Semiautomatic Sorceress Boxed Set One: includes: Southwest Nights, Southwest Days, and Southwest Truths

by Kal Aaron

  “It was my understanding there was no teleportation sorcery,” Jofi replied. “This Sorceress can teleport an entire building?”

  “There isn’t, and she can’t.” Lyssa grabbed the door handle. “She goes to a place, then uses a big package of spells and shards to remake the location into the latest iteration of the club. It’s a wild, always changing place. At least, that’s what they say. I’ve never actually been there. It’s usually for people with more political pull than I have. Huh. I wonder if that means I’ve made it?”

  “I would advise caution. You lack political pull.”

  “You manage to care about and insult me at the same time.” Lyssa chuckled and reached for the handle. The desire to leave had vanished, suggesting it was a defensive spell that could be disabled by recognizing and reading the Lemurian text. She hoped it also unlocked the door.

  With a gentle tug, she opened the door. The dusty, cobwebbed barbershop had disappeared. Round tables filled the front area, popping into existence out of nowhere. An elderly man in a white uniform and black bowtie stood behind a tiny bar with no obvious bottles. He nodded at her. Samuel stood near the bar in his white-suited regalia.

  Ghostly forms wandered behind the tables. A translucent forested mountain landscape filled the back wall, shifting with each passing second, the peaks rising and falling as if they were in a sped-up film. Clouds flowed overhead. Colorful birds flew side by side with dragons and strange amalgamations of birds, dinosaurs, and insects. People from tiny villages spread out to hunt three-legged dancing flowers or tend glowing stalks.

  “Is it always like this?” Jofi asked.

  “As I said, it’s different every time,” Lyssa whispered before walking over to Samuel. “I’m here.”

  “I was curious to see if you’d be able to resist the urge to leave.” Samuel looked pleased. “It’s good to test certain things now and again in the Torches under my supervision. The job involves more than just destroying targets.”

  “Is that why you chose this place?” Lyssa asked, too excited to be annoyed anymore.

  “One reason, among others.”

  Samuel inclined his head toward the only normal-looking thing in the room, a white door just past the bar. He walked over and opened it. Lyssa followed him.

  The room inside was surprisingly mundane compared to the outside, with just a few comfortable-looking leather chairs and a small square glass table in an otherwise white room. After the exotic main room, the normalcy felt odd.

  Lyssa reevaluated her opinion when she noticed the table was showing shifting close-ups of the villagers from the mountain scene. She sat and chuckled.

  “This is your idea of a good place to meet?” she asked, staring at the table.

  “It has its advantages,” Samuel replied. “Including extensive defensive spells and protections, and the ability of those with appropriate pull to ensure total privacy. That’s what I’m availing myself of today.”

  “Where’s Kanya?” Lyssa looked around.

  “Absent at my request. Now, let’s get to why I called you here.”

  “Let’s do that.” Lyssa shrugged. “I thought we were putting a team together to clean out the mine, and suddenly I’m taking side trips to an acid factory. I thought you, of all people, would appreciate that we don’t have a lot of time to mess around. If I’m right about a ritual being involved, we’re down to days to clean this up before we have a huge mess on our hands that the EAA won’t be able to cover up. Even if I’m wrong about that, we have a monster army that could be released at any moment. It was one thing when I thought it was a handful of them, but if they come boiling out of that mine at night, they’ll spread out too much to contain easily.”

  Samuel adjusted his skinny white tie while keeping a harsh gaze on her. “Tell me here and now, unfettered by the restrictions of the mirror communication medium, what you feel is happening. That will inform the rest of my response for the entirety of this incident. I promise to evaluate everything with the utmost seriousness and devote the appropriate resources.”

  “Something big is about to go down.” Lyssa punctuated the sentence by spreading her arms wide. “There are too many things adding up for this to be a simple rogue having fun. It’s a war or a terror machine designed to inflict maximum pain on a lot of people.”

  “Why are you so sure it’s not a simple rogue paid to assassinate Mr. Colmes and Mr. Nardi?” Samuel’s brow lifted in challenge. “Using our gifts for paid murder is hardly unknown. Elaborate murders also aren’t unknown among our kind. It could be a game to a rogue.”

  Lyssa laughed. “You’re so out of touch with popular culture that you don’t get how ridiculous that sounds. These guys were minor internet personalities, not big-time celebrities. Going to the expense of finding and hiring a rogue to kill them would be insane.” She shook her head. “Their houses are in their videos. Someone could have walked up to them and shot them without spending a lot of time making a monster army. If it were a game, I don’t think it’d involve so much sorcery.”

  “Then what do you think?” Samuel asked.

  “Between the email, the effort spent to cover it up, and the special shard, I think this is about a lot more than killing two college kids who liked to prank people.”

  “That’s a possibility. I’ll accept that.” Samuel nodded.

  “A possibility?” Lyssa frowned at him. “No offense, Samuel, but that wasn’t exactly a couple of angry chickens in the mine. The level of sorcery involved has to be tremendous. Someone powerful spent a lot of preparation time getting those monsters ready for something nasty.”

  “We don’t know that,” Samuel replied.

  “We don’t?” Lyssa stared at him, looking for a smile. “Is this your idea of a joke? You know me, and I’m the one who came to you to ask for backup. That’s how seriously I’m taking it.”

  “The monsters might not be stable,” Samuel replied with a dismissive flick of his wrist. “There are ways to rapidly create armies if one doesn’t care about them lasting. You already found they have one significant weakness.”

  “What about the Lemurian line in the email?” Lyssa asked. “There’s a possibility that not only is this a rogue, but they might even be targeting a Torch.”

  “As I said, a game of sorts.” Samuel offered a thin smile. “It might have been a mocking statement with implied antiauthority intent.”

  Lyssa shook her head. “I’m also worried that some of the other parts of the email were specific to me.”

  “Depending on interpretation, yes.” Samuel sounded disappointed in her. “But there’s no certainty of that.”

  She didn’t care. It made no sense for him to drag his feet after he’d gone to the trouble of bringing Antoine in to help her. Jofi was right. The reasons didn’t matter. Whether the monsters would die early or not, they represented a threat.

  Lyssa scrubbed a hand over her face. “I don’t get it. I thought we were on the same page on this. I’m trying to be responsible and reasonable. We need to clear out the mine, which means I need help other than Antoine. With most of the closest Torches unavailable, it makes sense to bring in outside help, and I offered a suggestion. Someone we both know can fight.”

  “Aisha Khatri,” Samuel stated.

  Lyssa nodded. “I thought I made that clear in my message. If you want to send someone else too, that’s fine, but I’ve worked with her recently and trust her, and she’s got an essence that’s good for killing monsters.”

  Samuel let out a long sigh. “Is that what this is really about?”

  “Yeah.” Lyssa spread her arms. “You want to join us in the muck dungeon from hell filled with snake-roaches? Be my guest. I’d love to see your nice white suit stained with all that crap, and I’ll take anyone’s help to clear out that mine.”

  “Requesting Miss Khatri’s assistance will require coordination with Elder Theodora,” Samuel replied. “That complicates matters.”

  “So what?” Lyssa frowned. “You had
Aisha help me not all that long ago. What’s the big deal?”

  Samuel pinned her with his gaze. His mouth tightened. “I suspect this is only partially about wanting Miss Khatri’s assistance. It is also about testing Elder Theodora, for whom you’ve repeatedly expressed distrust.”

  Lyssa stared at Samuel. In all her paranoid mental scenarios, she’d imagined all sorts of people targeting her, but ironically, she’d not associated Theodora with this case.

  Now that Samuel mentioned her, the idea didn’t seem crazy. It’d make sense that an Elder could find someone with the skill and resources to pull off something like this. Taking down the smuggler might have disrupted her plans and influence webs and given her a reason to double down on targeting Lyssa.

  “I wasn’t,” Lyssa replied, her voice low. “I have my issues, but I do get that not everything is about me. And I’m not asking for anything unreasonable here. If you’d given me more assignments recently, we wouldn’t be down as many Torches now. All I want to do is kill monsters and take down a rogue.”

  “If I’d given you more assignments, you might be injured and recovering.” Samuel scoffed. “You should tread carefully, Miss Corti, if you want to be able to go to Last Remnant.”

  Lyssa glared at him. “I took out a shard-smuggling ring and a rogue. I’m about to help take down a monster army, and I cleared out a decent-sized one already. I’ve been playing nice with the local cops and the EAA. I do want to go to Last Remnant, but this isn’t about that now.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Samuel threaded his fingers together and set them in his lap. “There’s nothing for you there but pain.”

  “I’ll get over it,” Lyssa said. “Knowing is better than not knowing. You tell me since you brought it up. After this is all over, are you going to support my request or not?”

  “Talent and success that benefits the Society should be rewarded,” Samuel replied. “And it’s not, in my opinion, an excessive reward, but I’m one Elder. I can only do so much if you make enemies.”

  “Asking for Aisha isn’t about Theodora.” Lyssa frowned. “And I think working across regions would help you both score some points. For now, though, screw the politics. We’re down to days before this becomes a huge potential problem and more innocent people die. If someone wants to jerk my chain about Last Remnant after we clear out the mine, I’ll bitch loudly, but at least I’ll sleep well at night, knowing I saved people’s lives.”

  Samuel was quiet for a long while before saying, “I shall expedite your request for the current job.”

  “Then can I get Aisha?” Lyssa asked in a hopeful voice.

  “I’ll contact Elder Theodora,” he replied. “Miss Khatri will have to agree. Ordering her to do it isn’t worth the political capital.”

  Lyssa smirked. “She’ll agree without a second thought. Anything that involves me asking for her help feeds her ego. She’ll spend the next ten years reminding me I asked for her help.”

  “Very well, then.” Samuel cupped his chin in thought. “I’ll also discuss this with some of the other Torches under my supervision. I don’t want to bring in everyone in case something unfortunate happens. We can’t risk losing all our regional Torches until this is resolved, but some of the wounded should have recovered by now. Mr. Keller can also accompany you for healing and confirmation of the elimination of the monsters.” A flicker of concern passed over his face. “If your team of four feels they can’t clear it out by themselves, the Society can take more stringent measures, or we can recommend the government do so. The latter is our least-acceptable option. Failure to clean up after our own makes us look weak, and they’ll use that to extract concessions from the Society in the future.”

  Lyssa shivered. She didn’t want to begin to imagine what “more stringent measures” meant in practical terms. Individual Sorcerers had limits to their powers, but skilled Sorcerers working together in complicated rituals with the help of powerful shards could accomplish destruction easily on par with a nuclear weapon.

  That terrible fact hung over the heads of every leader of every Shadow government. They could target individual Sorcerers, but they could not directly hit Last Remnant. She couldn’t blame them for worrying.

  “We’ll get it done,” Lyssa said. “I think doing whatever you’re thinking of as a backup plan would be bad for our image, probably worse than the monsters themselves.”

  “Sometimes, the only option left available in a crisis is triage.” Samuel stood. “I’ll do my best to expedite things. You should have your team by the 30th at the latest.”

  Lyssa sucked in a breath. “Damn. You’re cutting it close.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Standing in front of the mine, Lyssa stared at the rising sun cresting the mountains in the distance. Samuel hadn’t been able to expedite things, leaving the operation to start on the aforementioned 30th. They were down to less than ten hours.

  The power of Halloween didn’t map entirely onto the day calendar. By sundown, the veil between worlds would be weaker, and dangerous rituals could invoke a lot more power. Lyssa could be wrong, but she wasn’t willing to bet her or anyone else’s life on that. Taking in a Torch strike team as soon as possible remained their best chance of averting catastrophe.

  She’d been chatting with Antoine when Aisha showed up. There was something ridiculous about Aisha’s beautiful red and saffron dress and gold mask regalia being paired with knee-high green rubber boots. Lyssa did her best not to smirk and wondered how it would affect the other woman’s mobility, but given the tight quarters, Aisha’s propulsive style would need to be toned down a lot anyway.

  Her presence bolstered Lyssa’s confidence. They’d taken down a rogue and a smuggler together. Monsters would be easy in comparison.

  Aisha had arrived with another Torch, Ryan Sterling, known to the general public as Ultrasound. He worked under Samuel, his general territory being farther north. The bearer of the Honorable Vigilante regalia, his plain gray domino mask, urban camouflage pants and shirt, and overcoat stood out against his blond hair and the more striking outfits of Aisha and Antoine.

  Lyssa had met the man a couple of times, but she didn’t know him all that well. She didn’t need to. He was a Torch, which meant he could fight. Samuel wouldn’t send someone untrustworthy or incompetent on such an important job.

  A half-dozen deputies, including Ortiz and Adams, manned the fence. They kept their distance from the Sorcerers and Sorceresses, but they all had rifles and shotguns ready in case something went wrong.

  She finished up her quick briefing, reminding everyone about what she’d experienced during her first trip into the mine and laying out a basic plan of attack. Everyone listened intently, no sign of concern on their faces.

  Torches and Illuminated in general could have wayward personalities, but in the end, everyone understood what was at stake. No one wanted monsters breaking free on the surface or tunneling under a nearby town to wreak havoc.

  Aisha folded her arms and glared at the entrance. “I shouldn’t have to come and clean up after you, Hecate, but I understand you requested me, so I’ll acknowledge you possess at least some common sense.”

  “You might not be the person to bring to an interrogation, but when I need something burned to a crisp, you’re better than a grill,” Lyssa told her with a shrug.

  “I’d prefer stronger foes to mindless monsters.” Aisha sniffed. “I can do better than vermin extermination.”

  “These vermin are dangerous,” Lyssa replied. “Not everything we do is about personal glory. We’re going to help save a lot of lives today and screw up the plans of a nasty rogue.”

  Aisha rolled her eyes. “I’ll fight your monsters for you, but I don’t have to like it. I would simply prefer a less disgusting enemy.”

  Lyssa smirked. “Just wait until you get inside and smell them. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever smelled, but it’s close. You’re going to wish you were wrapped up like Plague Doctor over there.”

/>   Antoine laughed. “It’s terrible, but I can protect your nose if you want.”

  “Wait a second. You can?” Lyssa scowled at him. “Why didn’t you tell me that last time? Just because I’m used to the smell doesn’t mean I like it.”

  He laughed. “Sorry. Forgot about it. I don’t do a lot of fieldwork. I like being nice and snug in a city. Screw the desert, and screw abandoned mines in the desert more.”

  Ryan nodded at the deputies in the distance. “They should just leave. If this gets hot, they’ll get in the way. I don’t want a bunch of dead cops on my conscience.”

  “They have orders to establish an observation perimeter if anything escapes,” Lyssa replied. “They’re not going to get involved unless we’re all dead. I made it clear to them before you arrived what the deal is and strongly suggested that if anything larger than a snake-roach gets to the surface, they bug out and call the National Guard.”

  Adams waved at Lyssa. “Did you ask them yet?” he shouted.

  “Oh, and he wants all your autographs when this is over,” she said, shrugging. “For his kid. Allegedly. Assuming we’re not all dead.”

  Aisha smirked. “He’s right to respect us, and I will gladly grant him an autograph, but if we can’t take down the monster threats, a smattering of Shadows with toys won’t be able to. Ultrasound is right. The police should leave.”

  “The point here is to clean out the nest so they don’t have to worry about it,” Lyssa replied. “This is an Illuminated-caused problem, so it should be solved by us. We’ll look like chumps if we can’t stop it.”

  “I wish the coward hiding behind an army of twisted creations would present himself for judgment.” Aisha sliced her hand through the air, flames shooting from her fingertips. “Pathetic. How dare he think himself a Sorcerer but be unwilling to stand in front of his army?”

  “I can’t disagree with you there,” Lyssa said. “And I think we’ve got a solid team.” She patted a holster. “We’ve got four Sorcerers with three Torches among us. That’s a lot of power. I was good enough to take down one sub-nest by myself, so cleaning out the rest should be a breeze as long as we don’t get in each other’s way.” She pointed at the sun. “Remember, we’re on a time limit here. There’s evidence this might be part of some sort of ritual, and I’d rather not wait long enough to find out.”