Siege Line

by Myke Cole

  “And what happens when you reach the pinnacle? How do you rise higher? I was a motherfucking god of war, little brother. There wasn’t a man alive who could beat me.”

  “Christ, Pete. Someone did beat you. They fucking killed you.”

  “No!” In an instant, Schweitzer’s brother vanished, and he was the Director, a Gold in every fiber of his being save the silver flames burning in his eye sockets. His body tensed, poised to strike. His rent cheek curled back, showing the gray flexion of his mandible. “A fucking RPG killed me, fired by a coward from cover while I was pinned down by an overwhelming force. Alexander the Great was almost killed at Granicus! It was a matter of a quarter inch. Any man can die, Jim. It doesn’t mean you lost. Look at me! Do you think it’s a coincidence that even death couldn’t stop me? Do you think it’s random that I’m standing here now?”

  Shots. Ranging fire from the station. If Schweitzer was going to help them, he needed to stop talking and get in the fight. But he couldn’t move; he was transfixed by the tunnel-focus, pushing out everything but his brother’s face, gray and ragged, and still the thing he had longed to see for all these years.

  “You said you didn’t believe in ideals, in metaphysical bullshit,” Schweitzer said. “Listen to you now. Of course it’s random. You were a SEAL and the Cell uses SEALs. You were just the body they found. If you’d died farther afield or at a different time, you’d just be worm food.”

  Peter barked, an animal snarl. His jaw flexed, his tongue swelling. His ragged suit rippled as his bone spines poked through his skin. “You don’t get it. That shit is not random. It is destiny. I could have died in a pit in Chicago and this would still have found me. I don’t expect you to understand it, and I don’t expect to know exactly how it happened in this lifetime, but the truth is this: I knew from the day I was born that I was going to be the greatest warrior-king the world had ever known. I knew it from my first fight in school. I knew it when I enlisted, and I knew it when I graduated BUD/S. I didn’t know how it would happen, but I still knew it. And now that it has happened, I—”

  Schweitzer struck.

  He exploded out of the ragged window frame, his shoulders ripping fresh splinters from the wood. He plummeted down, spinning saw extended, trying to ignore the fact that the target was his brother, that after all these years of dreaming of their reunion, he would cut it short. No. Peter is dead. This is a crazy, dead thing standing in his place. Schweitzer aimed the saw for his brother’s left thigh. He’d have to immobilize him first, then maybe . . .

  Peter moved with almost-plastic elasticity and astonishing speed, even for one of his kind. He kicked his leg high, and Schweitzer’s saw cut air. Peter brought his heel down on the back of Schweitzer’s head. The blow hammered Schweitzer into the roof shingles hard enough to jar his bones, and then he was hurtling face-first over empty air.

  “An A for effort, at least,” Peter said as Schweitzer fell.

  The ground rushed up to meet him, and Schweitzer realized he’d been baited. The ranting, trembling anger had been a feint to draw him out of his superior position. Schweitzer had lost the bubble, the professional sangfroid that had carried him through countless battles. He extended an arm to catch his fall, send himself into a roll that would bring him to his feet. He reached out for the calm, for the distance, for the tunnel that shut out distraction.

  The Golds were still in their delta, awaiting their master’s return. They crouched forward, taking little scurrying steps before casting worried glances at the chapel, like dogs commanded to stay when food is near.

  Schweitzer got to his feet, spun, raising the buzz saw for the attack he knew must be coming. There was nothing, only the chapel’s whitewashed wall, the remnants of the torn gutter hanging from it like a corpse-limb.

  He heard the impact of Peter’s feet behind him an instant later, and was turning to face his brother when the blow landed. Peter had been aiming for his back, but the kick caught Schweitzer’s side. He went flying, feeling his ribs flexing, sailing through the air until he smashed into the chapel’s side hard enough to splinter the wood. He slid to the ground, got to his feet, buzz saw spinning in front of him.

  Peter glanced at the crouching Golds. “I trained them a little too well,” he mused. Gunfire was chattering in the distance now. “I got obedience but sapped all initiative. I’ll fix it in post, I guess. I have the opposite problem with you. You going to heel, little brother? Or are you going to join Sarah in the great beyond? I suppose you’d be happier that way, souls mingling and all that foolishness.”

  Schweitzer lunged, a diagonal slash with the saw that would have unseamed his brother from shoulder to crotch. But before he even completed the motion, he knew it was telegraphed, that distraction made him clumsy. Peter stepped into the blow, effortlessly catching Schweitzer’s mechanical arm at shoulder and elbow, yanking it down as he brought his knee up. The limb groaned, creaked, and finally splintered, sparking as the piezoelectric leads snapped. The saw went askew in its forks, tines whining against the adjacent metal, spinning slowly down.

  “I must say,” Peter said, releasing the arm and pushing Schweitzer back. “You have a tough time hanging on to your right arm.”

  Schweitzer staggered backward, broken arm hanging from his shoulder, little more than a dragging weight now, the saw canted and still in its housing. Peter took a step toward him. His shredded cheek made his grin lopsided and impossibly wide. “I get that you don’t buy the whole destiny argument, but you have to admit that this is playing out like a movie. Maybe ‘destiny’ is just a word we plaster over events to give them more meaning. I get it. But this is just too . . . dramatic to be coincidence. Maybe dying has made me superstitious.”

  The dull whump of an explosion sounded in the distance, and Peter glanced toward the station before looking back to Schweitzer. “Well, that can’t be good. Guess I’d better finish this and get in the fight. So long, little brother.”

  He darted forward so quickly that Schweitzer barely had time to raise an arm before Peter struck. But it was the broken arm, and Peter slapped it aside with enough force to turn Schweitzer away from him. Peter followed the movement with fluid grace, throwing a shoulder into Schweitzer’s back, slamming him into the chapel wall.

  Schweitzer lashed out with his good arm, aiming his elbow at Peter’s face. Peter caught the blow easily, yanking Schweitzer’s arm down, pinning it behind his back. He grabbed Schweitzer’s good arm and his shoulder, pulling back so hard that Schweitzer’s chest bowed. Schweitzer strained against his brother’s grip, feeling the pressure gather in his ribs and spine. He felt his dead muscles clench, a low groan rising in his throat as he fought against Peter’s grip. It was useless. His brother’s strength was terrible, as great compared to Schweitzer’s as Schweitzer’s was to a living man’s. “In death as in life,” Peter whispered over Schweitzer’s shoulder, “always just a little bit ahead.”

  Peter slammed his knee into the base of Schweitzer’s spine. The blow was perfectly targeted, focused on the gap between the vertebrae. Schweitzer felt his spine flex, the first tiny cracks opening in the magically reinforced bone. Schweitzer tried to twist toward his brother, but Peter’s knee was already coming up again and again. Schweitzer’s spine shuddered, and he knew that it would only take another blow or two to sever it. He kicked out, planted his feet on the wall, walked upward.

  Pete laughed. “Nice! Good initiative! Bad judgment, though.” He brought his knee up another time, and Schweitzer realized his error. The new position left his spine as flat as a table, a perfect ninety-degree angle from his brother’s knee.

  He felt his spine shear as the blow impacted. The lumbar vertebrae exploded, tearing away from one another, the fragments migrating a few inches through the surrounding flesh before coming to rest. Schweitzer felt his legs go slack as the stability imparted by his upper torso was ripped away.

  But his brother didn’t stop
; the knee came up again and again into the weakened spine, and each blow shivered more bone, the column coming apart, the soft flesh insufficient to the task of keeping it together. Pete grunted in satisfaction and stepped backward, dropping Schweitzer’s arms at last.

  Schweitzer tried to keep his feet beneath him, to stay upright, to turn and face the threat. Instead, he pooled like a discarded sheet, folding over backward on himself. His shoulders rested on his heels, his body literally broken in half. Still he fought, struggling to get his arms underneath him, to push himself upright. But his back was a piece of loose rubber, the network of muscles without anchor. Even his magically enhanced strength was useless as he flailed like an astronaut in zero gravity, just as likely to slide in the wrong direction as the right one.

  Peter put a foot on Schweitzer’s shoulder, pinning it in place. Schweitzer could see the pack of Golds clustering about him, waiting for their master’s command. “Stop wriggling,” Peter said. “This is enough work as it is.”

  But Schweitzer didn’t stop struggling. Ghaznavi and Desmarais and Mankiller might not be his son, but they were decent people, striving toward the same goal, to rid the world of the threat of the Cell. Between his brother and the Golds, he couldn’t see them standing much of a chance. Six operators, no matter how skilled, were still just living people.

  Peter increased the pressure on Schweitzer’s shoulder, reached down, gripping his chin. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out the threshold at which the body is destroyed enough to free the soul to return to the storm. It’s difficult to proceed scientifically, since the Golds aren’t exactly open to being interviewed and my Summoners are needed for other tasks. You cost me Dadou, Jim. I wouldn’t even be in this godforsaken wilderness if it weren’t for you. Did you ever think of that?”

  Schweitzer’s only answer was a strained groan.

  “I’ve been working on a theory that it has something to do with the eyes. They’re the only visible evidence, you know? The only thing about us that’s immediately and evidently magic. I’d been planning to experiment on Golds, you know, crushing their heads, but they’ve been too precious to let go lately. So, let’s start with you. One last service you can perform. Eh, little brother? For family.”

  He moved his hands to Schweitzer’s temples, began to squeeze. Schweitzer clamped his hand on his brother’s wrist, desperately attempting to pry it away, but without the anchor of his spine, it was so much slack rope. His brother’s muscle was as unyielding as iron. The world began to bow and he felt his skull flex.

  A sharp bang sounded, followed by a roaring whoosh. Schweitzer heard the pattering of feet on snow, and the pressure on his skull suddenly eased.

  He tried to roll over onto his back, but his newly jellied back refused to support the motion, and he merely succeeded in shifting his torso far enough to one side to enable him to see the open ground. Two of the Golds were twitching ruins, bodies excavated as if they’d swallowed dynamite. The remaining three had been blown clear by the blast, were scrambling to their feet. Schweitzer caught a whiff of burned peroxide, the molten smell of fused glass. He caught a glance of dark boots, thick snow pants, the dangling muzzle of a high-powered Alaskan rifle.

  Peter snarled. “You brave little shit.” He spun, lunged for Schweitzer’s rescuer.

  “You all fuck off back home,” Mankiller said. Schweitzer heard liquid sloshing against glass as she threw another of her homemade TATP bombs. The Director dove aside, and the remaining Golds followed suit, desperate to be beside their leader and smart enough to know that there would be nothing gained by charging into the explosion.

  The unstable explosive detonated barely after it left Mankiller’s hand, and Schweitzer could see the shock wave blow her hood back, send the skin on her face rippling, forcing her mouth into a flapping grin. Powdered glass sprayed her face, embedding in her parka, her gloves, her skin.

  Mankiller didn’t flinch. She did nothing more than squint, as if high-brisance explosions were something she experienced every day. She swept a hand up, pointed a slender black tube at Peter. Schweitzer could smell the gasoline, saw the flashing silver of the tank over her shoulder. He didn’t even bother to roll aside. He was as flat to the ground as he could get.

  Mankiller thumbed the trigger and the tube spat fire. Peter rolled aside, but he was moving against the momentum of his last dodge, and the fire washed over him, the jellied gasoline adhering to the fabric of his cheap suit, to the pale surface of his exposed skin. He went up like a torch, howling and beating at himself.

  Satisfied, Mankiller transitioned to the Alaskan, dropping the flamethrower nozzle and raising the rifle to her shoulder. She pulled the trigger and worked the bolt with the rapid precision of a competition target shooter, sending round after round into Peter’s burning silhouette. Bullets were of scarce use against the undead, but each high-powered round drove Schweitzer’s brother back a step, opened the distance between them a little wider.

  Peter screamed, a high, plaintive mewling like a cat with a broken tail. At last, Mankiller finished the rounds in the magazine tube, and the moment’s respite allowed Peter to turn, free from the pounding hail of bullets, and crouch to charge his enemy. Mankiller seemed to have anticipated the move, and she dropped the Alaskan to hang in its sling, picking up the flamethrower again. “Come on, yedáísåine. I can do this all day.”

  Peter swatted tentatively at the flames, but he had to know the jellied emulsifier would never permit them to be extinguished that way. As Schweitzer watched, the decision hung on a knife’s edge. He could see the fabric of his brother’s ragged suit quickly vanishing into greasy smoke, the skin beneath already beginning to blister. Peter’s silver eyes still blazed, clearly visible through the surrounding peaks of orange flame. Mankiller raised the flamethrower’s nozzle and his brother flinched away. He might be able to extinguish the current burning, but if he gambled a second dousing and lost, there wouldn’t be enough of him left to fill a coffee can.

  Schweitzer watched his brother’s eyes, and Mankiller leveled the flamethrower’s nozzle, unwilling to risk a shot at this range, waiting for her target to close. “Come on,” she whispered.

  But Peter didn’t come on. He turned, and he ran, and the last of the Golds followed him, flying across the packed snow of the trail churned to gray slush by the force of their exertions. Schweitzer watched them until they turned the corner of a building and vanished from sight.

  Mankiller moved forward until she was standing astride Schweitzer, the muzzle of the flamethrower hovering over his head. He could smell the emulsifier, see the blue pilot light in the recesses of the metal tip. “Don’t drip any of that shit on me.”

  Mankiller laughed. “That sure don’ sound like a thank-you.”

  Schweitzer bit back anger. How could she laugh now? How could she smile and banter when his own brother had risen from the dead to snap him in half? Sarah’s betrayal with Steve had stung, but it was blunted by the knowledge that she had only done it because she had believed Schweitzer to be dead. But Peter . . . He’s the Director, Schweitzer thought, clamping down on the hollow, sick feeling in his spiritual stomach. He calls the shots. He called your recovery, your creation, your oversight. He might even have been the one who ordered you taken down in the first place. The thought made Schweitzer want to weep. That Peter, his idol, his aspiration, his friend, could have known all that Schweitzer had, all that he was, and killed him anyway. Not just you. Peter was ultimately responsible for Steve, and for Sarah. Rage warred with grief and confusion, and here was Mankiller, laughing and joking.

  No. She didn’t know. It wasn’t her fault. She had saved him. Schweitzer swallowed his anger, forced himself to respond. “Thanks, but the damage is already done. You’re better off leaving me here. I can’t move. I sure as hell can’t fight anymore.” What was the point of going on, anyway? Steve had slept with Sarah, Sarah had looked at him with disgust, and now
his own brother . . . Lock it up. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You have to carry on to save Patrick.

  Mankiller was oblivious to the war raging inside Schweitzer. “Think I killed him?”

  “I don’t know”—Schweitzer forced the grief and rage down, spoke evenly—“but I doubt it. That’s the toughest sonofabitch I’ve ever tangled with, and I’ve tangled with a few. How’s the fight going on your end?”

  “We’ve reached somethin’ of an understandin’. One of your Canadian pals is gutshot. I don’ think he’s gonna make it.”

  She looked down at him, frowned. “Christ, you’re folded in half like a towel. That don’ hurt?”

  “Not really.”

  “You sure do look funny.”

  “At least I got snapped in half. What’s your excuse?”

  Mankiller laughed again, a short sound that quickly faded into a pensive look. “We can’t hold out, Jim. We’ve been real lucky so far, but they’re gonna overrun us if they keep at it much longer.”

  “I know. We need help and we need it soon.”

  She grunted, scanning the horizon where Peter and the Golds had fled. “They’re gonna go get that fire out and then figure out a new angle. Let’s get you back to the blockhouse and we’ll come up with a plan.”

  She began scrounging in the snow, kicking with the steel toes of her boots. She grunted again as she bent over, pulling on something.

  “What are you doing?” Schweitzer asked.

  “Stick.” Mankiller stood, brandishing a frozen length of branch. “They’re all over. Feels like I spend half my life takin’ ’em away from kids in the summertime.”

  “You’re building a pyre? I don’t think there’s time.”

  Mankiller looked at him like he was mad. “A travois. Even broken in half, you’re still too damn heavy for an old woman to carry. I’ll have it put together in a sec.” She began stripping off her parka.