Tom sighed. All right, enough. “Hang on,” he told Danny. “I’M THROUGH PLAYING AROUND HERE,” he warned the defenders. “NO MORE KNOCK-KNOCK ON THE GATE. THIS TIME, I’M BRINGING IT DOWN.”
“Tell them you’ll huff and you’ll puff and you’ll blow their house down,” Danny suggested. “Or is that Cyclone’s department?”
It was all an adventure to her, Tom realized. Suddenly his anger flared. He turned down his speakers to a whisper so only Danny could hear. “What the hell do you think this is, a Rambo movie?” he barked at her angrily.
She looked down at his camera. “What are you so upset about?” She sounded puzzled.
“Those are people in there, and if I hit that wall as hard as I hit the bridge, they’re going to die. You ever seen anyone die? Ever killed anyone?”
“No.” Her voice was smaller, subdued.
“They don’t have any spare bodies,” he told her. Then he turned away, disgusted at his anger, at her, at the whole situation.
“Turtle,” she said softly. He looked back up at the overhead screen. The infrared goggles hid her eyes, but Tom could see that he’d hurt her. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
She was. Tom could see it in her face. “Me too,” he said gruffly, feeling awkward. He wrenched his attention back to the gatehouse, twisted his speakers back to full volume. “ALL RIGHT,” he announced. “NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY.”
He forgot about the battering ram.
He thought of a freight train.
He laid the tracks with his mind, straight across the water, running dead on into the gatehouse. Not at the gate. The gate was solid iron now. At the stone wall just to the right of it. He closed his eyes, summoned an invisible train twice as big as any real train had ever been, sent it hurtling forward. For a moment he could see it in his mind’s eyes, hear the iron thunder of its wheels against the rails, the doomsday wail of its steam whistle.
But it was all teke. The enemy couldn’t see a thing. The defenders were still jeering and hooting when the train crashed head-on against the base of the gatehouse.
The whole barbican shook with the force of the impact. The entire bottom half of the gatehouse collapsed inward. Huge stones came tumbling off the parapets to crash into the bay. Tom heard screaming. The immense iron gate still stood, but now there was nothing to anchor it on the right. Tom grabbed it with his mind and pulled. He heard the shriek of tortured metal. The gate resisted, twisted slowly, then gave all at once, ripping free of the stone in an explosion of dust and rubble. He flung it backward; it arced over the shell and splashed down in the waters of the hay behind them.
Through the huge gap he’d torn, Tom glimpsed deep water, a long stone causeway stretching back to the Rox.
But only for an instant.
Then the gatehouse fell in on itself, and a whole section of Bloat’s Wall came crashing down.
“Jesus Christ,” Danny said softly from atop the shell. Tom lifted the shell higher. It was raining stone and bodies. An immense chunk of masonry hit the bay and sent up a sheet of water twenty feet high.
Tom felt sick at heart. It was an effort to push the shell forward. Now the hard part… he had to punch through the second Wall, the invisible Wall, before the fear got hold of him and made him turn back. Maybe if he built up enough speed…
“Turtle,” Danny screaming in warning. Tom could hear the sudden fear in her voice. “Demons!”
He scanned his screens quickly, saw nothing. “Where? I don’t —”
Danny shook her head violently, jerked a thumb upward. “Not here. It’s Radha. She’s in trouble.”
Tom hesitated only a second, then pushed hard with his mind. The Turtle shot upward.
Ray frowned. “We still have to deal with the geezer without letting Bloat know we’re here.”
“Of course,” Battle said. He turned to Cameo. “Here’s where you start earning your pay.” Cameo nodded. She took her pack off and set it at her feet. She rummaged in it for a moment, then removed a small package that she unwrapped to retrieve Blockhead’s ring. She slipped it on the middle finger of her right hand. It was as simple as that.
She changed instantly. She drew up, backing away from the others. Her eyes grew large and tinged with fear. Her mouth clamped shut and she carried on a whispered, one-sided conversation with herself.
“What am I doing here? I don’t want — no. No, I said!” Her voice rose as she continued to speak aloud. It was her voice, yet it wasn’t. It had the same pitch, but the patterns and inflections were those of a dead man: Brian Boyd, a.k.a. Blockhead. It took a while, but Cameo finally managed to convince him to cooperate. “Okay, if you say so.”
“Blockhead?” Battle asked.
Cameo’s face stiffened into a frown. “I detest that name,” the ace said. “My name is Brian Boyd. You may call me Brian, or you may call me Boyd. But do not use that awful sobriquet again.”
“Fine,” Battle said. “How do you feel, Boyd?”
“How do I feel? Why, imagine”
“I can’t,” Battle said. “I mean, are your powers functioning?”
Boyd looked outraged, then calmed down as if he were listening to some soothing inner monologue. “All right,” he said to himself. “All right. Yes. Certainly.” He took a deep breath and shut his eyes. After a moment he nodded. “Yes. The mind shield is up.”
“Excellent. Ray, take the joker.”
Ray looked at Battle. “That’s not much of a plan. I could be in trouble if the geezer’s some kind of ace.”
“You’re paid to face danger,” Battle reminded him. “And Bloat doesn’t have many aces in his entourage. Not yet, anyway.” Battle fixed Cameo with his hard stare. “Make sure you maintain the mind shield over Ray and that joker.”
Cameo — or Boyd — nodded. Ray moved off into the shadow, and then simply stood and walked out onto the middle of the path leading to the bridge. The geezer had fallen asleep while leaning on his staff. He was snoring gently to himself. Ray, irritated, woke him up.
“Hey, Gramps, which way to Bloat?”
The guardian of the bridge snorted, started, then regarded Ray with a bright, old man’s stare. “To cross the bridge and enter Bloat’s domain,” he intoned in a low, cackling voice, “you must be prepared to answer the question perilous.”
Ray frowned. “All right,” he said in an uncertain voice.
The old man leaned forward and pointed with his staff. His voice was deep with authority and expectation as he intoned, “What’s your favorite color?”
Ray was struck not only by a sense of total bewilderment, but also of déjà vu. This all seemed somehow familiar to him.
“Uh, white,” he said.
“Wrong!” the old man cackled, showing his snaggled teeth in a wide, triumphant smile. Ray just stared back at him in bewilderment and the old man pulled himself up with a gruff frown. “Well, what do you want then?” he asked grumpily.
Ray shook his head, as if to clear it. “I told you. I, um, have to see Bloat.”
The old man sighed. “Half a mo’, then. Let me check in with the guvnor.” He fell silent, frowning in concentration. His frown deepened. “Something’s wrong. I can’t seem to contact him.” He reached down to his side and came up with a walkie-talkie that was hanging from a strap around his neck. “I’ll try with this.”
Ray lunged, grabbing it from the old man and pulling it away before he could make contact. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ray said.
He turned and waved an arm vigorously over his head and the others arose from the shadows and joined them at the threshold of the bridge.
“It’s an invasion,” the old man yelped.