by TR Cameron
Kayleigh's voice crackled in her ear. "Get ready. They're on the move toward the top and there are more of them than we thought. They must have worn thermal dampeners."
She sighed. "So, a trap?"
"Trap," the tech confirmed.
Rath clapped. "So, are we going in?"
Diana grinned. "It's about time you watched Serenity, Rath."
The troll shrugged. "I get excitable about choice. Like to keep my options open."
That was a decent impression, accent and all.
She laughed. "Onward, people." In her HUD, the counter for Cara's team clicked down to zero.
Chapter Fifteen
Cara gestured, and the SWAT unit swung the outer door open. The BAM team waited for a moment in case the enemy had planted surprises in the entrance, but no explosions or traps activated. She led the way cautiously inside. Anik followed behind her and Tony brought up the rear. They held their stun rifles at the ready as they cleared the entry floor. The lobby contained no interesting features beyond a small door to what was assuredly a tiny deathtrap elevator and an unmanned guard desk in the center. She looked over the top and noticed that the security monitors were powered down.
"Cara, you're clear to the second level, but I see considerable activity up there,” Kayleigh warned. “The drone's at a bad angle to identify where people are horizontally, and the other one is still too far away to help. I estimate a minimum of five and as many as eight up there, and at least three big boys. Or girls. Whatever." While the other members of the team always came across as amped up over the comms, the tech generally sounded annoyed by anything that limited her omniscience.
Good attitude, blondie.
The ex-Marshall led the way up the staircase one quiet footfall at a time. Their training had ensured that she would be alert for most traps the thieves might try to set. Her ears strained for any sound that could betray the enemy’s movements and the sharp turn at the top didn’t fill her with confidence. She shifted the stun gun to her left hand and pulled and primed a flashbang with her right. "I'll bank it off the wall. If it goes wrong, head down the stairs. Fast."
She threw the canister with as much force as she could muster and aimed for the surface several feet above the end of the railing. The grenade flew true and bounced off to careen out of sight. She rounded the corner in the same moment that it detonated.
Her glasses and earplugs protected her from the blast, and she'd trained to ignore the concussion. With two quick shots, she eliminated the humans closest to her. The stun gun did its work effectively and efficiently, and she took care of the others beyond the initial group. Anik moved to her left, Tony to her right, and the two men fired on the remaining human targets. The enemy recovered quickly, however, and waved wands that dissipated the incoming energy.
Damn it.
"We have mages down here." Cara tossed her stun gun far enough out of the way that she wouldn't trip on it. She drew the Glock and fired in a smooth motion, aiming at the heart of the witch nearest her. The woman conjured a shield, but the triple burst of anti-magic bullets plowed through it. She staggered under the impacts but didn't fall and immediately waved her wand.
What the—
Cara dodged, but the lightning struck her a glancing blow. She summoned a growl as one of her magic deflectors went dark and shifted her aim to a wizard already engaged with Anik. It was a long shot, but she managed to put the round intended for his chest into his leg as he flung himself aside. There was no time for follow up, though, and she hastily holstered her pistol to prepare to meet the Kilomea who now attacked in earnest.
In the meantime, Tony had worked his way quietly around to the right. He found an angle on the witch attacking Cara, discharged his stun gun, and caught his target squarely. The electrical current overloaded her undefended nervous system as well as it would have done on a normal human, and he grinned in satisfaction. A small desk rocketed toward his head and he yelped and dropped to the floor. He shoved himself to his feet again in time to see the Kilomea who’d thrown the furniture bare his teeth in a fanged grin and charge.
Cara judged that there wouldn’t be enough time to raise her rifle before her own adversary reached her, so she chose a strategy of surprise instead. As her foe neared, she took two steps toward him and leapt forward and to the side to thrust her right foot on the top edge of a display case. She pushed off to reach shoulder level with her attacker and struck at his neck. Still in motion, she used their combined momentum to rotate around him and settle onto his shoulders. She rammed her shock gloves into his neck and ground them in as he howled in pain. He fell to his knees, and she lurched ahead into a tumble as his face planted itself in the wooden floor with the snap of crunching bones and cartilage.
Tony's response was more straightforward. He dropped his stun rifle and fired his pistol from the hip to deliver a triangle of bullets into his adversary’s face. The behemoth dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Tony shoved the pistol into its holster and bent to retrieve the non-lethal weapon again.
Anik took the more direct approach and raised his rifle to track one of the females. She was a little shorter than her kin, but her mass was equally as deadly as she bore down on him. He squeezed the trigger in a smooth rhythm and tracked her as she tried to dodge. He missed three times before he found his mark and maintained the assault as she fell. Once she was dead, he swung the weapon to the center of the room in search of his next target, but the remaining enemies flashed past on their way to the stairs. He managed a short, "Hey!" as they fled before an outstretched arm from one of the enemy made him stumble. Both he and Tony fired, but shields activated to deflect their attacks.
The two men hurried forward, but Cara blocked their pursuit hastily. "It’s too easy. Something's not right. Kayleigh, what's going on in here?"
The tech replied instantly. "They seem to have congregated a floor up, with more on the one above that. I have the second drone triangulating, but if they're rocking thermal protection, I can't be certain of the numbers. There are beings present on both levels, for sure. Some in the rooms and some near the stairs."
Cara nodded. "So, it’s still a trap."
"Definitely,” Diana agreed. “Let's turn it around on them. You try to draw them this time. If any from the fourth floor head your way, we'll attack from behind."
"Affirmative, boss. Wait one." She turned to her team. "Okay, Tony, ditch the stun gun. Anik, give me your anti-magic pistol mag." He complied, and she slotted it into her firearm. "Tony and I are on magicals. Anik, you hose down any Kilomeas who rear their ugly head. When we need to reload, sonic grenades go in. If you're in doubt, throw pepper or flashbangs if you have 'em, but call out anything other than the noisemakers."
She crept forward, knelt beside the stairs, and fed her fiber-optic camera around one of the poles of the banister. The feed opened in her glasses to reveal that once again, their route to the higher floor was uncontested. She let the camera retract into its housing under her forearm guard and waved her team ahead. They tiptoed up several steps, and her mind was already plotting the trajectory of the next grenade bank-shot when something poked warningly at the place where her spine met her skull. She stopped and peered in all directions as she tried to identify what had triggered her fear instinct
When she finally saw it, she was amazed she'd noticed at all. The difference in lighting on the landing was so subtle that it would have been entirely too easy to miss. Something clearly lingered in the way of the light from around the corner. She backed away and whispered, "It looks like an ambush ahead at the entrance to the third floor."
"Affirmative," Diana replied. "You got this?"
Cara laughed softly. "Oh, yeah, we've got this. Demolition man is in the house." She turned to Anik. "It’s time to earn your keep. We'll go up together and I'll snake a camera around the corner. If it's an obstruction, you blow it up. If it's criminals, we both shoot 'em. Any questions?"
He grinned. "If it's a criminal, can I sti
ll blow him up?"
"I'll go with definitely and totally yes on that one."
"Excellent."
Tony sighed. "I’m always forgotten. That's me. I guess I'll hang out down here and shop for something nice for my future wife."
Cara crooked a finger at him. "You have the toughest job of all. If these are wizards, you’ll need to leave cover and shoot them, since I’ll most likely be on the floor. We have to assume they'll see the camera, even though they probably won't."
He drew his backup gun with his off-hand to join the Glock he held in the other. "Okay, let's do this." The former cop had already proven himself to be a master of the dual wield on the shooting range. Cara’s pride still smarted from how easily he’d outstripped her.
Maybe our resident cowboy should carry two pistols, plus the Ruger.
She crawled forward with Anik at her side. He carried shaped charges in each hand, ready to deploy against anything they might encounter. She slithered as close as she could and slid the camera around the edge. A hasty blockade had been created by a desk wedged diagonally with chairs packed into the gaps. Fortunately, the corner of the desk also blocked the view of their approach from below, so Anik was able to wriggle closer and place the explosives. He slid back with a grin and whispered, "I hope they like splinters because they're gonna get some."
The timers counted down and the barrier disintegrated. They barreled around the corner to find that the enemy was smarter than they had expected. Wizards and witches had raised shields in preparation for the incursion and none of them had taken any damage. Worse, they had positioned a rifleman at each side. Cara slid to avoid the incoming bullets and retargeted her pistol on the nearest gunman. Unfortunately, this wasted precious anti-magic rounds.
Tony was the next to react, but his precipitous action was badly timed. The rounds from the other rifleman struck his vest and he tumbled awkwardly down the stairs. Anik fired half a carbine magazine and removed one man from the picture before the wizard beside him could raise a shield to protect him. The demolitions expert traversed his rifle across the enemy on full auto until the weapon clicked empty, but the magazine was filled with regular bullets, which were easily deflected by the mages.
Cara took advantage of their distraction to plant a fist in the face of the nearest wizard. He recoiled from the blow and stumbled dazedly. She immediately followed with a kick that propelled him into the witch beside him.
"Take them, Anik," she shouted as she ducked under a punch from one of the Kilomea before the even-larger brute beside him kicked her. Her ribs cracked under the blow, and she was instantly thankful for the Kevlar that protected them from shattering. She literally bounced off the floor an instant before she impacted the far wall and lay stunned as the room spun around her. The closest of the two giants advanced and the other lunged at Anik.
The look on his face was pure panic as he was buried under a mountain of alien creature. If the situation hadn't been so dire, Cara would have laughed. As it was, she did the only thing she could do. She yelled and thrust the hand that wasn't trapped beneath her at her Kilomea. Bolts of shaped flame clustered in the foe’s chest. Her vision sharpened enough that she could see his shocked expression as the darts drilled into and through him, then emerged on the far side to embed themselves in the ceiling, where they began to smolder. She had enough time for three final thoughts as she fell into darkness.
Bad angle. Fire. That's not good.
Anik's last thought before impact was, Holy hell, he's immense. Pain prompted a string of curses before his brain started working again. The monster had rolled him toward the landing, and the demolitions expert now had the perfect position. He yelled, "Watch out, Tony!" and kicked the Kilomea’s knee as the brute climbed to his feet. The unexpected strike forced his adversary to drop forward, and he thrust his heel in the giant's thigh to finish the job. The colossus bellowed in surprise as gravity took its inevitable course. Tony avoided the enemy, raced past Anik, and scowled as he brought his weapons to bear.
The pistols barked as he aimed at the wizards and fired through each of their shields. No blood flowed, although they fell in a sprawled heap. As a former officer, he knew only too well what that meant. They wore Kevlar, which wasn’t the best news. Still, the impact provided enough of a distraction for him to stalk forward and drive a boot into each of their heads and take them out of the fight. He jogged away in the direction Cara had taken.
Anik eased cautiously around the corner at the top of the stairs. At the bottom, the Kilomea struggled groggily to his feet. The agent smiled as he retrieved a flash bang and a sonic grenade, popped the seal on each, and lobbed them underhanded at his foe. His timing was flawless, and they detonated on impact with the massive creature. The resulting sound stunned the behemoth and he dropped in a heap as the sound blew his eardrums out. Anik thought about finishing the creature, but it was enough to have him out of action.
For now.
He staggered into the room and knelt to zip-tie the fallen. Tony had wrangled Cara into a sitting position and helped to her sip a healing potion held in a protective canister. The detonations expert had one on his belt as well, and while they preferred not to waste valuable resources, Diana had told them not to second-guess themselves. If they thought they might need it, they would worry about the consequences later.
Tony and Cara stood together and she cradled her chest. Her breathing seemed a little easier, so she was clearly on the mend. Anik joined them, and the trio walked slowly toward the stairs once more.
Kayleigh's voice crackled over the comms and they startled. "There's a group on the fourth floor. Be careful."
Diana's reply came in a growling tone. "The more the merrier. Move your tails, slackers, or there won't be any left for you."
Tony shook his head and Anik laughed. Cara triggered her mic, which had been knocked offline when she'd struck the wall. "I love you, too, boss. Try not to step on any tripwires."
Diana's response was colorfully crude as they started up the stairs at a jog. Judging by the previous patterns, this floor would probably be the most difficult. Like the boss said, they didn’t want to miss out on the fun.
Chapter Sixteen
Diana did, in fact, check carefully for traps on the way down. She had watched the feed Kayleigh bounced from Cara’s glasses into a window on hers. The blockade was an admirable step in strategy and it also made her cautious. Rath was a step behind on her left and Sloan on the right. They arrived at the main room without meeting opposition, but before she could question this, her bracelet turned ice cold.
Fuck me. Illusions. Why didn’t I anticipate that?
She shouted, “Pepper!” and hurled a grenade ahead. It bounced off something and detonated. The illusionary wall that concealed the enemy vanished. Three people with rifles opened fire, and she summoned a force shield to protect them from the onslaught. The bullets ricocheted wildly and bounced around the room. The noxious cloud caught a Kilomea, and he choked and hacked as he spun to the rear of their formation. A nearby wizard waved his wand and directed the vapor away from the group.
“We gotta move. Go,” Diana commanded and deactivated the shield as Rath and Sloan scattered in opposite directions. The team’s undercover officer, who wore a mask to conceal his features, did the smart thing and retreated to the staircase where the angles would provide him a clear firing line while it also afforded him a measure of cover. True to their natures, Diana and Rath charged ahead.
The troll pounded toward the rifleman on the left and a woman with a wand behind him. A flurry of shots spewed viciously, but the diminutive assailant used the wall as a launch pad to become a projectile of his own. The rifleman ducked to avoid him, and Rath grinned. The witch raised her wand level with the living missile in the nick of time, but the force she conjured to deflect him didn’t prevent his batons from making contact with her shoulders. At a sharp sizzle and pop, she collapsed, temporarily stunned.
Her defensive maneuver careened the trol
l toward a Kilomea. The creature opened its arms wide to catch him, and Rath twisted to lead with his legs. The giant grabbed hold as they touched but the strong hands pinched empty air, having barely missed the troll when he shrunk enough to avoid being caught. He grew again quickly and shoved against his assailant’s hands, ran up the enormous body, and pushed off once he reached the perfect launching place. He tumbled into a back somersault and had reached five feet in height when he landed heavily. A few moments later, he stood at just over seven and grinned as he blocked the Kilomea’s punch. The two opponents were now on a far more even footing.
Diana saw it all in flashes as she battled her own foes. A duo of wizards had unleashed a murderous volley of blasts immediately when her shield fell. The lightning and fire were absorbed by the protective aura of her magic deflectors, which popped rapidly in series.
Shit. Only one left.
The attacks forced her to redirect her charge toward the largest Kilomea in the room rather than the rifleman she’d originally targeted. She snatched a pair of grenades without looking, but repeated practice ensured that she had a sonic in her right and a flashbang in the other. She called out as she threw them. “Light and scream out!”
The sound ordnance detonated at the feet of the wizards and rendered them insensate, for a while at least. The Kilomea ahead batted the projectile intended for him away, and it sailed past Rath and into the far corner. In the brief look she had as she tracked the deflected item, it seemed like the two giant creatures took turns to exchange furious punches and blows.
Surely not. It must be a trick of the light.
The flashbang distracted the troll’s challenger for an instant, and Rath’s uppercut catapulted him back to crash onto a display case. Shards of glass sliced through the Kilomea’s skin and splinters embedded themselves in various locations on his way to the floor.
