Jane’s glowing hands were on her stomach. The deep scratches Crow had given her were burning. Globs of black oil rose up out of her skin and rolled until gravity dripped them to the blankets. She coughed hard and a bit of black smoke puffed out of her mouth and floated away. Her whole body was burning up, and then it was over and she could breathe. The recently fused bits of skin were hot spots, like when they used to heat rocks on the stove to stick in bed to stay warm during the winter, but everything else was cool. Her body was damp with sweat and sleepy.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Jane said. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and laid one gentle and freezing cold hand on Faye’s forehead. “Believe it or not, Summoned are usually very clean. Rarely do their wounds turn septic so quickly. Everything about this one screams corruption.”
“He’s a real jerk, too. Thanks, Jane.”
“It was nothing.”
Ian had sat up the other bed, leaned over, and picked up something from Faye’s bed. The Summoned ink that had come out of Faye’s arm had formed into little balls of tar. “I’ve been dealing with Summoned since I was a child, and I’ve never seen one like that before.”
“How so?” Jane asked.
Ian rubbed the goo between his fingers. “A few things. Obviously, having a human steering it being the biggest, but besides that, it changed shape and mass too quickly. When you draw in a Summoned, it takes a physical form and that’s it. They don’t change until they’re destroyed or dismissed. The more powerful the Summoner, the greater the Summoned you can bring, but this thing was very different. Our friend Crow is playing in some uncharted ground.”
“Good to see you’re still alive, too, Ian. Thanks for asking,” Faye said.
Ian looked around the room. “Where’s George?” Faye shook her head sadly. He got her meaning. “Oh… I didn’t know.” Ian lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. The people in Ada aren’t.” Jane patted Faye’s arm. “We all die eventually, and very few of us will do it as bravely as he did.”
“It was terrible, Jane.” Faye’s eyes suddenly felt really wet. “He was a really nice man.”
“All over the country, people are calling him a hero. They’re talking about him on every radio show, George Bolander, the man that hit a demon so hard he ended the drought. Even if they’ve already gotten the story all wrong, they’ll never forget him. All of the horrible things they’ve been blaming on Actives in general and us knights in particular were just washed away in one moment of courage.”
Jane always did have a different way of looking at things that made Faye feel a little bit better.
“What’re you doing up still, Dan? Don’t you guys ever sleep?” Lance asked.
She could hear Dan Garrett’s voice over the spell. “Busy day. Kidnapped J. Edgar Hoover and now Sullivan’s questioning an OCI bounty hunter downstairs.”
“Hello, honey,” Jane called.
“That’s your idea of staying out of trouble? Suppose that’s what I get for leaving you two unattended.” Lance scratched his beard. “From that stupid grin, I can tell you’re enjoying yourself entirely too much. We picked up the other three. Jane got them Mended.”
“That’s great-”
There was the sound of a door crashing open. A woman shouted. “Iron Guards!” Faye popped off the bed in a flash. Even Whisper woke up instantly at the words. Someone shouting “Iron Guards” would always get a Grimnoir to jump, but the voice was coming through the spell. Faye ran to look over Lance’s shoulder.
The view in the mirror showed Dan Garrett, a look of shock on his face. A pretty lady was standing in the doorway behind him. “Sullivan said we’ve got to run for it. He’s going to hold them off.”
“Oh no.” Mr. Garrett turned back. “Gotta go.”
“Wait!” Faye shouted. Her brain seemed to be working at its normal pace again, and she had an idea. Traveling safely wasn’t based on how great the distance was, she’d proven that before. It was like space was a big sheet and she could just pick up two spots and smoosh them together, even when it was a big sheet. The dangerous part was that her head map could only see so far, a tiny percentage of how far she could actually go, and Traveling beyond that safe zone risked getting her stuck in something.
“No time, Faye.”
“Just hang on!” A quick check showed that her Power was feeling especially feisty still. They were like a thousand miles away, but it didn’t matter. She had a perfectly clear view through the mirror. She checked her head map, and as it came flooding in nice and clear, she redirected it. Instead of looking at a big circle around the motel room, she gathered all of that map up and shoved it against the spell.
“Whoa!” Dan and Lance both said at the same time, since it was their respective Powers that were holding the link together.
Instead of a big circle, her head map pierced through the mirror in a narrow beam, like light coming through a keyhole.
Clear.
“I can do this.”
“Faye, wait! It is too dangerous!” Whisper cried.
“I have to.” Nobody was better at killing Iron Guards than Sally Faye Vierra! She stuck out one hand. “Lance, gun!” They’d been through a lot together, so he didn’t even bother wasting time questioning Faye when she got spun up. Lance drew his big revolver and gave it to her. “Hang on, Dan, I’m on the way!”
Bell Farm, Virginia
Toru took a few steps closer to the lantern light, revealing that the Iron Guard was carrying so much gear that only a Brute or a Spiker could possibly walk. He had one of the strange Imperium light machine guns with the magazine on top in one hand and that gigantic metal-spiked club in the other. On his belt was that traditional long-sword, short-sword combo that the Iron Guard seemed to love, two pistols, and a hand grenade. He was wearing a big vest covered in pouches, and had a large backpack which, from the feel of gravity, was stuffed. Toru had packed heavy.
“You brought everything and the kitchen sink.”
“I do not understand the reference.”
“Kind of hard to fight carrying all that crap, isn’t it?”
Toru set the machine gun down on its bipod and unslung the backpack and set it aside. He did, however, keep the big club. “I packed for a long journey.”
“Hell’s not that far.”
“Perhaps, but I have a mission to attend to first.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. Sullivan tightened his grip on the BAR. The others had better be ready to run when the shooting started. “How many men did you bring, Toru? I want to know if you’ve got a sporting chance.”
“I am alone.”
“That’s the second time I got that dumb answer tonight.” Sullivan put the front sight right between Toru’s eyes. “Bullshit.”
“Master Hatori showed me your conversation. In fact, he gave me many of his memories. That is why I have come alone.”
Black Jack Pershing had done the same thing to him once.
“The final instructions my honored Chairman ever gave… were to you, one of our most despised foes. Yet Master Hatori believed you were telling the truth, and that you really are the last man to ever speak to the Chairman.”
Where was he going with this? “I was.”
“Do you believe you are worthy to defeat the Pathfinder?”
“Doesn’t matter if I am or not, I have to try.”
“Good answer.” The spiked club was placed on top of the backpack. “A wise answer. I know much of the Pathfinder. I am now the keeper of Master Hatori’s sacred firsthand knowledge of the way of the Dark Ocean.” The pistol belt was set down next.
“That’s useful.”
“That is why I have come here.” Toru removed the two swords, still in their sheaths. He put the smaller one down, but kept the longer one in both hands. “If you are worthy of my father’s legacy, then I will teach you how to find and destroy the beast. If you are unworthy, then I will kill you and do it myself.”