Jameson Farm

Lewis County

11 August 1986

0546 Hours

The sun was rising when I walked out of the house and sat down on the porch of the secondary fallback location. The Jameson farm had been up for sale for over twenty years. Old Man Jameson's two sons had been killed Vietnam, and the old man had died of a heart attack in the late 60's. The farm had been up for sale since then, but nobody had bought it. The land wasn't very fertile compared to surrounding farms, there were several low hills, but fifteen hundred acres and buildings for a little under $40K was well worth it to me. My enlistment bonuses had covered down payments and my checks had covered the mortgage.

The dog, Herc, was barking as he raced around the overgrown front yard. He'd marked the rusting tractor as soon as he jumped out of the bed of the truck, then wandered around the house, sniffing at the foundation and marking it here and there as he did so. It was still misting rain, but the sun was starting to burn away the clouds and already steamy mist was rising up from the grass as the sun's heat evaporated away the wet the night before had left.

We'd moved everything into the house, and there were several things going on in the house. We'd separated out the chemicals from the used batteries, had worked over the mothballs, and now the last of the home-made plastique was setting in the casts.

We were making plastic explosive and pipe bombs.

My stomach was still cramping, but I'd eaten two MRE's and made sure everyone, even the girls, had eaten one to help absorb and burn away the toxins from the tea. The girls hadn't complained, McDaurn girls through and through.

The lizard was mostly asleep, and I was drowsy. I wanted to go into the house and curl up with everyone else, but it was my turn to pull guard duty.

The reason I was sitting on the steps of the front porch, watching the dog run around, with a 12 gauge Mossberg shotgun in my lap.

Matron Tauth de Aine would be expecting me to bring John and Nancy up to see her, and if John's injuries from the torture and beating were more than he could overcome with willpower, or put him in any kind of danger of being maimed then we'd go up there to see her. I wasn't looking forward to it.

Maybe I'd made a mistake in freeing her. She'd been bred into the family before the Fall of Rome, back during the days of Pax Britannica's settling. I'd needed to offset her, neutralize her, and while I had done that, I'd also set an ancient forest fey loose on the world.

Most people lived in the really real world, where there were no such things as fey, but Tauth De Aine was part of something more, something ancient and almost forgotten by the world. Ancient druids and witches had given her gifts to placate her, to seek her wisdom, and to earn her favor in those days gone by.

I had simply freed her to the forests and glades of the West Coast. There were plenty of places where mankind had barely touched, towns and areas where hardly anyone knew about, where the forest was old, dark, and silent.

But that was all right. That was a problem for another day, or other people, it served my interests to set her free. I knew my Little Aine would be happy that I'd managed to convince her mother to take her hand from around Little Aine's heart. It would be another favor owed to me, and out at Atlas, back in 2/19th, favors were a currency more valuable than money.

My Zippo was crisp sounding as I lit a cigarette, taking a long drag off it and closing my eyes while I held the breath. The nicotine eased off the pain of sore muscles from where Papa Doutree had managed to get in a few good punches.

The old monster had done a lot of damage, and part of me had wanted to kill him myself for what he had done to Niamh. It had been more fitting, more keeping in the old ways, that I had let his daughters and his wife do for him. He'd abused them for decades, so it was only fair to give them first shot on vengeance. He'd gotten what was coming to him, and it had been gratifying to stare into the eyes of his wife while she slit his throat and he squealed in pain and terror.

She'd had deep blue eyes, and she stared back at me while she has sliced him from ear to ear with that kitchen knife.

Not the first time I'd seen someone have their throat cut.

Lasair came out and sat down next to me.

"Why aren't you asleep?" I asked, still watching the driveway. It was a ways to the highway, and nobody had used the highway before us so it was largely overgrown, but that didn't mean none of my cousins weren't slithering through the grass to get close to me.

"Dreams." She said. She reached out and I handed her the cigarette I'd only taken a few drags from before lighting another one that I traded her for the one I'd been smoking.

"Need to share?" Trauma counseling 101.

She hugged herself, shivering. She was wearing my field jacket to ward off the chill and filled it out nicely. I ignored it, ignored the lizard replaying what she looked like naked and aroused.

"I know I was drugged, but it still bothers me." She said softly. Herc went bounding by, chasing a rabbit and barking. "I mean, I've had sex before, but... well... I mean..."

"Yeah." I told her. "The Matrons had ways that have passed down since Rome and Sparta were a thing." I chuckled, but knew there was no humor in it, just a grating self-mocking thing. "We didn't stand a chance."

"Your kelly, she dreams of being a girl." Lasair said softly.

I nodded slowly, taking another drag off my cigarette. "We often dream of being people instead of what we are."

"What's that, Ant?" She asked carefully, shivering again.

"Weapons." I told her flatly.

That killed the conversation until after I'd finished my cigarette.

"What's it like, where you are stationed?" Lasair asked quietly, almost as if she was afraid of the answer.

"Cold. Full of fear and pain." I told her honestly. "Even during peace-time the unit takes heavy casualties." I shuddered, remembering Atlas. "Only a few months ago most of my crew was killed when several bunkers exploded." I laughed, another bitter one that burned my throat. "They registered the force of the explosion on the seismic sensors as far away as Japan. Killed all but about six of us."

"That sound bad." She said.

That made me snort. "Yeah. Didn't matter, they had us back to work that day." I shrugged. "I was in surgery for nearly four hours and they still took me back out to Atlas to work."

"I'm almost ten years older than you." She suddenly blurted.

"Eight." I corrected her. "I'm nineteen."

She ran her hand through her hair. "Jesus. You've been gone over two years, and from what I remember of you without your clothing you're covered in scars." She looked down at the ground. "Everyone thinks of you as Little Annie still. Even I did. Even when I saw you."

I shrugged again. "And now?"

"Ant fits you better. It's a hard word, and brings to mind images of those big red and black ants in Texas that bite even after they die."

I laughed at that. I'd nearly forgotten about those. My cousin Julio had gotten drunk at a family picnic and passed out on top of one of those nests. He'd had to go to the ER to be treated for anaphylactic shock from the ant venom. It'd pretty much been the highlight of the picnic.

"Ant isn't short for Anthony, is it?" She asked suddenly.

"No." I told her, my voice sounding flat even to my own ears.

"Why do they call you Ant?"

I shrugged. "I don't remember any more. I remember being called Ant when we were at Mad House for training, but I don't remember why."

"Mad House?" She frowned, that little line appearing between her eyebrows.

...two hundred feet below ground, carved from the New Mexico bedrock, steel lined hallways, a living, breathing place that strained our sanity...

...anthrax infected animals bleating and groaning...

...flame throwers hissing evilly as we entered the training area to burn down the animals and melt the mannequins for no other reason then they were infected...

...simulation that became a reality in Africa less than a year later...

...flesh melting like sugar in rain beneath the superheated bar of flame that lanced our from the flamethrower ejector...

"It's a place." I said, pushing the memory of that horrible month away from me.

She dropped it.

"Matron Regan hates you now, you realize that, don't you?" She broke the silence.

"Yup." I answered simply.

She hated boys anyway. Nobody knew why, but she punished boys far more severely than warranted, to the point where mothers warned their sons to behave or Matron Regan would get them. She revelled in cruelty, quick with a slap, a punch, or worse.

If you were a boy you never ate any cookie she offered you unless she was standing over you. Not unless you enjoyed stomach cramps and intestinal distress to the point where you'd end up crapping your pants.

Which she would punish you for.

"You killed her oldest son, and I overheard one of the Matrons saying that the rest of her sons and her husband are probably crippled for life." Lasair told me as Herc ran by, stopped to pee on the tire of the truck, and raced away again.

"They got in my way." I told her simply. "I'll take my chances with a court martial if anyone pushes it." I shrugged. "Last guy who murdered a couple people ended up in the Antarctic for a few years, I'll take my chances."

She shook her head. "The fix is in. The Matrons don't want to admit what kind of damage you and your friends have done." She reached out and took my hand. "You're scaring them."

"Good." I growled. "They should be scared. I'm not Tiernan. He knows how to handle shit like this, I don't, so I do exactly what I was trained to do."

She stared at me, her hand warm and soft in mine. "What's that?"

"Kill the enemy and his civilians, destroy their cities, poison their fields and water, leave no ground." I told her.

"My daddy was Special Forces, like Tiernan, and that's not how he talks."

"I'm not Tiernan." I reminded her, staring into her eyes. Her hand went clammy and she swallowed thickly. "Special Forces are scalpels. I'm a fucking sledgehammer."

She yawned suddenly, and I could see that her exhaustion was finally overcoming the adrenaline from her nightmare.

"Go get some sleep, I'm still on watch for a few more hours." I told her.

She left me, sitting on the front porch, and I sat there going over my options, the ways it could play out, and my responses to anything the Matrons tried. Rather than running the numbers like I usually would, for maximum casualties, I tried to figure out the best ways to avoid them. It went against training, since I was used to computing kill-counts in the tens of thousands or millions.

Vengeance for Niamh had resulted in almost a half dozen dead and who knew how many injured. The family had taught me that an assault on a girl could not go unpunished, that an assault on a girl was an assault on us all.

I pushed that part aside, and started running the numbers again.

I knew who was responsible for her beating. Lonnie and Reggie remained, and the fact that I was going to land on them with both boots was a given. But I no longer needed information on who had arranged the whole thing.

It was Matron Regan, AKA Regina Carter.

True, someone had bankrolled her, drawing money from the almost limitless accounts that the Matrons controlled, but either it was one of her allies, or the Grand Matron and the Elder Matrons didn't know.

The plan was to bring Tiernan to heel, but they had not said exactly how. More than likely just to force him to acknowledge their primacy over him, since nothing else would change.

That and allowing the Matrons to make decisions for his children.

Tiernan would never kneel. Ever. Not for himself, but for his children.

They had to know that.

The Elder and Grand Matrons knew that, but somehow one of them had come up with a plan.

I was willing to bet that Matron Regan had acted unilaterally and know the other Matrons had to back her play to avoid being as weak. Matron Regan was undoubtedly making a double power play. Tiernan being outside of the Matron's control, being a boy, would eat at Regina like acid. By bringing him back into the fold, by putting he and his children under Matron control again, it would vastly expand her power and prestige within the family.

And she had allies within the McCullen family.

It was all about money and power.

By now the other Matrons would be considering what Regina had started to be too expensive. Both in money, the amount of boys it was costing, as well as influence. They'd need to use influence to cover up the things that happened, money to smooth in other places, and more than a few girls now slept in empty beds thanks to John and me.

I could razor down the opposition now.

There were two choices: I could get the Matrons to pull back by offering them a way to save face, or I could make it so expensive that they had no choice but to pull back out of fear that I would come for them next, out of fear that if they did not pull back I would destroy even more of their power base.

Their own lives being lost wouldn't frighten them as much as the possibility of losing power. That's what I had to threaten, was their power, their influence, their wealth. That meant ripping apart everything they could throw at me.

That meant going total war on them, but surgically, not hammering at anything that I could see.

The McCullens were planning to set aside their Patron, and there was no way Old Man McCullen would allow that, neither would his supporters. I could ignore that, but I could expect some kickback from the McCullens, probably at the request of my family's Matrons, backed with promises of support to the rebellious Matrons of the McCullen family.

No problem.

I'd been reacting largely to the Matron's actions. When I had gone after the Doutree boys it seemed to throw the Matron's plans off, like they hadn't taken into account that I'd go for information directly from those I'd blame for Niamh's condition.

That told me that whoever had come up with the plan, that whoever was doing all the orchestrating, was a girl, and not a kelly, but a Matron who was used to her orders and commands being followed.

I knew who had come up with the plan, who was trying to gain power and influence. I knew that the plotter and their allies weren't use to be being in the line of fire, were used to having ranks of boys in between themselves and any repercussions of failed plans.

It was time to the take the war to them. Expose them to the repercussions, to the consequences of their actions.

It was in the 2/19th Motto.

Finish the Fight.