The Arcana

by Matt Hiebert

  V.

  Upon the disk, the woman who is the World and the man who is now the Hermit, join us.

  I am the only veteran in the Hand, the only one with a single second of experience. Somewhere, someone is trying something new. There is always at least one fresh face in the crowd, but usually not this many.

  As we rise into the air, Borges enters the great room and watches us float through the ceiling. A lit cigarette hangs from his lips. He’s not supposed to smoke in the Enclave but he does all the time.

  The Chariot can reach any spot on the planet in a matter of minutes. The sudden velocity of the disk makes my stomach lurch like I’m on a roller coaster. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but I’m not.

  I look over the members of the Hand. The World wears a familiar expression of fear I have seen many times before. The Hermit looks more determined than afraid. Anxious, but focused. For some reason, he raises my confidence a notch.

  Justice is trembling as if she’s out in the cold without a coat. Her hand bounces on the hilt of the blue sword. Her eyes are wide circles, open as far as they can go to take everything in. She stands on the forward edge of the disk looking ahead.

  She will be leading us into battle. Soon we will hang on her every word.

  We arrive at our destination in seconds. It is in America again, close. I look down on the city below. Fingers of land jut into a webby delta of brown and blue water. Herds of buildings and a tangle of streets cling to an abrupt shoreline. As the French colonial architecture comes into view, I realize we are over New Orleans.

  I went to New Orleans once for Mardi Gras when my wife and I were first engaged. I drank way too much that week.

  Thousands of reptilian Imps fill the streets dressed in spikey armor and carrying a variety of ironically occult weapons. Blasts from their bone guns illuminate the faces of buildings like flashbulbs. Some carry flaming whips made out of fire. I see the stuttering retaliation of machineguns from human soldiers who have taken position behind a line of scattered cars. Helicopter gunships rain bullets down into the horde indiscriminating tearing apart the street and historical facades.

  I am extremely worried about what I’m seeing. This is a swarm fight, the largest I’ve ever witnessed. No one on the disk possesses a power to counter this kind of attack. I can fork my lightning bolts and take out a few hundred with a lucky shot. I’ve done so dozens of times before, but never against a force this large. My one shot won’t put a dent in their forces. I scan the streets and alleys below, looking for a place to hide until I’m needed.

  As the disk descends to the edge of the chaos, Justice takes the Chariot by the elbow.

  “No! Take us up. Over there.” She turns and points toward the south. I see her face. There is no longer fear there. Her gray eyes have hardened into steel ball bearings.

  The Chariot swoops over the northern edge of the city. Water churns beneath us.

  “Set down right there,” Justice commands. I cannot tell what she’s thinking. The battle is a mile away.

  “World, get off here and wait for my instructions,” she says. Without question the World steps from the disk into an area that looks like an empty industrial park or warehouse district of some kind.

  “Okay, take us in,” Justice says and pulls the all-cutting sword from the sheath upon her hip. Cold blue flames ripple from the blade.

  Adrenaline pounds through me. My mouth is filled with sand. I feel my heartbeat against my breast bone. The World is the only other major hitter besides me and we just dumped her off in the middle of nowhere. The Hermit does little more than give advice, and Justice is a frontline fighter who can only kill so many demons at a time. I am now the only artillery in the Hand.

  Something is wrong.

  We rise into the air for a brief moment and descend to the edge of the fight, which has moved forward as the human soldiers retreat.

  One of the officers sees us.

  “They’re here! Fall back!” He shouts.

  We’re here. To do what?

  “Come on!” Justice commands and I follow. We step off the disk and the Chariot flies away.

  Ahead of us, a line of demons advances as the soldiers retreat. The demons are falling over each other to move forward, an approaching wave of talons and teeth. Imps are the lowest caste of demons. Aside from their fangs and claws they are no more powerful than human beings. But there are a lot of them.

  The front line is armed with the bone guns. They fire and a swath of retreating soldiers is shredded to bloody meat. Fiery mandibles and femurs protrude from parked cars and uniformed corpses.

  “You two wait here,” Justice says to us. Before I understand what she’s doing, she charges into the line of monsters as they are reloading.

  The Hermit looks at me bewildered. He can see the future and he doesn’t even know what’s going on. I am shaking so badly I can hardly stand. Justice has lost her mind. The fear has driven her mad, made her suicidal. We are leaderless. We watch as the child confronts the onslaught of Imps. She is a speck of pink against a gray tide of rage.

  The demons converge around her and I know she’s dead. Without thinking I rush to help, to pull her out of the mob, but an eruption of body parts stops me midstride.

  Justice is a blur. She leaps and spins and flips, swinging her sword madly. Arms, legs and heads fly into the air. I have never seen anything like it. The child is a whirlwind of carnage. Ten Imps fall with every blow.

  The demon line breaks. They can know fear, and watching them drop their weapons and run sends a shiver of courage up my back. I start to summon my power to help.

  “No!” Justice shouts, sensing my effort. “Run! Go to the World! Let them follow us!”

  I turn to the Hermit, seeking some kind of affirmation that the command is correct, and he is smiling like he’s at Disneyland. He sees something I don’t.

  We run and I curse myself for not losing some weight. The Hermit’s twenty years older than me and many yards ahead. It reminds me of the old joke: I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to out run you.

  After a minute, I stop to catch my breath and turn to see Justice behind us, the mob of berserk demons screaming at her heels. She is leading them on. I see her mouth moving and I know she is giving the World commands remotely. The leaders can do that kind of thing. It’s like radio. We can hear their voices in our heads.

  The demons are closing. A blast of red-hot bones just misses me. I feel its heat on my face.

  “This way!” the Hermit shouts and dodges down a narrow alley.

  Justice follows and the demons are on us. She spins around to face them at the choke point of the alley. The Imps crowd the narrow opening in a frenzy, pushing each other forward. Her sword is a lawn mower against the onslaught. Chunks of hamburger and black blood splatter the brick walls and pavement.

  I step further down the alley and my feet splash in something wet. Frothy water is pouring into the alley from the street. It hits my ankles and is up to my shins by the time I reach the corner.

  The flood rises quickly. A few feet down the street I’m slogging against a strong current hitting my knees. Soon, the water is up to my waist and I can barely move. It reminds me of the nightmares where my limbs are weighted and I cannot run. Except this is real.

  “Chariot, now!” Justice screams.

  The Chariot swoops into the narrow backstreet at forty-five degrees, crouched on all fours so he can fit the slot of the alley. We jump and cling to the disk like it’s fly paper. Justice barely makes it, catching the rim with her free hand and dangling loosely from the edge as we shoot above the rooftops. We pull her onboard and I can’t help but stare. I am stunned by her performance. I have served many Justices, but none who fought like that. She is inspiring.

  I notice the Hermit is smiling at me. For a second I’m afraid he’s gone nuts. He leans over and whispers into Justice’s ear, who nods in agreement with whatever he said.

&nb
sp; I look down and see that the streets have become rivers. Debris travels down them in growing clumps. Parked cars yield to the current, becoming buoyant and banging into streetlights and buildings.

  Ahead I see the World standing on a warehouse roof, arms outstretched before her. A torrent of whitewater pours through a wide gap she has opened in the levee across the parking lot. She is flooding a portion of the city.

  We pass over her without stopping.

  I look at the horde. They struggle against the waist-high deluge to get to us. What is Justice trying to do? Drown them?

  At that moment, the Hermit steps toward me and pushes me off the disk. I am shocked and feel myself plummet to the earth. I didn’t know we could leave the disk against our will. Then I land on something solid many feet above the ground. It is riveted, metal lattice, solid and firm. I realize I am on top of a drawbridge tower.

  Justice stands on the disk with her fists on her hips, legs set wide, covered in black blood. She does not look like a child, but a tiny berserker Amazon, or some species of miniature Valkyrie. A warrior without fear.

  “Summon your power. Strike the water in the center of the swarm.”

  And now, all is clear.

  I stand and bring forth the Tower. Clouds clench into fists and form a vortex in the sky.

  Blue arcs of raw energy twist and coil from the metal of the bridge and converge within the center of my chest.

  I look down upon the horde. There are ten thousand demons coagulating in the open area of the industrial park. They push against the rushing waters trying to get to me before I can do my thing.

  They are too late. I bring down the fire.

  The bolt is as fat as a battleship; a jagged pillar of blue-white might reaching from beyond the sky.

  The strike lands in the center of the water-locked multitude. A shockwave blasts a ring of mist outward from ground zero. Thousands of the demons turn to smoke at the touch of my power. The ones on the outer edges of the blast are burnt to a crisp by the teravolts of electricity surging through the water.

  In a split second, the screaming horde is silenced. The floating bodies of dead demons clog the streets.

  I am a swarm fighter after all.

  I watch as the World reseals the levee. The parted earth closes and the flow of water stops.

  The battle is over.

  No one is dead.

  Chariot swoops down and scoops up the World then comes for me. When I hop on board, Justice is still standing on the front edge of the disk with her hands on her hips, looking forward.

  I try to remember. When was the last time everyone came back alive?