Angel of Doom (11 page)

A charred wing swept around, slamming into Brigid hard enough to break her concentration, ending the fountain of lavalike fury that she'd unleashed. The blow sent the archivist into a whirl and she took every ounce of willpower to stop her dizzying spin.

“I am a song that has swallowed hearts and minds across two universes,” Vanth's avatar said as Brigid “landed,” lying prone from the dizzying impact. “Girl, you have no concept of how in over your head you truly are.”

Brigid looked up. “I'm in my own head. Not in over it.”

Vanth fluttered down closer to the prone Brigid Baptiste. It had replaced its bow with a spear. “I will peel you out of your defenses, and then I will add you to…”

Brigid narrowed her eyes and Vanth paused as she felt changes around her.

“…add you to the…power…”

Figures began to appear around the winged huntress as she floated over Brigid. First dozens, then scores, then by the hundreds until the two of them were surrounded by a sphere composed of women who looked exactly like Brigid Baptiste, complete in her armor of will.

“The power of what?” Brigid demanded.

“Who…what?” Vanth asked, turning, looking up and down. “Thousands of you. How?”

“You're the one who is in over your head. And under mine,” Brigid returned. She rose from the “ground,” floating up to the avatar of Vanth unleashed in her mind.

“You want my intellect, for what?” Brigid asked.

“The torch,” Vanth answered. “To open the portal for the bodies to pass through.”

“To go home?” Brigid continued, getting closer to her. The goddess was now sufficiently cowed. Vanth's sharp senses picked up that every one of the other Brigids held a Sin Eater similar to the one that had hit her so hard, caused her so much pain.

Vanth's attention locked onto Brigid. “Your world will become my race's new home, human.”

Brigid nodded. Her lips curled with anger at this entity inside her mind, being proud and cheerful over such a blasphemous ideal.

“And when we come, it will be as a plague,” Vanth warned. “An endless horde…”

Brigid floated backward from the armed huntress. “It
sounds fascinating, but I'll keep my brain here…and your plague on the other side of our dimension.”

With that, Brigid willed herself into all of the copies she'd placed around the intruder in her mind. To Vanth, it looked as if she'd dissipated like a windblown fog. In actuality, Brigid now looked at the mathematical virus input into her mind from thousands of points of view…over the sights of her will weapon.

“Goodbye,” the millions of Brigids told the Vanth avatar, and she pulled the trigger. The universe of Brigid's mind's eye turned to the color of raw, blazing lava, the roar and heat manifesting into actual sweat on her brow where she rested on the cot.

“Brigid?”

It was Domi's voice, from the real world. Brigid could feel the slender but rough fingers of the girl pressing on her shadow-suited shoulder, hear the notes of concern in her little friend's voice. Her million guns opened up, working to crush the Vanth avatar, and even as they attacked her, she watched and felt as slashes of sickly light carved through her duplicates.

That hurt.
The torch's searing light felt as painful, as horrible, as her own counterattack seemed when she damaged Vanth.

“Brigid!” This time there was panic in Domi's voice. “Wake up!”

“One moment,” Brigid called out.

The Vanth entity continued to crumple under myriad relentless counterattacks from Brigid's will. The intruding… virus. The intruding virus wasn't letting go, firing back with everything she could summon. In addition to the torch's flame, arrows flew, darting out, and Brigid felt her chest tighten, stung by those phantom shafts. Inside the Magistrate armor of her will, she was soaking wet,
trying hard to breathe while the spike of agony stuck in her breastbone.

“Go away. Die now!” Brigid growled. She realized that she was in such a mental struggle she'd reverted to how Domi would speak in this situation.

Domi, help.

And with that summons, a simulacra of the feral albino girl appeared, clad merely in her black suit, bare-handed and barefoot, but drawing twin daggers from sheaths on her hips. Like a snowy owl, she swooped down upon Vanth, those black talons of hers carving deep into the burned and battered goddess. The creature sang out a wail of pain as diseased blue pus erupted from each of Vanth's wounds. The once soft and supple-looking torso of the woman was in places blackened, charred, and where the shell of its skin split, the milky blue gunk seeped, blackening like oil when it lit against the surrounding flames.

Somewhere in a part of Brigid's mind, she realized that the tint of Vanth's blood resembled the sickly pallor of Charun. Perhaps a sign of ancient injuries incurred in the deep past.

In the meantime Brigid summoned up Kane and Grant, as well as Sinclair and Edwards. If Vanth wanted to take her over, then Brigid would take strength from her friendship, the very reason she was fighting so hard to prevent the winged huntress's takeover of her mind. For should the alien goddess take Brigid over, turn her against the others, then there would be very little to stand between the two winged invaders and the rest of the world. They'd already showed their deadly adeptness at taking over the Gear Skeletons and Olympian soldiers. They were giving her a struggle to the point where she was suffering psychic and physical exhaustion.

And with her five friends leaping into action, hammering at the Vanth virus, Brigid had a breather. Her chest
no longer felt as if it were pinioned by an arrow when she breathed. The sweat was cooling from her brow. Her strength grew.

No more cockiness. She left up her friends and dove in herself.

For it was through teamwork that Brigid was at her ultimate strength. Too many incidents had reinforced that it was the combined talents, skills and attributes of the Cerberus explorers that provided the best results. Together, they had dared the gods themselves, and this fragmentary essence was now crumbling, pieces shattering off of her charred form, bursting into puffs of ash, thanks to that knowledge.

Her summons of friendly thoughts gave her all she needed.

And as soon as the virus attack had begun, it was over.

Brigid knelt, her friends fading back to where they'd come from, the images dissipating as quickly as the charred embers of Vanth's intrusion. Merely getting back to her feet took as much will as it had taken to battle the virus. Her legs felt like rubber and when she was fully stood, she gulped down deep lungfuls of air, trying to recharge and replenish what little remained in her reserves.

She spent more of her mental energy, taking inventory of herself, scanning for signs or remnants of the Vanth entity that had invaded her mind via the song. All that was left were the actual words and notes of the transmission that tormented Smaragda so. Finally, during the battle, her translation of the enemy message had been completed. It was assembled on a board, giving the archivist all she required for understanding the ancient rhyme.

It also felt hollow, again like the song of Ereshkigal when she'd read it in English from the Spanish. Whatever information virus, whatever hypnotic energy, was in
those words was gone, stripped away. Its remnants were also expunged from her mind.

She hoped.

“Brigid!”

With that she opened her eyes and was back in “the world.” Both Sela Sinclair and Domi were standing over her on the cot. Domi had a towel in her hand and was blotting away sweat on her brow.

“I'm fine,” she muttered, mouth dry and gummy.

“You didn't sound it,” Domi returned. “You were drenched with sweat and muttering in your sleep.”

“You didn't listen closely, did you?” Brigid asked. She didn't know if her partners could actually handle the song if she'd spoken it aloud while in the throes of battle with Vanth's avatar.

“You were sputtering gibberish,” Sinclair offered, “and given what you are translating, we pulled on the hoods and killed the audio feed. Once you stopped moving your lips, we slipped them off. But you were still laying there and sweating up a storm.”

“You were right to do that,” Brigid said. “It was the song of Vanth. I was fighting its effects inside me.”

Domi helped Brigid to sit.

As sore as she'd been in her “white room,” Brigid felt a similar dull ache from where Vanth's arrows had struck her in the chest. She touched her wrist, taking her own pulse and doing a mental inventory on her body.

“Let's see if there's a doctor on duty,” Sinclair suggested.

Before Brigid could say anything, the rest of the Cerberus Away Team members came in.

It was all she could do to lay back, the burning beneath her breastbone a reminder of the brutal battle she'd just fought.

“You nearly died in
your
adventure with Enlil and got right back to work!” Brigid snarled at Kane.

“The doctors want to have you wait on your cardiac enzyme results,” Kane responded. “Just to make certain you aren't flirting with a heart attack.”

“And we let you…” Brigid murmured.

“Don't get excited, Baptiste,” Kane ordered. “The last thing we need is for you to rush into action. That's why you wanted us to bring CAT Beta along with us, right?”

Brigid's lip curled in a sneer.

“Besides, according to Domi and Sela, you had your fair share of adventure before the rest of us, fighting that thing in your mind,” Kane added.

She folded her arms, body language for cutting herself off from him or what he'd say.

Kane knew that when she got into one of these stubborn moods, it would take a shifting of continents to get through to her. No matter how much he repeated that
she
was the origin of the idea of relying on CAT Beta to make up for weaknesses and injuries among the CAT Alpha team, she was in a snit.

“Baptiste?” Kane asked, trying to draw her out of her grump.

“Go on the mission, Kane. Just go. I brought this onto myself by trying to translate that chant,” Brigid grumbled.

Grant leaned his head into the hospital room. “I'd say she learns fast, but that's pretty obvious.”

“Once she was the student, now she's the master of grump,” Kane said back.

“You think this is funny?” Brigid challenged. “Not only am I sidelined, but I'm sidelined because of my damned curiosity!”

“So because you're mad at yourself, you threw a metal pan at my head?” Kane asked.

“Like I could hit you with such a non-aerodynamic object.” Brigid grunted. “You could duck that in your sleep.”

“Well, thank you for the vote of confidence,” Kane answered as Grant handed him the now-dented bedpan.

“How's the ankle?” Grant asked.

“I aggravated it in horseplay with Domi and Sela,” Brigid said.

“You
have
been a busy girl.” Grant chuckled.

“Not another laugh. Not. One. More,” Brigid threatened.

Grant showed her the palms of both of his hands in a sign of surrender. “Not another.”

Brigid sighed and lowered her gaze at herself, reclined in the hospital bed. “How come neither of you get hurt badly enough to miss out on all the fun?”

“We'll transmit as much information back to you as we can, if we find relics,” Kane offered.

“Go on. Just make sure you know how to program the interphaser,” Brigid insisted.

“We know,” Kane returned.

“Don't make me hobble out of this bed and come to your sorry rescue!” Brigid added.

Kane backed into the hallway, handing off the dented bedpan to a nurse. “You and your partners have my deepest sympathies.”

The nurse peered around the corner. “Don't worry. She's not the first soldier we've had to deal with.”

“She's a beast of a patient…” Grant warned.

“We've dealt with Queen Diana when she was still Artem15,” the nurse returned. “She was the definition of the beast.”

“I hear you talking about me!” Brigid spoke over the Commtacts for Kane and Grant, causing both men to wince.

“Aw, crud,” Grant rumbled.

“We'll never get rid of her,” Kane added.

“Damned straight,” Brigid concluded.

“Behave, Baptiste. Just because you hypnotized the CAT teams and Myrto to guard against the song of Vanth doesn't mean you can be lazy. Heal up and join us,” Kane told her before turning off his Commtact.

A moment later he felt Grant slap him in the back of the head.

“What was that…?” Kane began. Then he shook his head. “Brigid wants the last word.”

“Getting so you won't need these things anymore, partner,” Grant concluded with a laugh.

* * *

T
HE
C
ERBERUS EXPLORERS
and Myrto Smaragda were back at the Oracle, just as the interphaser beamed in from their redoubt. Kane knelt and entered the coordinates onto the small keypad built into the side of the pyramidal device. The interphaser was a means of expanding the reach of the CAT teams beyond the limitations of the mat-trans network in various redoubts. There were weaknesses in utilizing the local matter transmission chambers as the damage to the Olympian redoubt proved.

Their Greek allies literally could not receive or send visitors via the mat-trans, though thankfully the Cerberus Redoubt was able to rescue people trapped behind collapsed
tunnels within the Hera Olympiad-ravaged headquarters. Rescue teams, including Kane and the rest of CAT Alpha, as well as CAT Beta, retrieved the injured and the imprisoned and brought them back via the parallax point atop the Oracle peninsula.

Hundreds of lives that could otherwise have been lost were given a second chance. Efforts to retrieve further supplies trapped within the depths went via the same circuit, but not like the hectic, constant matter jumping of those first few days of search and recovery. It was also the only means of getting maintenance teams down to work on the deep underground nuclear reactors, sent in for week-length shifts along with appropriate supplies.