Bloodsong Ch. 05

"Good job. This one, who is he?"

"Webbs? He transferred here five years ago. I thought you knew him, he said he knew you." Blakely waved a hand in front of the man's face. Unlike the others, he had his eyes shut. "He was doing consultancy before, hopping between sections. I think he may also have been retired at one point? Oh, and he's part several aliens."

Valerie plastered her palm to her forehead.

"Those idiots." She'd never contemplated that a thought such as 'This wouldn't have happened with Marabeth in charge' could emerge in the woman's favor, but facts were facts. Never would Marabeth have let someone who was at most one third human be put in storage with the purebred ones. Thank the gods they hadn't tried to drug him, who knew that would have done. "I know him, yes. We met back in the war. He changed his face since we last saw each other, hence why I didn't recognize him."

"Huh. Which war?"

"Big one in the forties. Webber? You awake?" Containment had affected him differently, for the worse, as he was slow to react. Honestly, even if there weren't scanning procedures in place, one would think someone would have noticed that Webber's hands had much in common with duck feet; the only feature which his Soral heritage didn't let him disguise. She shook him a little. "Blink if you can hear me."

"Hi," he eventually slurred, much like Santos had but sleepier. "Good to see you, Tentacles."

"Hush." It twisted something inside her, to find him like this. Webber didn't class as a friend, since they didn't put in much effort to keep in touch, but he was someone Valerie had known and appreciated the existence of for a long time. She let him be and turned to Blakely. "What else did he say about the spell? Is there a way to get rid of it?"

"Rivers and Madam McKenna tried to pull it apart with. . . I don't recall what they called it. Anyway, didn't work, both got turned to sludge. That's when Webbs and some others started thinking, well, to be honest I don't know how their thinking went, I'm no wizard and didn't ask for details, just did as I was—"

"Care to tell me why you two are standing here gabbing, instead of getting busy freeing these people?"

Valerie suppressed a groan.

"Santos, you shouldn't be walking."

"My question still stands." The older man approached with steps that tried to pass for steady but failed to look anything other than awkward. Valerie not so subtly edged to his side to catch him should he keel over, which earned her a caustic glare. "Lay off, I'm not a goddamn invalid. Blakely, start getting everyone out of these blasted coffins and tell them to do the same for the others if they're up to it. I don't know how much time we'll have — Redmont, how much time do we have?"

Valerie shrugged. She had to bite her lip so that she wouldn't add anything less civil, but the words she muted seemed to write themselves on her expression.

"I thought we'd go with just the Front members. Anyone else could easily become a liability."

"We get everyone. This isn't a point up for discussion," Santos shot back, face awash with something frightful. Blakely looked from him to her like a child torn between quarreling parents, only relaxing when Valerie nodded her surrender. She was no longer part of the Westmont section. It was bad form to stroll in and usurp Santos' authority, even if he only served as head in Mrs. Drakma's absence. Even if she disagreed. Heavily. "Good. That's that settled. Also, and not to take away from the main subject, what in the fuck happened to your hand?"

"Emergency damper removal, and give it a rest. I haven't had people comment on my lack of limbs this often since I was twenty. I'm not sure how to go about being sensitive about it anymore."

Blakely had gone ahead and broken out Pembroke the Cahean slayer, who was, predictably, asking questions. Good and understandable questions, but this was why they ought to pass on all who'd require debriefing. Explaining took time, and although Pembroke appeared to be taking it all rather well, there needed only be one captive too terrified to cooperate to cause the situation to tumble sideways.

"Do you have a plan?" Santos asked. "The blackout, was that your work?"

"More or less, and no. That was just . . . convenient." So convenient that it went past suspiciously convenient and therefore a likely trap, and rounded back to being a godsend. "Blakely was telling me about destroying the Ring of Tescara before you interrupted. Can you finish catching me up?"

"That the spell network?" At her answering nod, Santos jerked his head towards Webber. "He had the inspired idea of triggering it on purpose, thinking it would fade if we drained its energy. I suppose you didn't get to see the east side of town?"

"I got busy dealing with Sykes and company before I reached headquarters. Then he showed up . . ." Valerie pressed her eyes shut. "Let's just say it's been one of those days. I never went to the east side. Why?"

"Remember London after the bombings? That's about what it looks like." It was Webber who spoke, hoarsely, having come back to himself enough to participate. "Jo ransacked a dozen phone stores. I swear I'd never seen that woman look happier than she did hurling iPhones from Mrs. D's office window."

It was tempting fate to ask, but Valerie couldn't help it.

"Is she around? Johanna?"

"We . . . don't know. She's not down here, but there's more levels. Then again, I don't recall her getting caught. Her brother, he's—"

"Sludge. Blakely said." And Valerie was determined to pretend he hadn't until later, when she could afford to let the hit land. "Draining it, obviously it didn't work, but why did it fail? Was it because the Ring came alive?"

"We failed because the enemy got us before we taxed it to the point of extinction, but we whittled down its lasting power to a few — wait. Alive?"

"I'm assuming. It screamed at me, gives off angry toddler vibes – it just plain feels hateful."

Webber shook his head, which didn't bode well.

"If it's a living spell, it's impossible to drain. But, it can't be," he hastened to add, seeing her and Santos trade alarmed looks. "There was this one in Mexico. A bay where people had been drowning a bit too often. We got told that there was something off about the water, but not all the water. Only four square meters total. A local magician had been spelling the whole bay to do his fishing, and after his death, when the spell came alive, it shrunk to just that piece. They have to downsize to last past the caster's death. The Ring of Tescara wouldn't keep its original borders if it were living."

"You're sure about that?"

"Quite. I may be worthless at practical magic, but I do know the field."

"So if we finish the job, if we trigger and drain it, it should vanish and allow us to summon the cavalry?"

"Well, in theory. Yes."

"There's a communications room on the — what floor is this, does anyone . . ." Santos upheld and lowered both his hands twice. "-minus eighteen, alright. Cell blocks start at minus fifteen and lower, if there's been no reshuffling, and the comms room should be six floors up from there."

And Mrs. Drakma was being kept somewhere down from where they stood, but that belonged in the realm of things she had to set aside if she wanted to get anything done. The woman was not in imminent danger, unless she'd irritated Jack to the point of him committing a blood crime. She'd be . . . she'd make it.

"I don't like that face, Redmont."

"Don't pick on my face. I'm thinking."

"You're thinking of draining that spell by exploding the comms room." She'd forgotten that Santos had a gift for picking up on the direction of her thoughts like one predicted which way a river ran from the surrounding geography. Going from the look he wore, they were having a day of not being enamored with each other's ideas. "You know, odds are you'll bring the whole building down on our heads."

"There's six floors separating the comms room from the ones with a likelihood of containing people we want alive. Nine floors between it and this one. It's not guaranteed that it'll be enough of a buffer, but what other options are there? Do you want to try your luck fighting your way to the surface? Too many floors. One elevator, which those assholes will be watching like hawks. Too many people to get out."

"Those are points," Santos conceded. He hadn't stopped loathing the plan, Valerie could tell, but more so loathed that their options were rancid enough that this surfaced as the most viable. "So, best case scenario, you succeed and get a message out, or we get a message out after, and we hold off the enemy until help arrives. Worst case scenario, we get pulped, or starve or suffocate buried under rock, or we survive, but none of this works and they pick us off like sitting ducks."

"That's the gist of it."

"This is a shit plan," he sighed, but he was on board, however grudgingly, and already pondering ways of improving the shit plan's chances of success. "If we wreck the elevator, they have no way of getting to us once we secure this floor. Which we have to do before you go off, since we won't manage without you while unarmed."

"Obviously I'll help clear this floor first. You're more up to date on the staff lineup – are there any magic users other than the usual suspects?" The usual suspects being Kalidriapolos, who had specialized in healing to the detriment of offensive magic and skills like translocation, and one of the janitors, whose breadth of powers was constrained to basic water manipulation. Santos shook his head. Good. If the staff had no means of phasing there, that was one thing less to worry about. Although there was the hole in the ceiling to consider. If she and Byron had made one so easily . . .

Valerie turned to ascertain how things went elsewhere in the room. Blakely had gathered a handful of people and was going about prying containers open. The group moved from one to the next both too fast and too slowly, not saying much to those inside other than a sentence to the effect of 'We're escaping'.

She could see that easily going pear-shaped. Cries were already erupting as some freed captives called out for each other, and others cried out for someone to explain what was happening.

She would not shoot Santos an 'If we have a riot or a mass panic attack on our hands within the next minute, it's on you' look. It would be petty and of no help.

She was still sorely tempted.

"Most of them can barely stand," Valerie stated, leaving off mention of Santos himself fitting that category. Doubtlessly it wouldn't go over well. "We'll need to split up those of us who can fight, leave some stationed here to watch over the ones we can't move . . ." Which brought on its own issues. She estimated the population of the room to be around five hundred, but if there were fifty people in fighting shape among them, she'd count herself lucky.

"Let me tackle the logistics. You gab some more with Webber and figure out if there's a way to lower the risk of us getting flattened by rubble." With that, Santos took his leave before she could argue that — actually, there was nothing to say that wouldn't be construed as a patronizing attempt to undermine him, so she could only pray that she wouldn't need to pick him off the floor. His posture was less stiff, so one could hope.

"Er," Webber said, once Santos was a safe distance away. "I'm not sure the risk can be lowered."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"In fact, going by what you described about the Ring's behavior, there may be additional risks involved."

"I was even more afraid you'd say that."

"It's not normal, even if it isn't living. We can't predict how it'll react to being triggered to the point of extinction. And there's another thing . . ." His eyes trained on her face with unexpected intensity. "Redmont. How did you get here?"

"Car. Don't start on how I should have flown or asked a magician, I'm kicking myself for that hard enough."

"No, no. You're stationed in St. Louis, aren't you? How did you remember the way? That Westmont existed? Everyone who's on the outside had their ties with this place wiped out by the Ring when it was cast."

That . . .

Valerie suddenly wanted to kick herself harder, because at no point had she stopped to consider that.

"Mrs. Drakma, she called . . . it was a trap. Jack forced her to place that call. Not a hiccup in the line, nothing suspicious about it, only her being abstruse as usual, or so I'd assumed. I knew who she was. I knew the way to town, and I'd been thinking about . . . him, when the Ring would already have been active."

"Could he have written an exception for you in the spell's makeup?"

"Jack? Gods, no. It was Marabeth who cast it, and there's no earthly way she'd include a loophole for me even if he begged her on his knees." She turned the words over as they left her lips, eyebrows scrunching as she reviewed them, finding them accurate. "Communications between Tsikalayans could be exempt? I gather that she meant to continue handling business while still within the Ring. Hard to do that if no one outside remembers you."

"Perhaps . . ."

"Redmont. Got a moment?"

Blakely had returned. By now there were enough Front members and townies of exceptional ability to be useful in a crisis freeing people that few of the cells at ground level remained unopened. Some had even taken to the gangways and started on the ones in the walls.

It was going . . . well, Valerie had to concede. There was a handful of people running around like headless chickens, and many, many more were calling out names, asking where someone they knew was, demanding to be told what was happening. No screaming or stampeding, however, and on the whole they paid attention when Santos, animated by some force from unknown and frightening regions, went among them making a speech.

"Yes?"

"Santos told me your plan. Hate it. You couldn't have come up with one that won't get us buried alive?"

"Thank you, I hate it as well. Still the best one we have. Even if we don't make it, it beats being worked slash raped to death."

Blakely shook his head, an awkwardness creeping into his countenance and subsuming the concern already there.

"Look, don't take this the wrong way, but . . . neither of those outcomes applies to you. I mean, it's easy for you to be all 'better dead on our own terms than stuck in Tentaclefuck Slavery World', but you're not facing danger on the level we are. The guy now in charge has a thing for you. A romantic thing."

"I'm aware. I'm just not sure how that translates to 'you're in no danger of getting raped'." Valerie took no satisfaction from seeing the man flinch. Blakely fell into the disturbingly large portion of her colleagues who, despite having worked with her and hopefully being aware that she would not strangle or eat them, were made wary by any show of anger. And she was miffed. "Likewise, if you are implying that I could come up with something less dangerous if my personal safety were more at stake? Once this floor is clear and you are armed and organized enough to withstand a siege, I'm off to set off an explosion of unknown magnitude. If you're concerned about your chances down here, think a bit of where I'll be standing."

Blakely obviously had not considered that, and made a suitably apologetic sound. Webber, however, looked struck, as if he too had only now realized that her task fit under the umbrella of suicide mission.

"Well, then." Best to move forward before the two could dwell on it much. She wasn't doing it, so why should they? "Is Hill around? I recall that he was good at computer stuff, and I need an IT person in case the systems are protected."

Blakely made a vague yet telling gesture.

"He. Er."

"Ah." Valerie avoided staring at the left side of the room, where Santos did crowd management like their lives depended on it. She didn't want to scan the faces and find out who was missing. Notice the people who'd crumbled to the floor upon release and not gotten up, or the ones wearing looks that suggested that they'd shot past hysteria a long time ago. "See if you can find someone. With hacking skills, ideally."

"Sure. Should it be mentioned that—"

"The whole 'you're likely to die a horrible fiery death' portion? Yes, of course you don't leave that out. Check if Byron has a phone on him, too. We're short on weapons and it'll make for a passable grenade."

"Who?"

"The waste of space over there. And there." Valerie waved over her shoulder, causing both men to curl their lips with disgust. "Go. I need to check how much headway Santos is making."

She made to move past Blakely, but Webber's hand on her arm stopped her. He'd worked up the strength to leave the container, and although his countenance had yet to move away from sickish, he looked on edge more than he did anything.

"Wait. Wait a minute. I could be wrong about the Ring. It could be living and not let itself be drained. Which would leave you dead and us stuck underground, still with no way to call reinforcements." That had been a risk accounted for in the plan since Santos had plucked it from her mind and laid it out. Valerie wasn't certain why Webber felt she needed a reminder of how much room there was for all to literally blow up in their faces. Until he went on. "You could remember Westmont while on the outside. There's a good chance you will still if you get out. So do that, get us backup and let me handle the Ring, since we still need that explosion to keep the enemy busy. I'll change my face — I can do a passable Ki-laar impression — and sneak past them all without having to fight them."

"You're assuming," Valerie said, cursing the fact that there was no one she could contact to test her theory about what made phone calls possible. "You can't know that you won't be found out, and if you are? You've never been a fighter, Webber. You have no healing factor; if they aim to kill you, they will."

Was this a kinder rejection than stating flat out that she didn't trust anyone but herself to handle the matter? Likely not. She still wouldn't walk it back. If she made it out but Webber failed to trigger the Ring, Jack and the staff could concentrate on retaking the floor, without having suffered major losses or needing to deal with a partially collapsed building. With them also having a world gate at their disposal, she might not get reinforcements there in time to stop everyone from getting dispatched to Barashi.

"But—"

"To borrow Santos' line, this isn't a point up for discussion. And I do need to talk with him, so if you'll excuse me . . ."

Employing Webber's shape-shifting to catch the enemy off guard was an idea, though. Valerie was still kicking options around when she neared Santos.

The man had succumbed to a coughing fit on the last leg of his speech. Surely it had been one poignant and well phrased nonetheless. Santos was an excellent public speaker. People who'd been freed early enough to catch most of it appeared . . . not any less terrified, but at least no longer mindlessly terrified.

"Status?"

"I've split up everyone who's out. These are yours." Santos motioned at a group of men clustered on his right. It looked to be the smallest group out of three. Except for one younger pair, they were known to her. Pierce, Gilmore, Fulton, Barrera, grayer and more wrinkled than in her memories. They'd hadn't been close back in the day, but she knew them capable. Pembroke got their number up to seven. "You head out first, I'll follow with my lot. The rest are staying here to finish breaking open caskets, protect those who need it, and mind that hole up there. Objections?"