Navarre gestured to one of his men.
The gunman stepped forward, raised his AK-47, and squeezed the trigger.
There was a family of four kneeling on the ground a few yards away, a man, a woman, and two children. The gunman swept his weapon over them on full auto, and the family fell dead to the floor. The children died at once. The man and the woman maybe lived for a few moments longer but died from either heart failure or internal hemorrhaging a short time later.
More screams and shouts rang out.
“I said to shut up!” roared Navarre, and two of his gunmen sent another volley into the ceiling.
The screams died down, leaving only occasional whimpers and a few wailing children, their mothers frantically trying to shush them.
And the rage blazed to life in Caina, pushing aside her pain and fatigue.
Move. She had to get moving. Caina had to get out, contact Homeland Security and the Inquisition. She didn’t know what demands Gabriel Navarre thought to make, but his plan was folly. If he really was a leftover Rebel officer or wizard, Duke Mythrender and the other local Elven nobles would fall upon him like a ton of bricks. Lord Mythrender and the other nobles of New York did not like Kaldmask, but that didn’t matter. They would not let a Rebel incursion pass.
And if they stormed the building, a lot of people were going to die.
More than had already died, anyway.
Caina needed to get out, get help, and let the Elven nobles know what was happening.
She lifted her head and looked around, wondering if Nadia was nearby. Or if she was even still alive. Caina didn’t see any sign of Nadia. She hoped Nadia was still alive, that the hidden bomb hadn’t left her body in a crumpled, bloody mess. Was Riordan alive? The Shadow Hunter would put up a good fight against the gunmen, but even Shadow Hunters weren’t invincible. One headshot and Riordan would go down.
Boots clicked against the floor, and Caina saw one of the Rebel gunmen walking towards her. She let her eyes fall nearly closed, her body limp against the floor. The footsteps hesitated, and with her eyes open a crack, Caina saw the gunman pause near her, and then keep moving. Evidently, she looked dead. Or wounded enough that she wouldn’t pose a threat.
Caina opened her eyes again and looked around. She had ended up between the coffee table and the restroom doors. The bomb had torn a gaping hole in the wall, and beyond it, Caina saw a corridor that led deeper into the mansion. Perhaps she could escape that way.
She began crawling forward, her limbs aching, her head throbbing. Her back itched between her shoulder blades, fearing that she would feel the impact of a bullet at any moment. But no one took any notice. Perhaps the wreckage from the coffee station shielded her movement.
Caina reached the damaged wall, crawled through the smashed drywall and broken beams, and into a corridor. This looked like the administrative portion of the mansion, where Baron Kaldmask’s servants would work and stay overnight when their duties required it. Caina crawled to the wall and leaned against it, breathing hard.
She felt terrible, but that didn’t matter. At least she had gotten out of the dining hall. Now what?
She needed to get out of the mansion. Caina found the idea of abandoning the hostages repugnant, but there was nothing she could do for them. She couldn’t fight a hundred diehard Rebels with only her valikon and the small pistol she had smuggled into the mansion beneath her jacket. No, the only thing she could do was to warn Homeland Security, to tell them exactly what was going on. Perhaps they could come up with a tactical plan to save the hostages.
Or at least as many as could be saved.
She reached into her jacket pocket and drew out her phone. No luck – she wasn’t getting any signal. Probably Navarre had possessed the wit to bring a cell phone jammer with him.
But Caina had another method of getting a message out.
She focused her mind on the blood ring on her right hand.
“Your Majesty,” she said inside her mind. “A group of gunmen calling themselves Rebels has attacked Baron Kaldmask’s birthday party. Their leader claims to be named Gabriel Navarre. They have Shadowlands-forged bullets, and they’ve taken the Baron and his guests hostage. They also have enough magic to generate a Seal of Unmasking large enough to cover the dining hall. Cell phone jammers as well, which is why I’m sending this message. If your Majesty receives this, I ask that you send help to Baron Kaldmask’s mansion at once.”
The ring drank her words.
There wasn’t a response.
That didn’t surprise Caina. The blood ring let her communicate with Tarlia from any distance, but the High Queen did not always respond to the messages immediately. Caina suspected that Tarlia had dozens of shadow agents, and if she let herself be interrupted by them, she would never get anything done. The High Queen likely treated the messages like an email inbox, checking them once or twice a day, more if something critical was happening.
But even if the High Queen responded at once, by the time help arrived Caina and all the hostages would be dead. Caina had to get out, and her best chance of saving any hostages was to share her knowledge with any Homeland Security forces or Elven lords responding to the attack.
She got to her feet, leaning on the wall for balance, and reached for her pistol. It rested in a holster on the small of her back, where her jacket flared just enough to conceal it. The pistol was constructed from a combination of carbon-fiber and printed plastic and had a low enough metal content that it didn’t trigger the weapons scanners at the mansion’s doors. It wasn’t precisely illegal, but it was the sort of weapon Caina carried when she needed to go someplace where guns were restricted. She never liked to go anywhere without a weapon. Of course, the pistol had its limitations. It only held five shots, and because of the inherent weakness of its materials, beyond twenty yards or so it was inaccurate. But at close range, it was deadly.
Caina drew the sleek little pistol, and then headed down the corridor, her boots making no sound against the floor. She was grateful the floor was carpeted, which helped muffle any noise she might make. Caina went around a corner, her pistol held before her, and came into what looked like the mansion’s laundry room. Rows of industrial-sized washers and dryers lined the walls, and several carts held towels and table linens in need of washing. Caina spotted another door on the far side of the room. Would that lead to an exit from the building? Not likely – if the Baron’s staff did their laundry in-house, there would be no need for the laundry room to be close to a truck dock or a service entrance.
She crossed the laundry room to another door and tried it. No luck – the door opened into a closet that held janitorial supplies and plastic bins of detergent. Caina whispered a curse under her breath. Had she gone into a dead end? She moved to the next door, and to her relief, saw a utility corridor stretching before her. The floor was concrete, the walls built from cinder blocks, and the lights were bulbs in metal cages. Probably this led to the mansion’s HVAC rooms. Caina hurried down the corridor, moving as quietly as she could manage. She just needed to find an exterior door or even a window that was close enough to the ground.
The corridor ended in a metal door which was slightly ajar. A blast of cold air came from the door, along with the salt scent of the ocean. Did that open to the outside of the mansion? Perhaps Caina could escape that way. Though if Gabriel Navarre was smart, he would have sent men to secure all the outside exits at once, to make sure none of his hostages fled. Then again, he might not have enough men to accomplish that.
Caina eased towards the door and peered through it.
Beyond was a rectangular utility room. It looked like a supervisor’s office, with a metal desk and a cheap computer terminal. A row of clipboards hung on the wall, facing a big whiteboard covered with a work schedule. A pair of double doors stood on the far side of the room, opening into the mansion’s cavernous truck dock. Elven nobles were expected to support themselves in a certain style, to say nothing of training and equipping their men-at-arms for the High Quee
n’s campaigns in the Shadowlands, so Kaldmask’s mansion had a large truck dock for the necessary supplies. At the moment, the truck dock was about half-empty, with rows of pallets lined up on a concrete floor.
There were also a dozen Rebels moving through the room. Some of them were lining up a row of pallet jacks. Pallet jacks? Why the hell were the Rebels bothering with pallet jacks? That didn’t make any sense. They were holding thousands of hostages in the dining hall, and Navarre and his men had to know that Homeland Security and the other Elven nobles would arrive in force to crush them. Why waste time with pallet jacks?
Did they intend to rob the Baron? If so, why did they need pallet jacks? There had to be hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry on the guests. For that matter, the Baron’s strong room likely held gold, gems, and paper currency. If this was a smash and grab, why bother with the loading dock?
Maybe they wanted to steal something heavy.
Caina hesitated, peering through the utility room and watching the Rebels move about the loading docks. One of the truck doors was open, and through it, she glimpsed the beach and the dark mass of the ocean. But to reach the truck door, Caina would have to pass in front of those dozen Rebels with no cover whatsoever. There was an emergency door to the right of the nearest truck port, and that was closer. But there was still a lot of open space between Caina and the exit. There was no way she could cover the distance without one of the Rebels spotting her…
One of the Rebels turned, AK-47 in hand, and his eyes fell on Caina.
Surprise went over his expression, and he started to raise his weapon, taking aim at her.
Caina’s reflexes took over, and she snapped her gun up, both hands grasping the little pistol’s grip. She squeezed the trigger, and the weapon bucked in her hands, but she had braced herself for the recoil.
The Rebel’s head snapped back in a spray of blood before he could shout an alarm, and the man fell in a boneless heap to the floor.
But the stock of his rifle clattered loudly against the concrete, and the remaining Rebels whirled, bringing up their guns. Caina squeezed off one more shot, catching a Rebel gunman in the throat, and the man went down next to the first one.
The remaining Rebels opened fire.
Caina threw herself back through the door and into the corridor, pushing herself flat against the wall. Gunfire howled through the door and struck the floors and the walls. She saw the sparks as the bullets ricocheted off the concrete, heard the deafening roar as the echoes rolled away. The analytical part of Caina’s mind noted that the Rebels were showing terrible trigger discipline, that they were simply spraying gunfire into the corridor and hoping for the best. In fact, she heard some of the bullets hitting the wall in the utility room. Under other circumstances, she would have preferred to have enemies with such dreadful aim. At the moment, it didn’t bode well for the hostages in the dining hall.
For that matter, it didn’t bode well for Caina. The Rebels were going to figure out that she was hiding just beyond the door, and when they did, they would storm the corridor. Caina had three shots left in her gun, and there were ten Rebels left. She could summon her valikon, but a sword fight against seven men was a losing proposition.
There was only one possible choice.
She kicked the utility room door. It swung closed with a hiss of the pneumatic arm, and a series of metallic clangs came to Caina’s ear as the gunfire struck the door. The bullets, she was annoyed to see, punched right through the door’s thin metal. She took a deep breath, bracing herself to run. Once the Rebels stopped shooting, she would have a few seconds to get clear before they charged through the door. If she got back to the laundry room, perhaps she could find a more defensible position.
Caina started to turn, and she felt the crawling, shivering tingle of magical force.
She turned her head just in time to see the silver outline of a Cloak spell vanish from around Nadia.
The shorter woman seemed to have come through the explosion unharmed, though she had some scratches and bruises on her bare arms, and blood on her left temple.
“Hold still,” hissed Nadia, “and follow me when I squeeze your shoulder.”
With that, Nadia put her left hand on Caina’s right shoulder and cast the Cloak spell.
***
Chapter 4: Motives
I gripped Caina’s shoulder, concentrated, and cast the Cloak spell.
A long time ago, the Cloak spell had been a tremendous effort for me. Casting it had been like holding a barbell over my head, a difficult feat that grew harder with every passing second. For that matter, I had been unable to move while maintaining the Cloak spell. A single step and the spell collapsed.
That had been a very long time ago.
Now holding myself Cloaked was only a moderate effort of will, even while making Caina invisible with me. Silver light flashed around us, and I felt the Cloak spell wrap around us both, making us unseen. Caina went rigid, and I felt her breathing speed up beneath my grip. She really didn’t like magic, and probably didn’t enjoy having a Cloak spell cast over her.
But Caina was smart enough to know that she would enjoy getting shot in the face a whole lot less.
About a half-second after I finished the spell, the door banged open, and more of those Rebel gunmen stormed into the corridor. They looked like every other Rebel soldier I had ever encountered (and killed) – men wearing a variety of military fatigues and body armor. Though given their ragged hair and beards, they looked more like a band of paramilitary thugs than actual soldiers.
Which, of course, they were. But best not to underestimate them.
“Goddamn it,” said one of the Rebels. He ran forward and peered down the corridor. “Where the hell did she go?”
“You lost her already, Jake?” said a second Rebel, sweeping his AK-47 back and forth.
“What the hell?” said the first Rebel, who I assumed was named Jake. “She was right goddamned there.”
“You three,” said the second Rebel, pointing. “Scout down to the laundry room, see if you can find that bitch.”
“She couldn’t have moved that fast,” said Jake. “She was some woman in a business suit. Probably one of the Baron’s people.”
“Find her and shoot her,” said the second Rebel, who seemed to be in charge. “If we have to tell Navarre that one of the Baron’s accountants killed Tom and Scully, we’ll never hear the end of it. But there’s no other way out but the dining hall, so if she’s not hiding in the laundry room, then she’ll run into our men.”
Jake and two more Rebel soldiers hurried down the corridor towards the laundry room, and the leader turned back and jogged into the truck dock, shouting instructions to the other Rebels. I wasn’t sure, but it looked like they were moving pallets to make a clear aisle to the truck ports.
I gave Caina’s shoulder a hard squeeze, and I felt her nod.
I started forward, and she followed suit. We slipped into the truck dock, and I led the way past the Rebels working with the pallet jacks. There was a freight elevator on my left, but that would make too much noise if I tried to use it. Two doorways stood at the other side of the truck dock. The door on the left said ADMINISTRATION, and the door on the right said PERSONNEL. I thought we had a better chance of finding a land line phone in ADMINISTRATION, so I headed that way. I eased open the door, but the Rebels were too busy with their pallet jacks to notice.
The room beyond the door was an employee lounge, with a half-dozen long tables and a row of vending machines. I opened the next door, and found myself in a large open office, with rows of desks inside low-walled cubicles. God, how many employees did the Baron need? I know that one of the responsibilities of Elven nobles was to provide as much local employment as possible, but this was ridiculous.
But the open office was deserted. All the employees were likely at the party. Where they were being held hostage. Or they might have been shot to death.
Where Riordan might be a hostage. Or hurt.
<
br /> Or dead.
A wave of sick dread rolled through me, as intense as anything I had ever known. All those years I had been doing Morvilind’s bidding, I hadn’t wanted to die, because if I failed Russell would die of frostfever. But Russell hadn’t been in danger alongside me for most of those years. And worrying about your brother’s illness was not the same as worrying that your husband had been shot. Riordan’s Shadowmorph could heal him from nearly anything, but a bullet through the head or heart would kill him just as it would kill anyone.
I hadn’t been able to find Riordan after the bombs went off. I had gotten out of the dining hall, but I couldn’t go back without getting killed. That Seal of Unmasking would block both my Cloak and Mask spells, and while I might be able to take those Rebels in a straight fight, a lot of innocent people would get killed in the crossfire.
I didn’t know if Riordan was alive or dead or hurt, and…
I was so upset I wanted to start crying.
Hold it together, Nadia. I was good at holding it together. Decades of experience with it, really. And if I wanted to help Riordan, I had to keep it together. And as for those Rebels holding all those innocent people hostage, those Rebels who had gunned down that poor family just to make their stupid point…
Well. I was really good at violence, too.
A whole hell of a lot of Rebels had found that out when the Sky Hammer went off. Navarre and his leftovers could learn that the hard way, too.
We were far enough from the Rebels that no one would overhear, so I decided to talk to Caina.
I released the Cloak spell and faced her.
“You hurt?” I said.
“No,” said Caina. “Not badly, anyway. Some bruises, some scratches. Headache, but I don’t think I have a concussion. You?”
“About the same,” I said. “I was close enough to the bomb that it knocked me over, but it didn’t hurt me much. I got out of range of that damned Seal of Unmasking and Cloaked myself. I was looking for a way upstairs when I ran into you.” I crossed to the nearest desk and lifted the phone’s handset. No luck – the phone was dead, and a NETWORK ERROR message flashed over and over on the phone’s little LCD display. I was willing to bet that Navarre’s people had cut the Internet connection to the mansion.
Cloak &amp; Ghost: Rebel Cell Page 5
