The Spell of Rosette

by Kim Falconer

  The guard opened the gate and waved him through.

  Jarrod revved the engine, released the emergency brake and drove into the ASSIST stronghold.

  ‘Sit down, you two! The pacing’s driving me bats,’ Kreshkali growled.

  Rosette ignored her and continued striding up and down the length of the studio, her fists alternately knotting and flexing. Drayco was at her side, his tail lashing with each rise and dip of his shoulderblades.

  An’ Lawrence shifted in his chair. ‘Rosette,’ he called. ‘Come train?’

  She looked at him like he’d just asked her to take out the garbage. ‘What time is it?’ she snapped.

  ‘Nearly midnight.’

  She exhaled. ‘Right. Training sounds good.’ She turned to Kreshkali. ‘Come get me if you hear anything?’

  ‘You’ll likely hear before me.’ She nodded towards Drayco.

  The two grabbed their swords and left the room, both temple cats following.

  Annadusa let out a long, slow whistle. ‘That girl’s like a caged animal.’

  ‘That girl’s got a lot on her mind,’ Kreshkali answered. Her smile fell. ‘I doubt she’ll settle until he returns.’

  ‘It’s been hours. How long can it take to…’

  Kreshkali held up her hand. ‘It takes as long as it does,’ she replied. ‘Don’t get me dwelling on it too!’

  Annadusa cleared her throat. ‘Can you show me that Draconic horary chart? I’d like to see exactly how you found me.’

  Kreshkali brightened. ‘It’s from a very old Lilly text. What I had to do to get it…’

  Annadusa offered a quizzical look.

  ‘Never mind. Look at this.’ She flipped open the text. It smelled of must and leaf, like mouldy hay. She brushed away the blue powder and smiled.

  ‘The key to horary astrology, no matter what zodiac you’re using, is clearly identifying the rulerships associated with the question.’

  The women studied the chart in detail, going over the angular aspects, checking the ephemeris for the approaching contacts of the Moon and the Arabic Part of Fortune’s relationship to the Sun. The candles hadn’t burned much lower before they heard a tap on the door.

  ‘Enter.’

  Clay stuck his head in, his tangles of red hair obscuring his face. ‘They’re coming!’ he said. ‘He’s back.’

  ‘Followed?’

  ‘Zero is checking, but I don’t think so.’

  The women were on their feet as the door swung wide. An’ Lawrence came through first, followed by Drayco and Scylla who leapt around Jarrod.

  Kreshkali pulled out a chair, hugging him tight before sitting him down. ‘We were having some concerns,’ she whispered into his ear.

  ‘I know.’ He kissed her cheeks. ‘Me too.’

  ‘Hungry?’ Rosette asked, her face animated for the first time since her arrival. She brought plates and cups to the table.

  ‘Starving!’

  ‘I made enough pasta to feed an army,’ she said.

  Jarrod looked at them all in turn. ‘That’s exactly what we’re going to need—an army.’

  ‘What do you mean, he’s tattooing DNA?’ An’ Lawrence asked.

  ‘I mean just that.’ Jarrod picked up the last piece of bread and wiped his plate with it. He popped the crust into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully before washing it down with mulled wine brought over from Morzone.

  ‘Explain it again?’

  He wiped his mouth. ‘You know that the work on skin, tattooing body art of any kind, has been banned by the Allied States. They cut them off if they find them.’

  Rosette rubbed her left arm where the temple cat stood guard. ‘They’d have to come through my sword first…’

  Jarrod leaned over and kissed her neck. ‘Most people on Earth don’t have your sword skills, love.’

  ‘Why stop tattooing? What possible good does it serve?’ Clay asked.

  ‘The tattoo ban is another means of control, another way of disconnecting people from their clans, their totems, their living myths and their sense of purpose,’ Kreshkali said.

  ‘Grayson’s gone round it, though. Right under their totalitarian noses.’

  ‘How?’

  Everyone leaned towards Jarrod, waiting for his response.

  ‘He gets a shipment of blood once a month, for research purposes. Some of the samples are taken from those in the Resistance.’

  ‘There’s a Resistance?’ Kreshkali asked, her eyes widening.

  ‘Other than our coven here? Yes! It’s small and comprised mostly of good intentions. They lack training, but they don’t lack spirit.’

  ‘And they smuggle their blood into ASSIST?’ she asked, urging him to continue.

  ‘They do. Grayson uses an electron microscope—the only one still functioning in the Allied States—and inserts codes for dermal images in the DNA. The serum is packed into injection units and smuggled back out.’

  ‘But it’s too late, then,’ Kreshkali said, her brows knitted. ‘It wouldn’t appear on their skin even if the altered DNA is picked up.’

  ‘You’re right. It doesn’t appear on them, but it is passed onto their children, and their children’s children. He’s been doing it for decades now. New totems are already starting to run in family lines, and because they’re present from birth and on the certificates, no-one’s being charged. And they aren’t being removed. Families are able to identify each other, even if the Allied States separate them. People are getting back a sense of meaning and connection to their inner powers.’

  Kreshkali whistled. ‘Interesting concept. The parents choose the tattoo?’

  ‘The DNA chooses,’ Jarrod said, ‘from an infinite variety of possibilities. Grayson cuts the image codes with enzymes and then it recombines at conception, creating something unique, and of course permanent. It arises from the subcutaneous layer of skin, well below the traditionally tattooed dermal layer.’

  An’ Lawrence shook his head. ‘It isn’t the DNA that decides; it’s the totem, the image itself. It colludes with something deep within the individual and then asserts itself—its intention. It’s always been that way. Always will be.’

  They looked up at him, Kreshkali nodding.

  ‘He’s really all right, then,’ Annadusa said. Her usual brassy voice was small, her eyes glistening.

  ‘He is, and he recognised me right away, even in the Tulpa of the delivery man,’ Jarrod said.

  ‘Can he help us get to the mainframe?’ Kreshkali asked.

  ‘He’s onto it. The challenge will be with the timing. There is only a few minutes between intervals of lockdown around the mainframe once alarms are triggered, and we can’t blow the place until we switch off the satellite controlling the solar shields.’

  ‘And we can’t have you loitering in the circuitry once the worm gets a whiff of you.’ Kreshkali put her hand on Jarrod’s shoulder.

  ‘It’ll be close, like a game of bull-in-the-paddock—get its attention and run like a demon.’

  ‘You were always good at that, when we were kids.’ Rosette wrinkled her brow. ‘When I was a kid, I mean. You were never a kid, were you?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Rosette got up and cleared the bowls away while they rolled out the maps.

  ‘I want to bring those shields down nice and easy,’ Kreshkali said. She held onto her cup when Rosette tried to clear it.

  ‘You can land them?’ An’ Lawrence asked.

  ‘Hope so. On the San Fran strip to the north. There are enough solar panels on one of those craft to light up our complex for the next hundred years. It would be a shame to drop them in the ocean.’

  ‘We also need to give everyone the choice, at least, of getting out,’ Jarrod added.

  An’ Lawrence scratched his jaw. ‘The guards too?’

  ‘Some of them may be with the Resistance. Grayson thinks there are a dozen at least.’

  ‘Out of?’

  ‘Five hundred.’

  An’ Lawrence looked at Kre
shkali, mouthing the words ‘five hundred’.

  ‘No-one knows Grayson’s identity?’ Annadusa asked.

  ‘No-one. The blood samples that are assessed go to ten different departments. Even the outside contact has no idea who does the work.’

  ‘And ASSIST doesn’t suspect?’

  ‘They do! They suspect everyone. That’s why there’s been no outside communication for over a decade.’

  ‘This is going to be tricky,’ Kreshkali murmured as she rubbed her neck. ‘I see what you mean about needing an army.’

  ‘I’m going to do a little reconnaissance of my own,’ An’ Lawrence said, getting up from the table.

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘I’m going to see if I can bring this scattered, untrained Resistance under one roof.’

  ‘I knew I’d brought you here for a reason,’ Kreshkali said.

  Jarrod leaned over towards her. ‘Care to call in your puppies now?’

  Drayco hissed, and Scylla sharpened her claws on the rug.

  I will not hunt with the demon dogs. Drayco joined Scylla with the claw sharpening.

  ‘What puppies?’ Rosette asked.

  My claws would do well on a Lupin.

  Her face darkened. ‘Them?’

  She turned to Kreshkali, scowling.

  ‘This is their world too, Rosette. They have a right to fight for it.’

  She pressed her lips together but didn’t respond. Dray? They’re on our side…apparently.

  It didn’t feel like it on Los Loma.

  I know, but we need their help.

  Just see that they do the helping far from me and you.

  Jarrod held Rosette in a silent embrace, rain hammering down on the street above, forming rivulets along the slick tunnel walls. He felt her face press into his neck and shut his eyes.

  ‘Ready?’ An’ Lawrence asked, coming up behind them.

  He loosened his hold as Rosette straightened. ‘I’m ready, Sword Master,’ she replied, her hand on the hilt of her sword.

  ‘We’re off, then.’

  Jarrod watched as they ran down the dim sewer with Clay, Zero and the temple cats. Their boots clanked on the steel grating, echoing back long after they’d disappeared around the first turn. When the rush of water and the gurgle of drains drowned out all other sound, he returned to the fibre-optic scope.

  The crowd above him was taking heavy abuse. Fifty or so rebels were protesting the perpetual lockdown of ASSIST, masquerading as family members of long-absent scientists, guards and technical staff. They were joined by hundreds of actual relatives, many from other Resistance groups. In the shadows, where only he could detect them, the Lupins waited. Opposing them were ASSIST militia dressed in black Kevlar armour. Their helmeted faces were anonymous, their body-length plastic shields and electrically charged batons imposing as they stood at the entrance, battering and bashing anyone coming too close to the gates. Jarrod grimaced when he saw children in the crowd. Amongst them all were witch-hunters, coursing like sight hounds. His throat tightened.

  Footsteps behind spun him around. Kreshkali approached with a large backpack, her smile grim.

  ‘You’re carrying a heavy load, milady,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve enough plastic explosives to level all four faces of the Matterhorn. You ready?’

  He nodded once.

  ‘Let’s do it.’

  Jarrod sent a message to Drayco. Set for the big bang?

  There was a pause and then an affirmation: We’re at the wall.

  Jarrod signalled Kreshkali, who took off down the sewer at a jog.

  Above them, on the rain-pocked tarmac outside the complex, the riot Jarrod dreamed of two hundred years ago began. The guards didn’t see it coming. One moment the crowd was under control, rallying with their pickets like something from a mid-twentieth-century sit-in and the next moment those picket signs were discarded and fifty wickedly curved swords appeared, their razor-sharp blades glinting as lightning flashed across the blue-black sky.

  Those without swords retreated to the edges, giving the warriors room to manoeuvre. From the shadows the Lupins crept, some in wolf form, some bipedal. The unarmed crowd shrank back before following in their wake. If the guards were shocked they recovered quickly, thrusting at the protesters with their batons, but after dealing with generations of passive non-resistance they were ill prepared for the blades that faced them, no matter how raw the wielders. Neither were they a match for the frenzied, unreserved aggression of the other protesters who, for generations, had lived on the fringes of survival and were now fighting back with pipes and makeshift shields. No-one was prepared for the mind work, sword and fang of the Lupins. They were unstoppable, until the rifles came.

  The ASSIST troops called for backup, and within minutes guards firing laser repeater-rifles appeared, cutting through the crowd like a mower through tall grass. No matter how skilled the Lupins were with their swords, they couldn’t match such weapons. Jarrod arrived in the Tulpa-body of a guard in time to see the protesters disperse in all directions, some carrying their dead and wounded with them.

  Unnoticed, he slipped into the line of guards that were backing into the compound, still firing their lasers. He saw what the others could not—the Lupins melted into the shadows and followed them in. Well done. They were all through the inner gate before the first lockdown, and the first explosion. The shock wave from Kreshkali’s plastics shook the ground. A few of the guards fell and struggled to get up. Most of his rank took off towards the sound while he headed into the main ASSIST complex with four other divisions. He couldn’t see the Lupins now, but he could sense them. A succession of explosions continued to shake the complex.

  Drayco, how close?

  Seconds. We come.

  Jarrod was relieved Kreshkali had been able to blow the wall in three other places by the time he reached the front doors. He hoped desperately that they had made it in through the fourth rent undetected. The success of this venture depended on it.

  Jarrod’s in! Drayco sent the message to Rosette, his voice a shout above the peals of thunder and the rumbling aftermath of Kreshkali’s detonations.

  Tell him we are too. Rosette ran alongside her familiar. An’ Lawrence and Scylla were two strides ahead. Clay and Zero were behind, a sword length away. They slipped into the shadows near the main entrance just in time to spot a group of guards march by.

  Is Jarrod with them? she asked Drayco.

  He sneezed after a deep inhalation. No. But the dogs follow. He lashed his tail as he sent the message.

  She squinted at the rank of guards and thought she could see wolf shapes in the shadows. She shivered, trusting Kreshkali knew what she was doing by bringing the creatures back. An’ Lawrence touched her shoulder, signalling her to follow him to the right. He sent Clay and Zero to the left. Rosette gave Clay’s hand a squeeze as he strode past. He locked onto her for a moment before letting go.

  ‘Be safe,’ she whispered.

  ‘You too!’ He nodded, and was gone.

  Jarrod says he’s at the second level now with Grayson. We have to keep moving. Drayco’s voice snapped her back to attention and she followed An’ Lawrence into the building.

  Four guards sprang to their feet as they entered the side foyer, two overcoming their initial surprise at the bizarre intrusion and aiming their laser rifles. Too late.

  The felines were on them instantly, knocking them to the ground. With swords drawn, An’ Lawrence and Rosette slid across the tiled floor, taking out the remaining pair that was aiming to shoot. One of them dropped his laser and shook his head, his hands coming up.

  ‘Get him down and tie his hands,’ An’ Lawrence said calmly as he decapitated the guard to his left who had taken the pause as an opportunity. The laser went off, shooting wide, searing through the ceiling lights and down the wall just as the guard’s head rolled past his feet.

  The Sword Master flicked the blood from his blade with a snap of his wrist and sheathed it. ‘Up the stairs,
quick,’ he directed Rosette before turning to the remaining guard.

  ‘If I were you, I’d walk quietly to the perimeter. Do you get me?’

  The guard nodded and left.

  Rosette took the stairs two at a time. Halfway up, a flash of movement in her peripheral vision spun her around, her sword moving silently from its sheath. A guard was about to fire, his stealth getting him an arm’s length from her back—within her kill circle. She dropped to her knee, drawing her sword fully as she did so, cutting in one move. Her blade sliced his body open from his right kidney to his left lower rib. She stood as he tumbled backwards, flicked her blade clean, sheathed it and followed the others up the steps.

  It was hand to hand on the next level. Guards were amassing on both sides of the hall, making lasers useless.

  What idiot trained these people?

  Just be grateful, Maudi. Otherwise, the liquid swords would have us. Watch out!

  Lupins were amongst them, going for throats. Rosette slid across the floor, knocking the guard in front of her back with the hilt of her sheathed sword. He slammed into the wall and slumped down, waving his hands above his face. She strapped them together and straightened, pulling him to his feet.

  ‘Get out while you can,’ she shouted.

  Maudi! Drayco screamed in her head. Behind!

  She turned to find a laser rifle pointed at her face. The guard was about to pull the trigger when a black mass flew at him from the side; Drayco’s jaws closed around his throat and dropped him with the weight of his assault, snapping his neck before he hit the ground.

  ‘Rosette!’ An’ Lawrence shouted above the alarms and the clashing of steel. ‘This way.’

  They tore down the hall, the blood-soaked nails of the cats’ claws clicking and sliding along the polished floor. Turning a corner, they found Kreshkali with a white-coated scientist at the end of her knife point.

  ‘It won’t work,’ he was saying to her, his voice shaking along with his limbs. ‘The sensors will pick up the elevated adrenaline in my blood and they won’t respond.’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to lower your adrenaline level, won’t we?’ She held off his jugular vein with the blunt edge of her knife and injected a clear fluid.