“Your choice is made,” she said, her voice cold and lifeless. “A poor choice. Goodbye, Red Djinni.”
Rearing back, she summoned a blazing ball of fire in her hand, and hurled it towards his prone and gasping body.
* * *
“Vix to JM.”
“Go for Murdock, Vix.” John and Sera had racked out at CCCP HQ. Their shift was over for the day; Krieger attacks didn’t usually happen at night, and any attacks that were happening would likely be out of their range. The Kriegers had been testing their limits, and had been careful not to commit any serious forces where they thought that John and Sera might show up. Still, they managed to surprise the Kriegers with some regularity. He had been asleep when Vickie called, but all of his time in the military had honed the ability to go from dead asleep to wide awake pretty damn quick. Sera stirred next to him, and he brushed her mind with his, easing her back to sleep.
“I’m about to do something stupid and I want your help, you and Sera. You in?”
“If’n you ask Bella or the Commissar, doin’ stupid stuff is ’bout all I’m good for. Of course I’m in.” He sat up in the bed gently, keeping his voice down. “Give us ten minutes to get decent, then we can head out. Meetin’ at your place?”
“Yeah, my workroom. I’ll unlock the balcony and leave the window open for you. Keep this on the QT. Out for now.”
“Roger that. Murdock, out.” He sighed, turning to watch Sera as she slept. Too much to ask for to get a few hours of kip. Rest, the wicked, yada yada. He scooted further towards her before leaning down to kiss her cheek. “Time to wake up, darlin’.”
Like him, although probably for entirely different reasons, she was able to go from deepest sleep to wide awake instantly. She sat up and pulled her hair out of her eyes. “Something is wrong,” she stated, rather than asked.
“Well, Vickie is involved, so that’s a given. Needs us to throw our boots on and get over to her place. Wanted us to keep it to ourselves, too, so I figure it’s pretty serious. Hope you don’t mind, but I volunteered us.”
She shook her head. “Of course not. I think this might have to do with Red Djinni. That is the only reason I can think that she would not tell anyone else.”
“That would be correct, Mrs. Murdock,” the strangely unaccented voice of Eight chirped in John’s ear. “Victrix has found everything she believes she can find at this date, and is going to make the attempt to find, and rescue, the Red Djinni. I believe she believes that you two are her only hope for allies to combat Doppelgaenger.”
“So, nothin’ too serious.” John let out another sigh, then swung his feet over the edge of the bed to stand up. “Best get movin’ if we’re gonna get over there, darlin’.”
* * *
As the fireball came hurtling towards him, Red marveled at how familiar all of this seemed.
Justine started with a fireball too, he thought. And I countered with a…
“Water wall!”
It sprang up before him, materializing from nothing but his will to coalesce into a stout barrier that stood ready to absorb the mass of blazing heat aimed with deadly precision at his heart. Would it be that easy? This was a place of imagination, the weapons at hand fueled and channeled by will alone. Karoline may have had years to hone her skills here, but Red’s defining characteristic had always been his stubborn, pig-headed resolve. He was no stranger to pain and the will to work past it. Perhaps it was the reason he had survived his one encounter in the Mindscape. A spell had gone terribly wrong. Justine was a young, reckless fire mage mind-surfing inside of him when her own fragile body was consumed by an uncontrollable backlash of wildfire. In that one desperate fight, a dying girl had pit her frantic need to survive against his, and in the end had come up lacking. Neither of them had known what they were doing, relying on instincts alone, grasping at primal forces of perceived fire and water to manifest on a surreal plane of existence. Red had won that fight, but he had never truly known why. It wasn’t something that particularly concerned him. He never had any intention of returning to this “place.” It was just another odd chapter in the increasingly bizarre and frenzied life of a maverick metahuman. He had sworn never to touch magic again after that day, but he never expected to be drafted into the ranks of ECHO, or to be paired with the likes of Victoria Victrix. He should have seen this coming. A part of him cursed himself for dropping his guard, for letting magic back into his life. He should have known that something like this might happen—again.
But that wasn’t fair. He wasn’t here because of magic. He was here because, once again, he had fallen for the wrong girl. A girl who, it turned out, had a metahuman knack of simply absorbing her prey, in some cases taking them whole, extinguishing their minds, and picking off whatever she needed from the remaining carcass before moving on. Except this time, she had actually grown attached to the victim and given him the chance to share in this unnatural union, to keep them both intact, and to forge something far greater than the mere sum of their parts. There was no magic at work here. The only thing akin to magic in play was the inscrutable notion of love, something that defied any and all attempts to define it, to quantify it, yet somehow managed to enslave or befuddle the most ardent of minds, the most stalwart of spirits.
He had actually considered the offer. It was, despite the sheer creepiness of it all, a grotesquely attractive proposal. A shot at immortality, at immense power, shared with someone he couldn’t help but admit was kindred in horrifying ways. The last time, there really had been no option. With Justine, there could be no union, there simply wasn’t room enough for both of them. It was her, or it was him. This time, he had been presented with a choice, but it wasn’t really a choice at all. It wasn’t something he could do. Stubborn. Pig-headed. That was Red Djinni. At heart, he was too wild, too willful, to simply be a part of a whole. And right now…more than a little psychotic. Or emotionally exhausted. Or both. He just couldn’t feel anything, even though he knew he should. He should have been feeling rage, perhaps mixed with terror. There were shadows of both emotions there, but there was no strength behind them.
As the fireball punched through his water wall and slammed into his chest, Red had the briefest of moments to wonder if this was the day his mule-headed temperament would finally get him killed. Would it be so easy, that a mere wall of water could withstand the blazing fury of passion scorned? Of course not.
There was a blinding flash of light, followed by the overwhelming stench of burning flesh, and as Red looked down at himself, he was met with an appalling sight. His ECHO uniform was in tatters and his skin was scorched, seared in some areas, already blackened and brittle in others.
There was no pain, though, and like a harsh light flaring to life in his mind, Red remembered with absolute clarity how it had been before in the Mindscape. He had experienced no pain then either, and he supposed that might have been how he had survived the last time. The fight had been quick, if brutal, but whatever Justine had managed to dish out he had just kept coming.
He remembered her cries, her startled grunts of pain, as his own attacks had driven her back, left her defenses open and vulnerable to his onslaught of claws, kicks and a final merciless tackle. If he had been coping with the pain of savage burns then, he doubted he could have reacted with that same, single-minded intensity such dexterous acts required. The grapple had been vicious, culminating in a slow, relentless chokehold that had snapped her neck. As recklessly strong as she was, Justine’s fire had only penetrated so far, skin deep, not enough to slow him down. His speed and reflexes had won that battle.
Karoline’s mastery of the Mindscape, while lacking Justine’s natural pyrokinetic talents, more than made up for any shortcomings with experience and focus, fueled by her raw and ravaged emotions. Red tried to stand and felt his limbs betray him as he collapsed to the ground. This time, the absence of pain made him vulnerable. Karoline’s initial volley had damaged him greatly, and without any sure way of sensing precisely where, Red had no clu
e of how to compensate. He tried to rise again, and fell as his left arm and both legs seized up. He came to rest on his side, his limbs still twitching.
He blinked, confused, as a dim light appeared to shimmer in the corner of his eye. Was he seeing stars? That was never good. He couldn’t afford to black out. He needed to find his strength. He needed to get up. He couldn’t let her win, not with so much as stake. If he fell, she would take all that was left in him. Armed with new powers, perhaps even an immortal vessel, Karoline would be free to attend to one last piece of unfinished business—acquiring Victoria Victrix for her Masters.
He grunted and struggled again, but could manage no more than a soft whimper as he continued to flail about. He heard her approach, her steps echoing sharply on the cold ceramic tile. He felt her grip his neck, and with ease she lifted him up and brought his head close to hers. Her eyes bore into his, then softened, as she averted her gaze.
“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t make me do this. We could be everything. Is death really preferable to me?”
Red coughed. His hand, his remaining good one, struggled in vain to pry her fingers from his throat. She obliged him and loosened her grip, just a touch. It wasn’t enough. She was so much more than he was in this place. He let his hand fall away, and glared at her. The wisest thing would have been to stall. In time, perhaps he could find a way, some way to best her. He needed to stay alive. Alive, he would have a say, and perhaps even some influence over her…but to what end? Did he really think he could overcome her? Failing that, did he really think he could sway her? She had spent years preparing for this. If he agreed, if he accepted her terms, in time he would become nothing more than a puppet to her insanity. And that just wasn’t him, it never could be.
Stubborn. Pig-headed. That was Red Djinni.
“Darlin’,” he croaked, “an eternity spent on a Judas Cradle would be preferable to you.”
He watched her flinch as his words cut into her, felt her grip tighten as she struggled with her resolve, and waited for the end as she raised her hand, fire dancing across her fingertips.
* * *
“I’m in the workroom.” Vickie’s voice, hoarser than usual, met John as he landed on the floor of her living room. He let Sera walk in front of him, leading him to the workroom. For a moment he wondered if he had come to the wrong apartment. The normally pristine living room was—for Vickie anyway—a mess. There were empty coffee cups and meal-cans on every available surface, and under the coffee table. The table itself was inches deep in notepads covered in complex equations; it looked as if every page in those pads had been used.
“Hey, kiddo. Eight gave us the short version. Wanna fill in the blanks?” He reached out with his telempathy to get a sense of Vickie’s state. He didn’t like what he found; she was right on the edge of losing it, and was holding on to everything by the barest thread of sheer will. He knew that Sera had noted the same things he had, if not through their connection, then through her own senses.
Vickie came as far as the door of her workroom; to put it mildly, she looked as if she hadn’t slept in days, her hair was brittle and lifeless, her cheeks were hollow, and there was a frantic, edge-of-madness look to her eyes that mirrored the mess in her apartment. The edge of madness was in her voice too. “Eight can do pretty much everything I can, bar the magic stuff—and he can do the magic-mapping stuff now, just not the rest of it, like last-minute rescues and opening up holes in the ground. So, I’ve got backup from someone who can do everything I can, doesn’t need to sleep, can do it all faster, and for a lot more people simultaneously. So far as DG’s time as Mel, Eight and I have plugged all the holes, unboobied all the traps, and discovered all the information theft DG did when she was playing Mel.” She spread her hands wide, and they shook. The measured logic of her speech was at violent odds with the desperation JM sensed inside her. “I figure that sets me free to get Red back or die trying. Not—” she added as an afterthought “—that I expect you two to do anything but flee if I go down. If the three of us together can’t handle DG, two of you alone won’t have a chance, and there’s no point in losing our nuclear option—you two.”
She meant that. She absolutely meant it. She was throwing the dice with everything she had riding on it, nothing held back, nothing in reserve. It was desperation JM had sensed—and maybe a touch of insanity. Because if she couldn’t save Red…
…he didn’t want to think about the consequences.
“Eight is great an’ all, don’t get me wrong. But it isn’t you. You called us in on this ’cause we’re the big guns, right?” He took a breath, but continued before she had a chance to respond. “We’re there so that this little op of yours works. An’ the way I measure success, everyone gets out alive. Got it?”
Sera folded her arms and looked stern. “Have you not accounted for how much of your Overwatch aid has needed your magic in the past? And did the Djinni himself not force you to flee against your will because he believed you were too important to our cause to risk? We will not leave you behind, no matter where we go, and that is final.”
Vickie grabbed for the doorframe for a moment, then collected herself. “No point in arguing with you. I’ve got my jetpack out there by the window. It’s fueled full and ready. I’ve got the location spell mapped out. All I need to do is run the equations and trigger it. It should plant a finder to Red in all three of our skulls. Once we know where he is, we gun and run, in, out and back to ECHO. I’m…given what DG did to the kids and Mel, I figure he’s been tortured, so he’s probably in a bad way, so we bring him straight to the Med Center. That sound solid to you?”
“Works for me. We’ll want to pack along extra medical supplies; Sera an’ I can do some healin’, but it leaves us next to useless. An’ if we’re goin’ to be expectin’ a fight, we’ll want our full strength. Got a spare ECHO medical backpack?”
“With the jetpack, I’m way ahead of you.” She turned and went back into the workroom. “Come on in.”
Darlin’, we need to keep a close eye on her. She’s hurtin’ bad. You’ve known her longer than I have, so she might listen to you more’n she would to me.
Beloved…if I were taken, how would you react? If you were taken, how would I? It is folly to expect anything other than the same from her. Sera sounded…at a loss. We will do what we can, but her will is strong, and we cannot combat it without doing her more harm than she is doing to herself.
When they entered the workroom, John saw that the carpet had been covered with a canvas dropcloth inscribed with multiple circles and what looked like thousands of tiny hand-drawn glyphs and symbols. His head reeled with trying to comprehend how long it must have taken her to do this. Only someone who was driven in ways he understood only too well could have accomplished this. In the center was a very small circle, densely inscribed all around, containing a motley assortment of objects—a page from a book, a toothbrush, a microscope slide with something preserved on it, a scrap of red fabric, and some other bits of things too small to make out from where he was standing. “You stand there, Johnny,” Vickie said, pointing to another circle from the circle that she was standing in. “And, Sera, you go there. I’m pretty sure your Celestial innards aren’t going to object to this, but if you zap me instead of finding Red, I’m not going to be held responsible for my actions.”
“Aside from gettin’ arranged like furniture, what exactly do you need from us for this spell?”
In the bright light from the overhead fixture, her skin had a gray tinge to it, and her hair looked like dry thatch, something that a spark would set ablaze. “Just concentrate on Red,” she said, and closed eyes that were far too big for her face…and far too bright.
John let out a breath, and cast a final glance toward Sera. “Here we go.” She smiled, and then they both closed their eyes. John’s thoughts turned towards Red Djinni: hearing about his exploits when John was on the run, their first “meeting” on the streets of Atlanta, the strike mission against the North Amer
ican Thulian HQ. Drinking together. Laughing together. Sharing stories…oddly enough, sharing books. He built up memories in his mind until it was almost as if Red was standing in front of him. He got the uncanny feeling that if he opened his eyes, Red would actually be there.
And then he heard Vickie cry out, “Come back to me!” and he was caught up in the teeth of a whirlwind. The best analogy he could make was that it was like hanging onto one end of a live wire, while the other end went hunting something. Or being on the seat of a wagon pulled by a team of runaway horses.
And then—
* * *
He hung there, helpless, held fast by her powerful grasp. Red was vaguely aware that his limbs were still twitching on their own, ravaged by her fire and useless to him. His right arm, which had propped him up against the blast, was all he had left. It dangled from him, his fingers scraping the ground.
He glanced up at her and winced as incandescent waves of light and fire radiated from her outstretched palm, like a torch, ready to burn him to cinders. He averted his eyes, turning his head away from that awful heat, but not before recognizing her own hesitation. While one hand held him up, his body fixed in her unyielding grip, the other hand shook with doubt, the intensity of the flames waxing and waning as she struggled with the decision to end him.
“It didn’t have to be like this,” she wept. “You idiot. You coward.”
Red didn’t answer and kept his eyes averted, waiting for the end. He found his mind going to irrational places, as it often did when he courted death. This was, after all, hardly his first time. His thoughts raced, brushing the corners of his consciousness, ranging from the absurd to those stark in their brutal and honest desire.
How crazy am I, he thought, that at a time like this I’m thinking of whiskey, soft mood lighting, forgotten lyrics to some Adele song, wondering who will finally ascend the Iron Throne? Never enough time. Did I really ever want to live forever? Touch my tears, Bella. You ever get Bull to stop snoring? I hope so, but maybe not, I still think it was you that stole my hoagie. Bull would know, you tell him everything. Even if you didn’t, it’s like he could lift it from your thoughts. You do that with everyone, Bull? Do you know what Bruno’s final thoughts were? God, I could use a shot. Drink one for me, will you, Johnny? Mind that lady of yours, she’s a spitfire. Will I see you again, Sera? Will you be the one to tell me, in the end, if I ever mattered, what could I have done with this sorry life, if I could go on? There was so much left, so much unfinished. Was redemption possible? Would I have ever lived up to this hero gig? You thought so, didn’t you, Vickie? I wonder what it would have been like, to graze on your neck…
Avalanche: Book Five in the Secret World Chronicle Page 45