The Ace of Skulls totkj-4

by Chris Wooding

  This was freedom. To be, and nothing more.

  ‘Jez?’

  He called for her in a human voice. This strange one, this denier. He had the gift but he wouldn’t open the box. He kept it closed and hidden away, and pretended it wasn’t there. But look at him, coming through the snow! How fast he moved, how easily he evaded the enemy as he tracked her by the trail of dead. He was more than human now, and he could be more still; but he was afraid. Afraid to be what he was.

  She loved him. She couldn’t help but love her own. But she pitied him too, like the runt of the litter.

  ‘Jez! Come back! You can’t fight them all!’

  But she didn’t want to come back. There were more men on the way, a dozen of them, a concerted force sent against her. These were organised and determined men, not panicked prey. They found their courage in unity.

  She recognised the danger, but it did nothing to deter her. She was drunk with slaughter, giddy with abandon. She was Mane, and only that. She’d chosen them and she embraced them entirely.

  A dozen? She could take on twice that.

  Behind her, rumbling and steaming in the snow, was the hamlet’s generator. It stood some way apart from the other buildings, a knot of pipes and levers and tanks the size of a small barn. With that at her back, they couldn’t get around her, and they’d be forced to watch their aim or risk blowing themselves up. Hesitation and uncertainty would undo them. She’d go among them like a wolf among sheep, and they’d scatter like their fellows.

  ‘Jez!’

  It was Pelaru, running out of the whipping snow. She ignored him, her eyes on the approaching men. They hadn’t seen her yet; their sight was not as keen as hers. They were still searching.

  He grabbed her arm and she turned her head sharply, teeth bared. He didn’t let her go. His fine clothes were sodden, all his poise and elegance gone, but still she softened at the sight of him.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘There are too many. Your friends need you.’

  She was unmoved. The words swept past her without meaning. ‘Fight with me,’ she said.

  ‘They’ll be overrun! We must help defend the hamlet until your captain can-’

  Fight with me! This time she used her mind rather than her mouth, thrusting the thought at him like a sword held out for the taking.

  But he didn’t take it. He heard, and he recoiled. Mane speech horrified him. He let her go and stepped away, shocked.

  She turned from him in disgust. Someone shouted nearby. They’d seen her. It was time.

  Bullets flew as she sprang towards them. Some went wild, ringing dangerously off the pipes that surrounded the generator. A voice rose over the wind, barking orders, trying to minimise panic fire. A leader. She went for him first.

  She dodged and flickered as she came, zigzagging out of the snow. Despite their discipline, fear seized them: fear of the daemon, fear of the Mane. She darted between them and pounced on their leader. He raised a pistol. Too slow. She had his throat out in an instant, and was gone before he’d even fallen.

  ‘The sarge! She got the sarge!’

  Their formation fell apart as she tore at them from the inside. They stumbled and swore and spun around, trying to catch sight of her. They tried to shoot her but ended up shooting each other instead. She howled with glee as she swept from prey to prey, leaving corpses in her wake, turning the snow red.

  Was this the best they had?

  And here came another one, waddling through the snow, made ungainly by his heavy backpack. And what was that in his hand?

  Jez had fought in many battles, but never in a war. She knew guns, rifles, shotguns and hidden blades, but she’d never seen a flamethrower before. By the time she realised the threat, it was too late. Even for her.

  A jet of fire spewed from the nozzle of the flamethrower and into the melee, sweeping across the group. Scared out of his wits, the operator made no distinction between friend and foe. Jez could have evaded a bullet, but this cloud of burning death was beyond her. She leaped, but the fire caught her in mid-air, and suddenly the world turned to pain.

  She crashed into the snow, shrieking. Her legs and torso were aflame. Her clothes were on fire, her skin was on fire. It was agony beyond endurance. She was incoherent with it, all thought lost in the blaze.

  Men screamed nearby, flailing torches in the snow, trailing black smoke and the reek of cooking flesh. She thrashed wildly among them. Someone was firing a gun, shooting at anyone and anything.

  The flamethrower operator spotted her, pointed the nozzle at her again. She saw him, and instinct made her turn away and cover herself. He squeezed the trigger and hit her full on.

  Fire consumed her, roaring in her ears. Her hair burned. Her back blackened and bubbled. She tried to scream but drew scorching air into her lungs instead. The pain was everywhere, inside and out, an infinity of suffering, incomprehensible in scope.

  Her body gave up control. She fell to her knees and tipped into the snow, which hissed and steamed as she hit it.

  The jet of flame turned away from her, and there was Pelaru, beloved Pelaru, in his true form at last. He seized the flamethrower operator’s head and tore it from his body. And as her sight died she saw him, the light within, the symphony of colours that he was. Even through the pain, her heart hurt with the beauty of it.

  The headless man toppled, his finger still pressed on the trigger. The jet of fire swung through the air and licked across the skin of the generator, and the fuel tanks that powered it.

  Pelaru’s eyes met hers, and in that moment she knew him totally.

  Then the fuel tanks exploded, and there was no more.

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty Seconds — Caged — Where Few Have Dared to Tread — The Collar

  Crake held his breath in the gloom of the darkened mansion. A bead of sweat inched its icy way across his scalp.

  A floorboard creaked.

  ‘Now!’

  Kyne’s gloved hand slapped down on a button on the metal sphere he was holding. Plome’s palm came down on a sphere of his own. A screamer and a damper, activated together. The silence was shattered by a high-pitched screech and a dull throb, a non-noise that sucked the echoes from the air.

  In the next room, the Imperator let out a cry, a daemonic howl fit to freeze bones. Crake hurried in, lumbering beneath the weight on his back. The others were close on his heels. Crashing among the furniture, a black-clad figure flailed wildly in the half-light.

  ‘Thirty seconds!’ Plome squeaked.

  Crake swallowed down his fear and applied himself to the dials on the portable control panel he held. Thirty seconds. Thirty seconds till the batteries gave out, eaten up by the voracious devices that kept the Imperator disorientated and choked off its power. Thirty seconds to nail its frequencies with the sonic flux emitter.

  Plome’s eyes were wide, shining with terror behind his pince-nez. He held up the damper, knuckles white, a pocket watch in his free hand. Kyne had found him hiding in a cupboard. He was fortunate the Imperator hadn’t found him first.

  How long had passed? How long?

  The Imperator staggered to his feet. Kyne kicked his knee, knocking him back down. He had his gun drawn and aimed, but if the devices gave out, he might not get the chance to use it. The Imperator’s influence could crush a man instantly, pull all the strength from him, drive him to the floor.

  Concentrate!

  Crake turned the dials as slowly as he dared. He didn’t need haste here, he needed precision. As he altered the frequency he kept half an eye on the shadowy figure in the centre of the room, watching for a reaction.

  ‘Twenty!’

  Had it been ten seconds already? Time was running too fast. The Imperator tried to stand and Kyne knocked him down again. He was tangled in its cloak and his hood had come off. His head was covered in black fabric, hiding the white maggot-like skin beneath. Crake stood back, turning the dials. Nothing.

  ‘Ten!’ Plome cried.

  ‘Hurry it u
p, Crake!’ Kyne warned.

  Crake twisted too fast, swallowed, went back to his previous position and resumed scanning from there.

  ‘Five! Four! Three!’

  ‘Plome!’ Kyne cried.

  Plome fumbled at his belt and hit the screamer there. Kyne dropped the sphere he was holding and hit his damper. ‘Thirty!’ Plome cried again.

  Each of them had been carrying a screamer and a damper. Crake had used his earlier. These were the last of them. When the batteries went dead, there would be nothing between them and the Imperator. They would die or Kyne would fire his weapon, but either way their struggle would have been meaningless.

  The Imperator shrieked as if struck, spun away, clattered into a table which collapsed under him. Crake’s eyes widened. He tuned his dials, watching to see which made the subject writhe. The Imperator’s back arched.

  Crake’s hand jerked away from the dial. He hadn’t realised how much it would seem like torture. Tormenting a daemon was so much easier when they weren’t wearing a human form.

  ‘Twenty!’ Plome called.

  Crake’s misgivings were forgotten. He had the daemon speared through one of its primary frequencies; now he had to anchor it. He tuned more dials.

  ‘Ten!’

  The Imperator began to squeal and buck. Now he couldn’t even get to his feet; he rolled and spasmed as if suffering some awful grand mal seizure.

  ‘I’ve got it!’ Crake said. ‘I think I’ve got it! Go! Go!’

  They pulled off the spheres they were carrying and tossed them aside. From their packs, each drew a metal cylinder with a pinecone-like set of rods on the end. The cylinders were connected by cables to the harmonic arc generators in their packs.

  ‘Kyne! Two-twenty-four hundred in the mid-bass range!’ Crake called, reading off his dial. ‘Plome! Eight-eighty in the subsonic!’

  With their free hands, they set the dials at their belts. Crake concentrated on the Imperator. He lashed and twisted like a landed fish, slithering through the darkened room. Without Kyne to keep watch, he was wary, as if he might lunge at any moment. But the sonic flux emitter was working, it was working the way it was supposed to work, and gradually Crake’s fear was replaced by triumph. He was looking at the proof of his theory right here!

  The first time he’d tried the harmonic arc generators, on the Iron Jackal, he’d been in possession of the daemon’s frequencies. He’d been forearmed. Not this time. And yet he had the Imperator on a hook nonetheless. He was bruised and battered and he’d come way too close to death, but he had him!

  ‘Ready!’ Kyne said.

  ‘Ready!’ Plome agreed.

  They’d moved round to either side of the prone Imperator. They held out their cylinders towards it.

  ‘On my mark. .’ said Crake. ‘Now!’

  He hit the switch and deactivated the sonic flux emitter just as the others activated their own devices. The Imperator jumped to its feet and threw himself at Crake. He flinched away — he couldn’t help it — but the Imperator never reached him. He froze before he got there, trapped in an invisible cage of frequencies.

  Crake took a moment for a few gasping breaths. The Imperator raged against its confinement, but it couldn’t break free. Plome and Kyne struggled to hold it. ‘Together,’ Crake reminded them. ‘Move together. One on each side to maintain the cage. Go.’

  He stepped out of the way. Kyne and Plome shuffled through the doorway, Kyne backing off and Plome following. As they moved, the cage between them moved too, and the Imperator was forced that way.

  Crake went after them, his hand ready on the switch of the control panel in his hand. He wasn’t sure how much juice his pack had left in it, but he’d need it if the Imperator broke out. He could see the effort it took Plome and Kyne to keep it where it was. Even the Iron Jackal hadn’t fought that hard.

  Then it struck him. Something he hadn’t considered in his theory. The Iron Jackal was a pure daemon. It couldn’t pass through the barrier that the harmonic arc generator set up. But an Imperator was a daemon sheathed in physical form. The sonics had no effect on the physical body, just the daemon inside.

  He began to worry. Could the Imperator break through the barrier by muscle and momentum?

  ‘How much time do we have?’ Plome called, as they dragged it through darkened rooms, keeping a steady distance between them.

  ‘Don’t concern yourself with that,’ said Kyne. ‘The batteries will hold. Keep focused.’

  ‘I can’t help concerning myself!’ Plome protested.

  The Imperator bucked against his cage, jerking Plome’s arm. Plome swallowed and forced it back, his pudgy hand trembling.

  Crake went ahead into the audience chamber where they’d set their trap. It seemed like he’d aged half a lifetime since they were here last.

  ‘Watch you don’t trip on the cable across the doorway,’ Crake warned them as he hurried over to a trolley rack of resonators. He crouched down in front of it, aching from the weight of his pack and the multiple cuts and bruises he’d sustained.

  Kyne backed into the room. The Imperator was dragged through with him, stiff-legged and stumbling. Plome came last, pate glistening.

  Crake hit the switch to activate the outer defences. A row of resonator masts against the wall hummed into life, sealing the room.

  The Imperator sensed what Crake had done, saw the summoning circle in the middle of the room, and finally understood what they had in store. He redoubled his efforts to break away, struggling wildly. The force of it caused Plome to trip. He sidestepped and just about retained his balance, but his hand wavered: the harmonic arc cylinders were no longer aligned. For a moment the Imperator could move again. He lunged, trying to escape, but Kyne calmly shifted to his left and the Imperator froze again with a howl of frustration.

  ‘Let’s get this done,’ said Kyne, his artificial green eyes burning into Plome’s. Plome swallowed and nodded. Kyne backed into the summoning circle, stepping through the double row of rods and spheres. Plome stepped forward. The Imperator went with them, fighting every inch of the way.

  Come on, come on! Crake thought to himself, his hand poised over another switch. Hurry up!

  Kyne stepped out of the circle and tried pulling the Imperator in. Plome pushed from behind. The Imperator wavered on the threshold, resisting for all he was worth. Plome let out a cry of effort and exasperation. And then Kyne and Plome lurched, the Imperator stumbled forward, Crake hit the switch, and it was done.

  Crake slumped to the floor, plonking himself on his arse. The Imperator howled and thrashed, but he was contained. Once a daemon was in the circle there was little chance of getting out of it, and there were enough batteries and backups here to keep him trapped for half an hour or more.

  Exhaustion swept over him. He met Plome’s eyes across the room. The politician looked dazed. Then the two of them began to laugh, little chuckles of disbelief.

  They’d caught him. They’d actually caught an Imperator.

  Plome walked unsteadily over to Crake and offered his hand. Crake let himself be pulled to his feet. Plome blew out his breath, gave Crake a nervous smile, and patted him on the arm.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘That was hairy.’

  ‘Welcome to the world of field daemonism, my friend,’ said Crake, who was feeling expansive and elated. ‘You’ve just gone where few have dared to tread.’

  Plome mopped his brow and adjusted his pince-nez. ‘Shouldn’t say I’ll be in a hurry to tread there again,’ he said. Then his eyes glittered. ‘But we got one, didn’t we? We showed those bastards what real daemonists can do!’

  ‘They’ll write about us for years to come, just you see if they don’t,’ Crake replied.

  Plome coughed. ‘Yes, well. After daemonism is declared legal, I hope. I have my career to think of until then. Not to mention my neck.’

  ‘We’re not done yet,’ said Kyne gravely, from the other side of the room. ‘Crake, take the readings.’

  His tone brought Cra
ke down to earth again. He glanced at the Imperator, trapped in the circle, and was reminded what a dangerous creature they’d caught. He’d been overconfident in the past, and it had cost himself and others dear. Kyne was right: they were not done yet.

  Plome helped him get his pack off his back, then shooed him away when Crake offered to return the favour. ‘I can take care of myself. It’s down to you two now. Go on.’

  Crake went over to the oscillator, rolling his shoulders and stretching his back. It was a pleasurable agony. His muscles had stiffened and he hurt in two dozen places, and he still couldn’t hear properly. A great tiredness had settled on him. After this, he planned to sleep for a week.

  After this, he thought. He could finally believe there would be an afterwards. A time where he might find himself in Samandra’s arms again.

  The sound of gunfire outside filtered in through the grey windows and the whistling in his ears. Best not to think about that yet. There was still the matter of the battle outside. And even if he survived, Samandra might not.

  No. She’ll win through. She’s like a force of nature. Nothing can stop her.

  He told himself that, but the thought of her out there made his stomach knot, and he put it from his mind as best he could.

  He knelt down gingerly in front of the oscillator and recorded the Imperator’s primary resonances. Halfway through scribbling them down, he stopped as the enormity of the information in his hand hit him. This was the key to defeating the Imperators. To the population at large they were beings of supernatural power, divine enforcers like the will of the old gods made flesh. But the daemonists would show them otherwise.

  He finished jotting down the frequencies and put them in his pocket. ‘Got them,’ he called over his shoulder. It seemed a weak line for an occasion so momentous.

  Kyne, meanwhile, had finished his preparations. The Imperator was facing Plome and staring at him with an unwavering gaze, as if calculating the amount of pain he’d visit upon the politician when he got out of there. Kyne walked up behind the Imperator, reached into the summoning circle, and in one quick movement he seized the Imperator’s wrist and snapped a manacle on it. The Imperator, surprised, tried to turn, but Kyne grabbed the other arm, twisted it behind his back, and secured the other wrist.