“Sig? You think you can use lightning on it, or match it in the air?” Adam asked.
She shrugged, and Adam was, vaguely, aware that half his family was peering in the door, watching and listening. “Won’t know till I get a better look, Adam. Besides, I’m not supposed to do that sort of thing in other gods’ territory. It’s considered rude.” Still, the light outside started to dim a little, as if clouds were starting to form. A rarity, that. Rain was almost nonexistent in the region during the summer.
“That didn’t stop you in Ponca.” Adam’s mind was detached, distant, as he stooped and picked up the locked carrying case he’d taken from the car. Unlatched it, and started assembling the assault rifle he’d not actually had to use since leaving the Wall. His hands remembered their jobs well enough, however.
“The god-born there directly challenged me. That’s different.” Sigrun’s voice was empty.
“How about Tenochtitlan?” Kanmi offered, as the shadow passed by again. This time, Adam could hear the wing-beats even through the glass of the windows, as the entire house had gone quiet. The shadow was fainter this time, as the sky faded to gray.
“The high priest drew on power in front of me. Again, a direct challenge.”
“He was waving his fasces in your face, and you kicked him in it, eh?” Kanmi, again.
“Pretty much.”
“You all do have an unhealthy interest in the fasces today,” Livorus told them, from the door behind them.
None of them turned. “Is there anything I can do?” the propraetor offered.
“It’s much harder banishing something without knowing its Name,” Trennus said, simply.
“Introduce yourself?” Kanmi offered, without humor.
“Get in touch with the local Praetorians, sir,” Trennus glanced back over his shoulder at Livorus. “If this thing was summoned . . . it’ll have left residue where it came through the Veil. If it was imprisoned, and the prison was broken, there will be shards. Remnants. Clues. Even a partial Name might let me bind it.”
“I can do that.” Livorus moved back down the hall, his heels clicking against the wood flooring briskly.
How in god’s name did it know we were here? Is this random, or is this targeted? Adam thought, as he snapped the clip of bullets into place in his rifle now. “Everyone needs to get back,” he ordered. “Basement. Father’s study. A bathing chamber—one without any windows.”
There was a pause in the wake of his words, and then the creature they’d only seen the shadow of, till now, landed atop the house across the street . . . and the tile roof there buckled under its weight, causing the creature to lift back off again, and this time land on the chimney, for better support.
Adam’s eyes widened. It was a giant, bipedal figure, easily three times his own height, but it bore only a peripheral resemblance to a human. Instead of a mouth, it had mandibles, like a spider, which twitched and moved constantly. Its eyes were large, and eagle-like, as were its massive wings, which, now mantled, still must have spanned at least twenty feet. Dark brown, glossy feathers covered most of its body, and he could see that its hands, which had two thick fingers and a thumb each, had viciously curving talons on them. It shifted atop the chimney, and Adam hissed as he caught sight of an up-turned tail, which looked like a scorpion’s, down to the barbed tip. To make matters worse, the creature wore armor, a massive breastplate that looked like . . . tortoiseshell, set with turquoise. “Old-fashioned,” Adam said, his voice distant.
“Probably hasn’t been out in the fresh air since the Bronze Age.” Trennus’ voice was just as calm as Adam’s.
“Yes,” Kanmi said, slowly crackling his knuckles. “We should probably demonstrate why armor isn’t much use anymore. Armor is just an opportunity.” He smiled, very faintly.
“Don’t get cocky,” Adam warned. “Sig?”
“Yes?” Deadly calm in her voice now.
“Be rude.”
“You’re sure? I wouldn’t want to offend everyone here.”
“I’m sure. Be very, very rude.”
“I can do that.” Sigrun reached out and opened the window before Kanmi could stop her; electricity visibly arced from the metal frame to her hands, even as the rune-markings under her skin began to glow. “That tickles, Kanmi,” she informed him.
“Oh, you say that now, with my wife in the next room? When I have to let that one slip by, unanswered? Unfair, valkyrie. Unfair.” Even the light humor of the words was a shell now, disguising the fact that they’d all gone into a blank sort of combat fugue. Adam, Kanmi, and Trennus moved to the various other windows in the room, Kanmi unwarding them . . . . and Sigrun held up a hand, calling her spear to her. It shimmered into existence in her hand, and she said, exhaling, “Nos morituri te salutamus.”
___________________
Sigrun, in truth, loved flying. She’d learned to do it at around the same time as she’d learned to walk, and she couldn’t remember a time when she couldn’t do it. On the other hand, the only times she ever got to fly were purely for utilitarian purposes. Getting a message to someone more quickly. Surveillance. And, of course, combat. So there was always a rush of joy when she took to the air, followed by grim focus on the task at hand, and today was no exception. She slipped out the window, felt the initial jolt as gravity reached for her . . . and then she simply declined its invitation, spinning away as she felt her ever-present attendant winds burst into life around her, a swirling, living cloak that caressed her skin. Her spear firmly in hand, she heard the creature’s bellow of challenge, and she brought the lightning down in a jagged bolt, aiming for its head. Tingle of incipient charge became reality, and the thunder that echoed to life was shattering, rattling every window in the neighborhood. She glanced around, assessing the tactical situation.
In a word? Bad. Houses filled with civilians. Trees. Streetlights—though metal was her friend. Cars in driveways, alleys, and along the edges of the road. Running behind both rows of houses, phone and power lines strung from poles.
The creature raised its head, clearly staggered by the bolt, but it was only very lightly scorched. The mandibles parted again, and that shearing sound, like metal being torn, once again echoed back from the walls around them. Over the radio tucked at her waist, Sigrun could hear Adam’s voice, ordering the other lictors who’d been tasked with protecting Poppaea and the children to move to clear the houses of the neighborhood. “Get those people out of here while Caetia has the thing distracted!” Adam snapped.
I can’t guarantee how distracted I’m going to keep it, Sigrun thought, and ascended through the air another thirty feet, so that she hovered above the creature, but out of its reach, above the midpoint of the cobbled street, as the first splatters of rain began to fall. “Lightning minimally effective,” she called into her radio. “Try something else.” She hit the creature again with another bolt of lightning, and heard, for the first time ever outside the range where they’d practiced in Rome, the rapid-fire bam-bam-bam-bam-bam of an assault rifle, as Adam entered the fight.
From her angle, she could clearly see the bullets striking the creature, and black blood oozing down its sides as it howled in pain “You’re hitting it,” Sigrun told Adam over the radio, cautiously hopeful . . . and then the creature leaped off the chimney on which it had perched, like an oversized gargoyle . . . and, keeping its feet together, plunged through the roof, disappearing through the shattering tile as if into quicksand. Shit. “Negative target. It’s in the house.” Where there are people. Shit, shit, shit. “Going in after it.”
“Bad idea,” Kanmi said over the radio, just as Trennus said, “Pull it back out again. Get it on the ground, where I can do something to it.”
“I’ll do my best,” Sigrun replied, tucked the radio back on her belt, and dove into the house in the wake of the creature, debris and broken tile hitting her in the face as she flew. This was a bad idea, and she knew it, but there wasn’t really much she could do about it. There were humans inside. And none o
f them were apt to heal nearly as well as she could.
She threw one arm up in front of her face to protect her eyes. Floorboard, wallboard, jagged pieces of two-by-fours that made up the under-flooring, all stuck out like jagged talons, scraping her arms and sides as she plunged, headfirst, through the attic, second floor—cold rush of water from a damaged pipe pouring out at her. And then landing on the first floor, feet barely touching down on the tile. Where is it, where is the damned thing . . . ?
And then impact against her side, throwing her back across a room.
It was a glancing blow, fortunately, and she managed to spin around in the air, landing with her feet on the far wall, perpendicular to the ground, knees tucked in a crouch. She looked up, and caught sight of the massive creature. Its wings had surely been what just hit her—they’d unfurled to half their flight length and slapped her aside. The ceiling was twelve feet high, the creature easily another six feet taller than that . . . and it was thus hunched over, snarling, in the middle of a kitchen, its head and shoulders jammed against the swaying, half-fallen kitchen lights. The residents were screaming and running away, scrambling for the front door, even as the creature tore a tall appliance free of the kitchen wall with one hand. Icebox, Sigrun thought, reflexively. No, they’re called refrigerators here, heavier—
The icebox sailed across the house at her, and Sigrun reflexively leaped out of the way, rolling to a halt by a window and coming up, slightly dazed, as the appliance slammed through the wall where she’d just been, punching a hole through it to the outside. She looked at the gap in the wall, swallowed, and thought distantly, All right, I’m keeping it distracted . . . what’s step two? Right. Get it outside again. Probably need to get it angry. Lightning has minimal effect. Let’s try cold steel.
The thoughts flickered, feeling like molasses poured on ice in winter, slow compared to the speed with which her body was already moving. She dove over the top of what had surely been a living room sofa moments ago, and was now mere kindling, and then vaulted back up again, turned, and threw her spear. A longspear like this was not meant for aerodynamic flight or pinpoint accuracy. She therefore aimed at center of mass, and hissed a little as she saw her throw rise too far up, threatening the creature’s head, instead.
To her astonishment, the creature moved erratically, and the spear’s head sheared into one of the aquiline eyes, and lodging in what might have been the nasal cavity, at about a forty-five degree angle. It gave a cry like tearing metal, and then charged her.
Sigrun leaped for the exit that the creature had so considerately made for her in the wall of the living room, bursting back out into open air seconds before the enormous creature tore through wallboard and a stone façade behind her, reaching up with a single huge paw and latching onto her foot. Massive claws tore through her boot, plunging into the flesh of her left ankle and calf. Even if they hadn’t penetrated, the crushing force was enough to make bone grind on bone as she choked back a scream, and, caught, she fell forwards, her flight momentum now caught in her ankles, knees, and hips. Spikes of pain jabbed through them, as the joints all threatened to dislocate, and tendons and ligaments protested their treatment.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Sigrun regained control of her body and flipped down, calling her spear back to her hand. Leg still held, she tucked in and down, bending in half, and slashed up at the beast’s hand with all her considerable strength . . . She felt the steel make contact and tear through resisting flesh and bone, just as the creature’s scorpion tail arched and flicked up over its own head and stabbed the air exactly where her heart had been, moments before.
She felt the air movement over her back as the tail stabbed forward and recoiled, and looked up between her own knees in time to see one droplet of poison weep from its tip, and fall down onto her face, stinging like distilled hatred . . . and then she threw herself backwards again, still in flight, arching and plunging through the air. And promptly ran into the wall of another house with a bone-jarring thump. She could feel the clawed hand that still gripped her ankle with inhuman strength, but it had been torn free of its attendant forearm at least, and the creature, now crouching in the side yard between the two houses, raised its arm to stare at the black-bleeding stump of its wrist, and howled once more.
___________________
Inside the ben Emmet household, pandemonium. The single lictor who’d stayed back to guard Poppaea and the rest of the Livorus family was a Nahautl woman. As such, she held a single-shot derringer in one hand, and a knife and a twin of the first derringer rode at her belt as she crouched by the doorway, constantly looking from the room’s single window, to the hall, and back again. “Stay back,” she told everyone else in the living room. Poppaea’s children did not huddle close to their mother; rather, all three of them clustered near one of their pedagogues, a motherly-looking Hellene woman in her forties. Himi and Bodi Eshmunazar, on the other hand, were both trying to scramble into Bastet’s lap at the same time, and Mikayel ben Maor and his wife were trying to keep their own children calm. The rest of the ben Emmet family was there, as well, other than the head of house, who was locked in the study with the propraetor.
The entire house shook with another clap of thunder, and the assault rifle, down the hall, began to churn out rounds again, bam-bam-bam-bam-bam. The children screamed and covered their ears, and most of the adults winced at the noise, as well. Mikayel edged closer to the door, evidently trying to get a glimpse of what was going on. “They’re going to get us all killed. What’s going on?” he demanded of the Nahautl guard.
The lictor snorted. “Do you even know who these people are?” she shouted, over the sound of another tearing crash. “Livorus only picks the best. Half his lictors have been poached by the Imperator, but he’s gone on record as saying he won’t let Caesarion take any of these four, unless they request to be taken. I don’t know about the politics, but that says a gods-be-damned mouthful to me. Now sit down, shut up, and let me do my job.” She turned her back on Mikayel, and crouched once more beside the door, derringer in hand.
___________________
In the study, Maor ben Emmet and the propraetor stood near the desk, as Adam’s father set up a secure call to the local Praetorian office and to the local gardia . . . and stood back, his arms folded across his chest and his eyebrows raised slightly, as Livorus waded into the mess. “Yes. This is Propraetor Antonius Valerius Livorus. So far today, my intended lodgings have been compromised, and my detail is currently under attack by what appears to be a very large demon.” The propraetor’s voice was completely calm. “No, I will not wait on hold. You will put your superior on the line so that I can provide my recognition codes to someone capable of recognizing them. And you will do so now.”
A three-second pause, and then the propraetor did, indeed, exchange several recognition codes, before going on, grimly, “Yes. About the large demonic creature currently wreaking havoc in one of your residential neighborhoods . . . . You’ve had calls to your emergency lines about that? What an extraordinary thing. Yes. It’s quite real. Listen to me, very carefully. You might wish to write this down.” Livorus paused. “Someone had to have summoned it. If they summoned it, there will be an energy trail, leading directly here. Back-trail it, find the source, find the binding circle used to summon it on the ground, and get someone there with a working knowledge of counter-summoning and do something about it.” His expression remained completely unruffled as the entire house shook, and the sound of the assault rifle spitting out ammunition started up again. “If it was not summoned, but rather released from some form of imprisonment, you will again need to back-trail it to its source. Look for its point of origin. Wherever it first emerged, there will be something that does not fit. A piece of ancient pottery, an ancient, broken lamp, a medallion with a shattered gem. There will be writing on this item. In a city this large, and with such a noted university, there will be, I trust, someone capable of reading this writing. Put the two things together. I need to know what
this creature is, and, if possible, its Name. Yes. I’ll hold.” Livorus put a hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, and looked at ben Emmet wearily. “Bureaucrats. I find holding their hands as they work through a simple thought-process extraordinarily trying at times, don’t you?”
On the desk in front of them, the various lictors’ voices came through on the radio that they’d handed to Livorus, all speaking Latin for clarity among the joint forces represented here. Maor recognized his son’s voice in and among the others, and watched as Livorus began to tap the side of his fist against the wood of the desk, lightly, but in evident fury, as the battle raged on.
“Callisuni, Duros, repeat, get off the roofs, you can’t do any good up there. Get to the ground and start moving civilians out of the area!” That was Adam.
“Caetia’s pulled the creature out of the opposite house. Out of range. Caetia, get it back to the street. I need it within sixty feet for anything I can do.” That, from the Carthaginian.
“No shot for me, either,” Adam noted. “Caetia, fall back, and give me status.”
“Moving. Lightning largely ineffective. Mostly irritates it. Cold iron seems to work. Keep shooting.” The Cimbri woman’s voice was strained.
“What in the Morrigan’s name is attached to your leg?” That, from the big Pict, sounding rattled.
“Its claws. I cut its hand off above the wrist, but it’s . . . persistent.” A pause. “I’m at street center. Here it comes.” No terror. No fear. Just . . . plain, flat, numb words.
Livorus hit the desk again, harder, one hand still over the mouthpiece of his phone, and began to curse, a quiet, steady, heart-felt string of invective. “I don’t suppose,” he said, after running out of breath, “that I could trouble you to look in my luggage for my old legion sword? I never actually go anywhere without it. I just haven’t had to use it in a number of years.”
Ben Emmet stared at the man for a long moment. “You’re not going to go out there.” It wasn’t quite a question.
The Valkyrie (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 1) Page 58