Collision: Book Four in the Secret World Chronicle - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  Oh, my Beloved…Beloved…goodbye.…

  John’s entire being was on fire. Every fiber was alight, and how he screamed in that moment. He thought he was going to die. Instead, he ran harder, and kicked off the ground with all the force he could muster…and then he was in the air. Initially, he panicked. He was thirty feet above the ground, flailing his arms and legs, and was going as fast as a sports car when he touched down on the asphalt, rolling into an abandoned car and crumpling its rear panel completely with the impact.

  It hurt like hell. And that didn’t matter.

  He didn’t stop. He was up again, running, running, faster than he ever had before. His uniform was torn, tattered from the impact, scraped away by the friction, and then he kicked off again, instinctively…and he was in the air. He looked back for half a second, seeing a plume of roaring flame coming from his lower legs, as if he was some sort of missile or rocket, and his feet and calves were the motor. Since his head was turned, he careened off the side of an abandoned tenement building, a bloom of glass and shards of cement trailing from where his shoulder struck the structure; more pain.

  Focus, focus, dammit!

  The wind was so intense, he had to shut his eyes against it. Even opening them a sliver resulted in his eyes watering and stinging more than he could bear. All the same, he followed the music, the call, the urgent need to find the source of it. Be just my luck if I splatter my brains against the side of a building or a plane.

  “Johnny, the hell, do you have a jetpack? What the—do you read?”

  “Vic!” He called out unnecessarily against the wind; all of the Mark 2 Overwatch rigs had subvocal mics, more literal technowizardry from Vic. “I’m going after her!”

  “But you’re flying!”

  “Don’t ask me how, goddamnit! Focus!”

  “OK. OK. Your flight-path will intersect with a C130 cargo plane. But it has the tail-numbers of an L1011 retired a month ago, and that ain’t kosher. I’m betting that’s your target.”

  “I don’t care if it’s a goddamn fighter jet! I can’t stop, Vic!” John didn’t dare turn his head, even though he could feel the wind scoring his face with its ferocity. “What is it over?”

  “Swamp all the way to Athens and the coast.”

  “Whatever happens, I’m gettin’ her out. If I don’t you know what to do, right?”

  “No, but I’ll think of something.”

  John gritted his teeth, shouting against the wind. “If I can’t bring her out of where she is, you find some way to blow the fuckin’ thing to kingdom come. I don’t care how; I ain’t leavin’ without her, so if I’m not leavin’, I’m dead. Got it?” If he was going to buy the farm on this, he sure as hell wanted whoever did it to catch a piece.

  Vickie’s voice turned…cold. Purposeful. “Reprogramming ECHO intercept missile now.” A pause. “But dammit, meathead, you better bring her back! Or I’ll find a way to resurrect you and kill you all over again!” Her voice broke on the last word.

  John couldn’t help but smile, and tried to laugh in the face of the wind. “I know, comrade. Just make sure that no matter what happens, the bad guys don’t come out ahead. I’ll catch you on the other side.”

  “With Sera.” He felt a warmth wash over him that had nothing to do with his own fires. “There. That’s all the magical juju I’ve got to send you. Don’t fucking waste it.”

  John felt renewed; there was still the pain, underneath everything else, but he was able to put more of his energy into being fast, into finding Sera. The music, the Song—it was a dissonant choir that somehow harmonized, and the burden of the Song was agony. There was a single female voice atop it all, crying out, and yet fading at the same time. Longing for death, and yet longing for life. Willing to die and yet crying out for…something, something that was more precious than life itself. The closer he came to the blur that must be the airplane Vix had described to him, the louder, the more compelling the Song became. It towered over him, like a giant wave, and yet it hung there, it did not break.

  All of his being vibrated like a bell struck on the right note. It was powerful, horrible, wonderful, all-consuming. As suddenly as it had come upon him, it ended. As he crashed through the back of the plane, ripping off the cargo ramp under the tail with his hands and fire, the wave of music broke over the top of him and made him part of it. He saw Sera; alight, flaming with glory and beauty and more Song. And pain, so much pain.

  He landed in a crouch on the floor of the cargo-section. A transparent man—a hologram?—stared at him from less than a foot away. Just as he recognized the man from pictures and video as Dominic Verdigris, the image flickered out and was gone.

  And with a sort of double-vision, he saw the Sera-In-Glory, reaching out to him, as if she was bestowing something upon him—and at the same time, he saw a crumpled, shattered, bloody thing in the forward part of the cargo-hold, caught. Captured. Debased and broken. No…not broken, not yet. Curled in on itself, but still holding out against all. Then John saw the ugliest reality of it all. Twelve men, armed and ready for him, weapons up. Behind all of them was People’s Blade, cool and collected, sword still sheathed. She stood behind the chains and cage that Sera was trapped in.

  “Anyone that doesn’t want to die bloody needs to get off of this plane. Right now,” John growled. It didn’t matter to him whether these mercs were bad men, or guys just doing it for the money. At that moment, they were standing between him and Sera, and that was all that mattered. If they didn’t concede to his will, they didn’t have a future.

  People’s Blade sniffed, then motioned with her left hand. “Kill him. We don’t have the time to waste with such interference.”

  The first three rushed him, headlong. John somehow knew the angles they would be coming at, where they would attack, where they would try to land blows. Whether they would attack him with guns or knives or bare-handed, or some more esoteric weapon. It all flashed in his mind just before it happened; with his reflexes, he had all the time he needed. The first of the three squeezed off a burst from his rifle while the other two ran at him from the sides. John felt where the shots were going to go, and simply wasn’t there when the bullets crossed that piece of space. He sent a flash of flame at the face of the one with the rifle, making the man reflexively flail backwards as his arms and head caught fire. John moved on the merc coming at him from the right; smoothly he sidestepped the merc’s lunging knife, grabbing the man’s outstretched arm. With a sharp tug he carried the man, knife first, into the third man, the one that was still rushing from the left, pistol in hand. The knife plunged through the third merc’s chest. John ignited both of them, then sent the tangled pair skittering across the deck and out the destroyed cargo door with a backwards kick. They fell, screams vanishing into the distance.

  The rest of the mercs were momentarily stunned.

  “I said kill him! Now! Fire!” People’s Blade stepped back as the remaining mercs raised their guns again. John dashed forward, juking first to the left, then committing to the right. The mercs all began firing at once, the noise deafening in the confined space. The rounds stitched holes in the fuselage, but none found their mark. They were all good shots, highly trained and used to working together; John was just too fast for them, anticipating where they were aiming and then not being there. John ducked under a burst from the closest mercenary, then unholstered his own 1911 and shot the man twice in the face, still moving. Instinctively, he knew he would have to use his fires sparingly. Nothing would be won if he set the entire plane ablaze. Time seemed slowed down, and he was moving faster than he ever had; it wasn’t just his enhancements, but something more. Something from his connection to Sera. The next merc was in the center of the cargo hold, and had run his weapon’s magazine dry. John slid next to him smoothly just as the man finished reloading. He jerked the submachine gun from the merc’s grasp so hard that the strap broke, sending the merc to the floor face first. John finished the job by stomping on the back of the merc’s head with
a sickening crack; then he was moving again. He crouched behind a metal crate for half a beat before springing out from cover again; four quick bursts from the rifle, and four more mercs went down, dead or dying. The submachine gun was empty, so he threw it as hard as he could at one of the mercs at the back; the man caught the whirled hunk of metal and plastic full in the face, and was knocked out cold. John still had his pistol; he had to keep moving, otherwise they’d concentrate their fire and be able to pin him down.

  The last two standing were spread out, on opposite sides of the cargo hold. John went for the one on the right, first. He ran, ducking and weaving so that the merc couldn’t get a clear shot. When he was next to the man, he grabbed the merc by his vest and planted the barrel of his 1911 under the man’s chin. With a grunt, he pulled the trigger, and that was the end of that. The limp body still in his grasp, he spun it around so that it was between him and the other merc. The merc on the other side of the hold started firing, stitching his comrade’s body and the surrounding fuselage with more holes. John felt a round impact with the shoulder of his nanoweave jacket; he knew the round would be slowed down going through the dead body, and thus the damage was minimal. John swung his pistol around the side of the dead merc’s body, emptying the magazine into his target, starting at the pelvis and working his way up until the last round left a round and messy hole in the merc’s skull.

  The merc he had thrown the submachine gun at was now waking up. He dropped the dead merc he’d been holding—all of the bullets he had taken had left him less than intact—before holstering his 1911 again. Looking down at his feet, he saw the first merc that had shot at him, moaning from the burns on his arms and head. John hefted the man up by his belt and the drag handle on the back of his gear, and held him up between himself and the groggy merc. Both mercs screamed, one from fear, one from rage, as the final merc completely emptied his weapon into John’s human shield. John dropped the burned and now very dead merc, the body crumpling to the floor. Very calmly, he walked up to the final merc. He could see the fear in the man’s eyes as he reflexively was still pulling the trigger on his empty rifle. With his right hand, he grabbed the merc by the throat, and then lifted him off of the ground. John looked People’s Blade in the eye as he ignited his hand, and the fire spread to the merc he was holding. His screams started low before building up into a high-pitched wail. When the man’s entire body was covered in flame, John turned and threw him at the back of the plane, where he hit the edge of the ruined cargo door before falling into the darkening sky.

  John felt as if he was holding a live wire. Everything he saw had a harder, cleaner edge to it. He noticed tiny details, like the headstamp on an empty shell casing, or the pattern the bullet holes in the fuselage made, the smell of blood and burned paint and metal, the cooked smell of burned flesh, the strangely crisp scent of scorched fabric, the acrid stench of melted plastic.

  He drank in all of this instantaneously. His heart rate was steady and even. He had just brutally killed twelve men, and while that faintly disgusted him, he realized that, far from being repulsed by what he had done, he didn’t care all that much. There was something much more important occupying his emotions. They were hurting her, and were trying to stop him. Sera was the only thing that mattered.

  People’s Blade drew her sword, although she did not otherwise move. Her eyes narrowed, and—John had the strangest feeling that there was something—alien—looking out at him from inside that tiny body.

  “You would be well advised to leave now,” the diminutive woman stated, in flat voice, and with a strange accent he didn’t recognize. “This is Jade Emperor’s Whisper, and not even a creature imbued with Celestial power can stand against it. We have this female, and we will keep her until we have no more use for her.”

  “I’m not leaving. An’ you’re not keepin’ her. Let her go right this second, an’ I won’t kill you. What the Commissar will do, I can’t vouch for, however.” John paced slowly towards her, stopping about ten feet away. Sera was behind People’s Blade now, still in her cage. She wasn’t moving. John couldn’t even tell if she was breathing.

  The woman smiled slightly. “Hubris. How…American.”

  “It is what it is. Cut her loose, or get ready to die, comrade.” John put extra venom into the final word, spitting it out like a curse. John ignited both of his hands, his body relaxed but ready to spring into action.

  Faster than he thought was possible, People’s Blade charged him, sword raised high. Even with the wind screaming from the back of the plane and the noise of the engines, John’s enhanced hearing should have picked up something. But she didn’t make a single sound as she ran straight at him. He didn’t have any time to blast her, draw his pistol, or take any meaningful defensive action; she was just that quick, almost as fast as he was. He hadn’t been expecting it, and, unlike with the mercs, he hadn’t “seen” ahead of time what she was going to do. Reflexively, the threw his flaming hand up just as she was bringing the sword down to split him through the middle. John shut his eyes at the last second; he had failed, and now he and Sera were both dead. Vic, you had better keep that promise…

  There was a too-loud crash, and John felt a flash of heat in front of his face. He opened his eyes…and found himself holding what looked like a large sword—a claymore, something in the back of his mind told him—composed entirely of flame. It held Jade Emperor’s Whisper on its edge, away from both of them.

  People’s Blade looked up at her weapon and then at his, her eyes wide with genuine shock. “Impossible!”

  John knew he had to end this, and end it quickly. For whatever reason, he couldn’t anticipate what the little woman was going to do the way he had for the mercs. And he knew nothing about sword-fighting, where she was an expert. He had to take advantage of this moment of surprise. He shoved her hard with his free hand, then grasped his own sword with both hands. With his taller frame and longer sword, he had more reach. But she was just as fast as he was, and had experience to match. She immediately lunged at him, following with a flurry of blows that he was barely able to block. Her attacks were calculated, but there was an edge of fury behind them. She hadn’t expected him to still be alive, or a challenge to her, and have the insolence to be fighting back, and that simply enraged her. He had the advantage that his “sword” weighed nothing; hers was solid steel and had weight and heft; he could move his weapon around faster than a comparable steel sword, his augmented strength making up for the lack of weight behind swings.

  Just as People’s Blade was about to make a cut at his thigh that he couldn’t block in time, the entire cargo plane bucked violently. Both of them fell to the floor as the center of gravity shifted; the plane had abruptly gone into a dive. John looked at the cockpit; the door had slammed open, revealing that there weren’t any pilots, only complicated apparatuses connected to the controls and panels. Some kind of fly-by-wire drone? Whoever held the controller must have figured that it was safer to crash the plane than risk John winning. Both he and People’s Blade clambered to their feet, swords pointed at each other.

  “You will not win, barbarian. You cannot win! I will not have you interfere with my destiny!” People’s Blade was almost vibrating with rage now, seething through clenched teeth.

  “Y’know, I don’t have time for this shit.” John lowered his sword, then held out his left hand. A pencil-thin bolt of super hot plasma lanced out, spearing Fei Li through the center of her chest, punching through her back before hitting a bulkhead and causing a small explosion. People’s Blade looked down at her chest in confusion, then raised her eyes to meet his. Something behind them softened, and she smiled gratefully as she sank to her knees.

  “Thank you,” she whispered as the sword clattered to the floor beside her; her voice was different, nothing like it had been moments before. Finally she closed her eyes as she crumpled to the floor. John didn’t have time to think about it. The plane was on fire now, and going down. He had to get Sera out of here. He ran to w
here she was caged. He recognized the construction of the restraints as very similar to something that the CCCP had recovered from a Blacksnake outpost that he had raided when the Commissar had first tasked him with hunting down People’s Blade; not that he remembered this, of course, but he had seen the pictures in the AAR. It was covered in symbols; some of them seemed to be vibrating and glowing, and somehow he could read some of it. Powerful binding words. He didn’t have the time to process it; he brought the sword, still in hand, down on the joints of the cage, then on the chains. Instinctively he knew it was meant to hold someone—an angel—in, not to keep someone out.

  Sera…it lacerated his soul just to see her like this. Her wings were twisted into unnatural shapes, and he thought he saw bone-ends sticking through the feathers. She was cut, burned, bruised and bloody. She lay as if she had just been tossed into the cage and had not moved since. Was she even still breathing? She couldn’t be conscious. John extinguished the flames on his hands as well as his sword. She felt like a doll in his arms as he scooped her off of the floor.

  “C’mon, darlin’, we’re gettin’ outta here. This isn’t our flight.” John ran towards the back of the cargo plane; more of it was on fire now, and some of the electrical systems were blowing out in showers of sparks. When John was at the exit of what was left of the ramp, he stopped short. “Fuckin’ hell, I sure hope this works.” With that, he took the final step off, and both of them were falling through the sky. The wind was blinding again, and he had to almost completely shut his eyes against it. John had been trained in parachute drops—-but it helped if you actually had a chute for those. He was able to keep his body stable and was facing towards the earth, which was starting to look much bigger. He chanced a look over his shoulder; the plane was even more fully engulfed than he had realized, and was continuing its nose dive. It looked like something else fell off of or out of the plane. Hope it doesn’t land on us.