The Last American Wizard (32 page)

Steve could see the enormous head as it shook violently in horrified negation. “No! The forces of liberty had conquered! The South is broken; its armies destroyed! They could never have risen again in rebellion without slaves!
No!”

“Do you remember General Hayes?” Weishaupt asked softly, “General Rutherford Hayes? Yes, a lawyer and yet
an honorable man. Why, he fought at South Mountain and broke
Jubal Early’s boys on their retreat from Washington. My God, he had
four horses shot from under him and suffered a multitude of grievous wounds! Surely he would never turn so dark as to countenance this obscenity before
me!”

“Sir, you said that you never sought the power of the Presidency, and indeed, with your poor, lank, lean face, you never even expected to achieve it. As you are well aware, a selflessness
of this degree is seldom found in the hearts of men. General Hayes became president only a handful of years after Booth fired the traitorous ball that took your life, but to reach that high office, he made a satanic compromise. In one act of betrayal, he made meaningless the lives of all those you see sleeping under the gentle greensward of Arlington
Hall.”

Weishaupt swept an arm towards Arlington
Cemetery.

“Oh, my sweet Lord! The graves!” The president cried. “There were never so many even after the catastrophic slaughters at Gettysburg and Cold Harbor! Look how they run. White row after terrible white row. The war we suffered was the most appalling the world has ever known. It could not have continued, and yet I see the evidence clearly marked by the simple crosses that fill those fields.”

Weishaupt’s poisonously persuasive voice continued. “Those are the brave men who were slaughtered in their barracks or perished in the failed attempts to reconquer the South. Hayes, the damned traitor, sold away your victory for a bowl of pottage. He has gone down in history as ‘His Fraudulency’ because it was the sale of your blood-bought victory that won him the votes in the Electoral College and brought him to the White
House!”

“Flip these damn things back to loudspeakers,” Steve snapped. In a second, his voice boomed across the empty space. “Mr. President, this man lies. The Union you fought to build still stands and no soul lives in slavery within the borders of your beloved nation. I say–no, I swear to you, he
lies!”

“It’s not going to work.” Barnaby spoke at a low volume from his belt. “Weishaupt has a
geas
on him. The eidolon’s very existence is the Illuminati’s doing, and although the shadow of the great soul which now inhabits that mighty body doesn’t know it, its existence was bought with the blood of innocents. If Lincoln wasn’t such a noble being, he could simply be commanded. Even so, with such a powerful spell on his very soul, we’re predicting that Weishaupt will sway him with his deception.”

“Do not listen to that voice.” Weishaupt’s voice came from the cell phone again. “They are from the very government … successors of those that turned their backs on sacred vows, and betrayed all you fought and suffered for; the triumph that cost you the love of your wife, killed your children, and, finally, took your very life. The evidence is forthright and the truth unavoidable. You once swore eternal fealty to the just cause. You promised to give it your life, your liberty, and your love. You sent men to their deaths by the thousands with your brave words ringing in their ears. You told them that if the republican robe was soiled, that you would repurify it–wash it white in the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution. These men died for those dreams; can you do less?”

Lincoln screamed–a colossal roar of anger and pain–and
began to stride toward the Memorial Bridge and the gleaming lights of Rosslyn. There were no longer any words in the sound— all intelligence swept away by a sea of horror, failure, and terrible, unforgivable
guilt.

“OK, the good news is that I think we’ve saved Washington, but I’m afraid Rosslyn is toast,” Ace
commented.

“Rosslyn is a fairly crappy city.” Steve said. “But I suppose we should do something about it. Plus, there are a couple of excellent Vietnamese restaurants up Wilson Boulevard that I’d hate to see squashed under those size 130
oxfords.”

Steve took a deep breath. “OK, Carlos, you and the Royals who have their own transportation–that’s the Prince and the Knight–go after Big Abe and see if you can take out small, dark and evil upon his right shoulder. Do you have any
spells?”

The two men looked at each other and then Chubb shrugged. “No
idea,
huh?”
Steve
said.
“Well,
if
you
feel
any
sudden urges to throw something or pull on an invisible rope–anything
like that–just go with it, OK? Ace, you’re with me. Now let’s go! Boulder-butt isn’t waiting for
us!”

Carlos took off at a gallop with both of the policemen hard on his heels. The statue was now crossing the traffic circle and taking the first step onto the Memorial Bridge. Steve watched as both Chubb’s horse and Bautista’s chariot lifted off the ground. Their wings might not be all that impressive but at the rate they were moving, they’d catch up to the striding figure long before he reached the far
bank.

Steve wondered for a moment how the rest of them were going to catch up. Then Hans roared across the grass and stopped
in a power slide that left him pointing toward the retreating giant. All four doors popped
open.

“Stacy, if you would, hop in the back seat,” Ace ordered. “The Fool and I need to be up
front.”

Steve only got out the “W” of “Why” before Ace’s strong shove in the center of his back propelled him into the driver’s seat. He tumbled in with his hands up in the air–afraid of touching anything that might anger the temperamental vehicle. The door slammed behind him and the thick armor plate slid into place. Ace slung her duffle over her shoulder, slid the sword into her belt, and did a Starsky and Hutch slide over the front
hood.

She slipped in the passenger door and crouched on the passenger seat. Even before her door closed, Hans shot forward in
a haze of blue smoke and the scream of high-adhesion racing tires. Ace pulled the wrist rocket out of her bag and began to strap it on. “I’ve got those lead shot, but I don’t think they’ll do crap against seventy-four tons of angry marble, and I’m not sure that my explosives will…well,
explode.”

Steve, who was trying desperately not to touch the steering wheel or the foot pedals–not to mention the dreaded
schaltwippen–
said, “Remember those yellow exploding things that the Illuminati keep tossing at
us?”

“Only too
well.”

“If I belong to all suits, I should be able to magic some of those,” Steve said. “I’ll mash it down so it’s the same size as one
of your slugs. The only problem is whether you can aim
well enough to hit Marble Mike without touching the little yellow pills. I don’t think we have time to get you repaired
again.”

“Amazingly enough, that’s not a bad idea,” She looked at him suspiciously. “Have you been sneaking around and thinking behind my
back?”

Steve was already concentrating, but he managed to shake his head
vigorously.

Ace snorted and said, “Well, be careful. You can strain something if you try too much too fast. Great. See if you can make me a whole bunch of them.” She held her finger and thumb about a half inch apart. “About .50 caliber but they don’t need to be all that precise.”

“I’m working on it,” Steve said. “When do you need them?”

“Open the roof.” Ace said to Hans and the heavy sunroof slid back. Ace stood up on the passenger seat and braced herself as the car cut a straight line across the roundabout, up and over the central grass plaza, and back onto the road just as they passed the giant golden statues that graced the east end of the bridge.

She took an experimental pull to make sure the slingshot was ready and said, “Now would be
nice.”

Steve closed his eyes for a second, thought of the sun that shone on the young man in the card, and felt the ripping agony in his head that indicated he’d learned a new power. He opened his eyes and looked through migraine creases at the glowing yellow sphere that sat in the palm of his
hand.

Ace grinned down and said, “See? Thinking just slows you down. Now, see if you can hold that for another second or two without hurting
yourself.”

She braced herself in the corner of the hatch, leaving as much room as possible over Steve’s head. “OK, now just pretend that you’re one of those ironworkers in the old cartoons and just toss that up nice and gentle so it stops right about here.” She held out the leather pocket of the slingshot in front of her with the thick elastic bands
extended.

Fully expecting disaster, Steve gently tossed the globe up in the air. Just as it reached its highest point and stopped for an instant before falling back down, Ace slipped the pocket under it, aimed, and instantly whipped it after the enormous statue. It expanded as it flew to the size of a basketball. Steve saw it fall short and explode in a shower of bright sparks, creating a good- sized pothole in the
pavement.

“Hmm, a little lighter than I calculated.” Ace said, shouting over the wind noise. “Keep them coming, I’ll nail his stony ass this time.”

Hans was doing the driving so Steve could concentrate on creating balls of liquid sunstuff and tossing them up to Ace. Every shot was hitting the statue now and resulting in sizzling bursts of sparks. Steve could see the impacts, and like the building in Greenbelt, wherever they hit, craters were appearing in the stone and rivulets of melted rock made red streaks in the gathering twilight.

“It’s not enough,” Ace called. “It’s going to take all night at this rate. Can’t you whip up something with a bit more
punch?”

“If you know so much, you come down here and make these damn things,” Steve grumbled. Then he
Reached
for more power, created a bilious green sphere, and almost lost control of it before he could toss it to Ace. This produced a bigger blast but, when the smoke cleared, he could see that the impact crater was still dispiritingly
shallow.

“It looks like they’ve installed a shield against your powers,” Ace said. “Hans, we’re going to need to get in front of this thing and see if we can stop it at the other end of the bridge. Steve, in the meantime, keep those green thingies coming. Let me see if I can knock out a
knee.”

Her aim was perfect–one shot landing right on top of another in the back of the enormous right knee. Lincoln began to limp slightly but it scarcely slowed his laborious pace. Even over the scream of the BMW’s heavy turbocharged engine, Steve could hear the heartbreaking sound of Lincoln as he continued to bellow out his confusion of grief and fury.

Steve shouted, “How long before you think you can cut through?”

“Unless he’s got a stone ligament in there I can cut…” Ace paused for another shot. “I figure about a
week.”

“That’s not
good.”

“No, it’s not. But it keeps me from being
bored.”

Steve took a second to peer through an armored slit in the
front windshield. “Be careful of the rest of the Scooby Gang. We don’t want a friendly fire
incident.”

“Why do they call it that?” Ace snapped off another shot. “If you get hit by a bullet, it’s not friendly, regardless of whose gun it came
from.”

Ahead, Steve could see Carlos–who had grown to about twice as large as his previous incarnations–attack Lincoln’s ankles. Steve was impressed; not only were the dog-monster’s fangs extraordinarily large but they were capable of gouging out great chunks of solid stone as if it were wet
clay.

The wounds were amazing even for a supernatural dog monster but they only amounted to scrapes and scratches on ankles that were six feet
around.

He looked for the police officers and saw Cobb, the Knight of Swords, zooming in on his strange-looking dragonfly-horse to spear Weishaupt from behind. Sadly, he appeared to and then had to perform amazing evasion maneuvers to avoid Lincoln’s enormous hand as it rose to swat him
away.

“Just like a man brushing away a horsefly,” Steve thought and immediately regretted not having anyone to tell what he thought was a damn good
pun.

Bautista, the Prince of Swords, had brought his strange little chariot up the back of the frock coat on the opposite side from Weishaupt and leapt off onto the stiff collar. Between tossing up Ace’s missiles, Steve caught a glimpse of the young police officer braced between the collar and the left shoulder and wielding his sword like an axe against the thick neck. Again, the magic sword was cutting deep into the stone, but it was having about the same impact as it would if he was trying to cut down a full-grown redwood.

Suddenly, Bautista put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. The tiny versions of the Prince instantly whipped the chariot into a tight turn and pulled past Lincoln’s shoulders. Bautista jumped in and then right back out again, landing on the opposite shoulder next to Weishaupt. Steve threw a fireball up without even looking– resulting in a loud curse from Ace–and watched as Bautista whipped a fast cut at the Illuminati.