I finished placing my bombs and jogged behind the construction trailer. I leaned against the metal wall and dropped my Cloak.
“Rory?” I whispered. “The bombs are set. Hold up for a minute on detonating them. I think a rift way is about to open, and we might be able to catch a Gatekeeper in the blast.”
“The longer we wait, the more likely it is someone’s going to notice a pipe bomb,” said Murdo.
“I think Lorenz might be the Gatekeeper for this load,” I said.
“Lorenz?” Murdo’s voice hardened. He didn’t like Lorenz either.
“Vernon and his buddies were talking about him,” I said. “Might be worth the risk of sticking around if we can take out a Gatekeeper.”
“All right,” said Murdo. “But get up here as quick as you can. If this goes sour, we’ll have to run for it.”
“Right,” I said. I straightened up, took a deep breath, and Cloaked again. I jogged up the slope of the hill, the satchel with the laptop bouncing against the side of my leg. It was a lot lighter without the pipe bombs. A few minutes later I came to the abandoned weather station. I spotted Murdo lying on the ground next to the station, a rifle with a telescopic sight mounted on a tripod in front of him. He was peering through the sight, watching the Rebel supply dump.
I squatted next to him and dropped my Cloak spell.
“Anything?” I said.
Murdo didn’t flinch at my appearance. “Nothing. Looks like they’re shooting the breeze.”
“Just so long as they’re not shooting at us,” I said.
“I don’t think we should wait more than five minutes,” said Murdo. “Too much more and we risk the bombs getting discovered. And if they show any signs of alarm, we should trigger the bombs immediately and get out of here.”
“Agreed,” I said.
I started counting off the seconds in my head. I’ve done a lot of jobs that require precise timing, and between that and the mental discipline required for magic, I can keep an accurate count in my head. Five minutes was three hundred seconds, and I ticked them off. A minute passed, then two, then three. Nothing moved in the Rebel supply base, and Vernon and Vogel and his soldiers kept talking. Nicholas had complained to me about the difficulties of running a large organization and as I watched his men waste time in idle bellyaching, I understood his annoyance.
Though, of course, I was in favor of anything that hampered the Rebels.
And Murdo and I were about to give the Rebels something to really complain about.
We reached four minutes. Murdo was right. Better to just set off the bombs and get out of here. Well, we’d give it another minute, and…
I saw a flare of gray light among the pallets of ammunition.
“Here it comes,” murmured Murdo. “Katrina?”
I cast the spell to sense the presence of magical forces. I sensed the surge of power below, and a rift way opened at the edge of the mine pit. Vernon and Vogel and the other soldiers started forward, and I saw flickers of movement through the grayish light of the rift way to the Shadowlands.
“Can you see Lorenz?” I said. “Or another Gatekeeper?” If Martin Corbisher turned up here, I would ask Murdo to put a bullet through his head. Corbisher was the financial brains of the Rebels, and he kept Nicholas’s various shell companies and money laundering schemes afloat. His loss would be a devastating blow for the Rebels.
“No,” said Murdo. “Just the…wait.”
I saw figures emerge from the rift way, men wearing black combat armor, AK-47s slung over their shoulders, massive battle axes and two-handed swords strapped to their backs.
Their faces were blue-skinned with white tusks jutting from their jaws.
Orcish mercenaries. The orcs had no particular love for the Rebels or the Knight of Venomhold or the Archons, but they paid on time, and orcs loved to fight. The Archons had used orcish mercenaries during their big attack in Milwaukee last year (or a century and a half ago, from my perspective), and Nicholas employed them for special jobs.
Including picking up weapons and ammunition.
“Any sign of a Gatekeeper?” I said.
“No,” said Murdo. “Whoever it is, I think he’s staying on the other side of the rift way and holding it open for the orcs. We’d better blow the place and run. If the Gatekeeper keeps the rift way open after the explosion, the Rebels or the Knight of Venomhold might decide to send a punitive force after us.”
“Yeah,” I said. My initial instinct was to simply withdraw without doing anything. But it was too late. We had been committed the minute I placed the bombs. When the orcs started hauling the munitions into Venomhold, they would find the bombs, and then they would realize something was wrong.
Time to cut our losses and get out of here.
“Let’s go,” said Murdo. He got to his feet, collapsed the tripod, and picked up the rifle. I reached into the satchel, drew out the radio unit, and hit the button.
For about a half-second nothing happened.
Then all the bombs went off at once.
Explosions tore through four of the pallets of explosives, which themselves then blew up, burning chunks of broken crates tumbling through the air. Vernon, the soldiers, and the orcish mercenaries scattered in sudden panic, trying to take cover wherever they could. The bomb I had tucked under Vernon’s cab went off, which started an impressive fire when the shrapnel shredded the diesel tank.
The noise was colossal. The valley and the pit of the abandoned copper mine acted like a loudspeaker, amplifying the sound of the blast upward. I bet people heard it for miles.
More orcish mercenaries poured through the rift way in response to the explosions. I think the blasts had killed about a dozen of the mercenaries, and I heard the hoarse roar of a voice shouting orders.
“The mercenaries are taking charge,” said Murdo. “They’ll be more competent than those Rebels. We need to go.”
“Yeah,” I said, and we ran to the SUV. Murdo took a moment to conceal his rifle and tripod in the back, and I put the satchel with the stolen laptop and the radio under my seat. He started the engine, and we sped down the slope of the hill, back to the gravel road, and a few moments later we had returned to Interstate 40.
“Got to admit,” I said, “this is way more comfortable than riding on top of a semi.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Murdo. “What did you find in their trailer?”
“An unencrypted laptop,” I said. “Once we get to the hotel we’ll sort through it and pick our next target.”
Because I would pick another target. That was what I had spent the last year doing, harassing and disrupting the Rebels whenever I could manage it. I had gotten pretty good at it.
With Murdo’s help over the last three months, I had gotten even better.
There were a dozen ways that our attack on the Rebel base could have gone bad, and he had anticipated and planned for all of them. We had just blown up tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of supplies and weapons, putting another crimp in the Rebels’ logistics.
Small in the greater scheme of things, I know. But that pre-Conquest general Murdo liked to quote also said that wars were sometimes won with a thousand little victories.
But like I said, no matter how carefully you plan, things sometimes just go wrong.
“Trouble,” said Murdo.
I looked back to see a Homeland Security patrol SUV roar up behind us, its lights flashing and its sirens wailing.
Chapter 2: Paper Trails
“Don’t kill them,” I said as Murdo pulled over to the side of the freeway. The Homeland Security SUV parked behind us, its lights still flashing.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” said Murdo, drawing out the forged ID card and registration I had made for him. “For all we know, this is just a traffic stop. I was going above the speed limit to keep up with the flow of traffic.”
“Yeah,” I said, staring at the rearview mirror. “But if they want to take us in to talk about the explosion at the mine…I’ll hav
e to wipe their memories and destroy the video camera in their SUV.”
Murdo’s frown deepened. “You can do that?”
“Yup,” I said. The Homeland Security SUV’s door opened, and I drew out one of my many forged ID cards. “Well, kind of sloppily.” I had stolen the mindtouch spell from Hailey Adams when she had made the mistake of trying to read my thoughts. “They’ll pass out for a few hours, and wake up with nasty headaches. But they won’t remember anything from the last hour or so.” I shook my head. “But best to play it straight. We’re tourists on our way to LA.”
A Homeland Security officer got out of the SUV and walked towards us, eyes hidden beneath his sunglasses. He was middle-aged and on the paunchy side, but fortunately for him, the bulletproof vest did a decent job of concealing that.
“Afternoon, sir,” said the officer, stopping by Murdo’s window. “Going to need your ID and registration.”
“Here you are,” said Murdo.
The officer glanced at the ID card and the vehicle registration I had forged in the name of one Miles Eames. “Thank you, Mr. Eames. Going a little fast, were we?”
“Yeah, I was, sorry about that,” said Murdo. It was amazing how his manner had shifted from the competent, collected soldier to that of a sheepish civilian. Of course, I could do the same thing myself. “It’s just…I’ve never been to New Mexico before. Beautiful country. Good for driving.”
“That it is,” said the officer. I saw my reflection in his sunglasses. “Your ID, miss?”
I smiled at him, the cheery smile of a young woman without a care in the world. I wondered if I pulled it off. “Here you go.”
He examined the ID card I handed him, which identified me as Karen Strasse. “You two know each other?”
“Well, uh…” I said. I took the first lie that came into my head. “This is really embarrassing and all, and I’m sorry, but I haven’t had time to update my ID card yet.”
“Really,” said the officer. “Why is that?”
“We…just got married,” I said, and I put my left hand on Murdo’s right. He blinked once. His fingers felt warm and hard beneath mine. “We’re on our honeymoon. I always wanted to see the beaches at Los Angeles. Miles wanted to go camping, but I sort of got my way.”
The officer’s expression softened a bit. “The woman usually does, in the end. Have you heard anything unusual during your trip, Mrs. Eames?”
“Unusual?” I said. “Well…there’s all these Spanish-language stations on the radio, and I’ve never heard Spanish-language music before.”
“Anything strange?” said the officer. “Loud noises, things like that?”
“Loud noises?” I said, feigning incomprehension. I knew he was fishing for information about the explosion. I wondered what had happened with Vernon and his friends after I blew up the base. If they had survived, they had probably run through the rift way for Venomhold. “You mean the sonic boom?”
“Sonic boom?” said the officer.
“Miles said it was a sonic boom,” I said. “I don’t know what it was, but it was loud. Made the windows rattle.”
“Really,” said the officer, writing something on his notepad. “How long ago did you hear this noise?”
“About a half hour ago, I think,” said Murdo. “Back that way about thirty or forty miles. I figured it was a sonic boom. Or maybe someone setting off some dynamite. Don’t they have mines out here?”
“They do,” said the officer. He flipped his notepad closed and handed the fake IDs and the forged registration back. “Mr. Eames, Mrs. Eames, enjoy your honeymoon. Do remember to follow the posted speed limits.”
“Thank you, officer,” said Murdo.
The officer strode back to his SUV without another word.
I let out a long breath, and Murdo rolled up the window, waited for a break in traffic, and drove away.
“I’m really sorry for embarrassing you,” I said.
“Embarrassing me?” said Murdo. “That worked well. He didn’t suspect a thing.”
I grimaced. “For…pretending to be your wife. It was the first thing I could think of.”
Which was kind of embarrassing.
“Why would it be embarrassing?” said Murdo.
“Because…the whole reason you’re here is because Nicholas will kill your girlfriend,” I said. “I know you’re Graysworn and the Knight of Grayhold set up your cover to stop whatever Nicholas is planning, but the real reason you’re here is because of your girlfriend. And I just pretended to be your wife.” I took a deep breath. “Sorry. Um…just sorry.”
That weird tangle of emotion rolled through me again.
My feelings about Rory Murdo were…complicated.
Ugh. Such a cliché. But true, in this case.
Murdo wasn’t handsome, but he was strong and competent, and he had been kind to me. I had begun to find myself wondering what it would feel like to kiss him. Or maybe what it would be like for him to slip into my hotel room at night. Except he was here to save a woman he loved, not me. And I already loved someone. But I had broken up with Riordan MacCormac to protect him from me, and I had broken up with him in the most painful way possible to keep him from coming after me. It must have worked because I hadn’t heard from him since.
Which was good. It kept Riordan safe. That was good. I just had to keep telling myself that. Except it had been nearly a year since my last conversation with Riordan, and I still kept thinking about him.
Maybe my feelings weren’t complicated. I was attracted to Murdo, and whenever that happened, I immediately thought about Riordan, which caused me to feel searing guilt and regret.
Simple. Not pleasant, but simple.
But weirdly, I was glad to have those feelings. They meant I was still…I don’t know, human. I had spent a century and a half getting ripped apart in the Eternity Crucible, and I was probably one of the most powerful human wizards on Earth. Yet I could still feel embarrassment and regret.
I could feel regret when I thought about Riordan.
Or how I hadn’t talked to Russell in a year. Or the Marneys. Even to let them know what had happened to me.
I let out a long breath and rubbed my forehead.
“What is it?” said Murdo in a quiet voice.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Emotions really suck.”
He laughed a little at that.
“And I am sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be,” said Murdo. “The ruse was effective, which is the important part. And don’t feel guilty on my behalf, Katrina. My misfortunes are all my own fault, and no one else’s.
I snorted. “I’d prefer to blame Nicholas Connor just on general principles.”
We returned to the rest stop, and I retrieved my van, a battered old Royal Motors Caravanserai that had seen over three hundred thousand miles at this point, but it just kept going. I had basically been living out of the thing for the last year as I drove around the country harassing and robbing Rebels, and the vehicle was loaded with my gear. It was just as well that Homeland Security had pulled over Murdo’s SUV instead of my van. I had all kinds of weapons stashed in the back, including a medallion inscribed with the symbol of the Dark Ones, and if a Homeland Security officer had tried to search my van, I would have had to wipe his memory and leave him by the side of the road.
I followed Murdo as we headed west on I-40 towards Albuquerque. My van has many virtues, but speed isn’t one of them, so I stayed in the right lane, right behind Murdo’s SUV, and we kept to the speed limit. After we had teamed up to terrorize the Rebels, we had rigged a pair of CB radios in our respective vehicles so we could talk while driving without using cell phones.
“I’ve got the hotel reservations,” said Murdo over the speakers.
I squeezed the talk button on my microphone. “Already? Where?”
“The Grand Desert View Motel,” said Murdo. “It doesn’t look promising. The website talks about its pool a lot.”
“The cheaper, the better,” I said. “Um.
What names did you use to book them?”
“Niles Eames and Karen Strasse,” said Murdo. “Seems wise to keep using those names for now, just in case that Homeland Security officer is more ambitious than he looks and tries to keep an eye on us.”
“Well, we’ll pay cash,” I said. A thought occurred to me. “Uh. Are we still pretending to be on our honeymoon?”
“It would be sensible to maintain the ruse,” said Murdo. “But I did get adjoining rooms.”
“Oh,” I said. Was I disappointed? No, of course not. That would be ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. Nope, not disappointed at all. “Good.”
“Besides,” said Murdo. A dry note came into his voice. “You snore.”
“I most certainly do not snore,” I said, half-amused, half-indignant.
“I’m afraid you do,” said Murdo. “I can tell you never fell asleep on your jobs as a shadow agent because the sound would have drawn the attention of every Homeland Security officer in a five-mile radius.”
I burst out laughing despite myself. “How do you even know that I snore?”
“You sometimes fall asleep in the passenger seat while I’m driving,” said Murdo. “It’s helpful, actually. Keeps me from drifting off on long drives.”
“Yeah, well, I’m just so glad I can be helpful,” I said.
We teased each other like that for the rest of the drive to Albuquerque. Murdo looked humorless, but his sense of humor was as dry as the desert around us. Drier, really.
About two hours later we reached Albuquerque and the Grand Desert View Motel. The motel was located near another truck stop off the freeway, and it was just as seedy-looking as Murdo had claimed. The swimming pool looked like a listeria infection waiting to happen, and the noise from the freeway was constant. Still, the rooms and the bathrooms were clean, and the motel had a gym that looked hardly used.
I put it to use for my usual routine.
Murdo left me alone for this part. Some people drank to deal with traumatic stress, and others used hard drugs. I had vowed to do neither after I had nearly gotten arrested for public intoxication in the first few days after the Eternity Crucible. But I still needed a way to relax, a way to take the edge off.
Cloak Games_Blood Cast Page 3
