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Chapter 16
The Asatru were mostly disappointed. By the time they caught up with the two Immortals on the beach, there wasn't much left to do besides take custody of a few badly injured survivors. The firefight at the perimeter on the landward side rapidly quieted down, the attackers withdrawing faster than they could be pursued, even when the defenders were spurred to recklessness by the desire to avenge their fallen comrades. Three bodies were recovered, left behind as the terrorists backed off.
Lowe breathed a sigh of relief as the fight ended. The paths of the future were clear again, and she let herself drop out of the fugue state. She sagged onto John's arm, exhausted by her efforts, and let him guide her to a seat. “I'll get you some more barbecue, Jandi. You look like you put more energy into things than I did making that shield, and I'm suddenly starving.”
She glanced up. “How can you even -think- of eating after watching that bloodbath - ” Her stomach growled, betraying her protest to John's amused grin. “Well, maybe just a bit. But I think I need a drink more.”
“Then a drink you shall have. Mead, ale, or something else?”
“Mead. I think it's stronger. That was not an experience I wish to repeat any time soon.”
She smiled as her Guardian headed back to the buffet tables, the caterers still standing there in shock over the attack that had come and gone so rapidly. She turned her gaze back to the shore in time to notice one of the Asatru speaking to Thor. He in turn frowned, and then gestured up in her direction. He saluted, and jogged up the slope, arriving just as John got back with her replacement food and beverage. “Ma'am? Thor said I should report this to you. Just before the attack, there was another set of explosions out in the bay. Might be why the Coasties didn't stop them, we think.”
Lowe surged to her feet. “I need a radio. The helicopter should be able to talk to them.” John got to his feet as well, and a half-dozen Asatru spread out around them. She sighed at the crowd, and pointed toward the landing pad. “That way.”
A minute later, she was perched in the co-pilot's seat while the pilot powered up enough of the systems to use the radio. “Grand Isle, Grand Isle, this is Griffin-One. Diviner wants to know your status, over.”
“Griffin-One, Grand Isle Actual. In pursuit of cabin cruiser which fired on us. Should we break off?”
Lowe took the microphone. “Grand Isle, Diviner-Actual. Calling in other assets. Situation is currently under control, but there are casualties. Can you track and hand off pursuit?”
“Diviner, Grand Isle Actual. Negative. Initial attack took our radar out, we are tracking visually only.”
Lowe glanced at Whitford. “What do you think?”
“They're ten minutes out, max. I think we can hold out even if they have reinforcements on the way. Tell 'em we want prisoners.”
She keyed the mike again. “Grand Isle, Diviner. Maintain your pursuit. We want to catch as many of these people as possible. Keep your eyes open, though, there were a lot of 'em. And they appear to be Islamics, so they might suicide the boat if they can't evade capture. Be careful.”
“Diviner, Grand Isle. Got that. We'll stay alert. Clear.”
“Grand Isle, Diviner. We'll monitor this frequency. Clear.” She nodded to the pilot. “Keep us in contact for now. Have you got a spare earbug, John?”
He nodded, and handed it to the pilot. “This puts you in our net. If anything changes with them, let us know immediately.”
The pilot nodded. “Got it, sir. We'll keep on top of this for you.”
The wolves debarked and headed back to the beach. “Someone doesn't like us very much. I think they underestimated all of us, though.”
“That they did.” John grinned. “And I'm not going to argue with that level of good luck. But it -was- luck, Jandi. Next time they might just be more competent. Or even just lucky, and they only need to be lucky once.”
“So... we do better with our own security. Now we just have to find out which one of us they were targeting. Let's hope that one of the survivors actually knows.”
Thor nodded. “Loki rarely tells his minions anything useful. But for now, we have fallen warriors to send to Valhalla.”
MacDowell stared out the window of his motel room. <Some desert this is. We've had nothing but thunderstorms since we got here.> He shook his head. <So much for spending Saturday flying. What a miserable mess.>
He perked up at the knock on his door. “Come in!”
O'Malley peeked into the room. “We're going to head out for dinner, if you want to come along? Alicia wants to try out that Mexican place that Kwitowski recommended. Maybe see a movie afterwards.”
The eagle chuckled. “You're getting stir-crazy, too?”
“Maybe a little. There's nothing more boring than a motel room, particularly if you were planning on sight-seeing.”
“You're telling me. Sure, sounds good. I've looked at all the lightning I want to for one day.”
Hollywood was becoming both a driver and an early adopter of mana-based technology. The moguls behind the scenes who made most of the money were already concerned about what would happen to their earnings if existing film libraries were lost, and of course the new technologies would allow them to sell new copies of old favorites in yet another format. The final winner in the magi-tech contest was far from certain, but in the meantime the cinemas were advertising the new formats almost as much as the individual films.
The screenwriters were having a field day with the revelation that the mythic pantheons had been real, and the winter season's first hit was an adaptation of an old Mesopotamian legend. Gilgamesh was the result; for those in the know, it boasted a consultation credit from the Eldest himself, under the name of Carl Amos.
The thunderstorms were in abeyance when the quartet left the movie theatre, lightning grumbling over the peaks of the southern end of the Sangre de Christo Range to the east. MacDowell was more interested in the projection technology than the movie. “We might want to take a look at that for our own purposes, y'know.”
Waters thought about that. “You thinkin' that whatevah they usin' foh synchronization might be somethin' we could use?”
“Exactly. They've got some method of matching up the sound to the images, and since both recordings are magic-based, I'd assume that the synching is as well. Otherwise, it'll fail in a few years and I'm sure the RIAA people don't want to have to give up their copyright income when that happens.”
O'Malley chuckled. “Not going to hear an argument from -me-. But how do we get them to tell us?”
MacDowell shook his head. “C'mon. We've got Los Alamos, Forge, Lawrence-Livermore, the military, and NSA backing our project. If they can't shake a patent loose from Hollywood, I will be very, very surprised.”
Chen nodded. “A definite point. Let's talk to Forge about it on Monday. He may already know something about it.”
Hisham woke up to the harsh hospital smells of antiseptic and disinfectant. His left arm was in a heavy immobilizing cast, and he sighed in disappointment as it registered that he had not attained Paradise after all.<Maybe next time.> His smashed arm and the ribs on that side hurt horribly, but somehow it didn't bother him. <Drugs of some kind.>
A nurse came in to check on him. <A male nurse. And a human. At least they know not to inflict a female or an abomination on a good Muslim.> “Excellent, you're awake. Do you remember anything about the wreck?”
Hisham's mind wasn't working fast at all. “Wreck?”
“The car crash. Your friends brought you in last night.”
“Is that what happened?” The idea that the nurse wasn't sure he'd remember made it easy to decide to go with amnesia as a cover story. “I remember getting into the car...”
“Well, that's nothing to worry about. People often don't remember much about an accident when they're hurt as badly as you were. Are you feeling up to a visitor?”
“Visitor?”
“One of your friends. Normally we'd only allow family, but since you're from out of the country, we'll make an exception.” The nurse was all smiles and brisk efficiency as he completed whatever arcane medical tasks he was assigned.
“Yes. For a bit.” <What happened?>
“I'll send him in, then.” The nurse left the room and a minute later Wahid entered. Hisham almost cried in relief, and shifted to Arabic. “My chieftain. I am sorry. I could not stop the demon Thor, it was as if the bullets had no effect on him.”
“It is all right, Hisham. You kept his attention while the machine gun found him. You did well.”
“The machine gun worked, then?”
“It did. And now you need to heal. Be careful of your tongue around the infidel doctors. You are too badly hurt to move for now, but we will take you home as soon as it is possible.”
“And the others?”
“Many of them are in Paradise now, but we succeeded in killing the demon ally of the Great Satan.”
“Did we have a chance to kill any of the lesser targets?”
“No. The cat-creature was nearly as dangerous as he was, and we had to withdraw. But our primary task was successful, and though you were willing to be martyrs, there was no point in doing so while not being able to kill any of the others.”
Hisham frowned at that... it didn't sound quite like something Wahid would say, somehow, but he was too hazy with the drugs he'd been given to be sure why that was. And he was growing tired again, sleep beckoned while his body struggled to repair itself.
Wahid nodded as Hisham started fading out of consciousness. “Rest well. I shall visit again.”
“God.. is great...” The injured man went back to sleep, and Wahid left the room. Outside, his form shimmered and resolved itself into a fox-changeling.
The doctor assigned to the case frowned at him, and at the white wolf waiting for him. “Was that really necessary? Wake him up for that short an interview? In the shape he's in, that stimulant could've killed him.”
The wolf smiled. “Could have, but I knew it wouldn't. And yes, Doctor, it told us what we needed to know. Who their real target was. And thus, who might have sent them.”
The doctor wasn't ready to give up, and his voice was weighted with sarcasm. “Oh, of -course- you knew he'd be fine. After all, you'd obviously done a check on him from the next room, to supplement your vast medical experience. Is that even legal? An interrogation under drugs?”
“Perhaps not admissible in court, but we hardly need a confession to convict him of terrorism. We did need to know what they were after, and this one was on enough pain-killers to be unable to lie to us.” She smiled at the fox. “And thank you for your assistance, Reynard. You'll have to teach me that trick.”
The fox smiled. “Glad to be of service, cherie. These cochon were quite willing to kill -me- as well, after all. But I'm afraid that the trick is something you need to be born with.”
“Pity.” She turned back to the doctor. “We'll stay out of your hair now. I do appreciate your position, believe it or not, and I apologize for the necessity.”
“Just... use someone else's hospital the next time you want to pull something like this, Director.”
“I'll keep that in mind, Doctor. I'm hoping not to have this sort of thing happen again.”
The man shook his head, a chuckle escaping in spite of himself. “I think we can both agree on that.”
“So it appears that Thor was the actual target, Mr. President. And that leads me to suspect that Loki may have been behind it somehow.”
“He hardly seems like someone that such terrorists would be willing to follow, Doctor.”
Lowe shrugged. “Perhaps not, but he -is- a shapeshifter. He could easily have given them orders while masquerading as their legitimate superior, in much the same way as I arranged to have the few survivors interrogated by someone they thought was their leader.”
“A very sneaky technique, that. And certainly preferable to torture.”
Lowe nodded. “Far more effective, which is the important thing. The fact that we can do such things has to remain a secret to be effective, though. Would it be too much to ask that you be... vague if asked what sort of interrogation techniques are used?”
Boehner nodded. “I'll see what I can do. I might need to spring the truth on someone if they start making a serious issue of it, just to cut them off at the knees, but I will do my best to avoid that. Information is too important in a war like this.”
“Thank you, sir. I understand that it may not be possible to keep it secret indefinitely, but neither is it something to be revealed without a good reason.”
“And the good reason had better not be 'politics as usual', right?”
The wolf gave him a lopsided grin. “I'd prefer something a bit more solid than that, sir, yes.”
She remembered having been many different people over the centuries. The strongest of those memories were those of her most recent incarnation, the elk-morph who had held the power of the Stormchild and kept druidic Britain free of the Roman invaders until the magic had faded away. In some ways, Katlynn's memories were stronger than the ones that belonged to her current incarnation, for Nancy Smith's life had been anything but memorable before the Event. Nancy had been born a human, but her latent genes had activated when the magic returned, and she had been reborn as a lynx-morph as that change swept around the world. The mantle of the Stormchild had sought her out, and she had awakened with ancient memories and power over the weather on the third of January, 2013. Nancy Smith's sense of self, already badly shaken by her transformation, had been overwhelmed. She remembered being Nancy, but she thought of herself as Katlynn more often than not.
Still, her old human self still had a lot of influence. The Stormchild had no idea how to use a telephone, for instance. “Hello?”
“Storm? It's Stardancer. Are you busy next week?”
“The hurricane season seems to be winding down, so nothing is pressing. What do you need?”
“Advice. One of my researchers is starting to remember things from a previous life. And since you're the only one I know who's already dealing with that...”
“Interesting. When?”
“He's currently off at Los Alamos on a project. He's due back Thursday.”
“I'll see you then.”
Salah ibn Muhammed was not happy. The news coming out of Massachusetts was fragmentary at best, but the lack of announcements of any important deaths told him that the attack had not succeeded. He sighed as his phone buzzed for attention. “Yes?”
“I'm sure you have seen the news, my friend. The lack of it, really.” The voice waited for his acknowledgement. “What does your surviving team have to report?”
“They killed a dozen of the infidels during the land side of the attack--”
“Five. And wounded six. And that was from both attacks combined. Your people are overoptimistic in assessing results.”
“Warriors of Allah do not lie!”
“Perhaps not, but they can be mistaken. What did they see of the battle around Thor?”
“Sorcery. One missile was stopped by lightning, a second by a barrier. It stopped short of its target and the explosion was... odd, according to Tariq. And there were at least three demons opposing them, not one.”
“Three?” The voice, Salah was relieved to hear, sounded more curious than skeptical this time.
“Three, perhaps four. Thor, with lightning. There was a lioness with a spear that shot fire. And the two dogs, one glowing white and the other blue. The barrier shield was blue as well, so that was probably his doing.”
“Interesting. You have moved your teams to new locations, I trust?”
“As you instructed, though it seems an unnecessary expense.”
“Hardly. There may have been some survivors from the ocean-side attack. Anything they know can be assumed to be compromised.”
“A warrior of Allah--!”
“Save me the rhetoric. A warrior of Allah expects to be a martyr when he goes into battle. When he is captured instead, he tends to sing like a canary. Particularly with the threat of what happened to -you-.” Salah blanched at that reminder, and swallowed the rest of his protest. He'd been turned into a pig by the sorcerer Haroun after the failed revolt against the apostate of Ba-Yabel. “I arranged for you to be returned to your true form, Salah. But what has been undone, can be done again if need be. Do we understand each other?”
Salah swallowed his anger. “We do.”
“Good. Now, we have new safe houses and training areas ready, and we will move your people to them as soon as we are sure they are safe from pursuit. There will be more missions for you and your men, never fear.”
Valezquez sighed as he cut the connection. “Good help is -so- hard to find.” He turned to look at the raven perched on the bust of Cortez that adorned his office bookshelf. “And don't you even -think- about saying 'Nevermore!'”
The raven hopped down from its perch and shimmered into the laughing red-haired human version of Loki. “I'll have to remember that.” He abruptly went serious again. “So they might have succeeded against Thor alone, but they ran into more than they could handle?”
Valezquez nodded. “They certainly did. And if what I've learned about Director Lowe's chief bodyguard is correct, that target just got hellaciously more difficult. Much as I'd like to double up on mission objectives, we'll have to forget about that for the forseeable future. Even one of them is tough. Two or more gets very difficult indeed.”
Loki chuckled. “If Immortals were easy to kill, I wouldn't need your help to deal with Thor.”
“I just wish we could be -more- help.”
“Ah, but your minions are finding things out, Julian. About him, about his allies, about his new companions and meadhall... even if I have to do the job myself in the end, it will be with significant assistance from you and your people.”
Valezquez nodded. “Thank you for that. It is somewhat frustrating not to be able to succeed outright in these things. I'm not used to even partial failure.”
Loki smiled. “You haven't failed until you are either dead, or have given up. You need to take the longer view of things.”
“That is difficult when you have only a limited time, though.”
Loki's smile grew crafty. “If you do well enough trying, though, we might arrange for you to have... additional time, shall we say? The young Immortals seem to want to find out how it's done. If they succeed, I'm sure we can... acquire the information.”
Valezquez glanced upward toward the penthouse. “Mr. Stavros needs that more than I do.”
Loki nodded. “He will be the first to receive his reward.”
The Asatru were mostly disappointed. By the time they caught up with the two Immortals on the beach, there wasn't much left to do besides take custody of a few badly injured survivors. The firefight at the perimeter on the landward side rapidly quieted down, the attackers withdrawing faster than they could be pursued, even when the defenders were spurred to recklessness by the desire to avenge their fallen comrades. Three bodies were recovered, left behind as the terrorists backed off.
Lowe breathed a sigh of relief as the fight ended. The paths of the future were clear again, and she let herself drop out of the fugue state. She sagged onto John's arm, exhausted by her efforts, and let him guide her to a seat. “I'll get you some more barbecue, Jandi. You look like you put more energy into things than I did making that shield, and I'm suddenly starving.”
She glanced up. “How can you even -think- of eating after watching that bloodbath - ” Her stomach growled, betraying her protest to John's amused grin. “Well, maybe just a bit. But I think I need a drink more.”
“Then a drink you shall have. Mead, ale, or something else?”
“Mead. I think it's stronger. That was not an experience I wish to repeat any time soon.”
She smiled as her Guardian headed back to the buffet tables, the caterers still standing there in shock over the attack that had come and gone so rapidly. She turned her gaze back to the shore in time to notice one of the Asatru speaking to Thor. He in turn frowned, and then gestured up in her direction. He saluted, and jogged up the slope, arriving just as John got back with her replacement food and beverage. “Ma'am? Thor said I should report this to you. Just before the attack, there was another set of explosions out in the bay. Might be why the Coasties didn't stop them, we think.”
Lowe surged to her feet. “I need a radio. The helicopter should be able to talk to them.” John got to his feet as well, and a half-dozen Asatru spread out around them. She sighed at the crowd, and pointed toward the landing pad. “That way.”
A minute later, she was perched in the co-pilot's seat while the pilot powered up enough of the systems to use the radio. “Grand Isle, Grand Isle, this is Griffin-One. Diviner wants to know your status, over.”
“Griffin-One, Grand Isle Actual. In pursuit of cabin cruiser which fired on us. Should we break off?”
Lowe took the microphone. “Grand Isle, Diviner-Actual. Calling in other assets. Situation is currently under control, but there are casualties. Can you track and hand off pursuit?”
“Diviner, Grand Isle Actual. Negative. Initial attack took our radar out, we are tracking visually only.”
Lowe glanced at Whitford. “What do you think?”
“They're ten minutes out, max. I think we can hold out even if they have reinforcements on the way. Tell 'em we want prisoners.”
She keyed the mike again. “Grand Isle, Diviner. Maintain your pursuit. We want to catch as many of these people as possible. Keep your eyes open, though, there were a lot of 'em. And they appear to be Islamics, so they might suicide the boat if they can't evade capture. Be careful.”
“Diviner, Grand Isle. Got that. We'll stay alert. Clear.”
“Grand Isle, Diviner. We'll monitor this frequency. Clear.” She nodded to the pilot. “Keep us in contact for now. Have you got a spare earbug, John?”
He nodded, and handed it to the pilot. “This puts you in our net. If anything changes with them, let us know immediately.”
The pilot nodded. “Got it, sir. We'll keep on top of this for you.”
The wolves debarked and headed back to the beach. “Someone doesn't like us very much. I think they underestimated all of us, though.”
“That they did.” John grinned. “And I'm not going to argue with that level of good luck. But it -was- luck, Jandi. Next time they might just be more competent. Or even just lucky, and they only need to be lucky once.”
“So... we do better with our own security. Now we just have to find out which one of us they were targeting. Let's hope that one of the survivors actually knows.”
Thor nodded. “Loki rarely tells his minions anything useful. But for now, we have fallen warriors to send to Valhalla.”
MacDowell stared out the window of his motel room. <Some desert this is. We've had nothing but thunderstorms since we got here.> He shook his head. <So much for spending Saturday flying. What a miserable mess.>
He perked up at the knock on his door. “Come in!”
O'Malley peeked into the room. “We're going to head out for dinner, if you want to come along? Alicia wants to try out that Mexican place that Kwitowski recommended. Maybe see a movie afterwards.”
The eagle chuckled. “You're getting stir-crazy, too?”
“Maybe a little. There's nothing more boring than a motel room, particularly if you were planning on sight-seeing.”
“You're telling me. Sure, sounds good. I've looked at all the lightning I want to for one day.”
Hollywood was becoming both a driver and an early adopter of mana-based technology. The moguls behind the scenes who made most of the money were already concerned about what would happen to their earnings if existing film libraries were lost, and of course the new technologies would allow them to sell new copies of old favorites in yet another format. The final winner in the magi-tech contest was far from certain, but in the meantime the cinemas were advertising the new formats almost as much as the individual films.
The screenwriters were having a field day with the revelation that the mythic pantheons had been real, and the winter season's first hit was an adaptation of an old Mesopotamian legend. Gilgamesh was the result; for those in the know, it boasted a consultation credit from the Eldest himself, under the name of Carl Amos.
The thunderstorms were in abeyance when the quartet left the movie theatre, lightning grumbling over the peaks of the southern end of the Sangre de Christo Range to the east. MacDowell was more interested in the projection technology than the movie. “We might want to take a look at that for our own purposes, y'know.”
Waters thought about that. “You thinkin' that whatevah they usin' foh synchronization might be somethin' we could use?”
“Exactly. They've got some method of matching up the sound to the images, and since both recordings are magic-based, I'd assume that the synching is as well. Otherwise, it'll fail in a few years and I'm sure the RIAA people don't want to have to give up their copyright income when that happens.”
O'Malley chuckled. “Not going to hear an argument from -me-. But how do we get them to tell us?”
MacDowell shook his head. “C'mon. We've got Los Alamos, Forge, Lawrence-Livermore, the military, and NSA backing our project. If they can't shake a patent loose from Hollywood, I will be very, very surprised.”
Chen nodded. “A definite point. Let's talk to Forge about it on Monday. He may already know something about it.”
Hisham woke up to the harsh hospital smells of antiseptic and disinfectant. His left arm was in a heavy immobilizing cast, and he sighed in disappointment as it registered that he had not attained Paradise after all.<Maybe next time.> His smashed arm and the ribs on that side hurt horribly, but somehow it didn't bother him. <Drugs of some kind.>
A nurse came in to check on him. <A male nurse. And a human. At least they know not to inflict a female or an abomination on a good Muslim.> “Excellent, you're awake. Do you remember anything about the wreck?”
Hisham's mind wasn't working fast at all. “Wreck?”
“The car crash. Your friends brought you in last night.”
“Is that what happened?” The idea that the nurse wasn't sure he'd remember made it easy to decide to go with amnesia as a cover story. “I remember getting into the car...”
“Well, that's nothing to worry about. People often don't remember much about an accident when they're hurt as badly as you were. Are you feeling up to a visitor?”
“Visitor?”
“One of your friends. Normally we'd only allow family, but since you're from out of the country, we'll make an exception.” The nurse was all smiles and brisk efficiency as he completed whatever arcane medical tasks he was assigned.
“Yes. For a bit.” <What happened?>
“I'll send him in, then.” The nurse left the room and a minute later Wahid entered. Hisham almost cried in relief, and shifted to Arabic. “My chieftain. I am sorry. I could not stop the demon Thor, it was as if the bullets had no effect on him.”
“It is all right, Hisham. You kept his attention while the machine gun found him. You did well.”
“The machine gun worked, then?”
“It did. And now you need to heal. Be careful of your tongue around the infidel doctors. You are too badly hurt to move for now, but we will take you home as soon as it is possible.”
“And the others?”
“Many of them are in Paradise now, but we succeeded in killing the demon ally of the Great Satan.”
“Did we have a chance to kill any of the lesser targets?”
“No. The cat-creature was nearly as dangerous as he was, and we had to withdraw. But our primary task was successful, and though you were willing to be martyrs, there was no point in doing so while not being able to kill any of the others.”
Hisham frowned at that... it didn't sound quite like something Wahid would say, somehow, but he was too hazy with the drugs he'd been given to be sure why that was. And he was growing tired again, sleep beckoned while his body struggled to repair itself.
Wahid nodded as Hisham started fading out of consciousness. “Rest well. I shall visit again.”
“God.. is great...” The injured man went back to sleep, and Wahid left the room. Outside, his form shimmered and resolved itself into a fox-changeling.
The doctor assigned to the case frowned at him, and at the white wolf waiting for him. “Was that really necessary? Wake him up for that short an interview? In the shape he's in, that stimulant could've killed him.”
The wolf smiled. “Could have, but I knew it wouldn't. And yes, Doctor, it told us what we needed to know. Who their real target was. And thus, who might have sent them.”
The doctor wasn't ready to give up, and his voice was weighted with sarcasm. “Oh, of -course- you knew he'd be fine. After all, you'd obviously done a check on him from the next room, to supplement your vast medical experience. Is that even legal? An interrogation under drugs?”
“Perhaps not admissible in court, but we hardly need a confession to convict him of terrorism. We did need to know what they were after, and this one was on enough pain-killers to be unable to lie to us.” She smiled at the fox. “And thank you for your assistance, Reynard. You'll have to teach me that trick.”
The fox smiled. “Glad to be of service, cherie. These cochon were quite willing to kill -me- as well, after all. But I'm afraid that the trick is something you need to be born with.”
“Pity.” She turned back to the doctor. “We'll stay out of your hair now. I do appreciate your position, believe it or not, and I apologize for the necessity.”
“Just... use someone else's hospital the next time you want to pull something like this, Director.”
“I'll keep that in mind, Doctor. I'm hoping not to have this sort of thing happen again.”
The man shook his head, a chuckle escaping in spite of himself. “I think we can both agree on that.”
“So it appears that Thor was the actual target, Mr. President. And that leads me to suspect that Loki may have been behind it somehow.”
“He hardly seems like someone that such terrorists would be willing to follow, Doctor.”
Lowe shrugged. “Perhaps not, but he -is- a shapeshifter. He could easily have given them orders while masquerading as their legitimate superior, in much the same way as I arranged to have the few survivors interrogated by someone they thought was their leader.”
“A very sneaky technique, that. And certainly preferable to torture.”
Lowe nodded. “Far more effective, which is the important thing. The fact that we can do such things has to remain a secret to be effective, though. Would it be too much to ask that you be... vague if asked what sort of interrogation techniques are used?”
Boehner nodded. “I'll see what I can do. I might need to spring the truth on someone if they start making a serious issue of it, just to cut them off at the knees, but I will do my best to avoid that. Information is too important in a war like this.”
“Thank you, sir. I understand that it may not be possible to keep it secret indefinitely, but neither is it something to be revealed without a good reason.”
“And the good reason had better not be 'politics as usual', right?”
The wolf gave him a lopsided grin. “I'd prefer something a bit more solid than that, sir, yes.”
She remembered having been many different people over the centuries. The strongest of those memories were those of her most recent incarnation, the elk-morph who had held the power of the Stormchild and kept druidic Britain free of the Roman invaders until the magic had faded away. In some ways, Katlynn's memories were stronger than the ones that belonged to her current incarnation, for Nancy Smith's life had been anything but memorable before the Event. Nancy had been born a human, but her latent genes had activated when the magic returned, and she had been reborn as a lynx-morph as that change swept around the world. The mantle of the Stormchild had sought her out, and she had awakened with ancient memories and power over the weather on the third of January, 2013. Nancy Smith's sense of self, already badly shaken by her transformation, had been overwhelmed. She remembered being Nancy, but she thought of herself as Katlynn more often than not.
Still, her old human self still had a lot of influence. The Stormchild had no idea how to use a telephone, for instance. “Hello?”
“Storm? It's Stardancer. Are you busy next week?”
“The hurricane season seems to be winding down, so nothing is pressing. What do you need?”
“Advice. One of my researchers is starting to remember things from a previous life. And since you're the only one I know who's already dealing with that...”
“Interesting. When?”
“He's currently off at Los Alamos on a project. He's due back Thursday.”
“I'll see you then.”
Salah ibn Muhammed was not happy. The news coming out of Massachusetts was fragmentary at best, but the lack of announcements of any important deaths told him that the attack had not succeeded. He sighed as his phone buzzed for attention. “Yes?”
“I'm sure you have seen the news, my friend. The lack of it, really.” The voice waited for his acknowledgement. “What does your surviving team have to report?”
“They killed a dozen of the infidels during the land side of the attack--”
“Five. And wounded six. And that was from both attacks combined. Your people are overoptimistic in assessing results.”
“Warriors of Allah do not lie!”
“Perhaps not, but they can be mistaken. What did they see of the battle around Thor?”
“Sorcery. One missile was stopped by lightning, a second by a barrier. It stopped short of its target and the explosion was... odd, according to Tariq. And there were at least three demons opposing them, not one.”
“Three?” The voice, Salah was relieved to hear, sounded more curious than skeptical this time.
“Three, perhaps four. Thor, with lightning. There was a lioness with a spear that shot fire. And the two dogs, one glowing white and the other blue. The barrier shield was blue as well, so that was probably his doing.”
“Interesting. You have moved your teams to new locations, I trust?”
“As you instructed, though it seems an unnecessary expense.”
“Hardly. There may have been some survivors from the ocean-side attack. Anything they know can be assumed to be compromised.”
“A warrior of Allah--!”
“Save me the rhetoric. A warrior of Allah expects to be a martyr when he goes into battle. When he is captured instead, he tends to sing like a canary. Particularly with the threat of what happened to -you-.” Salah blanched at that reminder, and swallowed the rest of his protest. He'd been turned into a pig by the sorcerer Haroun after the failed revolt against the apostate of Ba-Yabel. “I arranged for you to be returned to your true form, Salah. But what has been undone, can be done again if need be. Do we understand each other?”
Salah swallowed his anger. “We do.”
“Good. Now, we have new safe houses and training areas ready, and we will move your people to them as soon as we are sure they are safe from pursuit. There will be more missions for you and your men, never fear.”
Valezquez sighed as he cut the connection. “Good help is -so- hard to find.” He turned to look at the raven perched on the bust of Cortez that adorned his office bookshelf. “And don't you even -think- about saying 'Nevermore!'”
The raven hopped down from its perch and shimmered into the laughing red-haired human version of Loki. “I'll have to remember that.” He abruptly went serious again. “So they might have succeeded against Thor alone, but they ran into more than they could handle?”
Valezquez nodded. “They certainly did. And if what I've learned about Director Lowe's chief bodyguard is correct, that target just got hellaciously more difficult. Much as I'd like to double up on mission objectives, we'll have to forget about that for the forseeable future. Even one of them is tough. Two or more gets very difficult indeed.”
Loki chuckled. “If Immortals were easy to kill, I wouldn't need your help to deal with Thor.”
“I just wish we could be -more- help.”
“Ah, but your minions are finding things out, Julian. About him, about his allies, about his new companions and meadhall... even if I have to do the job myself in the end, it will be with significant assistance from you and your people.”
Valezquez nodded. “Thank you for that. It is somewhat frustrating not to be able to succeed outright in these things. I'm not used to even partial failure.”
Loki smiled. “You haven't failed until you are either dead, or have given up. You need to take the longer view of things.”
“That is difficult when you have only a limited time, though.”
Loki's smile grew crafty. “If you do well enough trying, though, we might arrange for you to have... additional time, shall we say? The young Immortals seem to want to find out how it's done. If they succeed, I'm sure we can... acquire the information.”
Valezquez glanced upward toward the penthouse. “Mr. Stavros needs that more than I do.”
Loki nodded. “He will be the first to receive his reward.”
Category Story / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 120 x 115px
File Size 67.8 kB
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Another delightful installment, but I wonder, what if Hisham hadn't been so drugged, and he realized there was no way Wahid could have visited him in an American hospital, and the Americans must therefore have had some sort of trick to disguise themselves. What a dilemma that would have been for our Immortals; let him live, and risk letting him reveal their secret weapon to ISIL; discreetly kill him, and they forever worry someone will discover their disregard for due process. "Making it look like an accident" would have been a compelling development... but perhaps it's for the best that they stay away from these murky moral waters for now.
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