by Tom Doyle
Chimera’s dark magic helped persuade the reluctant. He knew how to compel all the facets of death, save his own.
Her opponents would also use the dead, whatever the guardian’s scruples. Sakakawea’s revenants would eliminate the cover provided by the spirits of the enemy. The Civil War was the last time so many ghosts had entered living combat; Sakakawea would enjoy their erasure.
She was patient, but not when she had other opportunities for fun, like a battle for the soul of the nation. So despite her preternatural focus, she missed the first stirrings of prey at the outhouse two hundred yards away from the main shaft. But this was just a quibble of seconds. She silently signaled to her team the direction of the enemy. Morton, the guardian, the Sanctuary—she’d kill all her birds with one strike.
* * *
In the dark mine, we breathed, we focused, we recharged. The three magi were ready. It was good ground.
The Appalachian crawled up first. This land, shifting like an enormous chameleon, would hide her. I went up second. The exit was camouflaged as an old-fashioned wooden outhouse, complete with a quarter-moon window in the door. The camouflage was too authentic, though the filth was mostly spectral.
The Appalachian scrambled outside. No enemy response to the open door, so it must be hidden from their line of sight. I waited for Scherie to come up; I would go last to screen our retreat. I pointed the direction, and Scherie dashed from the exit with me on her heels.
Shots fired. I skewed them barely as much as necessary. Rounds nicked bits of loose clothing and the ground right beneath our feet. Evil craft filled the air like fog. Dead innocents cried for me to stop. I shook off the illusion and returned fire, a couple of shots to keep our pursuers honest.
We sought cover. We found it in a cluster of ghosts moving through the enormous old trees. The ghosts themselves were substantial enough to screen us if we stayed in a crouch. For me, dozens of dead Mortons, similarly attired, would be the best blind of all. The possibility of sudden ambush made our pursuers reluctant to follow at speed; their fire diminished in frequency and accuracy.
Like medieval clockwork, the armies were lining up again for battle. The blindness worked both ways; our enemies could hide an army of the living in these ghost troops. But I knew the protocols. At most, a squad would be tasked for something this quick and secret, and of those, we only had to kill the craftsmen.
As planned, we spread out to keep our pursuers’ task difficult, ducking among the trees to different units, then slowing to blend in. Hidden with the Hutchinsons, Scherie prepared to play nurse, ripping more strips from her own clothes. The Appalachian found a loose collection of mountain men. Despite divides of time and gender, she seemed at home with Boone and Crockett look-alikes.
The math still sucked: we had small arms against an assault team. The enemy would soon overwhelm us unless I acquired our target. Show me their sins. At this distance, the details of their transgressions blurred, but like radar my talent showed the living through the ghosts that surrounded them because the dead had no sins. My ability wouldn’t draw a bead back on me.
I saw the opposition as a scattering of fireflies. As if sensing our tactical shift, the other side had fanned out and away. No longer in pursuit, they would wait on the outskirts for us to be flushed out like pheasants.
So, who would be doing the flushing? I searched. I searched again. On the other side of the long clearing at the center height of the low rise, one living soul alone stood with the counterregiments. A very bad girl. She glowed with more sins than could fit her distant image. That must be Sakakawea, but was she in command? Show me her craft.
At first, I thought I’d lost craft sight; blood-red malignancy pulsed through the Sanctuary like a tick-tock aorta. But no, all of the death magic on this field radiated from her. She glowed hot with ridiculous amounts of power. Who was this Gideon really? She was way beyond her pay grade here.
Near Sakakawea stood the distinct outline of Sergeant Zanol. No surprise there.
As she had with her squad, Sakakawea had extended the counterarmy’s flanks to envelop the free unionists, to bag us all. She must be worried that we would run away again. To her strategy there was an obvious riposte, notorious for its times of failure.
I wound my way to Scherie’s oak. I whispered so my living voice wouldn’t carry. “I need them to charge the center.”
“I’ll try this group first,” she said, pointing at a cluster of perpetually wounded ghosts. She approached the revenants with her cloth strips, but they receded like a strobe-lit tide. She whispered fiercely at them, “Listen to me!” They turned, covered their ears.
From behind another tree, the Appalachian strode forward and pulled Scherie back into cover. She shook her head.
“Why aren’t you at your post?” I said.
“This is all my post,” said the Appalachian. “And if my dead don’t want to chat with a walking neutron bomb, nobody’s gonna make ’em.”
“Fine. I’ll try my connections. Remember your jobs.” I slid back through the columns of dead to my ancestors. Dad and Grandpa stood silent before me, blocking my way to Joshua. It would be wrong to try to pass through them here. “Dad, Grandpa, I need to speak with Joshua.”
They shook their heads. But, in acknowledgment of their continued connection to me, they stepped aside.
I stood next to Joshua and faced the same direction as the free union troops to avoid drawing attention. I spoke through the side of my mouth. “Sir, I don’t know if you can hear me, but I need you to lead a charge up against the center of their line. It’s as crazy as Pickett’s, but the fate of the country is on the line. I need a screen of soldiers. I need to get close to their living leader.”
I glanced over at Joshua. No response. I felt less than stupid. Here I was again, praying to the ancestors. I jabbed my finger ahead in frustration. “I need to kill her. Extremely dead.”
Then Joshua raised his hand to his head to peer across the field at Sakakawea, and the dead man’s jaw dropped like sudden decay. Was she the one he had been searching for, or was she someone else? It didn’t matter. He began making gestures, and he began to give orders.
“Tonight we charge the center.”
The words froze my spine, because I could hear them. I looked around, and saw not the faded hues of old film, but men and women in full-colored high-def 3-D. I had been drafted into their world.
“Now you’ve done it,” said Dad. Grandpa grimaced in disgust, then peered across the field. “She looks familiar. Not good.”
It took time even for ghost regiments to redraw their lines for battle. Finally, Joshua called out, “Forward march.” The Grand Army of the Republic of the Dead stepped off the line and moved stately forward. The banners blazed, the fife pierced, and the snare code of drums made punctual pebbles that kept time with my amplified pulse. The landscape was more vivid green against grimmer trees. Beneath the music, a faint murmur of commands kept order.
I slanted from side to side at the back of the centerline to avoid being a fixed target. Were Scherie and the Appalachian seeing this, feeling this? I hoped they didn’t get distracted from the mission.
A dozen dirty marching men and women gravitated toward me, and drew up into formation around me. I knew them all; they were my veterans, forgotten by all others because of the secrecy of our duty. They said nothing, yet the skin around my heart felt thin. Proud, yes, but I dreaded watching them fall all over again.
The grand scene was short-lived; we came within range of the enemy’s guns. The ectoplasmic artillery thundered like a hell-bound storm and blasted holes through the advancing line. The din filled my ears; they had no room for any other sound. The blasts made large areas suddenly visible; they threatened to expose my position.
I wanted to call for a change in pace, but the dead anticipated me. Under enemy fire, the advance across the middle of the clearing turned into a double-quick running charge.
Sakakawea and her living soldiers were not oblivi
ous to my tactics. “He’s there,” she yelled. “Just spray the entire center.” The living fired scattered shots and the dead fired endless rounds into my spectral screen. The living rounds were harmless to the ghosts, harmless to me; the blind fire gave me more uncertain probabilities to play with.
But the ghost rounds took a horrible toll. Musket balls hissed, whizzed, and thumped. Sakakawea grabbed a spectral automatic from her guard. “Hey warrior, come out and play!” She sprayed death like summer fun ahead of her and laughed like a carrion flock. “Death, death, death!” How the hell could she use a ghost weapon? She murdered the ghosts with boundless love, a serial killer angel, ripping gaps in my protection as soldiers fell to the right and left in pools of plasmic gore.
Fortunately, the weapon couldn’t maintain an automatic rate of fire any longer, and she set it aside for her mundane rifle. We climbed over a fragment of stone wall, and skirted a segment of split wooden fence. Past all these deadly nuisances, we rushed for the higher ground.
Zanol couldn’t wait. Waiving an officer’s sword, he charged down. “Morton!” he bellowed, head turning left and right as he cut down soldier after soldier. “Where are you, coward?”
“My family has no cowards, sir,” said Grandpa, stepping forward with his own saber.
“You’ll do,” said Zanol.
Sabers clashed, but my guard and I were already past this duel.
We made our last crazy push up the high ground, my veterans roaring like feral saints. A final wave of fire, and my covering spirits were all but gone, retired for this day at least. My father and Joshua, against the odds, still moved with me, but could not keep me hidden.
“Ha!” From mere yards away, Sakakawea leveled her mundane rifle and fired at me.
I went down, face first into the damp earth. Bleed, I thought, and don’t think so loud, and I bled from the healing motel wound.
Sakakawea squawked with laughter. “Get up, Morton! This trick was ancient when old Thomas met his first Indian.”
I heard no bluff in her taunt. I sat up.
She stepped toward me. My father and Joshua fired at her. She waved the back of her hand at them, and they fell backwards to the ground.
She peered down at me, smiling with unlikely gentleness. “Joshua’s last descendant in the craft. I’ve waited for this day for a long time.” Up close, her collective transgressions resolved themselves. She had many, many sins, some of which needed more than initial letters. She didn’t look old enough to own all of them. But, as Grandpa had said, she did look familiar.
Bloody craft filled my eyes, poured into my brain. Something was supposed to happen now, but I couldn’t remember what. She held the rifle close to my head. Oh yes, that’s right, I was going to die.
“Goddamn it, keep your hands off me!” Her own hands bound, the Appalachian was pushed and shoved up the hill. “I’ve got rights. I’m not in your jurisdiction, GI.”
“Keep going, you,” said the soldier, giving another shove.
Oh, I thought, it’s just the Appalachian. She’s gotten herself caught. Hope she can avoid getting herself shot.
“Nice work,” said Sakakawea, eyeing the soldier with an unprofessional interest. “Now find the other one and I’ll personally raise your rank.” And whatever else amused her. “She shouldn’t be much trouble.”
She bent to greet her latest prisoner. “Hello, Pearl.”
The Appalachian spat at her. Point-blank range, but the spit missed, though some spray hit Sakakawea’s rifle.
“You, I’ll let watch when I do your land,” said Sakakawea. “I like it when someone watches. See?”
I took this as permission to turn. From up here, I could see the whole field. The battle had gone very badly for the free union troops. They were caving on the flanks. A scattering of medics tended the trail of wounded spirits I had left on my foolhardy charge.
Report from the field: we were screwed.
“Damn you!” Grandpa yelled, and he groaned in agony. Zanol had run his sword through him. When Zee pulled it free, Grandpa fell to the ground. A medic rushed to him.
Zee waved his gore-slaked sword in triumph and strode back up the hill.
“Good,” said Sakakawea. “I promised him that he could witness your death, and I don’t break promises without reason.”
Zee reached us. “Ready, dear ghost?” asked Sakakawea.
“Yes,” he said.
She again aimed her rifle into my face. “Wait,” said Zee.
“What is it?” she said, with a hint of dangerous impatience.
“There’s something you need to know,” said Zee. He smiled like nirvana, a beatific face of NCO payback. “You don’t understand this place at all.”
“Ticking magic of death!” Another voice, carrying a continent of outrage and loss, echoed through the battle as if from everywhere at once. But the simple words came from one woman. “Leave the Sanctuary! Now!”
As she spoke, the medic treating Grandpa stood up and threw aside her scarf and raised her gun. Grandpa jumped up behind her, flourishing his sword. Some counterghosts ran toward the medic to stall her, then ran away. The blood-dimmed craft was gone. With a banshee’s rebel yell and the ululation of a distant land, Scherie charged the hill.
The Gideon didn’t hesitate. First things first. She pulled the trigger.
Click!
“I spiked that first thing, dear,” said the Appalachian.
I dove into the Gideon, pounding at nerve points like old radio buttons, groping for her side arms. She was packing more than one weapon; I couldn’t let her use them.
She mirrored my blows like slapstick, stunning my limbs for a crucial second. “Squad, to me,” she said between gritted teeth. But instead of her living squad, a cordon of ghost soldiers had formed a ring around our struggle, as if they wanted to see it go all ten rounds.
Sakakawea threw me off like a clingy cat; I landed on my back. The Appalachian stuck her ass in my face. Her small caliber still there, tucked in her pants, craft-hidden from search. So much skill, and she still couldn’t manage to get the restraints off her hands.
I took the gun and spun. A shot missed. The Appalachian hit the dirt. I aimed and fired. The bullet curved away from the Gideon, a wild pitch into the dead crowd.
Zanol dashed in front of Sakakawea, interfering with her view. Here, protected by the Sanctuary from the curses of the living, Zee was the man he was supposed to be. “Treacherous clown,” said the Gideon. Without ceasing her hunt for me, she took a spectral pistol from a wounded spirit and fired it at Zee, hitting his side, but this only slowed him down. Other former countersoldiers joined his effort. She moved through, firing against ghosts with one hand and me with the other. The soldiers she often hit, but me she missed.
I zigged, zagged, willed away a Gideon bullet, and took another shot. My bullet curved again, but with less authority. Sakakawea’s craft remained amazing, but it was flickering, perhaps guttering.
Scherie finally arrived, the spirits parting for her like a frightened sea. The spectral weapon vanished from Sakakawea’s grip, but she kept the other gun pointed at me. Another broken standoff, but for these few moments, I held the advantage in firepower. “Hit flesh,” I whispered to the bullet in the chamber, and Sakakawea’s mouth moved as well. At this range with my craft, I could take the Gideon, but that move had a more than zero risk to Scherie, and I wanted information.
“Surrender, Gideon,” I said. “My word, you’ll live.”
“Surrender. Yes,” said Sakakawea, voice steady. “It’s time.” Her eyes ticked down at her empty hand. “Too old.”
I saw no deception, but wasn’t sure she was talking to me. Her eyes ticked at Scherie and Scherie’s gun, and her face vibrated for a second. “Oh dear me. Yes, past time!” She reversed her gun, holding it by the muzzle toward herself. She started to lower it to the ground.
Then she twirled the gun as she locked into a crouch. She was faster than light, quick as craft. She fired. “Be ready for m
e, love!”
Ba-bam! My mind went black, even as my reflexes fired for me fatally. The guns’ reports merged like a severed echo. I did not fall.
Sakakawea had fired at Scherie.
She had chosen meaningless death for two. The world failed.
Craft-impelled and near point-blank, these bullets would not stop save for human flesh. No such stuff stood between me and the Gideon. Sakakawea’s stomach blossomed red.
I turned to Scherie. Before I had seen what would happen, the Appalachian had risen. She had moved, not just in her realm, but through it. The bullet had found her waiting, addressed straight to the heart. All the Sanctuary’s protective craft could only move that evil shot to hitting a lung. Collapse. The Appalachian’s blood spilled onto the land.
With a chuckle, Sakakawea folded to the ground.
Scherie knelt at the Appalachian’s side to treat her wound. A hundred years of medics circled them, shouting their assistance.
I bent over Sakakawea. Her wound would be slow; there was time for questions. “Stay with me. Who sent you? Who the fuck sent you?”
She smiled. “Endicott.” I saw no lie. She giggled blood, and trembled beneath me. Her last breath rattled out with a black-light explosion of craft. She was gone.
Material bullets pinged off rocks to my right. “That’s her squad,” said Zanol, supporting himself on another soldier’s arm. “They’re taking cover, talking over their next move.”
I looked in Sakakawea’s mouth. No black capsule. She was dead, dead of a gut shot. Of all the things today, that made the least sense. But the mortal threat was gone. If her ghost showed up, she’d be just one of thousands.
“They’re coming through,” said Zee. “Their weapons are standard issue. No Stonewall devices.”
Sakakawea’s strike force pushed on through the cluster of dead, weapons at ready. “Stand down, or we will shoot you.” They didn’t sound certain about any part of that.
With the external death craft expelled, I could work my assassin’s magic. I wanted to consult Joshua, but Joshua was down. I wanted to hesitate, but couldn’t.