Lily’s gun opened up on full-auto, spraying the end of the corridor and driving back the squad of agents moving toward them and Ceri followed it up with another concussion bomb. There were maybe two or three guards left and they found them in the lounge with President and Mrs Wilson.
It was the one pointing his Smith & Wesson .45 at the President who spoke. ‘Move any further and they die.’
‘If he dies at your hand it hardly fits your needs,’ Ceri said. ‘He needs to die in a way you can blame on…’ She stopped as the lights flickered.
‘What was that?’ Nita asked
‘The generator cutting over,’ Ceri said. ‘How the Hell… Where’s your assistant, Mister President? Mel, where is she?’
‘I have no…’ Wilson began.
‘Shut up!’ the agent snapped. ‘Drop your guns.’
‘I don’t have time for this,’ Ceri said. ‘Put your guns down, now!’ Three pistols fell to the floor and the politician and his wife looked as though they wanted weapons to get rid of. The talkative agent looked briefly confused and then started toward Ceri, roaring in anger. He stopped as Nita put a bullet between his eyes.
Nita turned her rifle on the other two men. She looked very competent. ‘Cuff yourselves,’ she said. ‘Do it now or we leave you down here to die.’
‘I don’t understand what’s going on here,’ Wilson said. ‘What does Mel have to do with this?’
‘I’m not sure, Mister President,’ Ceri said, ‘but someone just started up the thaumic generator and that should have been impossible. It’s going to explode, probably within the next hour. It’ll take out miles of countryside. We have to leave, and we have to leave right now.’
‘She’s destroyed the lift,’ one of the agents, who now had his hands cuffed together, said. ‘There’s no way we can get out of here in time.’
‘Better hope you’re wrong, pal,’ Lily said.
‘Emergency stairs,’ Ceri said. ‘Move! We need to get the men out of the control room on the way up.’
The emergency stairwell was all grey concrete and reddish, emergency lighting. No one seemed to have bothered painting the steel balustrade and the steps were not exactly perfectly finished. They started at a half-run, but slowed fairly quickly; the stairs were steep.
‘What’s been happening?’ Eleanor Wilson asked. ‘We’ve been hearing a lot of things which probably aren’t true…’
‘No, they probably aren’t,’ Ceri said. ‘Basically your vice president has been staging a coup. We really don’t have time for this now. Save your breath for climbing.’
At level eight Ceri turned to Lily. ‘Control room is two doors down on the left. Get everyone out and then keep going up.’
Lily looked at her, a worried frown on her face. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I need to see the generator room, Lil.’
Lily nodded, leaned forward, and kissed Ceri briefly on the lips. ‘If you don’t get out of here alive I’ll kill you,’ she said, and then turned to head into the base and find the control room.
‘What are you expecting to find in the generator room?’ Nita asked as they climbed.
‘Mel,’ Ceri replied, ‘or whoever is behind this.’
‘I thought Levy was behind this?’ Wilson said.
‘No…’ Ceri said, her tone musing. ‘No he’s as much a pawn as these two monkeys. Someone else is running this. Pulling strings. Someone no one would notice.’
‘Mel?’ Wilson sounded incredulous. ‘She’s been with me for five years, since before I got into office.’
‘Oh, I think someone’s pulling her strings too.’ They had reached the level seven landing and Ceri reached for the door handle. ‘You’ve got a long way to go, but if Captain Ash did his job you should get help before you get to level two. Get out of here and keep going.’
‘What about you?’ Eleanor said.
‘I think I have business with someone who very much wants to meet me,’ Ceri said. ‘Don’t wait.’
The door to the generator room stood wide open and Ceri could see the swirling light of the energised containment circle through it. Whoever, or whatever, Mel was she had to have had a reservoir of thaumic energy to raise the circle. Unless she was a sorceress or a suicidal dragon, but that seemed very unlikely.
As she got closer she could see Kent’s body lying on the floor just inside the door. Where his chest should have been there was a charred hole. The poor bastard must have stayed behind to guard the generator. Not bothering to draw her pistol, Ceri summoned energy into her palm and slid through the door, not sure what to expect. Wallace was lying on the floor just outside the cage, or what was left of him. Ceri’s nose wrinkled at the stink of burned flesh in the room. “Mel” seemed to have been rather annoyed with his failure.
‘He had one, simple, job to do,’ a female voice said from inside the cage, ‘and he could not even manage to do that.’
‘Mel, I assume,’ Ceri replied.
The woman Ceri had seen before emerged from the cage; small, attractive in a girl-next-door sort of way, with short, dirty-blonde hair and blue eyes. She was dressed in a new, grey skirt-suit though the jacket had been tossed aside to lie on the floor near Wallace’s body. Mel smiled. ‘I think we both know that Mel is not at home right now. You can see more than most, Ceridwyn Brent. What do you see here?’
Ceri blinked her Sight on. The colours of the circle changed as she began to see the field as magic rather than visible light. It was leaking far more than she would have expected. Either “Mel” was really bad at raising containment circles or the null magic field was having an effect. She turned her gaze on the other woman in the room. A wild mass of white filaments were wound around both of her medians. The bridge between her Anahata nodes, her soul, was especially densely bound. Mel had been possessed; that seemed the only explanation for it. Ceri felt sure she knew who by.
‘Is this what would have happened to me?’ Ceri asked. ‘If I’d given in entirely. Is that what she did?’
‘Yes,’ “Mel” replied. ‘Mel has been most accommodating. It took little effort to seduce her. Far less than it did you. And she gave herself up completely to the pleasure while you held part of yourself back. No one has ever done that before. Your will must be… extraordinary.’
‘It wasn’t my will, Gadriel. I had faith in my friends finding me, especially Lily. She’s an extraordinary woman and no matter what you could offer me, you’re no match for what she gives me just by saying my name.’ Ceri grimaced. ‘That was kind of sappy. Sorry, but you are supposed to believe in love, right?’
‘I’m a great believer in love,’ Gadriel said through Mel’s lips. ‘I’m also the Angel of War and that is my primary concern at the moment.’
‘You aren’t going to get your war. When this thing goes off it’ll be like nothing anyone’s ever seen before. It’ll blow a hole in the East Coast. Tons of rock will be blown into the atmosphere like a huge volcano. The sky will go dark, the climate will be wrecked. The United States will be too busy dealing with the resulting chaos to fight anyone.’
‘They will be ripe for conquest, then,’ Gadriel replied.
Ceri sighed. There was no point in arguing anyway. ‘Gadriel, I’ve no idea whether you’re Fallen or just plain bat-shit insane. Tell Mel I’m sorry.’ She fired the bolt of energy she was still carrying straight at Mel’s chest and bolted for the door. Behind her there was a scream which turned into a roar as Gadriel evacuated from the dying body. It was cut off as she slammed the door closed and sealed the bolts. Summoning her power, she planted her hand on the metal door. Light flared across the surface as she sealed the room. It would not keep the angel caged for long, but she needed a head start.
Turning, Ceri started running for the stairs.
~~~
The upper floors were empty when Ceri finally made it to the top. They had to have started evacuating as soon as they realised the generator had come online. There were no closed doors, nothing to stop her as she hea
ded for the nearest exit, but her muscles felt like red hot lead and her breath was coming in ragged gasps.
Reaching the outside she pulled in a deep lungful of fresh air and then started half-running, half-hobbling toward the road. She had an idea which might save them, but she had to get to the edge of the null zone before Gadriel stopped her. She had no doubt he was out of the generator room by now and coming after her, but he could move no faster than she could. Unfortunately, he could move through solid objects and she could not.
As she ran for the boundary she could feel him behind her. It was no kind of supernatural sense. She felt like a rabbit being run down by a wolf. She could feel the hot breath on her neck. And that was crazy since the creep did not even breathe. Her lungs were burning, her vision was narrowing, but she pushed onward. Another hundred yards. She could see the edge of the zone ahead of her, a shimmering field of thaumic discharge as high speed null thaumitons met a suddenly increased Super-magic field. Not far… Keep running…
Something that felt like a gale force wind slammed into her back and she went down, rolling across the badly maintained surface like a rag doll. She struggled to her feet, trying to focus, and saw Gadriel materialising a few yards away. He was doing the full-on angel thing; chainmail robes, a nimbus of light, wings of roaring flame which spread out wide from his shoulders. Ceri pulled herself upright and backed away from him.
‘Why do you fight me, Ceridwyn? Why do you waste your energy in this fruitless running?’ He got no answer, Ceri just continued backing up. ‘I can give you so much. I can save you from this explosion. I can bring you power you would never believe.’ He followed her, pace for pace, but still got no answer. ‘Stop walking, Ceridwyn,’ he said, a hint of irritation entering his tone. ‘Stop walking and speak to me.’
Ceri stopped. She could still see the angel, but he was obscured behind an iridescent wall of energy. ‘There’s nothing you can offer me,’ she said. She saw his mouth opening and got in first. ‘I have more power than you would ever believe. But I’ll show you. The world would be a better place without you, angel, and I’ll prove that, even if it kills me.’
She raised her hands, resting them against the non-existent surface of the null zone. Power burned through her, more than she had ever drawn in one go before. It was not quite like raising a circle, not exactly, but the surface of the zone flared white and, to her eyes, seemed to harden. Gadriel slammed into that surface, an indistinct shape inside the white wall, and Ceri staggered back a step before falling. She heard the sound of Gadriel beating his fists against the wall, and her name being screamed. Lily? Then the pain finally overcame all of it. The sensation of her insides melting under the pressure of all the thaumic residue in her body. The certain knowledge that she was going to die.
Part Seven: Peace
Washington, DC, March 7th, 2012
Heaven looked a lot like a hospital room. The only reason she was sure it was heaven was that Lily was at the side of her bed, holding her hand. Ceri coughed and rasped out, ‘I feel like I’ve been here before.’ The sense of relief flooding over their link was so intense that Ceri almost buckled under it. Lily said nothing back initially, she just stood and bent over Ceri, and kissed her hard. Ceri felt tears on her cheeks and was not sure whether they were hers or Lily’s.
When the kiss was finally broken and Lily sat back down, Ceri asked, ‘Why am I still alive?’
Lily helped her take a drink of water before she answered. It did feel good going down her parched throat. ‘The circle failed about five minutes after you put that bubble up, so the first reason you’re alive is that that worked. The explosion was contained. There’s a half-mile deep pit where that base used to be. A perfect sphere. It disintegrated everything inside the wall.’
‘Gadriel?’
‘I don’t believe even he could have survived that. It took thirty minutes for the sound to die down after the detonation.’
Ceri sighed. ‘And then?’
‘Sim,’ Lily replied. ‘He was with you for three days, keeping your internal organs from failing. The only people who could go near you were him and me. That was weird. Wild magic. There’s now a flock of rabbits with antlers running around Virginia. Nita’s skin turned blue when she got too close. Luckily that wore off.’ Ceri giggled. ‘Sim said you’d done more to save his swamp than he could have done himself, so he would do everything he could to see that you survived it. When you had got down to safe levels and your body wasn’t falling apart anymore, they brought you here.’
‘And here is?’
‘Bethesda Naval Hospital, Washington, DC. I’m supposed to go get a doctor when you wake up, and they’re supposed to tell Wilson. We’re practically next door to the Whitehouse.’
‘Please don’t. I feel fine and I’d rather be with you.’ Lily smiled. ‘Lil… I thought I was dead.’
Lily leaned forward again and kissed Ceri gently on the lips. ‘Don’t be silly, love. You can’t die. Not without me. I won’t allow it.’
~~~
The other two people Ceri really wanted to see turned up in the afternoon, by which time various tubes had been removed and she was feeling even better than she had.
‘Seriously,’ Ceri said, ‘catheters are really not fun.’
‘I think that’s too much information,’ Hoffman said, smirking.
Nita was standing beside him, rather closely in fact, and they both looked rather relaxed about the proximity. ‘Three months bed-ridden after a riding accident when I was twelve,’ Nita said. ‘I know all about it. Aside from that, how are you feeling?’
‘Eager for news,’ Ceri replied. ‘Levy?’
‘They have him under arrest in the Navy Yard,’ Hoffman said. ‘The army divisions in Arkansas have been pulled back. We’ve been able to get most of the people he had in the FBI and Secret Service. The CIA is proving a little more difficult.’
‘From what we have so far,’ Nita said, ‘the infiltration into most of the organisations was various key people, not rank and file.’
‘I’m afraid there’s going to be a bit of a witch hunt,’ Hoffman said sourly; Ceri cringed at the term. ‘The people he recruited were devout Christians, mostly Catholic. Anyone who’s been open about their beliefs is likely to come under suspicion.’
Ceri grimaced. It was human nature to categorise and then persecute on that basis, but it did not make her feel good, especially when she had been part of making it happen. ‘Wait, you said you had Levy in custody. What about Angelica?’
‘She’s in a sort of custody too,’ Nita replied.
‘She’s in the morgue downstairs,’ Hoffman clarified. ‘When they came to arrest them she went nuts. Put three men in the hospital, one in the morgue. She finally went down when someone put a bullet in her head. I guess you were right about her not being human.’
Ceri nodded. ‘If she was a Nephilim… well, they were supposed to be “great,” beings of power. Some say God sent the Flood to get rid of them.’
‘Sounds like not taking her alive was a lucky break,’ Nita said. ‘When do you get out of here?’
‘Assuming nothing comes up, tomorrow,’ Ceri replied. ‘Then I’ll have to face talking to presidents and crap like that. I’m not looking forward to it. Lily’s staying at some hotel in the city. I’ll be going there.’ She paused, a slight smirk developing. ‘And where have you been staying, Nita?’
Hoffman’s cheeks coloured. ‘Ed’s place,’ Nita replied without a hint of embarrassment. ‘His bed’s really comfortable. Haven’t slept much.’ Hoffman went scarlet.
February 8th
There was a nurse standing over Ceri’s bed, barely visible in the light from the rune mounted over the door. Blinking away sleep, Ceri squinted. Something felt wrong. For one thing, the woman was just standing there.
‘Nurse?’ Ceri said.
The woman moved suddenly, clamping her hand over Ceri’s mouth. There was a flare of magic and Ceri’s body stopped responding to requests. The hand moved away from
her mouth and the woman spoke. ‘Can’t have you raising the alarm, can we?’ Angelica Levy? Wasn’t she supposed to be dead? ‘I’d imagine they told you I was dead,’ Angelica said as though reading her mind. ‘It’s very hard to kill the child of an angel. In fact, you’d need to be God to do it, and God is on my side.’
It had taken the Great Flood of biblical legend to kill the Nephilim the first time around. Ceri was pretty sure Angelica had been dead when they brought her in, which meant she could come back, unless…
‘You destroyed our plans,’ Angelica went on; she did seem to like the sound of her own voice. ‘It took a lot of manipulation to get Joshua into the Whitehouse and now he’s useless. I’ll probably have to kill him before he gives too much away.’ Her voice went colder. ‘And you killed my father. I don’t know how, but I feel him gone. The Church wants you alive, but you’re too dangerous. I’m going to kill you now.’
She reached out again, this time with a hand which glowed a faint green. Ceri did not like the look of it, but she was ready now. The water which had been forming out of nothing in the corner of the room and flowing toward Angelica reached the Nephilim’s leg, and began to flow upward. Angelica gasped, pulling back and looking down.
‘Water? You’re attacking me with water? Are you mad?’ Her hand reached out once more and then the rising column of liquid wrapped around her head. Angelica staggered backward, the glow vanishing from her fingers as she clutched at her watery mask, but more and more of the liquid collected over her face. She staggered backward, slammed into a wall, and began to slide down it. Ceri lost sight of her; perhaps there was an imploring look on her face, perhaps anger. Ceri kept holding the water in place until the paralysis spell finally wore off and she could sit up.
Angelica was sitting against the wall, her arms slumped at her sides, twitching. Ceri watched her until the twitching stopped and then reached for the call button.
Thaumatology 07 - Eagle's Shadow Page 21