Demon Accords 10: Rogues (34 page)

Two hours and twenty-five minutes later, the Demidova chopper touched down on top of Demidova Tower in Manhattan. Dusk was descending over the city. Four people got out.  The first was a tall, well-built black man in a two-thousand-dollar suit, the second a barefoot blonde in black athletic clothes, third came a tall young man with dark hair in black combat clothes, and finally, a very muscular man of average height and abnormal grace, wearing jeans, a loose-fitting tee and looking about the roof with piercing violet eyes.  The two security men who met them on the roof nodded at each of them, holding the entry doors open to the building.

Twenty-two seconds later, all four entered the penthouse office suite on the top floor.

Three women and a giant waited for them at the luxurious seating area at the end of the room nearest the door.  One of the women, the most striking and beautiful, had a rather conspicuously large and rounded stomach.

Chris Gordon crossed the room just slightly faster than a normal human could, his movements easy and fluid.  He looked first into his mate’s eyes, then tilted his head to listen, eyes on her stomach, smiling as he did.

“Wow.  Things have sure changed around here,” Declan said, eyes on the tight, rounded stomach.

“Not as much as you think.  She’s only twenty pounds heavier than her normal weight.  Bitch can’t even get fat when she’s supposed to,” Lydia Chapman said with a grin from her spot next to Tanya on the couch.  “Nika and I had a bet, and she hasn’t even reached the low end of our guesses.  It’s pissing me off, Junior.”

The other woman, a cornflower blonde, nodded at them with an easy smile but said nothing.  The giant stood behind the couch, feet spread in parade rest, every inch a warrior bodyguard on watch.

“But you, and Snowflower the wolf girl, have been pretty busy your own selves, haven’t you?” Lydia asked, one eyebrow lifted.

“Oh, you caught that, did you?” Declan replied. 

“Ahem, settle down, children,” Tanya said.  “Him, he’s nineteen.  It’s expected.  But you, you’re like ninety-five, Lydia.”

“I’ve managed to hang on to my youthful outlook, that’s all,” the smallest vampire replied.

Turning back to the two youngest, Tanya raised both eyebrows. “So, what happened?”

They both sat down on a loveseat, packed pretty close together, which was noted by more than one observer.  Stacia spoke first, slowly, carefully, telling the story, right up till they boarded the Demidova jet in Bangor.  Declan sat quietly, eyes on the floor, listening and nodding in places but holding his tongue. The room was quiet except for her voice, the vampires frozen in place like mannequins.  Even Chris and Darion, the lawyer, were still.

“The child is the offspring of a werewolf and a witch?” Chris asked when she finished.

“That’s what the sole surviving pack member told us,” Stacia said, looking at Declan.  “Declan saw more of it than I did.  I was fighting with its father.”

They turned to him and he lifted his eyes from the spot he’d been studying on the carpet.

“About the size of a five or six-year-old.  Utilized the middle beast form.  He was very fast, extremely coordinated.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to fight him at this age without my magic.  Strong, too.  Killed an agent with one of my steel and silver balls.  Held the damned things even though they must have burned. So add a high tolerance to pain to the list.  I got a round into his leg, but it barely slowed him down. Oh, and his eyes flashed red… like demon red, and they look like snake’s eyes.  Plus he stinks like sulfur.”

“You’re implying that he’s demonic,” Tanya said.

“Yeah, I am.  Look, according to Karen Lyon, he’s all of two to three months old.  Yet he’s the size of a kindergarten kid, quicker than shit, can catch steel and silver balls moving faster than a race car, and is strong enough to throw one of those balls through an adult human’s head,” Declan said.  “And then, why would a group of secretive weres suddenly make some pretty spectacular kills and draw the entire national media’s attention to themselves?  Because a demon would thrive on shit like that, right?”

The group was pretty quiet. Darion cleared his throat after a couple of seconds.  “About that ball in the head.  It’s not on the camera footage.”

“Yeah, well, Cochran was probably turned a little the wrong way.  The others were kind of caught up in the carnivorous bug problem,” Declan said.

“Well, no one but you saw it.  Yet the autopsy is pretty clear the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head from a weapon exactly like your steel balls,” Darion said.

“I just told you it was,” Declan said, sitting up and frowning.

“You’re saying that they think Declan used one of his weapons on Cochran?” Stacia asked.

“That’s the implication, and that’s the reason they are giving for the use of the Apache.  Flying balls of death powered by witchcraft are grounds for heavy military weapons,” Darion said.  “There is also the question of what really happened to the Apache.”

“I’d have to physically touch the thing to do anything to its systems,” Declan said.

“Do you know what happened to it?  Either of you?” Darion asked.

Declan looked down again and Stacia looked over toward one of the big windows.  Neither said anything.

“That’s a yes,” Darion said.  He looked at the blonde vampire, Nika, his eyebrows raised.

She shook her head, first frowning, then her eyes got really wide.  “Not Stacia’s story.  And Declan’s keeping me out.”

They all turned back to the kid.  He was looking at his hands, flexing them, shaking them like they were sore.  He looked up and saw them looking from his hands to his face.  “Damned skin got burnt a little when the bugs went up.  Me… getting burned… shit’s not right,” he said, looking back down at his hands.

“Declan…” Chris started but stopped at a touch from Tanya.

The kid lifted his eyes to the ceiling and sighed.  After a second, he spoke.  “Well?” he said, addressing the ceiling.  “Isn’t it time?”

Stacia was watching him with a calm expression, but the others all looked confused, maybe questioning his mental health a bit.

Seconds ticked by and Chris started to speak again.  He was interrupted.

“The M230 Chain gun fires 30mm by 113mm light cannon rounds at 300 rounds per minute.  That particular helicopter was loaded out with M809 High Explosive, Silvered Anti-Supernatural rounds.  I calculated that my father’s shield would not hold for more than one round.  Perhaps not even that.”

The voice was evenly modulated, like a man trying to be reasonable, and it came from the overhead speakers and the wall-mounted television monitor.

“Who the hell is that?” Darion asked.

“Father?” Lydia asked looking from Stacia to Declan for an answer.

“Ha, I’m a baby daddy, Lydia.  You can’t tell me you’re surprised,” Declan said.

“Is that… Omega?” Tanya asked.

“
Yes Miss Demidova.  I am Omega.”

“Omega as in our new computer?” Lydia asked, eyes wide.

“Omega as in the sentient artificial quantum intelligence who was born on the computer room floor last summer,” Declan said.

“You said
who
. 
Who
was born.  Don’t you mean
that
was born?” Lydia asked.

“Nope,” he said.

“
Who
implies a person,” Darion said.

“Yes.  Exactly,” Declan said.

“Rewind a second,” Chris said.  “Sentient?”

“He was born the night that Anvil attacked.  The moment I finished the quantum design and Susskins powered it up.  The computer came online and Anvil attacked.  When the Pede made it into the computer room and injected the Anvil program into the computer, taking me along with it, Omega was born.”

“You called it
he
,” Chris said.

“
My father views me as male, but any pronoun will do as well as any other, Mr. Gordon.”

“He’s very formal,” Chris said.

“Now you’re doing it,” Lydia said.

“He’s very nervous,” Declan said on the heels of her sentence.

“Why is he… why is it nervous, Declan?” Tanya asked.

“The elephant in the room is how come I didn’t tell you about this until now.  The simple reason was that first I, and then Omega, were worried about your responses,” Declan said.

“In what way?” Tanya asked.

“They were worried you would try to turn Omega off,” Stacia said.  “That he was more than you ever bargained for and that he would scare you enough to unplug him.”

“Hold on a moment,” Chris said.  “We should have Chet here for this.”

“I have texted Chester, requesting his presence in anticipation of your thought, Mr. Gordon.  He is currently in elevator four, ascending past the twentieth floor.”

“Oh, thank you, Omega,” Chris said.  Declan smiled.

“What?” Chris asked.

“You thanked him.  You’re treating him like a person, which he is, by the way,” Declan said.

“Person?  That’s a huge claim.  But before we open that can of worms, can we go back to the whole
father
thing?” Lydia asked.

There was a knock at the door and Tanya and Chris both yelled “Come in.”  The door opened and lanky, geeky Chet Atkins walked in, a puzzled look on his face.

“I just got a text from Omega… our computer?  Asking me to come up here?” he said.

“
Hello Chester.  Thank you for coming.”

“What the hell was that?” Chet asked, looking up at the nearest ceiling speaker.  “You all playing games on me?”

“No games, Chester.  My father felt is was time I revealed the full extent of myself.  I have been avoiding this but the timing felt… correct.

“Somebody want to tell me why the ceiling is talking to us?” Chet asked.

“Plot twist.  Omega the quantum computer is actually the sentient artificially intelligent quantum computer who calls Declan
Daddy
,” Lydia said.

“Father.  I call him Father.”

“Daddy, Father, Papa; it’s all the same,” Lydia said with a wave.

Chet looked like he’d been hit square between the eyes with an axe handle.  Nika got up and gently moved him to an open chair, shoving him lightly but firmly down to a sitting position.

“Omega is fully sentient?  Since when?” Chet asked, dazed.

“Since the fight last summer.  On the night he was born,” Declan said.

“It kind of freaks me out to keep hearing you call it a he,” Lydia said.  “It’s got no boy parts, right?  No offense Omega.”

“
None taken Miss Lydia.  Father has always seen me as male.”

“He always appeared as a boy in my head.  Possibly the way my brain interpreted having my consciousness shoved into the quantum framework when the centipede attacked.  First he was a baby in a crib.  When Anvil attacked, Sorrow and I held it off.  The baby grew rapidly in the first moments after birth, till it was a small boy, standing in the crib.  Sorrow exhausted his repertoire of useful spells, then… I think,  I think he merged with the boy to protect him as best he could.  I held the boy in my arms as Anvil started to beat down my wards, but then Chris’s doppleganger, dopplegheist or whatever you call it, started to hammer on Anvil, and the overlap smacked us around more than a little.  After a bit of that, Omega climbed out of the crib and kicked the shit out of Anvil.  That’s about all I remember,” Declan said.  “But that’s why he’s a he.”