by D. R. Rosier
Sadie just ignored the swinging pipe, trusting in both her durability as a creation and the enchanted armor he’d created for her. The pipe slammed into her side powerfully, but her lunge struck through and the sword impaled the alien’s throat. She twisted the sword and turned as she side kicked the alien in the chest and sent him flying back.
Katie’s spell went off before any of the other aliens could close on them in the small office space, and small compact white-hot suns exploded around their heads.
He asked teasingly, “Sunburst?” since that’s what he’d called her spell a couple of days ago.
Katie grinned, “I liked the name, and it fits better with the visual and focus, and cuts down on a step. I tested it yesterday afternoon.”
The door to the large machine shop floor was kicked open. They hadn’t exactly been subtle, and Katie held up her enchantment and shot the large enchanted spell into the vast room. Bria and Sadie lunged forward, and they cut down the one moving through the doorway almost quicker than he could even track with his eyes.
He said, “Two females rabbited out of the emergency exit,” as Katie’s spell snuffed out all the life he felt in that room.
He smirked, “But they’re running toward the medical building.”
Katie snickered, “Let’s go.”
The four of them turned and left at a jog and ran for the medical building. It was smaller, but far from small. The front of the place was a medical store, and the back a mini-warehouse of sorts. On the good side, the two alien females went down to a lightning strike before they were even halfway there, on the bad side they’d let out two very short screams of agony as their brains were cooked.
Katie slowed and waved, “Let’s see what happens. They already know we’re coming, if we’re lucky some will run…” she trailed off as five males raced out of the building brandishing weapons, and immediately died in a rain of lighting strikes.
She waved with a dark chuckle, “That.”
They waited a bit more, but it didn’t look like the rest of the aliens were so eager to run out to their deaths.
He noted, “There has to be a lot of flammable things in there, like paper, and oh… oxygen tanks.”
Katie laughed, “Bria?”
Bria nodded, and a powerful plume of flame left her hand, and raced into the storefront through the broken doorway. The flames caught almost immediately. The building was mostly brick, it might not even spread to the back where most of the aliens were, but maybe it would smoke them out. They waited as the fire picked up speed, and it started to consume everything on the metal shelves. Plastic tubing, gauze, syringes, the packaging, and then…
Boom!
They all flinched involuntarily, as half the front wall was blown out just a hundred feet away. Oxygen tanks. That seemed to do the trick, and the ball lightnings over the back of the building started to go to town as they flowed out of the emergency exit. The four of them were in no danger at all, standing on the opposite side of the building. He almost felt guilty, over the panicked screams and most likely terror they felt, as they raced away from deadly danger and right into death almost mindlessly.
Sadie said, “That was weird, when I killed that one? The sword tried to eat its life force but couldn’t.”
He nodded in agreement, “They don’t belong here, and they’re here to kill us and steal our world. This is an extermination, on both sides, because of that.”
He had to wonder though, if they were all evil, or just their government. Were these females and males just displaced colonists? It didn’t matter, they had to do what they had to do. There was no getting them off the planet, and they couldn’t stay here. Evil or not, they would all happily kill every elf, dragon, and human they ran across, if they could.
Katie smirked, “Let’s get rid of the last odd one, then we can go after the houses since we’ve got that down.”
He nodded, “They’ve taken over a whole strip mall. A few of them are out hunting and looting. There’s a gas station across the street, I can put us on the roof, or behind it?”
Katie said, “The latter, we’re probably going to have to breach again, no point in wasting the magic to get down.”
He nodded, and then teleported them there. It was hot in east Texas and the sun beat down on them.
They took stock. There were a hundred and eighty inside the buildings, and twenty of them out and about within a mile of the place. The stores were brick and mortar, not easy to set on fire, but inside there’d be plenty of stuff to burn, including the drywall. There was an Ace hardware, a pizza place, a subway, and a bar.
Katie compressed her lips, “Your spell should cover it all so they can’t break out. Bria can start the fire at Ace hardware and the bar at the other end. I don’t think this will be any more difficult than the houses. I’ll take out any threats moving in our direction with the smaller fire spell, or individual ones if called for.”
He nodded, at two hundred and fifty feet per side it should cover all four stores easily. He hit the top of the wall right by the roof with his enchantment, and the ball lightning grid covered the entire strip mall plus the parking lot out to the road.
The large ace hardware front window exploded into the store, and Bria followed that up with a simple exploding fireball that started the front of the store burning merrily. She did the same at the other end of the strip mall, setting the bar aflame.
The aliens were nothing but predictable, several of the males rushed out to die in a rain of lightning. The rest chose not to for the moment, but they were surrounded by a building fire that would slowly eat toward the center of the large building of suites. They’d either die of smoke inhalation, burn, or be taken down by lightning as the four of them watched.
The twenty others out looting and hunting seemed to notice the thick black smoke rising at different times, and ran in to investigate. Katie picked them off in twos and threes before they close within melee range.
One of the more clever aliens ran out of the subway with a stainless steel table over their head, but that only made the poor female die even slower, as without hitting the head directly it took three lightning strikes through the table and into her arms to kill her.
Fucking aliens, he felt a little sick about it. Not that he was doing anything wrong, but the stupidity of it. There was no guarantee, as far as he knew, that the aliens wouldn’t just try again in a couple of years, or in another generation.
The day continued on, and they managed to take out six more groups before midafternoon before their magic was exhausted for the day. It was the one offs, that didn’t allow them to take all thirteen of the ones remaining. The looters and hunters, making them waste four or five more spells per attack to finish a group off.
Still, they had three more of the groups to go when they headed back to the sanctuary. Without communications to warn the other groups, it was all getting rather predictable. The enemy couldn’t adapt to their simple but effective tactics simply because they had no awareness of what the other groups had faced as they were killed to the last one.
He’d also during the day, had been paying attention to Sadie and trying to figure out how he really felt about her. Katie had said he was in denial, or that Bria said his scent indicated that, but he wasn’t sure. The deep and potent emotions he felt for Katie made that difficult, plus he’d been mostly focused on the alien hunt.
Once again, him and Katie had been pretty worked up when they got back to the house. The magic, relative danger, and their subtle and warm shared gazes throughout the day had all added up to have his and her bodies humming with desire.
However, outside of a rather hot and lingering kiss when they got back, they decided to let the anticipation build even further. His whole body was buzzing with need as he watched her walk away. Delayed gratification could be a good thing and make it better, or so he kept telling himself. They also couldn’t spend all their time in bed. Fucking like rabbits twice a day, when waking up and when going to sleep,
was more than enough. He didn’t mind at all when she’d suggested the idea that they start on that life balance thing and spend a little time apart.
It made sense to him. The absence would make the wait and anticipation even better for later that night, and if they started to live their lives as normally as possibly while within the whirlwind of a nascent relationship, it would mean they wouldn’t ever get to that stage where they needed alone time, and one of them started to feel smothered. It would keep the fires between them burning bright, at least he hoped it would, and he knew Katie did as well.
So, Katie had gone off to the library, and after a bath to get the stink of fire and death off of him, he lounged in the kitchen with Sadie while she worked on an early dinner, and he reviewed Katie’s magical knowledge. He’d have been practicing to gain mastery of all the new spells he now had at his fingertips, if it wasn’t for the fact he was out of magic. That would have to wait until this hunt was over, when he could start doing that and also checking out more communities. He had his animals at quite a few he hadn’t been to yet.
Regardless, he was pretty sure Katie was right about her idea, given how much and how ridiculously he missed her presence in that moment. Plus, time alone or with others was healthy. Right and better didn’t mean easy however. He’d already had several fantasies of chasing her down and bending her over the table in the library or taking her up against a bookcase. He might’ve been a little obsessed with the woman he loved, but he did his best to focus on new magic and Sadie.
Still, he had to wonder if Katie was getting anymore real work done than he was.
Chapter Eleven
The kitchen stayed at a good cool temperature despite the hot oven and the countertop grill. He watched Sadie cook as he studied the spells and focused half-heartedly. She was brazing the chicken on the flames for some reason he couldn’t quite discern, before putting them in a pan with tomato sauce, rice, onions, mushrooms, and a whole list of spices.
It was just him and Sadie, with Katie in the library and he was pretty sure Bria and Lian were fucking like rabbits. He’d shown up shortly after they’d gotten back.
Sadie said, “Brazing them keeps the tastiness sealed in, so they don’t dry out when they cook fully in the oven. The rice and skin will also absorb the tomato sauce as it cooks, adding flavor.”
He tilted his head in question.
She smirked, “I could feel your confusion, Ryan.”
He laughed, “Well, it is cooking. Maybe I should learn.”
Sadie snorted, “You do remember what happened the last time you decided that, when you were sixteen,” she teased, “I believe your mothers barred you from ever entering the kitchen again.”
He cleared his throat, “You’re not supposed to mention that. Was I leaking?”
She giggled as she shook her head, “Not over the link, just… body language and knowing you so well.”
He nodded, “I suppose it’d be safer to just let you handle it.”
Her lips twitched, “Much. Plus, I like cooking for you.”
He frowned as one of his animals got his attention. Animals really were cheaper to maintain, especially small ones. It’d take over a hundred rats or squirrels to equal the amount of lifeforce a human creation needed to maintain its life. It wasn’t just the mass, intelligence consumed more lifeforce as well. He had close to six thousand animals running around the old United States, exploring and marking villages he could teleport too, and it cost him a tiny fraction of the life force his father needed to maintain a mere two thousand human creations.
Of course, he didn’t have a territory to protect and maintain either. He just helped out unofficially, and he got to know a few people in the villages he visited so things wouldn’t go too wrong when he showed up to help take out the trash. Like in that moment.
“You in a good spot to pause? That community in Ohio we were at three days ago is being intimidated and threatened by a group of well-armed raiders.”
He channeled some of the life force into himself, from his creations, or zombies. Just like that he was able to recharge his bracers and had plenty of magic available. It was something he’d only do if he had to, and it’d be worth the trade if he could defend that community and absorb twenty-two life forces. It’d only taken a small fraction of one to regenerate his magic, after all. The amount he’d gain back from twenty-two full life forces would be in the three-digit multiples.
Just one asshole’s life force was enough to run about two thousand of his lesser animal creations for an entire year. Sadie took about a hundred times that amount, but he needed at least one, and of course she was family to him. She’d always have priority.
Point being, just the twenty-two life forces could power his six thousand zombie animals for the next seven and one third years. That was definitely worth the small cost to recharge his ability to do magic, not to mention the lives he could save in the village. It was a win-win-win lifestyle in his mind, he got power for his zombies, the communities got a little safer, and the trash was taken out where they belonged.
That was only three assholes per year, to maintain his lifestyle and current power, and anymore assholes than three would increase the stockpiled power he could call to his fingertips if there was a need. There were also far more than three assholes to be dealt with in a year. He already had a very healthy accumulation of life energy in his creations.
She looked around for a second, then nodded, “That’s more important anyway, but with the food in the oven we’ve got about forty-five minutes until it’s done.”
He grinned, and then he stood up and walked over to Sadie, who pulled her sword and looked fierce. He got an overhead view of the community. There was some kind of stand-off in front of the whorehouse, and he rolled his eyes and sent the bird to land on a nearby railing so he could listen in. There were four disreputable looking assholes in front of the whorehouse door, which made him think the rest of the raiding group was inside the place. There were also ten men that were well dressed and clean, and wielding weapons facing down those four from the street. No doubt the local militia for the community.
“You’d be advised to surrender son. You’re outnumbered, and already guilty of assault and theft at the market. Two of my people may die, and if that happens god help you.”
The four men in front of the place looked like they’d showered sometime before emergence, maybe. They also sneered, and one of them replied.
“You don’t know how to count old man. There’s eighteen of us inside, and if you idiots try anything then they’ll start slitting soft feminine throats, instead of dipping their dicks. Not just the whores neither, got a bunch of customers tied up in the main room with guards. They hear steel on steel out here, all bets are off.”
Another mocked, “We just got a little more merchandise to steal,” the other three men snickered like jackasses, no doubt the whores’ efforts between the sheets being that merchandise, “and we’ll move on. If you fucks don’t back off then we’ll raze this town and many will die. Is it really worth the fight? You might even win, but we’ll take our price in blood many times over. A few apples and a free turn with a whore or two worth that price, asshole?”
The first nodded grimly, “No one’s died yet, back the fuck off or that will change.”
He started to cast a teleport spell before the militia leader answered that question, and he teleported them inside the building. Into the very room he’d fucked that blonde in three days ago. Sadie was a blur, and the man raping a whore lost his head as it went flying. The poor woman under him was drenched in blood and screamed louder.
There were two other men in the room, and he muttered, “Freeze,” as he cast the nature spell. Their bodies locked up, and a second later their heads followed the first bastard. The spell had probably been unnecessary, Sadie was extremely fast, and they’d been caught with their dicks in their hands, literally, as they watched their buddy rape a whore and stroked off. And it was rape, no matter what they
do for a living, and probably theft too, but he thought that was a little too tongue in cheek, and immaterial given the seriousness of the first charge.
He took stock with his magical senses. There were four more guards in the main room below their feet, no doubt keeping an eye on the hostages, and perhaps with a dagger at their throats given the argument going on outside. That meant there were eleven more in the remaining seven rooms in the whorehouse, which he felt with his magic.
The insertion had gone well, but there was too much of a chance of something going wrong. On the good and bad side, he could hear the crying and screaming of the women. Bad because it was wrong and pissed him off, good because it would cover their movements some. Still, it was too much of a risk.
He sent to Sadie mentally, “Eleven in the other seven rooms, and four downstairs. I’ll hit them all in three.”
Out loud he said, “Mass paralysis,” and his magic exploded out of him in disparate directions. That’s where his hybrid magics came in handy. A normal nature sorcerer would need to see his targets for a spell like that. While he could reach out with his life magic, touch all their life forces, and actually send the spell down that temporary life link. It took a lot of magic to paralyze fifteen men at once, almost half his bracers stored power, but seeing as it was just one fight and he’d be out again, and he was sure he had the right ones because of how their life force felt to him, it was more than worth it for the life force he’d be getting back and the people he saved.
They were evil men.
He nodded and Sadie moved out quickly with him following in her wake. The spell would last for several minutes, almost fifteen, but there were still four more unfrozen assholes outside. Sadie cut them down quickly, four in one room, two in another, then just one in the last five rooms. He was sure they’d be thankful, once they got over the shock of a man raping them being beheaded or stabbed through the heart from behind.
