Deadly Assessments

by Drew Hayes

  “We can hunt the killer in order to capture them. We find, subdue, and when the dust clears, hand our murderer over to the Agency. Maybe take a little bit of blood if it will help us break through the barrier. Otherwise, we don’t hurt anyone. Can you work with that?”

  In a move I was not at all expecting, Deborah gave me a smile, absent of even the hint of fangs. “Can, have, and will again. Orders heard and understood; I won’t do any more damage than is absolutely necessary to halt our enemy and keep you safe.”

  “Then I guess we should talk about—”

  My words were interrupted by a cacophony of splintering wood and spraying sheetrock. From several rooms back, something had punched through the wall from the hallway. It was hard to make out when peering back through the holes Deborah had made, but it looked like a claw of some kind. Huge, red, and nearly football-sized at the tip, the appendage wiggled around several times before vanishing back through the wall, only to punch through once more in a different location.

  I looked to Deborah for guidance, only to realize that she was already looking at me. Right . . . I had to call the shots; that was part of her assessment. Asha’s eyes were wide, but she was holding together better than anyone had a right to expect. We’d wanted to find our mage, and now, they were either attacking us directly or using some kind of magic to do so; either way, they couldn’t be too far away. Was this our chance?

  “We need to go,” I announced, leading them both over to the back wall of the office. This one wouldn’t lead outside, so the barrier shouldn’t be a problem. To be sure, I jammed my own fist into the wall and found it slid easily through.

  Deborah was already at my side, widening our exit, but Asha was slower to join us. “Wasn’t this what you wanted? Our killer is right there, and we have a—no offense, Fred—seriously powerful vampire with us. Why run?”

  “Because, if we fight right now, the mage is the one who initiated it. They might have laid traps, wards, or who knows what out in that hallway. Maybe they have several spells on the tip of their tongue, ready to cast the moment we show ourselves. It’s possible we can’t avoid a head-on fight, and if it comes to that, we’ll take our chances, but if at all possible we should try to catch the mage off guard.”

  “Well said,” Deborah complimented. “Nice to see you learn quickly.”

  I helped her tear apart the wall and made to poke my head through until Deborah yanked me back. She dove into the next room—an office mercifully devoid of cat posters. Rather than going for another wall, however, she flung open the door to reveal a dark hallway.

  Neither Asha nor I needed further explanation; it was clear that if we kept using the walls, we’d leave a trail that took no effort to follow. Using the hallways was a risk, but since the passageways on that side of the offices didn’t lead to exits, odds were fair that they hadn’t been trapped. Not that we had much choice in the matter.

  Sparing a glance back, I could see that two claws had now punched into the wall, and for a moment, I caught a glimpse of a hulking form in the shadows of the widening hole. Then Deborah hissed for me to move, and I did.

  Together, we sprinted out into the hallway, searching for a safe place to regroup and figure out our next move.

  6.

  Although it had been a while since I worked in a proper corporate environment, I still recognized the interns’ room upon arrival. The cramped arrangements of the desks gave it away; everything was so close together that a sneeze from one chair would ruffle papers halfway down the aisle. I could still faintly pick up the scent of sweat and anxiety that perfumed the air and found myself momentarily grateful that our senses had been forcibly dampened. That was not a smell I wanted to experience through a full-strength vampire nose.

  Once we were past the door, Deborah eased it closed, being sure to leave a crack through which we could see and hear. Tracking something as huge as the entity I’d seen would have been sheer simplicity with our ears and noses at normal capacity, but as things stood, we couldn’t risk being snuck up on again. She stayed by the door, ready and alert, and whispered in our direction. “What would you like to do now?”

  It hadn’t escaped my notice that Deborah kept forcing the decisions on me, not that she was being especially covert about it. I pushed that worry out of my head for the moment. We had to concern ourselves with surviving the night first; I could fear her assessment once we were free. Besides, during our last escape, I had given the matter some consideration.

  “We need to find our murderous mage. Asha, I’m sorry to keep leaning on you, but you know this office better than either of us. What are the likeliest spots someone might hole up in this kind of situation? Are there safes to loot, or well-defended rooms to shelter in while you send a monster to kill the witnesses? Whether they put the barrier up or got trapped in here with us, presumably our enemy will be using their time wisely.”

  “I don’t know . . . I really didn’t wander the building very much.” Closing her eyes, Asha began to take deep, slow breaths, willfully calming her very rightfully frayed nerves. “The offices of the more senior staff have wards and security of their own. Phineas’s were down because he was already dead, or maybe the killer broke them while getting to him; I’m not exactly a magic expert. Either way, if they wanted to hide until we were dead, one of those would probably be the safest spot, assuming they knew how to use the safety measures. That would also be the likeliest place to find documents or data. Phineas had a reputation for never leaving so much as a scrap, but not everyone who works here could have been that cautious. If you were looking for a blackmail file as your golden parachute, those offices would be the place to start.”

  Asha’s eyes popped open, more vibrant than they’d been before. Taking a few moments had visibly helped to steady her, as did focusing on something other than our current situation. “Sorry, that’s all I’ve got.”

  “That’s plenty. It gives us a destination, assuming you can point us toward the senior staff offices,” I told her.

  “I can get us there eventually, even if it takes a few tries.”

  From the doorway, Deborah held up a hand, signaling for us both to be silent. We complied instantly, waiting, tense, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. Finally, the hand came down, albeit with terrifying slowness.

  “I think it passed us by. Now’s our time to move. Fred, be ready to carry Asha if we have to sprint. Human-speed might not cut it, and at that point, you may as well throw her to the monster yourself.” Deborah waved us forward without another word, stepping into the hallway before Asha and I had so much as a chance to reply.

  We followed, of course. For the first part of our journey, our goal was simply to get away from the monster. Whichever route gave us that outcome was the one we’d follow. Eventually, we had to start moving toward the senior staff offices. Here began the guessing game. Whenever we would hit a fork in the halls, Asha would have to try to recall which direction was the right one. While she did her best, neither the circumstances nor her memory were ideal, so we ended up having to backtrack more than once.

  Sometimes, Deborah would hold up her hand again and we would all freeze, waiting until whatever had pricked her attention subsided. The longer we took, and the deeper we went inside the office, the more I became aware of how labyrinthine the structure was. Twists, turns, halls that led to nowhere—someone had wanted to make sure this wasn’t a place where intruders would feel welcome. It lent the advantage to those who knew the terrain, which was one more detail adding credence to Deborah’s “don’t fight a mage on their home turf” philosophy.

  Thankfully, we encountered relatively few traps. The only ones we saw were easy to spot, taking the form of arcane symbols that glowed softly on the walls and floor. It was only after I recalled Asha’s inability to see the barrier, and double-checked with her that these symbols were also invisible, that I grasped the truth of the matter: the traps were simple to see purely because Deborah and I had taken the time to drink from the mag
e. Without that blood in us, any one of those traps could have gone unseen and been triggered. Dire a situation as it felt, things would have been far worse without Deborah’s guidance.

  At last, after three dead-ends in a row, Asha gently slapped my shoulder as we came around a turn. She was nodding frantically, yet dared not risk even a whisper. The message still got through loud and clear: this was the area we were searching for. I motioned to Deborah, who responded with a nod. If Asha’s theory was right, our killer might be in one of the nearby rooms. This was both a great opportunity and a highly dangerous position. Depending on who got the drop on whom, this might bring the evening to a close in a matter of minutes.

  Standing in what would have been almost full darkness if not for my unnatural vision—wards or no wards, a vampire’s eyes were built for seeing in the night—a sound reached my ear. Not a loud one, nor even an especially significant one, like a footstep or a whispered curse. If not for the crushing silence, I never would have caught it. There was one thing about the noise, though: it was distinctive. Perhaps not to everyone, but for somebody in my line of work, there was no mistaking the sound of gently rustled paper. I flagged Deborah down, making sure she’d noticed it, too. That noise was important. It told us one thing with absolute clarity: whoever made it wasn’t the monster. Those claws weren’t suited to handling something as delicate as paper.

  Determining which office our telltale sound came from was another matter. All the nearby doors were closed, and not a scrap of light gleamed from beneath a single one. They were probably using magical dark vision to keep their profile as low as possible. From the ease with which Amy produced those potions when needed, I was given to understand it wasn’t an especially difficult or taxing spell. Mages were tricky to deal with, much for the same reason as vampires: one never knew entirely what an individual might be capable of. With the right incantation, all our advantages could be rendered useless, so it was important that the enemy never have the chance to cast such a spell.

  Moving slowly, Deborah pressed her ear to one door after another, finally coming to a stop in front of one designated by the nameplate as Daiyu Lau’s office. Her expression turned serious; she definitely heard something inside. I expected her to try the doorknob, but instead, she ran her fingers delicately along the nearby wall. As she moved them, I saw a faint glow trail the digits. Right, another barrier. Her hand continued all the way to the next office door before she paused and returned to Daiyu’s office. This time, she was visibly tense as she reached out, ready to react in a flash. Her index finger lightly touched the door itself, causing a dark glow to ripple out.

  It didn’t take long to piece it together; she was testing for barriers before trying to burst inside. Assuming the door was locked, she’d need to know the weakest places in the perimeter to break through. Even if it wasn’t locked, she risked being trapped in there with a dangerous mage, so knowing the escape routes could be vital to her survival. Between her and Arch, I was starting to see that the most dangerous people around me were the ones who viewed preparation and forethought as vital.

  Deborah’s hand pulled back, angling down and going for the handle. This time, there was nothing gentle about her movement. She grabbed the narrow strip of metal, shoved it down, and forced the door open with a solid push. In what seemed like our first lucky break of the evening, the door opened without resistance. Our killer had forgotten to lock it.

  That optimism was unfortunately short-lived. From my angle, I could just make out a man waiting inside, hands outstretched and a gleam in his eyes. As fast as my body would move, I grabbed Asha and yanked her back, a reactionary effort to get us clear of the door.

  My reflexes turned out to be right on the money, too. From the doorway came a sudden blast of fire, an explosion that coated everything outside the door in flames. The wall, the carpet, the ceiling, and most important of all: the vampire standing directly in the way.

  7.

  It should have been an easy decision. Grab Asha, run from the flames—flames that were absolutely one of the traditional ways to kill a vampire—and try to regroup. Maybe we could stash her far enough away that I’d be able to break the barrier keeping us trapped without putting her at risk. Not the best plan, admittedly, but certainly a fair shot better than trying to confront a mage who had just roasted an ancient, incredibly powerful vampire. Plus, I didn’t even have the option of telling Asha to run. If she fled, it would get her away from the mage, but we had no idea where the clawed-monster was. Without parahuman protection, sending Asha away might very well be the equivalent of urging her off to her own demise.

  There was another sticking point, as well: I didn’t actually think Deborah was dead. Knowing her position and having seen scraps of her power, I couldn’t quite swallow the idea that she’d be taken out that easily. If I left her on fire, however, the likelihood of actual death would grow exponentially.

  And so, despite the instincts screaming at me to flee, I tore off my shirt and sweater vest, literally ripping them in half to get them off my torso, and leapt toward Deborah. Instantly, the heat of the fire seared over my skin, trying to work its way inside my lungs. Habit or not, I stopped taking in air for this part, working to avoid as much damage as possible. To my surprise, while the experience was intense, it wasn’t as unbearable as I’d expected. I ignored the smaller fires that had cropped up on the floor and ceiling, smacking Deborah’s smoke-covered form with the remains of my outfit, hoping dearly that it would be enough to put out the flames.

  Unfortunately, this had the unintended consequence of putting me directly in the mage’s line of sight. He and I locked eyes briefly, a ripple of shock clouding his expression before new words came tumbling softly out of his mouth. Shit, he was casting something else. Maybe it would be another fire blast, maybe not, but whatever it was, I could presume it wasn’t going to be pleasant—especially not for Deborah, who’d already taken a giant fireball head-on.

  I reached forward through the lingering smoke and flames to try to drag her out of the doorway. While it might be pointless, I could perhaps buy us a few extra minutes.

  “You really don’t get the point of having a bodyguard, do you?”

  Deborah’s voice came a split second before her hand slammed into my torso, hitting me so hard I could feel my (quite durable) sternum fracture as I was sent sailing backward through the hall. I flew past Asha, finally stopping when I slammed into a wall, leaving a sizable dent behind. The moment I stopped, I scrambled to my feet. Deborah was already moving, Asha hoisted easily over her shoulder as she sprinted past me. Now that she was in the open air, I could see that while her exposed skin was blistered and burned in several places, her face and wardrobe were virtually untouched. Curious as I was, the mystery was certainly not more important than the figure emerging from within the office, a figure I could just barely make out through the smoke. We needed time to recover; the momentum of the fight had clearly swung against us.

  I sprinted off after Deborah with no idea where she was heading. It didn’t matter at this point. Getting clear and keeping up with my friends was the main goal. We wove our way through the halls at breakneck speed until Deborah ducked into a small room with white tiles on every surface. Lovely. It seemed we’d be hiding in the bathroom, and me without a single bottle of hand sanitizer.

  Once we were inside, Deborah went to work. She set Asha down, then turned on the faucets, splashing cold water across the burns on her flesh. The wounds were already healing, and the soothing liquid seemed to speed the process along.

  After checking on Asha, who decided to splash some water on her face for different reasons, I focused on the real question.

  “What happened back there? Fire hurts vampires, and a blast like that should have roasted you. Are you . . . do we become resistant to it with age?” Unlikely though the idea seemed, Deborah’s survival made me consider it as slightly possible.

  “Oh wow, don’t I wish.” Deborah sent a few drops of water spraying w
ith a shake of her head. “No, the true methods impact all of us, regardless of age. Fire, sunlight, silver, decapitation, stakes: from the Blood Council to a vampire made yesterday, they’ll kill us just the same. However, that wasn’t actual fire, Fred. It was magical fire, created by a spell, and right now, you and I are walking around with magical defense thanks to Phineas’s blood. Obviously not as much as I might have liked, but it served its purpose, no? Any explosion you can walk away from is a good one.”

  While that did explain part of it, there was clearly more going on than she had shared. “Do your clothes have magical protection, too?”

  “In a manner of speaking. Back before humans figured out it was toxic to them, they found ways to weave asbestos into all sort of things, clothing included. It’s rudimentary protection, but we kept working on it even after they shied away. I don’t think I own a single ensemble that doesn’t have asbestos as a component. It’s also why I tend to favor long sleeves; you can throw your arms up to protect your face.” Deborah demonstrated exactly that, holding her arms like parallel bars in front of her head.

  “Hang on, you put asbestos in all your clothes? Doesn’t that seem like overkill?” Asha was wiping her neck with a damp paper towel; the sudden influx of heat had affected her more than either of us. “Then again, it clearly just worked, so maybe I shouldn’t talk shit.”

  Lowering her arms, Deborah nodded. “When there are only a few methods to kill you, it becomes easier to take steps against those methods. Learning to fight and sleeping lightly helps avoid stakes, as well as beheading, incorporating defenses into my clothing wards against fire, and high SPF sunscreen will buy me a few extra seconds in sunlight. Silver . . . well, there’s no real defense against that one, so I just steer clear of the stuff whenever possible. Fortunately, that holds true for most other parahumans as well, so it rarely comes into play.”