by TR Cameron
A deep male voice answered, “All right. Half of you stay with me. The rest head up to the next floor. We’ll terminate these people and join you shortly.”
Cara risked a look and saw the Kilomea and several others advancing on the staircase. A tall man dressed in black gestured to organize the remaining enemies in a search pattern.
Not good.
“They’ll find us, Tony. Time to move to Plan B.”
That involved doing something unexpected—charging the enemy. He responded with a grim, “Affirmative. On your lead.”
She took a deep breath and bolted into the corridor between the cubicles and the shuttered windows on her side of the room. Without slowing, she raised her carbine and squeezed off two rounds at the person in front of her to catch him in the shoulder. His rifle barked at the same time that hers did, and three bullets burrowed into her Kevlar vest like a heavy punch. The force unbalanced her, and a wizard appeared behind the rifleman with his hands already in motion. She stumbled into a dive around the back of the cubicles as lightning seared toward her. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it all the way, and one of her deflectors popped with a loud bang.
Dammit.
Tony thrust from hiding at the first sound of gunfire from across the room. A wizard directly ahead was escorted by a man with a rifle. The investigator raised his carbine, but before he could fire, a cone of flame emerged like a beam and intercepted the gun. Tony panicked, pushed the magazine release, and threw the weapon away before it could explode. He drew his pistol in a move long engrained through training in the MPs and as a patrol officer. A furious burst delivered its entire load of anti-magic bullets. The wizard ducked behind a cubicle wall, and the rifleman apparently thought it was his lucky day. He pulled his own trigger rather than make any attempt to evade. The rounds struck the enemy in the chest, three dead center, and he fell with a gasp.
Ahead, a pair of portals appeared, and a flood of the simian creatures Diana and Cara had described from the museum barreled into the area, already running. He slotted a normal magazine into the pistol and drew the Ruger with his left hand. A little calmer than he’d been before, he measured his shots carefully, one for each of the approaching monkeys as he walked slowly backward. In the MPs, offhand shooting had been a contest and he’d kept up the practice as a way to preserve the memory of that time in his life.
It served him well now, as each weapon tracked and dispatched the small creatures. After his weapon ran out of bullets and he’d reached the back wall, he cut to his right as Cara dodged in front of him and raised her rifle to finish the monkeys with precise double taps.
Tony quipped, “It’s like discount-bad-guy warehouse in here.” He paused to stow his Ruger and switched magazines on his Glock, as he’d opted for the anti-magic rounds again.
His partner growled her disdain as she replaced the magazine in her carbine. “The two wizards on the left are yours. That punk from the museum is here. He’s mine.”
Cara fired a stream of bullets at the second-in-command she’d seen at the museum. He smirked when he recognized her and shouted, “The bitch is mine. Get the other one,” and returned fire. She ducked into the corner office and went to ground until the hail of metal stopped. Tentatively, she stuck her head around to see him sling the weapon over his back. He grinned as he drew a pair of long knives and advanced. “How’s the arm? It looks like my buddy hurt it in your last skirmish. Maybe I can finish the job for him.”
She drew her pistol and stepped out, and he scampered away to hide amongst the wreckage of the cubicles in the center of the room. “Why don’t you come out and play? Afraid?” she called as she stalked forward, leading with her weapon as she cleared each pile one by one.
He surprised her with a leap over a cubicle divider and used his momentum to hurl her into the steel window on the opposite wall. Her gun clattered across the floor, but she paid it no mind as she threw a kick at his knee. He flicked his left knife low in a counteraction, and she intercepted it and allowed her shin guard to take the impact without a problem. She struck with a backfist that caught his cheek. His head snapped back, but he managed to evade enough that the silver contacts didn’t touch him.
Cara pursued and threw punches at his chest, but they were thwarted by the Kevlar. Her gloves sparked but failed to affect him.
Okay, nonconductive fabric. That makes sense.
The blade in his right hand licked at her and sliced a thin line along her left ear. A stray piece of her hair drifted slowly downward. She snarled and kicked at his groin, forcing him to block low, then launched a better punch at his face. This one connected cleanly, and a satisfying snap echoed as the shock gloves did their work. He staggered back and seemed dazed, and she thrust into a kick. Her adversary did the only thing he could and stepped in to catch her mid-leap, then used her own momentum to redirect her into the wall.
Cara impacted hard but landed with her balance still intact. She kicked him in the side of his knee. It buckled, and she hammered another fist at his face. He rolled away, and metal glinted as he dropped the knife and drew a backup gun that looked more homespun than factory grade. The holdout pistol fired two rounds before it jammed and burned his hand with a small explosion on the next trigger pull.
Seriously? A big, bad professional wizard like you relies on crap-cobbled shit as backup?
The first round battered her vest hard enough to shock her, and the other furrowed the flesh on the upper portion of her right arm. She steeled herself against the pain and finished her attack, stamping down on the limb that had held the pistol. The bone cracked, and the burned hand flopped limply.
“Serves you right, jerk,” Cara said. She pressed the silver studs on her glove into the side of his neck. He spasmed, and his eyes rolled back in his head. She forced herself to her feet and did her best to ignore the pain in her arm. There was no time for recovery. She had to find her partner.
Tony launched himself into the aisle on Cara’s signal and eliminated one of the wizards with his first triple burst.
You’d think they’d have realized that the shield thing isn’t reliable by now.
The other struck him with a force bolt that knocked him against the wall. The agent had barely enough presence of mind to drop and roll to evade the one that followed. Plastic, microchips, and ink spattered the air as the blow pulverized the computer monitor in the office behind him. One device in the whole damn place, and it was turned into a weapon of destruction.
He climbed to his feet, took two steps forward, and threw himself to the side to avoid the next blast.
The idiot thinks he’s fancy with the extra flourishes before he shoots. All he’s doing is telegraphing.
Tony wove to dodge the attacks, but his progress was slow. He snatched up a picture frame from a desk nearby. Deftly, he flicked it like a Frisbee at the wizard, who hesitated in a moment of shock before he knocked it away with a swing of his wand. The agent holstered his pistol, then stole two more projectiles from the desk and hurled them at the mage. The enemy redirected them with a contemptuous grin.
Idiot.
While the chucklehead was distracted playing tennis, Tony had made it one cubicle closer.
He swept his arm across the next desk to capture the things strewn there and threw them in series. All the while, the gap shrank more and more. His adversary finally seemed to realize what was happening and allowed a pencil cup to hit him in the head while he thrust his wand forward, his eyes wide.
The agent dropped and rolled again to avoid the force beam that disintegrated the cubicle behind him. This time, he was close enough to be able to act. He rocketed at the mage, hoping the man wasn't fast enough to track him with the wand.
When he collided with the wizard’s legs and looked up into that grinning face, he smiled in response. He punched the wizard’s thigh. It wasn’t nearly hard enough to disable him, but the shock studs on the glove made the bastard dance as the impulses triggered his nerves. The man fell and Tony snagged his wa
nd. Without that, his opponent seemed powerless. He added an extra kick to the side of the man’s head to be safe, then resumed his search for Cara.
When the two finally located one another, she pointed at the staircase, and he nodded. She seemed to be struggling to get there, so he abandoned any thought of taking the wizard prisoner and hurried around the cubicles toward her.
It soon became clear why she had difficulty. Cara dragged an enemy along beside her with the arm that had been wounded at the Museum. His eyebrows furrowed in a question, but he noticed the blood that seeped out of her other arm. He rushed forward to offer aid, but she shook her head.
“Flesh wound. It’s no biggie. Take this guy.” He obeyed and she pulled a compression patch from her belt pouch. She bound it around the wound and used her teeth to pull the first tie closed while he shook his head in bewilderment.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” He threaded the other fastener and stretched it tight. She nodded and seemed about to thank him when her eyes widened. He spun to look behind him, certain that he was about to be attacked, but no enemy loomed anywhere near them. His gaze settled instead on a device that hadn’t been there when they’d entered. It looked very much like a timer attached to explosive charges and stuck on the wall. Several more were affixed in a similar fashion around the room. He imagined there would be some among the cubicles, too. They all counted down with the same number and ticked past the eight-minute threshold.
Tony triggered his mic. “Boss?”
Diana’s voice was soft, almost a whisper. “Go.”
“It looks like they’ve set bombs on this level. They’re not familiar enough that I’m confident I can disarm them. Plus, there’s no way to know where they’ve put all of them. Timers on the ones I see read seven minutes and forty seconds.”
Her voice was much calmer than the investigator felt. “Okay, time to put an end to this party. Meet us on four. We’ll clear the way for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Diana watched the stairwell from the fourth floor. Her carbine was loaded with anti-magic bullets and trained on the entry as she waited for her team to push through. Bryant was ready with their remaining grenades to throw down after them to delay the enemy.
She toggled her mic. “Kayleigh, have SWAT clear the area. Warn them that the building will explode and get that chopper in here. If anyone complains, tell them they can take it up with me later. Also, release the windows.” Bryant grinned at her. “Being in charge suits your tyrannical streak.”
She rolled her eyes. “Quiet, you.”
Kayleigh replied, “Affirmative on SWAT. They're moving, but I read a malfunction on the lockdown. Did anything happen?”
Diana looked at the steel barriers that blocked their exit. “No.”
“That’s not good.”
“No, it isn’t.” Tony and Cara turned the corner of the landing below and struggled with the body they dragged between them. Diana used her telekinesis to take some of the weight and allow the pair to move faster. Shouts echoed through the stairwell, and Bryant threw a flash-bang. It detonated and generated more shouts, and they heard what sounded like every adversary in the tri-state area pounding up the stairs.
Diana pointed Cara and Tony to the far side of the room. “Get one of those covers off. We need a window to go out.” They dragged their prisoner to the wall with Rath’s help and set to work. Bryant waved at her, and she looked down the staircase. He held up their last two grenades, and she nodded. He primed and threw them, but no sooner were they out of sight than they boomeranged back. She swatted them away with her telekinesis, and they detonated before they could reach the enemy.
Bryant frowned as he moved away from the stairwell. “Well, that sucked.” She nodded her head in agreement and joined him in a dash to a defensive position. The floor was a giant open workspace, with tables and chairs scattered in clusters throughout and the familiar and seemingly mandatory corner offices. They managed to rearrange some of the furniture into makeshift barriers, and each crouched behind a different one.
She called, “Incoming,” and Tony huddled into the protection of his own collection of junk and raised his pistol. The first wave was mundane. The troops carried rifles and fired at random to keep them pinned so the reinforcements could enter. Diana leveled her rifle barrel over the top of the bulwark, exposed as little of her head as was necessary to see the enemy, and took single shots aimed at the magic users behind them. Tony fired at the mundanes in the lead, and Bryant divided his fire between the two groups.
Their foes continued as a mixed force, which meant the team wasted anti-magic bullets on those who didn’t require them. Diana’s magazine clicked empty, and she rammed in her last set of the expensive rounds and fired at anyone holding a wand. She eliminated a couple, but the remainder summoned tables, chairs, and filing cabinets and used them to block her fire.
By the time the rounds were depleted, the enemy had filled a third of the room and now spread in all directions.
Kayleigh’s voice was annoyingly calm. “Ninety seconds on the chopper.”
Diana dashed from her cover a scant second before an enemy mage ripped it apart with a force blast. She charged the rifle-carrying woman nearest her, made sure to use her as a shield against the line of sight from the others, and snatched her weapon. Before her opponent could wrestle it back, Diana kicked her hard below the edge of her vest. The blow to the stomach jerked her back, while the rifle Diana held kept her close. She yanked down on the weapon and drove the woman’s face into her rising knee, then dropped both her and the rifle to dive to the side as a blast of lightning struck the wall where she’d stood.
Bryant thrust from cover and attacked the wizards with a pistol in one hand. He whipped his offhand forward and yelled, “Get over here!” One of them unexpectedly complied, fell on his back, and slid across the room with his leg outstretched. The agent timed his play and vaulted up to land on the wizard with bone-breaking force. He kicked the wand away for good measure.
Tony was surgical with his shots. He squeezed off single rounds and exposed as little of himself as possible. Despite the other battles that raged around him, he confined his fire to those who might threaten Cara, who had opened the electrical panel for the metal window covers with her multi-tool and now hastily rewired it.
When the leader they’d last seen ducking cowardly into the vault appeared, the battle frenzy increased as if his very presence inspired involuntary violence. The riflemen renewed their relentless barrage, and Cara had to stop her work to assist their team. Diana had lost count of the bullets in her pistol, which she’d drawn after the fight with the riflewoman since she was out of anti-magic rifle rounds. She was shocked when it locked open but shoved it into its holster and sent a force blast at a distracted witch to dislodge her wand. With her other hand, she summoned a table and hurled it at an enemy who had drawn too close to Cara for comfort.
Diana growled. “Cara, get back to the window. Tony, your only job is to protect her. We’ll deal with this asshole.”
She noticed the detective handing Cara his backup gun but ran out of time to wonder why when Kayleigh said, “Sixty seconds to the chopper, five minutes on timers.” The battle paused for a moment as the riflemen retreated to the stairs, taking only enough shots to keep the BAM agents at bay. The leader smiled his superior smile, stared Diana in the eye, and intoned, “I’m so glad it’s you again.” He raised his hands, and a whirlwind of furniture took flight to circle at random and hinder their ability to shoot. The bastard was delaying them. Again.
Bryant confirmed it. “If he stalls long enough, boom.”
“Yeah, not gonna happen.” Diana attacked without preamble. She used her telekinesis to subtly redirect anything aimed toward her, and every time an enemy appeared in a gap, she shoved them aside with a force blast. Still, it was slow going, and each delay made her angrier, which caused the power to build inside her. She finally reached the eye of the storm and found the leader, his righ
t-hand witch, and another pair of magicals with wands pointed directly at her.
The shadow bolt struck her first and it was so fierce that all her deflectors shattered at once. The witch’s ice blasts sought her next, but she had already rolled away by that point. Lightning crackled as she continued into the position she wanted, and her vest absorbed the spell with the staccato music of popping resistors. Once in place, she marshaled the power within, threw her hands up, and propelled a wave of force outward in all directions with a defiant yell. The leader staggered back, and his lieutenant was hurled into the wall nearest the stairs. The other two wizards tumbled in different directions, one toward Bryant and the other toward Tony, exactly as she’d intended.
I love it when a plan comes together. Heh.
Bryant only had time to shove his empty pistol into his holster before the wizard’s involuntary flight brought him close. The enemy had recovered well and wrapped himself in an electrical shield of some kind that protected his landing. He whipped his wand, and the agent raced toward him. Even after his deflectors and resistors did their work, the force of the enemy’s magic was still powerful enough to make him stagger, and he dropped to one knee.
He threw his magical line out and snagged his foe’s feet, but the mage fired a blast of electricity, and the powers canceled where they met. As Bryant rose, another electrical attack reached him to raise a wicked burn on the side of his neck. His vision blurred. He stepped closer, and the wizard released another blast. He dropped to one knee as his grasp on consciousness faded. “Aspida. Sanitatem,” he whispered, and two charms burned into his chest as they were consumed.
