Black Fall

by D.J. Bodden

CHAPTER 27

  Jonas stood on the battlements of the castle that guarded his thoughts, gazing at the horizon. It was choked with smoke – a swirling pattern of orange, red, and black, crisscrossed with lightning. Hot wind howled over the walls, from the direction he knew the demon would come.

  “That wasn’t the brightest idea you’ve had, Jonas,” Marcus said, resting his elbows on one of the crenellations.

  “Director?”

  “What’s left of me,” he answered, smiling sadly. “In retrospect, trying to cage a demon in my head was a mistake.”

  Jonas nodded and looked over the wall.

  “I see your barrier has made little progress since we last met,” Fangston said. “I would have expected better from one of Viviane’s students.”

  “The demon postponed my classes… indefinitely.”

  “Ah. Well, I’m sure you did your best,” Fangston said. “But couldn’t you have fixed that, at least?” he said, gesturing toward the ruined tower he’d destroyed during his last visit.

  Jonas ignored the jab. “Is it normal for you to be able to see my barrier this clearly? I mean, the same way I see it?”

  “No. But I’m very old, Jonas. Even older than your mother, not that it’s saved me from my own pride. Anyway, I’m assuming you have some kind of plan… or were you aiming for the noble, yet futile gesture?”

  Jonas sidestepped his questions again. “I’m sorry, sir. I was just remembering the time you incinerated some of my guardians. It gave me a headache.”

  “Brain damage. It heals, but you lose the use of that part of your brain for a time. That’s why it’s best to limit the number of cannon fodder you use.”

  Jonas smiled. Fangston had almost quoted Edwards.

  “But there are also advantages to it, right?”

  Fangston shrugged. “It’s a more selective way to fight, less chances of being wiped out in one blow but also less chances of winning unscathed. Is there a point to this, Jonas?”

  “I was just wondering if you had enough strength left to attack me, sir.”

  Fangston scowled. “I don’t see how provoking me is going to improve your situation. But yes, Jonas, I could throw my mind at you, and you might weaken me a little. Is that your plan? So your friends can finish me off while I’m stunned?”

  “No sir. I was hoping you could tell me where the ward blocking Madoc from seeing this place is located. And what the lynchpin is.”

  Fangston raised an eyebrow, and chuckled.

  Jonas recalled how Madoc had explained it. You can’t just knock over a few candles, or scratch through a rune, to break a ward, he’d said. A spell doesn’t exist the way most things do. It’s on another plane of existence, and once cast, the different objects — the runes, reagents, even the sound of the words spoken — are just anchors, gateways for the power to flow through. You can destroy them, which would require a lot of time and effort, or you can find the lynchpin, which is the magical equivalent of a loose thread on a sweater. You pull it, and the whole thing unravels.

  “I’d wondered how you managed to pull off all those attacks,” Marcus said. “So you found yourself a specter, some hunters, and convinced Macready to loan you a few werewolves. And now the plan is to weaken me a little, try to drop the ward, and have them rush in and snatch you and your mother out of here. You do understand that you’ll be in a coma after I’m done with you, right?”

  “It’s a choice, and I’m making it,” Jonas said. “Sometimes you have to take a risk, even when defeat is likely, because you’re the only one who can do it.”

  “You almost make it sound courageous,” Fangston said, his eyes distant.

  Jonas nodded. He’d hoped the statement would appeal to Fangston’s sense of destiny, and to the demon’s pride. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about it.

  Fangston drummed his fingers on the wall. “Two requirements — first, you leave my body intact. Call me an optimist, but I still think I can beat this thing.”

  Jonas nodded. “And the second?”

  “Make sure you grab the journal. Destroy it if you can’t get it out safely.”

  Jonas almost liked Fangston for that. He played the part of the tragic hero well. “I will.”

  “You could probably manage some catapults, or even a mortar, in the time you have left,” Fangston said, looking at the undefended stone walls.

  He’s embarrassed for me, Jonas realized. He wondered if Fangston had actually laid siege to a castle before. It seemed likely, from the critical way he eyed Jonas’ defenses. “That’s a good idea, sir.”

  Fangston stuck out his hand, and Jonas shook it. The layout of the Order’s base, the location of his mother, the ward room, and the lynchpin, flowed into Jonas’ mind. “Well Jonas, you’re a brave boy, I’ll give you that. To make this fair, I’ll take the walls the way we would have done it back in the day.” He smiled. “You know, it’s been a while since I’ve had a good scrap, I might actually enjoy this.”

  Jonas looked back at the horizon. He thought he heard the demon roar, the sound carried on the wind.

  “I wish you success, or a quick death, if your scheme doesn’t work out,” Fangston said.

  “The same to you, sir.”

  Fangston grinned, then faded away like a wisp of smoke.

  Sam stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing matte-black armor, and carried a rifle with an insectile look to it, like the soldiers in a science fiction book Jonas had been reading for the past few days. It had taken him a long time to plan out all the details, how the imaginary world would work, but he felt good about it.

  Sam looked at Jonas through the tinted visor of his helmet. “We’re not actually going for courageous here, are we, sir?”

  Jonas shook his head. “No, let Fangston be the brave one, I came here to win.”

  “He took the bait, then?”

  “He thinks I’m sacrificing myself to weaken him, and that all we want to do is escape, so yes, I’d say so. But, there’s only one way to know for sure, Sam. Is everybody ready?”

  “As ready as we’ll ever be, sir. You should probably put your armor on. Wouldn’t want a stray bullet putting you out of commission.”

  Jonas nodded, absently. He could see a dark line forming in the distance.

  Sam tapped a few keys on his wrist, and a hatch opened in the floor. Then he followed Jonas down a winding stairway, into the new complex they’d built.

  ♟

  It took thirty minutes of dream time for Fangston and the demon to marshal their forces. Jonas watched it on cameras, safe within his operations center. The enemy troops formed up in orderly squares – lines of riflemen, grenadiers, and cavalry – with space between the units, where teams of horses drew up cannons. There were more of them than Jonas could count.

  “How many?” Jonas asked.

  “Computer counts 53,622, sir,” one of the operators answered.

  Sam whistled.

  “How many did we manage, Sam?”

  “1,250. After that, we start to lose coherence.”

  Jonas frowned. He’d underestimated how many pieces of himself Fangston could detach. He wondered if it was because of Marcus’s age, or merely an ability Jonas hadn’t developed yet. Maybe it was because Fangston had been in a real war and could keep all the pieces in his head, like someone who was really good at chess.

  But then, Jonas’ machinery was a little more complex than what the Director was using. From his discussions with Edwards, he recognized the formations of the older vampire’s troops, and their technology, as Napoleonic. He was confident that Fangston wouldn’t recognize what was about to hit him.

  Fangston’s army began to move forward.

  “Have we located him yet?” Jonas asked. He referred to the image Fangston had of himself. Technically, every soldier, horse, and piece of equipment on the battlefield was a piece of Fangston.

  “Yes sir, he’s in the dragoon unit,” an operator said, “fifth in from the right.” The central display p
anned to show the Director, in full uniform, riding a white horse.

  “A little dramatic,” Sam muttered.

  Jonas smirked. “Just make sure we don’t hit him. I don’t want to risk losing the connection because of an injury. Are the scouts in position?”

  “Moving now, sir.”

  Jonas sat back. That meant twelve two-guardian teams, wearing adaptive camouflage — which was geek speak for an invisibility suit — and carrying laser designators, were moving toward the enemy, picking out valuable targets.

  Jonas switched through the cameras. All he saw were empty towers, deserted parapets, and banners fluttering in the wind. He looked at it with the nostalgia of a favorite childhood toy - his first real attempt at a barrier, now hopelessly outdated.

  At five-hundred yards, puffs of smoke appeared in the advancing ranks.

  “Incoming cannon fire!”

  Iron balls, some of them filled with explosives, crashed into the walls. Jonas felt the vibrations through his chair as each direct hit cracked the stones, damaging sections of the parapet. The opposing army continued to advance in ranks. Jonas even spotted a few drummers among Fangston’s guardians, sounding out the cadence.

  Suddenly, there was a sharp crack, and the back of a wall exploded, showering the courtyard with dirt. Something had gone straight through the stone and blown it inward.

  “What was that?” Sam said, his hand on the operator’s shoulder.

  The computer traced the trajectory and displayed a thin, straight cannon with a flared muzzle.

  “That’s an anachronism,” Jonas said. Fangston had one or more howitzers — rifled artillery that fired shells, like a giant, explosive rifle bullet — mixed in with his nineteenth century army. “Target them.”

  “Do we start the counter attack now, sir?” Sam asked.

  “Not yet.” Jonas tapped one of the operators’ shoulders. “Find the demon. Look for something out of the ordinary.” There was something bothering him about what Fangston had said.

  More rounds, both cannon balls and shells, hit the walls. The northeast tower and the gatehouse collapsed, and one of the shells blew a hole in the manor roof.

  “Found him, sir.”

  The demon was striding forward in the midst of the army. It was seven-feet-tall, covered in scales the color of dried blood and trailing smoke behind it. Flames flickered in its wake, and the air around it shimmered. It had a skeletal face, also red, with two brown, ridged horns that curled like a ram’s on either side of its head. Its mouth and eyes glowed like molten metal.

  “Pride,” Jonas said.

  Sam looked up. “Beg your pardon, sir?”

  “Whenever Fangston talks about this thing, he mentions pride. It should be hanging back, letting Fangston take the brunt of this. It can’t possibly trust him. But there it is front and center, because it wants to crush us personally.” Jonas paused, then said, “Keep everyone behind shelter.”

  Sam nodded; the operators relayed the command.

  Two more towers and an entire section of the wall collapsed, revealing a low ridge of black, composite metal underneath. Jonas hoped Fangston and the demon wouldn’t notice.

  The front face of the manor had crumbled after sustaining repeated shell hits, and the gatehouse was in rubble. One hundred yards out, Fangston’s army halted, and the demon strode forward.

  “Here it comes,” Sam said.

  Jonas gripped the arms of his seat.

  The demon threw its arms up and roared, sending a moving wave of fire which slammed into what was left of the fortifications, scouring the walls and collapsing the rest of the manor. Glass broke, mortar crumbled, and the stones glowed white-hot. Several of Jonas’ cameras went dark, and the air felt dry and dusty.

  Finally, the vibrations stopped. “Any cameras still functional up there?”

  “Getting a feed from the scouts, sir.”

  It was a side view of the demon, on its hands and knees, its shoulders heaving as it gasped for air. Pride, Jonas thought. It had thrown everything it had into one attack. And like Viviane had said, when Fangston set her illusion on fire, it was sloppy. Then Fangston and his soldiers surged forward, toward the broken, burning barrier, flowing around the demon, shouting and breaking ranks.

  Jonas turned to Sam. “Launch the counter-attack.”

  Guardians, wearing the same black armor as Sam, emerged from camouflaged trenches, firing automatic weapons into the charging army. They leapfrogged forward, using cover, while Fangston’s guardians advanced in ranks. The futuristic troops slowed momentarily when hit by multiple shots, but it didn’t dent their armor or stop them from firing.

  Boom! Jonas winced as three of his guardians disintegrated, and he felt a sharp, stabbing pain above his left eye.

  “Direct hit from a cannon, sir.”

  “I noticed.”

  Missile launchers on the squad leaders’ backs fired automatically, homing in on targets designated by the scouts. They burst in the air, killing cannon crews, and detonating one of Fangston’s ammunition supplies. Machine gunners tore into Fangston’s ranks, sweeping lines of fire back and forth, as four man teams leapfrogged forward, firing at clusters of Fangston’s guardians with assault rifles and grenade launchers.

  With all of Fangston’s artillery pieces down, and half his cannons, Jonas said, “Send in the heavies.”

  Jonas had studied and re-read the description of the walkers three times. He’d only been able to make four of them, but it was worth it. They burst out of dugouts at the base of the ruined towers – armor plating and weaponry mounted on birdlike legs – moving at twenty miles per hour. They fired on the move, shredding entire units with Gatling guns, explosive shells, and incendiary rockets.

  The demon pointed a hand at one of the walkers and the top half of it exploded, causing the machine to topple over in flames with its legs still trying to run.

  Jonas leaned forward, head in his hands, as a sickening wave of nausea rolled over him.

  “Focus fire on the demon,” Sam said, unaffected.

  A missile struck the demon in the left shoulder, spinning it around. Another hit it in the torso, and knocked it to the ground. It roared, sat up, and pointed at the squad that had fired on it; twelve guardians disappeared in a flash of light. A walker closed in, spraying it with rounds that made the demon’s body jerk like a kite in a wind storm. Then the heavy machine walked up and stomped the demon with a heavy, alloyed foot, while still firing at Fangston’s troops. The walker’s leg began to glow cherry-red, then it collapsed, and whole thing fell sideways.

  “Twenty-five percent casualties on our side, sir,” one of the operators shouted. Fangston’s forces had managed to close on Jonas’ soldiers, engaging them in hand-to-hand combat, where their technological advantage mattered less than Fangston’s numerical superiority.

  “I know,” Jonas said. He’d fallen out of his chair and lay groaning on the floor. Sam helped him back into his seat. “Where’s Fangston?”

  The screen switched to one of the guardians’ view of Fangston. The Director had been unhorsed and was apparently attacking his own troops. He fought side by side with his men, ducking behind a rectangular shield and stabbing overhand with the silver spear Jonas had seen in his office. Half the guardians around him seemed to be similarly engaged in killing their own.

  He’s fighting the demon for control, Jonas realized.

  “Enemy down to 32,354 troops, sir.”

  We’ve killed over twenty thousand of them, and we’re still outnumbered over thirty to one, Jonas thought. His head lolled to one side. Apparently the twenty-five percent of his mind that he’d lost was important. He wondered how Fangston was managing to keep it all going and fight at the same time.

  “Support Fangston,” he said.

  “What?” Sam looked at him like he’d sprouted a second head.

  “Put everything we have into keeping him on his feet.”

  A grenadier moved to stab Fangston in the back with a bayonet, but
one of Jonas’ scouts uncloaked and tackled the man, goring him multiple times with a short-range laser. Jonas watched it through the scout’s helmet camera. Fangston whirled, wide-eyed, then nodded before rallying the nearest guardians he had control over.

  Across Fangston’s army, guardian fought guardian, and unit fought against unit. The demon, still covered in molten slag from the walker’s leg, was focused on vaporizing the groups of soldiers most clearly under Fangston’s control.

  Two squads of Jonas’ soldiers fought their way to Fangston’s side and fired into the surrounding forces as quickly as they could empty their clips and reload. Fangston shouted and waved his arms, then he and his men started moving toward the demon.

  “Clear a path for him!”

  Both walkers launched a barrage of fire into the mass of troops between the vampire and the demon, shredding hundreds of enemy soldiers. Fangston staggered, then got back to his feet and charged through the gap. The demon turned and saw Fangston, then pointed a finger, sending a line of fire toward the Director. At the last second, Fangston deflected it with his shield, causing the blast to take out half of another one of Jonas’ squads, enveloping them in flames.

  “Drop troops around Fangston,” Jonas said, “and get a shield around him.”

  Edwards had been insistent that one of the most important parts of a battle was the employment of a reserve — fresh troops injected at a time and place to turn the battle or finish the rout of the enemy. The science-fiction book had used pods of soldiers dropped from spaceships, but Jonas didn’t have the capacity to keep planets, spaceships, and trajectories in his head, so he’d made the “sky” of his world solid, high enough that the drop-ships looked like specks, and anchored about one hundred of his soldiers there.

  The drop-pods slammed to the ground, firing rocket thrusters at the last moment, which had the added benefit of destroying more enemy guardians by fire or crushing. Then Jonas’s most heavily armed and armored troops poured out, firing heavy machine guns into the crowd. Five more guided missiles, and all of the walkers’ remaining ammunition, pounded the demon as Fangston ran the fifty yards between them. Guardians fell or winked out of existence all around him. He flipped the spear in his hand and threw it.

  There was an explosion, and a ring of fire expanded from where the demon had stood, engulfing thousands of Fangston’s and Jonas’ troops.

  ♟

  Sam picked Jonas up from the floor. His mouth tasted like vomit. “What happened?”

  “It’s over, sir. We’re picking off stragglers, but Fangston and the demon are both down.”

  “Get me out there.”

  “Sir? There are still—”

  “I want to see it, Sam.”

  Sam helped Jonas into an armored personnel carrier, and they drove the APC across the battlefield. The castle was in ruins — not a single tower or wall stood above ten feet tall, the manor was a pile of rubble and broken wood. Even some of the stone had melted. All across Jonas’ mindscape, his guardians were going through the bodies of Fangston’s force, shooting anything that still showed signs of life.

  The APC pulled up to the center of the blast, and Sam helped Jonas out. They found Fangston, still conscious.

  “Hey, kid. Guess you made some renovations to the place after all,” he said, and started coughing. The entire right side of his body and part of his face — the side facing the demon when he’d struck — was charred black. “Told you I could beat that thing. Not that you didn’t help… a little.”

  Jonas laughed. It hurt.

  “You mind finishing me off? I don’t think I want to be awake for this.”

  “Are you sure, sir? We killed it. You could wake up and—”

  “I’m not waking up anywhere close to functional, Jonas. And you can’t kill a demon, you can only weaken it or send it away.”

  Jonas froze. He could feel heat behind him, and the ground started to shake.

  “Sam, give me your pistol.”

  “What? Jonas, what’s—”

  “Now, Sam!”

  Jonas took the gun from Sam’s hand and shot Fangston in the head. The body turned to ash. He’ll heal, Jonas reminded himself. Behind him, the demon roared and stood, throwing the APC clear, just as Jonas shoved the thing from his mind and woke up.