316
Henry explained this to Roy, and he had a good laugh. The Silver Soldiers were still concerned.
“So, they aren’t in any danger?” Mick asked to confirm.
“Not from those balloons tied to their tails. As soon as they land, the tether dissolves, and they float away,” Henry explained.
“Sneaky bastard!” Yablonski said with a grin.
Henry shrugged. “They drew first blood. You have to admit, they’re getting off lightly. Please, don’t forget to remove those missiles.”
The Sergeant nodded.
They waited for a few minutes, listening carefully until Henry looked at Roy, who was smiling and nodding.
“It sounds like it might have worked,” he said, then gave Henry an evaluating look. “The spell you used was one of Baba’s?” Henry nodded. “What did it originally do?”
Henry glanced at the Silver Soldiers then back to Roy. “Nothing pleasant.”
Roy nodded. “I’ll assume terror, madness, and death were somehow involved.” Henry nodded stiffly.
“I’m sorry she put that in your head, but I’m grateful you’re able to adapt it for better purposes,” Roy said compassionately.
“Thanks, Roy,” Henry said with a nod to the big man.
Mick noticed there were no cars parked anywhere in sight. “How are all these people getting to the mansion?”
Henry looked at her. “Magic Doors. I set them up from their homes to here. The safest way to travel in bad weather,” Henry said with a grin at the end.
His cell phone rang, so Henry glanced at the screen. “It’s the General.” He pressed answer. “Hello, General Crane. I have Roy, Mary, and your team with me. Can I put you on speaker?”
Crane sighed. “Yes.” Henry tapped the phone and held it out for everyone to hear. The Soldiers gathered closer.
“Did you find out who sent the air force after me?” Henry asked.
“Whoever it was covered their tracks very well. It shouldn’t be this difficult to trace the commands, but the orders seem to be missing. I have my suspicions, but that’s all they are. I did hear the jets returned to base safely, and the missiles chasing them floated away?”
The soldiers all laughed, but Henry picked up relief in the sound. “Yeah, the decoy balloons were pretty convincing, I guess,” Henry admitted.
There was a pause. “They could have been deadlier though, couldn’t they,” Crane asked.
Henry didn’t know how to respond without sounding like a dick, so the Sergeant spoke up.
“This is Sergeant Tennison. Our understanding is the payload could easily have been lethal, but that option was not considered, even though the jets fired four missiles at the mansion with deadly intent. This brings me to the question of where we deliver the missiles.”
“What do you mean? You have the missiles? They didn’t explode?” Crane asked in surprise.
“Again, it’s our understanding that the missiles have had their electronics neutralized, but they still contain the explosives,” Mick explained. “Mr. Gable wants them removed. Where do we take them?”
More silence from the General. “You do realize they need to be transported in special containers with a convoy of military trucks, and the entire East Coast is in the middle of blizzard conditions.”
Henry frowned. “General, these explosives were dropped on my friend’s property and remain dangerous. We have children here! The weapons are not staying here.” He glanced at the soldiers. “Your people have been through many airbases. They can point me to a doorway I can open for them to hand-deliver these weapons, but you have to okay that and pick one where the weapons will be properly dealt with.”
“You plan to walk explosives onto a military base?” Crane exclaimed.
“No, sir. I expect US Army personnel to deliver partially neutralized US military ordinance to a secure location where they can be properly and safely disposed of. But they have to go today. I’m being very reasonable, considering what someone in my government just attempted to do to my friends and me. I have the high ground here.”
No one in hearing range of Henry’s last statement missed the strength in his voice.
“I understand. Please give me some time to make the arrangements,” Crane said wearily.
“Thank you, General. Today, please. As I said, we have children on the property,” Henry said.
“Yes, I’ll call you back. Goodbye.”
“Bye.”
Henry hung up and looked to Mick. “Can I ask you and your team to guard the missiles, so we can let the families return and the kids play outside?”
“Sure, and listen, we’re sorry someone on our side did this,” she said.
Henry just nodded. “I know you guys wouldn’t be involved in anything like this.” He shook his head. “It boggles my mind how reactionary some people become when faced with change. My whole life, I’ve been dealing with bullies, and yet, now when I’ve changed and now have the strength and skills to defend myself and my friends, I’m not out there stepping on anyone’s neck. I find the whole idea repulsive!”
The soldiers nodded as they understood, having undergone a realignment of their priorities when they were transformed into Silver People.
“We’ll need to protect the missiles on both sides of the force field. How do we get out and in?” Mick asked.
“Getting out, just walk through. Getting in, have someone on the inside reach out and pull you through. You won’t be able to see them,” Henry explained, and the Sergeant nodded as she signaled her team to head out to the site of the missiles.
Henry walked back to the mansion with Roy.
“How many do you think will come back?” Roy asked.
“All of them. Haven’t you seen how much they need each other? They’re not at risk here. It’s one of the safest spots on earth at the moment.” Roy snorted but looked up and nodded to himself.
Henry paused before going inside, and Roy waited. “Considering how they act around each other, I don’t understand how Tish managed to be apart from them for so long. I know that’s never happening again. She needs to be with them as much as they need each other.”
“With access to the Magic Doors, they no longer need to be,” Roy said.
Henry nodded. “But these all lead to Meixiu’s place, which she’s been so generous to offer. I don’t want to abuse her hospitality.”
He opened the door and came face to face with Sigrid… but not Sigrid. She wasn’t smiling, and he picked up subtle lines around her eyes and mouth, laugh lines. Her eyes were a paler blue than Sigrid’s, and her body was just a little thicker. It was the twin tails hanging down from the back of her head that really jarred with his image of his beautiful friend. The woman before him was also lovely, but it suddenly came to him that this could be Sigrid’s older sister.
“Hilda?” Roy blurted in surprise from the step.
“Roy,” the woman acknowledged, then Henry’s chin was a hotspot of agony, and he was flying out over the driveway to land in the snow.
Moments later, Hilda landed after leaping from the steps and drove her left fist at Henry’s face. He twitched and managed to take the punch against his horns. She hissed in pain as her knuckles cracked loudly. She grabbed his other horn in her uninjured fist and threw him into the air. He had time to see the Silver Soldiers rushing to his aid and the enraged woman spinning in a circle with her glowing white spear extended. Most of the soldiers had the presence of mind to leap back, but one caught the shaft against his side and went sailing.
Henry was done with being beat on, so he engaged his shield and dumped more energy into it as he fell back to the ground.
He hit hard, but the impact was absorbed by the field. He rolled to his hooves to find himself struggling to avoid a flurry of strikes from the butt of Hilda’s spear. Several landed against his body, and he saw the power levels on the shield dropping quickly. She wasn’t pulling any of these strikes-
She suddenly spun and struck him on the side of the neck with the spear’s shaft causing Henry to do a complete cartwheel. He somehow managed to stay on his hooves. If he hadn’t been wearing the force field, he would have been badly injured if not crippled. The shield’s gauge was flashing red.
His rage broke loose.
The next strike slapped into his big hand as he gripped and yanked the spear from her hands. His left fist slammed into her right temple, knocking her off her feet. She rolled and lurched back to her feet, but he was right there delivering a mighty hit against her ribs with a right. Something cracked. She deflected the punch from his left and tried to strike his throat with a punch, but he dipped his head and caught it against his chin painfully for both of them.
Hilda grinned as she launched a flurry of body strikes that were no longer blocked by a shield. A rib broke on Henry’s left side, and he leapt back, struggling to get a breath. She pressed her attack, and he got a lucky punch through to slam against her sternum. She fell back and rolled to her feet to charge forward but abruptly stopped as her eyes widened. Henry sucked in a needed breath and looked to his hands, which dripped black flames. He hadn’t even been aware of invoking Baba’s spell but knew it was a particularly nasty one. Repulsed, he released the magic and shook the flames from his hands.
The moment the black flames extinguished, Hilda surged forward, and Henry was on the defensive again. He took hit after hit but pushed the pain back as he looked for an opening. He knew shit about fighting, but even he could see how skilled the woman was as she beat the snot out of him.
He had no skill, but he was strong, and he knew pain intimately.
Her next right met his right fist, and bones broke. She cried out, the first time since the fight began. She hit him glancingly on the cheek with a left as she nursed her right hand. When she went to repeat the punch, his left fist smashed into hers, and he pulled another cry from her.
Henry grabbed her shoulders with his broken hands and yanked her forward. At the last second, he saw the fear in her eyes and recalled Mab’s terror as he crushed her skull.
He pulled his strength from the head butt and stopped at dazing her. He threw her down and put a heavy hoof on her chest to keep her down.
When her eyes refocused on him, he held up the bent and broken fingers on his right hand. She went still as Henry poured his healing spell into his hand. The fingers cracked and realigned before popping wetly back into place. He flexed the fist once more then peered into her eyes to see if she got the message. She didn’t hear his internal screams at how much that had hurt or how much he wanted to lie down right now.
She huffed with a pained frown, then nodded. “I yield,” she said through gritted teeth as if speaking the words was far more painful than her injuries.
Henry stepped back cautiously and watched her slowly lurch to her feet. She locked her gaze on him.
“How do you come to possess the soul ripping magic?” she said in a stiff voice.
Henry knew she was talking about the black flames. His mind shied away from the details of that spell in his head.