War Demons: An Urban Fantasy Thriller (The Prodigal Son Book 1) by Newquist Russell

Author:Newquist, Russell [Newquist, Russell]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Silver Empire
Published: 2017-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Michael gripped the sides of his seat in terror. He hadn’t been back in a helicopter since the crash. He admitted his fear to himself without shame, but that didn’t really help. The ride back to the Covington estate proved blessedly short.

The atmosphere of the house stood in sharp contrast to the dark chaos they’d left less than an hour ago. They’d gotten the lights back on, both inside the house and out. Police cars, ambulances and fire trucks added color to the light show. Michael counted at least three TV vans from local stations and a fourth from CNN, satellite uplinks fully extended. A whole platoon of government agents wearing alphabet soup jackets surrounded the house.

The Blackhawk landed on the north lawn and the Colonel led them back into the house. They found James Covington in the keeping room off of the kitchen, surrounded by federal agents of various stripes. All of them deferred to the Colonel as he strode in. The large, flat-panel television over the fireplace showed CNN’s live feed.

“How’s Abby?” Jim asked urgently.

“Gone,” Michael barely contained his rage. “I’m sorry, Jim.”

“But alive,” Peter reminded them. “And Faith, too. We have to get them back.”

“Back from whom?” the Colonel asked.

Michael turned on him.

“I’ve got nothing to say until you’re ready to tell us who the hell you really are.”

The officer took a moment to think it over.

“Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Abrash, Joint Special Operations Command, Task Force 13.”

“For real, this time? No bullshit?”

“No bullshit.”

“I’ve never heard of Task Force 13.”

“You weren’t supposed to.”

“You have a lot of experience with this kind of thing?”

“Some, yes.”

“You fight dragons a lot?”

“Dragons?” The expression of despair on Covington’s face deepened.

Abrash hesitated.

“Not often, no.”

“How many?” Michael pushed.

“I’m not at liberty –” Abrash began.

“How many?” Michael insisted.

“Um, it’s actually our first dragon,” a blonde woman responded. She withered under the twin glares of Michael and her Colonel. “We did training runs,” she finished sheepishly.

“And this yellow-nosed thing that’s been following me?”

“We were actually hoping you could tell us a bit more about that. We’ve never encountered one before.”

“Screw you. I already gave a report with everything I know. You didn’t want to listen, remember?”

Several agents stared at their feet and backed off.

“What about those things in the house tonight?” Peter deflected the tension by changing the subject.

“Run of the mill vampires and zombies,” Abrash answered, happy to play along. “Probably under control of that warlock.”

“Warlock?” Covington asked.

“He came in with the dragon and gave us quite the light show for the grand finale,” Peter explained.

“She,” Michael mumbled. Peter shot him a quizzical look. Nobody else seemed to hear it.

Later, Michael mouthed.

“What about the yellow-nosed things?” Michael asked, before anyone else could notice.

“Actually, we think there’s only one,” the blonde woman’s voice broke in. “Captain Long, TF-13,” she filled in.

“I’ve fought two of these personally, Captain. I can assure you, the first one didn’t look like O’Bryan.”

“Because it wasn’t. But we think it was the same actual creature. Something used both the man in the cave and then later O’Bryan as a host.

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