The Forgefires of God (The Cause Book 3) (40 page)

Someone called out “Arms!” to my left.  Then the welcome sound of a group Noble Terror roar.  Arms.  Hopefully not Keaton and Rayburn.  Hopefully just a few of Patterson’s kidnapped baby Arms.

“Fools to trust in such a simplistic defense,” Rumor said, to my left, and clapped his hands.  The darkness rolled back, slowly at first, then faster and faster.  Ahead of us, three squads of defenders came into view, poorly concealed among various sheds and storage units. As the darkness cleared from them, they started to scream and swat at themselves.  Rumor used Patterson’s élan against her own people.  I wasn’t sure what the counter cost him, but it wasn’t trivial, as beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.  He did good, though, clearing Patterson’s main defense.

The freight road turned right and became an alley behind a row of houses, a good place for ambushes.  Instead of following the freight route, we jogged a half block to our left and onto the residential boulevard bisecting the small neighborhood Patterson claimed as her territory.  Down the boulevard and to the right sat Patterson’s grand headquarters, a dingy old warehouse.  Winter toys and ancient tricycles littered the lawns to the side of the boulevard, some of which my nose identified as containing devious booby traps.

“Pin them down and isolate them,” Haggerty said.  She turned to Dowling, the three other Nobles, and myself.  “Group combat.  Follow me.”

We charged.

I only collected three minor wounds before we finished off the twenty-five defenders.  Transforms all, enhanced at least to start with by juice patterns, none of which lasted past Polly’s first poetic dispel.  They died and we were in, past the houses and on the packed dirt yard around the warehouse.  The first part of my strategy, setting us up as the needle to prick through the bubble of Patterson’s defenses, worked.

“Forward,” Haggerty said.  “Follow me.”

We angled off to the left of our originally planned course toward Patterson’s headquarters, Haggerty seeing or sensing something different.  She put us in a staggered diffuse line, using the row of tiny houses as cover.  I metasensed non-combatants in basements and bunkers, and I used my sense of smell to guide us around booby-traps and landmines.

The screams quieted to our right, but group two didn’t appear out of the vanishing darkness as they were supposed to.  I caught a short glimpse of the ‘unstoppable’ group three off to my left, doing their job and engaging a whole shitload of defenders.  The defenders’ backs were to us, and that’s where Haggerty led us, in an attempt to flank the defenders.

She stopped, frozen to the ground, as a yellow zone of ick came out of a house across the road.  The hairs on my arms and legs stood up and I winced away from the yellow ick zone as it began to sing a seductive song, an offer of power.

I too froze for a moment, hungry for what the yellow ick offered.

“Down!” Haggerty said.  Haggerty’s booming command broke me out of my reverie and I hit the ground with the rest of the group.  A huge explosion rolled in from our left, from near the ‘unstoppable’ group three.  Lances of white light sprang at us from the singing yellow thing, hitting one of the lesser Nobles, two of Polly’s Transforms, and Polly herself.  Polly bathed herself in a purple shell, and skittered toward Rumor.  The yellow thing continued to sing and fire at us.

“There’s nothing in there!” Polly said.  “What is it?”

“I don’t believe I know,” Rumor said, and vanished.  Shit!  Shit!  Something bad enough to panic a Crow of his age and talent?  So the power seduction wasn’t aimed just at me? The information made the yellow zone easier to resist.

“It’s alive,” Sokolnik said, more of a mutter to herself than an official observation.  “It’s living juice.”  I ignored her nonsense words, at least for now.

“I’m still here,” Rumor said, whispering into my ear.  Good.  He had just hidden himself from our enemies, and being a smart Crow, he now hid behind me.  Polly’s shell expanded around us.

More lances of white light sprang at us, not hitting us anymore because of Polly’s protection, her warm and cuddly purple shell.  I smelled warm apple pie.

“Your defenses are messing with my mind,” I said.

“Sorry,” Polly said.  “I can leave you uncovered, if you want.”  Okay, I could live with the urge to cook.  Dammit.  Innkeep began to sing, praising Jesus.  The Nobles joined in the song, except the one first hit.  That Noble crawled away and looked back at us as if
we
were the enemy.  Shit!

The yellow ick zone, this dross-powered lance-puking automatic defense, had turned a Noble with a single hit.

“No.  Keep us covered,” I said to Polly.  I didn’t want to be next.

What I really wanted was one of those yellow things for my own.

Across the compound the parted darkness revealed two enemy Focuses and a squad of Transforms carrying Mary Sibrian and Viscount Kevin toward Patterson’s warehouse headquarters.  Where were Armenigar and Lori?  What the fuck had happened to group two?

Henry Zielinski:

They moved forward, in past the wreckage of the perimeter fence, and then over to the right, to a set of two houses.  They took cover.

“Rumor now controls the darkness,” Nameless said.  “We’ll be able to see everything, soon.”  Nameless paused.  “Viscount Nash!  Group two is in big trouble.  Patterson concentrated her people on them.”

“Tell me,” Viscount Nash said.  He turned from the clump of Monsters surrounding him.  One of them, a tiger with oversized fangs, growled at the distraction and glared at Nameless.

“Massive Crow attacks flattened half of them.  The enemy captured the Arm, Mary Sibrian, and the Noble, Viscount Kevin.  Armenigar and Lederer are down, skunked badly.  Sky’s trying to clean them off, but he’s been skunked as well, with élan.  Élan from a Crow.  The attacks continue.”

“What does the path between us and group two look like,” the Viscount said.

“We’ve got one Focus and her household between us.”

“Let’s go!” Viscount Nash said, and then turned to Nameless and Icestorm.  “You two!  Can you cope?”

Nameless shrugged.  Icestorm shook his head, panicky.

“Alright.  Icestorm, you get back with the pack.  Spread out sideways, there, with our right flank along their perimeter fence.”

Nameless looked at Zielinski.  “You’re not panicking, are you?”

“I have wounded to tend to.”  Lori.  Lori attracted bullets like a million gauss magnet attracted iron filings.  She would be wounded.  That was just the way the world worked.

“If you can take it, well, then so can I,” Nameless said, a quaver in his voice.  “We’ll let the rest of them take on the Focus.”

The Arms and Nobles took the front, along with the half dozen Monsters making up the rest of their reserve group.  They advanced, slowly, toward the run down house where the Focus and her people had taken cover.  Focus Webb’s Transforms tightened up against her, hiding her from Zielinski’s sight.  As they approached the opposition Focus, screams and curses erupted.  Webb was at work.

A moment later Connie Webb screamed, and she and her Transforms went down.  The Arms, Nobles and Monsters charged the house where the Focus holed up.  Gunfire followed the charge.  One messy gout of blood splashed up on the inside of a partly lit window.  Then nothing.

From nowhere, Icestorm crept up.  “Focus Webb ran into a Crow-designed trap.  I can help her, and you can too, Nameless.”

“Not my skill set,” Nameless said.

“Well, then, just follow my lead,” Icestorm said, with a panicky hiss.  The Arms, Nobles and Monsters came out of the house on the other side, drenched in blood but otherwise unscathed.  Zielinski winced.  What were the authorities going to make of
that?
  Their predators had taken out a Focus and her household.  How could they do such things and say they were the good guys?

Zielinski pushed the thought out of his mind and elbowed his way over to Focus Webb and her fallen Transforms.  He checked them out and assigned people to carry them.

The group moved forward more slowly, and after about thirty seconds, Connie opened her pale eyes.

“Patterson’s taken Tonya,” she said.  “She almost got me.”  She paused.  “I can’t move the juice!”

“Your juice structure has been partly destabilized, Focus,” Icestorm said.  “You should be dead, or at least screaming your bloody head off.”

“Yah, yah, whatever, yes I’m in agony, pain is just the TS’s way of reminding you you’re a Transform, no big problem.  How can we restabilize my juice structure?  I’ve got work to do, and I can’t use juice patterns when I’m messed up like this.”

“I don’t know of any way to cure this save time,” Icestorm said.

“Shit,” Connie said.  “Well, at least I’ve still got my metasense.  Give me one of those guns!”  Zielinski finished checking her over.  She remained physically healthy; the attack only affected her juice, not the rest of her body.  “Tell me again why we didn’t go in as a single group, Hank,” Connie said.  “Patterson’s picking us off one by one, laughing all the while.”

“As best I understood it, the danger was that if Patterson could concentrate on us, she would do to us what she did to Keaton and her attackers.  What Carol said was that this method of attack neutralized Patterson’s unknown tricks.”

“It didn’t work,” Connie said, examining the AK-47 that someone had handed to her.  “Patterson’s winning.”  She flicked the safety off and stalked forward, angry.  Zielinski followed.

Another massive explosion to their left, and behind them.  One of the other fights, perhaps something with the ‘unstoppable’ group three.  Ahead, Zielinski saw prone Transforms, from Inferno, firing to their right.  Group two.

A wave of darkness overtook him before he could answer Connie, accompanied by incredible pain, and he blacked out.

Tonya Biggioni:

“Yes, my lady,” Tonya said.  She basked in the glorious Focus’s gaze, and directed her people to shoot at the Monsters.  They retreated toward the fairyland castle, the glorious Focus’s palace.

“The Antichrist’s minions got in farther than I believed possible.  We must fight them.  Spill their polluted blood in defense of the holy halls,” the glorious Focus said, walking beside Tonya.

Tonya limped over the immaculate green lawn, supported by Danny, one of her legs mangled into hamburger.  The fairyland castle, the holy halls as named by the glorious Focus, was only fifty yards away.  A palace surrounded by gardens of flowers, fountains, and winding walkways.  Behind them, the Monsters advanced through the exquisitely trimmed shrubbery, those that hadn’t fallen.  Monsters everywhere advanced on the holy halls, hideous Monsters from the nether hells wreaking destruction in their wake, led by the Antichrist, the Commander.

“Yes, my lady,” Tonya said.  This didn’t seem right.  She couldn’t remember how she had gotten here.  She vaguely recalled being somewhere else.  Some other fight.  However she had gotten here, she was glad.  Defending the glorious Focus was the most important thing in the world.

She needed to help preserve civilization!  Two of the Monsters rushed toward her from the enemy pack, and Tonya ripped at their juice.  They screamed and fell, tearing apart a beautiful topiary in their fall.

“Good, good,” the glorious Focus said.  “Very good.”

Other defenders of the glorious Focus retreated back with Tonya and her Transforms, back toward the holy halls.  They carried Monsters with them, powerful captured Monsters.

Tonya’s mind spun and she heard voices in her head.  ‘Yes.  It’s some sort of perverted tag.’ Lori Rizzari, a Focus, had been talking, and another, some sort of Monster, named Carol, had been watching.  The Antichrist, before she became the Commander.  ‘I can point it out to you, Tonya, if you want.’  Focus Rizzari again.

‘Yes,’ Tonya remembered saying.  ‘If Patterson’s tagged me, I want to get rid of it.’  I turned my back on the glorious Focus, Tonya thought.  Was I right, or was I wrong, to do that?  Serving the glorious Focus just seemed so correct.  She was so
holy
and so
good!

“Form up inside the holy halls,” the glorious Focus said.  “Tighten up.  Saint Judith is weakening.  Soon, she’ll be overcome.”

Oh, yes.  Tonya remembered Saint Judith, the Focus who had fallen to the first Monster Focus, oh so many years ago, and was later reborn as the defender of Hilltop, the home of the glorious Focus.

How had she forgotten Saint Judith?  Where had she been all these years?

What was this place, anyway?  No, this was all wrong, all wrong.  Tonya tried to focus her mind, to see what was wrong, but it just didn’t work.  “Help us,” the glorious Focus said, to her.  “We need help.”

“Yes, my lady,” Tonya said.  She didn’t want to help the glorious Focus, though.  She wanted to sit and think.  Too many things confused her.

“None of that,” the glorious Focus said to her.  “Have your people defend the holy halls.”  The Monsters had joined up in the Garden of Heaven, ready to rush the holy halls.  All the groups, together.  The glorious Focus was in danger!

The glorious Focus touched Tonya’s shoulder, and the world stopped moving.  The fight itself froze in place, people stopped in mid-stride, mid-leap.  She had seen the glorious Focus do this before.  This was all in Tonya’s head, a mental illusion.  The glorious Focus could do so many powerful things with God’s grace.