bedeviled & beyond 03 - bedeviled & beleaguered

by Sam Cheever

  The air changed at my elbow and I turned to find Flick standing there. His pale, freckled face swiveled with a look of shock as he observed the destruction at our feet. “Nice work Astra.”

  I shrugged. What could I say? “What’s up, angel, we’re kind of busy here.”

  He gave me a wry smile. “Yeah, I can see that. I came to tell you that the guardians have settled over the worst parts of the city. They’ve started projecting calming magics over the area and are having some success.”

  Emo came up to us. “That’s good news.”

  Flick shrugged. “It’s an overwhelming task. About all they’re going to be able to accomplish is to put a modicum of sense into the people who were decent and kind to start with. That’ll just leave behind the jerks and creeps for you guys to deal with.”

  I frowned. “You know we’re supposed to be bringing in the injured right? Not cleaning up the streets.”

  He nodded and grinned. “After five minutes with you they’re all going to be injured, Astra.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “Har. Besides, I haven’t hurt that guy yet.” I turned to show him my guy with a scythe in a bubble. The man was screaming obscenities and banging on the inside of the bubble with his scythe. As we watched he misjudged a strike and the scythe bounced off the bubble in the wrong direction, pinging back toward him and cutting a large chunk out of his neck. Blood started to spurt from his throat.

  I shrugged and turned back to Flick, grimacing.

  Flick shook his head and shimmered away, leaving us to our dilemma about how to get our victims—er, I mean our injured—to unplanned care.

  After a few minutes of arguing between Emo, Bob, Ralph and I over what to do with the injured, Captain Lee, who’d been standing slightly outside the group listening, stalked away from us.

  I followed him with my gaze as he stomped down the street, massive arms swinging. He headed for the large bulk of an overturned air bus, which lay on its side up against the husk of a badly burned out building.

  Lee walked around the air bus for a moment or two, then jumped up to peer inside. As we watched he dropped through a window and disappeared inside. We soon heard a wheezing sound that could have been the bus’s engine turning and the lights at the rear of the vehicle blinked on and then off again. Captain Lee reappeared a few minutes later and walked around to where the top of the bus rested against the scorched and still smoking building.

  He disappeared behind it.

  After a few seconds there was a screeching sound and the bus started to wobble. More screeching brought more wobbling. And suddenly the bus started to roll slowly away from the building. As it rolled far enough for its weight to carry it over, the air bus swung upright, crashing to the ground with an ominous sound. It rocked there for a moment and then Captain Lee picked himself up from the ground, where he’d apparently used the building for leverage to push the air bus over and climbed inside.

  He started it up and swung it around, keeping it low to the ground as he pulled it up beside us. He climbed out and headed for my guy in his bubble, now covered in blood from his own stupidity. “Let’s load ’em up.”

  I really like this guy, I told my partner.

  Emo shook his head, laughing.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Saving” Weighs

  The magic bus did rumble down, dead streets destroyed by rage,

  The Serpent’s perfect story writ, with poison on each page.

  The air bus was nearly full.

  Emo wove a holding spell on the bus as we left it to pick through the latest pile of bodies strewn across the street. We’d quickly found that, no matter how mangled the human injured were, we needed magic to keep the battered and enraged humans on the bus while we did our work.

  Somehow my little gang had fallen into a rhythm. I’d been selected by silent agreement as the leader and Captain Lee had easily taken over the role as my second. Emo was chief magic wielder and Bob and Ralph were key negotiators and cleanup crew. Being well-versed in negotiations because of their work with the Were Council, they had naturally fallen into doing whatever they could to reason with our cargo and explain things to them. No easy task given that most of them were nearly deranged from the magic overload the veil was creating.

  At some point in the evening we’d passed close by our office building and Ralph had asked Captain Lee to stop the magic bus so they could run up to their office for a few moments. Ever since that trek into the all but demolished building they’d been pulling weapons and gadgets out of hidden places on their persons on a regular basis. They were armed with so much stuff I expected them to clank as they walked.

  As we left the bus behind and headed for the injured in the street, I kept an eye on the two men, watching for signs that the veil was affecting them. Although Weres were technically magical creatures, in their human form they had the potential to be affected by the veil’s poison. Hopefully their inability to shift would be the only affect. But I was keeping an eye on them just in case.

  Captain Lee reached the first body and bent to assess her condition. After a moment he stood up and looked at me, shaking his head. She was dead.

  I frowned and gave him a small nod.

  He picked her up and headed for the bus, placing her gently on top of a growing pile of dead we’d been stowing underneath the air bus, in the luggage area.

  At first we’d been leaving the dead in the street, thinking the police would pick them up later and take them to the morgue. But we soon realized the police had their hands full with the living.

  We’d been put in charge of the barely living.

  That left the dead to fend for themselves.

  I couldn’t resign myself to the prospect of leaving all those dead humans to molder forgotten in the streets. So we’d been gathering them up and delivering them to the unplanned care unit along with the injured.

  A soft cry sounded nearby and I looked down to find a young woman sprawled, face down, across the pavement. Her arms were jerking in an unnatural fashion and something stuck out from her side. I crouched beside her and reached for an arm, pulling her over onto her back.

  A panicked set of blue eyes stared up at me from a small, pale face. I gasped in surprise. A child of probably no more than three or four years old lay on its back on the pavement. Small arms and legs splayed as if she’d been crushed for a period of time under something heavy and hadn’t realized she could move yet. I felt a stab of fear, hoping the child’s back hadn’t been broken or something. But the tiny limbs started moving and the child whimpered as she tried to roll over and stand up.

  I reached for the little girl and she came gratefully into my arms, tucking her small, tear-stained face into my neck and wrapping her legs, monkey like, around my waist. She held on so tightly I wasn’t sure I’d be able to extricate her.

  I held the child with one arm and felt for a pulse on the young woman’s neck. It was there, faint and uneven but still there. She was barely alive.

  Feeling the small face pressed tightly against my neck I realized the young woman’s life was too important to let slide quietly away. I did something then that I’d resisted doing all night. I used my magic to heal a human.

  Without her permission.

  Placing my hand against the woman’s chest I allowed my power to slide into her and spread throughout her body, searching for damage and correcting it wherever I could. When I was done I knew that I hadn’t been able to fix all of the young mother’s physical problems but I thought she would live.

  I watched her for a moment, hoping she’d wake up so I wouldn’t have to put her on that bus with the other injured, but the long, brown lashes remained still against the pale cream of dirt and blood-smeared cheeks.

  A bloodcurdling scream split the air and I looked up in time to see Bob go down from a blow to the back with a metal bar of some kind. He lay unmoving as the largest crowd of deranged humans we’d encountered that night moved past him and stopped several feet away, silently staring a
t us.

  I stood to face them. The tiny body clutched against my chest vibrated with silent fear. Her face burrowed more tightly against my neck.

  A tall, black haired man dressed in scuffed, black leather stepped forward. He held some kind of long knife in one hand and a short, heavy club in the other. Both were covered in blood. “We felt magic in this street. Which one of you scum defiled our air with magic?”

  I felt Emo stiffen beside me. Astra, that’s Kaleme from Nerul’s court.

  My eyes jerked to my partner. Are you sure?

  He gave me a slight nod and we both returned our attention to the very dangerous creature in front of us. He was a Royal, from the rival court Emo and I had taken down several months earlier. We thought all remaining members had scattered into the shadows when their leader was killed.

  At least we assumed he’d been killed, because Emo’s curse had fled him.

  We hadn’t actually seen him die.

  I stared into Kaleme’s velvet black gaze and felt my mental drawers being shuffled. I decided to let him in.

  Mx. Phelps. At last we meet.

  Do your little friends know you’re a Royal?

  His broad shoulders shifted in a shrug. Humans are cattle. They follow anyone who sounds like he knows what he’s doing. I’ve captured their imagination. They see what I let them see.

  His well sculpted lips curved into a smug smile. I felt an overwhelming urge to erase that smile with a well-placed kick. But I was all too aware of the small mob behind him. The bloodied and filthy gang vibrated with the need to do violence. The smallest impetus would engage them like a laser stream from one of Ralph or Bob’s assortment of guns.

  I very purposefully glanced behind the royal. Who’s holding your leash these days, Kaleme? Is Nerul back there? Or have you gone rogue?

  He stiffened and then laughed, causing some of his mob to jump and peer at him in confusion. Fortunately for him their minds were clouded with rage and they weren’t thinking clearly. Or he might have had some ’splainin’ to do.

  It is only a matter of time, halfling, before the Royals rule this earth. You and your kind are a dying breed. Once the humans are gone you will have no one to influence. No one to save. You will either let your dark sides flourish or die. Either way it makes no difference to us.

  I frowned. So you’re just out here helping things along?

  A very succinct description of my task. He cocked his well-shaped head. Shall we get on with this?

  My answering smile was not nice. I handed the little girl to Ralph and turned back to Kaleme. Let’s dance, devil.

  Pulling my power forward, I blasted it toward him. He threw up a power shield and laughed. You get points for initiative, halfling.

  Point this. I told him as I tapped my daemon hickey and doubled my power. He continued smiling until I refocused the power into the street under his feet and blasted it out from under him, sending him into the air to crash against the side of a scorched and crumbling building.

  As I turned and stalked toward him my mental drawers shuffled and Emo’s distracted voice filled my head. You need my help with him?

  No. I’ll call you if I do. You take care of the other hundred bad guys.

  I felt his smile in my head. Gee thanks, boss. Then, amazingly, I felt a tingling pressure on my lips, as if a spectral lips had touched me there, infusing them with warmth and a sensual ting. My gaze jerked around to Emo and I found him staring after me, a tiny smile on his yummy mouth. Be careful, Astra.

  Holy shit!

  Despite the spectral invasion, I didn’t have time to panic. I had a really pissed off Royal Devil to vanquish. And speaking of Kaleme... His power blasted me in a wave of heat. It dumped me to the ground and I hit my butt hard on the fractured pavement. Fortunately I’d had a power shield up so it didn’t do as much damage as it could have.

  Kaleme climbed to his feet and followed the first discharge with a power arrow. Where the first wave of his power had washed over me like the blast from a laser bomb, the follow-up attack was more focused, sending power into my shield in a narrow beam that quickly started to penetrate.

  I threw myself onto my hands and flipped to the side. As I landed, the street erupted around me and I immediately pushed myself back into another flip. I pulled my power forward as I left the ground and my senses reeled as my world suddenly lost sound and movement. I came back to awareness as my feet landed just behind Kaleme and, before he could spin to attack, I sent my power into the back of his head, opening a hole the size of a marble in the middle of his silky, black hair.

  He spun, his black eyes registering shock. There was a jolt of light behind him and he jerked as a laser blast ripped into him. My eyes slid toward the source of the blast and I saw Ralph holding one of his many guns, a smile on his face. Bob stood beside him, holding the little girl in his arms. He seemed no worse for the wear after being clocked by Kaleme.

  I gave Ralph a thumbs up. Then I turned back to Kaleme.

  The royal was crumpling slowly to the ground. His gaze never left my face. Kaleme’s lips moved as if he was trying to speak and I leaned over him, careful to keep a power wall between us.

  His mouth struggled to form words but when they came to me finally they were in my head. The veil will kill you too, halfling.

  I shook my head, watching the light die from the evil, black eyes. The veil will fall to the light, Kaleme. You’ve been betting on the wrong gargoyle in this fight.

  ~SC~

  We dropped our tenth load of injured humans at the unplanned care unit and were waiting for Captain Lee’s men to offload them.

  I was leaning against a wall when my vision started to blur. Emo caught me under the arms before I hit the ground. I realized I hadn’t eaten all day and I was exhausted. We’d had to fight our way down several streets to gather up injured and, in many cases, fight the injured to get them into the bus.

  “Here,” he said, lowering me to the floor. “Just sit for a few minutes. We need to get you home.”

  “Well, you look like hell.” Doctor Lee didn’t look much better than I did. Her beautiful yellow eyes were red rimmed and underscored by dark circles. Her hair stood up in tufts as if she’d been fighting with some of her patients and she even had a dark bruise on one cheek. Her once pristine medical uniform was covered in blood and best unnamed substances.

  I managed a weak grin, “Right back atcha Doc.”

  She wiped her palms on the thighs of her uniform and grimaced. “I’ve had better days.” Standing over me, the Venusian looked a long way away and I felt the need to stand up to converse with her. But, since I’m barely taller than five feet, I knew it wouldn’t be much better if I did so I let my weary body stay right where it was and leaned my head against the wall to look up at her. “You’ve done His work tonight, Astra. Many of these people would have died out there if you hadn’t brought them in.”

  I shrugged, thinking that many of them were in better shape before they bumped up against me and my little rescue party. “My guys were great out there, especially your man. He saved our butts many times over.”

  She smiled and glanced over to where Captain Lee was organizing the dispersal of the injured from the bus. As if he felt her gaze he turned and they shared a look I envied. “He’s an amazing man.” Then she blinked and returned her strange yellow gaze to me. “You obviously need some rest. Can you come back and help us again in a few hours?”

  I glanced over at Bob and Ralph. They looked even worse than I did if that was possible. Their clothes were torn and wet and hanging off their bodies in weird ways. Their hair was gloppy with blood and dirt and hung in limp strands around their dirty, scratched faces. They both had deep gashes on their legs and were limping. Ralph had wrapped a dirty piece of cloth around one arm to staunch the flow of blood from a nasty bite. “Can you give these two some med care and food?”

  “I’ll take care of them.” I turned at the sound of my sister’s voice. Looking about as good as Doctor Lee,
Darma somehow still seemed happy. “Follow me.”

  I put my fist up as they limped by me and each of them tapped it with his own fist.

  “See you in about five hours, Astra?” Bob looked tired but I got the distinct impression he’d enjoyed kicking ass in the streets.

  Ralph nodded, “I’m thinking I might wear heavier boots. You know, so I can stomp my victims...” He glanced at Doctor Lee when she cleared her throat and raised one spiky eyebrow at him. “Um...I mean coerce my injured into submission faster.”

  I grinned, “And with less loss of blood on your part right?”

  He shook his head, “Ain’t that the truth.”

  “I’ll meet you both right here in five hours.”

  They nodded and followed Darma into a room across the hallway. I smiled when I saw that she’d carved out a little first aid area amid the chaos, complete with a rolling table covered in medi supplies and a couple of chairs.

  Like the room where she worked, the hallway was pretty much still covered in sick and injured. That hadn’t changed since we’d left the unit several hours earlier. If anything, our efforts had made it worse. In many places the injured were forced to sit up against the wall like I was doing because there wasn’t enough floor space for them to lie down.

  Emo handed me a cup of coffee and slid down the wall to sit next to me. I accepted it gratefully. “Oh my dear god in heaven, that tastes good,” I told him when I’d taken a sip of the hot, really dark brew.

  He nodded over his own cup. “I don’t know about you but I could use a couple of hours of sleep.”

  I grunted my agreement and we finished our coffee in companionable silence. Then I let him pull me to my feet.

  “Home?” Emo asked.

  I shook my head, thinking I needed to have a conversation with my father about Darma’s new wrist decoration. “Take me to my father’s house. My place is right in the heart of the mess downtown. I wouldn’t get much rest there.”

  I reached a telepathic finger toward my sister and tapped her on the shoulder. You ready to go home? Darma was bending over the bite in Ralph’s arm and didn’t even glance up.