Heart of Gold: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Clans of Shadow Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

Bronson (or was it Norris?) dropped to one knee on the concrete and pulled a slab of concrete up to waist-height. Just the right size to accommodate Norris (I think) laying down fire from a M249 Squad Automatic Rifle crusted with gems and silver fittings on the stock and scope. The flames passed harmlessly over the two redshirts as the rest of us pushed on up a ramp and wrapped back around to cover our backs.

  “Just how the fuck are you guys seeing anything?” I complained to no one in particular as the randomness of the EnderTech security’s attack was overwhelmed by the steady, explosive staccato of Norris’s disciplined heavy weapons fire. He was a real ace, I could tell simply from the sound of his gunplay. Still, it was one against many, and even Leonidas and his merry band of three hundred eventually got overrun. Okay, yeah, there was that weird guy who sold them out, but it wasn’t like we had them funneling toward us either.

  “Don’t ask questions ya cannae do anything about,” Molly called and the laughter in her voice surprised me. She seemed to be having a goddamned ball like a damned berserker. I couldn’t tell you why, but I instantly liked her better. “Just know that it’s magic an’ we’ve got it covered.”

  “Laevo,” Luna whispered in Latin as we hit the top of the ramp, and at her command, the circle of flame flattened out to a wall behind us.

  What we had in front of us was the cinderblock wall of the delivery bay. They were painted a plain white and along with being dirty from the exhaust of too many trucks they were also scorched by eldritch fire. A heavy duty looking security door was smack dab ahead of us with a fancy keypad lock, while a couple of FedEx drivers gaped at the shitstorm of magic and gunpowder on display out the break room windows along the wall.

  “Enjoying the show?” I called to my competition, and unable to contain myself, I waved at them and flashed my best shit-eating grin in their direction.

  Luna’s attention was focused on keeping up the roaring wall behind us as she shouted some more commands. “Molly, the door please, dear. Richter, release some obfuscation if you would. Frank, cover us, would you?” Okay, so she was a bit more polite than the C.O.s I was familiar with, but there was still steel behind that voice.

  Molly stepped up to the door, exchanging one of her knives for a Frankenstein of a gizmo that looked like a voltmeter mashed together with a New Age guru’s drawer full of crystals while Richter took a moment to carefully aim upward with his bizarre grenade launcher. There was a loud punting sound, the familiar tune of an ejecting grenade, as he launched one up and over the flames and, past Bronson and Norris on the heavy gun.

  As for me, I shot a glance to the right. We were only up a few feet off the floor of the bay, standing on the heavy metal walkway running along the length of the wall. Unfortunately, while our little mobile conflagration was pretty big, it wasn’t all-encompassing. I could see the rolling metal doors coming down quick, fast, and in a hurry to block off an easy escape. There were no unfriendlies immediately that way, just a couple of retreating workers, but I could hear boots on the grates behind me.

  “Left side,” I shouted above the din as I spun, my trusty Mossberg ready for action. A couple of thugs in the now-familiar black jumpsuits of the Enders had taken it upon themselves (or maybe they were now smartly using radios or magic-mind-wave shit for orders, I didn’t know for sure) to try to flank us, charging down the walkway from the opposite side. It wasn’t the worst idea, what with most of the squad occupied by more pressing matters, but they didn’t take into account little old me.

  As Richter’s first package exploded in the middle of the room, filling it with the blackest, thickest damned smoke I had ever seen, I didn’t give our new friends time to get the first word in with their assault rifles. I only gave myself a split-second to aim and let Mr. Mossberg sing them the song of his people.

  You might be asking another of your annoying questions at this point, which would be why I, the trained soldier and all around badass, would do a stupid thing like firing a pellet weapon at such range, with friendlies in the potential cone of fire? Well, I’d counter by asking why I would be so dumb as to load only normal shot-filled shells against the prospect of heavily-armored opposition.

  No, for today’s parade, I’d filled my baby up with solid slug shells. And yeah, I know you’re still not supposed to fire with friendlies in the way, but I was pretty sure they’d rather me shoot the bad guys, than pussyfoot around and let them get shot full of holes.

  The shotgun shouted her familiar battle-cry and the first goon got to punch his ticket courtesy of a 12-gauge slug, his tactical vest about as useful as tissue paper against that much power. There was a messy blow-out of blood and chunky bits as the now-corpse was blown clean off his feet.

  His bestie, though, had some pretty nice reflexes and oriented on me in a snap. Frantically pumping the Mossberg as I tried to recover from the recoil, I saw his barrel flash. The bullet hit hard into my own vest, but didn’t go through. Thank fucking God I had put up with the ceramic insert plates, even though they weighed more than I cared to usually lug around because those bastards had just saved my life. That didn’t mean the slug didn’t hurt like a fucking bitch as it knocked me on my ass. Assault rifles do not play, folks.

  Molly had turned when the goon opened up on me and as Richter pumped another grenade out into the midst of the skirmish, I managed to flash her a painful wink from the floor. I wasn’t out of this yet, no siree, Bob. Too bad for Mr. Rifleman. He must have thought I was since he’d turned his attention to the Irish girl.

  “Say hello to my little friend!” I called in an effort to distract him while raising my old sweetheart up with one hand and squeezing the trigger. While I did pay for my show of manliness by the tremendous ache of the shotgun’s recoil damned near tearing my right arm from its socket, the slug splattered the guy’s brains here, there, and everywhere. I let my aching arm drop and tried not to let out a painful wheeze. Yeah, I definitely needed to cut the fuck out of Taco Tuesdays and Sundae, er, Sundays.

  “Thanks rightly, Frank,” Molly said, turning toward me as the door clicked distinctly. “Door’s open, lads and lasses!”

  Richter appeared overhead as I struggled to my elbows and offered me his hand. “You good, Frank? We’ve got to go.” That clinging, black smoke from his care packages was rolling over us now, covering our asses in the best way possible.

  I forced myself to smile as I grabbed the helping hand. “I’m good as gold, kid.” I only winced a little, honest to God, as the wiry dude helped me to my feet. He might have been thin, but he was plenty strong enough.

  Though it was hard to see more than a foot beyond my nose, the firefight still sounded off in the dark, now descending into a really dangerous game of Marco Polo, the version where your first good guess makes the other guy dead as a door nail. Luna materialized out of the cloud as Richter helped me steady on my feet.

  “Come on, dears, we’re taking the freight elevator.” Grandma had traded her ruby rod for her M4. “Let’s just hope for no more surprises, eh wot?”

  “Why the fuck do you guys like to ask for Mr. Murphy, huh?” I grumbled. Our machinegun-toting twins didn’t seem to be following, probably holding off the hordes of the damned while Luna guarded our six, herding us through the door and into the EnderTech building’s depths.

  “Well, Frank, some of us in this world are optimists and some of us are pessimists, I suppose,” she replied merrily.

  The sterile white hallway was filled with muted, fluorescent lights. It was real fancy stuff. Way more Star Trek Next Generation than your usual office building lighting. The doors lining the right wall were also pretty damned fancy pants, some kind of powered doors with touch pads I figured opened ‘em up.

  “Okay, now that we’ve lost the welcoming committee for a second, could someone please tell me what the fuck plan C is?” I grumbled while taking the opportunity to reload my shotgun. “I mean, I’m the Bearer, right? I get to know what the hell is up.”

  “Sorry, we didn’t have enough time
earlier, dear,” Luna soothed. Yeah, she was definitely one of those “I’m-your-best-friend” sort of commanders. “Our best deduction on the ritual site is in–”

  “Hold on, let me guess!” I raised a finger. “The tippy toppy spire of the fortress of corporate evil?”

  Molly laughed, Richter smirked, but it was Luna who answered. “No, no, not at all! Really, Frank, that is so stereotypical.” She quirked one thoughtful eyebrow. “Though it is up a bit, so you’re partly right. The blueprints of the building showed a large chamber about dead center in the structure. It’s an ideal size for a large ritual chamber and frankly the most secure and defensible area of the building. You could likely run a plane right into the building and it would be safe.”

  As she said the words, a bad feeling settled over me. I wasn’t sure why, but even after all these years, I still couldn’t get the sight of the Twin Towers burning out of my head.

  Richter made an angry face. “I’d think about putting that a different way, ma’am. Still a bit too soon.”

  “Yeah, ditto,” I added on, trying to mimic his expression as I glanced over my shoulder to see how far we’d come. Damn, this was a long hallway.

  “Oh, my apologies.” Luna perked a moment and glanced back, but shrugged. “I do sympathize. The London Blitz was no picnic, dears, so I know what it’s like to deal with terror.”

  “Hold the phone.” I glanced back at Grandma and her huge smirk. While I had been sarcastic when I called Rollie, Gandalf, there was a bit more to the kindly and wise old wizard in Luna Ludell than anything that ass Lambert had offered up so far. “Just how old do you wizard folks get, anyway?”

  Molly let out a mischievous giggle. “Now ain’t ye a rude boy. It isn’t nice ta ask a lady her age, me boyo.” She scanned the hall as we kept up our steady pace. “Though I’m startin’ ta wonder if we should be askin’ other questions. Sweet Mary, how long is this hall?”

  I frowned, because that same thing was bugging the fuck out of me. We’d been walking for minutes now and not even being drag-asses. The others were slowing down, starting to look around slowly with even more suspicion. We were in enemy territory and these were all top-notch folks; we’d all been on edge and eyes open this whole time. Maybe, though, we were using the wrong eyes.

  I was just about to change my focus and bring up the power of la Corazon when the doors ahead opened with what I swear to God was the EXACT same swooshing sound as the doors in classic Star Trek. Someone shared my love for sci-fi and was taking it a bit too far.

  What wasn’t amusing was what rolled out of those doors. EnderTech was on the bleeding edge, that was for damned sure, and this proved it. You know those ordnance disposal robots the police and the military use? Well, the things that came to block our progress were like those little robotic mini-tanks, but they were faster, slimmer, and more agile than the ones you see on the news. Add to that the manipulator arms that were laden not only with automatic shotguns but more of those glowing green-tipped tubes like the drones at the Pendleton Building.

  “Fucking Daleks? Seriously?” I cried, cocking my Mossberg as the doors behind us opened as well.

  “Oi, boyo, you ready to play Doctor?” Molly said, moving next to my shoulder with Richter at her back.

  The drones lowered their glowing green tubes at once and charged as Luna pressed her back to mine. All I could say in response as I aimed was, “Fuck me.”

  17

  Have you ever tried to concentrate on paying attention to a quality movie while the rude couple sitting in front of you is talking about whether Nancy was really sleeping with Ricky? If so, then perhaps you can appreciate the problem I had. I was trying to focus on looking at the tapestry of magic swirling around us like a crazed roller coaster with a Robot Death Squad bearing down on us from both sides while green radioactive bullshit flew through the air. Not that their robot magic bothered me any. As my magey companions hit the deck to avoid the first volley, a few globs splattered on my chest and back, and like last time, instantly shriveled up. Still, I had to hurry and figure out how to get us out of here because I was pretty sure the Dalek’s automatic shotguns would have a decidedly different effect on my delicate skin.

  I didn’t need a road map and directions to figure out we’d ran headfirst into a tesseract just like the one in the Pendleton Building. If I could get a moment to think, I could get us out of here, but shotgun-toting machines were a bit more distracting and life-threatening than some walking corpses.

  Well, it was time to gum up the works, Frank Butcher style. I took the initiative and fired off a slug into the lead ‘bot. Of course, I wasn’t up to snuff on my anti-robot warfare techniques because, well, outside of some nightmares brought on by late-night Terminator binges, I never thought I’d fight actual robots in my lifetime.

  These buggers were armored, but the sheer kinetic impact of the slug slamming into its metal carapace knocked the lead Dalek off its treads. The weapon arm flailed as it tried to right itself, making this a temporary solution at best. Oh, and the other five or six of them were still rolling out of the door, not to mention who knew how many were coming up through the door behind me.

  “I’ve got the rear,” Luna grunted from the ground. “Richter, Frank, clear the front. Molly, please get us an open door.” I wasn’t going to risk glancing back with so many live targets in my sights, so I just had to hope Grandma kept living up to the standard she’d set so far.

  I pumped the Mossberg and took aim at the nearest robot as Richter pushed to one knee while adjusting the drum on his launcher, hopefully arming it with something extremely blowy-uppy.

  As Molly slithered to the nearest left-hand door, below what seemed like the last volley of snot blasts, with her freaky crystal gizmo in one hand, I had a bad feeling about it. Something told me going sideways wouldn’t do shit for us, but since I honestly couldn’t figure out why, I decided to let her try anyway. It wasn’t like I had time to disarm the trap and lead us out, anyway, and besides, they were trained professionals. Surely, they’d dealt with tesseracts before.

  The smell of burning ozone filled the air as we were backlit by a blue-green glow. Ignoring that the bad feeling running down my spine, I took my shot. Like I mentioned way back, I’m a damned surgeon with a shotgun and this shot was no exception. The comforting explosive sound echoed in my ears as the shell blew out the robot’s shotgun arm just below the elbow joint in an explosion of wires that sent sparks and bits of metal flying in every direction. So the joints were the weak spot. Good to know.

  Molly jammed her crystal probe into the keypad, which magically gave way. “Have this open in a jiff,” she informed us in a “devil-may-care” tone. “Just don’t let me die, eh?”

  I meant to snap off a snarky reply, but I was rudely interrupted by an assault of noise from all sides. Let’s start with the almost-deafening thunderclap from behind, accompanied by a blistering flash of lightning, super effective against robot-type monsters, or so I hear. We’re not done yet though, because Richter had just tossed an explosive package wrapped in a golden sheath of light downrange. As lightning flashed behind us, I barely had time to close my eyes and avoid the blinding explosion of glowing fragments and fiery doom ahead.

  If that had been it, it would have been a happy day because that magic’d up explosion was going to wreck those Robo-Wars rejects. Unfortunately, there was one last big boom, well, technically it was a bunch of smaller booms as the leading edge of bots sped into whatever their “accurate shooting range” was. They opened fire alongside the rest of the unleashed hell around me, pelting us with pellets. Let me just say this right now: I really dislike getting shot at.

  Molly got the least of it, mostly because her thin frame was up against the door she was cracking. As for me, I took a few bits of shot in my unprotected left arm, which hurt like hell, but I counted myself lucky since most of it lodged safely in my Kevlar. Where did the rest go? Sadly, into Richter.

  Part of me wondered if him taking that spo
t in front of me had been an accident or whether they all had the intention of laying down on the wire for me. Either way, fate or choice, Richter’s kneeling position had been right in front of me, and he soaked up all the buckshot that would have turned my legs and other equally important bits into Swiss cheese. He cried out in pain (who the fuck wouldn’t?), but it could have been a hell of a lot worse since Richter’s rain of explosive death shredded this first batch of bots before their auto-shotguns could really go to work.

  It was still awfully bad. His magically strengthened uniform along with the usual extra protection any demo man would wear saved the kid from turning into a pile of shredded meat, but the spots where he didn’t have extra armor weren’t so lucky. Biceps, one thigh, and his left eye took it the worst. As he fell back against my shins, the only saving grace was that Luna didn’t fall messily against my back.

  “Let’s go!” Molly cried as the door she had been working on opened up beside me. Unfortunately, more doors opened up ahead, exactly like in the Pendelton Tesseract, only this was even worse because they vomited another load of the little robot bastards into the hallway. It was a full-on robot rebellion, and we were the poor human masters about to be shotgunned into oblivion. Now, the selfish asshole in me wanted to just dive for that open door and the safety it promised (if only temporary).

  Of course, that’s not what I did because I’m an idiot sometimes. That and the thing hammered into my brain during my time in the war, the camaraderie built by the very idea of risking your life alongside a unit. You just didn’t leave a guy on the field when you knew he could be saved. I grabbed Richter by the back of his vest and pulled with all my might toward the slim promise of safety to my left.

  I hit the deck on my side, my hand still locked like a vise on Richter, while Molly and Luna shoved in behind me. There was another Star Trek swoosh, and the door slammed home behind us. Out of the frying pan and into the teapot, which makes more sense when you realize we were now all shoved into a room that was only a hair bigger than a large janitor’s closet.