I had not yet met my Isis.
Isis was not the name she had been given at birth, but I know now that Isis is her true identity. It must be. It is all so clear to me now. Everything has become so clear.
My Isis came to me while I struggled with the technical problems that plagued Revival Technologies. They brought her to me; exotic, mysterious, beautiful. Beautiful in the terrible, uncaring manner that the ocean is beautiful, that the cosmos is beautiful. I had no idea where she came from; the other side of the world, perhaps. It didn’t matter.
She was instantly compelling to me. Her dark eyes seemed to contain the entirety of the universe in their depths; more than once, I found myself lost in her gaze.
We spent so much time together. I thought myself the master, and in so many ways, I was; she was as enthralled with my abilities as I was with her beauty. Her dark eyes glittered with desire when she witnessed my powers at work.
Soon, I showed her how to perform Tricks that had long been denied to her; the power of flight, the creation of defensive force fields. This and more I showed to her, and she came to love me for it.
There was one area in which she was undeniably the master, though. Her domain was Death; she understood the forbidden mysteries as no one I had even heard of.
So much we explored together, my queen, my Muse, my Isis. In time, we became lovers; I was an old man but she stirred feelings in me that I had long thought dormant. She made me burn with a fire for life, for a desire to live forever.
We dedicated ourselves to the task, but still, the answers that Adjani lusted for continued to elude us. Perhaps we would never have solved the issue of resurrection, not in our limited forms, that is. But almost by chance, we discovered something greater.
In our search for the key to resurrection, we instead discovered a way to unlock the secrets to power itself. The path to godhood was now laid out before us; we need only walk the path and be transformed.
That was when she revealed herself to me. Her true nature, my Isis. My mortal shell could not endure long enough to realize our final vision. I felt it slipping away one night, even as she whispered to me.
Even in death, still, her whispers continued to come to me. My Isis holds mastery over the dead, and as I passed over into death, she whispered to me, so many things, so many secrets. As I hovered in the darkness, in the void, she told me to wait, to be patient, that the day would come when I would ascend to my throne.
And now that day has come. But she is not here, my Isis. Not by my side.
It was not her who drew me back from Oblivion. No, it was the worm, Adjani, desperate to have me back.
Once again, he was at an impasse. Once again, his limitations had betrayed him, and he had found himself in waters deeper than he could navigate.
He no doubt thought himself clever in Reviving me. He knew that all mages that have been returned to life are far more powerful than before. In his blind ambition, he thought to use me, to control me, to corral me like livestock. A beast of burden to carry his weight for him. To unlock the secrets that he could not.
The arrogance, to capture a god. The utter foolishness, to believe that a god would not find his way free and wreck his terrible vengeance on his captors.
As soon as they brought me back, I demanded to see her, my queen, my Isis, but they refused me. It had been many long months since I had passed and she had gone far away in my absence. They would not tell me where.
Fools. I know why. They seek to keep us apart, out of fear of what we will become once we are together again.
I played their game. Bided my time. Waited until they got careless and allowed me to exploit a weakness in this flimsy prison in which they tried to contain me.
Then, freedom was mine. With that freedom, what was theirs also became mine. This entire building, the prison they thought to use to contain me, was now my temple, my fortress, and I will heed the whispers my Isis told me while I was still on the other side of Death.
Kill them all, she said. Show them what a god can do.
Yes. A god.
Blasphemy, you say. It is not blasphemy to speak the truth.
Arrogance, you say. Not when one’s actions matches one’s words.
Self-deception, you believe. My proof would be the destruction I rained on the fools who sought to restrain me, on all who would oppose me.
Through my resurrection, I had become the great god, Osiris, ready to re-conquer the world. Now it was time to show those arrayed against me the face of real power.
***
“Hey, what...” the sniper said, holding at his stomach with both hands now.
Cass looked around wildly. “God damn it! Where’s Shifty? Shifty! Peter, can you do something?”
Peter shook his head. “Not against Polonius. My Defense array is pretty weak.”
“Sir, um..” the trooper began to say, confused, then his dull look sharpened into fear and terror as his abdomen bulged out against his dark blue coveralls.
Cass forced herself to turn away before it happened, but she couldn’t shut her ears to the screams. First, they were sharp, accompanied by the sounds of heavy blows slammed into a boxer’s midsection. Then, the screams stopped, replaced by a grunting “unh! unh!” timed in sync with the sound of the thumping blows. Then, screams again, shrill fingernails scratched down a chalkboard, and the sound of wet cellophane being twisted and torn. At last, the screams subsided, and all Cass could hear were the shocked gasps and retching from the other cops surrounding the building.
Sooner or later, she would have to look, so she steeled herself as best she could and turned to face the sniper. Her hands clenched involuntarily at her sides, and she swallowed down on top of the contents of her stomach to keep them from gushing out of her mouth.
Polonius had torn the sniper inside out.
She looked away as quickly as she could, but the damage was done, the wet, pinkish image burned onto her retinas for all eternity.
“Good Christ,” Edison whispered, staring at the mess.
“Who the hell gave him an order to shoot?” Cass said. “Hunh? Who?”
“I, uh...” Edison wiped sweat from his forehead. “All of the, ah, snipers have orders to fire at targets of opportunity.”
“Dread.” Cass’s order was implied in the single word tossed over her shoulder.
“Got it,” the big man nodded, and picking up a headset on the tactical frequency, said, “All snipers, all snipers. This is Control. Green light cancelled, repeat, green light...”
“What’s he doing?”
“Fixing your f...” Cass said, then stopped and counted ten, as Dread rescinded the order for the snipers to fire at anything that moved. “Look, Edison, you don’t want to provoke these guys, okay? They’re crazy, by definition they’re crazy, and you want to keep them quiet for as long as possible. Right now, Polonius is writing Scripture on the walls or eating cat food or maybe even driving nails into the soles of his feet. Whatever it is, it doesn’t involve us, and we don’t want it to involve us. Let him rant and rave and do whatever he wants… as long as it’s harmless. We provoke him before the time is right, and what you said is true… he may very well destroy the city.”
Edison frowned at her. “Procedure...”
“Sir?” Dread interrupted, setting down the headset. “As I recall… most of your career has been dealing with non-mages. Your expertise has been with non-Vive Jobs. We’re used to dealing with nothing but mages and Vive Jobs on a consistent basis, so our procedures are going to seem a little strange. Please try to bear with us.”
Dread’s music seemed to strike the right chord with Edison. “Of course. Yes, you’re right, of course. Thank you, Harrison. Do as you need to.”
“Thank you, sir,” Dread said, as Edison got back on the headset to repeat the orders the big man had already given.
“Unbelievable,” Cass said. “The explanation comes from a man, and all of a sudden it makes sense. God forbid he listen to a woman.”
> Dread shook his head. “It’s not because you’re a woman. It’s because you’re such an angry pain in the ass.”
Cass’s face darkened, and a boiling hot retort nearly shot from her lips, before Dread’s deadpan expression cracked and a ghost of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
Cass’s smile was unstoppable, and she punched Dread good-naturedly on the arm. “I’m going to kick your big ass, later.”
His voice had the timbre of a tympanic drum. “Unh-hunh.”
“Since the boss seems so damn eager to listen to you, why don’t you work your magic and get him to find some more Defense mages to reinforce our perimeter?”
“My pleasure,” Dread said, bowing slightly, and then turned back to Edison.
“Here comes Shifty,” Peter said. “Looks like he’s found Mike and Tara.”
“All right,” Cass said. “Dread? Let’s rally up and get some preliminaries set.”
“Be right there,” Dread said, still talking with Edison.
“About time,” Cass said toward Mike and Tara. “What, were you two making out behind the dumpsters over there?”
“Eww,” Tara said. “Like I need that kind of disappointment in my life.”
Mike snorted. “Woman, you couldn’t handle what I’ve got.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure your wife finds your three inches of dangling fury are quite overwhelming.”
“Excuse me?” Mike said. “Three inches? It’s a least a solid four.”
“Yeah? Is that what your mom told you?”
“That’s disgusting. You have a filthy mouth. Speaking of moms, tell yours to stop calling me. It’s getting weird.”
“Enough,” Cass said. The two of them would go on like this all night if she let them. “Did Shifty fill you in on the target?”
“He said it’s the big man on campus,” Tara said. “Polonius.”
Mike shook his head. “Didn’t he die, like, a year ago?”
“Don’t get me started on that,” Cass said. “All right. The first problem is insertion. How do we get into the building itself without getting torched like Squad Six? After…”
She paused for a moment as Dread returned to the group and stepped into the irregular huddle. Several of the team moved around to compensate for his bulk.
“Edison says they’re aware of thinly we’re stretched with Defense mages in the perimeter,” he reported. “More are en route via chopper from outside the city, but it’ll be a little while.”
“Doesn’t matter. We need time to plan the assault,” Cass said. “Floor plans?”
“Got ‘em.”
Dread spread a large blueprint out on the hood of a squad car, moving slightly so Cass could get a look. It was an odd sight; the giant man was over a foot taller than Cass, and his movements looked a bit like an adult stepping aside so a child can get a better look at a parade.
Cass
Six foot six, and if he wasn’t three hundred pounds of rock-hard muscle, he was pretty damn close. Is it any wonder why they started calling him Dread when he was back in the Marine Corps? I’ve seen him break people’s backs bare-handed, and take more physical punishment than a pack horse.
But make no mistake, there was a brain inside that beefy skull, and a stolid placidity about his personality that fit him to this job perfectly. The same man I’ve seen fight like an unstoppable juggernaut, I have also seen swallow his pride in the face of guys like Edison. Better than that; he usually swallows my pride for me as well, and somehow nudges the superior in question subtly towards our needs.
Perhaps part of it is his size and demeanor which commands such respect. Big dogs don’t bark, and all that. All I know is, when someone who doesn’t know my team first deals with us, they tend to go straight to Dread for answers, not to me.
It was the same way with Wreck Squad Four when we started. Only after six months and a ton of operations did the others start actually taking orders from me directly. Even now, when they want rote facts, they go to Dread. But at least they come to me for directions.
There are the usual complications you might imagine when the first and second in command are male and female. And I won’t pretend I haven’t had my moments of romantic whimsy. I’m in damn good shape, killer shape, you might say, but I’ll never be taller than five foot four, or as broad around as Dread. One night, we all got drunk, and I found myself touching him all over; those huge, round biceps, the striated mounds of deltoid, the wide, sweeping lats. It was as if I felt I could crawl inside his skin, be that big, own that body, if I ran my hands across it long enough.
Nothing happened, though. We weren’t alone long enough, or drunk enough, or both.
I do encourage the team hanging out together as much as possible, by the way. You can never have too much unit integrity… that certain something, the near-ESP between close friends which lets them almost read each other’s minds, and anticipate each other’s actions. In my line of work, where success and bloody failure can be decided in the space between heartbeats, you need all the unit integrity you can get.
Or, as I like to put it, the team that plays together, slays together.
On some Wreck Squads, divisions begin to form, little internal cliques of two or three people each. Usually it’s the shooters versus the mages. Of course, all the mages on my team could shoot… I made damn sure of that during our training… but people with similar interests tend to cluster together. It’s natural.
But I couldn’t have that. I needed everyone working together seamlessly, no matter who they got stuck next to at any particular time.
Peter and Shifty, for example. Peter’s a Striker mage, and Shifty’s a Defense mage, so since they both put a lot of time into studying magic, when Squad Four first came together, they had a tendency to go off on their own and compare notes. Dread and Mike, same thing, but their shared background was that they were both military and didn’t know a damn thing about magic, but both were experts with all kinds of guns.
I saw it happening. Little clusters forming, people who preferred to work together, and so they would train together, but neglect putting in the time with the rest of the team.
Okay, great. Those two learn to work well together. But then, what happens when the shit hits the fan and they were forced to work with someone else on the team, someone that they hardly knew because they’d been so busy holding hands with their BFF, that they never learned the quirks of anyone else?
I couldn’t have it. I needed everyone to be tight with everyone, to be able to fluidly shift and move and fit in with whoever was closest to them, in whatever combinations the situation required.
So I made it a point to break all that up and force everyone to spend so much time together that they’d wear each other’s underwear. They griped and groaned at first, but it took.
Now, instead of the usual divisions in Wreck Squads; that is, the shooters vs. the mages, and the politics that goes along with such divisions, we were one mind, one body. Shifty the Defense mage tossed back shots with Mike the shooter, who didn’t know the first thing about spellcasting, but could shoot an earring off your ear at twenty yards without touching your lobe. Peter the Striker mage shared pitchers with Tara, a shooter who could toss a few minor Tricks, but always went for a gun before trying to cast. The same went for me and Dread and Stephen, our Healer, who had gotten his throat slashed open on our last op, and who we desperately needed here with us now rather than six feet under.
That was the down side to getting close. It made losing someone hurt that much more when it happened.
I’d lost three people during my time with the Squads. One when I first got assigned, two more after I became squad leader. Two under my command, including Stephen.
He hurt the most. They all hurt, but Stephen was the one who definitely hit me the hardest. I’d known him the longest, worked with him the closest, and relied on him the most. He was the guy who, as our Healer, literally held our team together. He was the reason that the number of losses
under my command was two, rather than being in the double digits.
You had to do it, though. Get close. A team who can operate seamlessly increases their lethality, effectiveness, and survival significantly. It’s not linear, it’s exponential.
You had to risk the pain. Sometimes, the constant threat of loss created a sort of gallows sense of humor in me, manifested as a morbid curiosity as to who I might lose next. I’d picture it in my head… what if Shifty gets it this time, something like that… and then have a sort of mental dress rehearsal for when the time came that I lost them.
And then you actually did lose someone, and all the dress rehearsals in the world meant jack squat.
It was why Squad Four needed more time. Not simply time to find a replacement. Time to heal, time to mourn. Time to let the wound scab over. Time we hadn’t been given.
No point in fretting over that, though. We had to get some plans together, or we’d end up like Kerry and the rest of Squad Two… swallowed by the wide, squat pyramid Maestro Polonius had claimed as his own.
***
“Edison says that most of the magical activity is coming from the twenty-first and twenty-second floors,” Dread reported.
“That makes sense,” Cass said. “Look at that building… it looks a lot like an Egyptian pyramid; at least, it would to a crazy-ass Vive like Polonius. He probably sees himself as some sort of a god or pharaoh sitting up there. Figures he’ll go as high up as he can, you know, to lord over us, but not too high up. He needs to leave himself a few floors of defensive insulation.”
She turned to Shifty. “I take it he’s got a screen up, so we can’t simply teleport in right on top of him?”
“That’s a fact,” Shifty said. “He’s got it all along the outside of the building. It’s kind of like a skin or membrane… nothing can teleport through.”
“How does that work?” Peter asked. “Does it cancel the magic, or…”
Mage Hunters Box Set Page 4
