"This...I say...This Means War!!!"

Jim, Ravyn and I stepped from the Shadow into the shadow of the enormous oak tree in the southwestern corner of Jim’s backyard.

The night was dark, since the sliver of the waning moon was obscured by thick, low hanging clouds. It was a quiet, quaint neighborhood of faculty and administrator’s homes for the nearby college. A dog barked in the distance, but not at us.

Jim looked pensive as peered through the night towards his darkened home. “I don’t see any damage.” He was whispering as he leaned forward.

Ravyn nodded, her hands clenching the cuffs of her sweatshirt to keep herself from calling fire out of habit. “I doubt they were worried about the outside of your house, Jim.” She kept her voice to a low whisper as well.

I reached out and touched each of them on the shoulders as I leaned towards them. “I’ll pop inside to get a quick look around. I want you guys to stay here.” I looked directly to Ravyn. “Keep a sharp eye out, but try to burn the neighborhood down, will ya?”

She gave me a withering look before leaning back against the trunk of the tree. “Be careful, Rusty. Let us know as soon as you find anything.”

I nodded and glanced over to Jim. “Do you want my sword again? Just in case?”

He swallowed hard before shaking his head. “No. You keep it. You might need it in there.”

I stepped back and summoned the Shadow.

***

Once in the Shadowland, I took a moment to examine the area for any foes unique to that realm before moving towards Jim’s house.

The only Spirits of note besides Jim and Ravyn were those of an alley cat and the rat it was stalking.

I slipped up to the porch and then through the wall next to the door. The house, like most real world constructions was no more substantial than a shimmering mirage. It was substantial enough to block out my view from outside of anyone or anything that might be hanging out inside, but I passed through the wall like a proverbial ghost.

As I did so, I thought back to the war council that had taken place only a few hours before…

***

“So, it is decided then.” Herne’s voice carried an air of easy authority. “We will send out teams to find surviving ORC’s and associate members and either bring them back here or give them the resources to go to safely into hiding until they are needed.”

Ravyn leveled her gaze at each member of the council before she spoke. “And it has been decided that Herne will be our Commander in this struggle. He’ll be in charge as far as security goes in this facility. The Frau will serve as Steward, handling the daily operations and directing. Jim will remain as Treasurer, handling all of our finances. Alana will be our Spokesperson and handle our computer network. I’m sure that each of these folks will have our unconditional support and assistance, however it is needed.”

“I appreciate the honor.” Herne nodded towards Ravyn as he spoke. “I still think that Ravyn should have accepted the mantle of overall leader, but I understand her reasons for not doing so.”

Ravyn had rejected all titles or positions of authority that the group had wanted to bestow on her, stating that for her this struggle was now far too personal. She had argued that the only true leader of the ORC’s was Alexa, when she was ready for that position and that the Frau would be a far better Steward than she would ever be. No one had been able to persuade her otherwise. Instead, she insisted that her skills would be better used in the classroom to teach the younger ORC’s how to use their powers more offensively and on the battlefield, when needed.

Herne looked from Ravyn to me. “Now that this essential business of leadership has been resolved, we have some additional business. Rusty, I believe that you had something you wanted to tell us about this facility and how it came to exist?”

I stepped forward and told the tale of how Drake and John Red Bear had been secret allies for decades. I also explained how this facility had been a Cold War relic that had become more or less obsolete after the fall of the Berlin Wall and had been mothballed by the military. John had come to learn of the now abandoned facility in what was considered the sacred lands of the Black Hills of South Dakota and that it was safely tucked away in a little visited area of a National Forest Park. He had known that Drake was looking for a safe haven in the United States. Working together with Zulu and through the Bureau, Drake had managed to have the deed to the facility transferred first over to the Department of Justice and then the Bureau and finally was handed over to Drake personally as the Director of the Omega Project. It was then made to disappear from all government records by careful redaction and deletion over a period of many years. Drake had assured me that there was no known remaining reference to this facility ever having existed.

The faces of John’s closest friends among the ORC’s showed the same sense of betrayal and sadness that I had felt.

Ravyn’s eyes glowed with anger, her jaw set as she clenched her teeth. “How did John fool all of us for so long?”

The Frau’s face showed more concern than anger. “If Drake and John were allies all this time, why did John allow himself to be killed by Drake’s servant in Miami?”

Anger flashed in Cerrydwen’s eyes, her voice quivered with rage. “Why? Why the ruse?” She threw her hands up in anger. “I don’t know. There are too many unknowns here. I don’t know that we can really trust this place for too long.”

I held up my hand to the group. “Look, I know how difficult this news is. It has taken me awhile to come to terms with it myself. I didn’t believe any of this until I spoke with John himself. He confirmed Drake’s tale, for the most part, and provided additional details that Drake wasn’t aware of. John had his reservations about the way Drake went about creating me. He honestly cared about each of you and the work that you all did as ORC members. His biggest regret was that he couldn’t be fully honest with any of us.” I looked directly at the Frau. Her question needed a direct answer. “As to why John allowed himself to be killed as part of this whole charade, he freelanced that without Drake’s knowledge. John did that place himself fully within the Spirit World and to work with secret allies that even Drake didn’t know existed at the time.” I looked down to the floor as I shuffled a boot over the hard stone of the floor. “I can’t say that I agree with John that it needed to be done that way, but after meeting with him this last time, I can understand why he did what he did. Ravyn, Zenny, did you guys find a set of ten or so matched pendants in the vault?”

Zenny nodded. “Yes, we did. I could tell that they were items of power, but they resisted my attempts to discover what they do.”

“I’m not surprised. Those amulets are tied in with a very powerful obelisk that is located on the summit of the mountain that this facility is located inside of, but the obelisk itself can only be seen in the Shadowland. It is an ancient artifact that controls who and what can travel through the Shadowland in this area. Those pendants give their bearers the ability to use a special transportation chamber that is hidden inside this facility. I can show you guys how to use them so that we can get people in and out of here without being seen. The obelisk prevents anyone who doesn’t have one of these charms from using the Shadowland to come anywhere near here.”

Herne’s eyes narrowed. “So how did you open a portal inside, Rusty?”

I reached inside my shirt and pulled out my amulet. “Drake retrieved one of these when he took control of my body. He also spent considerable time in getting this place ready to receive us. That’s why the food is all fresh and the technology is as current as it is.”

***

There was a chaotic energy swirling throughout that was immediately noticeable as I entered Jim’s house through the Shadowland. I flexed my hands, dropping my batons down into my palms as I looked about at the disarray of the items in the house. Summoning the Shadow again, I slipped back into the real world to get a better look around.

Whoever had been here had spent a lot of time tearing the place up. Every bookshelf had been toppled. Every drawer and cupboard had been opened and emptied. The place was a disaster zone. I stood stock still as I listened for any sounds of life or other trouble, but I heard nothing.

I walked to the door and pulled it open, pushing debris with it as I did so. I waved an arm towards Ravyn and Jim before heading towards the stairwell that led upstairs where Kenny usually slept in the guest room.

I intended to slowly move up the stairs, but the shadow of a prone body lay stretched across the threshold to the second floor. I pounded up the stairs with a reckless abandon. “Kenny!”

Ravyn and Jim were just coming in the back door as I reached the top and saw that the body was not that of Kenny, but was instead the decaying form of what might have been a doppelganger. A small voice called out from the guest room. “Is that you, Dad?”

“Kenny! Are you alright?” I stepped over the corpse, noting that it was wearing the uniform of a local cop.

Kenny emerged from the shadows clutching a small, silver handgun. It was pointed in my direction, but not with any kind of conviction. “Dad!” He brought the gun down to his side and moved towards me. “I had to do it. I had to shot that guy! They were trying to take me away!”

I held him in my arms, trying to soothe him. “It’s OK, Kenny. I’m glad you shot him, he wasn’t a real cop. It was a creature that would have killed or hurt you.”

He was shaking as I held him, sobbing.

I heard Jim cursing down below as he began to survey the damage done to his home.

Ravyn eased her way up the steps to join us. “Kenny, do you have anything that you need to collect? We can’t wait around long. We’ll take you to your mom and your sister. They’re both OK.”

Kenny nodded as he disengaged from me. He looked down at the gun in his right hand as he wiped away tears and snot with his left hand. “Jazz gave me this gun, Dad. It was one of the guns in your old collection. She told me that I should carry it with me and that she had done something to the bullets so that they could hurt some of the creatures you had been fighting.”

I patted him on the shoulder. “That was good thinking on her part. I’m not a big fan of guns, but I’m glad you had it when it was needed. Let’s get your things and get out of here.”

Jim was still cursing when the three of came down to collect him. He looked up from the debris field near his desk as we entered the office area. He shook his fist at the sky and called out in his best Foghorn Leghorn voice. “This…I say…this means war!”