American Craftsmen (38 page)

“What about you?” a stronger-willed woman corporal asked.

“Family duel,” I said.

“None of your business,” said Abram.

“You’re insane,” said the corporal.

“
Go
,” said Abram and I. Compelled and convinced, the soldiers left.

“How touching,” said Roderick. “
Why don’t you join them, please?
”

“Shut up,” I said, as Abram and I commenced fighting again in earnest.

Abram’s sword moved in scything strokes at lawnmower speed. “If you’re here with me at the end, so much the better.”

Bullshit. As if the greatest cheater of death in history would stay here, like a captain of a sinking ship. “You’d be an excellent liar if you did it less,” I said.

In the House, Abram’s puppet had been invincible against me, but now, with Chimera failing and me gaining some of its strength, Abram had to fight at my level. Abram used an unusual form of Far Eastern fusion technique. The old man had a preternatural agility, and his Taoistic sense was well-adapted against my native style.

Blood and sweat and phlegm flew with each connecting blow—like the fifteenth round of a world championship bout. Abram’s sword point made future scars, but missed my vitals. And Abram’s cuts had given odd razor edges to my metal sticks, edges that shredded skin. I had taken too many hits for long-term health, but I still felt the force of this place animating my battered body, dampening and flattening impacts.

Water dripped from the ceiling, ran down the walls, covered the floor. Electrical short circuits cascaded out from the water’s path, followed by power failures. In older areas, the water boiled with heat. Near the modern machines, it froze at the touch of leaking coolants, some of which steamed in a threatening manner. Eventually, the water would rise and cleanse Chimera, if it weren’t for H-ring blowing up soon.

“Too fucking bright again!” Scherie was in the room.

“I’m on it,” said Hutch.

Time to end this and get Scherie out of here. “Hutch.”
Smack
,
clang
,
smack
. “Bring Scherie as close as you safely can.”

“I don’t think so,” said Abram, driving forward with abandon and away from Scherie and Hutch. “One lifetime is not enough to defeat me.”

Ugh, immortal pomposity. But Abram moved as I had hoped. With my staves, I entangled Abram’s arms as I stepped into Abram’s stride with an off-balance sweep kick that would take us both down. We tumbled with a light splash and heavy thud to the ground. We wrestled on our sides for a dominant position as Abram sought clearance for his blade in the clutch.

“Don’t you ever learn?” I said. “I don’t have to beat you…”

I heard Hutch and Scherie splashing over to me.

“… just hold you. Scherie, here!”

Hutch pushed Scherie to fall on top of Abram’s thrashing legs, where she couldn’t fail to find contact.

But before Scherie fell, Abram tapped into some hidden reservoir of strength. “
Off.
” He pushed me back against the server, and brought up his sword, fending off Hutch with the backstroke. Then, Abram brought the blade down to behead Scherie.

In craft combat acceleration, I watched the deadly stroke begin. All possibilities resolved into one instinctual move. I dove on top of Scherie’s neck, presenting my left side to the path of the oncoming blade.

With necromantic pain, the sword cut through muscle and maybe spleen and maybe more. Only superabundant craft stopped it there. Even contained, it was a bad wound. Like Endicott’s, it would kill me if I lived long enough.

But Scherie’s hands had grasped Abram’s legs. Her rage at my injury defied expression, so her craft was simple. “
You’re dead
.”

“
Yes
,
my lady
,” said Abram.
“The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

And in the explosion of a black hole, he was gone.

The Left-Hand possessed bodies had entered the room just in time to witness Abram’s exit. They nodded in slow approval. A dark talon of Left-Hand spirits fluttered over his body, but seemed to find nothing to chase.

*   *   *

I thought I heard the roar of the Potomac, drowning out Scherie’s words of comfort or concern in my ear. Time was running out. The effort required to speak above a whisper surprised me. “We have to go.” We, meaning Scherie and Hutch. It didn’t matter much where Endicott and I went; we weren’t going to get there.

“Wait,” said Roderick. The red tick-tock magic had faded to the size and rhythm of a pathetic pacemade heart. “Please. You must kill me first. I’ll be trapped here, underwater and under tons of earth, when this place fails.”

So the old Morton fear affected this monster too. “We don’t owe you anything,” said Hutch, helping Scherie to her feet.

“I was not a good man,” said Roderick. “But I have been a tortured slave for more than two lifetimes. Surely, my death would be timely.”

“His pain,” said Scherie, eyes fixed on Roderick. “It’s horrible.”

“Yes,” said a faint voice. Endicott had slid into the room and along the floor, leaving a trail of blood, failing to contain his wound. “He’s an abomination. Do it.”

I nodded. If Roderick was deceiving us to gain his dissolution, so be it.

“What do I do?” said Scherie.

“Just tell me to go,” said Roderick, “and strike me with the sword.”

“You’re protected,” said Hutch.

“Still? The craft has nearly failed. You’ll probably survive long enough to die in the self-destruct.”

“I’ll handle the sword,” said Hutch. She wrested the weapon that had been brandished against her ancestor from Abram’s dead hand. “I enjoy irony.”

Scherie and Hutch approached the silvered box. Scherie placed her hands very close to the box without touching it, and Hutch raised the sword.

“
Go
,” said Scherie.

Hutch brought down the sword and slashed the box and Roderick’s head into two halves. The pieces shrank, crumbled, and rotted into a nearly liquid mass of loathsome putridity. In the blackest of auras, Roderick was gone.

Hutch’s hands shook as she dropped the sword splashing to the floor. She fell to her knees, agony gripping every muscle in her body. But more of the evil affected the craft assailant—Scherie tumbled to the ground.

Endicott and I sat, slumped shoulder against shoulder on the floor of Chimera’s room. The kids were not alright. Our blood flowed down and mixed in the rising cold water.

“That’s bad mojo,” I said.

“Side wound, savior?” said Endicott.

“Seppuku, samurai?” I said. “Hypothetically, if you were bleeding to death…”

“No worries,” said Endicott. “Only another few minutes until we’re buried alive. Oh … sorry.”

“No problem.” I smiled, strangely relaxed. “No way we’ll be alive under all this.”

With her better hand under Scherie’s shoulder, Hutch dragged her over to us, then leaned heavily against a server, winded, exhausted from possessions and pain.

“Hutch,” I said. “Why don’t you get a head start with Scherie? Endicott and I will catch up.”

Hutch glared back at me. “What did your father teach you about craft? Act, and hope for the necessary.”

“Let’s keep crawling,” said Endicott. “A hundred years from now, I’d like to be found closer to the stairs.”

“Wilco,” I agreed.

Scherie’s eyelids fluttered open. “Motherfucking possessor…” She looked around. “What are we still doing here? Let’s move it, soldiers. Zombies, give us a hand.”

“
No,
” said the Left Hand, moving slowly back to the OTM room.

“Then go fuck yourselves.”
The Left Hand didn’t acknowledge her order. “I’ve got Dale.” She worked her arms under mine and dragged me backwards through the rising water.

“Toward the airlock,” said Hutch, as she dragged Endicott along the watery floor using her sling that she’d wrapped under his arms. “Quicker.”

They slid Endicott and me over the bottom of the airlock doorways, as I slid in and out of consciousness.

Dad and Grandpa manifested above me, looking very prominent. “Stay with me, boy,” said Grandpa.

“They let anyone in here these days,” I muttered.

Outside in the corridor, it was darker and wetter. Hutch slipped and fell. Scherie gasped and tugged, her strength gone. Endicott and I frogged and pumped our legs, but gained no purchase to help the women. Hutch and Scherie both slipped and stayed down. My internal clock gave me a two-minute warning. We weren’t going to make it.

“Hutch,” I said, ready to beg her to get Scherie out of here.

“What. The. Hell?” gasped Scherie.

I turned to look. Eight men in black suits swooped down the corridor like ravens in the jerky stop-start of dreams. The Peepshow. Carrion seers, always prophesying dooms and picking over battlefields. They grabbed my arms and legs. I twisted in weak resistance. “I’m not going anywhere without…”

Stretchers. Four stretchers. Enough for all of us. Goddamn the farsight that could pick up the pieces but couldn’t prevent. With brutal efficiency we were dropped down, strapped in, and on our way.

I went black, then jerked back into awareness. I was at a tilt now—head first, feet lower, my guts threatening to stay behind. The Peepshow was running up the stairs, and my stretcher bobbed along as they ran. If they had been C-CRT or SCOF, they wouldn’t have been breathing hard, but they were only Langley, so they were puffing and straining.

One voice of the eight counted down seconds. “Sixteen, fifteen.” Another counted off odds. “We’re at fifty-fifty.” Flip a coin, I thought, and call it.

On the last landing before starlight, the explosion hit.

The stairway rocked and rolled beneath us like an earthquake. I was literally tossed by my carriers, and nearly dropped. Stones fell all around, but only little ones hit. Someone must have been skewing the probabilities. My heart raced—here we might actually get buried alive.

The wave calmed. By craft or natural luck, a path remained. With a last effort, we emerged into the deserted café and out under spotty, glorious stars. My storm had passed.

*   *   *

My attention wavered, then returned. A familiar face took off his dark glasses to stare down at me.

“Eddy,” I said. “I didn’t know you cared.”

“Evermore,” said Eddy, but he looked away from me to the horizon.

Two confused young people dressed as doctors and glowing with health stood at attention. “Sirs, we were ordered to wait here for casualties.”

Scherie sat up on her stretcher. “That’s us. The major first, stat. He’s got about ten seconds’ juice before he pops.”

“On it,” said one of the healers.

“You,” said Scherie, pointing the other healer toward me, “take the captain. Is that you, Eddy? You got an ambulance coming? Good. These guys need as much catgut as craft.”

“Nice girl,” whispered Endicott as the healer’s hands lay over his. “You gonna make her an honest woman?”

I groaned. “You’re worse than Hutch.”

“I heard that,” said Hutchinson. But she smiled so broadly that her chiseled face might crack. “My boys, my bad-assed boys in the shit. Together. About fucking time.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SIX

But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest … They are the magi.

—O. Henry

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground.

—Abraham Lincoln

There’s a craftsman in all of us.

—An advertisement for reliable American tools

In Arlington National Cemetery, it was quiet. Here, when they weren’t on duty, the dead truly rested. Endicott and I rested too, seated not out of disrespect, but because our wounds still kept us off our feet. Hutch stood at attention next to us.

Though there was only one hole in the ground, we were honoring two soldiers. The body of General Endicott was entering Arlington for the last time. With equal finality, the mortal remains of my father were leaving. Dad never could bear to be in the same location as the general, and he had someplace else in which he’d rather fade away. But space was at a premium in Arlington, particularly for craft spots, so the Morton family could provide a courtesy to the Endicotts.

They would replace the headstone later. Dad’s stone had no cross or other symbol, since none of the official symbols quite captured the Morton worldview. Even the atheists’ atom was too goofy and scientifically inaccurate.

Guns saluted the general; Dad received a rifle volley. Though Dad’s removal was irregular, the surface rituals of a craft funeral were the same as any in Arlington—they had to be. But only at a craft funeral could the departed talk with the bereaved.

*   *   *

“Seems you were right about the danger, Major,” said the general, looking down at his coffin. “And now H-ring is destroyed?”

“They’ll rebuild it, sir,” said Endicott. “Or something like it. And, regardless, the commanders asked me to assure you that you’ll have work here, if you want it.”

“Excellent,” said the general, without enthusiasm. “May I note for the record that while your conduct has been somewhat irregular, you’ve proven to be fine soldier in the family tradition.”

“Thank you for saving my life, Dad,” said Endicott.

“Just doing my duty,” he said gruffly, but he seemed to recover some of his living pride. “What about the family sword?”

In the last struggle to escape H-ring, Endicott had abandoned the family weapon. “If it’s not destroyed, they’ll recover it, and I’ll restore it.”

“See that you do. Yes, yes, it’s just a thing, and not as important as anybody’s life, but it means a great deal to our line.” The general grew a bit distracted again and looked about at all the other graves. “Say, where did they plant that Sphinx woman?”