Witch of the Midnight Blade

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  “We need that Midnight Blade to get Maria out,” Cordelia said.

  Like I was going to share once I got her back.

  We turned onto the road to the airport. Blucifer—the giant demon statue—loomed a few miles up the road.

  “It talks to her.”

  Daniel leaned forward until his face was no more than six inches from mine. “You’ve been enthralled,” he said. “Do you understand what that means?”

  I inhaled deeply and moved my hand in front of my nose as if wafting to myself the loveliest perfume.

  “What the hell did you just enthrall out of her?” Marcus barked. He did the inside-the-corneas thing. “Did any of you bother to do a past-seeing to make sure it was safe?”

  “We need that Midnight Blade,” Cordelia repeated. “We need Maria Romanova.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “That’s classified information,” Cordelia snapped.

  Like that mattered. I sniffed and waited for an answer.

  “When one strand of the web vibrates, others are activated.” Cordelia looked in the rearview mirror. “Right, boys?”

  “Contingencies,” Marcus said, “most of which rely on you doing your job, Del.”

  I laughed. “My job.” So I’d become an officially-drafted cog in this machine of war. “I’m done.”

  “We optimize outcomes as best we can. Janus un-optimizes out from under us, as do the dragons,” Marcus said. “So when Cordelia says we need Maria, she might not know why, only that Maria is a contingency-optimizing piece on the board.”

  “Like you, Del,” Daniel said.

  Like me. It just seemed so… impersonal. So cold. So mechanical. So very much like the way I figured that stupid-ass ship in orbit would manipulate the players in its game.

  I think this was why Leif left with Nax. He had no idea what was going to happen, but he knew he had to optimize toward a future where Nax lived. And that meant sticking at his side.

  He’d done something I couldn’t do. He took on the future even though he wanted to go home as much as I did.

  I was really beginning to regret calling him a douchebag, and if I was honest with myself, I wanted to give him a hug. A real righteous cuddle, because we both needed some quality human time.

  That wasn’t going to happen, though. Not until I got my sword, got Maria out of new-space, and bitch-slapped the shit out of Janus, because Mr. Gorgeous might just find warrior goddess me worthy of quality cuddle-time. Leif did like tens. And he was gorgeous. And not a douchebag. And the whole warrior goddess thing was stupidly also making me horny.

  What the fuck, I thought.

  Cordelia chuckled.

  “Shut up,” I said.

  “You’re human,” she responded. “Something that, right now, gives me hope.” She pointed up the road.

  I watched the statue grow as we approached. Its eyes still glowed red as if its power feed was the most important in all of the greater Denver area, and I swear I picked up the buzz even a quarter mile down the road.

  I’d had enough of the Fates’ tricks and bullshit. I’d had enough of the end of the world, too. “I’m going to kick Janus’s uber-Fate butt and take back my sword,” I said. Maybe I’d open my own ground incursion and take Leif up to the Dragonslayer. He said the alt-Emperor emptied her out before I opened that gate, so it’d just be me, Leif, my sword, and a quiet, Fate-free spaceship up there. We could watch the stars together.

  “It’ll wear off in a few hours,” the healer said. “Use it wisely, Del Parrish. Do not get yourself killed.”

  I looked over my shoulder. He continued to watch me. Daniel continued to look faux-shocked.

  “What’s the matter, Daniel?” I asked. “You surprised? Didn’t you future-see our friend here giving me a boost? I thought that was your job.” I turned around before he answered.

  And there, under Blucifer, sat three vehicles—two military trucks and the red SUV Janus had used to steal Leif and Nax.

  And bodies. Blood.

  Two men, both in Seraphim suits, circled each other like animals. One rolled away just as the occupied military truck gunned its engine.

  Cordelia laid on the horn. The other Praesagio SUV, the one carrying Antonius and Harold, pulled around us. It, too, accelerated until the driver slammed on the brakes.

  It skidded off the road, rotating in a controlled-not-controlled way that only a trained stunt driver could achieve, and stopped between us and the men, driver side toward us, and passenger side toward the fight.

  The front passenger door opened. No one exited. At least no one visible.

  “Where’s my sword?” I asked. I rode with Fates. They should know.

  “It’s here,” Cordelia said.

  Obviously, I thought. “Which one of them has it?” Come on, baby. Where are you?

  Cordelia threw our SUV into reverse. “Hold on!”

  The Tsar’s ring pinged my sword like it had before they colluded and pulled through the ship. It pinged, and Stab answered. And I knew.

  She was in the military truck with Nax. Leif and Antonius beat on Marko-Janus and Leif was in trouble.

  Cordelia looked over her shoulder. “You three stay in the SUV.” She backed us toward Nax’s truck.

  The healer raised his hands as if to signal he had no intention of going toe-to-toe with the Seraphim, but Daniel pulled his door handle and was out into the cold air before the SUV had come to a full stop.

  “Damn it, Daniel!” she yelled.

  Let them fight. Maybe all the distractions would help me get my sword. I followed Daniel.

  We were perpendicular to the military truck, with the back end of the SUV against the front driver’s side tire and our nose pointing to Harold’s SUV. Cordelia and the other Praesagio driver had basically set up a vehicle barrier between them and the fight.

  Daniel ran around the end of our SUV and up to the passenger door of the other one. He smacked the window. “Harold!” he yelled. “Give me Leif’s weapons.”

  Harold still had that duffle bag. I should probably take that, too.

  Nax opened the driver’s door of the truck.

  He looked almost normal. He was still too pale, and he’d obviously been sweating, and he still moved as if he fought nausea, but he was up and moving, and conscious enough to drive the truck. “Why are you here, Del?” he asked.

  Stab sat right there, on the passenger seat of the military truck, pinging at the ring and shimmering in all her new-space glory. I leaned into the truck and snatched her off the seat.

  She’d come back to me, my lovely, trippy, alternate reality friend. “Did you miss me, beautiful?”

  Nax blinked. Then he nodded to the SUV. “Those Praesagio assholes enthralled you, didn’t they?”

  Cordelia shouted an order to the other driver and the National Guard woman in the truck. Harold and Daniel argued. Nax watched me pull Stab out of her scabbard.

  “Del…” he said.

  I held Stab out in front of me. I could see some of the fight around the truck’s door, so I peered down Stab’s edge at super-suited men. Out under Blucifer, three time travelers pounded on each other. One of them—the one who wasn’t moving in and out of visibility—was in trouble.

  His suit wasn’t functioning properly.

  He belonged just as much to warrior-me as my sword, and I wanted him back, too. The Praesagio morons with guns didn’t know what to do, but I did.

  I ran around the truck and straight for Janus.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Leif…

  Leif’s punch knocked Janus back into visible, at least for a moment, and made his arc toward the base of the big blue horse’s hooves look like a shimmering rainbow of Seraphim pixie dust.

  He hit with a thud.

  It didn’t kill him. The suit made sure of that. But it did damage.

  Janus coughed. He tried to stand. He tried to brace himself against the statue’s base. But he stopped when the driver of one of the approaching SUVs laid on the
horn.

  A distortion appeared between Leif and Janus, now a good ten feet away. “Leif!” it barked. “Status!”

  Antonius.

  “He messed with my suit’s repair programming,” Leif said. “Do not allow him direct contact.”

  Antonius extended his staff to full length as he lifted it off his back. “Noted,” he said. Then he and his weapon vanished.

  Antonius landed a hit. Janus laughed.

  Leif slapped his hand over his keypad again. “You can’t go into emergency mode until the emergency is over,” he said to his suit.

  Critical failure in sixty seconds, his retinal display said.

  What? “Reboot!” he said. “Now!”

  Critical failure in fifty-six seconds.

  His suit might be able to reboot on Antonius’s repair programming—if it had overrides from both of them. An override might damage Antonius. It would, at the very least, distract him.

  Antonius landed another hit, this time to Janus’s other shoulder.

  The SUVs screeched to a halt next to Nax’s truck. Doors opened. People yelled. Failure in forty-eight seconds scrolled across his display.

  He was about to lose his suit. Even if he could reboot on Antonius’s undamaged systems, his suit was going to power down no matter what. “Please don’t lock up like you did before,” he muttered as looked around for one of the National Guard rifles. Anything that could protect Nax and the others from Janus. At this point, he’d settle for a big rock—

  Del darted around the military truck, still in the same jacket she’d been wearing when they left the bus’s crash site. She’d lost her hat and gloves and had wrapped her naked hands around the hilt of the last weapon anyone should be bringing near Janus.

  “Marko!” Del yelled. “You motherfucking liar!”

  Critical failure in forty seconds. “Del! What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

  Nax, rifle in hand, followed her around the truck. Cordelia Palatini-Sut, the spy who’d found them at the ground incursion when they came through, dropped her feet out of the driver’s door of one of the SUVs.

  They were going to get themselves killed. “Get out of—” he started to shout. Started, then stopped, when his display changed. Rifle detected, it said. Critical failure in thirty-two seconds.

  Someone had his weapon. His rifle. One that functioned with his suit and did not require an override.

  Adrestia rounded the back corner of the farthest SUV. She carried a duffle from the bus. The same one he’d seen Nax load with his weapons.

  A War Baby had his gun.

  Critical failure in twenty seconds, his display said.

  He could take her in hand-to-hand. He had several times in his life. But this time he was in a suit that might stiffen up when it shut down. Or not, if he could get to his rifle. He twisted, readying himself to flip her onto her back so he could strip the duffle.

  She reached into the bag. “Here,” she said. “Use this.” She handed him one of his n-EMP discs. “Best if your rifle survives this.”

  He snatched the disc. “Why are you helping me?”

  Critical failure in—he slapped the disc onto his shoulder. “Download repair pro—”

  Download complete, his display said. Diagnostics engaged.

  Janus threw out his arms. He bellowed like a buffalo. Antonius swung his staff again, but this time Janus countered and swung Antonius toward Del and Nax.

  “Give me my talisman, you little witch!” Janus roared.

  He ran at Del.

  Leif dipped his hand into the duffle. One knife was all he needed. One shot from his rifle. Antonius might not be playing to kill, but Leif was.

  “No!” Addy grabbed his wrist. “We need you and your suit more than we need him dead.”

  Addy was a present-seer, not a future-seer. “Why do you care?” he snapped.

  Del danced out of the way. She twisted and stuck out her foot just enough to knock Janus off his path. Then she smacked him on the back of the head with the pommel of the Midnight Blade.

  He’d seen her move like this before, when the sword had allowed her access to her alt-self’s procedural memory. She was basically accessing external fighting operations in the same way his suit was currently running diagnostics off an external back-up.

  “This sword is mine!” She kicked him in the kidney. “Leif is mine!”

  What? he thought.

  She kicked Janus again.

  “Vivicus!” Addy yelled.

  Nax’s slice should have kept him down for at least another hour, yet he lurched toward Del like a semi-visible zombie in his ripped-up suit.

  Nax was closest. He pulled his rifle around and popped off a shot that hit Vick directly between the eyes.

  Nothing happened. Vick had hardened his skull.

  Leif reached for the duffle. “Give me my rifle.” But Addy had already taken his weapons toward the fight.

  He didn’t have a choice. Diagnostics or not, barely functioning or not, Del, Antonius, even this weird version of Addy needed him.

  Behind him, closer to the SUVs, Cordelia yelled at them all to get on the ground. Vivicus continued to lurch. Nax spun his rifle around to smack Vick in the head. Antonius moved not toward Del, but toward Addy, and toward Leif’s weapons.

  Janus snickered where he sat on the ground.

  They were all within seven feet of each other, like a bunch of high-energy protons spinning around the true nucleus of this situation—Stab.

  Because it was Stab that responded. Stab that decided what to do next. Stab, and that damned ring Del wore around her thumb.

  She twirled Stab, then did something she shouldn’t have, even in her obviously enthralled state. She transferred the sword to the hand with the ring. “Will taking off your head perma-kill you?” she yelled at Vivicus as she swung the blade.

  Leif’s display blanked. His suit semi-slacked, then immediately re-tightened. He’d rebooted.

  Vivicus dodged but Stab made contact with his suit anyway.

  Targeting data acquired appeared on Leif’s retina, but it wasn’t from his suit. The reboot had opened external channels again.

  Stab had targeting data, which meant only one thing—Stab was about to do what Janus wanted.

  “We can’t!” Leif yelled. “Not with the Dragonslayer in orbit!” If Stab opened an incursion too close to any of the spikes—any of them, anywhere on Earth—the ship would respond.

  They didn’t have anyone up there to plead their case. “Del!” he yelled. Maybe she wasn’t so deep into her enthralling that she’d ignore him. “Tell the ship it’s a mistake! Tell the ship—” The air rushed away.

  Leif did the only thing he could at that moment—he pulled Nax as close to his body as he could. “Inhale!” he said. If they moved fast, maybe he’d be alright. Maybe Addy and Del would be, too.

  Addy pressed herself against Antonius’s chest as she inhaled deeply. Nax closed his eyes and turned into what protection Leif’s suit offered.

  Del blinked as if she’d finally realized what was happening. As if the shock of not being able to lift Stab’s blade away from Vivicus’s suit had cut through whatever enthralling the Praesagio people had laid on her. “Stop, you stupid ship!” she yelled.

  Trinzi-Bower Cage detected.

  What the hell was a Trinzi-Bower—

  Automatic emergency transfer protocols engaged.

  It didn’t matter, because whatever it was, it did its job.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Del…

  When arrogant people who usually know what’s about to happen have no clue, when they don’t know, do they always take out their fear on regular people? Was that Fate Cordelia stomping around because she couldn’t at all, never-ever, have possibly foreseen what’d just happened? Or was she mad because I somehow messed up her plans?

  As if none of this was her fault.

  Bitch, I thought. When this was done and I was, I don’t know, alive again, I was going to punch her right i
n the nose. Her, and that damned healer. Then I might use Stab to cut off an assortment of male parts, Daniel’s ghostly dangly bits included.

  Because this time, I was pretty sure that whatever they’d gotten me into had actually killed me. I was dead and between worlds both literally and metaphorically.

  I wasn’t alone.

  A storm raged out there, beyond whatever bubble or cage or sweet spot in the multiverse into which Stab had pulled … us? me? I was here, Leif and the others were here too, but like the storm, they were adjacent. The storm, the ship—they were just around a corner.

  As was Maria. This was her place. Her little bubble universe where time and space ran differently than they did in the real world. We were all inside the cage that held her prisoner.

  And we were moving.

  Gray tornadoes spun on the edge of the cage. The little ones again, the ones that were more wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey curlicues than cyclones. The ones that danced with power.

  They moved. We moved even as places, times, bridges—I had no idea—as those nodes outside Maria’s prison made themselves known.

  And I began to see people—the people who, somehow here in new-space, had to be the power behind those tornadoes.

  Alt-me appeared next to me. She looked the same as she had when we’d opened the gate for the Dragonslayer, though at this point, I didn’t think we’d actually opened anything. I think we’d made one of these cages. A really, really big one.

  Alt-me looked up at the storm, out at the curlicues, then back at Stab in my hand. “Ismene did what I asked,” she said.

  “She did.” Was she in this bubble of new-space with me? “Ismene’s going to help the Burners of this world,” I said. That’s what she’d promised.

  Alt-me didn’t look any more convinced than I felt. “Good for her,” she said.

  The me standing in front of me had three decades on me—she was physically older than my mom. She wore utilitarian, indestructible-looking black pants and boots, and a black and gray multi-layered shirt with a high, crumpled neck that was probably a pulled-back hood.