Re: Chapter VI - Asunder
Posted: Fri Aug 23, 2019 1:12 am
The office proper wasn't quite oval and it also didn't have a centuries-old and lovingly-maintained desk standing in pride of place. This had probably been a second living room for an optionally partitioned second suite, but the Krieger's staff had supplied Jones with a still ornate-looking chunk of oiled Neoclassical wooden perfection - not quite the Resolute Desk, then.
Zebediah tried for an uneasy smile. "If this isn't the Resolute Desk, could it serve as its close cousin, I wonder? The Obstinate Secretary, the Pugnacious Pulpit?"
Jones laughed, but the sound felt more like an attempt at politeness than outright humor. "Maybe, maybe," he allowed, smiling reservedly. "Humor's good; I used to be the jittery type before public addresses, back when I worked and lived in Philadelphia."
Eliphas nodded. "Back when you headed Philadelphia's Greater Metropolitan School Board," he said. "Before your claim to fame.
- Yes," agreed the President. "It's... more than a while ago, now, but I used to like to open speeches with jokes, dig into all that useless trivia that ends up clogging your average dragon's head over time and find something to enliven the crowd. I wanted to do it when I first addressed this sanctum's workers to thank them for their generosity and, well..."
His smile looked contrite. "I couldn't make it work. I think you understood why, mister Whitney."
The Weaver nodded. "Sure do, sir. S'hard to crack a smile when you've got none left. Nobody held it against you, of that much I'm convinced. Only, now..."
Something passed between both men, leaving Dafyd to nod. "Now, we've got something to smile about. We play our cards right, we'll have enough joke material for years to come."
General Hodges walked in from behind the group and stood beside the dragon. He nodded at her.
She cleared her throat and looked at the others. "Simply put, we're Leonidas' Spartans, and out there is Thermopylae," she said. "We have the Fourth Airborne, guard posts each staffing two hundred men for every focal point along the city's outer circle. There's five points, so you do the math. Ten thousand men against the Goat's infinity. Luckily for us, we have our own version of infinity on our side, with Messenger's people constantly tossing millions of angels from a fixed Celestial tear in the sky, a few miles south of Houston."
She pointed her chin at one of the windows, where a brilliant pillar of gold-white light shone in the sky, like a fixed aurora borealis. The angels might've looked as small as mayflies from a distance, but each of them was carried atop blazing wings, all of them headed straight for them, on a direct path to another glow that could be seen in the opposite window, low and red against the darkening sky.
"Without Celestial Command," she said, "we'd be toast. As it stands, though, parts of Earth where resistance effectively formed are likely going to turn into physical relatives of Limbo, if nobody's done to break up the stalemate. We can't push against the Fiends, and adding mortal lives to the mêlée would force the Host to issue protection details. They can't afford to redistribute their attention and we can't afford to lose them. Walpurgis is on the front lines - the Goat has no plans for this place. Intelligence suggests he intends to raze the city, wipe it and any main Nexuses from the map. Paradoxically, other cities with large Nexuses are viewed as already conquered. We already know he intends to keep Hope for his own designs."
She flipped a convertible laptop into Tablet Stand mode and set it so the others could look.
"The plan involves our using Walpurgis as bait. We've transacted with the local Fae and curried enough favors to call for a major cantrip, one that would effectively trans-locate the entire city half a plane away. Suddenly, all the Fiends would see would be open fields and riverbanks. They'd see it as our having surrendered and would immediately set to work in claiming this new space for themselves - as if the Texians and German nationals never had."
She shifted her slides around. "We open two Gates from there. One leads back to Hope: we send you all through it. The catch is we've set the Gate to lead you to the mayor's mansion - and to Allocer. Your end of the deal is simple: he has to understand that we're effectively holding Hell's commanders for Texas hostage. One word, and we can reset Walpurgis' place in reality. Seeing as two objects can't occupy the same space, and seeing as Pride won't be able to resist sending in the Goat and a few lead commanders to gloat - we'll literally crush them. He won't care about his footsoldiers, but he will care about his commanders."
Another slide. "While this is happening, we send everything we've got through to Hope, around Magnus Tower and Centennial Park. It'll be one Gate for two fronts, so it can't be any standard aperture - which is handy for our third group of allies. The local Summer and Winter Fae are allied with us, and they'll add their numbers to the group. Short-term, we hold our ground. As soon as the Weavers' package hits and Lightbringer returns, we attack."
Hodges closed the tablet. "Ancillary plans are being developed by the dragons exiled in Vienna. There was talk about storming Fae Gates and forcibly removing their demonic administrators, then organizing the largest trans-planar mobilization the world would've ever seen. All Gates pointed to Hope, all of the world's dragons raining fire and acid on the Pitspawn."
She pursed her lips together. "Then, there's the simplest and most dangerous element of the plan. The Conclave is to open a corporeal Gate here, in the sanctum, that would lead directly above the Goat's main barracks, just east of the Inverted Spire that Shield's last raid in Hell destroyed."
Another slide, showing blueprints for an MIT-developed hybrid tech device; a nanotech-hydrogen bomb. "We crack Riona's prison open with ordnance that makes Chernobyl look like a wet fart and cripple the Goat's means of production. A team of remote-piloted armatures descend through the rift and recover her."
Amy parted with a terse smile. "We anticipate that Wrath is going to want to put its trump cards down - either by cracking the Hole in Riona's absence or by supporting the Goat's sending-in of Azazel. In the case of Option One, we've been covertly opening small rifts above the Hole for weeks, dropping in corpses from our own Wrath grunts. We gave the Others a taste of demonic blood, and their thralls are going to be wholly focused on decimating those who tried to free them. With the Gentlemen and Lucian Rothchild, removing them from the battlefield is a definitive possibility. If Option Two is played, we play Option One unless some other contingency arises. If something else does come up that gives us an edge, we support it instead."
Archie looked thoughtful. "Allocer will request a deal; he's tasted power and now represents his own demonic constituents. I could see him stating the need to uphold democracy, to give the enclave's law-abiding demons a chance to decide their own fate."
Dafyd nodded. "He'll have his deal," he said. "Fair elections once a détente is declared. If his people feel like voting for him to lead Hope, they'll have the chance to do so. If the remainder of the populace decides to reinstate Wallace Doherty, he'll have fairly obtained a seat in the City Council's opposition.
- His Pride will show through," reminded Holden. "This might strike him as a pithy deal.
- Then you'll remind him that him holding a seat means he'll have benefited from a full pardon. If he doesn't appreciate that, you'll remind him that the alternative is spending the next several millennia trapped in a five-by-five ritual circle. Not in Chimera Row, but here, in Walpurgis - surrounded by people who have centuries of experience in withstanding the Damned's wiles."
Jones sniffed lightly, looking away for an instant as he contemplated things. "Democracy is its own gilded cage, Archibald. I'm a dragon. By power and might alone, I could overpower everyone in this room. I could end what we've all worked together to achieve over the centuries, shutter all hopes for further equality and progress by sating my hypothetically massive Ego. I could instate a monarchy, crown myself as America's eternal King... The fact is that I haven't, and that I've never so much as entertained that thought beyond rhetorical exercises like this one. Do you know why?
- I can think of a few things, as a pluricentennial man, myself," admitted Holden. "Lawful behavior is peaceful by default. Respect breeds peace. You, by and large, have more to gain in treating all of us as equals, in knowing that we named you for office and that once your term ends, we'll have raised our expectations towards your successor in accordance."
Dafyd nodded. "Allocer needs to understand that all of us empowered beings, from angels to the Fae, to demons or Void Weavers, have the privilege of meeting our mundane compatriots as equals. It's not a duty or an obligation, but it's a sacred right. I am what and who I am because I listened to my constituents, because I attended boring town halls with bad coffee and stale donuts, and because I displayed the one, true gift a long life gives us: maturity. More than two thirds of the world's population will never live past a hundred years; they're the ones who should be given stewardship of the world. They ebb and flow as Nature ebbs and flows. The world as we know it wouldn't survive immortals taking the reins for more than normal democratic terms allow."
Zebediah nodded. "Besides, the immortals have had their time in the limelight: they've founded civilizations, structured myth and legend, inspired belief systems..."
Hodges nodded. "I see where you're headed, mister Buck, but our being immortal doesn't render us forfeit from existing as citizens. If it did, the Vienna Accords would've never survived their first draft and I wouldn't be General. What Allocer needs to understand is that it's natural for us immortals to live alongside mortals, by their rules and in accordance with their cycles. The Accords' Employment Act of 1981 states that I'm allowed fifteen years in a position like mine. This is my tenth. I'll retire in five years, gain the benefits I'm owed for ten more years and then will receive assistance to re-integrate the job sector elsewhere. Seeing as my bloodline comes with no overt drawbacks, I'll have my high-interest savings taxed to fund social programs for the mortals and mundanes."
Zeb seemed surprised. "Seeing as you date back to the Civil War, one could've assumed you would've turned to idle wealth, since then."
She shrugged. "There's no law against it, yes, but I can't see myself pulling an Alexander Ruthven. I believe in this country and in its people enough to willingly chip in, and the Vienna Council spent so long promoting concrete capital investments as a means of diversification and re-integration that I can't see myself not wanting to lead by example. That's what Allocer's peers need to understand, and what the Socratic types already knew. If one good thing came out of the incursions, it was our ability to chart who happened to fleece cash from Mammon to further Progressive causes. You know a few of them by name, I think: Melmoth, Naberius, Bob O'Malley..."
Helena leaned on the doorframe, having refused to sit down. "This is all well and good, but noble intent still does not speak to Pride. You have not spoken the sham mayor's language yet. You have not slaked his Pride."
Smirking, Hodges slid a manila folder over. "Here's something you'll carry over. Feel free to browse through it; it took a lot of work for our friends from Upstairs to consent to give us proof of a decades-long municipal career that hasn't even officially begun, yet. The short of it is that Allocer eventually comes to do a lot of good for Hope, in a lot of concurrent potential futures. It takes some doing and there's a few severe missteps, but there's a chance the Infernal poster boy could turn into the ideal conscientious objector for a baby superhuman walrus who'd sometimes rather pile-drive nosy taxpayers from the opposite ideological end of the table."
Brenner blinked. "Is he that bad, in the future?
- Not with anybody in particular, no," reassured Jones, "except demons. He'll develop a very narrow view of the Pitspawn - not that he can be blamed - and might only grudgingly tolerate those Shield associates with. Everyone else? Potential freeloaders one bad idea short of possessing a gaggle of innocents while going on a crime spree. Allocer more or less picks up after Baverly Walton - acting as his more stable surrogate, there to call out racism when it does rear its ugly head."
* * *
Hogarth pushed, groaned out of pure rage - and the more he pushed, the less like Hogarth he looked. Facial tendrils turned shorter, his build turned lankier and more top-heavy, fingers growing almost claw-like. A maw of teeth formed even as the Void Weaver's inner beak receded back into the upper curve of his gullet. All the while, Magnus kept a careful foot forward while the other Freaks pushed and penned the adversary away. In the meantime, Grimley's loud sobs went from expressing rage and regret to finally evoking sorrow. For a few minutes, he didn't evoke distress or the mocked falsetto sobs he'd used to produce to deflect shows of concern, instead allowing himself to fully feel what he felt - to healthily mourn for those he'd lost.
Then, the barbary organ and calliope etched out a melody Aislinn might've been too young to recall, unless she'd been a diehard Robert Zemeckis fan. Desolation Jones picked up on it and turned around, keeping his back close to Hogarth even as he hooked his thumbs in his jeans' belt and tapped his foot along, as if waiting for the right cue to start singing. Then so did Adora, Konrad, Doctor Dickens and Hermes the Great - the weightlifter whose wardrobe Tom had drawn on. So did Sasha and Vanya, the Russian twins-turned-undead contortionists and trapeze artists that weren't above using their state for shock value. A few other faces were present, some of whom Aislinn wouldn't recall. There was a bearded lady, ostensibly dating from one of the production's earlier shows, and a mustachioed magician Amazo would've probably accused of stealing his limelight. There was also was what had to be the troupe's former token World's Largest Baby, ostensibly a grown three-hundred-pound man who looked like a diaper-wearing and obese cousin of Fester Addams, along with a few more. All carried the troupe's signature look of off-kilter awareness, all of them grinned from ear to ear, and all of them sang on cue:
Smile, darn ya, smile
You know this old world is a great world after all
Smile, darn ya, smile
And right away watch Lady Luck pay you a call
Things are never black as they are painted
Time for you and joy to get acquainted
Make life worthwhile
Come on and smile, darn ya, smile
Smile, darn ya, smile
For there is nothing that you cannot overcome
Smile, darn ya, smile
And where the clouds appear you soon will find the sun
Life is really only what you make it
Stand right up and show them you can take it
Make life worthwhile
Come on and smile, darn ya, smile
At each verse, the orchestra, organs and calliope all seemed to get a tiny bit out of tune, perhaps intentionally - slowly sliding back from the Merrie Melodies-worthy jauntiness and into a funereal dirge twisted into something lively and uplifting by sheer dint of effort. They looped back into the intro, setting the stage for a second run - at which point Horatio wasn't sobbing anymore. The glow of Aislinn's joy was seeping into him, now, visibly questing along his veins, and hit his heart like a jolt from a car battery. Shadows partially enveloped him, Aislinn would feel the cold of the Void slip against her limbs, the music partially covered Hogarth's screams-
And Horatio laughed. Quietly at first, almost intimately, but with a dark and lively energy that slowly gained traction and grew, gained in dimension and power, until his shaking frame gently released the roane. He winked at her as he sank into the darkness, Shadow-Walking as Calhoun had, earlier, as he, himself had back in the waking world.
"Oh, Morris, Morris, Morris... Is it alright if I call you Morris? You're insignificant to me, so it feels à-propos of me to leave you with the name of something that usually leaves me doubled over in fits. To think you believed yourself capable of fooling them, of defeating some of my closest allies in centuries - people I've barely interacted with - is an absolute riot!"
He madly cackled for a bit, the troupe joining in for a few seconds. "Do you really think you would've fooled them? I can't see you pouring your heart out through fiendishness and trickery, or marveling at life's beauty from the twilit promontory of undeath - do you? You, caring for little ones and their stained cheeks, for their oblivious parents and friends, even if it means unsettling them under eerie late-summer moons? You and wisdom sprinkled through nonsense, knowledge doled out like corkers and gut-bursters? No, of course not! You're a figment of Wrath; you'd miss the point and think I scare them because I resent them! No, you poor fool! No, no, no! I scare, you wretched Fiend, because I love!"
His voice turned grim, like it had when he'd threatened Aislinn, Hannibal and Tom. "Although in your case, I think I'll make an exception. Anyone who messes with family is made an example of, as per tradition. I think..."
Evil relish tinted his voice as shadows in front of the selkie and warlock deepened. Out walked Grimley, clad in his usual Ringleader regalia, eyes low, lit with murderously gleeful energy, painted tentacles flaring menacingly, following the mockingly playful twirls of his reed cane.
"I think we'll keep him, dear friends..."
The troupe laughed at that, the sound of it both playful and sinister, the projected audience laughed along with them, even while Tom gave Grimley an uncertain look. "Horatio, keeping one of Wrath's goons in your own psyche is the worst idea imaginable. You've beat him now, but who's to say he won't find something else to pull at, some other way to diminish you?"
Horatio wrung his gloved hands together, his head ducking between his shoulders as he chuckled. "Demons aren't the only ones with schemes, Tommy boy. I'll need our friend here as reference material, see? Nothing too complex, just a little half-hour back in Sandhill, in what's left of Goliath's warehouse after Wrath took it over! All I need is willing bait - I mean, heroic new best friends - time enough to get reacquainted with the flesh, and a few minutes to wash this makeup off."
Tom followed along. "You want to get close to Valefor, make him think the upstart's succeeded...
- If I'm close enough for a promotion, I'm close enough to rip his throat out and Shadow-Walk back out here before his guards will have time to stop me," explained the blighted Void Weaver.
Magnus was about to object when something made him narrow his eyes. "Wait - how deliberate was your decision to stick so close to Centennial Park, exactly?" he asked, which made the Ringleader widen his eyes and belt out a guffaw that transitioned into a wheeze. He pointed at Magnus as he did, as though the warthog had said something truly ridiculous.
"He thinks... He honestly thinks... I'd want to get possessed! No, you adorable dolt; I was only thinking in terms of selflessness and sacrifice, when I opted to stay so close! With Sophia and Arthur around, I thought nobody would so much as get to me! Then Arthur slipped and the mayor turned and, well..."
Recovering from his latest bout, he took a few seconds to hug Aislinn back. "You live long enough, you sort of learn to turn lemons into lemonade. If you've tasted ours in the past, then you're not without knowing we food-deprived wretches still know our way around a well-stocked concession stand."
He grinned. "In this case, though, I'd be the lemon and you'd all be sugar!"
A few cackles were parted with, Horatio then turning gleefully morbid again. "First things first, though: after I exfoliate, we're Shadow-Walking out to Celestial Command - and I'm getting my friends back. As much as I love the two of you, I'm not comfortable with shipping all four of us into a demon-infested warehouse. We'll need able hands."
Tom caught the slight inference. "You know we weren't alone?
- Tommy boy, it takes a vampire to know another vampire by scent," explained the Squid. "For prophetic auguries like my troupe and myself, there also has to be one or two sociopaths with fangs - and they need their own control mechanisms. Hannibal Calhoun likes to think he's sane, but Lucifer's marked him all the same. He'll snap for certain, if he spends enough time in Hope."
He then glanced out at the troupe and their continued mockery of the demon's diminished form, his gaze turning wistful. His frame stopped shaking. "Family," he said. "It's crazy how our loved ones aren't necessarily those we're born with," he observed, sounding oddly lucid in the moment. "I barely remember Hogarth's birth parents... How do you feel about the others in Shield, Magnus?"
Tom glanced at Aislinn with a smirk and placed a hand on Horatio's shoulder. "I feel the same," he said. "Welcome to the family, Horatio."
* * *
The atrium was soon evacuated, safe for the Jabberwocky, Abdiel and Melmoth. The Jabberwock was the first to lift his head with a groan, his hands coming up to massage his temples. "Oh, my aching head," he muttered, his eyes looking unusually focused, even behind his heavy eyelids. "Who - Who turned up the brightness on those neon bulbs?" he asked, wincing. "I can hear them buzzing all the way down here!"
Melmoth took a cautious step forward. "Do ya feel any different, fella?
- I feel like I spent the last several centuries on one of those newfangled party drugs the mortals keep inventing," replied Ethelred, "and now I'm on the come-down to beat all come-downs!"
Melmoth scoffed lightly out of empathy. "I'll bet. How's the conscience?
- Fine, I guess," muttered the insectile dragon. "I feel as though I could track exactly where my own sense of guilt ends and Abdiel's gifted perspective begins. I can see all the cues I used to miss, all the signs of a life still well-lived, but self-forgiveness isn't something you can just magic into being," he said. "I'm a genius with mechanics and micro-electronics, but a complete dunce when it comes to my inner workings. I'll need a little while so I can picture the Orkneys without my guts quailing."
He then smacked his lips together. "Dearie me, even stringing normal sentences together feels alien! You'll have to forgive me if I slip back into Lewis Carroll on occasion; I feel like someone's forced me to slip into a store-bought waistcoat!"
In the back, someone chuckled weakly, perhaps disbelievingly. "I feel... better!" lightly exclaimed Seward. "There's still a certain distance, a certain je-ne-sais-quoi of utter boredom; but its pull isn't inexorable!"
His working around the bleachers and towards Tanner and Aspasia might have looked a little plodding, but it was obvious he was comparatively whizzing about, in opposition to how lethargic he'd previously been. "Cordatus old boy," he started, "do me a favor, would you? Say something boring!"
Glancing back at Amaterasu and Abdiel, Tanner lightly stammered and then half-convincingly blurted out the first few Latin words of one of Caesar's Senate speeches. Interest lightly waned from Seward's eyes and he noisily stifled a yawn. "Pity," he then said, "I thought I'd have all of my old interests back... I don't imagine the fair lady thought it wise to lift my narcolepsy, did she?"
Amaterasu nodded in uncertainty. "We thought it wiser to maintain your unique perspectives, while gifting them with clarity and surety of purpose. I consider it a success, Theobald - you'd never have spoken to me, previously. Speaking of - what you are isn't narcoleptic. I think you should know this by now."
Theobald yawned again. "I know, I know... I suppose I'll just have to find out how irrepressible episodes of deep sleep coupled with sleepwalking are beneficial to me. At least, now I have impetus enough for active research, and for my honorary post as Avalon's Chronicler to be worth a damn. For now, I'll settle with cleaning up my mess and then seeing about preparing for a few outcomes once we come out on top."
Melmoth was a bit confused. "We're not even sure the world's dragons would be enough to defeat Hope's Pitspawn!
- I am phlegmatic by default, good sir," replied Theobald after yawning and snorting. "That, however, does not make me a pessimist."
* * *
Leaving the main path resulted in Drake and Aspasia being blasted by even more colors, sounds and scents, as if the Wilds themselves were trying a fair bit harder to have them succumb to their wiles. Still, as the main group disappeared behind them, so did a small grove open onto their right. There, the trees were far less clustered together, and the wider spaces between them had created inviting pockets of shadow. It was in one of those pockets that Isaacs waited, kneeling next to a man who wouldn't have been out of place in South Africa, during Colonial Britain's heyday. The fellow had a sun-kissed complexion, sunken cheeks and a Roman nose, dark blue eyes waiting below bushy blonde eyebrows. With mid-length hair and friendly mutton chops that transitioned into a chevron mustache, he looked faintly familiar to Aidan. With blood-stained khakis that were constantly oozing with seeping blood near his abdomen and a glint in his eyes that seemed suspended in that instant of clarity before death, he didn't exactly look too good. What didn't help was the four wooden spokes that were jammed into his lower chest, connected to a crude bamboo and rope assembly. Someone else had laid a trap here, fairly classic Guerilla Warfare spokes designed to either severely injure or outright kill whoever wouldn't notice the bent poles straining with tension. He clearly hadn't.
Still, Aidan didn't choose to dwell on the man's attire - khakis and an authentic pith helmet - and went straight into triaging him.
"How's the mesentery?" he asked Isaacs, as he got closer. "How are the other arteries?
- None of my implants work here," tersely replied Rupert, "but he's bleeding like a stuck pig, losing the stuff as fast as he's producing it, somehow. I'd bet on the mesentery, possibly a few other abdominal vessels. If you'll lean in, you can smell burning wood. His system didn't enter shock and he's still producing gastric fluid. I couldn't pull on the spoke assembly on my own, but the smell is wretched. I think he's digested part of the bamboo even with holes through his stomach."
Aidan then looked back up. "Sir? Sir, can you hear me?"
Light crept back into the man's eyes, and he smiled weakly. "Ah," he weakly said, "I must have nodded off there, for a second. My apologies."
The hunter then weakly coughed, closed his eyes and gasped for breath, then forcing a smile on his face. "Commander Regis Woodford, Madras Europeans... I don't suppose you've found a chap by the name of Archie somewhere nearby, have you?"
He tried to go for a chuckle and then winced, instead laying a bloody hand on Aidan's tee-shirt. "My, what peculiar clothes! You must - You must be one of these Yankee reservists we so seldom see, hm? You're a mite too pale for a Sepoy, if I might..."
Three swallowed uneasily. "Let's get you out of here, first," he said, then looking back to Aspasia and Isaacs. "Follow the assembly's shaft, there must be some kind of knot or some sort of crude joint you could undo or smash apart. Rupert, I need you to pull evenly on the assembly's head, alright?
- You'll kill him if you let his wounds bleed freely!" opposed the cyborg scientist, which made Three's jaw clench. "Not in here, I won't - at least not going by Morgana's rules. We don't have a saw handy, the bamboo looks green, so the best option we've got involves pulling him out by hand."
Drake parted with a few more soothing words and went to help Aspasia. "Look at the size of that stalk," he said, even as he tried to pull away at a tangle of jury-rigged rope made out of threaded weeds. Whoever cut it must've had access to modern tools," he said, "or they're giants with saw-toothed blades the size of ironing boards."
Isaacs sighed in impatience. "This could take forever, you know.
- Then it's a good thing that we've got forever to do this while in here," Aidan retorted. "Either this budges somehow, or I pull out my pistols to try and shoot off enough bark and pulp to tear the pole off of the hinge."
* * *
"Oh, he's already proud," reassured Kevin with a smile. "if I know him well enough, he had you Blue Chimeras pegged from the beginning. There were stories about him arguing with the other breed representatives, back in Avalon. The Blacks thought Elysium should've been wiped off the map, the Westerners weren't sure if they needed to focus on helping the survivors or keeping Rendell from reaching Nexuses or relics, and Shen and Amaterasu were the only ones saying your mother's people needed help, too. They knew someone who suffered from a lack of perspective when they saw them, and they knew that was the Chimeras' only real fault."
Leonard smiled. "Case in point: your parents, Miranda."
Zebediah tried for an uneasy smile. "If this isn't the Resolute Desk, could it serve as its close cousin, I wonder? The Obstinate Secretary, the Pugnacious Pulpit?"
Jones laughed, but the sound felt more like an attempt at politeness than outright humor. "Maybe, maybe," he allowed, smiling reservedly. "Humor's good; I used to be the jittery type before public addresses, back when I worked and lived in Philadelphia."
Eliphas nodded. "Back when you headed Philadelphia's Greater Metropolitan School Board," he said. "Before your claim to fame.
- Yes," agreed the President. "It's... more than a while ago, now, but I used to like to open speeches with jokes, dig into all that useless trivia that ends up clogging your average dragon's head over time and find something to enliven the crowd. I wanted to do it when I first addressed this sanctum's workers to thank them for their generosity and, well..."
His smile looked contrite. "I couldn't make it work. I think you understood why, mister Whitney."
The Weaver nodded. "Sure do, sir. S'hard to crack a smile when you've got none left. Nobody held it against you, of that much I'm convinced. Only, now..."
Something passed between both men, leaving Dafyd to nod. "Now, we've got something to smile about. We play our cards right, we'll have enough joke material for years to come."
General Hodges walked in from behind the group and stood beside the dragon. He nodded at her.
She cleared her throat and looked at the others. "Simply put, we're Leonidas' Spartans, and out there is Thermopylae," she said. "We have the Fourth Airborne, guard posts each staffing two hundred men for every focal point along the city's outer circle. There's five points, so you do the math. Ten thousand men against the Goat's infinity. Luckily for us, we have our own version of infinity on our side, with Messenger's people constantly tossing millions of angels from a fixed Celestial tear in the sky, a few miles south of Houston."
She pointed her chin at one of the windows, where a brilliant pillar of gold-white light shone in the sky, like a fixed aurora borealis. The angels might've looked as small as mayflies from a distance, but each of them was carried atop blazing wings, all of them headed straight for them, on a direct path to another glow that could be seen in the opposite window, low and red against the darkening sky.
"Without Celestial Command," she said, "we'd be toast. As it stands, though, parts of Earth where resistance effectively formed are likely going to turn into physical relatives of Limbo, if nobody's done to break up the stalemate. We can't push against the Fiends, and adding mortal lives to the mêlée would force the Host to issue protection details. They can't afford to redistribute their attention and we can't afford to lose them. Walpurgis is on the front lines - the Goat has no plans for this place. Intelligence suggests he intends to raze the city, wipe it and any main Nexuses from the map. Paradoxically, other cities with large Nexuses are viewed as already conquered. We already know he intends to keep Hope for his own designs."
She flipped a convertible laptop into Tablet Stand mode and set it so the others could look.
"The plan involves our using Walpurgis as bait. We've transacted with the local Fae and curried enough favors to call for a major cantrip, one that would effectively trans-locate the entire city half a plane away. Suddenly, all the Fiends would see would be open fields and riverbanks. They'd see it as our having surrendered and would immediately set to work in claiming this new space for themselves - as if the Texians and German nationals never had."
She shifted her slides around. "We open two Gates from there. One leads back to Hope: we send you all through it. The catch is we've set the Gate to lead you to the mayor's mansion - and to Allocer. Your end of the deal is simple: he has to understand that we're effectively holding Hell's commanders for Texas hostage. One word, and we can reset Walpurgis' place in reality. Seeing as two objects can't occupy the same space, and seeing as Pride won't be able to resist sending in the Goat and a few lead commanders to gloat - we'll literally crush them. He won't care about his footsoldiers, but he will care about his commanders."
Another slide. "While this is happening, we send everything we've got through to Hope, around Magnus Tower and Centennial Park. It'll be one Gate for two fronts, so it can't be any standard aperture - which is handy for our third group of allies. The local Summer and Winter Fae are allied with us, and they'll add their numbers to the group. Short-term, we hold our ground. As soon as the Weavers' package hits and Lightbringer returns, we attack."
Hodges closed the tablet. "Ancillary plans are being developed by the dragons exiled in Vienna. There was talk about storming Fae Gates and forcibly removing their demonic administrators, then organizing the largest trans-planar mobilization the world would've ever seen. All Gates pointed to Hope, all of the world's dragons raining fire and acid on the Pitspawn."
She pursed her lips together. "Then, there's the simplest and most dangerous element of the plan. The Conclave is to open a corporeal Gate here, in the sanctum, that would lead directly above the Goat's main barracks, just east of the Inverted Spire that Shield's last raid in Hell destroyed."
Another slide, showing blueprints for an MIT-developed hybrid tech device; a nanotech-hydrogen bomb. "We crack Riona's prison open with ordnance that makes Chernobyl look like a wet fart and cripple the Goat's means of production. A team of remote-piloted armatures descend through the rift and recover her."
Amy parted with a terse smile. "We anticipate that Wrath is going to want to put its trump cards down - either by cracking the Hole in Riona's absence or by supporting the Goat's sending-in of Azazel. In the case of Option One, we've been covertly opening small rifts above the Hole for weeks, dropping in corpses from our own Wrath grunts. We gave the Others a taste of demonic blood, and their thralls are going to be wholly focused on decimating those who tried to free them. With the Gentlemen and Lucian Rothchild, removing them from the battlefield is a definitive possibility. If Option Two is played, we play Option One unless some other contingency arises. If something else does come up that gives us an edge, we support it instead."
Archie looked thoughtful. "Allocer will request a deal; he's tasted power and now represents his own demonic constituents. I could see him stating the need to uphold democracy, to give the enclave's law-abiding demons a chance to decide their own fate."
Dafyd nodded. "He'll have his deal," he said. "Fair elections once a détente is declared. If his people feel like voting for him to lead Hope, they'll have the chance to do so. If the remainder of the populace decides to reinstate Wallace Doherty, he'll have fairly obtained a seat in the City Council's opposition.
- His Pride will show through," reminded Holden. "This might strike him as a pithy deal.
- Then you'll remind him that him holding a seat means he'll have benefited from a full pardon. If he doesn't appreciate that, you'll remind him that the alternative is spending the next several millennia trapped in a five-by-five ritual circle. Not in Chimera Row, but here, in Walpurgis - surrounded by people who have centuries of experience in withstanding the Damned's wiles."
Jones sniffed lightly, looking away for an instant as he contemplated things. "Democracy is its own gilded cage, Archibald. I'm a dragon. By power and might alone, I could overpower everyone in this room. I could end what we've all worked together to achieve over the centuries, shutter all hopes for further equality and progress by sating my hypothetically massive Ego. I could instate a monarchy, crown myself as America's eternal King... The fact is that I haven't, and that I've never so much as entertained that thought beyond rhetorical exercises like this one. Do you know why?
- I can think of a few things, as a pluricentennial man, myself," admitted Holden. "Lawful behavior is peaceful by default. Respect breeds peace. You, by and large, have more to gain in treating all of us as equals, in knowing that we named you for office and that once your term ends, we'll have raised our expectations towards your successor in accordance."
Dafyd nodded. "Allocer needs to understand that all of us empowered beings, from angels to the Fae, to demons or Void Weavers, have the privilege of meeting our mundane compatriots as equals. It's not a duty or an obligation, but it's a sacred right. I am what and who I am because I listened to my constituents, because I attended boring town halls with bad coffee and stale donuts, and because I displayed the one, true gift a long life gives us: maturity. More than two thirds of the world's population will never live past a hundred years; they're the ones who should be given stewardship of the world. They ebb and flow as Nature ebbs and flows. The world as we know it wouldn't survive immortals taking the reins for more than normal democratic terms allow."
Zebediah nodded. "Besides, the immortals have had their time in the limelight: they've founded civilizations, structured myth and legend, inspired belief systems..."
Hodges nodded. "I see where you're headed, mister Buck, but our being immortal doesn't render us forfeit from existing as citizens. If it did, the Vienna Accords would've never survived their first draft and I wouldn't be General. What Allocer needs to understand is that it's natural for us immortals to live alongside mortals, by their rules and in accordance with their cycles. The Accords' Employment Act of 1981 states that I'm allowed fifteen years in a position like mine. This is my tenth. I'll retire in five years, gain the benefits I'm owed for ten more years and then will receive assistance to re-integrate the job sector elsewhere. Seeing as my bloodline comes with no overt drawbacks, I'll have my high-interest savings taxed to fund social programs for the mortals and mundanes."
Zeb seemed surprised. "Seeing as you date back to the Civil War, one could've assumed you would've turned to idle wealth, since then."
She shrugged. "There's no law against it, yes, but I can't see myself pulling an Alexander Ruthven. I believe in this country and in its people enough to willingly chip in, and the Vienna Council spent so long promoting concrete capital investments as a means of diversification and re-integration that I can't see myself not wanting to lead by example. That's what Allocer's peers need to understand, and what the Socratic types already knew. If one good thing came out of the incursions, it was our ability to chart who happened to fleece cash from Mammon to further Progressive causes. You know a few of them by name, I think: Melmoth, Naberius, Bob O'Malley..."
Helena leaned on the doorframe, having refused to sit down. "This is all well and good, but noble intent still does not speak to Pride. You have not spoken the sham mayor's language yet. You have not slaked his Pride."
Smirking, Hodges slid a manila folder over. "Here's something you'll carry over. Feel free to browse through it; it took a lot of work for our friends from Upstairs to consent to give us proof of a decades-long municipal career that hasn't even officially begun, yet. The short of it is that Allocer eventually comes to do a lot of good for Hope, in a lot of concurrent potential futures. It takes some doing and there's a few severe missteps, but there's a chance the Infernal poster boy could turn into the ideal conscientious objector for a baby superhuman walrus who'd sometimes rather pile-drive nosy taxpayers from the opposite ideological end of the table."
Brenner blinked. "Is he that bad, in the future?
- Not with anybody in particular, no," reassured Jones, "except demons. He'll develop a very narrow view of the Pitspawn - not that he can be blamed - and might only grudgingly tolerate those Shield associates with. Everyone else? Potential freeloaders one bad idea short of possessing a gaggle of innocents while going on a crime spree. Allocer more or less picks up after Baverly Walton - acting as his more stable surrogate, there to call out racism when it does rear its ugly head."
* * *
Hogarth pushed, groaned out of pure rage - and the more he pushed, the less like Hogarth he looked. Facial tendrils turned shorter, his build turned lankier and more top-heavy, fingers growing almost claw-like. A maw of teeth formed even as the Void Weaver's inner beak receded back into the upper curve of his gullet. All the while, Magnus kept a careful foot forward while the other Freaks pushed and penned the adversary away. In the meantime, Grimley's loud sobs went from expressing rage and regret to finally evoking sorrow. For a few minutes, he didn't evoke distress or the mocked falsetto sobs he'd used to produce to deflect shows of concern, instead allowing himself to fully feel what he felt - to healthily mourn for those he'd lost.
Then, the barbary organ and calliope etched out a melody Aislinn might've been too young to recall, unless she'd been a diehard Robert Zemeckis fan. Desolation Jones picked up on it and turned around, keeping his back close to Hogarth even as he hooked his thumbs in his jeans' belt and tapped his foot along, as if waiting for the right cue to start singing. Then so did Adora, Konrad, Doctor Dickens and Hermes the Great - the weightlifter whose wardrobe Tom had drawn on. So did Sasha and Vanya, the Russian twins-turned-undead contortionists and trapeze artists that weren't above using their state for shock value. A few other faces were present, some of whom Aislinn wouldn't recall. There was a bearded lady, ostensibly dating from one of the production's earlier shows, and a mustachioed magician Amazo would've probably accused of stealing his limelight. There was also was what had to be the troupe's former token World's Largest Baby, ostensibly a grown three-hundred-pound man who looked like a diaper-wearing and obese cousin of Fester Addams, along with a few more. All carried the troupe's signature look of off-kilter awareness, all of them grinned from ear to ear, and all of them sang on cue:
Smile, darn ya, smile
You know this old world is a great world after all
Smile, darn ya, smile
And right away watch Lady Luck pay you a call
Things are never black as they are painted
Time for you and joy to get acquainted
Make life worthwhile
Come on and smile, darn ya, smile
Smile, darn ya, smile
For there is nothing that you cannot overcome
Smile, darn ya, smile
And where the clouds appear you soon will find the sun
Life is really only what you make it
Stand right up and show them you can take it
Make life worthwhile
Come on and smile, darn ya, smile
At each verse, the orchestra, organs and calliope all seemed to get a tiny bit out of tune, perhaps intentionally - slowly sliding back from the Merrie Melodies-worthy jauntiness and into a funereal dirge twisted into something lively and uplifting by sheer dint of effort. They looped back into the intro, setting the stage for a second run - at which point Horatio wasn't sobbing anymore. The glow of Aislinn's joy was seeping into him, now, visibly questing along his veins, and hit his heart like a jolt from a car battery. Shadows partially enveloped him, Aislinn would feel the cold of the Void slip against her limbs, the music partially covered Hogarth's screams-
And Horatio laughed. Quietly at first, almost intimately, but with a dark and lively energy that slowly gained traction and grew, gained in dimension and power, until his shaking frame gently released the roane. He winked at her as he sank into the darkness, Shadow-Walking as Calhoun had, earlier, as he, himself had back in the waking world.
"Oh, Morris, Morris, Morris... Is it alright if I call you Morris? You're insignificant to me, so it feels à-propos of me to leave you with the name of something that usually leaves me doubled over in fits. To think you believed yourself capable of fooling them, of defeating some of my closest allies in centuries - people I've barely interacted with - is an absolute riot!"
He madly cackled for a bit, the troupe joining in for a few seconds. "Do you really think you would've fooled them? I can't see you pouring your heart out through fiendishness and trickery, or marveling at life's beauty from the twilit promontory of undeath - do you? You, caring for little ones and their stained cheeks, for their oblivious parents and friends, even if it means unsettling them under eerie late-summer moons? You and wisdom sprinkled through nonsense, knowledge doled out like corkers and gut-bursters? No, of course not! You're a figment of Wrath; you'd miss the point and think I scare them because I resent them! No, you poor fool! No, no, no! I scare, you wretched Fiend, because I love!"
His voice turned grim, like it had when he'd threatened Aislinn, Hannibal and Tom. "Although in your case, I think I'll make an exception. Anyone who messes with family is made an example of, as per tradition. I think..."
Evil relish tinted his voice as shadows in front of the selkie and warlock deepened. Out walked Grimley, clad in his usual Ringleader regalia, eyes low, lit with murderously gleeful energy, painted tentacles flaring menacingly, following the mockingly playful twirls of his reed cane.
"I think we'll keep him, dear friends..."
The troupe laughed at that, the sound of it both playful and sinister, the projected audience laughed along with them, even while Tom gave Grimley an uncertain look. "Horatio, keeping one of Wrath's goons in your own psyche is the worst idea imaginable. You've beat him now, but who's to say he won't find something else to pull at, some other way to diminish you?"
Horatio wrung his gloved hands together, his head ducking between his shoulders as he chuckled. "Demons aren't the only ones with schemes, Tommy boy. I'll need our friend here as reference material, see? Nothing too complex, just a little half-hour back in Sandhill, in what's left of Goliath's warehouse after Wrath took it over! All I need is willing bait - I mean, heroic new best friends - time enough to get reacquainted with the flesh, and a few minutes to wash this makeup off."
Tom followed along. "You want to get close to Valefor, make him think the upstart's succeeded...
- If I'm close enough for a promotion, I'm close enough to rip his throat out and Shadow-Walk back out here before his guards will have time to stop me," explained the blighted Void Weaver.
Magnus was about to object when something made him narrow his eyes. "Wait - how deliberate was your decision to stick so close to Centennial Park, exactly?" he asked, which made the Ringleader widen his eyes and belt out a guffaw that transitioned into a wheeze. He pointed at Magnus as he did, as though the warthog had said something truly ridiculous.
"He thinks... He honestly thinks... I'd want to get possessed! No, you adorable dolt; I was only thinking in terms of selflessness and sacrifice, when I opted to stay so close! With Sophia and Arthur around, I thought nobody would so much as get to me! Then Arthur slipped and the mayor turned and, well..."
Recovering from his latest bout, he took a few seconds to hug Aislinn back. "You live long enough, you sort of learn to turn lemons into lemonade. If you've tasted ours in the past, then you're not without knowing we food-deprived wretches still know our way around a well-stocked concession stand."
He grinned. "In this case, though, I'd be the lemon and you'd all be sugar!"
A few cackles were parted with, Horatio then turning gleefully morbid again. "First things first, though: after I exfoliate, we're Shadow-Walking out to Celestial Command - and I'm getting my friends back. As much as I love the two of you, I'm not comfortable with shipping all four of us into a demon-infested warehouse. We'll need able hands."
Tom caught the slight inference. "You know we weren't alone?
- Tommy boy, it takes a vampire to know another vampire by scent," explained the Squid. "For prophetic auguries like my troupe and myself, there also has to be one or two sociopaths with fangs - and they need their own control mechanisms. Hannibal Calhoun likes to think he's sane, but Lucifer's marked him all the same. He'll snap for certain, if he spends enough time in Hope."
He then glanced out at the troupe and their continued mockery of the demon's diminished form, his gaze turning wistful. His frame stopped shaking. "Family," he said. "It's crazy how our loved ones aren't necessarily those we're born with," he observed, sounding oddly lucid in the moment. "I barely remember Hogarth's birth parents... How do you feel about the others in Shield, Magnus?"
Tom glanced at Aislinn with a smirk and placed a hand on Horatio's shoulder. "I feel the same," he said. "Welcome to the family, Horatio."
* * *
The atrium was soon evacuated, safe for the Jabberwocky, Abdiel and Melmoth. The Jabberwock was the first to lift his head with a groan, his hands coming up to massage his temples. "Oh, my aching head," he muttered, his eyes looking unusually focused, even behind his heavy eyelids. "Who - Who turned up the brightness on those neon bulbs?" he asked, wincing. "I can hear them buzzing all the way down here!"
Melmoth took a cautious step forward. "Do ya feel any different, fella?
- I feel like I spent the last several centuries on one of those newfangled party drugs the mortals keep inventing," replied Ethelred, "and now I'm on the come-down to beat all come-downs!"
Melmoth scoffed lightly out of empathy. "I'll bet. How's the conscience?
- Fine, I guess," muttered the insectile dragon. "I feel as though I could track exactly where my own sense of guilt ends and Abdiel's gifted perspective begins. I can see all the cues I used to miss, all the signs of a life still well-lived, but self-forgiveness isn't something you can just magic into being," he said. "I'm a genius with mechanics and micro-electronics, but a complete dunce when it comes to my inner workings. I'll need a little while so I can picture the Orkneys without my guts quailing."
He then smacked his lips together. "Dearie me, even stringing normal sentences together feels alien! You'll have to forgive me if I slip back into Lewis Carroll on occasion; I feel like someone's forced me to slip into a store-bought waistcoat!"
In the back, someone chuckled weakly, perhaps disbelievingly. "I feel... better!" lightly exclaimed Seward. "There's still a certain distance, a certain je-ne-sais-quoi of utter boredom; but its pull isn't inexorable!"
His working around the bleachers and towards Tanner and Aspasia might have looked a little plodding, but it was obvious he was comparatively whizzing about, in opposition to how lethargic he'd previously been. "Cordatus old boy," he started, "do me a favor, would you? Say something boring!"
Glancing back at Amaterasu and Abdiel, Tanner lightly stammered and then half-convincingly blurted out the first few Latin words of one of Caesar's Senate speeches. Interest lightly waned from Seward's eyes and he noisily stifled a yawn. "Pity," he then said, "I thought I'd have all of my old interests back... I don't imagine the fair lady thought it wise to lift my narcolepsy, did she?"
Amaterasu nodded in uncertainty. "We thought it wiser to maintain your unique perspectives, while gifting them with clarity and surety of purpose. I consider it a success, Theobald - you'd never have spoken to me, previously. Speaking of - what you are isn't narcoleptic. I think you should know this by now."
Theobald yawned again. "I know, I know... I suppose I'll just have to find out how irrepressible episodes of deep sleep coupled with sleepwalking are beneficial to me. At least, now I have impetus enough for active research, and for my honorary post as Avalon's Chronicler to be worth a damn. For now, I'll settle with cleaning up my mess and then seeing about preparing for a few outcomes once we come out on top."
Melmoth was a bit confused. "We're not even sure the world's dragons would be enough to defeat Hope's Pitspawn!
- I am phlegmatic by default, good sir," replied Theobald after yawning and snorting. "That, however, does not make me a pessimist."
* * *
Leaving the main path resulted in Drake and Aspasia being blasted by even more colors, sounds and scents, as if the Wilds themselves were trying a fair bit harder to have them succumb to their wiles. Still, as the main group disappeared behind them, so did a small grove open onto their right. There, the trees were far less clustered together, and the wider spaces between them had created inviting pockets of shadow. It was in one of those pockets that Isaacs waited, kneeling next to a man who wouldn't have been out of place in South Africa, during Colonial Britain's heyday. The fellow had a sun-kissed complexion, sunken cheeks and a Roman nose, dark blue eyes waiting below bushy blonde eyebrows. With mid-length hair and friendly mutton chops that transitioned into a chevron mustache, he looked faintly familiar to Aidan. With blood-stained khakis that were constantly oozing with seeping blood near his abdomen and a glint in his eyes that seemed suspended in that instant of clarity before death, he didn't exactly look too good. What didn't help was the four wooden spokes that were jammed into his lower chest, connected to a crude bamboo and rope assembly. Someone else had laid a trap here, fairly classic Guerilla Warfare spokes designed to either severely injure or outright kill whoever wouldn't notice the bent poles straining with tension. He clearly hadn't.
Still, Aidan didn't choose to dwell on the man's attire - khakis and an authentic pith helmet - and went straight into triaging him.
"How's the mesentery?" he asked Isaacs, as he got closer. "How are the other arteries?
- None of my implants work here," tersely replied Rupert, "but he's bleeding like a stuck pig, losing the stuff as fast as he's producing it, somehow. I'd bet on the mesentery, possibly a few other abdominal vessels. If you'll lean in, you can smell burning wood. His system didn't enter shock and he's still producing gastric fluid. I couldn't pull on the spoke assembly on my own, but the smell is wretched. I think he's digested part of the bamboo even with holes through his stomach."
Aidan then looked back up. "Sir? Sir, can you hear me?"
Light crept back into the man's eyes, and he smiled weakly. "Ah," he weakly said, "I must have nodded off there, for a second. My apologies."
The hunter then weakly coughed, closed his eyes and gasped for breath, then forcing a smile on his face. "Commander Regis Woodford, Madras Europeans... I don't suppose you've found a chap by the name of Archie somewhere nearby, have you?"
He tried to go for a chuckle and then winced, instead laying a bloody hand on Aidan's tee-shirt. "My, what peculiar clothes! You must - You must be one of these Yankee reservists we so seldom see, hm? You're a mite too pale for a Sepoy, if I might..."
Three swallowed uneasily. "Let's get you out of here, first," he said, then looking back to Aspasia and Isaacs. "Follow the assembly's shaft, there must be some kind of knot or some sort of crude joint you could undo or smash apart. Rupert, I need you to pull evenly on the assembly's head, alright?
- You'll kill him if you let his wounds bleed freely!" opposed the cyborg scientist, which made Three's jaw clench. "Not in here, I won't - at least not going by Morgana's rules. We don't have a saw handy, the bamboo looks green, so the best option we've got involves pulling him out by hand."
Drake parted with a few more soothing words and went to help Aspasia. "Look at the size of that stalk," he said, even as he tried to pull away at a tangle of jury-rigged rope made out of threaded weeds. Whoever cut it must've had access to modern tools," he said, "or they're giants with saw-toothed blades the size of ironing boards."
Isaacs sighed in impatience. "This could take forever, you know.
- Then it's a good thing that we've got forever to do this while in here," Aidan retorted. "Either this budges somehow, or I pull out my pistols to try and shoot off enough bark and pulp to tear the pole off of the hinge."
* * *
"Oh, he's already proud," reassured Kevin with a smile. "if I know him well enough, he had you Blue Chimeras pegged from the beginning. There were stories about him arguing with the other breed representatives, back in Avalon. The Blacks thought Elysium should've been wiped off the map, the Westerners weren't sure if they needed to focus on helping the survivors or keeping Rendell from reaching Nexuses or relics, and Shen and Amaterasu were the only ones saying your mother's people needed help, too. They knew someone who suffered from a lack of perspective when they saw them, and they knew that was the Chimeras' only real fault."
Leonard smiled. "Case in point: your parents, Miranda."