“My hellions should be able to support the angels,” Sargeras said. “And I can speak with the other leaders as well.” He nodded to a corner of his screen. “No offense, Honored Daybreaker, you just don't have the numbers to wage this kind of war.”
“None taken, Honored Devil,” Nick replied graciously.
“I'm also not opposed to cooperating,” the Great Wolf said. “There will be some logistics problems, as we keep mortal enemies away from each other, but surely we can all leave off killing each other long enough to fight for our city.”
Doresain shrugged. “I don't see why not. Though like you said, we'll need to be mindful of prejudices. I know I wouldn't want to fight next to a lupe, and I doubt any of my men are going to feel differently.”
“I think we can leave that to the more military-minded leaders,” Focalur of the Mammonites said. “Best not to get in their way.”
The taur representative, an ugly Baphomite named Cairne, raised an eyebrow. “You would be willing to follow the orders of another, thief?”
Focalur just laughed. “Like you said, I'm a thief. I don't know how to fight a war.” He became serious again. “But Dispater, Sargeras—whoever ends up giving the orders. Just remember the strengths and weaknesses of your allies. We can't stand up to front line combat like you.”
Sargeras nodded. “We will of course take everything into consideration. We've been fighting against you for quite some time. We know what you are capable of.”
The Beast growled, literally. “This is ridiculous. I will not put myself under the command of any other kith, and I know my followers will feel the same.”
Artemis narrowed his eyes. “Then leave, and don't come crying to us when the screamers appear on your doorstep.”
The Satanist growled again, and his window went dark. Honestly, Artemis was pleased. His subculture was almost as bad as the Nessians. He had known all along they would be trouble. He was surprised it had taken him this long to voice his objections.
“Good riddance,” Tripurasura, the Akoman daeva, said. “He would have set his men on us like hounds on roadkill.”
The cane and lupe representatives both shouted at once. “HEY!”
The vampire winced. “Sorry. Figure of speech.”
“I am pleased you have all seen the wisdom of working together,” Artemis said. Using violence to force the issue would have just made things worse in the long run. “But there is one thing I don't think anyone will like.”
He found himself unable to speak. This was going to be a nightmare. He still had a chance to change his mind.
Everyone just looked at him, clearly apprehensive. His silence was only making things worse. Senator Nagi, representing the laces, was the one who spoke up. “And what's that, Butler?”
“Tharizdun and Glasya, I need...” Artemis paused, then sighed and bit the bullet. “I need you to open up communications with the fey.”
The sudden outcry was almost explosive. Every single representative started shouting. Even the more level-headed ones who were trying to calm everyone else, like Evangel and Nagi, had to yell just to have a chance of being heard.
He didn't say anything else. He couldn't hear any individual arguments in the noise, but he knew what they were saying. The fey were crazed monsters who would kill their own mothers for no reason other than because they felt like it. They were almost as big a problem as the Composer. Allying with them was insanity.
After a few minutes, there was a brief lull. Not really a lull; just a short pause, nothing but coincidence. Artemis seized the opportunity to speak. “If we don't ally with them, the Composer will,” he said quietly.
Everyone choked on their words, and dozens of faces stared at him in shock.
“If we don't ally with them, the Composer will,” he said again. “Perhaps he'll infect them, or perhaps he'll just pay them off, but either way he'll have access to their armies and their toy boxes. We cannot allow one of those to fall into the wrong hands.” He glanced at Soaring Eagle's window. She winced at the reference to her own crimes.
Still, nobody spoke.
He leaned back in his seat and sighed. “I understand this is not easy. I understand that they might ask for things we are not willing to give. But we don't have a choice. They are too powerful to simply leave waiting for the Composer's control.” He closed his eyes. “That is all. Mary Christina will contact you shortly with more information on the details of the alliance.”
He cut the connection.
It was necessary.
Chapter 14: IMPERO
HORACE
Horace Warfield was a 2nd Lieutenant hellion under the command of General Sargeras, one of the most respected officers of the 9th Special Reconnaissance Division, and well-known for his unconventional tactics and the high morale of the men under his command. He considered it a point of pride that he had never been defeated, despite several dozen pitched battles to his name.
And he had no idea where he was.
“Feeling better?” his father asked.
He looked up and saw... someone. It wasn't his father. The build wasn't right... or was it? His head. Something was wrong with his head.
“Good,” the person purred. Its voice was changing. It wasn't his father's any more. It was his first girlfriend's, the one who dumped him when he got his horns. “I want you to have a clear mind for this.”
“What... what are you?”
The shape before him flickered like a shadow. It had a tail, but bigger than anything the toy maker could produce. Then the tail disappeared like smoke. “Well, not a completely clear mind. I want to gloat, but I still have to be somewhat smart. What would happen if you escaped and told everyone who I was? Then I'd have to kill you and everyone you've ever met. That would be...” The voice, so much like his old drill instructor's, paused, as though savoring the thought. Was it licking its lips? “So... terrible.”
“What's going on?” Horace tried reaching out to touch the shadow, only to find he couldn't move. His arms and legs were bound to some sort of examination table, angled to give him a better view of the room. The manacles were... stone?
“It's been so long since I had a chance to properly gloat,” the voice said. “So much secrecy. And for what? So a couple more mud-apes can live out their dreary little lives? Pah. Worthless.”
“You're...” Dammit, what was wrong with his head?
A claw gripped his chin and forced him to look into his captor's glowing red eyes. Except it wasn't a claw and the eyes weren't red. Every time he tried to look at the... thing talking to him, his brain seemed to shy away from the subject.
“I am the Composer,” the shadow said in a clear female voice. It was beautiful, like carefully tuned bells. “I am the one who is going to burn this city to the ground.”
It let him go. Horace tried to look around the room in the hopes of actually discerning his location, but he didn't have much luck. It looked like a small maintenance room for the sewers, judging by the large pipes running throughout the chamber. There were only two entrances he could see, one to his left and one to his right, but he couldn't see any light coming from either of them. That didn't help much.
“Stop that,” a voice much like his mother's ordered, and he felt the manacles twist and tighten. But when he looked down, nothing was touching them. They were just moving on their own. “Don't bother trying to figure out where you are.”
“You're a screamer,” Horace whispered in horror.
The Composer rolled its eyes, and for a brief moment, he saw the face of a beautiful woman with red skin. Was it real? It felt real, but so did the rest. “No, I'm a composer. I have more than just one power. I have three different types of kinesis—stone, fire, and electricity—two types of fragma—shields and blades—a basic sapizo power, one of the better forms of tachytita, two types of anakalypsi, a very minor allagi power, and most importantly, hypnotism.”
Horace blinked. “Was I supposed to understand any of that?”
&nbs
p; The shadow clicked its tongue in disappointment. “Actually, yes. You should have stayed in school longer.” Another pause. “Of course, I destroyed most of my schools, so I'm not one to talk.”
“What do you want with me?”
“Two things,” a high-pitched child's voice explained. “First, I want you to just stay a while and listen. I need to get all this gloating off my chest or else I'll end up actually telling it to someone important, like the Paladins.
“Second, I need you to disrupt the alliance.”
Horace frowned. “What alliance?”
The Composer sighed. “Butler finally managed to get his act together, and is forcing a truce between all the cultures and gangs. All to hunt down little old me.” Horace saw a flash of gleaming white teeth as it grinned, but it disappeared quickly. “I can't have that. It would be best to just make Butler break the treaty himself, but he's too well-protected. There's no way I can get to him.”
A treaty with Necessarius was perfect. It was exactly what the General had been looking for. Yes, the hellions had prejudices of their own, but Horace knew they would be able to put them aside for the greater good. Hopefully, the other subcultures would feel the same.
But something his captor had said was nagging at his mind. “Wait, how are you going to break the treaty? You're not a part of it...” He felt a surge of horror. He still had no idea who this person was, but it couldn't be that bad. “...right?”
The shadow laughed again, the sound of bells returning. “Oh, that would make things far too easy! No, I'm not a part of your silly little games. No, I'm going to make you do it.”
Horace marshaled his will and tried to sound more confident than he felt. “There's nothing you can do that will make me betray the General and his cause. If he wants this treaty, I will hold to it.”
The Composer laughed. Bells again. Why was it always bells? “Silly little hellion. Were you even paying attention?” Those gleaming white teeth returned. “Why do you think you can't identify me? Why do you think you can't remember how you got here?”
Horace closed his eyes for a moment, shutting out that confusing, shifting visage, and his wits returned to him. “You drugged me.”
“Not drugged,” it said cheerfully. “Hypnotized. So much more useful. Harder to detect. Harder to defend against.”
“You can't hypnotize me if I don't want you to,” Horace said.
It just chuckled. “Not that kind of hypnotism.” It leaned forward and brought its hand in front of his face, moving its fingers in a pattern he couldn't identify. It was riveting nonetheless. “Here's what you're going to do...”
Right before his mind fled completely, whatever previous hypnotism placed on him wore off, or perhaps was overwritten by the new one. Regardless of the cause, Horace could suddenly see the Composer in all its glory.
He couldn't tell if it was male or female, young or old; it was too brief a glimpse for that. He only identified one thing.
Earlier, he had thought the creature had red skin, which would probably mark it as a troll or goblin. But it turned out he was incorrect. The Composer's skin wasn't red.
It was just completely drenched in blood.
Chapter 15: CUTIS
DEREK
Derek woke up when the screaming started.
It took him a minute to shake the sleep from his head, longer than usual. The interference from Butler's captured zombies made it hard to identify new ones, but he could hear them coming from the North, probably past NHQ. He glanced at the clock. It was six in the morning. Not that bad at all.
Derek shook Adam awake, who immediately jumped up and started getting ready. It was lucky he was even here. He had been going out with Lily most nights, doing who knew what. Derek didn't think she had an apartment, so it wasn't that, but it still meant he only slept in their room about half the time.
They were ready in a few minutes, and when Derek opened the door Akane was waiting in her Minerva silk, looking frazzled. Ling, however was nowhere to be found.
“Where's—”
Akane shook her head. “Don't know, don't care, let's go.” She headed for the elevators before he could say anything else.
He shrugged at Adam a little weakly. “She's never been a morning person.”
They went downstairs, collected Laura and the retinue, and headed north. Like last time, the van was mostly quiet. It was strange how empty it felt without one little fel who didn't even speak.
“We're going to have some help on this one,” Kelly said after a few minutes of driving. Derek noticed that she was scratching her fixer a little. “The General's hellions and the Hammer's Aesir will provide support.”
Derek was surprised. The two were hardly enemies, but they had never worked together either. “That's wonderful news. How'd they manage it?”
“The Big Boss managed to convince pretty much everyone last night that an alliance was the only hope for survival. This is a test run.”
Adam frowned a little. “Okay, now... the Aesir are giants, right?”
“The first giants, actually,” George said. “Though there is a little bit of argument on that.”
“Right. But I don't think I've heard of the hellions.”
Derek chuckled. “Even I know that. They're one of the first demon subcultures.” Adam stared blankly at him. “They're demon soldiers. Sargeras is in charge of... Laura, which Legion is he in charge of?”
“The Legion,” she said, without looking up from her phone. She seemed to be studying a map. “Also known as the Army. Their emblem is a red wasp.”
“Oh, right,” Derek muttered. “I forgot how unimaginative the General is.”
“And the Aesir?” Adam asked.
She just shrugged. “The standard mythological symbol. The threefold triangle, I think it's called.”
Adam frowned. “You mean a valknut?”
“Sure.”
“We're here,” Jarasax said as he pulled to a stop in front of a nondescript 'scraper. “Time to meet the neighbors. Watch your step, it's a little bit icy.”
They piled out into a small square already crowded with armed men, avoiding the patches of ice that had grown on the street overnight. On the left there was a Legion of demons, well-equipped with the latest anti-personnel weapons and with red wasps stitched on their shoulders or tattooed on their arms. On the right was a clan of giants, carrying oversized guns and emblazoned with the threefold triangle Laura had mentioned.
A hellion and an Aesir were arguing in the empty space between the two camps, next to a fountain. Derek walked up, with Laura following. Everyone else stayed behind, probably to check their weapons and such.
“We can't send them in now,” the hellion was saying. “We don't even know what the screamers' power is. We need more intel.”
The Aesir—a Thor, if the hammer sigil on his shoulder was any indication—waved a massive hand airily. “We don't need them at all. Either send them in now and let them die, or force them to stay back. We don't need to change our strategy to match a bunch of crazy vampires.”
“What seems to be the problem here?” Derek asked.
Both leaders turned to look at him in surprise. It was the hellion who spoke. “You're the Paladins, I take it?”
Derek nodded. “I'll be personally leading a small strike force. This is Laura. She's strategy.”
The demon frowned. “Well, I'm not sure we need help...”
“You're arguing,” Derek pointed out. “That means you need help.”
He shrugged. “Fair enough.” He scratched near his large horns. “The problem is that a couple Canians have shown up, and we don't know quite what to do with them.”
Laura grimaced. “Who's leading them?”
The giant barked out a laugh. “Leading? Leading Canians? If that's your question, I'm not sure you should be in charge of strategy, little girl.”
She glared daggers at him, enough to make him swallow visibly.
“There's always a leader, Honored Titan,�
� she said calmly. “Even if it's just the one who happens to be in front. Where is the one who speaks for them?”
The giant pointed without saying a word.
“Thank you,” she said scathingly, and walked off in the direction he indicated—farther down the no-man's-land between the two armies. Derek nodded at the men and followed her.
The Canians was closer to the screamers than the demons and giants, but still far enough away so that they couldn't see the zombies from their position. They seemed to be mostly confined to a street about ninety degrees to the staging area, blocked in by a barricade of cars. That was also when he noticed that the streets were relatively undamaged. Even the intermittent patches of frost were undisturbed. Did that mean their power was something non-destructive, or had they just not come this way yet?
Not important at the moment. The Canian leader was talking to someone, surrounded by perhaps two dozen of his men. The second man was clearly not a Canian. He didn't have daygoggles or a flamethrower, for one thing. He seemed mostly baseline, of some South American ethnicity Derek couldn't identify. He was arguing with the Canian pretty vehemently, but the pyro didn't seem all that concerned. As they got closer, the crowd parted to allow them through.
Derek blinked. “Flynn?”
He started. “Derek? Oh, of course you'd be here...”
“Yeah, but what about you? You're not a Canian.”
Flynn just shrugged. “My roommate is.” He nodded his head at the pyrovamp he had been arguing with. “This is Guland.”
“Pleased to meet you, Honored Nightstalker,” Derek said diplomatically. “Are you the one who led these Canians here?”
He grinned around his cigar—a safe cig, if the smell was any indication—and nodded. “Meph didn't want to come down himself. The Nessians are getting violent again. So I called up a couple of my kithmates, and they called a few more, and...” He grinned a little wider. “Here we are.”
Laura didn't seem to care. “You need to stay back and wait for orders. You're upsetting the plan.”
Guland's fuel pack started to shriek as gas began to leak out. He reached back and adjusted a valve, quieting it, without even looking. “It's not our job to take part in any plans, Mrs. Paladin.” He hefted his flamer. “We're just here to burn things.”
The Composer of Screams Page 9