Just Cause Universe 2: The Archmage (12 page)

Switchboard shrugged. “This is better than reality television. This is an
event
.”

“This event is going to get civilians killed.” Doublecharge grimaced. “Those dragons will incinerate anyone who gets too close.”

Another sheriff’s cruiser pulled up and a filthy-but-excited Jack tumbled out. “Would you believe I hit the only bog in fifty miles?” he said. “I’ve got mud stuck in places I didn’t even know I
had
.”

“All right, we’re all here,” said Juice. “Trooper?”

“Y-yes sir?”

“Set up a perimeter to keep these bystanders back. We’ve already seen dragons. I don’t want to know what else this guy is going to bring out.”

“Yes
sir
,” said the trooper, relieved to be given something
mundane
to do like crowd control. He was obviously a little overwhelmed by the presence of so many parahumans.

“All right… around the circle, I want observations and thoughts. Make it fast, people,” said Juice. “Jack, I assume you’ve been busy while being chauffeured all over the countryside. What have you got?”

“Radar and GPS can’t find this mountain, but it’s clearly there,” said Jack. “The 119
th
fighters did a direct flyover before returning to base. They reported that all navigation systems went crazy on approach.”

“I was just starting to notice that myself when I got distracted by the dragon trying to chew the wings off the
Bettie
,” said Ace.

“Like space is being warped around the mountain,” said Sally.

“Why here?” asked Juice. “No offense meant to the locals, but
Rugby, North Dakota? It’s not really the point I would choose to begin the conquest of North America.
”

“It’s the center of the continent,” said Stratocaster. “A lot of magical power is concentrated here. From here he can reach equally in all directions.”

“To do what?” asked Sondra. “Take over the country? He’s hundreds of miles from anything of strategic significance.”

Stratocaster fixed her with a serious gaze. “I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s
bad
, whatever it is. He’s got enough power to do all this.” He motioned to the mountain with its aerial guardians flapping around it. “He’s a devious bastard. Whatever he’s planning, this is a big part of it.”

“I can’t see any other way to get inside his castle except by direct approach.” Juice studied the mountain through binoculars borrowed from the State Trooper.

“That’s got to be playing right into his hands,” said Doublecharge. “Let the three of us give you some airborne support and reconnaissance.” She gestured to herself, Sondra, and Switchboard

Shannon looked up toward the summit of the mountain. “If he’s got a fantasy thing going and we start playing outside those rules right away, he might start thinking outside them too. I happen to think Juice is right.”

Brown nose
, thought Sally, although she herself had to agree.

“My original plan stands,” said Juice. “The three of you will be backup for the rest of us. With one change.” He looked at Jason. “Sorry, Jason, but I can’t let you come along.”

Jason grimaced at his ankle. “I know. I’d just be a liability.”

“One other change,” said Ace. They turned to look at her. She had requisitioned one of Jack’s machine pistols and cocked it with a decisive slap. “I’m going in with you.”

“Absolutely not,” said Doublecharge.

“Oh?” Ace’s accent grew thicker with her anger. “I have more combat experience than all of you put together. I may not be a trained
commando
, but I’m not afraid of a firefight either.” The diminutive woman stalked over to glare up at Juice. She barely came to his shoulder; in fact, she was only a couple of inches taller than Sally.

“Nobody is doubting your abilities or your willingness,” said Juice.

“It’s because I have no powers, is that it?”

Juice shrugged. “Well… we don’t know
what
to expect inside.”

“Then you don’t
know
if you’ll need me or not. Better to have me along.
Somebody
needs to think like a normal person.”

“She’s got a point there, Juice.” Jack smiled as he made sure the rest of his weapons were loaded. “We
do
tend to have parahuman blinders a lot of the time. Might do us some good to have a more mundane perspective.”

Sally didn’t say anything, but she hoped Juice would agree to let the spunky pilot come along; her dedication and professionalism was inspiring.

Juice sighed. “All right.”

They set up Jason as the liaison to local authorities, and arranged to have him relay information to and from the assault party as needed. The six heroes—Juice, Jack, Sally, Shannon, Ace, and Stratocaster—rode toward the mountain in the two sheriffs’ SUVs. Overhead, Doublecharge, Switchboard, and Sondra flew high point.

Sally watched as the unnatural mountain loomed in front of them. “Are we going to just walk up the side of it?”

“Maybe,” said Juice. “Satellite imaging showed what looked like a path.”

“A
path?
” Jack rolled his eyes. “Maybe he’s got a nice convenient platter for us to lay our heads upon before he cuts them off. Well, your heads, anyway.”

“Didn’t you ever play role-playing games?” asked Sally. “We did in the dorms all the time. There’s
always
a path, loaded with traps and ambushes and stuff.”

“Sally, why don’t you pretend for a moment that we’re stuffy, uncool adults and explain to us how this all works?” said Juice.

“Speak for yourself, boss,” said Jack. “I’ll only admit to not knowing about the conventions of the genre.”

“Think of it like a series of challenges,” said Sally. “Designed to soften us up, to make us use our powers, to weaken ourselves. Maybe one or two of us don’t make it. It’s his way of showing that he’s powerful enough to toy with us. He’s watching it all for entertainment.”

“Go on,” said Juice.

“And once we get to him, he’ll imprison us, gloat, tell us all his plans, and then conveniently forget something important. Then we free ourselves and defeat him.”

Jack burst out laughing. “I had no idea it was so easy. Maybe we should save ourselves the trouble and just order him to give up now.
Surrender, Dorothy!
”

The deputies pulled up to the base of the mountain. Sally couldn’t hear any ambient background sounds. Even the droning of the trucks’ engines seemed stifled in the still air. A rough-hewn path wound its way up the side of the mountain. Juice dismissed the deputies and the team prepared for their ascent.

The mountain’s steep sides loomed over the heroes and made Sally feel even smaller than normal. The narrow pathway could only accommodate two people side by side if they were extremely friendly with one another and one was only Sally’s size.

“I think we’d better hurry,” said Stratocaster in a strangled voice. “He’s
doing
something. Something bad. I can feel the draw on my power.”

“All right then,” said Juice. “Sally, take the point. I’ll follow behind you, then Jack and Ace. Will and Shannon on rear guard.”

“We’ll cover you as you climb,” said Doublecharge. “Sondra will take high watch while Switchboard and I stay nearby.”

Jack grinned. “And me without my ten-foot pole.”

“I thought you didn’t know anything about gaming,” said Sally.

He shrugged. “I’m pretty sure
everyone
knows about the ten-foot pole.”

 They began to climb. The path wasn’t too steep, and was forgiving and mostly free of loose rock and slippery spots.

“Cave entrance up ahead,” said Switchboard from overhead.

Sally rounded a bend and faced a dark cave in a rock wall. Jack passed a pair of flashlights up to the front. Sally and Juice shined them into the blackness. With a strange rushing sound, a great stream of bats flooded outward. Switchboard and Doublecharge barely had a chance to dive out of the way as the flying rodents spread out into a cloud. Ignoring the group on the ground, the bats swarmed around the flying heroes. Jack and Ace raised their guns, but Juice ordered them to stand down. None of the assault party, except for Stratocaster, could have easily fought against a swarm of creatures. Overhead, electricity crackled as Doublecharge charged the air around her. Crisped bats rained down like tiny meteors.

“You three, stay here at the cave mouth,” said Juice. “Make sure nobody comes up behind us.”

“We got it,” said Sondra, swatting at a bat that tried to bite her.

The others advanced into the cave. “Is this part of separating us? Softening us up?” asked Juice.

“Yeah,” said Sally as she shined her light onto a stairway carved out of the rock. “
Hey, where do these stairs go?
” she fed the
Ghostbusters
line to Jack.

“
They go up
,” he said right away. “And so do we, apparently.”

The stench of bat guano filled their nostrils as they made their way up the stairs. A hundred feet in, Sally stepped onto a stair that gave way. Her lightning-quick reflexes allowed her to leap backward as several more steps cracked and tumbled into a deep pit. The others crowded in to shine their lights into the pit. Rusty iron spikes lined its floor some forty feet below. Jack whistled. “All the comforts of home.”

They crossed the gap in the stairs without any problems and continued up. A few minutes later a large, heavy blade scythed across the stairwell and cut empty air between Sally and Juice. “That was close,” muttered the big man as he swung a foot hard at the flat of the blade and snapped it off cleanly.

“Not much imagination, hey?” said Ace.

“Well let’s not give the man any
new
ideas.” Jack seemed less concerned than the others. Sally figured he must have believed his invulnerability should handle anything the Archmage could dish out.

An odd wave of energy passed through the ground, walls, and air around them, like the shockwave from an explosion, the sudden change in air pressure making Sally’s ears pop. “What was that?” Juice asked.

Stratocaster’s face fell. “I think we’re in trouble. That was a summoning spell.”

“How can you tell?” Sally looked up the stairs with apprehension.

“And summoning
what?
” added Shannon

“I don’t know on both accounts,” said Stratocaster. “Somehow I just recognize the way the magic was used. It might be because of something I learned from some friends in Japan. Whatever it was, I think we should hurry. There’s something else building up. He’s working on something
big
.”

“Right. Double time then,” said Juice. “Stay sharp, everyone.”

They rounded the last bend in the stairs to enter a great hall filled with skeletons sporting swords and shields. A great stone rumbled down behind them to seal off the stairwell. Likewise around the room, Sally saw other doorways slam shut, leaving the six heroes to face several dozen opponents.

“
Fight,
” said Juice without hesitation, and Just Cause went to battle.

Juice and Jack waded into the walking bones fearlessly, Juice with his fists and Jack with a sword that he yanked from a skeleton’s bony grip. In spite of their armor, the skeletons seemed fragile. With no sinew or muscle to connect the bones to each other, only magic held them together. A good strong blow was enough to break the spell and shatter them into pieces which dissipated into smoke. Shannon entered the fray and used her powerful spin kicks to send skulls clattering off the walls and fading into nothingness when the skeletal warriors came close to her. Stratocaster fired off chord after chord from his guitar; each one sent a skeleton flying into pieces. Ace fired off a few rounds from her pistol and blew apart some skulls.

Sally realized
everyone was doing something but her
. An idea surfaced; she knew Jack had a reel of light, strong cord in his pack. She ran to his discarded bag, found the reel and ran to one of the columns holding up the castle roof. She looped the cord around it and tugged. It held fast. She ran crisscross through the hall with the cord trailing behind her. She dipped between and around skeletons. When the cord got difficult to pull on from all the twists, she brought the reel over to Juice.

“Hey, boss… pull on this,” she said and pressed the cord into his hand. He wrapped a few lengths around his hand and gave a mighty yank. The cord stretched taut and snapped through a dozen skeletons like a garrote.

He grinned. “Do that again.”

Sally felt better about herself than she had in days as she made another circuit around the room. Within a few minutes, all the skeletons had been defeated to leave the Just Cause heroes alone once more.

“Is anybody hurt?” asked Juice.

Nobody had worse than scratches and bruises.

“This is getting ridiculous,” said Shannon. “Are we facing a villain or a twelve-year-old geek?”

“Destroyer was only thirteen when he first battled Just Cause,” said Sally. “Age has nothing to do with ability.”

Ace brushed sweat-soaked bangs off her forehead. “What’s next?”

Eerie laughter echoed throughout the hall, a low chuckle of eminent pleasure. The heroes clustered together and glanced around for the source of the sounds. “What, indeed?” asked the voice.

“Show yourself,
Frazier
.” Stratocaster adjusted the knobs on his guitar.

“William. How
nice
of you to deliver yourself to me.”

Jack nodded above them toward the shadows. “There. He’s up there. I’m
sure
of it,” he whispered.

“Tell me,
William,
” said the voice. “How did it
feel
to take the power from the Saitos? Was it everything you ever imagined? Don’t you wish you could feel that again?”

“Who are the Saitos?” asked Juice.

“Long story. I’ll tell you later if we’re not dead.” Stratocaster frowned at the shadows Jack had pointed to. “You can’t hide forever,
Frazier
.”

The voice turned ugly. “Neither can you. And now that I’ve found you, you won’t escape me again.” A figure descended from the shadows on an icy breeze, dressed in burgundy-trimmed black robes over his pale skin.