by TR Cameron
The atmosphere in the bunker was filled with energy. Cali pulled her uniform on faster than usual and took the effort to pack her other concerns away equally quickly. She hadn’t been this full of hope for some time, and while she thought a smart person would probably slow and investigate the feeling a little, she didn’t have any interest in being that individual at the moment.
She snatched one of Invel’s glass globes and tossed it high in an arc toward Tanyith. “Think quick.”
He flinched but caught the sphere with telekinesis and brought it to his hand. “Thanks.”
“That wasn’t cool.”
“It’s not my fault you suck at basic magic.” He laughed.
Fyre snorted from where he paced along the wall that held the pictures and the string. She twisted to look at him. “Shut it, you.” A wave of mirth washed over her, and she grinned. “Maybe you should take another nap. You’ve only had seven today.”
The Draksa breathed frost at her feet, which drew laughter from both her and Tanyith. She stood, fully outfitted and with potions on both legs, two crystal globes in a pouch at her waist, and her necklaces with the Leblanc symbol and the magic charms showing. Her final action was to retrieve the holster that had come with the stun gun and secure it to her belt at her right hand. The extra cartridge went into a jacket pocket.
Her partner looked at her and shook his head. “You look more violent by the day.”
She pulled her hair back and bound it with a tie, then added two more to keep her unruly curls in place. “I’m not bad. I’m only drawn that way.”
He chuckled. “Now you’re doing movie quotes too?”
“The troll rubbed off on me.” She grinned. “What can I say?”
“Yeah, that one is something. They all are.”
Cali nodded and checked her watch again. They’d decided to strike around eleven on the assumption the household might go to bed early if they were planning a move. Tanyith and a veiled Fyre had done reconnaissance earlier but had discovered nothing conclusive. Ultimately, the Zatora plans didn’t matter. They’d go in and hope for the best.
They were in complete agreement on one thing, though. If the object they sought was there, it would be in Grisham’s room of treasures. She feared he’d lock it away in a safe but her partner convinced her he’d want the shard where he could see it since he considered it a collector’s item. If he was wrong and the Zatora leader had secured the sword piece, she planned to put a portal under whatever safe protected it and let it drop into the basement of the tavern where they could deal with the lock at leisure.
And maybe ask Diana and her techs for help.
Tanyith slipped his Sai into place with a twirl. She pointed her chin at them. “How did you wind up with those?”
He shrugged. “I thought I was cool, I guess. We all chose something that would make us stand out. Others had fancy guns or big knives. One of them even had a miniature crossbow. It was a stupid game, especially since we broke the law and did so with memorable weaponry.” He laughed and shook his head. “Man, we were dumb.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re still dumb.”
The man stuck his tongue out at her before finishing. “Anyway, I saw a kung fu film that used these and kind of fell in love with how they looked. Then I decided it would be great to actually know how to use them. And here we are.” He gestured at her wrist. “I’d trade them for magic weapons in an instant, though.”
She nodded. “They are cool, especially now that I can catch magic and cast my own with the sticks.” She paused to let him think she wouldn’t continue, then broke into a grin. “And if we find any you can use among my parents’ things that aren’t heirlooms, you’ve got dibs.”
He laughed. “Am I that obvious?”
“I’ve noticed your lustful looks at my Escrima sticks, yes. It’s shameful.” Fyre snorted and she waved a hand in his direction. “See, he thinks so too.”
Tanyith shook his head as he stood and stretched. “Man, it’s good not to have the damn Malniets’ compulsion on me anymore.” He practiced drawing the stun pistol and frowned. “That feels really weird.”
Cali tried hers and had to agree. “Maybe we should carry them rather than trying to draw them when we see an enemy. And probably not rely on being able to yank them out at need.”
“Agreed.”
She checked her watch. Ten-thirty. To hell with it. She looked up. “How about we go do this thing?”
Her companions were on their feet beside her before she finished the sentence, clearly as eager as she was to get the night’s activities underway.
As she stepped from the portal, she surveyed the grounds surrounding the Zatora Mansion, which were the same as they had been the last time she’d been there. It seemed like a lifetime before, given how much had happened since then. But there, at least on the exterior, nothing had changed.
A closer look at the house ahead revealed how wrong she was. “Are those metal sheets?”
Tanyith nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t mention them because they don’t change anything materially, given that we assumed the windows would be trapped anyway. But they’ve become very serious about physical security.”
“Covering all the windows seems a little extreme.”
He shrugged. “Paranoia, I guess.”
She frowned. “This makes it less likely that he’s about to leave to go somewhere safer, you know?”
“I thought about that. But like you said earlier, it doesn’t matter. We’d have to do this eventually so it might as well be tonight.”
With a sigh, she looked at Fyre, who gazed out into the distance. “How about it, buddy? Do you still think this is a good idea?”
“Yep. We’ve fooled around with all these idiots too long. We have to knock them down somewhere and this is as fine a place as any.” He walked forward slowly and she and Tanyith fell into step with him.
“Okay. So we stick to the plan. Break the door in and fight our way from there. Speed will be key. The only reason we stop is if one of us is stuck. Otherwise, it’s in, up, and directly to the treasure room. Once we have what we need, we can portal out.”
Tanyith nodded. “It’s a good plan—as little contact as possible, as little damage as possible, and in and out quickly.”
Fyre didn’t reply and only stared ahead and started to walk a little faster. Cali asked, “Do you see any wards outside, Tay?”
He paused, then replied, “Nope. My guess is they have cameras and other security though, so let’s do this.” The air rippled with magic as he cast a veil over them both, and Fyre’s form shimmered as he activated his illusion.
“Okay. Remember—fast, safe, and get it done and don’t get distracted.”
Inside the mansion, Ozahl sat at a table with Rion Grisham, Jack Strang, and Colin Todd. He’d contrived excuses to delay the meeting and claimed to be gathering information about their enemies. It was vital that Todd, at least, be present when their patsy made her move. Danna had confirmed that she and Usha had planted the threat of losing the sword if she didn’t act immediately, so the fun would definitely happen sometime that night. He’d also ensured that Lila and Dalton were nowhere around since there was no way to predict what kind of chaos might ensue.
Grisham growled his annoyance yet again. “How could we have failed to kill her? Let’s go over it one more time.”
The mage shrugged. “I wasn’t there. I was at a different ambush site. But from what I hear, it was bad luck. They had a car with extra armor and reacted more aggressively than our people expected them to. For all we know, all the cars the wench uses are equally reinforced. In any case, from all the reports I’ve gathered, the first shot missed and from there, magic won the day.”
He’d spent much of the previous two days convincing the others that it wasn’t a big deal, that the failure was simply random happenstance and bad luck, and that they should wait a week or so before they tried again so the enemy’s vigilance would settle. He believed his involv
ement in foiling the ambush was still secret, although Todd constantly stared at him at odd moments as if he had something he wanted to say but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.
Tonight, the accountant-like lieutenant wore a sharp black suit but no tie. His black shoes shone. Perfect funeral attire. He, Strang, and even Grisham were in business casual, which was a step up for him, sartorially speaking, and a step down for them.
Strang’s low voice observed, “Next time, you should be there.”
Ozahl chuckled. “Yes, well, I agree, my friend. If we fight magicals, I should be there. And if I can’t be, we shouldn’t do it.” He turned to Grisham and offered the man a syrupy smile. “But I’m sure there were reasons I’m not privy to why we did it the way we did.”
The Zatora leader stared hard at him and he feared he’d pushed him too far. A surprisingly large part of him hoped he had. Come on, you bastard. If you want to do it, let’s do it. We’ll decide how to pick up the pieces of our plan after and make them fit right. He summoned his magic, ready to blast his way through the other three men.
The boss shook his head. “No. I got ahead of myself and that won’t happen again. But let there be no mistake. That witch will die. And tonight, we’ll think of a way to make it happen.”
He seemed about to say something else but a crash from the area of the entrance door followed immediately by shouting cut him off. Ozahl grinned.
Welcome to the party, Matriarch Leblanc. Your timing is perfect.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tanyith blasted the doors from their hinges and hurled them into the main area and trapped two guards beneath them. Cali surged through and jumped on the left door, while Fyre matched her on the other one. Their landings elicited groans from below. Motion to her left caught her attention and she spun and pulled the trigger on the stun gun. The blast missed her target by several feet and shattered the front of an ornate china cabinet.
“Damn it…stupid gun.” She thrust the stick in her left hand out and a burst of force lifted the guard she’d missed with the pistol and flung him into the wall. The sound of crackling from behind her signaled Fyre icing the connection between rooms on that side. Tanyith raced past her, headed to the next room and the stairs that lay in the one beyond it. His stun gun discharged several times and when she crossed the threshold, the bodies of his targets came into view.
“Good shooting, Tex,” she yelled,
He laughed, then dropped with a yelp. She threw herself down as three guards appeared on the balcony above with rifles. Their first shots missed and Cali scrambled to use the staircase banister as cover. Her partner used his telekinesis to pull at one of the weapons, and the strap it was attached to yanked its owner over the railing. He fell with a loud cry that ended abruptly when he landed. The more mentally agile of the two remaining enemies yelled, “Magic,” and both simultaneously released the magazines from the bottom of their weapons.
“Oh, hell,” Cali muttered and forced magic into her muscles. She pounded up the stairs and pitted her speed against their ability to insert new magazines that could only be filled with anti-magic bullets. The top step came earlier than expected, while her body moved faster than it ever had before. The closest one turned as he pushed up on the long, curved ammunition holder, and she zapped him with the stun gun. He fell as if in slow motion.
Fyre’s scream exploded in her head. “Down!” She obeyed without question and a wash of frost flew above her to freeze the other guard an instant before he could pull the trigger.
There wasn’t time to process the fact that the Draksa had spoken into her mind. She felt triumph from him and no words were sufficient to capture her emotions at the moment. Instead, she called, “Forward,” and raced to the side of the mansion that held Grisham’s bedroom and treasure closet.
Ozahl had positioned himself between the other two men and Colin Todd at the first sound of trouble.
Grisham snapped, “Go see what’s going on.”
Immediately, he countered with, “Strang, stay here and protect the boss. We’ll check it out.” Always the good underling, Todd didn’t complain and hurried to the door.
All right, we need to get close to them before I can pull it off. Of course, if he dies in the crossfire, that would be fine, too.
“Get behind me,” he muttered to keep up appearances and summoned a force shield on his left hand. He kept his right free for use in offensive spells. Once he saw what kind the girl used, he’d know what to choose to implement his plan. His companion obeyed and he led the way out through the kitchen into the main hallway from which the staircase led upward. The moaning and twitching body of a guard who had apparently fallen from above sprawled in the middle, and he stepped carefully past him to look up. “All clear, let’s go.”
“How do you know where they’re headed?” Todd asked and sounded suspicious,
Ozahl sighed, stopped, and turned at the person he was itching to kill. Part of his reply was an act, but the emotion behind it was real. “Are you an idiot? Clearly, that man”—he pointed at the fallen figure—“was recently up there.” He raised a finger to the balcony. “Obviously, they went that way. I don’t know what you people would do without me—probably get yourselves killed by the first magical you encountered.”
He turned and stalked away. The sputtering behind him remained close so his primary goal was still viable. When they reached the top of the stairs, he pointed to one of the downed guards. “Take his gun. It looks like he has anti-magic loaded. That’ll be useful.” The other man did as he was told and held it carefully with the barrel pointed at the ceiling.
Todd asked, “Who is it?”
The mage shrugged. “My guess it’s the Atlanteans. We targeted their leader so they’re after ours. They must have assumed he’d be in bed. It’s the last mistake they’ll make.” Gunfire and shouts issued from the rooms ahead, and he grinned. “It sounds like we’re going the right way, doesn’t it?”
The layout had changed since the previous time they’d been there. What had been Grisham’s bedroom was now a study and three guards played cards inside, apparently taking advantage of their boss’s absence. Cali managed to stun one, but the other two opened fire. She released her left stick and flung a force shield up to catch the bullets but had to retreat as they separated to create more advantageous firing lines.
Tanith pushed past her and shot one with his stun gun, and the man fell. She shoved her pistol into its holster and blasted the remaining guard with lightning. Her control wasn’t perfect but it was enough to make him jitter and dance before he collapsed senseless to the floor. She moved forward and mentally told Fyre, “Ice ʼem.”
“Will do,” he replied in the same way and she grinned again at the new level of connection they’d found. The next chamber was huge, as Grisham had knocked out the wall that used to be there to create a bedroom that also served as a treasure room. Art and items covered the walls, and she could almost picture the Zatora leader in the space among his treasures, filled with self-admiration for his many accomplishments.
For a moment, she had the urge to search for him simply to punch him in the mouth for how he acted in her mind but shook it off. “Find the shard.”
She and Tanyith spread out to look. After a couple of moments, Fyre entered as well and took a position near the door on the far side of the room in case any enemies came through it. She ransacked cabinets and searched through drawers but couldn’t find anything that looked like what they’d come for. “Anything?” she called,
Tanyith sounded as frustrated as she felt. “Nothing, dammit. Where is it?”
A voice from the doorway replied, “Whatever you’re looking for, you won’t get it.” They turned to a bookish man with a rifle aimed at Cali’s head. “They’re anti-magic bullets, and if I hear one sound, she’s dead. Now, slowly, move together to the center of the room.”
Ozahl froze behind Todd. He hadn’t expected the guy to be so downright martial. He couldn’t risk anything t
hat might make him pull the trigger because Caliste was key to their current plan and a part of their New Atlantis strategy as well. A great deal depended on her survival, at least for a little longer. It was one of the reasons why Danna hadn’t put all that much effort into preparing the opponents the girl faced in her ritual battles. While they had other options, they didn’t have better ones than the young matriarch.
He stepped behind his alleged ally and whispered, “Grisham will want to talk to her so try not to kill her. Keep calm.” The Zatora lieutenant ignored him and gestured with the rifle.
“Move it, now,” the man in the doorway instructed. She obeyed and sent a mental message to Fyre to wait for the right moment. Tanyith stepped slowly toward her, both careful not to spook the person who aimed the gun at them. She partitioned her mind and sent part of it out searching. His defenses were laughable and in moments, she was inside his head.
“How about you drop that weapon?” she suggested. In his mind, she commanded his hands to do it and while the rifle didn’t leave his grasp, his finger did come off the trigger. What happened next was completely unexpected. He careened into the room like he’d been pushed and the gun clattered away as he stumbled forward. She dodged instinctively, and a man she didn’t recognize stepped into the doorway. He was sloppily dressed and entirely average looking.
Tanyith sounded shocked as he muttered, “Aiden.”
The man grinned. “Hello again, Tanyith. I heard you were around. Long time.” Then, without preamble, he raised his hands and dispatched twin bolts of lightning, both of them very well contained in wicked ropes that twined across the room.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Fyre moved and Tanyith did too. She remained frozen and watched the lines of confined energy burn into the chest and head of the man who’d had the rifle and who had twisted as he’d stumbled into the room. She couldn’t quite process what was going on.
