Spellbound gc-2

by Larry Correia

  “That’s okay. I hear Sullivan likes puzzles.”

  Garrett suddenly flinched and jerked his hand back as if it had been shocked. “Huh?”

  Hammer noticed that Sullivan had clenched one hand into a fist and was studying his ring. “Incoming message,” he said. “Lance.”

  “I got it. If you’ll excuse me,” Garrett said, and he hurried from the room, leaving her alone with Sullivan.

  “What’s that all about?” she asked.

  “We can use these to set up communication spells,” he explained patiently. “Probably a lot neater before they invented the telephone and all, but as you can see, not a lot of lines around here… And I probably shouldn’t be telling you anything else.”

  “That’s interesting.” Hammer had always been intrigued by all the mysteries of the Power. She’d pieced together several useful tricks over the years, but according to her investigation, Sullivan was supposed to be a wealth of knowledge. “You remember the first time we spoke. I wasn’t lying about one thing. I do find Actives a fascinating topic.”

  “Well, you came to the right place. Once we get this sorted out and if I’m not in the electric chair or Rockville, I’d love to talk about what it is you do. I’ve been cataloging as much as I can about how the Power works.”

  “So I did have you pegged, Mr. Librarian. Mind of a scholar in the body of an ox.”

  “Scholar? Maybe if circumstances had been different. Here in the real world I’m just too damn good at fighting. It keeps cutting into my reading time.” He chuckled. “Listen, Hammer-”

  “Pemberly.” She decided then that she liked this big, honest, tough guy. On first impressions, some people might mistake Sullivan for simple, but he was anything but. “That’s my name.” Sullivan nodded slowly, as if analyzing if she was trying to con him again. “Friends call me Pem.”

  “I’m sure they do, but I’m not there yet. I’m going to explain some things to you. Dan’s going to explain some more. The Grimnoir are a good bunch. The folks running it are secretive sometimes to the point of stupid, but with the way things are going now I can maybe see why they’re like that. We do good things and we defend a lot of folks who can’t defend themselves.”

  That sounded a lot like her father. “You trying to sell me something?”

  “I save the fancy talk for the Mouth. What I’m trying to say-” Sullivan stopped and jerked his head toward the front of the house. “You hear that?”

  Someone was shouting.

  Sullivan swept back his jacket and pulled a big automatic from a holster on his hip. “Hang on.” He walked quickly down the hall. Hammer ran over and picked up her guns. If Crow had somehow followed her here

  … That was too horrible to think about. She followed Sullivan into the front room. He got behind the wall and peeked out one corner of the window. “Aw, hell.”

  “What is it?” She moved up on the other side of the window and looked out.

  It was dark, but she could make out a lone figure standing in front of the farmhouse. He raised his voice and bellowed. “Jake Sullivan! Come out and face me!”

  “That’s the Imperium diplomat I talked to.”

  “Diplomat, my ass. Iron Guard,” Sullivan said through clenched teeth. “Tough bastards. Remember earlier when Dan mentioned Unit 731?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You got a rare Power. Trust me, you do not want to get captured by the Imperium.” Sullivan moved to the other side of the door and picked up a large, strange-looking rifle. He pulled the bolt back with a clack. A bandoleer of magazine pouches went over one shoulder. “Go get Dan.”

  “Jake Sullivan! I am Toru. Are you a coward? Face me, Heavy!”

  Sullivan put one hand on the latch and took a deep breath.

  “What’re you going to do?”

  “I’ll hold them off and kill as many as possible. We’re probably surrounded. I’ll cause a ruckus and distract them. Once they’re concentrating on me, then you two run for your lives.”

  “I’m a good shot.” She hoisted the Bisley. “I can help.”

  He grabbed her hard by the arm and pulled her around. “Listen to me. Iron Guards don’t die easy.” Sullivan glared at her. “Don’t be stupid. Get out of here. I’ll catch up.”

  I’ll catch up. It was the first time he’d actually lied to her tonight.

  Sullivan threw open the door, kept as much of his body behind concealment as possible, and aimed his bullpup BAR at the Iron Guard. It was dark, and the only illumination was from the lantern light leaking through the doorway, but the Iron Guard was only ten yards away. It was an easy shot. “Evening, Toru.”

  “Mr. Sullivan,” the Iron Guard responded politely.

  He had to keep Toru talking, let him gloat to buy the others time to escape. This place was flimsy. A machine gun in the trees would shred the farmhouse. Toru wouldn’t have announced himself unless his men were already in position. That honor-bound son of a bitch probably wanted to fight him one on one to make up for last time. That seemed like the Iron Guard thing to do. Good. He’d use his Power to make a mess of things and hopefully Dan and Pemberly could make it out the back. There would be more Imperium in the fields, but hopefully Dan’s Japanese language practice would finally pay off. “Nice night for a fight to the death.”

  “Most nights are.”

  “How’d you find me?” He said me instead of us on purpose. Hopefully the Imperium didn’t know about the others.

  “I had a Finder put a spirit on the woman looking for you. She struck me as someone who would not give up the chase easily.”

  So much for protecting the others. “That was clever.”

  Toru gave the slightest bow. “Thank you.”

  Sullivan never could understand these Imperium elites. They were unfailingly polite up until the moment they ended your life.

  Knoxville, Tennessee

  Faye woke up to the unnatural warmth of a Healer’s touch. “Jane?”

  “Yes, I’m here. Just relax.”

  Faye looked around. She was on a bed and couldn’t remember if she’d walked to it or been carried. They were probably in a motel from the way it was decorated all simple and beige. Whisper was asleep in a big chair. Ian was on the other bed, and from the look of him, Jane had got to him first. His breathing was normal for the first time since the fire. She heard a rough and familiar voice. Lance was talking to somebody just out of view, and from the white light reflecting on the walls, she knew it was through a spell.

  Jane’s glowing hands were on her stomach. The deep scratches Crow had given her were burning. Globs of black oil rose up out of her skin and rolled until gravity dripped them to the blankets. She coughed hard and a bit of black smoke puffed out of her mouth and floated away. Her whole body was burning up, and then it was over and she could breathe. The recently fused bits of skin were hot spots, like when they used to heat rocks on the stove to stick in bed to stay warm during the winter, but everything else was cool. Her body was damp with sweat and sleepy.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Jane said. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and laid one gentle and freezing cold hand on Faye’s forehead. “Believe it or not, Summoned are usually very clean. Rarely do their wounds turn septic so quickly. Everything about this one screams corruption.”

  “He’s a real jerk, too. Thanks, Jane.”

  “It was nothing.”

  Ian had sat up the other bed, leaned over, and picked up something from Faye’s bed. The Summoned ink that had come out of Faye’s arm had formed into little balls of tar. “I’ve been dealing with Summoned since I was a child, and I’ve never seen one like that before.”

  “How so?” Jane asked.

  Ian rubbed the goo between his fingers. “A few things. Obviously, having a human steering it being the biggest, but besides that, it changed shape and mass too quickly. When you draw in a Summoned, it takes a physical form and that’s it. They don’t change until they’re destroyed or dismissed. The more pow
erful the Summoner, the greater the Summoned you can bring, but this thing was very different. Our friend Crow is playing in some uncharted ground.”

  “Good to see you’re still alive, too, Ian. Thanks for asking,” Faye said.

  Ian looked around the room. “Where’s George?” Faye shook her head sadly. He got her meaning. “Oh… I didn’t know.” Ian lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. The people in Ada aren’t.” Jane patted Faye’s arm. “We all die eventually, and very few of us will do it as bravely as he did.”

  “It was terrible, Jane.” Faye’s eyes suddenly felt really wet. “He was a really nice man.”

  “All over the country, people are calling him a hero. They’re talking about him on every radio show, George Bolander, the man that hit a demon so hard he ended the drought. Even if they’ve already gotten the story all wrong, they’ll never forget him. All of the horrible things they’ve been blaming on Actives in general and us knights in particular were just washed away in one moment of courage.”

  Jane always did have a different way of looking at things that made Faye feel a little bit better.

  “What’re you doing up still, Dan? Don’t you guys ever sleep?” Lance asked.

  She could hear Dan Garrett’s voice over the spell. “Busy day. Kidnapped J. Edgar Hoover and now Sullivan’s questioning an OCI bounty hunter downstairs.”

  “Hello, honey,” Jane called.

  “That’s your idea of staying out of trouble? Suppose that’s what I get for leaving you two unattended.” Lance scratched his beard. “From that stupid grin, I can tell you’re enjoying yourself entirely too much. We picked up the other three. Jane got them Mended.”

  “That’s great-”

  There was the sound of a door crashing open. A woman shouted. “Iron Guards!” Faye popped off the bed in a flash. Even Whisper woke up instantly at the words. Someone shouting “Iron Guards” would always get a Grimnoir to jump, but the voice was coming through the spell. Faye ran to look over Lance’s shoulder.

  The view in the mirror showed Dan Garrett, a look of shock on his face. A pretty lady was standing in the doorway behind him. “Sullivan said we’ve got to run for it. He’s going to hold them off.”

  “Oh no.” Mr. Garrett turned back. “Gotta go.”

  “Wait!” Faye shouted. Her brain seemed to be working at its normal pace again, and she had an idea. Traveling safely wasn’t based on how great the distance was, she’d proven that before. It was like space was a big sheet and she could just pick up two spots and smoosh them together, even when it was a big sheet. The dangerous part was that her head map could only see so far, a tiny percentage of how far she could actually go, and Traveling beyond that safe zone risked getting her stuck in something.

  “No time, Faye.”

  “Just hang on!” A quick check showed that her Power was feeling especially feisty still. They were like a thousand miles away, but it didn’t matter. She had a perfectly clear view through the mirror. She checked her head map, and as it came flooding in nice and clear, she redirected it. Instead of looking at a big circle around the motel room, she gathered all of that map up and shoved it against the spell.

  “Whoa!” Dan and Lance both said at the same time, since it was their respective Powers that were holding the link together.

  Instead of a big circle, her head map pierced through the mirror in a narrow beam, like light coming through a keyhole.

  Clear.

  “I can do this.”

  “Faye, wait! It is too dangerous!” Whisper cried.

  “I have to.” Nobody was better at killing Iron Guards than Sally Faye Vierra! She stuck out one hand. “Lance, gun!” They’d been through a lot together, so he didn’t even bother wasting time questioning Faye when she got spun up. Lance drew his big revolver and gave it to her. “Hang on, Dan, I’m on the way!”

  Bell Farm, Virginia

  Toru took a few steps closer to the lantern light, revealing that the Iron Guard was carrying so much gear that only a Brute or a Spiker could possibly walk. He had one of the strange Imperium light machine guns with the magazine on top in one hand and that gigantic metal-spiked club in the other. On his belt was that traditional long-sword, short-sword combo that the Iron Guard seemed to love, two pistols, and a hand grenade. He was wearing a big vest covered in pouches, and had a large backpack which, from the feel of gravity, was stuffed. Toru had packed heavy.

  “You brought everything and the kitchen sink.”

  “I do not understand the reference.”

  “Kind of hard to fight carrying all that crap, isn’t it?”

  Toru set the machine gun down on its bipod and unslung the backpack and set it aside. He did, however, keep the big club. “I packed for a long journey.”

  “Hell’s not that far.”

  “Perhaps, but I have a mission to attend to first.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere. Sullivan tightened his grip on the BAR. The others had better be ready to run when the shooting started. “How many men did you bring, Toru? I want to know if you’ve got a sporting chance.”

  “I am alone.”

  “That’s the second time I got that dumb answer tonight.” Sullivan put the front sight right between Toru’s eyes. “Bullshit.”

  “Master Hatori showed me your conversation. In fact, he gave me many of his memories. That is why I have come alone.”

  Black Jack Pershing had done the same thing to him once.

  “The final instructions my honored Chairman ever gave… were to you, one of our most despised foes. Yet Master Hatori believed you were telling the truth, and that you really are the last man to ever speak to the Chairman.”

  Where was he going with this? “I was.”

  “Do you believe you are worthy to defeat the Pathfinder?”

  “Doesn’t matter if I am or not, I have to try.”

  “Good answer.” The spiked club was placed on top of the backpack. “A wise answer. I know much of the Pathfinder. I am now the keeper of Master Hatori’s sacred firsthand knowledge of the way of the Dark Ocean.” The pistol belt was set down next.

  “That’s useful.”

  “That is why I have come here.” Toru removed the two swords, still in their sheaths. He put the smaller one down, but kept the longer one in both hands. “If you are worthy of my father’s legacy, then I will teach you how to find and destroy the beast. If you are unworthy, then I will kill you and do it myself.”

  “What happened to the rest of the Iron Guard taking care of it?”

  “My brothers have been led astray. I am afraid they will not understand until it is too late for us all.”

  “By the fake Chairman?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re on your own…” Sullivan was stunned. He’d never realized that an Iron Guard would or even could do something like disobey orders. “What’s to keep me from gunning you down where you stand?”

  “Your desire to defeat the Pathfinder.” Toru slowly drew the sword. It was nearly three feet of menacing razor steel. Sullivan had used one to cut a man in half once, and even with the BAR in hand, was wise enough to fear one in the hands of a trained Brute. “My father, the real Okubo Tokugawa, was wise beyond measure. Even in death, he would not have chosen to speak to you, among all of our many enemies, unless he thought you had the strength to do what was necessary. I have prayed for his guidance and the way has been shown to me. I am doing what I know my father would have me do. Do you see this blade?”

  “Kind of hard to miss.”

  “This katana represents what it means to be Iron Guard. It was presented to me when I proved worthy to bear the sacred kanji. This blade represents sacrifice and pain. It is my soul.” He twisted it back and forth, studying the reflections of the lamplight. Toru knelt and held the sword before him. “Yet the blade has become tarnished.” Sullivan could see that the steel was clearly without blemish. “It is stained, rusted, and chipped. This katana-” Toru had to choke
back the emotion to continue. “It is flawed.”

  Sullivan slowly lowered the BAR.

  Toru took the hilt in his right and the sharpened end in his left. With a surge of Brute force he bent the sword. It bowed, resilient, but even the finest steel will break eventually.

  SNAP.

  The noise made Sullivan flinch.

  Toru placed the two pieces on the grass. Blood was streaming between the fingers of one hand. He bowed his head.

  “I am Iron Guard no longer… I, Toru, son of Okubo Tokugawa, pledge to help you defeat the Pathfinder. That is my mission. My father chose you. It is my obligation to him to assist you until this mission has been completed and the Pathfinder has been defeated. I will not help you against my people or my Imperium unless it is necessary to battle the Enemy. I will teach you the ways of Dark Ocean, then we will destroy the creature or die trying.”

  Sullivan didn’t know what to say. There was movement behind him and Hammer spoke softly. “He’s completely sincere.” She sounded awestruck.

  After several long seconds, Toru looked up from his broken sword. “Until I have fulfilled my father’s command, I am unworthy of an Iron Guard’s blade.”

  “And when the Pathfinder’s beaten?”

  “In the unlikely event we both live, we will tend to our unfinished business. We will fight. One will die. You helped kill my father, so we must; to do otherwise would be shameful. However, I will not let my hatred for you and your wretched ways deter me from my obligation.”

  That actually sounded pretty fair. “Then what?”

  “Then?” Toru obviously hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Should I win, I will then return to my people and commit seppuku as I have been ordered.” Sullivan tilted his head, confused at the word. “Suicide. When my mission is done, I must kill myself to cleanse my disgrace from my family. It is necessary.”

  He didn’t need Hammer’s Power to know that was the truth. That fact that he’d shown up here proved that Toru was a suicidal maniac. Sullivan could just hold the trigger down and hose the crazy bastard down with lead, throw the body in a ditch and call it a night. He wanted to do it so very badly. Instead, Sullivan took his finger off the trigger and put the safety on.