New world order, p.61
New World Order, page 61
part #6 of Crimson Shadow Series
****
No sooner had the threat been bellowed from Aleks’ lungs than his stampeding army reached him and charged past. The order, Xander realized, had already been issued, and it fell on him in that instant to lead his own side forward or allow them to be swallowed by the horde in the next.
They charged.
Auras slipped ahead of them, forming a multicolored wall that trembled against the force of the first wave of Aleks’ army crashed into it. Some of the enemy mythos tried to fall back, seeing the barricade coming their way, only to get swept up in the current of snarling bodies. As they fell back, creating a sizable hurdle for the second wave, Xander issued a psychic call to all the available magic-users.
In preparing for this moment, Xander and Allen Carrey had personally worked to lay as many traps as possible throughout the city. With all the mythos on their side immune to the magic’s effects, they had a chance to gain the upper hand early on in the fight by weakening—if not totally incapacitating—their enemies. This, Xander remembered, had been one of the Cebourists’ most powerful tactics—littering the city with what appeared to be simple graffiti until unsuspecting nonhumans got too close.
As the call to charge the traps that had been set throughout the battlefield was cast, Xander felt a swell in various auras all around him. Allen Carrey’s own aura billowed, his control of the magic still outweighing all others’, and the symbols that had been laced throughout the streets sparked to life.
Startled cries and shrieks of pain erupted in a deafening roar—the city acting as an echo chamber as almost all of Aleks’ army were staggered in a single instant—and the already stalled horde charging against the buckling auric wall fought to remain on their feet. The aurics finally withdrew, the wall fading from view, and the sangs occupying Xander’s army began slipping out of view as they jumped into overdrive.
Staggered enemies dropped around them, limbs seeming to jump from their bodies as Xander’s warriors raced ahead and cut down the opposition. Seeing this, a few of the more resilient sangs of Aleks’ side, struggling against the magic’s crippling effects on their bodies, worked to push themselves forward, as well. Most were overworked by the process—their bodies giving out under the strain and collapsing out of overdrive as corpses—while a few managed to tackle their would-be assassins, only to be shot or skewered a moment later in their exhausted haze.
Still standing where he’d first presented himself, Xander spotted Aleks. The varcol, sneering at the immediate turn the battle had taken, began to work his aura throughout the city, seeking and destroying all the enchanted symbols he came across.
Allen, Xander called back with his aura, I need you to pump as much energy as you’ve got into the remaining traps.
That’s a tall order for just one guy to fill, Stryker, Allen Carrey shot back. Maybe if you hadn’t benched your wife we could—
JUST DO IT! Xander roared, taking out his immediate aggression on a perfect vampire he’d caught in mid-leap with a kukri thrust between the ribs and a shot from Yang in the side of the face.
Xander “heard” “asshole” muttered over the psychic connection as it was severed, but a moment later Allen Carrey followed through with the order. The morning flashed that much brighter as the still-active Cebourist symbols peppering the city shone like their own suns. The glare, bright enough to make even Xander’s immune warriors flinch, sent another wave of howls ringing through the streets. Several hundred auras blipped out of existence as more lives were lost—Only got three for every one of ours now, Aleks, Xander thought to himself, though he was sure the varcol could “hear” it all the same—and Xander saw through his mind’s eye as more of his own warriors managed to slip past the opposition’s defenses.
I don’t mean to be a downer, Zoey admitted through thought-speak, but we’re still outnumbered… and Aleks is—
Xander could have made any number of guesses as to how Zoey was going to finish that sentence. It might have been a warning or a theory. It might have had something to do with the fact that, with him somehow immune to the Cebourists’ magic and able to work around the spells bursting around the city, he’d finally managed to neutralize the last of their traps. Or it might have reflected the simple observation that the varcol was really living up to his role as Xander’s opposite by showing up in a long, royal-looking purple jacket and clutching Yin’s opposite at his side.
Zoey could have been preparing to say any one of those things, Xander thought, or perhaps any number of other things.
But he couldn’t be sure.
Because, though Xander could have made any number of guesses about what Zoey was about to say, as the varcol shot forward and threw him off his feet, he came to his own conclusion:
Aleks is pissed!
****
Thought you were clever, Stryker? Aleks snarled in Xander’s head, driving a fist into his face. Thought you would win the day with the same trick as before? Another series of punches rained down, and then Xander felt the barrel of his stolen gun under his chin.
He yanked his head free of the trajectory as the shot was fired. Ears ringing, he worked to squirm free; Aleks’ grip held as he brought the side of Yin’s barrel across his face. This was enough to rip Xander from the iron grip—Or maybe he just decided to let me go, Xander morbidly thought in that instant—and send him careening through the open air and then crashing to the street. The sounds of battle were everywhere, and as he used his aura to push himself back to his feet Xander was forced to duck as the massive fist of a tergoj. The nine-foot behemoth’s swing dragged it in a stumbling arc, the mythos grunting and whining—large, hooked nostrils flaring on its eyeless face as it tried to sniff out Xander for another attack. The troll-like creature caught its balance, steadied itself, and then charged. With his mind’s eye, Xander could see Aleks waiting on the other side, preparing to catch him off guard should he manage to dodge the attack or ready to stomp on the aftermath if he didn’t.
Xander, resisting his vampiric instincts to hiss at the challenge, sheathed his kukri and threw himself into a one-handed vault over the five-feet wide mass of rock-hard muscle and roped the gargantuan mythos with his aura. Spotting Aleks preparing to catch him in midair, he dragged the tergoj off its massive feet and yanked it over his head. The makeshift catapult sent the flailing, car-sized creature into Aleks’ path and forcing him to pull himself free with an auric tendril.
Spotting his intended route with the Great Machine, Xander had a shot lined up and fired before he’d landed. Not expecting the attack to end the fight, he started at a human sprint across the street as Aleks was forced to deflect the enchanted round with his aura. Halfway up the road, the tergoj crashed down, tearing up concrete and catching a small cluster of warriors off guard. They, like Xander, were just as stunned to see such an elusive and typically docile mythos rampaging about in the city. It was a curious sight, but, from the looks of things, Aleks had been hard at work recruiting just about every breed of mythos he could find.
And, with his power and outreach, Xander imagined that Aleks could find anything and everything he wanted.
“YOU DON’T KNOW THE HALF OF IT, STRYKER!” Aleks roared, his voice rattling in Xander’s ears and in his brain as he ensnared him in a vice-like auric grip and threw him down another street and into a large, concrete slab that had seen better days. “I NOT ONLY COULD FIND ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING… I DID!”
Growling, Xander worked to pull himself from the already crumbling mass of…
He looked down, curious as to what he’d just been thrown into, and found himself looking at a half-destroyed, four-foot tall concrete anchor set into the center of the road. Several feet ahead, he saw another—this one whole—and, beyond that, another. Glancing up, he saw that each of these anchor points supported a metal pillar that served to support the track of the monorail system that circled the outer rim of the city.
What the hell could have done this? he asked, marveling at the already shattered portion of concrete that he was half-embedded within.
“Your wife did this!” Aleks seethed, standing uncomfortably close beside him in that instant.
The varcol’s fist crashed down on Xander’s chest, pummeling him further into the crumbling mass, and again Yin’s barrel flashed in his vision. Xander dodged, once more narrowly avoiding a shot from his own long lost gun, only to have Aleks grab him by the throat and yank him free from the concrete. Though he struggled against the hold, Xander still felt like a ragdoll in his enemy’s grip as he was swung around and into the steel support, caving a portion of the metal around his hip. Despite much of the impact being absorbed by Zoey’s jacket, Xander still felt something crack in his midsection. Not ready to test the coat’s resilience any further, he yanked the kukri free—feeling the heat of the Cebourist magic radiate from its blade—and swiped it at the arm holding him.
Aleks roared as his arm was cut free from his body.
Xander, landing hard on the street, rolled free as the varcol drove a foot down where his head had been an instant earlier. By the time he’d gotten himself turned around to face him, Aleks had already retrieved his severed arm with his aura and secured it to the stump just below the elbow. Though the wound didn’t heal immediately, Aleks didn’t waste any time with waiting—simply holding the limb in place with his aura as the bone, muscle, and flesh fused back together—and jumped forward, making a note of slapping Xander with it before taking another shot with Yin.
Bullets, Xander admitted to himself, were easier to dodge than varcols.
“See how well you dodge this,” Aleks hissed, snatching him by the ankles with his aura and flinging him with breath-stealing force against one of the monorail supports.
Though the pain was excruciating, Xander found himself dreading an entirely different sensation at that moment. There, deep beneath the intense pain of the impact, was a steady vibration. A growing one. Ahead of him, the shattered concrete of the first support anchor began to crumble further. Above him, the track was beginning to show the slightest sway of distant use.
The morning commuter train…
Eyes widening, Xander remembered one of the Great Machine’s reminders—Nikki needs to reinforce the monorail support—and, along with that memory, the realization that he hadn’t followed through with it. With so many visions and so many possible realities, there was no way to ever be certain which ones were the most pressing. Thinking back on it, Xander couldn’t even be certain he would have known what the warning even meant!
But it was only the one support! And, even shattered, it had survived for how many weeks without any—
Aleks’ aura came around like a giant hammer, connecting with the twisted length of metal where Xander’s body had just dented it, and the tortured concrete finally gave out. Unsupported, the steel support bowed one way, pitched the other, and finally began to fold under its own weight. Above them, the track began to sink, then lurched as the supports on either side halted the process. Aleks paused then, leering back at Xander, and gave a wide, showy grin that was filled with serrated daggers.
Then his aura barreled straight up at the track as the train worked its way forward.
****
All around him, Xander was aware of the war.
He was aware of suffering, of pain, and of death. He was aware of, in each and every second that passed, the hundreds-upon-hundreds of auric flashes—flashes that spanned from a glimpse at a possible opening to attack to the panic at being caught off guard with an attack; flashes of victory and flashes of defeat. Xander was aware of everything happening around him, but it was the sight of Aleks preparing to drop a train filled with human commuters onto their battlefield—not a sight the Great Machine fed into his mind, but the one framed with painful clarity right in front of him—that had him forgetting everything else.
Aleks’ aura was working the length of track, yanking it in either direction as more and more tendrils shot out towards the remaining support pillars around them. Seeing one of these tendrils rocketing towards his head, Xander threw himself free of its trajectory and rolled to his feet a short distance away. Through his mind’s eye, he saw the train taking the bend a short way’s back, its approach shaking the track that much harder and causing the sinking portion to drop several more feet. Aleks, too consumed in his mission to tear the track free, didn’t even seem to notice that Xander had moved.
And, at that moment—surrounded by war and aware of the struggles of every other warrior occupying the city—Xander was faced with a choice: allow a speeding, runaway train to be thrown into the fray so he could take advantage of an opening on Aleks or do whatever he could to stop the train and leave Aleks to his devices. His teeth clenched and his breath caught as the track dipped another few feet, swaying more and more from the approaching train, and, in the back of his head, Xander heard Stan’s voice:
“There are boundaries I can’t cross that they won’t hesitate to, and that gives them the upper hand.”
Xander wanted so badly to be willing to sacrifice human bystanders and warriors alike—And when have I ever stopped to worry about property damage?—but with the changes he’d set into motion, he knew that he’d only be hurting his own cause. Turning the entire city into a warzone on its own was going to make convincing the humans that they weren’t monsters that much harder, he knew. However, if he allowed Aleks this one act of wanton destruction then he was practically proving their fears accurate right then and there.
Decisions, decisions, Aleks taunted in his head. Now decide, Stryker!
Growling and cursing Stan’s infernal and undying logic under his breath, Xander turned his back on Aleks and started at a sprint towards the nearest support beam that had yet to be torn down. He jumped into overdrive, working to gain momentum before taking his sprint vertical and racing up its length. Halfway up, reaching the most strained point on the support, Xander used his aura as a makeshift brace before pushing off and dropping out of overdrive. The leap carried him through the air and nearer to the dipping track.
The roar of the approaching train had Xander’s fangs rattling in his skull as he roped the track’s ledge with an auric tendril and swung himself onto its surface.
“Good job, Xander,” he muttered to himself, staring up the length of dipping track, “you’re now standing in the path of a soon-to-be runaway train. What a productive use of—”
Though his auric brace remained in place, the support it was wrapped around finally gave out entirely and the track sank yet again. Glancing at the aggressive dip, Xander realized that, even if he managed to keep the track from giving out entirely, the train would never be able to maintain its course. One way or the other, it would be derailed.
Still in the process of solidifying what he was certain wouldn’t be able to work, Xander flung himself over the side of the bowing monorail track towards a neighboring office building. Once in midair, he pushed himself to slow time through his eyes in an effort to calculate his steps:
Behind him, he cast out a pair of auric tendrils and captured the sinking track at its lowest point.
Below him, he retracted the auric brace, letting the final support beam begin to collapse.
Ahead of him, he fired an explosive round from Yang and braced an auric shield around himself, hoping that Zoey’s claims about the jacket’s resistance to heat hadn’t been an exaggeration.
Then, operating on little more than faith and momentum, Xander dropped out of overdrive.
The track dropped, snapped, and was immediately dragged by the auric tendrils after Xander’s Hail Mary leap. Feeling the heat of the explosion on his face as it went off against the building, Xander clenched his eyes and focused his aura’s hold as he felt himself crash through the wall. Glass and steel wailed around him as he tumbled to the floor, rolled to his feet—the tethered track whining behind him as it bent—and jumped into overdrive so that he had a fair chance of outrunning the train he was now steering. Once satisfied that the redirected track was set enough within the building to remain secure, he released it and hooked back around, starting back the way he’d come.
Come on! Come on! Come on! he chanted to himself, willing the Great Machine to show him the possible outcomes of this course…
And immediately saw the runaway train crash down over him.
Redirecting his course, he found himself running towards one of the still-intact windows neighboring the furious-looking chasm he’d barreled through moments earlier. New course:
He saw the train banking off the track and shooting out into the street, defeating the purpose of…
Everything! Xander finished, deciding that he’d have to personally keep the train on its track.
Cursing Aleks, Lenuta, Stan, his father, and just about every other name he could think to curse at that moment, he threw himself through yet another window and pulled himself to the roof of the train with an auric tether. Perching on the sleek, silver surface, Xander fought to maintain overdrive as he cast his aura out around the entire structure before working to secure it to the track. When he was certain he had a hold on both, he dropped out of overdrive and braced himself.
The train’s mechanisms were already shrieking as time exploded into play around him, and he struggled to focus through the sound as he worked to keep it on its track. Inside the train, he felt the panic of the passengers begin to grow as they felt the sudden dip begin to drop them. Some of the people, he saw through his mind’s eye, were quick to secure themselves—grabbing for whatever they could to support themselves or gripping the edges of their seats—while some unfortunate others were thrown by the force. A few of these unfortunate passengers were killed in that instant, and one in particular, Xander realized, did not die from the impact of being thrown…
But by an aneurism that was triggered by the stress.
Though he couldn’t be sure of the details, Xander was suddenly very aware that a bad man who’d yet to die would have no one to mourn him at his funeral.
There was nothing you could do for her, something that was either a thought or Stan’s voice rang out to him, and this was enough to keep Xander fighting to keep the train secured on its track as it derailed and began to barrel through the hole he’d put in the side of the office building. Satisfied that the train had reached its not-so-intended destination, he rolled from its surface, leapt back through his secondary entrance, and, beginning a partial overdrive-sprint beside it, used his aura to drag it to a stop.
