"What were you thinking of turning me into?"

  "Oh, I don't know, what would you like?"

  Carl thought about it, he always thought werewolves were kind of cool, but then again he'd never really seen one before. He couldn't believe he was actually considering the offer, but then again, if he was going to be the head of Lycan Affairs, he shouldn't just dismiss it out of hand, after all.

  "Umm, you know, any chance of seeing a few more before I decide?"

  Sean nodded. "Sure, come, let me show you around. I'll even introduce you to the rest of my wives."

  "The rest?" Carl looked over at Cali and Roxy, a little confused.

  "It's a lion thing," Roxy said in a loud whisper.

  "Oh," Carl said, trying to sound like he understood when he so obviously didn't.

  Washington - That Afternoon

  "Any word from Carl yet?" Alistair, the head of the Secret Service's Magic Users Affairs group, asked as he walked into Kensington's office.

  "Just a brief message over his secure phone," Kensington said and looked up at the clock on the wall. It was almost six here, which meant it was only three in Reno. "He said he's not going to be back before Sunday, at the soonest. Sean is being very open and up front, and we probably should send out an advance team."

  Alistair snorted. "Are you?"

  Kensington sighed and nodded. "In this business, you learn to go with your agent's feelings. Carl was on the detail years ago; if he thinks it's going to go that way, well, the last thing I want is to be caught flatfooted.

  "Now, what have you found for me on our Mr. George Walker, the head of the CIA?"

  "It would seem that our Mr. Walker is well known to the mages over in Brussels," Alistair said with a grin.

  "How'd you find that out?"

  "I asked one of our guys in the Whitehouse to take a look at the director's travel records. They're all supposed to keep the chief of staff informed of where they are and when they're out of the country. George has been heading over there several times a year, and significantly more in the last few months. In fact, he was there just last week."

  "The Council of the Vestibulum has their headquarters in Brussels," Kensington mused.

  "I called in a few favors with some folks over at our embassy there. He's definitely been seeing a lot of them."

  Kensington mulled over that for a moment. "So the question becomes, is George now representing the Vestibulum's interest over that of the United States?"

  "I'd say he's definitely been influenced by them. But get this; ten years ago George was the Station Chief in Brussels. His association with the Vestibulum may go back a lot longer than we realized."

  "Well that would explain why he's so hard over on the question of the lycans, if he's been exposed to their point of view for that long a time."

  "And that leads me to another question, Victor," Alistair said.

  "What?"

  "If George Walker is representing the Vestibulum's interests on lycans, what else is he doing for them?"

  Kensington shook his head. "I don't know how we're going to figure that one out. He's not supposed to be involved in domestic affairs, and we have very little visibility overseas; that's not our bailiwick."

  "Well, we saw how much influence he seems to have with the Secretary of Homeland Defense, and possibly even the president."

  "True," Kensington said with a nod. "I'll tell our people over in the Whitehouse that I want a record of every time George shows up there, who he meets, and for how long. Also, I don't think he needs to meet with the president in private anymore. We've got eyes and ears over there; we need to start using them."

  "Isn't that outside of our limits?" Alistair asked a little worriedly.

  "If George is going off the reservation, we need to make sure he doesn't endanger the president."

  "Certainly you don't think…?" Alistair asked, trailing off.

  "No, I don't, but I'm also not paid to take chances. That's why Carl's in Reno, and you're going to fly to Vancouver and have a few words with the Eruditio's North America leader. See if you can find out if the Vestibulum have been getting any favors from George."

  Alistair sighed. "The wife's gonna love this."

  "Take her with you," Kensington suggested. "I doubt you're going to spend more than an hour talking with their leader. If anybody asks, tell them I told you to go feel out Eruditio on the whole independence issue. That I wanted to you to hear it from their head and not just rely on what Duncan was telling me. That I told you to take the wife as cover, so the Canadians don't figure out just what we're up to."

  "Want me to hit up Adams with the Vestibulum and Marson with the Ascendance too?"

  "Let's wait until after you get back here. I want to see what you learn from Perkins first; also, with the way things have been going lately, we may have some more questions by then."

  Alistair nodded and headed out of the office.

  Looking at his watch, Kensington sighed. He'd have to swing by the Whitehouse to give those orders in person; he couldn't trust this kind of request to official channels. Those often had a way of becoming known to the very people you didn't want knowing them.

  But there was one thing he could do that wouldn't raise a fuss. Picking up the phone, he dialed Tom Matthews over at the NSA.

  "Tom, it's Vincent."

  "I know," Tom said.

  "Damn, you got my phones bugged too?" Vincent chuckled.

  "No, it's on the caller ID," Tom said with a snort. "What's up? It's almost time to call it a day here."

  "I need a favor…"

  "That's how it always starts," Tom grumbled.

  "Yup. Listen, do you think you could have your folks send me all the briefs on what the magic users worldwide have been up to since the beginning of the year?"

  "What the hell do you want all that for?"

  "Trying to figure out as much as I can about this whole rebellion and the lions. I want to see if any of my people can learn anything from it."

  "Why not ask George over at the CIA?"

  Kensington laughed. "After what I did to him in that last meeting?"

  "Oh!" Tom said and then laughed. "Maybe you should have thought of that before you burned that bridge?"

  "Eh, he'll get over it eventually. But right now, I was hoping…?"

  "Not a problem, I'll have it all sent over by courier Monday morning, and I'll dump the dailies in with the domestic stuff we're already sending you for the next few months."

  "Thanks, Tom! I appreciate it."

  "Ah, it was about time somebody yanked on George's chain. He's always spouting off in the intelligence meetings about how we should do this or do that. I think the Joint Chiefs are already planning his dismemberment."

  "Huh, I had no idea. Thanks, Tom. Enjoy your weekend.

  "You too."

  #

  Todd looked around the table at the other members of the lead council for the Vestibulum in North America.

  "So how bad was it?" Roland asked him.

  "Bad," Todd sighed. "Duncan managed to do an end run around us by calling the Seer's conference in Paris at their main headquarters."

  "What about Los Angeles?" Edward asked.

  "No one brought it up, but considering how badly Virgil got shellacked there, I'm not really all that surprised," Todd said with a heavy sigh.

  "Well, we didn't win anything, but we didn't lose anything either," Edward pointed out.

  "Virgil lost thirteen of his members; I'd hardly say we didn't lose anything," Kevin pointed out.

  "You know what I mean," Edward replied, "we didn't lose any status over it, and the other councils aren't looking to attack us."

  "Does this mean the Atlanta strike is off the table?" asked Charles, one of the junior members of the leadership council.

  "Yes," Todd said, "however, I received a call from Jeremy Mays in Brussels."

  "What do our sainted leaders want from us now?" Roland grumbled.

  "They want us to send all those lycans we were going to send to Mexico to Reno to attack Valens."

  "What?" Roland said, looking shocked. "Are they crazy? We'd just be turning them over to him!"

  "Assuming he's even there!" Edward added.

  Todd gestured to everyone to be quiet. "Jeremy has it on the highest level that Valens is in Reno. He's meeting with members of the government."

  "So?"

  "So how will it look if a massive attack takes place on him and his compound while he's in talks with the government?"

  "I'm more concerned about how it'll make us look," Kevin said.

  "I think it would depend on just how important that government official is," Charles speculated.

  "Or if it became public knowledge that we have these animals running around, killing people indiscriminately," Todd said with a smile.

  "Public knowledge?" Edward asked, and the rest of the men at the table looked at Todd with concern.

  "Jeremy is apparently well briefed on the situation in Washington and with the president, a lot better than we are, it would seem. There are members of his cabinet and the government who really don't want to see the lycans freed or treated as anything more than the animals they are, but they need something to work with. Jeremy thinks that an open attack might give them the ammunition they need to sway presidential opinion, and maybe even some of the other government officials who are in the know, to side against lycan independence. Especially if the attack becomes a public issue."

  "I don't know, that sounds like a hell of a big risk for us," Roland said.

  Todd shrugged. "Jeremy and the lead council ordered it, and I'm not all that crazy about going against them. I argued with him over the possible consequences for hours this morning, but their minds are made up."

  "And what if it doesn't work?"

  Todd shrugged. "We lose what we were already going to lose anyway. All of the Vestibulum lycans are going to be sent to Reno. Their handlers and support personnel will be told to pull out as soon as the attack is launched. Though quietly, so their lycans won't know about it."

  "What about the silence?" asked Tracy, one of the older members.

  "We won't be there, so there's no need," Todd said, looking around the table. "Jeremy told me that there are other forces that'll be at work during this time, and they're going to be retaining a large public relations firm once this hits the news. When I asked him to elaborate, he told me not to worry about it. Just to do as I've been asked."

  "Well, damn, that doesn't sound ominous, now does it?" Charles laughed.

  Todd shrugged. "Be that as it may, I have to say I see his point. I won't go over everything that was discussed, but he's right that we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. There are still a lot of magic users out there who disagree with this new rule of Sapientia's, even if their own councils or leaders are choosing to play along for now."

  "It's a bold move," Kevin said.

  "Well, we were built on bold moves," Todd said.

  "So how many can we send?" Edward asked. "I don't think we can get those in Canada across the border and all the ones on the west coast we've already lost."

  "Two thousand, give or take," Todd said.

  "How are we supposed to move that many lycans without it coming to anyone's attention?" Tracy asked.

  "Very carefully," Todd said with a frown. "But they'll be coming from eleven different places, so they shouldn't stand out too much."

  "That's still going to be over two dozen tractor trailers."

  "So we pack them in like sardines if we have to," Todd told them. "Look, if we kill Valens, great! But that's not the real goal here. The goal is to make a lot of noise and to try to get the president to back off, and failing that, to manipulate public opinion into removing the lycans from the picture."

  "Why?" Kevin asked.

  "Why what?" Todd asked, looking at him.

  "If everyone's going to lose them here soon anyway, why should we waste any of our efforts towards getting rid of them? We all know what Valens did to Gradatim for their planned war of extermination. Do we really want that to happen to us too?"

  "Jeremy assures me that if Valens could do that again, he would have already done it to the rest of us. Besides," Todd sighed, "we won't be the ones actually trying to have them exterminated. If this goes public, the people and the government will be taking care of that for us."

  "Still," Kevin persisted, "unless we do manage to take out Valens, I'm not so sure I see any gain in this for us. Oh, I'm sure the rest of the world won't have to take their turn in the barrel when it comes to an uprising, but just how does that put us back up over Sapientia?"

  "On thing at a time, Kevin," Todd said. "One thing at a time."

  Kevin sighed and leaned back in his seat. "If you say so. But as long as we're not expecting to win this, let's not send our best and brightest out there to die as part of the support group. Okay?"

  Several of the other men at the table mumbled an assent to that, and even Todd found himself in agreement. They'd lost too many good men already, and he had no doubt they'd probably lose some of these as well. Especially if he was going to take steps to make sure that, no matter what, none of this came back to bite him in the ass.

  "Agreed. Now, let's get the other council heads on the phone and start planning."

  #

  Maitland looked out over the compound from the top of the rise with his binoculars. The lights were on and people were moving around looking busy. Obviously they knew he was coming, so any hope for a surprise attack was obviously a pointless one.

  "What are they doing with those trucks?" Hunter asked.

  Maitland looked over at the pair of articulated lorries that were pulled up alongside each other in the compound, and which seemed to be the focus of much of the activity.

  "Guess we'll find out when we get there," Maitland said, looking around at the others; he had all of his leaders here in case of any last-minute changes. "Join your groups; move them up to their positions. We attack in five minutes, on our mark."

  "Not going to wait for them to go to bed?" his daughter Ruthelma asked.

  "It's three in the morning; they're not going to bed. Let's go."

  "Yes, Sir." They all nodded and left. He watched a moment as his daughter walked off with a rather large weretiger, who had suddenly seemed quite intent on courting her. That she hadn't sent him packing was rather curious, but he had more important things to worry about right now.

  "Think they know we're coming?" Hunter asked him as they walked down to join the lead team.

  "I believe that's a fair assumption." Maitland sighed. "I know my grand-nephew well enough to know that he'd just swear a couple of times and then attack anyway."

  Hunter chuckled. "Yeah, that's Sean to a 'T'. That boy doesn't know the meaning of the word quit."

  "No, and that's why I like him. I still have trouble reconciling him with his father."

  Hunter glanced at him. "Oh? Was his father a quitter?"

  Maitland laughed and shook his head. "Bernard quit? Hardly. The moment he set his sights on my niece, there was no dissuading him, and trust me, I tried. Hard. No, you see, there wasn't a mean bone in that man's body. He saw the best in everybody and was kind to a fault. I never once saw him raise his voice in anger, much less his hand. The man didn't even swear."

  "Well, if there's one thing Sean's got, it's mean bones!" Hunter laughed.

  "At least he has his father's determination."

  Maitland looked around; for all that they had to know he was coming, the sentries up on the walls didn't seem all that alert. He stopped talking as they drew near to their troops, waiting in the dark. Just because they knew he was coming didn't mean he wanted to actually let them see his people form up.

  Maitland checked his watch; handy things, watches, too many people took them for granted these days. He watched as the seconds ticked down, then ten seconds before the hand came to the twelve, he looked around at the others.

  "Right, let's go."

  They charged, all of the others breaking from cover around the compound and attacking at almost the exact same time.

  Strangely, they actually made it to the walls before the alarm went up. But with all the people out and milling around, the fight was joined immediately as Maitland's team breached the gates and entered the compound.

  Maitland immediately cast several glamours on the defending lycans, confusing and overwhelming their senses. He did miss having Sean with them; the sight of the big lion definitely helped pacify the defenders, after all. Obviously the stories about lions and their affect on the other lycans were more than just stories. Though his great-nephew was the first lion Maitland had ever seen lead an army before.

  He pushed all thoughts of that to the back of his mind as he lowered his sword and engaged the defenders. Thankfully no one was wearing armor, but the lycans had been quick to arm themselves.

  Maitland stabbed the one in front of him, then, flicking his sword around, he knocked the rifle from his grasp. The faerie swords were great at cutting and wounding people, but they didn't work all that well against modern weapons. At least faerie armor had been updated to deal with bullets.

  As the battle raged around him, Maitland continued to cast different glamours, though he was now targeting the mages. His biggest problem was not killing people; Sean had made it clear he wanted the casualties kept to a minimum, and while taking an arm or leg off of a lycan normally wouldn't kill them, Maitland knew humans weren't so robust.

  Thankfully the mages who were up were not at all prepared and were quickly reduced to ineffectual status as they ran out of mana. Though he was forced to take the hand off of one of them who'd found a wand and was using it to great effect. Casualties or no, Maitland had no desire to become one himself.

  "Start rounding up their mages!" he called back over his shoulder as he attacked another mage, who quickly raised his hands in surrender.

  "Yessir!" Demon called from behind him, kicking the lycan he was fighting in the balls, causing it to howl in pain.

  Stepping forward, Demon grabbed the one who was surrendering, and to Maitland's surprise he pinned the man against his body with one hand and started using the magic user as a meat shield.