“Mother fucker,” said Logan. “Fucking shit.” At first, Suri thought he was losing it. Panicking. But when she looked over, he already had his gun out.
Startled, that’s all. That should have been my reaction, too. Maybe my emotions are still fried from Lodum.
Logan fired his gun, loud like a cannon next to Suri’s ear. It was a Colt Anaconda, long-barreled revolver, blasting .44 Magnum bullets back at the car. Clint Eastwood’s gun. Logan handled it with ease.
He shifted before Suri’s eyes. Stripes of short, black fur grew down from his forehead, over his eyes, to his chin. They looked like Native American war tattoos.
Black and blood. Is he a badger shifter?
It was one of the rarest kinds. One in a thousand.
Badger shifter’s hearing and sense of smell are nothing special. They’re slow, and have bad eyesight. As Suri was watching, one of Logan’s bullets rang off a the post of a street light. Small fangs came down from his upper lip. His ears became furry.
What badgers have above all other shifters is durability. They are unbelievably tough. Going by the coarse, white fur starting to stick out the back of his shirt, he was a honey badger. The toughest kind. Basically impossible to kill, and fearless to boot.
“Get behind me,” he said. “Run to the kitchen. On three.”
He counted down. At “one,” he stood and shot his revolver straight at the car.
The guy with the Uzi didn’t miss a beat. Logan’s jacket shredded as bullets smacked into his flesh. He staggered back a step. Steadied himself, and fired back.
Suri summoned a psionic shield around her head and sprinted for the kitchen counter. She dove over it, glass crunching as she handed on the other side. Her heart was pounding now. The psionic shield was like an army helmet. It could deflect a bullet, but not take one head-on. Nothing like Logan.
“I’m over!” Suri shouted. She raised both hands, concentrated and sent her psionic shield through the restaurant, to Logan. It shimmered around his head. Suri wasn’t sure if he needed it, but it was already summoned. Better than nothing.
Logan turned and ducked, taking cover in the spot where the backs of two booths meet. A flick of his wrist opened the chamber of his revolver. Smoking bullet shells clattered to the floor. The Uzi stopped firing.
Suri thought Logan had hit the shooter. A peek above the counter showed a shirtless Lee leap onto the hood of the car. Fire a pump-action shotgun at the window shield. Two more shots, smoking red shells flying through the air. Spider web cracks spread over the glass, but it didn’t break. Bullet-proof.
Lee shot at the sunroof, back-flipped off the hood. He kept firing, quickly walking backwards, away from the vehicle. His back was covered with a tattoo of a huge dragon made in an Asian design. The ink went over his shoulders, down his arms to his wrists, and halfway up his neck.
It was time Suri showed the creeps in the car who they were messing with.
She spat out a dark magic spell. Borderline black magic. She never dreamed she would use it around an enforcer, but Lee needed cover for his retreat. A glance showed Logan breathing heavy, eyes shut.
He took those bullets for me.
Dark magic screamed out from Suri’s throat. The spell took form in the air above the kitchen. A black skull, lit with eyes of fire.
It knew Suri’s desire and sped over Logan’s head for the bad guys’ car. Suri’s throat was raw, as if she’d been screaming for hours. She coughed, gasped for air. Held herself up on the counter and watched.
Lee was once again nowhere to be seen. Most likely lurking the shadows, waiting to make his next pounce.
The skull hovered over the car and went in through the sunroof. Gunfire exploded from inside the car, flashing light from the gun barrels barely visible through the tinted glass. Someone screamed. Suri closed her eyes. Clenched a fist. She should have used a different spell. No one deserves that kind of death.
Three car doors opened. A man covered in blood got out and ran down the street. Suri’s vision swam. She was drained from the spell, tired from a belly full of food. Head pounding from too much alcohol.
The last thing she saw before closing her eyes was Lee, springing from the shadows and gunning down the last assassin with two pumps of his shotgun.
* * *
“She’s awake.”
Logan’s voice. Suri opened her eyes a crack, saw the blurry outline of his black beard.
Lee said something in Chinese. It sounded angry. Logan answered with a quick-tongued reply.
A badger shifter and bilingual. Why had McNaulty laughed about making me his partner?
“What’d he say?” Suri mumbled, sitting up. Glass crunched under her ass. She was still in the kitchen.
“He says you’re a warlock.” A common term for black magic users.
“Bad,” said Lee, in heavily accented English. He brushed up the glass on the floor with a broom. The restaurant was trashed. It would be thousands in repairs.
“I’m not,” Suri explained, getting to her feet. She wiped at her runny nose. Fingers came back red with blood. “Is it over?”
Logan laughed. “I’d say so.” She followed his gaze to the side of the restaurant. Four dead men lay in a row on the floor. A plastic tarp had been placed under them, to collect the blood seeping out from their many wounds.
Suri looked away. She didn’t want to see what she’d done.
Logan was unphased. “Come on,” he said. “I need your eyes.”
“Are you ok?” Suri asked. He grabbed her hand, helped heave Suri up off the floor.
“What, this?” Logan gestured at the bullet holes in his jacket, quirked a grin. “I knew they were regular bullets from the beginning. After I shift, they’re not a problem.”
Lee snorted. “Tough guy,” he said. “He’ll take ice bath tonight. Big bruises.”
“Bah,” said Logan. “You talk too much, Lee.”
Lee chuckled. Made a yapping dog’s mouth with the fingers and thumb of one hand, and went back to sweeping. I’d have to get his story from Logan, later.
“I need you to tell me where these jokers came from,” said Logan, looking down the bodies.
Suri frowned. “I don’t know how to do that.”
“Eye,” said Lee, from the side of the store. He tapped the middle of his forehead with one finger.
Suri wanted to tell them him it doesn’t work that way, but they would ask her to try anyways. So she opened her third eye—and was flooded with light. “Woah,” she muttered, squinting her eyes. The bodies had traces of powerful magic all over them.
“What do you see?”
Magic residue is a bit like a scent. It tells you roughly what kind of magic was used in an area, or around a person. But not who used it, or where they had gone.
“Black magic,” Suri said. “Definitely. Not from my spell,” she added, for Lee’s benefit.
“Is that all? I thought you were supposed to be good at this.”
“Hold on,” she said, stepping closer.
Tiny motes of multicolored light shimmered over each body. Hundreds of them, shifting and trading places, popping in and out of existence. Suri unfocused her eyes. Let herself take in the entire pattern instead of focusing on one part at a time.
A group of purple and green motes formed a line over one of the bodies. Small, arcane letters. The words of a spell.
Suri pointed to the body. “This one is a necromancer. Or he came straight here after meeting one. The other three are harder to read.”
Logan crouched next to the body. Got real close and bent over. Fur briefly appearing on his face as he sniffed the air.
Suri turned her attention to the others. The motes were erratic, dancing all over the place. Barely holding any pattern. But something about the way they moved felt familiar.
They’re not erratic, she decided. Just moving too fast for me to see.
Patterns appeared and broke apart in the blink of an eye. While the motes danced all over the place, ea
ch one also vibrated to the same frequency. Different from the first body, whose motes had been steady.
I know this. Where have I felt this magic before?
Suri opened her third eye even more. Let herself fall into the frequency. The motes were connected, but it was as if something had scrambled the patterns.
She closed her third eye and slipped out of the trance. “I thought I had something…” she shook her head. “The magic is scrambled. It’s black magic, but I can’t tell you any more.”
Logan frowned. Ran a hand over his thick beard. Lee turned away and went back to sweeping.
I let them down.
The pattern still itched at Suri’s memory. She knew what it was…she’d felt it before…but could not remember where. Maybe it had been a long time ago.
“Sorry,” she said.
Logan patted her on the back. “Don’t worry about it. Maybe you’re still a little shook up.” He lit a cigarette and took a long drag. A tendril of smoke rose from the orange tip, leaving a trail as he moved to the door. “Let’s go,” he said.
“What about the bodies?” The car was already off the street, moved out of sight.
“Lee will take care of it.” The door swung shut, bells chiming as Logan walked out into the night.
Suri reached to pull the door open again. Lee’s tattooed arm got there first. Blocked her. She hadn’t even heard him come up from behind.
“Careful,” Lee whispered. His eyes darted to Logan. “He’s marked.” Lee tapped his neck. “Property.” Then he was gone, back to cleaning his shop.
Marked?
Suri didn’t have a clue what he meant by that, but it didn’t sound good.
The neon green dragon winked at her as Suri swung onto Blackbird. “I’ll drive,” she said, holding out her hand for the keys. “Tell me where to go.”
Logan flicked his cigarette down a storm drain and got on the back. “Head for Russian Hill,” he said.
Five blocks out of Chinatown and it started to rain. Suri popped up the collar on her leather jacket and lowered her head. Thunder rumbled in the distance.
She turned onto Jackson Street, wondering what secrets her partner was holding back.
17
There was a second of silence, then the councillors were up and rushing to the balcony. They didn’t get far before they saw what was going on. The tall, gothic windows set into the walls lit up like Christmas lights as thick bands of lightning crashed into the earth right outside.
“They’re already here,” a councillor breathed.
“Who?” Mona asked. She grabbed onto Kelendril to keep from falling down as a blast rocked the tower. In a moment all the council members and Zyzz were gone, teleported to safety.
Kelendril took Mona’s hand. “The fae. They came for the behelit. Hold on.”
She clenched his hand, and was watching the roiling clouds when a thunderous boom sounded directly overhead. The ceiling exploded into chunks of rock and showered through the air. The tower wobbled, leaned too far and began to break apart like a Jenga puzzle. The floor crumbled out from under Mona, then everything vanished.
Kelendril let go of her hand. They stood in a large auditorium somewhere on campus. Thunder boomed outside, but it was nothing compared to before. The junior students, ordered to stay in the auditorium, had seen them port in and quickly gathered around Kelendril.
“What’s happening? Is it another attack?”
“Stay with the other students for now,” Kelendril said, addressing Mona. “Not a word to anyone.” He turned to the others. “Nothing to worry about,” he said with a reassuring smile. “The Masters are convening right now to deal with it. I’ll send someone to check on you in a bit.”
I need to learn how to lie like that, Mona thought, and watched him port again.
The junior students went back to the windows. “It’s been three days,” one of them said. “I can’t take it any longer. I have to get out of here.”
“They won’t even tell us what’s going on,” another one sighed. “I say we join the defenders. We can help.”
“There are people out there,” said a girl, pointing at the yard.
Mona went to the nearest window and looked out. A score of armored figures strode across the Academy grounds for the infirmary. Spells of protection shimmered around them, blurring their features and making it impossible to distinguish more than their basic shape.
Better than an arch demon, but Mona was still in a hell of a lot of trouble.
“Two days before anything serious happens,” she muttered. “Yea, right.”
She held up her left hand and gave it a complete look over. Two ugly scars crossed her palm, one going down to her wrist. Many more twisted around her arms like white barbed wire. My first battle scars. The back of her shoulder felt like it had a scar too, but she didn’t have a mirror to check.
Getting scars wasn’t a big deal; they were practically a monthly experience for Demon Hunters. Mona wasn’t about to give up joining them on account of cosmetics. They were at war, after all. What mattered at the moment was her ability to fight.
Barely capable. She was worse off than than when she had faced the demons in Faerie. Physically, her body felt stiff and bruised. On the other hand, her magic had fully replenished and she was ready to use big spells again.
Then there was the behelit.
Mona reached into her pool of magic and tentatively touched her connection to the behelit seed. It responded by strengthening their connection. A trickle of its magic entered her own, and Mona quickly retreated, cutting the connection.
Sweat broke out on her forehead. Everyone had heard stories of magi who overloaded with magic and burnt out. It was a gruesome way to die, and exactly what would happen to Mona if she tried and failed to control the behelit. That was what Kelendril and the councillors claimed, anyways.
All things considered, not exactly reliable sources. Still, she couldn’t risk the connection until she knew more. She watched the party of fae use magic to wrench off the infirmary front door, toss it over their heads and onto the grass behind them.
I have to do my own research on the behelit, Mona concluded. There was much she hadn’t been told and, given the circumstances, she wanted to rely on the councillors as little as possible. It would be best to learn in secret and progress with the behelit on her own. Only then could she be sure that she was working for herself, and not as a pawn in one of their schemes.
The Master’s Archive in the library was her best shot at finding answers. That was where the most important books were kept, and her only chance at getting answers from a page instead of a mouth.
The archive was off limits to students, but there was no way someone was guarding it. Mona could stay in the library all day if she had to, and all the better if the councillors had to run around like chickens trying to find her. At least she hadn’t been put in irons, like the councillors wanted. Not yet, anyways. The lightning strikes on the Headmaster's tower had interrupted their little meeting and saved her from being arrested. A bit of luck had saved Mona’s liberty, and she intended to keep it.
Zyzz is with the councillors. I can save the entire Academy, and Zyzz too, with the behelit.
The Masters were always grumbling about the dangers of magic. “Slow and cautious” was practically their motto. No wonder the Academy had been unprepared for an attack. If the bickering councillors were any indication, they wouldn’t last very long against the fae.
Mona opened the back door of the auditorium and exited onto the Academy grounds. The sun was up, but the thick cover of clouds made it feel like twilight. She set out for the library and stopped when she heard footsteps. She whirled, ready to sling magic, and terrified a pack of junior students.
“Go back inside,” she hissed, trying to stay quiet. She had no idea what else was lurking in the storm, and she didn’t want to find out. Having a gaggle of students trailing her around campus was only going to slow her down, or worse, get them all killed.<
br />
“We’re not going anywhere. I mean, not back inside,” said a heavyset kid with curly brown hair. He clenched a fist at his side. “I’m not going to wait for them to come get me.”
“Them?” Mona asked.
“The hell spawn, obviously. Where have you been? The whole Academy is under attack by creatures from the Nine Hells. It’s only a matter of time they get into the auditorium, and then we’re screwed.”
“Royally screwed,” his friend added.
“Yeah,” said a young, teenaged girl. “Take us to where the Masters are.” She had the stubborn look of someone who wouldn’t budge.
“Fine,” Mona said, walking away from the auditorium. “You can come with me, but stay quiet and let me scout ahead.” I’ll stop at the dormitory and leave them there, she thought. The Masters can guard them. I can’t drag them into my mess.
The Academy was no place for juniors. Heck, it wasn’t a place for anyone. Demons and fae, stay far away, as the saying goes. But Mona had business to take care of, and she knew how to handle herself around demons. Well, a couple of small ones, anyways. These kids wouldn’t have a chance.
The other students weren’t like Mona and Zyzz. They had families, homes outside the Academy. Most of them probably wanted to be doctors or mage-engineers. The ordinary, ungifted human world payed huge amounts of money for scientists with magical abilities. The coveted career path started with an honors degree from a top Academy and finished at Stanford or MIT. Never mind that it was the Demon Hunter Guild and countless other magi factions keeping the human realm safe from supernatural invaders. To those going about their normal lives, all of that was a problem for someone else. It had nothing to do with them, as they went about getting rich. Rogue necromancers and other such things were a vague threat they heard about every so often in the news. Almost worse was a mage studying anything violent. It was totally unsophisticated, a waste of biological talent when there were real issues to be solved. Except in times like these, of course. That one period every few hundred years when the magical shit hits fan and everyone gets dirty.
The students had bravery, if nothing else. How brave they would be once they came face to face with a hungry demon was another story. For now, they were doing well at slinking across the Academy grounds.
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