Queen of Wands-eARC (36 page)

“Pilot, are you briefed in on this?” Barb asked after donning headphones. “You can’t get near this threat. You cannot get in direct view. If you happen to make a mistake and get too high, don’t look at it.”

“We’re briefed in, ma’am,” the pilot responded as the helo climbed for height. “Your LZ is a clearing on a secondary hilltop. The mission target is a hill that should both overlook the threat and protect us from sight. May I ask a question?”

“Go,” Janea said, rereading the manual on the targeting system.

“May I ask why I can’t see it?”

“If you weren’t told then you don’t have the need-to-know,” Barb said. “But don’t get curious. On your life, don’t get curious. I’m deadly serious.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the pilot said.

* * *

“Well, here we go,” Janea said, looking at the woods in distaste. “Have I ever told you how much I prefer cities?”

“I’ve gotten that impression,” Barb said, grinning. “Let’s head up the hill.”

“FLIR,” Barb said as they reached the military crest of the hill.

“Oh, you betcha,” Janea said.

The device they were carrying included a telescope. But it wasn’t necessary to spot the Gar. The leprous monstrosity was slowly working its way down the road below. As Barb watched, it plowed into a house, leaving a splintered wreck in its wake.

“Oh, dear Freya aid,” Janea said, softly.

“You going to be okay?” Barb asked.

“I’m not sure that’s correct,” Janea said. “But I’m not going insane
now
. Don’t ask me about tonight.”

“Let’s get this set up,” Barb said, taking off her pack.

The target identifier was essentially a larger version of their headsets with a laser system and a GPS. By lasing the target it got a distance, direction and change of altitude. With that information it knew the precise location of the target and would automatically communicate that to whatever system was used to bring down the firepower, artillery, MLRS or JDAMs from aircraft.

“Don’t look at it with clear eyes,” Barb said. “But you need to take the FLIR off to target this thing.”

“Got it,” Janea said, taking off the FLIR with her eyes closed and fumbling forward to get her eye on the scope. “Damn…it’s a
lot
harder to look at with this thing. It’s more close up.”

“Still okay?” Barb asked.

“Hanging in there,” Janea said in a strained voice. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Roger,” Barb said, picking up a microphone. “Wildcat Four-Four, Wildcat Four-Four, this is Sierra Charlie One…”

* * *

“Don’t look at the ground,”
Lieutenant Aaron Yin said bitchily.
“What kind of stupid order is that?”

“It’s an order,” Captain Brandon Lovell said, banking his F-16 around to the east to keep in the target basket. “So don’t look at the ground.”

“Wildcat Four-Four, Wildcat Four-Four, this is Sierra Charlie One.”

“Roger, Sierra Charlie,” Captain Lovell said.

“Our device says it’s connected, Wildcat.”

“Roger, ma’am,” Lovell replied. “Got a good lock on your box.”

“Why Wildcat, I didn’t know you cared,”
another female voice answered. It was a very throaty contralto, and Lovell had a sudden serious desire to meet the owner of the voice.

“We are doing target upload at this time,”
the first voice said with a touch of asperity in her voice.

“Roger, have target data,” Lovell said. “Drop permission on file. Release.” His F-16 rocked a bit as the thousand-pound bomb dropped off its wing, but he corrected automatically. He’d dropped literally hundreds of JDAMs over Iraq and Afghanistan. “Twenty seconds to impact.” He watched the countdown clock, then started counting. “In ten…five…two…Impact.”

“Roger, Wildcat. Good drop. On target. Standby.”

“Sierra Charlie One, status of target,”
another voice asked. Lovell looked at the connection data and blanched. It read: AF Six. The Chief of Staff of the Air Force was on the line.

“Negative effect,”
the ground spotter said.

“Not a Freya-damned thing,”
the contralto added.
“This is stupid.”

“Retarget, Sierra Charlie,”
AF Six said.
“Wildcat, full ordnance drop on acquire.”

“Retargeted,”
Sierra Charlie said a moment later.

“Positive acquisition,” Lovell said. “Wildcat Mission, full ordnance drop. Ordnance away.”

“RTB, Wildcat,”
AF Six ordered.

“What the fuck did she mean, negative effect?”
Yin asked over the local frequency.

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Lovell said, banking his fighter around and heading back to base. “Ours not to question why…”

He paused as there was a scream from Yin’s aircraft, and looked over at it. Which was fortunate because his wingman was banking hard towards him and about to midair.

“Son of a bitch,” Lovell snapped, banking into a barrel roll. “Yin, what the fuck?”

“Wildcat. Status,”
the air combat controller called.

“Wildcat Four Two is in OOC,” Lovell said, turning to look at the descending aircraft. Yin was in a flat spin and still screaming. “Tardis, punch it! EJECT, EJE…”

Then his eyes glanced to the ground.

* * *

Barbara shook her head as the spinning F-16 slammed into a distant mountaintop and exploded in fire.

“Lord, please send me the power to destroy this thing,” Barb whispered fiercely. “There are many faithful in this nation. Would You ignore Your Chosen because of those few who are blind? Please, Lord, give us Your mercy.”

“I don’t think it’s going to work,” Janea said, flipping down her FLIR and picking up the target designator. “I think you’re getting Stern God on this one. Very Old Testament. Jesus need not apply. Believe or be damned.”

“I think you might be right,” Barb said. “And I’m not sure which way we’ll hop.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“There is BDA from the site,” the Air Force Chief of Staff said over the video link. “Are you sure you actually hit the target? The bomb craters looked as if we were just bombing an open field.”

“Oh, they hit,” Janea said nastily. “But they didn’t have any effect. They blew up real nice. And it didn’t even slow the Gar down. It was like it wasn’t there.”

“If you’d been looking at it, you’d think we were bombing a hologram,” Barb said. “That’s a demonic effect I’ve seen before. Bullets just go right through, and then it hits something and destroys it. Don’t ask me how it works; it’s metaphysics.”

“That wasn’t the worst part,” Janea said bitterly. “
I
was looking through the scope. It brought its captives with it. Even
they
were protected.”

“How many?” the NSA asked.

“Five, I think,” Janea said. “Those we couldn’t grab at the slaughterhouse. And, honestly, if I’d been one of them, as I almost was, I’d have preferred the bombs worked on me. I’d be thanking you from Hel.”

“You think you’re going to hell?” SOCOM asked. “You’re a priestess.”

“Hel, H-E-L,” Janea said, rolling her eyes. “It’s where Asatru go that don’t die in battle. Sort of like Christian limbo. Just a boring place.”

“That is interesting but not getting us anywhere,” the NSA said. “Suggestions.”

“The faith of the nation is being tested,” Barb said, tightly. “That’s the bottom line. We are not going to be able to stop this thing absent God’s aid. And He is being, as Janea pointed out, Old Testament. We either prove that we still retain faith in Him or we might as well be doomed now.”

“I hate to ask this, but nuclear weapons?” the NSA said. “It is on the table.”

“Then you’d just have a
radioactive
pissed-off Old One,” Janea snapped. “You’re not getting it. There was no effect. None. It’s
insubstantial
to most things. But it can affect its environment if it
chooses
. I strongly doubt that plasma is going to help, no matter how much you throw at it. There are references to these things inhabiting stars. That’s more firepower than we’ve got, buddy.”

“Janea,” Barb said.

“No,” Janea said. “I’m tired of being looked at like a freak because I
believe
. Well, get this straight, you stupid suit bastards. Get with belief,
now
,
fast
, or this country, this nation, this continent and this world is
doomed
. Get that through your fat politician
heads
, for Freya’s sake. I don’t care if you believe in the White God or Odin or fricking
Vishnu
! Just get some faith, fast, or find somebody to do your job who has it!”

“Janea,” Augustus said. “Your passion is understood. But try to be a bit less Asatru for a moment. NSA.”

“Go,” the NSA said, his jaw working.

“We need to move this discussion to the next level,” Augustus said. “And I strongly recommend bringing in the SC Onsite team, passionate as one of them may be.”

“I will take that under advisement,” the NSA said balefully. “Break this down.”

“Well, that was fun,” Janea said, starting to take off her headset.

“Miss Janea,” SOCOM said as soon as the other leadership was off the line.

“Yeah?” Janea answered, settling her headset back on.

“I was wondering if, assuming we get this situation under control, you might be in the Tampa area any time soon,” the admiral said, his face blank.

“Is that a palpable
hit
, admiral?” Janea purred. “You’re kinda cute for an older guy.”

“Ahem,” the admiral said, clearing his throat. “I appreciate the compliment. But actually…I’d like to talk to you about this Asatru thing. Any religion where the prime requirement is to die in battle…interests me. And all this is sort of giving me religion. Possibly over dinner?”

“Assuming we can kill this thing, it’s a date,” Janea said. “In fact, kill it or not, it’s a date. ’Cause we might as well have
fun
while the world is consumed by evil.”

* * *

“I don’t get where a bunch of people praying are going to help,” Randell said. “Does God need the power? I thought He was all-powerful.”

“No,” Sharice said. “He doesn’t need the power.”

There being effectively nothing to do but wait for doom, absent a miracle, the FBI agents and the cave team had gathered at the SC house. Most of the rest of the groups in the area were packing up as fast as they could. Most of them still didn’t know why, but the panic was palpable in those who did.

“I’m Wiccan, but I fully recognize the power of the White God,” the old witch said, taking a sip of tea. “Whether the White God was, is and ever shall be or not, He is immensely powerful. He could bat the Gar like a fly. A gnat. A mite.”

“So what’s with the ‘the nation must have faith’?” Randell said angrily. “He’s just going to let us die?”

“He might as well,” Janea said, shrugging. “When Ragnarok comes, people are going to have to choose sides. If this nation can’t get its act together with the threat of the Gar…” She paused and frowned.

“What?” Barb asked.

“The Old Ones are neutrals in the battle between our side and the infernal,” Janea said. “And the US is the most powerful nation on earth. If your God, all the gods, are questioning
which side the US will come down on
…”

“Surely we are not so far gone,” Barb said, her face white.

“This is a pretty good test,” Janea said. “And if we’re so far depraved that we would side with the infernal in the final battle, He can take us out of play by giving us to the Gar. For that matter, it’s probable that the infernal and the Old Ones don’t get along any better than the gods and the Old Ones. It gives the
demonic
a serious thorn in their side.”

“That is sick,” Randell said. “See,
this
is why I hate God.”

“Why?” Janea said. “I think it’s brilliant. If we can’t even get it together to face the Gar, we’re sure as Hel not going to get it together before the hosts of the giants. This is a pretty easy and straightforward test. Can we muster enough believers to make a difference? Or are we useless to Him in the final battle? Hel, in the old days He’d have dropped fire from heaven on us for being too far gone. This time we get the Gar. How
many
Lots can America muster? There’s going to be more than one family, but are there enough?”

“‘And the beast shall arise from the endless depths…’” Barb said, frowning. “Actually, the Gar is sounding
a lot
like the Antichrist.”

“I thought it was ‘sea,’” Randell said.

“Bad translation,” Sharice said. “More like ‘from complete deepness.’ Apparently, King James had a thing with not liking the ocean. ‘From the sea’ was close enough to ‘from the deep,’ so that’s the King James version. He had about two hundred scholars working on the translation, but he had final approval on the text, and they were…aware of certain political realities. It’s beautiful verse, but there’s a lot of stuff like that in it. ‘Suffer not a witch to live,’” she added a touch bitterly.

“What’s the actual translation of
that
?” Master Sergeant Attie asked.

“That’s a bit debated,” Sergeant Struletz said. “It’s got two variants even in the oldest texts, one of which wasn’t available to King James’ scholars, and you’ve got to remember that even
that
is from oral tradition. One variant is something that translates sort of as ‘she who poisons.’ But that one was written during a period when arsenic was just being widely recognized as a poison, and all the kings, and you’ve got to remember that it’s always kings who got these things written, were
really
down on posioners. The other is more like ‘she who uses black magic to kill.’ Definitely a woman. Definitely one with powers that are poorly understood. One translation is more or less ‘she who is a fish.’ Which makes
no
sense.”

“The preferred one-word translation is ‘sorceress,’” Vivian said, raising her hands hopelessly. “But it’s us witches that prefer it, so there you go. But it’s definitely not witches, at least as we define witches. Which, pardon the pun, is female persons who are worshippers of the All. We’re still pagans, and a few of the prophets were really down on that, too. But if it wasn’t for that one word, we’d probably be able to get along with Christians about as well as, say, Hindus. But King James’ scholars had to go and translate that
one word
wrong. So we’re unredeemably evil in the eyes of almost all Christians.”

“Catholics aren’t that way,” Struletz said. “Most of us, anyway. Ecumenicism and all that. We’re still down on you because you’re pagans, admittedly.”

“So are you,” Sharice said. “Ever prayed to Michael?”

“Let’s not start
that
debate,” Barb said. “If we can’t convince the earthly powers that it’s time to get God, in all his fury and glory, involved, we are in deep kimchee.”

“And you may just have that chance,” Graham said, plucking his phone off his belt and looking at a message. “We’ve got a videoconference set up at sixteen hundred.”

“With who?” Janea asked. “Another group of suits?”

“I believe I asked you not to ask,” Graham said.

* * *

“Mrs. Everette, High Priestess Janea,” the President said.

Barbara nodded and tried not to smile. The government loved acronyms so much, they couldn’t even have “President” on the screen. It had to be POTUS. The only part that surprised her was the person next to him, a middle-aged man with CJSCOTUS under his name. Then there was SHR, a pinched-faced woman who was looking decidedly unhappy at the conversation, SMjL, a middle-aged man who looked as if he was about to burst a blood vessel, MLHR, an older man who was mostly looking bemused, and SMiL, a middle-aged man who was watching Barb with a great deal of interest.

Way over to the side were minor luminaries like SECDEF, CJCS, DHS, NSA and so on. Force commands didn’t make the cut, so Janea couldn’t preen for SOCOM.

“The basic message is clear,” the president said. “This is a test of the faith of the US by God. What I’d like to ask is if anyone knows why.”

“Mr. President, I have to make an issue,” the Speaker of the House said. “I feel I must ask you to refrain from bringing deities into this discussion. It is a violation of the Constitution!”

“That is, in fact, your answer, sir,” Barbara said, calmly. “God is trying to find out if the US is a nation that will support the side of the holy in the Final Battle. If not, by giving us over to the Gar, which is more or less neutral and as much a threat to the infernal as to the holy, He takes the most powerful nation on earth out of play. Furthermore, the lesson of the Gar will not be lost on the rest of the world. It will increase faith in other lands. China is rapidly Christianizing. Their projected Christian population in fifty years exceeds our entire population. Those are warriors He can use in the Final Battle. That is our analysis. As best we can do, given that it is the ineffable mind of the Lord of Hosts.”

“This is insane,” the Senate Majority leader snapped. “I cannot believe we are even having this conversation!”

“You want insane?” Janea asked. “I got video of the Gar. Tell you what, you view twenty seconds of it and then we can have this meeting with your successor.”

“I won’t stand for being threatened!” the majority leader said.

“It’s not a threat,” Janea said. “If you really don’t believe that this is happening, then
view the tape
. It is either true that this is a…call it super-powerful entity, which we need divine intervention to fight, or it is not. If it is not, then you can view the tape with no problems. There’s nothing to fear. If, however, you
cannot
view the tape with no problems, if there
is
something to fear, then we need to get to that point now and get past the ‘I don’t believe this.’ Among other things, while we’re talking, the Gar is moving towards where I’m sitting, and I’d like to get the Hel out of Dodge. Like the White God, I am offering you a simple test. A poisonous one that I know you will fail, but an honest test. Let’s hope that He has more mercy than I.”

“To get back on the subject of this meeting,” the president said, clearing his throat. “There is an issue.”

“Praying to God for divine intervention?” the Speaker said. “You
bet
there’s an issue! You’ve got
zero
chance of being reelected if you do!”

“That is not the issue,” the President said. “And since everyone here has a security clearance and this conversation is Top Secret, it’s an issue that had
better
stay in this room. The issue is this. While I have attended many services over the years and while I…don the trappings of religion for various purposes, I am not, in fact, a believer. I will admit that the reports I was made privy to about Special Circumstances have swayed me more to the side of belief, but I am not the sort of believer, well,
you
are, Mrs. Everette. The question is, does that matter? Will God still grant us intercession?”

“God does not care for the kings and princes of the world,” Barb said. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. What He cares about is the essential faith of this nation.”

“I cannot believe this conversation,” the Speaker said. “This conversation cannot go on. My constituents will
explode
if we start having national prayer breakfasts!”

“Oh, for a way to pick it up and drop it on Market Street, then,” Barb snapped. “Get this through your head. In a few hours, the Gar will reach the town of Goin. Sometime tomorrow afternoon, it will reach the perimeter we’ve set up. Sometime tomorrow night, it will reach the outskirts of Knoxville. You can keep trying to keep people out of its way, it will eventually outrun you. It will convert worshippers, gather reproductive females to make Children, and
feed
. It will feed on humans, cats, dogs, cattle, anything that is brought to it. It will cast off Hunters to go forth and gather for it. It will create Children to make
more
Hunters. It will physically spread and its influence will spread. It will take first this region, then the state and North Georgia, Western North Carolina. It will spread its influence and spread its influence until, yes, there will be Hunters in
Ghirardelli Square
gathering resources to feed its essence. By then, we will have either crumbled as a nation or, my greatest fear, become a nation of its
worshippers
, feeding it an endless supply of largesse. Then with our power and might we will go forth in the Gar’s name and conquer the nations of this planet. Their food and thousands, millions of handmaidens will be sent to its essence and it will
consume the world
!”