Spellbound (43 page)

“You’re tougher than you look?”

“Yes. It’s alright. Don’t forget, I’ve been in the Society longer than you have. I grew up with this kind of stress.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “Of course I’m scared of the Imperium elite. Only a fool wouldn’t be.”

“I’m not scared of him.”

Jane cocked her head to the side. “I may not have Hammer’s Power, but your blood pressure is elevated and the muscles around your left eye socket develop a nervous twitch when you’re lying.”

Dan unconsciously put one hand to his eye. “Okay, fine. You got me. I’m scared to death, but not for me. For
us
. Madi thought you were a valuable commodity, and now Jake is inviting the fox into the henhouse. What happens when Toru makes the same decision? Sure, he might be telling the truth with all that talk about honor and obligations, but what if he changes his mind and decides they’ll take him back if he brings his masters a good enough present? Like maybe a perfectly good Healer and a sack of Grimnoir heads. I’m telling you, no good can come of this. Jake’s lost his
damned
mind.”

“Jake is afraid, desperate maybe, but not crazy. Judging from the physiological indicators, I’d say that Jake is the most rational one in our group, and you have no idea how much it pains me to say that, since I believe he’s fully willing to throw his life away at the slightest provocation if he thinks it will make a difference. He’s prepared to do whatever he has to in order to win. If that means making a deal with evil incarnate, so be it.”

“Is it worth making a deal with the devil, to beat another, bigger devil?”

“I’m afraid your theological analogy sort of falls apart there, Dan. But if they are even half right about how dangerous the Pathfinder is, can we afford to find out?”

Toru finished yet another set of intricate movements and froze. He held still for what seemed like forever. Unyielding.

“I don’t like it . . . but you’re probably right.”

“I usually am, dear,” she said. Dan just grunted in agreement. Even a man who could magically win any argument wasn’t going to touch that idea with a ten foot pole. One of the cars left the barn and set off down the lane in a cloud of dust. “Who’s leaving?” she asked.

“Jake, Lance, and Ian are going to scout the OCI’s island fortress.”

“And they’re simply leaving the women here alone with that crazy Iron Guard?”

“Hey, I’m here.” To be fair, his Power hadn’t proved the most useful against Iron Guard level willpower, and he knew it. He wasn’t offended. As far as protecting the
women folk
went, Faye by herself was more than a match for any old Brute, and the French girl was a Torch. It was difficult to be a male chauvinist when women were human flamethrowers or could outfight a platoon of Imperium marines.

“That’s not what I meant.” Jane sniffed. “Of course I know you’ll protect us!”

“It’s okay. I’m not offended. A wise man knows his limitations, though I thought you weren’t worried about him?” He chuckled. “Never mind. I’ll quit while I’m ahead. Don’t worry. I asked for this.” He removed the captured Dymaxion from his pocket. “Mr. Toru doesn’t know this thing exists. If he tries any funny business, he won’t be nearly so tough when he finds out he’s not bulletproof anymore.”

“Oh, Dan. You’re so clever.” She kissed him.

“That’s why you married me, babe.”

OCI Headquarters

FRANCIS TRIED TO REMEMBER
exactly how Buckminster Fuller’s drawing had looked before he’d been forced to eat it.
A square. A circle. Another circle. Got to get the intersections right. Three triangles stuck together in back. Two squiggly bits that connected all the points. Two? Or was it three? Shit. I haven’t even gotten to the octagon yet.

Frustrated, Francis wiped away the design, smoothed the dust, and tried again. The dim flickering light made it difficult to see and his fingertip wasn’t the most precise instrument, especially when it was attached to a hand that was shackled to a chain.

“What are you doing?” Heinrich asked through the wall.

“Nothing.”
I can’t talk about it or they’ll hear us.

“You know, I have been thinking about something.”

Square. Circle. Circle.
“Yeah?”

“The one nice thing about them using our bodies as evidence is that they can’t torture us too obviously, plus they have to feed us, and let us use the latrine. To do otherwise would cause suspicion during the investigation.”

Sure, they’d been given water, canned rations, and been unshackled, then handcuffed and taken to the toilet while being watched by five burly guards with clubs and a Dymaxion twice a day, but it wasn’t like they had any opportunity to escape. Heinrich had tried last time, but had only managed to injure two of the guards before being wrestled down, and dragged back to his cell. “Your point?”

“No point. I’m just saying that this could be a lot worse. Starving and wallowing in our own filth before being murdered . . . now
that
would be unpleasant.”

“Nobody likes annoying optimists,” Francis said.

“And to think that a few days ago you called me a pessimist.”

Francis went back to trying to draw the spell. If only he could get this thing to work, then Heinrich could fade through his chains. Fighting a Fade indoors was suicide. The guards wouldn’t have a chance. All he had to do was perfectly re-create the most complicated spell that he’d ever seen, and then only for a minute, and they could blow up all the Dymaxions and waltz right out of here.
Squiggly bits. Octagon . . . Fuck.

Heinrich started to say something but then stopped. The opposite chains rattled for a moment and then his friend was still. Francis could have sworen that he heard whispering. “Heinrich, you okay?”

“Couldn’t be better.”

Heinrich was a strange one, even for a German. Francis shrugged and went back to drawing. A few seconds later he heard a small ticking noise coming from inside the wall. A whisper came through the hole in the bricks. “Shhh, don’t talk. Just listen.”

Lance?

“They’ve got spy holes in the walls. You’re being watched and listened to.” He turned his head enough to see the black head of a rat perched on top of his chain. “Here’s the deal. We’re going to spring you tomorrow.”

Yes!
He should have known his friends wouldn’t let him down. He hadn’t given up hope, but he’d been getting close.

Francis urgently tapped his finger in the middle of the spell he was drawing.

“Interesting. What’s that do?”

Francis wrote in the dust.
BLOWS UP DYMAXIONS.

“That would be handy,” Lance whispered. “Think you could do that on demand?”

SIGNAL?

“Explosions. Screaming. Gunfire. That kind of thing.”

???

“Well, a maybe is better than nothing. How big do they blow up?”

GRENADE

“I’ll tell Sullivan not to keep his in his pocket then. Anything else you can tell me?”

BRADFORD CARR

“Already know about him.”

Francis smoothed the dust.
ATTACK COMING. KILL US. FRAME UP.

The rat made a skittering noise. “Figured as much. Be ready to move quick. If that spell works, great. If not, we’ll come get you boys the hard way.”

FIND BUCKMINSTER FULLER N.Y. HIS SPELL.

“Not much time, but we’ll try . . . Oh, and I can see what you’re doing there. Draw the wavy lines first. Then put the solid shapes on top of them. Easier that way. I’ve been messing with some of the ones Sullivan’s come up with, nothing like that beast, though.”

Francis scowled at the design.
Why hadn’t I thought of that?

The rat moved around for a moment. There was a tinkle of metal against the floor. “Here’s some pieces of wire and a nail I found. I did the same thing for Heinrich. Maybe you can pick your lock. I’ll be back with the cavalry tomorrow. You boys hang in there.” And then Lance was gone.

They were going to bust out of here, no matter what. With renewed determination, Francis cleared the dust and started over.

There was only so much he could tell by glassing a dark tree line over and over. The shapes of the buildings could barely be seen and there weren’t very many exterior lights. He couldn’t even pick out the guards. Sullivan finally gave up and lowered the spyglass.

Apparently their Beastie was finished scouting too, and Lance wandered over to join Sullivan on the shore. He had heard Lance’s side of the conversations with Heinrich and Francis. “How bad is it?”

“Exterior wall is solid, and our targets are buttoned up tight in the main building. I counted eighteen heavily-armed men barracked there, our boys, and half a dozen other prisoners in another area. Guards patrol outside, working in pairs. Don’t know how many, but twenty-five bunks in total, though they might sleep in shifts. We could cut the electricity and telephone lines easy enough, but they’ve got a radio transmitter so they’ll still be able to call for help.”

“Only one bridge across. Easy to block our escape, too.”

“Too bad Pirate Bob’s on the other side of the world. Being able to land an armored blimp right on top of them would be mighty convenient.”

Sullivan shook his head. “The Navy’s had their newest carrier tethered over the city since the attack. We come in by air and the
Lexington
will have fighters on our tail in no time.”

“We’re gonna have to work for this one.”

It was cold on the Virginia side of the river; that humid, pierce-your-clothes kind of misery that made nights like this especially bitter. Sullivan jammed his hands into his pockets and waited for the young Summoner to finish up with his spirits.

Ian was sitting on the lowered tailgate of the truck, talking to thin air. “Good work, Molly. Tell me what’s inside the loud room?” He listened intently as the invisible creature spoke in a way that only Summoners could hear. “You’re so smart. Yes you are. Who’s my good girl? Molly’s my good girl.”

“Are all of them like that?” Lance asked.

“Summoners? Believe it or not, this one seems a lot more squared away than most.” Sullivan had worked with a few different Summoners over the years, from the scouts of the 1st Volunteer to friends he’d used for detective work. Compared to the rest, Ian could interact with society rather well. He was still young, though. Maybe Summoners just got crazier with age. “What’ve you got, Ian?”

He sounded smug. “Molly is one of the sharpest spirits I can bring in. She says there’s a room at the top that’s got an engine running inside of it. It’s spinning a big ball. That’s got to be a Dymaxion.”

Sullivan was inclined to agree. The smaller one he’d found had a range of maybe fifty feet, but this one seemed to cover the whole island. They’d driven over the bridge to the D.C. side and back to test it out, and his Power hadn’t responded at all while crossing the river.

“I heard the noise upstairs,” Lance said. “I didn’t spend too much time trying to get in. The room was solid concrete with a bank door on it. But if it’s motorized, then there will be ventilation for that engine, and if there’s ventilation a rat can get in and start chewing through wires.”

“Might not be a bad idea.”

“You got any idea how bad copper wire tastes?”

“Can’t say that I do . . . I wonder how many of their men know what’s really going on? You know we’re going to end up having to kill some of them.”

“I know.” Lance was somber. “But if you sign up to take away innocent folks’ freedom, you better be prepared to pay with your life. I saw something else while I was in there you need to know about. There’s a command center on the main floor. Nobody’s working this late, so I did some reading. They’re making big plans.”

“More attacks to blame us for, I bet.”

“Francis tried to warn me that something’s coming, but he had no details. That wasn’t what got my attention. Bad things, Jake.”

It wasn’t like Lance to be this hesitant. “Spit it out.”

“OCI is building prison camps big enough to hold tens of thousands. They’re segregated by Active types. Places I’ve never heard of out west, Topaz and Gila River for physical Powers, Granada and Minidoka for mental. They’re got lists of names. Pages and pages of them. Who’s not a threat, who to round up, and who to exterminate.”

“Aw hell . . .” This was worse than imagined.

“
Exterminate
, Jake. I didn’t pick the word. I didn’t make it up. It was on the title.
Extermination order for undesirable Actives
.”

Ian just stared at the dark mass of Mason Island. “I can’t believe that.”

Lance hawked his throat and spit in the Potomac. “Believe it, kid. It was posted on the fucking bulletin board.”

Sullivan took the spyglass out and put it back to his eye. Had it really come to this?
What’s your game, Senator?
But the trees held no clues.

Lance’s laugh was bitter. “OCI’s just gonna keep on pulling stunts like Miami ’til they get what they want.”

“It’s hard to believe they can hate us that much,” Ian muttered.

Sullivan wasn’t sure. Maybe it was hate for some, fear for others, but was there something more? Were Actives an excuse for a power grab? Were they pawns in some bigger game? Sullivan didn’t know, but he was damn tired of being pushed.

It was a different time, different place, and it was right in his own nation’s Capitol, but Sullivan couldn’t help but feel like he was back in the Great War, planning a raid across no-man’s-land. He had a mission, he had an enemy, and that meant that he had a purpose. If the OCI wanted a war, then they’d get one. “Let’s go home. Get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow, we attack.”

“We’ve been scouted, sir,” Crow reported to his superior.

Bradford Carr had been getting ready to turn in for the evening, and was dressed in his robe savoring a pipe. He’d claimed the general’s officer’s quarters of the old Peace Ray facility as his personal suite and paid a great deal of money to have the rooms properly decorated. The plain concrete of the bunker had been paneled over with fine wood. Ornate light fixtures had replaced the wire-covered emergency bulbs. All of the furniture was huge, dark, and expensive. Crow felt like he was sitting in the salon of some upper-crust intellectual, which technically, he was.