Not a bad thing, actually, she decided. Probably altered via magic, but leaving behind no actual metaphysical trace would prevent anyone from detecting them by mystical means. A creative idea she vowed to ask about when she had the chance.
Now, however, was not the time. “This is meant to be a soft probe only,” she said, with a glance at Diamond, leaning casually against a nearby doorframe with his arms folded across his chest. Diamond had opposed any sort of immediate action without better intelligence as to the numbers and disposition of Hecate's followers.
She understood his hesitance, but wasn't willing to wait herself. The more time they gave Hecate to come up with an effective plan of opposition, the better the chance that they'd get their asses kicked. If nothing else could be said about her Neanderthal warriors, they at least knew more about combat than most of the people gathered here.
Diamond, apparently, had some military experience, but that was only because the traders often found themselves in tight situations on worlds where trade was controlled by powerful merchant houses that employed mercenaries or their own standing armies to help regulate trade.
Didn't make him an expert, but still more experienced in the area than any of the others. Maybe I should have brought along a few people with more military experience. Hindsight was all too often even better than twenty-twenty.
They'd all gathered in a relatively small room off the main bazaar, one that had been in disuse for several years, judging by the amount of dust and cobwebs they'd initially found inside the place. Chaz had set up a small lab not too far away, in a room off an adjacent corridor. She'd been meaning to wander that direction and check out what he'd been working on, but she gave the antsy behavior of her would-be troops a little higher priority.
Think of the devil. Even before the echo of that musing retreated from her mind, the engineer in question appeared in the doorway, a small bag thrown over his shoulder.
"Okay, folks ... I've got some toys for you."
Jaz nearly laughed as everyone's eyes lit up. They'd been waiting with barely restrained patience for Chaz to finish whatever secretive project he'd been pursuing. He hadn't shared it with anyone, actually chasing people off when they dropped by to investigate.
He upturned the bag over the table with the map, spilling out a dozen or so wristbands—or what looked like wristbands. They shot reflected light around the room as they tumbled across the table. Jaz reached out and snatched up one that was obviously oversized, tossing it in a casual underhanded flip to Orcus. “I assume this is yours."
The giant grinned down at her and slipped it over his forearm. “Okay,” he rumbled, “so what do they do?"
The others pawed through the devices and, with a couple expressing the slightest hesitancy, put them on in much the same manner as had Orcus. Chaz leaned against the doorframe, arms folded over his chest, grinning mysteriously. “You know your mirror-gating trick, Jaz?"
She nodded, eyes narrowing suspiciously.
"Well, these reproduce that trick. What's more, as you'll notice, they're themselves reflective, which means they can provide an access and exit point from your dimension of mirrors."
At this point, her eyes widened as realization of the possibilities swept over her. Her answering grin matched his. “That's great, Chaz."
"Chaz? You're Chaz and Jaz?” Cecil snickered. “Oh, that's rich."
Orcus chuckled along with him. “He's right,” he boomed. “It does sound pretty silly."
"We should give him a new name,” Raven said, unexpectedly joining in with the spirit of the thing. His usual staid and broody exterior melted for just a second, long enough for a mischievous grin to break through his façade. “How about we just call him ‘The Artificer?’”
Jaz shot a look at Chaz, who was stroking his chin thoughtfully. “You know—you're kidding, sure. But that has a certain ring to it, don't you think?"
"What—we going to call you ‘Art’ for short?” Cecil snorted.
"Only if you want your mirror-gates to malfunction at just the wrong time,” the engineer fired back. “Artificer. I like it."
"Fine by me,” Jaz snorted. “You can call yourself Rumplestiltskin for all I give a damn. As long as you keep turning out stuff like this, you're the magic man in my book."
He gave her an odd look. “You know something, Jaz? That's probably the nicest thing I've ever heard you say to anyone."
Her lip twitched and she turned away, pointedly ignoring him. “Okay, folks. We'll do some experimenting with these things, then we'll get on the ball."
* * * *
Chaos reigned supreme. Hecate slowed down to a jog for a moment, resisting the urge to glance over her shoulder. She leaned against a wall and took a deep, shuddering breath. She still couldn't comprehend what had happened. One minute everything was fine, the next everything had gone straight to hell, her hybrid guards slashed to shreds by a small army of creatures flickering in and out of existence like a squadron of fireflies on a warm Southern summer night.
She'd caught sight of a huge black and white humanoid wielding a monstrous battle axe as he ripped through a trio of her guards before turning and vanishing into the one way glass window between the throne room and her personal quarters.
Then, as if conjured from the very air itself, the woman Jaz and a lithe, pale man in black cowboy togs appeared in their midst and proceeded to tear through another half dozen gorilla warriors without even breaking stride. They too rushed for the one-way glass and flicked out of existence.
Impossible, she kept telling herself. The wards wouldn't have let them transit in via mana tube. Yet they could come and go with seeming impunity. Her guards didn't have a chance. She'd only escaped by throwing up a veritable maze of mana threads to cover her as she dashed from the chamber.
The girl had pulled something remarkable out of her bag of tricks, and now Hecate was on the run without any cover. She could only expect that her hybrids had been slaughtered. By now they were releasing the prisoners and leaving her with nothing.
Damn her!
"Looks like you're in a bit of a fix,” came the voice of Ares drifting down the corridor. She turned slowly, lifting her gaze defiantly at his cocksure expression as he strode toward her. He unlimbered the sword from his back and she reached out a restraining hand, willing a wad of mana threads into her grasp.
"Don't try anything funny, Ares—I'll rip you to shreds."
He chuckled. “Oh, I'm not going to try anything, Hecate. In fact, I'm here to help you. I'm the only ally you have left, after all. And I still want to kill that bitch. Without your help, she'll never let me get close enough. Her goddam vampire will engage and I'll get my ass kicked."
She frowned. “So what do you want from me?"
"Can you keep the vamp busy?"
"I don't see why not..."
"Then enough chit-chat. Let's go kill someone."
* * * *
Jaz didn't allow a victory party. She knew Hecate had escaped and could easily imagine the bitch circling back to do as much damage as she possibly could before either escaping again, or taking as many of them with her as she could.
She wasn't exactly certain how sane the woman was—but, then again, the way Jaz figured it, she wasn't entirely sane herself.
I'm the victim of my own amateur psychological diagnosis, she thought with a wry inward chuckle.
The first thing she'd done was ordered the throne ripped out, then began supervising a clean-up of the area. Orcus and Cecil were given the task of disposing of the bodies while Jaz and Diamond set out to free all of Hecate's prisoners.
A couple of hours later they all took a break to catch their breath. Cleaning up after what amounted to a massacre was anything but easy. Jaz wasn't oblivious to the fact that she was the only one unaffected by the carnage. It didn't bother her in the least that they'd slaughtered Hecate's minions. Had the situations been reversed, they'd be dancing on top of their corpses right now.
If that made her a
bad person, she didn't find it in herself to give a damn.
Once everything had been cleaned up, she assigned Cecil and Orcus to guard duty. The wiry little Italian gave her a baleful stare and took up his position while the big man simply shook his head and chuckled. “Nobody likes guard duty,” he rumbled before walking over and taking up position by the door opposite his friend.
After they were settled, she drew Raven, Diamond, Johnny, and Sam to her with a gesture. “She may be down,” she told them, “but I'm definitely not counting her out. I'm actually a bit worried about what she'll do next. We've pretty much put her in a position where she has nothing left to lose. That makes her even more dangerous than she was originally."
Damn, I wish I could have caught her. I really don't like having her on the loose. Not much she could do about it now, though. Just wait and plan for the worst. The woman's magic made her quite formidable, maybe, in some ways, even more formidable than Jaz herself.
She wasn't exactly afraid of the woman, but she was certainly wary enough to keep her eyes open.
"I need one of you to let the council know we've succeeded and we could use a little backup over here to keep a steady guard. Also, need to get the word out to keep an eye out for Hecate. She's wandering around loose. We need to catch up to her before she can stir up any more trouble."
"It's a little late for that!” a new voice boomed through the chamber. Jaz glanced over to see Ares come strolling through the doorway with his characteristic swagger intact. By his side came Hecate, who glowed brightly in magesight. By the look of it, she'd wrapped herself in literally hundreds of mana strands. There's no way I can pull up enough power to disable those protections, Jaz thought, but, then again, I may not need to break through her defenses to take her out.
She watched the threads uncoil and shoot toward Raven. “Watch out, Raven!” she yelled. Unnecessarily, as it turned out. He too was a mage, and saw the strands shooting out at him. Rather than try to evade them, he stepped forward and met them head-on.
Ares drew his sword and rushed toward Jaz. Should have expected this, she thought, reaching out and plucking one of her own swords from its dimension pocket. She sprinted toward Ares as if she were trying to run him over, then shifted sideways at the last moment, katana flicking out.
She whirled and parried a lunging slash, driving the much larger sword toward the floor and lashing out with a straight left hand that bloodied his nose and knocked him back a step. She whipped her blade around as quick as she could—barely missing his fingers as he twisted his sword to block. The alloy of his blade chipped, sending a fragment bouncing across the floor.
She smiled sweetly. “I think your blade isn't up to the task."
He responded with a renewed attack, the huge weapon flashing out at her face before she was even finished with her taunt.
She leaned back, away from the weapon's arc, and thrust with the tip of her blade. It ripped a bloody furrow down the inside of the big immortal's arm. He grimaced and switched hands almost too quickly for Jaz to follow.
Then they fell into a pattern. Attack, parry, riposte, disengage. Five minutes passed, then ten. Twenty minutes later Jaz fell back, a shower of sweat spraying from her hair as she shook her head vigorously. She aimed a lethal glare at Ares and risked a glance over at her friends. She was thrilled to see that Raven was still up and Hecate was down. She laughed aloud, then. “Looks like you've lost your ally, Ares. You're going to die alone and friendless."
"Fuck you, bitch!" He came at her with everything he had, sword biting through the air like a fighter jet on an attack run. She could hear the whistle of wind coursing over the blade as it swept toward her.
She parried the first one, wincing as the shock waves rolled up her arms. Damn, he's strong! Each time their swords met she felt that much closer to losing her grip on her own weapon. Sweat from her leaking palms made it just that much more difficult to keep a hold of her katana.
It was like being in a fight with a threshing machine. And the speed and strength of his assaults were making it impossible for her to riposte. Despite her not inconsiderable skill, he had several thousand years more experience, and that experience was telling now. She felt a mote of pride that his skill wasn't that much greater than her own, but, unless she pulled off a miracle, it wouldn't matter much. Even a little better would be enough to destroy her.
Then, while parrying a vicious cross-body slash, she felt her grasp on her sword break. The katana tumbled free across the floor. “No!” she heard someone scream, as his huge blade came back around toward her.
It was like watching a semi bearing down on you. She knew she should move, knew she could move, but felt rooted to the spot. Then, suddenly, something crashed into her side and she was thrown clear. She glanced up from the floor to see Diamond raising his sword to block a downward slash, but knowing that very second that Ares was far too strong for him.
The only thing that kept the blade from splitting his head open was his involuntary flinch, which sent the blade skittering a few inches to the left along the alloy edge of his own weapon before breaking through and cleaving him from his collarbone to halfway down his ribcage. Blood gushed from around the blade as Diamond's own blade fell to the floor with a clang. He clawed feebly at Ares, then seemed to deflate, dying right there in front of them.
Jaz launched herself up from the floor, leaving the ground and smashing Ares in the face with the side of her foot. The impact sent her rebounding with enough energy to do a complete tuck and roll in midair, landing several feet away braced on both feet and a single hand.
Her own sword lay several more feet away—too far for her to ever reach it before he could catch her. So screw my sword. I'll beat him to death. She pushed herself to her feet, suddenly aware of at least a dozen tiny nicks and scratches oozing crimson and dribbling onto the floor. She glanced over at the fallen body of Diamond and felt her jaw clench. He deserved better than that.
Why had he sacrificed himself to save her? It made no sense. “You want some of this?” she snarled at Ares. “Come get some."
He grinned and took a couple steps in her direction, holding the bloody sword aloft in front of him. “I'm going to gut you like a fish."
"Try it, asshole."
As she expected, he was easy to goad. He launched himself at her, blade extended in front of him like a lance.
You've got to be kidding me, she thought. As he came up on her, she shifted sideways, pivoting so her body rotated, the blade passing harmlessly in front of her. She snapped a short, quick punch into his tricep and grabbed his thick, meaty forearm with the other hand just long enough to pivot on her lead foot and ram her knee into the side of his hip.
She then cart-wheeled out of reach and stood there, panting, as he slowly turned to face her again. Immortal did not mean inexhaustible, she realized. He was at least as tired as she, and had a lot more bulk to carry around. “You're losing it, Ares,” she said, forcing herself to shed any appearance of the weariness they both felt. “You can't keep this up forever."
"I can keep it up as long as I have to,” he snarled back. He lifted his sword again as she moved into a defensive stance. “I'll see you dead."
"Not with that, you won't,” she told him with a cheery smile. “Your weapon can't kill me."
"What?” He stared at her in disbelief.
"I'm just like you. Immortal. Your weapon can't kill me. You're wasting your time. I'm going to beat you bloody, then I'm going to walk over there, pick up my katana and cut off your ugly fucking head. And you will be dead."
She watched out of the corner of her eye as Cecil crept closer to her katana, barely outside of the big immortal's range of vision. As he lifted the weapon she saw Orcus lean toward his friend, holding his mirrorgate out.
Ares rushed her. “Now!” she yelled.
Cecil leaped for his partner's mirrorgate as Jaz ducked beneath a back-handed slash. A brilliant glow sprang from her own mirrorgate and Cecil emerged, her katana ex
tended. The tip of the weapon caught Ares on the breastbone, sliding through like a hot knife into a block of ice cream. Ares turned disbelieving eyes at the diminutive Italian as his blade fell from fingers gone dead.
He sank to his knees as a torrent of blood poured from his open mouth. He coughed around it and tried to clear his throat to speak. “Ahhhhhhhhgh!” he said finally, still trying to articulate his anger to his final breath.
Cecil pulled the weapon free and watched as the corpse collapsed to the floor. He leaned over, wiped off the blade, and handed it to Jaz. “Nice sword,” he said.
"Thanks,” she responded offhandedly, then shook her head in amazement. “I mean it, Cecil. Thank you."
He met her gaze and ducked his head, apparently embarrassed. “No need to thank me, Jasmine. I just did what I had to do."
"Well, it's appreciated anyway.” She patted him on the shoulder and walked toward where Diamond's body lay.
"Why?” she asked him. “Why would you sacrifice yourself for me?” Of course, he didn't answer. Not yet, anyway.
She knelt down and pulled a mana thread to her, then another, carefully weaving them into a net of mana. When she'd finished, she threw out the net, immediately aware when it caught a free-floating soul in its grasp.
She started to tie it off into the body and stopped suddenly when she felt a cold chill running up her back. She could almost hear a voice whispering in her ear. Diamond's voice. ::Don't do this.::
::What?:: she asked silently. ::Do what?::
::Don't bring me back. Don't tie my soul to a dead body. I don't want to exist like that.::
She gasped and sat up. She'd never really tried this before, though she knew it could be done. She could tie the soul back into the body, turn him into a psychic vampire, but now she knew it would defy his wishes to do so. ::Don't you want to live?::
::I would give anything to live,:: he replied. ::But it's too late. Anything you can give me would just be an unholy mockery of life. Let me go.::
Lady of Blades Page 24
