Demon Driven (30 page)

She still didn’t have a whole lot of clothes
on so that had the effect of distracting myself, David and Brett.
They may have been used to near nudity, but some things are just
hard-wired into us males.

“It would actually be a good use of the milk
room. Plus I know a certain beef farmer that might give you a good
deal on meat,” I said, warming to the idea. “There is also a local
guy who has honey bees. You would need to order the peanut butter
and whatever berries and nuts, but that’s easy enough to do.”

“Whoa, wait a minute! This is a great idea
and all, but you’ll need money for startup. Meat dehydrators can’t
be cheap, not to mention the packaging and ingredients!” Brett
protested in mild alarm. “We are gonna need the money we have to
move and get set up.”

The gleam in Kelly’s eyes dimmed and it
struck me that she was leaving her job as Afina’s administrative
assistant to move north, with no certain employment prospects.

“Ahh, Brett? Do you have the rest of my
money? From the fight?” I asked.

“Yeah, I almost forgot. It’s in my
suitcase..I was going to give it to you but the property distracted
me,” he said, embarrassed.

I waved away his chagrin. “Well, I don’t know
if it’ll be enough, but why don’t I supply the capital, Kelly can
supply all of the work, administration and marketing, and I’ll end
up with a cheap supply of these bars!”

“Ah Chris, the money is like twenty thousand.
And we don’t know if these will even sell!” he protested.

His mated slapped him on the arm in
annoyance, but I quickly spoke up before any further damage was
done.

“Brett, as far as I’m concerned, that was
found money. And I really, really
need
to have a large
supply of portable food! Besides, the more I think about it, the
better the business plan sounds,” I said.

“Kelly has tremendous experience organizing
things, the actual manufacturing part is easy, most of the supplies
are local and there is an immediate market named ‘the Pack’.”

Kelly was jumping up and down again and I had
to look away, although David just leered with a grin, causing Brett
to laugh.

“All right! All right! It does sound like a
plan. Now Kel, put some clothes on before Chris has a meltdown or
something, and David you better stop eyeballing my mate!” he mock
growled.

Chapter 31

The next morning Gramps agreed that the
pemmican production plan had merit. He quickly offered some
additional ideas over breakfast. He, Len, and two of the regular
hands had finished the morning chores and come in for breakfast,
which I had been busy preparing. The three young Pack members came
downstairs in sweats, looking sleep befuddled as they beelined for
the coffee pot.

“In addition to beef, you could offer some
made with venison,” Gramps suggested.

“Venison!” the three wolves said in unison,
clearly entranced by the idea.

“Good idea! You must have noticed all the
deer on the property last night?” I asked.

All three nodded.

“Well, your sausage this morning is made from
last fall’s deer,” I said.

“Is it legal to take them?” Kelly asked,
grabbing a plate and filling it with eggs, hashbrowns, sausage
gravy, toast and the aforementioned venison sausage.

“Well, if each of your pack members gets a
license and applies of deer management tags that would give you
eight to sixteen, plus you could buy deer meat cheap from local
hunters,” Gramps offered.

“Also there is a guy locally that raises
bison and some elk, although the meat is somewhat expensive, but
maybe it would make a premium line.”

“Ummm, bison. Elk.” Brett had a wistful look
in his eyes.

“So, what time are we supposed to head back?”
I asked.

Brett exchanged glances with the other two,
then shrugged. “Later this afternoon. Maybe three or four? Any
rush?”

“Nope, just wondered how much time we have. I
thought I would give you a tour of the local towns and some of the
colleges. Give you an idea of resources, that sorta thing.”

“Great idea.”

I gave them the grand tour of the North
Country, showing them the colleges, shops and other facilities.
Compared to New York City, the resources were laughable. But all
three weres had long since decided on the move, so they looked for
the positive where they could. And to be truthful, Clarkson and St.
Lawrence are both considered excellent schools, SUNY Potsdam is an
excellent value and houses the Crane School of Music, which has
supplied the Big Apple with many of its better musicians.

The basic stores are there and the wolves
could visit the City at will, although I sensed a fierce
determination to achieve independence.

By the middle of the afternoon it was time to
head back and after graciously thanking Gramps and ironing out the
details of the proposed lease, we flew back to the City. This time
I sat in back, Kelly demanding the shotgun position. Her attitude
toward me had undergone a complete change in the last twenty-four
hours. Leary and cautious had been replaced by a seemingly genuine
comfort level and maybe even a friendly like. Perhaps my
embarrassment had convinced her of my human nature in a way that no
amount of discussion with Brett ever could have. The fact I was
going to back her pemmican venture didn’t hurt either. She and I
had agreed that I would be silent partner, official tester and
disposer of any failed product lines. We would split the profits
equally to begin, although I didn’t expect to draw any of mine from
the operation. Better to reinvest and let the operation grow.

* * *

Large swaths of the Adirondacks are without
cellular coverage and it wasn’t till we got closer to Albany before
our individual phones would work with any reliability. The
preflight weather report had indicated a large storm system moving
up the coast and Brett was
very
interested in beating it
home. As we each checked voice mail and messages, we could see
clouds forming way to our South.

I had several messages, both verbal and text.
Gina had sent me a big thank you all in capitals and bold text.
Chet had left a cryptic voice mail that I was pretty sure informed
me that he, Sommers, and Takata were all facing a ton of hard
questioning regarding I.S. 341.

I also had a message that I almost deleted;
one of those offers for increased service plan coverage or some
such. At first it appeared to be from Verizon, but looking closer I
found some suspicious phrases.

For only $10.31 each year, you get
downloadable photos of all your favorite celebrities from Brittany
to Jessica Alba to  Call now to Trac 71 for this special
offer.

The price caught my attention because it was
mine and Tanya’s birthday, and the flat out obvious initials for
Tanya did the rest. Checking my supply of Tracfones I found one
numbered seventy-one.

The call went through quick but it wasn’t
Tanya that answered.

“Hello?”

I was pretty sure the voice belonged to Anna,
a young vamp who I knew only slightly.

“Anna, it’s Chris. I got a message to call.
Or at least I think I got a message,” I said.

“Yeah, er …Tanya isn’t here. She’s at the
meeting. That’s what she wanted to talk to you about
.”

“What meeting?” I asked.

“The meeting with the weres! Aren’t you
there, you are supposed to be there!”

“Slow down, I don’t know about any meeting.
I’ve been up North. What are you talking about?”

“The weres called a meeting at the Tunnel.
You’re supposed to be there too. Tanya and Lydia wanted to know
what it was about. But they’re gone, along with Senka and
Galina
.”

“Hold on a second,” I said, holding my hand
over the phone. “Brett, is there some meeting with the Coven that
your father called? At some tunnel or something?”

“Not that I know of…” he began to answer, but
Kelly interrupted, having been checking her own messages.

“Brett, there’s a message from Afina on my
voice mail asking about a meeting with the Coven. Apparently they
called it?”

“No, the Coven says your parents called it!”
I corrected.

All three of us reached the same conclusion
simultaneously.

“It’s a trap!” I said, just as Brett swore
and Kelly’s eyes widened.

“Anna, call Tanya and stop her. The weres
didn’t call that meeting!” I said into my phone.

“I can’t! They don’t get cell reception
underground
!”

“Then tell Arkady or whatever security guys
are around to get to them fast! Stop them from that meeting!”

“Arkady is with them, but I will send Trenton
and some others!”

“Anna, listen, this is important! Send
EVERYONE that you can find! Got it?”

I hung up from her and turned to the others.
Brett was visibly frustrated, having to fly the plane and unable to
get on his own phone. Kelly looked alarmed and David was even
quieter than normal.

“Who would do this?” I asked.

The plane was quiet for a moment, then Brett
spoke.

“Lots
would
do it…if they had the
knowledge and the connections. Only a handful actually could hope
to pull it off. My father will bring at least a standard security
team with him. Some armed in two legged form, some in four legged
form. I’m not sure about the Coven, that’s your area, but I
strongly suspect that there will some really formidable individuals
there,” he said. “I doubt any of the normals would be so daring.
The fey could try something, but it doesn’t seem their style. I
don’t know any other were group big enough to attempt it.”

A cold knot formed in my stomach. “I think I
do! Loki’s Spawn have the numbers if they shifted enough people up
here.”

“Your mother was suspicious that the Spawn
knew about Stacia’s party, and had five members handy to show up.
She’s been wondering about a leak,” Kelly said.

“In the Pack? Are you crazy?” Brett demanded,
outraged.

“What’s this tunnel that was mentioned?” I
asked.

“Atlantic Avenue,” David said quietly.

“Atlantic Avenue is a street!” I said,
confused.

“
Under
Atlantic Avenue is an abandoned
train tunnel. It’s been bricked over for years, but it was built in
the mid-1800’s by the Long Island Railroad company to get the train
out of the city’s traffic. Some guy ‘rediscovered’ it in the
seventies and now they give tours to normals, but the supernatural
community has used it for meetings and such for decades,” David
explained.

“Wait…did you say ‘fey’ a moment ago?” I
asked Brett.

“Yeah, fey..you know, elves, fairies, goblins
and that sort,” he said puzzled.

“Really! They’re real?”

They all nodded without answering.

“Okay, back to this tunnel. How fast can we
get there?”

“We need to land at JFK. We’ll get a Pack
security team to pick us up,” Brett said.

It wasn’t fast enough. My chest was getting
tighter with every breath and the beast was rattling his cage at
the thought of Tanya in a trap. Unbidden an image popped into my
head, while ahead of us the City loomed. A wall of roiling black
clouds rushed to meet us like a sky-high tsunami of rain.

“I have an idea,” I said, although actually
it was Okwari’s suggestion.

Chapter 32

“That’s insane!” Kelly said, after I had
detailed the plan.

“Your Alphas and my mate don’t have any time
to wait for us to land. And they don’t even know there is a problem
yet!”

“You’ll be killed!” David said with
certainty.

“I’ll be fine. You’ll have as much danger
landing in this storm. By the time you get there it’ll be over one
way or the other!” I replied.

The little plane bucked as a sudden gust
shoved us sideways, Brett grimly fighting it back on course. I
reached up and touched the Tear on its necklace, mentally trying to
evoke the stores of resolve and determination locked within it.

“Alright! We’ll try it,” Brett said suddenly.
“But don’t blame me if you get killed!”

Maybe the Tear had worked or possibly, his
math had work out the same as mine. There just wasn’t time for
anything else.

“I’ll have to do some fast talking with JFK
flight control, the storm gives me some excuse. I’ll get as low as
I can, but the winds over the city are strange on a normal day.
This storm makes them deadly!”

He got busy with the radio, while I reviewed
the plan. Not a lot to go over, really. It was simple – Brett would
fly directly over Atlantic Avenue, getting as low as possible, and
I would jump out. Nothing to it! A quick drop of somewhere around
500 feet and then I would need to get through about four or five
feet of brick, asphalt and dirt. Of course, I would have
considerable help. Ursine help. Okwari had sent me images of me
falling slowly through the sky, supported by my own ‘wind’ as he
eased me to the ground. I could Lighten myself with vampire
techniques and I had easily survived drops of over fifty feet, but
still, leaping out of a fully functional aircraft
without
a
parachute seemed insane. My knotted heart said otherwise. Tanya was
in real trouble, despite having Senka, Tzao and the others with
her. Enough weres, fighting in close quarters could overwhelm
almost anything.

I opened my mind as much as I could,
straining to feel my connection to Tanya. If only my ability to
sense her was as strong as hers to find me.

I felt a tug, just a slight pull, but Brett
chose that moment to speak.

“Chris, we’re just about over Atlantic Ave.
You’re gonna need to move quick!”

“Listen, just land this thing safely. I’ll
take care of your parents
and
my crew!”

“By yourself?” Kelly asked.

“Kelly, what you don’t know about me is that
I’m
never
by myself!” I responded, yanking the door open and
leaping into the wet blackness.