Queen of Wands-eARC

by John Ringo

  “This is brainstorming,” Janea said. “Everything’s on the table.”

  “Tentacles?” Diller said.

  “Amoeba-like…” Janea said. “Tent…Oh, shit!” she added, slapping her forehead. “I am such a moron!”

  “What?” Graham asked, his eyes wide.

  “It’s not a demon,” Janea said, nodding. “It’s an Old One.”

  “Old One?” Diller said.

  “You guys can feel free to think of them as demons,” Janea said, relieved. “They’ve got, from your perspective, a lot of the same attributes. They can instill control over a subject, they can instill fear better. Actually, they freak people out on first sight and tend to induce insanity. The big question is, what kind? Is this a Great Old One or one of its minions?”

  She paused and considered the path.

  “Not too big, Old Ones can get really huge. Tentacles. Drags along the ground. Shit. Shambler.”

  “And a Shambler is…?” Diller asked.

  “Uh…” Janea said, thinking. “Basically, it’s nothing but a mass of tentacles. The victims weren’t raped and they weren’t tied. They were held and fed upon. The Shambler stuffs its tentacles in every orifice and sort of sucks the life force out of a person. The victims are going to be a godsend to the SC forensics guys; there hasn’t been a Shambler attack since the advent of modern forensics.”

  “Ma’am,” Graham said, blanching. “We have a kidnap victim.”

  “Which is probably a snack,” Janea said, her face falling. “It’s unlikely we’ll get her back, and even if we do, she’s probably going to be permanently insane. Bad news: The Shamblers are sometimes called the Night Hunters. This is not going to be the last attack. The attacks are probably going to be at night and it’s probably using the cave system to get around. They can go out in light but they don’t like it. Good news: I’m going to have to get somebody to do some research for me, but they’re not that hard to kill. They’re not susceptible to mundane weapons but fire does a number on them. I don’t think anyone’s ever hit one with a grenade, but it would probably dispel it back to whereever they come from. But the easiest way is to control them with certain words of power and dispel them with a mystic chant. I think there’s a powder or potion that works as well. Once we find it, getting rid of it should be easy.”

  “And we can trust that?” Graham asked, an eyebrow raised.

  “It’s a Shambler,” Janea said, shrugging. “Like I said, I’ll get someone else to research it. But this should be relatively easy.”

  * * *

  Barb used her key to open up the dojo. As she flipped on the lights and they approached the mat, Yi glanced around the school. He raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow as he slid off his handmade leather loafers and glanced at the American and Japanese flags hanging on the wall. “Japanese,” he muttered under his breath. Barb faced him and they bowed in the Chinese manner.

  “I see you remember the courtesies, Laoshi. Let us see if you remember how to dance.”

  Yi looked Barb directly in the eyes, and without looking at his target or giving any indication that he was going to move, shot out a low kick to her left ankle while gliding forward and darting two fast fingertip strikes, one at Barb’s left temple and one at the peroneal nerve on the outside of her right thigh. Faced with an attack on a low line, a high line, and a low-middle line, Barb moved backwards in bei hu, crossing her left leg over her right and avoiding the kick as she flowed through the two quick circular parries necessary to deal with the hand strikes. She allowed the hand parrying the strike to the temple to follow the line of the attack and extend it, moving Yi’s arm along the line and exposing his ribs, then, twisting out of the cross-step stance to a front stance, she threw a vertical fist punch to Yi’s unprotected short ribs.

  Yi’s left hand flickered like a hummingbird’s wing and his palm flashed under the armpit of his extended right arm to slap Barb’s punch away. His right arm folded in as his stance and weight dropped low, and the point of his elbow arrowed toward Barb’s ribs.

  Barb’s palm slapped it away, and for a bare instant they stood, looking almost like mirror images of one another, then they flowed backward simultaneously and both assumed the ao bo reverse stance.

  Yi’s lips curled in a slight smile and his eyes sparkled. “Very nice. But your knees are too stiff.” He inclined his head slightly and, with his eyes lowered to the floor, launched into a tam twei jump kick. As Barb deflected the kick, she dropped into a low side stance, and was just starting to launch a side kick when Yi disappeared.

  As her left foot came up in the powerful sidekick, Yi landed from his jumping kick and his legs scissored as his weight dropped, bringing his head below the level of Barb’s waist. His right foot was behind Barb’s left leg, and she fell and rolled backwards as he shifted his weight forward, smacking the inside of her thigh with his knee.

  On the way down, she deflected one open-palm strike aimed at her bladder. As she desperately tried to roll away, Yi seemed to float forward, moving sinuously across the mat like oil on a mirror, and his hands were everywhere as they executed the myriad open-hand and fingertip strikes that were a hallmark of Wah Lum. The master of mantis moved impossibly quickly and struck at vital targets from seemingly awkward angles of attack.

  Barb continued her roll. She had parried two strikes while rolling and thought she had avoided at least three more due to her movement. There was no way that this could continue, and she knew it. Yi was going to hit her—a lot. As she rolled backwards and somersaulted to her knees, she decided she had two options: get pummeled by a barrage of strikes that she could not hope to counter, or do something that would be so outside of a conventional response in this situation it would be almost stupid to try it. It would either work or leave her completely open. Stupid it was.

  She brought her knees together and folded back on her heels until she was sitting in the Japanese seiza posture. By dropping to her heels, she narrowly avoided being struck twice by Master Yi. As soon as her butt touched her heels she breathed out and moved forward, her left arm blasting forward through the maelstrom of Yi’s hand movements to take his right arm and push it across his body. Her left leg came out and her body angled as she began to turn herself and Yi in the beginning motions of the aikido throw shio-nage. As Yi rotated his spine to begin a counter and his left hand snaked toward her head, Barb reversed her turning motion and brought her other hand up to assist as she executed the aikido wrist turn throw kote gaeshi.

  Rather than being thrown and possibly joint-locked or choked, Yi followed the motion of the wrist twisting, and rotated his trapped wrist in three dimensions while leaping to his right. He hit on his shoulder and seemed to levitate to his feet. Barb spun on her knees and rose to face him.

  “Aikido?” he asked. “Tch-tch-tch.”

  Barb waited for the scornful lecture on the true nature of unarmed combat, or the scathing rebuke to remind her that she had asked Master Yi to work with her to polish her Wah Lum skills, not Korean arts. Instead, Yi merely slowly walked toward her. This was bad, very bad.

  Yi was completely relaxed as he strolled toward her. Barb moved into a bow stance, a traditional Kung Fu ready posture. Yi stopped in front of Barb, just in range of a hand strike to the body, and stood looking at her. Barb shifted her weight and moved laterally, then rapidly diagonally and backwards. Yi mirrored her moves, seemingly floating across the mat. His hands were folded in front of him, held at waist level. Barb slid forward and threw two punches, one at Yi’s face and one at his groin. Yi did not parry or block, but merely stepped back out of range and immediately stepped back to his prior position as soon as Barb’s second punch began its retraction.

  Barb shifted her hips to start a kick, and Yi was suddenly the center of a very disturbed universe of punching, kicking motion. His left foot slid into place beside and behind Barb’s left ankle as strikes whipped out toward Barb. The first strike was to Barb’s ribs, and she deflected it with a downward block as she
used the back of her other wrist to ward off Yi’s strike to the femoral nerve complex on the inside of her right thigh.

  Yi’s third strike was delivered as he twisted his body and used the spiral motion of his turn to twist his left leg into Barb’s, disrupting her balance. The palm strike was blocked by Barb’s forearm, but Yi snaked his arm around the forearm and drove a traditional Wah Lum relaxed fist into the brachial nerve in her armpit. Yi’s left leg slid forward and drove against Barb’s right knee while his right hand delivered a light fingertip strike directly between her eyes to her “third eye.” Her head snapped back as she started to fall, her balance completely gone.

  Yi hit her with a downward elbow and three fingertip strikes before she could hit the ground. As she hit the ground, off balance and in such pain that she barely had the ability to fall properly, Yi slapped a palm against her shoulder while seizing her arm, flipping her to her stomach. Blinding pain constricted Barb’s heart as Yi’s fingertips forcefully struck the lingtai, spirit platform, cavity between the thoracic vertebrae. As her vision began to go gray at the edges and her heart went into arhythmia, Yi rolled her over on her back and looked down at her.

  “I told you that your knees were too stiff,” said the Master as he pressed on her lower abdomen, and then his fingers did a dance along her nerve meridians to “unseal the heart” and stop the muscles around the organ from contracting and shutting down its vital function. “If your knees were supple, you would have flowed with my force. If you flowed with my energy, you would not have been off balance. If you had not been off balance, you would not have fallen. If you had not fallen, I could not have killed you, as I just did. As the ancient scrolls of Wah Lum teach, ‘The mighty landslide is begun by the action of one pebble.’ You neglected to see the pebble, Laoshi.”

  The Master helped her to her feet and said, “Shall we try again?”

  Before the word “again” was formed, Barb was airborne. Her left foot snapped out at Yi, and, as he countered with a forearm and began to slide back, she rotated her body in midair and whipped her right shin downward in a round kick that smacked Yi’s arm and opened his centerline. As she landed and squatted down on her heels, her right leg shot between Yi’s legs and slid against his front leg, while her elbow whipped up toward his undefended groin as her spine contorted to provide power for the strike and her body began to rise.

  BARBARA EVERETTE!

  It was not her name that she heard but her essence, the entire syntax of her soul fitted into a single gestalt. And it hurt. It was unvarnished and unquestionable. Every sin of her life was part of it, a dark fire that seared with coldness. Even those parts of her life which were clearly and unquestionably positive were a raging fire, the sun suddenly implanted in her body.

  She had looked upon demons without fear and spoken to angels both in dream and awake. She now knew why it was said that you could not look upon the naked face of God and not be blinded. “Hearing” His voice, unfiltered and direct, was right on the edge of death.

  No wonder He usually spoke through a burning bush or something. Direct contact would kill most people.

  GO TO THE PRIESTESS OF LOVE.

  SHE REQUIRES AID.

  * * *

  Yi deflected the elbow and launched a seemingly offline relaxed fist strike for the bridge of Barb’s nose. He stopped the strike as he noticed that she had gone rigid. Grabbing her shoulders, he lowered her gently to the mat, and his fingers flowed up the blood-bearing and nerve pathways of her body, seeking any residual damage to Barb that may have been caused by his techniques. Her chi was almost overwhelming, a raging power he had never before felt or even imagined. Satisfied that she was physically healthy—breathing, if shallowly—but that her spirit was occupied elsewhere, he dropped into a lotus posture, placed her head in his lap and meditated.

  About five minutes later her body gave a strong twitch and she started breathing at a more normal pace. Then her eyes flickered open.

  “I need to call Janea,” Barb said, blinking rapidly. “That hurt!”

  “Pain is weakness leaving the body,” Master Yi said, holding out his hand.

  “That’s not a Zen saying,” Barb replied, sitting up. She took a deep breath and stretched. “Ow.”

  “I have a fondness for movies.”

  * * *

  Janea picked up her phone, looked at it askance, then hit the send button.

  “Yo, Wonder-Barb,” Janea said.

  Agent Diller looked over at her and then back at the road, grabbing the dashboard futilely as she swerved into the next lane, then back.

  “Miss Grisham…” Diller said. “Janea! Pull over and talk or let me drive!”

  “Oh, hang on,” Janea said, pulling over to the side of the interstate. “So to what do I owe the call from Soccer-Momasaurus?”

  “Where are you?” Barb said.

  “Why?” Janea asked. “You want to come along for the ride? Why this time, Barb? Huh? I’ve had three, count ’em, three FBI guys die on me since the last time we spoke. Three. One of them left a wife and four children. Where were you then, Mrs. God-Strike? Playing housewife?”

  “I was in Chattanooga even if you weren’t,” Barb said. “When it’s time, it’s time. And this is time. I need to know where you are and I need to get there before you do anything.… Just wait for me to get there.”

  “What? Foolish?” Janea snapped. “What’s so important this time? It’s a lousy little Shambler. I can dispel one in my sleep.”

  “I don’t know,” Barb said. “But I do know that I have to be there. And I’d suggest you don’t do anything until I get there.”

  “How do you know?” Janea asked sarcastically. “God tell you?”

  “Yes,” Barb said.

  “Wait,” Janea said. “I was joking. Are we talking about the White God? Or just, you know, a messenger?”

  “God,” Barb said. “Not the Holy Spirit. Not an angel. Not Jesus. God. In person. And it’s not an experience I’d prefer to repeat.”

  “And He told you…what?” Janea asked, fascinated. She’d felt the power of Freya many times, but once, through Barb, she’d gotten a touch of the power of the White God, and it was the difference between a firecracker and a nuclear weapon. She had never had a direct god call, but she’d heard that even with minor deities they could be unpleasant. She didn’t want to think about what a direct call from the Big Guy would be like.

  “To go to the priestess of love,” Barb said, sarcastic in turn. “How many priestesses of love do I know?”

  “Really?” Janea said, grinning. “The Big Guy said that? About me?”

  “Actually, it’s not words, you know that,” Barb said. “It was more like…‘seek she who gives love greatly.’ Maybe ‘quest for.’ It’s… But, hell, He included a picture. It was you.”

  “God knows me?” Janea squealed.

  Agent Diller had been trying to ignore the conversation, but at that he turned his head and frowned.

  “God knows everybody, Janea,” Barb said. “Now where are you?”

  “On Interstate 75 near Knoxville,” Janea said. “We’re going to meet with a cave rescue team.”

  “Why?”

  “Because somebody needs rescuing from a cave?” Janea said.

  “Don’t go into the cave until I get there,” Barb said. “Seriously. Don’t.”

  “We won’t,” Janea replied. “When can you get here?”

  “I’ve got to get the kids dropped off and make arrangements,” Barb said. “Then I’ll get on the road. I’ll be there by morning.”

  “There’s a girl’s life at stake here, Barb,” Janea pointed out.

  “God knows everyone, Janea,” Barb replied. “And He knows the fall of a sparrow. Don’t. Go.”

  “Roger,” Janea said. “Barb, seriously, glad to have you back.”

  “I’m not sure I am,” Barb said. “But I’m back for this.”

  * * *

  “So…what was that?” Diller asked as Janea pulled back
into traffic.

  “That was Soccer-Momasaurus,” Janea said.

  “Who is?”

  “Barbara Everette,” Janea said. “She strongly suggested, more like ordered, that we wait to penetrate the cave until she gets here.”

  “That was the part about ‘There’s a girl’s life at stake.’”

  “Yes,” Janea said. “And if Barb says wait, we wait.”

  “There’s a girl’s life at stake,” Diller said.

  “Remember my thing about ‘Don’t be a hero’?”

  “Yeah,” Diller said, angrily.

  “Well, that’s the way I am with Barb,” Janea said. “If Barb says wait, or run, or duck, or squat, I run or duck or squat.”

  “Why?” Diller asked.

  “Because…” Janea said, then paused. “Okay, think of me as a hand grenade. I can take out, well, a Shambler easily enough. I took on a pretty serious incubus, and despite the fact that his powers and mine…overlapped, I managed to avoid his temptations and destroy him.”

  “Okay,” Diller said, frowning. “Sorry, but this stuff is still…”

  “Yeah,” Janea said. “I know. That was the one where I lost the poor bastard with the wife and kids. Incubi and succubae are the same thing, they just…morph. I told him to run.”

  “I remember the lecture.”

  “Well, if I’m a hand grenade, Barb is a nuclear weapon,” Janea said. “A big one. A city buster.”

  “Oh. What was that thing about ‘God knows me’?”

  “That’s why she’s a city buster,” Janea said, pulling off at the exit. “Barb gets her power from what we Asatru call the White God. The only member of FLUF who does.”

  “You mean the Christian God?” Diller asked, sarcastically. “Big beard, floating in the sky?”

  “Right,” Janea said. “The Big Guy. Mr. Beard.”

  “Well, I’ll believe that one when I see it,” Diller said. “God doesn’t drop down and help out. That I know.”

  “Oh, He does,” Janea said, pulling in at the hotel where they were to meet the rescue squad. “He just chooses His time and His methods.”