Accession: CATU Book 5 Ch. 20

Washington D.C.

Spencer and Julie are booked on an American military cargo plane. When the plane lands in Andrews Air Force Base, the two agents are met at the plane by an awaiting black SUV. Spencer recognizes the young driver as one of the newest recruits into CATU.

They climb into the vehicle and are taken to the CATU headquarters. The two agents go straight to Grines' office. The large man sits at his normally organized desk which is now scattered with files and folders.

"Come in, have a seat and close the door," he says shortly when Spencer knocks on the door. Julie goes in first followed by Spencer. He closes the door behind them and takes a seat on the chair next to Julie, across from Grines. "When I sent you with Agent Branon, I didn't mean for an international incident to take place."

"We had to do what we had to in order to get to the bottom of this," Julie protests.

"You," he says pointing hard in her direction. "You are the reason for all this."

"Me? What the fuck did I do?"

"You put my agent in danger and caused complete chaos over there."

"Danger?" she asks incredulously. "That's in his job description and what are you worried about? Once we were captured you would have left him out to dry just to keep your little secret safe."

"Hey, you know I'm right here and I can speak perfectly well for myself," Spencer tries to say, but is quickly drown out by Grines' roar of anger.

Grines' chair whips out from underneath him to slam into the shelf behind him. "How I run this organization is none of you goddamned business. Furthermore, you may run things by killing everyone in sight but we don't here. And even though these agents know if caught we don't acknowledge them as ours, but we certainly don't leave them hanging out there to face whatever comes their way."

"I don't need to sit here and take a lesson for you," Julie bites back. "I control an organization that doesn't need your help to solve cases. You can forget about having the Black List on your side."

Grines smiles and his body language quickly settles from anger to complete calmness. He pulls his chair back up and takes a seat, folding his hands together on the desk. The act seems to perplex Julie and she goes quiet for the moment too.

"As far as the Black List working with CATU," Grines begins. "That has nothing to do with what you want. Your uncle has expressed as much to me already."

"At least for the moment," she mutters.

"At least for the moment," Grines repeats. "Until something changes, however, your uncle wishes you to continue to do so. But if you wish to leave you are free to do that too. I understand you run the research and development department of the Black List as well as the Western Branch."

Julie sits there silently taking all that Grines has to say. Spencer remains silent watching the interaction between the two, waiting for the scene before him to fully play out. "I'm going to see this through to the end. After that you'd better hope my uncle lives a long healthy life."

"I'll accept that," Grines says. "Now that I have you here I can proceed with what I expect to be the end of this situation. According to our data that our computer analysts have been hard at work with, we know without a doubt these summoning are being done with use of True Energy's facilities. The final product doesn't end when the summoning finishes. A beam of energy is sent to a set of coordinates in the north arctic."

"And what's there of significance?" Spencer asks.

"This." Grines pulls a photo from one of the files and slides it across the desk to the two agents. "It's an oil rig."

"I would ask why it's there but it wouldn't be too surprising that there's oil there," Julie reasons.

Grines chuckles. "I would have to agree but it is owned by Obsidian Oil which is owned by Ronin Wolff, the head of True Energy."

"Kind of odd for a natural energy guy owning a company like that," Spencer remarks.

"It is and it took some digging to get that information."

"What is the significance of the summoning?" Spencer questions.

"Sternigan with his vast library did some research for me and he believes they are the Seven Sisters or Pleiades if you prefer," Grines explains.

"What does Greek Mythology have to do with demons?"

"I'm sure Agent Branon can give you a better explanation than I can. It is apparently a passion of hers carried over from her uncle."

Julie smiles at the remark. "I stumbled upon this not too long ago and brought it to my uncle's attention. I'm glad to see he has finally taken its validity into consideration."

"Too bad it has to be after all these circumstances," Spencer says.

"Yes, too bad," she agrees. "Anyhow, I have been interested in site like Stonehenge and others like it. Now we know they harness energy needed to do summoning."

"How is that possible?" Spencer asks.

"We don't know, but we know they were built some time ago probably using methods from a time even further in the past than that. These summoning though are for the Asura to bring Ancients to our world."

"The Asura? Ancients?" Grines cuts in.

"Yes," she answers with minor annoyance. "They are demons but different than other Earthly demons. But regardless, it is believed they owe their origins to the same place. What is more puzzling is why they would be summoning more than one Ancient."

"At the rate that they are dropping as soon as they show up, I can see why," Spencer answers. "If they can be taken out that easy then there is really no worry for us."

"That's just the thing," Julie says breathlessly. "The Ancients aren't supposed to be this weak. It's believed they are even more powerful than a Demon Lord."

"Then they are doing it for a different purpose," Grines offers.

The three fall silent for a moment then Julie says, "It would explain the mysterious beam sent to the oil rig and the sister's weakness."

"Then how are they doing it? How are they weakening them?" Spencer asks.

"I don't know, but it has to do with whatever machine they are using to power the runes," Julie answers as she tries to rack her mind for the answer. "There isn't much for us to go on to say accurately. Not even the Asura know how to use the runes which is why we haven't had to worry about an Ancient on Earth since," she pauses for a moment, "since never."

"Obviously they have found out," Grines comments stating the obvious.

"And now that we know where they are we need to stop them," Julie says.

"So we attack the rig," Spencer suggests. "Who do we have available for an assault?"

"To be honest," Grines says with a frown, "only you two."

"What about Stone and Dupree?" Spencer asks.

"They are still in Australia. I've already recalled them here, but they won't get here in time and we need to move fast on this."

"How much time do we have?" Julie asks.

"I'm sending you out in twenty-four hours. If we are right, there are only going to be two more summonings and we don't know the status of Sam."

"As far as I'm concerned, Sam is top priority," Spencer says making his intentions clear.

Grines speaks adding a bit of authority to his voice. "The task is to eliminate Typheryian. Now I know how close you two are, but saving Sam isn't going to solve the problem. Typheryian is the only member of the Ternion that we know is still alive and the most powerful. If he escapes, he can take whatever he has planned and move out of our reach."

"I'm going after Sam, once I know she's safe I'll take out Typheryian," Spencer shoots back mustering as much defiance as he can.

"Reeds," Grines says angrily. "You have a job to do and I expect you to follow orders to the letter. You do anything otherwise and I will have your ass on a platter sitting on my desk as a paperweight."

"I'll get the job done, but I'm going to get Sam out of there."

"Don't worry about Spencer," Julie says surprisingly jumping in to calm to heated argument. "I'll make sure he gets the job done while he gets Samantha out of there safely."

"I'm glad someone still has their mind straight," Grines mutters. "You've got twenty-four hours. After that I expect Typheryian dead and whatever he's doing grounded. Dismissed."