Mihalis, p.1
Mihalis, page 1
Mihalis
Published by Jan Stryvant
Copyright 2021 Jan Stryvant
Copyright Jan Stryvant 2021
Cover Credits: eBook Launch (http://ebooklaunch.com/)
No part of this eBook may be reproduced in any form without expressed, written consent from the author. The material in this story may feature graphic depictions of a sexual or adult nature and is intended for a mature audience only. All characters in this story are fictional and of the legal age of consent for any activities they engage in. For those who are extrememly sensitive to stupid crap the role of Mihalis was played by forty-two year old Mark Levin, on loan from PPP studios. So there. Any resemblance between characters, places, or things in this story, and people living or dead, actual places, or events, is purely coincidental. It's fiction; I made it up.
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be copied and given away, or copied and sold, to other people. Got that? No copying, please! If you would like to share this book with another person, it would be really nice if you purchased an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use, please consider purchasing your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
#84429
Jan Stryvant Books:
The Valens Legacy:
Black Friday Book 1
Perfect Strangers Book 2
Over Our Heads Book 3
Head Down Book 4
When It Falls Book 5
Stand On It Book 6
Vegas Rules Book 7
Desperate Measures Book 8
Secret Treaties Book 9
It Ain't Easy Book 10
Red Skies Book 11
Demon Days Book 12
Simple Things Book 13
Trying Times Book 14
Firestarter Book 15
Times Like These Book 16
No Regrets Book 17
Everyday, Including Holidays Book 18
Wives Tales Books 1, 2, 3, & 4
(Assorted Short Stories)
The Valens Heritage:
Mihalis Book 1
Sean Book 1 (coming)
Troy Book 1 (coming)
Dan's Inferno:
Cursed! Book 1
BeDeviled Book 2
Heritage Book 3
Vengeance Book 4
Shadow
Table of Contents
Mad Minute
Face The Music
June Nights
Insult to Injury
What's Going On
Bartertown
Exploring
Highwayman
King of the World
Taking Time
We Were Nightmares Once
Taking Stock
Optimistic
Gotta Know The Territory
A Change in Management
Drive The Nail
An Old Family Friend
Afterword
Appendix - Family Tree (Children)
Mad Minute
The door in front of him exploded into pieces, the splinters blown into the room before him.
"Go! Go! Gogogogogogo!" Sten yelled on the command circuit, but he was already in motion, the first through the doorway, gun up. He fired three-round bursts into each target as soon as he acquired them, shuffle-stepping forward, careful of his footing, as the rest of the team swarmed in behind him, forming up into a semi-circle as they moved into the room.
He felt more than saw Sten's rifle muzzle poking over his left shoulder as Sten put a hand on his back to let him know he was right on his ass. Sten hated it when he leapt into the room first, but he had the routine down now, and honestly, he made a better bullet sponge.
Not that they were taking return fire. The djevels hadn't known they were coming, and even if they'd heard Wink and Sten setting the charges on the heavy metal fire door, they'd still had less than a minute to react.
He swapped out magazines, picking targets and shooting.
"Damn, how many are down here?" Woz, another of the old-timers, called out over the radio.
"Fewer than there were a moment ago!" Mac joked as they moved carefully through the underground complex. And it was a complex. He had no idea where it'd come from, and he doubted anyone else did. Sten had gotten the report—he was the team leader, after all—and it'd been flagged by the local shop as 'serious'.
So they'd flown in last night, got the briefing, then come out here just after the sun had set to operate under cover of darkness.
"Hit!" someone gurgled.
"Jake's down!" someone else said, and the whole line shifted slightly to make up for the loss of a team member. Sten's hand disappeared from his back as he let go of his own rifle to throw spells. He wasn't sure what'd gotten Jake, but until someone told him, he'd have to assume there was a magic user in the room. He didn't have a lot of magic yet—he was still pretty damn young—but he had a lot of multipliers, and he he'd learned a few tricks.
He led off with a cone of fire and swept it across the djevels. Normally using fire in enclosed spaces was a bad idea because you needed oxygen to breathe, but the quickest way to find a djevel magic user in a crowd was to spray them with fire and see who had a shield up.
He'd learned that one from Stewart, who was still doing combat patrols and raids, when he wasn't teaching magic or enchanting stuff. For a fox, Stewart was an incredible badass, and even the Marines were afraid to give him shit.
There! He saw the fire bend around what looked to be something like a cross between a lesser Mindre and a Taika Käyttäjä. He dropped the flame spell and immediately peppered it with the missile spell that was so good at blowing by shields to get its attention.
"Fourth from the left, the one that looks like a Mindre with a gland problem!" he called over the comms as he pulled his rifle back up by the sling, then pumped and fired the grenade launcher slung under his rifle at it. The grenades were actually magical shield breachers that fired a cone of something like iron flechettes when they impacted a shield. Against a human, they were annoying. Against a djevel, they were painful.
Half the group turned and concentrated their fire—shields had limits, especially if they weren't maintained. His job was to stop the djevel from maintaining it, while the others took it down and killed the djevel magic user.
He tossed another missile spell, then followed it up with a dispelling spell. Then he turned back to the djevels that were now charging them, as the others finally broke through the shield and turned the djevel behind it into chopped meat.
He actually got a bit of a rush from that one when it died; he could only guess it'd been a bit more powerful than he'd thought.
He burned through three more magazines, until there was nothing rushing them anymore.
"How's Jake?" someone called.
"Alive but down for the count. I got 'im," Sten said. "Now, let's find out just what in the hell we walked into here. This was supposed to be a basement, a single basement. Keep your wits about you and your weapons up!
"Advance!"
They moved carefully across the room towards the exit on the far side, making sure everything they came to was dead, then through the exit into the hallway beyond, changing formation to deal with the narrower space.
He crouched so the rank behind him could fire over his head as needed—and it was needed, as several times they were rushed by groups of djevels. Twice he had to stick his hand behind him, as he'd run out of magazines, and one of the guys in the back gave him one of theirs.
Every time they came to a side entrance, they had to check the room out. Each of those investigations started off with a grenade, followed by a lot of heavy fire. He was on the front now, so he had to trust the guys behind him. They were all pros, so he wasn't that concerned.
When they got to the end of the hallway, Winks and Sten ran up to slap charges on it, Sten with Jake's unconscious body on his back.
They all ducked into the side rooms as the blast was triggered, then came out and charged into the large room before them.
"Holy Mother of God!" one of the werewolves gasped as they took in the sight before them.
It was a djevel nursery.
"I'll tell her you were asking about her," he quipped as the sharpshooters in the group picked off the remaining attendants. He scanned the room; all the exits from it appeared to be barred or barricaded. The concrete floor had been removed, and there were obviously djevel eggs planted everywhere.
"You know, I've heard of these, but never expected to actually see one," said Kal, the werewolf next to him. "How do we get rid of it?"
"I'll take half the team, and we'll head back to the vehicles and get the jerry cans off the back. Then we'll pour gasoline over everything and light it up," Sten said.
"Mihalis, can you let your dad know what we found here?"
"Don't we have radios for that?"
"Mihalis," Sten growled.
"On it," he said with a sigh. Safing his rifle, he closed his eyes a minute and concentrated.
§
"Mike? What are you doing here?" Estrella, one of his stepmothers, was there talking to another lioness he didn't recognize. Renee was chatting with someone else, but he waved her off.
"Mom, tell Dad we uncovered a hidden breeding ground. We're following up on reports of what was supposed to be a small infection in Ohio, about eight miles south of Dayton."
"How bad?"
"About an acre? It's all underg
"Okay."
§
Mihalis broke his meditation and opened his eyes; he'd been gone for maybe twenty seconds. Nothing had changed.
Woz was in command with Sten gone, and they set up a perimeter and a watch—you could never be sure when it came to the djevels. The occasional gunshot meant either something had moved, or someone had thought it had and didn't want to take any chances.
Fifteen minutes later, Sten showed up, minus Jake and two others, carrying a couple of gas cans. So were several more of the team.
"Mihalis! You like being first! Grab one of these and help me spread it out."
"Yes, sir," Mihalis said with a sigh. Slinging his rifle, he took one of the cans from Sten, jogged to the other side of the room, and took a moment to figure out where he wanted to pour out the gas.
"What's he mad at you for this time?" Jenny, one of the female werewolves on the team, asked him in a hushed voice as she poured gas out a few rows over.
"I got in front of him." Mihalis sighed.
"Why'd you do a thing like that?" she asked with a snort.
"Because..." he almost said 'because he's old' or 'because I come back', both of which were the reasons he'd done it. But instead, he opted for something a bit more diplomatic, a skill his older brother—Sean, Junior, or SJ—had been trying to teach him for some time now.
"It's a lion thing," he said instead. "The whole 'lead from the front' thing."
"But you're not the leader here."
"Yeah, well, you know my dad," he said with a weak smile.
Jenny snorted. "Yeah, big shoes to fill, there. Don't envy you that at all. I'm surprised they let you on the team; you're what, seventeen?"
"Ask the older guys and gals how old they were when they started doing this stuff. All of them were like fourteen or fifteen."
"Well, yeah, but we were slaves, and nobody cared if we lived or died," Woz said, coming over to check their progress. "Things are different now. Everyone gets a regular, normal life."
Mihalis snorted. "Not if you're me, you don't."
"Oh, you don't have it that hard, Mike," Woz said.
"It's not that, Woz, it's not that at all. Trust me on that, it's not that at all."
"Whatever, that looks good. Let's get out of here before someone lights a match."
Nodding, they followed Woz back, and the entire group made their way down the hallway towards the first room.
Sten pulled out an incendiary grenade, pulled the pin, and threw it down the hallway into the nursery at the far end. It lit off with a loud whoosh! and the breeze coming from the door outside they'd entered through turned into almost a wind.
"Let's go!" Sten said, and they trooped out and back to their vehicles.
Sten grabbed Mihalis and dragged him to the back of the group as they walked.
"Why did you jump in front of me like that? And please don't give me that 'it's a lion thing' bullshit you gave Jenny."
Mihalis sighed. "Because what's the worse that can happen to me? Honestly? Plus, it's not like I'm all that important. You are, okay? So that's why I did it, and why I'll keep doing it. Besides, I found that mage of theirs, and I helped."
"The worst that can happen is I get home, and your old man gives me the ass-chewing to end all ass-chewings, that's what. And what the hell is this 'not important' shit? Gods, I haven't heard a whine like that since I worked for the councils and had to deal with their kids."
"Yeah, well, that's why I want to be here. Because at least when I'm out here, I'm contributing to the goal. I'm not 'Sean's Kid' or 'that black lion'; I'm just another guy on the team, doing his job. Nothing less, nothing more. Is there really anything wrong with that?"
Sten gave him a look. "I think this is the kind of conversation you need to be having with your father."
"It's not like he can do anything," Mihalis said with a sigh.
"Course he can; he can give you a little brother," Sten said with a chuckle. "But you did do good out there, even if I almost shot you in the back when you jumped in front of me. Next time, talk to me before doing something stupid like that. Got it?"
"Yes, Sten," Mihalis said with a nod.
"Great, now let's get back to the shop and wait for pickup," Sten said, clapping him on the back. "The local manager promised to feed us."
The trip back to the local Bryson's Automotive shop wasn't a long one. The shop was closed for the night, but they handled 'customer emergencies', so no one would be surprised to see some of the lights on. The place also had a large underground portion, where visiting teams could relax away from prying eyes, and where all the really important business was done.
His father had told him once, years ago, that the whole thing had been Steve and Sawyer's idea, to cover what they were really doing, and it'd been a lot more successful than either of them had expected. He just liked that in the times he'd been out, they were somewhere he could have a small degree of anonymity. As his humanoid form was that of a Dark Elf, because of his mother, he stood out. All his older sisters—Alska, Celeste, Noje, and Harmony—had taken rather well to magic. With the extra training his mother had given all her children, as well as Deidre's, you wouldn't want to piss any of them off, and they made excellent magic support for the raid teams. So many of the people at the automotive repair shops had seen dark elves before, especially as the eldest two had been doing this for almost three years now.
He'd been through his mother's training as well, along with his sister Cinnamon. The sword he carried wasn't a faerie sword, like most of his other siblings had. It was a custom steel sword with a special iron core that was exposed at the very edge. A 'coming of age gift' from Daelyn's family—one of his other stepmothers—when he'd turned sixteen.
He actually preferred it to the fae swords his brothers Sean and Troy had gotten when they'd come of age. The katana-like weapon fit the dark elf fighting style so much better than the other swords. He'd fallen in love with them when he'd first seen his sister Alska's, and she'd let him try it out. All his dark elf sisters who'd passed their coming of age had one, his younger sisters Fira and Haley having recently received theirs.
"Mind if I join you?" Jenny asked, coming over to him when they finally sat down to eat.
"Not at all," he said with a faint smile.
"So how many of these have you been on?"
"This is my second one as a combatant," he admitted.
"Really?" She said, eyes widening slightly. "And you took the lead like that?"
Mihalis smiled a little wanly and shrugged. "Sten already gave me grief over it."
"Why? You definitely knew what you were doing! This is like my sixth, and I'm still getting the hang of it."
"My mom's a bit of a hard ass when it comes to training, and I've been out on almost a dozen with my older brother. I just wasn't allowed to go inside."
She nodded. "That was nice of him."
"Yeah, SJ's a great brother. Our brother Troy is pretty cool, too."
"Oh? Does he go on these raids as well?"
"Nah, he works with the scouts."
"Why's he do that?" Jenny asked, giving him a confused look.
"Because he's a cheetah lycan, and just about the fastest thing on four legs."
"Wait...you're a lion, so how's your brother a cheetah?"
Mihalis smiled. "Lions often have prides. I have six 'stepmothers', I guess you could say, and Troy and SJ's mother, Roxy, is a cheetah."
She frowned. "SJ's a cheetah too?"
"No, he's a lion. My mom's a dark elf. It's...complicated. Just accept it." He gave her a slight smile. "Most of my brothers and sisters are what their mothers are. Me and SJ, though, we're lions, and a few of my sisters are lionesses."
"Now I'm afraid to ask how many brothers and sisters you have!" she said with a smile.
"A lot. We get on well, for the most part."
"So if you're a lion, why do you go around looking like a dark elf?"
"They don't have any armor in my size yet, and this doesn't resize," he said, tapping on the clamshell breastplate faerie armor he was wearing. "What about you? I'm surprised you don't know about any of this. I mean, because of who my dad is, it's like everybody knows our life story."
