Spellbound (46 page)

“I’m not one for all that philosophy and stuff some folks like to quote so they seem smart and all, but come on. I mean, you’re talking about a person, not gophers or rattlesnakes. This one’s easy. I mean, if you killed a kid just ’cause of what the kid
might
turn into, then you wouldn’t be any better than this Warlock fellow and all his massacring. Then who’s the real bad guy?”

Whisper stood still for a real long time. Faye hadn’t known that fire could just be still like that, but then it just sort of drifted away and disappeared into thin air. Whisper still didn’t turn around though.

Somebody shouted her name. They needed to get ready. “Sounds like we better get going.”

Whisper finally turned. “I’ll be along.” Her makeup was running. She had been crying.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Not really.” Whisper gave her a sad smile. “But I will be eventually.”

Faye just shrugged. “You can be really weird sometimes, I swear. Let’s go.”

Chapter 18

When I began my career, I was told that there was no longer a need for stage magicians in a world with real magic. Yet I knew, as everyone knows, that the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place someone is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death. That’s what attracts us to the man who paints the flagstaff on the tall building, or to the “human fly” who scales the walls of the same building. Bury a Fade alive and there is no wonderment when he escapes, because nothing can hold a Fade. Bury a normal man, such as myself, and the crowds will gather to see if I may die. That, my friends, is showmanship.

—Harry Houdini,

Interview,
1931

Mason Island

LIGHTS COULD BE SEEN
down both sides of the Potomac, but the island was only a blacker shadow on the river ahead. Luckily for them, it was a particularly dark night, moonless and cloudy. It smelled like rain. Their oars dipped quietly as Toru steered their tiny boat toward the island. Twenty feet behind, the water could be heard lapping gently against the second rowboat.

Sullivan was in the front, bullpup BAR pointed in the general direction of the island. There was a Maxim sound silencer screwed onto the muzzle. If a sentry spotted them, he’d need to shoot them down before the alarm could be raised. “Ian?”

Their Summoner was at the back of the boat, listening intently. “Molly doesn’t see anybody close to the shore,” Ian whispered. “I’ll have her go further south.”

He’d learned in the Great War that spirits were good scouts, but they often missed things. They weren’t that smart and could be easily distracted. Just because Molly didn’t see any guards . . . didn’t mean there weren’t any there. He went back to scanning the shore.

The first boat carried him, Dan, Ian, and Toru. The second held Diamond and his three knights. All of them had smeared grease on their faces and were dressed in dark, rugged clothing, from Sullivan’s beat-up dock worker’s coat and skull cap to Ian’s brown getup that was straight out of a safari outfitter’s catalog. Everyone was armed with a long gun, extra ammo, a sidearm, and other gear. Under Sullivan’s coat were three canvas BAR gunner’s belts improvised into a sort of crossed bandoleer, one over each shoulder, roped to the one around his waist, and each one was weighed down with spare magazines. That load was nothing compared to the Iron Guard though. He’d lost track of how many weapons Toru had thrown on, including that absurd spiked club riding on his back. He just hoped the Brute wasn’t overestimating how much stamina he would have once the nullifiers blocked his Power.

The island was closer now. Toru lifted the oars from the water and they all listened. Crickets and frogs, and the water lapping against a felled tree, but nothing that suggested they were drifting into an ambush.

It was cold, and even the brief ride in the rowboat had coated them with a fine mist that left their clothing damp. Moving through the forest, even if it was walking into a fight, would be a welcome relief, because at least it would generate some heat. The bottom of their boat thumped against something unseen, and the noise made Sullivan flinch. The frogs fell silent. They drifted for a moment, waiting . . . Then the frogs began croaking again.

Toru stowed the oars and rolled silently over the side. He entered the water without hardly making a splash. It was shallow here, barely coming up to Toru’s waist. Sullivan tossed the Iron Guard a rope and he pulled them forward until the boat was stuck in the mud. Toru tied the rope to a tree while the other three climbed out.

Diamond’s boat kept drifting to the east. They’d agreed to make landfall at two separate points and then converge as they got closer to the compound. Lance’s surprise had simply swum across the river before them and would be waiting somewhere ahead.

Dan and Ian weren’t nearly as quiet as he’d hoped. There was just something about moving in the woods that could only be learned through practice. Dan’s real value was if the nullifiers could get knocked out. At that point he could probably just ask real nice and the OCI would surrender and hand over all of their evidence. Until then, he was clumsy and loud.
Maybe I should have brought Hammer.
He kept his voice low so it wouldn’t carry. “You two . . . stay back and get your Summoned ready.” They’d discussed it earlier—anything Ian was capable of bringing in that would be much use in a fight sure wouldn’t be very stealthy. “Then stay a hundred feet behind us. Toru, you’re with me.”

Walking in a crouch, Sullivan made his way forward. The woods were thick, but he took his time to keep from making too much noise. The ground was nice and soft, which meant that his boots gained clinging mud with every step, but at least he didn’t have to worry about dry leaves and branches cracking. Stalking through no-man’s-land had been a thousand times worse, because you had to do that on your belly, crawling over the dead bodies and the barbed wire, and a carelessly raised head would get you popped by a German rifleman. For Sullivan, this felt more like the deer hunting he’d done as a kid than the deadly stalking he’d learned in France.

Walking into the nullifers range was like walking into a wall. The Power just stopped. The spells he’d carved on his body felt lifeless and dull. Suddenly everything felt
heavy
.

Toru moved to the side, silent as one of Ian’s spirits. He’d brought that big Jap machine gun, but even without his Brute strength, it didn’t seem to be bothering him any. They had just shy of half a mile to travel. They made good time, trying to stay far enough ahead of the louder two. Sullivan was so used to subconsciously manipulating gravity that he’d forgotten just how weighty a BAR and two hundred rounds of ammunition were. Despite the cold, he began to sweat beneath his coat.

Five minutes in, Toru froze. The lack of movement in his peripheral vision was enough to make Sullivan unconsciously take a knee. The Iron Guard had sensed something. Sullivan’s nose caught it a second later. Cigarette smoke.

There was a noise up ahead and Sullivan pulled tight against a tree. There was a game path, and two shapes were making their way down it. The men were talking quietly, nervous. The long things in their hands could only be rifles. He looked to where Toru had been, but the Iron Guard was already gone, crawling forward, his machine gun left leaning against a log. Sullivan slung his BAR, drew his trench knife, and followed.

It was almost too easy. Just like old times, like silencing the German city boys who didn’t know how to listen to the night. The guards never even saw them coming. Toru took the left side of the game trail and Sullivan took the right. Palms covered mouths as heads were jerked back. Boot to the back of their knee, the blade goes in under the ear, then ride them down, nice and quiet. You only had to keep them still for a few seconds that way. The smart ones would at least try to pull a trigger to warn their friends, but Sullivan had found that most folks couldn’t think that far ahead with six inches of steel in their neck.

Sullivan dragged the corpse back into the bushes and wiped his blade on the guard’s shirt before putting it back in the sheath. His hands weren’t even shaking. There was only the emotional blankness hard earned in the trenches of France. The earlier reservations about taking these men’s lives had been dismissed after Lance’s discovery of the extermination order. If human life was that cheap to them, then Sullivan figured this was all they deserved.

He joined Toru at the edge of the trail. The Iron Guard gestured to the south and held up two fingers. More guards. They had to hurry. Dan and Ian were blundering along behind, and were sure to get spotted. Sullivan put his hand down to begin crawling, but froze. His palm had come to rest in something that felt suspiciously like an animal track. A
huge
animal track.

Damn, Lance. Did you get something big enough this time?

He signaled for Toru to intercept Dan and Ian. Toru moved off, and Sullivan waited. A moment later the second half of the patrol came into view. They’d left far too much room between themselves to be effective. Sullivan disapproved of their lack of professionalism.

These two were warier than the first, but it didn’t matter. There was a flash of shadow, a thump, and the guard bringing up the rear simply disappeared from view. The lead man turned, confused, as the shape in the bushes rose soundlessly, bounded back across the trail, leapt, and took down the other. This time Sullivan could hear the snap of bone as they disappeared.

The bushes shook as the predator made its way toward him. Every instinct in Sullivan’s body told him to either run for his life or start shooting, but he held perfectly still. He couldn’t actually see the animal until it was almost on top of him. You wouldn’t think that orange and black stripes would be effective camouflage, but it really was. The tiger came out of the brush and strolled down the trail toward him.

“Hey, Jake. We’re clear from here to the wall. Couple guards on top of it and more in a tower behind the perimeter. Bad news though. I can smell a lot more men inside than when we were here earlier. I’d say at least double, maybe more.”

He swallowed hard. Up close, the tiger was even more terrifying than he’d imagined. Sullivan prided himself on being a tough guy, afraid of nothing, but this was a little too close for comfort. “You’re making me nervous.”

“Aw, this little thing.” The tiger made a show of turning its head and looking at itself. “Now
this
is more like it.”

“Is it safe?”

“Safe as a six-hundred-pound Siberian tiger can be. The National Zoo is gonna be right angry when they find her missing.”

“You have to put it back.”

“Aw, come on. Can’t I keep her? Heh . . . just kidding. You know how much this thing would cost to feed? Look, I got to concentrate. I’m trying to get word to Heinrich, trying to break the generator with another rat, and keeping this girl from eating you. I’m going to park her here and put her to sleep, so I can’t talk for a minute.”

Sullivan watched the tiger as it seemed to study him back. “Anything I can help with?”

“Just don’t try to pet the big kitty, Sullivan. I don’t think I could handle that.”

I think I’ve got it!

Francis was giddy with excitement, or maybe it was just the exhaustion, since he’d been working on Fuller’s design nonstop for an unknown number of hours. It was hard to tell time in a prison cell with no windows or clocks. The design finally looked, and more importantly, felt right.

So now what?

It just kind of sat there, a gigantic conglomeration of squiggles, shapes, and lines drawn in the dust, utterly lifeless.

Since he had proved incompetent at lock-picking, the wire that Lance’s rat had snuck to him had been used as a drawing implement instead. Between the finer lines, and dozens of agonizing attempts, the spell was finally done; it seemed to be correct, but it wasn’t doing anything. It had to work just like any other spell. He had to concentrate on it, had to make it connect to his own Power. Until then, it was just a drawing in the dust. But how was he supposed to touch it with magic with the nullifier messing him up? He concentrated on the design, like he normally would, but felt nothing at all. “Damn it all to hell!”

“Huh?” The chains rattled. “What?” Heinrich sounded like he’d been sleeping.

“Nothing . . .” Francis couldn’t even tell his friend why he was frustrated because the stupid guards were probably listening. “How’re you doing?”

“I am doing rather well, believe it or not,” Heinrich answered. “I am looking forward to getting this over with.” Which probably meant that he’d had more luck picking his locks than Francis had. It didn’t seem fair at all. You wouldn’t think that a Fade would have ever bothered to learn a skill like lock-picking when he could just walk through walls, but Heinrich was just so damned crafty that he’d probably learned how for fun. As a very talented Mover, all Francis had to do to open a lock was think about bouncing tumblers until something clicked. It turned out to be a whole lot harder with one hand and a piece of wire. “How are you, Francis?”

“Not as good as you apparently.”

“I see. Well, I think we are going to have a busy day tomorrow. Try to get some rest then.”

Easy for Heinrich to say. He’d learned how to sleep while dangling from ledges and rain gutters to keep from being eaten by zombies. Francis much preferred a nice, civilized bed. His idea of roughing it was a three-star hotel.

There was another noise from inside the wall, skittering right behind his head, and it made Francis jump. “Don’t say anything,” Lance’s voice whispered from a space far too small for a human to fit. “This is it. We’re right outside. If you can make that spell work, Francis, now’s the time. Nod your head if you got that.” He did. “Good. Gotta run.” There was a rattle of a pipe and Lance was gone as quickly as he’d appeared.