by Kenny Soward
“How are we going to cut that big bastard?” Lonnie asked. He was at a serious loss for ideas. He hadn’t expected something like this. The tether’s sheer size and power was daunting.
Bess patted his shoulder. “We were hoping you might have a clue. You’re the guy with the big power now. We saw what you did to those scarab men.”
“Yeah, but,” he nodded at the tether, “that’s fucking huge.”
Alex set down his backpack and pulled out some metal contraption which he began unfolding, snapping pieces into place until it was a single, long pole. And then he pulled something flat and wicked looking out of his backpack. It was a heavy, double-edged, black blade which he affixed to the pole by small steel rods. Setting down his MP5, he hefted it. “With this.”
It was a fucking battle ax.
Bess admired the weapon, but then her eyes went back to the tether. “I don’t think that’s going to cut it. Tuck, Patty. Be our eyes and ears for a minute.”
“Right,” Tuck said, jogging off to their left.
Patty followed with, “Roger that,” and moved right.
The two scouts struck out, moving to either end of the room until they grew smallish and then disappeared into a faint mist that hung in the air.
Alex flexed his hands around the handle of the ax, eyes fixed on the tether like he wanted to kill the damn thing. “I’m ready.”
“I know you are. Just hold up. I’m thinking.”
“I’m back near the base of the northernmost machine,” Tuck said, his voice breaking up over the line. “Couldn’t tell you what the hell it’s doing.”
“Patty?”
“Same here. The gate seems to be typical stone composition. The base is anchored into the machine. Smells like Hell right up close. Hard to describe.”
“That’s the bloodoil.”
“Bloodoil?”
Lonnie shook his head. “You don’t want to know.”
“You see any way to disable the machines?”
“Negative,” Betty said. “Looks complicated as hell. Just a bunch of gears and arms working. Makes me wonder what would happen if we did disable or cut the tether. I mean, where would all that energy go?”
Lonnie grunted. “She’s right. Remember what happened when Selix severed my sister’s tether? And that one was a little baby snake compared to this monster. Even with my enhanced powers, I doubt I can get it done.”
“I’ll do it,” Rios said, waving the ax.
“Shut up, Alex,” Bess said, nodding in understanding at Lonnie. “Doesn’t change the mission goals. We just need to move to Plan B.”
“What’s that?”
“Can the stone be blown up? We have charges.”
Lonnie nodded. “Yes, it can be blown up. But this stuff is especially rune-hexed and protected. And I’m sure parts of the machine are made of steelcore, which is a tough metal. You can’t blow that up. I have no idea how much explosives you’d need put a dent in it.”
“But if we did make a dent, we could throw off the alignment.”
“Disrupt the tether.”
“Blow that bitch up,” Jeff said. “Sounds easy enough.”
Lonnie nodded. Sounded like a good enough plan. Couldn’t hurt to try, anyway. Most of the operatives seemed to agree as indicated by them rooting around in their packs to gather all the charges they could muster.
Alex gave up on his campaign to go tether hacking, shrugged, and went through his pack to fish out some explosives.
“Our demolition experts are smushed,” Jeff said through tight lips as he ogled the huge tether machine. “Thomas and Sawyer.”
“Right. Then it’s up to us. Let’s see what we can remember from Explosives 101.”
Torri stood and stepped away from the chair, feeling herself removed from the connection to the M2 team with a mental sucking sound. Like a stick being drawn out of the greedy mud.
She exited the empty command tent and stepped into the forest on the north side of the hill, head swiveling left and right, eyes searching, ears listening, spirit searching.
She couldn’t sense some of her creatures, so many lost. Even Tavia. She didn’t know if her familiar was dead or alive.
It was probably best that Torri had been connected to the M2 team while her creatures died during the fighting. To feel so much dying at once could be more than a little overwhelming for one as sensitive as she. Just like the old war back in the day, when she and her witches had stood atop Riker Mound and watched a thousand Pict warriors clash with Azarah’s forces. They’d stood hand in hand as those souls passed on, pooled themselves against the anguish and pain, against the death cries of innocent young men and woman as they lost their lives to demon tooth and claw.
Just now, things were silent all around her but for the swaying of trees. She’d not brought her ear piece with her, so she couldn’t tell what the ECC commandos were saying to one another. The silence was deceptive because she could feel what was coming. Another gathering storm at the bottom of the hill. A hundred or more of Azarah’s monsters, things summoned from the the dark regions of Hell, that infernal place where incarnations of the darkest order dwelt. Azarah’s human minders had driven them in vans and trucks through her back roads to set them free upon the hill and holler folk. She could feel the presence of six witches, some of their aura’s she recognized. Some of them she’d even helped or trained at one time or another.
Blanch the Kind. Now not so kind.
Richard Keel, a good but anxious young witch. Yes, she could see how he could easily be lured by Azarah’s wiles.
Four others, lesser witches, barely able to control the demons at their behest.
Their betrayal turned Torri’s face red with anger. Made her hands shake with a rage she’d not felt in centuries. Her woods and the remaining ECC folk were holding out, but just barely.
They needed her help.
Torri closed her eyes, sent her thoughts across through the roots and dirt to her wolf pack, calling them to her. In another three or four minutes, fifteen wolves had gathered around her. Many were bloody, with torn off ears and grievous wounds.
Old Man Gray, her oldest remaining brother, limped up to her, one eye missing, and lowered his head to the ground with a low growl. Good thing Torri didn’t have to speak, because her jaw was clenched too tightly to open. She spoke to them as emphatically as she’d ever done before. She told them what to do.
Torri allowed herself to become lost in their primal trappings as they bolted past her with yelps and barks to each of the four sides of the hill.
Then Torri rushed to the Rowan Tree, grabbing her ax as she went.
“Sorry,” she said as she hacked at one of the lowest, thickest branches she could find. Then she quickly stripped it and cut it with seven strokes into a nice thick piece about four feet long. Clutching it to her chest, she hurried through her garden, picking herbs left and right as fast as her hands would go, chanting as she went and rubbing the stems and leaves up and down the Rowan branch. Before she left the garden, she took up a couple handfuls of dirt, which she put in her pocket, and made her way to Pondcliff.
She grew fiercer and bolder as she went. There were still a lot of things to worry about, but she pushed all that out of her head and focused on the task at hand. She felt the forest seething and trembling all around her, gathering strength for the final confrontation.
She talked to the woods as she walked. “Been here a long time, my woods, and you treated me well. When I first came here, you welcomed me with open arms. You brought me in and let me put my own roots down. Hell, I guess we about got the same roots by now. And I just want you to know that I ain’t never been on such good land `cept maybe back in the Old World. And I been proud to call you my home. And if I don’t ever come back…”
Torri stopped at the forest’s edge, frozen in place as she looked past the outcrop Bess Winters had stood on not long ago.
She dropped the rowan branch, staggering. Her legs turned to jam, and she fell o
n her knees, hands clutching her chest.
“I didn’t feel it. How could I not have felt it? Oh, Tavia. Oh, my poor, poor girl.”
Torri crawled, her vision blurred with tears, to where Tavia had curled up at the pond’s edge with her fingers lingering in the pool. Torri took her by the hip and rolled her back, exposing a horrific belly wound.
Yet, her face looked so peaceful. Eyes shut, a faint smile on her lips.
“Oh, God. You didn’t want to bother me with your pain. You knew I was doin’ somethin’ important, so you crawled here to die. Oh, no.”
The hill witch took her familiar’s face in her hands. Kissed her forehead. Then she got her arms under the girl and tried to lift her, nearly stumbling into the pond in the process. But she managed to heft her up, stood, and turned away from the water.
Sniffling, Torri walked to the edge of the forest. Tavia’s lank hair felt as soft as silk against her shoulders and neck. She kissed the girl’s forehead one more time before lifting her longtime friend up as high as she could.
The pines and willows around the edge of the forest reached down with leafy arms and took Tavia away, handing the girl back to the next set of trees, and then the next, until there was nothing but a distant rustle.
Not even bothering to wipe her face, Torri got her Rowan branch and went back to the water’s edge. She crouched, glaring into the water.
The sounds of gunfire reached her ears. An explosion, some yips and barks and the sound of some ungodly thing mewling.
Torri let the rage burn beneath her skin, let it fuel her will and way.
Taking out the cat skull from one of her dress pockets, she put it on the ground at the edge of the pool. She reached into the water and stirred it, clearing out any bad energy that might have gotten in.
Then she spoke the incantation, calling for the location she wanted to set her feet down in, and stood up. With all the stuff she’d gathered from her garden, and the Rowan branch, she was ready to go. Ready to do something she’d not done in centuries.
Torri Dowe was ready to leave her home.
All her things were here, all the things she’d built up over the years, all the things she’d hoarded. Those things she’d brought from the old world could never be replaced. Things with deep memories attached. Like the shell from a Scottish beach Yellow Claws had given her, reminding Torri of the witch’s mischievous love of the sea and how she liked to toy with the sailors and their boats whenever they came in. Yes, Torri was leaving the witch’s shell, the thing that reminded her what it felt like walking with Yellow Claws on those Scottish shores. And she was leaving behind the bones of all the familiars who’d traveled with her over the years, Tavia’s included.
Mice, rats, rabbits, and cats…
All made into a nice fat hat…
An old witch’s poem about saving the fur of their familiars’ and making hats or cloaks from it.
Torri was old enough to have outfitted a room full of kings and queens with such clothing, but she’d only kept the bones because the bones were what held the memories the best.
Well, maybe it was time to let all of that go. Maybe it was time for a cleansing. It was hard, though, because those old things had became so much a part of who she was.
She stepped to the pond’s edge but stopped when she noticed a wrinkle on the surface, a swirly flourish, like the flicking tail of a spooked fish. She looked for a silvery shape sliding away, but instead found herself looking into a pair of deep, dark eyes, and a rugged face framed by sable hair.
It was a face she knew.
It was her enemy, Azarah.
Torri took a startled step back, but quickly returned to the edge, pushing away the fright before it could make her appear weak.
Azarah gave the hill witch a crooked smile. “Just where do you think you’re going?”
“Ain’t none of your business.”
“I make it my business to know when my enemies come and go. It’s what’s kept me alive all these years.”
“You killed Constance and Matwau,” and then, just to throw her off, “and Em too. You killed all my friends.”
“I didn’t kill any of them. Constance came easily enough and of her own free will. Matwau? Well, he has been more difficult, but he’s breaking slowly.” She finished that last part with a mocking pout. “And Em, well, she squeezed through my fingers. I’m not afraid to admit that I can’t win them all.”
Torri laughed, surprised at the strength of the sound. “You won’t win in the things that matter. You’ll always be a miserable old bag who cain’t get enough of a thing. Always pursuing what you cain’t have. And this time I’m going to finish you once and for all.”
Her bold statement was a counterpoint to the howls and rapid-fire rifles going off behind her. The booms of shotguns.
“Yes. That’s a curious thing. Do you mean you’re not running away from me?”
“No.”
“Well, it sure looks that way. I’m about to take that precious little hill, just like I’ve taken all the other fae moots. And when I get it, I’m going to tear it to pieces. All that power and knowledge tossed to the wind.”
Torri set her jaw. “I’m not running away.”
The would-be goddess gave her a condescending, piteous look that Torri wanted to knock off her face. But she couldn’t fall into the woman’s traps. She had to keep her on her heels.
Stepping closer to the pond, Torri leaned down so that her face was just about touching the water, the words coming out in a whisper. “We found it, you know. Your tether? We’re going to cut it in two.”
Azarah seemed apathetic about the news, but Torri caught a glint of fear in her eyes. “I know all about the ECC’s mission. Maybe they have found it, but they can’t sever it. No one can. Not even a nuclear bomb could rend my bond with Hell.”
Torri hoped that wasn’t true. She hoped there was some way to destroy Azarah’s powerful link to this world. Yet, Azarah was probably right. And that’s what made Torri’s decision even more important. Still, anything she could do to put doubt in Azarah’s mind was worth doing just now. “Not sure if you knew this, but your grandson is there, too. Mardokh Bet-Ohman. And he’s got that same power as you? He’s the one who beat his sister, Makare, not Gruff. If there’s anyone can find a way to cut your cord, I’d imagine it would be him.” Torri had no idea if he could actually pull it off but, again, Azarah didn’t need to know that.
Azarah’s expression faltered further at the thought of being unplugged, quite literally.
Her eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring. “That is certainly news, I’ll admit. Something my granddaughter failed to inform me of. But it won’t matter. He’ll die screaming before he ever reaches the tether. They all will, you grubby little witch.”
In silent response, Torri kicked the surface of the water, breaking Azarah’s image to pieces.
And then, before she could dwell on the consequences much longer, Torri stepped off the shore and sunk straight down in the pond, feet first, slipping into the water with hardly a splash.
Chapter 27
Azarah burst from the green room with her long, signature strides. Remi and his team were right on point, holding the crowd of riled up reporters at arm’s length while simultaneously keeping those other people, the protester roaches, far back and away.
The roaches had become increasingly bold the past few days. Staging impressive, and sometimes violent, protests which had shaken her first couple Indiana rallies so much that they’d had to close them down.
Now they were in Cleveland, and the Ohio primaries, while certainly not the biggest, were key for her to pick up the necessary momentum to carry her to a sure win and a hands-down nomination for the Independent Republican candidacy. It wasn’t a matter of winning, it was a matter of crushing her opponents on both sides of the fence. Her agenda was something this country had never seen before. A combination of common-sense conservative values wrapped up in progressive ideals, which struck a note in each and
every person who signed up. Never before had middle-grounders come together so quickly to a cause, leaving the extremists on both sides scratching their heads. She wanted to leave no doubt who was in charge when everything was said and done.
A country of motivated people with the size and population of the United States was the key to winning so much more. Her rightful place on Earth and in Hell.
She couldn’t allow Torri Dowe to get to her. Everything she said was a lie, and nothing could defeat her guardians at the tether temple.
Azarah allowed herself to loosen up. Her wide, knowing smile sprung out. Her deep brown eyes expressed confident warmth. The camera was good to her, whatever weight it was supposed to add only making her look more striking on the screens of millions of Americans across the country.
The reporters snapped pictures of her in her blue business suit, olive-toned legs hugged by her skirt. Her shoulders were thrown back with perfect posture.
The changed from Azarah to Lindsey Walls, ready to kick ass and take names.
Her eyes quickly scanned the waiting crowd to where Remi and his team had begun their rounds. She saw him in the back, glancing up to the stage as Miss Walls ascended the steps. Their eyes met for a brief instant before the man slipped on his sunglasses and got back to work.
It was an outdoor gig, warm for a March afternoon, the sun coming up behind them over the amphitheater shell and just clipping the back edge of the crowd.
Upwards of four thousand people had shown up, and their excited buzz seemed to shake the air with strong vibrations. The energy was electric, and Lindsey Walls looked forward to it.
As usual, her son met her on stage, welcoming his mother with a hug. She felt the bulges beneath his jacket. His guns. It was some assurance, but not as good as having Remi right here at her side. It had been a strategic move to put him out with the crowds today. Out where the roaches were hiding. Where he could be in a position to squash them when the time came.
Lindsey pulled away, but her son caught her, his smile faltering just a bit.
“Wait, mother…” And then his hand came up quick and brushed something from her temple. Looking down at his finger as he drew his hand away, she could see it was a smear of blood.
