by Myke Cole
But magic had changed everything.
Harlequin’s boots touched down on the grass just a moment before the helo wheels beside him. He was here to command, and he would do it. They didn’t have to like him, only respect and obey him. If he’d played the game the way they wanted, somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty thousand people would be dead, just so Walsh could get reelected.
Remember that. Remember that every time you think of . . . of what you did. Eight lives for thirty thousand.
A fire truck was parked beside two Humvees and a white sedan. A cluster of soldiers stood around the vehicles, arms folded. Their hard faces reminded him of the price of his choice and that he would never stop paying for it.
Harlequin could hear his staff piling out of the Blackhawks as the rotors spun down. He raised the visor on his flight helmet and delivered a crisp salute to the garrison commander, a bull-necked, mustachioed colonel whose name tape read HEWITT. Hewitt returned the salute reluctantly. The garrison command sergeant major stood beside him, her hair in a tidy bun knocked slightly askew by the dying helo rotor wash. Her name tape read KNUT.
Harlequin saw Knut’s failure to salute for the challenge it was. It had to be dealt with immediately. He met her contemptuous stare for a moment before folding his arms. ‘Do we not salute officers on Tuesdays, Command Sergeant Major Knut?’ he asked. ‘Or was there some change in protocol that I’m not privy to?’
Knut glanced askance at Colonel Hewitt, who nodded. ‘Salute the lieutenant colonel.’
She turned and dragged a limp salute up to her temple, her eyes venomous.
‘You’ve got your salute,’ Hewitt drawled. ‘I got the word you were coming, but nobody said you’d be putting down on my fort. What do you need?’
‘That depends on what’s going on here,’ Harlequin answered. ‘The president has appointed me incident commander, I’ll need . . .’
‘We both know why he did that. This is my AOR, and I should be running the show,’ Hewitt said, a fat purple vein beginning to throb in his forehead, ‘but people like your pretty face on TV so much that they forgot what you did.’
They don’t even know what I did.
‘Colonel Hewitt,’ Harlequin said, ‘it isn’t our job to set policy. It’s our job to salute smartly and carry out the orders of our civilian superiors. That’s the oath we all swore when we joined up.’
‘Yeah, that oath meant a whole lot to you when you broke Oscar fucking Britton out of jail.’
I didn’t break Oscar Britton out of jail for giggles. ‘Regardless,’ Harlequin went on, ‘your commander in chief has appointed me incident commander and sent me here to take charge of this . . . incident. This crisis is apparently magical in nature. Unlike you’ – Harlequin let his eyes move from Hewitt’s to Knut’s – ‘I am Latent, with long experience in combat operations in the arcane domain. And you’re right. The public-affairs aspect of this crisis can’t be denied. The public wants to be assured that someone they trust is in charge of what is shaping up to be the first defense against an armed invasion of the homeland since 1812. For better or for worse, they trust me and have no idea who the hell you are.’
He hated taking this hard line, but he’d dealt with dozens of Hewitts since he’d saved the FOB. Laying down the law early was the best way to secure cooperation.
‘Whether or not those qualifications satisfy you is irrelevant. The president is satisfied, and last time I checked, he’s in charge. So, my question to you is this: Are we going to sit here and argue about who is in charge, or are we going to get about the hard work of dealing with this crisis?’
With these last words, Harlequin pointed over Hewitt’s shoulder, where the East River divided Manhattan from Brooklyn. Even at this distance, he could see smoke rising, hear the faint thuds of ordnance impacting.
Hewitt turned purple. ‘You disobeyed orders . . .’
Enough. Now it was no longer a matter of securing Hewitt’s cooperation. Now it was about setting the record straight. ‘I disobeyed illegal orders given by a morally bankrupt commander in chief that would have resulted in the destruction of an entire division,’ Harlequin cut him off. ‘People, Colonel. That’s who I joined the army to defend. And I will always put their needs first, before mine and, yes, before those of my superiors if they give orders that put those two positions at odds. You like orders? So do I. I’m particularly fond of the legal ones. The right thing now is to stop comparing dicks and deal with this crisis. If it’s all right with you, sir, I’d like to get started.’
The purple of Hewitt’s face began to border on black. Knut started to speak, stopped herself. The cloud of anger around him coalesced, and Harlequin got ready to Bind his magic to fight, wondering if he’d finally gone too far, if they’d throw caution to the wind and attack him.
But this time, like every other time, the anger finally deflated in the face of authority. Hewitt’s shoulders sagged. ‘Well, you’re lucky that I obey orders. Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you the ops center.’
Harlequin shook his head. ‘I appreciate it, sir, but I’m going to set up on scene. This . . . breach opened up outside the New York Stock Exchange, am I right?’
It took Hewitt a moment to swallow his anger enough to answer. He nodded.
‘And you have it cordoned off?’
‘So far,’ Hewitt said, ‘but it’s touch-and-go. We’ve got it locked down along Houston Street all the way across the island. The enemy can’t move north, but it’s taking everything we have just to hold that line. We need help.’
‘I’m going to get you help. How far south have they gone?’
Hewitt turned to Knut, who shrugged. ‘Last report said Beaver Street, by the Bowling Green station, but only a few of them.’
Harlequin nodded, pulling his smartphone from his trouser pocket and checking over a map of Manhattan’s Financial District. ‘So . . . Battery Park is clear?’
‘So far,’ Hewitt answered, ‘but I don’t know for . . .’
Harlequin cut him off with a wave. ‘Respectfully, sir, I’ll be setting up my incident command post there. I’m going to need to go in hot and secure it right now. Whatever you’ve got to spare will be greatly appreciated. You’ve got the best situational awareness of anyone here thus far, so I’ll need you to turn this post over to your deputy and join me there.’
Hewitt bridled, began to speak, but Harlequin was already turning, motioning his people back into their helos. ‘Or, you can stay here, sir,’ Harlequin added. ‘I’m trying to give you a role in this operation, but I’m in charge, and if you want out, you might be doing both of us a favor. I’m happy to pillage your resources using presidential authority with or without your consent.’
He Bound the magic and rose into the air as the helos spun their rotors up. ‘But if you’re willing to cut the crap and help me, I’d be glad to have someone who knows the lay of the land. Your call, sir.’
The words were a gamble. The truth was that he desperately wanted Hewitt at his side. Harlequin hadn’t been back to New York City since he was assigned there years ago, and Hewitt’s experience would be invaluable. But to win him, he’d first have to show him who was stronger. Please, let that be enough.
Harlequin gave a parting salute and rose into the sky, the two Blackhawks banking to join him, racing across the East River, the smoke and chaos of lower Manhattan growing clearer by the moment.
Governor’s Island rushed by below, the abandoned buildings mostly cleared now, a scattering of rising I-beams hinting at the new structures to come. Harlequin jerked his thumb down and radioed to Captain Cormack, his aide for this operation, flying in the Blackhawk alongside him.
‘That’s our fallback,’ Harlequin said into the mic snaking along his chin, pointing to the island beneath him. He wanted to be closer to the fighting, but at least this was an option if they couldn�
�t establish a foothold in the park.
‘Roger that, sir,’ Cormack said. ‘Sorry about what happened down there. I understand why you did what you did, and . . .’
‘Appreciated, but let’s secure the chatter.’ It was encrypted end-to-end comms, so it was unlikely anyone else heard, but the last thing Harlequin needed right now was to be distracted by sympathy.
Get to the park, get it secured. Harlequin tried to focus on the immediate. His mind turned over avenues of approach, supply lines, how quickly they could get comms going. Anything other than the woman’s face in that grainy cell phone video.
It’s not the woman you knew. She’s dead. There was only Scylla now.
He shook his head, letting the wind strip the question away.
They moved out over the blue-green of the Upper Bay, where the Hudson emptied into it around Manhattan’s western coastline. The thick green of Battery Park stood in stark contrast to the haphazard gray grid of the buildings around it. Even from this height, Harlequin could see people thronging the edges of the park, fleeing the chaos to their north. Three white-hulled Coast Guard cutters were moored at South Ferry Terminal, with several smaller boats flashing silver and orange as they loaded refugees, shuttling them to safety in New Jersey. The highway to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel was a parking lot. The flickering colors of police lights indicated that some effort to direct the traffic was underway, but every car in the Financial District was trying to exit the island at once, and the snarl was inevitable. In the middle of the working day, it was the busiest part of an already busy city.
There was no way they would be able to get them all out in time. Harlequin had conflicting reports, but he knew that, at a low estimate, scores were dead already. There would be hundreds if not thousands more in the hours to come. The faster he moved, the better.
‘What’s that?’ Harlequin pointed to a gray circle amid the green, a low, brick structure rising out of it.
‘Castle Clinton,’ Cormack answered in his earbud. ‘Old harbor fort from back in the day. It’s a national park monument now. The Statue of Liberty ticket counter is in there.’
Harlequin let his eyes sweep the park and surrounding buildings once more. For all the chaos of the refugee stream, there was no smoke, no explosions, no sign of any enemy.
So far.
He gestured at the old fort beneath them. ‘That’ll be HQ. Set down and get it cleared. The rest of you, stay with me. I want to get a look at the fight.’
He put on speed and flew out over the park as Cormack’s Blackhawk peeled off and began to descend toward the castle. The other Blackhawk stayed with him, the door gunners watching warily as the wall of smoke rose to meet them.
They pushed out over the edge of the park and into stark reality.
Lower Manhattan had been sliced off by hastily erected cordons. Harlequin could just make out distant haphazard barricades assembled from parked police cruisers, National Guard Humvees, even stacks of tires and spare coils of razor wire. He put on speed, the blocks blurring beneath him. Closer up, he could see that police manned the barricades at each intersection, augmented by the sliver of national guardsmen who were in the city when the breach opened, choking off the major arteries north. An M1 Abrams tank had either fought its way through or been at one of the armories. It was drawn lengthwise across Broadway, flipped on its side and burning brightly.
The roofs of the buildings all along the Bowery were clustered with snipers. Harlequin could see gun barrels pointing out of apartment windows where spotters and shooters had taken up position. Two Apache helicopter gunships circled impotently, holding fire as the civilians continued to stream beneath them, making toward the bridges and tunnels and the promise of a way off the island.
The ground just south of the barricades was invisible beneath a seething mass. Goblins surged over abandoned cars, threw themselves against the locked doors of apartment buildings. Many of the towering structures were on fire, and Harlequin could see a squadron of wolfriders come pouring out of a storefront, shaking shattered glass from their shoulders. One of the riders whooped, waving a spear, a dozen diamond tennis bracelets and wristwatches ringing the shaft. His mount had a dress in its mouth.
Not all the goblins were intent on raiding. A few were taking cover behind building corners, shooting arrows or throwing javelins at the barricades. Harlequin heard gunfire, saw muzzle flashes from a building window. There was fighting in the higher stories as the goblins sought to take the high ground overlooking the barricades.
It wasn’t just goblins. Huge, snarling giants roamed the streets. They’d already pillaged the historic remnants of the old Dutch colony, waving black, hand-wrought streetlamps as clubs. A pack of the demon horses that roamed the Source stood outside an electronics shop, crooning crude imitations of the voices of the actors on the televisions in the store window. Small, ground-bound scaled creatures, looking like flightless wyverns, wandered the streets. A few of their flying cousins were in the air already, along with the giant eaglelike rocs he’d faced before. As he flew past, a spider as big as a sedan scurried up the side of a building, three people mummified in the silk dangling from its abdomen. Harlequin could feel the air thrumming with goblin sorcery.
He circled once, dipping lower, trying to get a count of the enemy. The goblins numbered in the thousands. There were at least a few hundred of the giants that he’d fought at FOB Frontier.
He flew south, then east. The Blackhawk trailed him as he lit out over New Street. Here, the numbers thickened. A few goblins pointed skyward and a shot or two from a stolen carbine cracked in his direction, their aim atrocious as usual. He spotted the white figures of sorcerers and readied himself to fend off a magical attack. But, for now, they were interested mostly in the barricades, where the defenders poured on fire, throwing the goblins back.
Harlequin saw a magical fireball shoot out from the attackers, slamming into a police cruiser piled with rubble-filled trash cans. Lightning answered back from one of the soldiers behind it, and he knew that the SOC’s law-enforcement support element was on the scene, the only magical forces ready to respond on such short notice. He’d worked SOC LE himself all those years ago. But even with arcane fire support, he could tell that the defenders were hard-pressed. The sheer volume of enemy fighters was staggering.
The Blackhawk jagged sideways in his peripheral vision, bringing its guns to bear over the scene below. ‘Hold your fire,’ he radioed. ‘We’ve got civilians down there.’ Here and there, he could see the corpses of traders and store clerks on the street, blood going tacky in their ties and aprons. He didn’t see anyone moving, but in the fog of war, that didn’t necessarily mean anything.
A huge black banner had been hung out the window of one of the buildings, at least ten stories up. FREE OSCAR BRITTON, it read. LATENT-AMERICANS ARE STILL AMERICANS. Harlequin had seen dozens of similar signs and posters all over the country since they’d saved FOB Frontier. The irony of it wasn’t lost on him. From public enemy number one to hero overnight. It’s a mad world.
Then Harlequin passed over Broad Street and saw just how mad it really was.
The city’s financial hub was rent by a giant gate, bigger than anything Britton had ever opened, over fifty feet high and spanning the entire breadth of the street from the steps of Federal Hall to the offices on the opposite side. Its ragged edges pulsed green, bruised purple, rotten-looking. The air stank like a fresh corpse left out in the sun.
This area was mostly clear of goblins. Something far worse trooped through the gate, liquid black skin absorbing the fading light.
He’d fought less than ten Gahe as he’d flown air cover for the retreating force during the evacuation of FOB Frontier, and they’d been the toughest things he’d ever come up against.
Here were dozens, maybe scores.
All utterly impervious to bullets. Only magic could harm them.
He paused in midair, taking in the bobbing horned heads, the malevolent white smiles. The goblins kept a respectful distance as the Gahe fanned out, contenting themselves with looting the buildings and channeling their forces toward the barricades.
Harlequin noticed other creatures taking up positions around the stock exchange; giant rocs roosted in the eves, preening their sword-length feathers. A smallish-looking red dragon was curled around the base of George Washington’s statue, Whispered on by a goblin sorcerer draped around its neck.
As he took in the gathering enemy below, he caught a flash of white. He focused, squinting, maintained his altitude. He told himself that he didn’t want to go any lower for fear of coming in missile range of the gathering horde beneath him. But he knew it for the lie it was. The woman from the video was down there. His heart raced. He didn’t want to see her, knew he had to.
There, the flash of white again. This time he made out a beautiful face, wise, dark eyes, a severe slash of black bobbed hair.
It’s not Grace. It only looks like her.
She looked skyward, smiling. Harlequin had seen her reduce hundreds of men and women, dozens of helicopters and tanks, almost a mile of perimeter wall, to stinking slime. She’d used the same rotting magic that Harlequin could see at work on the edges of the rent between the planes.
Not Grace.
Scylla.
He pushed away the flood of memories that came rushing to the surface, clawing at him. She’d lived here once. They’d met mere blocks from this very spot. He’d told her he would help her. He’d failed.
