by TR Cameron
Idryll grinned. “Since before you were born.”
She scowled. “How long were you in that statue, anyway? I mean, I can see why someone would be so annoyed with you as to trap you in stone for a century or two. Hell, I’m there already, and I’ve only known you for what, two days?” Without waiting for a reply, she shoved the disc in, slid the deadbolt aside, and yanked the door open. Her partner slipped inside, and she followed, pulling the door closed behind her. She paused, ready to make a break for the back fence if they’d been detected, but no alarms came.
They were in a huge garage at least two stories high, with cars and trucks of several sizes parked in front of the exits. It reminded her of fire stations she’d seen in news broadcasts, minus the emergency pole from the upper floor. Three of the vehicles resembled armored cars like the ones a bank might use. All of them had reinforced bumpers and fenders for ramming and larger than expected wheels. “That’s pretty damn martial, right there. Seems a little offense-focused rather than defensive to me.”
Her partner intoned, “If your enemy is dead, they cannot hurt you.”
“Not much room for negotiation in your world, is there, kitty?” She could tell that calling the shapeshifter “kitty” got under her skin and was fully committed to doing so with reasonable regularity.
“A tiger doesn’t negotiate with meat. Only eats it.”
Then again, maybe pissing off the giant jungle cat isn’t the wisest choice. “Okay, let’s move on. Same rule. If we wind up in trouble, I want you to make a break for it since the worst I’ll get is a slap on the wrist.”
Her partner’s tone failed to match her words. “As you wish.”
Ruby sighed, then made sure the bandolier full of darts was properly situated. She positioned two of the electrical projectiles in her left hand, ready to disarm any modern surveillance devices they came across, and opened her senses in the hope that she might notice magical defenses before they activated. “Remember, we have a magical on the other team. There could be traps.”
“Are you going to talk until sunrise, or are we going to move?”
She frowned. “You know, it’s not like I make a regular practice of breaking into buildings. This is all kind of new to me. Consider not being a jerk.” Still, truth lay within the cat’s words since she had to admit she was procrastinating. A little. Maybe. “All right, let’s do this.”
Two doors led from the space, one on the near side and one across the vehicles’ parking spots. They chose the nearest and moved through in a rush. Ruby flicked a dart at the camera in the corner the instant she spotted it, and the equipment gave a telling sizzle as the electrical spell in the projectile went off on impact. “Well, they’ll know we’re here soon enough if we keep having to kill cameras. There was no way to avoid that one.” Fortunately, her disguise was back in place, and her partner had cinched her hood carefully around her face, hiding her fur. Idryll’s claws had vanished as well, leaving her hands looking entirely human. Yep, that’s us, a pair of normal humans where we don’t belong.
The hallway led deeper into the building. They walked past conference rooms with glass walls, a small kitchen, bathrooms, and what looked like a combination locker room and armory abutting the other door into the garage. No other cameras were visible, which was a little alarming in and of itself. Maybe they don’t want a record of what goes on in here existing, and only cover the entrances and exits. That would make some sense, even if they’re on the up-and-up. A double-wide staircase led up from the back of an impressive lobby area, and they moved quickly up the steps.
Idryll hissed as they neared the top and abruptly stopped moving. Ruby halted immediately and dropped into a crouch. “What?”
The shapeshifter’s face wrinkled as if she smelled something unpleasant. “Hostile magic. From ahead.”
“You can smell magic?”
“Smell, taste, feel, hear, sense, all of those or none, I can tell you it’s up there.”
Well, that wasn’t even a little understandable. Thanks for the illumination. “Okay, can you tell what kind?”
Idryll shook her head. “No. Only that it waits to be triggered.”
Magical defenses were a large part of a techno-magical engineer’s work, so she’d trained and become well-acquainted with various possibilities. She pulled out the drone, fired it up without letting it fly, and used it as a camera to examine the room. Sure enough, a tight grid showed up on the floor that was likely both detection and device. “Interlocking lines. Probably electrical, since they wouldn’t want to burn the building down or anything.” She showed the display to her partner.
“Could trigger weapons.”
Wonderful. “You’re right, it could. So, best we stay off it.” She used the drone to examine it some more but discovered no other defenses in the room. “Here’s my thought. I can create a force shield above it. We walk on the force shield and get through one of those two security doors.” She put the drone and its controller away and pulled out a palm-sized square object. “This should pick the electronic lock in no time.”
The other woman lifted an eyebrow. “So you say you’ve not broken into other places, but you have the tools to do so?”
She shrugged. “You have to learn a lot of things to become what I want to be. We used these as a basis for figuring out how to defeat magic locks. Not that we’re quite there yet. This is more or less one-size-fits-all, but magic locks require far more specific countermeasures.” She handed it over. “You hold it over the keypad. It should do the job without any other involvement.”
She made sure to cinch her hood tightly and summoned a force shield above the grid. She’d never used one quite this way, but it wasn’t a far stretch from things she was familiar with. Walking across it was difficult since she had to keep the part of her mind that sensed the steps on the shield segmented from the rest so she didn’t get confused and drop it by accident.
They made it to the door, the lockpick did its work, and they were through. Right into a room filled with four security guards who were already in motion, abandoning the food containers on the round table they sat at in favor of grabbing weapons.
Chapter Nineteen
Idryll bolted to the right as Ruby called, “Split up.” She had no intention of abandoning the Mist-Elf-pretending-to-be-human that she’d joined with, despite the repeated suggestion that she do so. The mere concept was ludicrous, but the other hadn’t quite realized the repercussions of undertaking the venamisha. She has no idea what she’s in for.
At times, the ritual battle resulted in a mismatch where the choice of weapon paired the pilgrim with someone who wasn’t right for them. Those people would have false memories of the experience and would return more or less to everyday lives, convinced that their calling hadn’t turned out to be a true one. Better that than a lifelong bond that would make both parties miserable. When the person chose wisely, as Ruby had, the benefits to both partners were incalculable.
Like now, when she’s stumbled into a situation that might have been dangerous for her if I weren’t here. Her natural inclination was to transform into her tiger form and tackle several of them at once, but the clothes would be a problem, and there was no reason to reveal that power to deal with this trash. One enemy was directly in front of her on the same side of the table and bringing a pistol up from his hip. Her instincts told her he had no chance of getting it into action before she reached him though, so she ignored it. On the opposite side of the furniture, the second fumbled with a larger device she didn’t recognize. Her knowledge of human weapons was limited to what she’d seen on the television.
However, it was probably safe to assume that increased size often meant increased danger, as with most things. I’ll deal with that one first. She smoothly leapt into the air and tucked her knees up against her chest. The jump took her over the first opponent, and she had a split second to be amused at his expression before she was past him. She kicked back with both feet, wishing she had claws instead of sn
eakers—they made far too much noise to sneak in compared to her paws, so that was a stupid name—to do real damage. The feel of the contact assured her that he’d be flat on his face for at least as long as it would take her to handle the other, who she now flew toward even faster after using the first as a platform.
The man with the longer weapon got it around to point in her direction, but it was too low for him to shoot her with it, if that’s what it did, and it certainly wasn’t in a position to be used as a club. Her right hand grabbed the thing to ensure that the angle didn’t change, and she brought her other one across so that her elbow smashed into him. She’d aimed for his throat, only remembering after he’d managed to block that with his chin—now broken—that Ruby had requested she not kill anything. Idryll showed her fangs in a smile and laughed inwardly. Ruby probably thought it was more than a request. She does have a great deal to learn.
Idryll rode her foe down to the floor, making sure that her full weight, transmitted through both knees, broke more of his bones. He won’t get back into the fight. The first had risen faster than expected and pointed a gun at Ruby, who was at work on her second opponent. Idryll roared, the tiger’s yell magically produced since this form’s vocal cords couldn’t create it. The man flinched, and his shot went into the ceiling. She was on him a second later, reluctantly keeping her claws sheathed as she swatted him in the back of the head, smashed a fist into his ribs, and slammed a foot down on his knee. He fell to the floor, and she gave him two kicks: one to knock his weapon spinning away, and another to roll his eyes back in his head.
Before she could turn to assist her partner, a door opened to reveal a man with a baton in one hand and a gun in the other. He charged at her while sticking the weapon out in front of him. She swatted it aside as she moved away from his gun hand and yelped in pain as lightning came out of the tip and surrounded her hand, burning it and making her muscles twitch. Ruby yelled, “Watch out, stun baton,” and Idryll’s teeth bared in a fierce grin. A little late as a warning. I’ll know one when I see it again. The man tried to fire over his extended arm, but she ducked and spoiled his aim, then put a palm on the carpet and spun in a circle, sweeping his legs out from beneath him. She ripped his weapons away and threw them aside, grabbed him by the shirt, lifted him, and banged the back of his head off the floor, once, twice, and a third time, until he was unconscious.
She stood and turned to her partner, who had dealt with her pair. Ruby said, “We’re sure to have set off alarms now. Let’s see what we can find out before more bad guys show up.” She led the way deeper into offices, using her little metal things to get the doors open and rifling through desk drawers while Idryll watched for additional enemies.
A sound came from the room they’d entered the level on. She crept back to look, then quietly returned to Ruby. “A lot of men, more than we fought before, are gathered in the entryway. I don’t think we can beat them without risking injury.”
Ruby snarled a curse and started shoving papers into her backpack. “Go to the other offices and bring me whatever papers you can find. I’ll work on slowing them down.” She dug into another part of her bag and came out with a handful of small globes, but Idryll lost sight of them as she raced down the hall. The first door proved resistant to her kick, so she summoned her claws and raked one through the gap between door and frame repeatedly until it came free. Two wire baskets, one on top of the other, sat on the desk. She grabbed them and returned to Ruby at a run, then dumped them into the backpack. Now four orbs sat in front of the door, and the other woman followed her back.
As they got the next doors open, using their different techniques, shrieking sound and flashing light came from the doorway. Ruby chuckled. “Hope they were wearing night-vision goggles. That would hurt. A lot.”
“You are too gentle.” Idryll dumped more papers into the bag. It was almost full.
Ruby nodded. “Only when I can be. These people are probably doing their jobs. Sure, they might be doing it for a bunch of scumbags, but that’s not necessarily their fault. It’s possible they don’t know.”
Idryll shrugged. “If you choose to follow a poor leader, still, that is a choice.”
The other woman shifted the pack onto her back. “Is dealing with you a choice? If I say go away, will you?”
She laughed. “No. Nor would a smart person wish me to. Although perhaps your intelligence level has still to be determined.”
Ruby put her mouth to Idryll’s ear. “I had planned for us to portal out of here, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I wouldn’t want them to get even a little look at where we’re going, and the lack of cameras makes me think they’re probably there, but well-hidden.”
“Perhaps there is hope for your intellect after all. I agree that they would be fools not to have surveillance everywhere.”
The other woman ignored the jibe. “So, we’ll go through them fast and hard. I’ll blast them with force to clear the path, then we run back the way we came. No worry about setting off alarms outside. If we can get a decent distance away, out of their line of sight, I’ll open a portal to a neutral location.” She knew several points on the Strip that wouldn’t be easily identifiable through an open portal, mainly service roads and alleys.
Idryll nodded. “I’ll follow your lead.”
Ruby ran forward and blasted the smoke that had filled the hallway with force magic while covering her face with her free hand. It took two more blasts to clear the way as they bolted through, angled to deflect their opposition to the sides rather than directly back. She’d worried that the enemy Ruby had identified—Grentham—might be there, but probably these were people who had already been at the facility since they’d responded so quickly. Moving out before magical opponents could arrive was indeed wise.
Alarms blared as they went through the back door and into the motion sensor field. Ruby angled toward the hole in the fence, and for a moment Idryll wondered why, then remembered the anti-magic devices the other woman had mentioned. They weren’t powerful enough to rob her of her abilities, and she felt them only as a small tickle at the edge of her senses. As she neared the fence, which was at least four times her height, she gathered herself and leapt, easily clearing it to land on the opposite side.
She helped pull Ruby through, and together they ran back the way they had come. Shouts and gunfire came from behind, but after the first crack, her partner placed a force shield around each of them, and they kept running. She shouted, “Do you think we got anything worthwhile?”
Ruby yelled back, “Not sure, but they seem like they wanted to hide something. That many people in the building for overnight security? If it’s not a coincidence, it’s probably worth following up. Hopefully, there’s a clue in the papers we stole.”
Idryll laughed. “Congratulations, by the way.”
They rounded a corner, and Ruby stopped running and summoned a portal. They both hopped through it, and she closed it before any of the men chasing them showed up on the other side. After panting for a few seconds, she asked, “Congratulations? For what?”
She laughed again. “You said you’d never broken into someone’s building before. Well, now you have. Doubtless it’s the first of many new experiences now that you’ve chosen to oppose those who would hurt innocents.”
She frowned. “I’m only trying to find out what happened at the Mist. Let’s not make more of it than it is. Come on. We have a bit of a walk to get to Spirit.”
Outwardly, Idryll nodded and followed without replying. Inwardly, though, she grinned. Yes, partner, you have a lot left to learn. I’ll be right here to help, every confused step of the way.
Chapter Twenty
Jared Trenton, CEO of Aces Security, angrily marched through the lobby and headed directly for the surveillance room, a small rectangle accessed through an unmarked door. He’d discussed the situation with Grentham the dwarf on the way in, and neither had a clear idea about what had happened the night before. It made the most sense to think th
at someone had connected them to the action at the Mist, but as far as he knew, the people he’d hired didn’t have any clue who they’d worked for.
Grentham had no clue how anyone had created the link either, which was unusual. Normally, if Jared was clueless about something the magical had it under control, and vice versa. It was one of the things that made their partnership so effective. He had sales meetings lined up for the rest of the day, so instead of being able to get down into the details and investigate like he wanted to, he was in his lucky black pinstripe suit with a bright red power tie. His short brown hair had been trimmed the day before, his face was freshly shaven, and he stayed in shape, both as a personal preference and because the clientele expected it. The Mist’s owners were bound to look for additional security now, and he’d scheduled his appointment with them a month in advance.
Almost as if I knew something would happen. He chuckled to himself. Inside the surveillance room, he found his partner looming over one of their technicians, a geeky man in his mid-twenties. Jared snapped, “What do we know?”
The dwarf replied, “Camera caught the perps, but it’s not particularly useful.” He was short, stocky, and dark. Dark hair, dark mustache, dark beard, dark eyes, dark clothes. He wore exclusively black, as near as Jared could tell. At the very least, he’d never seen the magical in anything else. His slicked-back hair and his carefully trimmed facial hair gave him an “evil magician from the movies” look. The black trousers, shoes, and dress shirt accentuated the effect.
