Chapter 22
We’ve got a great show for you tonight. We’ve got dancing. We’ve got singing. We’ve got magic like you wouldn’t believe. Displays of superstrength, deadly stunts, risking life and limb, all for your enjoyment. We have got it all. Ladies and gentlemen, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
— Al Jolson, Sinbad’s Vaudeville Theater, 1911
USS Lexington
Over Washington, D.C.
THE AIRSHIP HAD SOUNDED the alert as soon as the electrical anomaly had been spotted at the abandoned Peace Ray facility just west of the city. The crew of the aircraft carrier Lexington had reacted like a well-oiled machine. They’d dropped two of their complement of sixteen Curtiss Raptors to investigate within five minutes of the first alarm, and then they’d waited.
The radio call that came in next had been simply unbelievable.
“A giant monster came out of the river?” The captain had just been roused from his bunk and it was taking him a moment to digest the news. “And it’s heading for the Lincoln Memorial?”
“Yes, Captain,” confirmed the radioman. It sounded insane, but that was the word.
“Is this some kind of joke, Lieutenant Heinlein?”
“No, sir. It appears to be some sort of creature, like something a Summoner would have, only bigger.”
Tensions had been high ever since the assassination attempt, but nobody had expected that there would actually be anything for the Navy’s most advanced airship to do over the Capitol other than be a sign of strength and stability to the people. They’d been wrong.
“Damned wizards. Ought to hang the lot of them… Bring us around to engage with the main guns and drop the fighters.”
Washington, D.C.
Sullivan’s boots hit the pavement hard. Faye always seemed to like appearing a little above the ground for safety’s sake, and a lot above it when she was carrying somebody with her. Traveling was terribly disorienting, so it took him a moment to regain his bearings. He had no idea how the girl was able to do it so quickly and always keep herself pointed in the right direction. The reflecting pool was in front of them. They were near the Roosevelt Memorial. The Washington Monument rose in the distance to their left. To the right was the Lincoln Memorial, and standing next to it was one big demon.
The police were shooting futilely at the demon. An awful roar filled the air and the ground shook as it assaulted the memorial. Each footfall was like thunder and the police had no choice but to scatter. It wrapped three of its arms around one of the Greek columns and tore it from the building. The pillar broke in half and the monster flung the first piece at a passing biplane. It missed, but the massive chunk of stone flew off to crash in the distance.
“Holy shit…” Sullivan trailed off. He prided himself on always being cool in a fight, but this was overwhelming, even for him. It was a whole lot scarier being on the same side of the river as this thing. “Either I’m bad at estimating size or it’s still growing.”
“It’s sucking in the air around it and turning it into Summoned smoke. When it gets thick enough, it turns that into ink and it stretches its body even bigger,” Faye explained. He did not know how she could see that. It had to be that head map of hers that she was always talking about. “Want me to take you back?” Faye asked, terrified herself.
“Tempting, but naw. I got this.”
Faye nodded and then she was gone.
The Roosevelt Memorial was at his back. The familiar bronze of Teddy on his rearing stallion rose behind the trees, rifle lifted overhead in a dramatic pose that had never actually occurred during the Great War, since there hadn’t been much use for horses in the trenches. Many of the antimagic marchers had camped in the open space east of the Roosevelt Monument, and they were running for their lives now. He couldn’t rightly blame them, since the demon was still scooping up people and stuffing its face, not even bothering to chew. It was a demon, living on alien essence and magic. It couldn’t possibly need the nourishment. It seemed to be eating them out of spite.
Most of the figures around the Lincoln Memorial were running away, but one had somehow managed to climb onto the creature’s back and was moving between the spines, swinging what could only have been a sword. That had to be Toru. Maybe he’d climbed up its leg. Maybe he’d jumped from the top of the Memorial onto its back, but it didn’t matter, since the demon jerked violently and slapped at its back with one claw. It was like the motion a man might make when stung by a wasp. The Iron Guard was knocked off and fell into the trees.
Sullivan steeled himself. He had absolutely no idea how to hurt this thing. His Power had already been used hard during the night’s events, but even at full strength he wouldn’t have been able to squish something that big. There was no time to dwell on it, though, since the demon was heading his way. Four glowing eyes tilted as its head swelled, like it was testing the air, and somehow Sullivan understood that it sensed the thousands of defenseless lives trapped in the open to the east. The marchers would just be waking up and fleeing now. The demon roared.
He fired the BAR without consciously thinking about it. The bullets did nothing. Sullivan pointed it right at the creature’s eyes, but those were vast empty pools of fire. It didn’t so much as twitch as it got closer. Reloading, hand a blur between gun and vest, Sullivan tried again. The second magazine was as useless as the first. The demon was closer now, and it was like trying to stand during an earthquake. Stumbling, he turned and ran for the cover of the Roosevelt Memorial. He dove behind a concrete flowerbed as one of the demon’s huge feet kicked the iron bars of the perimeter fence overhead.
The demon had an overpowering stink to it, like damp ground and ozone. Sullivan crawled forward as another foot landed only twenty feet away, bouncing him across the grass. The foot was shaped like a monkey’s paw, with toes like fingers, each as long as a tall man, with an obsidian nail on the end like a shovel head. The limb was covered with plates like broken asphalt chunks, while the skin beneath was black as oil and appeared slick and moist.
Tracer bullets splashed across the reflecting pool, tore up clumps of dirt, and ripped into the demon. A sleek Curtiss biplane banked away, engine buzzing. The demon roared with a noise that threatened to make Sullivan’s ears bleed. There was a terrible sound as the bronze statue of Teddy Roosevelt and his horse was ripped from its base and hurled after the speeding plane. This time the demon connected, and the statue tore one set of wings off. The Curtiss went spiraling downward in a cloud of wood splinters and aluminum shrapnel.
Sullivan gathered enough Power for a brutal Spike, rose, and concentrated on the nearest foot. He brought gravity down on it, sloppy, but hard and fast as he possibly could. A visible depression appeared in the oily skin and the plates cracked. A cloud of demon smoke spilled forth as the foot jerked into the sky. Summoned oil fell on him like rain. It can be damaged!
Then the massive foot came down right on top of him.
The Power use was instinctive, and he flared it hard, increasing his density as everything went black. He was driven deep into the ground, flat on his back, stomped like a bug.
There was no light. There was no air. No sound. There was dirt in his eyes, filling his ears and mouth. He was buried alive beneath the black oily heel of the demon. His Power was burning hot, dwindling quickly, but he was alive. Alive and crushed beneath the incalculable weight of a god.
This had to be how he’d survived the year before when he’d fallen from a blimp and through a train car. There was no calculation to this magic, only a pure desire to live. Even seconds from death, in a race between what would run out first, his air or his magic, Sullivan’s analytical mind was making notes of this surprising use of his Power. Fascinating.
The wounded foot rose, leaving Sullivan at the bottom of a footprint in the grass. His mass returned to normal and he could move again. His lungs filled with air. Desperate, he scrambled upward, drawing himself out into the night. The demon was moving on. Sullivan had to hurry and strike with what
ever he had left.
But before Sullivan could do anything else, the beast spun, tearing one leg through the Memorial. The landscape seemed to curl into a wave of approaching earth. An uprooted tree spun his way and he barely had time to increase his density before impact.
He found himself sailing through the air. Water came rushing up to meet him, but not nearly deep enough to cushion the impact. The splash was far too brief and his shoulder cracked the concrete beneath. Sullivan sat up in the middle of the reflecting pool, gasping and choking.
The injured foot came down, still mangled and bleeding smoke, but the demon just contorted its unnatural body and used one of its spare hands to steady itself. It must not have realized where that attack had come from, or he’d be dead for sure. It knew that something in the area had severely injured it though, and that something had to be eliminated. Both mouths opened wide and emitted a blast of pure fire in an arc that stretched for hundreds of feet. It swept its head across the mall, side to side, immolating everything. Trees exploded into flame. Innocent people were burned to ash. Sullivan ducked back under the lifesaving water as the fire tore across the pool.
The son of a bitch breathes fire, too? he thought as he hugged the bottom. It was very shallow, and much of his back was still exposed to the intense heat. He rolled quickly to put himself out. This keeps getting worse.
Holding his breath as long as he could, it finally felt as if the worst of the heat had passed. The water was scalding as he sprang up and gasped for breath. The air was filled with smoke. Being crushed had left him dizzy and weak. It took quite some time to collect himself.
Sullivan wiped his eyes and watched as the demon went on to attack the Washington Monument. It covered a football field’s worth of ground every couple of steps and reached the monolith in no time. Even as big as the demon was, the monument was far taller still, and that just seemed to make it mad. The creature struck it several times, angry that anything else might upstage it, but after clawing away several chunks of stone it seemed to realize that the monument was no threat to its superiority. Instead it scrambled effortlessly up the side of the monument, climbing to a higher vantage point so that it could survey its new kingdom.
A pair of biplanes did a strafing run against the demon. This time it simply turned and engulfed the incoming planes in a stream of fire. One was struck and exploded in midair. The other managed to dodge under the flames, only to cut too close to the monument and was swatted from the sky by one of the demon’s extra arms. It would accept no challenges to its rule.
Sullivan waded across the pool. He had to follow this thing before it was too late. His Healing spells were working like mad. His own Power was battered and weak. He still had his gun, and the only reason it hadn’t been destroyed beneath the demon’s foot was because John Browning had enchanted it with runes of durability. He didn’t know what he was going to do when he reached the monster, but he had to try something.
The demon’s eyes turned to the east, toward the lights of the Capitol and the field of screaming, fleeing humans. It climbed down and lumbered onward.
Faye stepped through space and found herself back on the west side of the river at the Grimnoir staging grounds. “Next!”
She’d just dropped Lance Talon off behind one of the museums. He had insisted on taking the Stokes mortar from the back of his truck. Between Lance, the mortar and its shells-it had been quite a bit of weight-and it had forced her to make a couple of quick hops to get him in place. Before that had been Diamond armed with one of those Goddard rocket launchers. She’d stuck around long enough to watch him shoot one of the explosive rockets into the demon’s back, but their only reward on impact had been a puff of smoke. It had flicked off the Iron Guard, stepped on Mr. Sullivan, and was swatting down fighter planes like hornets. She was beginning to fear that nothing they could do could hurt this thing.
The knights had actually formed a line like they were waiting for a turn on a Ferris wheel. Heinrich stepped up next. He hadn’t been Mended yet, but he had one of Mr. Sullivan’s Healing spells carved on him so he was hanging in there, and he’d found a pickax in the tool shed. “Drop me right on its head.”
“Are you sure?”
“It should prove fun,” Heinrich said as he put the pickax over one shoulder. He gave her a battered grin. “What is the worst that could happen?”
And people say I’m crazy. Faye took him by the arm.
Her Power was burning hot. Though she’d jumped far and often over the last few hours, she seemed to be getting stronger and stronger as the night went on. Her greatest limitation right now was her physical body, which was completely exhausted. One mistake because she was not thinking clearly would get her, and even worse, anybody she was carrying, killed. Her magic was feeling nearly as strong as it had been aboard the Tokugawa and she had no idea why, but she was thankful for it. Even then, it was taking her a couple of shorter hops to get back to the demon. She had a passenger and it was getting further away. By herself, she figured she should be able to make the return trip in one jump.
They landed near the Washington Monument. It was scored with several deep claw marks. A biplane had crashed on its side nearby. The area was in complete pandemonium. There were hundreds of people present, some running away, some stumbling about injured, others trying to help. Fires were burning everywhere. The demon was busy tearing apart the big museum on the north side of the lawn while it ignored the flock of biplanes that were taking turns swooping down to shoot at it. The monster had to be a hundred feet tall now.
“Still want to do this?” she asked Heinrich.
“I do. But before you put me on that thing, I just want to say again that I am very sorry for that time that I shot you in the heart.”
“Oh, Heinrich. Don’t go talking like that!”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re saying goodbyes.”
“Why would I do that?” This smile was a sad one. “Of course I’m not, Faye. Let’s go.”
Despite Traveling onto a moving target, her head map had no trouble keeping up with the mad thrashings of the gigantic beast. The spot that she picked was in what seemed like a forest of spines, each one several feet long, a foot in diameter, and ending in a brutal point. It was like being in a stinky living forest. Heinrich let go of her, balanced himself against a spine, lifted the pickax overhead, and embedded it deep into the monster’s flesh. Smoke boiled out of the puncture. The whole world tilted. Heinrich grabbed onto a spine and held on for dear life. Faye Traveled out of there just as the demon tried to scrape the new interloper off against the marble facade of the museum.
She landed a hundred feet away and watched as the demon smashed its way through the building. Heinrich must have Faded through the debris; he reappeared, swinging the pickax again and taunting the demon in German. A flashbulb popped as a nearby reporter took a photograph. Faye figured that guy was even crazier than Heinrich. Everybody with any sense was running. At least the knights had magic, so they had some excuse for sticking it out.
Back on the Virginia side, she had to pause to catch her breath. Her Power was still growing and it was making her a bit giddy. She caught Mr. Browning in the process of telling Mr. Bryce that his Powers were “unsuitable” for their situation, and forbidding him from going. His tone was rather stern and as Bryce sulked away, Mr. Browning turned to face her. Apparently he was next. “But you’re-”
“Old. Yes. Now get a move on, young lady.”
She took him to the front of the Capitol and deposited him next to where the Army was gathering. There were only a handful of small vehicles there, but from the engine noise more were coming. They had been prepared to disperse marchers, not for a situation like this. The evacuating crowd was dense, surging past the soldiers that were trying to get ready to stage a last-ditch defense. The protestors had abandoned all of their antimagic signs and banners. Faye knew she shouldn’t have hated them so much for being here, but she did.
The Summoned w
as disengaging itself from the museum, which meant that Heinrich was probably gone. It moved into the middle of the open space, placed two of its hands on the ground, lowered its head, and breathed fire down the mall. It wasn’t close enough to burn the protestors yet, but Faye could feel the temperature rise dramatically.
One of the military men was standing on the roof of a truck, giving orders and waving his arms as other vehicles arrived. Faye didn’t know the difference between the various ranks, but this fellow had the fanciest hat and the most embroidery on his sleeves, so that probably made him the boss. He was shouting that they were going to hold this position or else.
Faye, having gotten a pretty good idea of what this particular Summoned was capable of, figured that it was going to end up being or else.
There was one larger green vehicle with tracks on the back and wheels on the front. It wasn’t quite a tank, but it was certainly no tractor, and it did have some sort of big gun on top. A soldier was standing behind it, wrestling with the gun, seemingly unfamiliar with how to operate it.
Mr. Browning saw the soldier having a hard time, so he pushed his way to the back of the tracked vehicle. Another frightened soldier tried to stop him. “What’re you doing, you old coot? You need to scram.”
“That boy has no idea how to use that.” He gestured at the gun. “I do. Let me up there.”
“How would you know?”
“That’s a Browning 30mm auto-cannon. I know because I designed the blasted thing! Now stand aside!” That caught the first solider flat-footed long enough for Mr. Browning to climb up the ladder. Exasperated, he pushed the other soldier out of the way. “What are you doing? It isn’t that complicated.” He pulled a big lever back and opened the tray on top. “Faye, get Dan. See if he’s learned anything from the Coordinator about how to banish this creature.” He slammed the tray down, worked the charging handle back and forth, took up the spade grips and pulled the trigger. The auto-cannon belched a column of flame over the heads of the evacuating masses. The recoil shook the vehicle and the muzzle blast made Mr. Browning’s long coat flap behind him.
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