Revolution: Book Three of the Secret World Chronicle - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Fucking chink,” said the man in a growl. The General tensed. There was no sound other than that insult. But something…

  Instinct warned and her senses were on fire, and Shen Xue acted on that instinct, pulling Jade Emperor’s Whisper from the golf bag with one hand, and flinging the bag in the direction of the threat he sensed with the other.

  The bag exploded in the air as a tendril of shadow whipped from a corner, ripping through the bag and scattering the bent clubs. The General was holding the jian in a low ready, her eyes scanning the room. The shadows seemed to be roiling like black clouds, as if they were…restless and alive. What sorcery is this? “You use tricks when your opponent has their back turned. It is the mark of a dishonorable cur, old man.”

  The man cackled, and rose easily from his wheelchair; no longer looking nearly so feeble. “There’s no honor among thieves, you stupid chink. You came here to steal my life. I’ve been a thief longer, girl. I’m going to take yours from you.” The shadows were starting to gather around him, tendrils draped around him like wisps of infernal smoke. “I’m going to make you scream first, bitch.” The man leapt towards the General, covering the space between them far too quickly for someone of his advanced age. The General, ready for such a charge, sliced the air in front of himself effortlessly; the Jade Emperor’s Whisper hummed as it rose to meet the foe. But the old man wasn’t there when the blade was supposed to slice through him from stem to stern. Instead, he was to the General’s left; he narrowly dodged a fist that was aimed at his temple. In the slow half second it took to pivot, the General noticed that both of the old man’s hands were holding brass knuckles, studded with spikes and covered with ancient runes and hieroglyphs.

  The General backed away with his sword pointed at the man’s throat, being mindful not to tread too closely to the shadows at his back. They were all around, lurching forward whenever he came close. “Noticed something, bitch? Not what you were expecting, huh?” He cackled again. “You’re better’n I thought. I didn’t expect you to block one of my friends there; he was going to take your pretty head off with that swipe. Might be you can give me a fight. I need one; it’s been years since I killed anyone properly.”

  The General moved warily. It would be no bad thing to keep him talking. “So this is the source of your secret? You command shadows?”

  The old man barked a harsh laugh. “Shadows? What are shadows, you silly bitch? Nothing. These aren’t shadows. They’re what you’re going to become; one of the dead. These?” He raised his hands, looking around the room. “All of the dead I’ve killed, all of the dead I’ve found. They serve me, now; not in body anymore, heh, I took care of that. I took their fucking souls. Pretty soon I’ll have yours, too.” He moved in again, swinging the brass knuckles in crude arcs; normally, the General wouldn’t be fazed by such a lack of finesse. Somehow he was moving faster than any man should be able to, and his blows were strong; the General had to focus on keeping his jian between them and dodging blows to keep from being mutilated or worse. The General could sense the power in the man now that he was clothed in his shadows; the brass knuckles, the shadows, and even the chain he wore around his neck reeked of magic.

  “Not fast enough. Don’t think you can tire me out, either. My friends will see that I’m standing long after your petite ass has gone cold.” The Shadows…they are empowering him. He could see it now that he was looking; human forms, always shifting. The lines of shadow that were covering the old man looked like hands and arms, the fingers dug into his skin. He was on the General again as soon as he finished the thought. He’s trying to drive me into a corner, into his captured souls. There was a long tradition of captive, murderous ghosts in Chinese literature, and of the witches, male and female, who commanded them. He probably had caught westerners unaware, but this was not a handicap the General suffered under.

  “Do you want a good death, old man? I will not give you one. You are below me.” The General tried to press the attack this time; the old man simply dodged each of her swings by a hair’s breadth, laughing the entire time. It was effortless for him to avoid her attacks. When he was up against the wall, he kicked off of it and launched a flurry of his own; he seemed to be trying to strike her from every direction all at once. The more he moved, the more the General became certain that he was, in fact, the very sort of witch that the legends described. No other creature, human or otherwise, could move like a spider, a monkey, and a snake combined. Underneath the spells and magic, the man was just a common thug; it showed in his fighting and in his speech. But, with such terrible power to back up feckless brutality…

  The General was forced to retreat again, cutting and slashing to keep the old man at bay, but never striking flesh. This dance could not be kept up forever; even with the General’s prowess and the Jade Emperor’s Whisper, a misstep would be made and the beast would be upon him. The shadow souls were starting to come free from the walls; one actually grazed the back of the General’s coveralls with unearthly cold claws, ripping the fabric and barely missing flesh. The General countered with a backhanded cut, expecting nothing—but the jian met with resistance and a horrible wail as the shadow’s hand fell away and melted into the ground. What was most interesting was the scream that the old man gave; he stumbled, his eyes growing wide as he looked past the General. Oh. Aha. Now I have you, old man. The sword itself, Jade Emperor’s Whisper, was the secret to killing the shadows. It was divine, and could slay them, magic to magic. Nothing less would touch them.

  “How in the hell?” The old man sputtered, shock evident in his tone. The General quickly turned his back to the old man. The Jade Emperor’s Whisper knew the taste of these abominations, and wanted more. The sword blurred against the background as the General did an entirely different dance; pieces of shadow lay scattered on the floor as he cut through them. More sprang into place, trying to overwhelm the General, but this was trivial. The General knew it could hurt them, and there was nothing more perfect than the General with his sword in hand.

  “What are you doing! You—stop, goddamnit!” He came at the General again, another lazy blow with those brass knuckles. But it was slower this time. The General scored the old man’s arm at last, sending a thin stream of blood to splatter on the ground; it didn’t melt away like the shadows.

  “No. No. No no no!” He backed away from her like a wounded animal, cradling his arm. “You can’t do this!” The shadows all surged forth again, and the General went through them, rending them asunder with the Jade Emperor’s Whisper as easy as if they were still grain and he was a sturdy peasant with a freshly sharpened sickle in hand. With each one that the General cut down, the old man seemed to shrink in on himself. He couldn’t hold himself up as high, couldn’t stand straight, and finally couldn’t stand at all. As the General cut the last shadow soul in half, the old man crumpled to the floor. The room had brightened considerably; with the evil the old man had wreathed himself in gone, the light of the fading sun made itself known once again. With an effort, the man raised himself up off of the floor. The General casually walked towards him, spearing him through the chest with the tip of Jade Emperor’s Whisper. His face contorted in surprised agony, and he slid off of the sword point before hitting the ground with a soft thud.

  “They’re—they’re all gone now. My slaves, my—my power. Gone, gone again, just like everything. Everything…gets worse, everything becomes broken. Everything—it goes to hell.”

  “I believe Jade Emperor’s Whisper shall send you to a very special hell,” Shen Xue said thoughtfully. “The Chinese have a great many hells. Which one shall it be, I wonder? Dismemberment? Crushing? Boiling? There are many kinds involving fire or cold…oh, and blood. And the removal of body parts.”

  The old man’s life was bleeding out through his chest. He had minutes, at best. “I’m going to be remembered, bitch. E-everything I’ve done, all the people I killed—they’ll know me where I’m going.” He coughed, producing more dark blood. He looked much as he had w
hen the General first saw him; frail, small, broken. “They called me Shadow-Storm. B-but—my name…my name is—”

  With a flick of Jade Emperor’s Whisper the General opened his throat, drowning his words in his life-blood. “No one knows your name, old fool. No one will. And no one cares, except maybe the demons you will meet.” The old man’s eyes bulged, and a single wisp of shadow extended from his fingers before he collapsed, still wide eyed and in agony but finally dead.

  The General left the old Victorian house in the same way he had entered; boldly and through the front door.

  * * *

  Verdigris was surprised when People’s Blade actually notified his receptionist that she—he, the General referred to himself as a male—was coming. Granted, she brushed aside any attempts to keep her out, and strolled straight in as if she’d had an appointment, but at least she stopped at the desk first.

  She swaggered to stand in front of Verd’s desk, and looked down her nose at him. “I have, as you barbarians say, ‘good news and bad news.’ Which would you prefer first?”

  “In my experience there’s not always that much of a difference between the two, depending on one’s perspective. The good news.” He gestured for the General to take a seat in one of the hand-crafted leather chairs.

  People’s Blade remained standing. “The good news: Shadow-Storm is no longer a threat to anyone. He was disinclined even to consider negotiation, so in the interest of removing a potential hazard, I eliminated him.” She considered the nails on one hand. “That is the bad news; I was forced to eliminate him, even though I approached him peaceably and attempted to recruit.” She was intentionally leaving something unsaid, there; Verdigris knew better than to fall into such an obvious trap, though, deciding to use a different tact.

  “How did you dispose of him? Anything that I have to worry about making the papers?” He kept his face and voice calm, as if this was merely a cleanup detail. Never show your cards if you can help it.

  “Please. How do you think?” There was a distinct edge to her voice.

  “You’re a person of many…talents. You cutting wit may have done him in, my dear.” He allowed himself a smirk.

  She glared at him. “You neglected to tell me much about this target. Your primary neglect was to tell me that his power derived from magic.”

  “Magic? Impossible, General. Surely it was something else; sufficient technology appears magical at first glance. I should know, I’ve made some things that would qualify as magic to the uninitiat—”

  The General cut him off with an abrupt gesture. “You are a barbarian. You do not know the power of magic. This is why none of those technologists were able to defeat him, and I was. You would be wise to listen to one who is an expert…fool. If you wish my alliance, there will be no more nonsense about how impossible magic is.”

  “I—”

  “And nothing will be kept from me, from now on. No more games. No more tests. If more nonsense follows this episode, our arrangement will be ended. With Finality.” The General’s glare gave ample warning of just what she meant.

  Verdigris cooled immediately, his face hardening into a rock. “Understood. General. I have something very important for you. This will be a long-term project and a vital target, and one I suspect only you have the ability to accomplish. I’ll send for you when I have a proper file updated.”

  People’s Blade raised an eyebrow. “Really. What, do you have a god in your sights as a possible recruit? Nothing less is worthy of my time.”

  “Not a recruit. That’s been tried. You know the value of weapons; I mean to steal one. Whether or not she wants to be stolen.”

  * * *

  Khanjar was listening, from the spy-post, and her frown deepened. This…was stupid. There was no other word for it. Bad enough that Verdigris was dealing with the General—Khanjar had done some information-seeking on her own and knew what the creature called People’s Blade was, or at least, what she had said she was to the communists. That sword she carried…Jade Emperor’s Whisper…it was supposed to be divine, forged by the order of the Jade Emperor, the chief of all the Chinese deities. That was bad enough, but to make things worse, it contained the soul of the Shen Xue, an ancient Chinese general, one of the most ruthless ever to walk the earth, a man who would spend the lives of hundreds of thousands—enemies, noncombatants, or his own men—to accomplish his goals. Not that Khanjar objected to this level of bloodshed in principle, but in practice, in this day and age…it was injudicious and tended to get the attention of other people with armies.

  Allegedly, the General had only served as the advisor to the blade’s “owner,” Fei Li; a peasant thief girl. But given the way that People’s Blade had been acting…Khanjar was relatively certain now that Fei Li was no longer in possession of her own body. The General was in charge now, and given his ruthless nature, he was unlikely to hand the body back until he had accomplished whatever his current goal was. Perhaps not even then.

  Verdigris had no idea what he was metaphorically climbing into bed with. This was…insane.

  And if this was leading where she thought it was leading…to the capture of the Deva, the Seraphym, and presumably the coercion of said being…it was more than insane.

  You did not capture and coerce a Deva. Not if you wanted your karma to remain neutral. Such an action would send your karma somewhere below that of “you will be reincarnated as a starving alley dog for the next twenty lifetimes.” Even being associated with such a thing would send her karma plummeting to somewhere below “reincarnation as a nanny-goat.”

  Not acceptable.

  Khanjar, she told herself, as she continued to keep her post at the spy hole, per Verdigris’ orders, It is time to look for an exit strategy.

  Run Through the Jungle

  Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin

  Seraphym felt a kind of comfort in perching on the roof of John Murdock’s squat. It was a comfort she sorely needed. The futures had changed, and yet, none of them had lightened any. Except for the ones centered by that enormous blank into which she could not see. Only there was there any hope, at the moment, and she still could neither see a reason nor deduce her way to that hope.

  She was so deeply immersed in her meditations that although the least hint of an inimical presence would have sent her hurtling back to awareness in a nanopulse, a friendly presence did not so much as make a feather-touch of an impression on her mental state.

  “Evenin’, Angel. How’s kicks?” John was wearing a pair of CCCP coveralls with the upper half tied around his waist, a muscle shirt covering his upper torso. He was carrying a very large brown paper bag in his right hand, and a pair of sitting cushions in his other.

  Seraphym was catapulted out of her meditations so quickly that for one moment she could only blink at him. “Greetings, John Murdock. I was…”

  “Becoming One with the All, or somethin’?” He flashed his characteristic lop-sided grin. She found her own lips curving up in response without a single thought.

  “Of a sort.” She wondered how much or little she could tell him.

  “Put the All on hold, for a bit. Got a special treat for tonight.” He set the brown bag down, then threw a pillow each at their feet. Unceremoniously thumping down onto his, he started to pull Styrofoam cartons out of the bag. “Take a guess.”

  She felt herself smiling a little more. How…odd. “A true guess, or cheating?”

  “Can ya pick one already? I’m starvin’.”

  She knew what they were of course. Carryout food. She could even trace back along the path they had been carried in a flash and see where they had come from. But, taken with his whimsy, she laid a forefinger on one that seemed to have a little red sauce at one corner of the lid. It was a lovely, deep color, and it pleased her. But she was puzzled as to why there were so many cartons of food. “This?” she said.

  “Chinese. Good choice. We’ve got Chinese, Mexican, good ol’ American burgers an’ fries, pizza, an’ somethin’ from th
at Thea gal—you guessed it—borscht.” He opened each box, then plopped two plastic sporks in front of each of them.

  She looked at all the containers, and looked at him in mingled fascination and horror. “You are going to eat all of this? Will you not explode?”

  “Could give it a shot, but I got just enough to tide me o’er till next meal. Meant to share this tonight, though.” He dug his spork into a pile of greasy noodles and chicken, shoving it into his mouth. “Figured that ’tween do-gooding and bein’ the Hand of some Fluffy God, that your sort didn’t have much time to sample the finer things in life,” he said, speaking around his food.

  “I…have never eaten,” she said. She could, of course. She could have her body do anything she chose for it to do. She picked up the container and opened it. Her vast memory identified it for her. Sweet and Sour Shrimp. Tentatively she used the implement to convey a little to her mouth.

  It is one thing to have the memory of millions of other peoples’ eating experiences available to you. It is quite another to taste something for yourself, with your own mouth, for the very first time in corporal or incorporeal existence.

  “Whaddya tink?” he mumbled around a mouthful of pizza.

  Her eyes had widened as dozens of nuances and tastes hit her mind at once, and she had stopped everything, dead, to analyze them.

  “Don’t miss the churros fer dessert. They reminded me of ya; cinnamony an’ too light for their own good.”

  “I…am full of wonder,” she managed at last. She told her body to take its cues from his; a new sensation came to it. Hunger. With pure, unfettered delight, she began to eat, tasting, tasting, reveling in the taste. She ate carefully and daintily—but hugely.