by Tom Doyle
Ogin knew some theatrics himself. He yelled in English: “Sister fucker!”
Like a practice-range target, the American sprang to his feet, then ran, not at Ogin, but right for one of the women, impossibly fast, with a gale wind blowing before him. Ogin thought he could see rage in the Red Death’s terrible mask.
* * *
Why couldn’t they just let Madeline rest in peace? thought Roderick. Yes, he had been waiting for them to come closer, not for any tactical reason, but for simple pleasure—he would have enjoyed their terror when he sprang up and punched his hands through their armored chests. But their rude, clever major had made him change his plan.
So be it: seven opposing craftsmen, six to kill, one to hurt. Seven probably seemed an extravagant number to them, but they would learn how insultingly poor it truly was. He forgave them their ignorance; in their brief lives, none of them had seen someone of his power. Despite the additional pain and difficulty, he would kill each of them with individual means and attention, lest any observers think he wasn’t a fully rounded threat.
As he ran toward his first target, bullets again hit him like incredibly fast sledgehammers, and bits of his own gore flew away from him. The probability of not being killed was vanishingly small, but craft was about probability, and he stretched that chance to hold his own precious life. The shots still hurt like hell. In the design of his new body, Roderick had demanded heightened sensitivity, even to pain. Everything had to have its cost, and even he wasn’t beyond those red equations. Though the agony tempted him to stop their guns from firing, that spell would spoil his surprise.
To replenish his power, he sucked at their energies, as he had once tapped the whole city of Washington, but this focused drink had more noticeable effects. As their thoughts and movements became slightly more sluggish, he saw the seven’s sins. The tall woman in the center, of course, was a relative innocent—the better to bait him to charge into their middle.
He wouldn’t be so easily profiled. The other, shorter woman, to his left of their center, was his first target. She had stepped out from her cover and was moving her hands and speaking a steady stream of Russian invective against him, trying to work a subtle knife of craft between his spirit and his body. Oh no, dear, that trick has been tried, and by better than you. Besides, no mind-body crack to work here. This corpus was his alone, created especially for him. The world’s most powerful exorcist, Scherezade Rezvani, might still pose a threat against his soul, but no one else.
But this pretender was giving him a headache. Even as she, terror stricken, screamed at him to “get the fuck out of that body!” he replied with, “Please be silent,” and with a quick hip-chambered karate punch bashed in her skull. Silence.
One of the flankers and two of the main line had rushed to fold in their formation to defend their comrade, hitting him with their full arsenal of magic. He let their force fall upon him. He felt the air depart from his lungs in a local vacuum, but it would be minutes before his new body would notice. He felt epileptic shocks shoot across his synapses, and for a moment the world took on strange electric hues, but this was nothing to a mind that had been integrated with a machine. He felt his bones question whether they should remain unbroken, but they stayed whole, for no part of this body would obey another magus.
With improvisational speed that no other craftsman could have managed, he hit them back with their own spells. “Air, please move.” “A short, sharp shock, please.” “Bones, please break.” For a few seconds, they fought with their pathetic defenses, then collapsed—strangled, convulsed, and broken.
Down to three, the major, his lieutenant, and the tall woman they were calling Vasilisa, who stood behind them, like an arrowhead pointing away from him in the direction they’d like to flee. The major had maintained his calm throughout, giving orders even as the recipients perished. Such admirable nerve could not be suffered to live. As his partner in the demonstration, his lieutenant would be perfect. Time to show them what he’d learned in the machine.
“Please shoot each other once in the stomach.”
He had left them with complete awareness of what they were doing, yet they didn’t fight it hard. They thought they were safe. Their rifles would have safety chips (what his former countrymen called Stonewalls).
They didn’t understand. His time as a living dismembered head connected to the Pentagon’s Chimera machine had given him abilities that made their digital safeguards useless. He had them fire single shots just to allow the savor and frisson of their failure.
One shot quickly followed the other. Oh, the sweet anguish, the horror and betrayal on their faces, as they doubled over and sank to their knees. But now he had to finish it, before it became too difficult and tedious. “Please finish killing each other.”
The shots exploded simultaneously. Lovely. He had killed them all, except for the tall woman. Lovely.
He advanced on her, ardent with blood thirst and more. Stunned, she stumbled as she stepped away, then rolled and scrambled backward to get farther from him, legs pushing wildly. But she was beaten and slow and cornered against some brush. Standing up again to her full height, she ceased trying to escape, but her face didn’t yet reward him with the stigmata of terror. She was fiercely professional, steely eyed in the face of his Red Death. What lay beneath her mask?
He bent forward, close to her lips, and spoke huskily in Russian. “You remind me of someone.”
Had she been briefed on his background? Did she understand him? Oh, yes, he could see she did. Her hard eyes went wide with charming sexual horror, her mouth gaped with inviting terror.
“Would you like to come home with me? I could show you many things. Wonderful things.”
Even though he was waiting for it, the force of her response was surprising. Both her hands gripped his throat, and as she pulled him closer, her teeth snapped at him, and some curse against his life slammed like the bullets against his chest. Refreshing. Madeline had been like this.
He backhanded her face as he had so often slapped Madeline’s. The counter blow flattened her. “Please pass out.”
With admirable restraint, he had merely rendered her unconscious. Still, as she lay powerless on the ground, he had to remind himself—it wasn’t Madeline. You are to carry my message. But not the message you think.
Sensing a farsight audience, he took a step northeast toward Moscow and that place below Lubyanka that he and the combined force of the West had never seen. Then he turned his face west toward Langley and Vauxhall Cross. His left hand was open at his side, displaying its deeds laying about the ground, while he shook his right fist at the gray sky. “Insult me again, and I will bury you all!” Look at this work, fuckers, and despair.
Very good, enough theater, drop the curtain. With a bow and a sweep of his hands, he said, “Screen up, please.” This old dog had learned some Ukrainian stealth tricks.
He removed his mask and admired the art he had created here. The white snow was splattered with red, like his mask and cloak. It was as pretty as he had planned, but if it snowed much more, the effect would be ruined. He asked the snow he had summoned to please stop, and it began to taper off. The Russians had brought some lovely guns, but he would leave those for his Ukrainian friends.
That just left Vasilisa. His desire hadn’t all been pretense. To play with her a little while would be divine. No use thinking about it—if that was what he’d really wanted, he should have kept another one of them alive. He forced himself to turn away from the girl (no, “woman”—he had to keep up with the times) and plodded back through the town toward the nuclear plant.
Oh, his poor body. He hadn’t let it show, but he was wounded all over. He would need some help with its healing and repair. To fit in, his face had Slavic features, which he resented, and his light golden hair seemed inappropriate to his disposition, but otherwise, his body was a wonder. Roderick had been an intellectual during a time when the benefits of physical exercise weren’t fully appreciated. His curr
ent Classic-sculpted form was a narcissist’s dream, but Roderick more appreciated its combat efficiency than its aesthetics.
He found his black-and-red Bugatti Veyron where he’d left it near the plant. Inside the plant, the workers were waiting for Roman’s signal that it was safe to venture out again. Roderick pointed his electric key and pushed its button, unlocking the car doors and starting the motor. He smiled; simple technology could still make him feel young.
He let the car warm up while he changed his outerwear. His shroud wasn’t designed for warmth, and neither was his full-body armor (he wasn’t so foolish as to rely completely on his own power to stop every little projectile). He picked up his parka from the passenger seat, put on his boots, spat up a bullet, and pulled out his smart phone (a term that, due to his recent unpleasant employment in the Pentagon, gave him flashback chills). Roman Roszkewycz answered. Out of habit, they spoke in English.
“Good day, O great and powerful colleague,” said Roman. “Did you have fun?” An implication there? Roderick sometimes had too much fun.
“I’ve left one alive,” said Roderick. “But some paramedics had better hurry, or she’ll freeze out here.” Or if she didn’t show up soon in mundane hands, her handlers would kill her remotely—any party of this significance must have that sort of implant.
“You’re the one who dropped the temperature,” noted Roman with his usual ill-timed humor. But perhaps sensing Roderick’s mood, he changed the subject. “She’ll tell discouraging story?”
“It should buy us a few more months.” And next time, maybe they’d think twice about sending a Madeline doppelgänger, unless they meant business.
“Excellent. Come home to Kiev. We do lunch, yes?”
Roderick hung up. Home to Kiev. He wondered if the Russians thought he lived up here, in this poisoned ghost town that would have made Poe’s head spin. He had broadcast his intention for months to be here by regular visits and the blood rite on the ground. But, new flesh or no, only an idiot would actually live here. Yes, the Babas had Chernobyl projects, but Kiev was more his speed. Roderick had a nice modern home, craft-hidden of course, that looked out on a park in Kiev. He loved that park.
He put the car in gear. Now he could relax and let himself bleed a little. They could clean the car, or replace it. Better watch that he didn’t bleed out, though. The concentration of armor-piercing rounds in his chest meant a lot of metal was hanging close to this heart. But this flesh improved considerably on nature. Even now, snakes of tissue reached across wounds to knit together, perhaps too quickly—he wanted to avoid healing too much, as it would make bullet removal that much more difficult. Ah, the agony remained acute, but after all those years of decay without clear sensations of any kind, he wanted them all, and besides its ops value, lean physical pain had some charm. Pain was how he knew things were interesting.
As he drove along the largely deserted two-lane route through mostly empty countryside, he reviewed the results of the skirmish. The important question was whether his enemies understood his primary message. It wasn’t the obvious one that the Ukrainians wanted and that would be confirmed through back channels: “live and let live.” Hah. His enemies wouldn’t believe it, but perhaps they’d give him time.
No, the unspoken real message was that the dangerous secret of Left-Hand craft immortality was out of the bag and on the plate. It had been easy for the Right-Hand craft world to be good when they had no way to be so bad. When those previously dutiful servants of their various governments heard of what he had done today, deathless in this wonderful body, many more would join his cause for that secret alone.
He already had many friends in place within the craft forces around the globe. Soon, he’d have an army, which he’d need. Not only would those who wished to continue to repress the Left-Hand way, the way of unshackled power and life extension, be gunning for him, but those who desired to take his secret without sharing wouldn’t want him alive after they’d extracted it. He wished they’d speed up their killing of each other over him. Then the dynamics of Family vendetta would take over, which had undermined national duty from the beginning, and he could get on with his real work.
Feh, mere physical immortality. They could all have it, and may it bring them much joy. Eating, shitting, screwing, the animal functions—it was all so mundane. Better than life as the talking head in the Chimera machine, but far from divine. That would all change for him, and soon. He just needed a little more time before the world and the Ukrainians figured out what he was really up to.
Time. Out of paranoid habit, he glanced at the rearview mirror. Instead of the road or his reflection, he saw his old, oozing face. Embarrassing—he’d had this vision before. It spoke to either a trite psychology or dubious craft, and he wanted nothing to do with either. He pressed harder on the accelerator. He imagined he was a terrifying driver. He had no regard for life, and no fear for his own. Having this body made him feel more like Madeline: reckless, carnal.
He turned on the car stereo, and Adams’s Doctor Atomic played. Technological magic. He steeled himself for another look in the mirror, and saw his Slavic face. Good. Part of how he was going to win this time involved seeing himself with greater clarity, and not taking himself too seriously—at least, not until he won.
In the meantime, he had a few scores to settle. As he drove into greater Kiev on the now four-lane highway, it disturbed him more and more that the craftswoman in Pripyat had attempted Rezvani’s expulsion trick. The Russians might have gained intel of Rezvani’s power, so all the more reason to remove her and her colleagues from the playing board. And Madeline—even dead, he needed to do something up close and personal to her.
Like the spetsnaz with their safety chips, when his American targets relied on technology, he would enjoy their horror at its betrayal. With Ukrainian support, he could hack their craft-encrypted phones and fake any of their communications to each other. Scattered by duty across the globe, they wouldn’t be able to warn each other of their danger as he played with them.
The low sun glared down on the unseasonably warm city—the least he could do. When the Babas were done repairing him downtown, he’d return to his new house and the tall, thin woman who waited for him, upon him. He had lost count of the number of her predecessors. He no longer learned their real names. He called them all Madeline. Eventually, they reminded him of Madeline in a bad way and had to go. So many of these Ukrainian women disappeared into the maw of the sex-trafficking trade every year that his personal demands went unnoticed. At least his women had the consolation of meeting their ends closer to home.
Madeline, have you been watching? Have you seen what I have done?
He had worried about being an expat. In his nineteenth-century life in the House of Morton in Providence, his magic had been tied to the American land and recharging had been difficult overseas. But this country’s power flowed freely into him, confirming his hope that he had passed the usual limits and boding well for his plans. A would-be god had to think bigger than nation-states.
He looked forward to relaxing and appreciating anew the view of the park from his house. The name of the park was Babi Yar. Here, the Germans had executed more than one hundred thousand mortals. Roderick disliked Germans, but he liked the feeling this place gave him. Until his imminent apotheosis, it would have to do.
PART I
THE INNOCENT KILLERS ABROAD
Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me.
—Emily Dickinson
Led with delight, they thus beguile the way,
Untill the blustring storme is overblowne;
When weening to returne, whence they did stray,
They cannot finde that path, which first was showne,
But wander too and fro in wayes unknowne,
Furthest from end then, when they neerest weene,
That makes them doubt, their wits be not their owne:
So many pathes¸ so many turnings seene,
That which
of them to take, in diverse doubt they been.
—Edmund Spenser
CHAPTER
ONE
For the record, I, Major Michael Endicott, veteran spiritual soldier, didn’t take the news about Roderick’s survival well.
“Major, please, calm down.” My father’s replacement at countercraft ops command, General Calvin Attucks, used a touch of reassuring craft with his raspy Harry Belafonte voice, but that magic hadn’t ever worked on me, even from Colonel Hutchinson.
“I’m plenty calm, sir,” I answered, shaking the pain out of the fist that I had just slammed on my father’s former desk. “But we’ve got to go to Ukraine right now and kill him.” Here I was, an Endicott advocating the assassination of a Left-Hand Morton because no one else here in the Pentagon’s secret H-ring had the sense to see the immediate threat. I sounded just like my father. Like much else in the army, this wasn’t fair. Neither was Hutch’s death. As Attucks’s cousin-in-law, her picture was on his desk along with his wife’s. Hutch had died to get rid of Roderick forever.
“You understand, sir,” I continued, “this isn’t just a Family thing. Dale agrees with me. He said that if farsight spotted Roderick, we should go after him ASAP. He said his ancestor is like a cancer—he’ll only grow.”
The general shook his bald head, probably still a little surprised that, after centuries of interfamily feuding, an Endicott was quoting a Morton as authority. Still surprised me a little too. “Major Morton is hardly an objective voice,” he said.
“Meaning what, sir?”
“Meaning Roderick will want to kill Scherie as much as he wants to kill Dale, you, the Endicott family, or anyone else.”
“OK,” I said, “what are the Ukrainians going to do about it?”
“The Ukrainians have made it distinctly clear that they’ll fight to keep him, and the Russians have been even clearer that they consider this to be within their sphere of influence, so they get to handle it and no one else.”
