Kill The Willing: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (I Fear No Evil Book 1)

by Martha Carr

  Shay whipped around the corner to fire off several more shots. All ended up as useless ice cubes in front of Yulia. An ice spear whizzed toward her, ripping through her jacket and piercing her arm.

  “Fuck that hurts.” Shay sucked in a breath, ignoring the pain. “That was one of my favorite jackets, ice bitch!” she yelled.

  Yulia laughed softly. “You cannot win. You must realize that now. My defensive spells are too powerful for your pathetic toy.”

  “Knew I should have brought the rocket launcher or the damned bomb drone from the boat,” Shay muttered. Her left hand dropped to her final grenade. At least, her final fragmentation grenade. She reached down and grabbed the two smoke grenades, grinning through clenched teeth at a last-ditch idea.

  The pins came out.

  Shay spun around the corner, hurling the grenades in opposite directions. Both nearby but not directly at the witch. Yulia jerked back, her wand up.

  Oh. So, your shield isn’t fool-proof, ice bitch?

  Thick smoke shot from the grenades, and Shay snapped up her gun sending round after round toward the Witch’s last known location. Right before she ran out of rounds, she sent her final fragmentation hurling toward the center of the smoke.

  The grenade exploded. No scream sounded, instead there was the sound of a splash.

  “Did I get her?”

  Shay pulled out a knife and rushed through the smoke. She suppressed a cough, her eyes burning, and found no sign of the Witch or her body. The pit caught her attention.

  She came crawling out of that shit like a ghost. Why the fuck was she even in there? Do I even want to know?

  A cough refocused Shay. She sheathed her knife, reloaded her gun, and rushed to the pit. A rusted metal ladder led down into the darkness. She couldn’t see anything, even as she pointed straight down and emptied her clip. After reloading for good measure, she emptied another clip into the pit.

  Shay glanced around looking for something to seal the hole. A six-inch thick metal lid lay flat on the ground. She holstered her gun and ran to the lid, lifting it end over end. Training in the Warehouse was paying off again. The pain in her arm pulsed with every exertion. No time to bitch out now. With a mighty grunt, she picked up the lid and managed to slam it over the top of the pit.

  “Damn is that thing heavy.”

  A turning metal rod was on the top of the lid, forming a lock between the lid and the pipe. She pushed in the rod, shoving with her weight as metal ground against metal. Wonder later why anyone would need to secure the pit from the outside.

  Shay rummaged in her backpack, locating a small vibration sensor and placed it on the lid. She pulled out her phone and synced it to the sensor. If the Witch survived and escaped, Shay’s phone would let her know.

  Okay. Doing good. Six mercs and one Witch down. On to the artifact.

  Shay patiently waited for two full minutes, timing it by her watch, her heart pounding, to see if Yulia would do her best snow ghost impression. Wouldn’t pay to turn her back on the Witch and her wand.

  The lid didn’t move, and her phone didn’t chirp. She let out a breath, her shoulders relaxing as she thought about how she could brag to Peyton over pizza about taking down the Ice Witch.

  Shay wrapped a piece of cloth around her arm to stem the blood flow, tying it off, holding one end in her teeth. She jogged to the larger tunnel dug by the industrial equipment the Alpha Explorers brought with them onto the small island.

  She swung her backpack around and reached into it, pulling out a wrist lamp and a headlamp on a band. She put both on, reloaded her gun, and plunged into the gradually sloping tunnel.

  Shay jogged down into the hole, listening for any hint of the Alpha Explorers.

  Shay followed the beam of light, the thrill of the chase making her smile. “Just need a sign that says, abandon all hope, all ye who enter here. Damn, I love this job.”

  19

  No bullets or ice spears greeted Shay as she hurried down the tunnel. The deeper she delved, the more her quiet footsteps turned to splashes. The Alpha Explorers didn’t care about water infiltration. That told Shay they knew exactly where they were digging and thought they could evacuate the tunnel quickly in case of trouble.

  The water only grew deeper with every step. If things kept up, she might have to go back to her boat and bring her diving gear. She slowed, hoping the Alpha Explorers wouldn’t hear her coming.

  Shay’s lights caught sight of a smaller tunnel that ran off to the side ten feet before the back of the drill. Thinner cables ran into the smaller tunnel as well. The other treasure hunters had used a similar drill. She approached the sub-tunnel, her gun raised, wondering when she was going to run into the men.

  This far underground they would not have been able to get decent radio reception. The Alpha Explorers might not know yet that Shay finished off their guards.

  The tomb raider stepped into the narrow sub-tunnel, her light revealing only more mud, water, and rocks. No treasure hunters.

  What the fuck? It’s not like there’s a lot of room to hide down here.

  Shay continued forward movement. Some splashing was unavoidable in the calf-deep water. The sound of running water was reaching her ears and coming from the distance. She jerked her gun up as metal blinked in the beam from her light. Closer examination revealed it was an inactive tracked multi-armed drilling platform the size of a large person, rather than a two-legged enemy. She knelt down and felt under the water, finding the submerged cables supplying its power.

  As Shay approached the equipment it became obvious why they’d stopped drilling in the smaller tunnel. The Alpha Explorers’ efforts uncovered an older large vertical shaft, complete with a set of rusted metal handholds. They had moved on to the bigger prize.

  A look above her revealed a mass of dirt and rock. It remained unclear why the obstruction didn’t continue farther down until she spotted the rough outline of a metal platform that was providing a nucleus for the blockage. The handholds descended further into the darkness. Entrances to other narrow tunnels dotted the path down in the darkness, with irregular spacing. It looked like hobbled-together giant ants had pushed their way into the Money Pit.

  Water poured from the Explorers’ shaft, accounting for some of the noise she heard, mixing with water from several other tunnels connecting to the shaft.

  Shay furrowed her brow, considering the implications. Whatever the Alpha Explorers had done, it must have punched a hole to a tunnel leading to the ocean surrounding the island, or tremors had shifted the soil, allowing the same result.

  “That has to be case.” Shay’s voice echoed in the narrow passageway.

  Otherwise, the entire tunnel system would have already been filled with water. Playing around in an underground tunnel system filling with water wasn’t on Shay’s list of fun evening activities.

  Need to find this shit and get out of here.

  Shay killed her lights and lowered her AR googles over her eyes. She activated infrared mode and desperately hoped the Alpha Explorers didn’t toss a flare in her face. She stuck her head farther into the shaft and peered down. No thermal traces on the handholds or walls, but thick enough gloves might account for their absence.

  Shay zipped her phone into an inside pocket. She didn’t want to risk losing her phone down a moldy old shaft. She reached up to tap a button on the side of the googles, changing over to night-vision mode. “Voila.”

  The goggles only magnified existing light. In true absolute darkness, she could only see pitch black but, in night vision mode she could make out the handholds glowing in a faint, eerie green. A patch of light emerging from an opening twenty feet down was the likely location of the Alpha Explorers.

  Shay holstered her pistol and pulled gloves from her backpack, slipping them on as she made a descent on the grime and rust-encrusted old metal handholds.

  These are still here. Damned good craftsmanship. Congrats, you magnificent Canadian bastards.

  The tomb raider approache
d the source of the light and paused just above it. She deactivated her goggles, turning her headlamp back on and pulling out her gun. Even though she couldn’t hear the men, she suspected they were laying right inside the lip of the tunnel.

  Okay. One… two… three…

  Shay leapt into the tunnel, almost banging her head, still ready to shoot anyone stupid enough to have a gun fight 100 feet underground. Except the Alpha Explorers weren’t there. A faint greenish glow suffused a mound of dirt at the end of the tunnel.

  A few cautious steps brought Shay forward, and she frowned, glancing down at the pile and back over at the entrance to the tunnel. She shined her light on the edges of the entrance and spotted the rotted remains of a wooden door.

  Did the Alpha Explorers pick the wrong tunnel? Are they above me? Below me?

  Shay gritted her teeth, her arm began to ache again. The whole environment was perfect for ambushes. She didn’t hear any hint of the Alpha Explorers, though the water draining from the tunnels into the bottom of the main shaft might have been covering up their voices.

  None of that changed the fact that a suspicious pile of glowing dirt sat right in front of her. Shay unzipped her pocket and pulled out her phone to check the coordinates but couldn’t get any bars, which meant no way to calibrate the GPS.

  Fucking great. I should have seen that one coming. Singleness of purpose. Go get the glowing weird artifact in this pit.

  Shay knelt in the dirt and reached out her hand, jerking it back. No one found a powerful artifact sitting in a side tunnel all these years. That suggested some sort of trap or magical protection.

  She stood there in the tunnel, staring down at the glowing dirt, trying to decide the best course of action. The sound of the steady trickle of water convinced her she had one choice. Trust her gut and take a chance.

  Shay pulled a small trowel off a loop connected to her backpack and started digging.

  Several layers down she uncovered a small stone adorned with Oriceran symbols. The stone was a matte silver sitting in a glowing dome of light that prevented any dirt from touching it.

  “Well, fuck,” Shay muttered, biting her lower lip. “Come this far.” She took several deep breaths and pressed her injured arm to her side, darting her good arm into the field and snatching the stone from the field. Nothing happened. “Really? A little luck for a change.” She blew out the breath in her lungs.

  The stone felt warm to the touch, but not impressively alien or magical otherwise. She pulled out a soft cotton cloth from her backpack, wrapped the stone, and tucked it in a mesh pocket inside the backpack.

  “Time to get the hell out of here.”

  Her trip back to the Alpha Explorers’ sub-tunnel went swiftly, and she was just about to enter the main tunnel when she heard the splash of footsteps up ahead. She slowed her pace, the echoes of the running water cloaking her steps.

  “That bitch is probably already dead,” murmured a man’s voice. “There had to be some sort of trap. She must have set it off. We can go get the artifact now.”

  “We should have just jumped her when we had the chance,” said another man. “We should go in there, knock her ass out, and blow the tunnels like we planned. Glad I brought the charges. Who the hell knew someone would attack our dig?”

  “Maybe it’s karma.” The man chuckled.

  Shay took shallow, quiet breaths as she approached the main tunnel. From the sound of their voices, they were closer to the main drill rather than further up the tunnel. She readied her gun, counted silently to three, and made a half turn into the opening.

  Two very surprised Alpha Explorers turned her way.

  “Oh, fuck,” said one of the men.

  “Guess shit didn’t work out for you,” Shay said with a grin. “I’ll be leaving now. I won’t kill you if you toss your guns my way. I’m feeling generous.”

  “We don’t have guns.”

  Shay didn’t believe them, but as long as the men didn’t go for a weapon, they didn’t need to die. She could secure them and their weapons.

  “You didn’t bring guns on a dangerous expedition?” She kept her gun steadily pointed at them.

  “That’s why the fucking mercenaries and Witch were hired. How the hell did you beat Yulia?”

  Shay snorted. “Don’t bring a wand to a gunfight. Now… let’s keep this simple. Get down on your knees, hands behind your back and I’ll zip tie you. Too bad for you, turns out there was no trap on the artifact.”

  “What the fuck? There had to be.” The bigger man gave a quick glance at his duffel bag.

  “Uh uh uh…” Shay waved a finger at them, stepping close enough to pull the duffel bag to the side. She could tell by the heft she had found their weapons.

  “I told you, Jim,” said his shorter but just as bulky compatriot. “It wasn’t about the trap at all. It was about that translated inscription. Only when the time is right will it present itself again. The magic needed to seep into Earth from Oriceran for the artifact to reappear.”

  “Luke, that’s not necessarily…” Jim groaned and nodded at Shay. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  Shay gestured with her gun at the ground. “He’s right. Doesn’t matter now. I’d feel bad about this, but none of you have the nicest rep. Be happy I’m not blowing your brains out just to be careful.”

  Luke shook his head. “Come on. We can cut a deal. We’ll split the profits with you.” He smiled. “We dug the tunnel.”

  “And why the fuck would I split the profits? I have the artifact, and you have nothing but a bunch of dead mercenaries.”

  “I don’t recognize you, which means you’re new to the game. We could be useful contacts, get you jobs. Hell, you’re pretty damned impressive, maybe you should join our company.” His smile was strained.

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I have my own contacts. Now get on the damned floor. I’m losing patience.” Shay glared at the men.

  Luke locked eyes with her, hatred and defiance in them. “Jim, you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Just like Alexandria all over again.” A smile appeared on his face.

  Shay narrowed her eyes. “I’m tired of playing fucking gam—”

  Both men jumped backward and to either side of the tunnel. Shay clipped Luke in the shoulder, but the large drill took the tomb raider’s next several rounds meant for Jim. The intact treasure hunter clumsily unzipped his coat and yanked out a gun.

  Luke groaned on the ground, blood staining his shoulder. “Fuck it then.” He reached into his pocket and laughed.

  Shay looked between the two men, spinning around and climbing toward the surface. As she neared the surface an explosion rocked the tunnel behind her. Another shattered the earth in front of her, knocking her off her feet and coating her with a shower of mud and rock.

  Her ears were ringing as she pushed herself up and continued stumbling forward. Water was pouring freely from the lower blast, filling the tunnel. Shay didn’t look back as she rushed toward the surface.

  “Help me, please!” Jim’s voice was an echo from deep inside the tunnel. “I’m pinned. Blowing this shit up wasn’t my idea.”

  Shay kept running as she yelled over her shoulder. “Yeah, but shooting me was, fucker.” A loud groan echoed in the chamber as the side walls collapsed into the lower tunnel.

  The tomb raider emerged back at the surface, enjoying the caress of the night wind. She moved away from the cave entrance and made it another thirty yards when an odd cracking sound caught her attention. She turned around. Her phone chimed several times, but she ignored it.

  A sink hole had formed around the new tunnel and the entrance was rapidly filling with mud, rocks, and dirt.

  There is definitely something interesting to dig up now.

  Shay grabbed her phone to look at the alerts. All were the same timestamped message.

  VIBRATION WARNING FROM SENSOR ALPHA ONE.

  Shay glanced over the other pit entrance. The lid still remained firmly in place. No Witch, just the n
earby tremors.

  “Things change. Time to get the fuck out of here.”

  Shay’s Edorado Marine speedboat hugged the shoreline as she sped away from Oak Island toward Nova Scotia.

  “I really need to stop nearly getting buried by shit.”

  Her phone chimed, and she pulled it out her pocket.

  VIBRATION WARNING FROM SENSOR ALPHA ONE.

  It didn’t take long before another alert chimed.

  SIGNAL LOST FROM SENSOR ALPHA ONE.

  Probably another sink hole. There’s no way the Witch survived. She would have come up for air earlier.

  Shay chuckled to herself and shook her head, a fine mist of ocean spray in her face.

  Then again, I’m supposed to be dead. Guess it’s only fair to have a dead Witch chasing a dead hitwoman. Glad I never gave her my name.

  20

  Shay wouldn’t normally bring an artifact back to Warehouse Two, but until she was ready to bring Peyton to Warehouse Five she had no choice.

  Part of expanding her business required her to take advantage of available resources and if Peyton wasn’t blowing smoke up her ass about his interest in magical history, then he was going to be very useful evaluating the true worth of potential artifacts. First things first, she needed to know what the hell she’d found on Oak Island.

  Peyton was waiting by the rolling door with a mug of coffee as Shay stepped out of the Spider, wrapped stone in hand.

  “It’s your time to shine, Peyton.” Shay unwrapped the stone, holding it out for him to inspect. “I want to know what this is before I sell it off to the client. I need to know if it’s too dangerous to be sending out into the world.”

  Researching her clients would give her more assurance she didn’t end up providing a deadly cartel or terrorist group with a new weapon. Still left a lot of gray area. Work would always come from some pretty awful people at times but handing over something like a magical nuclear weapon strained even her mercenary tendencies.