by TR Cameron
“Go,” Demetrius answered.
“Anything inside?” Ruby walked toward the edge.
“Nothing.”
“Okay, we have stuff outside. Call nine-one-one and get them to the hotel roof immediately. Hell, have them evacuate the place if they can, maybe. Mention terrorists and hazmat.” She was positive he’d have a way to notify the police that didn’t include giving them his identity or location. Otherwise, what’s infomancy for, anyway?
“Got it.”
“Call if anything happens inside.” She clicked off the phone and shoved it back in a pocket, then looked down over the edge. Men ran around on the roof of the casino itself, more slid down the lines, and two hung upside-down near the top, holding on to one another for dear life. Ruby couldn’t help but laugh. Farther down, she spotted Idryll sliding down one of the ropes after the rest and grinned. All right. Now we’re talking.
Ruby jumped off the edge.
Idryll slid down the cable as fast as it would carry her, thankful for the costume that protected her paws. Her keen eyesight picked out the activity on the casino roof with ease. Men moved around and pulled what looked like large metal containers out of dark bags. When she’d hopped over the side, she’d had a vision of careening down the rope and knocking the black-suited people off it along the way, but they, too, moved as fast as they could. It appeared she wouldn’t catch any before the ride was over.
That’s fine. I’ll be in time to mess with whatever they’ve planned. The enemies awaiting her below arranged themselves in anticipation of her arrival. Four of them spread into a semicircle around the end of the rope while the others went to assist the ones that were doing, well, whatever they were doing. She squeezed harder on the line to slow her drop enough that she could control her footing when she reached the bottom.
When she was about fifty feet from them, shots rang out and utterly failed to hit her. The crowd she saw around the edges of the casino building scattered in response to the gunfire, which was likely good for their safety but probably not a useful contribution to Ruby’s ability to escape the situation unseen. One problem at a time. Fortunately, the criminals below weren’t doing a very good job of hitting her as she varied her speed by gripping and releasing the line. When she was twenty-five feet up or so, she released the cable and dropped.
In her pure tiger form, she could drop from a much greater height without injury. It was part of her inborn magic. It carried into this form, but at a reduced level. When she landed she dove and rolled, somersaulting twice before gathering her feet under her and driving forward in a running tackle at the nearest. He went down under her unexpected charge, and the gunfire stopped, the men unwilling to risk hitting one another in the crossfire she’d created. Her knees came down on his ribs, and the sound of his bones cracking was audible even through the armor he wore.
She dove forward in another somersault, assuming the others would attack from behind, and came up in a spin. Sure enough, they were advancing, each of them holding one of the sparking sticks she’d faced before. She grinned. “Do you think your little twigs will bother me, cowards?” The most aggressive of them stepped toward her in response, and she feinted at him, the speed of her move causing him to stumble backward in alarm. She laughed mockingly as she attacked the other pair.
Foolishly, they both used the same dominant hand, meaning that the one on her right couldn’t risk a full swing without hitting his partner. She ran at the center of them and slid to the right, whipping her feet around in a sweep that took that one to the ground. Idryll lacked time to finish him since the other engaged quickly and jabbed the tip of the weapon at her. She batted it aside, careful not to touch the end, then stomped on the downed man’s chest as she attacked the other. He got a hand up to block her first swing at his head and interposed the baton to knock her jab at his solar plexus off-target. Nothing stopped her knee from driving into his groin. She twisted to take control of the wrist that held the electrical baton and drove it down into the fallen man as the one she restrained crumpled behind her.
Then only the third one remained. She slowly stalked toward him until Ruby appeared and snatched her prey away.
As she dropped, far faster than she’d ever allowed herself to do before, Ruby took stock of the scene below. Idryll had one of the three groups under control, but the others concerned her—the ones that were busy with canisters she recognized from up above. It’s lucky we arrived early. Hell, it’s fortunate we figured it out at all. She wasn’t sure what was in the silver containers, but she was quite confident it wasn’t something that would be good for anyone who breathed it.
She used a blast of force magic to slow her at the end and landed already in motion toward her foes. If she’d had more confidence or more practice, she probably could have used the building’s surface to push her farther, to glide a little better. A challenge for another day, maybe. She was running at full speed when she came up behind Idryll’s last opponent and smashed an elbow into the back of his head as she passed.
Ahead, two separate groups worked with the canisters at different locations, about twenty feet apart. She grabbed the last globe from her pocket and threw it at the group on the right, then diverted toward the ones on the left. It detonated before she got there, alerting everyone to her presence, so they were up and ready to greet her when she arrived.
Not that it helped them. After all those different martial arts, one would hope I would be reasonably good by now. One had drawn a baton, and the other had gone for his pistol, which earned him the position of most immediate threat. She wished she had her knives or something blunt to throw at him, but all she had was herself. Keshalla won’t be pleased. I’ll plan better next time. The gun was in the man’s right hand, so she went low and to the left, flicking her fingers to create a force burst. His weapon flew away, and he’d been so focused on offense that he’d left himself open to attack. She stepped past him with her right foot and pistoned her knee into the middle of his torso.
He crumpled forward, and she put her hands on his shoulder and hip and pushed, adding a force blast from each hand to the thrust. He flew into the air and collided with his partner, and they both tumbled toward the low wall that ran around the edge of the roof. Ruby spun to the last ones as Idryll got to them. The tiger-woman made short work of the pair, and it was over.
Except for the sirens and police cars and loudspeakers coming from below. “Damn it.” She ran for the ropes and used them to climb to the lowest hotel room window, which she shattered with a force blast. Idryll followed her through the room, and Ruby led her on a race through the hallway, figuring out the hotel’s arrangement in her mind. It was an L-shape like most of them, and she needed to get out of sight of the front. They made a left at the end, and she blasted the handle off a door with a ball of force at a downward angle, in case anyone was in the room.
It was empty, and again she broke the window with her magic. It was three stories to the ground. Idryll swung out and climbed down the side of the building. Ruby jumped and used force magic to cushion her fall. She met up with the other woman and cast three spells—a disguise for each of them and a veil that would render them invisible. That way, if someone made it through the first defense, they’d look like girlfriends out for a night on the town.
Idryll said, “We did well. Except, how did you know?”
Ruby frowned. “How did I know what?”
“How did you know that the anti-magic emitters in the casino wouldn’t reach high enough to cancel your magic when you fell?”
Her stomach fell at the realization that she’d never considered it. She cleared her throat and choked out, “Instinct.”
The tiger-woman laughed. “Perhaps best not to rely totally on instinct in the future, despite your obvious ability.”
Yeah. Perhaps.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jared Trenton hadn’t been able to help himself. Although he needed to stay unconnected to the event, he wanted to be a part of it. He’d
been in an outdoor restaurant across the Strip from the Ebon Dragon at the appointed hour, along with a random date he’d met online for cover. The meal had been good, the company better, but then the only thing that could have ruined his night, did. When he heard the first siren shortly before ten o’clock, he knew that something had gone wrong. When the motorcycles drove down the middle of the thoroughfare with their lights flashing, it was clear that it had gone really wrong.
With a skill he’d developed in the military, he put the worry into a small box in his mind to ignore until he was ready for it. He continued to charm his date, took her for an after-dinner drink, then apologized at her door for having to end the evening early because of work. He had her number and might call her again. Assuming I survive long enough to do it.
He texted Grentham and arranged a meeting, then drove to the bar the dwarf had selected. The space was dark with flickering candles in red jars on the tables and comfortably over-padded chairs. Wood paneling covered the walls with antique rifles as decoration, each with a nameplate. It was called The Armory, naturally, and was located a few blocks off the Strip, far enough to discourage the tourists from wandering in.
No servers were present. You ordered, picked up, and paid by the drink at the bar. They wouldn’t run a tab, but they would set up an account for you to draw from if you visited often enough. Both he and Grentham had one and alternated picking up the rounds. The dwarf returned from the bar with two tumblers of Scotch whiskey, doubles both, with a single round ice cube in each. He carefully placed one before Jared and sat across from him. The surrounding noise was sufficient to keep their conversation private as long as they didn’t shout at each other and as long as no one actively listened in. He checked his smartphone, which had tech that would pick up microphones, and saw none. He trusted his partner would have done the same for magical means of eavesdropping.
Jared leaned forward. “What the hell happened? Did you hear from them?”
The dwarf sipped his drink, winced, and set it on the table in front of him. “No. I was watching. Someone came in and blew up the op. Two of ’em. At least one was a magical.”
“How do you know?”
Grentham’s lips twisted in a snarl. “Because they did damn magic, how the hell do you think?” He raised a hand as soon as he finished. “I’m sorry. I’m so damned angry that I wasn’t there to take them out.”
Jared understood that feeling well. He’d had the same reaction to the two that broke into the security building. Two. “What are the odds that we’d have two different pairs of people suddenly messing around in our business on two separate occasions?”
His tablemate pulled his dark beard, one of the things he did when he was agitated. “I’d say about a thousand to one, at best. It has to be the same pair. That means they found something at the headquarters that led them there. This means that someone is going to get their ass kicked when I find out who’s not employing proper information discipline.”
“The next question is, who are these two, and who’s aiming them at us? Maybe they work for our competition?”
“I don’t think so. At least not a normal crew. We do a pretty good job of keeping an eye on them all. It could be that one of them hired specialists.”
He took a mouthful of the Scotch and savored it for several seconds before letting it trickle down his throat. “Regardless, we need to take them out before they do any more damage to us. Do we have exposure from the last op?”
The other man shook his head. “No chance. Our people were only involved in planning, hiring, and delivering the material. The rest were all freelancers. If any survived, they have nothing to give to the cops.”
Jared chuckled. “If they did, we’d know it right away, anyway.” He had contacts in the Ely Police Department who were still well-paid to throw useful pieces of information his way. As long as he had a company, he’d maintain that cash flow. Not least because it’s the one that will give me the warning to get out of town if it all goes to hell. “So, I didn’t want to distract you with this until the current job was over, but we have new orders. They’re intense.”
For the first time that evening, the dwarf’s expression approached a smile. “Oh, really? Do tell.”
Ruby and Idryll had wandered most of the way down the Strip underneath the veil before dropping it and portaling first to the roof of Spirit to collect the backpack she’d left behind, then to her bedroom in her family’s home. The tiger-woman had discarded the catsuit and collapsed on the bed immediately, while Ruby shoved their costumes into a bag. She opened a portal into her other bedroom, threw the bag through, and marched off to the shower now that she’d hidden the evidence of their escapade. More or less. One hopes that my roomies aren’t hanging out in my room when I’m not there.
When she woke up the next morning, she headed for the kitchen. Matthias was there, eating breakfast at a small table in the corner that the staff used for meals. Ruby yawned and poured herself a mug of coffee. “Dang, it’s early. Do you always get up before the sun?”
He laughed and gestured at the seat across from him, which she took gratefully. No family member would think of assuming an invitation to that table; it just wasn’t done. “Indeed. One has to be ready for the earliest riser. However, I didn’t anticipate quite how early that would be, in your case.”
She waved a hand to dismiss the concern. “I don’t need any assistance. Only this coffee and maybe a couple of those muffins.” He passed the covered basket to her, and she discovered that her nose had been right: both blueberry and raspberry varieties lay within, likely left in the oven the night before on a timer so they’d be fresh in the morning. She broke them in half, gave each a light sheen of butter, and took a bite of the raspberry muffin, which was the perfect blend of tart and sweet. “Oh, I’m in heaven.”
She’d shared an early morning with Matthias on any number of occasions in the past and was pleased to see that he continued his habit of reading the newspaper during the meal. The Magic City Gazette still printed a daily paper, thanks to the abundant advertising aimed mainly at the tourists. Every hotel provided copies for its guests, and each of the Mist Elf casinos dropped a bundle down to the kemana. He was reading the second section, so she reached across and grabbed the first.
The events at the Ebon Dragon covered the front page. It focused on the police response in answer to an anonymous tip and said that they’d taken the perpetrators to jail. Having been caught in the act, they were likely to receive multi-year sentences since the canisters contained a poisonous substance. If it had gotten into the air vents, it likely would have resulted in several deaths. The article discussed the dangerous chemical, and Ruby’s frown grew with each paragraph she read. The poison wasn’t strong enough to kill everyone in there, not dispersed like that. If they weren’t trying to kill all the guests, the question again is what the hell were they trying to do? Sure, some people probably would have died, but the rest would have gotten sick. Like the Mist, this looks like one thing disguised as another. In this case, terrorism instead of a robbery.
She set the paper down with a sigh and went back to eating her muffins in silence while her brain churned on the question. Matthias inquired, “What do you think of the excitement at the Ebon Dragon?”
Ruby put on her casino owner hat as she considered how to respond. “Obviously, casinos are being targeted. I might have worried that it was directed at Mist Elves for some reason, but now that’s proven false. I can’t help but think there’s a big picture here.”
Her breakfast companion nodded. “Sowing division above, perhaps to do the same below?”
Her brain skidded to a screeching halt. “I didn’t consider that. Surely the council wouldn’t find itself threatened by this.”
“It could go either way. A closer bond in the face of a common challenge, or suspicion that one among them is behind it.”
From bad to worse. I need to figure this out. “Have you discussed this with my parents?”
; “One is sure they’re already aware, Miss Ruby.”
“Yeah, of course, they would be. If I want to avoid having to see Dralen, I better get a move on.”
She exited to the sound of Matthias’ laughter. When she got back to her room, her partner was awake and stared at her with an expectant expression. Ruby waited for a second, and when she didn’t talk, asked, “What?”
“It is time to go hunting.”
“Come again?”
The cat bared her teeth. “I recognized a scent last night. One of those men had been around the magic at the security company or had been near someone who had.”
She frowned. “A physical scent?”
Idryll waved dismissively. “Physical, magical, whatever. They’re all senses to me. I can tell you that they’re connected.”
A surge of excitement went through her. “Then we know where to look. So I guess we are going hunting after all.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The day had passed in a blur. Idryll had growled about being left behind, mentioning boredom and claws, but Ruby wasn’t prepared to explain to her human mentor why she felt the need to carry a cat around all day. She’d visited Margrave and discussed some gadgets she’d need in the future, plus one that she needed right away. He’d raised a suspicious eyebrow when she’d asked if he knew anyone who did work with magic and clothes but had given her a couple of names to check out. No time for it now, but if I’m going to continue to cause trouble out in public, I need a disguise that doubles as protection, to protect the ones I love and myself.
After that, she’d asked Demetrius to stay by the phone that evening in case. He, too, clearly had questions but didn’t ask them. Then she’d portaled to Oriceran to meet with Keshalla, not even taking the time to dress appropriately before heading out to find her.
