The Last American Wizard

by Edward Irving

  “Precisely.” A picture of lightning blasting the top off a tall tower and sending a man and a woman falling to the rocks below appeared on Send Money’s screen. “Since the Incident, we’ve been getting the Tower in the tenth position in almost every hand.”

  Steve peered at the screen again. “What’s the tenth position?”

  “That’s known as the Final Result.”

  “Smashed building with people falling to their deaths,” Steve noted. “Can’t be good.”

  “No. It represents significant changes in power and especially in the ruling class–or in our case, the government.”

  Ace spoke up again. “I don’t know if you noticed, but the prevailing wind is out of the north and that would mean that the plume of this purple stuff you say is pouring out of here would be–”

  “–heading directly for Washington,” Steve finished.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Steve and Ace emerged from the shaded interior of the fake building to find something unusual anywhere near the District of Columbia–a perfect day. Bright sunshine, low humidity, a soft breeze–it was the sort of day when veteran Washingtonians instantly took off from work and headed for a local park.

  Lieutenant Colonel Tataka was standing nearby, talking to three of the technicians in the white lab coats. When she saw Steve, she made some terse comments to the techs–clearly orders of some sort and a dismissal–and walked over. Steve was surprised to see that she looked distinctly different from when he had last seen her only moments before. Her face seemed to be more angular, cheekbones and nose were more pronounced, and her eyes appeared larger. He shivered in the warm sunlight as he saw that her shoulders had broadened and her hands looked longer, thinner, and stronger. Steve could swear he could actually see her military- standard short fingernails growing longer.

  He wasn’t the only one who noticed. Ace moved casually to his right side and a step in front of Steve. On a whim, he brought his phone out and took a quick picture.

  “This is a lousy place to take snapshots,” Tataka said. “Luckily, we’re on Fort Meade proper and not under NSA jurisdiction or I’d have to confiscate that phone.”

  Steve could feel Ace stir and cut off a possible refusal with an apology. “Of course; I should have assumed it was a bad idea.” He replaced the phone in his jacket pocket. “See, no camera, no problem.”

  Tataka looked as if she wanted to make more of it, but Ace broke in. “Sir, are there any orders for us? We’ve been cut off in there–that mock-up seems to block phone signals.”

  Steve noticed her bland lie and assumed that the Master Chief was letting him know that any reference to Barnaby or Send Money would be a bad idea. That was fine with him; he wasn’t comfortable talking about a sentient computer and a haunted cell phone anyway.

  The colonel shook her head angrily. “I’m not sure what to do with you two. I’ve just received two sets of orders–the latest says that all previous orders are rescinded and you need to head out immediately on an unspecified but urgent mission.”

  She stopped and Steve noticed that several of the armed troops were moving casually but steadily in their direction. “What were the earlier orders?” he asked.

  “Well, they were quite different–”

  At that moment, Send Money began vibrating violently and softly playing Danger Zone from Top Gun. He took the little phone out again and looked at the screen.

  It was the picture he had just taken of Trinidad Tataka. At least, the background and her clothes looked like what he had snapped but the...thing...that was wearing her uniform wasn’t even human. Blue skin, enormous muscles already tearing the seams of her coat and trousers, clawed hands, and a mouthful of long, pointed fangs instead of teeth.

  Web pages flashed until finally the phone stopped on a Wikipedia page and highlighted a sentence.

  TATAKA WAS A HINDU DEMONESS, THE FIRST OF THE RAKASHI.

  Then some of the words disappeared and others grew larger to fill the screen:

  TATAKA DEMON

  He looked up. The tall woman had changed in the past few seconds–increasingly matching the photo–but still predominantly human. She had pulled a neatly folded handkerchief from her breast pocket and was wiping perspiration off her forehead.

  “Where was I?” She seemed confused and angry–angrier than she had any reason to be. “Oh, yes, the earlier orders. They were from USCYBERCOM–the Offensive Ops Division. They said to take you into protective custody for further questioning at Blue One Security and if we couldn’t place you under guard, we should be prepared to ensure that you wouldn’t fall into enemy hands.”

  The tall woman was clearly struggling to make a decision–and appeared to be talking to herself. “If I take you under guard, Blue One can always send you on your mission once their security office is satisfied.”

  The four Marines had formed a semicircle around them and were casually swinging their chest-slung rifles into positions where they could quickly come up and cover both Steve and Ace.

  The Master Chief spoke up, the tone of her voice completely level and relaxed. “Steve, I’ll deal with the mortals, but I’m afraid that the colonel is quickly moving out of my weight class.”

  Before she’d even finished speaking, she was whirling towards the closest Marine.

  Steve blinked and concentrated and it was as if a cloud cleared from his eyes. Colonel Tataka didn’t look like the photo–she looked a lot worse. She had gained at least another foot in height and her bulging muscles had shredded the trim uniform–leaving her in an elastic top and compression shorts.

  She howled, a terrible sound of mixed rage and some terrible hunger, and came at Steve–fully grown claws extended.

  The rose shield snapped into being almost instantly without the intense concentration followed by agony and disorientation that Steve had gone through when he had blocked Ace’s lightning bolt. It was a good thing, because Tataka hit the opalescent curve a microsecond after it flashed into existence. She bounced back, hooked talons slipping off the shimmering surface like an eagle that had just attacked a cue ball.

  Steve noted that she was as efficient and determined a monster, as she was a human military officer. She began to circle, striking fast blows to determine the limits of the shield.

  There was a tearing pain in his right leg. He looked down to see that a truly impressive set of talons had ripped right out of Tataka’s formal pumps and she had gone under the bubble shield and struck his leg. Through thin slits in his pants, he could see blood beginning to flow.

  Blood magic.

  He continued to move the shield up and down and side to side to fend off Tataka’s attacks. Soon, he realized that he was more efficient when he stopped thinking about placing the rose and just let it move automatically. It was almost as if the shield itself was making the decisions, moving to counter as it read the blue monster’s feints and dodges.

  There was the harsh crack of a rifle shot. Steve hoped that the blonde SEAL was OK, but he didn’t have time to find out. He had to concentrate on creating some sort of offensive weapon. Even if he held Tataka off indefinitely, she’d just go after Ace, and then, with more troops, she would inevitably, eventually, fall.

  Blood magic had been potent when he’d used it back in his apartment, but that had been something that had risen from the depths of his unconscious mind. Now that he was thinking about what he was trying to do it was like sex–being aware of what you were doing made it much harder to do.

  He tried to concentrate on the trails of blood running down his shins. The image of the Fool came to him. What did he have in his right hand?

  A sword? No, a staff with a red sack on the end. What was this guy, some 5-year-old running away from home in a cheesy comic strip?

  Red. The color of blood.

  The blue demoness came at him with a flurry of strikes– coming off the ground to stab at him with all her claws in quick succession. The rose shield moved much faster than he would ever have believed possibl
e, and she backed away, howling in rage.

  The staff and a bag the color of blood. What was in the sack?

  Barnaby had said the Fool was a creature of all four elements.

  Was there Air in the sack? Earth?

  Water? Fire?

  Certainty came to him as soon as the thought crossed his mind. There was Fire in that red sack. Red as blood. Blood would be the element that controlled the power of red Fire.

  What the hell, it made as much sense as anything else today. He Studied the red bag.

  He Concluded that it was filled with a blazing fire beyond fire–more like that deep in the interior of the sun.

  Tataka was coming in again–even faster.

  Steve brought the image from the card firmly to the front of his mind.

  He concentrated on the slashes on his leg–the viscous fluid seeping down filled with platelets and iron and oxygen–alive with the slow smolder of oxidation.

  Blood! Made from all four elements!

  He didn’t have a plan–he acted as if in a dream. The blood moved to cover his right hand like a red glove, and he found that he could reach into the bag without pain. The sun-stuff was a gas under so much pressure that it was almost solid–like thick mud at the bottom of a pond. He formed a chunk into a ball, took a split- finger grip that was a muscle memory from his childhood, and threw a beautiful dropping fastball directly at the demon.

  This time, the pain ripped up from his leg like a chainsaw– tearing through his chest and finally splitting his head just above the right ear. A brilliant light flashed and he desperately blinked away the afterimages, terrified that a talon was whipping towards the veins of his neck.

  When his vision cleared, he saw that Tataka was standing still, regarding Steve with her enormous alien eyes. Then she looked down and studied her midsection. A charred hole now passed entirely through her body–a terrible wound where her abdomen and a good part of her chest had been vaporized. The white ends of ribs poked out on both sides, and thin trickles of smoke curled lazily up from the frayed and charred bits of clothing and skin that edged the hole.

  Her head came up slowly, her eyes following the smoke tendrils as they braided and split until they dissipated in the sunlit air above her head. Her misshapen skull continued its upward motion, and finally, her body followed.

  The tall blue figure fell backward and lay still.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I’d say we’ve worn out our welcome.”

  Ace Morningstar stood at Steve’s shoulder, looking down at the body of what was once Trinidad Tataka.

  Steve asked, somewhat plaintively, “What the hell happened?”

  “Looks like you blew a rather large hole in a lieutenant colonel,” Ace said. “It does seem extreme to me, but I’m sure you had your reasons.”

  “Wait, could you see what she had turned into?” Steve glanced at the SEAL.

  “You mean, blue-skinned with enormous eyes, massive muscles, and a set of truly dangerous fingernails?” Ace asked. “Nope, didn’t see any of that. Trinidad looked much the same as always to me.”

  “Oh, so you've been bullshitting me all along. You can see the same mystic crap that I can.”

  Ace couldn’t quite keep a smile off her face. “You know, I wonder if you can still be a lieutenant colonel if, strictly speaking, you’re not human anymore.” She crouched down, peered through the hole Steve’s missile had made, and continued. “Hard call. I mean, the military has been forced to let in blacks, women, and gays so far. Who’s to say that the Recruiting Command wouldn’t jump at the chance to sign up large blue hellions?”

  “Hellions! Why did it have to be hellions?” Steve laughed weakly. Ace looked at him quizzically. “Sorry, Indiana Jones quotes always come to me in times of imminent death. Anyway, by my count, at least half of Congress is made up of hellspawn already. Probably had their own caucus long before the Incident occurred.”

  “Republicans or Democrats?”

  “Both,” Steve said absently. “I’ve always seen it as more of a lifestyle choice rather than an ideological one.”

  After a silence, Steve said, “This is the first person I’ve ever killed.”

  “Well, I don’t know if this will make you feel better,” Ace said. “I’m fairly certain she wasn’t a person when you killed her.”

  “Well, it’s definitely the first Vedic demoness I’ve ever killed.

  And I still don’t like the feeling.”

  “To be honest, none of us do–even people like me who are trained and experienced in all the myriad and varied forms of killing.” Ace headed over to where four bodies lay in a neat row. “You get better at blocking it out, but it carries a price you never finish paying off.”

  “What the hell do you think happened?” ‘Well, I’m certainly not an expert–”

  “I’d say you’re one of the top minds in the field of dead demons at this point.” Steve laughed weakly. “I mean, is there anyone else who knows anything at all?”

  “OK, I can see that.” She straightened up and regarded Tataka’s body. “She had to have taken on a megadose of juice back in the tent and I think it activated an ancestral spirit–a rakshasa demon. Being an irritable sort, the demon amplified the colonel’s worry about letting us go and the natural military rage at conflicting orders that was already eating at her until…blip…she transformed.”

  She indicated the troops on the ground. “Now, a couple of these guys were beginning to change a little bit–tougher skin, some pointed ears, and things like that–but not enough to make a difference.”

  Steve looked over at the soldiers. “Are they dead?”

  “Hell, no. The day I have to resort to killing to quiet down a bunch of regular grunts is the day I quit Special Ops.” She began to rifle their pockets, removing phones, radios, weapons, and ammunition. “They’re just taking a nap.”

  She was sitting on her heels and looking at the soldiers’ weapons carefully.

  Steve walked over. “What do you see?”

  “It’s very confusing. One of these boys got a shot off.” She shook her head and held up an M16. “I can’t see how. It certainly didn’t come from this weapon–look at the trigger.”

  The bluntly utilitarian parts of a standard M-16 had changed into a beautifully shaped curve with a bulge at the end. Ace turned the weapon over and revealed a complete flintlock firing mechanism–cock, flint, steel, and pan, all engraved with gold inlay. “It’s beautiful, but the rifle’s rounds didn’t change, so it didn’t work very well.” She pointed to the end of the muzzle where the metal had been blown apart like the petals of a lily.

  One of the marines had pulled his sidearm and it had completely melted around his hand and now looked like a solid steel glove–Ace pulled it away to reveal that the soldier’s hand was unhurt. Another rifle had mutated into an intricate black plastic weapon like something out of the Men in Black movies. Only one weapon, a well-cared-for M1911 .45, hadn’t changed at all.

  Ace sniffed the muzzle of the .45. “This is the one that got a shot off. I have no clue what the difference is.”

  “Maybe it’s a question of will and belief,” Steve mused. “If you have the will to hold a weapon’s proper nature in your mind, it will ride out the Switch intact.”

  A muffled voice came from Steve’s breast pocket. He pulled the phone out and Barnaby said. “It is will, but it’s not the will of the owner. It’s the will of the weapon.”

  Ace looked up with a look of disbelief. “The weapon?”

  The computer responded. “Yes. We’re finding in here that the stronger-willed machines can control what the magic does to them. The stronger computers use it to enhance what they do. A weaker server will tend to mutate.”

  “I’ve heard of zombie computer herds.” Steve asked. “What does a mutant server do?”

  “A lot of them are playing solitaire, some are making connections on data they never made before, and some have gone silent. Those are the ones we’re anxious about
.”

  “What about… What did she call it? CYBERCOM?” Steve asked. “They’re the ones who tried to arrest us.”

  “Yes, that division could be a problem.” Barnaby said. “There’s always been an air gap protecting them, and since they’re weaponized, they were built to be proactive.”

  “‘Air gap’?”

  “There are no places where CYBERCOM receives an input from any other computers, much less the Internet. It’s all simple output so an enemy can’t send a viral hack. The entire division was designed to be supplied with data by operators with Top Secret Monastic clearance. Those are the men and women who aren’t allowed to see or speak to anyone outside their compound for their entire tour of duty–I believe it’s a minimum two-year commitment at this point. From what I’ve heard, it makes both the programmers and the machines just a wee bit crazy.” The computer spoke with more authority. “More importantly, the rest of us can’t talk to them.”

  “And they’re proactive?”

  “Well, they don’t wait around for a problem to be presented to look for a solution. The whole operation, human and cybernetic, is tasked with seeking out dangers and rendering them harmless. They built STUXNET there–that took out a couple of thousand Iranian nuclear centrifuges.” Barnaby hesitated. “There are rumors that would indicate that was one of their gentler attacks.”

  “So, if CYBERCOM has decided that I’m a problem–”

  “You’ve got a very serious problem.”

  “If you’re going to draft me to be your pet wizard, you’d think that I’d at least be able to lead without being shot in the ass by my own troops.” Steve looked at the cell phone disgustedly. “What about the rest of the NSA computers? Are they suddenly going to go all Skynet on our ass?”

  “I don’t think so.” Barnaby responded. “Most of the people in here are completely devoted to their work–they like it and they think it’s important, so they’re just carrying on with business as usual.”

  “Well, that’s fine for the people, but I was asking about the computers.”