Peg and Cali both nodded.

  "SJ, talk to the Bryson shops in the areas around the two terminus points, as well as any in the areas where it's outside of the DEZ's borders. Once Troy's completed his operation, I want everything within twenty-five miles of the pipeline searched for djevel lairs and any of these grow sites your people have been finding lately. Keep it as quiet as you can; I don't want any panicking."

  "Sure thing, Dad."

  "And, Troy?"

  "Yes, Dad?"

  "Good work. I'm proud of you. You've gone above and beyond on all of this. Go see to your new wife, and spend tonight with her. Come tomorrow morning, however, I want you to put that operation together. Don't hesitate to call me, SJ, or anyone else you need, if you need anything at all."

  "Of course, Dad."

  "Now, go, have fun; we can all meet her again in the morning."

  "Sure thing, Dad," Troy said and left to go find Chloë, who was probably about to change any second now.

  "And, SJ?"

  "Yes, Dad?"

  "Good call on pushing the idea that they were getting out somehow."

  "Just doing my job."

  "Yes, and doing it well. Now, let's all head off to dinner. At least we won't be too late."

  "Just 'fashionably' late," Peg quipped.

  "What are we going to say when they ask why?" SJ's wife Cheryl asked.

  "We wanted to be here to greet our son's new wife before we left for dinner, of course, but unfortunately, they were delayed, and you know how it is with family," Sean said with a smile as he ushered them all out of the room.

  Pest Control

  Troy yawned as they flew out to the western terminus of the Ruby pipeline, which was just to the north of the border between Oregon and California, as in literally fifty feet north of it in places. Apparently, California had a law that all gas that passed through it had to be scented with that nasty crap they used, and as they'd planned to export the gas that went through the pipeline, scenting it would have caused issues. So the pipeline's route had been adjusted accordingly.

  "So where exactly are we going?" asked JJ, whom he'd drafted for help, along with a couple of other scouts who knew the area.

  "Dog Lake Rd., it's about twelve miles west of the DEZ border. There's a valve and repressurization station there. Turns out someone built a pole barn over the whole thing about ten years ago."

  "Shit, they've been doing this a while, then, haven't they?"

  Troy sighed and nodded. "Looks like."

  "That whole area is pretty empty, so at least we won't have to worry about spectators."

  "And any who show up are probably possessed, and we can just kill 'em anyways."

  "Landing in five!" the pilot called out over the intercom, and Troy could feel it as they maneuvered for landing and the rear hatch came down. He could see the other five Goshawks that had been following behind as the hatch opened, and they all got ready to unload their troops. After talking with SJ, Troy had decided that overwhelming numbers was probably the safest bet. He didn't think they'd run into much opposition, but this wasn't something he could afford to mess up.

  He'd already arranged for a team of dwarves, dressed up as pipeline engineers, to survey all of the pipeline west of the station here. He'd considered just bombing it in several key places to put an end to its function, but the sad truth was, if he did that, he'd be condemning who knows how many women and djinn to death.

  While he didn't know how many of them they'd be able to save, he felt he owed it to them to at least make the effort. The sixth Goshawk in their formation was full of medics and mages. Once they had control of things here, they'd examine everyone and everything that came out of a bottle. While they were doing that, Troy would be leading a second strike. That one would take out the facility Ennakoida was using to load up the pipeline inside the DEZ.

  The second they grounded, he was up and out of his seat, leading the charge down the ramp towards the large pole barn that had been erected over the pipeline. There were a few 'men' in guard uniforms patrolling the outside, and there was even a cyclone fence surrounding the whole place, with a gate.

  Troy didn't hesitate to open fire. It didn't matter who or what they were, they were working for the djevels, and if they hadn't been possessed, well, too bad for them.

  Jumping the six-foot-high fence wasn't an issue. Neither was kicking in the door.

  What he found inside surprised him. There were two ridders, a biskop, and a taika käyttäjä! Troy engaged the taika käyttäjä immediately. While biskops were nasty, and often had some limited magical abilities, the taika käyttäjäs were dedicated mages, and Troy didn't want to give him a chance to fuck up any of his troops. At least Troy's forces had managed to maintain some modicum of surprise, as the Goshawks had been silenced, and their rifles were suppressed.

  Leading off with a shield-breaking spell, he advanced on the djevel mage while shooting at him. The taika käyttäjä responded with a storm of ice spikes, which Troy was able to deflect before responding with a flame spike at the djevel, which was also deflected, and a shelf to the left of the taika took the brunt of it. That was when Troy noticed that there were racks of bottles in the room, as dozens of them were shattered, and suddenly there was a pile of women—mainly human, but some djinn—tumbling down to the floor around the feet of the djevels his men were now fighting.

  Swearing loudly, Troy dropped his carbine when it ran out of bullets, and drew his sword, while continuing his magical fight. He could see out of the corner of his eye that one of the ridders was being overwhelmed, as more and more of his people entered the building by the various entrances. The biskop was still holding his own, however.

  When the taika saw Troy's sword come out, it started backing away quickly. Bullets could be deflected, but fey swords couldn't. It was so busy watching him and retreating while they continued their magical fight that it never even saw JJ sneaking up behind it until the tip of JJ's sword came out of its chest.

  It had a very surprised look on its face as it died.

  Turning towards the biskop, Troy joined the battle against it, but its defenses had been seriously worn down at this point by all the attacks on it, as well as one of the magic users, who had joined the fray, so it didn't last much longer.

  However, some of the women from the pile of bodies had sorted themselves out and were now attacking his troops, while most of them cowered in the back.

  "Troy! Whadda we do!"

  "Kill 'em!" Troy yelled back. "Can't you smell it? They're possessed!"

  A few minutes later, there were several women's bodies lying dead on the floor, with the four dead djevels, and a lot of very angry lycan soldiers.

  Troy grabbed one of the captains who'd followed him and the others inside.

  "Captain, have your men secure the women. Make sure none of them are possessed, then separate the humans from the djinn, and get them outside where the medics can examine them."

  "On it!"

  "Jock-o! Grab a couple scouts and search the building for bottles! I want a count of how many there are still sealed!"

  "You got it!"

  Troy checked to make sure that those who were down were getting attention, then checked on the dead djevels that were already dissolving into tar. That done, he found Major Henning, who was the one in command of the strike force.

  "Major," Troy said, walking up to him outside where he was talking with a couple of his officers and sergeants, "what's our status?"

  "Other than the four inside you engaged with the troops, there were a half dozen bonde we caught running away. The guards were all possessed, as you suspected. As for the eight women who attacked, they were also possessed. The other forty women, eight of whom are djinn women, are being examined now."

  Troy nodded. "I've got JJ doing an inventory of the unbroken bottles. Are the sentries set up yet?"

  "Affirmative. They're about a mile up and down the road from here, as well as to the east and the west a bit closer in. We've also established real-time communications with the intel folks who have the surveillance drone circling above. We should have plenty of warning."

  "Outstanding. Let me check with the medics and get a handle on things." Troy looked at his watch. "Meeting in ten; bring your staff."

  "Will we be hitting the second objective today, Troy?"

  Troy nodded. They'd gotten here shortly after sunrise, so they'd have more than enough time to deal with any problems before moving on to their next objective.

  "Yes, though I don't think we'll be leaving before two. It looks like there's close to a hundred bottles in there."

  "Understood."

  Troy left the major and went to find healer Valerie next, who was in charge of everything medical.

  "Ah, Troy! There you are."

  "Hi, Val. What's the prognosis?"

  She took his arm and led him away from the others.

  "That bad?" he asked in a low voice.

  "They all have something in their wombs."

  "Does that include the djinn?"

  Healer Valerie nodded. "But there's more to it than that."

  "What?"

  "Of the twenty we've looked at so far, almost half of them have c-section scars."

  "C-section? As in Caesarian?"

  "I'm afraid so."

  "That would mean a lot of these women have been through this more than once," Troy said as he felt all of the blood drain from his face.

  "'Fraid so," she agreed. "Also, they're not at all happy about us wanting to open them up again."

  "Why's that?"

  "Well, I can only think of two reasons. One of them is that they've been cut open more than a few times already."

  "The other wouldn't happen to be that they've got one of those djevel leaches in their heads telling them what to do, would it?"

  "I've been thinking of getting one of the mages over here to check, but with forty of the girls over there, I'm afraid of what the results might be."

  "Thirty-two. Djinn can't be infected by either the djevels or us lycans." He shook his head. "I should have brought Nadi."

  "Too late now."

  "Yeah, give me a minute. I'll fix this."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "Fix it. Like I said," Troy told her. Turning on his heel, he went back to the lycan troops, half of whom were sitting down and keeping an eye on things while the other half performed their assigned tasks.

  "Hey, Troy, when are we heading over to our next objective?" asked one of the soldiers, a female wolf lycan named Jackie whom he'd gone out with a few times months back.

  "In a few hours," he said, and walking into the middle of the group, he looked around at them. "Okay, I've got something I need you all to do."

  "What's that?" one of the sergeants in the group asked.

  "I want all of you, and I do mean all of you, to walk down to where the medics are screening all those women."

  "Why?"

  "You know those brain leaches the djevels put in people? The ones that come out as those nasty ass ugly bastards?"

  "But they don't smell!" one of the other soldiers said, and somebody else smacked him on the back of the head.

  "No, they don't, because the person's still alive in there until they die, or the djevel kills them and comes out."

  "So, you want us to go down there and kill them?" the sergeant asked, frowning at him.

  "No, I want you to go down there, and when I give the word, I want you to infect them. Everyone but the djinn gals, got it?"

  "Why not them?"

  "They can't be infected by us or the djevels."

  "Really?"

  "He married one," Jackie said, "so he'd know."

  "Still, infecting someone? Not to give you grief here, sir, but you're not a lion, and we can't do that unless a lion tells us we can."

  Sighing, Troy sat back on his heels, gave his beast a poke, reached down inside himself, and tapped the power pool. It was definitely getting easier with practice.

  "I said," Troy replied with a frown as he pulled on it, "when I give the word, you will each infect one of the human woman! Is that clear?"

  "What the fuck happened to you, Troy?" Jackie asked, eyes wide as all the other lycans stared at him as well.

  "My dad's a lion, and I inherited the obnoxious, bitchy, do it my way or else part. Now go. Do. If you infect them before the djevel inside comes out, you'll save 'em."

  The others nodded quietly, got up, and made their way down to the area where the medics were examining the rescued women. By they time he got there with the others, he could hear that more than a few of the women were refusing all medical attention.

  "What seems to be the problem?" Troy asked as he walked over to one of the gals who was arguing with one of the medics. "I need to get my men examined! Can't this wait?"

  "Yeah! Examine his men first!" said the girl, who he suddenly realized with a chilling feeling couldn't be all of seventeen, while stepping back from the medic.

  Looking around, he could see that the soldiers were quickly intermingling with the women.

  "Now!" Troy said, and seizing the girl, he bit her on the arm, infecting her. She screamed, and her eyes went wide, then she fell to the ground and started to convulse.

  "What did you do to her?" the medic yelled.

  "Parasite," Troy growled, putting up a hand. All but two of the women were on the ground, thrashing. The two who weren't were turning into those betrayer djevels. Fortunately, a mag dump of iron bullets to the head put a quick end to both of them.

  Meanwhile, the djinn women were looking all around nervously.

  "Djinn women, over here!" Troy said, waving his arm over his head as the medic shut up and stared at the two dead djevels.

  "What for?" one of them asked warily.

  "So we can get those eggs out of you, and then you can tell me what's been going on."

  "How do we know we can trust you?"

  "One of my wives is a djinn, that's how."

  "How do I know you're telling the truth?"

  "Because who the hell would lie about that?" Troy said, giving her a half-assed smile. "Besides, there's more of us than you, and we're a lot faster. Now, come."

  Giving him a resigned look, she came over to where he was standing.

  "Not like I have a choice, now is it?"

  "Yeah, sorry about that, but I'd think you'd want that out of you. How many times have you been through this?"

  "This is my third," she said, shaking her head. "Few survive longer than that, because they're not careful when they remove the egg. What did you do to them?" she asked, motioning to the ones who were still on the ground.

  "They had a sort of djevel leach in their heads. They only way to save them is to turn them into one of us."

  "Well, that explains why none of them ever tried to run away."

  "You should have just killed them," one of the other djinn girls said, speaking up. "You would have been doing them a kindness. I doubt many of those girls are sane anymore."

  "Well, you seem okay."

  "Trust me, I'm not," she said, looking down at her feet.

  "How come none of you ran away?"

  "They paired each of us with women who'd been possessed by a djevel. If we tried to run, they'd kill us."

  "Sooner or later, they'd kill us anyways," the first one told him. "Assuming we didn't take our own lives first."

  "Do any of you have any idea how long this has been going on?" he asked, looking around at their faces.

  "Six years? Longer?" one of the djinn women said with a sad look on her face.

  "Well, at least you won't be doing it anymore," Troy said with a shake of his head.

  "You're not going to send us back, are you?" another one asked.

  "No. My wife's already told me if I do that, you'll all probably end up back here again. Don't worry, we'll take care of you. Now, listen to Healer Valerie here, and let the medics take care of you. I've got more things to deal with."

  Troy went over to the sergeant, made sure he had things under control, then went off to find JJ and get an idea of how many bottles they were going to have to deal with.

  "Okay, this is where we're at," Troy started, looking around at the major and his staff. They were all gathered in the back of the command Goshawk. "There are eighty-four bottles left with people inside them. That means at least eighty-eight possessed humans. The djinn gals told me they always put one in with them so they could keep them on their leash. They always put at most six in a bottle, and all of the women are most likely infected with one of those djevel brain-leach things.

  "So that's three hundred and fifty-two women we have to infect, because I'd rather not kill them."

  "And over four hundred emergency c-sections the healers have to do to get those eggs out of them," Major Henning said with a frown. "Can they handle it? Or do we need to call for more help?"

  "They can handle it. Once we turn the human girls into lycans, they don't have to worry about healing them after they do a c-section; they'll heal on their own, assuming they don't spontaneously abort the egg. We've already had a few of those.

  "Anyway," Troy said, taking a deep breath and plowing on, "I was thinking we'd set up three teams of twenty, they break a bottle, isolate the possessed one, and kill her, while the four human women are infected. Whoever infects them drags them off and talks them through a few things, then we replace them while they're doing that, and break another bottle."

  "We only have two hundred soldiers with us," Major Henning reminded him. "That's two or three per soldier, assuming there aren't any more coming."

  "Actually, I was thinking five or six per; that cuts the number of soldiers who have to stay here and ride herd on them down. If we can get each group to do one in five minutes or less, we should be done in eight or nine hours."

  "Troy, may I make a suggestion?"

  "That's why you're here, Major."

  "Call the forts along this section of the border. Have them bring people out here to deal with opening the bottles. They've got the manpower, and they're close to their base, so they're not in any kind of a rush. Once they get here, we can show them what's what, they can watch out for the healers and take over the guard duties, and we can move on and hit the next objective sooner and with a larger force."