Invasion: Book One of the Secret World Chronicle-ARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  * * *

  Frieze went mind-blank with utter terror, a blur of fire in his scope, and a terrible fire in his mind.

  You are a wicked man, Jonathon Frieze, something said in his brain, which was nothing but the truth. The choices that led him here had uniformly been bad, beginning with the wanton slaughter of wildlife with a BB gun at age five, an adolescence and adulthood of torturing animals and his fellow humans, the decisions to murder, and ending on this rooftop, a contract killer in the employ of Blacksnake.

  But, as was predictably the case, he had rationalized all those choices. He told himself that he’d had no choice, for those situations he could not rationalize. In his own mind, he was justified, a hero.

  But now he could not rationalize that anymore. That fire that caught around his vision and then felt like it seared into his skull, lit up everything in his mind equally. The tricks and deceptions were as plain as the choices he had made, and their results. Nothing that helped him cope in years past worked anymore. Suppressed memories were as plain as ink on paper. Painful realities that had been drugged or drunk away were clearly defined. The truth was burning his mind.

  He recoiled, letting go of his rifle. Scrabbling away on his belly, he was desperate to get as much distance as possible between him and the terrible weight on his mind. Without realizing it until it was too late, Frieze went over the edge of the water tower, whimpering pitifully as he plummeted to the rooftop, and then got up and staggered to fall off the building to the asphalt below.

  * * *

  Seraphym watched as the sniper followed the rifle over the side of the tower.

  Felt his life end with a wet, muffled crunch on the pavement below.

  And that too, was his choice.

  She banked her fires, bowed her head, and sank down to the rooftop, giving over a moment to mourn, for the death was also hers.

  That was her choice.

  * * *

  John’s gray shirt was soaked with blood from the stab through his abdomen. He was bleeding out, with blood flowing freely from the entrance and exit wounds. The sword hadn’t hit a vein or an artery, but it didn’t need to. You could bleed to death just as efficiently from an injury like this one. He had used up his “blow-out kit” to try to stop the bleeding; these emergency medical kits were normally used on gunshot wounds, though. He was dying, and he knew it. His heartbeat was speeding up, and he was getting dizzier and weaker with every step in the driving rain.

  The circumstances being what they were, John couldn’t help but to think back on his life, to growing up in Virginia, his parents, school and friends. He’d had friends once. And a life. Graduating college and joining the military, with his retired Army father and stay-at-home mother proud to see him in uniform. Basic, Rangers, and then later being lucky and skilled enough to make it into the famed Delta Force. Several tours of duty, some in the Middle East and South America…and then the Program. The changes there, and…her. Escape, and then five years on the run from everything and nothing, but mostly himself. And here he was. With nothing much to show, nothing much accomplished, and all of it ending in a rain-drenched street.

  Well, that wasn’t true. He had genuinely helped some people: the people back at the bar when all of this started, some scattered and lucky souls he had found in the rescue work of picking through wreckage, and the people of his neighborhood, his adopted “territory.” There were also the people he had killed and maimed—no small number, in the last few months. He didn’t enjoy killing, but he didn’t do it casually either. The lives saved and the lives taken all added up. A good tally for just one dumb jerk. A good ratio.

  John was starting to gasp for breath: “air hunger,” since there wasn’t enough of his blood to carry oxygen away from his lungs. He didn’t have much longer, but his feet continued to carry him onwards. Those implants: they’d keep him walking after he was dead, maybe. John Murdock, Zombie. Braaaaaiiiinssss. The hilarity of it was too much, and started him laughing. He didn’t have the breath to do it, but he laughed anyways, which gave way to hiccups. He laughed even harder, and must have been a terrible sight. Except there was no one out here to see it. If a dying man gets the hiccups in a toad-strangler rain, does anyone hear it?

  He was stumbling more than walking, now. He had a general idea of where he was going, but was getting to the point where he was past caring. Sitting down and resting seemed like an increasingly good idea. But he was stubborn; he knew that if he stopped now, he’d never get up again. So, he kept walking. After what seemed like forever and then some, he reached his destination. It was a worn-down office building with an adjacent warehouse on the edges of the factory district. The door for the office building had been replaced with a sturdy metal one that looked like it belonged in a bank vault. Over the top of the door was a red star with Cyrillic letters in gold in the middle of it, the letters looking like CCCP. That wasn’t what they were of course, the letters really stood for esses, not cees, but ninety-nine rubes out of a hundred wouldn’t know that.

  John staggered up the concrete steps, almost slipping and ending his comedy right there. He made it to the door, one hand clutched at his side as he slammed a free fist against the heavy portal. The last of his strength used up, John fell to his knees, hand still holding his injured side.

  “Keep your shirt on!” came a muffled voice from within—good English? It puzzled him. There were several banging and clunking sounds, a curse, and the door was hauled open with a harsh scrape. John was bathed in light and warmth from within, and he squinted up at the female silhouetted by the glare.

  “Jeebus Cluny Frog!” said the woman, who dropped to her knees beside him. She knocked his clutching hand aside, slapped her own where his hand been and bellowed at the same time. “SOVIE!”

  John chose that time to slip into unconsciousness. Good ratio…for one guy…

  * * *

  To say CCCP had welcomed Bella’s help was simplifying the situation. Red Saviour seemed to have a certain amount of respect for her, possibly because Bella stood right up to her, but Red Saviour was not going to admit that CCCP needed help from anyone. Not even from Moscow, let alone nekulturny capitalist.

  Sovie—Soviette, the CCCP’s official doctor in residence—had been only too happy to have her, and welcomed her with open arms and an amazingly generous nature. CCCP had opened a free clinic along with their soup kitchen—both of which were understaffed—and even if Bella had not been a healer, she still would have been a translator and an extra pair of hands. As it was, she was working from the time she hit their door to the time she walked out of it.

  Even now, in this deluge of a rainstorm. She was setting up first aid kits at all the doors, and jump bags too—because if an emergency came up, you might not have the time to run up the stairs to the third-floor infirmary. She was right beside the front door, double-checking the contents of both, when the hammering started.

  After practically jumping out of her skin, her main reaction was of annoyance. What idiot would be out there in this weather? The locals all knew to come to the free clinic entrance around the side. Surely it wasn’t another snoop from City Hall, not after Saviour had run the last one off with a crowbar.

  “Keep your shirt on!” she shouted, irritated, as the pounding continued. With a curse, she began wrestling with the half-dozen door locks, some of which seemed to date from the time of the Caesars. Finally she got the last of them unlocked, and hauled the heavy door open, wincing as it scraped the concrete floor.

  The light from behind her poured out over the man, half kneeling, half falling over at her feet. She didn’t need the red-stained rain pooling around him to tell her he was hurt, and hurt badly. Her own senses screamed it.

  Shocked, she dropped to her knees beside him, pulled his clutching hand from the wound in his side, and felt her energies being sucked away from her into that terrible injury.

  “SOVIE!” she bellowed, knowing that the man was near death, just by the way her power was pouring into
him, and that if he could be saved, whoever he was, no way she could do it alone—

  But then something made her tear her eyes away from her patient and look up.

  Just in time to see the fire-wreathed figure touching lightly down in the street, wings of flame outstretched on either side of her. Just in time to feel the touch on her own mind, and—

  —fire exploded behind her eyes.

  It was like turning on a water fountain to get a drink, and having a fire hose open up in your face.

  If she’d had any thoughts, they were completely washed away in the flood of…what the angel was. There was only this that was at all coherent: Heal him. Save him.

  And managing to isolate and grasp a tiny, tiny thread of energy, tiny in relation to what She was, though easily a hundred times the strength of what Bella and Sovie combined could do, she did just that.

  The angel nodded, as Bella mended tiny capillaries, knitted up muscle, stopped the bleeding, kick-started the man’s own body into replacing the lost blood at an accelerated pace. She felt the heartbeat falter a moment, then skip two beats, got ready to kick-start that too, but then it resumed beating on its own, steady and strong.

  It is well. Keep him there. Keep him safe.

  The overwhelming Presence left her mind. The angel arrowed upwards and was gone into the dark of the night. Bella was left alone in the rain, kneeling over the previously-dying man, wondering what the hell had hit her.

  “Blin!” said Soviette behind her. “Who this is—no, never minding. We must get him upstairs. Who and what and why and how can being wait.” And it was her turn to bellow, this time for the CCCP’s all-purpose workhorse, Chug, as Bella tried to catch her breath.

  And then came another touch on her mind.

  We must talk, you and I.

  * * *

  When John Murdock woke up, he initially panicked; he didn’t feel any real pain, which wasn’t a good sign. After what had happened to him, not feeling pain probably meant that he was dead or close enough. He could sense that he was still breathing, and could hear someone else’s heartbeat and the other little noises of life nearby. With immense effort, he cracked his eyes open.

  He was looking at the ceiling: an old-fashioned, embossed-tin ceiling that probably dated to the turn of the previous century. Someone had slapped a fresh coat of thick institutional-green paint on it. Some other wag had mounted a poster in the middle of it, of a Herculean woman holding a Soviet banner. He didn’t recognize her; she had bobbed hair but it was shorter than the woman he’d seen on the television and the costume was white with a red star on the chest.

  “You are wakink?” The soft, pleasant voice made him turn his head slightly to see the original subject of the picture on the poster coming to the side of the bed.

  She was stunningly beautiful, in the top-model-beautiful way that most metahuman women were. But a kind expression in her blue eyes softened what could have been cold beauty. Her black hair was cut in the same bob as the woman on the poster, but she was wearing a doctor’s smock and there was a stethoscope around her neck. Upon seeing her, John groaned as if in pain.

  “You are beink still hurt?” the woman asked, frowning slightly.

  “Naw. I just realized I’m in hell.”

  “Shto?” Her frown turned to puzzlement.

  “This has gotta be hell. There aren’t any pretty gals in heaven.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, then shook her head. “If is beink Amerikanski funny, am not gettink it.”

  With an effort, John propped himself up on his elbows; his wound didn’t hurt, but he was still fatigued beyond belief. He imagined that between his own implants and the half-dozen IVs running into him that he must be pretty well medicated at the moment. “Don’t worry ’bout it. If I’m not in hell, where am I?”

  “Is beink infirmary of headquarters of Super-Sobratiye Sovetskikh Revolutzionerov,” the woman replied, holding her head up with a flash of pride in her eyes.

  “So, looks like I stumbled to the right place. This is the CCCP’s HQ.”

  “Da, is beink—what you call CCCP incorrectly. And why you are beink fall on our doorstep, Comrade—?” She arched an eyebrow, inviting a name and a reason for being there. “I am beink Doctor Jadwiga Pavlova Tikonov, but am mostly beink known by callsign Soviette.”

  John regarded her coolly, sizing her up for a few long moments before speaking. “Murdock. John Murdock, pleased t’meetcha. To answer your question,” he looked down at his side, then back to her, “I got into a bit of trouble.” He tried to stand up then, and immediately regretted the decision; he swayed in place before the Russian woman steadied him. As resilient as he was, his body just had not caught up with the damage that had been done to it yet. He had lost a lot of blood; it was a miracle that he was still alive and breathing.

  John extended his hand. “Thanks, Jadwiga.”

  She didn’t seem to notice his hand, so he dropped it quickly to his side. In fact, she pushed him rather insistently back down onto the bed. She was a lot stronger than she looked. “Is not to be thankink me, Comrade Murdock. Was Amerikanski Comrade Bella Dawn is findink you like drowning cat on doorstep.” Jadwiga’s smile was rueful. “She is leavink me werry little to do.”

  “Sestra, is drowned cat ready for interrogation?” The woman that stalked through the open door was one he recognized. This was Red Saviour II, the redoubtable leader of this group, just as beautiful as Soviette, but with none of the softness. She looked down at John with her hands on her hips. “So, Comrade—”

  “Murdock,” Jadwiga supplied.

  “Murdock. Why is it you are here in my headquarters and not in decadent Amerikanski hospital, eating popsicles?”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure why I stumbled over to y’all. I was pretty out of it. Guess it has somethin’ to do with the sorta negative attention that ninja stab wounds get from the cops at regular hospitals. Plus, I don’t have the sorta cash to throw away on a hospital.” He shrugged and tried some flattery. “Heard from some folks that I know that y’all ran a free clinic. An’ that you were Reds, so y’all can’t be completely bad.”

  “He is dressed like sturdy worker, Commissar,” Soviette put in. “Perhaps enemy of the people ambushed him.”

  “Bah.” Before John or the doctor could stop her, she peeled off the gauze and peered at his wound. “Enemy of the peoples are carrying katanas now? Did you not pay your sushi chef, John Murdock?”

  “ ’Tis a scratch.’ Like I said, I got into some trouble.”

  “These hands, they are laborer’s hands,” Jadwiga added.

  Saviour frowned fiercely. The tattoo on his hand was an ouroboros: a snake swallowing its own tail. It was wrapped around the number 155, and done in bold, black ink. “This tattoo and these scars—are nyet what I see on common laborer, sestra—” And then she switched to Russian, and continued her sentence, speaking urgently and with some apparent recognition of what John’s scars might mean. The doctor kept shaking her head, causing Saviour’s frown to deepen.

  She glanced suspiciously at John, then tapped the tattoo. She switched to English. “And what is beink this?” Jadwiga tried to shush the Commissar, but she stared at John, still expecting an answer.

  John looked down at his hand and the symmetrical scars that covered most of his body before replying, deadpan, “Birthmark.”

  “Ho, ho,” Saviour said flatly. “Is beink Amerikanski comedian. Is nyet so funny. I am needink to know what has been dropped on my door. Jadwiga is soft heart of us. I am iron fist.”

  John shrugged. “To be accurate, I didn’t exactly force my way inside.”

  “Yes? And are you viper in fruit basket?” Saviour’s eyes brightened with anger. “I have obligation to protect the comrades, John Murdock. I have seen scars like these before, and am nyet to be lied to.”

  “He cannot leave, Natalya,” Soviette put in firmly. “And at the moment, he is nyet threat, either.” John allowed wisdom to prevail, and kept silent. If
they had examined him while he was out, they both probably already knew that that statement was false.

  Saviour turned her attention back to him. “Why here, Amerikanski? Are you here from CIA? FBI? NSA?”

  “Not exactly my sort of crowd anymore. I’m an anarchist.”

  “Nat.” It was a new voice from the door, one somewhere between a soprano and a contralto, a speaking voice that promised it belonged to a singer. “Chill. The Hog Farmers vouch for him.” The young woman in the paramedic outfit that stood in the doorway was also—clearly—a metahuman. There just were not a lot of blue-skinned, blue-haired people around that weren’t metas. “Besides, I got a decent read on him. He’s no threat.” At Saviour’s skeptical glance, the young woman sighed. “Come on, Nat, what can the CIA find out here that you wouldn’t just tell them?”

  Red Saviour gave the newcomer a look that would have burned a lesser being where she stood. “You scanned him.”

  “Da, I scanned him.” The blue woman added something. “On ne sostoit v pravitelstvennoi organizatcii nikakogo tipa.” It was in Russian. Finally Red Saviour nodded.

  “He can stay for now. But when he is healed—”

  “When I’m healed, I’m outta here.” Scanned? What was the medic talking about? Unless—John got chills down his spine. Was she a telepath? Had she read his mind? Weren’t there supposed to be protocols about that?

  “Out of here—maybe. We will see.” Saviour raked them both with her eyes, then shrugged and strode out. The blue medic nodded at Soviette.

  “Get some rest, doll. I’ll take over the infirmary for now.”

  The Russian didn’t protest, which might have demonstrated her level of weariness. She gave the blue medic an affectionate arm-pat as she passed, and a moment later they were alone.

  John started to get up. He wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do, but one thing for sure was that he didn’t want to be two seconds more in a room with the kind of telepath that would read his mind as ruthlessly as this woman implied she had.