“You are stronger, but do you feel different?”
“Whisper, you sound scared. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing… I… I am just concerned for you is all.”
“I’m just tired.” She’d been weaker after the Tokugawa fight, and though she’d gotten better again with practice, she hadn’t come close to the energy she’d been able to muster before. Why now? That was really strange. Would the stronger connection to the Power stick around again, or would she lose it like last time?
If she hadn’t been so darn tired and out of it, she probably would’ve pondered on that particular mystery for a while. Instead she drifted off and was snoring in a few minutes.
She didn’t hear Whisper mutter to herself, “I wish that I had been wrong.”
Bell Farm, Virginia
They made it home late. Home, being a dilapidated farmhouse just itching to fall down, was a relative term, but it was a place to lay his weary head. Sullivan was tired. Playing mental games against somebody like J. Edgar Hoover was more tiring than breaking rocks. Plus, his body still ached from the fight with the Imperium Brute. Magical Mending could fix the wound, but the pain managed to stick around.
They parked the truck in the barn and walked to the house. Sullivan felt it first. The wartime instincts never really went away. The woods were too quiet. “We’re being watched,” he whispered. Dan started to turn his head. “Play it cool.” The other knight pretended to relax, but he kept one hand close to his piece.
Sullivan exercised his Power to feel the world around him. The metal bits were so much denser than their surroundings that they stuck out like beacons. Fifteen yards. One person in the bushes. Armed.
The noise of a revolver being cocked was very distinctive. After that came a woman’s voice. “Don’t move.”
He didn’t need to move to bend the hell out of gravity, so Sullivan prepared to Spike their new guest halfway across Virginia.
“Easy, Sullivan. I just want to talk.”
“Hammer…”
Dan had one hand on his pistol. “Who?”
“The lady who served me up to the OCI on a plate.”
She came walking out of the shadows, gun trained on them. “I didn’t know it was a setup. I was just supposed to get you to answer the phone. I didn’t know they meant to kill you.”
“I’m more inclined to believe folks who aren’t pointing heaters at me.”
“I’m just being careful. You’ve got a reputation for tossing people around.”
Sullivan scanned the trees. The range that he could check with his Power was limited. She could have an army out there. “You alone?”
“Just me and Mr. Colt here.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Only if I was here to fight, which I’m not. I’ll put this down, but give me your word that you won’t use magic on me first or start anything unless it is self-defense.”
“Are you serious?”
“Promise.”
That was an odd request. Sullivan looked at Dan, who just shrugged. “Okay. Fine. I promise I won’t attack you unless you attack me.”
“No tricks. Just hear me out. Then we part ways.”
“Agreed.”
“You’re telling the truth.” Hammer lowered the revolver. “You have no idea how refreshing that is.”
“This your fake redhead, Jake?” Dan asked, the subtle edge of magic in his words. “Because I’ve got to say, she might’ve bragged to you about how good she was at finding folks, but she sure didn’t exaggerate her talents. You certainly didn’t exaggerate about her being pretty either. She’s just as lovely in person. Very nice to meet you.”
“Save the flattery for a chump, Mouth. Your Power won’t work on me.”
Dan smiled. “Can’t blame a man for trying.”
“You here to arrest me?” Sullivan asked. “Because I’ve really got more important things to worry about right now.”
“Originally, I was. Now, I’m probably going to regret this. Hell, never mind, I know I’m going to regret this.” Hammer paused. “I’m here to help you.”
This woman was trouble. Sullivan shook his head. “No thanks. Got all the help I need.”
“You know a man by the name of Heinrich Koenig?”
“What about him?” Dan asked, positively dripping suspicion over the use of his dead friend’s name.
“He’s being held captive by the OCI, until they get tired of him. Then they’ll execute him even though they know he’s innocent, which is frankly an idea I find bothersome.”
“Impossible! Heinrich…” Dan looked to Sullivan. “Francis never got to see his body.” Then he grinned as he latched onto some hope. “I knew that stubborn son of a gun wouldn’t die that easy!” Dan went to unlock the door.
“So, you boys ready to talk yet? You know you want to.”
It might be an elaborate trick, but he was always a sucker for a mystery, and Hammer knew that about him. Sullivan gestured to the door of the farmhouse. “Come in.”
Hammer followed. “Not to be rude or anything, but you got anything to eat in here? I’ve been hiding in the bushes all afternoon, and spying is terribly famishing work.”
As they entered the house, Dan had already positioned himself off to the side, 45 in hand. He cracked the slide over the top of her head, hard enough to lay her out. Hammer hit the floor and her gun slid away.
“Damn it, Dan.” Sullivan looked down at the dazed woman. “What’d you do that for?”
“You gave your word, not mine.” Dan opened Hammer’s coat and discovered a gun belt. He removed another revolver and set it aside. “I don’t know what her Power is, but I can tell it’s something crafty. I bounced right off of her. Definitely a mental-type Active from what you said before, and she’s just oozing Power. If she’s going to start playing mind control or something, I want the deck stacked in our favor first.”
It wasn’t a bad idea at all. “That’s reasonable. I just hope you didn’t hit her too hard.”
“That was a love tap. I was a perfect gentlemen. It’ll just leave a goose egg.”
Hammer was cursing them. She rolled over and put her hands on her head. “Oh, you filthy rotten-” Then she got really nasty.
“Lady’s got a mouth on her. You believe that stuff about Heinrich?”
“Not really.”
“Think it’s a trap?”
“More than likely,” Sullivan agreed.
“Help me tie her up?”
“Well, I said I’d play nice. So you do it. I’ll get dinner started.”
Dinner consisted of opening a few cans of vegetables and one that was filled with a congealed meatlike substance, mixing them together in a pot, and heating it all on the stove until it was hot enough to distract them from the taste. Sullivan never claimed to be a very good cook.
Hammer was tied to a chair with some baling wire that Dan had found in the barn. In the spirit of fairness, Dan had just tied her ankles and one wrist to the chair, leaving her left hand free so that she could still eat. After sampling the noxious sludge Sullivan had prepared, she’d said that they weren’t doing her any favors.
“Being the fat one, you must be Dan Garrett. So, Mr. Garrett, you like hitting women?”
“Far from it. I work in an environment where it isn’t terribly uncommon to have the supposedly weaker sex bend steel beams with their bare hands. I treat all of my threats equally. Hell, I’m practically a suffragist.”
She poked at the baling wire with her free hand. “This isn’t necessary.”
“Nothing personal,” Dan explained, “but a lot of very powerful people are trying to kill us right about now, so we can’t be too careful.”
“So you buffaloed me,” Hammer muttered. “You’re a real class act.”
“If it’s any consolation, my wife will Mend that bump when she gets back… Unless of course, she decides not
