Cloak & Ghost: Rebel Cell

by Moeller, Jonathan

  But I took the phone books and sat on them, and I could then reach the pedals and see over the steering wheel.

  “Those Rebels are coming out of the dock,” said Caina.

  “Let’s disappoint them,” I said, and I put the truck into gear and hit the gas. It accelerated faster than I expected, but the trailer was mostly empty. A truck like this would be rated for something like forty tons of cargo, so a few hundred pounds of aurelium was a rounding error by comparison.

  I drove the truck out of the dock, picking up speed as I headed for the access road running along the beach.

  I heard a volley of pops and a series of clangs, and then the window on my left shattered. The Rebels in the truck dock had realized that we were stealing their aurelium, and they were ticked off. Riordan leaned across my lap, stuck his rifle out the window, and started shooting in quick, controlled bursts. His accuracy couldn’t have been that great when shooting from a moving truck, but it was enough to force the Rebels to take cover and stop firing at us.

  “Hey,” I said. “You’ve still got that radio, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” said Caina.

  I smirked. “Why don’t you give Navarre a call and let him know we’re stealing his aurelium?”

  ###

  Caina slammed back into the seat as Nadia hit the gas, accelerating away from the truck dock. She wasn’t entirely sure that Nadia actually knew how to drive a semi, but she was handling the vehicle with confidence, and she hadn’t driven into the ocean yet.

  The radio handset was still hanging from her belt. Caina lifted it and hit the switch. At once she heard a babble of confused, angry voices. It seemed their attack and theft had caused some consternation among the Rebels. Navarre’s voice cut through the babble, shouting orders.

  “Hello, Mr. Navarre,” said Caina into the headset. “I think you might be looking for us, given that we have your aurelium.”

  There was dead silence for a moment.

  “And just who might you be?” said Navarre. His Spanish accent got thicker when he was angry.

  “I am the woman who is currently stealing your truck full of aurelium,” said Caina.

  There was more silence.

  “The truck is gone, Navarre,” said another Rebel.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” said Navarre. “Are you a Homeland Security agent?”

  “Nope,” said Caina. “I’m a smarter thief than you, Gabriel Navarre. I know your whole operation is nonsense. I know you don’t care about your demands, and you don’t care about the Revolution. You’re just there to steal the Baron’s aurelium. It’s a good plan, you know. You abandon all your men to die, and you escape with the aurelium. But I’ve decided to steal it for myself, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. Thanks ever so much for loading it onto this convenient truck for me.”

  Again, there was an instant of silence, and then the radio erupted into angry invective, most of it directed at Navarre.

  “We’ll see about that,” said Navarre, and the radio went dead.

  “Sounds like you made him angry,” said Riordan, who was wedged awkwardly between Nadia and Caina. She noticed that he had a very firm leg but pushed that thought out of her head at once.

  “Yeah, I would have sworn at him more, but that did the trick,” said Nadia. “You’d better call your buddy General Dorius.”

  “Good point,” said Caina, reaching for the radio on her shoulder. “Where are we going?”

  “Westbound on Belt Parkway,” said Nadia.

  Caina squeezed the talk button on the radio. “General Dorius?”

  “Miss Amalas?” came Martin’s voice. “You have news?”

  “I do,” said Caina. “Turns out the Baron had a massive stash of illegal aurelium hidden in his basement. Navarre’s motives weren’t political. He just wants to steal the aurelium.” Caina hesitated. “Once his men realize he betrayed them, they might surrender. Only a few of his lieutenants knew what the plan really was. I think they’ll be coming after us.”

  “Where are you going?” said Martin. “Why would they come after you?”

  “My friend and I have stolen Navarre’s truck,” said Caina. “It’s loaded with Kaldmask’s aurelium. Navarre’s going to have no choice but to come after us. Otherwise he’s wasted his opportunity. We’re just about to turn westbound onto the Belt Parkway. If you come after us, you might be able to catch Navarre.”

  “We’re on it,” said Martin. “Lord Mythrender hasn’t arrived yet. Maybe with luck, we can get this under control before he storms the mansion.”

  “See you soon,” said Caina.

  She looked out the windshield. Nadia had driven with reckless speed through the side streets and then had accelerated in a left turn onto the Belt Parkway, a six-lane road that encircled this part of Brooklyn. Caina feared that the semi would tip over or jackknife from the speed of the turn, but Nadia kept the vehicle on all its wheels, though a cacophony of horns greeted her. Then she punched the gas and put the semi into a higher gear, the engine roaring.

  “Shit,” said Nadia. “I think they’re after us.”

  Caina looked into the side mirror. Behind the truck, she saw three SUVs scream out from the access road to Kaldmask’s mansion, make a sharp left turn onto the parkway, and roar after the truck. Two of the SUVs were blue, but the one in the lead was red. Caina saw men hanging out the windows of the SUVs, AK-47s in hand.

  “They’re after us,” said Caina.

  “Then let’s give them a warm welcome,” said Riordan.

  ***

  Chapter 9: Last Run

  I’d never driven a semi truck while wearing a dress and sitting on a pair of phone books before, but first time for everything, I suppose.

  It wasn’t a terribly comfortable experience.

  It turned out the cloth of my dress was slippery against the covers of the phone books, and I had a hell of a time keeping my seat. I had to keep a death grip on the wheel to compensate. That sometimes meant my foot jammed against the accelerator, which wasn’t all that bad because we had three SUVs full of well-armed Rebels chasing us.

  I turned my head back and forth, trying to keep sight of them. Our truck was in the center lane, and the red SUV was roaring up on the left, while the two blue ones were on the right. I pushed harder on the accelerator, but even with a mostly empty trailer, there was no way that a truck could accelerate faster than an SUV.

  But I had other advantages.

  “Hang on!” I said, and I jerked the wheel. The trailer veered into the left lane. I wanted to knock the red SUV from the road, or maybe crush it against the median. But whoever drove the red SUV saw the danger coming and punched the accelerator. The red SUV roared past, and I glimpsed Gabriel Navarre sitting in the passenger seat, his bearded face twisted with fury.

  I also saw the AK-47 he was holding, and the rifles the two men in the back were swinging around to aim at me.

  My left hand came off the wheel as I snarled and cast the Shield spell. The dome of gray light appeared, covering the shattered driver’s side window, and my magic deflected the volley of gunfire that Navarre and his goons shot into the truck. I didn’t get all the bullets, though. Some of them slammed into the engine, and I heard a sudden grinding sound, the vehicle jolting beneath me.

  That couldn’t be good.

  “Be a real great time for Homeland Security to show up!” I shouted as the red SUV accelerated past.

  I released the Shield spell, seized the wheel with both hands, and jerked it hard to the right. The two blue SUVs were trying to pass us, and I wanted to slam them off the road if I could. Whoever was driving the two blue SUVs wasn’t as good as Navarre’s driver. One of the SUVs slammed on the brakes, dropping behind us. The second wasn’t quite as lucky, and the truck shook as the side of the trailer hit the SUV. I punched the gas and turned the wheel to the right, and I forced the SUV off the side of the road. It broke through the steel railing, flipped over, and crashed into a lamppost, wrapping around the st
eel column like a bow tie.

  I doubted any of the Rebels had lived through that. If they had survived, they wouldn’t be in any condition to cause trouble.

  But the surviving blue SUV roared past the truck, settling in next to Navarre’s vehicle. Someone in Navarre’s SUV smashed out the back window, and two Rebels leaned back, raising guns to point at us.

  “Shit!” I said. “Hold on!”

  I cast the Shield spell in front of the windshield as both Riordan and Caina raised their rifles and open fire. The bullets punched holes in the windshield, and I saw them spark and ricochet off the asphalt of the parkway. The two Rebels in the back of the red SUV kept up their barrages, and the Rebels in the blue SUV opened fire. I couldn’t cover both angles of fire at once with my Shield spell, and Caina and Riordan both ducked as the bullets ripped into the cab. Caina got out of the way in time, but Riordan did not.

  He grunted as a bullet hit him, and he slumped back against the seat.

  “Riordan!” I said, dread and rage stabbing through me.

  “Not bad,” he rasped. “Just hit me in the arm. Went right through. Shadowmorph will heal it.” Already his eyes turned solid black as he drew on his Shadowmorph’s power. Despite my rage and fear and the completely inappropriate time and place, I felt a sudden wave of physical desire for him. That was the Shadowmorph. It fed on life force, and given how much Riordan had drawn on its strength, the thing had to be hungry.

  But I was more angry than frightened. At least for now.

  “You assholes want to play?” I snarled. “Then let’s play!”

  I stomped the gas, and the truck’s damaged engine roared.

  “Nadia!” said Caina, jerking back against the seat.

  “Hang on!” I said.

  The red SUV had been slowing down to line up more stable shots. I think they had been planning to aim at the engine or maybe the tires in hopes of forcing the truck to stop. How they planned to get their precious aurelium to the Shadowlands then, I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. Maybe Navarre planned to cut his losses and take whatever aurelium he could load into his SUV before Homeland Security showed up.

  But that was a mistake.

  An SUV can accelerate a lot faster than a truck…but Navarre’s vehicle was slowing down, and I had just pushed the accelerator to the floor. The engine roared, and the truck surged forward. I just had time to see the expressions of sudden panic on the two Rebel gunmen, which was very satisfying, and then my front bumper rammed into the SUV.

  Every window in the red SUV shattered at once, and I saw the Rebels inside jerk forward. The impact shook the cab, and I almost fell off my phone books. Caina rose up, bracing herself against the dashboard, and Riordan followed suit, grimacing, his right sleeve wet with blood. They both began pouring bullets into the SUV. I saw the driver wrench the wheel back and forth, trying to break free, but our mangled bumpers had gotten locked together.

  But the second blue SUV was still intact, and one of the gunmen in it had better wits. Instead of trying to shoot into the cab, they poured bullets into the right-hand front wheels, and even over the roar of gunfire and the scream of stressed metal, I heard the tires explode. The truck shuddered, and I felt the vehicle pull hard to the right. That was too much for the red SUV, which flipped over, tumbling like a broken toy down the parkway.

  Guess that model was a little top heavy. I hope it landed on top of Navarre.

  I snarled a curse, and I responded the way you’re supposed to when a tire blows out. I eased off on the gas, trying to let the truck bleed off speed. Unfortunately, the trailer didn’t get the memo and began fishtailing back and forth. I heard the pallets of aurelium banging against the walls of the trailer, and I wondered if they would be heavy enough to break through the walls. I had a brief vision of enchanted golden ingots bouncing across the road. That would slow traffic down.

  Despite my best efforts, the trailer jack-knifed. If it had swung out to the right, it would have knocked that damn blue SUV off the road. Instead, it went left and struck the concrete median, sparks spraying as the metal screeched against the barrier. The truck skidded to a stop, and we slammed forward. I hit the steering wheel with my chest and forehead and bounced off it, not hard enough to break anything, but it still hurt. Both Caina and Riordan hit the dashboard with grunts of pain.

  “You okay?” I said, looking at them.

  “I’ll live,” said Caina. She was bleeding from a cut over her right eyebrow. Either she had cut herself against the dashboard, or one of the pieces of flying safety glass from the bullet-riddled windshield had hit her at some point.

  Riordan only nodded. He was in more pain then he wanted to admit.

  The blue SUV screeched to a stop about fifty yards away. The red SUV lay on its side another sixty yards past that. The truck had jack-knifed in such a way that it blocked all three of the westbound lanes, and I heard traffic coming to a stop behind us, accompanied by a growing number of angry car horns. I also heard the wailing sirens of Homeland Security vehicles. We just had to hold out for a few more minutes until help arrived.

  But in a fight, a few minutes was an eternity.

  The blue SUV backed up and came to a stop a short distance from the cab. The Rebels were going to get out and kill us.

  “We’re going to have to fight,” I said, releasing the wheel. “I’ll go first with the Shield spell, you come behind me. Ready?” Riordan and Caina nodded and gripped their weapons. Riordan’s face was tighter and harder than usual, his eyes filled with the darkness of his Shadowmorph. I really wanted to tend to him, to make sure he was all right, but there wasn’t time.

  I could take out my frustration on the Rebels.

  I kicked the door open and jumped out, casting the Shield spell as I did.

  The gray dome flared to life just in time to catch the first volley of bullets. Four Rebels had emerged from the blue SUV, pouring fire in our direction. I held the Shield spell with my left hand, and with my right, I gestured and called fire to my fingers. I flung the whirling fireball at them, and the Rebels dodged, avoiding the strike. It struck the SUV and exploded, engulfing the vehicle in flames. The Rebels threw themselves to the ground to avoid the flames, and Riordan and Caina opened up with their rifles. They got two of the Rebels, and I killed the other two with a volley of lightning globes.

  “Nadia!” said Caina.

  I whirled just in time to see four wraithwolves bounding towards us, their claws rasping against the asphalt. Behind them walked Gabriel Navarre, his hand extended as he started another spell. Or limped, rather. He hadn’t escaped uninjured from the crash, his face covered with blood, his right leg stiff. But he had enough strength to summon wraithwolves, and even as I looked, he summoned four more.

  Caina dropped her rifle and called her valikon, and Riordan summoned his Shadowmorph blade in a sweep of darkness. He lunged and slashed the immaterial sword through the first wraithwolf, and the creature fell in pieces to the road. As it did, Riordan seemed to become faster. The Shadowmorph would be gorging itself on the harvested life energy of the slain wraithwolf, and some of that power would heal Riordan’s wounds and make him stronger and faster. Caina thrust her valikon, wounding one of the wraithwolves, and Riordan finished it off with a backhanded slash.

  Navarre stopped and cast a spell, hurling a volley of lightning globes at me. He was more powerful than I would have expected, and his spell produced three globes. I bared my teeth and cast the Shield spell again, this time tuning it to resist the magic of elemental lightning. His globes struck my Shield with terrific force, but my will held, and the globes burst apart into sprays of harmless sparks.

  I yanked together power for another attack. Silver light flared around my hands, and I worked the Splinter Mask spell. The air shivered, and the Splinter Mask spell created nine illusionary doubles of me.

  Huh. A black dress combined with an armor vest really wasn’t a good look.

  Navarre took a step back in alarm, trying to keep track of all
my illusionary doubles at once. If he knew about the Seal of Unmasking, he knew about illusion magic, but I bet his Seal Stone had run out of power and he didn’t know how to cast the spell without it.

  I worked another spell, freezing mist whirling around my fingers, and hurled an ice lance at him. Navarre cast the Shield spell in time, but I was stronger than he was, and his Shield spell collapsed as my ice lance shattered. Navarre staggered back several steps, lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl, blood dripping down his face. I called more power and hurled a volley of lightning globes at him. Navarre got another Shield spell up in time, but he wasn’t prepared for the amount of power I threw at him, and his Shield collapsed and some of the force of the lightning ripped at him. He fell to one knee with an agonized scream, his muscles going rigid.

  I stalked towards Navarre as Riordan and Caina carved their way through the few remaining wraithwolves. Navarre scrambled back to his feet and cast another spell, and a gray curtain of mist rose up before him. He was opening a rift way. I had frightened him enough that he was going to abandon his precious damned aurelium and take his chances in the Shadowlands.

  I thought of the family he had gunned down in the mansion, of the people who had died in the bomb blasts, of all those people he had threatened to kill.

  No, he wasn’t going to get away. I was going to capture him, and I was going to drag his sorry ass to Martin Dorius. I wanted to see Navarre pay for what he had done. I didn’t like the Punishment Day videos, but I was perfectly willing to watch one that ended with Navarre’s execution.

  I cast the Seal of Shadows spell, dropping it over Navarre. The Seal of Shadows prevented any access to the Shadowlands within its boundaries, blocking any rift ways from opening.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t time it quite right. Navarre’s rift way had already opened, and he had just started stepping through it. My Seal of Shadows snapped into existence around him, and the rift way collapsed at once.