Warbound: Book Three of the Grimnoir Chronicles (55 page)

The wall next to Toru exploded and a gleaming metal man appeared. It slammed a fist into Toru’s side and launched him into a marble pillar so hard it cracked. Sullivan shot it, but the bullets bounced off the
gakutensuko
. It was far sleeker and more humanoid than the American versions. It raised an arm, and bullets ricocheted off Sullivan. The two kept firing into each other, and then stopped when they fell empty at the same time. They charged and collided, and the metal man knocked Sullivan through the ceiling.

He was in a bathroom. “Son of a bitch.” He rolled over, saw the machine man walking beneath him through the hole in the floor, and swore again. His Power was already rebuilding in his chest. Sullivan got up, found the cast-iron bathtub, made it weigh nothing, ripped it out of the floor, took it back to the hole, aimed it, and then quadrupled its weight. The tub fell, smashing the mechanical man in the head. Sparks flew. Then Toru appeared and hit the
gakutensuko
with the tetsubo so hard that gears flew like confetti.

Sullivan jumped through the hole and landed next to Toru. He lurched when he hit the ground, realizing that at least one of the mechanical man’s bullets had made it through the armor and embedded itself in his stomach. “Reloading,” he said again.

There was a huge crowd of Iron Guard coming up the front entrance. They were moving cautiously now, covering each other with firearms and magic. Sullivan moved to the opposite side of the room to see if there was any potential escape, but as soon as he neared the window he started taking machine gun fire. Something big and silver moved in the yard. The second robot tracked him through the wall, and much like Toru had said earlier, it really was accurate, as more bullets struck his armor.

He moved behind a shelf, and for the first time Sullivan realized they’d been pinned down in a library. He marveled at the stacks, which stretched to the ceiling. It was a rather nice collection.

Well, that was certainly an appropriate place for him to die.

He came around the corner shooting, dropping another two soldiers and injuring a third. A Fade came through the wall, grabbed onto his arm, and tried to sink them both into the floor. Sullivan surged his Power hard, making himself as dense as when he’d fallen from the sky, and the Fade was simply unable to muster enough Power to drag them into the ground. The second he reformed, Toru smote the ninja’s head from his shoulders with the club.

It felt like the entire Iron Guard collectively opened fire. Bullets tore through everything. Books ignited under the intense heat. Lightning arced through the doorways and tracked up the electrical outlets, and the overhead lighting exploded in a shower of sparks. Sullivan was hit at least another dozen times. Another bullet pierced his side, and he winced as breathing filled his lungs with fire. “Son of a bitch.” Another pierced the armor of his leg and ripped through his calf. He crashed into a shelf and fell to the floor.

Toru lurched to the side as a heavy round struck him in the helmet. It was an incendiary, and it was still glowing like a coal. It sizzled as it burned his forehead. Toru wrenched the damaged helmet off and threw it away. “Curse you dogs!” And then he had to rub the fire out of his hair.

The noise tapered off as the Iron Guard reloaded or let their Power recollect.

He didn’t know what was going on around them, but there was a terrible racket outside. Entire buildings were falling down and there was Power humming through the air like he’d never felt before. But he knew hundreds of troops were converging on the mansion.

“We are surrounded,” Toru stated with grim finality.

Sullivan pulled another mag for the BAR. The origami duck fell from the mag pouch and landed on the floor in a puddle of blood. Sullivan studied it for a moment, picked it up, and then went back to reloading his rifle. “I’m not the surrendering type.”

“Agreed. I would rather die looking a fellow warrior in the eye than wait in here and be executed like a fish in a bucket.”

“It’s like shooting fish in a barrel. You don’t execute fish.”

“Very well, Sullivan. We will die with honor. I leave this world with only two regrets. First, that we did not manage to kill the traitor, but we can die knowing that his infiltrators have been exposed.”

“I’m sure your father would be proud,” Sullivan said, and he wasn’t mocking Toru in the least when he said that. “What’s the other?”

Toru turned and looked him in the eye. “Now I really am curious to see who would have proven the better warrior between us . . .” He lurched over and offered his bloody hand to Sullivan. “Come, we finish this . . .
brother.
”

Hell, why not? He’d already had one Iron Guard for a brother. Sullivan took the bloody hand. He winced in pain as Toru helped him stand.

There was a commotion among the Iron Guard. Something was going on at the mansion’s entrance. Sullivan risked a look around the corner.

It was the imposter.

He was torn, battered, burned, bleeding. His uniform hung in tatters, but he was not running. Somehow, Sullivan understood. Saito was no longer in charge. This was the Pathfinder, and it was done running. It had been exposed, and its war had begun. It was coming to kill them, and then it would kill every Iron Guard, and then it would consume the whole city.

Toru had seen it as well. They exchanged a glance. “Fortune smiles upon us.”

“Let’s end this fucker.”

They went through the door. Sullivan put the sights on the Chairman and opened fire. Bullets stitched him through the torso in bright red splashes. Toru was right behind, and he fired his Power, leaping over Sullivan, screaming his battle cry.

“TOKUGAWA!”

There were Iron Guard all around. They reacted immediately and Sullivan was hit with more bullets than he could count and more forms of magic than he knew what to do with. The BAR was torn from his grasp, but without pause Sullivan drew his pistol and kept shooting as he pushed forward.

The Chairman didn’t so much as flinch as the bullets tore through him, he simply turned, his lips curling up in a snarl as he prepared to Travel out of Toru’s way.

Sullivan hit him with every bit of gravity he could muster. Every ounce of magic he could wring from his body, his spells, or drag from the Power itself was thrown into that burst. Any lesser being would have been flattened like a tin can being stamped by a heavy boot. The excess magic which bled off instantly killed three other Iron Guard.

But the Pathfinder had made Saito’s new body incredibly tough. Fifty extra earths’ worth of gravity hit flesh, but Saito didn’t die, even as a circle of cracks spread around his feet and marble was churned to dust. He tried to Travel away, but even somebody with that much magic couldn’t teleport weight equivalent to a fully loaded freight train.

Sullivan bellowed as the magic threatened to rip him apart, but he was not letting that bastard get away. Even with the new spell on his back, there was only so much one body could channel. The new spell began to smoke and his flesh sizzled like bacon hitting a hot pan.

The Chairman raised his hands as if he was pushing back against the gravity. Sullivan felt the magic recoil back against him. He roared.

Toru was struck in mid-air by another Brute, and the two crashed at the Chairman’s feet. Toru rolled over, slamming the other Iron Guard in the face with his fist. Blood flew. A powerful Mover blasted Toru away. He hit a pillar hard enough to shatter it and came right back up. An Iron Guard got in the way of Toru’s tetsubo and died, and then another, blood flew as a ninja appeared and drove his sword through a gaping hole in Toru’s armor.

Dosan Saito’s eyes narrowed as he pushed back against the gravity. They both knew, one second after that pull let up, he would escape, and the harvest would continue.

You ain’t getting away.
Sullivan concentrated. He had nothing left to give. He couldn’t push any harder. Keeping this up was taking inhuman focus. An Iron Guard slammed a rifle butt over Sullivan’s head and the wood stock shattered. Another came from behind and hamstrung him with a sword. Sullivan went to his knees in a shower of blood.

Constant as gravity . . .
Fuck you, Jake Sullivan don’t quit that easy.

Toru flung off the other Iron Guards and swung right over Sullivan’s head, and the ninja who’d nearly cut Sullivan’s leg off was torn in half.

Something changed. The light seemed to brighten. Beams showed between the floating dust and blood and gunsmoke, cutting as clean as the sword which had just pierced his flesh. It was like the light was coming from heaven, and it brought truth with it as the
Traveler
aimed Fuller’s ray beam at the city.

There was a horrific thing bonded to the fake Chairman. It could be seen clear as day, hanging there. It screeched as the light scorched through it. That was the real Pathfinder, and it knew that it was done for.

The Iron Guards stopped struggling. They cried out in shocked disbelief as they saw the reality of what they’d been fighting and dying for. There were other monsters there too, pretending to be Iron Guards, and they were revealed for what they really were. They were just sponges, collecting up the magical energy as the real Iron Guards died around them.

Exposed, the monsters fell on the Iron Guards, ripping them apart with terrible savagery. Every inch of the vast marble room was quickly covered in blood.

But the Iron Guards were no longer trying to kill Toru. The unstoppable force came off the floor, the tetsubo was rising. Sullivan saw it coming. Dosan Saito and the Pathfinder didn’t.

“TOKUGAWA!”

Sullivan cut his Power and collapsed.

Toru smashed the club down onto Saito’s shoulder. Half the bones in Saito’s body exploded. He struck again. Defined by the light, the Pathfinder was vulnerable. The Pathfinder shrieked as it was compressed into pulp. Tentacles ripped from Saito’s eyes and ears in bright sprays of red. Toru smashed the legs out from under Saito and he hit the floor, totally pulverized.

The Pathfinder was crawling away, leaving a trail of black ooze. Sullivan dragged himself forward, leaving a trail of red blood. He reached the monster and lifted one steel arm. It screeched in frustration. Sullivan channeled everything he had left into a single pinpoint of terrible gravity and brought his fist down like the
finger of God
and he smashed it through the Earth
.

The center of the Pathfinder collapsed. The outer edges of the creature blew up like a balloon before it burst beneath the terrible pressure.

The Pathfinder was dead.

Sullivan lay there, bleeding. The spell on his back had been burned out, forever extinguished, pushed too far. His body wasn’t far behind. Toru took a few halting steps, and then fell, blood drizzling down his arms from several deep wounds.

Saito was still breathing, barely. Blood was coming out of his mouth with every breath. Toru had utterly destroyed the man, and Sullivan had destroyed the Pathfinder.

The Iron Guard were occupied battling the monsters. It was as if the three dying men were alone.

“That was for my father,” Toru spat. “I reclaim my honor, traitor.”

Saito went first. He rattled out one last gurgling breath, and was gone.

But the Pathfinder had been a spiteful beast, and it had prepared one final spell of revenge. A glowing line appeared in the air over the splattered creature, and it quickly drew itself into an elaborate kanji floating in the air. Sullivan could not read it, but he could feel chaotic energy building.

“Boomer,” Toru said with tired resignation.

Sullivan opened his hand and examined the bloody paper duck.

A few seconds later the mansion exploded.

Art to come

Sullivan & Toru armored

Chapter 23

Take the case of courage. No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,” is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.

—G.K. Chesterton,

Orthodoxy,
1908

Drew Town, New Jersey

“Well,
this has certainly been an exciting way to pass the evening,” Hammer said.

“Palling around with us last time must have spoiled you,” Jane answered. “It can’t all be Iron Guards and superdemons, now can it?”

Hammer got comfy. “Wake me when your
something
happens.”

They were taking turns watching the orderly streets of Drew Town through a pair of binoculars. The large number of electric lamps and their position on a rise above the populated part of town made the watching easy. Monotonous, but easy. Francis felt like they were well hidden, but since nobody was looking for them, it didn’t particularly matter.

The town was growing fast. The construction crews were working around the clock. They could clearly hear the machinery running from their current position. More families had moved in since their last visit, so there were probably several hundred people living there now. Francis moved the binoculars across the streets, but it was quiet. Hopefully the elder’s warning had been a false alarm. So then tomorrow he’d just be exhausted as he went about his day’s business of being raked over Roosevelt’s malicious coals.