The notion of Prohibited or “Probe” schools is the root of the problem. What incentive do Probes have to cooperate, to turn themselves in? From the moment they Manifest, their very existence is illegal. When you relegate a class of people to pariah status, you are creating a ready-made insurgency. The problem here is that this particular one has the power to bring about a change in the regime.
— Loretta Kiwan, Vice President
Council on Latent-American Rights
Appearing on WorldSpan Networks Counterpoint
You can call it blasphemy all you want, but the timing is perfect. Jesus Christ was an unusually powerful Physiomancer during the last Reawakening cycle. Your whole system of belief is based on a fluke of history. What you do with that realization is your problem, but it sure as hell should deflate your basis for oppressing homosexuals, outlawing abortion, and prohibiting magical schools.
— Mary Copburn
Council for Ethical Atheism
With every step, Britton’s mind returned to his heart. He imagined that he could feel the ATTD bouncing, dancing in his ventricle, waiting for the signal that would tell it to end him. His feet pounded with the rhythm of his heartbeat. Pound, pulse, pound, pulse, pound. Boom? When would the boom come?
Maybe Scylla was right; maybe he was worth too much. But he wasn’t taking any chances. The cash tent loomed before him, oddly quiet considering what had just happened.
In the distance, gunfire was erupting in the near-ceaseless staccato that spoke of real engagement. Several helicopters buzzed overhead.
Britton burst through the cash flaps, charging into the trauma unit. Several orderlies stared at him, but all the MPs were gone. Probably busy guarding Marty, he thought, or gone to see what the hell is going on out there.
Therese stood in the trauma unit, chatting sympathetically with a young marine who was gingerly testing his shoulder, pressing his fingertips against one of the tent beams, then wincing in pain. “Don’t be such a baby,” she admonished. “It won’t even be sore by tomorrow.”
The marine grinned at her and opened his mouth to say something as Britton approached.
“I need to speak to you,” Britton said. His eyes bored into hers. Don’t ask, just come with me.
Her eyes lighted on his bruised neck, his skinned hands and arms. Her nose wrinkled at the rotten stink on his clothes. She held his gaze for a moment before nodding. “Follow me.”
She led him to the row of individual examination rooms, each kitted out with a long hospital gurney, complete with foam mattress, curtained off from the bustle of the main cash. As soon as she’d closed the curtain, he seized her elbows and drew her close.
“You’ve got to get this thing out of my chest, right now.”
“Are you crazy?” she whispered, shaking her head. “I don’t know if I can even do it, and I haven’t had a chance to get the meds I need yet. The pain could kill you!”
He shook his head. “I’m dead anyway, and so is Marty if you can’t get me free of this thing in the next few minutes.”
“Oh God, Oscar. What happened?”
“It’ll take too long to explain. Suffice to say that I fucked up big-time. This whole FOB is about to come down around our ears. They’ve got Marty, and they’re probably going to kill him as soon as they realize what the hell is going on. While I’m at it, I need to get us all out of here. I can’t do that if the SOC can track me. Therese, we don’t have any time.” He took her hand and placed it on his chest. “You have to try.”
She opened her mouth, and he caught her hands, hoping the intensity of his stare conveyed the urgency his words could not. “Please, Therese. I need you to do this.”
She was silent another moment, then nodded. “Get on the cot, hurry!”
She disappeared as he lay down, and returned again carrying a syringe. “All I can get are some Benzodiazepines. It’ll calm you down more than the Dampener, but it’s not going to do anything for the pain.”
Britton thought of Marty and bit down. He felt his heart racing. Still beating. That’s something. “Let’s get it over with.”
She looked at him, one hand on his forehead.
He held her eyes as he felt the syringe pierce his shoulder and the chemical wash into his bloodstream. It was followed by peace, a dizzy and relaxed euphoria. His heart slowed, the harsh sodium lights took on a halo of rainbows. Therese waxed more beautiful than ever.
“I love you,” he said before he knew he had spoken.
Therese smiled and leaned down, her lips brushing his forehead. He kept his eyes closed as she pulled away.
The doped fog washed over him, Britton’s mind cartwheeled, forming escape plans. Once the ATTD was out, and he could gate away, then what? Rescue Marty, bring Therese, somehow convince Umbra Coven to come with him, take them all somewhere the SOC could never follow.
But the SOC could always follow, couldn’t they? Britton wasn’t their only Portamancer. Billy’s drooling face swam into his drug-addled vision. Anywhere Britton could go, the SOC could follow.
“Hang on, Oscar.” Therese’s voice cut through his reverie. “I’ll do this as fast as I can.”
He felt something pressed against his mouth and opened to accept it. A small rubber ball. He bit down on it instinctively and heard a murmur of appreciation from Therese.
The warm ripples of her current intensified, dropping down into his chest, slipping behind his ribs and cradling his heart. They curled there, gripping the muscle. Britton could feel the tendrils moving through the valves and chambers. It tingled but didn’t hurt. They probed. Britton could feel the magic gather, pause.
“There it is,” Therese said. “Here we go.”
Agony. Pain like he had never known before. Scylla’s assault on him had been nothing compared to this. His breath vanished, his vision gone white for the second time in less than an hour. A vise gripped his heart, each beat hammered so hard he felt it would pound him to fragments. He could feel the ATTD migrating, the flesh spasming to push it upward. The muscle shuddered, threatened to stop, but the tendrils of magic kept it beating steadily. But Therese couldn’t keep the body’s natural rhythm. Waves of agony sounded across his body as every cell cried out in rage at the flow of oxygen suddenly interrupted.
He tried to scream, but he couldn’t move muscles completely locked in spite of the drugs coursing through him. His jaw clamped shut, teeth digging furrows in the rubber between them.
Pain became the whole of his universe, eternal, all-encompassing. Oscar Britton lay in it and prayed to die.
And then, mercifully, he did.
Stanley Britton stood naked, his wiry body strong as ironwood, the muscles mapping a rolling landscape beneath the skin. Only his face and silver-threaded hair betrayed his age. He hovered above the saw-edged grass, weird stars drifting overhead. Demon-horses cavorted around him, nuzzling his thighs, crooning affection. His fingertips touched lightly over their shaggy backs.
A huge stone resting on his chest, Oscar lay on his back and looked at his father. The weight crushed him. Blood lapped the edges.
“Dad,” he croaked. “Dad, get it off. It hurts.”
“Sir,” Stanley said in Fitzy’s voice. “Show some goddamned respect.”
“It’s killing me.”
“Funny how that works,” Stanley said. “Just deserts, I’d say.”
“I’m sorry,” Oscar managed. “I didn’t want to…” The stone dug deeper, he felt his ribs give way beneath the weight, his lungs compressing. He could barely manage the air to speak.
“You always were a little slow on the uptake,” Stanley said. He gestured over his body. “Do I look hurt to you? If I were any better, I’d need rubber pants. No, no. I’m just fine. You’re the one who’s dead.”
Snow swept around him, the air suddenly chill. The fat flakes rained down around the stone, soaking the blood, burying him. The cold swept into his veins, freezing him, making him leaden. A black shape blossomed behind Stanley’s head, extending long slender limbs over his shoulders.
Oscar strained to make it out, but the blizzard picked up, obscuring his vision. Stanley vanished in the deluge until all Oscar could see was his head, leaning back into the crook of another’s neck. The shadow behind him nuzzled him affectionately, like a lover.
“See you soon, son,” his father said, then the snow took Oscar, leaving only the crushing weight on his chest, constriction and lingering agony.
“Oscar.” The snow began to clear. The cold and agony re-mained.
“Oscar.” Not his father’s voice. Someone else. Someone good.
“Oscar, come on.” Something battered his cheeks, he tried to move his head away from it, but the slaps continued.
The snow resolved into a canvas ceiling supported by metal poles. Harsh sodium lights.
The cash.
“Oscar, look at me.” Therese’s almond eyes, wet with concern, filled his vision. She waved a hand in front of him.
Balanced on her fingertips was a steel insect, its segmented carapace still glossed with his blood. One end dangled a long wire, stingerlike. The other housed a clear plastic dome, pulsing a gentle blue light. Black numbers had been stenciled on the side.
“We got it,” he croaked. His voice burned in his throat.
“We got it,” she said, biting back tears. “How are you?”
He began to sit up, the ball of pain in his chest expanded. His head swam with drugged bewilderment and nausea. He leaned over the table and dry-heaved, the spasm aggravating his agony.
“Oh, God,” he said.
Therese put her hands on his chest, whole and unscarred. “Oscar, lie down. You can’t move yet.”
He shook his head, the motion nearly made him pass out. “No time. We’ve gotta get Marty.” And after that? Later. Take it step by step.
He swung his feet over the edge of the cot. They slammed down on the ground, and he nearly vomited again, but the solidity of a hard surface made him feel somewhat steadier.
“Oh, Jesus, you’re crazy,” Therese said, putting her shoulder in his armpit to support him. The smell of her hair soothed him, then made him sick again. His vision faded and returned in time with the pulsing agony in his chest.
“They’ll kill him,” he said, and forced his weight onto his feet. His knees failed him, and he sagged against Therese, who steadied herself with one hand on the cot.
She couldn’t carry him. He’d have to dig deep. He took a shaking step.
It took them nearly a minute to get halfway across the tiny room, but they made it. Therese still dangled the ATTD between two fingers.
“No,” he croaked, “get rid of it. It could go off any minute.”
Outside, the cash was erupting in noise and chaos. The word must have begun to arrive. A loud buzz of helicopters sounded overhead. Deep booms, some sounding like magic, some not.
Therese set the ATTD down on the cot and helped Britton walk. “What’s going on?”
“Later, we’ve got to move.”
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Britton slouched toward the dental unit. “Just look for MPs.”
They found them in abundance. A knot of them swarmed the urinalysis section, carbines pointed earthward but fingers braced tensely over triggers. Marty stood placidly inside a protective ring of surly Goblin orderlies. They snarled in their language at a translator who sat behind a laptop, shouting questions. The tent thronged with onlookers, furious Goblins, soldiers, and orderlies alike. Half of the MPs faced inward, keeping the angry Goblins from assaulting the translator. The other half faced outward, keeping the equally enraged humans from storming Marty.
Truelove and Downer stood outside the ring of MPs, lending their shouts to the throng. Truelove spotted Britton and ran to him.
“They’re trying to see if he had any accomplices on the staff,” the Necromancer said. “I’ve been trying to tell them it’s just a custom, but nobody is list— Wow. Are you okay?”
Britton nodded. “Need to talk to him.”
Truelove glanced nervously from Britton to Therese and back. “They’re not going to let you.”
Boom. Boom. The crackle of gunfire. “What the hell is going on out there?” Truelove asked. He took a step away from the circle, then looked nervously back to Marty.
“Stay here, I’m begging you,” Britton whispered as Therese helped him forward.
He tapped one of the MPs on the center of his body armor and pointed at the Goblin. The soldier wrinkled his brow. “Shouldn’t you be lying down?”
Therese gestured to Marty. “Please! We all know what you’re going to do to him, just let us say good-bye?”
“Fine by me, ma’am,” the MP said, “so long as you’re willing to pay for the lawyer when they write me up for disciplinary action.” He took a half step to better block their progress.
The Goblins continued to shout. The linguist typed furiously on his laptop, shouting back.
No time.
“Marty!” Britton bellowed. His lungs flexed with the effort, and the balloon of pain swamped him. He stumbled against Therese, and Truelove raced to help her hold him up.
Boom. Boom. Thup. Thup. Thup. Three MPs listened to their squawking radios, then took off, running for the cash entrance.
Marty looked up, eyes widening as he noticed Britton. He began to shout.
The Goblins around him surged, throwing themselves at the MPs. The ring widened in reaction, the linguist scrambling backward, snatching up his laptop. The crowd of onlookers stumbled backward, and the tent shook.
“I see him!” Marty shouted. “I see friend!”
The MP officer, a pale-faced lieutenant who looked almost as young as Downer, pulled out his pistol, leveling it at Marty. “Calm down! Now just calm the hell down!”
But Marty would not calm down. He called for Britton as the Goblin contractors clawed at the MPs, a few of whom began to flail with the butts of their carbines.
Britton managed to raise his head. “This is getting out of control, Lieutenant. I’d put that gun down if I were you. You take a shot in here, and you’re going to hit a friendly anyway.”
The lieutenant snatched his pistol backward as one of the Goblin contractors lunged at it, and cursed.
“Damn it, let him through!” he called to the MP in front of Britton.
A boom sounded. Closer that time. Had the ATTD gone off? No, it wasn’t that close.
Yet.
The crowd of Goblins immediately calmed, stepping back and surrounding Marty again as the MP stepped aside, allowing Therese and Truelove to help Britton into the ring.
He shrugged off their grip, kneeling before Marty. The Goblin placed his hands on Britton’s shoulders — huge eyes looking into his. The white spots of his face were smeared, his breath sour. “You hurt.”
Britton rested his head on Marty’s narrow shoulder and whispered in his ear. “Yeah, but it’s going to be okay. We have to go now.”
The lieutenant looked on nervously, and the ring of MPs began to tighten.
Another boom shook the cash this time. The MPs looked around nervously. The lieutenant shouted into his radio. “Shovel, this is six. What the hell is going on?”
When Britton raised his head, Marty looked at him, eyes wide and uncomprehending.
Downer was still outside the ring. Britton turned to Truelove. “We’re leaving. Come with us.”
Truelove took a step back, slowly shaking his head.
“What are you doing?” the lieutenant shouted, turning away from his radio. “Pick him up,” he called to one of his men.
They were out of time. “I’ll come back for you,” Britton said, and extended a hand. A gate opened behind Marty. Beyond it, he could see a bowl of rose moss where he’d gone on his first camping trip in the mountains of Vermont’s largest state park. The current of his magic soothed the pain in his heart but brought a dizziness that nearly knocked him out.
He pushed Marty through the gate with one hand and swung Therese into it with the other. Then he pitched forward, falling halfway into the portal, his face down in the soft plants, his nostrils filling with the scent of frostbitten red clover.
“Come on,” he whispered to Truelove, knowing the Necromancer couldn’t hear him.
He felt Therese’s hands dragging him the rest of the way through the gate, turning him over.
The other side was a maelstrom of yelling soldiers surging toward the gate. The Goblins flung themselves against them, blocking their progress. Truelove stood still, mouth open and head shaking. Downer was behind him, arm draped across his chest and holding him back, her face contorted and screaming. The lieutenant raised his pistol and fired a shot into the gate. It dug a trench in the frozen ground beside him, sparking off a rock.
Britton yanked his knees to his chest and shut the gate.
He lay still for a moment, letting the biting cold chase the fog from his mind, leaving only the pain in his chest.
The silence was overwhelming. He had forgotten how strong the sense of constant magical current was in the Source. Back on the Home Plane, he felt barren, his own current lonely and isolated. The wind picked up, sending a scattering of dead leaves in a rasping dance somewhere nearby. Marty let out a low sigh of amazement, gawping at his surroundings.
Therese broke the quiet, digging furiously in her pocket. “Oh my God, Oscar, they’ll blow it up. I left it in the cash.” He had no idea how powerful the explosive was, but it wouldn’t need to be too strong to do a lot of damage in such tight quarters.
And Britton knew the cash was about to be overwhelmed with work.
He fought to his knees. “I’ll take care of it.”
He swallowed hard, dug deep inside himself for the energy to open another gate, staggering to his feet and lurched back into the room where Therese had extracted it. He snatched the blinking device off the cot, then jogged down familiar pathways, until he stumbled into air as cold as the bowl of rose moss where Therese and Marty awaited him.
He dropped the ATTD in front of the stainless-steel surface of the industrial chiller. He swept his eyes past the Goblin corpses in their various states of dissection and his eyes alighted on a rack of winter parkas bolted to one of the tent-support rods that held up the cold chamber. He snatched three and pushed himself back through the gate, collapsing beside Therese again.
He managed to lift his head and shut the gate.
But not before the flash of orange shocked his eyes and the low growl of the explosive shock wave whispered faintly in his ears, the tremors sending him off into peaceful blackness.
He gave up the fight and surrendered to it.
Because he had escaped FOB Frontier.
Because, at long last, he was free.
You can dress it up any way you like, cover it with laws and fancy proclamations. None of it can change the truth, which is simply this: you’re terrified. Humans are in the presence of creatures that look just like them but are to them as humans are to insects. This is why the SOC is so utterly disgusting. Why the hell would you work for cockroaches? They should be working for us. Hell, they should be slaving for us. And, in time, they will.
—“Render,” Houston St. Selfers
Recorded “Message for SOC Sorcerers” distributed
on the Internet and the streets of New York City
They lay in silence for a few minutes before Britton shook himself and stumbled to his feet. He shrugged the parka over his shoulders and tossed one to Therese. She helped Marty into his, draping it over his oversized head so he looked like a small child bundled up for the cold. He winced at the touch of the ground, lifting the splayed toes of his thickly callused feet, but there was nothing to be done.
Therese placed her hand on Britton’s chest and he could feel the magic beginning to do its work again. “Just let me double-check…” she said.
After a moment, she raised her hands to his shoulders. “Oscar, you’ve got to send me back.”
He shrugged off his exhaustion, pushed through the pain. “What? I just got us out of there.”
Therese shook her head. “There are sick people, hurt people. I have to help. You’re safe now, but I’m not going to run with you. They need me there, Oscar.”
You have no idea, Britton thought. The sounds of explosions and gunfire echoed through his head. He could picture the Goblins swarming through the collapsed perimeter. They are going to need you more than ever now.
“Therese, you can’t. They’ll kill you. How long do you think it’s going to take them to figure out how I got the ATTD out? Do you honestly think they’ll turn a blind eye to that?”
Therese nodded. “Maybe they won’t figure it out,” she whispered. “Maybe I can explain.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. What do you think they’re going to do?”
She shook her head. “Oscar, what the hell was going on there? Something was happening, something started this all off.”
Britton was silent. He looked at his lap. She shook his shoulders. “Tell me, damn it.
“There’s a problem, isn’t there? People are being hurt.”
He nodded.
“Send me back,” she said firmly. “I have to help.”
His heart caught in his throat as the image of the intact Quonset huts flooded his brain. They stood, untouched, in the middle of the devastated SASS. The occupants were still inside, Britton knew. Swift, Pyre, Peapod. Tsunami. Wavesign. The Goblins would be pouring over that ground first.
And that wasn’t even counting the other Goblins, Marty’s tribesmen who worked on the FOB. Would they be punished for helping Marty escape? Maybe. But there were hundreds of them spread all over the FOB. Britton knew he couldn’t save them all.
But the SASS enrollees were all in one place, and that was a start.
“You want to help?” Britton asked. “Help me.”
He stood up, shaking slightly, exhaustion gripping him.
“Where are we going? What are we doing?” she asked.
“Marty”—Britton looked down at the little Goblin—“I need you to stay here.” He shuddered to think of what would become of the creature, stranded on the Home Plane, if they didn’t return for him.
Marty shook his head. “Come with you,” he said.
“Oscar, what’s this about?” Therese asked.
“Marty,” Britton said. “Please. Just sit tight and don’t move. You won’t be able to help us where we’re going, and I can’t stand having gotten you out of there only to get you killed. I promise I’ll be back.” What if you’re not? “I promise.” He unclipped his pocketknife and handed it to the Goblin. It looked larger in his small hands, but still woefully inadequate.
“I’ll be back.” He turned to Therese. “I freed Scylla,” he said. “I thought I had to. I was a fool. She gutted the FOB like a piece of rotten fruit. I don’t know how bad it is, but I assume the neighboring Goblin tribes are hitting it hard right now. That’s what all that noise was. She left the SASS enrollees alive, but they’re right in the path of the advance. If there’s any chance of helping anyone, Therese, it should be them. I’m not happy that the SOC has a fight on its hands, or that people are going to be hurt, but I’ll be damned if I’m going back to them again. You want to help someone? Help me help Wavesign and the rest of them. I put them in this position, but the SOC put us all in it first. I can’t undo what I’ve done, but I can try to fix some of it, and I can do it better with your help.”
She stared at him, mouth gaping. “Please, Therese,” he said. “There’s no time. We need to go right now. I don’t even know if they’re still alive, but we’ve got to try.”
“Goddamn it, Oscar.”
“You want to chew me out? Fine. Do it later.” He opened a gate just outside the scattered remains of Scylla’s pillbox. “Now or never,” he said. He jumped through without looking back.
But when he looked up, Therese was behind him.
And the Quonset huts were still standing, awash in a sea of Goblins.
The battle had pushed on beyond the SASS’s borders. Britton could make out army fire teams in the distance, firing from behind the cover of a few armored personnel carriers. Apaches wheeled overhead. Aeromancers danced in between them. The sky was clouded with Rocs, circling over the fray, their backs loaded with Goblin crews discharging clouds of javelins on the battle below them. Squadrons of wolf-borne Goblins charged among the soldiers, swinging halberds. White-chalked sorcerers ran in their midst, their flowing currents sensible to Britton even from that distance. As Britton watched, one armored personnel carrier was engulfed in magical fire. The ball turret gunner leapt screaming from it, beating at the flames. A dull thud heralded the arrival of a mortar round, bursting in the midst of the advancing Goblins, sending a few spiraling into the air. Britton crouched as the shrapnel tore in his direction, but he was too far away to be harmed.
A helicopter flew low over the fight, miniguns blazing. A white-painted Goblin sorcerer spread his arms and the earth erupted into a lurching spike that clipped the spinning rotors, sending the helo spinning erratically into the line of APCs, exploding in a bright ball of flame.
He heard Therese suck in her breath beside him. Later, he thought. For now, do what you can.
Swift floated above the Quonset huts. A few of the enrollees had gathered around the No-No Crew on the roof. A big, bearded man in cargo pants lifted a Goblin over his head and threw him down into the crowd below. Swift spread his arms, and lightning cracked among them, sending them scattering. Wavesign knelt on the curved dome, his perennial rain cloud gone. He managed short bursts of carefully controlled magic, sharp tendrils of ice that spread to scattering storms as they buffeted the Goblins below, driving them back. The stress of the conflict had again focused the young Hydromancer’s magic, and Britton marveled as the shards of deadly ice rained down on the throng. The havoc seemed to have had the opposite effect on Tsunami. She crouched behind Wavesign, hugging her arms around herself, crying. Pyre swept his arms over his head, sending balls of fire arcing down into the mass. A few met targets among the Goblins that gripped the Quonset hut’s superstructure, trying to scale it. Peapod gestured, and earth exploded in the midst of the Goblins, a gaping crater that sucked dozens of them in, burying them as the ground coiled on itself and closed back up, chomping like hungry teeth. A javelin burst from the throng and caught another enrollee in the chest. He fell screaming off the roof, disappearing into the surging mass below.
A cry sounded. Britton watched as a Roc banked toward Swift, its back brimming with Goblins, leveling stolen rifles at him. Swift’s attention was riveted on the assault from below, oblivious to the airborne threat moving toward him.
Britton exploded into motion, running forward and extending a hand. A gate sliced open alongside the giant bird, severing one wing. It shrieked, flapped once, experimentally, fountaining blood onto the creatures below it, then tumbled over on its side and pitched to the ground.
“Come on!” Britton was shouting. “Swift! Clear a fucking lane and come on!”
Some of the Goblins to the rear of the mass surrounding the hut were beginning to turn, their eyes narrowing. An arrow thrummed through the air, narrowly missing Therese. Britton opened a gate on the roof of the Quonset hut, but the enrollees spun to face it, disbelieving.
“Go through! Go through, you idiots!” Britton shouted, then shut the gate to open it again in front of Therese to intercept a spear hurtling toward her belly.
A group of the Goblins had turned toward them, the muzzles of their wolves plunging and snarling, while the riders brandished swords and pistols. A wolf coiled on its haunches and sprang toward him. Britton caught it in midair with a gate and sent it sliding down through the mass of the creatures, forcing them to dive to either side.
Britton’s skin began to itch, suddenly, maddeningly. His throat swelled, his tongue feeling as if it had been rolled in dust. He blinked, his eyes burning. A Goblin sorcerer moved toward them, splitting the white paint across its face as it screamed at them. It thrust its arms forward, and Britton felt his whole body cry out for water, as if he’d been wandering a desert for weeks. He swept his arm to one side, sliding the gate toward it, but the sorcerer threw itself backward, and he shut the gate to follow its progress.
Another Goblin raced toward him, a huge bearded axe waving over its head. Britton managed to drop to his side, aiming a kick at the creature’s abdomen, and sending it flipping forward, the axe tumbling away from it. An arc of lightning plowed through the Goblins, raising shrieks and the stink of burning flesh to Britton’s nostrils, but the Goblin Hydromancer’s grip on him was still tight, and he crawled in the dirt, feeling his skin begin to peel away.
Suddenly, the magic’s grip released him. He struggled to his feet to see Therese standing, her lips peeled back, fingers extended. She snarled, and the Goblins before them liquefied, flesh melting onto quivering trunks. Bared teeth dripped away, sliding into running gums that vanished to reveal shrinking jawbones. The cry that went up was unholy. What remained of the wolves and their riders danced bloody jigs. Broken hindquarters turned spastic circles. She had sworn she’d never Rend again, Britton thought. This is going to leave a mark.
For the moment, the circle of Goblins surged back, horrified by the carnage. Therese’s current relaxed, and Britton could see her face fall, horrified at the damage she’d wrought. Can’t worry about that now. He snapped the gate open on the roof again and motioned to Swift. “Go! Go!”
Swift gaped at the carnage beneath him for a moment before lighting on the roof and herding the remaining enrollees into the gate. Wavesign stumbled, nearly slid off the roof as a javelin flew past his calf, but Swift caught him under the armpits and shoved him through.
Rotors whined overhead as two Kiowas appeared on the horizon, banking sharply toward them. The Goblins broke their paralysis and turned to face the new threat. Britton closed the gate and opened it in front of them. Therese stood, dumb, her eyes fixed on the field before her. Her mouth worked, silently. She’s no Scylla, he thought. He draped his arm around her shoulder as gently as he could and walked her through the gate, stepping into the bowl of moss where the enrollees had gathered around Marty, shivering in the cold. Swift stared around him at the woods, cradling his elbows, stupefied. Wavesign crouched at the base of tree, shivering in his own cloud of vapor.
Marty had been busy in their absence, his arms full of mushrooms. A small pile of sampled plants had been gathered on a rock beside him. Now he stood and dashed among the SASS enrollees, clucking over wounds and producing his worn leather pouch.
Therese paused a moment, then joined him, turning first to Britton. “Nothing I can do for you,” she said, her voice distant, clinical. “You need a Hydromancer, not a Healer.” She walked off, squatting by a young woman with a gash across her face, cupping her cheek and letting her magic knit the wound.
“Therese…” he called after her. But she ignored him, losing herself in the bustle of her work.
Later, he thought again. It’s not safe here. You’re in a state park not too far off the beaten path. The SOC still has a Portamancer. They can be here in an instant. How long before you are discovered? Before these people freeze?
He looked back toward the crowd of enrollees. They squatted, miserable and shivering, muttering in low voices, most looking too shocked to do much. But Britton knew it wouldn’t last long.
This is your fault. You got them into this. Now, you have to get them out.
…of course the muj had that crazy Muslim total prohibition on magic use. So they were reduced to packing all their gear in through those tight Waziristani defiles, little more than goat paths, really. They were counting on the cloud cover screening them from our air-assault teams. But they didn’t count on the Aeromantic support getting the skies cleared up in a matter of minutes.
— Interview with COL Alexander Keifer, 101st Airborne Division
Excerpted from Robin Hamdan’s 100 days in the FATA
Britton stood, stunned. He had done it. He had fled the SOC, he had gotten away. Swift looked up at him, his eyes wide. You’re thinking the same thing. You have no idea what to do either. You were so focused on getting free that you never gave a minute’s thought to what you’d do once you got there.
But Britton remembered running before. He remembered his world spinning away from him and keeping on regardless. He remembered staring at a hanging pay-phone receiver, smelling like stale beer.
Baby steps, he thought. The first thing this crew needs is a leader. The crowd continued to mill, shivering.
Peapod alone seemed to have any presence of mind. She swept her arms upward, and the trees bowed, extending branches to shelter them, keeping off the worst of the wind. Pyre stooped and heaped a pile of stones, running his hands over them until they glowed red-hot, sparking and cracking, warmer and brighter than any wood fire Britton had ever seen. The enrollees shivered around it, arms draped around knees. Britton worried that the light might alert the authorities but figured that the comfort was more needed at the moment. For now, panic had been staved off.
“Thanks,” Swift managed. “What happened back there, with Scylla?”
Britton almost told him, then decided to keep it to himself. You can’t afford a fight over that just now. Instead, he ignored the question. He glanced nervously skyward as the sound of a plane thrummed far overhead. Through a gap in Peapod’s shelter of trees, Britton could make out blinking red lights on the wings.
“Where are we?” Swift asked.
“Vermont,” Britton said. “State park. I went camping here once.”
“We can’t stay here,” the Aeromancer said.
“No, we can’t,” Britton replied.
“We could head to Mexico,” Pyre piped up, “or Canada.”
“So we can get rounded up and handed over as part of the reciprocity agreement?” Peapod asked. “Mexico is a damned vassal state.”
“You got a better idea?” Pyre snapped.
“Why can’t we just stay here? Or maybe go to some other wilderness? What about Alaska?”
“We’re not survivalists!” someone in the crowd said.
“We don’t have to be,” Peapod replied. “We’ve got magic.”
“That won’t do us any good once the SOC starts hunting for us,” Swift said. “They’re better than we are.”
“Bet you wish you’d spent a little more time practicing with Salamander when you’d had the chance, eh, No-No boy?” Tsunami groused.
This is getting out of control, Britton thought. Someone has to lead before things come totally apart.
“That’s enough,” Britton said, his voice taking on the tone of command he’d used in the army. The group responded to it, looking up at him expectantly. What now?
Britton felt fingers brush his own and looked down to see Marty at his side, looking wide-eyed at him. “Much angry,” the Goblin said. The others stared at him, and whispers ran through the clearing.
“Why?” Marty asked, ignoring them. “Why angry?”
Because I hurt them, Britton thought. I didn’t mean to, but I did. And now I have to make that right, Marty. Now I have to help them. But he didn’t say it. The group needed a commander, and it was not the time to show weakness or remorse. He only looked at Marty, his gaze level. “We have to find a place to go where the SOC can’t find us,” Britton said to Marty, his voice loud and full of confidence he didn’t feel. “That place can’t be in this world. It has to be in the Source, and well away from the FOB. We don’t know what else the SOC knows about the lay of the land there, but they will have a harder time finding and reaching us.” He made a point of not mentioning Billy, whose ability made reaching them no problem at all.
We’ll just have to stay hidden, then.
Marty pursed his lips and wiggled his ears as if to say of course. He punched Britton’s chest lightly and nodded. “We Mattab On Sorrah,” he said, tapping his eyelids and bowing. “We always help.”
“This is my Mattab On Sorrah now,” Britton said. “The army is going to come for us.”
The Goblin nodded and smiled. “I know.” He leaned in close, smiling and tapping Britton’s chest again. “Safe place.”
“Yes, Marty, a safe place,” Britton said. “We have to take them there.”
Marty paused for a moment, thinking. “Remember, bird head?”
Leering in the torchlight, the striped bird skull, hung on the Goblin fastness where Britton had saved Fitzy’s life and been punished for it, rose in his mind. The Master Suppressor’s voice rose in his mind. You’re paid to be a weapon, not a hero. Remember that. “I remember,” he said to Marty.
“Go there, I take you safe place.” The Goblin smiled.
“Man, I really don’t want to go back there,” Britton said. He racked his brain for any image that he could recall well enough to gate to. But the landscape beneath the helicopter had blurred by too fast. The only thing he remembered well enough was FOB Frontier and the fortress. He could take them in some distance from it, but it would have to be in sight.
“Can’t I take us back somewhere else?”
Marty shook his head. “If not there, then not know where safe place. Go bird head. Then safe place.
“Safe place,” Marty repeated, giving his ear-wiggling shrug.
“This is your tribe? This is with your Mattab On Sorrah?”
Marty nodded.
Britton felt his emotions well up at the creature’s quickness to help strangers, but now was not the time to show it. He swallowed hard, hoping no one would notice how much the gesture affected him.
“Uskar,” Marty said, gently tapping his own eyelids, then Britton’s. “Okay. Okay. Always help. You important.” He smiled gently, then leaned forward and imitated the human gesture, hugging Britton about the waist as best he could. “Important. Everything okay.”
Britton patted the Goblin’s shoulders as he mastered himself. At last he turned to the remnants of the tribe and spoke, hoping his voice wouldn’t break.
“Marty knows of a place we can go. Someplace safe in the Source. We’re going to take fifteen minutes to get everyone patched up as best we can, then we’re out of here.”
“Back to the Source?” Pyre asked. “We just escaped from there!”
“This is only temporary,” Britton said. “Do you honestly think there’s a place in the entire US safe for us? Or in any bordering nation? Besides, I can only gate us places I’ve seen. Or did you propose we walk to wherever we’re going to hide out? I know this isn’t ideal. I’m not offering you an end to running, just another place to run to.”
“What the hell happened anyway?” one of the enrollees shouted. “How the hell did that Witch get free in the first place?”
Swift looked frankly at him, arms folded across his chest.
You’ll have to tell them eventually. If they’re going to follow you, it has to be under honest terms. “That’s my fault,” Britton answered. He paused, letting the stunned silence wash over him. “You want to blame someone, you can blame me.”
He shouted down the chorus of protests that welled as the group began to grasp the impact of his words. “That’s enough! I’ve been soldiering long enough to know that if we’re going to live through this, it’s going to take discipline and teamwork. You may have done things however the hell you wanted to when you were on the run, but that changed in the SASS, and it’s not going to change back just because you’re free of it. You want to judge me? Judge me later. After we are all safe, after this latest round of running is at an end. I can’t bring the dead back to life. All I can do is save the lives that are remaining. What we need is a safe place, someone to shelter us until we can figure out what you want to do next. Marty can provide that safe place, and I can take us there. It’s the only chance we’ve got, and for it to work, you’re going to have to trust me and let me help you. You may not like it, but it’s the only way.”
And what do you do once you get to Marty’s tribe? he asked himself. We rest, we get ourselves fed and patched up. Then we make plans. The first thing we need is a place to regroup, rest up, and rearm.
“What if we stand and fight?” Swift asked, but his eyes showed he already knew the answer to his own question.
“If you stand against the SOC, you will die, make no mistake,” Britton replied. “You have great heart, but you are too few and too poorly trained. The SOC are professional warriors. They make a study of killing with magic. I have trained with them far beyond the basic exercises you learned in the SASS. I’ve seen what they can do. Bravery isn’t enough. Skill beats will, every time. You’ve learned something of discipline and self-denial in your SASS training. That’ll give you a leg up over the average Selfer, but not nearly enough of a leg up.”
“Yes, Oscar.” Therese spoke from beside a SASS enrollee with a broken javelin shaft protruding from his thigh. “Get us out of here. Do whatever you have to do to make us safe.” But her eyes were hard. Don’t think there won’t be a reckoning later. Britton nodded, his eyes scanning the group for a challenge. Swift turned away. Wavesign shivered, and Pyre gave a resigned nod.
“All right,” Britton said. “If we’re going to function as a unit, we need a commander. That’s me unless anyone else thinks they can do a better job.”
A quick glance around the ranks showed him that nobody thought they could, or if they did, didn’t have the gumption to challenge him. “First things first, many of you need healing and a chance to catch your breath. I’m going to have to gate us in outside a stronghold of creatures like Marty, but who are not friendly to us, and I can’t have wounds or exhaustion slowing us down. Fifteen minutes, then we go.”
Marty worked tirelessly alongside Therese, enduring his frozen feet in silence until Therese noticed his pained expression. Britton used his pocketknife to cut the bottom third of the parka away, wrapping the fabric around Marty’s feet after Therese used her magic to repair the worst of the frostnip beginning to form on the Goblin’s soles. That had the added advantage of making the parka fit correctly. No longer tripped up by the long coat, Marty was soon moving around more easily.
Fifteen minutes turned to twenty. Swift waved at the hot air emanating from the fire, sweeping his arms and circulating it through the small shelter of the bent boughs, warming the air to a comfortable temperature. Peapod bent to a small patch of wild onions and strawberries, gesturing until the fruits and vegetables responded to her magic. She gathered armloads of the swollen produce, distributing it among the group.
Therese leaned against a tree in exhaustion when the group’s wounds were healed, but Marty would not sit still. He scurried about the clearing, lifting his giant feet high to avoid catching the tied-on fabric on roots and rocks. He high-stepped off into the underbrush, his breath hitching in excitement.
“Marty! What the hell are you doing? Get back here!” Britton called.
The Goblin stopped suddenly, staring intently.
“What is he…” Therese asked, but was cut off by a furious squirrel perched on a pine branch directly above Marty’s head. It twitched its tail, chattering in rage at this strange creature invading its territory. Marty stared, wide-eyed and delighted, until Britton grabbed his hand and led him away.
“Come on, Marty,” Britton said. “I know it’s interesting, but there’s no time for this now. I promise we can go on a hike once we’ve got everything settled.”
Marty came along reluctantly, making petulant-sounding clucks deep in his throat and straining to look at the squirrel over his shoulder as they went.
While the rest of them rested, Marty examined the new world with absentminded curiosity. He nearly danced with delight, his ears quivering, pointing at cluster of juniper berries, before gathering them and pressing them into the pockets of his parka.
“Can eat!” Marty said, racing back to them with a handful of shriveled and frostbitten-looking mushrooms. Britton looked at the Goblin doubtfully.
“I don’t know, Marty…”
The Goblin cast a worried eye at Therese. “Must eat,” he said more urgently, then sniffed the mushrooms, wiggling his ears and smacking his lips. “Can eat!”
“Do you think they’re safe?” Therese asked, raising an eyebrow. “He does have a knack with plants.”
Britton frowned. “He has a knack for medicinal plants, but these are plants he’s never seen before. He’s in a totally different world. Being hungry is bad, but getting sick right now would be a lot worse. Better not to risk it.”
He looked at Marty and shook his head. “Sorry, buddy. I think you need to curb your enthusiasm here.”
The Goblin looked annoyed and began to gesture wildly.
Britton sighed. “Please, guy. You’re at a ten. We need you at around a four.”
Therese giggled, and Marty stuffed the mushrooms into his pocket with a resigned wave of his hand.
A few of the enrollees had sagged against tree trunks in the magically heated air. Britton looked at Therese, sitting Indian style on the ground, her eyes drooping. “We’re exhausted,” Britton said to Swift. “Let’s give everyone a half hour to grab some shut-eye before we move.”
“You sure that’s safe?” Swift asked.
“No,” Britton answered, “but it’s probably smarter than blundering back into the Source ready to drop dead. Can you keep the air heated without that fire?”
Swift nodded, and Britton turned to Wavesign. “Can you get that put out, buddy?”
Wavesign’s effort was as uncontrolled as ever, but the fire was quickly doused, the rocks splintering further and hissing loudly. Swift quickly dried the damp patch that the young Hydromancer had left. “All right, people,” Britton said. “Grab some shut-eye if you can manage it. We go soon.”
He slumped alongside Therese and leaned against her shoulder. She didn’t respond, but neither did she push him away.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I tried to do what I thought best…”
“Later, Oscar,” she said, her voice exhausted. “Later. Let’s get out of here first.”
He nodded and drowsed, grateful for the smell of her, the soft warmth of her shoulder against his.
The moon made a sparkling show of the trees and rocks as the enrollees gathered together for warmth. Swift’s heated air made that largely unnecessary, but Britton knew that the closeness to one another kept the panic at bay. They weren’t alone, and that was a start.
Britton closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the night — the frost crackling, insects foraging, Marty making an effort at quiet and failing miserably. The little Goblin was far too excited to rest, and he paced the small enclosure, staring at his surroundings. Britton himself thought he couldn’t sleep, the adrenaline keeping him awake and alert to sounds; turning each frost-snapped twig into the footfalls of an approaching enemy, but fatigue won out in the end.
He didn’t know how long he dozed, drifting in and out of consciousness against Therese’s shoulder. Fear and pain were momentarily forgotten. Britton sank into the warm glow of her nearness and drifted off to sleep.
A cold wind brushed his cheek, lifting him from the warm comfort of sleep and Therese nestled against him. The warm air had dissipated, replaced by the reality of winter cold. Britton buried his face in Therese’s hair and clung to the fleeing threads of his slumber. Beyond it lay cold and hardship, and if he could stave it off for just another moment, he would. But the chill breeze blew again, bringing a regular rhythm to his ears, a gentle and familiar pattern that called him to wakefulness. Whup whup whup whup whup.
Britton shot awake. It was the sound of a helicopter. He reached out his arm and accidentally swatted Marty, who must have crawled to snuggle up against his back. The Goblin stirred weakly, and Britton reached over and pressed a finger to his lips.
Whup whup whup. The sound grew louder, closer.
Therese stirred. “What’s…”
Britton shushed her fiercely and pointed upward.
As the sound of the rotors passed into the distance, Britton propped himself up on his elbows. All around their small makeshift camp, the enrollees were crouched in silence, casting terrified eyes skyward.
“What the hell was that?” Swift hissed.
“I don’t know,” Britton answered. “Could have been the Weather Channel, could have been the SOC. We can’t stick around to find out. Let’s get moving.”
He turned to Marty. “You ready?” Just where is this “safe” place you intend to take them? Will Marty’s tribe welcome you? Is anywhere really safe for any of you now?
Why was he there? Why was he doing this? He shuddered as he realized that he already knew the answer.
Because you don’t know what else to do. Because if you don’t move forward, you’ll just lie down and give up, and you’ve fought far too long and hard for that.
The group froze as the rotors pounded the air overhead again. They stood still, necks craned skyward until the helo passed overhead again, and the sound faded in the distance.
“They must be flying a search pattern,” Britton said. “It’s the only reason they would be going that slow.”
Britton was grateful for the thick clouds that had blown in while they slept. Little moon and even less starlight penetrated the forest canopy, leaving a black sea whose rocky bed was dotted with the gnarled columns of tree trunks. Night was thick around them.
“All right.” Britton used his best command voice, loud enough that the group winced and snapped their gazes to him. “Nothing more to be gained by hanging around. Let’s get this show on the road.”
It is challenging to make a study of the effects of Latency on genetics. For one thing, Manifestation is extremely rare, and it is rarer still for two Latent individuals to mate and produce offspring under conditions that can be monitored for the purpose of scientific study. That said, there is promising statistical evidence to indicate that the children of Latent parents are much more likely to Manifest, and to do so at a very early age.
— Avery Whiting
Modern Arcana: Theory and Practice
The gate yawned across the clearing, eight feet high, its shimmering static surface offering a glimpse of the palisade wall in the distance. Long triangular banners draped down its surface, hidden in the darkness. Britton knew they were crudely painted in the likeness of a bird skull, striped red and orange.
“Heptahad On Dephapdt,” Marty whispered, his voice grave. “Sorrahhad. Much fight.”
Britton turned to the enrollees. “All right, the folks behind those walls may look just like Marty, but they are not friends. We get caught by these guys, and we’re done. But if we keep together, keep quiet, and keep moving, I’m confident we can get past them unnoticed. It’s a chance, but as rough customers as these folks are, they’re a cakewalk compared to the SOC, and it’s a far better bet than staying here. Everybody tracking?”
Swift nodded. “Peapod, I need you at the rear of the group, keep folks moving,” Britton said. She nodded and took up her position.
“All right, let’s do this.” Britton turned and stepped through the gate. He was briefly swamped by the intensity of his senses but shrugged it off, sighting the palisade wall and scanning the darkness for any movement. All was cloaked in shadow. Torchlight flickered from the turret that the creatures had repaired long since the rocket from one of the raiding Apaches had destroyed it. A new wooden structure jutted from one of the towers like some kind of cancerous growth, braced by roughly hewn crossbeams, crowned with a peaked slate roof. Its sides glistened wetly.
A water tower, Britton thought. They don’t want their Pyromancers busy putting out fires. They want them ready in case we come back.
Peapod ushered the last of the group through. They stood gaping at the giant palisade wall, pointing and whispering to one another. Britton shut the gate quickly and began herding them away from the fortress. Tired and injured, the group made slow going. Wavesign’s cloud pulsed with chunks of ice and hail, his terror magically palpable.
“It’s amazing,” Swift whispered to Britton, running his hands over the saw-toothed grass.
Britton put a hand in the small of his back, pushing him along. “Later. If we’re caught here, it’s going to get ugly.”
Swift slapped the hand down. “All right, all right. I’m moving.”
Britton opened his mouth to say something, and all words fled.
Directly before them, just a few meters away, a rickety tower had been erected. Wooden crossbeams supported a slate-covered platform some thirty feet from the ground. Above the platform, three logs rose, lashed together to form a crossbar.
A massive Roc sat astride it, black talons gripping the tree-trunk thickness tightly. Its feathers were fluffed outward against the cold, making it look even larger.
Not a crossbar, then, a perch.
Of course. It’s a watchtower. They want to be able to warn the main stronghold if another flight of Apaches comes in.
The group froze at the sight, but the giant bird had already sighted them; it cocked its huge head at an angle, and a single unblinking golden eye, the size of a dinner plate, fixed them.
About its neck clung a Goblin, his face buried in the creature’s feathers, body entirely covered in white paste.
For a moment, both Roc and human stood in stunned silence, broken only by the wind whispering over the grass and hissing through the wooden tower slats.
Then the Roc shrieked, spread massive wings, and exploded off the perch, circling over them.
A horn sounded, deep and sonorous. Britton remembered it blowing when the helo force had swept over that same fortress with him on board.
“Run!” he cried, pulling at the group, hauling them away.
They scattered as the bird swept low. It made a pass, claws reaching out to snatch at Swift, but Pyre pumped his fist, sending a gout of flame to singe its underbelly, forcing it to rear back, wings beating strong enough to sweep a gust of wind that knocked the group to their knees.
Britton could hear the fortress gates creaking open in the distance.
Peapod stood forward and placed her hands on her hips, concentrating. The massive bird recovered from the burn and dove again, straight at her, huge talons reaching.
Then it paused, and Britton felt a surge in Peapod’s flow as she Whispered desperately, competing for control over the Roc with the Goblin Terramancer on its back. The giant wings beat the air, and it swung its head side to side in confusion, crying out in alarm. But what little practice Peapod had ever had in Whispering was no match for the Goblin. Britton could see sweat breaking out on her forehead, her teeth gritting. Cries sounded from the fortress, and Britton saw that three more Rocs had taken flight, moving toward them. It wouldn’t take them long to arrive.
He stepped alongside Peapod, reaching out for the Goblin’s magical current. It was difficult to pick it out from all the others around him, but eventually he felt it, a foreign flow in the midst of so many familiar ones. He focused, Drawing the magic hard to him, then Binding it to the Goblin’s flow, cutting it off. In an instant, Peapod’s Whispering won out, and the Roc hurled itself skyward, righted, and launched itself toward its brothers as they winged toward it, shrieking a battle cry.
Peapod blew out her breath, placing her hands on her knees. “Whew, that was close.”
Britton panted, nodding. “Where’d you learn to Whisper?”
“A bug here, a sparrow there when folks aren’t looking. You figure it out.” Her voice was hoarse.
Britton smiled. “Good thing.”
The smile faded quickly. Even if they ran now, they would never outdistance the pursuing birds, and Britton couldn’t Suppress three Terramancers at once. Even if they could defeat the Rocs, it would slow them enough to bring the entire Goblin tribe running to the attack.
He spun on Marty, who was busy gathering up some of the enrollees cowering beneath the tower.
“Marty! Which way is your tribe?” Britton asked.
Marty blinked at him for a moment before pointing out across the field toward a long line of snowcapped trees. Britton sighted the line, imprinting it on his mind. He turned and opened a gate back on the clearing.
“Everybody move!” he shouted, grabbing the nearest of the group and nearly throwing him through. All came quickly this time, and Britton shut the gate behind them just as the first sweeps of the Rocs’ wings sounded nearby.
The group milled around uncertainly, some collapsing in the grass from terrified exhaustion.
“Now what the hell are we supposed to do?” Pyre said. “We’re right back where we started!”
“Hold on a second,” Britton replied. Man, I hope this works. He opened another gate as far as he could into the tree line that Marty had pointed out.
They reentered the Source deep among the trees. The Sorrahhad fortress was screened by the thick mass of trunks, but Britton could hear the cries of the Rocs as they circled the area where their quarry had suddenly vanished.
“Marty,” Britton said, but the Goblin was already pointing before he could ask the question. Britton memorized a distant hill before returning them all to the glade, then gated them out to it.
“Outstanding,” he said, clapping Therese on the back as soon as they returned. “This works. We won’t even have to hike it.” She stiffened at this touch, looked at her feet, then walked away.
Britton’s heart sank, but he pushed the emotion aside and gated them back. Leapfrogging between worlds, Britton carried them what he guessed was many miles in just a few steps. When they finally emerged on a low, rocky rise after the tenth hop, Britton saw a small hamlet in the distance. Mud houses crowded narrow dirt tracks, the roofs thatched with dried saw-toothed grass. A log wall, much smaller than the one they had just fled, surrounded it. Square blue banners dotted it at regular intervals. Even from that distance, Britton could make out the image of a gnarled tree embroidered into the surface.
Beyond the wall, small garden plots stretched alongside sheds. Low wooden pens enclosed the same squat, hairy livestock that he’d seen when he’d attacked the Goblin fastness. Smoke rose from cooking fires beyond the palisade wall. Britton thought he could hear faint music, rhythmic and atonal.
Marty let out a sound that could only have been a sigh and pointed again. “There. Mattab On Sorrah. Home.”
Britton laughed out loud, then choked as it quickly became a sob.
Because, for now, he had saved them.
The Goblins met them some distance outside the gates, astride the backs of giant wolves. A few Goblin Druids, their skins painted white, walked among them, but the wolf riders were warriors with dotted faces less elaborate than Marty’s. They held spears, swords, and US military-issue carbines far too large for their small bodies, and wore leather jerkins studded with a pattern that resembled the tree from the banners.
At their head was a giant of a Goblin, still smaller than even Wavesign by a head; a mail hauberk was draped around his shoulders and he carried a huge spear bearing a banner matching those on the walls. His face was patterned in white dots that matched Marty’s exactly.
The group paused, uncertain how to proceed, but Marty strode to the front of the group, shrugging off his parka and squaring his shoulders, suddenly oblivious to the cold. He seemed taller, radiating a confidence that Britton had never seen in him before. Gone was the curious, childlike creature that had shivered in the woods just a little while ago. He barked out a few words quickly in his language, his voice resonating the command that Britton knew the best military officers could invoke.
The Goblins’ eyes widened. Marty barked another word, raising his hands, his ears standing up straight over his head. The Goblins reacted, the riders leaping off their wolves and dragging at the reins until the creatures lay down on the ground. The entire party tapped their eyes, bowing deeply. The white-painted Goblin sorcerers also bowed, but only slightly and from the waist, also tapping their eyelids. When they looked up again, their faces were joyful, and a few cried out what Britton only guessed were greetings, coming forward to brush their fingers against Marty’s closed eyelids or the tips of his ears. Marty endured it all with an air of entitlement, his hands on his hips to allow the group to get close.
All except the spear bearer, who stood, clearly unsettled, the weapon resting in the crook of his arm. One of the sorcerers remained with him, exchanging whispers. When the greetings were complete, Marty turned back to Britton. His lordling face was gone, and he was friendly Marty again, grinning like a happy child.
“See?” he asked, beaming. “Important.”
Britton laughed, clapping Swift on the back. “No doubt, buddy. Important as hell.”
Marty wiggled his ears and led them into the gate, the wolf riders falling in as escorts around them, the spear bearer going in front, crying out what Britton guessed was a heralding of their arrival.
The village clustered around a broad plaza, the ground flat and covered with a carpet of moss that looked dry and comfortable. Ten glass-smooth stone chairs were arranged in a semicircle around a huge and ancient tree, wide and stunted like some giant bonsai. Britton recognized it as the tree from the banners on the palisade wall. Ten blue-robed, white-painted sorcerers, their ears sprouting tufts of long white hair, were already taking their seats. Ringed around them were scores of Goblins, large and small. Britton recognized tiny children, as cute in their minority as they were ugly as adults. Females stood around the perimeter of the circle, wearing brown shifts that exposed single, long brown breasts. Some of them had the nipples pierced with a sparkling jewel of some sort, their faces painted with dotted patterns. The other females clustered around them in deference.
The huge spear bearer stood forward and began a speech in his language that seemed to go on for a long time, while the seated Goblins listened, nodding occasionally. Britton turned to Marty to ask him what was going on, but was silenced with a wave. Whatever was happening, he was not to interrupt. At last, the spear bearer gestured back to Marty, who stepped forward, cutting him off. He launched into his own speech, bowing and tapping his eyes.
The spear bearer bristled at his words and started forward, but Marty intercepted him, reaching a hand down to the sole of his foot, then placing his hand against the spear bearer’s chest. The assembled crowd gasped collectively. Whatever Marty had done, it was a grave insult or a challenge.
Britton stepped forward, unsure of what was going to happen, but Wavesign’s voice rang out from the gathered tribe. “Okay, looks like everyone’s here.”
Humans and Goblins alike froze, the Goblins fixing him with angry stares. Wavesign grinned and raised his hands, flashing them his middle fingers. “That’s nice, you fucking rats. Suck on this.” The boyish uncertainty was gone from his voice. He sounded cocky, commanding.
“Wavesign, what the hell are you doing?” Swift asked.
And that was when Britton noticed that the young Hydromancer’s perennial vapor cloud was gone. He could feel the boy’s current, steady, disciplined, gathering solidly around him.
Wavesign produced a small black box from his waistband and thumbed it. A red light blinked on the surface, emitting a regular beeping sound. The group backed away, but Britton knew that whatever it was, it was too small to be a bomb. It looked more like a pager.
Or some kind of transmitter.
Britton’s mouth went dry.
“You sold us out, you bastard,” Britton said.
Wavesign grinned, his fists shrouded in a cloud of whirling ice crystals. He nodded to Britton, the confidence in his eyes making him appear much older. “Just following your lead, sir.”
He leapt aside as a massive gate slid open behind him. Through it, Britton could see Billy, his mother gentling his shoulders. Around him, a SOC assault team was scrambling to their feet, racing forward, chambering rounds.
Harlequin led them through the portal, his body wreathed in crackling electricity. Shadow Coven followed, Fitzy grinning at its head.
“Too smart by half, Oscar,” Harlequin said. “You forgot you’re not the only one with a gate.”
Then he leapt airborne, the storm erupting around him.
Sir, the president is completely clear on this issue. If Colonel Taylor’s theory is correct, then there is a tangible link between the Goblin Defender tribes and the Mescalero insurgency. More importantly, there is a connection between planes inherent in the environment and independent of Portamantic magic. If true, this represents a cross-planar threat to the security of this nation and possibly the world. It must remain secret, and it must remain your top priority.
— White House Briefer to the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff
Twenty-five soldiers burst through the gate, carbines leveled. Along with Shadow Coven and Harlequin came two more SOC Sorcerers, pistols drawn and ready.
Marty barked an order, pointing, and the Goblins surged forward to meet them, brandishing spears. Several of the white-painted sorcerers sprang from their chairs, leaping into the sky or bursting into flames.
But it was Fitzy who fired the first shot. His pistol belched smoke and spun Pyre in a tight circle. The Pyromancer sat down hard, gripping his stomach, blood flowing from between his fingers. Britton cursed and Therese shrieked, rushing to Pyre’s side as more carbines cracked, throwing back escapees and Goblins alike. A patter of bullets churned the ground between Therese and Pyre, and she was forced to throw herself in the opposite direction.
Britton raced forward, slapping down one of the carbine barrels so the soldier fired uselessly into the dirt. He snapped open a gate directly in the middle of the soldier, slicing him neatly in half, his dissected body sliding slowly apart. Britton leveled the gate horizontally, sending it arcing through the ranks of the SOC assaulters. They threw themselves to either side, but not before three more were cut in half. He pivoted neatly and crouched as one soldier moved past him, grabbing his ankle and yanking him off his feet. The soldier grunted as he went facedown in the dirt, his helmet flying off. Britton opened another gate and dragged his leg back through it, closing it like a cleaver about the man’s hips before turning to lunge for Fitzy.
But Harlequin appeared overhead and dove at him, lightning springing from his fingertips. Britton opened a gate to receive the burst and began shifting it into the Aeromancer’s flight path, edge turning outward toward him.
Then suddenly he was freezing. Wavesign grinned at him, hands extended. A cloud of swirling frost cloaked Britton, numbing his limbs, his teeth. The Hydromancer’s voice was confident, precise, mature. All of his uncertainty, his childlike affectation was gone.
Britton recognized it as the voice of a trained solider.
“Once a traitor, always a traitor, I always said,” Wavesign said. “I knew we couldn’t trust you, Keystone.”
“I’m the traitor?” Britton yelled at him, his teeth beginning to chatter. “You sold out everyone who trusted you!”
Wavesign shook his head, his wry smile reminding Britton of Harlequin’s. “I’ve never betrayed anyone,” Wavesign said. “I’ve been carrying out my assignment, just like good soldiers do. But you wouldn’t know much about how to be a good soldier, now would you, Keystone?”
The cold began to overwhelm him and Britton swore, shutting the gate and opening another one on the sauna in the Air National Guard base where he’d been assigned. He dove through it, but not before a bullet whined past his head, tearing a notch out of his ear. An inch to the right, and he would have been dead. He slammed against the cedar wall and collapsed, shivering, willing the heat from the stifling chamber into his frigid bones.
He looked up at another soldier who sat, wide-eyed on one of the wooden benches, clutching a towel over his privates. Britton smiled at him, working his fingers and stamping his feet, feeling sensation slowly drift back into them. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”
The soldier got to his feet and ran past Britton, bursting out the sauna door and yelling for help, admitting a blast of room-temperature air that felt freezing to Britton. Britton took another moment to suck in the hot air, the silence, the pleasant smell of the cedar. The heat was as delightful as the absence of battle around him. No time for that. He opened a gate behind where Wavesign had stood a moment before and stepped back in, reaching for his neck. But the Hydromancer had moved on and he grabbed empty air, then suddenly Britton’s magic rolled back, and his head rocked forward, somersaulting him face-first into the dirt.
As he rolled over, he caught a glimpse of Harlequin and Swift grappling in midair, with Swift getting the worst of the beating, his skin blackening with electrical burns from each of Harlequin’s charged punches.
“Thought you’d get away, didn’t you?” Fitzy said, stomping at Britton’s face. He rolled out of the way, catching the chief warrant officer’s boot and kicking up to catch him in the small of his back. Fitzy winced and fell on Britton, dropping an elbow into his shoulder joint that knocked it out of socket. He howled in pain and threw Fitzy’s bulk off him, scrambling to his feet. Fitzy was up in time with him, pointing his pistol at Britton’s face. A grim smile spread across his face as he pulled the trigger.
But the bullet flew wide, for Fitzy was suddenly swept aside by a branch of the gnarled central tree. He saw Peapod gesturing to it as the Master Suppressor went flying through the air, slamming into Downer, who had just completed animating a bolt of frost that Wavesign had produced. The elemental bounded into the press of Goblin warriors, knocking them aside with great sweeps of its arms, sending them staggering, blue-lipped and freezing.
The elemental plowed toward him, and Britton backpedaled, calling up his magic for a gate. Then the elemental was gone, disappearing in a cloud of vapor. Britton sawed his head toward Pyre, his hand still smoking from the flame bolt. Satisfied that Britton was safe for the moment, Pyre dropped to one elbow, his face pale and sweating. The blood had stopped flowing from his gut and came in weak spurts. After a moment, he collapsed.
Around him, wolves darted, snarling at their former masters. Britton spotted Richards standing among the SOC assaulters, Whispering the animals on to greater ferocity.
Fitzy sprawled facedown in the plaza. A Goblin warrior raced to him as he rose and thrust its spear through his arm, pinning him to the ground. Fitzy shrieked and hauled on the spear, gritting his teeth as he moved up the shaft to reach his assailant. The muscle of his biceps squelched around the shaft, oozing bright blood. The Goblin quailed, openmouthed, at the chief warrant officer’s bald ferocity, too terrified to drop the weapon. By the time it recovered its senses and released it, Fitzy had hooked his fingers into its eye sockets and slammed its head down into his knee. As the creature collapsed, Fitzy spun on Britton, ripping the spear from his arm and casting it aside. Britton goggled. Even with a Goblin-sized spear, the feat was impressive. Fitzy howled, covered in gore, looking like he had stepped out of hell.
Britton staggered toward the edge of one of the smooth stone chairs and slammed his shoulder into it, screaming as the joint popped back into place. The pain flared and ebbed as Britton tried his shoulder and found he could move it with some pain.
All around them, the battle raged. The sky was riven by streaks of lightning and gouts of fire as the Goblin sorcerers joined the fight. The sharp reports of gunfire and the stink of cordite thickened the air.
Britton still felt his current blocked by Fitzy, who charged him, screaming. He snapped a kick at Britton’s face, but Britton sidestepped, catching the chief warrant officer’s leg and pulling him into a solid punch on Fitzy’s wounded arm. Fitzy grunted and spun away, only to be grappled by the Goblin spear bearer, who snarled and sank his teeth into Fitzy’s shoulder.
Britton felt a hammerblow to his thigh and collapsed, clapping his hands to his leg. He didn’t see where the round had originated, but someone had shot him. He rolled on the ground, biting back the pain and trying to see how bad it was. It was impossible. If he released pressure on the wound, he might bleed out in moments.
A shadow fell across him and he looked up to see Wavesign standing over him, wreathed in a halo of spinning frost. He grinned. “Hurts? Maybe I’ll numb it for you.”
He raised his hands, runnels of water snaking down his arms to ball around his fists, where they spun, violent and sharp-looking, tiny waves tipped with icy razors. Therese stepped between them. “No way, Ted,” she snarled.
Wavesign’s face twisted. “Move,” he husked. “I’m not going to hurt you, and you’re not going to hurt me.”
“Wrong,” she said, and laid her palm across his face.
The Hydromancer shrieked as his head wobbled and stretched, losing shape and running down his shoulders. His scalp unfolded, taking patches of the skull with it, opening like a blossoming flower. Gray matter churned beneath. Ice exploded from him, and Britton could see Therese’s skin turning blue under its impact. Her beautiful hair crumbled away in chunks, snapping off with the sound of breaking twigs. She pushed Wavesign away to collapse in the dirt, and turned to Britton, her magic already repairing the damage to her face, the skin losing its pale, frostbitten color. She placed her hands over his thigh, and he felt the magic warm him, the bullet sliding forward and popping out the rear of his leg to lie in the moss.
Soldiers raced toward them, leveling their carbines, then shrieked and doubled over, their hair crumbling and skin flaking onto the plaza as one of the SASS enrollees advanced, snarling. She extended her hands, drawing the water out of them until they were nothing but piles of blowing dust.
Then she staggered backward, a fireball exploding into her chest and sending her sprawling, shrieking and beating at the flames. A Pyromancer advanced past his fallen soldiers. Britton recognized his perfect black hair and smug smile from the raid that first took down Sarah Downer. At his side shambled two dead Goblins and a soldier, his head mostly severed, and attached to his body only by a scrap of flesh. Truelove came behind them, arms extended and brow furrowed with concentration. Around him, dead Goblins tangled with their living fellows, stabbing with broken spear shafts or kicking and punching with mute resolve.
And then Britton looked up and all hope died.
A huge gate opened again, LSA Portcullis’s bay a black maw behind it. With a whine and belching of diesel fumes, an armored personnel carrier rolled through behind the SOC forces. Atop the turret, a gunner hunched behind a fifty-caliber machine gun, the muzzle already blazing as rounds spit in the combatants’ direction.
The fire was withering. The huge bullets churned the earth, tore chunks from the smooth thrones, spun Goblin and human alike, leaving them in bloody heaps. All around them, the Goblins fell back. A few of the white-painted sorcerers weren’t even bothering to fight, and instead herded their folk away from the plaza, making for the gate on the far side of the palisade wall. Britton had no time to make a count, but many of the remaining enrollees lay sprawled in the dirt. One of Richards’s Whispered wolves lay dead beside him. Peapod lay facedown in the dirt, smoke rising from her back.
We can’t win this, Britton thought. Not anymore. I have to get us out of here.
Guilt rocked him. They thought I was helping them, and I’ve only led them to their deaths.
Therese screamed at the Pyromancer and rose to meet him, then fell away as a bullet clipped her shoulder and sent her stumbling backward. She clapped her hand to the wound, her brow furrowing as the magic worked.
Britton could hear Tsunami screaming and thought he caught a flash of the Hydromancer crouching behind one of the stone chairs, bullets whining around her.
Swift fell from the sky, hitting the plaza hard enough to bounce in front of where another enrollee knelt, cradling his face. Fitzy stood over him, blood streaming from his fist.
Fitzy motioned at the SOC force, and they began to fall back around the APC and its giant, smoking gun. With the SASS enrollees and Marty’s tribe battered and pinned down by the stream of fire, there was no need to risk his men in close quarters.
Harlequin landed beside the Pyromancer, suppressed Britton’s magic, and smiled. Behind him, the line of SOC soldiers advanced into the square in front of the APC. The Goblins had fled. Those of the enrollees who remained ducked behind the stone chairs.
“No pardon for you this time, Oscar,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re all out of chances.” His voice grew sad as he drew closer. “A shame, really. I had high hopes for your redemption. You might have been able to make at least some of your crap right. Now we’ll never know.”
And then he was reeling sideways as Therese charged him, shrieking. Britton felt his magic return as Harlequin transferred his current to Suppressing her.
“Never say never,” Britton shouted, and dove forward, spreading his arms. One caught Harlequin about the waist, checking his flight. The other caught the Pyromancer around the neck. A gate snapped open behind them. Britton knocked both men through and onto the top of flight observation tower back at his old base at the 158th. The structure loomed nearly two hundred feet above the flight line, its hexagonal roof barely eight feet across and covered with slick tile. He threw himself backward as the Pyromancer screamed, tumbling over the edge, his shriek abruptly cut short by a wet thud. Harlequin somersaulted in the air, landing on top of an adjacent water tower beside the flight-line fire station. Britton turned the gate and slid it sideways after him, but Harlequin stretched out his arms, and the gate vanished as the Suppression canceled Britton’s magic.
He grinned, muttering into the microphone clipped to his lapel, too low for Britton to hear.
“You blew it, pal,” he shouted across the distance to Britton. “Unless you’ve learned how to fly, that is. You can just cool your heels up there while my crew mops up the rest of your pals.”
“Screw you!” Britton shouted at him, circling around. The top of the tower offered no way down, with only the huge drop to the concrete flight line below. There was no hatch through the roof. Harlequin was right. Unless he’d learned to fly, there was no way down. “Go ahead and keep me Suppressed! So long as you do, you can’t come after me. We’re going to just sit here until we get old?”
Harlequin laughed. “Nope. Got plans for you, pal.”
The rotary whine of helicopter blades sliced the air. The sound was deeper than a Kiowa, and Britton recognized the low pitch as one of the larger Blackhawks. They were usually on practice flights or patrols around the base. It wouldn’t have taken the pilot more than a few seconds to respond to Harlequin’s call and divert to his position. Britton could see the minigun barrels pointing out the sides of the helo as it drove toward him.
It made no effort to go broadside as it approached at high speed, no effort to bring the guns to bear.
Then Britton noted that Harlequin’s pistol was still in the drop holster strapped to his thigh. He stood with a clear shot and all the time in the world to aim, but instead had his arms crossed, waiting.
He wants to capture me again. Maybe he was willing to kill me if he had to, but I still have value to these people.
Hope blossomed in his chest.
Britton turned and sprinted for the edge of the tower, putting a mad look of fear on his face.
Harlequin cried out and leapt off his perch, dropping the Suppression and flying to intercept Britton’s fall.
At the edge of the tower, Britton dug in his heels, abruptly reversing direction and throwing himself back onto the tower roof. He spun to face the Blackhawk.
A gate opened right before its nose.
Directly on the other side stood the APC, its gun silent for the moment. Fitzy and the bulk of the SOC force gathered around it.
Britton could see the pilot through the helo’s windscreen, hauling on the cyclic controls, but it was far too late to pull up. The Blackhawk passed neatly through the gate, the ends of the rotors shearing off and spinning over the flight line below. A grinding boom sounded from beyond the portal.
Britton closed the gate and leapt off the tower as Harlequin screamed, tackling the Aeromancer in midair and opening a gate beneath him just before the stone chairs.
Harlequin’s body cushioned his fall, but both men still hit the ground hard enough to jar them apart, just as the explosion of the crashing helicopter caught them. The blast drove them against the base of the great tree as the Blackhawk slammed into the SOC force, turning over and catching fire as it spun among their ranks, its half rotors ripping themselves to fragments on the ground and tearing the soldiers apart. The shock wave struck Britton like a massive hand, forcing him up against the tree trunk and singeing his eyebrows. His head fetched up against the hard trunk, and he saw stars. His whole ear filled with a ringing buzz, and the angry wound on the other side of his head wept blood and rang in agony.
He sat against the tree trunk, all strength gone from him, shaking his head. As his sight cleared and the ringing began to fade, he noticed something strange.
Silence.
No gunshots. No crackling of arcing electricity or whooshing flame. The field of battle was quiet, with the occasional moan coming from the gory path left by the Blackhawk’s ruined impact. The aircraft was buried halfway through a small two-story hut, which had collapsed over it, the thatching burning brightly. The APC had been knocked over on its side, the turret popped off and smoldering. Sarah Downer scrambled in the wreckage, her enemy forgotten, desperately trying to haul broken beams off the crushed bodies of soldiers.
Britton slewed his head to the right. Harlequin stirred weakly on the ground, blood running from a gash in his head, half-conscious. Behind them, Therese, Swift, Peapod and a few others had begun to stand, their faces streaked with blood and filth, their mouths open in shock.
Harlequin began to prop himself onto this elbows. Britton shot out a bootheel and caught him in the temple, knocking him back into oblivion.
Pyre lay a few feet before him, sprawled on his side. His eyes were open, seeing nothing.
Fitzy. Fucking Fitzy.
Britton launched himself to his feet, running to the wreckage.
He found Fitzy lying on top of two dead soldiers. His wounded arm had been burned to a stump from the elbow down, the wound mostly cauterized, but still leaking blood. Ribs protruded from his ruined side. He groaned, his eyes darting around, his good arm scrabbling in the dirt, searching for a weapon. Truelove was pushing himself to his feet behind him, swaying, blood streaking his shredded uniform. Richards sprawled beside him, his charred body cut neatly in half by a chunk of the helo’s tail boom.
Britton staggered a few more steps and collapsed on top of the chief warrant officer, his knee slamming into the broken ribs and eliciting a weak moan.
“Kill you,” Fitzy whispered. “Fucking kill you.”
Britton leaned in and whispered back, “You’re done killing.”
Fitzy grinned at Britton’s closeness, then moved his good arm with sudden speed to his belt, hauling out a small knife and lunging for him. Britton twisted aside, and the slim blade found his thigh instead of his side, gouging out a furrow of flesh.
He screamed and head-butted his former instructor, who sprawled in the dirt, spitting blood. He tried to open a gate and found that Fitzy, for all his injuries, could still Suppress him. He looked around for a weapon and settled on a fragment of the helo’s rotors, its jagged edges sharp. He snatched it up as Truelove regained his senses, and their eyes met. They held stares for a moment while Fitzy flailed weakly beneath him.
Finally, the Necromancer nodded and turned away.
Britton raised the rotor fragment over his hand.
“Fuck you,” Fitzy snarled.
“No,” Britton answered. “Fuck you.”
He brought the sharp edge down across Fitzy’s throat, suppressing the instinct to look away as the hot blood washed over him. The magic tide rushed back to him as Fitzy gurgled his last.
A few soldiers began to rise from the ruined swath left by the Blackhawk’s path, but were set upon by Goblins, screaming and dragging them back down to the ground, spears leveled at their throats. One of the Goblins dashed from the crowd, a chunk of stone held high over his head. He moved to one of the soldiers, raising the rock to dash his brains out. Marty barked an order from his position behind the stone chairs. The Goblin paused, looking askance, and Marty repeated himself until the creature reluctantly lowered the stone.
Britton examined the knife wound in his thigh. The gouge was deep, gently oozing blood around the edges, but he wouldn’t bleed out anytime soon. He tried to stand and found that he could, though his legs shook. Therese could heal him later. For now, he reached out, grabbing Truelove’s arm.
“Stay with me,” he said, as the Goblins converged on the survivors.
He looked for Downer, but was distracted by Harlequin, who had begun to stir against at the base of the tree, pushing himself onto his elbows. Britton took a limping step toward him, savoring the trip.
Somehow, they had won.
Swift reached Harlequin before Britton, leaping over the stone chairs and putting a bootheel on the Sorcerer’s neck. The flames were out, but they had left Swift’s chest badly burned, the swallow tattoo disappearing under charred skin. His black hair had melted to the sides of his face. One eye drooped into a track of burned skin that Britton knew would scar terribly.
Peapod appeared behind him, Marty at her side. Swift winced with each step, the side of his face twitching uncontrollably.
Therese knelt at Pyre’s side, weeping.
The Goblins had rounded up what remained of the soldiers and were dragging them into the plaza. They came without protest, shaking their heads in disbelief that they could have been beaten. One stumbled and was rewarded by a jab from a spear in his buttock that drew blood. Downer stumbled along with them, a Goblin helping her along with thumps of his spear butt.
Britton could feel the Aeromancer’s flow, but Harlequin was in no condition to muster any magic. Swift put his boot on Harlequin’s throat and loomed over him.
“You recognize me, you fucker? Look at me.”
Harlequin groaned, opening his eyes but managing little more than slits. He tried to raise his head and failed, dropping back in the dirt.
Swift rotated his foot, tearing away skin. “Open your fucking eyes! Look at me!”
Harlequin managed to open a single blue eye, but there was no recognition there.
But Swift only went on. “It’s me. Remember? You killed my girlfriend and my child. I killed myself trying to fucking earn somebody. When I was about ready to give up, I met Shai. So you killed her. Do you like me now? I’m a fucking product of your goddamned system.”
He spoke so quickly that drool escaped from the corner of his mouth, his words running together, scarcely understandable as his voice rose. “But here’s the best part. You lose. I’ve got you, and I’m going to kill you so slowly and horribly that before I’m done, you’ll spit on your precious laws just for a momentary break in your suffering. You fucking son of a bitch, I am going to kill you. I am going to kill you. I am going to kill you.”
Britton paused, stunned by the depth of Swift’s hatred. He could feel Swift’s current gathering like a tidal wave, a well of potential energy bubbling beneath his skin. He must have been burning with it. Would he go nova? Harlequin seemed to feel it, too, and began to thrash weakly back and forth under the pressure of his heel. The Goblins had returned to the plaza and stood staring frankly at him, waiting for his next move.
Britton had no love for Harlequin, but he felt Fitzy’s blood still warm on him. The sensation made him feel ill, weak. Harlequin was a bastard, but he was not Fitzy. Britton opened his mouth to say something but stopped. Swift’s scarred face and insane rambling made him terrifying. If Britton spoke, he might divert some of that insensate rage onto himself. He didn’t know what Swift would do.
Downer had no such compunction. She shrieked and shook free of her captors, racing to Harlequin, her hands outstretched. “Don’t you hurt him!” she screamed. “Don’t you hurt him!”
Swift’s eyes never left the Aeromancer, who had recovered enough to prop himself onto his elbows, his head bending back under the weight of Swift’s boot. Swift merely stuck out one hand, pointing at Downer.
A bolt of lightning sprang from his hand, catching her full in the chest. The Elementalist flipped over backward, her screams abruptly becoming a choking croak. She slid in the mud, the stench of cooked meat rising from her.
“No!” Britton cried, interdicting Swift’s magical current. The strength of it nearly overwhelmed him, and it took him several seconds to properly Suppress Swift.
Downer writhed on the ground, alive but hurt badly. Truelove rushed to her side, cradling her in his arms.
Swift felt the Suppression take hold and whipped his head toward Britton, snarling. He bent, in one fluid motion, grabbing Harlequin’s throat with one hand and yanking his pistol from its drop holster with the other. He stood again, the pistol barrel hovering rock steady over the Aeromancer’s face.
“I don’t need magic to do this,” he said. His finger tensed on the trigger.
“Don’t!” Therese raced between them, hooking an arm under Harlequin’s armpit and hauling him upright. Harlequin Drew magic to him, but Britton met his eyes and shook his head. “You do, and you’re dead, pal.”
Harlequin didn’t release the magic, but neither did he Bind it to anything.
Swift didn’t move, pointing the gun doggedly over Therese’s shoulder. “Get out of the way,” he said. “You saved our lives, and I don’t want to shoot you, but he’s not getting away.”
Therese only stood, shaking her head silently.
Britton looked down at Fitzy’s gore splashed across him and felt sick with himself. Rage had overcome him, and he had murdered the chief warrant officer. Therese wouldn’t permit that. Not when a man was too weak to defend himself. She was better than that.
“No, Swift,” Therese said. “We’re letting him go.”
She gestured at the few remaining soldiers, hemmed in by Goblin spears and staring wide-eyed at the confrontation. “We’re letting all of them go.”
Swift’s voice was flat, the rage gone stale. “I’m not kidding. Get the fuck out of the way.”
“We came here to escape,” Therese said. “We’ve done that. Killing more people won’t accomplish anything.”
Britton spoke up, hoping the words would shrug off some of the shame he felt. “That’s what Selfers do. We’re not Selfers, Swift. We’re not the SOC. We’re the real good guys, and it’s high time we started acting like it. I’m through with magic as a bludgeon. It stops here. He goes free, back where he came from. They all do.”
He met Marty’s eyes as he said it. He knew he couldn’t speak for the Mattab On Sorrah, but he also knew he couldn’t permit them to kill captured prisoners, no matter how angry they were over the attack on their village. “All water baby, right?”
But Marty only nodded, speaking quickly in his own language. There was a chorus of angry cries from the assembled Goblins, with a few of the white-painted sorcerers stepping forward, flapping their hands at him, but Marty silenced them with a few barked words, his command presence back again.
“All water baby,” he said. “Always help.”
“We’ve all lost something,” Therese said to Swift. “Killing him won’t bring anyone back to life.”
The pistol didn’t waver. Swift’s face was inscrutable, his voice a tired croak. “You’re going to have to kill me if you want him to live.”
Therese paused, shook her head, then stepped away from Harlequin, spreading her arms and moving to stand beside Britton. “I’ve had it with killing,” she said. “You do what you have to, Swift, but you can’t fight the whole world, not forever. Sooner or later, you have to accept things as they are, stop bitching, and start the hard work of changing stuff.”
Swift’s lip curled, he pressed the gun forward, and Britton tensed for the ringing shot, for Harlequin’s body to jerk and slump. He closed his eyes and sighed.
Silence.
When Britton opened his eyes Swift had lowered the gun. His eyes were on his feet. Two drops tapped on his boot tips. Tap. Tap. Tears, Britton realized.
“Fuck,” was all he managed to say, barely a whisper.
“Don’t think I don’t appreciate the gesture,” Harlequin slurred through split lips. “But it’s not my call. I’ll be back, Oscar, for you and your friends. This won’t change anything. I’ll come for you.”
Britton crossed to Swift and took the pistol from his hands. Swift gave it up willingly, his grip limp and spent. His eyes remained fixed on his feet.
Britton swallowed. Felt his gorge rise.
Because there was one more killing that had to be done if they were ever to be safe.
Britton turned, dropping Swift’s Suppression to open a gate directly before the chair where Billy sat, his mother’s elephantine arms pale around his neck. His vacant blue eyes widened, his mouth working in shock at the sight of a gate not of his own making. He whipped his head from side to side, pulling one of the leads loose. His mother fumbled to reconnect it, her cat’s-eye framed glasses going askew. Harlequin stiffened, but he lacked the strength to do anything.
“I’m sorry, Billy,” Britton said. “It’s the only way.” He made his single shot count, putting the bullet squarely between the Portamancer’s eyes. His head snapped back, coating his mother’s floral print dress with gray matter. Britton shut the gate before her screams could reach him.
He dropped the pistol as if it were diseased. “No,” he said to Harlequin, when he could finally bring himself to speak. “I don’t think you’re coming for anybody. Not anymore.”
Therese approached Swift, placing a hand on his burned face, the magic flowing out and smoothing the skin into shiny pink patches. “It’s okay,” Therese whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”
“How can it ever be okay?” Swift whispered.
Therese was silent, as was Britton. I don’t know how it can ever be okay, Britton thought. But at least now we’ve got a chance to try to get it there.
Britton pictured a trip to Washington, DC, he had made in high school. He snapped the gate open, the image of his memories playing true. The front lawn of the White House was clearly visible through the shimmering surface of the portal. Crowds of onlookers gawked and pointed from beyond the iron fence.
“Off you go,” he said to Harlequin, shoving him toward it. The Goblins followed suit, prodding the remaining assaulters forward at spearpoint. “Maybe you can explain to them what you’ve been up to. I’ll be watching the newspapers for your quote. Best of luck with that.”
Harlequin glanced over his shoulder at Britton as he went. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Something new,” Britton answered. “Go back to your masters. Tell them that their precious regulations are no longer valid. Tell them there’s a new way.
“From now on, Latent people get a real choice. And I don’t mean a choice between soldier and Selfer. Tell them if they don’t get my message out, I’ll do it my damned self. You can’t stop me from doing the one thing you fear the most: telling the truth. I can make sure that people know about the Source, the FOB, what you really do with Probes, everything.
“And this. Tell them I’ll be visiting them real soon to discuss the new order: President Walsh, Senator Whalen, all of them. They have this one chance to do the right thing. After that, I’ll visit the newspapers and TV stations. They don’t get to decide how magic is regulated anymore. You know why? Because I can be anywhere at any time, I can spread the word. I can show everyone the world they’re so desperately trying to hide, and there’s no way they can stop me.”
Harlequin nodded, the corners of his mouth rising slightly. “You’re one hell of a dreamer, Oscar. I’ll be seeing you real soon.”
“I’ll be ready,” Britton said, as the Aeromancer stepped through the gate, the rest of the assault force in tow. Sirens had already begun to sound outside the White House fence, and Britton could see white-shirted police pushing their way through the crowd.
When the last of the soldiers was safely through, he closed the gate and stared out over the ruins of the village. Already, the wreckage of the helicopter had begun to cool, and several Goblins picked through it or hauled off the small children who were playing too close to the remaining fires.
Behind him, Britton could feel the gazes of what remained of the group he’d led out of the wreckage of the SASS: Therese, Swift, Tsunami, Peapod. He could hear Marty speaking in soothing tones to his tribe, who were crowding closer. Truelove cradled Downer, still unconscious. Britton could feel the tension of their expectation, waiting for his attention.
But he took a moment before that next step, inhaling the intensified smells of the Source. The air was still thick with the stench of blood, fear, oil, and spent gunpowder, but underneath it was something sweeter, a light odor that spoke of the hearths in the houses still standing, of the buds on the old tree behind him that had been spared the fire, of the acres of grass and foreign trees just outside the palisade wall.
Oscar Britton took a deep breath and turned to face the coming dawn.