by Kenny Soward
“Give me a minute.” Bess took two strides into the chamber, arms crossed and MP5 hanging over her shoulder. Her eyes moved back and forth across the tether, surveying it all through the clearing haze, just like before. She was weighing the odds of going back in. “So damn close.”
Lonnie moved to Bess’s side, taking on her same stance, staring at his grandmother’s creation. “I mean, it’s simple but effective. Build a tether too strong for anything to break. Surround it with native monsters, and you’ve got yourself a nearly impregnable fortress. Must have taken her all of two-thousand years to build this.”
“There’s got to be a way to destroy it. Has to be. God, give me guidance.”
“Hey, there’s no shame in going back now,” Lonnie said, not really believing that. “Back to the drawing board, maybe? Grab some TNT or a nuke?”
“What if everyone’s dead back on the hill? What if we can’t even go back?”
Right, exactly what Lonnie had been thinking earlier. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess we can try to get to Xester. Might be some reprieve.”
Bess rolled her eyes, but only a little. “I sure as hell am not going there. Not sure God would appreciate us helping a Prince of Hell.”
“It’s war. Things get…messy.” And then he nudged her with his shoulder. She still wore her filter mask, but with the dark smudges on her face and her ripped suit, well, she’d literally been through Hell. More than her physical ruggedness, he admired her will to succeed in this mission.
Bess gave him a serious look. “You ready?”
A funny noise escaped Lonnie. “You sure?”
“No,” Bess said, tears wetting her cheeks and chin. “But there’s no time. If we don’t do it now, Azarah will only add more layers of protection, might even try to move the location of the tether. If she didn’t know we were going to hit her before, she knows now. And I have faith in God. I have faith in Him. He sent us here for a reason. He sent us here so that we could serve Him.”
Lonnie held out his hand. “Give me the ax.”
“What?” Alex said.
“Give me the ax. I’ll try to hack through it. But you guys have to get me there.”
“You can’t,” Alex sputtered. “I’m the—”
And then Lonnie made a sweep with his hands, grabbing the ax from Alex while shoving he big guy aside as easily as he would a little kid, already feeling the pulse of his runecraft pinging around inside him. “No offense, Alex, but this one is on me.”
Alex’s brow furrowed, and he started to bristle but stopped when Lonnie held up his hand.
“Look, your god isn’t exactly giving us any crystal clear direction here. So, if we’re going to do this. If we’re going to die doing this, then it—”
“No,” Bess said. Something in her voice made them all stop and turn.
The ECC Commander walked forward with hesitant, stiff-legged steps, toward the tether. Her eyes were wide with fervor. “Everything is clear. My god…my godsight, it’s come back… He’s…”
Bess lurched forward as if something had punched her on the inside. She stopped, staggered back, hands clutching at her stomach, face looking down at herself in disbelief.
“Hey, Bess!” Alex rushed to her side, holding her waist to steady her.
But when she jerked again, she ripped herself out of his grasp, falling to her knees.
“Jeff!” Alex called, get your ass over here.
The medic complied, but there was nothing for him to do.
Lonnie’s eyes glanced at the surrounding gloom to make sure none of those arms slithered in this direction.
Bess struggled to her feet, Alex and Jeff at her side trying to hold her steady.
Alex’s face was twisted with confused rage. “Bess, are you…?”
Her face lifted to the sky. “It is by His grace I follow. It is by His love I lead. By the light of the Lord, I give Him praise.”
Bess’s eyes lit up then, golden rays bursting upward into the chamber, nearly reaching the ceiling’s darkest most recesses. She threw her arms out wide, as if trying to catch the rays of the sun, casting Jeff and Alex to the ground.
And then she shot upward, feet dangling three feet in the air.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Alex said, crawling on his ass and elbows to put some distance between them, bathed in a golden glow that was now emanating from Bess’s entire body.
“What the fuck’s going on, Lons?” Elsa pressed against him, drawing them away from the lighted form.
Lonnie shook his head. “What’s it look like to you?”
“It is by Your light I give up my life in this world!” Bess screamed the words now, her body convulsing. “It is by Your love I give You my spirit, to lift up and…and… ah, ah, ah!” Jerking so hard now, she could barely get the words out.
“It is like what happened to Gruff back in the Under River,” Elsa said with an awed expression. “Somehow, she’s a portal. And something is coming through.”
Lonnie lowered his head. His friend was dying and there was nothing he could do about it. Again. Goggles full of tears, Lonnie lifted them off his face and tossed them.
“Should we go, Lons? Should we run?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m tired of running.”
“L—Lord… Oh my God!” Bess was hardly coherent now. And while she was certainly in some kind of pain, her face expressed only divine pleasure.
Then her body settled, toes touching the floor. She jerked violently once more and grew still.
And then, like Gruff before her, she ruptured down the middle in a glorious golden glow.
Chapter 29
Torri opened her eyes to find herself standing in a bathroom stall, looking down at her old friend Em, who squatted on top of the seat. The muted sounds of a crowd reached her ears, but the biggest thing was a huge emptiness inside her. A weightlessness of power, like there was nothing firm beneath her feet but the cold tile.
She hadn’t been this frightened in hundreds of years. Through tears, she said, “Hey, Em.”
“Hey, girl.” Her friend came off the seat and wrapped her up in a hug. Not too close though because Torri was soaking wet.
Em’s dark bangs fell across her nose, and she blew them out of her eyes. “Jarring as fuck, ain’t it?”
“Yeah.” Torri’s voice quavered, and she shook all over. Her grip on the Rowan branch was a white-knuckled death grip. Feeling the power from home locked into the wood, she sighed in relief. “Okay, I’m okay.”
“Good. Put these on.”
Em smacked Torri in the chest with a plastic bag full of clothes. Torri looked at the bag, and then at the Rowan branch.
“I’ll hold it for you. You won’t die, trust me.”
Torri reluctantly handed it over and got dressed. Jean shorts and a Lindsey Walls T-shirt that said, “We’re all right!” And then a pair of those Chuck Taylor sneakers Torri had always wanted. They were pink. Not her favorite color, but they looked good on her.
She took off her little apron, pockets filled with all her dirt and things, twisted it up, and wrapped it around her waist.
Em helped her adjust it. The woman stepped back. “You look like a hippy, but not entirely unusual at a Lindsey Walls rally.
“Thanks.” Torri took back her Rowan branch, feeling its powerful tremor in her hand, and studied her friend for the first time face to face in decades. She was dressed much like Torri, with jeans and a Lindsey Walls T-shirt, but her Chuck Taylors were black. She was thin and pretty, like she’d always been, with that striking face of hers, those high cheeks and dark eyes.
She was one of the old Mull Witches. The Doideag.
“I brought this.” Em reached into her shorts and pulled out a seven inch white bone dagger.
“That the same one?”
“Yeah, the first time we killed the bitch.” Her light chuckle filled the bathroom as people came and went, and the crowd out there was making an excited buzz. Anyone who had to go to th
e bathroom was probably too excited to get back to the rally to notice two strange girls standing in a stall talking.
And that’s when Torri noticed the woman’s voice coming over the loudspeaker. A voice that made her gut turn and her nose scrunch up like she’d just had a piece of shit wiped on her upper lip.
“Yeah, that’s her. Crazy, huh?”
Torri nodded and sighed. “So good to see you, Em.”
“You too. You ready?”
Torri nodded. “No.”
Em laughed, a musical sound. “Don’t worry, Torri. It’s just like old times.”
“Right. One more time.”
“We killed the bitch once. We’ll kill her again.”
Torri nodded and turned, fumbling with the stall latch until Em reached around and got it for her.
The two women came out, and Em quickly jumped in front, moving toward the exit, saying, “Limp a little bit. Make it look like that branch is your walking stick. Don’t want anyone to take it from you. Security is tight.”
Torri nodded and applied the limp as they exited the bathroom. The sound of Azarah’s voice attacked them from the loudspeakers. She remembered that cool, smooth tone. The over assuredness the woman always had. The first time they’d met, Torri had been partially bound by that voice, and that had nearly cost them everything.
And she was doing the same thing to these people, only this time as Lindsey Walls.
Well, Torri was ready for it this time. She spoke the words that would shield her from any voice charms and nodded satisfactorily. Eyes slipping out across the crowd, the ball caps and visors and raised fists of all the true Americans in the crowd. They were just now cheering one of Lindsey’s major points, rousing whoops and hollers sounding like the wakening of a wind just before a big storm.
She stopped at the very back of the crowd, right at the edge, watching the woman on the stage from a distance. Still, she could tell it was Azarah without even having to squint. The woman was tall. Built like a brick shit house, as the saying went. Her hair was cut short and trim, not wild and long past her waist like it had been before. She’d put aside her bejeweled armor and replaced it with a soft suit of blue. Yet, Torri could feel her power from where she stood. Azarah could have probably felt hers too if she wasn’t so caught up in riling the crowd.
And as Torri looked on, she could tell why Bess and her ECC friends had been so adamant about stopping Azarah now. Today. The woman had them all bewitched. Not even by magic, really. No, she had some kind of message this time. Something clear and concise that resonated with everyone out there. It didn’t hurt that she was all kinds of easy on the eyes to men and women both.
Yes, that was probably the most dangerous part of all this. With crowds like this all over the United States, Azarah would soon be more than a president. She’d be queen all over again.
“Come on, girl.” Em snatched Torri by her T-shirt and dragged her along.
Torri fell into step, saying, “Where we goin’ anyhow? Cain’t do nothing with all these people around.”
“Exactly. We’re lookin’ for a good spot to ambush her. Got me?”
“Yeah,” Torri said, her gut turning with nervous excitement at the idea a of possible confrontation with her old enemy.
Em stopped several times, peeking over the crowd and occasionally raising her hands up and shouting whenever Lindsey Walls made a good point.
Torri played along, raising a fist and shouting her head off. It felt kind of nutty, but looking around she saw they fit right in with everyone else.
Em dragged Torri back the other way along the outer edge of the crowd.
A stocky Asian woman in a tight black suit passed in front of them. She had a little American flag pin on the breast of her jacket next to a name badge that said Lee. A coiled wire ran from beneath her collar to an ear piece. The woman turned her head, eyes sliding suspiciously in their direction.
“Shit,” Em said, angling them back the other way, dragging Torri out of the crowd and toward a concession stand.
“What is it?”
“I’d bet that was someone working for Azarah. Part of her security. I think she saw us.”
Torri allowed herself to be guided across a blacktop path and behind the concession stand which sold bottled water and soft drinks.
Once around the back corner, Em stopped and turned, edging out to take a peek. She drew back suddenly, grabbing Torri by the arm and pulling her along the back of the concession stand.
“What is it?”
“She’s following us. She knows we’re up to no good.”
They got to the far corner and peeked around it. There were just a few people milling around on the blacktop path, almost everyone up near the seats to see Lindsey Walls speak.
“We should make a run for it.”
Torri glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see the Lee woman bob around the corner where they’d just standing. Maybe she’d have a gun out or something. Maybe—
“Coast is clear out here.” Em jerked Torri from behind the concession stand toward another cart that sold Lindsey Walls T-shirts.
There were a few people in line, and when they got close someone stepped between the people to block their way.
Em put her hand at her waist near the bone dagger hilt, and Torri gripped her staff harder.
But it was just some crazy-looking woman dressed in all sorts of baggy, colorful clothes, with a string of braided gray hair slung over each shoulder and a military helmet on her head.
Two big blue eyes peered at them from behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
“Excuse me, lady,” Em said, pushing forward.
“Follow me,” the woman said, her mouth a quirky line.
Em put one hand on her hip. “How about fuck you.”
Unfazed, the woman blinked. “My name’s Missy Gray, and I’m a friend of Bess’s. I’m with the ECC. I don’t know you,” she pointed to Em, “But I know this one. She’s Torri Dowe.”
Torri stepped up. “How the hell do you know who I am?”
“I’ve studied your file. Plus Bess said you might be coming here if things didn’t work out on the hill. I’m assuming things didn’t work out?”
Torri’s face grew hot with worry. “I don’t know. Things were goin’ south. I had a plan to meet Em here if that happened.”
Missy Gray’s eyebrows lifted. “And just what are you planning to do?”
“We’re going to ambush the bitch.”
“Perfect. Sounds like we have a change of plans then. We need to help you.”
“Help us do what?”
Missy Gray grinned like a wildling. “We can stir up some shit as a distraction and make sure they don’t see you coming.”
Em nodded. “That will have to do. We don’t have much time.”
Someone grabbed Torri’s arm.
Spinning, she found the stocky security woman standing there with a grim look in her eyes, pursed lips turned up in a firm grin at the corners. At first, Torri thought they were fucked, and her heart about leapt out of her chest. But Torri was a Mull Witch, damn it, and she wouldn’t let no simple security guard muck up her plans. Torri put a focused look into the woman, her piercing green eyes filling her like concrete.
The woman’s face went blank, her posture flattening. Even her hand around Torri’s arm fell away.
“Best thing for you would be to go behind that concession stand until the rally is over. You got that?”
The woman vaguely nodded, took a stumbling step back, and then turned and walked slowly away like a person in a daze.
“Should have got her gun,” Em told Torri.
“Nice one,” Missy Gray said with a grin. “Real witchy shit. Now come on.”
They followed Missy Gray back into the crowd. It was a festive few thousand, hanging on Lindsey Walls’s every word and getting themselves riled up. Hardly anyone noticed them.
“The rest of us are preparing something over on stage left,” Missy said as they wove th
rough the thickening crowd. “I’m thinking you two go off to stage right and get ready. I’ll drive her to you.”
“That’s your plan?”
Missy smiled, lifting her shirt secretively. Several red balloons were taped to a harness strapped around her chest. “Trust me. I’m an expert bitch herder. I don’t care what kind of monster is up on that stage. She’s got an Armani business suit on. Her natural instinct will be to keep it spotless. Also, her security protocol is to take her stage right in the event of any trouble. Stage right is where you’ll be waiting.”
Torri understood now.
Em nodded smartly. “Okay, that makes sense. Thanks, Missy.”
“No problem.” Missy placed her hand on Torri’s shoulder. “Make sure you nail her. Nail her good.”
“We’re gonna try.”
Missy melted into the crowd, and Torri and Em made their way to stage right, weaving through the enraptured crowd who didn’t pay them a lick of attention. They avoided any milling security people, got lucky when two guards looked up just as they were moving past. Good thing, too, because Torri had forgotten all about her limp. Now she just looked like a young woman with a hiking staff.
She glanced up at the stage and saw they were a good deal closer. Lindsey Walls’s eyes were pointed in the opposite direction, but they scanned around to look right at Torri and Em. Torri tore her eyes away and ducked just as those eyes would have passed over them. Her shoulders clenched up wondering if they’d been spotted. Surely, their luck couldn’t continue.
But Em dragged her safely from the standing-room-only crowd with no alarms raised. They found themselves on the same blacktop path that encircled the assembly, this time further west. There were more T-shirt and merchandise vendors, but further down, the path cut between two trailers and a gate.
Facilities people walked by pushing carts of bottled water and orange cones. Beyond the trailers and gate, she spotted several black SUVs next to a low brick building she assumed was some sort of prep room for the candidate. A visitor’s building.
