We didn't zone out, or ignore him. We looked at him the same way we would a yappy dog while continuing to scan the room. Being disarmed didn't make us defenseless. It merely limited our options.

"Sir," Riki tapped Baker.

"If the People's Republic of China finds out we withheld details of a terrorist attack on their soil...that would be BAD - with a capital 'B'."

"I have to call this in," the Captain shook his head.

"Wait until we have active intelligence," Baker said. The Captain completed his call.

"I don't work for you, Sir. I work for the Department of Defense and that man," the Captain pointed at me, "strung two words together he shouldn't have. Now, I don't know any of you people. I was told to come here, so here I am. I do know - Sir - that you are ignoring the advice from your experts about the expected results of standard interrogation techniques.

You are acting on two assumptions which I find to be fictitious," the Captain was clearly furious. "First, you seem to think this won't get out ... and you are wrong. Why? We have no idea who these people have talked with. We can only believe that any person outside of their organization can use that revelation for their own ends. Secondly, you haven't grasped the extent of the emergency.

Chinese citizens are already starting to drop dead as we speak. This variant of Anthrax is highly contagious, fast-acting, and appears to be incredibly fatal. No nation on Earth has enough Anthrax vaccine on hand to protect their entire population...and that still implies that the vaccines we currently have will work on this new bacteria. Need I go on?"

Then Captain Mistriano went back to talking softly with his companions back at Ft. Detrick. The MI-6 chief made his own call. This was his job after all. Before Baker could even start to threaten the Brit, Delilah and Chaz had their guns out, though pointed down. The US law enforcement operatives were far more leery of challenging agents of a friendly foreign power.

"I will make sure to tack on charges for all those deaths you are facilitating," Baker piled it on. "The US government might find it necessary to send you to the People's Republic of China to face charges there. After all, you claim to not be US citizens." None of us responded verbally. We looked at him. We certainly heard him speak, but his 'words' now meant nothing.

Highly annoyed, Baker started the handcuffing process. Nikita and Skylar came in with four more NYPD. The bracelets went on behind our back. Javiera made one more stab at it.

"Katrina - Cáel, please help us," she pleaded. She knew far more than Baker about the cost of this meeting.

The Amazons would withdraw and this war would play out with the US government blind to the key players. Hell, we had been repaying her favor and were ending up in chains. Virginia shared that distress. All the headway she'd made in helping the camp whisk their young to safety was being undone. Both ladies had come to appreciate the risks I had taken to bring our two sides together.

I looked to Katrina for approval before speaking.

"We still respect you, Javiera," I grinned. "You know that once we exit this place, Havenstone is going to implode. I wish it wasn't so, but now we have to look out for ourselves."

"We will see about that as well," Baker grumbled. We had nothing to say.

"Have you lost your FUCKING MIND?" Javiera turned and screamed at him. "I brought these people to you because they said they had vital intelligence to share. They didn't have to - they volunteered because this taskforce has been trying to cultivate them as a source of information on other underground groups."

"Have you lost your mind?" Baker countered.

"No sir," Javiera sneered. "I do know that I'm going to go on the six o'clock news tonight and tell them that you - by name - are concealing a major outbreak of Anthrax in China. I'll let the political vultures do the rest, Mr. Baker."

"Blabbing about an on-going federal investigation carries stiff penalties, Ms. Castello," he fought back.

"I'll be practicing law long before...you son of a bitch," she suddenly snapped. "You are embarrassed because Havenstone swam beneath your radar until now," she put some pieces together.

"You seem to think that is a reason to cut them some slack, Ms. Castello," Baker reposted.

"Yes, I do," Javiera defended her position. "They reached out to us. We had no case - 15 dead bodies in Chicago and no motive for the crime. We had professional mercenaries on US soil killing US citizens. Mr. Nyilas and Ms. Love gave us multiple leads and they didn't have to."

"They were attacked. Of course they came crawling to us," Baker said. Javiera shook her head.

"Sir, as I put in my report, they are a vengeance-based society. They were more than happy to hunt down those gunmen: BY-THEM-SELVES," the federal prosecutor drilled her point home. "You can't accept that there is a war on the horizon and we need each other as allies.

As insane as their background sounds, the current global situation is bearing out their warnings. You are not only showing them egregious disrespect, Mr. Baker, you are insulting everyone on the team that has interacted with Havenstone. This is something you are going to have to answer for," she finished.

"Ummm," Captain Moe spoke up. "Mr. Nyilas, do you have any technical data on this Anthrax outbreak?" I looked at him yet held silent.

"He can't answer you," Virginia spoke for me. "But I can tell you that thirty-six hours ago, that man charged eleven well-trained Special Forces operators with only one young woman at his side.

Then, after those enemies were killed, he and another combatant charged the end of the attacking column and destroyed the end three vehicles (the two Hummer-types and the last truck), trapping al the rest. I don't think any of you get it. These people are born warriors - every last one of them. They've only surrendered now because they have already planned out their escape.

That's how they think. The security at their outdoor summer camp rivaled that of the NSA. There, kids as young as seven are trained in hand-to-hand combat, archery and knife-fighting. I saw a fifteen year old girl kill a man at thirty yards with a bow by moonlight. They burned over a hundred men alive in pre-prepared traps...and in the middle of all that, I've never felt safer in all my life.

And that's because of how these people think. They're not here for the U.S.!" She was turning red in the face as she yelled at Baker. "I was safe because Cáel vouched for me. Cáel vouched for me because Javiera told him I could be trusted. Their word is their bond. Their code of conduct is that basic. You've just broken Javiera's word and the consequences of the betrayal will be quite severe, I have no doubt."

"Consequences?" Baker mocked.

"Oh yeah, ya Douche," Delilah counter-mocked. "Give 'em time. They are going to kill everyone on your - eh, Katrina and Cáel, please note we Brits are not part of this fiasco." Katrina and I nodded. "Everyone on your taskforce and your families too. You are all dead. Virginia?"

"Pretty much," Virginia agreed.

"Where is Ms. Pile?" Chaz looked around. "Bloody Hell." Pamela was nowhere in sight.

"Don't sweat it," I looked to the two martial Brits. "She likes you both."

While this had been going on, Riki had been busy with her own phone games. "Mr. Baker," she finally spoke up. "Secretary of State Kerry would like to talk to you." Blink. Baker took the phone rather reluctantly. That Cabinet member wanted the information he was supposed to be getting immediately. Once Jonas blithely informed Mr. Kerry that he had placed those individuals under arrest, the conversation took a turn for the worse - for Jonas.

Three quarters through his ass-reaming, his own phone rang.

"Pardon me, Mr. Secretary," Baker looked at his own device and paled even more. That was his boss's boss's boss - the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. That guy seemed pretty livid as well.

What none of us knew then was that there had been a massive shootout in downtown London a little more than an hour before our meeting began. It was a sanguinary catastrophe of startling proportions, in and around "All Hallows by the Tower" - one of the oldest churches in England. At the moment, the US intelligence apparatus was dealing with some really bad mojo.

Six factions had shot it out in one of the most famous sites in London in the late afternoon. Among the dead were a senior British Member of Parliament (MP) from the Labour Party and one of Russia's biggest arms dealers. The Deputy Director of Intelligence for the DGSE (the French external intelligence service) was still in surgery, fighting for his life.

He wasn't the only one. There were also nineteen dead and seventeen wounded at the church. The London Metropolitan Police were running around, highly incensed. One of their female constables was dead at the scene. Five more were in serious condition.

For reasons still unknown, former Russian Spetsnaz, active duty French paratroopers, former British Special Forces operatives, personnel of a Dutch security firm, and a large group of professional killers masquerading as Ukrainian immigrant laborers opened fire on one another in the abbey of All Hallows by the Tower.

The Metropolitan Police (the sixth faction), responding to the automatic gunfire and explosions, became involved in the firefight. The Ukrainians fled the scene and the police gave chase. Three more civilians were killed and forty-two wounded during the pursuit and the resulting car crashes as well as the THREE firings of an RPG at police cruisers, which caused two more constable deaths and left seven more officers wounded.

How had that managed to salvage my diplomatic mission? Before passing on, a Ukrainian uttered one small sentence: 'Did we kill the Illuminati Factor?' Through NSA intercepts and cross-Atlantic intelligence exchanges, the US intelligence network revved up into high gear; they punched in the key words - and all fingers pointed to the taskforce. As Homeland Security analysts tossed it upstairs, the State department began to fidget nervously.

What were they nervous about? A crucial individual at Foggy Bottom just happened to know where Riki was, who she was meeting with (the sources that had given the US current information on the Illuminati) and they wanted any information she could pry out of us concerning the goings-on in London. Instead, Riki had just called them first and sent up warning flags about bio-terrorism in China...

Oh, and she informed her boss that the Taskforce head had just shut down that information conduit on the Chinese AND the Illuminati by arresting the individuals that this independent group had sent to discuss security issues with the United States government.

- Charges: Terrorist threats.

-Complications: The FBI and Federal Prosecutor working the case were siding with the assets - codename: Penthasilea.

The authorities were getting two conflicting accounts of our current circumstance. Baker swore he would have us singing in half an hour. Riki Martin claimed Baker had his head up his ass...and there were three British Intelligence operatives watching all of this go down.

All of this DC bullshit was making our NYPD cops antsy. Baker came up with an action plan.

"The first one of you to talk gets blanket immunity," he addressed me and my fellow captives. No one said anything. Delilah responded by laughing richly and loud.

"You wanker," Delilah derided the Fed. "Clean out your damn ears. The Amazons ain't telling you shit. I thought that would be obvious to you by now."

"Ms. Castello, do something," Baker turned on the orchestrator of this meeting.

"I am," she gave him an evil grin. "I'm thinking of what descriptives I'm going to use when I tender my resignation, you presumptuous buffoon."

Baker turned back to us, alternating between threats and promised leniency, to no avail. I was the one to crack, not because of him though. Time meant lives right now - innocent lives.

"May I talk to the Captain in private?" I requested.

"No," Baker barked.

"Fine, can I go to the bathroom?" I asked. Another 'no'. "Can I apply for asylum?" I inquired of Delilah's 'other' boss. He seemed to be mulling that over, not that he could pull that off this very moment.

"Mr. Baker," the Captain stepped up. "I really think I should talk to this man."

"If he has something to say, he can tell both of us," Dirt-bag Baker grumbled.

"Your information could be saving lives, couldn't it?" the Captain looked at me. I looked away which was its own kind of confirmation. "You have got to tell me if lives are at stake," he appealed to my better nature. Good try.

"Agent Maddox made our position perfectly clear," Katrina answer for me. "Cáel cannot answer you because your actions, or lack of action, has revealed your word to be worthless and your motives suspect. He has no guarantee that giving you any knowledge he may possess will be used to save any lives. Personally, I was opposed to this meeting, but Cáel thought you deserved a chance.

You can thank Mr. Baker for proving me right and Cael wrong." Katrina sternly stated.

"Mr. Nyilas," the Captain made one more end run around Katrina.

"He won't answer you," Katrina said after allowing me a chance to not answer. "He is the only one here with Havenstone that feels one iota of guilt for any part of this disaster.

I attribute that to him being a kind-hearted and forgiving individual. He is alone in feeling that way, believe me," she added.

"How bad is this information?" Virginia's eyes welled up.

"I wish I had never come out of that coma," I replied.

If I hadn't, maybe Temujin would have been killed by the Seven Pillars and this wouldn't be happening...except the Earth & Sky had this in place way before Temujin was on the scene. This calamity was inevitable.

"The van for their transport has arrived," Skylar informed Baker.

"Ms. Love and Mr. Nyilas, every single person who expires due to your intransience will be added to your charges and the Federal Government does enforce a death penalty," Jonas pushed it. "Your cohorts will be charged under Federal Firearms statutes. That is a long time in a Federal Maximum security complex for all of you.

And I can still honor a Chinese request for extradition," he tacked on. "They have their own standards of interrogation."

"I can't believe what is coming out of you pie-hole," Delilah snorted. "The only one the Reds will break is Cáel and I bet he doesn't know 'word one' about the technical aspects of this outbreak.

The three people he does know...well, you can't catch the main player and the other two probably don't know jack-all either. I wouldn't worry about the number of murder charges you are going to foist on this group. I'd worry about the number of Homeland agents whose bodies are going to start piling up on your doorstep," Delilah sneered.

"Ms. Faircloth, all your insinuations are doing is digging these so-called Amazons a deeper hole," Baker countered. "Personally, I'm not all that worried about a cult of delusional man-haters."

"You are impossible," Riki grumbled at Baker. "Mr. Nyilas, what do you know about the Illuminati?"

Long gone were the days when I was an open book when confronted with feminine charms. Riki was looking for some sort of reaction. She got something she didn't expect.

"Why don't we talk it over in that bedroom over there?" I propositioned her. What the hell - this was turning out to be a lousy day. I might as well reach for something good.

Nikita twisted my handcuffs tightly.

"Ouch," I complained.

"Behave," Nikita whispered.

"Are you trying to trade sex for information?" Jonas sneered.

"What exactly are you implying, Mr. Nyilas?" Riki kept studying me. "I'm engaged."

"Baker - no. I'm trying to gleam something positive from this moronic encounter. Ms. Martin - Rikki - please call me Cáel and what I am asking you for is a chance to break through this bureaucratic brick wall and establish a personal rapport. As for you being engaged - I don't care.

I've been sleeping with officer Nikita here, and while she's been loads of fun, I'm addicted to beautiful, intelligent and confident women, which you definitely are."

"You've had intercourse with a member of my taskforce?" Baker gobbled.

"None of your damn business," I grinned his way.

"If I go back to that bedroom, will you tell me what I want to know about the Illuminati?" Riki inquired. She had this steamy, sultry look to her. The political crisis had obscured her view of me until now. My body was projecting sex, sex, sex and her body was going yes, yes, yes.

"If we go back there for thirty minutes, I'll definitely consider it," I countered.

"The only place you are going is to an ICE holding facility," Baker seethed.

"Christmas Eve - Empire State Building, Bitch," Desiree looked my way. Oh yeah, if I made it to Christmas we'd go out on a date together. To prevent that abominable date from transpiring, I was taking a header off the top of that building the night before, or so the gag ran.

"Was that some kind of code?" Baker barked. No one said anything. "Take them away," he motioned to the cops. They led us to the elevators, split us up and down we went. The Brits would have to wait a while as there wasn't enough room to squeeze them in safely. This was starting to become the new, worst day in my life ... until we hit the lobby.

There was a wall of people waiting for the cops, and us. Eight of them were SD...the other twenty were with...Deidre, I believed. That sucked big time. I wasn't sure how they'd figured I was in trouble and responded so quickly. It was London again.

"Clear a path," Officer Montero commanded in her best authoritarian tone.

"Who the hell are you people?" Baker demanded. "You are impeding a Federal Investigation."

"Give us Cáel Nyilas and you can pass," Deidre replied calmly.

"Like Hell," Baker grumbled. Deidre handed a packet to one of her security types. In turn, the man walked over and handed the paperwork to the closest Fed - Virginia.

"This documentation affirms Mr. Nyilas' status as a diplomat with the Republic of Ireland's Mission to the United Nations," Deidre informed us. Fuck a Duck - now Ireland owned a piece of me as well as the Host, the US of A and the Khanate. One of these days I was going to emigrate to a political entity I actually wanted to belong to - someplace like Fiji.

Virginia handed the papers to Baker.

"Are you serious?" he looked from the papers to Deidre.

"Very. Give us our envoy and we will depart," she insisted. This was ten kinds of strange. The paperwork must have taken at least a day if they would pass diplomatic muster.

It was a backup plan to wrangle me if things turned ugly - which they had. That didn't explain the muscle in...Illuminati.

"Deidre, what has happened?" I called out. Nikita unlocked my handcuffs.

"You know this woman?" Baker addressed me bitterly.

"If you had read my reports or looked over our video evidence you would know that woman is...I think, Deidre O'Shea. She is Cáel Nyilas' maternal aunt...one of many," Javiera growled.

"How can I accept these papers as authentic?" Baker cast about for an explanation. Riki stepped up, snatched them out of Baker's stunned fingers and reviewed them herself.

"They look legitimate. I'll call one of our European liaisons anyway," she mumbled. All the while, I kept exchanging glances with the rest of the Amazon contingent. This was a solo exit invitation. Aunt Deidre didn't have a way to bring them out with me and wasn't inclined to be helpful to the point of breaking the law at this time. Showing sisterly solidarity was pointless.

In jail, I was actually a detriment to Katrina. I was the one with the information and the big mouth.

"Mr. Nyilas checks out," Riki announced. "He has the proper credentials."

"Mr. Nyilas, you could have mentioned your diplomatic status when this all began," Baker got pissy with me. I ignored him.

"Guns and axes," I demanded. "I want my weaponry back."

"Mr. Nyilas," Baker got in my face. I kept ignoring him. "Fine, I will file a formal protest with our State department and have you expelled from the United States." Captain Moe blanched.

"Do you abuse prescription drugs?" Riki really was becoming more succinct in her approach to Jonas. "Or, are you some crack-whore, meth-head, or someone who shoots up black tar heroin into their tear ducts?"

"Watch yourself, Ms. Martin," he glared at her.

"Blow it out your ass, you half-wit," Riki seethed back. "Does it occur to you the ONLY person you could pin any criminal charges on is about to walk out the door? Even better, knowing he has some level of knowledge of both the Illuminati and the Anthrax outbreak, you are going to have our government put him well beyond our reach," she shook her head.

"Thank you Ms. Martin," Katrina finally spoke. "What exactly are the rest of us being charged with? Our firearms are licensed and I don't recall anyone besides the diplomat from Ireland saying anything remotely like a terrorist threat."

"Release them," Javiera stated. "I'm not going to file any charges I know are unsupportable."

"What about the Arizona fiasco?" Baker was looking flustered. Summer Camp.

"The only people we can tie to that camp are Mr. Nyilas, Ms. Faircloth - a British citizen, and Agent Maddox. Ms. Faircloth was an avowed foreign intelligence operative operating on US soil with our permission. Agent Maddox was sent by us into that camp and didn't break any laws we are aware of," Javiera made her case.

"So, who are you going to call first? The Deputy Secretary (of HS), or the Secretary of State?" Javiera was pushing Baker into a corner. Despite Javiera's order, no one was un-cuffing the Amazons. Baker was still in charge.

"Mr. Nyilas, perhaps we got off on the wrong foot," Baker suggested.

"Mr. Baker, do you love your country?" I asked.

"Yes...of course. Sure, I do," he hesitated, looking for the pitfall.

"Then quit the task force. There is no way my side can work with you anymore. This demand is not a point of negotiation," I told him.

"You had your chance and blew it. We Amazons are not much into forgiveness. Worse, you disrespected your underlings in my presence, refused to own up to your mistakes and failed to put your duty before your personal advancement. You have repudiated all the hallmarks of a good and honest leader. You've failed. Good-bye," I related.

"You don't get to dictate the shape of a US federal investigation, Mr. Nyilas," Baker retorted. My immediate counter was cut off by the arrival of the Brits and the NYPD with our weapons on a cart.

"Delilah, Ms. Martin and Captain Mistriano, would you care to come along with me?" I was back to ignoring Jonas.

I began to re-arm myself ... which the NYPD didn't love.

"Hold on now," Baker violently pulled on my arm. Hallelujah! My fist crashed into his face, breaking his nose and dropping him to the ground. I went back to my business.

"Mumma-fuffa! Awwess hmm," he squawked. That was 'Mother-fucker. Arrest him.'

"Sir, you physically assaulted a diplomat," Vincent responded, "in front of dozens of witnesses. He wasn't doing anything illegal and you had no right to restrain him in an official capacity."

"Really?" I looked at Vincent. He nodded. "I'm filing charges," I chuckled.

"Really?" it was Javiera's turn. My nod. "Mr. Jonas Baker, you are under arrest for battery and the unlawful detention of a member of the diplomatic corps by an on-duty government employee acting in an official capacity pursuant to Article 29 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961."

"Yumm cam dunn dat," Baker insisted as Virginia pulled him to his feet.

"She can and I am," Virginia confirmed by putting on the steel bracelets.

"Her Majesty's government will testify to this outrageous behavior on the part of Mr. Baker as well as filing our own complaint with your State Department and the United Nations General Assembly Sixth Committee," Mr. MI-6 Section Chief added.

"Ms. Love and Mr. Nyilas, can we have a 'do-over'?" Riki pleaded. I looked to Katrina. She gifted me with a sliver of a smile and a nod. Damn it! That was how Deidre knew where I was and what I was doing. Katrina had sold me out...kinda/sorta.

"Sure thing," I sighed. "I need to talk to my Aunt first."

In hindsight, the two back up squads (one for Katrina/ one for me) working with the Illuminati should have alerted me to Katrina's deviousness. Those eight women were vacating the premises after Elsa signaled them to fall back. It was my job to deal with Deidre and her "super-security" force.

"Come with me, Cáel," she purred as she swept into my arms. She was tilting my head down for a deep, tonsil-tinging French Kiss before I could grapple with the internal conflict of sexy, hot red-head versus 'she's my kin, dang it!'.

"That's his aunt?" Riki muttered.

"It is complicated," Katrina answered. "Very complicated."

"There are nine more, just like her," Javiera compounded the confusion. "I mean that - exactly like her."

"They seem rather...close," Virginia groused. Ah, jealousy from someone I had yet to take to bed.

"Is his entire family like that?" Riki asked.

"Oh no," Buffy grumbled. "A month ago, they didn't know each other existed. Now those genetic freakazoids think they own him. That's not going to happen."

"Yes, he does present himself as a very strong-willed, free-thinking individual," Nikita noted.

"No," Buffy corrected her. "I mean they can't have him because he's mine. I own him."

"For love of the Goddess, cut me some slack," I griped after breaking Deidre's lip lock. "I can hear everything you ladies are saying."

"You were supposed to," Katrina smirked. "We have work to do."

After a brief plea on my part, Deidre accepted my invitation to join the round table. My first order of business was having Buffy cough up a copy of the data Iskender had sent. Next came the reveal about the Chinese poisoned vaccines which sent Captain Moe and Riki into deep, hushed and desperate conversations with their associate apparatuses.

The really, really hard part was trying to sell the Earth & Sky as a non-terrorist organization. I went with the old philosophical argument of 'what is it to kill a person?' Basically, from the mid-18th century, the Han Chinese had been culturally marginalizing and exterminating the cultures of the Turkish and Mongolian Peoples living within in their borders - genocide had been institutionalized as part of the struggle.

The process was called sinicization, and it encouraged the assimilation of Han Chinese ways and the migration of Han Chinese into the historically Turkish and Mongolian areas. Worse, the economic opportunities the PRC created in the course of exploiting the various regions' natural resources had benefited the Han colonists far more than the native populations.

The ugly truth was the Khanate could not trust the Han populations in the areas they wanted to seize and they couldn't simply push them out. Starting in the 1930's, various Chinese regimes had declared the 'age of the barbarian' was over. The 'barbarians' were proving them wrong. CIA officer Cresky was now making his own furtive phone calls. The NSA was also getting involved.

By herculean efforts, the Earth & Sky had managed to assemble 80% of their forces when Zero Hour came. Circumstances had forced Temujin to push the attack forward by 24 hours. Still, he was confident. In the halls of power in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia, coups were taking place. Khanate propaganda efforts were rolling into high gear.

Temujin was graduating from an Osama bin Laden-level terrorist chief to the Master of a fragile, yet massive, Asian belligerent state. Without knowing the precise time table of events, that was the angle I was spinning. The Earth & Sky wasn't Al Qaeda, or a terrorist state like Iran, Libya, or Syria. It was more akin to the old Soviet Union. Oh yeah, and some of the largest fields of oil, natural gas and shale lay beneath his feet.

At 2:50 a.m. Almaty Time (Eastern Kazakhstan), the United Central Asian Khanate declared war on the People's Republic of China. At 3:00 am, coordinated attacks against China began with medium-range missile and drone strikes that devastated PLA air bases and supply facilities in Xinjiang and Nei Mongol. The Chinese news brown-out that Beijing had implemented in order to control information about the Anthrax outbreak now came back to haunt them.

If a network was on the air, it was governmental and the E&S pounded it, or jammed it. Next came small scale actions along the border. A few strategic frontier outposts were overwhelmed. The majority held out, yet were in serious trouble. They were screaming for help over the already over-taxed communication web that remained.

As my Amazons were trying to score points with the United Kingdom and United States, Pakistan was asking for a UN commission to discuss the Aksai Chin situation. That measure was heading to the UN Security Council where the PRC, as a permanent member with 'veto power', was going to squash it.

Against their case was the posting of the video of the PLA 'relief' column to Aksai Chin being cut to pieces. Mid-afternoon yesterday, a brigade-sized force belonging to the 6th Motorized Division, backed with significant air assets, assaulted their former stronghold that now was in 'rebel' hands. The defenders used European-built MILAN anti-tank missiles and RPG's to beat off the first Chinese rush.

The Chinese deployed, blasted away at the fixed fortification and then closed in to finish off the few holdouts. That was when the 'rebels' launched their counter-attack. The Chinese anti-air defenses disappeared first. When the PLAAF swarmed back in, the 'rebel' anti-air defenses revealed themselves. Of the eighteen engaged aircraft, fourteen crashed and burned, two limped away and the last two fled.

The Chinese helicopter support assets suffered the same fate. When the 'rebels' produced their own Russian-built combat helicopters, the Chinese brigade fell apart. The 'rebel's blocked the northern, mountainous retreat route so the armored assets were forced to race across the barren Aksai Chin valley where dozens of 'rebel' groups ambushed the dazed Chinese survivors.

As the Sun set, the video showed hundreds of Chinese troops surrendering. No one on planet Earth still believed Aksai Chin was in the hands of a rag-tag group of Turkish separatists, or jihadists. China was ready and willing to blame Pakistan for this blatant act of aggression. Pakistan's statement at the UN certainly didn't dissuade that belief.

That tripled the effectiveness and importance of FD Javiera Castello, Riki Martin at State, Cresky with the CIA and Captain Moe Mistriano. I doubted this was hurting the career of Delilah either. Much to my disgust, Katrina's prediction had been right. We gave the US government this crucial information and their superiors decided to...analyze it.

The Department of Defense, over the objections of the USAMRIID, didn't want the Anthrax data to go over the internet, or any wireless service. A military courier was coming to retrieve the flash drive then a jet on standby would whisk the data to Maryland and Ft. Detrick. The Justice Department...Javiera was bounced around between Homeland Security, the FBI (separately from HS) and the State Department.

The CIA and NSA were doing a threat assessment, even as they watched seven armored Tumens crossing the PRC's borders from Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia. How bad was it? Khanate Tu-95 and Tu-22M bombers, both relics of the Cold War, were penetrating deep into Chinese airspace, plastering supply depots, railroad marshalling centers and key bridges.

Temujin's 'Falcons' had temporarily established air superiority over the Lanzhou and Beijing Military Districts - that's western and northern China. Not only had the surprise attack by the Earth & Sky devastated a huge portion of the PLAAF on the ground, small teams were taking out anti-air assets. As a final indignity, the Chinese pilots and crews were starting to get sick - really sick.

Captain Moe enlightened the room with a fact I already knew, but hadn't referenced. How do you prioritize what people you vaccinate when you have an outbreak? Answer: Your First Responders. In the PRC, that meant the military, militia, police and the staff of medical centers. That's right. The people designated to battle this terrible affliction were succumbing to this sickness before the attack's full force engulfed the populace.

The Chinese transportation network was in shambled. Civilian aircraft did not dare fly supplies into contaminated zones because the Khanate contested those skies. As this act of genocide took shape, I found watching the three disparate groups with morbid fascination.

The Amazons were acting like nothing was wrong. Our people were already prepared for the Earth & Sky to send us their vaccines. Earth & Sky were our allies - the Seven Pillars were our enemies - end of discussion. Every dead Chinaman was a good thing in their book. How they died was irrelevant and yes, they had killed and would kill women and children. Non-combatant wasn't a word in common usage for Amazons.

The British contingent were grim, yet calm. What else could they do? All three had some level of military service, though murder on this scale was not in their catalog of previously experienced woes.

Finally, the Americans were in varying degrees of panic. They were not running around like chickens with their heads cut off. This flavor of panic was different and far more insidious. It was the creeping realization that they worked for political masters who placed a greater premium on how this would play out with the American public than on the death toll in another country.

Due to Javiera's pleas for cooperation, the British were being quiet for now, but eventually someone higher up at MI-6 in London inevitably would pass this on to a political appointee. Then all bets were off.

I was the bringer of bad tiding and the herald of the upcoming apocalypse. Perversely, the people I was causing anguish to were the people I wanted to help. I was deeply depressed, yet I had one more duty to perform - paying it forward.

"Deidre, can I talk to you in private?" I walked over to my Aunt and took her hand.

Her security detail had shrunk down to two. The rest were waiting in the lobby.

"Of course," she gave me a barracuda smile. I was angling for the closest bathroom. She was dragging me toward the nearest bedroom. We both had what the other wanted. Her drive was the stronger - we ended up in the bedroom.

I was thankful she didn't throw me down on the floor, or the bed. She slipped her hands around my waist, pushing her lower stomach against my crotch then tilted back so we could make eye contact. She inhaled deeply of my scent, trembled, and then addressed me.

"You want to know about the 'All Hallows' shootout," she turned serious, yet comforting.

"Are you in danger?" I asked. Of course I wanted to know about the firefight. My question did manage to make her happy. She brought up a hand to stroke my jaw from ear to chin.

"We really do care about you, Cáel," she insisted passionately. "With Father back, things will get worse, not better. In time, he will come for you and you need to be ready."

"You have no idea," I held her gaze. "He's been several steps ahead of you the entire time. He planned his death, succeeded in the purpose of dying and even engineered your murder of your brother - at your hands."

Deidre was torn between being older and wiser than me and the deep, ingrained suspicion of her creator's fearsome intellect.

"What do you think he's doing right now?" she hedged her bets.

"Reasserting his control over the Illuminati," I went with my gut instinct..."Shit!"

Buffy tumbled into the room, pistol out and pointed down, with two Illuminati goons piling up behind her.

"Cáel?" Buffy shot hate Deidre's way.

"Give me a sec," I kept my eyes on Deidre. I waited for the door to shut.

"Who were the people attacked in London?" I questioned her intently.

"If I tell you, you must agree to come with us," she proposed. "We can't keep you safe if you keep wandering about and I don't think you came back from wherever the Amazons took you because the weather was foul. Let us protect you."

"No...and that's because it wouldn't do either of us any good Deidre," I reasoned. "Assume he knows what has been going on the past thirty years and has taken the appropriate measures. The worst thing for you and my other aunts' survival is for me to seek shelter."

"Why? He's not going to kill us...he's going to enslave us again," she persisted.

"Nope. I think the Old Bastard may have found a way to procreate. And that means he doesn't need you around anymore, because you are a reminder of his failings," I lied.

It was a lie built on the foundation that this possibility was precisely what they feared worse than enslavement - obsolescence. Grandpa Cáel was a 'user'. He used people up, then moved on, alone in his immortality. "What happened in London?"

"It was a meeting between a Factor of the Illuminati Council and several key second-tier members. It was in complete secrecy. None of us were informed of the meeting, so we are still piecing details together even now," Deidre finally broke down and informed me. She also unintentionally informed me of something else: I was starting to look more and more like Grandpa in her eyes ... and not in a good, 'sex me up' way.

"It sounds like Grandpa had them killed, or more correctly, had the Condotteiri kill them for him," I guessed. How would he...Mom? Mom sent Delilah to me. Was she her Father's agent?

"I'll work with you because you are my Mother's sisters, Deidre," I asserted. "Like it or not, we are family and my betraying you at this juncture makes me more like your father and less like mine. So that ain't happening. Exactly how I'm going to stop Grandpa...I don't know yet," I sighed. "I hope you accept my reasoning that none of us are safe in the Illuminati."

"We won't give up our hold," Deidre grew fierce.

"Don't," I kissed her on her forehead. "Stay and fight for the O'Shea position. Keep your power and wait."

"Are we waiting on you?" she seemed less than thrilled.

"No. You are waiting for your father to come back and then you are going to make yourselves damn useful to him," I stated. "If you are useful to him, he'll let you live. Staying alive is priority one."

"What's to stop him from destroying you when he wishes?" she questioned.

"Let me deal with him when the time comes," I grinned. We both knew that was a near-hopeless struggle. "Don't look so despondent," I chuckled. "I'm going to bring a freaking army for that final showdown - a big...no, a huge, massive freaking army. That way I'll actually stand a chance."

"You seem surprising optimistic," she noted with a reluctant grin. "Do we have time?" she looked to the bed then back to me.

"Not at this moment. Maybe on the plane. Right now I've got to get ready to eat dinner with my fiancée," I dropped my own little bomb.

"Really?" Deidre regarded me, looking for the joke.

"Not joking," I confounded her. "This is the real deal. We are going to become Magyarorszag es Erdely Herceg es Hercegnoje." Deidre exposed a hint of confusion. She didn't know Magyar - woot...

"What is that?" she grudgingly inquired.

"Proof that I'm an idiot, Deidre," I sighed. "Let's go embrace the crowd. Still a lot of work to do."

We did have a lot of work to do and it wasn't finished when I had to leave. Buffy was distracted. Having spent years admiring Katrina, she was now in a position similar to her mentor's. She had heavy responsibilities that interfered with her strong desire to spend some personal time with me. She was also the right Amazon for the job.

The Golden Mare had finally gotten in touch with Katrina. Together with Buffy, they wrangled a forty woman combat team of SD plus fighters from Houses Ishara and Durga (from Indonesia) together to send as aid to the ninja. It sounded like a tear-drop in the ocean. Katrina insisted it wasn't. The ninja wanted to keep their war as secret as possible.

The Amazons were trained killers and their loyalty was assured - they were loyal to the Amazons. They could be relied on to kill the people they were told to kill. That kind of 'direct action' wasn't the normal operating procedure for ninja. Unfortunately, the corruption of one of the seven families and a severe disruption of the Yakuza meant people had to die and die quickly to reset the balance.

Captain Moe had torn reluctant permission from his direct superior at Fr. Detrick to contact the World Health Organization about the vaccine scam. They would have to contact the PRC. It was late Thursday afternoon and the UN was about to call it a weekend. The UN was only in session currently because of another crisis.

[World News]

It was the happenstance of another conflict that encouraged Turkish solidarity and Khanate action - the Crimea. Russia had opened a serious door to the Abyss by annexing the Crimea from the Ukraine by force. Technically, Russia had violated Ukrainian sovereignty by seizing that region.

The Russians (with tacit support from China) put forth the political notion of 'lost territory'. Thus Vladimir Putin had unwittingly 'green lighted' the greatest consumption of 'lost territory' in the history of mankind. Following Putin's reasoning, all Temujin was doing was reuniting the widely separated pieces of the Great Khanate. His invasion of Xinjiang and Nei Mongol were also part of that policy.

The 'Carolina Reaper' spice in this chili was a group called the Crimean Tartars. It didn't get too much press in the West, but in the spring of 2014, the Crimean Tartars - a Turkish ethnic minority - attempted to do to Russia and the new Republic of Crimea what those two had done to the Ukraine. They declared their own autonomous state within the Crimea.

Russian security forces quickly squashed that movement, and in doing so, managed to incite the Turkish Republics and the minority Turkish populations living inside the Russian Federation. It was a low grade irritant to the Turkish people that would, in time, have dwindled into being yet another indignity, much like the Uyghur struggles for independence. By the dictates of Fate alone, it was the right irritant at the magic time for the Khanate.

The Turkish people were being reacquainted with the clarion call of Pan-Turkish Nationalism. It was an idea that was over 100 years old and rather discredited in most circles...treated as an anthropological discipline - but not as a political ambition. But there were now three igniters for the Khanate Phoenix.

The dismissive treatment of the Crimean Tartars was the smallest spark, yet also the most crucial in that it reminded your average Turk that for 100 years, they had been the victims of secular, oppressive regimes - the Soviets (Russian) and the Communist Chinese. That oppression was still living its fifteen minutes of fame.

The second factor was the boogeyman of the West that had been burning bright-hot over the past twenty years - the Islamic Identity movement. It wasn't just fanatics running around the Syrian Desert, or the Afghan/Pakistan border. It was a strong undercurrent in the Muslim world that recalled the halcyon days of the Caliphate.

The original Mongol Khanate hadn't championed any religious doctrine. It had been the Mongol-Turkish successor states that had turned Islam into a weapon to strike down their enemies. That was the history that Temujin and the Earth & Sky were embracing. This was both a jihad and a struggle to reassert their ethnic identity.

The Russian Federation had arrogantly discarded Turkish appeals. Turkish nationalists were incensed, but they were never big fans of Russia anyway. It was the commuters on their way to work who found this utter dismissal to be insulting. It was the Imams who spoke out against still more sectarian oppression. It was the journalists who wrote a few scathing articles about the new Russian imperialism.

When that tiny core of Earth & Sky seized power in those four countries, their power was more ephemeral than substantive. The important factors working against them were that they had relatively little power in those countries and no organized political support. (They had been a secret society, after all.) What they did have going for them was an antsy, dissatisfied public and an on-edge military.

Remember, the Chinese had launched a series of apparently unwarranted attacks into their nations only forty-eight hours ago and had given these countries some trumped up claims of combating terrorism. The militaries of Kazakhstan and Mongolia discovered that they were at war before sunrise. Not knowing the score, unengaged PLA border units began clashing with their Mongolian and Turkish counterparts.

In War as in Love, the same rules held true. The quality of your 'game' was secondary to who approached the girl first. If the girl was on the prowl, you were the answer to her desires. Unless the second guy to show up was remarkably superior, she'd stick with the one who recognized her qualities first.

Girls are not nearly as shallow and superficial as guys would like to believe. Unless she's looking for a three-way, she'll take the guy she feels is the least likely to stick with her for the night, rather than become a date-jumper herself. (If she is a party girl, all bets are off.) For the militaries of Kazakhstan and Mongolia, they were about to be that 'second guy' to get to Lady Victory if they didn't get moving.

If they hesitated much longer, they knew they'd get clobbered. The unknown person talking to them from the Ministry of Defense was saying that their countries were at war. Shots were being fired. If those generals and colonels had believed there was still time for rational discourse, they would have realized they were engaging in madness.

But every second that passed increased the likelihood of planes being caught in their bunkers, runways being cratered, their troops being caught in their barracks and their reserves left unarmed in their homes. The Khanate was broadcasting that a State of War existed. The legitimate governmental infrastructure hadn't adjusted yet...so those militaries went into 'pre-emptive' strike mode.

[End World News]

So the UN was meeting in Special Session, trying to figure out what had gone wrong in Central Asia. The UN representatives of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan didn't know what was going and as seasoned diplomats, they kept their mouths shut. Only four people in the UN knew the real score.

One was my old friend, Oyuun Tömörbaatar, Kazakhstan's Permanent UN Representative. He was fresh off the jet back to New York and most likely, the Khanate's silent ambassador. The other three didn't include the US. No, two of them were Sir Grant, Her Majesty's Representative, and David Donoghue, Ireland's Representative and member of the Illuminati - the O'Shea faction.

There also was yet another 'slight problem'. The former Mongolian Representative seemed to have vanished and his Youth Panel Advisor was handing over his own bona fides...which no one at the UN could confirm because the Mongolian Capital, Ulan Bator, was in the midst of a regime change. Until then, Tuguldor Batjargal could speak and talk, but not vote.

That news wasn't all that relevant to the Amazons. To the US and the Brits, it was critical. The US Cabinet was still assembling and had no specific orders for their UN Ambassador yet, so it fell to the United Kingdom to make the first move. From the minimal expressions Delilah and Chaz were slipping our way, the Amazons were getting 'Brownie Points' with at least one world government.

I had little doubt I was gaining status in Temujin's eyes too. I had delivered diplomatic contact in less than eleven hours, even if it was the British, and not the Americans, putting forth the first feelers. I was soul-sick looking over at Katrina and Elsa. They respected my pain by not congratulating me on a successful diplomatic stratagem.

St. Marie had already honored my initiatives by agreeing to send help to the ninja. I doubted such a mission was in the Amazon War Plans Manual. In their past, Amazons always fought alone. Even allies were little more than different factions fighting the same enemy. In the past two weeks that had changed.

By my interpretation of events, the Augurs had bound us to the Earth & Sky. By conception, I was tied to the Illuminati. I had manipulated my birthright via Vranus to intertwine the blood of House Ishara with that of the 9 Clans. Was I making a difference, not only within my Amazons, but to the World at large?

Maybe I was. I would have been happier if I wasn't being such a spaz, stumbling from one encounter to the next, hoping I was doing the right thing. I would have settled for doing the least harm. To survive this, I had to get back to my roots - ambitious playboy. I was going to let people down because of my sexual ambitions. Okay.

If I suddenly began to embrace traditional Western morality it was going to break me. I had to prioritize. I was giving women, trapped in the ghostly place between the outside World's secularism and Amazon spiritualism, immortality. I had two unborn daughters and one unborn son who might actually want me around as they grew up.

"Cáel?" Helena beckoned me. I hadn't heard her come in. I had no idea she was here, which implied another disaster had befallen people in life I cared about. She foisted a box on me. It was wooden, about 30cm x 30cm x 10cm. It had a simple latch that I flipped so that I could look inside. Inside was...

"We - the Isharans - decided that if you are going to make a pledge to this outsider woman, then you should give her something of us," she explained. "We were unaware of you making other arrangements, so three of us examined a few of the artifacts Krasimira had transferred to Havenstone and decided on this."

I put the box down on the side table. The necklace inside was beautiful, fragile and ancient-looking.

"It was the gift of a Parthian princess to an Isharan Emissary from...we think it is from the 2nd century," Helena explained. She meant 2nd century CE.

The artifacts transferred must have been from the repository of the Amazons - location unknown - that had been held in the Isharan vaults. My House had anticipated my mind-splitting day and selected an engagement gift for Hana Sulkanen.

"The small selection of rings was unpromising, so...we figure she knows you are unconventional," Helena shrugged.

I began crying. I hugged her, then motioned Buffy over to share in the 'family' moment.

"You are getting married?" CIA Officer Cresky ruined the mood.

"Yes. I proposed marriage to Hana Sulkanen and she has accepted, but circumstances interrupted my search for the ring," I interlaced deceptions with the truth.

I did not mention the timing of the arrangement in order to buy Hana some time to prepare for the CIA rectal probes coming her family's way. I had forgotten the company I ran with.

"Officer Cresky, if I may?" Chaz spoke in a smooth, yet lethal intonation. "I suggest you circle-file that bit of data." Cresky looked his way, still so sure he knew better than the rest of the room.

"Very well," Chaz nodded to Cresky. "Before you trip over your own arrogance, think about what we are doing here? Highly equipped mercenaries operating without concern for legal prosecution, bio-terrorism on a scale to rival the European colonization of the Americas, and a military conflict on your soil involving perhaps seven hundred well-armed, experienced light infantry and Special Forces...does any of that ring a bell?"

"Thank you for that summary, Mr. Whoever-You-Are," Cresky smirked. That lasted about two seconds before FBI Agent Vincent stepped over and landed a painful Gibb-slap (that is from NCIS) to the back of Cresky's head. "What the fuck!" Cresky spat as he stood up, spun around and began to draw down on Vincent.

Whoa...we are a fast crowd. Cresky's sixth sense kicked in just in time to realize every Amazon, two of the three Brits, two of the Illuminati and Virginia all held guns pointed at him. Vincent hadn't even bothered to defend himself.

"Everyone put their guns away," I stated calmly.

"Let me shoot him," I added with a vicious gleam in my eye. "I've got diplomatic immunity."

"Good point," Delilah responded gleefully. "Chaz, go get some of those curtains. We'll used them as a drop cloth. I'll call housekeeping."

"I like this plan," Buffy jumped in. "I think we can stuff his body in the refrigerator."

"I'll make sure to leave a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on the door when we leave," Helena finished up our murderous conspiracy. They weren't done with Cresky. Color Sergeant Chaz Tomorrow strode purposefully to the closest drapes and yanked them down with no effort.

"I'm afraid I can't let you do this," Vincent extended a palm to Chaz.

I couldn't begin to describe how stupid that was...had Chaz not been a consummate professional. He dropped the curtains, moved past Vincent and returned to his station by the MI-6 leader who was continuing an unbroken telephone conversation. No sooner had we re-holstered our firearms...

"Sulkanen eh?" Senior Field Officer George Cresky looked back at me.

The entire time Deidre, Riki, Javiera, Katrina and Captain Moe were on their phones, giving and receiving information from their various organizations. That explained the lack of refereeing from the people with authority...unless you counted on me to be in charge. No one was. The ATF guy had open his laptop and was streaming some data with Elsa looking over his shoulder.

The ICE agent was playing phone tag with his brethren in Arizona. They were trying to figure out who all those dead Chinese guys were and how they had gotten into the country...with all their freaking armory. With old Jonas still waiting for his bail hearing, the ICE guy was also juggling the Homeland Security inquiries that Javiera couldn't deal with at the moment.

"George," I shrugged. "I'm not going to threaten you. It is pointless. You think you are the smartest man in the room. I think you are the fifth smartest and that's only because I've recently experienced a lobotomy that gifted me with five thousand years of life experiences. My money is on Katrina being smarter than Javiera, but I don't really know her yet."

"Who do you think is fourth?" George scoffed.

"Riki, of course, moron. I only rate her below Javiera and Katrina because she even remotely believes I might be Irish," I chuckled.

"No, I don't," Riki corrected me in a brief interlude in her phone conversation.

"What about me?" Delilah mused.

"If you were smarter than me, you would be halfway to Heathrow by now," I pointed out.

"Damn it!" Delilah snapped her fingers, conceding me this round.

"Agent Loire, I see you aren't arguing with him," Virginia prodded her colleague.

"I learned some time ago that I don't need to possess the highest IQ to get the job done. Smart people screw up just as often as dumb ones," Vincent related. "I'm a big believer in common sense and the remarkable ability for most people to ignore it."

"Thank you for that wisdom, Sir," I bowed to Vincent. "I'm glad today hasn't been a total waste."

"You are saving lives," Virginia brought up. By the looks I was getting from the 'talkers', they agreed with her. I didn't.

"By all means, when I've actually saved a single soul, let me know," I countered unhappily.

"Wakko Ishara," Wiesława got my attention, "we need to be going."

Making it to Hana on time was on my wish list, so I gave the various female authorities a quick acknowledgement, grabbed the box, and then made for the door. For a split second, I almost made it out the door with only two bodyguards (Wiesława and Saku)...almost.

"Cáel? Where do you think you are going?" Buffy inquired.

I was head of a First House of the Amazon Host, a Prince of Hungary, a diplomat from the Pugnacious Nation of Ireland and...a prospective sex toy to the Illuminati.

"Run for it!" I urged my two companions as I raced past them.

"Son of a Bitch!" Buffy yelled after me. "Get him!"

I really am a bad influence on most of the people I meet. And the three of us were safely ahead of the pack until I had to stop to pound on the elevator button. The reactions of Nikita and Skylar saved me. Nikita put her hand on her piece and took two steps my way. Skylar turned the other way, trying to figure out what we were running from.

Buffy collided with her, became tangled up and they fell over together. Helena, coming right behind Buffy, leapt over those two and ended up impacting with Nikita. Helena landed face-first on Nikita's back. Wiesława, Sakuniyas and I fled into the elevator and hit a button for a lower floor.

"What are we doing?" Wiesława inquired in a nervous tone.

"I don't want to walk around with a freaking army, Wiesława," I confided. "I want to have a bit of intimacy when I meet with Hana."

"Why didn't you tell our sisters that?" she reposted.

"Would they have listened?" Saku snorted. "Amazon, would you have listened if he insisted you stay away?"

"I..." Wiesława looked from Saku to me then back to me. "No, but why are we running away from his 'First'?"

"Child, this oddity I understand," Saku studied me. "Before battle, we would kick the heads of dead enemy scouts around to ease the tension. It was a nonsensical thing to do before facing death. Whatever else I dislike about this one," she gave me a sign of her approval, "he does not shy away from the fight, nor deludes himself into thinking a fight is not coming."

"He is easing his nerves," she concluded.

"That is the nicest thing you've ever said about me," I gave her a respectful nod.

"I was wrong to doubt you were the grandson of Alal," she explained. "That was one of the things that drew me to him - I loved battle too much and he loved it not at all. We complimented each other."

The elevator opened up on the tenth floor and off I ran. The Odd Couple was on my heels.

"Where are we going?" Wiesława asked.

"The service elevator. There must be fifty people in the lobby waiting for us and I'm not pulling a Butch and Sundance," I huffed. Those two didn't get it. Pamela would have.

Not only did I have to find the service elevator, but I had to find someone in Facilities or Housekeeping because this elevator wasn't for guests and had its own key code. I found the elevator first. The doors opened. It was Pamela.

"How the?" I huffed as I jumped on board.

"Rachel fitted you with a tracking device, Chumley," Pamela joked. The four of us were heading down into the bowels of the hotel and, hopefully, an unguarded exit.

"Damn it!" I groused. "Tennessee, you need to keep me abreast of such things."

"Don't Tux your tail between your flippers and waddle away," Pamela chortled.

"This isn't nearly as much fun when they don't get it," I reminded her.

"Be patient," Pamela snickered. "I'm sure their curiosity is eating them alive."

"You would be mistaken," Saku frowned.

"What are you two talking about?" Wiesława added.

"We are in the land of the Philistines," Pamela nudged me.

"Does that make me David, or Saul?" I bantered.

"Oh!" Wiesława blurted out excitedly. "I know this one. You two are talking about that little boy versus the giant Geronimo myth, right?"

The elevator doors opened just in time to surprise a man pushing a room service cart.

"Excuse us," I gave him a tip of my invisible hat. We were past him before he could put forth a coherent complaint. There was no way we could all fit in a taxi. Pamela had an answer for that too.

(The Doom of All Mankind)

Pamela walked up to a Soccer Mom in her mini-van, tapped the window and showed her a Homeland Security ID...I found it best not to ask. Reluctantly the woman hit the 'power lock', allowing Pamela to open the door.

"Hello Gracious citizen," Pamela greeted the woman.

"We are part of a Justice Department special group and we need you to drive us to an expensive restaurant," Pamela began.

"A restaurant?" the woman was cautious and confused.

Yes, Miss," I interjected myself. I put on my 'sexy, yet passionately political' smile.

You can tell a whole bunch about a person by the bumper stickers they put on their car.

"At that restaurant there will be a clandestine meeting of representatives from certain insidious corporate interests and radical right-wing political power-brokers bent on disrupting a Hillary Clinton run on the White House in 2016," I punched up the intensity. Pause.

"Oh my God!" she squealed. "I knew it - I knew it. They are going after Hillary! What can I do to help you?"

"We suspect that they will have some of their NRA goons hanging around, so we can't simply roll up in government vehicles," I explained. She unlocked the panel door.

As Pamela, Wiesława, and Saku climbed into the back...with two young teenage girls, I got into the passenger sea. The doors shut, the light changed to green and off we went.

"If you could drop us off at the Osteria al Doge," I balanced my grin with the grim.

"Oh, that's a lovely place. I've never actually eaten there, but..." the driver began rambling.

"Hey, why don't you and your two beautiful daughters join us?" I suggested. "It will help with our cover."

"Oh...will it be safe?" she murmured. I nodded. "Okay...to help Hillary '16." We got her name, the name of her daughter and her daughter's friend.

They had recently finished up a Day Swim Camp and had been heading to their fashionable West Side condo when we appeared on their horizon. Now she was calling her husband, Wilbur, to let him know she'd run across an old friend (my insertion into her lie), so she'd be late getting home. It wasn't that the Soccer Mom was stupid, it was the political climate.

Elements of every angle of the political spectrum wanted to believe they were the Champions of the Truth and that the other side was cheating. If this woman had 'Abortion is Murder' and 'Mitt Romney 2012' as her bumper stickers, I would have been pedaling the Communist/Progressive Axis of Evil as the wrong-doers in question. Not only was she getting to live out her fantasy, she and her little angels were getting $80 meals out of the deal.

We dropped Pamela off in front of the establishment while the rest of us went parking lot shopping. Five minutes later, our little group was filing in. Pamela had a table for the six of them, allowing me to make straight for Hana Sulkanen. The prospective Mrs. Nyilas appeared to have had a rough 24 hours and the look she gave me was one of fatigue and worry.

I walked over as casually as I could, then in one quick flourish, pulled out the box I had hidden inside my jacket and held in place by my left arm pressing in. The box turned on my palm. I opened it as I went to one knee.

"Hana Sulkanen, would you do me the honor of consenting to be my partner, spouse and better half?" I requested.

The conversations around us sputtered, then ceased all together. Even the wait staff was looking our way. Hana...Hana was stunned, quite literally. It began with a tremble in the lips. Her eyes watered up, then she gulped twice. Her eyes flitted over the necklace, then back at me.

"Yes I will, Cáel Nyilas," she sniffed. "I will be your partner, spouse and equal half."

A nod followed, then came the applause and murmurs of approval. I stood, placed the box in front of Hana, drew forth the ancient necklace and waited. Hana pulled her hair aside so when I stepped behind her I had no problem putting it around her neck and hooking the clasps. After that, taking my seat felt like such a relief.

"I...I don't know what to say," the maybe future Mrs. Cáel Nyilas regarded me with teary eyes. "I didn't expect something like this." She reached her right hand across the table.

"It gets better," I took her hand, turned it palm up then began tracing lines with one finger along her palm and wrist. "This makes you the 'presumptive' Princess of Hungary and Transylvania."

Hana didn't miss a beat.

"This is from our friends in Asia," she stated. "I'll makes sure to use my aristocratic credentials when I get there." That scared me.

"You aren't seriously thinking about going there for the next few weeks, are you?" I grunted.

"I have to," she persisted. "No one knows what to make of this 'Khanate' situation."

"Um, war, plague and most likely famine before too long - those are all good reasons not to go," I urged her to reconsider.

"Cáel, I'm the only one who can go that might make a difference," she stated defiantly.

"These are my employees and I can't leave them hanging in the wind while this situation re-writes the rules in that part of the world," she confounded me.

"Security?" I questioned.

"We have our normal security staff," she sounded less than thrilled.

Her people were there to stop trespassers and thieves, not true bodyguards. Week one, when I was alone, 40,000 Amazons seemed like the Mount Everest of obstacles. Now, I felt like having double than number still wouldn't be enough. Roughly 4,000 of my sisters were ready and able to perform offensive operations - 10% of our population, which was very impressive.

Given time, the Golden Mare could muster 5~6,000 more. The rest would guard the holdings of the Host and keep our internal economy running. Wars were hideously expensive. Unlike every other secret society, Amazons rarely used proxies and never fought combat by proxy. The 9 Clans were the same way...

"Ghost Tigers," I whispered.

"What?" Hana hadn't been able to make that out.

"I think I can get you two professional killers to protect you," I grimaced. The Ghost Tigers weren't bodyguards. Like the other eight clans, the Ghost Tigers were assassins.

They either operated alone, or in groups two - mentor and student. This technique made them incredibly hardy and resourceful. They also operated in Siberia and Turkish Asia - right where Hana was going. Asking Temujin for help would be counter-productive. Not only did the warlord need every man and woman he could throw into the fight, Hana was my business.

By acting as his diplomat, I was fulfilling my military obligations to the Khanate. The extent of Temujin's charity had been to not take the Sulkanen holdings. The security of my yurt was still my duty and mine alone. I could ask Selena...a favor for a favor.

"If you succeed, I promise to listen to their advice," Hana compromised.

That wasn't a pledge to follow their advice. Hana would still do what she felt was right and in this case 'right' meant going into a war zone to look after her people - the men and women Jormo Sulkanen's investment group hired to work for them in that part of the world. A key part of that workforce operated the biggest refinery in Central Asia, which was pumping out the lifeblood of the Great Khan's war machine - diesel, gasoline, and aviation fuel.

The People's Republic could read an economic flow chart was well as I could. They knew the Achilles Heel of any modern military was petrol and the main sources of that for the Khan were the refineries at Pavlodar and Shymkent (aka Chimkent). Shymkent had been owned by Chinese interests and Hana was already hearing rumors that key facility operators there had been...liquidated.

Hana was heading out in two days - New York - London - St. Petersburg - Omsk and from there to Pavlodar by a corporate-owned Su-80GP if she could, or by Range Rover overland if flying was too unsafe. Unsafe?

"I'm not hungry," Hana announced as the waitress put our dinners before us.

"When do you have to leave?" she inquired, automatically assuming I had to be somewhere else...which I did.

"Later tonight," was the best I could do as far as my own safety was concerned. "Let me guess, you want me to go talk to your father."

"Absolutely. I have little doubt this will be public very soon and I don't want someone congratulating my Father tomorrow morning at work." I stood, retrieved my money clip and heard the waiter gasp. I smiled at her, then dropped three hundreds on the table.

"Cáel, you are armed," Hana gasped softly.

"Oh this," I shrugged. "I've cut down today because of the government meetings...that means three pistols, two tomahawks and one knife."

"Do we need to worry about the police?" she whispered once she came to my side. We were angling for the door.

"Thank you for your assistance," Pamela spoke to the Soccer Mom. "I'll makes sure the Clintons put you on their Christmas card list." The woman looked thrilled. Pamela was tossing currency at the table she shared while Saku picked up her plate and a bottle of wine.

Wiesława had been in the process of leaving when she mistook Saku's actions for civilized behavior and grabbed up her food and drink. The three of them were making for the exit. The maître de was about to intervene over the stolen accoutrements when Buffy and Helena walked in the door. One look at the Buffy storm front moving in encouraged him to seek shelter elsewhere.

"Don't!" I glared at Buffy. "Just don't." 98% of the time I liked putting up with Buffy's mood swings - tonight was the other 2% and she was going to have to suck it up. Pamela parted Buffy and Helena so I could lead Hana outside...where Velma and company were waiting for me with two GL-550's.

"Did you drive here?" I asked Hana. Hana was scoping out the security now encircling the two of us.

"No, I took a taxi," she informed me.

"My convoy it is, then," I accepted the reality that my bid for even limited freedom was at an end. I escorted her to the second black armored escort and trundled us into the middle row of seats.

Saku and Wiesława worked their way into the back while Buffy sat with me and Hana. A minute later, Buffy finally broke the silence.

"You owe me an explanation," she stated as she stared at me. She didn't glare, just stared.

"He doesn't owe you anything," Saku grumbled. "He is your Head of House."

"You don't get to be a part of this," Buffy spat back at Sakuniyas. They were both angry.

"Buffy, he is..." Pamela got out. This was my problem, not theirs.

"Stop," I signaled Pamela and Saku. "Buffy, I ran away this evening because I'm not a team player. I never have been. I like to do my own thing and I've been happy that way.

I didn't join Havenstone to be a part of the Host. Initially, I stayed out of fear...fear that what limited freedom I possessed would be taken away from me. I didn't volunteer to be a member of a house. I certainly never dreamed of being the Head of a House. I don't want to be responsible for anyone but me. I certainly never sought out the forces currently tearing my life apart.

I'm doing the best I can, Buffy. All this crap has been foisted on me and I'll do the best I can because I feel that I can't stand by and do nothing, but don't for a second assume I like it, or want the responsibility. In case you missed it, part of my responsibility is the death of thousands, probably millions of Chinese and a land war in Asia.

The hard, cold facts are that I didn't do anything wrong. The Condottieri murdered my father, the Seven Pillars had been planning for years to make their play for Global Domination and the Earth & Sky had been preparing their atrocity for nearly twenty years. The Host's best chance of survival is to fight now. My decision on the 'Runners' was the correct one.

That still cost Hayden her life and the life of around fifty other Amazons. I killed men in hand-to-hand combat, barbequed God knows how many more, and witnessed hellishly twisted souls enslaved by the Seven Pillars - and no one should have to see that. Buffy," I put my hand on her thigh, "I didn't sign up for any of this. I never wanted to be a soldier, leader and diplomat of any kind, yet here I am."

"Cáel, I only want to keep you safe and I can't..." Buffy began to make her case.

"Not happening," I interrupted (bad habit of mine). "My vacation tried to kill me, Buff. I was in the midst of a freaking army and I still nearly died." Pause. "Buffy, I think I've been trying to emulate Katrina's leadership style. That's a losing proposition.

She is way tougher mentally and has been trained to disassociate her emotions from a death toll. Not me. I am going to keep things on a personal level and that means I'm going to do things in person, not in person with my own Death Squad. Is that clear enough for you?" I sighed.

"Cáel, I hear what you are saying," Buffy took a deep breath. Nice boobs.

"Understand that there is a large faction in Havenstone that values your life highly and would be heartbroken if you got killed. We now know for sure that you are going to keep trying to get yourself killed - we are...okay with that. That doesn't mean we are going to sit back and do nothing. We will...try to be more discrete about your security. Is that fair?"

It wasn't, but it was about as fair as I could hope for. I let it slide.

"It will have to do," I conceded. Buffy seemed to be in agreement, so her head spinning slap caught me somewhat off guard.

"Are you going to stop whining about your pathetic problems and man-up?" Buffy grumbled.

I contemplated attacking her. She was Elsa's best student, so a physical showdown wasn't going to end well for me. I actually considered drawing my gun...except we both knew I wouldn't shoot her. That left pummeling her in the verbal arena as my best response.

"What?" I regarded her.

"What - what?" she darkened.

"You are looking at me of if you are expecting something," I grew serious. "What is it?"

"Are you going to man up, or do I have to smack some more sense into you?" Buffy seethed.

"Oh...that was you angrily hitting me?" I smirked. "I barely noticed."

"You are impossible," she glared. "Maybe I should hit you again."

"Maybe you should leave my fiancé alone?" Hana rumbled.

"Butt out of this..." Buffy started snapping at Hana only to be punched in the ear by Pamela.

"Hana is sacrosanct," Pamela commanded. "Cáel is fair game - she's not."

Buffy wanted to get physical with Pamela over this. She didn't stop herself because she felt Pamela was unbeatable. She stopped because Pamela was seated behind her and thus at the advantage. There was also the fact that Hana stood outside our social network. She hadn't signed on for the 'rough and tumble' aspects of Amazon society.

"Hana, I apologize," Buffy promised. "Cáel - 45 days, Bitch."

"Buffy is it? I'm not sure I accept your apology and what is with the '45 days', Cáel?" Hana rebounded.

"Ugh...Hana, in 45 days my internship would have been over and I proposed a little hunt as a Havenstone morale building exercise. I'm what the Amazons will be hunting,' I enlightened her.

Yeah, I could tell Hana was having a difficult time digesting that. Normally she thought I was rather quick-witted.

"Can you possibly survive this challenge?" she asked.

"Not likely," Buffy muttered, as she twirled her jaguar incisor between her thumb and forefinger.

"Tell that to the very delicious 'Hell-Pig' I killed and butchered a few days ago, my 'First'," I snorted back.

"You have someone else's memories floating around your head," she countered. "That's cheating."

"Who is the whiny bitch now?" I chuckled. Buffy looked away, then rubbed the ear Pamela had impacted. Buffy would get me...later.

"Someone else's memories?" Hana poked me, looking for some translation that made sense.

"Long, long story Hana. We don't have the time tonight," my kiss on her cheek bought me a respite.

The visit to Jormo Sulkanen's townhouse was awkward. Hana wouldn't permit a security sweep in advance of my visit. There was the added complication that Jormo's oldest son, his wife and their two children had decided to stay a few weeks with 'grandpa' after Brennan's funeral (the rapist asshat I had doomed to die at Amazon hands).

Hana added to the picturesque collage by gripping my left hand tightly in her right. The family was finishing up their dinner when we arrived.

"Father," Hana greeted her patriarch.

"You," Jormo growled upon seeing me. "What are you doing in my house?"

"I've come to ask your blessing on my seeking Hana's hand in marriage," I replied. That quieted everyone down. Jormo's wife Misty, the eldest son, and his wife appeared to be happy for Hana. Jormo's grandsons looked intrigued. Baby Karvala looked at me, decided I wasn't coming over to amuse her, and so went back to playing with her food.

I looked young and fit, yet of a sufficiently serious disposition and well-dressed enough to not be a gold digger. Before they could come over to express their feelings...

"I forbid it," Jormo snapped.

"Mr. Sulkanen, would you care to discuss this in private?" I offered.

Rocketing to his feet, he pushed his chair back so fast that it fell over before he had stormed out. I sought him out at a more causal pace. I wasn't insulting him. I was allowing him to put his mind in order before he punched me out.

"Sir," I said when I found him pacing in his living room.

"How dare you?" he glared. "How dare you even speak to Hana? You haven't the right."

"Okay," I nodded. "Get it out of your system. Hit me."

"What?" he seethed.

"No matter what I believe, you hold me responsible for Brennan's death," I remained calm.

"What I feel for Hana has to do with what she did for me and you that Saturday night, plus her aid in getting me through a very difficult mishap in my life. Hit me. Trust me, it will help." Jormo wasn't a prize-fighter. I saw the blow coming, bit down on my reflexes and took the punch to my stomach.

I tipped over, so Jormo hit me again, this time just behind my right ear. That hurt both of us. Hitting the skull isn't wise. I avoided falling forward, though I was staggered. When I stood back up, Jormo was still muttering curses in Finnish and shaking the hand that had impacted my head.

"I still hate you," Jormo grumbled, nursing his knuckles.

"I understand. I was able to see many of the men who murdered my father die before my eyes - at the hands of the police," I related. "I wish it would have made me miss my father less, but it didn't. I still miss him every day." Jormo allowed me to keep going, which was true progress.

"You are never going to forget what happened between me and Brennan. He was your son - your flesh and blood. You wouldn't be much of a father if you did let this slide - and Hana thinks the world of you and I think the world of her," I continued.

"Why is she marrying you?" he still sent waves of hate my way.

He didn't care why I wanted to marry his favorite child (well technically, step-child). What he wanted to know was what angle I was pedaling to Hana so that he would have an easier time talking her out of it.

"I have strong ties to the Khanate and I've been able to get a guarantee they won't nationalize your investments in the region," I informed him.

"He also arranged for our employees to get the Anthrax vaccine," Hana said from the doorway. The conversation could have gone a number of horrible ways. Terrorism, warfare, mass murder and regional instability were all possible weapons to beat me with.

"What did this cost you?" Jormo addressed me. Sulkanen clan welfare trumped global troubles.

"Nothing," I confided in him. "In fact, it elevated me in the eyes of those running the show. I told them that Hana and I were a pair, thus convincing them I have a vested interest in their success. I demanded that they protect Sulkanen interests in my name. That included the vaccines."

"Cáel is also arranging for some extra security for me when I go back to Kazakhstan," Hana said.

"So this is a financial game..." Jormo ruminated. "Why?"

"I pay my debts, Mr. Sulkanen. Hana fought you over Casper and the fallout from that. She helped me meet an important member in the Khanate a week ago.

This morning, when I was 'read in' to the Khanate plan, I was horrified. The lone, positive light in all of it was I suddenly had a chance to repay Hana. To do that, I had to convince them that Sulkanen property was mine by way of me marrying Hana...so here we are," I said.

"I do not forgive you," he clarified. "I never will. Hana, you are correct to agree to this proposal. You have my blessing."

"Thank you, Father," Hana started weeping as she slipped past me and embraced her Patriarch. "This will work out, I swear to you." He hugged her tight. Jormo hated me, but loved Hana and he could see a spark of happiness inside Hana's heart that he'd never seen before. This was probably not the time to bring up that I had three children on the way from three different women.

"Let me see the ring," Jormo huffed. He wasn't going to cry tears of joy in my presence.

"Cáel didn't give me a ring," Hana took a step back. "He gave me this." The necklace.

"Does it have any relevance?" Jormo looked past Hana at me.

"It is a family heirloom. It was given by a 2nd century CE Parthian princess to an emissary of my people - a cadet branch of my Hungarian side of the family," I stated.

"I know that sounds far-fetched, Sir," I sighed. "Of course, a 13th century Mongol-Turkish Khanate springing to life would have sounded rather unbelievable last week, as well." Pause.

"Could you have spared Brennan?" he asked me, while again staring at Hana.

"Yes Sir," I didn't hesitate. "I don't regret my choice either." He sent hate my way once more.

"I wasn't avenging Casper, Mr. Sulkanen," I refused to wilt. "That's a macho, bull-headed and stupid motivation. Nothing I could do would help Casper. What I couldn't do was turn away from the knowledge that she wasn't the first and she wasn't going to be the last. I'll take your hate. No man can hold that against you, least of all me."

"If I had insisted that Hana break of this engagement?" the Old Wolf drilled me with his intense gaze. "What would you have done?"

"Broken it off," I replied. "She is your daughter first. I would never stand between the two of you." He was finding it harder to utterly despise me. Hate me - yes.

The downside of being such a hard-ass was that Jormo knew that Brennan was terribly flawed. He'd paid the hush-money and futilely lectured his youngest son about being responsible. It was inevitable that Brennan would finally run into someone who couldn't be bought off, or forced to back down by the Old Man. That had cost Brennan his life...that was Jormo's pain to bear to the grave.

Hana was waiting on something. I wasn't sure what, but Jormo knew. He stepped up and put forth his hand. Neither one of us made it a death-squeeze. This was his sore hand and I wasn't out to make this moment any worse for him. We did the required two shakes then let go.

"Have you decided on a date yet?" Jormo asked as Hana moved to my side and slipped an arm around my waist.

My initial thought was 2016. Yeah, 2016...the late fall, or early winter of 2016.

"Certainly not before Christmas," Hana decided. "Maybe Valentine's Day?" she looked to me.

"How about the Spring Equinox - that is on a Friday, March 20th next year?" I suggested.

Hana hugged me. I wanted to curl up and die inside. The Man-Dog-Pig was not going to go quietly into that dark, monogamous night. Who was I kidding? This wasn't going to fly. All I had to tell Hana was that I was expecting three kids and that would be that.

Being a big proponent of putting off the romantically painful...I'd wait a bit. Maybe I'd put it in my Will; a kind of a post-dated apology letter.

"That sounds nice," Hana smiled. "Any specific location? Father married Misty in the Helsinki Cathedral." Hint, hint.

"Or we could use St. Stephen's Cathedral in Székesfehérvár," I tossed out there. Jormo and Hana were at a loss. "It is in Hungary." What I neglected to add was it was the traditional site for the coronation of Hungarian royalty for hundreds of years. "My homeland?"

"Oh," Hana allowed...then it dawned on her that I was an untrustworthy cad who loved hidden meanings.

She was going to Google that the moment we parted ways tonight.

"Try to remember this is Hana's special day," Jormo rumbled. It was good to know that two out of the three of us were sure I was getting married. Too bad, I was the odd man out.

"I will, Mr. Sulkanen. Now, I have intruded on your family time enough for now," I said. "I have to get on a plane for Europe at nine, so I need to be going."

"Where are you going?" Jormo poked into my life.

"Transylvania. Havenstone has some unfinished business there that my boss, Katrina Love, wants me to resolve. It is one of those learning-as-you-go assignments." I didn't lie.

"Do you conduct any normal business?" Jormo was clearly unsatisfied with my answer.

"Father," Hana put her foot down. "Let me see Cáel to the door and then we can talk. Cáel, I'll see you out." We left Jormo to mull over the vagaries of fate. We almost made the door before Misty, aka soon to be my Mother-in-Law caught us. My, my, my, she was hot. I could hear Dot Ishara mocking me. That reminded me...

"How did it go?" she asked us both.

"Cáel gave me this," she showed off her necklace - a mixture of pressed gold, lapis-lazuli with an onyx cameo of a woman with a long braid - who might have been my ancestor.

"I'm unconventional," I responded to Misty's confused look. "It's been in my family for quite a while." That satisfied her. Misty and Hana shared a familial hug. Misty definitely knew that Hana was her ally in the family.

"Have you heard from Casper?" Misty looked my way while still hugging Hana.

"She is in town seeing a specialist," I was pleasantly surprised that someone had asked. "Brooke, Libra and Casper met me for lunch." She and Hana released one another.

"Cáel...I...um...I love my daughter very much and I would like to think that if she was ever in trouble, there would be people like you, Libra and Brooke to look after her," Misty made her opinion known.

Misty had been perfectly aware of what a diseased parasite Brennan was, but had never been able to get Jormo to see it. She wasn't mourning the loss of her youngest stepson at all. There was no diplomatic response for that. I nodded and let Hana take me to the door.

"Cáel..." Hana struggled. I kissed her. I gave her the total Cáel full-body kiss experience.

Misty was still looking our way. Hana was caught off guard as I gave us a bit of sexuality to our otherwise sterile courtship.

"Whoa," Hana sighed when we finally came up for air. Her body was tightly pressed against mine and my body was certainly aroused by hers. "Mmmm...that was nice."

"Well, we can pick up from here when we get back," I grinned, then kissed her forehead. "I gotta go." The GL-550s were in front of the townhouse, engines turning over. I gave one last wave before boarding. No one said a thing for a while. I imagine I looked pretty discombobulated.

"We need to stop by my place," I told my driver - one of Velma's team.

"Why?" Buffy inquired. I noticed we were missing Pamela again. Shit.

"I forgot a promise I made to Dot Ishara," I gave a tired smile. When I heard Dot laughing I realized I had forgotten my fortune cookies. "It won't take me five minutes."

"I'm coming with you and Wiesława takes point," Buffy stated. She waited for me to push back.

"Do you agree?" Buffy inquired as we rolled to a stop, double-parked in front of my apartment building.

"Yeah," I nodded. "Buffy, this isn't an ego contest. If I think you are right, I'll go along with it. If I think you are wrong, I'll do my own thing."

(Endings and Departures)

We kept to the plan, although Buffy and I were all of five steps behind my Polish protector. Ten feet from the door, Wiesława waved us to take shelter. She pressed herself against the hallway wall next to my door. I took a peek out to see what spooked her. My door was almost - almost shut. Odette wouldn't be home for three hours. Timothy would never do that.

I pulled out my phone and showed it to Buffy, who ruminated over my silent strategy, then nodded. I dialed my home number while Buffy slipped past me, STI Perfect 10 automatic pistol drawn and moved along the wall opposite my door. Wiesława drew her FN-P90. It took four rings.

"Cáel," Timothy's cool reply had an undercurrent of anger. "What's up?"

"I forgot a few things, so I'm coming by in a few minutes. I figured I could grab you and Sovann, if he's hanging out with you tonight," I lied.

"Thanks. That would be great," Timothy began clueing in that I was worried.

"Your choices are #1 Thai, #2 Egyptian, or #3 German," I made some crap up.

"Thai sounds fine," Timothy answered. I hoped and prayed that meant one hostile person inside. I flapped my hand out, getting my two Amazons' attention. I tapped my heart, then showed two fingers - two friendlies. I made a fist (new number), then showed one finger - one hostile.

Buffy got Wiesława's attention then started a three count.

"Timothy, get down," I commanded as Buffy went from two fingers to one. One finger went into a fist, Wiesława pushed the door open and went to a crouch, weapon at the ready looking in. Buffy went to the other side of the door, pistol aimed over Wiesława's head.

"Don't move," Buffy said in a soft yet menacing voice.

Wiesława slipped into my room. I ran over to her positon while Buffy kept whomever she was aiming at in her sights.

"Down," Wiesława commanded. "Clear." Buffy went in and I followed.

My Polish guardian had Anima face first on the carpet, her knee on the evil bitch's butt and her barrel pressed into her shoulder blades. I shut the door. Buffy picked up a cheap-looking 32 cal. revolver and stuck it in her jacket pocket. That must have been the weapon she used in order to keep the much larger Timothy and Sovann as hostages.

My roommate and his boyfriend were still getting over having some crazy chick threaten their lives, only to have two other crazy chicks show up to save them. A quick pat down later and they had Anima on her feet, face to face with me. The pampered, perpetually-bored torturer was gone.

The creature before me still lacked anything approaching empathy, but she was worn ragged, her clothes were filthy and personal hygiene was a thing of the past. She had become a feral, hunted human animal, now at the end of her tether.

"Cáel?" Anima cast about fearfully, then, "Cáel! Cáel, please help me," she pleaded. "I'm so sorry about what happened to Casper. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please call them off." Casper? Anima wasn't sorry about what she did to Casper, nor was extending an ounce of sympathy for all her so-called friends she'd led off that moral cliff, placing them into early graves.

"Them?" I asked.

"The people - those women who've killed everyone else," she related desperately. "I've learned my lesson. Please make them stop. I'm the only one left."

"Your lesson was to get a gun and hold my roommate and my friend hostage?" I stared at her.

"I couldn't find you...and I was afraid of hanging around one place for too long...I had to hide here until you came back," she babbled.

"Anima, I'm about to leave the country on business," I studied her. "I came back here by accident. What would have done if I didn't come back?"

The answer was either she'd break down and call me on the phone, or she'd kill Timothy and Sovann and search for another angle.

"I would have kept running," she lied. She was a very good liar, except holding my friends hostage was an 'end of the road' ploy. Clearly, life had not ceased to be all about Anima.

My gut was to play the White Knight and save the damsel in distress. That would require me to forget the dead peripheral players in Anima's drama as well as Casper. I couldn't take the coward's path and do nothing either.

"Anima, do you recall that trip we took to Illusions?" I reminded her.

"Ye - yes," she sounded worried.

"Two things stick out in my memory. You said 'death isn't all it is cracked up to be' and you claimed to have never met a person who was untouchable," I recalled. "You don't seem to be scoffing at death and pain anymore, Anima.

You have also managed to meet someone you can't touch. I remain the Good Guy and I feel fine with my decision of leaving you to face the consequences of your choices," I stated deadpan.

"You are simply going to let me die?" Anima wailed. "How is that good?"

"It is the virtue of Justice," I told her.

"That is something you could never grasp, Anima. Good isn't soft. Forgiveness isn't a blanket license to commit evil, over and over again. It is a second chance for the worthy who have made a mistake. You are neither worthy nor did you make a mistake. You knew exactly what you were doing," I glared. "Shut up!"... Anima had attempted to make another plea.

"Do you know what you could have done to save yourself? You could have made the last few weeks of your life matter by helping others. You could have exhibited bravery and charity, yet you chose not to. I'm not okay with all the resulting deaths. This brings me no joy. But my sorrow does not translate to me second guessing myself.

I'm willing to take responsibility for what has happened. I could have backed down - given in. I didn't. I met you half way in our moral challenge. You haven't changed and I'm fresh out of give. We remain where we were that Saturday - morally deadlocked. Good-bye," and I was done.

"Time for you to go," Buffy emphasized by grabbing Anima by the scruff of the neck.

"Cáel?" Anima made one more attempt. Buffy yanked her out the door. I was dealing with Timothy and Sovann.

"Sorry about this guys," I shook my head.

"You are not dull," Timothy admitted after a few seconds. He stepped up and we hugged.

"What is going to happen to her?" Sovann asked. He was still rightfully shaken up by the whole 'psycho girl with a gun threatening to end his life'.

"I don't know," I replied. "Buffy isn't going to kill her, but she's under a death sentence for orchestrating a gang rape of a girl after I specifically requested that she restrain herself.

Hell, if I thought that was going to be a one-time thing, I would have cut her some slack. Instead, she and her sick crew of rich, overly privileged friends chose to live beyond the law."

"So you are the law now?" Sovann stared intently.

"Yeah," I nodded, still in a partial hug with Timothy.

"I don't ask for a lot, Sovann. I do ask that people treat people with respect. If they fuck up, I ask them to not do it again. You are thinking 'who make me God?' and I don't have an answer to that. I do my best. And I have people like Timothy and Odette to kick me in the right direction when I stray. That's the best I can do, because doing nothing when you can make a difference is cowardice."

"Cáel, Sovann and I will discuss this after you go," Timothy intervened. "By the way, why did you come back?"

"Crap," I quick-stepped to my room, dug out two handfuls of fortune cookies from the box on my dresser, stuffed them in my pockets, then headed for the exit.

"Fortune cookies," I explained. "Now, if I am late I'll probably have to sleep with one of my aunts. Sorry again, guys," and out the door I went. Wiesława kept to my side as we went down to the GL.

"Buffy said she had business to take care of," the driver informed us.

Off we traveled to JFK International Airport and the O'Shea Boeing BBJ3 that was waiting for us. Some guy with an Irish brogue and some serious letterhead had the TSA wave us through the gate into a restricted part of the tarmac. Havenstone Executive Services had packed up my clothes and kit, as well as Wiesława's. Hopefully, someone had bought some extra clothes for Sakuniyas.

Daphne and Tigger were there to send me off...and to drive the Havenstone vehicles back to base. A quick hug and a kiss was all I could spare. I was cutting our departure window very close. For starters, this was my aunts' jet and that was made abundantly clear.

Staff wise, the pilot, co-pilot, chef (yes, the jet had a galley) and three flight attendants were all tiny cogs in the Illuminati structure. Each aunt had a personal assistant (always female) and a bodyguard (3 males, 2 females). As for my family - there was Aunt Deidre, who I did know and Aunts Kelly, Matilda, Imogen and Baibre, who I had last seen at Dad's wake.

Honestly, I felt like a heroin dealer walking into a drug den filled with five ladies about to fall of their '12 Step Program'. They may have all had the same genetics, but they all seem to have taken different paths. Kelly and Matilda were cold-hearted, ruthless, professional killers...which helped explain Uncle Lumpy's demise.

Deidre was sort of the referee that the other aunts didn't respect. Imogen was an up-beat and perkily impish sort with the heart of a medusa. Baibre was...nuts. The 'walks the hallways of the old manor house late at night having conversations with the portraits of her dead ancestors' kind of nuts. Definitely detached from reality.

On my team, I had Rachel's squad, Pamela, Sakuniyas and, of course, Wiesława. Delilah had sprouted a buddy - good ole Chaz Tomorrow...the guy Pamela respected more than me. Apparently the US government thought me running off to parts unknown was unhealthy. Both Virginia and Vincent of the FBI had joined us with Riki Martin in tow. Why? Not sure.

Our guide for our upcoming adventure, Selena Jovanović of the Black Hand, was here alone.

"Hi," I greeted the ensemble. "Sorry I was almost late."

"I see dead people too," Baibre gifted me with a lopsided grin and a sing-song voice. Sweet! Me seeing the restless dead was freaking genetic.

Then introductions went around, mutual animosity was exchanged and, as the 'Fasten Your Seatbelt' warning came on, the turf war began. Where was I going to sit? Rachel was adamant that I sit ensconced with my Amazons in the middle region. My aunts wanted me nearer to the rear of the plane...close to the curtained off sleeping areas.

I had one huge advantage over virtually everyone else on the plane - I regularly dated dangerous and somewhat unstable women. I joined my aunts after whispering a quick something in Rachel's ear. Five minutes after take-off, Kelly and I almost came to blows. She was - aggressive and demanding.

Having been down this road before, I derailed our conflict by calling her out. The fuselage of this jet wasn't ideal, but with the beds folded back, we could create a makeshift sparring area. This kind of sexual foreplay was new to Kelly, giving me an immediate advantage. I gave Kelly most of what she wanted - personal contact without sleeping with her - the reason I had the bedding put away.

Ten minutes into the bout, Matilda decided to switch places with Kelly. Kelly didn't agree but didn't want to start a catfight here and now. By the time Matilda was about to up our public display of affection beyond my acceptable levels, Imogen intervened. I was getting a definite 'cuddle' vibe from her, which I liked ... though I doubted I was getting my shirt back on anytime soon.

Deidre called for a late dinner before we all crashed out.

"Where is your personal assistant?" Deidre inquired. I was pretty sure that she wasn't talking about Riki, who had already fall asleep, and she definitely didn't mean my Amazons.

"I don't have a personal assistant," I responded.

"Then who was the girl who delivered your luggage?" Kelly's gaze grew intense.

"Where is Cáel's luggage?" Rachel popped up. Matilda tapped her bodyguard and he led Rachel to the hatch down to the luggage compartment. Sure enough, there was my suitcase, travel bag and dress bag (for my suits). No bombs or tracking devices that they could discover.

Upstairs, I was getting the bad news vis a vis a description of my PA ... Odette for sure. Damn it. Turning around wasn't possible. With the crowd we had, the unviability of surviving a trip in the cargo hold and the limited hiding places, we found Odette super-

quick. She had rearranged the storage in the galley and hid in one of the galley cabinets.

Odette was not a gymnast, or a contortionist. Delilah had to pull her out because her muscles were so cramped.

"Hi," she greeted me. "Don't be angry," she begged. I responded to that by banging my noggin against one of the overhead compartments.

I didn't ask why she did it. Odette had been living vicariously on the stories of my adventures to the point that she wanted to be part of the action, not a member of the audience. She was totally unprepared mentally and physically for the mission my team was embarking on. I couldn't ask anyone to be her guardian. That wasn't their job.

"I'll protect her," Sakuniyas spoke up. I was floored. Saku didn't like people, especially defenseless ones like Odette. The only person pleased with that announcement was Odette.

"Why would you do this?" I asked Saku.

"So I can later use her for leverage against you to help Alal," Saku stated.

"What?" Odette mumbled.

"Fine," I shrugged. "Odette, welcome to the ugly underbelly of barely constrained violence that I call home. This is what you have said you wanted. Live with it."

"But Sakuniyas is going to use me to hurt you," she protested. "Why can't Delilah protect me?"

"I have an assignment, Odette, and it doesn't include babysitting a civilian," Delilah told her. "Except for Saku, we all have jobs to do."

"Ms. Seibert," Virginia reluctantly joined in, "as a US citizen, I and Agent Loire will do our best to protect you."

"Do understand, our primary mission is to guard Ms. Martin and liaison with the law enforcement bodies," Vincent chimed in. Odette nodded.

"Sakuniyas, please do your best," I wasn't letting Saku, or Odette, off the hook.

"I do not make idle boasts, Ish...Wakko Ishara," Saku gave a shark-like grin. "Now, why don't you tell me more of Alal?" Fuck.