by John Conroe
Suddenly there was a double gun blast from the farmhouse and not a second later, a roar from the back of the barn.
“Got one!” Stacia’s voice rang from inside. A howl rose from the other side of the barn.
“That’s one each,” Chris said. “Now, Mr. Dog, you’re outnumbered and outgunned. Yes you have some protection from direct magic, or so it seems, but you gotta understand, these guys spend hours playing magical combat games where one of the rules is no direct magic. So you’ve got like thirty or so seconds, by my estimation, before the one on my left figures a work-around. Then you’re either dead or wishing you were dead. So in the time we have left, what did you hope to accomplish here?”
My magic wouldn’t touch the man who wasn’t human. I’d heard of black dogs but didn’t know anything about them. Some kind of shifter but immune to magic? Or wearing an artifact that blocked magic?
I studied Jetta. He was obviously very, very strong, as her hands were hanging on his knife arm, straining against it to no apparent result. She caught my eye and her right hand dipped into the opening of her shirt. I had a pretty good idea she wasn’t adjusting a bra strap. The Sutton kids carried more sharp edges than a food processor.
The main issue was the knife. My magic slid off him but it didn’t slide away from his knife. Hmm, I could work with that.
“I’ll admit ye surprised me. Yer all fast-like and who the fack has their own bloody dragon?” the guy said, still grinning. “But I was told to get yer attention, and I think I have.”
The knife was old, very old. High carbon steel, expertly hardened by a master smith. I had learned a lot about hardening steel from Mack. About austenite and martensitic transformation. Solids heated to become liquids, then rapidly cooled to lock in a specific crystalline structure. In fact, I had learned to heat and harden metal with magic. Now I thought about doing the opposite.
“Oh, you have our attention,” Chris said. “I just don’t see why. You’ve lost four of your Red Caps and now you’re trapped.”
“But I have such a pretty hostage. Be a shame to chop her pretty, pretty head clean off,” the man said.
I communed with the metal, making some adjustments to its structure. Jetta twisted a bit and her eyes found mine again. She couldn’t see the blade at her throat but could she feel the changes?
Her hand came out of her shirt, a short, triangular blade affixed to her index and middle fingers. Her Hideaway knife. Without hesitation, she jammed the blade into the black dog’s arm. He hissed, face twisting from a rictus of pain to one of rage. He yanked his own blade hard against her throat with enough power to cut right through her spine. The blade crumbled and became fine steel powder, the individual bonds holding it together gone.
I shoved the ground under their feet straight up. People think that ground is solid. They’ll say things like solid as the earth and getting back to solid ground. It isn’t. Ground is much more elastic than you might think. Ask anyone who’s lived through a big earthquake and they’ll tell you about waves of earth, flexing and bending. Even frozen ground.
I bent the earth upward and it shot Jetta and her captor into the air, their bodies falling away from one another. He grabbed at her sweatshirt, getting a handful of material. She twisted, bringing her open palm up against his elbow, the force enough to hyperextend the joint. His hand opened and she slipped out of his grasp.
Matthew blurred forward, grabbed Jetta under the arms while she was in mid-air, and yanked her away like she was as light as a pillow. Mack fired three times, blood blossoming across the man’s torso. He fell back to earth and the ground under him became wet, porous, and loose, like quicksand. He sank in up to his armpits before the ground refroze, hardened back to its normal consistency.
“Sorry. More like twenty seconds,” Chris said. “Now you’re wounded and trapped. Still outnumbered.”
“Nice moves, guys,” Stacia said from the door of the farmhouse, her stubby bullpup shotgun propped on one hip.
Mack kept his gun and attention on the Dog as he nodded. Matthew had Jetta in his arms and had twisted to put his body between her and the dude in the ground.
“Agent Krupp and other law enforcement inbound,” Omega said. I looked back at the road. A half dozen SUVs and police cruisers raced toward us.
“How?” I asked.
“They triangulated Mack’s cell phone position. I had blocked yours, Stacia’s, and Chris’s,” Omega replied.
Jetta’s ex-captor struggled and tugged, but his arms were frozen into the ground up to his shoulders. Behind me, cars tore into the farmyard, doors opened, and the sound of multiple guns clearing holsters rippled through the air. I turned to find myself looking into like nine gun barrels.
“FBI! DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND GET ON THE GROUND!” Krupp yelled. Caeco stood behind her, weapon out, but the barrel was pointed at the ground midway between us.
“Agent Krupp, it’s us,” I yelled back, automatically raising my hands and invisible shields at the same time.
A few more sheriff’s cars plowed into the yard even as Krupp shook her head.
“DROP THEM NOW!” she yelled, her weapon pointed right at Stacia. “We have silver rounds.”
Silver? They came loaded for werewolves?
Stacia unslung her shotgun and lowered it to the ground. After seeing her actions, Mack bent over and tossed his gun down too.
“Get on the ground! I won’t tell you again!”
Matthew, Jetta, Mack, and Stacia raised their hands and lowered themselves. After a second, so did Chris. I was still standing, arms up, looking not at the Feds but at the sheriff’s deputies I had known for a major portion of my life. The driver door on the last cruiser into the yard sprang open and Darcy jumped out. “Stand down, stand down! Don’t shoot!” she started yelling even as her foot hit the ground.
“GET ON THE GROUND O’CARROLL OR I’LL SHOOT!” Krupp said, ignoring my step-aunt.
“The rounds are spelled, Declan,” Caeco said. “They may go through your shields.”
Spelled rounds? I dropped down, but while everyone else was face down, Chris and I stayed upright on our knees.
“We were rescuing our friend,” Chris yelled out. He looked alternately puzzled and angry.
The closed doors of the barn exploded outward and a ton of enraged bear charged out, putting himself between the guns and Chris. Three shots fired and I saw blood spurt from his fur, high on his back.
There was a flashing blur and Chris held the FBI agent off the ground by his neck, his face twisted in rage. I slapped the ground with my right hand and the earth jumped in another wave that lifted all the agents and deputies off their feet, jumped the cars eight inches into the air, and knocked down the closest wall of the barn. Only Chris stayed standing, and ‘Sos, who was biting at his wounds.
“Declan, don’t kill them, boy!” Aunt Darcy yelled from her spot, crouching on the ground. She was staring at my hand. I looked. A twisted ball of lightning arced and tumbled about my right hand. Funny, didn’t remember calling that.
Chris looked over at me, his anger twisting into disgust. He stripped the gun from the agent’s hand and tossed the man ten feet like he was a child’s doll.
Krupp was coming back to her feet and started to bring up her gun, but Caeco’s hand caught her arm and stopped it cold. Anger flashed on the senior agent’s face but Caeco just nodded my way. Krupp turned and stopped her futile struggles as she looked at me.
Not sure what she saw, other than the bundle of chain lightning twisting itself around my hand and arm. Myself, I was trying to decide if I should fry them all.
“Don’t do it, boy,” Darcy yelled, worry in her voice.
“Declan, let’s not declare war on law enforcement today. I need you to pull this silver from ‘Sos. It’s burning him,” Chris said, ignoring cops and agents as if they didn’t matter.
‘Sos growled as Chris poked at his bullet wounds, and that cleared my mind. I turned and discharged the electricity into an all-metal
hay conveyor parked alongside the barn. The flash lit up the barnyard as I headed over to the giant bear.
“Alright, lie down so he can get at the wounds,” Chris said to his bear. “Go on. He can’t get to them if you’re standing like that.”
Officers and agents climbed back to their feet, picking up hats and guns as I walked. Stacia beat me to the big beast, grabbing his head when he tried to bite his closest wound again.
“You will get on…” was all Krupp managed before she found herself dangling from Chris’s arm.
“You idiots raced up on a secure situation and shot my bear with silver. Spelled silver,” he said, and I knew from the deepness of his tone it was Grim talking.
I concentrated my magic into both hands, pushing a whispering tendril of energy into the wound on ‘Sos’s shoulder. Something pushed back as I got close to the bullet.
“Spelled?” I asked, directing my question at Caeco, who was watching God’s Hammer hold her boss a foot off the ground.
“We contracted with that goth witch from the missile base, Krista. Her and her circle. Magic deflection spell,” she said, hand twitching near her gun butt.
I swallowed the bubble of anger her words brought up inside me. Shoving my magic harder, I slammed the partially weakened spell into nothingness and grabbed the bullet, pulling it to my left hand.
Awasos growled, swinging his head toward me, which lifted Stacia right off her feet. “Careful, you’re hurting him!” she hissed at me.
“Sorry buddy, but I have to overcome the spell in order to get a grip on the bullets. It’ll hurt some, but not as much as leaving them in you,” I said to the big bear eyes watching me.
The next one came out quicker and easier now that I knew what I was doing. “That’s it,” I said.
“What about the third one?” Chris asked. He had set Krupp down and was ignoring both her angry glare and the worried looks on her other agents’ faces.
“It only grazed his back,” I said.
“You missed a target the size of a car from ten feet away?” Chris asked the agent who was being helped to his feet by another agent and a deputy.
I stood up, looking down at the bloody bullets in my hand, reading the residual magic. I looked up, first at Caeco, who looked unhappy but didn’t look away, then at my step-aunt, who had moved up in front of me.
“What did you expect them to do, kiddo? Their job is to protect the country. Of course they planned for a witch, especially with their expert consultant,” she said, tilting her head in Caeco’s direction. “I’m sure there’s depleted uranium in some of their guns as well.”
“Which is why their guns were able to fire,” Chris said with a nod.
He could use his aura to render ammunition inoperable, unless DU was nearby to disrupt it.
Laughter rang out behind us and just about everyone turned to the black dog who was still frozen into the ground behind us.
“You will release that man immediately, O’Carroll, or by God, I’ll arrest you if I have to bring the whole FBI to do it,” Krupp said.
Darcy snorted. Krupp whirled her way, but my step-aunt met her glare with a smirk. Darcy didn’t say a word, but raised one eyebrow. Two really, really tough women, nose-to-nose. They looked pretty evenly matched, Darcy’s stocky, powerful build against Krupp’s muscular, fast frame.
“Ah, Agent Krupp? If I let him out, he’s gonna either hurt someone or shapeshift,” I said.
“You know that how?” she asked, voice tight with anger.
“He’s fey. A black dog. And he’s wounded, sooooo he’ll probably change first chance he gets,” I said.
“Wounded? Get that man out of the ground now!” she hissed back at me.
I bent down and touched the ground. A few seconds to pull heat from the ground around us left most of the yard frozen even harder and deeper. But the area around the man melted as I redirected the therms and within twenty seconds, he pulled his arms free. Agents surrounded him but, belying my words he remained docile, looking wan and pale. Thirty seconds more and two agents pulled him free by his armpits. He stood, weaving in place, his black shirt clumped with mud in three circular places.
“Who’s got EMT training? See to this man,” Krupp said before she spun to Chris. “Did you shoot him?”
“I did,” Mack said. “He had a knife to my sister’s throat.”
“Of course you did, Mr. Sutton. How many men does that make? How many have you shot?” Krupp demanded.
“On this planet or Fairie? Or both?” he asked, his tone casually helpful. God love Mack Sutton.
“I think she means here, Mack. Or do elves count, Agent?” Jetta asked.
“How is it that he has bullet wounds in his torso if he was holding you with a knife?” Caeco asked. She was hovering near the man and his duo of agents, studying his shirt.
“I stabbed his arm, Declan made his knife fall apart, then made the ground jump up like, well, like you guys all felt. I shoved myself away and Mack shot him. But look, he’s standing there like it was nothing. I’m guessing you just had regular hollow points, Mack,” Jetta said.
“Yup, left the iron-tipped ones in the car,” Mack said.
“You don’t even know the man isn’t human,” Krupp said.
Caeco suddenly popped open a folding knife from her pocket and touched the flat of the blade to the man’s bare arm. He hissed, dropped down to all fours, and sort of shimmered. A massive black hound rose up in his place, like two mastiffs in one. The dog bit into the thigh of the agent on his right, yanking the man off his feet and throwing him into the other agent. Caeco was pulling her gun when the dog leapt over her head, jaws wide open, straight at me.
A white blur met him in midair, knocking him off-path, the black and white bodies slamming through yet another poor old barn wall. Snarling growls filled the air as the two furred bodies swarmed around each other too fast to make out. The deputies and agents had their guns back out, watching the battle with shocked faces. I caught motion out of the corner of my eye and turned. Caeco had holstered her gun and was tying off a bandage on the leg-bitten agent. She looked my way. “Got any tricks for bite wounds?” she asked.
I must have gaped at her a bit. Then I glanced at the black and white fur ball in the barn.
“Come on, she’s gonna tear him apart, but this guy’s losing blood. I think the femoral is cut,” she said.
My hands reached into my messenger bag and I pulled out a metal coffee mug, bottled water, and a tin of chaga fungus, but my eyes were still on Stacia’s fight.
Water went in the mug, the chaga into the water, then I heated it with magic. Still watching the fight, I walked over to Caeco, poured some tea onto the compression bandage she had in place, and then handed her the cup.
“Have him drink that,” I said, turning back to the fight. There was a yelp and I saw my white wolf fly fifteen feet into an inside wall with a sharp crunch. She was slow to get up and the black dog gathered his legs for a leap. My right hand came up, electricity from the house lines writhing around my fingertips.
“Ahem,” Caeco coughed. Then she coughed again. She never coughed. I tore my eyes from the stalking dog and saw Caeco shake her head once, her eyes on the fight even as she helped the wounded agent drink the tea.
Turning back, I was just in time to see the massive dog leap at Stacia, wide mastiff jaws distended, closing for the kill on the wobbly white wolf, faster then I could react.
In a flash, the white wolf shot forward, low to the ground, suddenly not at all wobbly, her longer, more pointed jaws opening wide. The two bodies came together, spun end over end, and when the fur, dust, and splintered wood settled, Stacia held the dog’s throat clamped tightly in her razor fangs.
“If she tears out his throat, shoot her,” Krupp said. A couple of deputies looked at her sideways but the FBI agents raised their guns and trained them on Stacia.
“Belay that,” Chris said, but I was already raising a shield over the whole of the busted barn wall, moving
to put myself between them and her. The new shield knew the flavor of the spelled bullets and didn’t like it.
“Kid, I want that suspect and I swear we’ll put you and your monster down if you don’t clear out of the way,” Krupp said.
I pulled more power from the lines leading to the barn and my tendril of magic awakened the furnace in the farmhouse, firing up the oil burner.
“You got it wrong, Krupp. She’s not my monster. I’m hers. Pull that trigger and I show you what I’m talking about,” I heard myself say. From the corner of my eye, I could see Matthew pulling both Jetta and Mack out of the way.
“I SAID BELAY THAT!” Grim boomed and suddenly he was standing in front of Krupp, her gun locked in his steel hand, barrel pointed up. Then he blurred again and when he came back into focus, he was holding six guns.
