Chapter 21

The President, Lester, and Cutter all seemed to be trying to speak at once. I'm not sure if it was the case of having three alpha males trying to assert their dominance over our little group or something else. After a couple of minutes, Bonnie tried to break into their conversation, but they simply ignored her. Finally, she put two fingers into her mouth and let forth a piercing whistle.

"Now that I have your attention, I think we need to move this discussion and planning session somewhere else. It seems likely Helen Cutter was behind the attack on Buckingham Palace. Based on the discussions I have had with various people at the ARC, none of you have any explanation of how she has been able to come and go so frequently over the last five years, almost as though she knew when and where anomalies were going to appear. It seems obvious to me, she is another witch like myself and can call an anomaly forth at will. If she called forth this particular anomaly, it makes me more than a little nervous hanging around it for too long."

"You're saying my wife is a witch," exclaimed Cutter with an almost shocked expression on his face.

Lester grinned. "From everything I have heard about her and the little I have seen from direct observation, I was sure she was a bitch, but being a witch explains a lot."

Both Cutter and Lester were staring speculatively off into the distance, which finally allowed the President to rejoin the conversation.

"Who are you, Miss, ah?" asked the President. Even though Bonnie was the only other African-American present, it appeared to me the President was still seeing her as a young, high school-aged girl first and foremost.

Bonnie took a couple steps closer and extended her hand. "I'm Bonnie Bennett from Mystic Falls, Virginia, Mister President." She shook his hand before adding. "I'm a witch. And at the moment, I'm the only one present who can open an anomaly to get us out of here." That seemed like a little bit of a stretch of the truth as Rachel could probably open one, too. But I'm sure a twenty-first century President would be more comfortable dealing with a twenty-first century witch than a seventeenth century one.

"And where exactly is here?" asked the President. "I'm just trying to grasp what is going on. One minute I'm sitting at a banquet talking with the Queen of England and the next giant insects are killing everyone in the room. And seemingly in almost the next minute, you people were dragging me through some weird spinning crystal device and we end up here. And then that giant creature attacked us. It is a real live dinosaur, correct? God, I'm just glad Michelle didn't make this trip because Sasha had a dance recital back home."

Well, that explained why the President was coping as well as he was. If his wife had been killed by the horde of giant Praying Mantis, I think he would have been much more of a basket case than he was. Which again made me wonder about Prince Harry, he was holding up better than I would have expected considering his brother, father, and grandmother had all been killed only minutes earlier back in London. But then I remembered the night of the ceremony where Klaus reacquired his werewolf abilities. Jenna and then others had been killed before my eyes and I had been forced to cope, at least until Klaus had drained my blood and left me for dead.

"The crystalline device is what we call a time anomaly. It allows passage between two different points in history. This one has dumped us in the Cretaceous period," she said before pausing long enough to glance at Connor, who nodded his concurrence. "We are roughly seventy-five million years in the past.

"These anomalies have been opening all over the world during the last eight years, but most frequently in England. I think they are some strange, naturally occurring phenomena, but I also suspect Helen Cutter encountered one of the earliest ones. Somehow she discovered once she was deep back in the past that she could use her witch powers to open them at will. Since then, I suspect she has been behind many of the ones that have opened in England, which explains why the vast majority have opened there, rather than having the occurrences being more uniformly distributed across the planet."

"You're a witch?" asked the President, as though the enormity of the situation was still overwhelming him and, as a result, his brain was running with a thirty second lag and only just now was reacting to her earlier comment. "My grandmother told me stories about witches when I was little, but even then I found them hard to believe."

Bonnie lifted her right hand. Small lightning bolts surged about it for a few seconds steadily gathering in strength. Abruptly, she pointed to one of the further boulders and a massive bolt surged across the intervening space. When the bolt connected with the boulder, it shattered into a thousand pieces.

"Now, it's time we got out of here. I have no idea if Helen Cutter can track where an anomaly is going to open. I know I can't do it at the moment, but she has had years and years to hone her abilities. But somewhere else has to be better than just standing here waiting for the next shoe to drop." Bonnie turned ninety degrees and raised both hands while beginning to chant. In roughly thirty seconds, a new anomaly had appeared.

"Shall we?" asked Bonnie of the President while gesturing towards the anomaly.

"Ah, Bonnie," stated Becker, speaking to the group in general for the first time since Jess had arrived with the helicopter. "How about letting some of my guys go through first?"

Bonnie shrugged. "I believe it is perfectly safe on the other side of this anomaly. But be my guest, if it makes you feel more comfortable."

Becker nodded before giving hand signals to his men. Four of them formed up on Becker while the others had obviously been assigned rear guard duty. And doubtlessly, once Bonnie passed through the anomaly, the protective barrier she had been maintaining around the group would disappear.

As Becker and his men disappeared through the anomaly, the rest of us queued up. I found myself standing next to Lester.

"So, where did you learn to fly a helicopter?"

Lester gave a small shrug. "I wasn't always in the civil service. I flew helicopters for the Army back during Operation Granby, what you Americans called Desert Storm, in Kuwait in 1991. It was after I mustered out of the military that I joined the Home Office."

"With which unit did you serve?" asked Prince Harry, who was standing behind us.

"I flew the Westland Lynx for the Army Air Corps as part of the Ninth Regiment, sir," responded Lester, still seeming a little overwhelmed to be speaking directly to a member of the Royal Family. Some of these Brits, including Lester, seemed to take the Royal Family a lot more seriously than their nearly figurehead position seemed to warrant, at least to me.

The Prince nodded. "I just started my helicopter training back in March. My goal is to fly the Apache, but the Lynx would be my second choice."

"You seem pretty comfortable with that machine gun," I stated into the brief lapse in their conversation. Then after a moment, I threw in a 'Your Majesty'.

The Prince displayed a small smile. "I spent three months early last year deployed with my Regiment in Afghanistan. I saw a little action. But anyway, how about you just call me Harry until we get home? I mean you are American and we don't appear to be anywhere near the British Empire at the moment."

"Can I call you Harry, too?" asked Caroline, who had managed to end up standing next to the Prince.

"After the way you took on those giant bugs with only a pair of knives, you are welcome to call me anything you like. I mean, I thought some of the hand-to-hand combat instructors back at Sandhurst were good, but you would wade through them like they were bloody amateurs."

"You do realize I'm a vampire, right?" asked Caroline.

It was almost fun watching her flirt with the Prince. I mean she could just compel him to be attracted to her, but it looked like she was striving for something more real.

"Let's say, I suspected," the Prince said with a grin.

"You know about vampires?" I asked incredulously.

The Prince nodded. "Some secrets like the existence of vampires, witches, and werewolves are known to the Royals that aren't general public knowledge or even known to most of the government."

Hmm, maybe there was a reason the Royals deserved the respect Lester had been showing the Prince. I wondered what other secrets Harry might be privy to, as we reached the anomaly and I was forced to turn my attention forward.

End of Chapter 21

Author's Note:

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Have a great day!

Duane