by S. M. Reine
The witch made an obscene gesture at him, but flicked the button on his headset anyway. “I’ve just got the error noise. We must have lost a tower.”
They were almost done sweeping Fallon, but there was no way Spencer would finish the rounds without a direct line to control. Violating line 16c in the recruit’s guidebook was like begging for toilet-scrubbing duty. Besides, he was sick of Dante jacking off in the backseat.
“I’m heading back,” Spencer said.
Dante grunted with disinterest. “What about Zane? Shouldn’t we pick him up?”
“Maybe,” Spencer said, mentally calculating the distance to base. How long would it take for them to realize that they had lost contact?
They could pick Zane up, as long as they were quick about it.
He turned on the hood-mounted spotlights as he crept toward the bar. It was a warehouse-sized brick box at the next intersection, monolithic in the darkness of the night. His lights fell on the dusty windows.
The screen of the GPS navigator fuzzed, and the earpiece’s beeping cut off.
Frowning, Spencer rapped a knuckle on the screen. “Hey, Dante,” he began.
The wall of the bar exploded onto the street.
The blast rocked the SUV, making the suspension squeal. Half of a brick smashed into the windshield. Glass sagged toward Spencer’s face.
Another explosion. The south half of the building collapsed with a roar of shattering brick, and Spencer thought he heard gunfire. Dust billowed over the road.
Dante was out of the SUV in an instant, his girlfriend’s tits forgotten.
“Take cover!” he shouted, crouched behind the wheel with his shotgun. His curls were white with brick dust. Spencer shielded his head with his arms as he jumped out of the driver’s seat.
Wooden beams groaned and snapped. The north corner of the bar collapsed with a street-shaking concussion.
Dante peered over the hood of the car. “Oh, shit,” he said, hugging the shotgun to his chest and launching around the bumper.
Shotgun blasts rocked the air. A man screamed, interrupting Spencer’s fumbling attempts to load the handgun he had grabbed from under the driver’s seat.
Was that Dante’s voice? Or was it Zane’s?
Spencer craned over the hood to see what was happening in the bar. The entire street-facing wall was missing, baring the guts of electrical wiring, wooden studs, and plumbing. A waterfall fountained from an exploded pipe on the third floor. The haze of dust made it impossible to make anything out below that.
“Dante?” Spencer called, knuckles white on the gun.
The screaming stopped.
A gust swept over the street, and Spencer coughed into his arm as the debris whipped past him. But before he could shelter in the SUV, the wind stopped, leaving silence in its wake.
He straightened to peer over the car.
Spencer was ready to face anything that might emerge from the wreckage of the bar. After that kind of mess, he wouldn’t have been surprised to see the mother of all demons herself strutting onto the street.
But the man standing over Dante’s limp body wasn’t the mother of all demons, nor was he one of her offspring. He didn’t have the pale skin, dark eyes, and weird hair. But Spencer wasn’t so sure that meant he was human, either.
The man wore a pair of jeans with the fly unbuttoned so that they hung loose around his hips, and a shirt hanging open over his chest. Every inch of bare skin below the neck was covered in marks that looked like they might have been drawn by a graffiti artist.
Despite all of the shooting Spencer had heard, he didn’t look like he had a single injury on his body.
Spencer leveled the gun and braced his elbows on the hood. He licked his lips, trying to find moisture to make his tongue work. “You’re under arrest. This area’s been evacuated for weeks, and you’re trespassing.”
Judging by Dante’s limp body, trespassing was the least of this guy’s crimes, but better to start with the easy stuff.
“It will take a small army to remove me from this hotel,” the man said in a cultured voice, almost like a college professor.
“We can probably arrange that.”
“Good.”
Plaster sprinkled from the floor above. Both of them looked up at the same time.
Zane staggered out of a second floor bedroom. Blood coursed down his cheek. Even though he was barely standing, he managed to keep a solid grip on his gun. Zane immediately opened fire on the tattooed man.
Not a single bullet struck him.
Magic flared. The man pointed at Zane, who slipped and cartwheeled through the air.
Spencer didn’t get to see if he survived the landing.
The witch pointed at him, magic flared again, and Spencer blacked out.
3
It wasn’t a particular sound that woke up Gary Zettel, commander of the Union base in Fallon, but a sudden absence of noise.
The Union’s functions were a twenty-four by seven operation, so no matter when you were trying to sleep, someone was stomping around in combat boots. The backup generators were always running, too, so a constant hum shook the walls.
But all of that noise had stopped.
Zettel woke in darkness and took the gun from his bedside. It was already loaded with silver bullets, just in case.
Even with black-as-pitch hallways, it was less than two minutes from his bedroom door to the helicopter landing pad. “Sir,” said Devlin, the kopis on guard. He saluted as Zettel mounted the stairs.
“What’s killed the power?” he asked. “Why aren’t the lights and generators working?”
“We’ve lost all of the utilities, sir.”
“We have batteries,” Zettel said, opening the helicopter door. He flipped a few switches on the console to see if the computers would come on. Nothing happened. “And the helicopter’s electronics don’t run on utility power. Mobilize all units.”
“Sir,” Devlin said with another salute.
He passed Allyson Whatley on the stairs as he headed down. She was already fully dressed and carrying two travel mugs, one of which she handed to Zettel. She must have been brewing tea before they lost power.
Allyson was the only person at the base that wasn’t living on one of the three round-the-clock schedules. Ever since she had become the lead witch for the Union’s operations in North America, she was on all three schedules, all the time. She didn’t even look rumpled.
“What could cause a total drain of power?” Zettel asked, sipping the tea.
“Angels,” Allyson said. She was the only one who dared not to call him “sir.” It had nothing to do with being Zettel’s aspis. Allyson didn’t say “sir” to anyone anymore.
“Is that the only option? Angels?”
“It could also be extremely powerful magic, the likes of which would require human sacrifice. But most likely angels.”
“It’s too early in the morning for angels,” Zettel said. “How long until we’re due to leave for HQ?”
Allyson checked her watch and rolled her eyes. Guess that wasn’t working, either. “Last time I checked, the ETA on the transport was twelve hours.”
Twelve hours. Whatever was screwing with the power couldn’t have waited until Zettel had already left? “Let’s pin this angel down, and make it fast. Ward the helicopter so we can get going.”
She pulled a spool of ribbon out of her jacket and climbed into the cockpit.
As soon as she began working, Devlin returned with another kopis on his heels. The newcomer was a huge guy, well over six feet tall, and built like a heavy lifter. “Ajax Wright, sir,” Devlin said. “He has information.”
Zettel took in Wright’s size. “Fallon patrol?”
“Yes, sir,” he said, snapping a salute.
“What did you find?”
“We found nothing. It’s what we lost that’s the problem.” Wright’s upper lip glistened with sweat. It seemed to take all of his strength to keep his chin up and eyes fixed on the helico
pter. “First, communications to the base dropped. Then Zane disappeared—”
“Who?”
Allyson finished placing the ribbons and pulled out her smartphone, which would only function within the wards. She showed it to Zettel.
The personnel record included a photo of a young skinhead, eyes rimmed with bruises. He had a tiny cross tattooed under his left eye. “Zane St. Vil from Louisiana,” she said. “Former pilot, one year out of basic. Low priority.”
Zettel didn’t recognize him, but considering how many kopides passed through the Fallon base, that didn’t mean much of anything.
“Go on,” he told Wright.
“That’s it. No communication within Fallon, and Zane is missing. When I lost contact, I came back immediately, per regulation sixteen—”
“So he’s probably dead by now.” Zettel waved to an approaching pilot, who jammed a helmet onto his head as he jogged over. Wright gaped wordlessly at him. “Get back to the SUVs, Wright. You’re on the ground team.”
He swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”
The entire base had woken up now. In the dim light, Zettel could see lines of men pouring out of the building as they mobilized. Only the faces were visible. Their black uniforms rendered them invisible in the night.
“The chopper’s secure for confrontation,” Allyson said. “An angel could jump in with his wings at full blast without dropping us.”
“What do we have to do to get the rest of the power back?” Zettel asked.
As if to respond, emergency lights flooded the platform with red light. The wail of sirens pierced the darkness.
“Passive wards in the perimeter,” she said with a small, satisfied smile. “They even work against angels. Our newest invention.”
“Well done,” Zettel said. A unit joined them on the tarmac: two kopides with guns and another witch. Enough power to take down most demon threats.
They all climbed into the helicopter. Zettel turned on his earpiece. The buzz of control’s voices immediately came to life.
Barely even midnight, and Zettel was ready to kill an angel. There were worse ways to start a day.
It was a short flight to Fallon. Zettel hung halfway out the door, watching the spotlights scan the desert underneath them. Coyotes darted away from their light. The white tails of jackrabbits flared and vanished.
“Control has a transmission for us,” Allyson said. She showed Zettel the screen of her cell phone. It was a blurry, pixelated feed from a uniform camera.
A circle of power on the floor, a body in the center of a pentagram, smears of blood—it was a ritual space unlike any he had ever seen before. The body on the ground wore Union black, but the detail was too poor to make out the features of the witch beside him.
Mono audio crackled through the speaker. “Come and get me,” said the witch.
A white flash, and the image was gone.
“That’s it?” Zettel asked.
She nodded as she tucked the phone into one of her leg pouches. “We’ve been invited to party.”
“Good thing we brought presents.”
Zettel signaled to one of the women, who handed him an MSG90. It was a great sniper rifle—strong, but light. He sat in the door of the helicopter with his feet braced against the skids as he loaded it.
The first signs of destruction appeared in the form of cracked roads, and the damage worsened as they approached Fallon. It looked like a shift in tectonic plates had split the highway from the main street; a few buildings were trembling, on the verge of collapse. Half of Walmart had already fallen.
Zettel kept a hand hooked in a strap as the helicopter banked hard, whipping wind through the open door.
“Check this out,” Allyson said, pointing over his shoulder.
The helicopter finished its ninety-degree rotation. They hovered over a circle of devastation: flattened buildings, a flipped Union SUV, a few black-clad bodies. The ground team that had been chasing the chopper took positions around the crater.
A dozen kopides and aspides jumped out of their vehicles, training their guns on the same point: a man standing beside three dusty bodies in the center of what used to be a bar, with a notebook in one hand and a brush in the other.
Zettel lifted the scope of the rifle to his eye to see who had caused so much destruction, focusing the crosshairs on his cheek. Zettel recognized that face. He had seen it in Hell, right before the Union had seized control of the Palace of Dis.
It was James fucking Faulkner: most powerful witch alive, aspis to Elise Kavanagh, and near the top of the Union’s most wanted list.
Faulkner was at a standstill with all of the other kopides watching him. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed .
Zettel’s gaze skimmed the street, taking in the destroyed antique shop, the crater in the pavement, the rubble. No wonder none of those morons were moving. They were probably too busy shitting themselves.
“If he moves, shoot him,” Zettel said, shoving the MSG90 into the hands of a witch.
“Don’t kill him,” Allyson said.
If anyone else had given that order, Zettel would have immediately put them in their place—probably violently. But this was Allyson.
“He’s taken out half of the town,” he said.
“I know, and I want him.”
Zettel sized up Allyson. She was a tough bitch, tougher than any other witch he had known, and he had seen her do things outside the Union rulebook and beyond the boundaries of most women’s nerves. But maybe too much confidence wasn’t a good thing where James Faulkner was concerned.
“He’s done too much damage,” Zettel said. “Ehrlick, get ready.”
Allyson gripped Zettel’s shoulder. “No, Gary. I want what he knows.”
Her hard stare spoke volumes. It had been breaking the rules that led Allyson to learn written magic; she wanted to break them again.
Ehrlick sat with his feet on the skids and attached a laser scope to the top of his rifle. The pilot circled slowly over Faulkner, keeping the spotlight trained on him as the sniper took aim.
Faulkner didn’t move. He only gazed at the helicopter, as though inviting them to attack.
Fear crawled down Zettel’s spine like a wet rat. It almost seemed like Faulkner was looking straight at him.
“Let me neutralize him,” Allyson said again.
Zettel lifted a hand, preparing to signal to Ehrlick.
And then Faulkner moved. The witch lifted a hand to point at the helicopter, his first finger out and thumb lifted in the shape of a gun.
Faulkner’s lips formed a word: Bang .
A gunshot rang out.
Zettel flinched, but there were no flashes of magic, no bright lights.
The helicopter began a controlled descent. Ehrlick breathed a sigh and prepared himself for a second shot.
Then Zettel saw the blood pouring from James’s chest. He had been hit.
James Faulkner finally fell.
The helicopter settled on a level patch of pavement as the Union soldiers that had been frozen moments before jumped to life. They circled James’s body, blocking it from Zettel’s view.
Allyson glowered at Zettel, shielding her eyes from the spotlight. He could see angry words forming on her mouth, even if he couldn’t hear her over the buzzing rotors. What the fuck, Gary?
“Ehrlick made the right move,” Zettel said.
With her hair pulled into a severe bun, Allyson’s expression was always a little pinched, but now she looked downright murderous.
“He might bleed to death!” she shouted.
He turned his shoulders so that the others wouldn’t see him arguing with his aspis. Zettel had only been back in command for a couple of months—he didn’t want his authority undermined again. “He’s dangerous. Better off dead.”
Allyson huffed into her cupped hands, breath fogging the chill night air. “But I need to know.”
“Need to know what? Who’s the better witch?”
She didn’t need to respond. He could
see it in her eyes.
The wall of bodies shifted, allowing Zettel to watch as Faulkner was lifted onto a stretcher. There was a lot of blood.
It would be easy to let him die. If they stepped back and took no action, he would bleed out, and the thorn in Zettel’s side that was James Faulkner and Elise Kavanagh would be that much smaller.
“What if he’s the better witch?” Zettel asked.
Allyson’s eyes glowed with hunger. “I’m not the one who got shot today.”
But she also hadn’t destroyed half of Fallon.
“Don’t make me regret this,” Zettel muttered. He raised his voice to address the kopides. “Put the witch in the chopper!”
Zettel tried to put Allyson out of his mind and supervised the relocation of James Faulkner’s unconscious body, just to make sure that nothing funny happened. His wasn’t the only body recovered; there were three others, including St. Vil. Those were taken to the ambulance. All of them were reportedly alive.
Nobody had died that night.
“Guess you were wrong about the angels,” Zettel told Allyson when she returned to his side. She helped lift Faulkner into the helicopter and didn’t respond.
Zettel climbed in after him. He checked the casualty reports on his smartphone as they flew back. Allyson worked on Faulkner as they flew, loosing healing magic over the gunshot wound.
The Union had motion and heat sensors throughout the region that were currently running an inventory on staff and wildlife. Watching the numbers pile up was a nauseating experience.
“That was too easy, you know. He wanted us to get him,” Allyson said. She looked at him the way that a hunter looked at a big buck she had just shot in the forest, and Zettel almost pitied Faulkner for it.
Easy , she had said. Three buildings were completely leveled. The pavement had been ripped up in a one-mile radius, as though a giant earthworm had ripped open a tunnel underneath. And they had lost two SUVs to falling debris.
Zettel barked a laugh. “Too easy. You’re crazy.”
“Easy,” Allyson repeated, putting a possessive hand on James’s shoulder. “Trust me. If James Faulkner didn’t want to be caught, we wouldn’t have caught him.”
