Twenty minutes later, the five Goshawks of the quick reaction force were getting ready to land on the rise to the south of the hippy shantytown.

  "Okay," Major Henning spoke up using the main comms channel so all the troops would hear him, "keep your eyes open. You know why we were originally going to come here, and that problem still exists, but our goal here is to try to get these people to leave. There should be busses showing up on the main road to the southeast of here in a few hours. So try to get folks moving down the dirt road in that direction."

  "What if they refuse?" one of the lieutenants asked over comms.

  "Remind them that burning to death sucks, and we won't be back to save them. But we haven't been tasked with doing anything more than alerting them to the danger and helping anybody who asks us for help."

  "What if we find any djevels?" somebody else asked.

  "Light 'em up."

  "Even if it's just one of the smelly human ones?"

  "Light 'em up."

  "But how do we tell them from the filthy ones?" some wag on the comms unit asked.

  Troy clicked his microphone. "Trust me, you'll know the difference. Just remember, double-tap is your friend—sometimes they come back."

  "And," the Major continued, "if you find anything suspicious, let Troy know. Now, everyone lock and load, but keep your booger hooks off the bang switch. It may be hostile territory, and it may be full of stupid humans, but protecting them is what we signed up for. So fire discipline! And no lone rangers. Got that?"

  "Yessir!"

  They landed, the rear ramp had already dropped, and instead of charging out, they walked out in good order. Troy could see the shacks spread all over the forty or so acres in the valley that was maybe a hundred feet below them. The place looked like it had once been a caldera, but the northern part had long ago collapsed, along with a segment on the southeast side. All of the eastern wall was worn down to maybe a fifty-foot-high ridge—enough to block a lot of the wind when the weather shifted.

  The western part they'd landed on was wider and heavier, and went as high as six hundred feet, but they'd landed in the lee of it to try to keep their Goshawks out of the heavy smoke.

  And it was getting heavy, too, with a lot of ash. It was a lot darker here than it had been back at Fort 90, like an overcast day.

  "Major, Base Comms. We're estimating that you now have an hour and a half before the fire makes it to you," Troy heard over the command circuit.

  "Roger that."

  Everyone spread out in a rough skirmish line. Troy could see that some residents were packing up and leaving, which was good. Others were standing outside and looking west, towards where the fire was coming from. There were more than a few who seemed to be ignoring the whole thing.

  "Who the hell are you?" some drunk looking guy asked as they made contact with the town.

  "We're here to help anybody who needs help to evacuate," one of the soldiers told him. "There are busses arriving down that road there." He pointed to the southeast. "The fire will be here in about an hour."

  "Well then, why don't you put it out, man?"

  "Because no one is stupid enough to come this close to the border, plus we don't give a shit if you burn to death, stoner," one of the wolves replied.

  "Hey, man, you can't take that attitude with me!"

  When the wolf lycan didn't respond, but just kept walking, the guy turned to Troy, who was following along with Mira and Healy.

  "Did you hear what he told me?"

  "Yup, and I don't care if you die, either, but if you care," Troy pointed off in the same direction, "you got about an hour to get out of here."

  "You can't make me leave!"

  "Nope. We're only here to help the ones who want saving." With that, he continued to follow the others as they headed into the shantytown.

  The place was a laid out with no rhyme or reason. They'd only memorized some of the streets, not that there were many. Most of the place was alleyways, and a lot of those dead-ended, forcing them to retrace their steps.

  "Don't break down smaller than squads!" the major suddenly called out over comms, "And that's an order! This place is ambush alley!"

  "He's got that right," Troy said, checking on Mira and Healy. He was still tagging along with the squad they'd followed down the hill, who were now going door to door. About half of the ones they knocked on, somebody answered, and Troy started to get a good idea of the people here.

  There were definitely more men than women, and while some of the men were younger, like the drunk guy they'd run into, a lot of the people here were older, poorly dressed in clothing that looked positively ancient as far as style went, and not all that clean or well cared for.

  They also stank. There wasn't a lot of water here, so obviously a lot of these folks rarely washed. And then there was the smell—they were using open pits as latrines.

  The wolves and other lycans in the squad repeated their spiel to everyone who opened their door or whom they came across while working their way farther and farther into town. Some immediately ran off, hopefully to pack and leave. A few yelled or cursed at them, but most just ignored the warnings.

  Troy kept checking his watch; they were twenty minutes into it now, and the fire had to be getting close. When one guy took a swing at one of the wolves going door-to-door, he got hit in the face with a buttstock by one of the other lycans, and from the way he dropped, Troy figured he wouldn't be leaving before the fire got there.

  They were about halfway through the 'town' when one of the squads reported they'd found someone who'd asked for help evacuating.

  "Troy to Base Comms." Troy hit his microphone; the smoke was definitely getting thicker. "What's the status on the town?"

  "Base Comms. The fire is now about forty minutes out. We have an increase in people leaving. There also appears to be a small group heading towards the west end of town, but the smoke is making it harder to see."

  "Try infrared."

  "Base Comms. One moment. Okay, looks to be maybe ten? They're moving in and out of cover. Probably under roofs or through buildings."

  "Squad six. We ran into them, Troy. They think they can hold the fire off by force of will!"

  "Troy. Magic users here?"

  "Squad six. Not that I could tell."

  Troy just shook his head. Over the next ten minutes, there were more calls from squads that were assisting people. From some of the chatter he was hearing, there were a lot of old or infirm people here, and apparently their caretakers had bailed on them over an hour ago.

  He wondered how many had bailed after their patient had refused to leave?

  That was when the gunfire started.

  "Report!" Major Henning's voice rang out over the comms.

  "Squad Twelve! We got contact with six djevels and at least four possessed! Grid Echo Charlie Six! Echo Charlie Six! Sending up flares!"

  "All units, drop what you're doing and move to support Twelve!"

  "Base Comms! Base Comms! Retreat! All Units! Retreat! Echo Charlie Six is on fire! Echo Charlie Six is on fire! Five hundred degrees and rising! Retreat!"

  Swearing, Troy turned and headed towards grid EC6, kicking through any walls or other things that were in his way, the girls close behind him.

  "Chimney effect," Healy said. "The fire must have made it into the other end of the lava tube."

  Troy just grunted as they came out of a shack onto one of the streets. The scene was like something out of Dante's Inferno; there was a column of red fire that was probably thirty feet wide, and it was just rising straight up into the sky, going higher and higher. In front of it there was still a firefight going on, between Squad Twelve, who were on this side of the street, and a handful of djevels, who were standing with their backs to that tower of fire.

  Several more were on the ground and burning, either dead or dying. Two of those appeared to be betrayers, which he found interesting, and he immediately cast shield attack spells to make the djevels that were fighting stop their attacks. They had to be burning a lot of energy to protect their bodies from that pillar of fire, as just standing across the street from it was like standing next to a blast furnace that was getting hotter and hotter.

  "We've got men down!" Healy yelled at him, the roaring sound of the column of fire easily drowning out the sounds of their suppressed rifles.

  "Pass the order to the squad to grab their men and pull back!" he yelled back.

  "What about the djevels?"

  "Worry more about us! Everything around us is smoldering!"

  Healy noticed then that all the walls on all the buildings were smoking, and she ran around smacking the members of Squad Twelve on the shoulder and telling them to get the wounded and run.

  "Mira! Run! Healy! Run!" he screamed at the top of his lungs as the walls of the buildings around them started to burn. Several of the wolves had their guns suddenly combust, and Troy cast a water jet and hosed them all down as they hightailed it out of there.

  When he saw Healy suddenly combust, he took off full speed for her, hitting her with the water spell, but even the water was getting hot in the short distance it was traveling. He got about twenty steps when he heard Mira scream; she'd followed him and was on fire as well, but as he hit her with a jet of water, he noticed that she was pointing at him.

  That was when he realized all his fur, his hair, his clothing, everything was burning!

  Dragging a semi-conscious Healy behind one of the buildings, he dropped and rolled, trying to strip off his clothing and put out the fire. He was so low on mana now, he didn't dare cast another water jet, or he might go negative.

  Mira helped get him out of his clothes and beat the flames out, then she grabbed him with one arm, and Healy with the other, and dragged the two of them away as the building they'd been hiding from the column of fire behind literally exploded in a big fireball. Troy had to admit, he was impressed as his wits came back, and he stumbled to his feet, helping Mira drag Healy, who was starting to come around.

  The fire was quickly spreading now, and he could hear screams here and there, as those who'd refused to leave were now regretting it. But the fire was spreading so fast now that they were barely staying ahead of the worst of it.

  Several squadies showed up then, dumping their canteens on him, Healy, and Mira, before grabbing them and throwing them over their shoulders as they ran.

  Apparently, they'd started burning again.

  After a while, they were laid down on the ground, and each was given a canteen to drink. Troy had never been so happy to drink stale canteen water as he was then. Sitting up, he looked himself over. He had melted fur over a lot of his body, and singed or burned fur everywhere else, as well as second degree and even a few third degree burns that were slowly healing, as his regeneration slowed to a crawl due to his lack of mana.

  Crawling over to Healy, he could see that all her clothing and fur had burned off her left side. She had second-degree burns everywhere. She was also healing even slower than he was.

  Looking up at Mira, he saw she wasn't half as bad as either of them. While she'd lost some fur, her skin looked fine.

  "What happened?" he asked her. "Why didn't you run?"

  "Because my husband's a damn fool?" she growled at him. "If I'd left you two, neither of you would have gotten out!"

  "How come you're not burned as badly?"

  "Because I dumped my canteen over my head and ran around behind the house you two idiots ran in front of?"

  Troy blinked. Until this moment, he wouldn't have thought Mira had the capability to speak angry words.

  "Now, are you going to heal her, or are you just going to sit there, catching flies?"

  "I'm tapped out," he admitted.

  "Healy told me what you did to Hawkeye."

  "She did?" he said, feeling a little confused still.

  "Troy!"

  "Yes?"

  "Do to Healy what you did to Hawkeye!"

  "Umm…yeah," he said. Turning towards her, he reached down inside—and boy did he hurt! Maybe he should have sat still instead of turning? That melted fur really—

  "Troy! Get To Work!" Mira yelled at him.

  "Oh, right." Refocusing, he reached down, and suddenly, there it was. Grabbing a bunch of power, he pushed it into Healy, who was whimpering softly, then he put a hand on her and noticed that her healing was speeding back up to more normal rates.

  'Me next,' his beast all but whimpered inside him.

  'We can do that?'

  'I hope…'

  Stopping after a few minutes, he grabbed onto the power pool, and sucked it into his body, and suddenly he started healing a lot faster. As fast as when he was full up, maybe even faster. As he regained his wits, he immediately put his hand back on Healy, and pumped more power into her at the same time. Once she was no longer covered in burns and had stopped whimpering, he grabbed Mira and did the same.

  At least she stopped scowling at him.

  Looking around, he noticed that he had two squads of lycan troops standing around him, looking a bit shocked.

  "Anybody got any water left?" he asked.

  He would have laughed if he hadn't felt like such an idiot, as all of them offered him their canteens.

  Passing one to Mira, he helped Healy drink until she finally waved him off. After that, he took a couple of swallows, and as his head started to clear further, he looked back at the shantytown. All he could see was ash.

  "How long have we been sitting here?" he asked the lycan trooper he passed the canteen back to.

  "Ten minutes, tops."

  "And it's gone already?"

  "It was gone when we laid you down. I don't know what they built that place with, but whatever it was, it sure could burn."

  "Well, are we walking out, or can we get airlift?"

  "Walking, sir."

  "It's Troy. You don't 'sir' the Valens' boys." He sighed.

  "But what you just did…"

  "Yeah, Dad's a lion, I inherited a few things. As long as we're talking about it, anybody else need any help?"

  The all looked at him, then each other, then back at him.

  "No. Nope, I'm good…" they all sounded off.

  "Great. Well, let's get to it."

  Standing up, he swayed a moment, got that under control, and then helped the girls up.

  "Um, I hate to impose, but would any of you mind carrying my wives?"

  Mission Accomplished

  "So, what happened at the end there?" his father asked him.

  Troy shook his head. "I guess it was some sort of fire storm. Something caused the lava tube to draw air like a chimney, and obviously there was something very flammable in there. Maybe a lot of something?

  "Anyways, once the building hiding it lit up, it drew more and more, and it got hotter and hotter, and suddenly everything around it got hot enough to spontaneously ignite. Healy got in trouble, and then I got in trouble. I mean, I thought I was fast as a cheetah, but apparently there're some things even I can't outrun."

  "Well, at least the papers are writing it up as 'lycans risk lives saving poor, indigent people.'"

  Troy snorted. "Fat, stoned, and lazy is more like it. I don't like it that we lost people because of them, either."

  Sean nodded and sighed. "I hate to say it, but that's the price of playing the game. I'd tell you that it gets easier with time, but I'd be lying. Well, maybe once I'm as old and crotchety as the First, it will."

  "So now what, Dad?"

  "Well, I was going to send you on a nice paid honeymoon, but something else came up. Something your mothers and I agree is right up your alley."

  Troy sighed. "Not another special projects mission. I think I've had enough of those for a while, Dad."

  "Oh, I think you'll like this one," Sean said with a smile.

  "Why's that?"

  "I'm sending you to DC."

  "DC? What the hell am I going to do in DC.?"

  "Why, help Steve, of course."

  Troy's eyes got wide. "You want me to help Uncle Steve?"

  "Yup. We're all agreed that you're mature enough, but still sneaky enough, to be an asset. It also doesn't hurt that Chloë's famous, and everybody who's anybody either knows her or wants to be seen with her."

  "Why not send Mike? He married 'Black and White', after all."

  "Yes, well, if this was Europe, we'd consider it, but honestly, I don't think I could get him out of Bartertown with a crowbar. While you, on the other hand, haven't laid claim to anything yet," Sean said, grinning at him.

  "Fine," Troy said with a heavy sigh. "When am I leaving?"

  "As soon as you're packed. The election is less than two months away, and none of us want to leave anything to chance."

  "Well, hopefully, the girls won't kill me."

  "Oh, don't worry, Roxy and Peg are already talking to them."

  "Now I'm worried," Troy said with a laugh. "What about the scouts?"

  "We don't put married men in the scouts, Troy. You know that."

  Troy facepalmed. "I screwed myself out of a job, didn't I?"

  Sean laughed. "Well, in a manner of speaking, I guess you did!"

  Troy groaned as he turned and left his father's den. "Don't quit your day job, Dad."

  End

  Afterword

  Hello all, and welcome to the fourth book in the Valens' Heritage series, the first one about Troy. I do hope you've enjoyed it, and as you can see, there's most likely a very interesting future in store for our speedy cat.

  Now, originally, I was planning on writing this book about SJ, but honestly, I realized this one really needed to be about Troy. Right now, the plan is to do another book about Mihalis, and then probably a sequel about Troy and his adventures in Washington.

  I'm not sure when there will be another book about SJ, and more than a few people are asking about some of the other family members. Time will tell which stories I'm able to write for you.

  Now! As always, if you enjoyed the story, please leave a review, or at least rate it. I'd appreciate a positive review (4 or 5 stars), but I'll take what you feel it deserves.