by Jamie Davis
Another explosion ripped through the building. Plaster and dust rained into the lobby. Overheads flickered and died. A Duster sergeant came up from downstairs, saw Elaine and Maria, then crossed the room saluting.
“We just lost the second building. Morgan set off the charges in the basement passage between here and there. That’s it. We only have the few who made it back.”
Elaine nodded. She swallowed. Then, to Maria: “Who was holding Building Two?”
“Cricket. It was where we had most of our stores. It’s where he wanted to make a stand.”
So matter-of-fact. Another friend lost with barely a flinch.
The destruction had numbed them.
But Elaine could only allow herself to feel a little, because otherwise she’d have to feel it all.
Garraldi had almost been lost when the first building fell, and was only saved by an injury that had him back in the main hospital with the last of the wounded before they blew the tunnel. Bullock stayed back with the rear guard and was presumed lost. Garraldi was probably gone. Supplies would be soon. And the injured were cargo to store down below.
“We need more time on the force field,” Maria said. “Tris needs our help.”
“Who’s left?” Elaine said. “She’s reinforcing it herself right now, with two techs. The rest are burned out. Maybe for good.” She looked around the depressively empty room. “Not that it matters much anyway.”
Maria grabbed Elaine’s arm and spun her around. “Stop it. Winnie will get here. She’ll bring help. We have to hold on a little longer.”
Elaine lowered her voice. “What could she possibly do? She needs to stay away. Gather her forces elsewhere. Cleaver can take her in up in New Amsterdam. But this place is lost.”
“I’m not giving up without a fight, Elaine! And neither are you. So let’s get down to the basement and do whatever we can to buy ourselves time.”
Maria tugged Elaine to the stairs and then to the basement below to where the wounded were lined along the floors. A few menders moved from patient to patient, doing what little they could.
Elaine and Maria picked their way carefully across the floor, avoiding bodies. They reached the central room where Tris and the techs had set up the force field spell. The three of them were standing around a glowing ball of energy, holding hands, staring into the swirling mass of magic, pouring every last drop of their power into the field.
Tris looked away from the center with a grim smile. Her eyes were sunken. She looked half dead. Pushing as she had, she had redefined what it meant to be human.
Elaine rushed over and stood in the circle.
“In theory, with the field constantly shrinking, it should take less energy to maintain,” Tris said. “But it’s overloading, anyway. We just don’t know how to fight what’s attacking.”
“The chanters we have left are spent. There’s no one left.”
“Can we help?” asked a voice behind Elaine.
Elaine turned. Fiona and Jacob were standing with Frannie and Parnell.
They looked beaten, just like everyone else.
“Fiona, you and Jacob should go back to the room where you were hiding. I’ll be there soon,” Elaine said, trying not to frighten them.
“You need power to hold the dome in place. I just heard you talking about it. No one has asked Jacob and I to do anything. We aren’t tired at all.”
Elaine looked at Tris.
Was it right to use children in this way?
The strain was incredible. She was already feeling her scant magical energy leeching away from her control. She could never ask the children to do this.
“Don’t give up Elaine,” Jacob said. “She’s coming soon.”
Elaine blinked. The boy hardly ever spoke, preferring to let his sister do it for him.
“What do you mean, Jacob?” Elaine asked.
“Winnie,” the boy smiled. “She’s learning how to save the world. Once the Lady is finished telling her, Winnie will come back and help us.”
“How can you know that?” Maria asked.
“I’ve been watching her.” The boy averted his eyes, embarrassed. “Everyone kept talking about where she was and when she’d come back. So I decided to find her. I closed my eyes and thought about her really hard and there she was with the Lady of the Lake. They’re talking about something far away from here.”
“Can she see you, Jacob?” Elaine asked.
“No, she’s in the land of the Fae right now. That’s how the Lady can show her all the times—the past, the present, and future. She’ll be here when they’re done.”
Fiona nodded. “That’s why we want to help with the shield. We have to keep the monsters out until Winnie gets back.”
Danny and Morgan rushed in. Something crashed upstairs.
“They’re battering at the doors upstairs and trying to climb in the windows. We don’t have long.” Danny was holding a rifle. He had a bandage tied across his head and a seeming river of blood oozed from an open gash.
“I’m not sure if there’s anything else to do up there, so we ordered everyone to retreat to the basement levels,” Morgan said. “Tris, can you pull in the shield after everyone gets down here, so it just covers the basement ceiling?”
“I’m running out of power.” Tris looked around. “We all are.”
“Let us help,” Fiona insisted.
The twins broke into the circle. And then they were all holding hands.
Elaine had seen these two do many things over the last few weeks, but it seemed they still had some tricks up their sleeves. Their bodies were practically glowing.
Tris and the other two techs were now glowing, too.
The children were refilling the others, like a charger refreshing a battery.
Elaine felt rejuvenated, energy than she’d felt since the fighting began flooded through her body.
“The Fae magic is the hope and life and renewal,” Fiona said, sounding far older than she was. “It is harder to hold the magic without hope. You have to believe.”
“Do you believe now?” Jacob asked the circle.
The circle nodded.
“We do.” Tris looked at Elaine, then Maria, Danny, and Morgan. “We can hold this basement for a while. Pull everyone back here. We’ll be safe until Winnie comes.”
Elaine detached from the circle along with the twins.
Tris and her techs were practically crackling.
“Come on,” Elaine said. “Let’s get everyone down here. We’ll blockade the steps with everything we can find, then let the field do its work. Frannie and Parnell, join the circle with Tris and the techs.”
The couple nodded and wearily joined the circle
Danny looked at Elaine then grabbed Morgan’s hand. “I’ll head up and spread the word. Maria is any of your security team still around?”
“A few of them are here somewhere.”
“We need to hold the stairs long enough for the two of us to get everyone out from the upper floors,” Danny said. “Then we’ll all pull back down here and block the way behind us.”
“That works,” Maria said. “I’ll round up my remaining team and meet you in the lobby.”
The three of them left. She felt a tug on her sleeve and turned to Fiona standing at her side.
“Don’t give up, Elaine. It’s going to be alright. Winnie is coming. We have to be ready to help her.”
Elaine nodded. “I won’t,” she said.
CHAPTER 38
Winnie stood then froze, awed as the mists swirled around her.
Darkness wrapped its arms around her. She blinked, and then was standing back on the shores of the mist-shrouded lake with Victor and the Lady of the Lake. The sun was peeking over the horizon just beyond the lake.
How long was I there?
Brigid was back in her white robes, hovering above the water.
Winnie tried to speak but words wouldn’t come. “Brigid,” she said, finally finding her voice. “You have an unreasonable f
aith in me.” Winnie raised Excalibur. “This sword is too great to rest in my hands.”
“That is not your choice to make,” Brigid said. “We had faith in Merlin’s blood line. Our faith is in you.”
“There must be some other way to help my friends.” Winnie blinked, losing a tear. “This is too much.”
“We will not return you to battle unaided, Guinevere. The time may never come to draw Excalibur.”
Winnie shivered. “What else can we do?”
“I have sent a call to my lesser Fae brethren.” Brigid waved an arm behind her. Mists over the lake twisted and spun, gusts of wind kissing surface. “The call was answered. Now aid is on the way.”
Winnie and Victor turned toward the mists as trumpets brayed and drums boomed from somewhere far away.
The mist parted and the first armor-clad Fae stepped through. Then he marched across the lake towards the trio on the shore. He was followed by dozens of others. The ranks quickly swelled and they kept marching until they lined the shores to either side of Winnie and Victor.
There were at least three hundred Fae warriors, all of them armed. Most carried swords or axes, though some held short recurve bows. All were clad in shining breastplates and chain mail shirts that hung to their knees.
Brigid gestured to the host of Fae on either side of Winnie and Victor as she drifted backward across the lake and into the mists. “These are those of my kind who would stand side by side with the holder of Excalibur and her champion. They will obey your orders, Guinevere and Victor. All are experienced at fighting the Fell and its hordes. They await your command.”
And then she was gone, leaving them standing on the shore with the small army of Fae. Large eyes, pointed ears jutting out from beneath their helmets, tiny, shapely noses—all of them staring.
Winnie cleared her throat. “Army of the Fae, we need you. My friends are under attack by the Fell. There are men with modern weapons. And creatures of unspeakable evil. Without you, we’re finished. Can you help us?”
They whooped and hollered.
They raised their weapons high.
They turned the darkness inside her lighter.
Winnie almost wanted to laugh—an unexpected, welcome response.
Victor put a hand on her shoulder. She turned and was surprised to find him smiling. “Time to get back, Winnie. I want to know what you saw, but right now our friends are waiting.”
“Right, but first we need to see what’s happening at the Fort.” Winnie sketched a thin silver line and drew a window in the air, opening to Brick Fort.
She looked through and her blood froze.
She’d expected to see Duster forces behind the walls, still battling the Fell’s beasts outside the brick fortifications. Instead, there was only destruction.
Bodies—human and beast—littered the ground inside the walls.
Winnie turned the window as if panning a camera across the landscape, until she reached the area around the hospital’s three central buildings. The two outer structures were on fire and mostly destroyed. The larger, main building was surrounded by a roiling mass of the Fell’s creatures, scraping and clawing to get inside, fighting to climb over each other and gain access to the structure.
She wanted to cry, scream, fight—do something.
Winnie turned, feeling helpless only for a moment.
The she tried something that might be impossible.
The Fae magic was so strong, richer than anywhere else. And Winnie filled herself to the brim. She walked several paces to her left with her hand raised, sketching a large, thick glowing blue outline, curved beside the lake.
She’d only fashioned small, temporary portals that opened from place to place, able to transport a limited number of people. But with the power she had access to now, so close to the Fae homeland, she could maybe make a larger portal a gateway to Fort Brick where she and the Fae could catch the creatures attacking the fort from the rear.
Winnie tapped the center of the glowing blue outline with a fingertip.
Nothing happened.
But then the air between the thick blue lines shimmered and changed.
Winnie found herself staring at the main hospital building, behind the creatures surrounding it.
A feral grin found her face. She raised Excalibur high and swept it forward with a guttural cry that could have only come from her depths.
The Fae army shouted their war cries behind her, and then they rushed forward, following Winnie and Victor through the portal.
The creatures never knew what hit them.
A few of the beasts heard them coming and turned to face the wave of warriors. Winnie thought of her friends. They must be trapped inside that building. Her mother, sister, boyfriend, and her best friend were a hundred yards away on the other side of this horde. Worry turned to anger at the Fell, and at Kane for sending monsters to savage the innocent.
A hundred feet away, Winnie stretched out her free hand and channeled some of the stored up magic she’d gathered by the lake.
A blazing white bar of light shot out from her hand, expanding until it was six feet wide. The blazing light hopped from body to body, striking demons in the back, and sending them into blue flames and raining ash.
The magical attack cut through the beasts until it was spent.
Then Winnie, Victor, and the charging Fae reached the battle up close.
The armored Fae warriors on the opposing force broke like a tidal wave over the unsuspecting enemy. The rear ranks were swarmed under by the angry Fae ripping through them.
Winnie led the way, swinging Excalibur with a vengeance, fueled by the magic coursing through her veins. She spun and slashed with all of her might, destroying her enemies by blade and by magic.
The Fae rallied and followed Winnie’s freshly cut channels, through the horde of snarling creatures, their blades falling against the scaled bodies on either side.
Winnie lost sight of Victor as she held her ferocity and rampaged through the swarm of bodies. Nothing was more important than reaching the steps, getting inside and aiding her besieged friends.
What if I’m too late?
Just feet from the doors, the charge finally slowed.
Ancestral hate coursed through the demons and creatures.
Winnie had carved a wedge into their forces, but now the mass of beasts were pressing in on them, more and more creatures turning to face their ancient enemies.
Winnie snarled. She wouldn’t be denied.
Her reserves were tickling empty, but she still had what would have to be enough.
Winnie inhaled, then released a semicircular, waist-high blast in front of her, nearly knocking her down from the kick.
It tore through everything in its path, to the open doors and into the lobby beyond. The spell created a twenty-foot-wide cone extending outward from Winnie that left every summoned creature cut in half and left dead or dying on the steps.
Winnie charged until she reached an awkward barricade of furniture in a crescent around the basement entrance. On the other side, her mother, Danny, Maria, and others poked their heads up from beyond the barrier to see what had happened to their attackers.
She shouted, overcome with relief, smiling as tears coursed down her cheeks. Danny climbed over the barrier and jumped down and ran into her arms.
Winnie had finally made it.
CHAPTER 39
Victor lost sight of Winnie just moments into the battle.
He tried to keep up, but she was carving away two and three of the beasts with every one he managed to kill with either his pistol, or more often his touch, calling upon his ability to dispel magic and the summoned creatures.
A Fae knight—a woman with silver hair and exotic features visible under his helm—was fighting by his side. He blanched at the savage grin warping her elegant features into a rictus of death-dealing fury. She too was killing two of the creatures for every one he put down.
It didn’t take long for their momentum to sta
ll and Victor found himself in a desperate series of hand-to-hand combat encounters with every sort of nightmare and monster. Fortunately, Victor was usually able to dust the creatures with a single strike or two, but he was still taking too much damage from the constant attacks.
To his right, the Fae Knight was yanked to the ground by a pair of demons, their claws rending her armor asunder as she screamed. Victor tried to fight his way to her, dispelling creature after creature to reach her.
But he was too late. The knight disappeared under a mass of demons pushing in from all sides. Her screams grew muffled, until they died.
Anger raged through Victor.
He’d just lost his temporary companion and Winnie was up ahead somewhere, fighting alone.
He doubled his efforts, dug deep enough to keep pushing forward, hacking and slashing, and killing his way to the entrance.
Victor didn’t draw on his magic like Winnie. His power was inherent to him and was borne from his will, and right now that will was stronger than it had ever been.
He looked up from his fight and saw Winnie standing just below the entrance steps, unmoving.
Victor wondered if Winnie was injured, but then the beasts exploded in gore, cut in half at the waist. The halves fell away to the ground on either side of Winnie, leaving a broad opening just ten feet away.
Victor yelled for Winnie to stop, to wait for him, but she bounded up the cleared steps and disappeared inside.
Victor kept going, killing the trio of demons between himself and the steps. It wasn’t hard. They were dazed and covered in the death of their brethren, destroyed by Winnie’s spell.
He reached the open steps ahead of some Fae warriors, running up behind him to search the open lobby. He saw Winnie hugging Danny, tears streaming down her cheeks.
He wanted to find out if Morgan was alright, but needed to secure this entrance first. Victor turned and called out to one of the nearby warriors, directing others on the steps. “You there, what’s your name?”
“I am Percival, son of Lancelot. How may I aid you?”