Collision: Book Four in the Secret World Chronicle - eARC

by Mercedes Lackey

  She nodded. Then she took a deep breath, and dashed out again. This time, she wasn’t holding back. But as she whirled and struck, with spear or with sword, he could see she was crying. John really felt for her; he was used to these sorts of decisions, as a soldier, but clearly she wasn’t. Nothing to be done for it, right now; our priority has to be to get out of here alive and to keep everyone outside alive. She was still incredible; she was fighting everywhere that she needed to be, practiced and efficient with her weapons. If he wasn’t too busy with the ugly work that he had to do himself, he would have taken the time to be amazed.

  A pair of mercs appeared at the end of the aisle that John was moving down; before either could train their guns on him he fired off a burst of flame from his outstretched hand, engulfing both men. They went down, writhing on the ground as John leapt over them. He had to keep moving, otherwise he’d get bogged down and surrounded; these Blacksnake were well trained, if nothing else. He also had to be careful about using his fires in here; he really didn’t want to deal with a four alarm blaze with these mercs breathing down his neck. Besides, he’d have to fill out more paperwork, which somehow worried him more.

  Right now he wanted to hem the Blacksnake in, keep them away from the entrance, at least until backup arrived. He had reached the cash registers and candy racks, blasting two more mercs with fire on the way. He noticed a single merc, just standing there. Whatever; if you’re too dumb to give up or take cover, that’s on you, pal. John launched a flamethrower blast at the merc, hitting him square on and covering him head to toe. Or at least, that was what he thought he’d done…

  As the flames dispersed, John saw that the merc was still standing…and unharmed. Instead of being on fire, the merc was holding a head-to-toe shield in front of him. A shield made of what looked for all the world like solid ice. It took his mind a moment to process this; it couldn’t be regular ice. Another meta; this gig keeps getting better and better!

  The merc emerged from behind the ice shield, swinging it gradually to his side. John couldn’t see the man’s face underneath the balaclava, but he had the distinct impression that he was smirking. “I’ve heard about you, old man.”

  Old man? Goddamned punk oughta—

  “You’re the one that took out two of our best recruiters; Okagi and old ‘Chuck Smith.’” The meta chuckled to himself. “They couldn’t have been that tough. And honestly, I thought you would’ve been taller—”

  John immediately raised and fired his pistol three times, all perfect shots at the meta’s face. The merc was only saved by the proximity of his ice shield, which he brought up just in time to block the shots. John noted with satisfaction that the .45ACP rounds were taking decent chunks out of the ice. Smirk about that, asshole.

  As John took aim again, the merc emerged from behind his shield long enough to chuck several jagged and lethal-looking spears of ice at John; his next shot was thrown off, missing the merc wildly, but that was a small price to pay to keep from catching one of those frozen projectiles in his eye.

  All right, shithead. Let’s see if you like what I dish out. In a fluid motion John holstered his pistol, dodged under another ice spear, and called the fire to his arm. It leapt from there at the merc as if bidden, three short blasts that splashed against the ice shield. Concentrating, the fires on his outstretched arm intensified; the beam of fire was stronger this time, punching a hole in the ice shield with a flash of steam, it narrowly missed the Blacksnake meta.

  “Initiate protocol delta! We’re blown here!” The merc screamed the command into his radio, tossing another spike of ice at John. It exploded against a shelf next to his head; by the time John looked up again, the meta was gone. Seconds later, a number of very loud bangs came from the back room. Almost immediately John’s headache ceased; so suddenly that it nearly staggered him, and his thinking cleared miraculously. He didn’t have time to think about the implications; four more mercs were heading his way. They started firing as soon as they saw him; two at a time while the others advanced. Purely on instinct, he started blasting; in a moment, one went down with a smoking hole in his chest, and the others were being more careful.

  Now all of them were firing. John darted behind cover; they’d spread out and try to get around behind him soon, pin him in place and then either start with the grenades or just shoot him. Let’s short circuit that. Instead of moving further off, he waited, just around the corner that he had ducked behind. The mercs continued to fire, but he knew what they were going to do; they wanted to close in for the kill, and they’d get anxious, over-excited that they had him on the run.

  Or so they thought.

  With his off hand John grabbed a broken soda bottle from a shelf, one of the thick bottomed ones, while he was extinguishing his fires. The first merc rounded the corner, full of enthusiasm and ready to kill. Then the bottle came up under the merc’s chin while the sling was pulled tight and away, bringing the rifle out of line with John. The bottle broke with the impact, shards digging into the soft part above the man’s Adam’s apple. The merc’s blood poured down John’s hand, but he kept ramming with the bottle until it shattered in his hand, cutting him. He’d been prepared for that; he was still getting used to how much stronger he was now than he remembered being.

  The next two mercs rounded the corner. In the time it took them to drink in the scene, John spun the dead merc in his arms, grabbing the gear webbing on his back with one hand and trying to make himself as small as he could. The two living mercs opened up, firing full auto into the body. He felt the nanoweave stiffen on his abdomen and his left arm, but the dead man’s body and armor absorbed most of the abuse. John fell backwards, dragging the body down on top of him and lying very still. The nanoweave protected him, of course, but they might not know that. They stepped forward, reloading. John flipped the dead man off to the side, drawing his pistol and firing twice. Both mercs caught the rounds in the face, dropping to the ground limply.

  From the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of fire; it was Sera darting around the area, moving impossibly fast. Even with my “enhancements,” I don’t think I could move that fast, he thought. She disappeared around a shelf, but from the other side came gouts of flame, smoke and a lot of screaming. None of the mercs were going to get past her; when they tried, she intercepted them. It appeared she couldn’t “throw” fire the way he could, but that spear and sword were plenty lethal, and anyone stupid enough to come close to her ended up engulfed in flame.

  “Can’t be too many more of ’em,” he said under his breath. John scanned the area quickly, picking up the rifle—-some sort of high end M4 with all the bells and whistles—from the merc he had killed with the bottle. “Now t’find ’em—”

  John spun around as a chunk of ice caught him in the left shoulder; the nanoweave stiffened so much under the blow that he couldn’t move his arm momentarily. The next chunk hit him square in the chest, taking him off balance and partially knocking the wind out of him. Completely out of reflex, he brought the rifle up; the move saved his life. The Blacksnake meta brought what looked like a knife formed of ice down right at John’s throat. Instead of nearly taking his head off it split the rifle, passing between the upper and lower receiver with enough force to actually warp some of the metal. The ice was different this time; it had to be super-dense, in order to do that to the billet receivers of the rifle. John, still off balance, had no leverage. He thought that the merc was grinning through the balaclava. Then he knew why; the ice knife was growing longer, the point driving towards John’s unprotected throat. Centimeters away—

  A wash of fire with a white-hot core in the shape of sword shattered the knife. Before the merc could react, he got the butt of a fiery spear in the gut, and as he bent over in pain, Sera hit him with the flat of her sword and flared all of her fires, sending him backwards, engulfed in flames. Oh shit. Some of that gear melts… The merc shrieked in a high soprano, trying to roll to put the fire out, and only succeeding in spreading melting pla
stic and synthetic materials all over himself. The merc regained enough sense to use his metahuman power; a thick sheen of ice coated his body, extinguishing the burning materials and melting almost instantly. As his eyes fluttered open, John unholstered and pressed the barrel of his 1911 hard between the merc’s eyebrows.

  “Move and die, asshole,” John growled. The merc, no longer grinning, surrendered.

  With Sera’s help, John secured the merc amidst the burnt man’s cries of pain. John glanced to Sera as he easily dragged the Blacksnake meta up. “Any other survivors?”

  “Two, John Murdock,” she said, her aura of flame dying. She nodded her head towards the shelves. “There is one there, and one back in the larger room that you left wounded.”

  “Let’s round them up,” John replied. “Once we get ’em together, we gag ’em. I’ll handle crowd control while you watch ’em.” He thought for a moment. “I’ll call HQ, let ’em know what the sitch is. Good?”

  “As you will, John Murdock,” she said, bowing her head a little and turning to go. John caught her arm lightly with his bleeding hand, still holding on to the merc.

  “Sera,” he breathed, his expression softening slightly. “I just wanted t’say. Thanks. For savin’ me.”

  She caught her breath, and looked at him searchingly. What was she looking for?

  Whatever it was, she didn’t see it. She closed her eyes and let out her breath. “It is my duty, John Murdock,” she said, and tugged her arm away. Then she paused, and gave him an earnest gaze. “But…you are welcome. I am pleased I could help.”

  By the time they had all three of the survivors trussed up and left together in a clear area at the front of the store, the reinforcements from CCCP had arrived. The usual assortment of cops, EMS personnel, and firefighters all crowded around and busied themselves with their jobs; since CCCP had taken this call, ECHO was absent. Propriety was respected; you didn’t come unless your help was asked for, and that cut both ways.

  And last, after all of the others, came Red Saviour. Her first act was to order everyone out, save for Sera and John. Soviette stayed behind without prompting. That included the EMS people, who knew better by now than to object when Red Saviour issued an order. They’d already stabilized all three of the mercs, and Soviette was right there, qualified to take over responsibility. Truth to tell, John got the impression they were just as pleased to get out of there once Saviour showed up.

  Saviour toed one of the mercs—hard—eliciting a groan. She grinned wolfishly, while Soviette frowned slightly. “I will be needing you to make sure this svinya can answer questions, Comrade Doctor,” Saviour said, obviously savoring the chance to extract answers the hard way, if need be. “If any be living, we can pass them off to hospitals after.”

  Soviette frowned slightly. “Answers coming from pain are all but useless, Commissar,” she protested. John nodded agreement as Saviour turned to face them. He had been through SERE training, and it was decidedly not fun. He had picked up a lot of useful knowledge there. One particular point being that people being physically tortured would do anything to make the pain stop; ask a guy if he killed Napoleon, or Jesus, or Batty Bunny, and he’d say yes, and tell you how. There were a lot of ways to make people talk; promise them pain, promise them favors, money, immunity from prosecution, protection for their families. But actual torture never got the job done. He’d seen it done. He’d never had the stomach to do it himself. Not clean, like fighting a war. And I’ll be damned if I stick with this bunch if this gets dirty.

  “True. So svinya are best to be answering before pain truly begins.” Saviour stabbed each of the three in turn with her gaze, making sure they understood she meant exactly what she said. “You will be telling me why you were here, why you were killing two sturdy workers. You will be doing this quickly and to my satisfaction. You will be telling me who ordered you to do these things. If not, you will not live long enough to regret the consequences. But you will be feeling those consequences.” She smiled, showing all her teeth. “I am to be having diplomatic immunity. And you are enemies of the State.”

  Sera stirred uneasily, looked as if she was going to say something, then looked at John and frowned a little.

  The Blacksnake meta was the first to speak. “Any of you say anything, and you’re dead men.” He kept his eyes fixed on Saviour, sneering. Sera moved to interpose herself slightly, her fire-aura flaring a little. The merc recoiled from her, but then did his best to regain his composure.

  “Oh. One of the dogs has a spine.” Saviour casually stepped forward and backhanded the meta, hard enough to almost knock him over. “If you have anything other to say than answers to my questions, I will be most happy to break spine for you.” She went back to where she had been standing, turning to face the other two wounded Blacksnake mercs. “Answer, please. You will go to hospital and will being tended to there.”

  The mercs looked to each other. Then the one in the middle—the worst hurt of the three, with a bullet wound to the pelvis courtesy of John—started talking in rapid-fire.

  “It was a trap, it was a setup from the start—”

  “Shut up!” The one on the left was trying to interrupt. “Stop fucking talking before you get us all killed!”

  “I’m dying here! Screw you!” The middle one almost doubled over, then straightened up. “I’ll tell you everything about the op, just get me to the goddamned hospital—”

  The sound of ice breaking did interrupt the wounded merc this time. The ice chucker was up and moving. Must’ve frozen the zip tie handcuffs, made ’em brittle, snapped ’em—

  Everyone moved to stop him, get him back under control, but he had the element of surprise and they were just too far away. In a few swift motions he had formed an icicle as long as a yardstick, thrust it through the back of the nearest merc’s skull, withdrawn it and planted it through the neck of the last merc. John felt sick in the pit of his stomach from the sound of the man’s gurgling and the snap as the icicle broke on the floor. Sera’s fires were ramped up, John, Saviour, and Soviette all had their pistols drawn and trained on the merc. Sera was silent, but her fire sword was out again. Everyone else screamed for him to put his hands up, to get on his knees, and drop any weapons. Slowly, the merc dropped to his knees and raised his hands level with his head. Then the bastard grinned again. John already knew what the merc planned to do, knew he couldn’t stop it but started forward anyway. Before he could take two steps, the merc formed a solid block of the super-dense ice around his own head, suiciding instantly. The body fell forward, the ice block slamming into the ground with a thud and sending skittering flecks of ice across the CCCPer’s boots.

  Sera started back, her eyes wide with alarm. So did Soviette. Saviour, however, only cursed. Loudly and colorfully, in Russian and English. She punctuated the final “Nasrat!” by kicking the block of ice around the dead meta’s head.

  She whirled and faced John. “You!” she spat, thrusting a finger at him. “Be writing full report.” She glared at Sera and pointed at her as well. “You also! I want on desk in two hours.”

  By this time, the rest of the CCCP backup team had gathered, keeping one wary on on their leader while they shook their heads over the ice-meta. “The rest of you!” she shouted. “Evidence! Be looking for anything out of ordinary! Anything!” Then she stormed off, and a moment later, the angry snarl of a Ural fired up and quickly faded into the distance.

  John and Sera both stood together silently as the rest of the comrades started to mill around them, looking for evidence amongst the wreckage and garbage in the store. Soviette was still next to the bodies of the last three mercs, shaking her head.

  “Well,” John said, “I think it’s time for a beer. Or seven. And paperwork.” He turned his head to look at Sera. “Walk you back to base? I’ll have Bear or Unter ride my Ural back.”

  She looked at him askance. “Why would you choose to walk, John Murdock?”

  He shrugged. “Clear my head, give me time to process
this mess.” He chuckled. “It’ll give me more time before I have to face the Commissar again.”

  She looked a little past him. “If this is your wish, then we shall walk,” she replied.

  He grinned. “Let’s walk, then.” Three minutes later John had arranged for his motorcycle to be taken back to HQ and they were both past the throng of official personnel and onlookers that had gathered around the front of the store.

  “I am unsure why you wish my company, John Murdock,” she said softly, wings moving restlessly as she walked. “Our patrol is effectively over.”

  “There’s still the paperwork. Plus, I wanted to pick your brain, see what you thought was goin’ on back there. That entire setup…it was goddamned strange. Don’t y’think?”

  “Very strange. And I cannot account for…for whatever it was that caused such head-pain,” she said, looking thoughtful. “It cannot have been a toxin after all, can it?” She walked with her hands clasped behind her back, beneath the wings. The two of them were attracting a lot of curious glances.

  He shook his head. “We would’ve been feeling the effects still, I would think. No way that they’d drop off all the sudden like that. An’ Sovie cleared us when she arrived on the scene.” He walked a few more steps, his thumbs hooked through the top of his belt. “It got worse the closer to the back that we got, where all of ’em were. Then it stopped real sudden-like, like it was…I dunno, shut off or something.” He shrugged. “Could’ve been a meta? Someone like Mamona?”

  “I do not know. I am not what I was,” she replied, with both sadness and annoyance in her voice. “I suppose that is as good an explanation as any. I wonder why they wanted you, however.”

  “I was thinkin’ ’bout that. I know they came for me…” John paused, looking slightly embarrassed. “They came for me before. Maybe they found out ’bout my memory, figure that they can give it another go.” He shrugged again, then ruffled his hair. “Doesn’t seem to fit, though. I’m just a trigger-puller with some extra tricks. That ain’t enough to justify a high profile operation like this one, especially with all of the heat that Blacksnake has already. There’s gotta be something more to this, some bigger picture.” He sighed heavily. “I’m just not smart enough an’ don’t have enough pieces of the puzzle to figure it out.”