Exposed, the monsters fell on the Iron Guards, ripping them apart with terrible savagery. Every inch of the vast marble room was quickly covered in blood.
But the Iron Guards were no longer trying to kill Toru. The unstoppable force came off the floor, the tetsubo was rising. Sullivan saw it coming. Dosan Saito and the Pathfinder didn’t.
“TOKUGAWA!”
Sullivan cut his Power and collapsed.
Toru smashed the club down onto Saito’s shoulder. Half the bones in Saito’s body exploded. He struck again. Defined by the light, the Pathfinder was vulnerable. The Pathfinder shrieked as it was compressed into pulp. Tentacles ripped from Saito’s eyes and ears in bright sprays of red. Toru smashed the legs out from under Saito and he hit the floor, totally pulverized.
The Pathfinder was crawling away, leaving a trail of black ooze. Sullivan dragged himself forward, leaving a trail of red blood. He reached the monster and lifted one steel arm. It screeched in frustration. Sullivan channeled everything he had left into a single pinpoint of terrible gravity and brought his fist down like the finger of God and he smashed it through the Earth.
The center of the Pathfinder collapsed. The outer edges of the creature blew up like a balloon before it burst beneath the terrible pressure.
The Pathfinder was dead.
Sullivan lay there, bleeding. The spell on his back had been burned out, forever extinguished, pushed too far. His body wasn’t far behind. Toru took a few halting steps, and then fell, blood drizzling down his arms from several deep wounds.
Saito was still breathing, barely. Blood was coming out of his mouth with every breath. Toru had utterly destroyed the man, and Sullivan had destroyed the Pathfinder.
The Iron Guard were occupied battling the monsters. It was as if the three dying men were alone.
“That was for my father,” Toru spat. “I reclaim my honor, traitor.”
Saito went first. He rattled out one last gurgling breath, and was gone.
But the Pathfinder had been a spiteful beast, and it had prepared one final spell of revenge. A glowing line appeared in the air over the splattered creature, and it quickly drew itself into an elaborate kanji floating in the air. Sullivan could not read it, but he could feel chaotic energy building.
“Boomer,” Toru said with tired resignation.
Sullivan opened his hand and examined the bloody paper duck.
A few seconds later the mansion exploded.
Art to come
Sullivan & Toru armored
Chapter 23
Take the case of courage. No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,” is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.
—G.K. Chesterton,
Orthodoxy, 1908
Drew Town, New Jersey
“Well, this has certainly been an exciting way to pass the evening,” Hammer said.
“Palling around with us last time must have spoiled you,” Jane answered. “It can’t all be Iron Guards and superdemons, now can it?”
Hammer got comfy. “Wake me when your something happens.”
They were taking turns watching the orderly streets of Drew Town through a pair of binoculars. The large number of electric lamps and their position on a rise above the populated part of town made the watching easy. Monotonous, but easy. Francis felt like they were well hidden, but since nobody was looking for them, it didn’t particularly matter.
The town was growing fast. The construction crews were working around the clock. They could clearly hear the machinery running from their current position. More families had moved in since their last visit, so there were probably several hundred people living there now. Francis moved the binoculars across the streets, but it was quiet. Hopefully the elder’s warning had been a false alarm. So then tomorrow he’d just be exhausted as he went about his day’s business of being raked over Roosevelt’s malicious coals.
“I see something moving on the first street,” Dan said. “Glass them, Francis.”
Francis turned the binoculars toward the entrance of the town. Six men were walking down the sidewalk. They had come from the administration building. “I’ve got a fellow in a suit and what looks like some construction workers and some security guards. Hang on . . . That’s the architect. Mr. Drew himself. They’re walking up to a house.”
“Little late for an inspection, isn’t it?” Hammer asked as she got up.
All four of them were looking over the edge now. It was the first activity they’d had in hours. “Hey, check out Fourth and C streets,” Jane said.
The binoculars shifted. The orderly grid of streets made picking targets easy. This was much farther away, so he had to adjust the focus. A car had parked and four men had gotten out. They broke into pairs and began walking up the driveways to two different houses. Francis shifted back to the architect’s group. They’d also broken into pairs, and were moving to three separate homes. It seemed rather coordinated and downright eerie. “What the hell is going on down there?” They didn’t knock. Didn’t need to. They had master keys. Of course they did. They’d built the place. Simultaneously, like they were communicating somehow, even though they didn’t appear to be saying a word, they entered the homes. “They’re breaking into people’s houses.”
“Those are all occupied,” Dan said. “That’s our Heavy’s street.”
Jane came up alongside him, so he handed her the binoculars. Francis was getting a really bad feeling about this.
A few seconds later the men began leaving, still in pairs. They moved quicker now, running across the lawns and jumping fences. Jane gasped as she tracked them through the magnification. “Those are not men!”
“What?”
“I can see people’s insides. Those are not people. Everything is wrong. Their skin is a shell!”
“Shit!” Francis pulled his rifle around. So much for this being a false alarm. “Get down there!”
The front door of one of the invaded houses flew open. A child in a pink nightgown ran outside. He couldn’t hear her from here, but he could tell she was screaming. She made it out into the street before one of the men appeared highlighted in the doorway. He came down the steps, wearing a white security-guard shirt splattered red. He lifted his head, like he was testing the air. He caught the scent and took off after the girl, running on all fours.
It was too far to use his Power. The safety was off. The butt of the Enfield met his shoulder and Francis welded his cheek to the stock. The scope picked up what little light there was, but there wasn’t much. The wire crosshairs were grey blurs. His finger went to the trigger as he exhaled.
The little girl fell in the road. The man, thing, whatever, was on her in an instant.
The scope filled with pink. Francis lifted it. Found white. And pulled the trigger.
“Got him!” Dan shouted.
Francis worked the bolt. The little girl got up and ran again. The security guard had fallen, but he was already getting back up. As soon as the little girl was clear, Dan lit him up with the BAR. Thud Thud Thud Thud. It almost felt slow and rhythmic as Da
n ripped the man apart.
That should wake everybody up.
Other men were coming out of the homes, dripping Active blood. Some of them had lost bits of their skin in various altercations with the residents, but they didn’t seem to care. They methodically turned toward the next house in line. Francis had four more shots, and he cranked them off, hitting every time, but only managing to drop one of the men. They simply seemed to shrug off the impacts, focused entirely on their next target.
The people of Drew Town were being slaughtered.
Francis was up and running down the hill without even realizing it. Jane and Hammer were already halfway down.
The elders had warned every knight in the world . . . And Francis realized that meant this was happening everywhere.
Stuttgart, Germany
Fires could be seen through the office window and police sirens could be heard in the distance. Jacques Montand hung his head in shame. “I have failed you, the society, and all of mankind. My willful blindness allowed this crisis to come about. I accept full responsibility for my failures.”
The other elders were quiet. Two of them were present in the darkened room, and the other four were attending through communications spells. Their last member was missing in action. It was dire news which had brought them together. The secret Enemy seemed to be attacking all across the world simultaneously.
“Jacques . . .” began the British elder. “How could you have known?”
“That the girl was picked to save mankind? That Sivaram was merely a trial run for our ultimate weapon of self defense? I could not have known. I could only assume the worst, but I should have not let that blind me to the true evil. Faye and Sullivan tried to warn us. By hiding what I did know, and by keeping Faye’s continued existence a secret, I have placed us all into terrible jeopardy. As I have said, I accept full responsibility for my failures, and accept any punishments which the society deems fit. If I am to die to atone for this, so be it.”
“That will have to wait,” said the American. “We need everyone we can get. Hang yourself later for all I care, but right now we’ve got a crisis of unknown proportions brewing in every corner of the world. These creatures are killing innocent men, women, and children.”
“We’ve been dispatching our knights as we hear of outbreaks, and trying to alert the local authorities wherever possible,” said the German elder. “As soon as we are done here I will be joining my men in the street fighting.”
“My boss is a stubborn man,” the American said. “But I think I’ve convinced Roosevelt to see the light. The military has been called up. We’ve responded as best we can to each outbreak of violence, but we don’t even know where or how many there are.”
“I do.”
Jacques and Klaus turned in surprise.
Faye Vierra walked into the light. She was covered in blood, her eyes were wild, and she held a pistol in one hand. It was locked open empty, but she casually dropped the spent magazine on the carpet, pulled a new one from her clothing, slammed it home, and dropped the slide. She smelled of smoke and death.
They were scared of her. Nobody spoke.
“I’ve been fighting them all over the world for the last hour, picking whichever spot is the closest to opening the door. I stopped a bunch. I don’t know how many I’ve killed . . .” Faye rubbed her face with her free hand, but all that did was smear the blood around. “I came here because I’ve got a minute before the next door is built. I can’t fight a war by myself. I need help.”
Jacques spoke for all of them. “Whatever the society can do, we are here.”
“One of y’all is a Reader. I can taste it.” Faye glanced across them. The German elder raised his hand. “Okay, pay attention. I’m gonna show you a map of the world in your head.” Faye spied something in the corner. A decorative globe floated over and landed on the table between the elders. She was using more than one kind of Power! “Then you’re going to mark down all the places that need help, then you’re going to do your best to make sure help gets sent to all those places. Russia was real bad off, what with Stalin’s gulags, but that’s where I just came from.” She shivered. “It’s still bad, but they’ll hold for a bit. I felt it when the main Pathfinder died, and that’ll slow it some, but its babies are still working. The Imperium’s up in arms, killing everybody, and they’re even using their secret agents to help in countries they ain’t even supposed to be in. But there’s places we can get that they can’t. Ready?”
Klaus nodded. Then he screamed and clutched his temples. “Mein Gott!”
“Yeah . . . Sorry about that.” Faye apologized. “No time to be gentle. Now get help to those folks that need it. This is the most important thing the Society has ever done.”
Klaus took the globe, removed a pen from his pocket, and began making X marks around the world.
Suddenly, the Spellbound jerked in surprise. She closed her eyes for a moment, as if concentrating. “Oh no . . . Didn’t see that coming . . . Nobody saw that one coming.”
“What is wrong, Faye?” Jacques asked.
“The Pathfinder’s been steering leaders and important people toward sticking Actives all in one place to make its job easy, but it’s had one out-of-the-way place all ready for a real long time, and it just got there and ate everybody. I’ve got to go. I’m the only thing left in its way.”
“Good luck, Faye,” Jacques said. “And I am sorry.”
“Don’t worry, Jacques. I keep my promises.”
Billings, Montana
The Special Prisoners Wing of Rockville State Penitentiary was where they put the most dangerous criminal Actives in America. This was the place Jake Sullivan had served six years of hard time. There had been nearly a thousand Active prisoners housed in this one facility.
Faye arrived just as the last of those prisoners was dragged from their cells to have their magic devoured. The whole thing had happened so fast. There had only been a few skinless men hidden there among the guards, but they had overwhelmed and replaced all of the others in a matter of minutes, and then the prisoners had been easy pickings.
That was more than enough magic to open the door.
Faye landed in the middle of the depopulated prison.
Part of the Pathfinder was waiting for her. It was wearing the body of the warden, whom it had just killed a few minutes before. That made Faye sad, since Mr. Sullivan had spoken of the warden as a kindly man who had let him read books.
“I told you I was everywhere.” The biggest, smartest part of the Pathfinder had just been destroyed in Shanghai, but the Pathfinder was like a weed, and pulling up part of it wouldn’t kill it all, and the roots would just keep on growing. “You are too late. The rest of us have been called. We are coming.”
“It don’t matter,” Faye answered. “I intend to kill you all.”
“Other intelligences have said that before you, but all have failed. You are not special. You do not comprehend how long this cycle has gone on. The prey chooses new intelligences and we consume them. The cycle repeats. The prey chooses new intelligences and we consume them. The cycle is eternal. The prey chooses new intelligences and we consume them. You will not be the last.”
“You’re wrong.” Tens of thousands had died around her tonight, and their connections to the Power now temporarily belonged to her. She could no longer describe her Power in terms like a river, or a stream, or any other sort of quantifiable thing. Faye’s Power simply was the Power. It was trusting her not to fail. It was tired of running. “I am the last one.”
The Pathfinder’s puppet looked toward the night sky. It had been daytime in Shanghai. There was a blank spot where there weren’t any stars at all. The circle was growing. It was an opening to someplace else.
“The prey will run as it always has. It will abandon you. You will become weak and you will be consumed. That is the cycle. You are an abomination. You are an intelligence which has copied our methods. You consume the prey as well. You have taken that which is right
fully ours. You will not be allowed to become us.”
She was tired of listening to it, so Faye lifted the .45 and shot the Pathfinder in the face. The night was quiet. That was more like it.
The big Enemy was on the way. It was being drawn here, to Rockville, and once it landed, there wasn’t a thing that anybody in the world would be able to do about it.
Faye ran through all of the possible uses of the Power she’d seen so far. She could pick any one of the connections she’d stolen, and then refold hers to utilize that section of the Power, but as she thought through them, she couldn’t think of any which would actually make a dent in the Enemy. She could think of maybe one type of magic she knew of which maybe could work, but she had no idea how to use it. The Power was a complicated critter all right, and there were tons of parts, some of which rarely managed to connect to a human being, and maybe some of those might work, but Faye had no idea how to connect to those sections herself. She couldn’t fold herself a new connection to a specific part of the Power if she hadn’t seen it before.
The hole in the stars was growing. The universe on the other side was a different color which human eyes had never seen before and which human brains didn’t have a word for. It was far out in space, but everybody in the northern hemisphere could see it now. She didn’t have much time.
One of the Iron Guards who had died around her in Shanghai had been a Reader, so she’d stolen his Power. She hadn’t tried it yet, but it was worth a shot. Faye knew of only two people who had ever seen this particular spell’s geometry. One of them had a brain that was a constant weird jumble of information, faster maybe than anybody else’s brain except for hers, so Faye didn’t know if she’d be able to pull anything out of that head at all, especially since she’d never practiced Reading. The other brain wasn’t nearly as fast, but she liked it a whole lot better, plus intruding on it didn’t seem nearly as offensive as intruding on a stranger’s brain. Faye opened up her head map, burning through several lifetimes’ worth of Power to reach all the way to New Jersey.
Warbound: Book Three of the Grimnoir Chronicles - eARC Page 44
