Opening the door, Sean went inside, down the hallway, knocked on the door, then opened it.

  "Hey! What are you…"

  Sean blushed, they were definitely 'indisposed'.

  "Oh! It's you, Sean, I'm sorry," Stewart said while scrambling with the covers; the two fox girls, Rachel and April as he recalled, just looked annoyed.

  "Sorry, here, catch," Sean said and tossed him the watch.

  "What's this?" Stewart asked.

  "Wear it tonight when you sleep; you should be able to figure it out, it's the training I promised you. Sorry, girls!" Sean said and, stepping out of the doorway, he pulled the door closed.

  "Well, that was embarrassing!" Carl laughed.

  Sean sighed. "I've been caught doing worse. Lycans are a lot less worried about their bodies and physical privacy. Course, I'm still getting used to that."

  "Why is that?"

  "Because before these necklaces, they walked around naked a lot, both before and after shifting. Plus, for those raised as slaves, they often ended up as magic users' playthings, and not many of the magic users really cared for the sensibilities of their property."

  "Ah, okay."

  "Come on, let's go for a run before somebody comes up with something for me to do!" Sean said with a grin and, shifting into full lion, he took off at a fast lope across the compound and out towards the perimeter fence.

  "Damn! You're big!" Carl said, trotting next to him, a fairly good-sized black wolf.

  "Yup," Sean said, and when they got to the fence, he slowed a moment to leap over it, then took off running flat out. He was sure that Carl could probably run him into the ground; lions were built more for bursts of speed rather than long runs.

  Of course, as a lycan, Sean could run a lot longer than a normal lion, but the same could be said of Carl as well, he was sure.

  Sean normally didn't go running in the daylight, he was a pretty big lion after all. But he knew the area well enough now to know how to stay out of sight of any locals. While the airport to the north did mean there were planes flying over, and some could end up flying over him, the tawny parts of his body tended to blend in rather well with the landscape.

  He'd need to remember to get Peg to teach him some of her spells. Sometimes he got the distinct feeling that she really didn't want him to know. He suspected she was afraid that if he could do it himself, he might not need her anymore, and considering who she'd been raised by, it really wasn't all that strange for her to have those kinds of fears.

  Looking around, Sean wandered down into a shallow gully, then plopped down on his butt. "So, what do you want to talk about?"

  "The president is thinking of coming here to see you."

  Sean blinked, 'You have anything to do with this, dad?'

  'Nope. Not that we didn't have some plans, but this isn't anything we arranged.'

  "I thought he wanted me to come to him?"

  "They're worried about what the Gradatim were up to that the magic users all seem to not be telling us."

  Sean laughed, "How'd they figure that one out?"

  "Because the magic users didn't all band together to try and kill you after you wiped out Gradatim?"

  Sean chuckled and shook his head again. "If they tried to kill me, they'd all end up dead, and they know it. The real reason we killed them off was they went too far. If anyone else were to go as far as the Gradatim did, we'd wipe them out as well."

  "You'd blow them up?"

  Sean shook his head. "No, I don't think we'll be resorting to something like that again; you have to understand that lions have a bit of a temper and well, we wanted to make a very big example and sound a very loud warning. You know, drive the point home of just what kind of shit we're capable of if we have to do it, and we had to do it immediately, before anybody else got any ideas. If someone was to try that kind of a thing again, we're big enough now and organized enough, we'd just show up with a couple thousand lycans and wipe them out."

  "Well, you do seem to have the numbers for it," Carl admitted. "But just what exactly did they do?"

  "They were going to kill all the lycans in the world. They were going to try and exterminate all of us. Ask Travis, or anyone else for that matter, about the 'Night of the Silver Death'. They wanted to recreate that."

  Carl shook his head. "I meant, what was the other thing they did?"

  Sean looked at him. "If I tell you, who else are you going to tell?"

  "Umm, my boss? I'll have to file a report."

  Sean shook his head. "No, you can't write this one down. I want you to only tell your boss, and no one else, and he has to understand he can't tell anyone. Well, you can tell the president, but he also has to swear not to tell anyone else, and you have to believe him."

  "I don't know if I can do that."

  "Of course you can. I could just compel you to do it, but I don't want our relationship to be based on that kind of behavior."

  "Can you really compel lycans?"

  "Jump!" Sean growled, putting his lion essence into it.

  Carl jumped a good twelve feet up in the air.

  "Shit! How the hell did you do that!" he laughed as he landed on his feet and sat back down.

  "We created all of the lycans, so we have power over them. The god thing may seem to be a bit of a stretch at times, but it's still true."

  "So why don't you want anyone to know about what happened?"

  "Because I'm worried about the fallout. The Gradatim don't exist anymore, and as I understand it, all the other councils are still actively looking into this. They have some pretty serious rules about what the Grads were doing. It's one of those 'punishable by death with no appeal' kind of things."

  "Sounds bad."

  "It was. So, will you agree?"

  "What if my boss refuses to honor the agreement?"

  "Then don't tell him. I'd think he's dealt with all this magical shit long enough to know that there are some things you just don't talk about."

  "Then why tell us at all?"

  "Because, while you may have figured it out for the wrong reasons, you still figured it out." Sean grinned.

  Carl gave a heavy sigh. "Okay, I'll follow your instructions."

  "Great. They were summoning demons."

  "Demons? They exist?"

  "Hell yeah, I fought one and was getting my ass handed to me. You need special weapons to kill the bastards, and we didn't have any with us at the time."

  "And summoning them is a death sentence?"

  Sean nodded. "It's one of the most proscribed things there are to the magic users, they even have some big treaty about it that goes back thousands of years. They don't just kill those doing it; they kill anybody who even knew about it for not warning the others about what was going on. They sent people into the place we'd killed it and killed all the survivors, then burned everything to the ground. Hell, for all I know, they salted the earth too."

  "Huh, I had no idea."

  "Neither did I," Sean shook his head, "but at least it's not easy. Best we can figure it out, only one guy survived the attempt, the guy controlling the one I fought. Demons are pretty nasty, and because all the knowledge has been destroyed, no one knows how to control them. So the demon often kills the summoner, and that automatically unsummons it."

  "Can I bite my wife, err, I mean infect her?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "'Cause I may kill you for it?" Sean said and looked back at Carl. "Not infecting the mundanes is one of our biggest rules. Doing it can get you killed."

  "But you had them bite me."

  "Yeah, but I'm a lion and we make the rules. I'd want to get to know her first, or at least some lion would have to pass on it. Understand that if you bite someone, you're going to be judged for it, and the penalty for not having a reason we think is good enough is death. Not just for you, mind you, but the others may end up dead as well."

  "Why?"

  Sean shrugged. "I don't know, I didn't make the rule. I could ask if you really want to know."

  "You could ask?"

  Sean nodded. "Sure, we're immortal, so the ones who came up with the rule are still around. I could just ask 'em."

  "Whoa, you're immortal?" Carl said, staring at him.

  "Yeah, I'm still getting used to that idea too," Sean sighed.

  Carl was a bit surprised at how melancholy Sean suddenly got and decided not to pursue it.

  "So, if I bite someone, you'll kill me?"

  "Maybe. Understand, you're gonna be judged on it. If you don't have a damned good reason, and that's by our standards, not yours, yeah, we'll kill you. But I wouldn't worry about it too much yet."

  "Why not?"

  "You can't infect anybody until you've mastered your hybrid form, and you haven't achieved yours yet."

  "How hard is that, anyway?"

  Sean shrugged. "No idea, I was in a bad situation and I needed mine. Fear is a great motivator for getting your two halves to work together."

  "Yeah, I'm still getting used to it. Sitting here and talking to you, I'm very much aware that my wolf could at any moment decide he wanted to go for a run."

  "Why would he do that?" Sean asked.

  "Umm, I don't know?"

  Sean laughed and shook his head. "He's you, Carl. You want to talk to me; he wants to talk to me. It's just a bit disconnected on the conscious side. Don't fear him; put your faith in him. Don't be afraid to let him have control, either; again, he wants what you want, because he's you. Just trust him. No matter what, just do that one thing, and you'll be fine."

  "Okay." Carl nodded. "So, after you free all the lycans in the U.S., then what?"

  "Canada probably, then I guess Mexico." Sean shrugged. "I'll burn that bridge when I get to it."

  "Then what, Europe?"

  Sean shook his head. "I was told to free North America. That's it."

  "So are there other lions doing this elsewhere?"

  "Not yet."

  "Don't you know?"

  "Nope. They've made it pretty clear that they want me to focus on my job and nothing else, and when I look at how much shit they've given me to do, by myself I might add, I agree wholeheartedly."

  "That sounds like a lot of trust," Carl said with a laugh.

  "I'm just finishing my father's work," Sean said and shrugged his shoulders. "Just being able to do that is all I need. Actually, I'm pretty damned pleased that I'm getting to do it. I know it'd make him proud."

  "So what happens after all the lycans are freed? Then what?"

  "I've got six wives!" Sean said, laughing. "Six pregnant wives! I'd think that would be enough to keep any man occupied for the rest of his life, don't you?"

  "So that's it? Just go back to being a regular man? Live the domestic life?"

  "Well, it is all I ever wanted," Sean admitted. "So, yeah. Raise kids, have a family, let them do all those things I didn't get to do as a child. Oh, I'm sure I'll get called in to deal with any lycan disputes or other issues that come up. But I'll probably get rid of most of my little army here, farm them out to the other packs, or maybe have them start their own." Sean stood up on all fours and shook. "What are your plans for the future?"

  "Put in thirty, retire, buy a nice house by a lake, and fish."

  "But you're a werewolf now, are you sure?"

  Carl blinked. "You know, I hadn't really considered that!"

  "You don't feel any different, right?"

  Carl nodded.

  "That's because you're not really any different. Come on, let's head back before Rox comes out here and boxes my ears for missing dinner."

  "So why do you want to talk to the president, anyway?" Carl asked as they padded back towards the house.

  Sean laughed. "Ah! So finally! The real reason you wanted to talk to me!"

  "Oh, I wanted to talk to you about those other things too, just saving the best for last!"

  "I want the president to realize that we're all citizens, we're a part of this country, and we want the same protections, the same rights, the same privileges that any other citizen is entitled to. No more, no less."

  "Does that include lions?"

  Sean snorted. "Seems I've heard that line before. No, we're gods, and while we tend to be law and order types, we're still gods, so that'll be a separate negotiation."

  "I think everyone finds it a bit suspicious that you don't want special treatment like the magic users all get."

  "Yeah, well, maybe if the magic users had a bunch of gods with temper issues watching over them, they wouldn't all be such fuckups, now would they?" Sean grumbled.

  Carl laughed at that.

  "Oh, there is one other thing," Sean added as he felt the First prompting him.

  "And that is?"

  "We're going to want access to the president, just like any head of state would be entitled to."

  "Why?"

  "Because if we keep having to beat your security in order to leave him messages, I'm sure someone in your office is going to have a heart attack," Sean purred.

  "Wait! You told us how to stop it!"

  "We told you how to stop that one," Sean said and, laughing, he took off running for the house; he thought he could smell dinner.

  West of Denver

  Chad sighed and smiled while shaking his head. He'd sent all of Sean's people home after he'd dealt with Bend, not because they weren't any good, but because he just had too many people! He had an army of eight hundred now, definitely a company-sized group, and moving that many around wasn't something that could escape attention, not to mention the logistical nightmares. He'd had to rent, buy, beg, or borrow nine buses, plus the numerous vehicles he'd started out with, in order to haul everyone.

  He'd also sent off, either to Steven's pack in Portland or Jonas' pack by Seattle, all those who really weren't soldiers or weren't equipped to help him. Best he could figure it, there were about a hundred or so lycans in Denver that he'd need to free, all of them at the Vestibulum. The Ascendance didn't have a council there, and the Gradatim had of course executed all of theirs.

  He'd sent a small detail ahead to gather intelligence for him and was pretty much planning to just blitzkrieg the Vestibulum the moment he rolled into town. After that, the Gradatim would be given ten minutes to surrender their leaders for execution or face the unpleasant consequences.

  Secretly he hoped they'd switched over to another council and had kicked out the folks who'd killed their lycans. But Chad wasn't too optimistic. He'd have his people contact the local Sapientia an hour before he hit the Vestibulum. Then he'd question them about who was in charge over at the Gradatim, who the most likely guilty parties were, and where to find them.

  Sean may have backed off on the massive killing sprees, but he hadn't backed off on killing those responsible.

  Looking at his watch, he could see that it was a couple of minutes after six. Picking up his phone, he called Maitland. It was time to touch bases with his other commander.

  "Chad?" Maitland answered the phone.

  "Yup, how's it going?"

  "We're just finishing up with getting everyone sorted for the move to Denver."

  "How did things go at the Gradatim?"

  Maitland sighed into the phone. "It was pretty messy. We're pretty sure we got the responsible parties, but we burned their place to the ground and, well, they lost a lot of their people."

  Chad nodded absently. "Unfortunately it can't be helped. How'd the Ascendance and the Vestibulum work out?"

  "The Ascendance rolled over the moment we showed up at their gate. I think Gerold from LA called them and asked them to play nice because we saved their butts and let them wreak a little havoc of their own on the Vestibulum there."

  "What about the Vestibulum?"

  "They put up a fight," Maitland sighed. "We lost a few of ours, and over a dozen of their lycans in the fighting. Honestly, I don't know why they fought so hard; they had a couple of articulated lorries there, it was obvious they were about to ship them all out anyway."

  "Articulated lorries?" Chad asked.

  "Those big road trucks you ship stuff in," Maitland supplied.

  "Oh! Tractor trailers," Chad said.

  "Yes, those."

  "Was there a company name on any of them?"

  "No, but at least they were all refrigerated ones. I guess they were planning on sending them someplace hot."

  "I'm surprised they even cared," Chad grumbled.

  "Well, it is pretty hot out here during the day now; what's the point of shipping them if they're going to show up half dead, or worse?"

  "Still, I'm surprised that they cared. When can I expect you to make it to Denver?"

  "We'll be on the road in a couple of hours, so fourteen, fifteen hours after that, say eleven, noon at the latest."

  "I'm sitting about a three hour drive out of town right now," Chad told him. "We're going to hit them tonight and try to wrap everything up by morning."

  "How in the world did you get there so fast?"

  "I split my forces to take on all of the minors we had to deal with. Look, I want you to go through Albuquerque and clean up the minors there."

  "Are we still going to join forces in Denver?"

  "I'm not sure," Chad said. "I'm worried about the size of our forces. Sooner or later, somebody at the government level is going to complain if we get too large. Sean's trying to open up a dialogue with the president apparently, so I may just send you on to Dallas while I go deal with Saint Louis."

  "Well, Albuquerque is a lot closer, but do we have any friends there?"

  "There's a Sorceress Guild there, I'll call Reno and see if I can't get someone back there to send you their contact info."

  "You realize I may just lose some of my men to them, don't you?"

  Chad laughed at that. "Yeah, I've lost a fair deal to them myself. But don't sweat it; I'm sure you'll pick up enough to cover any losses. Besides, I'm running at eight hundred and I can always send some down to you."

  "I may need them when we get to Dallas," Maitland sighed.

  "Oh, what did you do with those trucks?"

  "Took them, of course," Maitland said with a chuckle. "Makes it easier to hide our own people."

  "What about weigh stations?"

  "Oh, my daughter Ruthelma can glamour the mortals at them, they'll never ask to look in the back. Plus they were loaded up with a fair deal of weapons and all their lycan's other gear, so I wasn't about to leave it behind."