by A. Q. Owen
Four agents. Four guns. Not a fair fight. Even with his magical abilities he’d be cut down before he could take any of them out. Maybe he’d get lucky and nail one of them, but the way the magic worked he would have gladly traded for his Springfield .40-cal. Four on one were better odds than he’d faced more times than he could count—not unarmed, though. The spells or whatever he was using weren’t as fast as a twitch of the trigger finger.
He could reel off twelve shots in seconds. Fireballs? Not so much. Unless…
The agents fanned out behind the burning wreckage, two taking up positions behind cars on the other side of the street to the right, two on the left.
Orion held both hands out wide, standing in the middle of the road with his palms up to the sky. Raindrops pelted him, soaking his clothes, hair, and skin. He felt the cool water dripping off his fingertips.
He saw every one of the agents moving as one as they rushed for cover and readied to fire.
It would be seconds before he was peppered with hot metal rounds, and standing out in the middle of the street afforded him nowhere to hide. He summoned his focus and looked down at the ring again.
This time, he flicked both wrists and visualized four fireballs. Suddenly, they materialized before him, hovering in the air in front of his face, seemingly unaffected by the pounding rain.
Orion raised his hands, pulled them back to his shoulders, with palms facing forward, and waited for the right moment.
The first agent leaned around a red compact car on the left and fired his weapon. The round missed, but it gave Orion his location. He pushed his left hand out hard, and the fireball zipped through the air. The man ducked behind the car as the flaming sphere struck the front quarter panel and exploded. Another gunshot rang out from the right. Orion twitched his head that direction and pushed his other hand, firing another volley at the new shooter.
It missed the target and smashed into a building, blasting a hole in the brick façade.
The female agent popped up around a pickup truck and squeezed off three quick, popping shots. This time, Orion twisted his body and flung another fireball at her while targeting the fourth agent on the other side of the street, two cars back from the one he’d just missed.
The flames sailed by the targets, striking the cars behind them and sending them into a fiery blaze.
The agents moved up, trying to hem him in while at the same time fleeing from the burning vehicles.
Orion only had one thought: faster.
Four more balls of flame appeared in the air in front of him. He pushed one, then another, then another, summoning a new fireball after each one had been flung. The dark city backstreet turned into a blazing circus of destruction as each fireball flew faster and faster from his hands. He was launching fireballs nearly as fast as he could have pulled a trigger. Accuracy wasn’t great, but at the rate he was flinging the orbs that didn’t matter.
The man on the left was struck first as he tried to dive into an alcove behind one of the homes along the sidewalk. The flaming sphere struck him in the head and disintegrated it in a flash of white fire, killing him instantly.
The woman on the same side saw what happened and retreated to a dumpster sitting on the pavement, narrowly ducking behind it as another round of four fireballs pounded it and drove it back a few feet with every blow. The two agents on the right saw the flurry of flames and opened fire again. Their weapons popped loudly, echoing like firecrackers in a hallway.
Orion’s head snapped around, and he dove backward, flinging one more fireball in the woman’s general direction. The orb struck the base of the dumpster and flipped it backward over its top. There was a scream, and then the hot end of the huge metal container squashed it out as it crushed her.
Two down.
Orion rolled on the wet pavement and came to a stop. Fifty feet away, the other two agents had spent the contents of their magazines and were reloading. At the other end of the street, Steve squealed the front tires on his car and whipped it around onto the road. The headlights were bright in Orion’s eyes as his friend stepped on the gas.
The car surged forward as the two agents finished loading full magazines into their weapons. Both men were behind two minivans parked along the sidewalk. Orion didn’t have time to think or come up with a strategy. The first one that popped into his head sounded good enough.
He glanced to his right at Steve bearing down on his position. No doubt, the priest was going to try to swoop in and save him, but doing so would put him in harm’s way. No, Orion had a better idea.
“Enough of this messing around.”
He held his hands out wide and summoned the vision of two flaming blue orbs the size of kickballs. The blue flames lapped at the wet air as they swelled. Then the two shooters popped up from behind their vehicles. As they did, Orion flashed a toothy, evil grin and shoved the spheres at the two men.
Their weapons popped, but the bullets were consumed in the blue flames. They fired faster and faster. Then the fireballs struck the minivans at the same time, driving them back into the building beyond the sidewalk and crushing the men against the wall.
A second later, Steve slammed on the brakes and slid the car up next to Orion, stopping it between him and the two vans pinning dead agents to the building.
Steve looked over at the wreckage then out onto the blazing street, black smoke pouring into the sky.
“You really are a magic user.” He still sounded surprised.
“Yeah, I know. It’s new to me, too.”
“You blew up...like, an entire city block.”
“Yeah, I know.” Orion ran around the hood of the car and hopped in the passenger side. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“What about all this?” Steve pointed at the destruction. “Lot of people gonna be unhappy.”
“I’ll leave them a note.”
Steve nodded and spun the car around, aiming it in the other direction. He stepped on the gas again, and they sped down the street. “Where to?”
“Back to the church,” Orion answered. “It’s the only safe place, right?”
“Sure seems like it at the moment.” Steve wiped some of the rain off his face.
Orion nodded and watched out the window, both in the mirrors and on the sides of the streets in case they were being followed.
Steve swung a left at the next intersection, fishtailing the vehicle for a moment before he corrected it.
“How did you…um, do that?”
Orion raised an eyebrow and then shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s this ring, I think. It’s like a bridge between me and…whatever ethereal energy is out there that makes magic happen. That’s the only way I can describe it. Come to think of it, I never really thought about it much until you asked.”
“That’s your off-the-cuff answer?”
“Yeah,” Orion chuckled. “Was it okay?”
“It was real good.”
Suddenly, two more black SUVs streamed into the street behind them.
“Shit,” Steve said. “I mean…sorry. Crap.” He crossed himself while looking back in the rearview mirror. “More of them!”
Orion turned around. The SUVs were gaining fast.
“Got any more of those tricks up your sleeves?” Steve asked.
Orion knew he could use the fireballs, but that would be dangerous in the car. Last thing he needed was to accidentally ignite himself and Steve on fire.
Lightning streaked across the sky again as the rain continued to pummel the car and the wet city streets. A bullet tore through the back window on the left side, and both men glanced back to see a guy hanging out of one of the windows in the closest SUV. He had a submachine gun strapped to his arm and was firing wildly, just hoping to get lucky at that point.
“O? I need you to think of something. No chance we’re getting away from those trucks.”
Orion nodded. Another flash of lightning split the sky above, narrowly zipping by one of the taller downtown skyscrapers and the an
tennas that sprouted from its top.
That gave him an idea.
A bullet plunked into the back of the car.
Orion rolled down his window and stuck his hand up, just enough to keep it from being blown off, but enough that he could feel the cold, damp air washing over it.
Another round pierced the back window and thumped into the rear seat.
“Dammit, man. Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast,” Steve urged.
Orion glanced at the ring on his finger. “Lightning,” he whispered and then flicked his finger back toward the oncoming SUVs.
A green swirl appeared in the sky for a moment. Then white-hot lightning shot down from the heavens and blasted through the first SUV. One second, it was a shiny black truck with tinted windows and wheels. The next, it was a rolling ball of fire. The second truck behind it slammed on its brakes, but the driver couldn’t stop in time and ran into the back, crippling that vehicle, too.
Steve’s surprise was written in the wrinkles on his forehead. He glanced over at Orion, who was rolling the window back up.
“You…you just called down lightning from above.”
Orion nodded, his face stoic as he stared forward to make sure they weren’t going to have any more uninvited attention.
“That’s…incredible!”
“Yeah.” Orion gave one more look back at the blazing wreckage. Another bright orange explosion erupted into the night.
“Whoa!” Steve exclaimed. “What the hell was that?”
“Gas tank must have blown.”
He turned around and faced forward, finally taking a breath. He looked down at the ring and exhaled. The object was back to normal again.
A somber realization hit him. He was fighting a war on two fronts now. That was never a good idea. And he was pretty sure both sides were going to be pissed.
19
The black BMW X6 pulled up and stopped just outside the front of Steve’s home. Myra didn’t wait for the agents in the front to get out and open the door for her. While such a gesture carried a hint of past chivalrous charm and was intended as a show of respect, she paved her own road, never leaning on anyone for help—not even to get out of a car.
Myra pulled the latch, set a shiny heeled boot onto the wet sidewalk, and stepped out into the chaos.
Flames raged all around her. Fire trucks and their crews lined the streets by the dozens. Police officers were interviewing people in an area they’d cordoned off at the end of the street, behind a yellow line marking the crime scene.
The crime scene. What a mess.
Myra had hand-selected most of the agents in her organization, with the guidance of her benefactor, of course. He’d been instrumental in finding the right kind of people, those with open minds and loose morals, but obedient to an authority that so many had served throughout the ages: greed.
Dark Cell was well funded. Sure, on the surface, they appeared to be financed by modest sums from the government. Their real funding, however, came from somewhere else, a mysterious donor who fed them billions of dollars annually. Only Myra knew who it was.
She stalked away from the car, letting the agent who’d been sitting in front of her close the door for her. Her head twisted left and right, taking in the scene around her. A handful of cops were standing around, making reports, chatting about sports, and generally being useless, at least to her. Many of them were paid directly by her organization to look the other way when she came through. The bribes were mostly to keep them out of her way or to give her an extra set of eyes and ears. That was mostly on a regional level, though.
Once things went to a larger scale, she always had to pull rank. Even with massive organizations like Interpol. After all, Dark Cell was one of the few equipped to handle things like this.
Black smoke swirled around her, filing her nostrils with a noxious, pungent aroma that she felt certain would be on her clothes and in her hair for two days. Vanity, however, didn’t matter. What mattered was that someone had fucked up.
Myra made the call to take out Cunningham shortly after meeting with him. She’d considered leaving him with a warning, but her instincts said otherwise. That’s what she got for ignoring them.
After looking through Blake Cunningham’s file, she knew all about his past. He’d lost his daughter in a horrific accident, watching her get struck by a car and die right in front of him. It wasn’t sympathy she’d felt for the man. That sort of emotion had flown out the window a long time ago. She didn’t care for the poor wretches of society. It’s what made her who she was, and it caused people to fear her. Cunningham’s file, though, caused a sprig of doubt to blossom in her mind. On the one hand, what harm could he do? He’d been a model citizen up to that point, causing no trouble and apparently showing no signs of interest in the mysterious arts of magic.
The power spike had been the reason for her interest in Cunningham.
It wasn’t the biggest she’d seen, though definitely higher than average.
Normally, Myra would have walked into his apartment and put a bullet through his head without saying so much as good afternoon. Her cleaners would take care of the body, incinerating it with a few simple spells.
It was how they always did things. Once a job was done, her “magents,” as one of them suggested being called, could clean up a crime scene in a tenth of the time it took ordinary cops. Spells were wonderful like that. And they left no trace, save for a small energy residue that almost no one could detect. And that didn’t linger long.
Myra knew her hesitation to execute Cunningham had resulted in this mess. She cursed herself for it. Still, none of this should have happened. She’d given the order to kill Cunningham and had sent one of her best assassins to take care of it. Apparently, the agent had had a fiery hole blown through his chest with a fireball.
If Cunningham was a new magic user, as all the reports and his own word suggested, his powers had either grown rapidly or he’d lied. She tended to think it was the latter.
She noted the lights and noises coming from the other side of the house and started in that direction, ducking under a police line as she walked toward Steve’s house. She knew who lived there: a priest, another man who’d lost everything in his life. While Cunningham had turned to a life of self-destruction, the owner of this home had turned to the Creator. She snorted derisively at the thought as she approached the sidewalk leading into the home.
The front door hung open, but it didn’t appear there was an investigation going on inside. Just a couple of beat cops hanging out to watch the perimeter along the street.
Myra had no intention of going through the bullshit jurisdiction talk with the two uniformed guys standing along the curb that separated the yard from the sidewalk. They were clearly idiots, anyway. She didn’t recognize them, so she knew what was coming. Sometimes, Myra was tempted to simply kill idiots like these two with a touch and let her cleaners dispose of the bodies.
There were too many eyeballs around, though, and doing something like that would draw attention. Someone would see it. One of the biggest advantages she and Dark Cell had was secrecy, the ability to ghost their way into situations and then leave without being memorable. Of course, a little temporary amnesia spell never hurt anything. In this spot, though, they would need dozens of spell casters to handle the coverage, and she didn’t have that kind of time. Myra needed answers.
She reached into the breast pocket of her business suit and pulled out her credentials before either of the cops could say: “This is a secure area, ma’am. Authorized personnel only.”
They’d been leaning against a bus stop, and the one sipping a cup of coffee stiffened as she approached, ready to deliver the message. Once they saw her badge and the clearance level, they gave a nod and went back to whatever bullshit they were talking about before.
Morons. Useless morons.
At least they understood the chain of command, who was at the top and who sucked hind tit. Types like them were in it for a paycheck, noth
ing more. The days of cops trying to make a difference in the world had vanished long before the rise of magic.
She strode past the two men, barely flicking a glance their way. The two agents accompanying her followed close behind, walking side by side as was their usual protocol. Always have the boss’s back. Because if you didn’t and something happened, you were dead.
Her feet fluttered up the steps, and she stopped at the door. There was no need to run a scan of the house. The man—correction, the men she was after—had fled.
Myra nudged open the door with the back of her hand. Old habits. Even though it wasn’t necessarily a crime scene, she’d learned long ago not to tamper with evidence, and in a setting like this, everything was evidence.
She looked into the foyer of the priest’s unimpressive home and craned her neck from one side to the other. It was just like any other house that surrounded the vast city. Unimpressive. At best, it was coated in faded glory long-lost to a different time.
She stepped into the living room, noting the empty whiskey glasses on the table, and then continued on into the kitchen, where the bottle mirrored the containers used to drink its contents.
“Celebration or stress?” she muttered.
“What would they be celebrating, ma’am?” One of the agents, a man named Barry, asked. He was around forty years old, closer in age to her than the other. Skip was in his mid twenties, a good-looking young man, far more attractive than Barry, whose face had shown the weathering of someone fifteen years his senior. She supposed there was something ruggedly handsome about both, but when she chose to let the dark lord occupy one of them to satisfy her carnal desires, it was always Skip. The only problem was she hated that fucking name.
Luckily, during her encounters with him he was completely unaware of what was going on.
“So, they were self-medicating,” Myra said. “That means they’re scared—or at least one of them is.”
“Cunningham?” Skip asked.
She rolled her eyes at the stupid question. “Of course, Cunningham. I doubt the priest even knows what’s going on. Even after all this.” She spun around and took in the room. Nothing there of note. Her eyelids narrowed, and she focused her energy on any magical signatures she could detect.
