There comes a time in the life of every warrior when he must face a clearly superior foe. A proud warrior lives for such moments, for there is no shame in defeat and great glory in victory. I prefer to let such proud warriors lead the charge against these superior foes, and while that superior foe is distracted I use that to my advantage to destroy them. Honor is defined by the winner.
—Baron Okubo Tokugawa,
Chairman of the Imperial Council, My Story, 1922
Mason Island
They got the boat into the river in a hurry. Dan was yanking on the cord to get the motor started. Mason Island was almost completely gone.
Crow was standing on the edge of the shore, screaming incoherently at volumes unachievable to human lungs. Faye was gone. The rest of them had gotten aboard, but it wasn’t going to do them much good. If Crow came after them, they’d be swimming, and Sullivan didn’t think that any of them would be out-swimming the black hole. Even as he thought that, the blackness reached the river and water began to thunder into it as if it were a waterfall.
He had no idea why Crow hadn’t gone after them. Faye had disappeared, and ever since then, Crow had just been twitching and yelling, but not chasing them. Whatever she was up to, it seemed to be working.
Dan got the engine started, but with the water below them rushing into the darkness and the nearly hurricane force winds buffeting them, they’d be lucky if they didn’t capsize anyway. Already waves taller than the boat were tossing them about. Having always figured he’d end up shot to death, he’d never considered drowning a serious possibility. It just went to show that life could be full of surprises.
Carr was holding on to the side of the boat for dear life. The Grimnoir were a little more stoic, until Ian threw up. Toru was just glaring at Sullivan with his arms folded. “When the Pathfinder destroys the world because you died badly on this fool’s errand, I hope you will be happy.”
“Hey, you said your father wanted you to have that sword,” Sullivan shouted back over the wind. “So apparently we’re supposed to drown here.”
“I said when you die badly. I am an excellent swimmer.”
Whatever internal struggle that was keeping Crow stuck in one spot must have ended, because he started wading out into the river. As the smoke around him struck the water, it was blasted aside and Crow walked after them.
“Like Moses parting the Red Sea,” Heinrich said.
“Too bad this guy’s on Pharaoh’s side!” Dan shouted back.
“You had better set me free before my associate gets here, Mr. Sullivan,” Carr demanded.
Sullivan took a good look at the animal insanity on Crow’s twisting face. “I figure he’s more likely to eat you than rescue you, doc.”
The darkness consumed the last bit of beach. Mason Island was completely gone. Crow was headed right for them, and their boat was being sucked his way fast. Their engine was helpless against the brutal new current.
Suddenly, Faye appeared in the air over Crow’s head. He turned to meet the new threat, but Faye dropped straight out of the sky and landed on him. They both disappeared and the water came smashing back into the empty space.
“What’s she doing?”
“There!” Ian pointed high into the air.
It was difficult to see them because of the darkness and the distance, but two figures materialized in the air over the top of the crackling black hole. They fell, tumbling, toward the center of the vortex. There was a flash of lightning right before they hit and Sullivan lost sight of them.
“Faye!” Dan cried.
“Mein Gott, she killed herself!”
“She killed herself to kill Crow.” Ian was awestruck. “I can’t believe it.”
Sullivan wasn’t so sure. Faye was crazy, but not suicidal crazy. A moment later something appeared in the air, then splashed into the water next to them, but disappeared beneath the waves before he could see what it was. Toru left his sword in the boat and immediately dove over the side.
“He better have been telling the truth about being a good swimmer, or he’s fish food,” Sullivan muttered. Toru came up thirty seconds later, with a limp form under one arm. There was a mass of blonde hair floating. “Damn it.” Sullivan hoisted her out of the water while Heinrich and Ian pulled in the Iron Guard. Thankfully, she began to cough and spit. “What the hell was that, Faye?”
“I don’t swim good,” she gasped. “Quit yelling at me!
“Good work, girl. Good work.” Sullivan pulled her close, hugged her tight, and began to laugh.
Awkwardly, she joined in a moment later, and everybody except Toru did as well. The Iron Guard just put his sword back over his shoulder and glared sullenly at them. “I am wet,” he complained. That just made Sullivan laugh harder.
There was still the issue of the expanding darkness to deal with, and their boat motor just wasn’t cutting it. “Hate to interrupt, but could you be a love and Travel us to land before we all die?” Ian asked Faye. She nodded. “Oh, thank goodness.”
Sullivan figured she’d pop them back and forth, one by one, like she’d done on a few other desperate occasions. So he was rather surprised when the entire boat suddenly appeared a foot in the air over solid earth, and then crashed hard into the ground. Several boards broke and Ian went spilling over the edge.
“Good work, kid.” Sullivan let go of Faye and stepped out onto dry land. “Damn near bit my tongue off, though. Warn me next time before you do something like that.”
“Show off,” Heinrich chided. Then Faye came over and hugged him. “Yes, dear. I missed you as well.”
“I cried when they told me you’d got blown up,” Faye said, embarrassed.
“Do not fret. I cried when I heard that as well.”
She’d dropped them on the Virginia side. Lance had picked a home that had been foreclosed on back when the economy had fallen apart. There had been plenty to choose from. It had a small dock, and it had made a good staging area. Dan dragged the Coordinator out of the boat at gunpoint. They’d gone through a lot of work to bag him, and it wasn’t about to go to waste. Though knowing Dan, a few minutes of conversation and he and the good doctor would be best buds.
Faye Travelled off to check on Francis, and Sullivan walked over to the shore where John Browning was watching the commotion over Mason Island. “Mr. Sullivan,” he tipped his hat in greeting. “It appears that all of us except for Ms. Giraudoux and Ms. Hammer wound up on this side of the river. I have been in communication with them.”
“They okay?”
“Ms. Giraudoux said that they were securing a very large truck filled with explosives. Apparently everyone in the city has come out to watch this . . . disturbance. She says it is rather chaotic. With your arrival, I do believe that everyone is accounted for, you will be very interested to hear what the other Active prisoners have to say about their treatment at the hands of the OCI, and it appears that you brought along another guest. Excellent work as usual, Mr. Sullivan.”
“Except for that thing,” he pointed at the vortex. It was as tall as a high rise. The whole island was gone, most of the bridge was gone, and it was stretching toward the shore on both sides. “Is it going to eat the capitol?”
Browning was calm. “I do not believe so. I have heard rumors of such a thing once before. It is an extremely rare type of magic. The last Active I know of that manifested this Power took his own life after he accidentally killed his entire village and everyone he loved. Luckily for us, that occurrence was in a very remote area in the jungle. The knights involved with that case took to calling him a Nixie, and so did some scientists when they heard rumors of the event. The largest area he ever effected was about half a mile across. I believe that it has already slowed and should be collapsing on itself soon.”
“Where does it lead?”
“I have no idea.” Browning folded his arms behind his back. “I just hope that I’m correct in my assessment.”
“I don’t know . . . If it ate all those politicians, would that really be so bad?” Sullivan asked. Browning chuckled.
The darkness stopped growing. A few minutes passed while it seemed to fill out until it was a perfect dome. “Just as I expected,” Browning said. And then the darkness instantly vanished, leaving a staggering hole in the earth. Sheer walls of water stood on both sides for the briefest instant, and then it all came crashing down. The noise was deafening. Every one of the knights had gathered along the shore to watch the spectacle. Sullivan had been to Niagara Falls before. This was like that, only deeper and in a circle.
It seemed like the spell had been round, and that meant that it had also devoured untold tons of dirt from below. Sullivan had absolutely no idea how deep the river was, but he figured that the Potomac had just gotten one heck of a deep spot. It was now very early morning, so hopefully there hadn’t been anybody out boating . . .
It took a surprisingly short time for the hole to fill in. Despite the muddy color and the turbulent waves, a few minutes later it was almost as if it had never been there at all.
“What’s going to happen when all the people that were already scared of magic find out that an eighty acre island, walking distance from Washington D.C. just magically disappeared?”
“I do not know the answer to that, Mr. Sullivan . . .” Browning said. “But the possibilities terrify me.”
Sullivan had no response to that. By trying to fix things, had they just made them a whole lot worse? In stopping Carr’s schemes had they given their enemies even better ammunition to use against Actives?
Faye appeared at Sullivan’s arm. “Francis is going to be okay. Jane’s the best. She said that he needs to rest because he’s missing so much blood, but he should be better in no time. He got shot while defusing a bomb that was supposed to blow up the White House.”
“That’s not what happened, my dear,” Browning corrected. “He told me so himself.”
Faye didn’t care. She seemed to prefer her version where Francis was extra heroic. “He’s so brave.”
“Yep,” Sullivan agreed. “That sounds like Francis all right.”
Two biplanes flew down the river and the spotlights of the aircraft carrier Lexington could be seen sweeping down over the city. There would probably be hell to pay tomorrow, but for better or worse, this mission was complete. Dan would interrogate Carr before they turned him over to Hoover. Maybe combined with the testimony of the other prisoners, they might be able to clear themselves. They wouldn’t know the aftermath until the sun rose anyway. It was time to call it a night.
Suddenly, Faye jerked. Sullivan turned to see her weird eyes darting back and forth rapidly. She was normally twitchy, but this was abnormal even for her. “What is it?”
“Something’s wrong . . . Bad wrong. In my head map. I can see . . . Something . . . It’s in the river. In the hole. Oh no. He’s alive. He’s getting bigger! He must have gotten out of the sucking thing somehow. He was too strong to get sucked away! He’s growing. He’s climbing out!”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
The girl was absolutely terrified. “The god of demons is coming.”
Death had come for him, but he’d found a way out. It was a great deal. All he had to do was sell his soul.
Crow. It was his only name now. He couldn’t remember the one he’d been born with. Those memories wouldn’t come to him. For almost a hundred years he’d lived a life of debauchery and murder. He had no morals, no sense of right or wrong, no conscience. He lived by the sword and figured he’d die by the sword. That hadn’t scared him back then, but that’s because he’d been young and stupid. When the magic had come to him, he became a lot more valuable, a lot more deadly, and even less compassionate . . . as if that was possible.
He’d sold his demons to the highest bidder. He’d performed sickening tasks and never asked why, as long as the money was good. As he got older, he knew that his time was coming, and unlike when he was young, the thought of dying terrified him. He could get glimpses of the plane the Summoned came from, and he’d developed an intense fear that if there was life after death, that’s all there was in store for him. Floating in a haze, to be dragged in at some alien Summoner’s whim, only to be cast back into the darkness when the Summoner was done. Crow couldn’t bear the thought.
Money could buy Healers, but not even a Healer could make you immortal. As his body broke down, the specter of mortality had hung over him. As he’d aged, his body had become a prison. The Coordinator had given him a way out with the possibility of using his Power to use new bodies. It had been liberating to have a strong body again, but even then the solutions were only temporary.
The Traveler had shot his real body full of holes. There was nothing left to go back to. The part of him that was still inside the greatest of all demons was all that was left. When that link was severed, his life would be over.
It does not have to be that way. Set me free, human. Become one with me. Together, we will own this world. This world must fear me. I cannot tolerate being unknown. Their fear will make me strong.
Crow knew that he would not die, but he would be consumed by the demon, and that was almost scarier than the thought of dying. While they struggled, the Traveler had dropped them into the darkness. The great one latched onto the edge of this reality and barely managed to hold on.
Serve me, human. Death is cold and silent. You do not wish to die. Give me what I want and I will save us both from this fate. You will be perfected in me. Serve, and live forever.
The darkness stretched on into infinity, and so did Crow’s fear. He gave in.
Freedom.
Crow’s soul began to unravel, and as the nothingness consumed him, he begged for mercy, screaming that the demon had promised him eternal life.
I lied.
And Crow was no more.
Faye watched in horror as the god of demons came out of the river.
The cascade of bubbles was visible clear from the other shore. It erupted from the water on the Washington side, rising from the river like a new island, dark and glistening, bristling with spines and bony plates. It was crouched near the shore, partially submerged, but even then, it was taller than any of the homes along the river. It slithered downstream, jutting bones and horrible angles breaking the surface, then it turned toward the city. First came one hand, as big as an automobile. It hit the ground, and the monster leveraged itself out of the water.
It was huge.
Of course they couldn’t hear the screaming of the witnesses from such a distance, but Faye could only imagine.
It was hard to see details in the dark from half a mile away. It was vaguely man shaped, but wrong, four arms, two legs, all bending with extra joints, creaking and clacking as animated earth ripped from the river bed and filled with demonic smoke meshed together into the semblance of a body. It had taken on the color of the void it had torn itself from, with skin an empty black that seemed hungry to absorb the light. It stood, spread its arms wide, and roared at the city, nearly as loud as the crashing of the temporary waterfall from a few minutes before. Despite its vast size, it was quick, and it lurched over to where the bridge was still burning. A police car was tossed through the air and another was kicked into the river.
Faye rubbed her eyes. It was incomprehensible. Nothing alive could be that big without squishing itself under its own weight. Except Summoned weren’t really alive like we thought of living, now were they? How could it even move? She didn’t know that either, but it was over there tossing police cars like baseballs. Despite what some folks said, she knew she wasn’t crazy. This thing was real. She just couldn’t wrap her brain around it, and her brain was extra good at wrapping around strange concepts.
Sullivan spoke up first. “I’d say seventy feet tall.” As usual, he seemed calm, and Faye was surprised just how much that helped her stay calm.
All the other knights were shocked, standing there with their mouths open as they watched the spectacle across the Potomac. John Browning turned to their Summoner. “Your estimate, Mr. Wright?”
“There’s nothing like that out there. That thing can’t exist.”
“Apparently it can. Is size always proportionate to the difficulty in banishing a Summoned?”
“As far as I’m aware, yes.”
“So, how difficult will it be to defeat such a beast?” Browning snapped. Ian mumbled an inaudible response. “Spit it out, man.”
“It would be impossible. The bigger they are, the more smoke they hold, and the harder they are to hurt. That thing? Christ . . . I don’t know. If you killed its Summoner, it would weaken it, eventually it would just fall apart and dissipate on its own.”
“I already killed him,” Faye said. “Except Crow’s different. What would happen if the Summoner couldn’t die, like if he was stuck inside his own monster?”
Ian was clearly in over his head. “I’ve got absolutely no idea.”
“What can we do then?”
“Let the Army handle it,” Ian answered sheepishly.
Faye knew that the Army was in the city already. They’d been called up just in case the anti-magic marchers turned into rioters, though Mr. Sullivan said they were keeping a low profile because of how awful they’d looked last year when they’d dispatched the Bonus March. She really doubted that the Army would be ready for anything like this.
Gunfire echoed across the river as the police shot at the monster, but it didn’t show any reaction. The knights were silent as they watched the demon attack the homes along the river. It just ripped through houses like they were made of paper. It was nearly three times as tall as the two story homes along the riverfront. It hadn’t turned so they could see its face yet, but it paused and crouched for a moment, hands moving from the ground to what she could only assume was its mouth. It repeated that process several times, snatching things up from the torn apart houses as it went. “What’s it doing?”
“Oh dear Lord,” Jane whispered. “It’s eating people.”
The demon lifted its head, and they were finally able to see a face straight out of nightmares. There were two eyes on each side of its head, glowing red as the fires of hell. Two long horizontal gashes bleeding smoke bisected the head, one on top of the other, that had to be mouths. It noticed the lights of the Lincoln Memorial, opened both sets of jaws, roared a challenge, and thundered toward the south.
“Knights,” Mr. Browning raised his voice. “We must act. There are tens of thousands of men, women, and children camped on the mall tonight. We must help kill this thing or distract it until they can evacuate.”
“Those ten thousand came here to protest us,” Ian snapped. “I don’t think you understand what a Summoned that size should be capable of. Fighting it is suicide!”
Browning ignored him. “Faye, do you have the strength to ferry individuals across?”
She checked. Even with Traveling a motor boat full of people a quarter mile in one hop, her Power felt great, not as strong as it had gotten aboard the Tokugawa, but much better than it had been. “Sure thing.”
“Good. Start with the most combat capable first and work your way down. The rest of us with magic not suited for fighting can still fire a gun. Someone tell Dan to interrogate the Coordinator quickly. He may have information that we can use against this thing.” Browning was good at taking charge. “Any other ideas?”
Sullivan tossed his partially finished cigarette in the river. “If you’re on speaking terms with the Almighty, start calling in favors. Take me across first, Faye. Toru, you in?”
The Iron Guard was standing apart and had not yet spoken. “You would die defending those that wish only to destroy you?”
“Among others.”
“You are a fool. Such compassion for the stupid is a waste of righteous Power.”
“Fine. Be a chicken.”
“Never question my courage,” Toru growled. “I did not say I would not slay this demon, only that you are a fool. Of course I will fight.” The sword he’d found was so long that Toru had to pull the scabbard off of his back in order to unsheathe it. “And since I am the strongest, I demand the honor of striking first.”
“Knock yourself out.”
Faye walked over and touched the Iron Guard on the shoulder. “Ready?”
He took the sword hilt in both hands. “Hai!”
She’d take that as a yes. It was tempting to drop the pushy Iron Guard right into one of the demon’s mouths and be done with him, but she reckoned they’d need all the help they could get.
