Hard Magic (55 page)

“Please, leave him alone,” Jane was crying. “You’ve won. Quit torturing him.”

Madi shoved her out of the way and grabbed Sullivan by the throat. “Last chance, Jake. Third strike and you’re out.” He shoved Sullivan back down and returned to the center of the room.

Sullivan climbed to his feet. It felt like there was a ball of molten lava in his chest. He didn’t bother to pick up the sword.
Madi was the strongest.
But even the strongest can lose. He gathered all of the Power he had left. “No matter how tough you think you are, with all your Imperium bullshit, and all your fake magic, and all these punks looking up to you, you’re still that same low-as-dirt bully you’ve always been, and I’ll
never
be scared of you.”

Madi watched him with his good eye. He was furious, the living half of his face red. Spittle flew from his lips as he screamed, “AGAIN!”

Sullivan threw every piece of magic he could. Gravity shifted ten times in as many seconds. Iron Guards fell up, down, and across the room. The Chairman, nonplussed, put out one hand to steady the Geo-Tel. Madi threw up his hands, countering magic with magic, every kanji on his chest glowing bright, burning so hot to keep up that the wood around his feet blackened and smoked. Every loose item in the room fell to the ceiling. Windows shattered. The light bulbs all exploded and dropped sparks until the room was lit only by glowing kanji and the pale blue light of the Geo-Tel.

And still, Madi kept getting closer, teeth ground together behind his destroyed lips, tears of blood leaking from his ruined eye. Sullivan stood his ground, feeling the pressure as Madi hammered him back. One of the bodyguards fell screaming out a broken window. Madi finally reached him and backhanded him across the face. It was the blow of the mightiest Iron Guard, and it shattered Sullivan’s teeth and wrenched his neck around.

Sullivan landed on his back ten feet away. He started sliding away on his rear, crawling on his elbows, pushing himself back with his feet. Madi walked forward, following him, ready to finish it once and for all. They continued for several feet, Sullivan grasping along, desperate, while Madi took his time strolling after him, savoring the moment. Finally, Sullivan stopped, raised his trembling hands, and looked up at the killer towering over him.

“Why the sad face?” Madi asked sarcastically.

“Not sad,” he spat around his broken teeth. “This is what I look like when I’m concentrating . . .” He cut his Power.

Madi’s eye flicked up, realizing what was happening just as the katana dropped from where Sullivan had been holding it against the ceiling. The blade fell, the tanto tip piercing through Madi’s skull, through his brain, down his throat, until it pierced his heart in two. Overloaded, the healing kanji exploded with the light of a bonfire.

Sullivan surged off the floor and grasped the hilt protruding from the top of Madi’s head. He pulled his brother’s face in close and whispered, “You’re right. You always were the
strongest
.” Madi’s good eye was twitching madly in its socket, trying to focus. His hands came up, curled into useless, spasming claws. He was trying to say something, but the only thing coming from his mouth was foaming blood and a
gacking
noise. “But I’m the
smart
one, remember?”

With a roar, Sullivan pulled the blade toward him. The razor steel cut through the rest of Madi’s skull, appearing right between his eyes, then through his nose and teeth. He wrenched the sword all the way out, opening him from top to belly button, and Madi’s organs spilled out in a gushing heap. Somehow, he was still standing, the front of his head split in two. One side was the face of a human, while the other was the shredded white-eyed face of a monster.

No amount of healing magic could fix that. Sullivan raised his hand, palm open, and activated his Power.

“So long, Matty.”

Gravity changed direction and Madi plunged across the room, through the window, and out into the night.

Chapter 26

We have tried everything. Bullets bounce off. Bombs thrown under his carriage have turned it to splinters and killed the horses, but don’t so much as muss the Chairman’s hair. He does not sleep so we can’t sneak up on him. He does not eat so we can’t poison him. We’ve tried fire, ice, lightning, death magic, crushing gravity, bone shards, blood curses, all without effect. Decapitation might work, if you could come up with a blade sharp enough, but the finest steel simply dulls against his skin. Even if you were to wield this modern Excalibur the problem then would be that you can only touch Tokugawa if he lets you. He is all knowing, all seeing, moves faster than the wind, and can Travel in the blink of an eye. You don’t touch the Chairman. The Chairman touches you, and as far as we’ve observed, that only happens when he’s ripping the very soul from your body.

—Frank Baum,

knight of the Grimnoir,

testimony to the elders’ council,
1911

San Francisco, California

It was Kristopher Harkeness,
elder of the Grimnoir, who responded to the call of his ring. The thin man came into the hospital room, locked the door behind him, and Browning wondered why he’d never seen it before. Plague lived in his flesh. This was an Angel of Death. This was the Pale Horse.

“You called?” Harkeness answered.

“I did.” Browning pulled the Colt .45 out from under the blankets and leveled it at his fellow Grimnoir. “I’m surprised you came.”

“I’m bound by a sacred oath. I had to come.” He took a seat in one of the metal folding chairs next to the door. He did not look surprised to see the gun. “You are, after all, one of my brothers. Isn’t that what the oath says? So I know you won’t shoot me. I am still Grimnoir.”

“I don’t see a knight. I see a traitor.”

Harkeness laughed. It was a hollow and joyless sound. “Allow me the chance to explain myself before you murder one of your fellows.” His awkward accenting of random words grated on Browning’s ears. He reached
very
slowly into his coat. “Mind if I smoke?”

“The man standing before the firing squad is always allowed one.”

“Do I get a blindfold?”

“I’d prefer for you to see this coming, for I do believe you murdered John J. Pershing, and I would assume that even if they did not die by your hand, you are responsible for many other deaths.”

The Pale Horse struck a match and lit his cigarette. He took a long drag and let it out in a cloud. “That would be correct. But not for the reasons you believe. You see, Mr. Browning, I am no traitor. I have accomplished that which has been considered impossible. I have accomplished the thing that has cost so many of our brothers’ lives. I am the furthest thing from a traitor. I am a
hero
.”

Browning decided to hear him out. Then he would shoot him in the heart.

Imperium flagship
Tokugawa

Faye couldn't walk.
Electrical shocks seemed to travel up her leg every time her foot touched the ground, but lucky for her, she didn’t need to walk to Travel.

Time was short. Already the blue light was coming up out of the ocean. The magic jellyfish from the place with all the dreaming dead people was coming here, right now.

She appeared in the greenhouse where the surviving pirates had holed up. They were boxed in by two sets of Imperium marines, and they’d taken bad casualties. The woman that launched fire out of her hands was holding them back on one side, and the bald captain was shooting the soldiers that stuck their heads into the hallway, but they’d run out of bullets, fire, and luck before they’d run out of Imperium.

The Imperium didn’t even see her arrive right behind them. They were too worried about the fireballs that kept squirting down the corridor. So she pulled the pins out of two grenades, then Traveled over to their friends on the other side, and did that to them too. She had appeared behind the pirates and had started talking before the soldiers had even exploded.

“Don’t shoot!” Faye shouted. “I’m on your side.” She glared at the fire lady. “And don’t you
dare
set me on fire again or you’ll be sorry.” Several guns turned on her, but at least they were smart this time. There were several explosions, and then a moment later, more from the opposite corridor. “Okay, you’re clear now.”

The pirate captain used the lull to shove another magazine into his rifle. “Who’re you?”

She waved her ring. “Sir Faye of the Grimnoir knights.” She didn’t know if she was technically a “sir,” like the knights she’d seen in that one picture book, as none of the other Grimnoir ever called themselves “sir,” but she thought Sir Faye had a nice ring to it, but then again she was a girl . . . She’d ask Lance. He’d know. “Never mind. You need to go down that way, up two flights of stairs, and then to the end of the boat. My friend Francis has a blimp waiting. You need to go now.”

“What about the Geo-Tel?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, you people, always needing to know everything!” She was very frustrated. She didn’t have time to explain this to every single person she had to go rescue. Why did people have to be so difficult? She grabbed the two closest pirates and Traveled. She dropped them at the rear end of the
Tempest
and then went back for more.

The captain must have figured she was a bad guy who had just evaporated his men or something, because he tried to shoot her, but she scooped him and a big fellow and dropped them with the others. Then she went back twice more. She was tempted to leave the fire lady. It’d serve her right for setting Faye on fire, but that was just the meanness talking, though Faye did leave her for last.

She found a young man next to a crashed biplane. It was sticking out the top of the tallest structure onboard. He’d crawled out, and was hiding behind one wing. He’d already used up all the ammo from the big machine gun he’d pulled off his plane, and was now shooting at Imperium with two fast-shooting pistols. His magic had something to do with changing how lucky stuff turned out, so he had shot bunches of them. She grabbed him by the back of the coat and dumped him with the other pirates, careful to point him out to sea, since bullets were still leaving his gun when they Traveled.

She found UBF people from the
Tempest
and scooped them up too.

Delilah was in the middle of a bridge in a place that was lit in red. She was curled up on her side, in terrible pain. Next to her was a big, dead Iron Guard. She’d pulled his arm off and beat him to death with it.

Faye landed nearby. She used the rail to steady herself. “Delilah?”

Delilah looked up. Half her pretty face was gone and Faye could see her skull. “Leave me alone. I’m almost out of Power, then I won’t be able to stand it.”

“I’m sorry, Delilah. This whole place is about to explode.”

She put her face down so that Faye could only see the pretty side and smiled. “Good.”

She understood. “Bye, Delilah.” Faye Traveled.

Heinrich and Mr. Garrett were being chased by a bunch of zombies. At least they were smart enough not to argue when she showed up, and they’d be smart enough to explain to the others what was going on, so that gave her an idea.

The three of them landed deep in the steaming guts of the
Tokugawa
. An Imperium Torch took two steps toward them but Mr. Garrett shot him twice in the chest and once in the forehead. The thing she wanted to show them was behind a big, wheezing, stinky machine. “Where are we?” Heinrich asked.

“Look at this!” Faye cringed as she limped and led them behind the machine. A really complicated design had been engraved into the wall. She didn’t think the others’ eyes could see what her grey ones could, but she could see the energy connected from the big, evil, magic superbomb right to these markings.

“What strange geometries,” Garrett said, running his hands over them. He pulled them away as if he’d been shocked. “It’s from the
Rune Arcanium
. . . It’s a beacon! But that doesn’t make any sense . . . I don’t understand.”

There wasn’t time. “You’ll figure it out!” She grabbed them both and took them up to the
Tempest.
There was a big crowd there now.

Mr. Garrett blinked in surprise, his hand still extended. He looked to Faye, biting his lip as the wheels turned. The entire night sky had turned a brilliant blue. Black storm clouds were boiling away around the energy. “The Geo-Tel!”

“About time somebody got it!” Faye shouted. “You’re smart. You’ve got the words. I don’t. Make them understand.”

Mr. Garrett grabbed her by the arm. “I can’t leave without Jane.”

“I’ll get her.” She cried a little as her foot hit the ground. That’s what she got for being in one place for too long. “Francis, are you ready yet?”

He came running, a metal pail in hand, filled to the brim with bits of metal and glass. “I did like you said.”

“Good, listen, Mr. Garrett, tell Lance. He’s smart too. Get in the air.”

“We’ll wait for you,” Heinrich said.

“No! Get in the air.” Since she was supposed to be the uneducated hick, it was frustrating how much slower everyone else’s brain was. “We can catch up. But whoever put that mark down there didn’t realize how smart the Chairman is. He’ll figure out what’s going on real soon if he hasn’t already. I’ve got to stop him.”

”From what?” Francis asked, confused. “Firing the Geo-Tel?”

“No! From shutting it off!” She grabbed Francis’s shirt. “Let’s go.”

“What am I supposed to do with this junk?”

“You’ll figure it out!”

***

Sullivan stood defiant in a vast puddle of blood, surrounded by deadly Iron Guards and the most dangerous man on Earth. Strong wind blew through the broken windows. The Geo-Tel was lighting the room in a stark cold blue, but it was no longer necessary, because the world outside had brightened considerably.

The Chairman stood. “It is done. A great man has been defeated. He will be missed. But the strongest survives.”