by Tom Doyle
“We’ve been softened up,” I said.
“Tenderized for a bad-guy meal,” agreed Endicott. Drops of blood on the floor seemed to grow paler as the pulsing red craft fed on their energy. The things people ignore.
“The generals—they’ll be back,” said Endicott.
“So, Major,” I said, “take us to Chimera.”
“No.”
“Endicott!” I felt another impulse to kill this man and be done with it. Instead, I said, “I know what Roderick said, but—”
“No time,” said Endicott. “There’ll be alert guards and a lockdown. We’ve got to get out of this corridor and kill those two walking abominations first.”
“Right,” I said. “I suspect the abominations know that.” I read the sign. “OTM?”
“Seems like they found the perfect way to avoid notice in a craft area,” said Endicott.
“Techies. I would have noticed,” I said.
“I suspect the abominations know that too,” said Endicott.
“Time to go, Scherie,” I said, getting under her arm to pick her up. I pulled her across the corridor and plopped her none too delicately at the threshold. “Hey!” she said. Then Endicott and I dragged Hutch over to the OTM door.
I spoke calmly as I put my hand on the doorknob. “You run into any traps lately?”
“Yep. You?”
“Yep,” I said. I turned the knob, and the door swung open. “Confident fuckers. Any other options?”
Yells of soldiers came from both directions. “None.”
I nodded as I peered into the dark room beyond the door. “I assume they just want to kill us off camera.”
“Good,” said Endicott. “I’m not ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMorton.”
I didn’t want to die hating myself for liking this man, but that seemed my destiny. Endicott said it first. “In another universe, perhaps we could have killed stuff together.”
I chuckled. “In another universe, we’re both already dead.”
I considered the threshold. “We better all go in at the same time. On three. One, two…” I pulled Scherie, and Endicott dragged Hutch into the OTM.
Behind us, the door slammed shut. Another door, very non-Pentagon-standard steel, slid into place in front of it. The sound of locks and bolts ostentatiously slamming home announced that we were exactly where our enemies wanted us. We had entered the ninth circle.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
The general continued to receive his reports from the Chimera feed, and the reports said everything was fine. But that was difficult to believe when he had arrested his own son, the lazy move of an officer or parent who couldn’t be bothered with complications. And how could all be well when he could read only a single screen by emergency lighting?
“Chimera, what’s going on in H-ring?”
“Insufficient data.”
“Take a guess.”
“I’d say you’re fucked, General Endicott.” Instead of the Chimera feed, the voice came direct on his intercom.
“Chimera, tighten control.”
“Yes, I revise,” said Roderick. “It’s your son that’s royally fucked. Madeline and Abram are here. Your son is with them. They have my prophecy: the old Endicott will slay the younger. About one hundred percent probability that your son’s going to be killed in the next five minutes. About one hundred and ten percent probability that it’s your fault.”
“Liar.” But the general heard only a mirthless exaggeration. “You dare threaten my family?” He reached for his family’s sword. But it was gone.
Had Hutch taken it? No one else of interest had been in the room. No time to consider. He ran from his office down the spoke corridor and around the corner to Chimera’s airlock. The chastised and now doubly alert guards saluted him.
“I’m going in,” said the general.
“Sir, we have a breach alarm. We’re in lockdown.”
Damned idiots—always too little or too much. The general had no time for argument, or fools. “Get out of my way,” he said.
His Endicott compulsion worked well on their pusillanimous minds. He punched in his override code at the air lock and entered. But he couldn’t leave those bozos alone out there. He called support on the entry’s intercom. “Emergency. This is General Endicott. All available personnel to guard Room Zero.”
The general ignored the clean-room suits—he had more than dirt for Roderick. He ran quickly down the line of servers, his old heart racing to catch up.
“You can’t hurt me,” said the silvered box.
“I can try.” The general looked about for something to disable, but saw nothing but futile complexity.
“Horrible, isn’t it,” continued Roderick, “how the worst conspiracies are right in front of your face? A lifetime of hunting, of obsession, all to end with the sacrifice of Mount Moriah.”
The devil did cite scripture. Very well, the general would deal with the devil. “Please, I need to save my son.”
“I’d prefer you kneel, but we’re short of time. Perhaps I left one possibility out. Just walk to that wall to your left.” The general moved away from Roderick. “Warmer. I know you’re not very good, but even you have enough craft sight…”
The outline of an open door shimmered in front of the general. “I see it.”
“Just go through.”
“Then what?”
“That’s all you need to do to save your son. Good-bye, General Endicott.”
Without concern for more oracles, or consideration of the blur in the corner of his eye that moved toward Roderick, the general strode through the hidden door and into the OTM.
* * *
Watching the Left-Hand spirits cover the Pentagon like black leprosy, Eddy considered calling in the destruct order against H-ring. The president had granted that authority to the Peepshow for just such an emergency, though Sphinx hadn’t hinted at using it. But Sphinx played a very close-run game of fine choices. For lesser players, sometimes clearing the board was the best option, or at least the safest.
As if to interrupt these cheery thoughts, Eddy’s phone rang. Eddy’s phone was supposed to buzz, not ring. Also, the phone was turned off for this mission while Eddy used his Peepshow earpiece, so it wasn’t supposed to do anything.
Eddy answered his phone. “What took you so long?” said a voice that Eddy recognized as the PRECOG commander. Where Sphinx had been charmingly oracular, this military prophet was autistically efficient. “Pentagon H-ring is compromised.”
“What are you doing about it?” asked Eddy.
“Waiting for you. My staff has left the building without leave.”
“Not exactly a good omen,” said Eddy, nodding at a rain-soaked and nervous young woman holding an automatic weapon pointed at his van’s window. “We’re in the parking lot. The mundanes don’t appear to be welcoming.”
Eddy’s earpiece broadcast a litany of new warnings from Sphinx’s veterans:
“High probability we all die down there.”
“High probability of end of American democracy.”
“High probability of Chimera singularity scenario…”
But PRECOG CCDR said, “Just get down here.”
Then, much to his embarrassment, Eddy had a vision. Oh, is that all. “Where’s your infirmary? And your morgue?”
“What the fuck do you have in mind?”
This man called himself a farseer? Eddy gave him a vague answer while he added the numbers. One, two, three, four? He had just enough with him to cover four.
“Order the emergency evacuation of nonessential personnel from all rings,” said Eddy.
“Your authority?”
“No. Presidential authority.” Let him chew on that one for a while. “But tell them something stupid about a gas main.”
The nervous woman and other Pentagon guards stood down, and the Peepshow moved out from their vans, suits fluttering in the tempest like eight indignant black birds. Eddy hummed “Suicide Is Painle
ss.” He’d had enough Wagner, and “Ride of the Valkyrie” was such a cliché.
* * *
Unlike the prestige rooms upstairs, the OTM door opened right on a room. I saw the standard detritus of a combination IT department and janitor’s closet, mixed with alchemy. At the back of the room, another door—this one closed.
Scherie pointed blindly toward the closed door. “That way. All violation all the time. Kill them extremely dead.”
Endicott and I left Scherie and Hutch together on the floor. I tried the door, and found it unlocked. I opened it. We saw the second room, and despite what we saw, Endicott and I entered. We felt the sterile wrong of the monitor screens, and the nightmare wrong of the body tanks. The tanks had room for two more.
“Prague,” said Endicott. “Worse than Prague.”
From far above, but closer than before, an opposing evil howled. The disapproval of the Left-Hand spirits sounded primal and sincere. But it wasn’t a question of trust.
“Not yet,” I said, to all the living and dead.
The two techs stood next to what looked like a field operating table with pillows and sheets. Abram had straightened, all signs of solar plexus pain gone. “Here you are, come to our place of power like cattle to the rendering.”
Abram and Madeline made talonlike mudras with their left hands. A screaming dagger thrust into my mind. It was like every other attempt in training and combat to possess me, except twice as strong and ten times as painful. But it was a quick eternity, and it failed.
I glanced at Endicott. He looked shaken, but himself.
“No surprise there,” said Madeline. “Now can we please kill them?”
“Hello, Aunt Madeline,” I said.
“Hello, Dale. You’ve grown up to be a very handsome young man.”
“You’ve had enough incest for a few more lifetimes, dear,” said Abram.
Madeline smiled indulgently. “Before we feed your energies to Roderick, with maybe a nibble for ourselves, I should confirm: wouldn’t you rather live and join us?”
“Thanks, no,” I said. Time for a bluff. “I should warn you: I can expel you from your bodies.”
Abram made a mudra with his left hand, and the craft wattage went up. From the other room, Scherie screamed, “Fuck fuck fuck!”
“I’ll call your bet,” said Abram. “Rezvani might try, if she could see our spirits.”
“Hmm,” considered Madeline. “How to dispose of you? We could have you fight each other.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, just kill us if you can,” said Endicott, charging at Madeline.
“I’m not Spartacus,” I agreed, as I advanced on Abram.
“Fuck!” Scherie still screamed next door. Probably not upset at missing the villains’ banter.
As with the Red Death before, Abram allowed me to rain blows on him as if to show that they didn’t affect him, and to drive me to despair. Abram felt even more solid, more adamantine than before. But parameters of his body also felt different. This meant something, but I didn’t have time to think.
Abram reached under the operating bed. “Look what I found.”
“My sword,” said Endicott, before Madeline’s nails missed his eyes and raked his cheek.
“My sword,” said Abram. He whirled it about with an air propeller’s speed.
I stepped back. I knew what I needed. With a kick, I freed an alloy tube (too short!) from one of the unfinished tanks. Catching it by my foot as it fell, I Hacky-Sacked it up, seized it in my left hand, and parried Abram’s downward slash.
Goddamn it, I hated archaic weapons.
I spun around and away from Abram, kicked another tube up from the ground, caught it in my right hand, and swung it wide into Abram’s side. Abram didn’t flinch, but he did back off a step as he hacked at my staves.
Not completely invulnerable then. But I couldn’t do much damage with my alchemical alloy. The second tube had length, but neither staff had an edge. And Abram’s strokes were denting the alloy with more than physical power.
I sought an opening to assist Endicott, but found none. Abram and Madeline had fought together long before we had been born; repetition had made their coordination seamless. But the matchups were right. Endicott, smaller than me, could match Madeline’s physical force, and Abram had made him run before.
Catching Abram’s next blow in a cross of metal, I said, “You’re going to pay for what you did to Hutch.”
“Idiot,” said Abram. “Punish yourself. I haven’t been in person within the House of Morton in a century. That was your precious possessed Hutch you were beating.”
Praise the infernal lord for Endicott arrogance. The old guy wanted to hurt me so much that he couldn’t help give away intel. If it was my beating that Hutch’s body was still suffering from, I had done real damage, but Hutch and her possessor hadn’t felt it at the time.
That’s motivation. With my metal staves, I continued to hammer away.
* * *
Endicott’s straightforward martial arts had trouble against a Taoist and a woman. He instinctively wanted to contain, not bludgeon.
“You have a problem fighting with girls, don’t you?” said Madeline.
“Yes,” said Endicott. Even now, he told the truth when the information wasn’t classified. Duty and religion required this woman’s death—what the hell was his problem?
“Very like your family. Let me resolve your dilemma and kill you. Despair.”
Endicott felt drained of life, meaning. Years spent in service of an ungrateful power, and how much worse it must be for Morton.
For Morton. He wasn’t fighting alone. “Of these, hope,” said Endicott, swinging wide, but still swinging. “Despair is a sin against the Holy Spirit.”
She hit him with blows that made up in precision what they lacked in sheer force. “You don’t yet understand despair.” Bam, kick. “My brother has told us that the old Endicott will slay the young Endicott here in this room.” Kick, smack. “Abram will kill you, if I don’t first.”
She glowed with the heinous craft that she readied against him. Out of his league, but he had to fight longer and support Morton. Madeline made a raptor mudra with her left hand and pursed her lips to speak his death.
Then, in a corner of the room, a man stepped out of thin air. No, Lord, not him. “Dad, get the hell out of here!” His father might be a disciplined commander, but he was no longer a fighter.
His father gave the smallest shake of his head, and advanced on Madeline. Without turning her gaze, she crowed with laughter. “Oh shit, after five decades, here comes the old goat.”
“Lord, break that long thin neck,” said the general, running with a raised fist.
Madeline said nothing. Her leg struck backwards at a gymnast’s angle, and intercepted the oncoming general square in his chest. Endicott attacked at the same time, but she blocked his blows.
The general fell on his back. Rising painfully, he said, “Tell me who you are.”
“Say please,” said Madeline, delivering a kick against his son, trying to work into the groin.
“I am Abram Endicott,” said the sword-wielding tech, moving closer. “And you’re a disgrace to my family name.”
Major Endicott called to Dale. “Keep him away.”
Dale stepped to work in between Abram and the others, but Abram increased the pace of his strikes against Dale’s parries. The general stared at Abram. Endicott remembered his own hesitation in the House of Morton; the family instinct affected the general too.
“Run, Dad. No shame in it.” As he spoke, Madeline landed a punch on his mouth. He spat blood and words. “He’s an Endicott with a hundred years on you.”
But the general must have heard something different than his son’s meaning. He smiled—small, tightlipped, bitter—and raised his fists. “Come for me, old Endicott.”
Abram took some grazing hits from Dale’s tubes but punched Dale back on his heels with his pommel. Madeline head-cocked the desperate Endicott back aw
ay from his father. The general screened Abram’s sword arm with his right and landed a series of jabs with his left against Abram’s nose. Unfazed, Abram flicked his sword into the air and caught it high with his right hand. With all his force, he brought the point down through the general’s chest. “Die.”
The general’s smile broadened as his heart exploded.
Endicott prayed. Lord, have no mercy. With rage that felt holy, he put his fists to work against Madeline’s defensive stance. “Now I understand despair. Do you?”
With a crackle of thunder, the Left-Hand spirits came.
* * *
In the moment of Abram’s distraction, I saw my opportunity. “Come,” I said. The Pentagon’s craft shield failed, and the Left-Hand spirits fell like rain into the room and rushed upon our enemy. But this time, they didn’t attack Abram’s spirit. With the sense of true predators, they went for Madeline. “Join us,” they cried. As Endicott pummeled her raised arms, the spirits swarmed about her and covered her in their dark glow, trying to penetrate the living flesh to gain the half-dead soul that hadn’t quite stuck yet.
“Good-bye, Auntie.” Parrying Abram with my short tube, I brought the long one around in an extended arc into the back of Madeline’s neck.
* * *
In the same instant, Endicott brought the heel of his hand up against Madeline’s forehead. “Shatter her skull, Lord. Now.”
But it wasn’t God’s power that he felt course through his hand. The Left Hand surged through his point of contact.
An abandoned doll, Madeline tumbled, hemorrhaging from her eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. She died again, gone in a black-light explosion of craft out of the room. But this time, Left-Hand souls swarmed in pursuit of her soul.
Abram pushed Dale to the ground. Endicott, disoriented from contact with corruption, only had time for one prayer: Lord, give me three steps and miss.
With the swift stroke of a matador, Abram ran Endicott through with his sword, then withdrew it to counter Dale’s charge. Blood bubbled out from Endicott’s stomach before he could contain it. Endicott’s prayer had succeeded in deflecting the blow to a gut wound—not instantly fatal, but fatal soon enough without help. He was no healer.
