by Kenny Soward
“That’s crazy,” Crash said.
“Well, that’s just what we did back then. Mostly funnin’. But, on occasion, we had need to keep strangers off our shores.”
Crash didn’t reply, so Torri continued. “So, we were mullin’ what to do about the ship when we heard a sudden call from it. Not in our ears, mind you. Just up here.” She tapped at her temple. “It was a man, and he came with a warning. He warned us of a darkness coming to our shores. A vast army on ships the likes of which we’d never seen. That this darkness was drawn to the magic of our Isle and wanted to conquer it.”
“We put questions to him, wrote them in the sky. Asked them in our heads. He claimed to be a witch himself, but not of this world. Called himself Gruff, and he said he just got chased out of his land by that same darkness now threating us.”
“Shit. Gruff.” Just the mention of the old man sent Lonnie thinking of their time in the Under River and Gruff’s sacrifice to get them out alive.
“Yes. We sensed he was a good man, even if we didn’t believe him all the way. We let his ship dock and met him in the Wildling Woods, which seemed to suit him just fine despite his fine dress.”
Lonnie couldn’t imagine Gruff dressing fine, but he had to remind himself that this had happened a long time ago.
“Of course, since then time got to him good, changed him into something a little more strange and wonderful, as time will do to all of us. But back then he was unique. And strong. It was hard for us to imagine anything causin’ him such problems.
“He becalmed us, which if you’d known us witches back then, was hard to do. He showed us what was coming. He showed us Ishtur and her armies comin’ across the Channel. We saw the weapons she’d used to defeat so many armies before us. Things that wouldn’t be around for another five hundred years. Spears that didn’t snap when you poked someone. Shields that could not only withstand brutal blows, but magic, too.”
Bess fiddled with her tablet, typing in information even as she listened. “Yes, there is evidence of that. Not much, just records of strange materials found at old ruins throughout Europe. Some old Paris Cache scrolls confirming some military activity using unusual weapons and armor for that specific time. At first, we thought the scrolls were wrong because the technology shouldn’t have existed, but Azarah was the variable that made it all true.”
Bess glanced up with a big smile only to find everyone looking at her strangely. She shrugged. “What? I’ve been piping the info back to the ECC on a special channel. They’re running some analysis and feeding me back the information.”
“Thought we couldn’t get a signal out here.”
“Yeah, well, we found a satellite channel that works. Just barely. The data is transferring slowly, but I’m getting enough to make better sense of the true history.”
“So what did you do?” Crash lay in the grass with his head resting on Ingrid’s stomach.
Torri took a cup of water from the pond and drank, then she continued. “We went off, far and wide, to warn the old kings back then, who were Picts. Tried to get them to draw arms against this darkness.”
“And did they?”
Torri gave Crash a humorless chuckle. “The isles are still the isles, aren’t they? The world is still the world, right?”
“So you gave her an ass whipping then?”
“I’d hardly call it that. Lost a lot of friends. Yellow Claws, dead. Blue too. Just me and the Dag remained. Changed us forever.”
Bess put her tablet to her chest, eyes searching across the lot of them. “I want to get to that story, Torri. I mean, the details.”
The hill witch was already shaking her head. “It ain’t something I want to tell right now.”
“Not today. But before we leave here maybe?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Bess continued. “Right now, we have to put together an attack plan.”
“Just send in your army, Bess. Can’t you do that? Go straight at her.”
“We’ve tried to get an angle to do just that, but she’s been smarter about it this time. Been keeping us busy. Very busy. That’s what the global attack on the ECC was all about.”
“And while you’re on your heels, her power grows.”
“Exactly,” Bess said. “She has voracious followers, and her network is vast. We are going to try some things, for sure, but we’ll need everyone’s help. Both Torri’s and the gang’s. We have a plan.”
For his part, Lonnie was starting to feel a little anxious. Not just about going after Azarah, but the fact that his crew was about as run down as they would ever be. Wounded, tired of running, and it sounded like the ECC would be asking for their help, again. He’d listen to the plan, but that didn’t mean he’d like it. It didn’t mean he’d put the Eighth Street Gang at risk again.
“So,” Lonnie said, “is there any good news?”
Bess leaned forward excitedly. “Yeah. Like I said, we’ve been busy. Putting in overtime and all that. Well, let me take a step back. For a few years now, we’ve been working with the Scions to pull together our resources and come up with some smarter technologies to make our jobs easier.”
“Who are the Scions?”
Ingrid made a sputtering noise. “Another group of religious zealots. I could tell you some stories.”
Lonnie glanced at Ingrid then turned his attention back to Bess. “They helped you make weapons?”
“No, they helped us make better ways to locate energy sources rippling from the Fade. Ways to hone in on ripper activity, detect places of high magic here on Earth, and even pick up the signals of permanent tears in the fabric.”
“Gates.”
“Right. Because that’s the only way Azarah could have any power here on Earth. There’s no indication she’s a drug user so she’s not channeling power that way.”
“Probably a purer connection,” Lonnie agreed. “A tether, like my sister’s.”
Torri slapped her knee. “And that’s probably what we missed back then. Guess we got rid of her but didn’t kill her power source.”
“Right.” Bess smiled now. “We think we’ve honed in on her specific power source. Her gate.”
“Where?”
“We located a signal deep in the Indian Ocean, emanating strong ethereal energies. We sent a team in. Lost four operatives, including a high priest, trying to secure the damn thing.”
“Sorry to hear that, Bess,” Lonnie said. “What kind of monsters were protecting it?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Torri sat up, eyes wide and expectant. “So, you can do what we couldn’t do so many years ago? You can finish her off?”
“Yes and no. We’ve got the gate, but we can’t destroy it.
“Blow the damn thing up? Y’all got bombs, don’t you?”
“Blowing it up isn’t so easy under an ocean. Plus, if we fail she’ll know we’ve found it. She might know already. We’ve tried to cut the the thing to pieces with torches but with no success. That’s not happening. And as far as I know there aren’t any fade rippers here on Earth powerful enough to destroy the gate, save for Azarah herself.”
Lonnie shook his head. “Selix might have been able to, but… Torri?”
Torri breathed a sigh. “Nope. Maybe there’s some, but I don’t know ‘em. So, we know where her gate is, but we can’t do shit about it? Makes me feel a little better anyway. Might be we never could have defeated her.”
Lonnie paced at the edge of the pond. “What do you propose we do?”
“Well,” Bess said, facing Lonnie with her arms folded across her chest. “Since we can’t destroy the Indian Ocean gate, we’d need to attack Azarah directly.”
“Right, like we did with my sister in the Under River.”
“Yep.”
Crash sat up. “That sounds like the plan then. Go straight at her.”
Bess grinned. “Again, yes and no.”
Crash chuckled. “Lady, you’ve got a lot of yeses and noes.”
> Bess threw a small stone at the big man but continued to address the gang. “Check this out, and keep an open mind, please. Based on some of the sigils etched into Indian Ocean gate, we think we could pinpoint some coordinates in Hell, the source of her power on that side.”
Lonnie stared at the commando. “You mean, find the gate on the other side and its tether? You want to destroy it on that side?”
“Yes.”
“But even if you could find it, I’m sure it would be harder to destroy over there.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe she’s not worried about it over there. Maybe it isn’t guarded.”
“I can see that,” Torri said, nodding. “Every gate has some information inscribed on it. Information about where it channels to, or from. Not always easy to figure out, but I guess y’all got your fancy computers to do it for you.”
“Yes we do.”
A deep chuckle rumbled from Crash’s chest. “You’re little guns won’t do much good over there.”
“Well don’t know that either. Plus, we’ll have you as backups.”
Crash shook his dreads. “Where you plan on popping in?”
“We’ve got the coordinates ready. We can put an assault team within a couple miles of Azarah’s gate. We would send a team through to set up a temporary return gate, then run a scan to map the entire area, which would take about a day. Torri would help us keep in touch with one another. In the meantime, we can be readying ourselves for the primary assault.”
“Primary assault, huh?”
“Yes.”
Lonnie thought of all the horrible things that could go wrong, and his stomach sank. “Sounds like a suicide mission.”
“It will be tough, but we might find a weakness. Plus, you guys will have heightened powers in Hell, right?”
Lonnie shrugged. “No clue. Haven’t been home in a few hundred years. Believe me, I’ve been asking myself that same question. Beside, we only agreed to hear your plan. We’re not participating, yet.”
“Can’t we just go through the gate you found?” Crash said. “The one you found in the Indian Ocean.”
Bess pressed her lips together and jutted her chin in thought. “We’d have to somehow pressurize a chamber around the gate so Torri could tune the gate to its travelers. It would take some time, and you never know what you’d be walking into on the other side.”
Torri shook her head violently. “I couldn’t go to the ocean. I couldn’t leave the woods. This is where my roots are.”
“You’d have to if we wanted to pull that off.”
Torri’s green eyes pierced Bess. “I ain’t leavin’ the woods. If you want me to help, I gotta do it from here.”
“Right, so we use the gate right under our feet.”
Lonnie doubted it with a shake of his head. “But how do we get to the gate here? You said it was buried under the hill. Start digging?”
“There’s two gates,” Torri said, holding up her fingers. “One in the hill, like I said. The other, right below your feet, which is an entry point, as you are probably well aware.”
“The demon came through it.”
“Yep.”
“Torri could tune it to put us right outside the gate’s location in Hell and keep us from walking into a trap. Since gates are one way, we’d have to setup a return gate, at Torri’s direction. We’ve got some mystics who should be able to pull it off. Then we could recon the place, assault it from that side, and sever the tether before Azarah has a clue.”
“She won’t be expecting that,” Lonnie conceded. “Torri, you sure can help them make a return gate? I mean, if they can’t be back they’ll be fucked.”
“I think I can, sure. I haven’t done it in awhile, and it won’t last forever, but it can be done.”
Crash flexed and rolled his shoulders, nodding as his mind mulled the plan’s merits in his head. “Yeah, dropping in on the sly might put us out of direct danger. Allow us to get our bearings and make a go at whatever is guarding it, if anything.”
Ingrid raised her hand. “I volunteer for the raiding team.”
“What raiding team?” Lonnie flicked his cigarette butt.
“You pick that up,” Torri mumbled.
“The raiding team,” Bess said. “We’re in this together.”
Lonnie shook his head, face growing hot. “Like I said, we’d listen to your plan and think about it. Right now, I don’t like this plan. And we’re not going to be guinea pigs for a half-hashed suicide run.”
Bess put her tablet away. “Lonnie, can I have a word.”
“All right.” Lonnie followed Bess slowly up the rise, past Torri sitting on her rock, all the way to where the grass met the forest’s edge.
Bess turned to him, her big brown eyes full of accusation. “I can’t believe you’re not going to help us.”
Lonnie, expecting that, was already shaking his head. “This was your plan the whole time. You’d need someone who knew the lay of the land. Someone who was more acclimated to Hell.”
“I’m not going to lie. I took it for granted you’d want to come. We need you more than ever.”
“Fuck, Bess. That’s perfect. It never occurred to you that we wouldn’t be ready? Thanks to…” Lonnie wanted to say thanks to the Lexington raid, but he wasn’t going to beat a dead horse. “Thanks to my sister, and that little asshole, Jedi, we’re down a couple troopers. We’re not exactly at the top of our game.”
“Well, I would have brought you in on it sooner if you’d just answered your fuckin’ phone, man. And I wouldn’t have come to you if I didn’t have to. I still feel like crap for what happened. Every time I look at my dad I think of her.”
Lonnie squared up to Bess. Standing a good six inches taller than her, it was still far from a position of power, yet he had to be firm. Had to save what was left of their gang. “Look, these people depend on me. You’ve got to understand that. When I fall apart, they fall apart. I’m their leader, and I need to face that responsibility. I have to keep them safe.”
“They’re grown people, Lonnie, grown monsters, whatever you want to call yourselves. Either way, they can make their own decisions, and they know their own nature as well as you do. And what they need to do is what they’re best at.”
“Yeah. Fine. They’re killers. Each of us are killers. But they’re my family, too. All I’ve got left. So, between you and me, we’re even. You helped us and we helped you. We’re done. We might return home someday, but it will be on our terms.”
Bess’s face turned hard again, that stone cold mask she wore when she put all the emotions away. “Okay, Lonnie. We’ll figure something out. We always do. We’re going in with or without you.”
Lonnie nodded. “Do we need to watch our backs, or are we free to go?”
“You’re free to go, man. Go back to that shit life you had happening before. Me, I’m going to do something about something. I’m going to make a difference, God willing.”
Bess waited, but when Lonnie didn’t respond she walked past him and back to her people.
Chapter 17
Two days later, Lonnie awoke to the sounds of scratching on the front porch. His first thought was to spin out from under the coverlet and see what it was but then he remembered he was at Torri’s and it was most likely some kind of forest animal.
Plus, it was warm, the first time he’d slept well in weeks. Months. It only proved his point that it had been a good decision to put the gang first and keep out of any of Bess’s wild raids. They’d make sure Elsa was okay first, of course, but as soon as she could travel they’d be out of here.
They only had a few days worth of dope between them, so they needed to ration, but it was something they were used to when times got thin. They’d fix just enough to keep themselves from going into withdraw. Just enough to keep their bodies from cramping and the shakes at bay.
Scratch…drag.
Ingrid shifted on the old spring mattress she and Crash shared, causing it to creak and whine. She snored f
or a couple of breaths and fell back asleep.
Lonnie lay on a sleeping bag on the floor. It had taken him an eternity to find a comfortable spot. Between his shoulders and hips, it was like a puzzle trying to find a little bit of cushion. He was sore from it. Sure, he’d slept in weird spots before. Couches, the van, outside in the dirt, but bare floors were about the worst. Especially when they were as unyielding as these. He’d just now found a sweet spot and was about to fall back asleep when the sound came again.
Scratch…drag.
If he was lucky, either Crash or Ingrid would get tired of hearing it and get up to investigate. But after another minute of them snoring, he knew nothing was going to wake them, and the noise was too annoying to ignore.
Scratch…drag.
He threw off the cover and stared up at the ceiling. The house was just as Torri said. Old as fuck. Built over a hundred years ago to replace the other shack she’d been living in the last million years.
The scratching came again, this time close to the door.
Lonnie sighed and stood up. It was chilly without the cover, his eyes glancing over at the fireplace set into the wall that split the two main rooms. The brazier was cold and empty, which indicated Torri had not been home yet from tuning the gate. It had been arduous work, Bess and Torri gone all the time now, while Lonnie’s crew had mostly just camped out on the front porch and watched the ECC set up camp in Torri’s yard. There must have been two dozen operatives all together, hauling equipment tirelessly, setting up a main tent and then a storage tent to protect their supplies, most of which looked like weapons and ammo, from the elements.
Lonnie padded over in his worn out socks, put his ear to the door, and paused. Something knocked against the wall. Someone breathed heavily, trying to speak.
His breath caught in his chest.
He’d know that breathy voice anywhere.
