Queen of Wands-eARC

by John Ringo

  “Janea,” Augustus said. “Your passion is understood. But try to be a bit less Asatru for a moment. NSA.”

  “Go,” the NSA said, his jaw working.

  “We need to move this discussion to the next level,” Augustus said. “And I strongly recommend bringing in the SC Onsite team, passionate as one of them may be.”

  “I will take that under advisement,” the NSA said balefully. “Break this down.”

  “Well, that was fun,” Janea said, starting to take off her headset.

  “Miss Janea,” SOCOM said as soon as the other leadership was off the line.

  “Yeah?” Janea answered, settling her headset back on.

  “I was wondering if, assuming we get this situation under control, you might be in the Tampa area any time soon,” the admiral said, his face blank.

  “Is that a palpable hit, admiral?” Janea purred. “You’re kinda cute for an older guy.”

  “Ahem,” the admiral said, clearing his throat. “I appreciate the compliment. But actually…I’d like to talk to you about this Asatru thing. Any religion where the prime requirement is to die in battle…interests me. And all this is sort of giving me religion. Possibly over dinner?”

  “Assuming we can kill this thing, it’s a date,” Janea said. “In fact, kill it or not, it’s a date. ’Cause we might as well have fun while the world is consumed by evil.”

  * * *

  “I don’t get where a bunch of people praying are going to help,” Randell said. “Does God need the power? I thought He was all-powerful.”

  “No,” Sharice said. “He doesn’t need the power.”

  There being effectively nothing to do but wait for doom, absent a miracle, the FBI agents and the cave team had gathered at the SC house. Most of the rest of the groups in the area were packing up as fast as they could. Most of them still didn’t know why, but the panic was palpable in those who did.

  “I’m Wiccan, but I fully recognize the power of the White God,” the old witch said, taking a sip of tea. “Whether the White God was, is and ever shall be or not, He is immensely powerful. He could bat the Gar like a fly. A gnat. A mite.”

  “So what’s with the ‘the nation must have faith’?” Randell said angrily. “He’s just going to let us die?”

  “He might as well,” Janea said, shrugging. “When Ragnarok comes, people are going to have to choose sides. If this nation can’t get its act together with the threat of the Gar…” She paused and frowned.

  “What?” Barb asked.

  “The Old Ones are neutrals in the battle between our side and the infernal,” Janea said. “And the US is the most powerful nation on earth. If your God, all the gods, are questioning which side the US will come down on…”

  “Surely we are not so far gone,” Barb said, her face white.

  “This is a pretty good test,” Janea said. “And if we’re so far depraved that we would side with the infernal in the final battle, He can take us out of play by giving us to the Gar. For that matter, it’s probable that the infernal and the Old Ones don’t get along any better than the gods and the Old Ones. It gives the demonic a serious thorn in their side.”

  “That is sick,” Randell said. “See, this is why I hate God.”

  “Why?” Janea said. “I think it’s brilliant. If we can’t even get it together to face the Gar, we’re sure as Hel not going to get it together before the hosts of the giants. This is a pretty easy and straightforward test. Can we muster enough believers to make a difference? Or are we useless to Him in the final battle? Hel, in the old days He’d have dropped fire from heaven on us for being too far gone. This time we get the Gar. How many Lots can America muster? There’s going to be more than one family, but are there enough?”

  “‘And the beast shall arise from the endless depths…’” Barb said, frowning. “Actually, the Gar is sounding a lot like the Antichrist.”

  “I thought it was ‘sea,’” Randell said.

  “Bad translation,” Sharice said. “More like ‘from complete deepness.’ Apparently, King James had a thing with not liking the ocean. ‘From the sea’ was close enough to ‘from the deep,’ so that’s the King James version. He had about two hundred scholars working on the translation, but he had final approval on the text, and they were…aware of certain political realities. It’s beautiful verse, but there’s a lot of stuff like that in it. ‘Suffer not a witch to live,’” she added a touch bitterly.

  “What’s the actual translation of that?” Master Sergeant Attie asked.

  “That’s a bit debated,” Sergeant Struletz said. “It’s got two variants even in the oldest texts, one of which wasn’t available to King James’ scholars, and you’ve got to remember that even that is from oral tradition. One variant is something that translates sort of as ‘she who poisons.’ But that one was written during a period when arsenic was just being widely recognized as a poison, and all the kings, and you’ve got to remember that it’s always kings who got these things written, were really down on posioners. The other is more like ‘she who uses black magic to kill.’ Definitely a woman. Definitely one with powers that are poorly understood. One translation is more or less ‘she who is a fish.’ Which makes no sense.”

  “The preferred one-word translation is ‘sorceress,’” Vivian said, raising her hands hopelessly. “But it’s us witches that prefer it, so there you go. But it’s definitely not witches, at least as we define witches. Which, pardon the pun, is female persons who are worshippers of the All. We’re still pagans, and a few of the prophets were really down on that, too. But if it wasn’t for that one word, we’d probably be able to get along with Christians about as well as, say, Hindus. But King James’ scholars had to go and translate that one word wrong. So we’re unredeemably evil in the eyes of almost all Christians.”

  “Catholics aren’t that way,” Struletz said. “Most of us, anyway. Ecumenicism and all that. We’re still down on you because you’re pagans, admittedly.”

  “So are you,” Sharice said. “Ever prayed to Michael?”

  “Let’s not start that debate,” Barb said. “If we can’t convince the earthly powers that it’s time to get God, in all his fury and glory, involved, we are in deep kimchee.”

  “And you may just have that chance,” Graham said, plucking his phone off his belt and looking at a message. “We’ve got a videoconference set up at sixteen hundred.”

  “With who?” Janea asked. “Another group of suits?”

  “I believe I asked you not to ask,” Graham said.

  * * *

  “Mrs. Everette, High Priestess Janea,” the President said.

  Barbara nodded and tried not to smile. The government loved acronyms so much, they couldn’t even have “President” on the screen. It had to be POTUS. The only part that surprised her was the person next to him, a middle-aged man with CJSCOTUS under his name. Then there was SHR, a pinched-faced woman who was looking decidedly unhappy at the conversation, SMjL, a middle-aged man who looked as if he was about to burst a blood vessel, MLHR, an older man who was mostly looking bemused, and SMiL, a middle-aged man who was watching Barb with a great deal of interest.

  Way over to the side were minor luminaries like SECDEF, CJCS, DHS, NSA and so on. Force commands didn’t make the cut, so Janea couldn’t preen for SOCOM.

  “The basic message is clear,” the president said. “This is a test of the faith of the US by God. What I’d like to ask is if anyone knows why.”

  “Mr. President, I have to make an issue,” the Speaker of the House said. “I feel I must ask you to refrain from bringing deities into this discussion. It is a violation of the Constitution!”

  “That is, in fact, your answer, sir,” Barbara said, calmly. “God is trying to find out if the US is a nation that will support the side of the holy in the Final Battle. If not, by giving us over to the Gar, which is more or less neutral and as much a threat to the infernal as to the holy, He takes the most powerful nation on earth out of play. Furthermore, th
e lesson of the Gar will not be lost on the rest of the world. It will increase faith in other lands. China is rapidly Christianizing. Their projected Christian population in fifty years exceeds our entire population. Those are warriors He can use in the Final Battle. That is our analysis. As best we can do, given that it is the ineffable mind of the Lord of Hosts.”

  “This is insane,” the Senate Majority leader snapped. “I cannot believe we are even having this conversation!”

  “You want insane?” Janea asked. “I got video of the Gar. Tell you what, you view twenty seconds of it and then we can have this meeting with your successor.”

  “I won’t stand for being threatened!” the majority leader said.

  “It’s not a threat,” Janea said. “If you really don’t believe that this is happening, then view the tape. It is either true that this is a…call it super-powerful entity, which we need divine intervention to fight, or it is not. If it is not, then you can view the tape with no problems. There’s nothing to fear. If, however, you cannot view the tape with no problems, if there is something to fear, then we need to get to that point now and get past the ‘I don’t believe this.’ Among other things, while we’re talking, the Gar is moving towards where I’m sitting, and I’d like to get the Hel out of Dodge. Like the White God, I am offering you a simple test. A poisonous one that I know you will fail, but an honest test. Let’s hope that He has more mercy than I.”

  “To get back on the subject of this meeting,” the president said, clearing his throat. “There is an issue.”

  “Praying to God for divine intervention?” the Speaker said. “You bet there’s an issue! You’ve got zero chance of being reelected if you do!”

  “That is not the issue,” the President said. “And since everyone here has a security clearance and this conversation is Top Secret, it’s an issue that had better stay in this room. The issue is this. While I have attended many services over the years and while I…don the trappings of religion for various purposes, I am not, in fact, a believer. I will admit that the reports I was made privy to about Special Circumstances have swayed me more to the side of belief, but I am not the sort of believer, well, you are, Mrs. Everette. The question is, does that matter? Will God still grant us intercession?”

  “God does not care for the kings and princes of the world,” Barb said. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. What He cares about is the essential faith of this nation.”

  “I cannot believe this conversation,” the Speaker said. “This conversation cannot go on. My constituents will explode if we start having national prayer breakfasts!”

  “Oh, for a way to pick it up and drop it on Market Street, then,” Barb snapped. “Get this through your head. In a few hours, the Gar will reach the town of Goin. Sometime tomorrow afternoon, it will reach the perimeter we’ve set up. Sometime tomorrow night, it will reach the outskirts of Knoxville. You can keep trying to keep people out of its way, it will eventually outrun you. It will convert worshippers, gather reproductive females to make Children, and feed. It will feed on humans, cats, dogs, cattle, anything that is brought to it. It will cast off Hunters to go forth and gather for it. It will create Children to make more Hunters. It will physically spread and its influence will spread. It will take first this region, then the state and North Georgia, Western North Carolina. It will spread its influence and spread its influence until, yes, there will be Hunters in Ghirardelli Square gathering resources to feed its essence. By then, we will have either crumbled as a nation or, my greatest fear, become a nation of its worshippers, feeding it an endless supply of largesse. Then with our power and might we will go forth in the Gar’s name and conquer the nations of this planet. Their food and thousands, millions of handmaidens will be sent to its essence and it will consume the world!”

  “How big can this thing get?” the House Minority Leader asked.

  “Who knows?” Janea answered. “The people who were feeding it before were hunter-gatherers, maybe they had horticulture and early animal husbandry but probably not, and it got as big as fifty elephants. That might be a round number meaning ‘it’s really fricking big,’ but it’s already bigger than that. There’s no indication that it has an upper limit. It is just The Stomach That Walks. My guess? With industrial food production and the fact that the US is a breadbasket with lots of cows, pretty fricking big. Like, big-as-a-city big. And millions of Hunters, thousands of Children. With enough support, billions of Hunters, millions of Children. We’re currently dealing with maybe a couple of thousand Hunters, and we can’t deal with them. Did the part about this not being the worst Great Old One get up to your level?”

  “No,” the President said carefully.

  “The gar gyi dbang phyug ma isn’t the worst of the Great Old Ones,” Janea said with a sigh. “There are only seven mentioned in the Tibetan texts, but there are references to there being many others. The Gar is one of the few who had real worshippers. Most of the rest didn’t seem to care one way or the other and were as mercurial and deadly as weather. They didn’t even seem to destroy for the joy of destruction, as many demons do. They just didn’t seem, in general, to notice humans.”

  “How were they defeated?” the Senate Minority Leader asked.

  “The gods,” Janea said, carefully. “Humans apparently…” She paused and looked at Barb.

  “I can handle the E word,” Barb said with a smile.

  “Humans apparently evolved with the Great Old Ones just being part of their world,” Janea said. “At some point they managed to get the gods to intercede. There was a big battle that was so far back it’s not even in most religious texts, and the gods won. Then they took the humans as their worshippers, and you get Odin and Zeus and all the rest eventually. The battle with the Titans might be a reference to the battles with the Old Ones.”

  “So…why can’t the old gods intercede?” the Speaker asked. “That would…actually be a lot more palatable.”

  “You want me to try to penetrate divine politics?” Janea asked. “I thought you were going nuts about there even being a God? Answer is, I dunno. I do know that they are not as powerful as the White God by a lot of orders of magnitude. They’re still there. Many, as those the Asatru worship, side with the White God. Mostly. Don’t ask me about Loki; it depends on the day. Others side with the infernal. But for whatever reason, they aren’t intervening. I couldn’t even get Freya to give me enough power to battle a Child. She was just hands off. I was nearly taken by a Hunter, one of her most powerful priestesses taken to be defiled, and she didn’t intervene. That tells me that they are held. At a guess, because of this test of the White God.”

  “So God is hanging us out to dry?” the Senate Majority Leader asked. “Great!”

  “No, He is testing us,” Barb said. “This is part of the test. Can you, the leaders of this great nation, get your heads around there being a One True God and can you lead your people in His direction or will we continue to… What was that book a while back? Will we continue to slouch towards Gomorrah? Can you lead or can you only run in front of wherever the band is headed? Because this is but a minor test. Much greater tests are coming. I think what God is saying, getting it down to a bumper-sticker, is ‘Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.’”

  “The problem being that this is a democracy, Barbara,” the Speaker said, as if speaking to a child. “And in a democracy, that is under rule of law, we have to follow the laws. And the law says, no interaction between church and state.”

  “Don’t argue with me, sweetheart,” Barbara said, smiling broadly and then pointing at the roof. “Argue with Him if you’d like. I do.”

  “Is this unconstitutional?” the President asked.

  “Yes!” the Speaker and the Majority Leader both snapped.

  “I was asking the Chief Justice,” the President said.

  “There are numerous precedents,” the Chief Justice said. “Presidents have often asked for national prayers. After 9/11, for example. But given
the current makeup of the Court, if they were all brought in on the decision and prior decisions related to Special Circumstance, it would come down to…ideological position. Which means, probably, a five–four vote in favor. The problem being, we don’t have time to debate. Which brings in the other precedent, which is ‘the Constitution is a document, not a suicide pact.’ I won’t get into the debate about the meaning of ‘respecting an establishment of religion.’ We simply don’t have time.”

  “If you do this you are going to be out of office so fast it will make your head swim,” the Speaker said. “I’ll enter the impeachment documents the next day.”

  “That’s a chance I’ll have to take,” the President said. “Mrs. Everette, I understand that you do not have any recollection of your…message.”

  “No, Mr. President,” Barb said. “I’ve seen the recording, though.”

  “Do you have any thoughts on the nature of the prayer?” the President asked.

  “Oh, good…You’re not asking a soccer mom to write your prayer for you?” the Majority Leader said.

  “Do you mean, do you have to say ‘Dear Lord God of all the Christians of this land, please destroy the Gar for me’?”

  “More or less,” the President said.

  “No,” Barb replied. “It can be ecumenical as you’d like. But it’s going to have to be somewhat specific. ‘Dear Higher Power, we’d sure like you to like us’ won’t cut it. If you’d like, I can work something up and then you can debate this while we are running away.”

  “Mrs. Everette, I don’t know if this is a divine message or not,” the President said. “But the Lord seems to work through intermediaries. You are, as I understand it, the most powerful member of the Special Circumstances network. Is that right, Germaine?”