by S T Branton
To rectify the hideous display you have adhered to the walls? I believe there is no hope for that.
I rolled my eyes. “Real fucking funny, old man. I’d like to see you do a better job. Oh, wait. You no longer have a body.”
Even without hands, I believe I could do a superior job.
I laughed. “Okay, I deserved that, but can you please focus? I need to talk to my friends, and I can’t leave. Can you, like, psychically call them?”
The only one with whom I have practiced such communication is Maya, and she remains on an auxiliary assignment. I doubt that the call would be detectable in an area as energy-dense as this to the untrained mind.
“Damn,” I muttered. “It was worth a shot.”
I applaud the evolution in your thinking, he said. Unlike your depressing attempts at creating a festive atmosphere.
“Goddammit, Marcus, I’m trying,” I said.
And failing.
I chuckled at his ball-breaking comments as I made my way along the wall, taping streamers as delicately as I could. I wanted to hang one nice-looking streamer so I could throw it in my centurion friend’s face, but the task was infinitely more difficult since I kept glancing around the mess hall. I hoped to catch a glimpse of Steph or Veronica signaling that our plan was moving forward. Then, all I had to do was open a certain door.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. At the fifteen-minute mark, jitters kicked up in my chest, and a dozen worst-case scenarios ran through my head. The general must have been onto us from the beginning. He’d intercepted them while they were setting up our little scheme, and now, he would come for me. On instinct, I put my hand to my belt. The Gladius Solis was still not there.
I cringed, remembering that the officer, my current Public Enemy Number One, had duped me out of it before I’d even set foot inside the fort. If the whole operation went south from there, I had no one to blame but myself.
Eyes up, Victoria. Our allies are entering.
My roll of streamers was about to run out. “Perfect timing,” I said, taping the end haphazardly and hopping down off the ladder.
Veronica’s intense head of hair stood out, bobbing in my general direction. I angled myself so we would “just happen” to cross paths on my way to return the stepladder to its corner.
She smiled and winked when she saw me. “Ready to get this show on the road?” she asked.
“Understatement of the year,” I told her.
She glanced at the wall behind me and wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, what’s going on with these decorations?”
“Shut it, Big Red,” I said through gritted teeth. “Where’s Frank?”
She brought her focus back to the task at hand. “In position with the double payload. We briefed him on everything. He’s very excited.”
I snorted. “All right. I’m gonna go pull the pin.”
We separated. I weaved my way toward the door on the right and saw that Steph had beaten me there. She gave me a look of subtle inquiry, and I nodded.
In one quick motion, so fast I almost didn’t see it, she flashed her hand out and pulled the door ajar. Instantly, the air filled with wild bleating as the blurred shape of a baby goat rocketed into the hall.
For about a second, the intrusion went more or less unnoticed. Then a gruff voice bellowed out, “Hey! Get back here, you ugly little devil. Jeezum Crow!”
Frank barreled in, his jowly face bright red from exertion, wheezing like a freight train. He was hot on the heels of a second goat that took to its new freedom with unrestrained joy, tearing through the busy throng.
“Ah, shit.” The mobster stumbled forward, catching the edge of his hat as it tumbled off his head. Laughter and screams of surprise and delight pierced the general hubbub.
“Excuse me,” he said, wading into the crowd. “Excuse me. Pardon me, ma’am. I’m sorry, sir. Goat problems. You understand.” He made a grab for the first goat as it streaked past his knees, but he missed and toppled over. Frank lay sprawled on his ample stomach on the floor, and his face turned even redder. “Damn it to hell. Don’t make me chase you.”
The goats disobeyed gleefully and slalomed between table legs, their hooves clattering on the tile. A crowd formed inside the crowd. The large man pushed himself to his feet and lunged after his fleeing livestock. He was neither aerodynamic nor graceful, and the limited space didn’t allow him much freedom of movement. Tables and benches flew across the floor with surprising force. I could hear him shouting like a freight train, swearing up a storm. For the moment, the thought of children’s innocent ears had slipped the mobster’s mind.
“Why’d it have to be fuckin’ goats? You smelly little shits. I’d shoot ya if I had my gun.”
The kids, of course, found this whole scene utterly hilarious. I watched until he knocked a whole table over with his lurching super strength, then I slipped away unnoticed through the exit. Someone else waited for me outside in the hall.
“Sounds like Frank got a real party started in there,” Deacon remarked. “I’m kind of sorry we have to miss it.”
“With any luck, we’ll be back before he catches them,” I said. “Let’s get out of here. That old war room won’t break and enter itself.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Still no sign of Dan or his boys?” I asked on the way. Since the whole fort had been commissioned to help with the feast, the halls were mercifully empty. Still, we stuck as much to the shadows as we could, just in case.
“Not one.” Deacon frowned. “I have a real bad feeling about all this shit, Vic.”
“That’s why we’re on our way to figure it out,” I said. We picked the pace up a little, and in a matter of minutes, we slipped out the side door near the garden. “Keep an eye out for guards. They can really sneak up on you.”
The watchtowers were also a concern, but there wasn’t anything we could do about those. We made ourselves as small as possible and darted across the vacant yard. The close-cropped grass made practically no sound beneath our feet.
“How is this going down?” Deacon asked softly once we were within a few yards of the abandoned building’s wall. He looked closely at the chained front door. “That’s a pretty serious lock. Too bad you—” He stopped short and pressed his lips together.
“Too bad I what?” I demanded under my breath, side-eyeing the shit out of him. “Too bad I willingly surrendered my magic sword that would’ve cut through this in a second?”
“Those are your words, not mine,” he answered.
I huffed. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, jackass.” He chuckled and stopped when I said, “Bet you I don’t even need the sword anyway.”
“Oh, so you’re the Hulk now, too? Well, Hulk-smash this fucker already.” He followed me toward the door.
“Watch your back,” I warned. “They got me right around here last time. The towers are manned.”
Deacon glanced over his shoulder, his brows knitted. “How much personnel does this bastard have?” he muttered.
I tuned him out and shook my hands to loosen them up, rolling my wrists in anticipation. The chain was old and rusty, oxidizing in places from constant exposure to the elements. The coarse surface grated on my palms. I took a deep breath, drew all my strength inward, and channeled it down my arms.
May the nectar of Carcerum guide you, Marcus intoned sagely.
“If this doesn’t work,” I replied, “I’ll look stupid as hell. And I’m gonna be pissed.”
At my back, Deacon said, “Whoa, wait, are you for real?”
Instead of answering him, I clenched my teeth and pulled with all my might. At first, the natural response to the limit of my human strength was pain. Undaunted, I tightened my grip and squeezed my eyes shut. Then I felt the nectar kick in like a car’s turbo engine, and raw energy hummed through my veins. The thick chain scraped against the door. It began to strain in my grasp. I stifled the urge to emit an earth-shattering war cry or to howl at the moon.
“Damn,” Deacon whispered.
Another b
reath poured into my lungs. Images of the overturned bus in New York City splashed across the inside of my eyelids. I had lifted the whole side of that thing, so breaking this chain ought to be a piece of cake. The links creaked and groaned. Heat seemed to sizzle off my skin. Each second went on forever until I finally heard it—the thunderous, telltale snap of victory.
“Yes!” The chain went slack in my hands, and I dropped it to the grass. As I opened my eyes, I noticed a faint, radiant glow fading from my arms. The giddy rush of dopamine into my brain made me want to kick a car in half. I was pumped. I turned around and grinned at my companion. “Now who’s the fucking Hulk?”
“Holy shit.” He eyed the broken lengths of chain at my feet. “Remind me not to make you angry. God damn.”
“I knew you’d like it. Let’s go.” Placing one hand on the newly unburdened door, I pushed it open gently, peering around into the room. A faint smell of must invaded my nose.
“Hey, you got a light?” I asked. The whole swordless excursion made me realize how much I’d come to rely on the Gladius Solis. Weapon, all-purpose demolisher, ambient torch—it was basically Kronin’s Swiss army knife.
My friend stepped up beside me and pressed the button on his Maglite, flooding the chamber with a bright white cone. “See? You need me for something after all.”
“Duh, I need someone to be impressed by my feats of strength,” I retorted. It was sort of fun to be one-on-one with Deacon again, just the two of us, like co-stars in a buddy-cop movie. Not that I would ever have admitted it to him.
That brief feeling of levity quickly evaporated when I looked around the inside of the building. I’d expected something official—a long table emblazoned with a crest and screens and maps covering the walls. There was none of that. All we saw were cobwebs and piles of boxes.
“This is a warehouse,” I said out loud. “What the hell?” We moved deeper into the room in sync, Deacon sweeping his light into the corners. “Why did he tell me it was top brass only?”
“Let’s check the boxes,” he suggested. “It could have more to do with what’s inside them.”
I shook my head. “No, I knew it. That old prick was lying out his ass the whole time.” The creeping suspicion that something was fishy exploded into full-blown certainty. “No way would there be a war room separate from the actual fortress in a place like this.”
Agreed, said Marcus. He must have assumed that your lack of military experience would lead you to believe whatever he said. The title of general does imbue his words with a certain weight. His tone grew dismissive. It does not, however, transform this act of fraud into truth.
“Why would he lie about it, though? He could have simply said it was extra storage.” I walked to one of the boxes and folded back the top flaps. Dry rations were stacked inside. Other containers had water, linen sets, batteries. “Yeah, these are all more supplies. That’s, like, the least weird thing for him to have in here.”
“I don’t know about that,” Deacon countered. “Strange that they’d be out here, so far away from the rest of the fort. If there were an emergency and people were trapped in the main building, all of these would be out of reach.” He studied the boxes. “There’s enough room in the main complex to store these in a more accessible location, even if they’re in a corner somewhere. That seems like the most logical thing to do.”
“Maybe this is a contingency plan?” I suggested. “In case the opposite scenario happened and everyone had to leave the fort?”
“I doubt it.” The agent shook his head. “The guy seems to think you could drop an atom bomb on this place and it’d be fine. He doesn’t have any contingencies. I don’t think he’s a general, either.”
“True, but he could have been saying all that to try to make us feel safe,” I said, rifling through more boxes as I talked. The fourth one I opened had a host of glass tubes in it, each one labeled with the word “ricin” on the side. They were filled with a fine white powder.
Deacon stopped short when he saw it. “Don’t touch that,” he commanded suddenly. “Put the lid back on and close the box.”
I gave him a look. “Relax. It’s probably cocaine or something.” The joke didn’t register on his face. “What is ricin even? Sounds made up.”
“It’s poison,” he said, still watching the tubes like a hawk. “Close that thing, Vic. I’m serious. That stuff makes cyanide look like a joke. A few grains of it will kill you.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Well, then.” The lid went back onto the box of poison, and I made sure it was tight. “Remind me to wash my hands.”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” he said.
“Well, shit.”
“I’ve never seen so much of it in one place,” Deacon said. “Usually, it’s wives using it to kill their husbands. That amount could waste an entire city.”
“Jim Jones’s wet dream,” I quipped, half smiling. Then the smile fell off my face. “Oh shit, Deacon.”
He had the same thought at the same time. “The feast,” he said, staring at me. “That nutty bastard wants us all to drink the Kool-Aid.”
“Fuck!” I jumped to my feet and turned to bolt for the door. “We have to get back and warn the others.” The eye of Deacon’s Maglite swung around to track me, but it stopped short.
“Oh, no,” the agent murmured. The second he said it, I saw what he was talking about. The general, flanked by a faction of goons, stood blocking our path. His wide, toothy grin gave off a mocking gleam.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” he said. “Where do you think you’re running off to, my dear?” He motioned for his men to advance on both sides. They all had their fingers on the triggers of loaded guns. The closest thing to a weapon between Deacon and I was the flashlight in his hand. The General laughed. “That’s right, Vic. Your fancy sword was the only thing that got you this far, and you handed it over to me without so much as a question.”
I glared, looking him dead in the eye. Every cell in my body wanted to fight, to go apeshit on these assholes with the steadfast belief that things would work themselves out somehow. But I knew that without the sword, I stood no chance of protecting both myself and Deacon. Worse, if we died out there, no one would be able to stop this madman from poisoning everyone we’d promised to keep safe.
“Fine,” I said at last, forcing the word from my throat. “You win.” I raised my hands, palms out, to confirm that I was unarmed. A moment later, the Maglite went out as Deacon did the same.
The general let out another self-satisfied chortle that made me want to punch him in his stupid fucking face. “And to think I’d heard you were so unreasonable.” He gestured to his men. “Tie them up, boys. You know where to take the riffraff.” He watched as they twisted our arms behind our backs.
I never took my eyes off him. He never stopped smiling.
Chapter Twenty-Four
While the goon squad moved into position to take Deacon and me away, I geared myself up for the inevitable humiliation of being returned to the fort as captives. I wondered how long it would take the others to notice that we were gone and what crazy stunt they might try to pull to find us.
Maybe if we picked a fight as soon as we got back into the fort, we could jumpstart an impromptu rebellion. Then I remembered the conversation our team had recently had about how the survivors craved stability and safety above all else. As much as I hated to acknowledge it, there was a strong likelihood that my former allies would assume we were turncoats being justifiably punished. Or they would convince themselves that was the truth, anyway.
Still, I prepared myself ready to raise hell at the first opportunity, but the lackeys didn’t take us to the fort. They didn’t even take us outside. The biggest, burliest goon grabbed Deacon by his restraints and hauled him across the room to a door in the opposite corner that I hadn’t noticed. Someone else got behind me, shoving from behind.
“What, no blindfold?” I asked coolly. “I thought those were complimentary with every kidnapping.”
>
The general’s laugh boomed out like a clap of thunder. “Any other day, that wit might be enough to earn you mercy. You’re an exceptionally funny pain in my ass.” He sighed. “If you must know, it’s simple. There’s no blindfold because it doesn’t matter what you see. You’ll never have the opportunity to describe it to anyone else.” The door was oddly incongruous in comparison to the rest of the room as if it had been added later as an afterthought. It was shorter than the main entryway—Deacon, the general, and several of the goons had to duck down a little bit to get in. My own head barely cleared the top of the frame.
The stiflingly narrow passage beyond required single-file marching, and as the grade of the floor sloped increasingly downward, I began to smell a putrid, rotten stench. The goon prodding my back stopped to pull a mask up over his face. The farther down we went, the worse it got. By the time the corridor opened into a cave-like basement, the thick air was stinging my eyes.
The general stopped at the end of the chamber and turned to face us with the flair of a performer greeting his long-awaited audience. He spread his arms wide in the same magnanimous gesture he’d used when we first arrived. Now, it was a bad omen, no longer a sign of hope. “These are your new quarters,” he announced. “Like them? You’ll spend your last hours here until we’re ready for you in the main hall.”
“I know what you’re planning, General,” I said, locking my gaze onto his. The warmth had fled from his eyes but not the fire. He stared back, unblinking. “It’s too late. I saw the ricin.”
“Too late?” The man guffawed. I was sick of that sound. “My child, there is no possible way you could know the extent of my plans. I was adrift, directionless, lost in abyssal despair before the gods arrived. But, of course, you can’t comprehend what that’s like, can you?”
“Sure,” I said, through gritted teeth. “You were a loser. I get it.”
His façade of benevolent normalcy was in tatters. He barely looked like the same person. The rounded gut still bulged against his uniform, but his face had transformed into something lean and sharp. A hunter seconds before the kill.