“Yes,” said Nicholas, calm as ever. He sounded so confident. “Yes, of course.”
He stepped forward. Relief flooded through Hailey’s face and I thought Nicholas was going to do something to help her.
Instead, Nicholas drew his pistol and shot her twice in the forehead.
Hailey slumped against the floor, blood pooling under her head, her eyes staring at nothing.
“Miss Moran,” said Nicholas, “if you could use your ice spell to seal that canister before any more droplets get into the air, that would be prudent.”
I stared at him, shocked. Corbisher only smirked. Even Morelli looked taken aback. Russell’s mouth had fallen open, his fingers white against his AK-47.
“Miss Moran,” Nicholas said.
I made a sharp gesture as I summoned power. White mist swirled around the canister and encased it in a layer of ice. That cut off the leak.
Then I glared at Nicholas, something inside me starting to burn.
“What the hell?” I snarled.
“Problem?” said Nicholas.
“You shot her!” I said.
“Your powers of deduction never cease to amaze,” said Nicholas.
“You didn’t even try to help her!” I shouted. I was angry, angrier than I had been since I had been forced to work with this murderer, and I wanted to call my magic and blast him to ashes where he stood.
“This isn’t the time for…” started Morelli.
“Shut your goddamn mouth!” I said, glaring at him, and then looked back at Nicholas. Corbisher, for perhaps the first time in his life, had the wisdom to shut up. In fact, he was backing away like he expected me to explode. “You didn’t even…”
“What should I have done, hmm?” said Nicholas. “The minute that slime touched Hailey she was dead. There was nothing any of us could have done to help her.” He sounded like he was discussing a minor setback. Not like he had just shot his girlfriend in the head. “Attempting to help her would have only endangered the mission and the rest of our lives.”
“She loved you,” I said.
Nicholas shrugged. “Why do you care so much, Kat? You didn’t even like her.”
“She loved you. She thought the world of you. She thought you were a great man,” I spat. “Against all evidence the contrary. She was devoted to you, and you just shot her like it was nothing.” I took a shuddering breath, realizing why I was so angry. “She worshipped the ground you walked on, and she was nothing to you.”
Nicholas shrugged again. “So what? I’ve had other girlfriends. You among them. Once this is done, I’ll find a new one.”
“You’re loathsome,” I said, my hands curled into fists. “When this is done, when the deal is finished, I am going to kill you.”
Nicholas snorted. “You’re welcome to try. But we both know this is going to end with you either joining the Revolution or your death.” He glanced in Russell’s direction. “You see, Mr. Moran? A valuable lesson here, if you can see it. Best not to let your emotions dominate your thinking as your sister is presently doing. And attractive women are essentially interchangeable, and it’s foolish to become too attached to them. You can always find another one.”
“You’re worse than Nadia said you were,” said Russell, his voice quiet.
I blinked, puzzled. I hadn’t said anything complimentary about Nicholas to Russell…
Then I got the insult.
So did Nicholas. His lip twisted with disgust.
“But some people are lost causes,” said Nicholas with disdain. He looked at Murdo. “Well, Murdo? Are you going to add your opinion? I’m sure we’ll all want to hear it very much.”
“Why bother?” said Murdo. “Nadia has already said what I think.”
Nicholas snorted. “Yes, you’ve never had a thought that Nadia hasn’t had first, Murdo. I had higher hopes for you. Expelled from the Wizards’ Legion…and the first thing you do is fall in love with one of my cast-offs. Couldn’t you do any better? Pathetic. Look where playing the white knight for the little whore has gotten…”
“If you’re going to have this fight,” snapped Corbisher, “then let’s not do it here, you idiots! If we’re going to die because you and Moran and Murdo are going to have it out, then I would prefer not to die from that plague or because all this goddamned shouting drew every single bloodrat in the mountain after us.”
“Gosh, Nicky, he’s right,” I said. “You can’t overthrow the High Queen if you got killed because you were too busy shouting at your ex-girlfriend to realize that a bloodrat was sneaking up right behind you…”
To my immense satisfaction, he turned his head and looked.
Russell snickered, once.
“Very well,” said Nicholas, his face a cold mask once more. “Then let’s finish this, Nadia Moran, you and I. The Sky Hammer awaits.”
Chapter 11: Successor
We walked in silence through the warehouse of plagues and into another concrete tunnel.
This time it was the silence of an impending battle.
Because we all knew that when Nicholas found the Sky Hammer, we were going to kill each other.
There were six of us, so it would be three on each side.
Me, Russell, and Murdo versus Nicholas, Corbisher, and Morelli.
I wasn’t sure who would win. Murdo and I were both wizards, but so were Nicholas and Corbisher. Russell was a good shot, but Morelli was better, and a more experienced fighter. But none of them could match Murdo in hand-to-hand combat. I was the most powerful wizard, stronger than both Nicholas and Corbisher, but Nicholas could turn into that damn panther thing, and that had made him powerful enough to go hand-to-hand with a myothar and diseased bloodrats and survive.
Plus, I wasn’t sure how to kill him. How do you kill someone who can shrug off a .50 caliber bullet to the head? Well, I didn’t know how to kill him, but I was going to try good and hard. If I shot him in the head and burned his body to ashes, maybe he couldn’t recover from that.
To sum up, I had no idea who would win our fight. There were too many variables, too many things left to chance. I thought about shooting Nicholas in the back, but I couldn’t until we had found the Sky Hammer. Once we did, no doubt the Dark One in Nicholas’s skull would inform the Forerunner at once, and I would be in the clear.
But Nicholas knew that just as well as I did. Which meant he might try to start the fight first. If he realized that he could get the rest of the way to the Sky Hammer without my help, he would attack. His most logical course of action was to take me out first and then deal with Russell and Murdo. Or maybe he would try to take Russell captive and force me to negotiate.
No one talked as we walked through the tunnel, but nothing attacked us, either.
The tunnel took a left turn and ended in another pair of massive steel doors. The usual terminal waited next doorway. A sign on the wall read LAST JUDGE OPERATIONS CENTER.
“Operations?” muttered Russell. “What, was this the infirmary?”
“Not quite,” said Nicholas, drawing out the data rod and striding towards the terminal. “This was the command center for the base. The EMP research facility will be on the other side of the operations center, and that’s where we’ll find the Sky Hammer.”
He slid the rod into the terminal, and the doors hissed and slid open with a metallic rasp.
The room beyond was big. Not as big as the warehouse full of plague cylinders, but still impressively large. An elevated walkway encircled the room, and the main floor held dozens of computer consoles. A huge glass map of the world adorned one wall, and the other walls supported giant monitors. The equipment was powered down and had been so for centuries, but I saw dozens of standby lights flashing in the room.
“A bit much for one base, isn’t it?” I said, looking around. I half-expected to see wraithwolves or anthrophages lurking under the consoles.
“This was one of the fallback positions for the United States government in the event of global war or a nuclear attack,” sai
d Nicholas. “The President, the Secretary of Defense, and the chief general and flag officers would have commanded the military from here.” He waved a hand at the ceiling. “Given how far we are underground, Last Judge Mountain was all but impervious to both conventional and nuclear attack.”
“A pity Shane never got to use this place,” said Corbisher. “It might have changed the course of history.”
“Perhaps,” said Nicholas. “But we shall continue in his stead. The door to the EMP research section should be on the far side of the operations center. We…”
“Wait,” said Morelli.
We all looked at him.
“I suggest we search the operations center first,” said Morelli. “It is possible there are additional defenses around the Sky Hammer weapon.”
“Possible?” I said. “I’d say likely.”
“I agree,” said Morelli. “Which means we may find the means of shutting down those defenses.” He looked at Nicholas. “I doubt we’ll be able to carry the Sky Hammer out of here. We’ll need to bring one of the trucks down. If there is a master override to unlock every single door at once, that will save a tremendous amount of time.”
“Good point,” said Nicholas. “Very well. We’ll take a quick look around and see if there is a way to disarm any of the defenses around the Sky Hammer.”
“If the defenses are magical, I doubt it will do any good,” I said.
“Would you rather face a magical defense, or both a magical defense and a mechanical one?” said Nicholas.
“Fine,” I said. I wasn’t going to give Nicholas the satisfaction of saying that he was right. “You guys search those consoles. Rory, Russell, and I will look through those offices.” I waved my hand at the walkway encircling the operations room. A half dozen offices overlooked the consoles below. “Maybe we’ll find a big red kill switch or something.”
I almost expected Nicholas to refuse, or to insist that Morelli accompany us.
“Very well,” said Nicholas. “If you don’t find anything, we’ll meet back here in ten minutes.”
Maybe he wanted a chance to talk to Morelli and Corbisher without me overhearing, just as I wanted a chance to talk to Murdo and Russell without Nicholas listening in.
“Super,” I muttered.
Nicholas, Corbisher, and Morelli took a flight of stairs to the main floor, and I led Murdo and Russell around the walkway towards the offices.
“Did you really want to search for a big red kill switch?” murmured Russell.
“Not really,” I said. “I mean, if we find one, great, but we need a plan. The minute we lay eyes on that Sky Hammer thing, Nicholas is going to kill us unless we kill him.”
“Yes,” said Murdo.
“Going to be hard to kill a guy who can shrug off a headshot like that,” said Russell.
“Yeah,” I said. I looked at Murdo. “I don’t suppose you have any ideas.”
“None,” said Murdo, his voice grim. “If it was simple to kill him, I would have done it months ago. It’s going to take more than a bullet to finish him.”
“A lot of bullets?” suggested Russell.
“The best I can suggest is that we do enough physical damage to him that his Dark One can’t regenerate the wounds,” said Murdo. “Burn him to ashes, cut him to pieces with elemental blades, burn the pieces, something like that. There is probably an upward limit to the amount of damage his Dark One can heal. We just have to find it.”
I opened the first door and looked inside. Beyond I saw a small office, the walls and floor polished concrete. There was a desk with a chair, a couple of guest chairs, and a table that held an ancient coffee maker. No computer equipment, no weapons, nothing.
“Corbisher and Morelli aren’t going to stand around and let us slice up Nicholas,” I said, closing the office door as we stepped back onto the walkway.
“No,” said Murdo. “We’ll need to take them out first. Then we can focus on Connor.”
I took a deep breath. “Yeah.” I wanted to tell Russell to stay out of the fight, to keep himself safe, but he was in this mess as deep as Murdo and I were. “You two will have to take out Corbisher and Morelli as fast as you can. I’ll keep Nicholas busy. Then when you are finished with the others, we can pump bullets into Nicholas until he goes down and stays down.”
“That will have to work,” said Murdo.
I checked the next office. Same as the first one.
“It’s not a very good plan,” I said.
“It’s the best we’ve got,” said Murdo.
He was right. This was going to be an ugly fight. The three of them versus the three of us. Unless I found something to give us an edge, an advantage. Maybe something in one of the offices.
I opened the next door and blinked in surprise.
This one was larger, as large as the previous two offices put together. Unlike the others, it had a carpet on the floor and a computer terminal on the desk, though the walls were still concrete. The seal of the United States Department of Defense hung on the back wall next to an ancient, crumbling American flag.
“I think this was the commander’s office,” said Murdo.
“Looks that way,” I said, frowning at the computer terminal. Maybe I could control some of the base’s systems from here. Turn the defenses against Nicholas…
A red light flashed on the wall.
The design was archaic, but I recognized the device at once. It was a motion detector, and I had tripped it when I had gone through the door.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I started to draw together power for a spell, and the computer’s display lit up. So did a screen on the office’s wall.
And so did every single monitor and screen in the operations center.
Every one of them displayed the Department of Defense seal.
“What the hell?” I said.
“Miss Moran!” Nicholas’s voice came from the rows of consoles. “What did you just do?”
“I don’t know,” I said, heading onto the walkway. “There was a motion detector in the commander’s office. I tripped it, and then all this stuff powered up…”
“It’s a video file,” said Corbisher, pointing at one of the huge screens on the wall. “Look, you can see the timestamp in the lower corner.”
He was right. I started to ask why there was a video playing, and then the image changed.
It showed an office. The office I had just been in, as a matter of fact. The same furniture, the same seal and flag, though everything looked new and fresh. I heard someone cough, and I realized that the noise had come through speakers in the ceiling.
A dark-skinned man in late middle age came into the camera’s field of vision, wearing army camouflage fatigues. This will sound shallow, but the first thing I noticed about him was that he was seriously buff, especially for his age. Like, I think his arms were thicker than my legs. He probably could have flipped that big desk over one-handed. The man sat behind the desk and folded his hands, and I recognized the face that Russell had shown me on his phone. It was a hard, lined face, with dark eyes, and close-cropped hair and a goatee that was turning from black to gray.
The nameplate on the right side of his chest read SHANE.
“If you are watching this recording,” said General Jeremy Shane, “then that means my plan has failed and I am dead, and you are now my successor.”
His voice was deep, slow, a little slurred. Like his throat had been injured at some point. Yet it was a voice of absolute command.
We all stared at the huge monitors, transfixed. There was no thought of attacking each other. Nicholas had been following the path Shane had laid down centuries ago. I had found the man’s tomb in the ruins of Chicago, and Morvilind had set me on the path to find the Sky Hammer weapon.
To see Shane’s image appear before me now was shocking. Like his ghost had risen from the grave to speak to us.
Shane scowled, rubbed his face, folded his hands, and grimaced.
“I was never an
y good at these damned things,” he said. “So, I’ll start by introducing myself. My name’s Jeremy Shane and today’s date is July 2nd, 2015. I was a general in the United States Army, and then President Kerrigan appointed me the Secretary of Defense. Of course, the President’s dead now, and so is the rest of the Cabinet and the federal government.” He snorted. “Guess that makes me the President now, technically. Not that it matters any more. There’s no federal government left. Still, a funny thing. I used to be a skinny kid from Mississippi, and now I’m technically the President. Well, to business.”
I glanced at the others, but they were staring at the screens.
“There are not many of us who know the truth,” said Shane, “so I’ll put it all down here.” He grunted. “Consider this a briefing for the new commander of Last Judge Mountain, so shut up and pay attention. This whole place, all of Last Judge Mountain, was a secret United States military facility devoted to researching, developing, and deploying magic-based weapons of mass destruction.
“A little history first. Yes, magic is real. It’s just the common word to describe aetheric radiation drawn from the Shadowlands. And that’s what we call the neutral dimension that connects all worlds. Of course, if you’re seeing this, you’re familiar with the Elves, so you know that magic exists.” He rubbed his face again. “But the government has known about magic and the Shadowlands for years. And that what’s got us into this damned mess.”
“What?” I said.
“Quiet,” said Nicholas.
“It started during World War II,” said Shane. “The Nazi scientists in the final years of the war tried to summon Dark Ones to use as weapons against the Allies. After the fall of Berlin, the Soviets claimed the Nazis’ research and wizards and brought them back to Moscow. There was already a tradition of Dark Ones cults in Russia and Eastern Europe dating back to pre-Roman times, and first the NKVD and then the KGB began to systematically research and experiment with summoning and controlling Dark Ones.” He grimaced. “The gulags provided an ample supply of experimental subjects.”
“Did you know any of this?” I murmured to Murdo.
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