Invasion: Book One of the Secret World Chronicle-ARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  Belladonna’s voice chirped in the woman’s earpiece. Red Saviour removed it with careful, nonthreatening movements. “Commissar here. Can you hear me?”

  “Yes. Is she injured?”

  “No injuries here, just one frightened devushka.” She surveyed the alley. “And no sign of attackers.”

  “Roger that. I’ll stay here with your…perps. They’ll live. I think.”

  “Horosho.” Red Saviour pocketed the device and turned her attention to the sobbing woman. “Victoria, please to be talking to me. Are you all right?”

  Her nod was almost imperceptible in the dim light, but the woman tried to squeeze herself into a tighter ball. Natalya searched her memory for her militsya commander Yvegeny Petrovich’s advice on agoraphobics. Perceived threats frighten them as much as real ones, he had said. They want to hide from the world.

  Thus Vickie had squeezed into the smallest space she could find. Deliberately, Red Saviour interposed her body between Vickie and the rest of the world. Their hair intermingled, and when their foreheads touched, and Vickie did not flinch, Natalya knew she had crossed a threshold. She slowed her breathing to match Vickie’s.

  “Is all right,” she said, wishing her English vocabulary contained more words of comfort. “Will be fine. You are safe.” She repeated the words: all right, safe, fine, okay.

  Her ungloved hand pulled Vickie’s gloved hand from her face and squeezed it. Victoria’s breath came in big gulping heaves, but her eyelids flickered open. For minutes, they held hands and breathed, while Red Saviour whispered the soothing phrases over and over.

  A rock fell off the nearest pile with a clatter that echoed in the quiet alley. Red Saviour leapt to her feet, fists aglow. Yet there was no one in the alley besides her and her charge.

  Another rock tipped off the mound as she watched.

  “I was scared…” Vickie whispered, and the shame in her voice became evident.

  Realization hit Natalya all at once: two attackers. Two piles of rocks.

  She dashed forward and struck at the pile. Concrete shards and asphalt chunks spattered against the alley walls. A human hand quivered in the dirt.

  “Oh, nasrat!” Using her power to blast away the stone, she dug the criminal out of the pile of rocks. Dirt clung to his skin and clothes. She felt for a pulse: weak, but present. With care she laid him on the ground and switched to the other pile.

  Dust and gravel fell from the man’s mouth and nostrils. Red Saviour could feel no pulse in his neck. Roughly, she cleared his passages. He hung limp in her arms. She spread him out and began CPR.

  After thirty seconds of compressing the man’s chest and blowing air through his filthy mouth, his body convulsed in a cough. She turned him over and let him vomit out the remaining material in his system.

  Belladonna’s voice came over the comm unit. Red Saviour answered it: “Commissar.”

  “How’s our girl?”

  Red Saviour glanced over at Victoria Victrix, who had unraveled herself to a normal sitting position on the ground, yet still had not raised her head to acknowledge her surroundings. Blue strobe lights reflected through the alley now. “She will be fine. Is perps you should worry about.”

  “What did you do to them?”

  “Saved their lives. You did not tell me our meek friend had aspirations to follow in Premier Khrushchev’s footsteps.”

  “Ah…what? Never mind. Atlanta PD are on the scene. I’m heading over.”

  * * *

  Belladonna drove them back to Victoria’s apartment in Peachtree Park. Red Saviour kept an arm around the woman’s shoulders as they walked her to the rickety elevator and escorted her to her door. A gray tabby hissed at them as Victoria pushed the door open with a shaky hand. He interposed himself between her and Red Saviour as though he were a protective parent. She shoved him aside with her foot and got a swipe as a reward.

  “Nice kitty,” she snarled. “Where is pest control?”

  “Sit her on the couch,” Belladonna said.

  Victoria Victrix tilted her head back and exhaled. Home at last, she relaxed for the first time since they had met her. The cat leapt into her lap and smothered her with purrs. She removed one of her gloves to stroke his fur—and despite the dim, incandescent light, Red Saviour noticed ugly mottling and knotty ridges on the back of her hand. And the fingers were almost skeletal.

  She tried not to stare, though her eyes could not resist swooping in for more visual clues. Instead, she scanned the woman’s bookshelves, crammed with the spines of both popular paperback romances and leather-bound tomes in unrecognizable languages, DVDs and CDs, all carefully arranged and orderly. They formed not a collection but a reference library.

  Belladonna brought her a warmed cup of coffee, which she accepted with her gloved hand.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sure you didn’t expect to have to babysit a meta tonight.”

  Red Saviour pursed her lips, biting back a reply. Belladonna smiled sweetly at the woman. “Part of our job. Just relax and decompress here. We’ll return the cruiser and file a report. About the arrests, that is.” The unspoken question hung in the air.

  “Da. You have earned your rest.” Red Saviour proffered a hand. “Was good to meet you, Victoria.”

  “And you.” Again, Victoria used her gloved hand. “I appreciate your backup. I—I have a lot of ramping up to do.”

  “Bring shovel next time.” Red Saviour winked at her. They left wordlessly, as if both were unwilling to let anything be said where others could eavesdrop.

  Back in the car, Red Saviour lit up a cigarette and savored the harsh bite of the Russian tobacco. “She is dangerous. Too much power, no control. Tesla must be desperate to activate so unreliable an asset.”

  “We need all the metahuman help we can find.”

  “Nyet, you do not understand me. Comrade Victoria is not metahuman, or if she is, is not where her power is from. Was magic that nearly killed those svinyas. Are you familiar with magic?”

  “I grew up in Las Vegas. Of course I am.”

  “Not trickery. Sorcery.” She uttered the word carefully, as though it were the very thing it described. “My country is ancient land. There are those unwise enough to explore the dark old ways banished by Orthodox Church. Do you know story of Rasputin?”

  Belladonna nodded, keeping her eyes on the road.

  “Nyet. You only know official story, which church issued to quell frightened population and to discourage curious workers from exploring same paths. Rasputin truly possessed magical powers gleaned from his research into ancient traditions. He was killed—with difficulty, as you know—to prevent him from spreading knowledge, but ideas carry on wind like seedlings.”

  She paused to draw smoke into her lungs as if to scourge a memory. “I have dealt with his kind, his inheritors. Magic is poison. We saw things—from our own minds—that cannot be forgotten.”

  “Hallucinations.”

  “Nothing so simple. I cannot explain it well—this is nature of magic. Cannot be explained, cannot be controlled. Echo would be well served to eliminate any practitioner of magic as precaution.”

  “Eliminate? You can’t seriously mean we should kill Vickie?”

  “Da. And cat, for safety’s sake. Is preemptive strike. She may be on your side now, but that is being almost as dangerous. Did she bury perpetrators out of fear or out of spite?”

  “Fear, obviously.” Belladonna cast her a sidelong look. “Besides, if magic is so unpredictable, that could be good for our side. I think you’re overreacting. If she’s Echo, it means she can be trusted.”

  “I only trust what I can control. Good intentions can change to bad with simple twist.”

  “And then there are people like me, who give trust to get trust.”

  “I am here to protect innocents like you.”

  “We ‘innocents’ are here to help you, or at least save you from yourself.” Belladonna started the car and pulled away from the curb.

  “Or so
you want us to believe.”

  “Jesus, Natalya, that’s some classic Soviet paranoia, there. The Cold War ended long ago.”

  Red Saviour raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Oh, how rude of me. I mean, Commissar.”

  The honorific hung heavy in the air. Passing streetlights animated the seat between them with sharp-edged shadows.

  At last Red Saviour smiled. “Natalya is fine, Comrade Bella.”

  * * *

  They found Nikolai, Worker’s Champion, and Alex Tesla standing at the lip of a crater partly obscured by rubble from the collapsed administration building. Crews had roped off the site into a grid. A metahuman with robotic arms dug patiently through the concrete and steel as construction workers directed halogen lamps to shine into the holes he created.

  Red Saviour introduced Belladonna to her father and Worker’s Champion. Both looked pleased when the blue girl greeted them in Russian.

  “Back so soon, my dear?” Nikolai kissed his daughter on both cheeks. The formal greeting made her suspicious.

  “I have seen enough. Mr. Tesla has much work to do to restore order in Atlanta. I am reminded of the work that awaits us back home.”

  Nikolai cleared his throat. “Da, da. Well, you see…about that, my Wolfling—”

  “You are staying,” Worker’s Champion interrupted. “Piotr Dzhavakhishvili will make the arrangements.”

  She stared at them, stunned. Her father gave her an apologetic smile and shrugged.

  “You—you are teasing,” she said in Russian. The ground seemed to cling to her, the Southern humidity a dewy net. “You cannot be serious.”

  Alex Tesla stepped forward to shake her hand. “I can’t tell you how much we appreciate your generous offer. They said you had suggested it on the plane ride over. Really, we’re touched.”

  She barely gripped his hand; her eyes never left her fellow Russians’ faces.

  “Since you two have had some time to get to know each other, perhaps Ms. Parker will be willing to serve as your liaison while your team establishes itself in the city.”

  Belladonna raised an eyebrow at Red Saviour. “I can do that.”

  Tesla offered his own weary smile. “As the man said, ‘this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.’ ”

  Red Saviour shook her head from side to side, slowly, as if denial could erase the terrible orders she was receiving from Worker’s Champion, her father, and by extension, the government itself.

  This was not reassignment—this was exile.

  Chapter Seven:

  Headhunters

  Dennis Lee and Mercedes Lackey

  In a lone cell deep within the shattered Echo headquarters in Atlanta, Red Djinni was coping with his latest crisis. He sat, motionless, and stared at a list of names clutched tightly in his hand. Across from him a hulking figure leaned against the cell wall, watching, his arms crossed.

  If only he would twitch a little, would reveal anything. In the short time he had known him, Red had conceded thatthis man, this Bulwark, was inscrutable. This worried Red, who had made a career out of reading people.

  Red went through the list of names again. It wasn’t a very long list. Even now, desperate for bodies to fill the void left by the invasion, Echo was only willing to go so far in lowering their standards for meta-powered personnel. Each name had a criminal record of some sort, but mostly misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. During Red’s short career in the metahuman underground, he had encountered many such individuals. While he was surprised by how many he had burned his bridges with, he was amazed to be presented with a near complete listing of their names. Bulwark couldn’t have concocted this list from Red’s records. If he had, Echo would have had enough to put Red away for the duration. If they knew all the details of Red’s life as a mercenary and thief, they wouldn’t have done this. They wouldn’t have been able to trust him.

  The list, as far as Red could see, was a compilation of people that he had completely screwed over. Criminals, all of them, and he was now charged with finding them, approaching them, and convincing them to be law-abiding supercops. He was convinced. There was a God—a God who watched, pulled his little strings, and laughed at his puppets with a keen sense of humor.

  At long last, Red looked up. His face, though cloaked by his signature scarf, couldn’t hide his resignation. He squinted up at Bulwark in disbelief.

  “You don’t approve?” Bulwark rumbled.

  “You have got to be kidding,” Red snorted. “How did you come up with this lot?”

  “From what was left of our data banks. These were the names flagged with potential for rehabilitation.”

  Red pointed at one name. “This guy’s an arsonist!”

  “He picked his targets carefully,” Bulwark countered. “He’s never actually harmed anyone. His psych profile suggests therapy may help.”

  “All right then—” Red tapped three more names. “Kleptomaniac; extreme, bipolar, wacky fun time; and this one has spastic panic attacks at the sight of her own super slobber.”

  “We don’t discriminate on account of mental disorders. We can help these people just as much as they can help us.”

  “You say that now. I wonder if you would feel the same after being on the receiving end of anxiety-induced hundred-mile-an-hour projectile vomit.”

  “I imagine I would,” Bulwark replied. “I’ll just stand behind you.”

  Red paused, and then chuckled. “Funny. When did you develop a sense of humor?”

  Bulwark shrugged. “I noticed you quell your opponent’s arguments with levity. I surmised the same tactics might work on you.”

  “Typical,” Red muttered, shaking his head. “Leave it to you to find the cold, calculating side of comedy.”

  “You will find them?” Bulwark asked. It wasn’t really a question.

  “I said I would!” Red snapped, his eyes falling back to the list. “I just don’t know where to start.”

  “Go by the numbers,” Bulwark suggested. “By location, who might we attempt to approach in one trip? Who might be the most amenable to joining an organization like Echo? Which are the most likely to earn our trust?”

  “Earn your trust?” Red said. “I hope that’s not your opening line.”

  “Unfortunately, it is. We can’t afford to get careless here. Oh, and speaking of—” Bulwark stepped forward and shackled Red’s wrist with a stout metallic bracelet.

  “The hell—?”

  With a soft click, the metal began to hum as tiny red-and-green LEDs flashed into existence across the inflexible band. After a moment, the humming and lights subsided. The bracelet, however, was locked tight around Red’s forearm.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Bulwark said, gauging the anger that flashed from Red’s eyes. “It’s just a tracer. Standard issue when we’re transporting felons. It’ll give us a lock on your position, in the unfortunate case that we get…separated.”

  Red took a few calming breaths. “I suppose this means you’re coming with me.”

  Bulwark nodded. “I am, and a few of my trainees. I figure this sort of field exercise would be of use to them.”

  “And you don’t think having a small army of Echo Ops descending on your quarry just might make them a wee bit skittish?”

  “Oh, we’re hardly an army; just a training master, a few rookies and one of their own—you. I think we’ll be just fine.”

  Red held up his arm. “And this? What if I don’t care for this arrangement?”

  Bulwark spread his hands in a mock gesture of helplessness. “Then we’re at an impasse. The tracer is not negotiable. It’s been hardwired with fairly stiff countermeasures. The casing is self-enclosed so you can’t pick the lock. If tampered with, the tracer will inject you with enough GHB to drop you instantly and send out an immediate location beacon. Now, if you want to renege on our agreement, you can stay in this cell until we get around to bringing you up on whatever charges we find.”

  Bulwark held up a hand, halting R
ed’s retort. “Yes, yes, I know, we can only hold you so long on charges. But I just had the most informative chat with some of our detectives. As you know, we don’t have much at the moment, but I’m sure we can pin something on you, given enough time. And wouldn’t you know it? We’ve got a state of emergency on our hands. This has given us license for a certain laxity in holding procedure. Who knows? This might drag on for years. What do you think are the odds of finding some damning piece of evidence on you, or stumbling across some willing witness if we applied enough pressure?”

  Bulwark didn’t wait for an answer. He turned and opened the door to Red’s cell.

  “We’re taking no chances, and you’re no exception. So where do you think we should start? I can have a transport prepped and waiting within the hour.”

  Red glared at him, and gave the list one last look. Bulwark watched him sag and knew he had won.

  “Detroit,” Red growled. “We’re going to Detroit.”

  * * *

  Descending from an altitude of 18,000 feet, Echo Transport 72 entered Michigan airspace after enjoying a turbulence-free flight with sunny skies. The carrier, resembling more a pregnant whale than the sleek, swift jets used by Echo’s rescue crews, was one of dozens brought out of retirement to fly daily allotment sorties spanning the continent. The invasion had crippled Echo in some cities more than others, and the quartermasters had been working feverishly to reallocate their remaining resources. Transport 72 was filled to capacity, a testament to the heavy losses experienced by the Motor City. Loaded with supplies, weapons and a handful of armored vehicles, the flight manifest would not have normally allowed for passengers. Bulwark had pulled a few strings. The Detroit branch office would have to do with one less APC, at least for a day.

  Huddled together between crates of burst rifles and ammunition, three Echo trainees lounged on makeshift seats. Scope, the oldest and most seasoned of Bulwark’s apprentices, had remained silent for the bulk of the trip. She seemed absorbed in repetitive cycles of dismantling and assembling her new sidearms, checking and rechecking that the parts were well oiled and calibrated.