Spellbound (16 page)

“If I have failed you I will—”

“
Seppuku
? You have a habit of making poor decisions, Iron Guard Toru, but no.” Toru was filled with shame at the rebuke. “I have need of you still. Your actions are not what is troubling me. It is this matter before us, but I have made my decision. Your next task will be more difficult. We must assume that Hatori has been influenced by Grimnoir cunning. After you have disposed of them, Hatori must die.”

Toru could not believe his ears. He must have heard wrong. “Chairman?”

“Ambassador Hatori is surely influenced by their magic and must be destroyed. Allow him to speak to none of the men. He is not to be trusted. Do you understand, Iron Guard?”

His stomach was sour. Hatori was his mentor. Killing him was unthinkable. “Yes, Chairman. I will do as you command.”

“See to it. Summon some of your men.”

Toru leapt to his feet. He flung the door open and called out. Within a moment he was joined by two marines. When they saw whom he was speaking to, they dropped to their knees and bowed as deeply as possible.

“You are witnesses to my will. Ambassador Hatori is relieved from command immediately. You will answer only to Iron Guard Toru.”

Flustered by the honor of being spoken to directly by the Chairman, the men barely managed to sputter their confirmations.

“Report when it is finished.”

The mirror flashed white and the spell was broken.

He had just been asked to kill his closest friend. It was madness. Hatori was a loyal warrior of the Imperium; he would never go over to the Grimnoir. Toru was consumed with doubt, just as he had been when he had last failed the Imperium.
An Iron Guard does not doubt. An Iron Guard acts.
There was no time for thought, no time for hesitation, not when the Chairman had personally given him an order. There was a rack by the door filled with weapons. He picked up his favorite, a steel tetsubo. Toru spun the spiked club through the air. “For the Imperium!”

It took a lot of practice to get the hang of steering a field mouse. The mouse-eye view of the world was radically different and hard to adapt to. Colors faded to a greyish-green; details were fuzzy while the smallest movements or lights became incredible beacons. The faintest smells were incredibly distracting, and his sensitive paws could feel the tiniest of vibrations or variations in the surface, but mostly it was hard to drive a mouse because everything was
huge
. The giant skyscrapers he was running between were small indoor trees. The jungle was a fern. It was hard for a human being to make the shift. It was a good thing that Lance Talon had a lot of practice.

He had picked up the mouse at the Bonus Army camp. Once it was under his control, which was a snap with an animal that had such an itty-bitty brain, he’d stuck the mouse in Dan’s pocket. It had taken an amount of Power way out of proportion to the animal’s size to keep control, but that was because of the distance involved more than anything.

Controlling an animal was sort of like driving an automobile. You didn’t become the car, but you sat in the driver’s seat and told it what to do. In Lance’s case, he was a much-better-than-average Beastie, and could actually feel through all of the animal’s senses. He’d followed his friends into the dragon’s den with the goal of keeping an eye on things. When the one Iron Guard had been ordered out, Lance had decided to tail him, and it was a good thing that he had. It was also a good thing that the ambassador didn’t own a cat.

The little animal’s heart beat at an insane rate as Lance forced the little legs to keep moving. He could feel the rapid drumming as if it was his own.

Lance’s conscious mind was in two places, and while the part that was in the mouse ran to warn Dan and Jake about the Iron Guard coming to club them to death, the rest of him was pulling the canvas cover off the new 5-inch Stokes mortar that had been bolted down in the bed of his truck.

“Maybe we should be going now . . .” Dan Garrett whispered to his friend.

But Sullivan still had questions. He was a man who collected questions like kids collected baseball cards. “I want to know more about how this Pathfinder creature works.” It was obvious that the Heavy didn’t trust the Imperium to take care of business.

“Do not trouble yourself with things beyond your comprehension.” The ambassador was a crafty one. He’d told them much, but wasn’t about to give up anything that would make the Grimnoir more capable foes. “I am done with you. I must return to dine with your countrymen who are more than willing to assist the Imperium’s goals as long as there is gold involved. Your country rots from the inside out. Perhaps I have been a diplomat for too long and forgotten the ways of the Iron Guard, but because you came under a flag of truce, though it pains me, protocol demands that I
must
allow you to leave in peace.”

Dan breathed a huge sigh of relief. It looked like he wasn’t going to have to try to Talk their way out after all.

“That was a most difficult decision. When we meet again, I will not be merciful. In fact, now that I know that any of you somehow survived the
Tokugawa
means that you will be inevitably hunted down and exterminated.” The ambassador stood. Though he was withered and aged, the old warrior still carried himself with pride. He clapped once. The doors opened and the soldiers filed back in. “See them out. Keep them away from the guests.”

Dan was hauled roughly to his feet by the guards. It was degrading, but he was glad to be leaving. Avenging Heinrich could wait until they weren’t outnumbered ten to one. When Sullivan didn’t get up fast enough for them, one of the guards grabbed Sullivan’s arm, but the Heavy just shrugged the man off. Subguns were leveled his way and bolts were retracted. Dan could appreciate his companion’s stubbornness, but sure wished that he was better at knowing when to pick his fights.

Sullivan took his time standing up. “Make sure your superiors listen, ambassador. I’d hate to have to come back here.”

“An Imperium man does not have fear . . . except for this Enemy. It will be done.” The ambassador walked for the exit. The guards formed a protective line between him and the Grimnoir. “Farewell.” He paused and looked down at his foot as something tiny and brown leapt across his shoe. “What’s this?”

“Incoming!” the mouse shouted with a surprisingly loud voice.

Grabbing his Power, Dan opened his mouth to shout one of the Japanese phrases he’d been practicing, but before he could get the words out, Sullivan thrust one hand out and caught him by the wrist. Suddenly gravity
bent
. The table and chairs tumbled away and the room’s occupants were airborne.

He had never been on the receiving end of one of Sullivan’s gravity manipulating tricks before. Dan found himself dangling by one arm, only kept from being flung across the room by Sullivan’s grasp. Down was
wrong
. Instead of being on the ground where it always was, it was somewhere behind him, where the Imperium marines were crashing through the silk screens. It was disorienting, like the most effective carnival fun house ever, only there wasn’t anything funny about gravity being violated. It was frankly terrifying.

Sullivan released his Power and down returned to being down. Dan hit the floor at Sullivan’s feet with a grunt. He’d done better than the Imperium men, who had been spread across the room. The Heavy wasted no time yanking him up. “Run for it.”

Lance’s mouse had an easier time disentangling himself than the humans. The little thing stopped in the doorway ahead of them. “Iron Guard headed your way. The Chairman ordered him to pop you. I’ve got—”

A polished dress shoe squished the mouse flat.

“You again,” Sullivan said.

Dan looked up to see Toru standing in the doorway blocking their escape. The Iron Guard was holding a gigantic four-foot-long metal club in one hand. He surveyed the damage, said something in Japanese to the guards that had landed on the ambassador, then pointed his club at Sullivan’s chest and shouted another order. He stepped forward, swinging, but Sullivan used his Power and the Iron Guard was hurled back. The club tore a big chunk out of the wall as Toru tried to catch himself, but then he spun through and disappeared from sight. Sullivan charged right after him.

“Jake!” The guards were getting up. Dan spied one of the weird Jap subguns and snatched it off the floor. He kicked the closest Imperium man in the face for good measure. “Shit!” Dan ran after the Heavy as a guard started firing pistol bullets right over his head.

Somebody had just stomped him and all his guts had exploded out his side. The pain was astounding, but it only lasted for a split second.

The real Lance Talon came back to consciousness lying on the cold bed of his truck, a mortar round still clutched in his hands. The sensation had overpowered both parts of him and put him flat on his back. There were certainly some disadvantages to being able to use
all
of the animal’s senses. Luckily the feeling went away as soon as the link did, because it was something you never got used to.

Lance found his pocket watch and opened it. He’d inscribed the spell on the glass earlier. This wasn’t taking too much Power because it was only to one other person, and she was nice and close. The glass showed nothing but black. “Jane! You there?”

She must have adjusted her mirror, because a pretty face swung into view. “I’m here.”

“Your husband will be needing a ride right quick.”

Jane started her car. “I’m on the way.”

“Good. Be careful.” He closed the watch and stuffed it back in his coat. “Because if you aren’t, Dan’s liable to come apart at the seams,” Lance muttered to himself.

The Imperial compound was approximately five hundred yards away, on the other side of a copse of trees, out of sight, but well within range of the Stokes mortar. He’d carefully prepped the powder charges, preloading each of the rings at the base of the shells, and as long as he hadn’t totally screwed up the aiming calculations (the instruction manual had told him 56 degrees for this range) the rounds should impact relatively close. At least the Imperium didn’t have any neighbors he might accidentally hit.

The truck box was tall, and at his height he could move around in the back with just a slight crouch. Nobody passing by would realize this was anything more than just a regular old box truck. The instructions had warned that the recoil was
firm
, so he’d bolted the Stokes down, cut the truck box’s roof off, and called it good. The Grimnoir now had field artillery.

Lance hadn’t fired one of these things since the war. This new one didn’t look too impressive, just a big pipe on a tripod, with a couple of gears for fine adjustments.
How bad could it be?
He dropped the shell down the tube, then covered his ears just in case. The recoil rocked the truck springs. The blast was impressive enough to knock his hat off. “Hot damn! That’s the stuff!”

He reached for his Power and felt his surroundings for life. Living creatures stood out, like glowing blobs on a map that stretched for half a mile in every direction. The bigger animals were brighter, and the smaller ones faint, each kind with their own certain color. Some horses, cows . . . a dog . . .
There.
A bunch of fast movers. The blast had shocked a flock of blackbirds out of a nearby tree and into the air. Lance grabbed one. The simple animal’s brain was shoved to the back, and then Lance was flying.

Gaining altitude, he pointed his beak toward the Imperium compound. One nice thing about birds was that they
always
had a good sense of direction. Amazing vision too. Lance couldn’t explain the science behind their eyes, but they saw colors that he couldn’t even explain to other people because man had never invented words for them. The mansion was easy to spot from a hundred yards up. He enjoyed the sensation of the wind and waited for the shell to hit.

A few more seconds passed before impact. There was a shower of sparks as the shell struck the outer wall of the compound and burst. A cloud of noxious chemical smoke began to belch forth. Lance let go of the bird so that he could have all of his brain to work with. He was a bit off, so he grabbed the elevation wheel and moved it two clicks. The smoke bombs had been made for laying down cover for the troops to advance across no-man’s-land during the war, and they put out a lot of smoke, so Lance figured they should make a real good distraction for Jake and Dan.

But once he got sign that they were out, then he’d start tossing the
good
stuff.

Toru fell into the atrium. He was not worried, having trained against
Omosa
before, or Heavies as they were called in America, including the legendary Iron Guard Madi, and knew the key to defeating one was keeping your wits. As gravity changed direction, he would have to adapt quickly. Like now for example, he was
falling
, yet remained parallel to the ground, so he tried to keep his body oriented so that the inevitable return to normal would not cause injury or place himself in an indefensible position. A skilled Heavy often overwhelmed his foe through sheer confusion, but an Iron Guard with the proper mindset would not be fooled by such tricks. Toru reached the end of gravity’s distortion and landed on his feet, skidding through the imported topsoil.

Several marines were running toward the commotion. Toru had not even come to a stop before he was shouting orders. “Bind the ambassador. He has been corrupted by Grimnoir magic.” The men were confused by his command, but they would obey without question. Then the Heavy ran into the atrium, looking for a fight. The two warriors spotted each other and Sullivan charged. “The big Grimnoir is mine!”

Gravity changed again, hard to the side. It was not like being hurled by a Mover. There was no pushing, not even a sensation of being pulled, just that the thing you had understood as gravity your entire life was now aimed someplace else. Toru kept his mind clear and caught himself on one of Hatori’s prized maples. He held on as dirt and leaves rushed past. The marines did not fare as well and hit the wall hard. One crashed through a window.