"Bye Colin," she returned. "If you need me to push any buttons with the Government, just give me a call. I'm having dinner with the President on Wednesday. And I think the English Prime Minister is going to be there for an introduction, as well as the Russian head of state. I'm not positive yet what he is called. Premier or President, I'm not really sure. I guess I should look that up before I stick my foot in my mouth."

"Probably a good idea," I said. "Let me know what it is when you find out, I don't have a clue either."

"Hard to believe we are the ones in control of this whole thing, and completely politically ignorant, the both of us."

"You're the one who gets to deal with the politics," I said with a laugh. "I just blow stuff up."

She was actually giggling as I left her office for the waiting plane.

Chapter 16.

I could see something was up as the plane touched down. There were way too many Souls outside of the plane. It seemed that I had a reception committee waiting with well over a thousand people out there. Many were Mages, and a good many Guards too, mixed with the souls of quite a few normals also. Their Souls looked so dim beside the others that it was easy to pick them out of the crowd.

I steeled myself as the plane taxied in toward the crowd, because I hate all of this, pomp and circumstance, you might say. I would rather just get down there and start building shields.

"Just doesn't work that way, now, does it," I muttered.

"What's that, Sir?" one of the newest recruits asked. There were five of them that had just graduated to Rookies. They had been sitting quietly throughout the whole flight.

I had seen the tension in all of them at being in the same plane as a Soullord, and I was quite frustrated. But it wouldn't do to let them know that.

"It seems that they have prepared a reception for us outside the plane, so put your best face on and let's go see the show."

I stood and strode to the door.

"How does he know that?"

"Shutters down on the windows..."

"...didn't get call..."

I heard the whispers behind me. I straightened my Soulguard uniform, and stepped out the door of the plane.

They had formed a sort of corridor of Guards from the plane to the terminal, all of which stood at attention as I stepped down the stairs. I made my way toward the terminal, and nodded at a few of the Guards I recognized. I realized that I was familiar with a great deal more of them than I had thought.

There had been several Guards cycle through Knoxville while I was there. I hadn't realized exactly how many until this moment. I couldn't put names to all of the faces, but I could name quite a few.

There were a lot of flashes as the Press started with the pictures. Over the years, I had watched what the press reported, and I had very little use for them. There were exceptions to that observation however, as Alstead had kept her word, and made it a point not to trash us. There was so much a reporter could have turned against us with the detailed report she had done, the least of which was the knowledge of the Demons being kept secret for a thousand years.

At some point there would be the accusations from that choice. I still think we should have come forward long ago, but it may have precipitated what was happening right now much earlier. It's a touchy subject, and I'd rather stay away from the topic, if possible.

We made our way through the corridor of Guards to enter the terminal. Inside waited another group of people. These weren't quite so dreaded as the reporters would be. Several men in uniform waited surrounded by a group of military guards. There were three Guards and three Mages waiting as well.

Lennox Flynn, Gregor Kherkov, and Daphne Cavanaugh were the three Mages. Each had a Guard standing beside them. I recognized two of the Guards from the battle of Kansas. They had been two of the Denver guys that worked with the Kid. The other was unknown to me but his stream was large enough to classify him as Elite.

Gregor stepped forward and greeted me, "Welcome back to Kansas, Colin."

"Perhaps we can have a better outcome than the first time," I said and shook his hand. "Lord knows we need one."

"With preparation," he said, "I think we can do a great deal better."

I could see the memory of Nora Kestril exploding in a massive fireball when she Magebombed during the battle.

I'd heard the term a few days after the Last Rites, and it is as accurate as any other way to describe it. She'd Pulled everything she could as hard as she could until the explosion destroyed all of the Demons around her. And Nora was a very powerful Mage, indeed.

Gregor turned to the Guard beside him, but before he could introduce him, I nodded to the man and said, "Adam, good to see you made it through that last mess."

"Yes Sir," I could see that the man was impressed because I remembered his name. I'd only met him once, and it was in the middle of one hell of a battle.

I remembered him from the fight because, I'd spent hour after hour memorizing as many of the names as I could. I want to know my men. I don't want them to be numbers that I spend like currency. There are a lot of them, and I want them all to survive what's coming.

I know this is an impossibility, but I have to try my best to keep them all alive. We are about to be in a war, and I know I will lose men. I've already lost many, but I feel it's my duty to know who they all are. And I will try my best to make each life cost the Kresh so much that they will, eventually see that Earth would be better off left alone.

I turned toward Daphne and the Guard with her, "Through with training, Daph?"

"Just got in, was over in Scotland and hopped a flight with Flynn."

"Good to see you," I nodded to the Guard with her, "Rex, how are you doing?"

"Fine Sir," he said with much the same reaction as Adam had.

"Len," I said as I turned to Flynn, "How are things coming on our group?"

"We've got ten Mages on their way with ten Guards apiece," he said. "This should make a pretty decent crew fer you. We can test with it, ta see if we need more. I included yer two shadows in this group, and I leave it ta them ta form their Guard squads."

I nodded, "Good man, and who might this fellow be? I don't think I've ever met him."

"Colin Rourke, meet Colin MacGregor."

"Colin," I said in greeting.

"Colin," He returned in a Scottish accent.

"Nice to meet you," I said, "But I'll get better acquainted with you in a bit. Gotta go meet with the Officers over there."

I approached the group of officers and saw General Gasper standing in the front of the group.

I nodded to him, "General."

"Welcome to Hillsboro, Mr. Rourke," he said with a smile.

He turned to his left toward, if I was reading the rank insignias right, a one star general, "This is General Seran Polomo of the Army National Guard."

"General," I said and shook his hand.

Gasper turned to the right, "And this is General Marcus Stratton of the Air National Guard."

I shook his hand as well.

"You've thrown the whole Military situation in a turmoil with this Demon invasion of yours," Gasper said. "They are squabbling about who takes charge of the situation back in Washington. So while they try to figure out what they should do, the National Guard has stepped up and taken charge of the situation. Their Mandate is to protect our country from within, in short, while our Military branches work outside the country. It's not a rule so much as a long standing tradition."

"I see," I said.

"These men are ready to support you in any way they can. National Guard forces are being called up all over the country. I understand you requested several planes before you came down, and they will be here tomorrow."

"Great," I said with a bit of excitement running through me. I really wanted to see how the Soul rounds worked with the big guns. "If you guys can give me a few hours to get settled, I'd love to meet with you to discuss an overall strategy. I really need some experienced advice on this. I know our enemy but the Guard has spent the last thousand years fighting the bastards down in caves more than any other way. And it looks like that has changed, completely. I would love to talk about some surface strategies that we can use to mesh our forces."

Polomo spoke first, "I think we can help with that. Both Stratton and I are vets. We may have some useful advice. And I've been briefed about the age thing with your Soulguard, but can you tell me how old you are, just for my sanity's sake. I swear you look younger than my sixteen year old son."

I laughed aloud and said, "Thirty one, next month. I'm not one of these insanely old codgers masquerading as a youngster."

As I said that I pointed toward the group of Mages, "Like Gregor, over there. I've heard rumors he's close to two hundred years old. Can't seem to get him to confess to it, though."

"Two hundred years," Polomo muttered in amazement, "Jesus Christ."

"He looks like he may be thirty," Stratton said. "He's really two hundred?"

"According to the rumors," I answered.

He shook his head in silence for a moment and then continued, "I guess we have some things to learn from you as much as things we may be able to help you accomplish. Shall we set up a meeting at, say, fourteen hundred hours."

"No problem," I said, "That actually gives me five hours to get situated, and find out where I stand with my forces. We've got Guards coming in from all over, and I need the time to see what numbers we can bring to the table at the moment. One thing I know, the Kresh will come. I just hope we get enough time to prepare some very nasty surprises for the bastards."

"I sincerely hope we can," said Polomo.

Chapter 17.

"So far," I said to the Generals, "we have one hundred and thirteen Mages, and two thousand Guards moved down here. We can't just pull everyone here, because the Demons can open the smaller portals anywhere. We are afraid to pull everything to Kansas, and leave the rest of the country unprotected from smaller incursions."

"Sensible," Polomo said with a nod.

"What I don't know about is what to expect with their incursions," I continued. "Up till now, they came in secrecy. They hid in caverns, and made sneak attacks. I have a feeling this won't be the case anymore. They could open a portal in downtown Atlanta."

"This is going to get very ugly," Polomo said. "We don't have enough forces to protect every square inch of the country, and there are going to be a lot of civilian casualties."

"Yes," I said sadly, "They want to kill us all, now. The only thing that I can say for a certainty is they will come. They will come here at some point. I hope we can have enough defenses in place when they do."

"After such a defeat as they already had here, why do you think they will come back here?" asked Stratton.

"I'm not sure if you saw footage of the portal," I said, "but it was large enough to let hundreds of them cross at a time. They are fast and they came through at a run. Our best estimates were nearly a thousand per minute poured through that thing."

"I see," he said.

"I've seen the regular portals, and they can come across two abreast. If they're sending an army it would take forever with the small portals," I said. "Of course, I don't know how many portals can be open at one time in any given place. All I can give you is my best guess as to what they will do. We will just have to hope for the best and prepare for the worst."

"What can you tell us from the last battle that can help us prepare for what to expect?" Polomo asked.

"The Kresh have some sort of telepathic link," I said. "They have different levels of control with it. The strongest we faced controlled the majority of the underlings. This makes them very dangerous. Communication is not as hard for them as it was for us. But with this telepathic link, there is a weakness."

"Do tell," Stratton said, "because you're scaring the shit out of me here."

I chuckled and said, "When we killed their Demon Mage, their Kresh'Ma'Nar, they all turned and tried to come at us. All of them. If they had scattered, we would have failed to stop them. It would have taken years to hunt them all down, and people would have died in droves."

"But your closing of the gate is what killed them," Stratton said, "wasn't it?"

"Yes, but if they had scattered, and opened multiple small portals all over the place it wouldn't have worked. This may have been part of their plan, before. You can damn sure bet it will be part of it next time. They're ugly, not stupid."

Both generals chuckled.

"What we have to do is hold them together until I can kill their boss," I said, "which may be a hell of a job in itself. I've seen two of these things, and the second was much stronger than the first. They also have many more powerful Mages than these two were."

"If you've only seen two of these, how do you know this?"

I studied the Souls in front of me for a moment and made a decision, "It's not common knowledge with either the Soulguard or the American government, but we captured someone who is from the Kresh homeworld. He was a spy sent to cause trouble in any way he could, but he failed and has traded a great deal of information for his life."

"You know this could cause a great deal of strife between your people and ours if it gets out, yet you reveal it to the two of us. Why?"

"I am a Soullord, gentlemen," I said, "and what that means is I can see into your Soul. I can see the true mettle of any man at a look. And the both of you have integrity, honor, and loyalty laced throughout your Auras. I trust that you will do what is best with the information I give you. We need this man's insight on the Kresh, and we need the information he has given us. As for the truth of what he tells us, I am also a damn good lie detector since I can see the truth in a person's Soul. There are several people, high up in the government who know about this man, and I feel that it's necessary for you to know as well."

I could see the worry in both of them, "I'll probably get in a bit of trouble for revealing it, but I guess it's easier to apologize than ask permission."

"This will definitely bear some thought," Polomo said. "For the moment, let's get back to the battle. What else can you tell us?"

I nodded towards him, "I think the Kresh, or lesser Demons, can probably be taken down with bullets. But you'll need some heavier caliber weapons than the standard M-16, I think. This is something I'm not really sure about. We haven't had much success with gun use until very recently."

"I could see the problem with that fire thing you do," Polomo said, "because fire and gunpowder are a bad combination. How did you get past that problem? I assume that the 'until recently' means you found a solution."

"Part of what a Soulguard is taught," I began, "is to push a bit of their Soul out into the weapon in their hand. This is what makes it look so easy to cut them in the footage you have seen. An imbued sword can cut through steel with enough force applied. And a Guard can apply plenty of force."

"As the demonstration you held showed," Stratton said. "They showed it to all of us when we were sent here. It's shown to each and every one of the Guardsmen who come here."

I continued, "The problem we've always had is that the Guard has to push it out through his hand into the weapon. This would always ignite the powder in the bullets. So guns haven't been part of our training for hundreds of years. Now, though, guns are much more advanced and if we use a Mage, instead of a Guard there is much more that can be done. The problem has always been the small numbers of Mages. But I think we can spare some Mages to imbue some very big guns, such as the ones in the Aircraft we were talking about earlier."

I saw the smile slowly creep across Stratton's features as he thought about what I was saying, "AC-130's, I can see how those can help with taking out a force contained in a closed area."