“I can’t do that,” Mira said, staring Cynthia in the eyes.
For all I knew, she might have been the first person to ever do that, since there were so many other interesting places to look.
Mira looked ready for action, but I noticed a slight tremor in her hands as she shoved them in her pockets.
Cynthia put her hand to the doorknob, which didn’t require a passcode to leave, just to enter.
“Fine.” She looked to the guards. “Rita and Becky, come with me. We’ll draw their attention while you escort Mister Für and anyone else who is smart enough to leave to the Netherworld PPD station. Those who survive should meet back at base to debrief.”
A blonde and redhead came to join Cynthia.
I was terrified, but I also couldn’t let them risk themselves to clean up my mess.
“Come on, man,” I whispered, trying to convince Bert one more time, “are you really going to let these women die for you? Merge with me and let’s kick some ass together.”
He looked at me, and I thought I saw tears in his eyes.
He quickly turned away.
“That’s what they get paid for.” His head came up for a second. “Well, one of the things.” He glanced over at me. “If you’re smart, you’ll come with me, Mark.”
“I guess I’d rather be right than ‘smart,’ Bert.”
I gave up and joined Mira at the door. I wanted to be angry, but I couldn’t blame him. Not really. It was a shitty situation. I saw Bert move to the back of the room and touch a certain spot on the wall, which opened a secret door.
He looked back at me.
“Last chance,” he said. “I really don’t want to tell my mom that her favorite servant’s grandkid got killed, but I also don’t want to join you.”
I shook my head at him and turned away, nodding at Cynthia. “Let’s go get messy.”
She smirked as she opened the door, pulling weapons out of places they really shouldn’t have fit in.
“Sounds good,” she rasped. “One way or another, I always leave a stain.”
Chapter 16
Mira stepped next to me as Cynthia pulled the door open.
We rushed out of the room, heading down the stairs. The bodyguards worked quickly to get us down to the ground floor, laying out suppressive fire and magic. It was a good move and probably helped keep whomever was attacking from taking advantage of our exposed position.
Cynthia took the lead, with the two other succubi covering the rear.
Speaking of rears, I was in the middle, behind Mira, who had a surprisingly hypnotic booty.
Obviously, my lustful thoughts had surged again, and at a pretty horrible time too.
I pulled my attention back to the club as we reached the bottom of the stairs and ran behind the bar.
I wasn’t dumb enough to stick my head out and look around, so I extended my senses instead.
The feeling was of death, which was strange. It felt cold and empty, like a hole in reality. That was new. Nothing I'd experienced, or even read about, suggested that was possible. The warlock enhancement procedure must have dug deep to pull that out of my DNA.
The energy signatures of a few groups of people stood out in places, like the restroom and kitchen. Survivors, I guessed.
Finally, something deeper struck.
Fourteen people were scattered across the club. Eight of them were on our side of the room, and felt normal, at least for supernaturals. The other six, who were pushing their way towards the bar felt…for lack of a better word, wrong.
They were twisted and unnatural like Elias had been.
Two of them felt as though they’d started out as mages. Another two were like vampires. There was one who had werebeast blood of some type. The last one was a goblin.
I concentrated to expand my senses even further, picking up the strange energy formations from the Shaped. This was new considering I'd only been able to notice that signature with Elias after Bert and I had merged.
That meant that my powers were definitely enhanced, regardless of Bert. Hopefully I'd live long enough to see what else I could do.
One of the Frankenvamps shouted, “The warlock’s behind the bar. Get ready to rush him.”
Geez, did everyone know about warlocks now?
The word struck me again.
Warlock.
I didn’t like it, or maybe I just wasn’t ready to be labeled by it. I don’t know, but the history behind that name really had me wishing for some type of rebranding.
“Can we call me something else?” I shouted. “‘Spirit mage sounds pretty cool, right?"
“Fuck that hippie shit,” the werebeast called back in response. “You’re a warlock and an abomination. No use churching it up with lame new-age crap.”
I recognized his energy signature. It was the guy who spat at me outside the club.
“Hah!” I shot back. “This is coming from people that want to be called Shaped instead of Frankensteins?”
“That’s different,” he argued, firing at the bar. “We’re not Frankensteins because we’re not dead.”
A shot from Cynthia’s pistol caught him in the temple, dropping him.
“Yeah,” she said without menace, “we’re working on that part.”
She fired off a few more shots, then moved next to me and whispered, “We just got word that the extraction was successful and mister Für is on his way to safety. My team will give you a fighting chance, but then we’re gone.”
“I understand,” I acknowledged. “Thanks for your help.”
“Sorry we can’t stay," she said with a look of irritation, "but we’ll do one last thing to help you out. Each of us will take one civilian with us. It’s the most we can handle.”
That was pretty generous considering this wasn’t their fight.
“Good luck,” she said, kissing me on the cheek.
I might have wanted more, but the effects of the entrainment, as well as knowing where her mouth might have been tonight, killed that idea.
She touched her ear, talking into her headset. “Ten-second burst, change positions for five, cap an eight-second burst, then everyone grab a civilian and jump.”
Cynthia gave me one more nod.
“In five, four…”
True to her word, the entire team launched everything they had at the Shaped thugs. There were shots from various weapons, as well as fire, ice, electricity and other magical attacks.
It was impressive, but I didn’t have time to admire the show.
I pulled up the connector settings using my tattoo interface and linked mine to Mira’s. I didn’t think anyone could hear me over the sounds of battle, but this would be private, not to mention faster.
“What can you do?” I asked, looking at my bracelet. “I’m about to launch some pre-made runes at these guys, but that won’t slow them down for long. They have lines connecting to a core of energy that’s powering them. If we completely destroy those, they should die.”
“Mark?” Mira’s voice asked beaming to my connector.
“Of course it’s Mark. Who else would it be?”
“Sorry,” she said. “I was positive you were lying about being on the police force.”
Time was ticking away
“Yeah, thanks,” I grunted. “Can you save the jokes for later? I’ll happily buy you a drink and let you insult me all you want. That’s what usually happens when I talk to hot girls, anyway.”
“Hot?,” she said, sounding confused. “Oh.” She froze for a second, then snapped back into action. “I have a few tricks, but I can’t sense energy. Can you just tell me where to attack?”
By now the first wave of attacks was over and the mercenaries had pulled up shields as they changed position.
Damn, we were almost out of time.
My senses reached out to the Shaped, searching for their core of energy.
Elias’s had been in his torso. That wasn’t the case with these guys, though, which suggested whoever was behind this
shit had made adjustments. But how? There weren’t any witnesses to how I’d destroyed Elias…other than Kelly, but she was protected.
A thought struck.
They must have had some kind of transmitter built into Elias or something.
How else could they have known so much about me and warlocks?
I mean spirit mages.
Crap, that did sound like a new-age hippie thing, didn’t it?
“Here are the energy core locations, from left to right,” I said, refocusing. “Guy mage, left shoulder. Girl mage, right breast.”
I went on like that, quickly pointing out their weak areas.
I’d just finished when Cynthia shouted, “Grab someone and go. Evac now!”
And with that, we were officially out of time.
I got ready to move as each mercenary grabbed a civilian and vanished in a flash of light.
It was quite impressive.
They must have had personal portals. Those things were extremely expensive, mostly because they were illegal. No wonder Cynthia charged so much for security.
Within seconds they were all gone.
I took advantage of the light show to survey the situation.
Most of the Shaped were down, but they were already attached to bodies, repairing themselves. Two had rebuilt themselves enough to keep us from getting out the front door.
Not that it was an option.
We had to destroy these things.
The flashes of light from those portals gave me an idea. I ran my fingers along my bracelet, finding the right rune beads.
“Close your eyes, cover your ears and get ready to attack from the right side,” I commanded through the connector. “Do it now!”
I pulled three beads from the bracelet, sent energy into them and launched them to different parts of the room. The runes, being magical flash-bang grenades went off. The light and sound hurt, even after taking my own advice to cover my eyes and ears.
“Move,” I said, pushing through the pain.
“Ugh,” Mira replied, but I saw her moving a second later.
I sprinted to the left of the bar and summoned a fireball for the first time since being enhanced.
The usual murmuring came, though much louder than before. In addition, the power felt different than it used to.
Usually mages have to use the energy inside themselves to do magic, which tires them out quickly. I didn’t have very much, which meant my magic sucked.
At least, it used to.
Now, magic flowed out of me like a web, latching on to spots of energy that were loose in the room. It kept funneling through my body and into the fireball.
I looked down at my hand in awe.
A flame the size of my head filled my palm, and it was burning so hot that it was blue.
Without hesitating, I launched it at the closest target.
The guy-mage attempted to dodge, but was either still hurt or the fire was just too big. My blast caught him right in the upper left torso and burned a hole clean through his body. He looked shocked as he dissolved into the same pile of goo as Elias had when I’d killed him.
Holy shit.
That was awesome.
I reached out to make another fireball, but my magic web didn’t catch very much from the air this time.
Had I used up all the free energy?
While I was puzzling that out, the girl-mage took advantage of my confusion to launch electricity at me. My magic web latched onto it, capturing and converting it to raw energy.
Sweet.
I added that power to my reserves and shaped it into an ice spike. Then, remembering where her energy hub was, I set to move. But I stopped and launched it into the Goblin’s right thigh instead. It destroyed his energy core and killed him.
“What are you doing?” Mira yelled, not bothering to use the connector. “The mage was the bigger threat.”
Risking a quick look, I saw Mira standing over the body of one of the vampires as it dissolved. She was covered in blood, but seemed unharmed. I hadn’t seen or heard her shoot the vamp, and she certainly hadn’t used magic.
I gave her another once-over. What type of super was she?
“Oh, uh, well, you know,” I stammered, not wanting to say my reason for sparing her out loud. “She’s just, uh…”
Mira’s face registered shock. “Oh my god. It’s because you’d have to shoot her in her breast, isn’t it?”
“Maybe?” I answered, feeling like an ass.
Her look of disappointment was almost audible.
“Do you want me to kill her instead?” she asked, switching back to the connector.
“Would you mind?” I answered. “I mean, dead is dead, but I’m really not comfortable killing a woman, especially by shooting her…there. That's probably sexist, but—”
“Fine,” she interrupted. “Switch sides. Now.”
We crossed paths, a large part of me noticing the interesting things that happened when she ran. I should have been paying better attention, because the claws of the remaining vampire caught me in the chest, slicing me open.
Make that the claws of the female vampire.
Damn it’s hard to be a gentleman these days.
Chapter 17
I dodged a follow-up slash from the vampire’s other hand and ran to the DJ booth. With a little strain, I summoned a fireball, but didn’t throw it.
Why?
I was almost out of energy.
My own reserves were slowly refilling, but the bulk of what my energy web had absorbed was gone. The fireball was a little smaller than the one I’d thrown earlier, but it was also burning orange, instead of blue.
Any mage would see I was running out of juice.
I just hoped the vampire wouldn’t notice.
She licked her talons, tasting my blood.
“Ah, I can taste your life,” she said, grinning. “It tastes wonder…” Her smile dropped. “Eww, that tastes like shit.”
She spat a few times on the ground and wiped her tongue off on her dress.
Yet another situation where I probably should have been offended. Instead, I quickly scanned and confirmed her core was in her side, near a kidney. Gross, but lacking the sexual connotation of the breast.
I could do this.
Maybe.
“Hey,” I said, “nice girls swallow.” I waved the fireball in front of me as a distraction, hoping to keep her back long enough to make a plan.
Traditionally fire and wood were good ways to take out a vamp, but the shaping process seemed to let them keep their powers while removing their usual weaknesses. If I wanted to be sure to destroy her, I’d have to take out her energy core.
“Your blood is foul, abomination,” she hissed, wiping her mouth. “Why would I…” Her eyes caught. “Oh, you’re talking about semen.”
I smiled.
“Pig.”
I had issues killing women, not talking shit to them.
“Nobody asked you to taste my blood,” I argued, watching her as she prepared to attack. “That’s the risk you take when you steal someone’s drink.”
I could have launched the fire then, to keep her back, but there was a chance I wouldn’t have enough juice for another one.
No, I had to let her get close, as much as that was going to suck.
I pulled another of my rapidly-diminishing supply of rune beads from my bracelet, palming it, and then dove from behind the DJ booth as she launched herself at me.
Like all vampires, she was fast.
Very fast.
I dodged, moving noticeably quicker than before being enhanced, but not enough to get away. She grabbed my throat as I pressed the bead into her stomach, energizing it.
The bead, imbued with a stasis rune, had the desired effect, freezing her in place.
Like all of the beads, though, it was limited.
Shrinking the magic down and doing it quickly meant there were sacrifices in quality, but they were far better than nothing.
I had ten seconds before the stasis effect wore off, at most.
That would have been enough time to get away, if the bead hadn’t frozen all of her, including the hand around my neck.
There was no way to escape, but that wasn’t the plan. Instead, I pulled all the energy I had into the fireball, now a mix of blue and orange, and launched it into her side, incinerating her core and melting her.
Once again, I was covered in goo-kake, but I was alive. To be honest, I felt worse about killing her than I had Elias or the mage, but that was an issue for the team psychiatrist, assuming the IDU had one.
After a quick shake of the head, both to remove the goo and to clear my thoughts, I ran to help Mira.
As I moved to help, I took a good look at her. She’d grown a little, straining the fabric of her dress in interesting ways. She’d also sprouted fangs and claws, like a vampire, but her eyes were yellow, and she had scales covering her skin.
My jaw hung open as I stared at her. I was having trouble processing what I was seeing. But then, from the dark chambers of my mind, a name surfaced.
Naga.
I blinked as realization dawned.
Holy shit, she was a naga!
That was rare, at least according to the little history I remembered from school.
The naga, or snake people as they were commonly called, mostly stuck to the Badlands area of the Netherworld. Some people referred to them as weresnakes because of their scaly abilities, but naga was the term that held most prominence.
As far as I knew, the Badlands folks rarely left, or maybe they weren’t allowed to leave, making me wonder what her story was.
I’d definitely ask her about it later, preferably when very drunk.
She was doing well, for a were anyway, but she hadn’t managed to take out the mage. I could see she was definitely a were, or a shifter, anyway. It was always dangerous sending a shifter against a magic user, unless they could get in close and use their talents.
I sat back and watched the situation, looking for a sign she needed help. I didn’t want to disrespect her or her abilities by jumping in and possibly making things worse. I’d had my ass handed to me by people half my size, or smaller, numerous times and it’d taught me not to judge people by their appearances.
Bangkok Warlock: A Mark Vedis Supernatural Thriller Book 1 (Southeast Asia Paranormal Police Department) Page 9
