Hammer of the Witches

by Kai Wai Cheah

  At the end of the road, I said, “So what do you think?”

  “I don’t like the abandoned block,” Keith said. “Perfect place for a surveillance team. Or snipers.”

  If I were with Eve or Pete, or even by myself, I could crack open Hakem’s charagma, turn on my voidsight, and look through walls and into souls to see who was looking at what. I couldn’t do that here. Not with Keith next to me. Should have asked for nythium while we were at Sardinia. Too late for that now.

  “There’s the cafe, too,” I said. “A surveillance team would have a cover for action to hang around and watch the safe house all day.”

  Keith shook his head. “These HH dudes are amateurs. They’ve got no idea how to pick a safe house.”

  I wasn’t inclined to disagree, but now wasn’t the time to grumble. I placed myself in my adversary’s shoes, thinking about how I would take down the safe house.

  If I had teams in the apartment and the cafe, I’d use them as support and blocking elements. Say what you want about Hexenhammer, but at least they made sure there were no cover and concealment for an assault team. It’d be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to stage a death squad in either location without being noticed. No way to approach the safe house without being spotted either. Not if they had cameras outside.

  One team in the apartment, one team in the cafe, and a kill team staged in a vehicle. Maybe multiple kill teams. As assaulters roll up, the cafe team blocks off escape routes while the apartment team provides overwatch. That’s how I’d do it.

  “What are you thinking?” Keith asked.

  I told him.

  “I’d do the same, too,” he said. “I’d say we break into the apartment and clear it before we extract but… with just you, me, Eve and Bob capable of fighting giants, that’ll be suicide. Especially if we don’t have the element of surprise.”

  Note to self: get firearms ASAP.

  “We can’t abort the mission either,” I replied.

  “Any ideas?”

  “Just one.”

  I got on the radio and explained the situation.

  “When the extract goes down, Vic Three will cover our backs and get eyes on the cafe,” I said. “Preacher and I will watch the roads and the apartment. Keep your eyes peeled for giants. If you see them, light ‘em up.”

  “Vic Three acknowledges,” Cowboy said.

  “Vic Two, roger,” Brick added.

  Keith and I returned to our vehicle a block away from the safe house and took a swig of ambrosia each. The sweet liquid burned on the way down. Fire blossomed with me, settling into my nerves and bones. If I tried hard enough, altered my eyes just so, I could see in the dark without needing streetlights.

  Pocketing our flasks, we donned baseball caps and windbreakers. It was a light disguise, but it only had to hold long enough for the extract. We returned to the area, altering our postures and our gaits, and positioned ourselves one house to the right of the safe house. Leaning against the wall, we broke out packs of cigarettes and lit them up.

  Now we had the perfect excuse to stand around, pretending to talk. I smoked my cigarette like a cigar, trapping the smoke in my mouth and blowing out extravagantly.

  It tasted horrible. Every shallow puff was bitter brown and tinged with black. I fought down the urge to cough. I’d never experienced synesthesia after drinking ambrosia before. Either our homebrew was incredibly potent, or Sol Invictus had changed me more than he had let on.

  Probably both.

  “Fisher and Preacher are in place,” I whispered into my radio. “We are on foot, one door down to the right of the safe house. Vic Two and Three, it’s showtime.”

  “Roger,” Pete replied. “Under way.”

  “Vic Two, roger.” Ricky said.

  As Pete and Ricky coordinated over the radio, Keith and I put on a performance for passers-by. He played the role of a struggling car salesman complaining about the day’s clients, and I was his colleague, alternatively commiserating with him and moaning about my own customers. The ambrosia made him more garrulous than usual. As we spoke, I watched the road with my peripheral vision while Keith scanned the abandoned apartment and the junction.

  “I told her, sixty thousand pans for the car, brand new,” Keith said, his hands dancing in the air. “She was hesitating, so I said I could help her with the car insurance, talk it down to six thousand a year. She said her husband was interested in the business package: all-round cameras, real leather upholstery, folding rear tables, that sort of thing. I said the package was an extra five thousand. And you know what she did?”

  “What?”

  “She walked out. She didn’t try to haggle. Didn’t even say anything. She just left.”

  I shook my head. “Unbelievable.”

  A minute later, Brick piped up.

  “Vics Two and Three, rolling up.”

  The vehicles approached from my left. The SUV parked just outside the front door, the other sedan right behind it. Eve got out and rang the doorbell. I casually glanced her way, the way a man would do when he sees a pretty woman, and then looked the other way.

  A black van reversed into the street and continued backing up.

  “Contact! Black van, left-hand exit!” I called.

  My heart sang in my chest. Blood and power rushed to my limbs as I sauntered toward the vehicle, positioning myself behind a streetlight.

  No one drives like this. Not unless they were about to deliver an assault team and were positioning themselves for a rapid extract.

  The moment I framed the thought, the rear doors burst open. Four large men jumped out, MP99s in hand. They keyed in on the vehicles behind me and then noticed me.

  Too late.

  I crouched behind a streetlight, slapped my hands together and punched them out as though I were holding a pistol. Pointing at the face of the nearest threat, I discharged a concentrated particle beam.

  The giant’s head disappeared. I moved from right to left, laying down a hail of withering fire. Minor explosions erupted. The threats went down. Taking careful aim, I blasted them again in the head. No such thing as overkill, only the living and the dead.

  High-pitched metallic chatter filled the air.

  Suppressed automatic gunfire.

  “Contact! Apartment block!” Keith called.

  People shrieked. Windows shattered. Bullets raked the SUV and the safe house. Pete ducked behind the engine block. A body lay on the road. Bob peeked out of cover and fired a beam of golden light.

  “Need some help here!” Bob yelled.

  “Fisher here! Moving! Cover me!” I yelled.

  Dazzling beams streaked across the night. I sprinted down the road, past Preacher planting himself against a streetlight, past Pete ducking behind the engine block of the SUV, and slid down into a crouch behind the rear wheel.

  “Set!” I called. “Where are the Tangos?”

  “I can’t tell!” Pete yelled.

  I cursed. The situation sucked. We needed an escape—

  “Fisher, Longsword. I see them. Two Tangos on the ground floor, left-hand side of the front door. Looks like they’re about to break out.”

  I had no idea where she was or how she could see them. Maybe it was her covenanter powers. But I wasn’t complaining.

  “Copy,” I said.

  I uncapped my flask. Chugged down a slug, felt it burning all the way down. My muscles threatened to go limp. I burned a bit of ambrosia, enough to kill the buzz.

  “Amber out!” I yelled.

  I flung the flask. It soared through the air, flying toward the boarded-up window to the left of the main door. I touched the ambrosia with my mind, perceiving it as a shimmering cloud with countless strings leading to infinite possibilities. I grabbed one string and made it real.

  The ambrosia exploded. White fire surged through the window and filled the room beyond.

  The building shook. The shooting stopped. Thick smoke roiled out the broken window. A gigantic roar shook the world. The door flu
ng open, and a giant stepped out, clutching a machine pistol.

  It was also missing its left eye.

  It blazed away, spraying down the road with autofire. I ducked. Bullets punched through the thin metal of the car’s trunk. I lay on the road, peeking out from under the car. All I saw was its foot. I fired.

  The giant went down, crashing face-first against the road. I popped up out of cover, and a blinding white beam erased the giant’s head.

  “Tango down,” Eve reported.

  I glanced in her direction. Golden light peeked through a window and just as quickly died away. Must have been her charagma.

  “Any more threats?” I asked.

  An engine roared.

  “The van’s getting away!” Keith yelled.

  The black van sped down the street, rear doors flapping. Taking careful aim, Keith loosed a particle beam right down the van’s central axis. Its engine erupted in a thick cloud of black smoke. The van veered sharply, crashing into a parked scooter.

  “Preacher, take the shotgun!” I called. “I’ve got the driver!”

  I burned more ambrosia, turbocharging my muscles and ordering gravity to step aside.

  The driver’s door popped open. A man staggered out, holding his head with one hand.

  “Freeze!” I shouted.

  He spun around, a pistol in his other hand.

  I stepped off-line. He fired. Missed. I pounced, grabbing his Glock and wrenching it up and out of his hands. His trigger finger broke.

  Leaping away, I racked the slide, saw a live round fly and aimed at his head.

  “Hands up!” I ordered. “Mani in alto!”

  He grinned.

  “You can’t take me alive,” he said in Italian.

  “Hands up! Now! Preacher! Got a live one here!”

  The driver continued smiling.

  “Hands up, or I will put you down!” I yelled.

  He collapsed.

  “What the…?”

  He curled up, grimacing, gripping at his belly. He sucked in air, rapid and shallow, but it didn’t help.

  “Fisher, what’s wrong with him?” Keith asked, coming up from behind.

  “Damned if I know…”

  The driver threw up. I stepped away from the puke. He retched again and again, spewing bile. He clutched his chest with one hand, his guts with the other, and writhed in agony.

  “I think he took a suicide pill,” Keith said.

  “Got any ambrosia?” I asked.

  “I’m dry. There’s nothing we can do for him.”

  “Not exactly.”

  I shot him in the head.

  Keith flinched. “Luke! What the hell?”

  “He’s already dead. Just making it easier.”

  “Sonuvabitch! Did you have to–”

  “We can argue later. Any passengers?”

  “No. Let’s go.”

  Bob covered the roads while Ricky pushed a woman into his car. Pete jumped into the SUV and turned the key. Eve picked up a body from the road.

  “Eve, what are you doing?” I demanded.

  “He needs help!”

  His brains leaked from a head wound.

  “Leave him,” I said.

  “But–”

  “He’s dead! We have to go now!”

  Eve sighed. Setting him down, she closed his eyelids and boarded the SUV.

  “Vic Two, all in!” Ricky reported.

  “Vic Three, last man in!” Pete called.

  “Exfil now,” I ordered.

  The vehicles departed, turning left and shooting past the cafe. Still hopped up on ambrosia, Keith and I almost broke the land speed record running back to our car. As we jumped in, we patted ourselves down.

  “Any blood?” he asked.

  “No. You?”

  “I’m good.”

  As he drove, I managed the radio.

  “All Vics, Vic One. SITREP,” I said.

  “Vic Three. All good,” Ricky said.

  “Vic Two. We’re in bad shape,” Pete said. “We lost two of the Hexenhammer people. Had to leave them behind. We’ve got one wounded, critical. Eve’s doing what she can. Break.

  “I’ve got bullet holes all over my vic. Windows are broken, and there’s glass all over the seats. I am not going to make it to the airport without attracting a lot of heat. Over.”

  “Copy, all. Execute contingency plans. Out.”

  I powered up my holophone and called O’Connor.

  “We have a problem,” I said.

  “This is gonna be good,” he groused.

  I described the situation, concluding with, “We need shelter at the embassy and a doctor. We’ll dump the vics somewhere, and we need the mess cleaned up. We also need fresh IDs for the Hexenhammer crew.”

  “You’re not asking for much, are you?”

  “Can you do it?”

  He sighed. “Of course.”

  7. Firepower

  We abandoned the shot-up SUV in a parking garage and torched it. We couldn’t fix it, and we couldn’t drive it anywhere else without attracting attention. No sense leaving DNA behind. Everybody squashed themselves into the remaining vehicles, and we took separate routes to the Hesperian Embassy. Eve went with her people, plus Alex, while I traveled with mine.

  The Marines on duty waved us through. In the lobby, more Marines scrambled to inspect us, checking for injuries. Nearby, a man in a gray suit oversaw the festivities.

  “Who’s in charge of this operation?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard.

  I approached him. “That’s me.”

  “You the guy I’m supposed to support?”

  “Yes. Who are you?” I asked.

  “Tom Daniels, Chief of Station. And you?”

  “Luke.”

  “Just Luke?”

  “Yes.”

  He sneered, no doubt thinking, Another secret squirrel.

  “Where are you from? What the hell’s going on here?” he demanded.

  “You don’t need to know.”

  He sighed. “Asa Phoster! If it impacts my operations in my station, I need to know.”

  “Don’t worry. Nothing we did had anything to do with whatever you’re doing. Where are the rest of my people?”

  “I’m asking the questions here. The last thing I need—the last thing we need—is blowback from your mess affecting Hesperian intelligence operations in my city.”

  “What mess? What were you told?”

  “Nothing. Just got a call saying I had to support an incoming paramilitary team. But the news is covering a gunfight in downtown Rome. Was that you?”

  “Can’t answer that question.”

  We both knew what that meant.

  “What in God’s name can you tell me?”

  “Like I said: nothing we did here will affect your job.”

  “Screw that. What am I going to tell the police if they discover that we’re harboring fugitives? And don’t give me that BS again. I can put two and two together. Diplomatic immunity only goes so far. They can surround the embassy and wait forever if they have to.”

  “We won’t be here forever. We just need a place to bed down for a while. Long enough for the heat to die down. We’ll be out of your hair when the rest of our mission support arrives.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “Tomorrow, probably.”

  “‘Probably’? Look. The longer you guys stay here, the longer you place this station at risk. I can’t support your mission at the expense of my own.”

  I got up right in his face, staring into his eyes. He was taller than me but couldn’t match the ferocity I could summon.

  “Do you have any idea who or what we are? If I told you to jump off a bridge, the only legitimate question is how high, sir. Our mission comes straight from the top. It supersedes yours.”

  “That’s crazy! Can’t you–”

  “I can cut your throat here and now and make the cameras show that a troop of dancing circus monkeys did it if I wanted to. It
’s been a long day, I’ve lost two assets already, and my patience is running thin. Do. Not. Test. Me.”

  He blinked. Backing off, he sighed. “Fine. Do it your way. But if the cops come around, it’s on you.”

  “I know that. Now, how are my people? The rest of my team arrived earlier, didn’t they?”

  He thumbed at an antechamber nearby. “I sent them to guest rooms. Your casualty, too.”

  “Do we have a doctor?”

  “Not presently. I’m flying one in. Should be here in a half hour.”

  “Good. I have one last thing for you.”

  “As if we don’t have enough to worry about,” Daniels snapped.

  “This never happened. You understand? Your logs and your cameras will show that this was just another boring night. Nobody was here, and nothing happened. Every little scrap of evidence must disappear as though a black hole sucked everything up. The Marines will forget everything that happened here. Clear?”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’re going to have to do that anyway. Alongside all the other work we have to do for you.”

  I didn’t bother responding.

  ***

  While the Hexenhammer members bedded down, the Nemesis operators took turns resting and standing watch. We turned a guest room into a makeshift operating theater, and the doctor shooed us out. The only man he allowed inside was Alex, who had the most medical training amongst us.

  At five in the morning, when Pete and I were patrolling the corridors, the doctor emerged.

  “She’ll be fine,” he said, in a faint Italian accent.

  “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “The patient was shot in the chest. Traumatic pneumothorax in her left lung, fractured rib cage and an entry wound with no exit. I extracted the bone fragments and the bullet and sutured the wounds. She is critical and unconscious, but stable. Your friend is keeping an eye on her.

  “She is very lucky to be alive. She needs to be in a critical care unit, not a guest room. I used medical nanomachines to locate the bone fragments, but they aren’t a hundred percent accurate. She will need an X-ray in case the nano missed anything. I’m also worried about post-surgical infections. I’ve done what I could, but you must take her to a hospital as soon as you can.”