by Tom Doyle
Vasilisa pointed emphatically at the window. “You go.”
“You want me to kill myself,” said Dale, “so Roderick doesn’t come here.”
“What is problem?” asked the Russian, brow furrowed. “Break window, step out, problem gone.” She gave a forced little smile.
“I’m missing something here. Do you think I can fly?”
“Yes, yes, you fly.”
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, but Mortons can’t fly. Maybe glide a little, but not down this.”
“Is stupid!” She looked at her watch. “Time is up. You hurry.”
“We need to use panglossic.”
“Fine. Very stupid, but no difference now.”
Dale said, “Panglossic,” Vasilisa said something else, and a small flash of craft came from both of them. Vasilisa continued speaking, but now she sounded like a particularly erudite and exasperated professor. “You idiot! Look. Some of my spetsnaz colleagues and I have had a disagreement with the Oprichniki on detaining you, a very strong disagreement. We want you on the scene, yesterday, and we’ll deal with any fallout.”
Dale heard the noise of an approaching copter. Against the night sky, a patch of greater darkness moved toward the window.
“Despite our measures against your captors’ monitoring, they will have detected this use of craft and be on their way. Fortunately, we have only seconds to leave here anyway. We have already weakened this area of the wall. Break the fucking window!”
Dale focused on the copper-colored window, and visualized a strong pressure differential between the immediate inside and outside of the building. He put his hands to the ice-cold glass, gave a strong push of body and mind, and said, “Break!”
With a crack and a whoosh, the window and the whole section of capping material fell down toward the ground. Dale hoped no one was hurt; Vasilisa seemed not to care as she pushed Dale aside just in time to avoid two weighted fast ropes that shot through the window from the copter’s open side door. Dale stood on the narrow shelf and wrapped a rope through his feet and held firm to it, while Vasilisa first removed the weights, then prepared her own rope.
Behind them, the door to the suite was opening. They had timed this a little too precisely for Dale’s taste. No room for error, and there was always error.
“Now go!” shouted Vasilisa, giving him a shove forward.
With a hop, Dale and Vasilisa sailed into the cold Moscow night. The helicopter dropped slightly with the sudden weight. They swung down, under, and then behind the moving copter on their his-and-her lines, as if the building itself were trying to pull them back.
They dangled in the open frozen air, but they didn’t remain still. Even before they had stopped swinging, Dale went into combat craft mode to speed his climb up the fast rope. A caving ladder or a basket would have been nice, but they were relying on his skills, and he wouldn’t disappoint.
A snap of air, and a tug against his jacket, flapping in the wind. Damn, he’d liked that jacket, and now it had a bullet hole through it. Above the wind and the rotors, the explosive retort of rifles echoed through the airways of the night, and a couple of shots pinged off the copter’s armor. His former captors were shooting at him, and shooting at their own too. This gave Dale a bad feeling beyond the usual concern for his own safety or that of his rescuer. Was this division part of what Roderick wanted? The bad guys’ fire was craft-impelled, but in combat mode Dale had instinctively skewed the ballistic probabilities, and the bullets snapped the air in curves around him. But he hadn’t had enough craft to save the jacket. Damn.
Behind him, a louder explosion than the guns. Dale wondered about those line weights that Vasilisa had left. The copter slowed, allowing the ropes to swing closer to plumb, and Dale felt his line being drawn up even as he continued his climb. After some more long seconds, hands reached down to help Dale and then Vasilisa into the copter, which accelerated again, away from the skyscraper and Moscow.
Instead of a greeting, a spetsnaz man said, “Her English is shit, yes?” in his own rough accent. The spetsnaz probably had money on the answer, which from the narrowness of the timing was self-evident.
Dale had had enough of internecine conflict. As he sat down, he asked, “We’re not going all the way to Kiev in this, right?”
“Go to base, near Kubinka. From base, jet to Kiev.”
“Aren’t you worried about pursuit?” asked Dale, pointing behind them, and repeating for emphasis. “Pursuit?”
The spetsnaz chuckled grimly. “Who chases Morton in air?”
He had a point, but he was still wrong. The pilot reported that a couple of other copters were already in pursuit, and a jet would be on them in seconds.
It was nighttime, so the public wouldn’t see. Dale focused. “Storm shield,” he said, and a cyclonic spherical shell of wind formed around them, moving with deadly swiftness at its interior peak, but giving a fair warning of turbulence at its edges. Here comes the twister. A favorite spell, but one he used rarely because of its demands.
Despite Dale having done what no other weatherman in the world (save perhaps Roderick) could do, the spetsnaz seemed disappointed. “Why not lightning? Why not crash them?”
“I don’t want to kill them if I can help it.”
The spetsnaz waggled his open hand. “A few is no problem.”
I bet, thought Dale. “Already a few, back there,” he noted.
“That was flash bang. No big deal. But I understand.”
Vasilisa, silent until now, grabbed Dale’s arm for attention. “I’m a little busy here,” he said.
“You will kill him?” Even in panglossed Russian, she still wasn’t speaking Roderick’s name.
Already feeling the fatigue of his work against their pursuers, Dale said, “Yes.” Because the longer Roderick lived, the worse things would get.
PART V
UKRAINE GHOSTS REALLY KNOCK ME OUT
Here, you may look in whatsoever direction you please, and your eye encounters scarcely any thing but ruin, ruin, ruin!
—Mark Twain
Camilla: You, sir, should unmask.
Stranger: Indeed?
Cassilda: Indeed it’s time. We have all laid aside disguise but you.
—Robert W. Chambers
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
A few believers might have interpreted a train blowing up and interrupting our carnal pleasure as a sign from God. Such believers were assholes. Yes, God wanted me pure. No, he didn’t kill innocents for that.
First we heard the blast and felt the rumble. The train car bounced once, hard. Then the world started to tilt sidewise to the right as we ran off the rails. Our limited baggage, the picnic basket, and the remaining food toppled onto us. The cabin shook horribly as the car skidded along on its side; it seemed to slide forever.
The train stopped. I smelled smoke and other fumes. Our window appeared to be our best exit. We were together against the cabin door and wall. Grace pulled her hand away from her head and it was a little bloody, but she didn’t seem to be otherwise hurt. “Let’s get out of here,” she said.
We stood up. We’d have to climb out. “Wait,” I said. I bashed my phone against the floor, which was now a wall. Then I opened the door a crack and slipped the phone out, shutting the door behind it. Some smoke slipped in, further encouraging a quick departure. The train’s injured and scared were yelling and screaming.
Grace checked her phone. “My GPS says we’ve just crossed into Germany. We’re near Aachen.”
“Great. Now drop that phone too.”
“Why?”
“Roderick. He’s got some kind of cyber-craft from his time in H-ring. He was able to turn my phone on remotely.”
She repeated my moves as if her phone were some scalding hot vermin. More smoke and screams came through the door. Time to go.
I lifted Grace to the window. I’m not sure the window was actually an emergency exit. Grace placed her hands on it, and like the window or lock to a
ny vehicle she encountered, the glass gave for her, popping out like a bad contact lens.
She peered out through the open space and, apparently satisfied that there was no immediate threat, was up and out. Cold mist drifted down on me. With her still bloody and now wet hand, Grace helped me up, and when I stood next to her on the side of the wrecked car, the world went fish-eyed with a stealth bubble. The bubble had irregular curves to it and didn’t seem stable.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“Still a little wibbly wobbly from the crash,” she said, sounding unprofessionally tipsy. Was she concussed? “I’ll cover both of us for as long as I can. Where are we going?”
My first instinct was to help the other passengers; I shared some blame for their situation. But before that, I had to make sure that I wouldn’t again be making them a target.
German border ghosts were keeping their watch on the Rhineland and on us, but they weren’t approaching. In the background of the screams and shouting, I heard a whirring noise and looked up. Multirotor drones circled above the wreck, one high up, the other close in, hovering over survivors. These weren’t little toys for the hobbyist; they looked military grade. But unlike the big fixed-wing Predators, these rotor jobs weren’t very fast. Only one way they could already be here—they were sent in advance. That meant the trainwreck was just our enemies’ opening move, perhaps just to soften us up.
The drones didn’t appear to be large enough for serious armament, though just one clean shot at close range would be a problem. The armed threat was on the ground. Two boxy-shaped unmanned ground vehicles were crawling rapidly toward the wreck on hybrid wheel/caterpillar treads. These camo-colored robots could have been for bomb disposal, but once again, they were far too early on the scene. Also, they were bulkier than usual for disposal work, and they each appeared to have a Gatling-style Minigun for one of their “arms.”
From somewhere—the drones, the robots?—an amplified voice was giving orders in a succession of languages. In English, it said, “Please remain calm and still. Help is on the way. Do not move from the crash site.”
Clutching his injured arm, a passenger ran for it. A robot fired ahead of him. The man hit the dirt. “Please remain calm and still…”
Once again, I was appalled at the effort Roderick and his allies had made to get me. Perhaps they had sent drones to avoid capture of their agents, but I think it was also to avoid my power of command. Sure, some humans on the other end were watching and listening, but my power of command was limited to the range of a natural voice. Otherwise, all sorts of craft would be transmitted wirelessly around the world. Perhaps Roderick had mastered that trick, but no one else.
The stealth bubble flickered, and Grace leaned against me. Trouble—her concentration and craft were failing. The lower hovering drone turned and whirred toward us for a closer look. One of the ground robots also used its treads to make a two-point turn and moved in our direction. “Help is on the way…” The robot raised its gun arm into a sighted alignment on us. Somewhere, many miles away, a human waited for the order to take the shot.
I knew from Roderick’s message who the real target was. So, I let Grace drop onto the smooth surface of the train. “What…?” she said, as I jumped away from her to the ground.
As I leapt forward and down, the robot’s rotor-gun spun, and shots filled all the places I’d been moments before. I rolled with my landing, and came up into a sprinter’s stance, ready to run as long as I could to give Grace time.
My hands and feet touched the ground.
This old, old ground. It was like kissing Grace all over again, only twice as powerful and no fun at all. I had lain exhausted in my Family’s house after giving everything and more in combat, recovering from wounds physical, mental, and spiritual. I’d felt the spiritual power of our ancestral place enter me and the Spirit heal me.
But here, I felt such a tremendous power that I thought I’d explode with it.
The robot had re-sighted on me, and the other robot was closing. “Do not move…”
Miles away, but I could feel them, the men and women who worked these machines. They were somewhere in this land; they were its natural subjects. As if I were some kind of herald of the Kingdom, I cried out in a loud voice. “In the name of the Lord of Hosts, you will stand down!”
Like shot birds, the flying drones fell out of the sky. The robots made some noises as they locked into a standby position. “Please…” they said. Then silence.
I scanned three-sixty for any backup threat. Nothing, but I wanted to keep giving orders. First, clean up this mess. Then, mobilize all NATO forces. Then, bring order back to the West. It would be so simple, like dominoes falling. Then I could bring God’s word back to the whole world.
A hand touched my trembling arm. Unheard, with her preternatural skill, Grace had left the train and stood next to me. “Are you OK? What do you want me to do?”
Like the whole world was asking that question. I was shaking with it. The rocks and stones themselves awaited my commands. It hurt so much I started laughing through the tears. To give my mouth something to do that wasn’t an order, I spoke to my enemy, my only true enemy, through clenched teeth. “Just because I wanted a little nooky, Lucifer, doesn’t mean the old ‘world for my soul’ deal is going to fly. Get the fuck to the rear, Satan!”
Like a flame sucked up by a tornado, the power left me. Grace and I leaned into each other. She whispered in my ear, “I do hope you weren’t speaking to me, dear.”
“No,” I said. “You’re an angel, but not fallen.” I knew my German geography as well as most experienced officers. From here, the closest international airport would be Frankfurt. Locals were starting to arrive on the scene—EMTs, firemen, press, and the curious. “We need a car,” I said. “Are you up to it? A very fast car.”
“That, I can arrange,” said Grace.
* * *
Grace stole a gull-wing Mercedes, and I drove it down the autobahn toward Frankfurt. Normally, she would have driven, as sports car racing matched her skill set, but she was probably concussed, so she let me take the wheel. I’d driven and flown all sorts of vehicles in all sorts of conditions, and if I hadn’t been in combat mode and worried about the traffic, driving at close to two hundred miles an hour would have been the most mechanical fun I’d ever had.
I repeated to Grace what I could remember of Roderick’s message. “Are there some pop culture references that I’m not getting?”
“Roderick appears to like the Beatles,” she said with desert dryness.
“He also blew up a train!” It had been like something I’d seen in battle. Then the realization hit me: this was now a war. Roderick had used conventional means, which could be blamed on conventional terrorists, so he wouldn’t immediately draw down the united wrath of the great powers for outing the craft, but this sort of display would have repercussions. Roderick didn’t seem to care.
I wasn’t sure how we’d get a flight in Frankfurt that he couldn’t find and attack; I’d leave that to Grace, when she’d recovered enough. I had another problem. “I’m a little concerned about this international power thing that I’ve been tapping into,” I said.
“Oh?” she said.
“I’m thinking that I’ll have to draw on it to fight Roderick.”
“That is a problem?”
“Yeah. The power, this last time, it wasn’t neutral. It made me want to do things. To make others do things.”
“Oh,” she said. “I like to do new things. And if you expect me to kill you to save the world, that isn’t going to happen.”
“Maybe just a little nudge back to reality?”
“I’ll find a way to distract you,” she said, closing her eyes.
Despite her head injury, I let Grace sleep—I’d wake her soon enough to check on her. Trying not to be distracted, I passed another two cars. Ahead was Frankfurt, and Kiev, and Roderick. He had killed so many innocents; had he already killed my friends? I had to stop him. But
who then would stop me?
* * *
Grace and I boarded a plane to Kiev. She had regained her concentration and her stealth, and our seats slid in and out of the flight attendants’s counts—whichever caused the least trouble. With this stealth and a short enough flight, Grace thought the odds were good we’d make it. I prayed she was right or that Roderick would be otherwise occupied; I didn’t want these passengers on my conscience if they died with me.
During the flight, we didn’t display much affection. Perhaps things were too new between us. Perhaps it was just me. Like Dale and Scherie, many other practitioners moved quickly into romance and marriage with the confidence of a spiritually fated love. My Family had always avoided this; we believed the risks of spiritual manipulation were too great to trust such sudden delusions of destiny. In the abstract, this made perfect sense, but it was hard to keep that cool perspective now that I was caught up in a spirit-driven something for the first time. I couldn’t deny it anymore; my heart was full of far more than a carnal desire not to die a virgin. My upright, logical center was lost in a sea of feeling for Grace, but the very strength of that feeling made me want to step back from our closeness. Did Grace feel this way too? As with anything important, I prayed on it, but that only seemed to make the emotions stronger, and that couldn’t be right, could it?
Grace looked at me, eyes filled with uncanny understanding and amused pity. “Poor boy,” she said, giving my hand a friendly squeeze. “You’ll figure it out.”
So instead of exchanging more affectionate words and caresses, we slept in the way that only soldiers who’ve learned desperation for rack time could. We could do nothing else, not even if someone decided to hit the plane.
My sword was above in the overhead rack. I’d used some strong suasion to get it through security, though the blade wouldn’t be very helpful.