by R S Penney
Marcus reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a bullet that he hadn't loaded into his gun. He tossed it down in the muck about halfway between himself and the oncoming hoard. Then he triggered the Heat-Sink within.
Mud froze with a crackling sound and ice spread out from the bullet in a wave. The four men didn't even seem to notice. They just kept on running. Long-hair slipped, falling hard on his backside. Scar went down next.
Earring managed to keep his footing and continued in a mad dash toward Marcus. The man bared teeth and hissed with every breath.
Drawing his pistol with a flourish, Marcus dropped to a crouch and extended his arm to point the gun. He fired.
A bullet hit Earring's right shin, knocking the man's leg out from under him and forcing him to topple over. He landed with his face in the frozen dirt, groaning from the pain of it.
Curly leaped over his fallen comrade.
That man was fairly large, and he flew through the air with his arms spread wide as if he meant to catch Marcus in a bear hug. Only one thing to do. Marcus stood up, and he triggered the Force-Sink in his pendant.
Curly slowed to a stop, hanging in midair.
Marcus killed the Sink and let him drop to the ground. The man landed with a loud grunt, disoriented and confused. That would do. Instinct kicked in, and Marcus aimed his gun without looking.
He fired a shot straight through Curly's chest, black blood spraying out behind the heavy man as he stumbled backward. Of course, these gray things didn't go down easily. Curly recovered his balance and came at Marcus again.
Marcus shot him a second time.
That threw the man down onto his back with black ichor pooling around his broken body. With Curly down, there was nothing between Marcus and the other two. Long-hair and Scar were both back on their feet.
Marcus spun to face Adele with his teeth clenched, then shook his head as he strode toward her. “Are you just going to stand there?” he bellowed. “Make yourself useful, girl, and help me!”
She was terrified, backing away from him with a gaping mouth. Her face was deathly pale. “I can't...” she whimpered. “I'm sorry, but I can't!”
Footsteps in the muck.
Marcus triggered the Gravity-Sinks in his shoes, then jumped and curled his legs as he rose into the air. He let Long-Hair and Scar rush past beneath him, then dropped to the ground behind the pair of them.
One shot took the back of Long-Hair's thigh, forcing the man down onto his knees. Another did the same to Scar. Marcus would not aim for the centre of mass so long as these gray demons were the only thing between him and half a dozen innocent bystanders. Soft human bodies did not stop bullets.
“Marcus!”
He looked up and saw his sister scrambling down the inclined street that led away from the riverbank. Young Tommy was right behind her with another two of these gray monstrosities on his heels.
“Brilliant...” Marcus grumbled.
Stepping out of the inn with a sigh, Desa pulled the brim of her hat down to shade her eyes. The street was busy with the onset of mid-morning. People rushed by, going this way and that, some calling greetings to those they passed. Now, where were her friends? She was of a mind to be on her way as soon as possible, but it might take some time to find suitable provisions.
She strolled across the street with her hands folded behind her back, smiling as she shook her head. “Well, you have to give the girl this much credit,” Desa mumbled. “She did manage to take your mind off your troubles.”
Whoosh.
Desa turned at the sound to find Bendarian standing directly under the sign to the Wheel and Wagon. The man had somehow regained his youth. Long blonde hair spilled over his shoulders, and his skin was as vibrant as it had ever been.
She felt her mouth drop open and blinked several times as she took a few shaky steps forward. “How did you...” Suddenly, her mouth was dry. “Radharal, this power you have found will destroy us all.”
A grin split Bendarian's face as he shook his head. “You didn't think I would come to meet you, did you?” His laughter sent chills down Desa's spine. “Well, I think it's past time we finished it.”
She scanned the street, trying to get a sense of the danger this man posed. There were wooden houses on each side, and any one of them might contain an entire family for all she knew. She saw a man in a long black coat a short way up the road, walking away from them with his back turned.
There were children in the other direction, a group of them playing. Their laughter filled the air as they ducked into the space between two houses. If Bendarian chose to use them as hostages...
“Looking for your friends?”
When she turned her attention back to him, she found Bendarian standing under the hanging sign with a malicious smile. “I'm afraid they won't be coming to your aid, Desa,” he mocked. “You see, I've arranged for a little privacy.”
She flung her coat aside to expose the gun on her hip, then drew it with lightning speed. Without even thinking, she cocked the hammer. “You want to finish it?” she said. “All right, let's finish it.”
She raised her weapon.
Bendarian raised a hand to shield himself.
Desa fired with a ferocious clap of thunder and watched as two bullets jerked to a halt right in front of Bendarian's raised hand. That ring on his third finger...It must have been a Force-Sink.
Bendarian shut his eyes, and when he opened them, they were midnight-black from corner to corner. His grin widened. “I'm afraid that's not going to help you this time, my dear.” He flung that hand out toward her.
Desa threw herself down on her belly just in time to hear it when her own bullets whistled past above her. They pounded the front wall of a house with a loud thunk-thunk. How was she supposed to kill a man with that much power?
Desa rolled aside.
Mud stained her coat as she tumbled up the roadway. With a growl, she came up on one knee and raised her gun again. Once again, she fired, and once again, her bullet came to an impotent stop a few inches away from Bendarian.
The man threw his head back with a triumphant smile on his face and roared with laughter. “Honestly, Desa!” he exclaimed. “You thought to kill me with a gun?”
Desa angled her gun upward.
CRACK!
Her next round cut the chain that supported the inn's hanging wooden sign, causing it to fall. Bendarian reacted by instinct.
He raised a hand up above his head, and the sign slowed to a stop about two inches above his outstretched fingers. Of course, that meant he was momentarily distracted. Desa adjusted her aim.
CRACK!
A bullet ripped through Bendarian's left thigh with a spray of blood, and he leaped backward with a yelp of pain. Clamping a hand over the wound, he screeched in pain and then vanished before Desa could shoot him again.
Desa stood up slowly, looking this way and that for any sign of her adversary. She saw only wooden houses and frightened people far off in the distance, each one of them gaping at her or shielding their faces as if they expected her bullets to fly their way next.
She took the opportunity to pop open the cylinder of her revolver and load it with four new bullets. It took only a few seconds; over the years, she had learned how to load a pistol in a hurry.
A soft whoosh of air caught her attention, and she spun around to find Bendarian standing about ten paces up the road. His face was red, and there were thick black veins climbing up the sides of his neck. “Your meddling no longer amuses.”
The man flung his hand out, and a small ball of fire streaked from his fingertips. It sizzled through the air with a menacing crackle.
Desa fell over backward, catching herself by bracing both hands on the ground. She felt the heat as the fireball passed over her stomach, chest and face and then sped off into the distance behind her.
In a blink, she was upright again.
Bendarian thrust that hand out toward her, his fingers curled into a grasping claw, and she felt s
omething lift her off the ground. Desa was yanked forward with her toes dragging in the dirt. Those invisible fingers were closing around her neck.
She felt tears welling up, felt them spilling over her face. “No,” she panted. “No, I won't go out that easy.”
She aimed her pistol down at Bendarian's feet and fired bullet after bullet, planting each one in the dirt. When she had the last one right where she wanted it, she triggered the Force-Source that she had Infused into the metal.
Bendarian was hurled backward.
He flew through the air with his legs extended, arms flailing, and then dropped to land on his backside. Windows on either side of the street shattered as the kinetic force smashed through them.
Bendarian tumbled backward through the muck and then came up in a crouch. His clothes were stained, his hair in a state of disarray. “Oh, clever, clever girl,” he said. “You always did like to put up a fight.”
Bendarian spread his arms wide as though reaching for something on either side of him. The shards of glass from shattered windows suddenly floated upward. They hovered for a moment and then converged upon Bendarian, swirling around him in a cyclone.
Released from the bonds that had held her, Desa stood in the middle of the street with her gun in one hand, gasping as she tried to catch her breath. What was this man? No human should have this kind of power.
Bendarian shoved his hands forward.
Shards of glass came rushing at her.
Turning her shoulder toward the onrushing storm, Desa raised her forearm up to shield her face and ordered her bracelet to drain kinetic energy. Thin shards stopped dead in mid-air mere inches away from her body.
She felt her bracelet filling itself as more and more shards came. It drank and drank until it had taken all that it could. One sliver of glass sliced a gash in the back of Desa's coat, leaving a cut across her skin.
Another buried itself in her thigh.
She cried out and bent double, hobbling to the side of the street and ducking into the narrow space between two houses. She was going to die. Though she strained to deny it, she knew there was no way out of this.
Letting her shoulder fall against the alley wall, Desa grimaced and then shook her head. “Not like this,” she pleaded, her voice a hoarse whisper. “Please not like this.”
The whoosh of displaced air drew her attention, and then Bendarian appeared at the other end of the alley, smiling that dreadful smile, his eyes now pits of darkness. “You put up a good fight,” he said. “Really, you should be proud. But it's over now.”
With teeth bared, Desa threw her head back to squint at the open sky. “Not just yet, my friend,” she whispered. “Not just yet.”
She tossed the gun.
Bendarian caught the grip with a chuckle. He took one step forward and then raised the weapon to aim for Desa's chest. “Well, I suppose if you want me to kill you with your own gun, that would be-”
He cut off when Desa triggered the Force-Sink that she had Infused into the pistol itself. Drained of kinetic energy, he was frozen in place, trapped. In fact, he would not even be aware of the passage of time. Every particle in his body was motionless. Which meant that whatever the brain did to generate consciousness was temporarily suspended.
Hissing air through her teeth, Desa shook her head. “Idiot man,” she muttered. “It never occurred to you that I might develop some new tricks after our last encounter?”
Of course, she couldn't do anything to him.
This Force-Sink was not refined like the one in her bracelet. It would take kinetic energy from anything that got close enough, including Desa herself. If she tried to rush in and stab him, she would be frozen as well.
But then there were other options.
She drew one of her daggers, tossed it up and caught the tip of the blade. She threw it with every last ounce of strength she had and watched it tumble end over end through the alley.
When her knife got within ten feet of Bendarian, she killed the Force-Sink to let it continue unimpeded. “Acceptable,” Bendarian said in the split second before the dagger planted itself in his left eye.
He shrieked and stumbled backward, falling on his ass and dropping her pistol. A second later, he was gone. But Desa could still sense her dagger miles to the west of here. Nine miles and eight hundred twenty-two yards to be precise. A Field Binder would know the exact location of anything she Infused even if someone carried it to the other side of the world. She triggered the Heat-Source in that dagger.
Maybe that would be the end of Bendarian...Maybe not. With any luck, he had not been able to extricate the blade from his flesh before she triggered it. But then there was the distinct possibility that being burned to a crisp was still not enough to kill the man. Not with his new powers.
She killed the Heat-Source before it released its last bit of energy. That way she could still feel the Infusion. If Bendarian was still alive – and if he kept the dagger on his person, perhaps out of some sick desire to taunt her – it would allow her to track him. If he did discard the knife, at least she would be able to recover it.
Hobbling out of the alley, she set off to find the others.
Chapter 22
“To the saviours of Thrasa!”
The man who said that, a Mr. Todd Finnegan, stood up from his table at the Wagon Wheel, thrust his mug into the air and added, “May they live long, happy lives that never take them far from this town.”
Everyone else in the packed room cheered, all raising mugs or glasses of their own, some pounding on the tables with their fists. One man went so far as to stick two fingers in his mouth and whistle. Poor Mrs. Collins was frowning and shaking her head as she maneuvered between the tables. Clearly, she didn't appreciate the ruckus.
Desa sat at one table with her hands resting on her knees, grimacing as she endured yet another round of praise. When she was a girl, her teachers had all warned her against public displays of Field Binding. Non-Aladri would view it as demonic sorcery, they had said. Desa had never cared for that rule.
She wanted everyone to learn Field Binding – it was a useful technology – but she would have preferred it if people saw it as a means to improve their living conditions and not as a method for inflicting violence. Lately, most places she visited saw the latter and not the former. She turned to Marcus, who was sitting next to her.
He returned her scowl with one of his own.
She bent forward, set her elbow on the table and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I suppose there's little chance of slipping away quietly,” she muttered. “They'll be at this all bloody night.”
Seated across from her with booted feet propped up on the table, Miri had her arms folded as she listened to the crowd. “Let them have their moment,” she said. “Let us have our moment! We've earned it!”
Tommy was beside her with an ear of corn in both hands, and he attacked the thing with an almost savage enthusiasm. “Personally,” he said between crunches. “I'm just glad that for once, we don't have to flee a town three steps ahead of an angry mob.”
Well...Desa couldn't argue with that. In truth, she lacked the energy to argue about anything. Extricating the glass from her leg had required a surgeon's care, and then she had spent an hour in communion with the Ether to accelerate her body's natural healing. It wasn't perfect – she still felt a mild sting when she walked – but it would do for now.
One of the serving girls, a pretty young lass with tanned skin and long brown hair, displayed a little bosom as she bent over to refill Desa's mug. “There you are,” she said. “Compliments of the house. You've earned it.”
Closing her eyes, Desa nodded.
Adele was between Marcus and Tommy, holding the stem of a wine glass with two delicate fingers and glaring with such intensity that Desa might have thought her eyes could flay the serving maid. “We should continue west,” she said. “Bendarian is going that way.”
Desa could confirm as much. Or, at the very least, she could confirm that some
one was taking her knife westward...Which almost certainly meant that Bendarian was still alive. The man was a roach; killing him was becoming exceedingly difficult. He had covered about six miles of ground with no sudden jumps that would indicate the use of his new powers. Perhaps he was tired.
“She's right,” Desa agreed.
No one argued.
“What I want to know,” Miri said, inspecting her nails with idle curiosity. “is why those gray people were a little easier to defeat this time.”
“I suspect Bendarian was controlling them,” Marcus answered. According to him, the gray demons had all collapsed at the same time, and though Desa could not pinpoint the exact second of their defeat, she was fairly certain that it happened right as she put that knife through Bendarian's eye.
“No, not quite,” Desa mused. “I don't think he was controlling their every move. But I do think they were tied to him in some ways. The ones we saw on that farm all died when the intelligence that was controlling them retreated. It would make sense if the same thing happened here.”
“So, what now?” Tommy inquired.
Desa set her elbows on the table, laced her fingers and rested her chin on top of them. Slowly, she exhaled. “Now, we enjoy our laurels,” she replied. “And then we cross the river first thing tomorrow morning.”
Evening was coming on fast and the few miles they might travel before sundown were nothing against one more night in an actual bed and one more morning with a real breakfast. “I think we've all earned a little rest.”
“I'll second that,” Miri replied.
The next morning, as she led Midnight off the ferry by his bridle, Desa noted the looming ceiling of gray clouds that stretched from horizon to horizon. What a wonderful day to set out on a journey! She could all but feel the rain about to fall.
With her bracelet replenished and some extra ammunition that the townsfolk had been more than willing to part with, she was ready for whatever Bendarian would throw at her next. As ready as she could be, given the man's new abilities. The thought of what he had done still sent shivers down her spine.
