by G. D. Penman
Ogden’s eyes bulged. “What?”
Sully cast a barrier behind the driver and the music fell silent. “He hasn’t asked me to kill you yet, but he needs you gone. Manhattan is a great ally during the war, but the minute the war is over, you become a liability. All those Magi? All that power outside of his control? Pratt might hate the British, but he’s just as pragmatic as any of those blue-blooded bastards.”
Ogden scooted closer, but his eyes never left Sully’s hands. “How would killing me help him?”
“That’s how Pratt thinks. You’re their king. If you’re gone, then there’s a chance for him to either seize control himself or install a puppet.”
“What is your evidence?”
Sully scoffed. “He offered to put you on trial after the war. There is no way that your people would stand for that. He’d have a civil war on his hands, and Manhattan would wipe the floor with him.”
Ogden’s hands were flexing in his lap, ready to cast the moment Sully made her move. “In exchange for our alliance, he made assurances that—”
“He makes a lot of promises. Never pays up. Funny how that works out.”
She pulled a cigar out of her jacket and leaned over so that Ogden could grudgingly light it with a whisper and a twist of his fingers. He leaned back and sighed. “If all of this is true then why would you warn me? Why give me the advantage?”
Sully grinned. “Because Pratt hasn’t got a lot of choices when it comes to killing me. He’s with you every day, so he can work on you in steps. Try to convince you that putting me down is the smart option. But here’s the thing—you’re an old-school kind of guy. You believe in honor and duels and all that. Now you’re going to feel obliged to give me the same warning I just gave you when the time comes.”
Ogden leaned back in his seat and let out a ragged breath. Eventually he nodded. “That is only fair.”
“That’s what I thought.” Sully settled back to stare out at her city rolling by. The taxi moved on in silence for a moment before Sully’s temporary barrier fell and the screaming Yoruba lyrics washed over them in a crashing wave of noise.
Pratt was holding court in the Brooklyn Municipal Building again. Sully suspected it was because of the close proximity of the city’s best restaurants. The day to day running of the Empire had been left to the underlings while the rich old men with no tactical skills beyond their boundless sense of superiority settled in to argue about the course of the war. Ogden drifted up into the sky to meet with his underlings and a pair of soldiers fell in at either side of Sully as she got out of the taxi. Pratt may have been trying to intimidate or shame her but it was hard to march someone in like a prisoner when they strode ahead of their minders with such confidence. Sully led her bemused honor guard into the conference room.
Pratt glowered from the far end of the table with such fury that she was surprised it didn’t set the heaps of paper in front of him alight, but he did nothing to interrupt the arguments all around him. He was going to make the only person with anything useful to contribute to the conversation wait to speak. She remained at attention, staring out the far window at the sky between the buildings, but internally she scoffed. Like this was the first time she’d had to wait for a dressing down from a superior officer. Eventually, the stuffed suits that lined the table noticed her and fell silent, and with no more excuses, Pratt rose up and barked, “Would you be so kind as to furnish us with your long overdue report, General Sullivan.”
“We removed the Veil of Tears. We contacted the demonic presence in Europe and formed an alliance. On our first expedition, we encountered resistance. The British had forewarning of our attack.”
Pratt’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Pray tell, how did you overcome this resistance?”
“We didn’t. The demons suffered heavy bombardment and were forced to retreat.”
One of the waistcoats and elevenses crowd opened his mouth. “Poppycock, the gentlemen downstairs driven off by a little gunfire?”
Sully clenched her fists and smiled. “The British wished that demons couldn’t enter their territory. I have the Magi contacting their counterparts in the world below to find out precisely how that wish was made when we had assurances that no more deals were being offered.”
There was another outbreak of grumbling and muttering from around the table as the politicians all raced to have their baseless opinions heard. Pratt was grimly silent until the hubbub died down again. “Regardless of the details, it seems quite apparent that your plan has failed, General Sullivan. We cannot rely on the demons to provide us with any sort of victory in the British Isles, so it may be time to start pursuing diplomatic solutions.”
Sully’s knuckles were turning white. “With all due respect, Sir, a fight isn’t over just because the first punch doesn’t connect. We have an army of our own and many allies that could contribute troops and materiel. We have an excellent beachhead established in Europe that will be unassailable to any and all counterattacks. We are still in a very strong position.”
“You promised us victory and you have delivered us little more than scraps.”
Sully growled. “I promised you nothing. This isn’t a game and it isn’t one of your little political squabbles. This is war.”
She wasn’t great at illusions, but this one had been on the school curriculum. A routine chore for the only witch in the class. Shimmering coils of spellfire drifted up from her hands and spun until a sphere hung over the table, until with a grunt of effort it became a map of the world. Sully didn’t give them a chance to talk over her. “Hong Kong has barely manned defenses. If we took down the barrier around the fortress city like we did with the Veil then it would fall to the Khanate in days. The Black Hole of Kolikata has always been unstable—with just a few Magi we could completely destabilize it and drive the Empire out of India permanently.”
Each imperial base lit up on the globe as Sully mentioned its name. “There is a substantial redcoat presence in Botany Bay, but with assistance from the Dreamers we could create enough chaos to force the British either to reinforce there, weakening their home-front defenses, or to abandon their hold on Oceania completely. The base at Anguilla is in easy striking distance. The Virgin Islands. The Faroe Islands. The Spire of Ascension. All of these isolated targets are within our grasp. The British Empire is overextended to its breaking point. All that we need to do is apply pressure at any one of their overseas holdings and we can regain momentum.”
Pratt sneered, “And what price shall we pay for you to wage your little campaign of vengeance? How many of the lives of our citizenry would have to be tossed into the meat grinder to satisfy your bloodlust, when the British would likely listen to our terms even now?”
Sully’s globe blinked out. “If you think that they’re going to let us go without a fight, then you are a fucking idiot.”
He almost smiled. “Please, conduct yourself with some decorum, General Sullivan.”
A deathly silence filled the room as Sully’s jaw clamped shut. Her next words came out in a soft hiss. “We can all see you hedging your bets, Pratt. We’re not stupid. You’re too much of a coward to be a hero in war, so you’re going to paint the people who do have the balls to fight as warmongers. No matter which way the fighting goes, you stay safe in your cushioned palace. If we win, you kept us monsters in check. If you lose, then you were the voice of reason when the British come around looking for ringleaders to execute. I see you, Pratt. I know you. You’re a spineless piece of shit.”
In the awkward silence that followed, it was finally quiet enough to hear screaming coming from outside.
A half-dozen soldiers burst into the room, barking, “Evacuate! Evacuate the building! Everyone out!”
The politicians had barely started to rise from their seats when an impact rocked the room. That got them moving. Sully stripped off her jacket and tossed it aside as she ran to the window, spellfire
starting to seep from her fingers. She had made it as far as where Pratt was gathering up his folders when the wall tore away. The masonry cracked like a gunshot and the metalwork screamed. A dark shape passed through Sully’s vision, dragging the far end of the room away to shatter on the streets below. It was too fast and too huge for her to comprehend. She lashed it with a bolt of fire purely on instinct. Black scales, each as big as Sully’s hand, showered into the room as the mass vanished out of sight. She forced herself forward to the breach and hung out the side of the crumbling building to get a look at the enemy. She still couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing.
The body was impossibly large, scraping against the tallest buildings on either side of the street, and it was vaguely turtle-like. She could grasp that, but it was when she looked up at the mess emerging from the massive shell that her mind started to rebel. When she concentrated her gaze, narrowing her attention, it was easier. She could make out a snake-like neck supporting a head with a conger eel underbite and milky eyes. But there were dozens of heads on dozens of necks, all coiling and tangling around each other. Each one moved independently. One was hammering the thick bone of its brow ridge against the side of a building. Another was swooping low to scoop up a whole squad of infantry in its jaws. The head that had so casually ripped a side off the municipal building was lashing upward to snap at Ogden and his Magi in the air. Behind her she heard Pratt screeching over the roar of the wind outside. “What in the nine hells is that thing?”
Sully was still gawking in wonder. “That’s a Hydra. But I’m pretty sure they’re extinct.”
“Well, what is it doing here?”
A head passed by the building, so close that the rush of air almost knocked Sully off her feet, and then there was a muted scream from above them as the jaws snapped shut on whatever Magus it had been pursuing. The Hydra uttered no sound, no roars or hisses. It moved methodically, eliminating one threat after another with startling precision. Though its eyes were blank, the intelligence behind them was calculating.
Sully flashed Pratt a grin. “I’ll go ask it.”
Her flying spell caught her just as she hit the ground and she rebounded up to where she could see Ogden readying some huge complex working. His spell came together just as she arrived beside him and a torrent of lightning leapt from his outstretched hands, enough to have powered the city for a month. When it hit the Hydra, the beast jerked convulsively and every one of its necks fell suddenly limp. Heads rained down into the streets below and for a moment Sully thought that the fight might be over. She was only fooled for a moment.
Three heads reanimated themselves and lunged up at Ogden and Sully like striking cobras. Nothing that big should have moved that fast. Ogden was half exhausted from his last attack. He barely had enough time to toss up a shield before the Hydra’s jagged teeth were scraping over it, tossing him a block away with the force of the impact. Sully had more time to think and with a surge of power she spiraled up out of reach of the snapping teeth.
As she rose, she peppered the top of the Hydra’s heads with fire. It didn’t stop their attack, but she took satisfaction from watching the monster flinch. As it strained upward, more necks unfurled from inside its shell, but they were headless and ended in cauterized stumps. Someone had hurt this thing before. It could be done. She burst up out of the fog hanging over New Amsterdam and the whole world fell away beneath her. She and the pursuing heads were alone in the void between the fog below and the clouds above.
Away from the chaos on the streets, Sully found her focus. With the same methodical pace that the Hydra had used in demolishing the defenses around the municipal building, Sully ran through her repertoire of spells, testing each one against the Hydra’s hide and finding each one wanting. She conjured blades to cut it, flames to scorch it, ice to freeze it and razor-sharp crescents of pure arcane force that inflicted only superficial damage. Each time that she moved on to the next spell, the wounds from the last had already started to close. The Hydra just would not die. For a moment she sensed hesitation in its attacks and that was the only warning she had before three more revived heads burst out of the clouds around her.
“Shit.” Abandoning her experiments, Sully fled for the questionable safety of the earth. The Hydra’s heads lunged for her, moving in concert now, perfectly synchronized like a flock of birds. She drove straight down into the roiling fog and immediately crashed into another head that was on its way up.
She bounced off its snout and tumbled up between the monster’s blind eyes. She hit the brow ridge traveling at full speed, knocking the air out of her lungs. The spells she’d been forming died on her lips and she lay limp on the calloused hide, trying desperately to take a breath. If she just had one second to think. One moment to cast. The Hydra flicked her up into the sky with a jerk of its neck. She tumbled helplessly through the air into another waiting mouth and the jaws snapped shut around her.
The stench of rotten fish enveloped Sully in the total darkness. Every surface was slick with a thick slime that was soaking through her clothes, stinging when it reached her skin. Her hair was plastered with it and her scalp was burning. There was nothing to grab onto once she was past the jagged teeth. Beneath the spongy mucosa of the mouth were hard ridges of bone that battered her with every movement of the Hydra’s head. Gravity had started to do its work and Sully was slipping toward the Hydra’s throat.
She finally got enough of the fetid air into her lungs to cast but she couldn’t tell up from down. She cast the flying spell hoping that it would stop her from being swallowed. She collided with the roof of the Hydra’s mouth, where the pulsing vents still dripped venom. That was enough to put the world back into perspective. She cast again and though the first lance of flame ricocheted harmlessly off of the Hydra’s teeth, the next cratered its gums. The monstrous head whipped from side to side, knocking Sully from one jawbone to the other. Her head rang like a tolling bell. That was enough of that.
Her concussion spell had started out as a little industrial cantrip used for blowing glass and making lightbulbs. She had amped it up to smash windows and flip cars. It didn’t take much more power or terribly complicated math to turn it up again. It doubled the casting time, but she could work out that kink with a whiteboard and an hour when she wasn’t in the process of being swallowed. Adding a delay at the end so she had time to stick her fingers in her ears and cast a shield so that she didn’t go deaf or die was a nice touch, too.
Even though she was braced for it, the concussion hit Sully like a sledgehammer and knocked her down the back of the Hydra’s throat again. For one awful moment she was falling, then she pulsed more energy into the flying spell and launched herself back up into its mouth. Until she saw daylight, she thought that the she had missed her chance, that the Hydra had snapped its jaws shut again before she could escape. But the mouth was still gaping open, much wider than it should have been. The concussion had dislocated it, and while the Hydra’s impossibly fast healing was at work again, it wasn’t fast enough. Sully burst out into the open air with a whoop of triumph.
Every single one of the Hydra’s heads snapped around to track the parabola of her flight. All those dead eyes were suddenly far too attentive. The Hydra surged forward—its speed again belying its size—and Sully had to concentrate all her energies on just keeping ahead of it. They were almost to the water before she realized how far she had traveled while she was inside the monster’s mouth. It had gulped her down and then headed straight back to the sea, crossing a dozen blocks of Brooklyn in the time it took her to remember the difference between up and down. The Magi were still trailing after it, but since it was retreating, they seemed to have stopped their assault.
Sully dove down into the water to clear off the worst of the venom that was stinging her skin. By the time that she broke the surface she was certain that the Hydra had lost all interest in everyone else. It was here for her. That made just about as much sense as
an extinct reptile the size of a small island showing up in New Amsterdam—and it played nicely into her healthy sense of paranoia—but Sully accepted it as fact. If the Hydra wanted her, though, it was going to have to work for it.
She stayed low, dancing along the top of the river, and teasing the monster out onto the water where it was less likely to roll over a civilian. That turned out to be a mistake. Once it was in the water, its massive flippers were able to fulfill their purpose. Any intention that Sully had of getting clever vanished as she burned down the coast as fast as her spells could carry her. Red Hook was passed in a minute and the Magus tower in Owl’s Head Park loomed large on the horizon. Sully didn’t dare to stop and look back, but she could hear the Hydra in close pursuit. Its flippers were churning up the Black Bay and its bow wave was huge beneath her. Once or twice she heard the snap of jaws close at her heels. She put on another surge of speed even though she could feel her power dwindling by the minute.
The pain in her head had graduated from the expected tension headache into something new and terrible. If she closed her eyes, she was fairly certain that she was going to see colors. It didn’t matter. If the Magi hadn’t been able to scratch this thing, she didn’t stand a chance. Admitting that, even to herself, stung. Sully truly hated to retreat but she might be able to use its fixation on her to get it away from innocent people. The low broad blocks of Fort Hamilton came into view. Just a little bit further and she would have a clear shot out across the ocean. If she didn’t have to keep putting on more speed, she might make it as far as Bermuda before she was completely burned out, although she probably wouldn’t remember who she was by the time New Amsterdam was out of sight. That was worse than dying, somehow. Running and running until there was nothing left but fear and incomprehension.
Thinking of that possibility, Sully’s resolve faltered and the spells keeping her in the air weakened and came apart, dumping her onto Brighton Beach. She turned to face the Hydra. If she had hoped for one last glimpse of New Amsterdam, that hope was going to go unfulfilled—the writhing mass of the Hydra dominated the skyline. The heads reared up as its shell hit the sand. For one long moment her death hung there, before every one of the jagged maws came plunging down.