“And this one is going to be harder to sweep aside because it occurred on American soil,” Gold jumped in. “Somebody’s going to sue.”
Grenier stirred. “Perhaps the solution is to separate the two positions—”
The big double doors were flung open and Pamela stormed in. Jorge was a step behind her, looking defiant and scared. Pamela’s rather narrow nostrils were compressed, and blotches of color bloomed on her pale face. “What in the hell is going on here?” she demanded.
“Ah, so the boys didn’t tell you about this little party,” Dagmar said.
“No.” Pamela turned on Kenzo. “And how dare you hold a meeting of the officers and not include Richard?”
“Because we are, in fact, discussing Richard,” Kenzo said.
“By what right? And what is he doing here?” Pamela indicated Grenier.
“Mr. Grenier has experience managing a large commercial enterprise—” Kenzo said.
“Don’t you mean large criminal enterprise?” Pamela retorted.
Kenzo continued speaking as if there hadn’t been an interruption. “He’s been a businessman. You’re not. Richard is not. The company is approaching a crisis. I’ll use any asset to avert it.”
“My brother is the head of Lumina and he should be present for these discussions.”
“That’s the problem. Richard is so rarely present,” Kenzo said, his tone cold.
“You’re just angry because Richard told you to wait here for him, and then when he got back from California he took off again. Well, he’s on his way back. He’ll be in later tonight,” Pamela said.
Grenier held up a restraining hand. “The point is that the officers are beginning to think that folding both the task of managing Lumina and serving as the paladin into a single individual is not in the best interests of the company.”
Dagmar reacted. “No, the officers never said that. You started to say that. We’ve only got one paladin, and Kenntnis made Richard the head of Lumina. Apparently Kenntnis didn’t think it was a problem with having a single individual hold both positions.”
Pamela hesitated. “That’s not exactly accurate,” she said slowly.
“Which part?” Dagmar asked.
“The paladin part.”
There was reaction around the table and on the screen. Fury at having this information kept from him had Grenier’s teeth clenching and jaw aching. In his mind’s eye he watched his careful plans collapsing.
Pamela continued. “We’ve found another one. Richard’s getting her now. That’s why he’s not here.”
“So this woman could take over and leave Richard free to deal with the company,” Gold said, relieved to have an out.
“Not … yet. She’s only nine.”
“Nine!” Kenzo exploded.
“How did you…? Did you take her from her family?” Dagmar asked, angry and suspicious.
“Her family was killed … Look, it’s a long story. For her own safety, Richard wanted it kept very quiet.”
Kenzo made a dismissive gesture. “This is interesting but not relevant. It’s our job to ensure the viability of the company. Someone needs to manage Lumina. You can’t argue with that, Dagmar.”
The woman hesitated but finally spoke. “No, I can’t, and we’ve got cash flow problems. Purchasing Gaia is … well, let’s just say it’s an expense we didn’t need right now.” The words were reluctant, but they were spoken.
Pamela stared at the screen, her expression haunted. She seemed a forlorn figure whose thin shoulders seemed too fragile to bear the weight of what was happening. “What is it you want?” she demanded. “For Richard to step aside? Let someone else run Lumina?”
“Would he consider that?” Gold asked rather too eagerly.
“I have no idea. You’ll have to ask him,” Pamela snapped back. “Which is why this meeting should never have been called without including Richard. And I’m going to make sure he hears my opinion of this … this … insurrection.”
Grenier cleared his throat. “Given my background and experience, if I can offer Richard any help or advice I’d be happy to do so.”
Pamela turned on him. “What’s your angle, Mark? Richard took you in, protected you—”
The reminder of his fall and his vulnerable position caused his affable mask to slip. “And I’ve given good service in return. But if Richard runs this company into the ground, none of us will be safe. There won’t be security teams operating in shit holes around the world, funding for secure locations where scientists can work, a plane to fly Richard and his toy sword to the latest problem spot.”
“Don’t you be dismissive. Don’t you dare be dismissive!” Her hands were clenched at her sides, and her breasts rose and fell in time to her rapid pants. “He’s … he’s…” She turned away and shook her head.
Grenier heard the husky rasp of unshed tears in her voice. Kenzo looked away, discomforted by the naked emotions now swirling in the room. Grenier saw a way to recover his position. He stepped in close to Pamela and laid gentle hands on her shoulders.
“What is it, Pamela? How can I help?”
She dashed the back of her hand across her cheeks and turned to face him. “He’s going to get killed. He came back from Mexico with twenty-seven stitches. This thing in California could have gone bad, really bad, and … and…”
“So wouldn’t it be better to lift one burden off his shoulders?” Gold asked, infusing a wealth of concern into his voice.
Pamela stepped away from Grenier’s chaste embrace and faced the screen. He watched the mane of brown hair sweep across her shoulders as she shook her head. “No, because then he’ll just have more time to go to these … openings … invasions, and at some point he won’t come back.”
* * *
The attack he’d been expecting for hours came south of Chama in the midst of the Carson National Forest. How clever of them to wait until I’ve been driving for hours and I’m tired, Richard thought. There was no time to brake or even swerve, as knives, like crystal and ice, erupted from the asphalt. They glittered, malevolent and unnatural, in the honey trickles of sunlight through the boughs of the dark pines.
Cross had been wrong. They had brought a sorcerer.
Chapter
TEN
THE magically summoned blades did their job, slashing all four tires of the big SUV, but technology and keeping up with the advances of same wasn’t a high priority with the Old Ones or the traitors who served them. This car had been built to Lumina specifications and possessed Roll On inserts in the tires. Richard could keep going at sixty miles an hour for sixty miles on the ceramic inserts. Unfortunately, someone was warping the laws of physics in their reality, and so machines tended to stop working. The car’s engine died.
But then it caught. Apparently the magic wielder had shot his wad. The car leaped forward again, and Richard flipped a finger at the unknown and unseen sorcerer, but then his eyes dilated at a flare of fire vomiting from the trees. Fear closed his throat and dug like claws into his shoulders as the bed of Weber’s truck was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. The truck spun out, and flames erupted from the gas tank. The passenger-side door was flung open and Weber rolled out, clutching his rifle and a satchel that Richard knew contained grenades and ammo. Weber was trying to keep the body of the truck between him and the attackers on the east.
Unfortunately, the bad guys weren’t stupid. Small-arms fire spat from the trees on the west. Weber dove head-first into the shallow ditch that ran next to the road. Dirt clods kicked up at the edge, driven skyward by the hail of bullets. To Richard, time stretched, and the dirt seemed to fall back to earth in slow motion.
Go on! Go on, one part of his mind was commanding, but another impulse was to rescue. This was Weber. Sharp pings sang against the skin of the SUV. They were coming under attack, and on this particular stretch of road the trees formed a canopy overhead, effectively cutting them off from their guardians in the sky.
Richard placed his hand on the back of Mosi’s head, an
d pushed her down. “Stay low!” he ordered. She did more. Unhooking her seatbelt, Mosi slid down into the foot well of the car, wrapped her arms around her knees, and braced herself.
Grateful for her quick thinking, Richard turned his attention back to Weber’s predicament, and spotted the figure in the trees lifting the rocket launcher back onto his shoulder. Another hit on the pickup and it would detonate, with dire consequences for the man in the ditch next to it. Richard spun the wheel and made a sharp U-turn to the right.
“Hang on really tight,” he yelled to Mosi and took them off the road, jounced through the ditch and onto the steep verge. He was driving back toward Weber.
“Hunker down!” he yelled into his headset. Weber threw himself flat in the ditch.
As he drew alongside the burning truck, Richard turned straight into it. Weber was prone in the ditch. Richard aimed carefully to keep the Roll On inserts from clipping Weber and drove the front of the SUV into the side of the pickup. Metal shrieked as he pushed the burning vehicle across the road and wedged it against the trees near the man with the rocket launcher.
The truck was nearly engulfed in flames now, and the fire was spreading to the drought-distressed trees. The dry pine needles went up like Roman candles. Richard threw the SUV in reverse and accelerated away from the truck just as it exploded.
Burning pieces of truck rained down all around them, and there were hollow crashes as some debris fell onto the roof of the car. A man-shaped figure, wreathed in flames, ran out of the trees. Mosi popped up trying to see. Richard shoved her back down into the foot well. His ears were ringing, so he couldn’t hear the screams from the burning man. He hoped it was the same for Mosi.
Seconds later, there was another explosion, as the missile in its launcher also exploded. Men in faux military garb moved into the road, advancing on their car. They took careful shots aimed only at the driver’s-side window. Then the guns stopped firing.
A strange groaning penetrated the ringing in Richard’s ears. The car’s engine died again. Mosi gave a cry of fear and pointed at the tops of the massive Ponderosa pine trees. They were shaking, swaying, then they began to fall. Dark green limbs beat the ground like wrestlers tapping out. A fence was being built all around them, hemming them in.
Richard spotted a woman farther down the road, making sweeping gestures with her arms. “I have to stop her,” he told Mosi, as he grabbed up the sword. “Stay in the car. Lock the doors. Keep your head down.”
She climbed onto the passenger seat and grabbed his arm. “I can shoot,” she said. She was pale and her lips were bloodless, but there was a martial light in those dark eyes.
“Guns won’t work right now. And you’re only nine. No.”
“My middle name is Dezba, it means ‘goes to war.’ And I have my brother’s wrist rocket. It’s in the suitcase.” She was panting, her voice jumping with fear, but her dark eyes burned with determination.
Richard stared down at her. She lost her family to this war. She’s a paladin. Her life isn’t going to be easy or normal, and nothing I do can change that.
And in a flash of insight he realized that the goal of their enemies was probably to capture her. Otherwise that missile would have been launched at the car carrying the paladins. If the Old Ones and their minions could capture a child paladin and twist her, shape her to their own purposes, they would have an enormous advantage. Which meant she could probably shoot at them with impunity.
“You got anything to put in that slingshot?” he asked.
Mosi nodded. “Marbles.”
“Get it!”
She scrambled back over the seats and returned moments later with the slingshot clasped to her wrist and a soft velvet bag clutched in her hand.
“You can’t open the windows on this car, but there are weapons slits you can fire through.” He indicated the catch. Mosi nodded, fished out a marble, opened the slit, and fitted the marble into the slingshot. An attacker was approaching. Mosi drew back, took careful aim, and let fly. The marble took the man in the center of his forehead. His head snapped back at the impact, and he collapsed. Richard nodded, rolled over the seats, and crawled over her suitcase in the cargo area to the back hatch. He wrestled it open and jumped out.
The moment his feet hit pavement, he drew the sword. With his free hand, he pulled down the back hatch, though he could feel his wrist creaking and the muscles in his biceps quivering from the weight. The tree fence was enough to block a car, but a man on foot could easily run through them. He couldn’t so easily run through the mercenaries. Fortunately, most of them were focused on the marbles flying from the SUV and didn’t seem to have noticed his exit from the rear of the vehicle.
One of the mercs had come around to the driver’s side and pulled a hammer off his belt. He swung it against the window, and the glass starred. If he succeeded in breaking through and unlocked the doors, he would capture Mosi. Richard spun around to the side of the car and charged the man, point of the sword outstretched. The merc turned and tried to parry with his hammer. Richard turned the rapierlike sword and let the metal of the hammer scrape along the blade, then he drove the sword deep into the man’s chest. He wasn’t going to rely on a tap and a hope the reaction took the man down.
Blood bubbled from between the man’s lips, and he dropped slowly to his knees. Richard pulled the sword free as the man fell forward onto his face. Thirty-one. Richard kept the count. He suspected that these men were mercenaries. They had been hired to do a job, and now they were dying without ever knowing they were fighting for monsters.
Hunkering down, he scuttled toward shielding branches of the fallen pines and dove into their painful camouflage. Needles bit at his hands, face, and neck, and he felt sap matting his hair. Richard found a gap and slipped through, eyes flicking in all directions looking for the sorceress, and trying to keep the bowel-loosening terror at bay. She stood, face contorted, body hunched with concentration, panting with exhaustion. She was using an extendable pointer as a focusing device. Not as subtle as Grenier’s reading glasses had been. Much more wandlike, implying the woman didn’t have as much control over the magic as Grenier. Or she’d just read too much Harry Potter, Richard thought. Here was the woman who’d hired the mercs, who was prepared to sell out her own species. Rage killed his fear, and he charged out of the trees.
The sorceress reacted to Richard’s footfalls on the asphalt as he made his flanking approach. She whirled and her mouth moved, though Richard couldn’t hear. An arc of coiling, lurid red burst from the end of the pointer and raced toward Richard.
Richard made no effort to dodge the spell, just let it hit and wash over him. It accomplished nothing besides a singed stink. The woman threw another blast of pure magic at him. This time Richard casually lifted the sword and parried the incoming spell. The red was swallowed by the deep black of the sword blade. The woman blanched.
Richard’s fear retreated a bit and cockiness took its place. This girl clearly was a second-stringer. Richard continued to advance. “That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?” Richard yelled, his words echoing weirdly in his ringing ears. “What are you? A moron? Hello, paladin.” He tapped his chest. “Magic can’t hurt me.” His anger was growing with each step he took toward her. What kind of monsters would take a little girl and use her—?
His righteousness stuttered and died. How was what he was doing any different? His focus and concentration shattered, so he missed the movement when the woman bent and laid the tip of her pointer on the asphalt. And then he was falling as the ground vanished beneath his feet. Magic might not affect him, but gravity sure as hell did.
Richard clawed at the edge of the hole with his right hand. The paving and the ground were rough, as if an invisible monster had taken a bite from the earth. Between his scrabbling feet and his now torn and bloody right hand, he managed to keep from sliding to the bottom of the deep hole, but the tired muscles in his arm were starting to tremble. Maybe he should just drop to the bottom and figure out how to cl
imb back out? He risked a glance over his shoulder. The hole looked to be about ten feet deep, and the same knives that had destroyed the SUV’s tires extruded from the soil at the bottom. Even if he controlled his slide to the bottom, he was going to get skewered. He dared not drop the sword, but he needed both hands to pull himself out.
Maybe she would walk over to check her handiwork. Or stomp on his fingers so he’d fall. Then she’d be in range of the sword. But the toes of her boots didn’t appear. She was waiting for fatigue and gravity to do their jobs. Maybe not such a second-stringer after all. Richard knew he couldn’t hold on much longer. Desperately, he cast about for a solution. He studied the hilt. There was one part of the curving Klein-bottle shape that was thinner than the rest. He raised the hilt to his mouth and closed his teeth around the section. The sword wasn’t exactly light, especially when the blade was drawn. Richard clamped down hard and worked his fingers free of the hilt. His teeth felt like they were being pulled from his jaw, but once he released the hilt, the blade vanished and it got a bit lighter. The blood pounded in his ears, his breaths were harsh gasps, and there was a faint sound like the buzzing of an angry bee that he couldn’t identify. It formed a counterpoint to his body’s desperate efforts to survive.
He grabbed the hilt and thrust it into the holster at the small of his back just as his right hand gave way. Gathering all his strength, Richard pushed up from the wall with his feet and grabbed the edge with his left hand. Got the right hand back in place, pulled himself up, and found a knife blade thrusting at his face. He jerked his head to the side, and fire flared along the side of his head as the knife cut his scalp. Blood was running over his ear and down his neck. She brought the point of the knife down and pierced his right hand. Richard screamed.
Please, Damon, get Mosi away, he thought as she aimed at his left hand. The angry bee sound was much louder now, and he realized it was the engine of a small plane. It coughed and cut out as the plane came into the area affected by the magic and went into a stall. Richard saw something hurtling down from above. The object wasn’t large, but it hit the woman in the back of the head, and she went down like a poleaxed cow. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Richard used his injured hand to pull himself over the lip of the hole.
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