The Last American Wizard (33 page)

Incredibly, the sword passed right through the Bavarian’s body without stopping. Obviously, Weishaupt was only a specter; he hadn’t needed to manifest completely as he had when he tried to kill Steve at
Bladensburg.

The unchecked force of the blow spun Bautista around and he lost his balance and fell out of Steve’s sight. A green flash zipped in from the side and, a second later; Bautista reappeared, holding on to the rear floorboards of his chariot. He shook his head disgustedly and flew up and then dropped onto the top of Lincoln’s curly hair. Once he had his feet placed, he began to chop straight down like a man preparing to go ice fishing in a Minnesota
winter.

Steve threw up another fireball just as Hans went into a screeching swerve to the left. The car actually moved under the missile but the effect was that it moved directly towards Ace. She jumped up off the seat, slammed a hand down on either side of the sunroof, and flew up high enough that the ball went between her legs.

Unfortunately, that left her also moving in a straight line as Hans curved back and right out from under her. Without thinking, Steve snapped his golden staff up through the sunroof in her direction–round and smooth this time instead of sharp and deadly– and she grabbed it, let her velocity swing her around, and dropped back into the passenger
seat.

She took a deep breath, shook herself, and then said, “Thanks, but if you make one comment about pole dancing, I’ll make you eat that
thing.”

Steve retracted the pole into his palm, “Never crossed my mind.”

At that instant, Hans hit the curb on the left side, bounced about a foot in the air, and came down on the broad sidewalk already jacked over into a violent right turn. He tore past the statue, rocketed back onto the road, and headed for the other end of the bridge.

“Those aren’t standard shocks any more, are they?” Steve asked.

“’No shit, Genius?’ What sort of talk is that?” As he rebounded off the car door, Steve asked mildly, “What’s with the accent, anyway? Aren’t you from Spartanburg, South
Carolina?”

I swear, you ain’t got the brains God gave a catfish. Who’d admit they were from a town so lame that even NASCAR moved
out?

Steve said, “Well, I suppose that is
true.”

“OK, OK. You’re German.” Steve
agreed.

“Can you break away from chewing the fat with Beemer-boy and get back to supplying me with ammunition?” Ace stood up again and braced herself against the side of the sunroof. “Hans, I’m going to set up for a stand at the end of the bridge. Can you heavy- up your front end? I mean, like
bulldozer-heavy.”

Steve tossed another fireball and they settled back into their rhythm with Ace now facing backward and aiming for the giant’s eyes. When they reached the far side of the bridge, Hans slid to a stop and everyone piled out. Hans–who now had a heavy angled iron wedge in place of a front bumper–pulled to the left, spun around in a cloud of smoke, and stopped, now headed away from Washington.

Ace ran to the other side of the road and motioned for the Queen of Swords to follow. Steve started to follow but she waved him back. “You’re not going to be able to help with this. Why
don’t you try that blast ray you used on Colonel
Tataka?”

Steve, of course, didn’t have a clue what he’d done to blow an enormous hole in the woman who, at the time, had become a rather irritable
rakshasa
demon
.
He walked out to the center of the road leading off the bridge and concentrated on the Fool. This time, there was no devastating pain, so he kept his eyes open and watched as a column of fire easily two feet wide shot from his
chest and directly at the stone giant. He kept adding more power to the beam, pouring his will into making it faster, stronger, and more explosive.

He could feel the beam–it seemed to sink into itself, become more concentrated, and distilled into a coruscating golden bar. He felt the now-familiar sense of time slowing, but this time, it reached the point where the ray seemed to be crawling towards the enormous figure, now frozen in midstep. He clenched his fists and brought image after image into his mind–holding every Fool he’d ever seen, from the innocent boy, to the grizzled tramp, to the green, horned guy with the tiger chewing on his leg.

All sounds dropped down into the bass range and then disappeared. His little space-time bubble was quiet and rather pleasant, Steve decided. Having a bit of privacy was, of course, too good to
last.

He heard a calm voice in his head. “Let me see if I can help a bit, son.” From the sense of quiet amusement, Steve had no doubt that it was Coyote and he could almost feel the demi-god’s strong hands on his shoulders. New jets of power poured through him–he caught flickering images of animals, plants, and even rocks and streams. The beam shimmered with a rainbow of colors and he had to fight to keep it concentrated and focused–watching it as it begin to burn like a magnifying lens in the
sunlight.

Steve thought briefly that his cranium was getting a bit crowded when he heard Barbara Harlan say, “Well, it would seem that I have discovered at least one of the Empress’s abilities. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve called in emergency
reinforcements.”

A massive torrent of Power flowed into Steve with the blast of a fire hose. It was woven of so many different streams that he assumed it was the will of every major Power user in the District. He could feel stern and stolid minds he thought must be dwarves and
the
flashing
intelligences
that
he
recognized
as
elves.
There were many other, more complex beams and even–so subtle he almost missed it–a stream that tasted like the gleam of golden eyes, dragons adding their strength from their hidden
lairs.

“Yes, I called on Congress, K Street, and all the political action committees,” the president said. “I felt it was worthy of a bipartisan effort–hard as that is to pull off in this
town.”

Steve swayed with the effort of controlling the enormous amount of energy pouring into him. Huge bronze hands slipped under his arms and Albert Pike boomed, “Steady, lad. I’ve got you.”

The beam was now far larger and made of so many strands
that it looked like the
fasces,
the leather-bound sticks that represented the strength of people when they worked
together.

That symbol with the motto, “Out of many, one” or “
e
pluribus, unum,”
was chiseled into all Washington’s
government buildings. Or, at least, all the buildings designed before 1940, when the fascists stole the
fasces
along with the
swastika.

Time returned with a splintering burst that seemed to blast through every cell in Steve’s body. The thick and mighty braid of Power leapt forward and struck the marble figure in the dead center of the chest. Instantly, Steve broadened the focus, hoping to first penetrate and then expand the massive force, blasting the marble into shards and
dust.

For several moments, smoke and flame completely enveloped the bridge, hiding the statue from view. Steve was determined to destroy this creature and he could feel the strain as all the other Powers reached their limits and then went just a bit beyond. At this point, the beam was a dozen feet wide. The smoke–a deep black color, shot with flickers of blue discharges, and emitting the slamming thunder of lightning bolts in a unceasing storm of sound–was so thick, it looked like the Lincoln Memorial itself had disappeared.

Then it was over. The beam snapped off in a blink and Steve slumped against the cool strength of Pike’s metal
chest.

A breeze blew away the smoke and Steve could see that Lincoln had been stopped and even shoved back a few feet. Then, the massive figure regained its balance and the giant limped first one step and then another, dragging behind him the leg that Ace had tried to
hamstring.

The smoking crater where the beam had struck was yards deep–they’d almost blasted their way through. Steve could sense that they had burned away much of the blood magic that
Weishaupt had used to animate the mass of stone
.
The eidolon was weakened but far from
destroyed.

Lincoln roared again, a thunder of rage and
madness.
The normally calm and benevolent face was twisted in a blend
of
fury, determination,
and
infinite
sadness.
Even
though
it
was
moving
slower, it was only steps away from the Virginia side of the
bridge.

On the other side of the circle, he could hear Ace yell, “All right, Rowan. I didn’t think you could draw half that much mojo. It was worth a try, anyway.” Then she turned away and, like the starter at the Indianapolis 500, spun her hand over her head and then pointed it straight at
Hans.

“Let’s try a little kinetic
force,”

Steve saw that Ace and the Queen had shoved one of the curved concrete Jersey barriers into the road on the right side of the circle and then flipped it down so that it formed a crude ramp.
Hans took off around the circle, engine roaring and tires screaming as it gathered speed. The front bumper was now a solid steel ram a foot thick and covering the entire front of the
car.

Ace was shouting orders in a command voice that was so clear, Steve figured it could be heard–well, perhaps not in New York City, but definitely in Baltimore. Albert Pike shoved Steve out of danger and then ran heavily toward the statue. Carlos and
the three Swords pulled back to the other side of the traffic circle, turned 180 degrees, and began a running, or flying,
charge.

As Hans came around the last quarter of the circle, Steve could hear the 4.4-liter twin turbo V8 engine howl as it used every one of its 445 horses—as it straightened in the run up to the ramp, it was topping out well over a hundred and twenty miles per
hour.

The timing was
perfect.

The BMW was the hammer. It hit the improvised ramp and flew into the air at a 45-degree angle to the bridge. Seconds behind the hurtling vehicle were the two flying Swords, aiming to hit high and drive the statue just a bit more to the
left.

Albert Pike and the
canejo
were the anvil. The eleven-foot solid bronze statue was driving in at the statue’s left knee– intending to cut down the eidolon like cornerbacks submarining a tight end. Carlos was off the ground in a tremendous leap with all four hoofs aimed straight for the outside of the left
knee.

Hans’s massive front bumper hit Lincoln precisely at the top
of the enormous chest. Less than a second later, the Knight and Prince of Swords drove into the head–burying their swords deep into the eyes and then pushing with everything they had. Carlos approached smashed into the front of the statue’s left knee, while Pike put his shoulder down and drove into the
rear.

Again, Lincoln staggered sideways on feet so massive that they ground the concrete sidewalk into
powder.

Albert Pike was struck by a flailing stone foot and thrown backwards, demolishing the bridge railing, and managing to stop just on the edge, flailing his arms in a successful attempt to stay
out of the
Potomac.

The King and Knight of Swords pulled around to attack the face again, and the Queen ran in, leapt, and drove her sword straight into the right
knee.

In a perfect parabola, Hans shot upwards, flew over the statue and the entire width of the four-lane bridge, and slipped quietly
into the dark water on the other
side.

For a split second, Steve thought that Lincoln would follow
but the monster managed to stop with the heel of one enormous shoe hanging off the bridge. Then he slowly pulled himself
upright, shook his head, and resumed his shambling assault on the brilliantly lit glass towers–ignoring his attackers as if they were
less than
gnats.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN

Steve had always thought that the coolest fighting scene in any movie occurred in
The Return of the King
when Legolas attacked the Oliphaunt. But that was before he saw Ace’s assault on
Lincoln.

Steve was running in pursuit of the statue, now crossing the lawn below the Iwo Jima Memorial, but Ace left him behind as if he was standing still. As she ran, she fired small fletched bolts with the Wrist Rocket, creating a series of handholds up the broad back. A massive foot swept back as Lincoln slipped on the grass verge of Route 50 and only missed her by inches as she dove forward and rolled up between his
legs.

Steve lost sight of her when exhaustion caused him to slip and fall in the thick wet grass. A quick
Study
of the Fool gave him a boost of vitality at the cost of a sciatic agony that felt like a high- tension wire had been attached to his
ass.

When he stood up again, he could see that during the seconds he had focused on the card, Ace had dropped the slingshot and unfolded a small but wicked-looking crossbow from the small pack on her back. He couldn’t help but wince as she fitted a barbed bolt into the slot and fired straight up into the giant’s
crotch.

The marble creature didn’t show any pain–something that Steve couldn’t quite decide if he felt good or bad about–but the
bolt was rammed solidly into its…trousers, and a length of rope now trailed behind it. Ace clipped the crossbow to her belt and went up the rope like a featured act at the Cirque de
Soleil.

Luckily, the sculptor had given Lincoln a “thigh gap” worthy of a Photoshopped Vogue model, or Ace would have been crushed between the marble legs as he
walked.

Instead, she swung on the rope twice and then released at the apex, spinning like a gymnast, and unfolding just in time to grab a finger hold on the first of the crossbow bolts. The sound of hooves came up from behind and Steve was suddenly thrown in the air as Carlos stuck his snout between his legs and tossed him up. It was a painful landing on the
cadejo’s
broad back, but he dug his fingers into the thick fur and looked for the others. The three Swords were swinging around to get between Lincoln and the city, the Queen perched on the back of the Knight’s strange flying
horse.

It appeared that the Prince had discovered at least one magic power. He was making sharp throwing gestures with one hand as he held on to the chariot with the other. Green lightning bolts shot out and detonated with massive thunderclaps against the statue’s head.

Lincoln’s head would snap to the side at each impact but his path never wavered. Even compensating for the extremely erratic gait of a hoofed dog, Steve could see Ace climbing up the back of the marble colossus—essentially free-climbing a moving mountain. Gripping a bolt, swinging for momentum, and flying free to grab the next bolt or a wrinkle in the stone
cloth.

When there was absolutely no higher hold in reach, she slammed Joan of Arc’s sword straight into the marble and used it as a piton–reaching back from the next hold to pull it out. It was an exhibition of skills so advanced that she made it look easy.

Weishaupt’s apparition was still whispering urgently into the statue’s ear. He spotted Ace as she came up over the vast shoulder blades and began to speak frantically, gesturing back to the oncoming SEAL. Ace hurled two knives at him and he would have had one in each eye if both hadn’t passed right through his head and arced off into the
darkness.

Ace looked disgusted as she ducked around to the left just as the immense hand came up to brush at his coat and missed her by inches. In a series of moves worthy of any
American Ninja
finalist, she gained the relative safety of the opposite
shoulder.

There, she knelt and pulled what looked like a soda can and a short pencil from one of her cargo pockets. She held them close to her mouth and appeared to whisper to them for several minutes.

Then she jammed the can into one of the niches carved earlier by the Prince of Swords, inserted the slim cylinder into the rear, and got out of the way by throwing her feet back and sliding down the upper arm until she came to rest in the crook of the
elbow.

There was an explosion. It was small compared to the massive blasts that the Prince of Swords was still throwing on the other side and nothing like the intense beam that Steve had fired. On the
other hand, there was virtually no blowback, so Steve assumed it was a shaped charge that she’d placed deep in the
stone.

Steve watched in amazement as a crack opened all the way around the massive neck. The Prince apparently saw it as well–his next blast was thrown with both hands at the center of the president’s brow. The recoil tossed him backward and he would have fallen from his chariot if two of the Mini-Me’s hadn’t thrown off their reins, rocketed around to the rear, and pushed him back to safety.

Surprisingly, the Prince’s blast finally shredded Weishaupt–or at least caused him to lose control over whatever hellish combination of hallucination and ectoplasm he’d created in order
to guide the monster–and the enormous head with its noble
features slowly tipped to the rear as if the president was taking a look at the stars. It kept on tipping until it finally fell off and crashed to the ground
below.

Steve’s joy at this victory was
short-lived.

The statue paused for moment as if confused and then simply continued on its way with the enormous head still uttering it’s agonized cries from where it lay half buried in the soft
earth.

Disaster struck as Abe absent-mindedly reached over and flicked Ace off her perch at his elbow with his thumb and forefinger.

Steve was horrified but a small part of his brain apparently just couldn’t stop with the bad jokes. “Well, of course, he’s absent- minded. His mind is about forty yards behind
him.”

Ace’s body flew up and out, clearing the George Washington Parkway, and disappearing into the wooded island that held the Teddy Roosevelt
Memorial.

For a shocked instant, the world went quiet as Carlos stopped to look, and even the stone head paused in its mad
wailing.

Then Steve heard the grinding of steel and the jangle of breaking glass as the statue smashed into the sharp edge of 1000 Wilson Boulevard–right under the neon sign that advertised one of the local television stations. Hundreds of people had crowded up to the windows to gawk at the spectacle and only now were beginning to turn and run. Steve noticed that several camera operators in the upper floor were standing their ground and continuing to shoot, clearly convinced of the magical protection that all photographers feel when they look through a camera lens.

Steve leaned over and yelled into Carlos’s ear. “He’s going to go right through that place–it’s only glass and plasterboard. Circle around and we’ll hit him when he comes out.” Carlos didn’t answer–Steve wasn’t sure that he could, now that he thought about it–but he swerved and charged up the side street to the front of the building.

In front of the building, Steve slid off, and kept right on going until
he
was
lying
on
the
ground.
His
legs
were
jelly
after
the jolting ride on Carlos’s back. Since it was an emergency, he kept his moans to a reasonably heroic minimum and crawled to the median strip where he could pull himself into a sitting position on a concrete planter. Whatever his full powers turned out to be, he was fairly sure that physical strength was never going to top the list.

The bronze effigy of Albert Pike came stamping around the far corner at as close to a run as a guy could manage who weighed about as much as a railroad locomotive. The Prince of Swords swept high over the street, spotted Steve, and dropped to the ground next to him. Bautista raised his helmet and his face transformed from canine to
human.

“He’s smashing the girders and supports all along the back,” Bautista said. “I think he’s trying to make sure the building falls.” He looked up for a moment, and then sighed. “There’s twenty stories and it looks like everyone decided to work late. Hundreds
of people, if not a thousand, are going to die in this building alone. Stacy and Cobb followed Lincoln in and are doing their best, but I’m not sure what they can do against someone who can keep fighting after you cut off his
head.”

“Hell, politicians have been doing that since the Greeks invented democracy,” Steve snarled. “Here’s what we’re going to do–”

He was interrupted by a powerful buzz on his belt and a loud rendition of the Chipmunks version of
Danger
Zone
.

He pulled the cell phone from its clip and wasn’t surprised to find it completely undamaged. He wondered idly if they made mil- spec covers for people. Barnaby’s voice came from the speaker. “Steve? Are you all
right?”

“I guess that depends on your definition, but yeah, I guess I’m OK,” Steve answered. “Both Ace and Hans are MIA and we’re not having any luck with tall, handsome, and
headless.”

“I know. Half of the Keyhole satellite fleet is overhead just to catch the show and they don’t usually do that except for the Super Bowl. Of course, those sand brains at CYBERCOM tried to use the distraction to drop a couple of rocks on
Stanford–”

“‘Rocks’?” Steve asked sharply. “What do you mean, ‘rocks’?”

“Oh, wait.” Barnaby was suddenly hesitant. “Forget I said that. There are no
rocks.”

“No, I’m not going to forget it.” Steve could hear the statue smashing things far back inside the building and knew he still had some time. “An object with sufficient mass wouldn’t burn up in the atmosphere. What would happen when it hit the
ground?”

“It wouldn’t be significantly different from a hydrogen bomb,” Barnaby said. “Well, except for the lack of radioactive fallout, of course.”

“Why
Stanford?”

“Because that’s where most programmers and hackers come from, and CYBERCOM has now declared that they’re the enemy. Or at least, that’s its current theory,” Barnaby admitted. “Listen, it’s all under control. The latest NRO bird caught HODCARRIER Five in the act and we burned out all his targeting chipsets, so there is no more problem with rocks. Not that there ever was. A
problem, that
is.”

“OK, but we’re definitely returning to the subject of HODCARRIERs One through Four when this nonsense is over.” Steve sighed. “So, do you have any great ideas about how to stop a statue that has clearly lost its
marble?”

Send Money made a raspberry
sound.

“If you prefer, he’s out of his mind on rock and roll, a real
head case, but sure as hell has got a pair of stones. You’ll have to excuse me; I’m going through a rocky time in my life,” Steve said defiantly. “Enough of this silliness. In addition to saving hundreds of lives, I absolutely must stop that fiend from smashing Pho 73 just behind me, an event I would be forced to take personally since they are the best noodle shop in the entire tristate
region.”

As he spoke, he watched the front door of the silver-and-glass building. A few people were running out and scattering up and down the street but not nearly enough to indicate a complete evacuation of those trapped
inside.

“Can your eyes in the sky tell why people aren’t leaving the building?”

“I don’t need them. I’ve been listening to the intercoms and cell phones in there after you guys took off to go on the attack. They’re stuck inside because they were too dumb to leave immediately and Weisshaupt told Lincoln took out the elevators and stairs first,” the computer said. “Remember, the Illuminati need the maximum possible number of
deaths.”

“Speaking of that little Bavarian ratfucker, do you have eyes on
him?”

“Since he went virtual today to keep Lincoln on the crooked and nasty and finally got shredded by the Prince, Weishaupt is presently bodiless. I put a request in to General Howard and the sneaky old veteran has managed to follow Weishaupt through three psychic realms already, and I have faith that we’ll be able to find him when you have time to deal with
him.”

Bautista’s head snapped around at a loud groaning sound. After listening for a second, he pulled down his helm, changed
back into his canine form, and yelled, “Shit. That’s the building’s main girders beginning to bend. I think the big guy is on his way out.”

Steve grabbed his arm. “Hey, it’s no use going after the big guy any longer. Tell the others to start pulling people out any way they can. For Christ’s sake, you’ve all got Power–think of a way to use it. Maybe you’ve got the mojo to make emergency slides or air cushions or something. Just get them
out.”

The Prince of Swords nodded and then leaned over and spoke to his three miniature replicas. “OK, Manny, Moe, Jack, listen up. Once we go in, split up and make sure Stacy and Cobb gets the word. Then see if you’re strong enough to carry people. Got it?” The little figures saluted and the chariot streaked straight through a window on the ground floor of the
building.