Elite: A Hunter novel

by Mercedes Lackey

  His brother grunt-laughed. “Any Hunt you can walk away from is a good Hunt.” He and Steel fist-bumped. The helichoppers must have landed, because there were no more sounds from their blades, but there were other noises behind us now. A breeze carried the sound of chain saws revving up, so the cleanup crew was already at work. Otherwise the only thing you could hear out here was the sound of wind in the bushes and the songs of birds and beneficial insects. That was part of the job of the ag-station—growing bugs that ate other bugs and releasing them at the proper time, and maintaining food stations that attracted bug-eating birds. There’s a lot of farming stuff we don’t do that they did before the Diseray, and spraying poison all over everything is one of them.

  When we got to the station, some of the techs were already outside, fixing the transformer and jury-rigging a link to the wind array, and the rest were looking at the deep scores in the concrete of the building. They kept glancing at us rather shyly, as if they wanted to thank us but were diffident about it. Steel solved that by walking up to them as casually, as if we had not just flattened a Drakken.

  “Everyone all right?” he asked. They seemed to take that as the cue that it was okay for them to flock around us and ask for autographs. Crazy, right? But believe it or not, Steel and Hammer both reached into thigh pockets and pulled out little palm-size cards with their pictures on them. Right there, after just having killed a Drakken, they were signing their names, as if they weren’t ready to drop, as if they were in a club or a bar. I was hanging back, but Steel beckoned me forward and pulled out another set of cards from his other thigh-pocket. This lot had the whole Elite unit on it, including me. I didn’t remember posing for that, but I suppose that someone had pasted the picture together from our individual shots. So I signed those. And our Hounds milled around and accepted attention from anyone who’d give it to them. Mine reverted to greyhound shape as soon as they saw the crowd, maybe to keep from scaring anyone, although at this point you’d think all those people who’d watched my channel would know what they looked like.

  So weird. So very, very surreal. Back home, Hunters were just not idolized like this. But then, back home, we weren’t entertainers. And I swear, even these people, who should have known better because they’d nearly become lunch for a Drakken, reverted to being fans as soon as they saw us.

  But playing along was part of the job, as I kept being reminded at every turn. “Fan service” it was called, and it was another way to make the Cits believe they were safe, no matter what. So I signed cards and imitated Hammer and Steel. Eventually the supervisor realized they should actually be working, and chased everyone inside except the techs fixing the transformer, and we went over to the landing pad to wait for the helichopper that would pick us up. Hammer and Steel were still keeping up the façade of being indestructible, but I could tell they were fading.

  “How long have you been Elite?” I asked, to keep their minds off how tired they were and not trying at all to keep the admiration out of my voice. I hadn’t had much chance to talk with them since I joined the Elite ranks. Actually, I hadn’t had much chance to talk with anyone. We worked really hard: when we weren’t drilling under Armorer Kent’s eye, we were either deployed against something big or running patrols in some places in and around Apex that I hadn’t even known existed.

  “Maybe not as long as you’re thinking,” Hammer mused, with a raised eyebrow. “Just four years.”

  “We became Hunters a lot later than you, kiddo,” said Steel. “Powers popped at eighteen, full Hunter at eighteen and a half, got sick of the posturing and went for Elite together at twenty-one, and we’re twenty-five now.” He glanced as his brother as if to suggest he should say something.

  “We decided that we had to apply together. My trick doesn’t work without my brother,” Hammer said modestly. “We did the Trials separately, though. I guess we kind of cheated on the last one.”

  Steel threw back his head and laughed. “It’s not cheating if it works!” he retorted. “Our Walls are so strong, we actually never needed to go on the offensive. It was pretty funny, to tell you the truth. I got Kent; he tapped out and surrendered when he just ran out of energy after beating against my Wall to the point that he couldn’t even produce a light-flash.”

  “I got Archer. I kind of hated to flatten him the way I did—he’s such a nice guy, but…” Hammer shrugged. “Playing nice doesn’t win the Trials. I just shoved, shoved his own Shield right up against him and squashed him against the big containment Shield. He was at the point of getting the air pushed out of his lungs when he tapped out.”

  They both laughed. “Joy, you’ve got to look that up. The look on Archer’s face!” Steel chortled. I’d never heard a laugh I could have described as a chortle before. It surprised me into laughing too.

  “I will,” I promised. And that was when the helichopper for our ride back came cruising in just above the berry bushes.

  We opened the Way for our Hounds, who went back Otherside, looking sleek and contented. Then we loaded in, with me going last; there was a limited amount of room in the chopper, and the two big guys had to arrange themselves first because I could just squeeze in anywhere. They strapped in, leaned back in their seats, fastened chin straps to keep their heads from lolling about, and closed their eyes as the tough fight caught up with them. They were asleep within a minute; the chopper had just turned around and was starting back for home as they dozed off. They looked weirdly younger when asleep.

  It had been a grueling fight for them, no matter how easy it had looked. Doing things with magic isn’t effortless—far from it. It takes energy to move magical energy, and that energy has to come from inside the Hunter. Those two had been working like champion weight lifters the entire time they’d been bashing that Drakken. I was amazed they had managed to stay on their feet and look perfectly normal for the station crew.

  But that was part of the mythos we were trying to project, I guess. We can never do anything that might make the Cits lose confidence in us or think they were anything less than completely safe.

  But although I’d done some to help, I was still at about 90 percent charge. I keyed my Perscom and called up HQ.

  “Hunter Joy,” I said when I got the handshake.

  “Go, Hunter Joy.”

  “Put me back in rotation. I hardly did anything this run,” I said. Because I hadn’t, and if we got another callout, it could be that one more Hunter would make the difference between handling it ourselves, and having to call in the army. One thing I’d learned, the Elite hate having to call in the army. Calling in an artillery barrage or some of the attack choppers is one thing, but having to call in troops or army Mages or army Hunters makes everyone feel like they fell down on the job somehow. Right now, I was pretty sure most of us didn’t want to get within a mile of an army group that had a Mage with it, because that Mage might be Ace. The army took him, and the army tends to want to use what it takes. So Ace was probably out there somewhere—supervised, sure, but not in a prison cell as long as he was “working.”

  It would be even worse if we had to call in Psimons from PsiCorps, the people with Powers that worked on the mind like telepathy, psychokinesis, mind-control, and that sort of thing. But they never worked outside the Barriers unless they were working with the army. Hunters don’t much like Psimons, but then, no one really does. How can you like someone who can rummage around inside your head anytime he pleases? Psimons, though, they have this cold arrogance every time they look at Hunters, like they’re thinking, I can do more than you can, and I don’t need Hounds to do it.

  “Roger, Hunter Joy. Noted back in rotation.” That was another change from being a plain old Hunter and being Elite. HQ assumed you knew your own strength, and if you figured you were good to go back on call, they didn’t argue with you. Only the medics could override that, and the medics would know from my vitals that I was just fine.

  So I watched the fields roll by about six feet below the skids of the chopper and chan
ge from blueberries to tomatoes, to corn, to things I didn’t recognize. I thought about Hammer and Steel and their call signs; there was something about that combination of Hammer and Steel that was hitting a note of familiarity, but not strongly enough that I was getting the connection.

  Oh, well. I’ll just tuck it in my subconscious, and it’ll wake me up in the middle of the night, probably.

  We raced toward the huge, conical silver towers that created the Barrier; if I craned my neck, I could see them through the pilot’s windshield. The helichoppers, like the trains, have a field around them that cancels out some of the Barrier effects, but I braced myself anyway. Hitting the Barrier feels for a human a lot like breaking the surface of water, except you feel it all through you instead of just at your skin. Of course, most Othersiders would be disintegrated if they tried to pass it.

  But now that I knew what I did…I had to wonder just how many Othersiders had managed to learn how to pass Barriers somehow. Because an awful lot of them were getting on the city side these days. More than Apex admitted, except to the Hunters, from whom it could not be hidden.

  As if in answer to my thoughts, my Perscom beeped. “Hunter Joy, do you copy?”

  “I copy, HQ,” I said instantly.

  “You’re to bounce when you hit the landing pad. Your old friend White Knight’s turned up another Gazer nest. You and Archer are to rendezvous with him.”

  “Copy that, HQ,” I replied. “Out.”

  I was already so focused on the Gazer nest that the jolts when we passed through the Secondary and Prime Barriers barely registered. I had one hand on my harness release as we came in hot to the landing pad, and the skids weren’t even on the ground when I was out and sprinting for the second chopper, where I could see Archer beckoning to me from the door. Then we were in the air, and he and I were neck-deep in strategy as the chopper sped off.

  SWEAT TRICKLED DOWN THE back of my neck and into my headband. Sweat from working, not fear. I held my magic net down tight on the seething, bobbing flock of Gazers on the other side of the ruined wall we were sheltering behind. Fortunately, they had no idea where I was hiding, because otherwise I would probably have had paste for a brain by now.

  The steady crack, crack, crack of a high-powered rifle had been punctuating the relative silence for several minutes now, as Mark—that’s “White Knight”—picked off the Jackals that were always around as the symbiotic helpers of Gazers. From a distance, they just looked like odd rabbit hounds: white, with red eye patches and ears the color of rust. Up close you saw the vicious red eyes that looked as if they were weeping blood, and the mouth full of needle-teeth. Mark had found himself an excellent perch up in a tree; from there, he could pick them off with his sniper rifle, and they couldn’t get to him. And his four Hounds, beautiful things that looked like winged lions, could keep any stray Gazers off him.

  I was glad to be doing something other than playing bait. It made me feel as if I was earning my place on the team.

  The closest I can come to describing how holding down that net feels is that it’s as if I had two giant hands and I was pressing the net down with all my fingers spread around the edge. And it felt like the things in the net were surging against it like a bouncing herd of wild goats. Except, of course, they weren’t goats; they were giant eyeballs, each in a nest of greasy hair with fat pink tentacles coming down from the bottom, and if they caught your gaze, they would fry your brain.

  “Ready?” asked Archer, squatting next to me and flexing his empty hands.

  I nodded. At the signal, he popped up out of hiding, and suddenly there was a glowing bow with an arrow nocked to it in his hands. In a second or less, he’d fired off five of those “arrows” and dropped back under cover of the ruined wall we were hiding behind. From the other side came a rapid chain of five sharp explosions. I peeked over the wall to see that the Shields were down on five of the Gazers, and the ugly giant eyeballs now rendered vulnerable were shuddering in shock.

  Now! I thought at Bya, and five of my Hounds bamphed to the other side of the net, seized the five “naked” Gazers, shook them to death, and bamphed out again before the others could get an eye lock on them. They were dead and dissolving so fast they didn’t even have time to start that terrible keening cry that dying Gazers gave out.

  It had taken me, hitting with my magic like a giant hammer, and my Hounds and their fire-breath, many minutes to take down the Shield of one Gazer. Archer had just shattered five Gazer Shields in seconds.

  Archer had his eyes on me now, waiting for me to tell him the Hounds were out again. As soon as Bya gave me the signal, I told Archer, “Clear,” and he rose up and fired again.

  Archer was one of the older Hunters—short, compact, but strongly muscled, grizzled brown hair and a hint of beard and mustache, a rugged face that always seemed set in an expression of grim determination. That expression was now one of fierce determination. I peeked over the wall, saw that once again he’d hit every Gazer he’d aimed at, and gave Bya the word.

  The Hounds that didn’t bamph, like Hold and Strike, were still busy enough with the Jackals that had rallied to the Gazers’ defense. The Jackals never uttered a sound, not even when they were wounded. If you didn’t know what was going on, you’d be forgiven for thinking that at worst someone was having an easy target practice, punctuated by explosions, because what’s a few hand grenades among friends?

  The net was getting easier for me to hold as Archer and the Hounds thinned the flock of Gazers. This time when I peeked over the top, I saw I could tighten up the net, so I did. Smaller net, less energy.

  Jackals? I asked Bya mentally.

  Almost gone. Hold and Strike did well. The Angels are finishing off the ones that Knight wounded. I could hear the snicker in my head when Bya called Mark’s Hounds “Angels” because that was what Mark’s people back home called them. Mark was a Christer, but he wasn’t as tightly wound as some of them I’d met.

  The rifle shots stopped. Mark must have run out of targets. “Knight to Archer,” came over our Perscoms. “Jackals down. Jackals down.”

  Archer spoke into his comm. “Can you see the nest from where you are?”

  “Affirmative. Want to double-tap the ones left?”

  “Roger. I’ll have Joy hit them with a dazzle.” He nodded at me, and I nodded back. Now that I wasn’t holding a net full of twenty or thirty struggling Gazers, I could do both. “Dazzle first, then we come up shooting. In three…two…one!”

  I popped up and hit the remaining Gazers with a dazzle spell, basically an enormous flash of light covering as much of the spectrum as I could manage, like I’d used on the Drakken, and once it was off, I dropped down again.

  Now that they were blinded, Archer could come up and stay up while he fired arrow after magic arrow into the Shields on the remaining Gazers. Once again, the crack of rifle fire split the air, as Mark sent high-powered rounds into the unprotected Gazers. I knew it was over when the shooting stopped.

  I let the net vanish and stood up, flexing my cramped hands. Archer just put his back against the wall and slid down it until he was sitting, completely exhausted. I dug into my pack and got him a water bottle and some energy cubes to wolf down. He took both with a faint smile and thanks. Then he and I both ate and drank while we waited for Mark to climb down out of his tree and rejoin us.

  “Why arrows?” I asked, finally, something I had been wanting to ask Archer since I’d first seen him in action. “Why not levin bolts? Or fire bolts?”

  Mark joined us at that point and squatted down on his haunches, accepting another bottle from me.

  Archer shrugged and took a long drink. “Magic works best with what you feel. Less here”—he tapped his head—“more here.” He tapped his chest. “Levin bolts never felt powerful enough to me. And a magically manifested gun didn’t make sense, didn’t feel right. My mentor in Lakeland used to manifest a fire sword, and I thought, why not arrows? I tried it, it worked. So that’s why arrows.”

&
nbsp; “At least you’ll never run out of them,” Mark said, and grimaced as he checked his ammo pouches. “Wish I could make magic bullets, but I’ve only got just enough magic to Shield and to cast the Glyphs and open the Way—”

  Archer looked at him slantwise. “That’s not true,” he said flatly.

  Mark is a big guy. Tall, strong, blond, he actually looked like a fairy-tale knight out of a King Arthur story. Normally he’s pretty controlled. But right now he looked as startled as if Archer smacked him in the head.

  “You haven’t noticed.” Archer shook his head. “Unbelievable. Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that the only time you failed to make a kill today was when you were shooting to wound so the Hounds could finish off the quarry for the manna?”

  Mark looked so stunned I probably could have pushed him over with a finger.

  Archer spoke slowly, as if to a child. “You’re using magic to guide your bullets,” he said. “You’ve probably been doing it for some time now. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to discover you can now shoot around corners if you choose to do so.”

  Mark’s mouth worked for a bit before he got anything out. “How—how do you know that?”

  “Because I Saw it,” Archer replied, giving the word the inflection that meant he’d seen magical energy at work, as we all could. “The only reason you haven’t been Seeing it yourself, I suspect, is because you are concentrating on the target, not the bullet. As it should be; your concentration should be on what you want to hit, if you’re going to use magic.”

  “I…huh,” was all Mark said. Archer gave him a sharp look, and saw what I was seeing, I guess. Mark Knight looking baffled.

  “You know what the biggest difference between you and Joy is, aside from pack size?” Archer continued. He didn’t wait for an answer. “Joy has always believed there’s new ways she can learn to use magic. So she keeps learning, never stops, and keeps getting stronger. That’s why Kent had no hesitation in letting her do the Trials even though she was a newcomer. Using magic is like using muscles, White Knight. The more you use it, the stronger it gets, and the more you can do.”