Ninovan (Hypernaturals 10)

Astral Reveal

That Wyatt, well placed senior Siren that he is, knows about that otherwise top-secret situation made sense to me. Young Sirens tend to gravitate toward being cops and firemen. Sirens are therefore well placed to have someone near the panicked response to our report of the nuclear weapon. Vampires are around all those agencies with our people. We gravitate more to the deeper cover, insider type of thing.

"Morgan and I were chasing a suspicious death. There was an ancient atomic weapon in the building they meant to set off, but it was broken. It probably was broken when they stole it. Very old. They were trying to fix it and did not understand what they were doing. A faulty firing mechanism that spread shattered plutonium around the room. They had no idea what to do with shards of that stuff contaminating everything so the terrorists were keeping people away until they decided how to proceed: Presumably with more caution. It is supposition, but my guess is that they were working on a Plan B to use the bomb materials to poison the city. Try to mist it or something. Use it and conventional explosives to make a dirty bomb, perhaps. Not easily done. We found the bomb, but before we knew what it was, we stood in the room and took a good dose." I explained.

Morgan touched her white temples. "I received this hair color from that. He nearly lost his feet. We still take weekly Vampire specific treatments for the radiation poisoning to continue to repair the genetic damage."

"You are telling me you stood in the middle of that pile of radioactive plutonium rubble and dust and you survived? Then you reported it and stayed hidden?" Wyatt was dumbfounded.

"Yes, to both of those things." Jessica said. "I kind of like her look. Sort of Miss Frankenstein, don't you think?"

"I like it." Wyatt agreed, "Not about the Frankenstein part. It is the contrast of that youthful face and healthy general appearance and that shot of white. It's interesting and fun. I would have thought Morgan to be using one of those hair colors kids love these days."

"Oh. We could make that purple!" I enthused.

"Yeah. Right. That is going to happen." Morgan told me with a grimace.

"Let us meet at your house. We have an open question about inter-inter-species relationships, and that is how the third species intersects and affects us."

"Are you referring to Human or Astral? It is my reasoned belief that an Astral is essentially a gifted human. Angel had a child with a human, and she is now our oldest daughter." Morgan asked.

"I was referring to Astral, but your point is well made because human also comes into this. They are the so-called eight hundred pound gorilla in the room. Our former 'safety' plan was having humans help us against Vampires. That plan went up in flames when Adrian discovered female Sirens. If we had been willing to sacrifice half our race to win a war against all Vampires, that became null and void when it became obvious that going to war with Vampires meant complete and utter destruction at the hand of the humans of BOTH species." Ginger answered.

I took that opening to mine the elder Sirens for information. "So: Astrals? What are they? You said in your driveway, you know?"

"I may have unintentionally oversold that based on our conversation here. I am not a scientist, so I can't give you sequenced DNA or family trees. I know what an Astral is in relation to us."

"I would like to know anything you might be able to tell us because Adrian and I have recently come across a small group of people set on wiping out or conquering the Astral's. They thought they were Voodoo witches with magical powers and set into motion an atrocious breeding program so they could absorb and use Astral's 'powers'."

"These two get into more trouble." Jessica said. Then she stood and said, "I am refilling my glass because I shared it with a beer termite. Would anyone else like a refill?"