by Kenny Soward
“Maybe true, guys,” Kristanna said. “But if we can’t destroy the gate in the Indian Ocean, how are we going to do it over on the other side?”
“I’ve got some ideas. But we need to apply some pressure here on Earth, too. She needs to be hit from all sides. Torri, she’ll be campaigning in Ohio in just a day or two. We can get you close to her.”
Torri was shaking her head as if she already knew what was coming. “I cain’t. Maybe I can get to Cincinnati, but not Columbus. Certainly not Cleveland. A witch digs her roots deep. And I ain’t got no roots out that way.”
“All right, Torri. We can get in touch with Missy Gray in the field and plan some distractions to keep Azarah busy. It will be good enough if you can stay and help us with the assault. Lonnie?”
Lonnie folded his arms across his chest. “What?”
“Have you thought about my offer?”
“No.”
“What offer, man?” Crash turned toward him, his head nearly brushing the top of the tent. “Did you agree to something without talkin’ to us?”
Lonnie chuckled darkly. “The exact opposite. I didn’t agree to shit. And I still feel the same way. It’s a suicide run.”
“Look,” Bess said, “your power is going to be greater back in Hell. How much, I don’t think any of us knows, not even you. But it might give us an advantage, right? Weren’t you a big deal over there?”
“No, not really.” But Lonnie knew she had a point. If they could get him close to Azarah’s tether, maybe he could do something about it. His power, not unlike Azarah’s, might be able to get the job done.
The room got quiet as they waited for Lonnie to come around. So much seemed to rest on his shoulders.
Bess pressed in close, eyes challenging him. “So you’re just going to sit here and watch us go it alone? Just wait for the human race to get wiped off the face of the Earth? I mean, why don’t you just go join her?”
“We don’t do groups.”
“This ain’t a group. This is our fucking lives, man. You don’t need to be blinded by anger or hate or even God’s love to see that.”
“What did Bess offer?”
When Lonnie only shook his head, Bess answered Crash’s question. “I asked him if you would want to join us on this mission as a part of the ECC. One of us. Part of the team, officially. We don’t offer this to just anyone, especially not fade rippers.”
Crash’s brow furrowed in thought, the wheels turning in that big head of his. Crash wasn’t stupid. Far from it, but Lonnie could tell when he couldn’t quite work something out. “If we wanted to run the mission with you, we’d just run it with you. You know we’re not God worshipers. We don’t need combat suits or emblems.”
Bess sighed. “I know. It was a gesture. There are some other benefits of helping. For one, you get coded as third-party operatives. Keeps you from being flagged for raids later on. Provides you with some protection while you’re here on Earth and, provided you keep a low profile, you’d have access to equipment. Expense money. Lodging. Certainly better than that van you’ve been stuck in this past year.”
Lonnie winced. The van life was going to be a thorn in his side for a very long time.
Crash pondered that, brow furrowed across his wide forehead. “So, basically taken off the monster hit list?”
“Yes, but not just for us. Neither the Scions nor the Illuminati could touch you. That’s the deal. But you gotta be all in. You have to help. You have to be willing to die, just like we are. ”
“Yeah, well, dying is a definite probability.”
Bess crossed her arms. “It’s a job. It’s the assurance of protection and working to get your crew a place to live. Transportation. Stability. That’s what you want, right? You’d be doing what everyone on this planet does to survive. Working. We could even find something to help with the whorchals’ special diet.”
Kristanna cut in. “I’ll be honest with you. I wasn’t for this. Your group was slowly rising to the top on the ECC’s Most Wanted list, but Bess insisted we meet you first. That we should get to know you. And I know it’s only been a few days, but nothing you’ve done makes me think you’re cold blooded killers at heart.”
“No,” Lonnie said. “We are.”
“But I know you don’t want to be. I can see it. Let’s just say my opinion of you has changed enough to give this a chance. The Lord has shown me that truth. And as long as you vouch for the whorchals, then I’m on board.” She pinned Lonnie with her blue eyes, a color nearly the same shade as Selix’s. “We need your help, plain and simple.”
“Yeah, I had more doubts than Kris,” Alex said. “But I got to talkin’ to Crash here and he’s not as big a shit heel as I thought. We decided to put a positive face on all this. Got a running bet on who gets the most kills in the upcoming operation.”
Lonnie shot a glance at Crash, who innocently looked away.
Walking between Bess and Kristanna, Lonnie approached the monitor. The big map of their home world. Hell. Septu. “When do you plan on going back?”
Bess nodded to Torri, who’d taken up her seat between the silver rods and pulled the shawl back around her shoulders. “As soon as she’s ready. Been a long day. Y’all probably need some rest first.”
Lonnie shared a look with the hill witch. Her expression was flat, and her eyes held no judgment either way. “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s get some rest.”
The night had turned chilly, the unseasonably late winter finally starting to push through.
It was nice, in a way. It kept Lonnie frosty. Kept his mind good and clear. Especially given their circumstances where they seemed to be standing at some precipice overlooking a long, screaming drop into oblivion.
How did he know that? Well, he’d borrowed Bess’s freshly charged tablet and gone online just to see what his grandmother had been up to all these years. And in the space of about two hours, Lonnie had gone from never having browsed more than ten websites in his entire life (he’d hardly known how to navigate a web browser at first) to becoming quite the master of it. He’d never cared about politics before or who became the President of the United States, or how any of it even worked. But now it was as if his eyes had been opened to the urgency behind the ECC’s push.
The way he figured it, his grandmother had lost some epic battle ages ago to none other than Torri and her witch friends and Gruff. It was thought Azarah was dead and gone, buried in a tomb at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.
But Azarah was very much alive and very much up to no good.
She must have built up her power over the last two and a half thousand years, battling the forces of good behind the scenes, setting things in motion to reach this exact moment where she’d be presiding over the most powerful country in the world. And she was doing it from the inside out, using Turu Corp to mask her nefarious activities. No one would ever suspect she was a demoness in disguise, a fade ripper of epic proportions. A real witch hellbent on some mission of world domination.
None of the gang could sleep, not even Torri, so she’d made a roaring fire in their room and served up some black leaf tea. They’d all pulled their chairs around the fire and put their feet up as close as they dared to the flames without melting their toes off. The tea was strong and everyone was warm and fixed.
Lonnie had been telling everyone what he found as he browsed. “Check it out. According to most sources, almost every world leader backs Lindsey Walls as the next President of the United States. Even fucking Russia and China. Ringing endorsements all around.”
“I don’t understand all this politics, Lons,” Ingrid said, feet drawn up in her chair, “but it seems like she’s been preparing for this moment for a very long time.”
“Exactly. She has agents in place all over the world. And she’s gaining momentum. No one suspects a damn thing. Hell, who knows how far they’ve infiltrated?”
Torri was staring deep into the fire, absently poking at the ashes with the fire poker.
Crash sai
d, “Could she be working with someone from Xester? Is this Hell come to Earth?”
“No. I don’t think so. My sister practically worshiped her, but she was not in on Azarah’s plans. I’d say it’s more like Azarah wanting to conquer Earth before setting her sights on Hell.”
“She’s been sneaky about it,” Ingrid said. “That much is clear.”
“Yes, she has.” Torri’s frown had grown deep. “I’ve had my head up my ass all these years. And now my friends have paid for it. It’s clear to me life ain’t gonna be easy on no one if she gets to be president. It would be the beginning of the end. No more witches. No more fae. So, I’m gonna help Bess and her friends. Gonna do all I can from here, at least until I hear from Em.”
Crash stretched in his chair, pressing out his wide shoulders so that the entire thing creaked. “We gotta do something too. We can’t just sit here while everyone else puts in.”
Lonnie sighed. “I intend to.”
“What do you mean, I?”
“I’m going to go back. You’re going to stay here.”
“Hah! You think you can just go on your own. Keep our sorry asses back here? Ain’t you learned your lesson by now?”
Ingrid reached over to put her hand on Lonnie’s arm. “You can’t be a hero all by yourself.”
Lonnie shook his head. “I’m not trying to be a hero. Someone has to stay behind and keep an eye on things here. If Azarah has fade rippers around—”
“They might make a play on my hill?”
“She said as much right on national TV.”
Crash smiled. “I see your point. Okay, man. Maybe we need to think about splitting up, but you ain’t going alone.”
Something croaked from behind them.
“What is it, sister?”
“What should I do?” Elsa’s voice sounded like a patchwork of rattles and phlegm. Lonnie had checked on her earlier, and she looked almost whole on the outside, except for some swollen parts in her face, which included a bloody eye that looked horrific, and a spot on her temple that remained exceptionally bulbous with fluid. The inside of her was what concerned him. Things still didn’t seem quite right, but he doubted there were any whorchal doctors who made house calls on Earth. It was a wait and see situation.
“You need to get better, so you’re going to stay here.”
He received no argument from her, which was a little disquieting.
“Speaking of which, I need to take a look at her.” Torri drained the rest of her tea and got up to see to the whorchal.
“So, you’re going to be in charge here, Crash. I want you to work with the ECC teams to ensure nothing gets up this hill.”
Crash extended his hand. “Got it. I won’t let you down, man.”
“Amen to that, brother,” Lonnie said, slapping his palm into Crash’s hand and shaking it. He wasn’t going to lie. It felt good be doing something for once, and with the gang’s blessing.
“Hey, if we’re joining the ECC, we’re going to be sayin’ amen a lot.”
Lonnie laughed. “It’ll be our inside joke.”
“Amen, brother.”
They both chuckled, and Lonnie’s attention was drawn back to the fire. Hell, his home. Not quite the stuff of Earth legends. Even Bess had remarked on how plain the landscape had been. Yep, mostly a wide expanse of vivid red sand. Arid and hot, the sky scorched like the victim of a blowtorch. That wasn’t to say the dark side didn’t have its share of fiery territory, volcanoes and lakes of fire and all that.
And judging by the maps the ECC had put together, it looked like Xester was maybe a thousand miles east of where they’d be coming out. A long, long way, to be sure. But not an impossible consideration. He wondered what it would take to get there and, for that matter, what kind of reception he’d receive. He wondered, most of all, if there were any of his family left alive? Were he and his grandmother the only ones?
“Man, that look.”
Lonnie stared into the fire a moment more before responding. “What look?”
“I dunno. Just intense, man. Like you’re about to kill somethin’.”
“Just thinking of my family.”
Crash chuckled. “I suspected as much.” And then the big man and Ingrid stood on cue. “Hey, me and Ingrid are going to spend some time alone. You okay?”
Lonnie nodded. “Fuck yeah, I am. Go. We won’t be moving out until morning.”
Those two shuffled off, and Lonnie sat alone by the fire for some time, staring into the flickering flames. Something about it relaxed him, and he’d become transfixed by the deep blues and golden wisps as it played over the logs.
Done looking after Elsa, Torri pulled up a chair.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey yourself.”
“How’s Elsa doing?”
“Not bad. She’s healing faster than I could have ever hoped for. I guess Tavia’s rabbits are helping?”
“Oh, yeah. Tavia is one badass huntress.”
Torri chuckled. “Yes, she is.”
Their eyes met, and Lonnie gave her an unsteady smile, instantly hating himself for it. Torri’s eyes seemed to burn straight into his soul. Her wavy red hair was once again loose, but she’d tamed it some by tucking it behind her ears. “You look worried.”
Lonnie shrugged. “I’m not worried for me, but for my people. For you, too.”
“You’ve been tryin’ to take on a lot of responsibility. Pretty new for you, huh?”
“Yeah. Selix had always done everything before. She protected us and kept the business running. Now it’s up to me.”
“It’s not all up to you.”
“No, but someone has to do it.”
“I’ll not argue with that.”
“I’ve done it before, you know. Back in Xester when my sister first came to power. I chose to fight her then, but we lost that fight.”
“Yeah, but you eventually beat her.”
Lonnie took no satisfaction from that. “Not before she called a demon to your hill. Not before your tree almost got pulled out of the ground. A lot of your wolves died, too. Your garden is all but destroyed. I let my sister live, and I brought her right to your doorstep.”
“Why did you let her live?”
Lonnie shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe out of some fucked up sense of loyalty to my family. Maybe I thought she could change. You have to hate me for that.”
Torri smiled, the corners of her mouth pushing on her freckled cheeks. “I don’t hate you, Lonnie. You made the best decisions you knew how to make, and you’re getting better at it. Whatever kind of good you were before, whatever caused you to fight your sister the first time, it’s still inside you. Maybe it’s your mama comin’ out.”
“Maybe.”
“Look, I’ve lost a lot of people in my long life, most of it fightin’ evil. It ain’t never gonna end until I’m dead and buried. You learn to get used to it.”
Lonnie sighed, feeling a deepening kinship with this woman. He’d been wanting to talk to her about getting them home before, but now he was curious about something else. “I know this might sound like a strange question, but keep in mind I was born into a family who encouraged death and destruction. When did you know which side you were on? When did you know you were on the side of good?”
“Well, that’s an easy one.”
“You knew right away when you were born?”
“Yep. I woke up laying in a wide, green field, my heart full of love. I told you that.”
“That’s right. You just woke up in the middle of a field. I thought you were speaking figuratively.”
“Nope, I meant it. Soon as I woke up I heard pixies playin’ their flutes and drums.”
As Torri spoke, that old accent slipped back in, like she was channeling the Old Country through herself and right into Lonnie’s head. He could almost envision those rolling Scottish hills and highlands.
“Woke up and danced like a fool. `Course, I wasn’t very good at it, but the others didn’t seem to mind.
They taught me, and I got better over the years. I was free back then, but as I saw how things were and how folks treated one another, I got involved. Things got serious, I guess.
“You ever think about going back?”
“A witch—”
“Digs her roots deep,” Lonnie finished with a chuckle. “But what about just for a little while? Don’t you still have roots there?”
Torri seemed to consider that for a moment, her shoulders hitching as she took a deep breath and let out a sigh. “Good question, Lonnie. Hadn’t thought about it much because I guess I’m happy here. Folks is good to me, and they love me.”
“You guess you’re happy?”
“Well. I think it has something to do with the way the years weigh on you, you know? Like, the me of a thousand years ago isn’t the person I am now. And further back than that, she’s nothing but the distant dream of someone I long to be. I don’t even know that young fae girl anymore, but I wish I did.”
Lonnie nodded. “Believe me. I understand. I’ve been having a tough time of it since I found out how old I really am. All the shit we’ve been through lately. I miss the old me, the brave me before we went into hiding.”
Torri reached over and took Lonnie’s hand. “Y’all ain’t got nothing to be ashamed of. You did a good job hiding away, and it was the right call. You hid so good I hardly felt you at all. You know, I can see magical folks when I’m sleeping. I dream things about what’s happening to them. Sometimes, I can be right there with them feeling everything they’re feeling. A lot of it ain’t so good, but some is wonderful. Gruff always gave me good dreams, and I wish I would have been sleeping when he died. Maybe I could have eased his pain some. I don’t know.”
“You can do that?”
“Sometimes I can, if they’re real close by.”
“You said you felt Selix pass.”
“I did. I sensed her from time to time, and I saw her in my dreams. I liked her. She was a good girl, except for the drugs. They made her sad. I think she was just…”
“What?”
Torri pursed her lips as if not wanting to say something he might take the wrong way.
