“That’s the idea. Dr. Wells called it preconceived notions. Can you Travel me down there? I’ll need a few minutes to do what I’ve got to do before you start killing anybody.”
“I promise. I don’t like leaving Iron Guards alive on principle, but I know what you want to happen.” Faye turned her head quizzically to the side. “Your magic is different now. Not like mine, but different. Bigger.”
Sullivan studied her back. He’d never been able to see it before, but he could sort of, now, if he squinted just right. Faye had so much extra Power hanging around her it was like a fuzzy halo of raw magic. She’d always been strong, but this was downright scary. They had both changed a lot since that fateful day they’d met and she’d put some bullets in his back. “Girl, I don’t think anybody is close to you anymore.”
“That’s what I need to talk to you about before we do this.” Faye pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to him.
Sullivan studied it. It was a horrible picture, full of death and carnage, and Faye was some sort of monster ripping out people’s souls. “What’s this nonsense?”
“A possible future. You know about the Spellbound curse?”
“Not much. I learned more about it from Bradford Carr’s testimony than anything. The elders were mighty tight-lipped on that subject.”
“That’s because they like it secret, hoping nobody else was dumb enough to mess with it.” Faye spent the next few minutes explaining what she’d learned. When she outlined Sivaram’s genius schemes, Sullivan felt his jaw drop open. It was crazy, but it made a sick sort of sense, and as Faye spoke, Sullivan thought of Fuller and his stolen shoelaces. The Spellbound was one step removed from the Enemy, if not in overall strength, in potential for chaos.
Poor Faye.
“I can beat the Pathfinder, but it might change me. I need you to live, Mr. Sullivan. Please, do everything you can to live through this, because if this goes wrong, and I’m not strong enough, and I get corrupted and turn evil, you’re the only one who may be tough enough or smart enough to kill me. Promise me, if I start to change, if I’m not in control, you’ll put me out of my misery.”
Sullivan swallowed hard. Faye was deadly earnest. “Faye… That’s…”
“Please, Mr. Sullivan.”
“Don’t you worry. I swear that I’ll do whatever I have to. But this?” Sullivan reached into his shirt and fumbled around until he found a book of matches. He took it out and struck one. He lit the picture on fire. Faye tried to snatch the drawing back from him, but Sullivan gently blocked her hand. “No, Faye. This is bullshit. This is not you. This isn’t set in stone. This isn’t real. You decide your future. No person, no magic, not Power or Enemy, God or the Devil, they just offer you paths. Only you choose which one you take. Got it?”
Faye folded her arms, like she was hugging herself, but she did manage to nod in the affirmative, and then she started crying again.
“Fire is serious a safety violation in this area!” Buckminster Fuller shouted from the other side of the cargo bay.
Sullivan put the burning paper on the floor and smashed it flat with a steel boot. “Come here.” And he hugged Faye again and gave her a minute to sob. The poor girl had been through far too much in her short life, and now they were going to go fight the toughest army in the world. If he could talk to the Power, he’d tell it just what he thought of it picking such a gentle soul to put through this kind of hell. “You okay?”
She sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “Yeah.”
“Good. Now go over to that locker and pick yourself out something nice. John filled it with guns for us.”
Faye was still rubbing her eyes when she opened the locker. Her face split into a wide, malicious grin. Maybe gentle soul was the wrong choice of words after all. “Can I take the bazooka?”
“Knock yourself out, kid.”
Free City of Shanghai
First Shadow Guard Hayate could not resist the temptation to see his brother one last time. It had been decreed by the Chairman’s personal guard that no one should speak to the traitor before the duel. They were calling it a duel, but that was a misnomer. Challenging the Chairman was an execution.
It was a violation of an order, but Hayate was Shadow Guard. He had learned long ago that orders were often given by those who lacked imagination. Certainly, a chained Brute was no physical threat, and Toru’s poisonous words would be meaningless to a man of honor and conviction such as himself. Hayate justified his disobedience by telling himself that there were still Grimnoir out there. They had cost him two full teams’ worth of young Shadow Guard. Perhaps Toru would tell him their locations as a form of death-bed repentance.
But in truth, Hayate was simply curious. How could a son of Okubo Tokugawa fall so very far?
Reaching Toru without being seen was a simple enough matter. Hayate was, after all, the greatest living assassin in the Imperium. The torture chamber beneath the palace was warded with all manner of clever spells, but nothing that he could not easily circumvent. There were many guards, but Hayate was nearly invisible when he wished to be, and these guards seemed oddly content and still.
His brother was chained to a wall. A temporary kanji of paralysis had been scrawled on his forehead with blood and ash. Toru’s head was lowered. His chin resting against the armored neckpiece of the Nishimura, yet he did not sleep. Hayate drew closer. Toru’s eyes were closed, but he was not sleeping. He could see the rapid eye movement beneath the closed lids. Toru was panting, occasionally grimacing in pain.
Something was off. It was enough to raise the hair on the back of his neck. A Shadow Guard learned to trust his instincts, and Hayate’s instincts demanded that he flee, but he had come too far to be timid now. “Toru?” Hayate whispered.
His brother’s eyes snapped open. They were crazed. Wild. The eyes of a lunatic.
“It is in my head,” Toru growled. “Kill me before it wins.”
“What manner of torture is this?” Hayate asked, genuinely curious. Unit 731 was always coming up with vile new methods.
“The Pathfinder lives! The imposter has exposed me to it. It seeks to possess my body and claim my soul. You must kill me before he can use me.”
Hayate stroked his chin thoughtfully. Toru truly had gone insane. His mother must have been of particularly weak stock, as he was aware of no other of the thousand sons having such a frail mind. “I would like nothing better than to take your life, but that is not my place. Our father has claimed this right for himself.”
“I can hear their plans. The schools…” Toru’s face contorted as he ground his teeth together. “This corruption is in the schools. Concentrated… So the Actives there can be harvested. You must find and eliminate the infiltrators quickly. Or else when they receive the signal, they will feed, and the Enemy will come.”
Hayate was saddened by the piteous display. Brutes were so strong, but Toru’s madness was overcoming his own body. It was as if he was at war within himself. Veins stood out on his forehead. Sweat rolled down his face in fat beads. Toru was fighting something. He screamed in agony, and then his head flopped forward, limp and unconscious. Blood came trickling from his ear.
That was not blood.
The First Shadow Guard leaned in closer. Close enough to feel Toru’s breath. The substance coming out of Toru’s ear looked more like demon’s ink than blood. Curious.
And then the substance defied gravity and crawled back up to disappear inside his brother’s ear.