by G T Almasi
Praise for
BLADES OF WINTER
“A hell-bent-for-leather mash-up of spy novel and SF, set in a well-realized alternate history, starring a snarky, hormonal nineteen-year-old named Scarlet, who will capture your heart as well as your imagination. First-rate.”
—ERIC VAN LUSTBADER,
bestselling author of The Bourne Legacy and Father Night
“Smart, sassy, and seriously appealing. Blades of Winter is a fully realized alternate history with extraordinary detailing and pace, high-velocity writing, and—top of the list—a heroine finding herself via weapons of mass destruction, bionic strength, and the heartbeat of a whole new generation. Seventeen magazine mainlines Terminator in this stunning debut.”
—JEFF LONG,
New York Times bestselling author of The Descent
“A fun, fast-moving alt-history romp!”
—S. M. STIRLING, author of The Council of Shadows
“G. T. Almasi’s Blades of Winter is a smart, punchy deluge of radical thought packed into a febrific alternate-history thrill ride. Almasi is an author finding his stride, mind ablaze with kaleidoscopic insight, creativity, and action. And did I mention humor? Because there’s a lot of that, too.”
—JAMES WAUGH,
senior story developer, Blizzard Entertainment
“Almasi has created a vivid and entirely believable alternate history that is steeped in historical fact, future science, and international intrigue. Blades of Winter has all the action and excitement of today’s hottest video games and an absolutely unrelenting pace that will keep your heart pounding. The pages practically turn themselves.”
—JAMES A. BROWN, lead level designer, Epic Games
“Blades of Winter starts with a freeze-frame bullet to the face and only takes off from there. Vicious action sequences and brilliant SF tech make for some of the best pacing I’ve consumed in a really long time.”
—SAM STRACHMAN, writer, IP developer, Ubisoft
Hammer of Angels is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
A Del Rey Mass Market Original
Copyright © 2014 by G. T. Almasi
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.
RANDOM HOUSE WORLDS and HOUSE colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
ISBN 9780440423560
eBook ISBN 9780440423577
Cover art: Tony Mauro
Cover design: Scott Biel
www.delreybooks.com
Del Rey mass market edition: March 2014
ep_v4.0
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Also by G. T. Almasi
01
MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 10:50 P.M. EST
THE METRO, WASHINGTON, D.C., USA
Insanity isn’t nearly as crazy as people make it out to be. After a while even delusions begin to follow a pattern, and because of all the practice I’ve had, my little trips to la-la land have gotten much less disorienting. For example, the black-haired girl sitting over there is a product of my subconscious, and I don’t have to pull out my pistol and kill her right here on the Metro platform. I’ve hallucinated this same cookie before, and one positive aspect of this illusion’s repetitiveness is that she hasn’t morphed into something else, like a fire-breathing dragon or the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
As usual, this chick is 5'4", the same as me, and has the same small-framed gymnast’s build that I do. We both have fair skin, but her eyes are burned brown, not green like mine, and of course I have my mom’s auburn hair, not the shiny black ponytail this bird sports.
A new detail is how she’s dressed for the weather. Unlike my ultrastylish maroon leather jacket, my imaginary nemesis wears a thick black peacoat to ward off the January chill. When someone walks past, she moves her foot out of the way. Dream Girl’s black Keds are tied really tight, as though someone might steal them right off her feet.
My hallucination’s deluxe resolution and situational responsiveness mean I’m either healthier or nuttier than when I got home from Riyadh last October. Dream Girl was already seated on a bench here in the White Flint Metro station as I came down the escalator. Her ominous presence set me on edge, but it’s not like she’s actually there. Still, for a make-believe person, she works awfully hard to avoid looking at me.
I mentally instruct my implanted Nerve Jet neuroinjector to give me a quick dose of Kalmers. The drugs flow into my bloodstream, and within seconds my relative lack of sanity stops bothering me.
It’s been a couple of weeks since one of my spells, which has made both me and Dr. Herodotus happy. I’m trying to decide whether to tell him about this one when a southbound train finally arrives. I enter the car and take a seat. Dreamy gets on and sits a few rows away, facing me. At this hour, only a handful of other passengers travel with us.
We ride like a pair of grim statues into Grosvenor-Strathmore. Past the girl are ads for crappy action movies and lame-ass technology schools. We’re so close, I can smell her—an appetizing blend of Noxzema and cheeseburgers—but our eyes don’t meet until our train leaves the station. Then she makes her move.
The girl slips her hand into her coat and—it’s such a cliché—pulls out a pistol. My illusions never pull out flowers or tickets to a Redskins game. It’s always a fucking gun.
Big dark lenses slide down from Dream Girl’s brow and cover her peepers like sunglasses. She points her little dream weapon at me. I stick my tongue out at her. Nyah-nyah! I’ve had this delusion so many—
BANG!
Well, that’s unusual. Dreamy normally vanishes before she takes a shot at me. The make-believe bang gives me an i
nvoluntary surge of adrenaline, which prompts my neuroinjector to release a dose of Madrenaline. Swell. Now it’ll seem like all day before that phantom bullet goes away.
The nonexistent chunk of lead spirals toward my face. Imaginary scuffs have been scraped into the bullet by the illusory rifling in the barrel of my friend’s phony sidearm. I shift out of its way just to humor her. The slug passes by and smashes the window behind me. Such realism!
Wait. Why has everyone freaked out? The other passengers all run away or dive under their seats as Dreamy fires another shot. Finally it occurs to me.
Phantasms don’t need Noxzema.
She’s real.
The black-haired skeezer’s second bullet hurtles toward my stomach. I grab the ape-hanger bar on the ceiling and crank myself up and over the incoming projectile. The slug cracks through the back of my seat and leaves a jagged hole.
I reach for Li’l Bertha, the pistol I inherited from my father. She practically jumps out of her leather holster. The WeaponSynch pad embossed on her grip snaps into the matching recess in my palm. Li’l Bertha’s targeting software jacks into my Eyes-Up display and flashes “Target One” over Dream Girl’s head.
I swing my gun hand out in front of me, and Li’l Bertha’s gyroscopic aiming system does the rest. Her status changes to “Target Acquired,” and I let ’er rip. A swarm of .45-caliber bullets smashes into Dreamy’s face, neck, and chest. The girl’s mortal remains splatter all over the windows, walls, and seats. It’s like someone sneezed out a gallon of spaghetti sauce.
The civilian passengers lose their minds and scream like teenagers at a Beatles concert. I dash to the end of the car, yank the emergency brake, and hang on tight while the train comes to a shuddering, shrieking halt. I kick open the exit door, leap down to the tracks, and sprint up the tunnel.
My staccato footsteps and heavy breathing are chased by an older woman’s voice crying out to Sweet Merciful Jesus.
02
SAME EVENING, 11:36 P.M. EST
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, USA
I lean forward so the driver can hear me over the salsa music that roars out of his cab’s radio. “Right up there, next to the Metro stop.”
I pay the cabbie, climb out of the taxi, and swing into Mario’s, a little Italian restaurant on the corner. Mario shoves pizzas in and out of his ovens and asks what I’d like without turning around. He nods at my order for three slices.
While Mario finishes his game of pizza checkers, I stare out at the street. The window’s monochromatic reflection shows my hair as slate gray instead of its actual red. I notice a dark smudge on my chin and forehead. I go to the ladies’ room and look in the mirror.
Oh, for heaven’s sake, Alix. There’s dried blood splattered all over my face. It’s a good thing I took a cab.
Sometimes a gunshot wound makes a neat little hole and almost nothing leaks out. Other times it’s like smashing open a blood piñata. I wash my face and go back out front, where my slices are waiting for me, wrapped and ready. On the walk home, I use my Eyes-Up display to review my retinal cameras’ recording of what happened tonight and some of the events that led to it.
I’ve made great progress with my self-assigned mission to collar Jakob Fredericks, the nutso American intelligence officer who betrayed my father to the Germans. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but damn, just finding Fredericks’s house has been a bitch! Nearly all the data in his official records is missing, and what is there is mostly wrong. His listed home address turned out to be Griffith Stadium, where the Washington Senators used to play.
Fortunately, I’ve had some free time to overcome this annoying obstacle. The latest diplomatic disaster with Germany has all the Beltway brainiacs working day and night to maintain the North Atlantic Alliance and prevent World War III. The D.C. mind-meld includes the smarty-geeks at Extreme Operations Division, where I work as a covert field agent. All of ExOps’s Job Numbers are on hold until a course of action is hammered out, which has left field personnel like me with idle hands.
I took a week off to help my mother settle us into our new house. My boss let me borrow a company car, supposedly for trips to the hardware store. In fact, I used it to follow Fredericks and find out where the prick really lives.
Fredericks runs the Strategic Services Council on K Street at 15th. As he left work one evening, I tailed him to the Whitehurst Freeway. He lost me in the daily Key Bridge traffic pit, where half the assholes in D.C. try to cross the Potomac River at the same time. The next couple of days found me stage trailing him north of the city. Yesterday he led me to a small neighborhood past Wildwood Shopping Center in North Bethesda. The loaner car had to go back this morning, so tonight I took the Metro instead.
I rode to White Flint, walked past the shopping center, and waited at a bus stop. Fredericks’s Saab came along, punctual as ever, and turned onto Tilden Lane before taking the first right. I hustled through a few backyards and poked my head out from a clump of hedges at the end of the block. The Saab coasted into the attached garage of a capacious house.
Gotcha, fucko!
I spent two hours carefully skulking around his neighborhood, casing different approaches. Behind his house is a small unlit park. It’ll be a great way to sneak in. My plan is to scam some surveillance toys out of the Technical Department and plant them in Fredericks’s house.
I arrive home. Mom and I have only lived here in Arlington for a couple of weeks. We bought this house to replace our Crystal City house that the Blades of Persia blew up last year. It’s a medium-size gray wooden Garrison in a neighborhood full of medium-size brick Colonials. Mom’s little Chevy is parked in the driveway, and the light is on in her room.
It’s late, but I’m twenty years old and way past having a curfew, so I simply walk in the front door instead of sneaking through my bedroom window like I used to. I put my pizza on the kitchen table and go upstairs. My mother is in bed, reading one of her eighteenth-century novels.
“Hi, Mom.”
Cleo puts her book down. “Hi, angel.” She smiles at me. “How was your day?”
“Fine.” I sit on the foot of her bed and lean forward to stretch my back. “Brando and I did research.”
“Have you eaten?”
“We went out after work, plus I stopped at Mario’s.”
“You two didn’t go to that dump Cyrus likes, did you?” Cyrus, who’s both Mom’s old friend and my boss, is a regular at the Foggy Bottom Grill.
“Guh.” I snort. “That shithole? No way. Too many career bachelors turning into bar stools.”
Mom laughs and then inclines her head. “You look tired, Alix.”
Right on cue, I let out a yawn. “Spending all day in the ExOps archives is even more tiring than karate class.”
“Don’t you have a DCT later this week?”
“Yeah, Wednesday afternoon, but I’m ready.” Mom is an associate supervisor in ExOps’s administration department, so she knows all about Development Cycle Tests.
“Want me to pick you up after?” she asks.
“Sure. Around six?”
“All right. I was thinking we could catch a movie.”
I squint at my mother suspiciously. “Which movie?”
“Well, it is your turn to pick, but not another one of those horrible slasher flicks, please.”
“Oh, come on, Cleo. You had fun last time!”
“I certainly did not!”
“Of course you did. There was blood everywhere!” My hands wave in a circle to illustrate fountains of gory delight.
Cleo sighs heavily and props her novel in front of her face. From behind the book, she intones, “Good night, Alixandra.”
I traipse out of her room. “G’night, Mom.”
03
NEXT MORNING, TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 10:00 A.M. EST
EXOPS HEADQUARTERS, HOTEL BETHESDA, WASHINGTON, D.C., USA
I swig coffee from my jumbo plastic travel mug and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand as I saunter into ExOps. A graveyard chi
ll follows the coffee down my throat when I spot my field partner, Brando. He sprawls in one of the lobby’s monumental leather chairs as he whips through the Washington Post’s crossword puzzle.
I activate my infrared vision. He becomes a warm orange blob on a cold blue chair, so yes, he’s there. I switch to normal vision.
He catches sight of me, neatly folds his newspaper, and stands up.
Blood streams out of his pant legs—
Brando’s clunky black Doc Martens ferry him across the polished floor.
—and leaves crimson streaks across the lobby—
Our paths meet at the stainless-steel elevators.
—nobody notices them—
“Morning, Alix.”
—but me.
I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them, my partner is quietly watching me.
“Hi, Brando.” I try to keep my voice steady. “What’s cookin’?”
His name is Patrick, but I don’t call him that. He’s the spitting image of my late partner, so greeting him by the same name is more than I can bear. His middle name is Brandon and his favorite movie is The Godfather, so I call him Brando, or sometimes El Brando when we’re joking around. He seems to appreciate his nickname, like he’s been accepted into an Indian tribe or something.
But my tribe isn’t all jokes and nicknames. People die young here, although they hang around even after they’re dead. For example, my old partner Trick still visits me despite getting killed three months ago. We talk and catch up, but I have to be careful. One time I forgot other people were around, and the stares they gave me could have turned sunflowers into dog shit.
