American Craftsmen (37 page)

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

Scherie followed Hutch by the arm into the second room. As Hutch limped forward, she kept a cold fury tied up in the jaw muscles of her stoic, tight-lipped features. Scherie respected the fury, and envied the discipline.

A flash of red in the corner—Scherie marked it. On the ground two bodies, and Dale wasn’t one of them, praise God. Endicott still lived, bleeding slowly through clutched fingers and a low burn of craft.

Hutch let go of Scherie and with a grimace was down on her knees next to him in a second. “Michael, what the hell have you done now?”

“Usual, ma’am.” Endicott’s voice was a soft reed.

Without Hutch’s contact, the glare of the room again pained Scherie. But either her sight had adjusted, or the bright craft was weakening, for she could see the mundane and craft worlds clearly now. She stood in front of Endicott. His wound and his aura spoke of death. “I can help.”

He held up a shaky red hand. “Wait. First, figure out what you’re going to need.”

“But…”

“He’s right.” Hutch stood up, ramrod straight. “Your craft is your weapon. Spare only the extra rounds. What’s our situation, Major?”

“Morton went after Abram. Oh, and we’ve got less than fifteen minutes before this place implodes.”

With fierce urgency, Scherie pointed at the corner where she’d seen the red flash. “Did Dale go that way?”

But Hutch had turned to stare at the other body. Scherie didn’t know the face, but the corpse’s svelte shape confirmed it as a vehicle for Sakakawea. Madeline.

“I’ll be damned,” said Hutch. “Nice work, Major.”

“I had some help.”

“Morton.” Hutch whistled appreciatively. “Outstanding. That’s my boys.”

“Colonel,” insisted Scherie, “let’s help the major and go.”

But Hutch approached Madeline’s body. Left-Hand darkness still spiraled around the corpse as if on patrol, guarding something inside or out. As Hutch reached out a foot to tap her fallen tormentor, a cold draft came from the corner of the room, and black-lit wrath raced out from one of the tanks like a sideways tornado.

Scherie yelled, “Ma’am, careful!”

But Hutch made contact, and it was like a circuit closing. From above and below, an evil soul entered Hutch.

As quick as a hawk, Hutch spun around and punched Scherie in the face. She grinned like a vulture and cackled. “Alive again! But so fucking old.”

Blood streamed from Scherie’s broken nose, and rage against the possessor made her mind blank. Then, Madeline’s grin vanished into a tightly controlled mouth, and Hutch gasped. “Could you give me a hand with this, soldier?”

Even as Scherie reached out a hand to dispel Madeline, the control cracked and the mouth returned to raptor. “No you don’t, Colonel. You’re all baked and ready to eat. You’re mine.”

Scherie disagreed. “
Get the fuck out of her, you ancient cunt!
”

Madeline’s face twitched, but the cackle returned. “Language, dear. You’ll have to do better than that. Maybe if you come closer.” Even as she beckoned with a finger, she brought her leg up into a forward kick that sent Scherie stumbling back on her ass.

Madeline pulled her arm out of the sling—none of her body’s injuries seemed to be limiting her. But when she turned toward Endicott, she did so with robotic slowness. “You look a little peaked, Major. Time to thin the herd.”

Endicott pushed himself back with his legs, and Madeline followed with almost equal difficulty. Hutch must still be struggling in there.

Scherie’s first instinct was to charge Madeline, hug her tight and dispel her. No, she thought, these people kill for a living, and whatever hesitation Hutch was creating for Endicott’s sake didn’t apply to her. She needed to attempt several things at once, none of which she had ever done before. First, spiritual matters: she could tell them to go; could she command them to come?

She focused her mind.
I call on the Left-Hand dead of the House of Morton.

Fie. You are not of our House.

You know that’s no longer true.
She prayed that sex plus love meant that she wasn’t bluffing.

She wasn’t.
Damn it all, what now?

First,
she ordered,
occupy the tanks.

If demons could speak like guilty pets, the Left Hand spoke that way now.
We’re, um, already there.

Right
, thought Scherie,
wouldn’t want Madeline to escape. Can you animate the bodies?

Is that a trick question?

Just do it. The rest of you, distract Madeline until they can corner her.

With a brutal crash of alchemical glass, Scherie’s zombie squad burst from their tanks. But they were nearly as slow as Madeline, so Madeline ignored them. She stretched a hand with arthritic tentativeness toward Endicott’s pierced abdomen. “
Let it bleed
,” she said.

Fuck tactics
, thought Scherie. She dove at Madeline. Anything to distract her for a few seconds. And it only took a few seconds for Madeline to backhand her against the operating table.

Scherie’s view of the world went fuzzy. When it came back into focus, Madeline was pounding one of the zombies into a pulp. Perhaps the combat had quickened them, for even as Madeline disposed of the first zombie, numbers two and three were on her, thumping against her with their chests and arms.

Scherie saw her opportunity. Hands ready, she stepped toward Madeline.

But, smiling at the closing noose, Madeline slipped through the rough constraints of the zombies with a dancing halfback’s grace. Scherie crouched, fearing that this time she wouldn’t get up from being kicked across the room.

But as Madeline stepped into the kick, Endicott called, “Hutch, don’t!”

Madeline hesitated and stumbled in midstride. In her fury and frustration, Madeline grasped Scherie with both hands, as if to impale her on some alchemical tubing.

Contact. And Scherie saw the truth. “
Poor girl. You’re already dead. Go.”

Black flash, and Hutch collapsed into Scherie’s arms. Once again, Madeline’s soul fled for another body. But this time, the Left Hand caught the fleeing darkness. “
Come to us, little dove,”
they cooed, and her soul dissolved within their stream.

Trying to keep Hutch from hitting the floor, Scherie wobbled on her feet, then steadied both their bodies against the operating bed. Scherie felt Hutch support her own weight again, and tentatively let go of her. Hutch stood to her full height and, with some sorrow in her eyes, looked at Scherie. “Thank you.”

From this angle, Scherie could see the countdown. Nine minutes left. Fatigue? Fuck it—she’d rest in peace soon enough. She broke away from Hutch, and bent over Endicott. His bleeding was worse. She placed a hand over his. “
Ten motherfucking minutes
,” she said. She felt the power leave her—more than she hoped, but less than despair.

“Hooah,” said Endicott. “See you then.”

Scherie grabbed Hutch’s arm and pointed at the corner. “That way.”

The zombies turned to walk in that direction, legs stiff as stilts (no time to relearn fine motor skills). Scherie and Hutch moved faster, though Hutch detoured three painful steps to give the tech’s body a firm kick. “I’ll never forgive them for what they made me watch.”

“Get a move on, Colonel,” said Scherie.

“Yes, ma’am.”

And they stepped into the red.

*   *   *

An attentive tourist of H-ring might wonder why a stone structure so far below ground in a naturally swampy area didn’t flood. The answer for a craftsman was simple: because water didn’t want to be there. Until today.

The first part of the self-destruct was the removal of the craft that protected the H-ring structure. The water outside saw a vacuum, and abhorred it. In drops, dribbles, and finally rushing streams, the center began to drown.

But that was just a side effect. The designers knew that CRFT-CEN could never be allowed to fall into the hands of an enemy, foreign or domestic. At the end of the countdown, the explosives packed around H-ring would annihilate every thing and every person who remained behind.

*   *   *

Abram listened to his instincts, and they shocked him. In the craft world, the only perfect storms were designer products. The successful assaults of weather and Left-Hand spirits, the breach by Morton and Endicott, the static in Chimera’s feed, the sense that (despite his craft screen) Rezvani approached with doom in her hands: all these coincidences meant internal coordination. Roderick had sabotaged the probability defense. Suicide? No, this was too elaborate. Roderick was not attempting to die, but escape. How was inconceivable, except to Roderick. So Abram fled through the OTM’s secret way into Chimera’s room.

Maddie would have opposed her brother’s destruction while he could still be used and tortured. But Maddie was dead, and if the oracle was right she might not find a way to live this time. He should grieve, if given a moment. But he had gone wrong inside, and knew it. He wanted vengeance, not grief. He wanted new blood to spill for that already lost.

In Chimera’s room, he could kill two birds with one stone—Maddie’s way of thinking. He would take all the craft power in that space and destroy Roderick.

Roderick had defied nature too long and too well. Even the self-destruct that Abram had initiated couldn’t guarantee Roderick’s true death. Abram would have to attend to that personally. He sprinted toward Roderick and felt the suppressed pain kick in before its time. His body had absorbed a great deal of damage, but he only needed a few minutes more.

Fifteen minutes more
. Why had he allowed so much time, more than he needed for his own escape? Some residual dread of judgment? Seeing Rezvani, the dark lady with pomegranates of his dreams, had shaken his lack of faith. He had feared and hoped that, in killing death, he had killed God. But here was his answer: Rezvani, God’s messenger, Death incarnate.

The machine with Roderick’s head was glowing, steam rose from its base. Blackened flesh had begun to melt off Roderick’s skull. Yet still the thing spoke. “So, I’ve finally convinced you.”

“Your sister is dead.”

Roderick laughed. “You think after all this time I still care. You’ve held on to too much of your humanity.”

Abram had said everything of importance. Quietly and quickly, he went to work. The head was shielded, but Abram had left himself a back door; he’d first have to disable the machine below the silvered box and then counteract its craft to destroy Roderick. He touched the hidden panel in the machine; it came away easily in his hand. Too easily. A quick scan of the primitive fusion of electrical circuits and alchemical vacuum tubes showed a deadly peril: the wiring had changed. What had gone on here?

He reached his hand in, ready to pull out wires and tubes at random until Roderick’s defenses fell, but the stalking presence of the younger representative of the Family that Abram had hated and desired most stopped him short.

“Abram, step away from the other monster.” Dale Morton was here.

*   *   *

I spun and darted sideways on entry, fearing ambush, but I found only disorientation among the rows of servers. The computers whined with the stress of ancient cooling components; the craft that gave them preternatural function was failing. Water seeped along the sterile floor.

I stalked down the rows, expecting Abram’s move. I heard the voices, but ventriloquism required little craft. Then I saw Roderick’s head, and Abram reaching into the ancient machine. I had two choices: attack Abram where he stood or call him out from the machine. I called him out.

Abram stood up. “Let me finish it.”

“Allow me,” I said. “You can run, or you can die, but you can’t stay here.”

“You can’t be trusted with this,” said Abram.

“And you can’t be trusted with anything,” I said. With a century of this man’s deceit at Morton expense, I would not be fooled by appearances now. I readied my craft …

… and found a fountainhead. I had expected the energies here in the heart of darkness to be hostile, but they were neutral to my use. I felt new strength—dangerous, in that it might push my body beyond the point of recovery.

In one Olympian bound, Abram sprang up on top of the nearest server, his sword forward in a charge. My strength craved use, and gravity seemed to be on half shift. I jumped atop the next server, metal staves at guard.

Abram seemed surprised, then shook his head. “Craft-thieving Morton.”

“Craft-hoarding Endicott.”

We renewed our duel. We leapt from one server to the next, sword versus stave, with the opportune punch and kick at close quarters. We both landed on an old magnetic tape reader near Roderick. The machine’s whine ceased, and flames burst up around us, flickering over our skins as with damned souls.

Through the noisy breakdown of coolant pumps and fans came the bass percussion of someone at the airlock. The noisy chaos had gotten the attention of the H-ring staff dutifully standing guard outside. “
Freeze door
,” said Abram and I, without pausing in our efforts to kill each other.

But I felt the contrary physical and craft impulse of
Open door
from the other side.

I stepped back from my opponent. “You think that killing everyone down here will save you? Too many people up there know.” Another bluff, but I thought this one might work.

Abram’s sword leveled at me. An almost human horror was on his face. “Why are they still here? I don’t want them here.”

For conversation’s sake, I responded as if the monster were serious. “Communications are fried. They don’t know about the destruct.”

But as I spoke, the neglected airlock doors opened. In rushed guards, armed with petty craft and strength, yelling, “
Freeze. You will stand down.
”

“
Freeze yourself
,” Abram snarled back at them. And a half-dozen men and women froze in their tracks.

I looked the soldiers in the eyes. “Check in with command. You’ve got about ten minutes before H-ring self-destructs. So
go
.”