Sparked: The Nephalem Files (Book 1)

by Douglas Wayne

  With my boost, I stood by my rear bumper and lifted my car into the air. Once it was up a few feet, I pulled the piece of metal free and tossed it back towards the runway. When the car was safely on the ground I noticed a dust cloud being thrown up behind the military vehicles as they closed in. The convoy stopped about thirty feet from my car and turned sharply, exposing the broadside of the Hummers.

  The doors of the trucks opened with four military personnel exiting each vehicle, each holding an M16 with both hands with them all trained on me.

  "Hands where we can see them!" yelled the soldier between the first and second Hummers. He was tall with short hair and a clean shaved face. Like the others, he was wearing a green and brown schemed camouflage outfit with a utility belt around his waist that carried everything else he needed like spare magazines, grenades, and a pistol.

  "I know it doesn't look like it, but I just saved their lives," I said, raising my hands in the air.

  "Doesn't look that way to me," he said. "Get down on your knees, nice and slowly."

  As a wizard, there are a few dozen things I could do to get out of this while on my feet. That number doesn't go down by a ton if I go down on my knees, mainly losing mobility by that point. His next step, however, will have me face first on the ground. My options in that position are so limited, I couldn't allow that to happen.

  "Sir, I have a medical condition that causes my heart to go haywire if I'm on my chest," I lied, hoping he fell for it.

  "Should have thought that through before you tried to blow up a plane." He released the safety of his gun and lifted it up to aim. "Only going to tell you one more time. Get on the ground. Now!"

  I watched the other soldiers as I dropped to my knees. Except for the one speaking, the other soldiers didn't seem as eager to shoot me. Being honest, it could just be months of training showing, but I haven't seen any of them move their weapons out of safe mode.

  My mind raced as I worked through my options. First and foremost, I knew I couldn't let them take me in. Right now, all the evidence was pointed directly at me... for good reason. Once they found the sword in the back, they would pin the thug at the hotel on me in a heartbeat. From there the police would probably throw an obstruction charge in the mix for not leaving when I was told. Then, depending on the mood of the chief, they might even try to throw the accidents on me since they knew I'm a wizard.

  Second, I had the rules of the wizard council to consider. They would be mad enough I used my power to stop the plane from taking off. If I killed any of the soldiers, they wouldn't let me slide with a self-defense technicality either, since I provoked them to this point. The council likes to look at the whole story, which can be good and bad.

  Mainly bad in my case.

  They will probably say that the military wouldn't have acted if I hadn't crashed through the fence and taken out the plane. Even from my point of view, I wouldn't be able to argue with that logic. That's why I needed more time to find the technomancer and bring him to justice.

  That left me with only one option, I had to mount a defense. As long as I avoided killing, or severely injuring, one of them, I would likely get a slap on the wrist.

  I lifted my hands, calling upon the wind to create a cloud of dust around us. While it wouldn't stop any bullets, it would make me more difficult to hit. I created a shield, focusing on my back, while I covered my mouth and ran for the safety of my car.

  Gunshots filled the air around the same point I ducked behind the Edge. I created a weave of earth and fire and placed my hands on the car, the resulting mixture of elements strengthening the body of the car to stop the bullets. Much like Kevlar. This is a variant of the same spell I would be casting later to fix the poor thing, saying I survived. Fortunately, this was a spell I could sustain for long periods. An advantage of being strongest with earth based magic.

  The soldiers fired for about two minutes before coming to a stop. I was amazed my shield was still in one piece though I doubted I could say the same thing about the other side of my car.

  With the bullets stopped, I enhanced my hearing so I could tell what they were up to. I heard footsteps approaching, so I dropped my reinforcing weave and created a veil to hide myself.

  Veils are handy spells to have, though they take a long time to master. Most casters use them to assume the identity of someone else. That is fine in a general sense, but it doesn't work well against people close to the person you are imitating since it won't copy their mannerisms or voice.

  In my case, I was using it to bend the surrounding light to become invisible. Unlike the other veils, this one can be discovered by someone looking close. You can move while veiled like this, but you have to be careful. If you make a noise or change the environment in any way, they can catch you too.

  Early in my training, my mentor, Max, told me about a student of his that stepped in a mud hole after bending the light. Max let him stand out in the puddle for six hours before breaking the news to his student that he knew the whole time. Apparently the student called him on it, but Max had the pictures to prove it.

  As the men closed in I backed away slowly, watching behind me so I don't trip over anything.

  "Looks like he is gone," the one closest said. This one a woman with short auburn hair, wearing her camouflage gear but also wearing her helmet. She looked inside the car, stopping once she got to the back. "Looks like there's a bag inside."

  "Pull it out," the commander said, walking up to the car. "Might be explosives in there."

  While they wouldn't find any explosives, they would find a sacred book I swore to keep out of their hands, not that they could decipher this one. It was written using a language that has long since been forgotten. Inside, it detailed the various spells we can use and how they can be changed for differing effects. While I doubt they would be able to use it, it is very valuable to anyone looking to take wizards out.

  I created a fine mix of earth and water and threw the resulting mud into their eyes. With my position compromised, I moved swiftly to the bag and secured it on my back before I moved away.

  Which brings me to another advantage that veils have. They can hide or mask things on your body as well. It won't save you from a metal detector, but it made my pack invisible the moment I slipped it over my arms.

  The remaining ten soldiers scoured the area, the other two joined in once their vision was cleared. I crept away from the car backwards to keep the others in front. I struggled to leave the scene, not so much for the car I just bought but because the commander pulled my staff out of the back. If it wasn't a thousand year old weapon, and a gift from Max, I would have left it. As much as I would regret it, I had to get it back. Ideally without killing any of them.

  Slowly, I made my way behind the Humvees, careful not to kick up even one speck of dust. The last thing I needed was to get their attention now.

  When I was behind the men, I channeled a spell into the foliage to make it grow. The plants grew quickly, sending vines trailing in every direction, though thankfully not at me. One solider panics when he notices a vine growing up his leg. A few of the others followed suit shortly after. Four of the soldiers broke free after losing their M16s and retreated for the safety of the runway.

  If they knew how my spell worked, they wouldn't stop there, but I'd leave them alone as long as they stayed away.

  Within moments, I had four more wrapped up in the vegetation, leaving two that got free. The captain and the woman at my car. They may be trained to kill, but the advantage was in my favor. The only thing that kept this from being over was their proximity to my car. Truth be told, I didn't 'need' the car, but I wanted to get it back instead of spending another afternoon at a car dealership.

  I approached the Edge from the rear, creeping slowly behind the woman. Disabling the pair would have been easy if they were both on the same side, but the commander is on the driver's side, watching the area around the broken fence. Using my magic, I created a rock and hit her just below the helmet,
sending her to the ground in a heap. It got another soldier out of the way, but the commander's attention was now on me since I had to break my veil to cast it.

  That is the downside of offensive magic.

  The commander trained his gun on me, sending me sprawling to the ground for cover. He sent a spray of pullets through the side of my car, sending shards of metal and shattered glass on my head. Not waiting for a break in the action, I placed my hands on the vehicle and reinforced the body, but not before he popped my shield.

  He fired his gun at a steady pace until the magazine finally emptied. With the lull in the action, I renewed my shield. The last thing I needed was him getting off a lucky shot, which was easily possible with all the holes in my doors. I placed my hands back on the car to reinforce the body once again.

  Not expecting the hit, the commander tackled me into the ground, and landed on top of me.

  This wasn't the best position to find myself in. Without the ability to move my arms, there wasn't much I could do to disable him with my magic. Fights like this are why I spent time in those self-defense classes they usually teach to women. The lifted my knee sharply into the commander's groin. He rolled off to my right, holding his care package while moaning on the ground.

  Not wanting to give him a chance to get up, I placed my hands on the ground and channeled essence into it. The earth shook, the movement not allowing the commander to get back to his feet. A crack formed in a circle around him, followed by dozens of smaller cracks under his body. The ground underneath him gave out, creating a five foot wide sinkhole where the commander just was.

  I walked to the edge to see him at the bottom of the chasm, now holding his hip. Unless he learns to fly, he wasn't going to get out of there any time soon.

  "Sorry for the trouble," I said before climbing into the driver's seat of my car. I put the pedal to the floor, wanting to get out of here before the army sends another unit or two. I crashed through another fence on the south side of the runways, stopping afterward to place a veil on my car, making it look like a Suburban. Call it a hunch, but a car riddled with bullet holes would probably draw too much attention.

  - 12 -

  I pulled off behind an abandoned building just outside Boulder to repair my car. If he knew I was going to commit multiple felonies with it, I wondered if the salesman would've had a change of heart.

  When the car was parked, I lifted my veil for the first time since the airport. Bullet holes lined the sides, amazingly missing the key components to keeping the car running. I'm thankful the military didn't train their solders to spray and pray, otherwise they may have hit something important, like the gas tank or engine block. I placed my hands on the car and used the same spell I used to reinforce the body. To my amazement, I repaired the car in about twenty minutes.

  With that out of the way, I needed answers. Who would want to kill a bunch of investment bankers, and why? The economy has been on a slow uptick the last few years so unless they were giving bad stock advice, there shouldn't be a reason to kill half of a firm.

  "Raymond Gilmore's office," Stacy said.

  "It's me," I said. "I need another favor."

  "Step ahead of you, boss." Just like she always was. "Your investment bankers have been on a roll the last few months."

  "What do you mean?"

  "In the last three weeks, they nearly tripled their business." That's saying a lot considering the way they boomed early on. "But they also had three of their first clients cancel their accounts recently. No reason listed on any of them, but the first happened about a week ago."

  "You think one of them is behind the deaths?"

  "I'd bet my job on it," she said, sounding smug. "One of them was the client that put the firm on the map."

  It could be a coincidence, but I find it hard to believe that they would let a client like that walk out the door without a fight. I knew if I had a cash cow client like that in my business, I would've milked it for all it was worth.

  "Here's the weird thing," she added. "When he canceled his account, all the other accounts started losing money."

  "What are we talking about, a change from large profits to small losses?" That could just be a case of the account holder having information the bankers didn't.

  "Try closer to a forty percent loss company wide. I checked three different websites and couldn't find many stocks that lost that kind of money in the last few weeks."

  "Sounds like this may be our guy," I said.

  "And get this," she said. "There was a note on his account that said it was being investigated by the Feds right before it was closed."

  "Does it give a reason?"

  "Not that I saw, but the three hundred percent ROI on the account over the last few months probably turned some heads."

  "Wow, three hundred percent? I'd kill for a steady ten."

  "You and I both."

  "I think I need to pay this one a visit," I said. "You have an address?"

  "I'll text it to you shortly." I was going to hate the day she leaves the office. I didn't think there was anyone alive that could anticipate what I needed quite like her. "There is one last thing you probably need to know."

  "What's that?" I asked, eyes narrowing.

  "Over half of the Boulder police force is heading to his house now."

  "How, exactly, do you know that?"

  "I have your computer tapped into the area news feeds. Nearly half of the local TV stations are showing the coverage."

  "Sounds fun," I said. "What are the other half covering?"

  "An attack at the Denver airport," she said. "Some crazy guy blasted through the fence in his car and destroyed a plane."

  Didn't take long for that to get on the air. "Do me a favor and send me that text. I need to get to the house before the cops do something stupid." Lord knows it was only a matter of time until they did.

  I parked the car two blocks away from the house thanks to the police barricade on either end of the street. Apparently my technomancer friend had a few houses in the Boulder area. This house was in one of the ritzy areas of town though not so secluded to be in a gated community which I was thankful for. I could imagine what he could do to a code box to cause trouble.

  I approached the house from the opposite side of the street. It was a two story house covered with light tan siding with an attached garage. The front lawn had two trees, one small pine near the property line and a larger oak tree near the driveway that a cop was standing behind.

  Cop cars lined the street for five houses in either direction, making travel on the road impossible. Most of the officers were standing behind the row of vehicles to use them as cover in case something went wrong. Captain Andrews was behind her black Explorer, talking to a trio of male officers.

  Their conversation ended as I walked onto the street, the captain walked to her door and reached inside the window to grab her handset.

  "Bradley Tucker," she said, voice amplified through the speaker system of the car. "We have the house surrounded. Any attempt to resist us will lead to the use of force. We are giving you ten minutes to surrender peacefully. Come out with your hands up." She threw the mic back into the car as two new officers approached.

  "What's going on here?" I asked a younger woman, with blond hair and a pair of sharp blue eyes. She wore a Colorado Avalanche jersey over a pair of tight fitting blue capris, sporting a five carat diamond on her left ring finger. Whoever gave her that ring wanted everyone to know she was spoken for.

  "They think Bradley killed that cop yesterday," she said. "The one on the news."

  "It takes all of this to take down one man?"

  I'm not one to pick a fight with how law enforcement does its job, but I have a problem with how they are prompt with handling issues that affect the force. If this was something as simple as a domestic disturbance, there wouldn't have been this kind of response. You'd probably be lucky to get one officer to show up, well after the problem is settled.

  The way the police w
ere surrounding the house, there wouldn't be justice. Only revenge if Brad allowed it. With all the cars and tech sitting outside his front door, this was a catastrophe waiting to happen, and Captain Andrews was blind to it.

  "Look at me," I said to the woman. "You need to get your family and take them out of here. Your neighbor is a lot more dangerous than the cops are telling you." In ten minutes the world would know that first hand unless Brad took down the news helicopters flying overhead.

  She turned around, grabbing a young blond hair boy that could only be her son and jogged down the street. I allowed a smile to reach my lips knowing I saved at least two lives today. I scanned the growing crowd behind the police lines hoping I was able to save a few more before it's over.

  I walked up to the freshly placed police tape on the other side of the street glad the scene escalated much more quickly than the officers could anticipate. There was no way I could've got their attention from further away.

  "Officer!" I shouted at the closest cop. He was a tall, slim, black man who looked at me in surprise, pointing at himself to make sure I was talking to him.

  He glanced at the captain before coming over. "Did you call me?" he asked.

  "You and your men are in danger," I glanced at his badge, Officer Price. "Mr. Tucker is a lot more dangerous than you guys realize. He is more than capable of killing everyone here if he has to."

  "He won't get a chance," Price said, smiling. "The captain has two SWAT units close by. If he isn't out in ten minutes, she is going to send them both inside and make him regret it."

  Rookie confidence, I've been there a time or two. But I was at least willing to listen to reason. This kid was not only as green as a year old sapling, he was as dumb as one to boot. If I was going to save the day, I'd have to do something stupid. I just knew it.