Stay of Execution

by Glynn Stewart

  The last thing he was expecting was for the phone on his desk to ring. In the entire time since he’d moved into this office, the desk phone hadn’t rung. He didn’t know the number to it himself—and he doubted Major Warner had, either. She’d used videoconferencing and a secretary, not her desk phone.

  He hadn’t even known the old black box was connected, and stared at it for several rings before he made up his mind and grabbed it.

  “Purcell,” he said flatly.

  “General Purcell, this is Michael O’Brien,” a deep voice told him. “Can we talk, or are you going to insist on trying to trace this call?”

  Arthur laughed.

  “I’m going to guess Charles is involved, which means my merely mortal technicians would be screwed,” he noted. “Plus, we have now progressed to the point where a secret Committee warrant is no longer valid. If anyone wants to arrest you, they’re going to have to convince a regular judge to sign off on their warrant.”

  The phone was silent.

  “I didn’t expect that to go away quite so easily,” the other man admitted.

  “It wouldn’t have if you’d actually done something,” Arthur told him grimly. “But you did your damn job, Mr. O’Brien, and I’m not wasting resources chasing you, given the state of the country.” He paused. “Speaking of which, your job sucks.”

  O’Brien laughed.

  “Why do you think I gave it to Ardent?” he asked. “I’m sorry, but I’m about to make it worse for you.”

  The General sighed.

  “I didn’t think this was a social call,” he noted, turning in his chair to study the chassis behind him. The chassis of the nuclear-tipped missile he’d ordered launched because he didn’t have all the information.

  There was more than one reason why he had had the thing mounted on his wall.

  “How many of your Mages were in the infirmary this morning?” O’Brien asked.

  Turning back to his computer, he tapped a series of commands, opening a report he hadn’t reached yet.

  “The fuck?” he hissed. “Over half.”

  He only had twenty-two Mages after their losses in Los Angeles—and thirteen of them had reported for medical exams of some kind in the last six hours.

  “I’m not entirely sure I understand the process, but everyone with the Sight—which includes every Mage—got hit with the psychic equivalent of a tsunami last night,” O’Brien told him. “I had two Seers with me. One of them is now dead,” he concluded grimly.

  “A tsunami is triggered by something,” Arthur noted. “I’m guessing you know what.”

  “You’ve been briefed on the Seal and the Masters Beyond, right?”

  “Enough,” he admitted. “It sounds like a pile of grade-A bullshit to me, but I command a battalion of men who gain superpowers by injecting themselves with a glowing gold liquid.”

  “It’s true,” the werewolf told him. “And the Masters have apparently finally executed on a plan they’ve been working on for a long damned time. A creature called the Herald came into the world last night, General Purcell, and its sole purpose is to open the gateway for an invasion of Earth.”

  Arthur swallowed his urge to call bullshit. It sounded insane. And yet…he’d just sent an attack team of Mages to kill a troll.

  “And what do you expect me to do about it?” he asked levelly.

  “You’re the man in charge of the United States’ supernatural defenses. We know the Herald was ‘born,’ for lack of a truer term, in a OB/GYN clinic in Portland, Maine. We don’t know where he is beyond that…but my Seer is telling me it will take at most forty-eight hours for him to open the way.

  “You have the resources to sweep Portland for the cult that created him. If we don’t find him…we’ll have a true Incursion on our hands. An army of the Pure in a major American city.”

  “You do remember a little thing called the Constitution, right?” Arthur asked. “I can’t roll the Army into Portland and search house to house for a demon, not without a declaration of martial law.”

  “I know,” O’Brien admitted. “Which means you need to get that declaration, Major General. You’ll get an email shortly with everything we know.”

  “And how do you even know any of this?” the General demanded.

  “I told you,” the other man admitted. “We had two of the most powerful Seers alive with us until yesterday. Getting this information cost one of their lives, General. Give it the value it deserves.”

  30

  Arthur Purcell managed to not let his frustration show on his face as the videoconference ground on. It had only taken him two hours to get the Joint Chiefs of Staff on a line, which said a lot about the importance they gave his new command.

  Unfortunately, they didn’t seem prepared to accept all of the consequences of just what that command entailed.

  “You can’t expect us to take this to the President and request a declaration of martial law,” the Chief of Staff of the Army noted. “Visions and ‘psychic tsunamis’? I can accept that they have more value than I’m inclined to ascribe them, but to declare martial law and send Special Forces into a US city based on them?”

  “That’s a response entirely out of scale with that level of evidence,” the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff added.

  “Or we could refrain from dancing around the bush and tell the Major General the truth,” the Chairman cut off his companions. “Regardless of whether we are prepared to act on your ‘evidence’—and I’m not going to pretend I’m convinced by it, regardless of what new world we live in!—the President will not.

  “He will not sign off on that kind of operation. It won’t happen. For us to even present this to him would undermine our authority and expend our capital with the President…for nothing.”

  “And if these visions are correct, and we are about to face an invasion by an enemy we know almost nothing about?” Arthur asked levelly.

  “Then we are the armed forces of the United States of America,” the Commandant of the Marine Corps told him. “A direct attack on US soil by an enemy that is prepared to fight an up-front battle? They have no idea what they’re walking into.”

  “While we can’t declare martial law or search the region house to house, we do have options,” the Chairman noted. “While the costs of moving troops and vehicles are not insignificant, the potential risks are great.”

  The collection of Generals seemed willing to at least consider that.

  “There isn’t much that can make it to Maine in thirty-six hours,” Arthur objected. “It takes a day for an armor unit to even begin to consider moving.”

  “Then if we issue the orders for them to prepare to move now, they’ll be ready to deploy if this scenario comes to pass,” the Chairman noted. “You, especially, are authorized to begin moving forces under your command to the area.

  “If we are to be invaded, we will have an army to meet them with,” he concluded. “But this information isn’t solid enough for us to go before the President and demand extraordinary action. We will make what preparations we can under our own authority, Major General Purcell, but that is all we can do.”

  Or at least, that was all they were willing to do.

  He’d have to work with that.

  It was midafternoon by the time Arthur Purcell reached Maine himself, arriving at a military airport run by the Air National Guard in Portland itself. One of his subordinates was waiting for him, saluting briskly as he stepped off the plane.

  “General,” the Colonel greeted him. “We’ve got two companies of Sigma Force moved into facilities ten miles south of the city, backed up by Special Forces. Coordinating with the locals is…being difficult. They don’t quite buy the story.”

  “I don’t blame them,” Arthur admitted. “I’m supposed to be meeting with the Governor in an hour or so.” He shook his head. “I’m trying to convince people to mobilize for an invasion on the basis of visions and headaches,” he said grouchily. “I can’t blame them for bei
ng argumentative.”

  “After New York, you’d think they’d listen,” his subordinate noted. “Major Cardell is on his way north with the Sigma Force company and Task Force White detachment from Florida.” He shook his head.

  “We’re stripping the country bare,” he noted.

  “Unfortunate but true, Bantam,” Arthur admitted. “But I spoke to Michael O’Brien, and if there is one thing I am confident that man is not, it’s Chicken Little.

  “If he tells me that the sky is falling, I’m investing in bunkers.”

  Colonel Bantam chuckled dutifully.

  “Should we be moving people into the city?” he asked.

  Arthur considered for a moment. They knew the Herald was somewhere in Portland, and finding him before he “opened the gateway,” as O’Brien had put it, could short-circuit a lot of trouble.

  On the other hand…

  “No,” he said, hating the word even as he said it. “In fact, if we have anyone in the city right now, I want them pulled out. With the resources we have on hand…” He sighed, letting the silence stretch for a moment.

  “Without the authority to sweep the city, we have no choice. Either we’re wrong and we don’t want to start a panic…or the Seers are right and we’re going to be too late.

  “In that case, we need to start thinking containment.”

  “That sounds like…we’re going to write off Portland,” Bantam said quietly.

  “If we can’t find this Herald before he opens a doorway to Hell, I don’t know what else we can do,” Arthur admitted, “and I’ve been told I’m not getting what we need to find the Herald.

  “So, we plan for containment and hope we can secure the city before it gets that bad.”

  To Arthur’s surprise, it took him less time to get into the Blaine House to meet with the Governor than it had taken to pull the Joint Chiefs of Staff into a videoconference. Neatly dressed bodyguards ushered him into a parlor where the Governor waited, offering his hand as the Major General came in.

  “Please, come in, sit down,” the man instructed. “What brings the man in charge of dealing with these latest strange events to my office?”

  “More of these ‘strange events’,” Arthur told him with a wry smile. “Governor, we have reason to believe that the city of Portland is in grave danger.”

  “And why, pray tell, am I being informed of this by the commander of our supernatural security forces?” the Governor asked.

  “Because it’s a supernatural threat,” Sigma Force’s commander said. “And the evidence we have of its approach is supernatural in and of itself. We are dealing with Seers and prophecy, Governor, and even with the New York Incident forcing us all to confront a new world, it’s hard to accept that as hard proof.”

  “I see.” The Governor gestured for the butler to bring glasses of water. “I find this ‘new world’, as you call it, nerve-wracking in the extreme,” he admitted. “To think some major aspect may harm my people… What do you need, General?”

  Arthur laughed humorlessly.

  “I don’t suppose I could talk you into evacuating the city?”

  The Governor, Arthur noted, was a lot stronger than he looked. Either that or the water glass he’d just crushed was significantly more fragile than expected.

  “Damn.” The mild curse wasn’t much, but it was enough to bring the butler running with a cloth to wrap around the Governor’s bleeding hand.

  “I would need to justify such an action on national television,” he finally said after roughly bandaging himself. “I would need…ironclad justification. I’m not sure that ‘Seers and prophecy’ would be enough, General.”

  “I know,” Arthur admitted. “But we’re looking at, basically, a portal to Hell being opened in the middle of the city. I’d rather be embarrassed for being wrong than lose half your city, Governor.”

  “This isn’t a question of being embarrassed, Major General. It’s a question of an order I don’t think I could convince people to obey,” the Governor said quietly. “What can I do?”

  The General sighed.

  “Activate your disaster readiness plans, quietly,” he said. “Call out whatever National Guard units you can. Have the Guard check the readiness of their vehicles and aircraft.” He paused, considering.

  “Prepare for war on your soil, Governor. And get any key members of your government and family the hell out of that city.”

  31

  News helicopters, as it turned out, were a surprisingly inconspicuous way of hanging a camera over a city. As David and the other Echelon Team leaders watched the sun go down over Portland through it, however, David found himself almost wishing they didn’t have quite so clear a view.

  “Nothing,” he said quietly as Kate squeezed his hand reassuringly. “I wasn’t expecting a full sweep, but nothing?”

  “Purcell sounded like he bought it,” O’Brien said. “But…he’s bound by law and regulation now. Everything with regards to the supernatural is under a microscope, and they’re still trying to sneak Omicron databases and personnel in.

  “So, he can only do so much. Only push for so much.” The werewolf shook his head. “Damn it, we should have gone to someone else.”

  “Who?” Reginald asked bluntly. “The President? He wouldn’t speak to any of us. Congress? Only the Committee would even think of believing us—and they can’t risk admitting they knew anything.”

  “I’ve had some quiet conversations with various Army officers in the area,” Riley said quietly. “They all believed me enough to at least call readiness drills for today and tomorrow. It won’t buy much, but…”

  “And what about Portland itself?” David asked. “Seventy thousand people who have no idea what’s going on?”

  “Even if we went and took control of the radio and TV and told people to get out, no one would believe us,” the Elfin Lord told him. “We’ve done everything we can do, but the sad truth of the matter is that the world has only really been aware of the supernatural for two weeks.

  “It hasn’t sunk in for most people. Asking them to evacuate or search an entire city based on visions and prophecy…” Riley shook his head. “We know the power of a Seer. But the average American? They’re still waking up to the fact that this isn’t just fantasy novels and D&D.

  “There’s probably more people claiming the New York Incident was faked than the March for Truth mustered to try and get the government to spill the truth over the Crater Lake Incident—which you’ll note, nobody has actually done.

  “It’s just been forgotten in the chaos since New York.”

  “Those people’s families deserved better,” David said quietly.

  “Everyone always deserves better,” O’Brien told him. “I’ll be happy if that mess is the last time I have to lie to people about how their sons and daughters died. But…” He shook his head.

  “I don’t know what to do about Portland,” he admitted as the sun set over the city. “How long do we have, David?”

  “Dawn,” the Seer reminded them. “I don’t know for certain, but dawn feels…right. Or wrong, as the case may be.”

  “Dawn,” Riley echoed. “There’s nothing we can do in the night, people. I suggest we leave Lord Reginald here to the watch and rest. We may not get another chance.”

  “My people and I will keep watch,” the vampire promised. “If we see an opportunity, we will take it. This is our country as well, our people.”

  “Tomorrow we see how much truth there is to your visions, David,” Riley said. “I trust you. I believe you. But you’ll forgive me if I wish that you are wrong.”

  David snorted.

  “You can’t wish that any more than I already do, my lord,” he told the Elfin. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be wrong so much in my life.”

  Unfortunately, he was a Seer…and he was learning to tell which of his visions were possibilities versus which ones were certainties.

  Dawn would bring certainty.

  Red light su
ffused the city. Was it on fire or just the light of dawn? It was hard to tell. David wasn’t familiar with the city.

  Except…yes. This was Portland. One of the waterfront parks—in the bleeding red light that covered everything, he could make out the lighthouse to the south, the landmark he hadn’t identified in his first vision.

  It was just dawn. Just. Acres of green space spread out around him and a recreational marina filled the water in front of him. How was he here?

  Wait. No. David knew the answer to that question. Then…the question was why was he here?

  Why was his Sight showing him this place, this time?

  Someone was moving along the promenade. Several someones, heading for the highest point overlooking the two bays on either side of the peninsula.

  Most of them were wearing regular clothes, trying not to draw attention to themselves in the predawn light, but David saw Buckley leading the way, once again in the dull white cassock but with a black trench coat thrown over it.

  It was too warm for the coat, though, and the Mage had opened it up, revealing his ritual outfit to anyone who was there to see.

  There was no one there to see.

  Buckley led a dozen cultists out of the shadows and up onto the hill, past David’s point of view. In the middle of the group was a smaller figure, wrapped in a long raincoat and a hooded sweatshirt.

  “Are you ready?” Buckley asked the figure.

  “Why do you even bother to ask, Servant Buckley?” a voice responded. The voice didn’t fit the small, clearly young form of the speaker. It was a deep, gravelly sound, as if carved from granite and fire.

  “Is this the place?” the Herald continued, striding up the hill and tossing back the hood of his sweater.

  As in David’s earlier vision, his skin was inhumanly white, and a circle of ebony horns marked his head, directly above his ears. He was smaller than he had been in the first vision, but he still radiated terror.

  “It is, my lord,” another speaker told him. This was a woman—the Mage David had Seen making the deal with the dragon. “Are you…”