A Flush of Diamonds (Magic City Chronicles Book 3)

by TR Cameron

  “As to the other thing, today we need a ride. We’re going somewhere we don’t want to be spotted too early, and a trio of motorcycles driving on their own and wrecking for no apparent reason would be pretty noticeable.”

  He laughed. “Okay, I see what you’re up to. The other elf can cruise with me. The human with Diriel, the gnome over there. Tymas will want to carry you.”

  Ruby shrugged. “You’re the boss. Let’s get moving. We need to do the flyby fairly early along their path, so we’re in place before anything happens.”

  He made good on his time commitment. With five minutes left before the police were ready to pull out, according to the data Demetrius was feeding onto the lenses of her techno-magical mask, they exited the compound and headed for the highway. The dwarf led the procession on a Harley Forty-Eight in a deep shade of purple. The gnome carrying Idryll piloted a black and red Indian Chieftain Elite, a model she’d never before seen in person, only lusted after online. The Kilomea was on the biggest motorcycle of them all, a Kawasaki Vulcan 900 classic in black and silver. She perched behind him, her hands gripping the back of the seat. The riders clearly enjoyed being on their vehicles, gunning the engines, making lots of noise, and sharing a lot of gestures and smiles as they rode.

  She muttered, “Connect Demetrius.” A second later, the sound of the comm connection pinged in her ear. “Tree?”

  He replied, “I’m with you.” They’d agreed not to use names in case the ARES agents were wrong and the signal could be intercepted. Better not to leave evidence behind.

  “Status?”

  “Convoy’s pulling out now. Heading as expected.” The infomancer had planned to hack into traffic cameras and any other sensors he could find that would give him a view of the police path. “The idiots have a drone up, right over top of the vehicles.”

  She shook her head. Plus side, he’d have an even better perspective on the situation. Negative side, the morons were announcing their presence to anyone who might be watching. “Interception point still seem viable?”

  “Yeah, looks good. Tell me when you pass reference one, and I’ll let you know for sure.”

  A moment later, she said, “Mark.” A wireframe image appeared on her display, showing their location as a large block and the police convoy as a series of different-sized circles. They were exactly in the position they wanted.

  “Everything is as it should be.”

  “Okay. Disconnecting. Call if you need to, otherwise just feed stuff to me.”

  In the instant before she turned it off, Demetrius said, “Be careful.”

  Heh. There might actually be something real between us. How about that? She smothered the grin and focused on the business at hand. “You guys saw?”

  Idryll replied, “Yep.”

  Morrigan asked, “Stick with the plan? I’m on the back one, Idryll on the middle, you on the first?”

  “Yeah. It gets one of us into the position as quickly as possible. I wanted that to be me, but Prex decided differently.”

  Her sister laughed. “He’s only just met me, and he likes me better.”

  “Shut it. Focus. Here we go.”

  The back end of the convoy had come into view. Based on Demetrius’s diagram, the vehicles’ arrangement was symmetrical. Two motorcycles trailing, a trio of police cars in front of them, three armored car-style prisoner transports in the middle, then three more police cars and another pair of motorcycles at the front. They weren’t running with lights or sirens, and maybe Demetrius was being a little harsh in criticizing them about the drone, which wasn’t particularly visible against the night sky.

  She sent a pulse of magic to the receiver. It switched to a thermal overlay, and she spotted the aircraft easily, right over the middle of the formation. Or maybe he wasn’t. She shifted back to normal view. “Camouflage.” Before they got near enough to the convoy to be seen, Morrigan cast a veil around herself, and Ruby did the same for her and Idryll. The transition would be a little difficult since they couldn’t use force blasts to throw them into the air for fear of knocking the motorcycles over. Their drivers would get as close as they could to the side, and they’d each have to rely on their skills to make the switch to the transports.

  She had no worries about Idryll. The tiger-woman was agile enough that it would be easy for her. She trusted Morrigan and was grateful for the new toy she had strapped to her forearm as a failsafe. Diana had explained that Rath used the device as a last-ditch defense against falling in case of trouble with his flight suit. Her sister could certainly depend on it for the same purpose. Worst case, she could let herself fall and protect herself with force magic.

  Ruby was frankly most concerned about her jump. She wasn’t the most agile person on the planet, and she didn’t have any kind of safety net other than a force bubble. She did have communication with Prex, so if she missed and had to ditch, she could get picked up again. However, it would be both counterproductive and exceedingly embarrassing. The bikers pulled up alongside the police and gunned their engines. It doubtless irritated the members of law enforcement, which was at least part of the reason the Desert Ghosts existed, as near as she could tell. They sped up to pass, and she saw the faintest ripple ahead. Morrigan reported, “I’m up.”

  A few moments later, as they overtook the middle one, Idryll said, “Made it.” She sounded bored.

  Ruby shook her head and stood on the seat of the bike, shouting, “Keep it steady.”

  The Kilomea laughed. “Perfect time for revenge.”

  “Not cool, Tymas, not cool.” She jumped and grabbed the upper edge of the transport. Her hand slipped, and she hung there for a moment, flashing back to the mountainside on the way to the second venamisha, then pulled herself up. She paused to survey her surroundings. She was on top of a big truck, going sixty or so miles per hour on a highway in the middle of a desert, more or less. Her laughter was carried away by the wind. “Okay. This is freaking awesome.”

  The others joined in the amusement, and Morrigan replied, “Right?”

  Ruby activated the connection to Prex. “Thanks to you all. Once this is done, I’ll be over for a real ride.”

  He chuckled. “You better, probie. The club has expectations for its members. We’ll still be out riding for a while, so if you need anything, give us a yell.”

  “Will do.”

  “Good hunting.”

  Oh, yeah. Count on it.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ruby ordered, “Thermal check.” She peered down at the vehicle beneath her and saw the heat blobs of three seated people on each side, with one standing on each end. Presumably two guards and six inmates. Dammit. It was too much to expect that the guy they were after would be alone in the first truck, but she’d still held out a little hope for that result.

  Idryll said, “Two on each side, two on each end.”

  Morrigan added, “Two and three, plus two standing.”

  Ruby sighed. “Well, no one said it’d be easy, right? Guess we wait. Morrigan, monitor the back. Idryll, you’ve got eyes on the sky. I’ll keep watch forward. Veils stay up. The drone is probably still feeding visuals.”

  At her mention of it, a whirr came from above as the drone’s fans sped up. A line of text popped into her display reading, “Look out ahead.” Ruby switched to thermal again to find the remotely piloted aircraft. Beyond it, heat signals were in motion. She could barely make out a tractor-trailer shape on the bridge above and people piling out of one end.

  She had enough time to shout, “Watch out,” before fireballs flew at the police cars trailing the convoy. Ruby threw up force magic and presumed Morrigan would too, but their defenses couldn’t catch them all. The flaming spheres slammed into the three cars and exploded. She ducked instinctively as her truck whipped under the bridge and thumps vibrated through it as four people landed on the front of the roof. She said, “Contact,” and hurled a wide band of force at the new arrivals, hoping to sweep them right off the vehicle.

  Th
ey were good. She had to give them that. The three facing in her direction noticed it coming and summoned magical defenses to block it. The one launching flaming darts at the police cars in front of their armored transport didn’t fare as well and was thrown forward off the roof. She couldn’t tell anything about the remaining trio other than they appeared to be wearing identical black fatigues and body armor and wielding wands in gloved hands.

  She dodged shadow bolts, which called to mind the artifacts Shentia had mentioned, then had to drop flat on the roof to avoid a sheet of flame that surged toward her at waist level. Electricity reached out for her and bit along the force shield that covered her skin, sending minor pains through her limbs but not damaging her. She countered with her lightning, angling it up in a spread to encompass all three of them, but they summoned shields and deflected or absorbed her attack. “Well, this is quite the standoff we have here,” she shouted as she pushed herself back to her feet.

  None of them replied, only continued to try to kill her. Fine, be that way. She charged the nearest, summoning a wall of force to protect herself from the other two and a buckler of the same magic to absorb his attacks. She presumed it was a man, based on his size and the way he stood, but it was impossible to be sure, given the body armor hiding the figure and the balaclava concealing the face.

  Man or woman, the other person wasn’t a fighter. He panicked as she got close, hands fluttering aimlessly in defense as she delivered a front kick to his chest and followed it with a back spinning hook kick that caught him on the side of his head and sent him off the truck. She saw him bounce on the highway once. Then he was gone, lost in the wake of the convoy that was still driving at top speed.

  She turned to go after the other two, and they attacked simultaneously, both aiming for the same spot on her shield. The impact knocked her backward, and she discovered she was closer to the side than she realized as she fell, shouting in alarm. Her arm snapped out reflexively, barely grabbing the edge with her fingertips, and her vision filled with images of her falling to the pavement below and bouncing as the man had.

  When the quartet of enemies landed on the roof of her transport, Idryll surged immediately into motion. Still covered by the veil, she was able to punch the first one in the face before they realized she was there. Her claws scraped ineffectively against body armor with the follow-up strike, so she spun and kicked a heel out at him, sending him off the front of the truck. The sound of glass breaking signaled that he might not be fully out of the fight.

  Now visible, she had to make a short jump to avoid the blast of lightning that sought her feet, then fell and rolled as a fireball passed over her head. She didn’t trust large jumps and wasn’t willing to risk big motions or getting too close to the edge, which limited her options. She moved toward the nearest, someone whose diminutive stature suggested they might be a dwarf, and bobbed and weaved to evade the shadow bolts he sent at her. He snarled, “Stay still,” and shifted his attack, sending a huge wall of force from his palms into her body. It knocked her backward, but only a little.

  The magic deflector she wore on the chain around her neck creaked as it absorbed most of the spell. She snapped out a kick at him. He dodged aside and tried another force blast. Instead of trying to evade it, she trusted in the defense the agency had provided and surged forward. The protective gem cracked with a loud snap as she drove through the force magic. Then she was on the dwarf, crouching low and kicking his legs out from under him, slashing her claws at his face. Blood spurted as she connected, and she kicked him off the side as he covered his wounds with his hands and howled in pain.

  Sizzling lightning struck her from behind, and she forced muscles that wanted to disobey into motion. She grabbed at her belt, where Margrave’s discs lay, and ripped one off and threw it. She jumped into the mist, aiming for where an enemy had been. It got her out of the stream of electricity, but no opponent was there to stop her flight. She landed a foot before the edge of the vehicle, windmilling her arms to avoid falling off. She tumbled backward into a somersault and rolled up to her feet, whirling blindly with extended claws to clear the area around her.

  Her enemies dodged and ducked, moving away to positions on opposite corners of the roof. The third one crawled up from where he’d fallen onto the vehicle’s windshield and pulled out a gun. Idryll raced for the closest, taking a burn to her arm from a dodge that didn’t fully get her out of the way. She grabbed the magical and yanked him into position between her and the pistol. Bullets struck his back, and he stiffened, howling in pain.

  She muttered, “You’re wearing armor. That didn’t hurt. Don’t be a wimp.” Then she smiled, and her opponent’s eyes widened in fear. “These will, though.” She slashed his wrists with her claws, shredding them, then chambered both arms and delivered a straight punch to his chest with both fists, sending him stumbling back toward the man with the gun. The one with the bleeding wrists went over the side, and the other collected himself and pointed the pistol at her again.

  Morrigan already had an arrow in her hand when the men landed on her truck, having seen them drop onto the two in front of her. The first to appear was the first one off, as her bladed arrow took him in the knee and he crumpled in the wrong direction, going over the side. She winced at the sight but drew again, sending a projectile tipped with force magic at the next. He waved his wand and deflected the threat up and away, then fired at her.

  She dove ahead into a roll to avoid his shadow bolts and came up with the collapsing bow in one hand and a dagger in the other. She ran forward and shoved the baton that had been the bow into its holder and drew the dagger’s twin, weaving to evade the magical attacks the others sent her way. Bolts of lightning crashed into her despite her best efforts, and her magic deflector creaked under the assault.

  Her foes had spread apart, and she went for the nearest, who happened to be the source of the electrical attack. She stabbed forward with one dagger, and he blocked it with a force shield. She stabbed forward with the other, and he repeated the defense. He didn’t manage to stop her kick, though, which slammed into his crotch. The way he crumpled suggested that despite the armor, her foe was a male who was now very unhappy.

  She turned and dropped to the truck’s roof as fire washed over the top of her, consuming the remaining charges of her deflector. She bounced up and danced toward the one who’d sent it, then spun and hurled her dagger at the other. He batted it away with a force blast, but it was enough to distract him from the attack he had been about to send.

  Morrigan reached out with force magic and pulled the weapon back before it could fall away, directing it like a missile at the one closest to her. When he reacted to block it, she punched him in the throat, and he fell. She snagged the blade with her magic again and brought the dagger to her hand. A cry from farther forward in the column of vehicles caught her attention, and she spun to see Ruby go over the side of her truck. Without conscious thought, she grabbed the bow and had an arrow fitted an instant after the click that signaled the line snapping into place. She loosed it, and electricity covered the two men threatening her sister a couple of seconds later.

  In the interim, the helicopter she’d heard in the distance swooped in, and someone fired out the open door with an automatic rifle. It was a consumer-grade craft, but a decent one with a cargo area in the back that held the gunman. She tucked away her bow, called up a force shield to protect her from the hail of bullets, and launched herself on a rocket of force magic in a straight line toward the aircraft above.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ruby pulled herself up over the side of the armored car, groaning with the effort as the wind tried to peel away her grip. She’d coated her hands in force magic to protect them from the discharge of Morrigan's arrow, but fortunately, the magicals on the roof of the truck hadn’t been quite as quick. They must’ve had some shielding going on since they were still conscious, but her sister had bought her the precious seconds she needed.

  The close call solidif
ied her resolve, overcoming whatever reticence she’d had about eliminating the people who were trying to kill her. She sent a wave of force at them with her left hand to occupy their attention and drew the pistol with her right. She pulled the trigger twice at the one on that side, then shifted aim and dispatched two more rounds at the one on the left. The first was taken completely by surprise and pitched over the side of the moving vehicle without a word.

  The second dove out of the way and cried out as a bullet grazed him. She holstered the weapon, not positive she was good enough to hit a moving target under these circumstances and closed with him. He slashed his wand toward her, trailing a line of fire, and she stopped his wrist with her left hand, jerked it forward, and slammed her right palm into his locked-out elbow joint, snapping it with a crack audible even over the noise of the road. Her foe screamed and screamed again as she yanked on the arm and threw him off the side of the truck. Bullets clanged around her, and she crouched under a force dome, searching for the source. She spotted the helicopter a couple of cars back and noted the figure hurtling through the air toward it.

  Good luck, sister. She turned her attention to the road ahead, readying for more trouble. The officers on their motorcycles leading the way had gained distance on the trailing transports, and the cars in front continued forward without a problem. She looked down again and activated the thermal sensor. The interior of the car was the same, three on each side, one on each end. She’d feared the prisoners would make some kind of move and was pleased to see it hadn’t happened.

  Yet. This is far from over. She shifted her attention from the road in front of her to the fights behind her, fingering the canister with the EMP grenade on her belt. The right throw could potentially take out all three transports, but it would wreck their equipment as well. That’s definitely a last resort. Come on, fate, give us a break here.