Authors: Lee Doty
Reluctantly, he pulled his mind away from the study of Kaspari's work and pressed his Vision outward. He felt them almost immediately, like angry blurred hornets through the arteries of the Underworld. Though he couldn't focus to see them through all of their chaotic noise, he could fix their position by the location of the gaps in his Vision. "Three minutes?"
"Two, more likely." Kaspari said from behind closed eyes. This is going to be close."
"Two minutes what?" Anne shouted toward them with a look of great concern.
"Two minutes to live probably." Issak yelled back, "They're inbound fast."
"How many?" Ping waved his collapsed sword through small circles, warming the tendons of his wrists.
"I lost count around seventy." Alex looked from Rae to Kaspari.
"I got to a hundred and twenty before I gave up." Kaspari said with a shrug.
They waited in silence for the moment.
Ping glanced sideways at Anne. Her face was set with determination. Her eyes scanned the expanse of the garage ahead. Ping knew the ground they needed to hold was indefensible. There were no choke points that could be more easily defended against a superior force. Their task was hopeless and they both knew it.
Anne was smiling.
Ping had been taught the value of such smiles from his early youth. He'd been taught to value the courage they implied. Her blue eyes shifted to regard him then jerked away when she saw he was looking at her. Probably childhood issues. He smiled, laughing softly.
"What?" she asked, becoming more flustered.
"You are without a doubt the most bashful killing machine I've ever met." That got him a smile and a small shake of her head.
"You know," he said gesturing with his collapsed sword, "I was just about to ask you how you could keep it together in the face of our impending horrible death... but I suppose I'm really more interested to know why you're having trouble with the banter."
He spent a second in an open smile to help her realize he wasn't all that serious before continuing. "You know, it's really standard procedure for folks in our position to exchange a few polite jabs at each other- you know, to brace our courage up, laugh in the face of danger- that kind of thing."
She laughed. "Sorry, I'm new to the whole killing machine thing. You been at it long?"
"Fighting? I was punching before I could crawl. Mom says I learned to walk by stringing kicks together." He shifted his gaze to the rising incline of the underground parking structure they were going to die defending. "Killing, though..." He trailed off.
"I hear you." Anne said, following Ping's gaze. There was a moment of silence, then Anne broke it. "Hey, you related to the Bannons of Chong Fu?"
Ping looked surprised. "Yeah. Clairvoyance part of your sparkly little magical package?"
"Yes." She said with a look of grave irony, "I have sensed it."
She paused for the joke to take hold then smiled. "Nah, I think I saw your mom on Oxygen-2 once."
Ping winced, "You remember O2's short-lived
Sisters, Find Your Strength
series eh? You know dad will pay you to forget about that."
"You're the less female spitting image... I still remember the aerobics episode. Didn't she pretty much spend the whole episode whaling on some guy and saying, 'feel the burn, my sisters!'"
"Dad was sore for weeks. You should have seen the look on his face when mom got cancelled... like he'd been pardoned." Ping laughed, remembering. "Of course, mom saw this look. They had an impromptu training session right there in the kitchen. Mom threw dad over the counter... broke grandma's table."
Anne looked concerned. "That must have been terrible!"
Ping snorted. "Nah. You've gotta understand. It was training, not fighting. Neither was ever angry. It was like watching puppies wrestle. They'd always do the trash talk like in an old Kung Fu movie, 'your kung fu is for kittens', that kind of thing. Then they'd get into an epic battle. Things always got broken, but there were never any bad feelings. It's been a family tradition going back two generations. Grandma Yao and Grandpa Sean had some battles that were legendary."
"Your mom sure was funny." Anne said with a warm smile.
"Hey, if we live through this, you should come to the school, meet the folks."
She turned the color of a ripe tomato and began to fidget. Ping got the distinct impression she was hoping she wouldn't live so she wouldn't have to worry about the social situation. Definitely childhood issues.
"You know, if you come both mom and dad are going to want a crack at you."
She laughed, losing a few shades of red. "It's their funeral."
Ping's sword came out. "You have dishonored mommy! Them's fighting words!" He waved the sword between them. "I will feast on your entrails!"
Anne was game. Her sword joined his in the air between them. "Then there will be no doggy bag big enough for your leftovers!" Their swords clashed perhaps ten times as Ping made an increasingly earnest but futile effort to find a way past Anne's inexpertly wielded but blinding fast blade.
"Is that the best you can do?" Ping yelled breathlessly. They both smiled.
This little guy was good, Anne thought as she swatted his varied attacks away. It was like she had all the time in the world to move her blade to intercept his. Sometimes she had to correct her positioning after their blades met to effectively deflect his attack. She'd definitely have a hard time surviving an attack from anyone nearly as fast as she was. She tried to pay attention to the moves he made, tried to mimic them. She was thankful both for the diversion, and the lesson.
In Rae's stolen microvan, the four Feds watched the swordplay.
"I know, but that's too fast to be sparring." Miranda responded.
"You're only saying that because you haven't seen her work before." Kyle said.
Miranda turned around in the passenger seat. "I saw her work while you were taking your nap... but I see your point."
"Oh yeah?" Kyle said, "she run up any walls for you?"
"She knocked a guy through one..." Elena interrupted herself, "
Up
the wall?"
Hawthorne and Kyle both nodded. "Yeah." Hawthorne said, "And none of you were yanked out a window, then spun like a pizza all the way to the ground."
All eyes turned to her. "Now that's gotta be a joke." Kyle finally said.
Hawthorne shook her head slowly, remembering. "I've still got to shoot her about that sometime." Then she smiled and smacked the steering wheel with one hand, "Man! What a night!"
Alex and Rae stood, hand in hand at Kaspari's side. Kaspari was sitting cross-legged on the ground, looking like a Yogi working on his levitation. He hadn't moved in about two minutes.
"How's it going down there?" Rae asked.
"I have no idea." Alex said without opening his eyes. "It's definitely the biggest Cast I've ever seen. It's beautiful, you know. It's massive, yet modular... there's no chaos in its complexity."
"Sounds like you're about to write a haiku 'bout it babe."
One of Alex's eyes popped open. "You know, I'm going to miss that sharp wit."
"Right, like death's gonna save you. I thought we were in this for the long haul. Hey, weren't you already kinda dead once?"
He moved into her arm "Wasn't really dead then."
"Well, you sure weren't much of a talker."
Closer. Now only a whisper away from her lips. "Seek medical atten..." he started, but then their lips met.
Impossible children. Issak Kaspari thought as he tried to work.
Fortunately he was up to the challenge of working even surrounded by three flavors of distraction. About twenty meters away, Ping and Anne played Roy and Dek's favorite game. In the microvan about the same distance in the other direction the four Feds laughed and jabbed at each other. And, last but not least, about one meter away, Alex and Rae shared what really should have been a much more private moment. In a moment of bittersweet memory, he thought how much he missed Roy and Dek's knack for playful distraction.
Without the training provided by Dek's constant interruptions, Issak might not have been able to work under these conditions. As it was, he put the finishing touches on his Cast just as the fourth distraction vied for his attention.
One floor up, the leading edge of a horde of no less than three hundred demons raced downward.
Anne swatted away Ping's most earnest attack and stepped back, turning to face the ramp up to the next level. "They're coming!" she shouted. She could feel it coming like the wind ahead of a tidal wave- chaotic power, unseen but close.
Alex stepped back from Rae, the laughter in the van drained away, Kaspari didn't move. The air filled with the thick funk of final judgment.
Ping shoved his dread aside and tried some distraction. "Nice try!" He shouted, leaping toward Anne, sword flashing.
There were two ringing clashes of steel, and one less metallic impact followed by Ping landing firmly on his butt. "Didn't you hear the terror in my voice?!" Anne shouted.
"Actually, yeah." Ping said with a slow smile.
Her frustration seemed to increase to the point where she might explode. But then she seemed to deflate, tension spilling out into the air. "You're nuts." She said extending a hand.
"Yep." He took her hand and was whisked too quickly to his feet.
"And possibly stupid." She shook her head, bemused.
"Now that's the pre-fight spirit!" He gave her a quick thumbs-up.
They turned to face their foes together. Their blades extended before them- nearly parallel and steady as those wielded by ancient statues. They waited, listening to the rising clamor from above.
Then the Harms broke like flood waters around the two sides of the downward ramp ahead. The howling ranks of the mob quickly filled the entire opening, which was perhaps eight meters across. They were so thick that the far wall of the parking structure was quickly lost from view. They swarmed like Piranhas, rushing forward so fast that it took them less than five seconds to reach Anne and Ping's position.
Hawthorne's right foot hovered above the accelerator. Her hands turned white on the wheel. The van was pointed directly at Kaspari as he continued his apparent meditation on the ground not far way. They were plan B, and unless something changed very drastically very quickly, they'd be needed.
"What I wouldn't give for my guns." Kyle said from the back seat.
"Yeah, because they would do a lot of good, baby." Elena said as the onslaught passed Ping and Anne's resistance. For a few seconds, they saw them both fading back before the attack, hacking away frenetically. But the area was too wide and the enemy wasn't interested in engaging them. The demons flowed around them like water. Anne managed to stay in front of the line briefly, killing everything that came in reach, but finally she too was lost behind the sea of attackers.
Hawthorne jammed her foot down and the van skittered ahead, riding the ragged edge between torque and traction. She hoped that Kaspari had been right and that his death would be enough. He obviously wasn't going to be able to get his magical doohickey together in time.
"Wait!" Miranda shouted from the passenger seat, but Hawthorne knew what she had to do.
The big Irish cop took a painful fist in the face and went down hard. His partner twisted toward him, gun tracking through a tight arc, but before he could get a bead on the wreck that had hit his partner, what used to be a bouncer from the club tackled him, knocking him from his feet. Ashok brought his gun up, but couldn't help Rodriguez, who was now wrestling with the bouncer on the concrete.
Repeated clicking drew his attention to the Harm who, now holding Malloy's weapon was trying to use it to kill him- thank heaven for lock rings. Ashok swung his gun and fired twice, but the creature was gone, lunging toward Malloy, open mouth full of what looked like dragon's teeth. Ashok's third shot found the leaping creature's leg, and the monstrosity's stride broke and it tumbled and rolled like a wounded tiger before lunging again at Malloy's unconscious body.
Ashok breathed out, settling further into his shooter's stance, and drew a bead on the back of the creature's head as it raised Malloy's right hand to its mouth. He pulled the trigger and the night sky filled with stars and a wounded peace he shouldn't be feeling. Ashok's vision narrowed to a short, dark corridor looking up into the starry night sky, partially occluded by the devil reaching over him for his gun. He'd never seen the thing behind him until it was too late... until now.
Alex and Rae had moved in front of Kaspari for no reason beyond stubborn resolve not to be completely useless. Rae was holding a tire iron like a baseball bat. The act was futile, but not in matters of the spirit, where the only victory is over fear. As always, she was his inspiration. He raised his inexpert fists, hoping maybe to give one of these monstrosities a bloody nose or maybe even a blacker eye before the end.
Here in their last stand, Alex's mind lingered on Rae as she stood blazing bright beside him. Not enough time. If this was the end, then it was way too soon. If they died of old age on their one-hundredth anniversary, it still wouldn't be enough time. This dream was sweet, but it would end too soon.
Just on the other side of Kaspari, Rae stepped away from Alex and raised her tire-iron like a baseball bat. Hawthorne hoped she could miss them after she killed Kaspari, but she didn't think so.
Then something big changed.
It was like reality had received a sucker punch on the nose and saw stars. There may have been a flash, followed by blurry turbulence that filled all the senses from touch to taste. When Hawthorne was next aware, it was of another shock as the microvan plowed into a support pillar several meters to the right of Kaspari's position. She wasn't so much aware of the collision with the pillar as she was of the harsh embrace of the airbag that exploded out of the steering wheel. It forced her arms apart, shoved her back into her seat and drove her backward into darkness.