Daniel Abraham - Inside Straight

“All is lost,” Michael heard Lohengrin proclaim, his sword down. “We cannot stand against this.…”

Holy Roller shrieked. “It’s Satan himself!” he shrilled. “The devil walks the earth!” And he was gone, rolling westward and heedlessly bowling over fleeing soldiers in his rush. All of the rest of them except Fortune had backed up several paces. They looked ready to follow Holy Roller. Michael had to fight the compulsion to put his back to this horror.

“ Fear is his greatest weapon ,” Lohengrin had told them yesterday. “He radiates terror, and his enemies often flee from him without fighting .” Michael believed that now.

The Djinn glared down at them. His monstrous hands came down and plucked the tank from the barrier. He lifted it high, and Michael and the others scattered like roaches. There was no place to go—but the Djinn flung the tank effortlessly sideways over the side of the dam. They heard it hit the ground far below, as the Djinn flicked his massive hands as if brushing away crumbs, sweeping aside the rest of the barricade. Behind the Djinn, Michael could see troops in the uniform of the caliphate. One of the soldiers held a banner of red on which a crescent moon enclosed an eight-pointed star made of scimitar blades, both symbols yellow against the blood-hued backdrop: the Djinn’s personal banner. They were advancing at a walk, the Righteous Djinn behind them, the roadway shuddering under his step, the army behind him.

The lioness of Sekhmet stood her ground, her tail lashing furiously, her glow almost blinding.

Michael remembered Lohengrin’s other warning: You can’t get near him. If he touches you, he will steal your power entirely away .

Looming above ranks of his elite guard, the Djinn extended his huge hand, palm-up, toward Sekhmet, his fingers curling back toward him in unmistakable invitation. The elite guard pressed to either side of the roadway, leaving an open path to the Djinn. Michael could hear the sounds of the army of the caliphate advancing relentlessly behind the Djinn and his guards—part shouts, part the chatter of tank treads and the growl of diesel engines, part stones tumbling and timbers cracking, part the varied barks of weaponry. All of it the sound of death.

“Kate!”

She glanced over to him. Her eyes widened slightly. He wondered what she was thinking, what he must look like—one arm hanging and bloody, his clothing torn and filthy with gore. He could not read her face. She looked quickly back to Sekhmet. “John!” she called loudly. “Don’t!”

The lioness roared, and searing flames erupted from her mouth. Some of the caliph’s soldiers, their uniforms afire, fled as the lioness bounded toward the Djinn, claws extended. She looked like a kitten attacking an adult. Sekhmet’s fire seemed not to affect the Djinn at all, her claws left red scratches on the hand the Djinn lifted to send Sekhmet tumbling back. The Djinn reached for the stunned lioness, but Sekhmet’s attack had broken the stasis of fear that held them. Kate was flinging rocks, making the Djinn bring his hand back as though it had been bee-stung. Lohengrin lifted his sword. “ Yield! “ he shouted. “Yield, Righteous Djinn, and you may yet live!”

And Ana … she had dropped to the ground. On her hands and knees, her head down, she looked as if she were praying. A rumbling shivered Michael’s feet from the roadway beneath him.

Laughing, the Djinn made his gesture of invitation once more, as Sekhmet shook her head and stood once more. The lioness snarled, smoke curling around her snout. Her claws tore furrows in the concrete of the road, and Michael knew that Sekhmet would renew her attack in a moment. The rumbling under Michael’s feet grew, and the roadway lifted up and fell under him like a concrete wave. “Cripes,” Rusty grunted, nearly stumbling. Michael could see the ripple growing higher, as it knocked Kate and Lohengrin from their feet entirely, as it raced toward the Djinn.

The elite guard had responded to the attack on their leader also. Their weapons opened up—Lohengrin rolled in front of Kate; Rusty moved to shield Michael. Tiny puffs of dust erupted all around; concrete chips flew. Sekhmet leaped toward the prone Ana. Most of the bullets struck the lioness as she roared and spat flame, but Ana gave a cry, rolling over and clutching her side below the short Kevlar vest.

Michael could see blood.

The low grumbling beneath them ceased. Ana’s wave stopped sluggishly, but there was enough of a slope under the Djinn’s feet that he fell backward. The impact of his body on the dam sent reverberations through the entire structure and sent clouds of dust skyward. The mound of Ana’s earth wave collapsed noisily, leaving a deep and jagged fissure separating the groups. Water rushed in to fill it, pouring over the north side of the dam. The Djinn’s guards continued to fire wildly over the gap as they moved back quickly from the breach, as the Djinn picked himself up.

“Ana!” Kate ran to her friend. Rusty and Michael ran to her also.

“I got her,” Michael told Kate, who was crying and trying to lift the young woman. “I can carry her.” He took Ana in his lower set of arms; she fought him, crying out in pain with her eyes closed, her flailing arms striking the tympanic rings on his chest, so that wild drumbeats sounded. He tried not to look at the wound that gaped just above her right hip or the blood that poured from it. He cradled Ana and ran, crouching low. Terror gave him speed. Sekhmet roared, the guns of the Living Gods’ people chattered. Several green wasps went zipping past Michael’s head. “We’ll stand at the western end,” Lohengrin shouted. “Simoon and Bubbles will meet us there.”

They retreated, Lohengrin, Rustbelt, and Sekhmet at the rear.

The Djinn’s mocking laughter pursued them.

Michael panted, carrying Ana, who had gone terribly still in his arms. To the north, Hardhat’s girdered bridge still gleamed, wreathed in greasy smoke and filled with refugees fleeing Sehel. On the island’s eastern shore, a fleet of landing boats clustered while helicopters hovered like carrion birds overhead. The tornado of Simoon was racing south from Syrene on the western shore of the Nile, in their direction. A flotilla of bubbles was hurrying west to east across the river toward a squadron of WZ-10 attack helicopters, all with the black, green, and white insignia of the caliphate on them.

“Curveball!” Lohengrin shouted, gesturing with his sword. One of the WZ-10s emerged from the dust and smoke behind them, its black snout bristling. Its nose dipped and Michael waited for the guns to open up, or for a missile to gout fire and race toward them. But Kate had turned at Lohengrin’s shout, and, with that softball pitcher’s windup, she threw.

The stone shattered the windshield and buried itself in the pitot’s face. The chopper wailed like a wounded beast, its nose tilting straight up so that it seemed to be standing on its rear rotors, which sliced at the ground and shattered. Bits of rotor flew; Michael heard one of the followers of the Living Gods grunt and fall, his body nearly severed through. The chopper fell backward, the main rotors thrashing at the roadway. They all ran for cover. Michael heard the shrill scream of tortured metal and felt the heat of the explosion as the fuel tank went. The world was bright yellow and red, then black—the concussion sent him to his knees as he cradled Ana in all six arms.

A larger explosion came as he tried to rise; the ordnance on the craft exploding. Michael was flung down entirely, and he rolled to avoid going down on top of Ana. A series of smaller detonations followed.