The Calorium Wars Page 20

  “Siobhan,” he murmured stupidly, somehow unable to keep from embarrassing himself further. “That’s a beautiful name and you’re a beautiful …”

  She cocked her head expectantly, tapping her plump lower lip with the tip of the key as her smile spread into a grin.

  “My, you are a flatterer.” she said. “You do have a name, don’t you?”

  “My name?” Liam said, feeling stupider than ever. The thing was, his brain seemed to have gone completely to sleep and instead all he had were sensations—a kind of warm, tingling sensation in his guts that was spreading slowly, making every nerve ending so abnormally aware that he felt as if the touch of a feather might make him jump out of his skin. Even so, he wanted more than anything he could think of to feel the touch of this woman’s skin on his, and he raised his hand towards her slowly, as if it weighed a hundred pounds …

  “My name?” he repeated. “My name is …”

  “GET AWAY FROM THAT THING!”

  It was Chen bellowing at him with an unfamiliar note of panic in his voice, and as he turned to look Liam saw Chen and Crazy Horse pelting towards him, Chen waving his hands back and forth over his head in an emphatic signal and Crazy Horse running with his eyes closed and his lips moving rapidly in a chant.

  From behind him Liam heard a deep, bloodcurdling HISS!, and as he turned back he saw the most horrifying sight he had ever seen: atop the woman’s body, instead of the sweet, merry face of the milkmaid Siobhan, there was the head of some colossal insect-like creature whose pincer jaws were clashing together hungrily and whose multiple red eyes were glowing with an absolute fury as it SCREEEEECHED! at something overhead and the seductive body abruptly melted away like a coating of wax revealing the hideous, praying mantis-like thing underneath.

  Totally unnerved, Liam leapt backwards as if he were levitating, while a colossal shadow swept over both him and the milkmaid thing and a golden eagle the size of a Little Russian attack flyer suddenly swept down and grabbed the creature in its huge talons, covering the giant bug’s renewed screech with a tearing, earsplitting eagle’s squawk as it beat its wings and vanished upwards.

  Sweating like a pig and crossing himself feverishly, Liam muttered: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women and blessed …” and then broke off as he saw the cockroach thing, far overhead by now but still distinctly visible, turn suddenly into a huge snake, writhing wildly as it tried to strike at the eagle and escape from its grasp.

  “Ah, dear Jesus,” Liam shouted, “it’s going to …”

  “It isn’t going to do anything at all,” Chen said as he laid a reassuring hand on Liam’s shoulder. “Our friend Crazy Horse is a shape-shifter, and a very powerful one at that—he’ll be rejoining us in a moment.”

  Suddenly, Liam felt himself trembling, sweating even more copiously and shaking like a leaf as his brain began to take charge again. He leaned forward with his hands on his knees, fighting a wave of nausea.

  “What was that thing?” he asked in a choked voice.

  Chen spread his hands and shrugged: “A demon of some sort, probably expelled from some poor wretch back in the days when the good padres ran Serra Castle. No doubt after the churchmen left the demon stayed and became a sort of housekeeper for the Castle. You’ll meet many more creatures like it before you decide you’ve had enough, not to mention ones that are far worse. But,” he added in a reassuring tone, “I expect you’ll be all right.”

  “Many more of those things?” Liam said incredulously.

  “Certainly. The world is changing; we’re entering a whole new cycle and none too soon, if men are to escape enslavement by their machines. However, as some American wit has pointed out, There is No Free Lunch … the obverse of a renewed spirituality is renewed contact with the less presentable denizens of the spirit world. Don’t worry,” he said with a sudden grin, “sometimes I think you’re not terribly bright, but you have a powerful will and that will carry you a long way.”

  “Golly, thanks, Ambrose,” Liam said sourly.

  “Don’t mention it, my boy. But you must learn the rules, and rule number one when you are dealing with creatures from the Spirit World is: never give them your name. Giving them your name will put you instantly in their power and the consequences of that can be quite horrific.”

  Shuddering at his narrow escape, Liam took Chen’s hand and shook it fervently. “Thank you, Ambrose. I think you’ll find me paying closer attention in the future.”

  Chen smiled and nodded. “Good. And now …”

  With a sudden vast beat of wings the golden eagle swept to the ground next to them and repeated the feather-ruffling and hopping dance the great horned owl had performed back on Shelter Island, finally resolving itself with the same stomach-flipping abruptness into Crazy Horse.

  Crazy Horse grinned at Liam: “Sorry I had to interrupt your tête-à-tête with the charming milkmaid.” He made an exaggerated kissy-face at Liam: “She said she was sending ums a great big kiss!”

  Glaring and red with embarrassment Liam raised a fist: “That’s nice, because I’m about to be sending you a great big lip!”

  “All right, children,” Chen said crisply, “you can play later, right now we must free General Custer and head for the Apacheria with the least possible waste of time.” He turned to Liam and gestured at his stick:

  “Mr. McCool, if you would do the honors …”

  Liam looked at him doubtfully: “What, on the door?”

  Ambrose nodded. “The sword is an extension of your will; just picture Miss Siobhan and her charade with the key—think, if you will, of what a simpleton she seems to have taken you for …”

  Liam’s expression darkened for a moment as he contemplated the memory; then he fell into a half-crouch, lifted the sword in a two-handed grip and let go with a mighty stroke and an explosive shout of “Keeyai!”

  A microsecond later there was a blinding flash followed by a groaning rumbling noise that made them back away instinctively even as they were rubbing their eyes.

  “I don’t believe it,” muttered Liam.

  The door had been neatly chopped in two, as had the stout oak doorjambs and the mortared stones that supported them, so that in a moment or two the entire doorway had crumbled to fragments, leaving a gaping hole in the wall. Ahead of them the interior of the Castle revealed a dark, high-ceilinged antechamber barely illuminated by a gaslight on the wall. A furious shout sounded from further on in the shadowy interior:

  “You bastards stand right where you are! Don’t you move a muscle, you hear?”

  As the trio peered into the gloom to see who was yelling, the distinctive click-clack! of a pump-action Spencer 12-gauge chambering a shell froze them where they stood, and a moment later the guard himself appeared. An ordinary-looking middle-aged man with thinning brown hair and a drooping moustache, he was wearing a patched and faded Confederate captain’s uniform and holding the shotgun at port arms.

  “Bill Quantrill?” Liam asked incredulously. “The Butcher of Lawrence, Kansas? I thought you got shot in a barn somewhere in Kentucky.”

  “There’s one damnation big difference between being thought to be shot and being shot for sure and certain and you three are about to learn it if you don’t skedaddle right now!”

  Chen’s answer was quiet, but so weirdly deep and resonant that it sent chills up Liam’s spine:

  “Sir! You are more than kind, thank you for bringing bread and salt for three weary travelers!”

  Quantrill’s jaw dropped and he jumped backwards a step; the shotgun had vanished, and in his left hand he held a long, thin loaf of bread while in his right he held a big shaker of salt. He opened his mouth and closed it again two or three times in a row as he looked back and forth between his two hands. Then he knelt abruptly, shaking as if he had a chill and holding the bread and salt out in front of him.

  “Welcome, sifu!” Quantrill said in a trembling voice. “What is your will?”

  Chen
took the bread and salt from him and handed them to Crazy Horse.

  “Thank you, my son. First, you must tell me where the prisoner Custer is being kept.”

  Quantrill bent his head: “At the far end of the corridor in front of you, sifu, in the cell on the right.”

  “Excellent, my child. Now as you see, the Castle is beginning to fall apart …”

  Chen raised his hand and spread the fingers wide towards the gap they had entered by. As if at a prompt, a huge additional chunk of the wall crumbled away and tumbled down the hill with a roar. Quantrill looked towards the hole with wide eyes.

  “Oh, sifu!” he quavered. “Will we perish?”

  “No, my son,” Chen answered, “but you must run now and summon all the other people who are in the building apart from Custer and tell them to leave the building at once or they will be doomed, soon there will be nothing here but a heap of rocks!”

  Quantrill leapt to his feet and bowed deeply. “It shall be as you say, sifu!” he said, and instantly took off down the hall bellowing over and over: “EVERYBODY OUT! FIRE! GET OUT!”

  For a moment the trio stood and stared after him.

  “Well, Ambrose,” Liam said, “I didn’t think you could ever top your giant shark turn, but as far as I’m concerned this one absolutely takes the cake, and I don’t care who knows it!”

  “Come on,” said Crazy Horse impatiently, “let’s go get Georgie and get out of here while we can!”

  He took off running down the corridor with his companions right on his heels. “Georgie!” he shouted in English.“It’s us. Time to go!”

  Custer’s voice sounded weakly in the distance: “Crazy Horse? Is that you?” A moment later they were at the cell door, a thick slab of oak with a sliding wooden window (now closed) and a big, old-fashioned iron key stuck in its lock. A moment of over-eager fumbling, and then the door swung open to reveal Custer, wild-haired and long-bearded enough to be Rip Van Winkle himself. Overwhelmed and incredulous, he bear-hugged Crazy Horse, and then Liam and Chen, laughing and talking all at once:

  “Crazy Horse! Liam! And …?”

  “Chen,” the Chinese chimed in, “Ambrose Chen, delighted to meet you, General Custer.”

  “Please, that was another life—I’m Laughing Wolf now, and an honorary Lakota Sioux.” He held Chen away at arm’s length and surveyed the three of them, looking as if he might start hugging them all over again.

  “Come on, Georgie,” Crazy Horse said, grabbing hold of Custer’s sleeve and dragging him after him: “we can tell stories later, right now we have to get out of here!”

  Puzzled but cooperative, Custer joined his liberators in a mad run down the corridor towards the gap in the wall, which was continuing to get larger with an accompanying din of creaks, groans and rumbles of falling masonry, mixed with panicky yells and angry shouts as the entire staff of Serra Castle struggled to be first in line to escape the impending collapse. Finally, after a bloody nose for Liam and a split lip for Custer, the foursome was ejected with a wad of struggling humanity that burst out of the side of the Castle with explosive force and rolled part of the way down the hill towards the meadow below before they separated themselves from each other and registered Quantrill, who was standing on a hummock and roaring at them:

  “GET UP OFF YOUR DEAD BUTTS AND FALL IN! DO YOU HEAR ME, PEOPLE? FALL IN BEFORE I COME OVER THERE AND MAKE YOU FALL DOWN!”

  Custer was shaking his head incredulously: “Bill Quantrill? I thought he was supposed to be …”

  Liam made a face. “It’s a long story and I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you.”

  Despite a constant obbligato of curses and complaints the men gradually fell in and stood at a sloppy attention, and finally Quantrill came over to Chen and bowed deeply.

  “They’re all out, sifu. What now?”

  As if to accent the question, the pace of the Castle’s collapse picked up, an enormous central section sinking in on itself with a thunderous KRRRRRUMP!, making the towers lean crazily until they too fell into the rest of the debris with an apocalyptic roar. A great cloud of dust rose from the wreckage and hung above it for a moment or two until the ocean breezes caught it up and dispersed it eastwards, towards the coast.

  Chen nodded approvingly and turned back to Quantrill. “You’ve done well, my son, now tell them to spread out and form a circle, and then to sit down on the grass and join hands.”

  “It shall be as you say, sifu,” Quantrill said, and a moment later he was kicking and yelling at the men, chivvying them into obedience like a border collie with a herd of unruly sheep.

  Well beyond mere incredulity, Custer watched the men for a moment or two and then turned to Chen:

  “Sifu?” he queried. “And ‘my son’? Come on, Ambrose, help a simple soldier out here—these people are the absolute lowest scum on the face of the North American Continent! Deserters and bandits and murderers, every one of them.”

  Chen smiled. “No one ever falls too low to be raised up again, Laughing Wolf. These men are about to build and take up residence in the first Taoist Monastery in North America.”

  Custer looked a little dazed. “Monastery?”

  “And they will become known far and wide for the piety of their prayers and the kindness of their good works.”

  “Huh!” said the totally befuddled Custer.

  The men were all sitting on the grass now, holding hands in a circle fifty or sixty feet in diameter and looking irritated. Quantrill turned towards Chen and spread his hands questioningly.

  “Excuse me for a moment,” Chen said to his companions and crossed the meadow to join Quantrill, speaking to him slowly and patiently with occasional gestures towards the circle of men.

  Custer shook his head. “Well, Liam, you do take up with some odd folks.”

  ”It’s a fact,” Liam agreed. “There’s you and Crazy Horse, for openers.” He grinned. “You might as well just take it easy; you’ve got a bit of catching up to do.” At that point Chen came back to rejoin them, while Quantrill started walking around the circle, speaking to the men quietly and earnestly.

  “There,” Chen said with a satisfied look. “They’re going to chant for a while now, and tomorrow, when it’s quite safe to venture into the ruins, they’ll start sorting the rocks and other materials and cleaning up the mess. They should be able to start building their monastery and studying the Tao Te Ching in a month or so.”

  A deep, thrumming chant arose from the circle of men, repeating over and over again: “Om mani padme hum …”

  Chen looked pleased and nodded. “It’s a Buddhist chant,” he said, “but that doesn’t matter a bit—it’s a fine place to begin.”

  “Well, Ambrose,” Liam said, “whatever else, I don’t reckon you’ll ever be in any danger of having me figure you out.”

  Chen gave that a minute smile. “Westerners make altogether too much fuss about understanding one another. We are not treatises nor rune stones. We are living creatures. So if there’s one simple thing I’d like you to learn today it’s this: when you use magic on people, first make quite sure that you will be adding, not taking away.”

  Liam cocked his head, thinking that over, but before he could respond, Crazy Horse cried out: “Look! Up there!”

  The others turned to follow his pointing finger, and saw Stanton’s aerial battleship coming their way on a rapidly descending path.

  “Well, well,” Liam said with a bit of an edge. “You boys won’t have seen that before but I know it well. As a matter of fact Yurevskii stole it from Stanton and Becky and I stole it from the Little Russians. And somebody else must have stolen it from Freedom Party Headquarters on Shelter Island. I wonder who Stanton decided to send after our friend Laughing Wolf?”

  The circle of chanting men seemed to be too involved to notice the airship’s approach, but Liam and his companions strolled across the meadow towards a spot that looked like the end of the battleship’s trajectory. Settling on a hummock a cautious distance away, t
hey waited as the ship set down gently, fired a series of tethered stakes into the ground to give it a firm anchorage and turned off its engines.

  After a few moments, the landing stairs slid down into place and locked with a clank!, and then Capt. Ubaldo exited and looked around with a frown.

  “Where’s the Castle?” he muttered. He’d seen pictures back at the Santa Monica Government Building, and the Castle should have been standing right over there, on that rocky promontory.

  Waving the others to keep back for a moment, Liam walked up softly behind Ubaldo and then answered him:

  “I’ll tell you that one if you’ll tell me when you started working for Stanton.”

  Ubaldo jumped, then flushed a deep, angry crimson and spun around to confront Liam.

  “You damned criminal swine!” He gave Liam an angry sneer: “I don’t know how you came to be here, but even if you decide to shoot me in the back like the cowardly cur you are, I have already triumphed over you!”

  “Is that so?” Liam asked in a tone of mild interest. Not mild enough to fool anyone who knew him, though, and Chen promptly moved out of the shadows to referee the encounter.

  “Well, well,” Ubaldo said with a scornful grimace. “You seem to have found your allies among all the gutter trash of the world. Chinamen! What could be next?”

  Disconcertingly for him, Ubaldo’s rhetorical question was answered by two more of Liam’s allies as Custer and Crazy Horse stepped up to join Chen. “How about a Sioux war chief and his sidekick Laughing Wolf, once known as General George Armstrong Custer?” Custer asked cheerfully.

  Ubaldo backed away in spite of himself, trying to cover this cowardly telltale by blustering:

  “I’ll have you know that I am under direct orders from Secretary of National Security Edwin M. Stanton to arrest you, General Custer, and your accomplices McCool and Chen and Crazy Horse, and bring you back to Washington to face trial.”