“Take them,” said Vickie, and Saviour at the same time barked something in Russian.
There were very few Thulians left alive, much less able to fight back. The CCCP’ers dispatched them easily; with Mamona concentrating her disruptive powers on such a small number of targets, the team was able to eliminate them with concerted rifle fire.
John coughed heavily, holding his headset close. “We need to clear out. We sure as hell are gonna get some attention, now. Everyone, pull out an’ head to the van, an’ do so on the bounce.”
“Cops are holding; fire’s on the way. I leaked it was Thulian; anonymous tip from someone at a pay phone who saw a couple of Nazi Suits and was running away scared.”
“Good. That means they’ll let this joint burn a bit more, an’ don’t think it’s a crime scene just yet.”
Bear, bringing up the rear of the team’s formation as they jogged through the burning wreckage, shouted, “Comrades! I know perfect song for occasion! ‘Da roof, da roof, da roof is on fire! Let the mother—!’”
“Pavel!” Saviour growled. “Enough!”
“Da, Commissar. I will restrain my exuberance.”
“Keep your heads down. Blacksnake is sticking its nose in.”
The team exited the warehouse easily enough with the confusion outside, generated by the fire department, the police, and several other entities in official-looking flak vests that Vickie had managed to call to the scene; they were just another bunch of ash-smudged workers amongst the rest.
“There’s carry-out steak coming to meet you at the suite. Firm is called ‘Takeout Taxi,’ branded car, driver is named Tony.” Vickie allowed a hint of concern to creep into her voice. “Be careful on the way back, gang.”
“Private channel, Johnny, You need anything special?” An ironic tone crept into her voice. “I’m…kind of an expert on aftermaths. Name it, I can arrange for it to be delivered. Vodka with a Valium chaser, for instance.”
John sighed, swaying with the battered van as it bumped along the road. “The three B’s wouldn’t be all that bad.”
“Beer, bath and—what, exactly?”
“Wouldn’t be gentlemanly fer me to say.”
“Broads. Beer is in the fridge, you’re in the hot-tub suite if you check the bathroom. Broads, you’re on your own.”
John half-smiled. “What do we pay ya for, then?” Without waiting for a reply, he removed the earpiece, resting his head against the van’s metal wall with a heavy sigh. Perfect end to an utterly imperfect day. Quit your belly-aching, loser. You’ll have plenty of time to mull this over on the trip home. With that parting thought, John indulged in one of the oldest traditions of the infantry; catching a catnap.
Nox Aurumque (Night and Gold)
Mercedes Lackey
While we were “housecleaning,” so to speak, The Seraphym was doing some housecleaning of her own. It seems that we were not the only ones who were not inclined to sit down and wail.
Gold,
Tarnished and dark,
Singing of night,
Singing of death,
Singing itself to sleep.
And an angel dreams of sunrise,
And war.
Tears of the ages.
O shield!
O gilded blade!
You are too heavy to carry,
Too heavy for flight.
Gold,
Tarnished and weary,
Awaken!
Melt from weapon to wing!
Let us soar again,
High above this wall;
Angels reborn and rejoicing with wings made
Of dawn,
Of gold,
Of dream.
Gold,
Singing of wings,
Singing of shadows.
lyrics: Charles Anthony Silvestri; music: Eric Whitacre
Of all the burdens that the entity called The Seraphym carried, the heaviest was obedience. How many times she had longed to intervene, only to be told “It is not permitted,” or “This and this only is permitted”! How many times had she wept to see the mortal lives snuffed out or ruined…yet known that the reason she was told “It is not permitted” was because she was not The Infinite, that however powerful, she was limited and that there would always be ones she could not help because she was stretched too far…
Already she did far more than anyone ever guessed. Mostly what was needed were such small things—a flash of light in the eyes, a breath of air to deflect, a flash of knowledge just before something happened, a whisper of warning in time to plan. But for all these things, she had to be there. They could not be done from afar. And sometimes, there was direct intervention.
It was what the mortals called “The Lifesaver’s Dilemma”; if the lifesaver drowns trying to save too many, who will save the swimmers in the future?
Obedience saved her. Obedience saved those that would matter in the days to come.
But it did not help to know this.
Rebellion was also a burden. Not because rebellion was forbidden, but because of how it was permitted. It must not be because of pride, or wishing only to glorify one’s own self. It must not be because of hate, or even dislike. It must not be—well there were many causes for which one must not rebel. That was the thing that those who had rebelled and Fallen did not understand. There was room even for rebellion in the Infinite. But it had to be the right sort of rebellion. It had to be less rebellion and more…creativity.
One could only rebel when The Infinite itself was silent. When neither she nor any other Siblings could See a way.
When it cost one’s own self dearly. When rebellion became a sacrifice.
When it was, truly, for the greatest good, the greatest number.
Thus far, the Seraphym had not yet found the time and place to rebel. But this—this might be the time and place.
The Thulians were about to descend in force upon a little town in the red clay hills of Georgia. They were going to wipe it from the face of the earth, and every living thing, down to the insects, in it.
The Seraphym had not Seen this becoming a certainty until—well, until a mortal hour ago, when an earnest conclave had swayed a single mind, and that mind had given the order. And that had been set in motion by the contacting of an aging, bitter man in Hungary. And that had been set in motion by something the Doppelgaenger had learned. And—
Well…it was fruitless to speculate further. As always with the futures, nothing was certain, until just before it was.
And now…now 9,376 men, women and children, and countless creatures that were not human, would suffer from the arrogance of one creature.
By the time ECHO or CCCP learned of this, it would be too late. Angusburo would be a plate of glass. There was no one to stand between the Thulians and their goal.
Except her.
She stood, invisible to mortal eyes, between the Thulians and the place they would destroy. She would not suffer this to happen. The Infinite was silent, thus far. She had not been told “This is not permitted”—but she had not been told that it was.
The Death Spheres were not in sight, but black clouds boiled up with terrifying speed on the horizon, and she knew they were inside. This was new. The technology to make the clouds triggered fearful lightnings within them. This was also new.
She dropped that which made her invisible. She called her aura of fire, her spear, her shield, and her sword. She would give them warning. They had seen her at work. She would give them the chance to turn back.
The clouds surged towards her, alive with lightning. Behind her, the people of the town were running for cover, certain this was some freak storm that held a tornado, or worse. How much worse, they did not yet know. Most of them still either did not see her, their minds refusing to encompass her, or saw her and thought she was some ECHO meta, here because—well they did not bother to wonder why, as they headed for their basements. Seeking shelter was paramount in their minds, and everyone knew there were no metas whose power
s included controlling the weather.
And still the Infinite was silent.
They came at her in silence, and she saw them despite the cloaking clouds. Then the clouds engulfed her.
With a thought, she burned them away, spreading her flame-wings wide, wide, creating a sphere of clear air within the cloud-bank. The lightning struck her, but she felt it only as a distant pain, one that meant nothing to her. It was not that she could not be hurt—it was that she did not care if she was hurt. It lashed her, and she made it her own, taking it away from them and surrounding herself with its dance.
Still, they came, so sure of their own mastery. They thought they had studied her; they thought they had an answer to her.
She let her voice thunder in their minds.
Stop.
The energy cannons whined defiance. She felt the same defiance in the crews of the ships. She was only one being, one metahuman; how could she presume to stop them? She saw the commander call up his library of information, find her, and swiftly review what little there was—and reject it. The other captains had been mistaken, or inferior, or caught unaware. She could not withstand them.
You shall not do this thing. I shall not allow it.
“It’s a bluff!” she heard the commander of the fleet below communicate to the other ships. “She’s never taken a stand like this before, and she won’t win now!”
Oh, she said into their minds. Be not so certain. Go. This place is not for your taking. Go and live, stay and die.
And—
Defiance. The defiance of those who see no other path but their own will. The ships began to move on her.
And in the still, profound, and waiting silence of her heart, she heard, with great sadness, So like the ones lost to us…Seraphym, it is permitted.
“I bring you Fire and the Sword!” she cried—not with joy, oh no, never with joy for such a task, but with release. The words rang across the sky.
The Seraphym danced.
To oppose mortal, material force, she must be, if not mortal, certainly material. Oh, she could have waved a hand and obliterated them all in a wash of plasma, but that was not appropriate. Each creature in this fleet must be given his own opportunity to rebel, to turn back. And for that, she must take them one by one.
And they must all see it, and be aware of what she did.
This was the work of an Instrument; always, always, the wicked must be given that chance to repent, to redeem themselves, for forgiveness was always possible. So she danced, and the first ship that she danced with came at her with newly-hardened tentacles reaching with inhuman speed, and energy cannon seeking to lock onto her. But a moment, a heartbeat later, the tentacles were raining down on a pasture, severed by her sword, and the ship reeled beneath the beams of its own cannon deflected back to it by her shield. Then with a leap, she was atop it; her spear piercing the heart of the control mechanism, her hand hitting the metal of the shell with a hollow, gong-like boom.
She leapt away; the ship canted sideways, half its flight controls gone. She ignored it; it was of no more moment to her. Undaunted—or perhaps unobservant—another was attacking.
Near-infinite power wielded by precise control; that was the work of an Instrument. No less than what was needed, but not one particle more. This time as she landed, a cascade of fire waterfalled from her down the sides of the ship—a white-hot waterfall that fused the portals for the weapons shut, and blinded the ship, a torrent of plasma that was so hot and fierce that it did so and dissipated without cooking the crew inside—though the climate-controls nearly fused themselves trying to compensate. As the ship blundered off, blind and deaf, she leapt again.
Her fire-wings buffeted the next ship, destroying the sensors an instant after blinding the crew. She left the weapons live on this one; the tentacles flailed aimlessly, the cannon blasted, and it left three more of its kin mortally wounded in the half minute after she left it and moved on.
In his ship at the rear, the commander screamed at his captains, ordering them to destroy her, berating them for incompetence and worse. The black clouds boiled up again as she waited amid the dying ships of the front rank, giving the rest yet another opportunity to turn back.
Instead, heedless of their crippled fellows around her, they opened up on her, pouring an inferno down upon her.
Of course it hurt. She had a physical body—one that renewed itself as fast as it was injured, but a physical body nevertheless. The trick, as T.E. Lawrence famously said, was not minding that it hurt. Pain is information. The information is that the body is injured. Her body was already healed by the time the pain registered. The information was not relevant. She could ignore it.
Ignore it, even as her body was burned and renewed, burned and renewed, for as long as they poured their deadly energies into the spot where she hovered.
Even the Thulians could not keep up such a barrage forever. One by one, the exhausted guns flickered and went out. And she remained, burning, burning, within the fires of her own creation, the fires of the Infinite, wings of flame spreading wide once more.
In his craft, the commander screamed imprecations at his underlings. Briefly she bowed her head. There was doubt in them. But the habit of obedience was bred into them. There was only one way to end this.
And again, she moved.
From ship to ship she leapt or flew, a slash of sword or spear crippling each as she passed over it. Some of these creatures would die. Some already had. With each death, the spear and sword felt heavier in her hands, laden with death, tarnished with tears. And yet, they burned the brighter for that.
At last she came to the ship of the commander, who thought he was safe, in his one undistinguished ship among all the rest just like it, insulated, isolated, at the rear of the flotilla.
She hovered, wings barely beating, and gazed at him through the lenses of his cameras. She knew that her face, her eyes, filled the picture in his viewscreen. Her mind bored into his, as her sun-bright eyes bored into his.
It is as I told you. You shall not do this thing. Turn back.
But in him was only madness, and that madness frothed and ordered destruction.
So be it. So you have chosen.
She flung the Spear.
It pieced the heart of the ship, burned through it as if it were paper, transfixing the commander to his chair and turning him to ash in the blink of an eye.
As she called back the Spear to her hand, the crew of the ship utterly stunned, she spoke again into all their minds.
Go. Leave this place. Never return.
And now, without their leader to urge them on, they fled as best they could, trailing smoke and flames, and taking their unnatural storm with them.
And weary, weary with war and tears, she flew heavily away, back to Atlanta, back to one place, at least, where she could rest.
She drifted down out of the night sky onto a roof where a mortal man she still did not understand was resting too, after battle, his arms folded along a crude concrete parapet, a bottle of beer in one hand, untasted.
He did not turn around as she landed, but she knew he knew she was there.
“Well, angel,” he drawled, finally taking a sip of his drink. “Whatcha been up to?”
She considered many answers, and settled for one. “Much the same as ever,” she replied. “And you, John Murdock?”
* * *
The furtive man delivered the memory card to the one who had offered so very much money for footage of The Seraphym “in action.” “I hope this is all you said it is,” the man said, in a neutral voice.
“It’s like all the other footage, you don’t see anything of her but this…light-thing. But you sure as hell see what she does,” he replied. “I wasn’t exaggerating.”
The buyer held the little card up to the light and considered it. “In that case, it’s worth every penny.” He jerked his head at the videographer. “Pay the man.”
A coldly beautiful woman who moved in a fashion that suggest
ed she was as deadly as she was lovely handed over a thick stack of hundreds. The furtive man scuttled away.
“I hope this is what you want, Dom,” said Khanjar. “It certainly cost enough.”
Dominic Verdigris only smiled.
Chasing Shadows
Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin
Verd was ruthless, and no fool. You don’t get where he is by being reckless, nor by taking anything at face value. If you are someone like Verdigris, you test first, and you test, if possible, to destruction.
Dominick Verdigris III did not like to be kept waiting. It had been over an hour since he had sent a message to “People’s Blade,” summoning her to his office. Since she had come to him offering her services, Verdigris had gone to great lengths to keep her under a watchful eye. Satellite surveillance, tracking devices, plainclothes agents to follow her; he had even dispatched Khanjar to tail the General’s movements. All of it was to no avail; somehow, Shen Xue was always able to slip away, seemingly at will. It annoyed Verdigris; it wasn’t a feeling he was very accustomed to dealing with for a prolonged period of time. Most things that bothered him were taken care of, quickly or quietly or brutally, whatever the situation required.
And aside from the annoyance, there was another disquieting emotion associated with “People’s Blade”; a feeling of powerlessness. He had not felt powerless in a very, very long time, and now he was confronted with being unable to control not one, but two creatures—that so-called “angel,” and now People’s Blade. He didn’t like it. And he intended to change things.
He stabbed a finger at his desk’s display, bringing up the intercom. “Khanjar, have someone bring in a stiff drink, or five. And keep looking for her. I don’t want to spend all night on this.” He let a hint of his annoyance creep into his voice, but none of his apprehension; it wouldn’t do to let anyone see him start to doubt. His mind was going in circles, like a mouse in a wheel, unable to come up with a way to get control of this situation. It had to begin with People’s Blade. She was the only creature he’d found with a chance of capturing that “angel” for him, so far. And that meant he had to control People’s Blade. Only he hadn’t been able to control People’s Blade…
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