Faith Defiled (Gray Spear Society Book 14) (41 page)

He teleported and Marina followed him.

She found herself in a residential neighborhood. Snow and ice covered everything, but she didn't feel the cold. She guessed she was back in Chicago.

A black form made of mist was standing in the middle of the street. The face of a woman was just visible in the murk. The creature had gleaming swords for arms.

It was surrounded by eviscerated corpses and body parts. The spilled blood was still steaming.

"Tawni," Aaron said, "what are you doing?"

Tawni turned. "Just killing cannibals, sir."

"I need you to perform an interrogation. Marina, dear, I'll be back. Tawni, follow me."

Aaron and Tawni vanished. He returned by himself a second later.

"I'm not sure about these funny names," Marina said. "In retrospect, Nails and Acid sound pretty dumb. Maybe we should just stick with Lord and Lady."

"Sure," he said.

"I'm also not happy about Tawni killing cannibals for fun. She should've at least talked to us first. Norbert was also a little disrespectful. Now I'm wondering what the rest of them are up to."

He furrowed his brow. "You're right. I think it's time to get organized. We need a place for a general meeting."

"A new headquarters, one we can use for all eternity."

"What do you have in mind?"

She looked up at the night sky. "I'm not sure, but I'll know it when I see it. Follow me."

Marina shot up into space like a rocket. She accelerated until she burst through the light barrier, and she kept going faster. She passed other planets and then stars. In less than a minute, she left the Milky Way Galaxy.

The great majesty of the universe spread out before her, billions of galaxies containing countless stars. It was impossibly big, yet it was all her territory.

She saw a ball of iron hurling through intergalactic space. An exploding star had probably thrown it off billions of years ago, and it had travelled through freezing emptiness ever since. She judged it would continue to do so for all eternity.

Perfect,
Marina thought.
Ordinary people will never bother us out here.

She used her fingernails to blast out a stadium. A tall dais was created in the middle of an open field, and all of it was carved from solid iron. Many rows of seating surrounded it. Aaron helped by spitting with pin-point accuracy. They soon had a meeting place fit for the new Society, and the metal glowed in the aftermath of its violent construction.

Aaron and Marina landed on the dais.

"Come here!" he yelled.

All one hundred
legionnaires
instantly appeared, and they quickly found seats. They looked to Aaron and Marina expectantly.

"This will be our new headquarters," he said, "a secret place only we can visit. We will gather here to share our wisdom. We will keep our trophies and records here. It is our sanctuary."

He turned to Marina. He was letting her take a turn, which came as a pleasant surprise. She had assumed he would do all the talking, but he obviously respected her too much for that.

She addressed the crowd. "We must protect the universe, but we will start by cleaning up the mess on Earth. Go back to your old headquarters and attend to unfinished business. Quietly erase any vestiges of the old Gray Spear Society. The new Society will retain some assistants, so choose the best and brightest available. The rest will go back to leading normal lives, but reward them for their service as you see fit. Now, except for the
legionnaires
from San Francisco, all of you are dismissed."

Most of the audience vanished.

Marina faced Aaron. "I have to return to San Francisco."

"I'd rather you let your
legionnaires
deal with that mission," he said. "We've been apart too much. Stay with me and help me straighten out Chicago. It's your hometown after all."

She nodded. "OK, but let me give them their orders." She beckoned her team with her finger.

Yang, Ipo, Katie, and Hanley walked across the open field and stood at the foot of the dais. All four had taken on wild, abstract forms. Yang was made of yellow crystals and white flames. Ipo had expanded to become a huge brown boulder with stubby legs and a head. In contrast, Katie's body had stretched and thinned, and now it looked like a skeleton made of steel bars. Her brown hair went down to the floor like a wedding veil. Hanley was the most recognizably human, but his hair was black flame, and he was wearing white armor reminiscent of a medieval knight.

Marina would have no trouble recognizing them regardless of their appearance. She saw the essence beneath the transient physical form.

"Yang," she said, "take the other three to your prisoner, and then return to Olivia. Stay close to her until I say otherwise."

"Yes, ma'am," Yang said.

"Hanley, you're in charge of finishing the mission in San Francisco. Ipo and Katie will assist you. Find the Goddess. I want to meet her. Go."

The four
legionnaires
vanished.

Marina looked at Aaron. "Now we can fix Chicago, darling."

* * *

Walfred was trying to find a way to lie down and sleep, but it seemed impossible. His tiny island was all volcanic rock. His shoes protected his feet from the sharp, jagged edges, but the rest of his body wasn't so lucky. He couldn't even sit comfortably. His eyes were drooping with exhaustion after a very long and stressful day.

Suddenly, he wasn't alone. Three monsters were standing on the surface of the ocean directly in front of him. They were grossly distorted versions of human beings and clearly not made of ordinary flesh. Walfred was convinced he was having a nightmare. A grenade had knocked him out in the cave, and now he was unconscious.

A creature made of black flames and white armor walked up to Walfred. "What's your name?"

"Walfred," he replied in a quavering voice.

"The leader of the Warriors of Dagda. You're exactly who we wanted to talk to. Fate has brought us together. Where is the Goddess?"

Walfred sucked in his gut. "I don't know, and I'd never tell you anyway."

"Why are you protecting her? What has she done for you?"

"She's my fountain of wisdom and understanding. I have faith in her."

"Badly misplaced faith," the monster said. "It led to the death of all your men, and it put you at the mercy of us."

"I'm not afraid. She'll punish you for your insolence."

"You have it backwards."

The monster grabbed Walfred's arm. Suddenly, he was in a different place full of hot, choking smoke. His skin felt like it was on fire. He looked up at the sky and saw three suns, and he realized he was on another world.

A second later, he was back on his prison island, but his brief interstellar journey had left its mark. He coughed violently and then threw up. His eyes were watering so much, the world was a blur. The alien gases had torn up his sinuses, and when he wiped his nose, it came away bloody.

"If you're so confident in the power of your Goddess," the monster said, "you should be eager for us to meet her. She'll crush us, right? We're just maggots compared to her."

Walfred looked into the thing's face. It had eyes, a nose, and a mouth, but they were just sketches, as if the artist had lost interest before adding color and texture.

Walfred had lied about being afraid. He was actually so terrified, he could barely hold his water.

"You're right," he said. "Maybe I should show you how to talk to her. Then you'll see. She'll put you in your place."

The monster bowed slightly. "I'm eager to be 'put.' What do we do?"

"We need the magic mirror."

"Ah!" the monster said. "I heard about that. Where is it?"

"I left it in the car."

* * *

Hanley was walking up a road in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was the middle of the night, but his eyes could detect photons across the electromagnetic spectrum, so the darkness wasn't a problem. His hearing was even more sensitive. The passage through the aperture had magnified his gift a million-fold. His entire body was a sound detector capable of distinguishing the heartbeat of a squirrel on the far side of the valley. He could hear termites slowly grinding through the trees.

He was still getting used to his new body, and the strangest part was that it wasn't really a body at all. His physical form was just a manifestation of his mind and his willpower. It was more fantasy than substance. He could project it anywhere in the universe or even make it disappear entirely.

He wondered if his true self resided in some secret place well hidden from God's enemies. Maybe the Lord had constructed a vault containing the souls of His
legionnaires
. The real Hanley had to be somewhere after all. It was interesting speculation, but he would probably never get an answer. Only God and perhaps the twins knew the truth, and that was for the best. Some secrets had to be kept forever.

Ipo, Katie, and Walfred accompanied Hanley. The prisoner was jogging ahead, driven by fear. Hanley could hear the man's heart thudding like a drum. Hanley looked over at his teammates, and even though they had adopted strange forms, he wasn't put off in the slightest.

Cars, trucks, and vans were parked beside the road in a long line. A substantial force had come to the mountains to kill Olivia, and only the empty vehicles remained.

Walfred pointed at a blue car. "There."

Ipo went to open the door, but it was locked. He ripped off the door and tossed it aside. He dug through the interior until he came out holding a large mirror. Mystic symbols covered the thick, silver frame. A smoky finish to the glass made the reflection fuzzy and dull.

He placed the mirror on the ground leaning against the car. "Show us."

Walfred knelt before the mirror, clasped his hands together, and bowed. "I beckon the Goddess, speak to me."

* * *

A chime on Iris's phone surprised her. She certainly wasn't expecting a call.

She and Laurence were back at the executive terminal at the San Francisco Airport. They were waiting for their airplane to land. As a precaution, the Boeing 717 had remained in the air until the last second, and it would be on the ground for only a few minutes.

Iris took her phone out of her purse. The display indicated Walfred was trying to make contact with his magic mirror. Her eyes widened in astonishment.

"Who is it?" Laurence said.

"Walfred."

"You told me he was gone."

"Apparently, he's back," she said. "Should I answer him?"

"It can't hurt. He won't see the real you."

Iris accepted the call.

* * *

Cute,
Hanley thought.

A giant burning eyeball was floating in the mirror. It was just a hologram, but the rendering was excellent. Stars twinkled in the background, and the flames rippled like flowing water. The mirror was clearly a very sophisticated device.

"What happened to you?" a woman said.

Hanley used his gift to analyze the voice. It was electronically masked to hide the speaker's identity and to make it sound more impressive, but he was able to discern some interesting details. The Goddess was in a noisy environment. He listened closely and tried to untangle the sonic clues.

"I was captured, ma'am," Walfred said. "The... things that caught me want to talk to you."

"You showed the holy mirror to our enemies?"

"I wanted them to see you in your glory, Goddess, so they would accept your superiority."

Hanley heard rising and falling high-frequency sounds.
Jet engines,
he thought.
An airport. She's boarding an airplane.

"And are they impressed?" the Goddess said.

Walfred looked at Hanley, Ipo, and Katie in turn.

"I don't know, ma'am," Walfred said. "Are you going to smite them?"

"Hmm. No. This conversation is dangerous, and I have to go. I'd wish you luck, but I'm afraid yours has run out. Good bye, Walfred. It's a shame things ended this way."

The burning eyeball faded, and the mirror returned to its original appearance. Walfred stared at it with an expression of crushing disappointment.

"You still have faith in your Goddess?" Hanley said.

Walfred turned to him. "She abandoned me."

"Obviously. The irony is you were fooled by a hologram, and you created the angel holograms which fooled so many others. I guess that's why they call it blind faith. It makes you blind to the obvious."

Walfred just stared.

"I'll make a deal with you," Hanley said. "When we find your Goddess, we'll let you meet her in person. You can tell her how you feel to her face, but first, you have to tell us everything you know."

Walfred furrowed his brow, and Hanley wondered what kind of pain he was experiencing. Hanley had never had much faith in anything, so he wasn't familiar with how it felt to lose it. He was fundamentally cynical. He assumed the worst and was rarely disappointed. Believing in God didn't count as faith when Hanley had actually met the Guy.

"OK," Walfred said at last, "but I don't know much. I never met her."

"You probably did, but you just don't realize it."

"There was a woman in a black car..." Walfred appeared thoughtful.

"What kind of car?" Hanley said.

"A Mercedes sports car. It looked very expensive. I'd recognize it if I saw it again."

Hanley turned to Ipo and Katie. "I heard jet engines in the background. We'll check the parking lots in the major airports. I bet we'll find that car."

* * *

Iris looked up at her jet as it taxied towards her. It was a gorgeous aircraft, and normally, it made her feel proud and confident, but not tonight. She was scared out of her wits.

She had glimpsed the enemy through the eyes of Walfred, and they weren't human. They were living nightmares made of flames and armor, pure incarnations of divine wrath.

Something was horribly wrong. Iris had heard many tales about the Gray Spear Society from the other Pythagoreans, but none had mentioned demons of this sort. It appeared the Great Adversary had learned a new trick, and the game had changed. Her decision to flee was looking much wiser now.