He couldn’t be dying, could he? No… no that wasn’t allowed. If he died… I swallowed as the realization hit me. If he died, it would hurt in a way I couldn’t quite describe. I hadn’t realized I’d cared for Chuck as much as I did in that moment. He was like the older brother I’d never had and the idea of losing him was too much. “I’ll be back. I promise. Don’t die.”
With that, I stood and walked toward the elevator shaft. The cables dangled in front of me and a strange sense of déjà vu came over me as I watched them sway. The medical wing was several floors up, but it would be more of a straight shot if I could just go up two floors through the elevator. If I went back up the stairs I would have to circle back through the entire facility to reach the medical wing.
I swallowed my fear as I glanced down at the abyss below. My heart started thumping in my chest as I crouched down, legs tensing.
“This is so stupid,” I said, leaping forward and grabbing onto the cables. My momentum carried me forward, slamming me hard into the steel shaft. Pain ran through me as I dangled there before getting my butt in gear and shimmying up the cables like a monkey. Thanks to Chuck, I’d had a lot more practice climbing up elevator shafts, usually wearing a fifty-pound pack on my back. This was nothing.
I reached the next floor a moment later, my hands scraped raw and my muscles about to explode. The doors were blown inward like some huge beast had punched a hole in them, and the sight made a chill run down my spine. What the hell did that?
I shouldn’t have asked.
4
Dale, the security troll, stared at me with one flickering red eye as blue-white sparks spit from beneath the metallic black skull cap fitted over the back of his head. The creature took a wobbly step toward me, dragging one broken, disjointed arm along behind him. The appendage caught on a tear in the metal floor, and his flesh strained before snapping free of the crevice in a fountain of blood.
“Dale, you’re okay—”
The troll swung at me before I’d finished my sentence. His massive fist came at me like a battering ram and punched a hole in the steel beside my head like it was made of tinfoil. The monster’s good eye fixed on me as he retracted its arm, swiveling his body around to attack me like he’d done in training hundreds of time. Only this time, I didn’t get the feeling this was training. That was fine. I didn’t have time to mess around.
I dove past the machine as Dale as his fist tore free of the wall in a screech of metal. I wasn’t sure why the troll was trying to kill me, but I was willing to bet it had something to do with the weird device on the side of his head. Was that Flash and Bang’s doing? I sure hoped not. If they’d managed to turn even a handful of the monsters in this base, I was going to be in trouble.
The distant sound of gunfire brought me back to the moment as Dale thundered toward me, his broken limb trailing behind him and leaving a snail trail of blood in its wake. I waited until the troll was just about on top of me before making my move. I put one foot on his knee and hoisted myself onto his shoulders. I gripped the metal plate in my hands and pulled as hard as I could. The monster’s head jerked to the side as the device came free in a spray of sparks. It’d taken a lot less force to dislodge than I’d expected.
My body tumbled to the ground with a thud. I lay there, trying to breathe as Dale’s hand came at me. Instead of moving out of the way, I took a deep breath and waited. Sure, enough, as the troll’s eyes rolled up in the back of his head, his arm fell lifelessly to the ground. I stared at the troll for a moment longer, but he wasn’t moving anymore. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, but either way, I needed to hurry. Besides, hanging out with a million ton monster didn’t exactly seem like fun.
I passed the security troll and approached the far door. It opened up to reveal a dark corridor barely lit by emergency lights. Most of them seemed to have gone out, and as I made my way toward where I knew the medical bay should be, a loud whump, whump behind me filled my ears.
Something flew over my head followed by a blast of heat and flame. I turned to see a tiny flying imp, and for a moment, I was worried it was targeting me. It shot again, and I dropped to the ground as the blast passed harmlessly by me. The resulting shockwave, however, flung me across the tiny space in a heap. My hearing evaporated into a dull whine as smoke and debris filled my vision.
A quick glance revealed an army of werewolves coming toward me out of the smoke. They calmly stepped around the mangled form of their leader as electricity across its charred remains. I scrambled to my feet as one of the werewolves put what looked like a bazooka to its shoulder, and not even breaking stride, blasted the tiny imp to bits. I shielded my face from the oncoming rush of heat and light with my arm, but even still I was sure I’d gotten a radical sunburn.
Katanas sprang into the hands of the remaining werewolves because werewolves weren’t scary enough. No, these ones needed swords too. They surged toward me, growling in the way they did when they’d caught sight of prey. My heart pounded in my chest as I hurled my body forward in a dive that carried me between the slashes of the two leading werewolves.
My shoulder crashed into the bazooka-wielding one, knocking it backward as pain shot through me. Pitting my fragile flesh and bone body against the werewolves would not be a winning proposition, especially without my impact dampening training suit.
The werewolf wobbled as its friends closed on me. I shoved my pain down, gritting my teeth and pressing my feet against the joints of the werewolf’s knees as I fell backward, wrapping my arms around the bazooka and using my body weight to wrench it free of the creature’s grip.
I landed hard on my back and stars shot past my eyes, but I didn’t let a silly thing like blurry vision stop me. I pressed the trigger on the bazooka, aiming the weapon so the backlash of the tube fried the werewolf behind me.
Fortunately, the others dodged, throwing themselves out of the explosive projectile’s path. Which was good because they were so close that the resulting explosion wouldn’t have been good for my complexion or well, my anything, really. It exploded against the door at the far end of the hallway, heat and light flashing through the room and blowing my hearing to kingdom come.
I dropped the spent weapon and sprinted toward the door. Already I could hear the werewolves getting to their feet. They would be upon me in moments. I dropped to my knees as a katana sailed through the air, so close to the top of my head I felt the wind of it whistle by, and embedded itself halfway into the torched metal doorway.
Another blade slammed down into the ground where I’d been, and I kicked out instinctively at the same vulnerable spot I knew the werewolves possessed. The werewolf who had slashed at me buckled, toppling toward me, swinging one glinting claw toward my most vital bits.
I caught its wrist. The impact of it jolted down my arm so hard, it was all I could think about it. Thankfully, my body was smarter than I was because it somehow succeeded in jerking the other katana free of the creature’s paw and whirling in time to block the swing of another werewolf.
Before the new one could recover, I threw myself backward through the doorway and rolled to my feet. I slammed my palm against the glowing infrared panel beside the door and held my breath as it scanned me into the system. It had to have been less than a second, but it felt like an eternity as the remaining werewolves clambered over their fallen brethren, yellow teeth glinting in the low light as they readied to pounce on me like monsters leaping from beneath a bed.
I wasn’t sure how I managed to stand there and let it scan me, but I was soon glad I had. The panel flashed green, and my fingers danced across the resulting controls. Just as the closest werewolf crossed the threshold, gouts of superheated flames filled the corridor, reducing the creature to slag in a fraction of a second. The upper half of a werewolf fell to the ground in front of me, the light fading from its cold, amber eyes.
As I glanced around the room, simultaneously glad nothing seemed to be trying to kill me and feeling dumb I hadn’t checked earlier, I
took a deep breath and willed myself to calm down and ignore the little voice chastising me. What if there had been more monsters in here?
I shook the thought away and gripped my katana harder, thankful I had a weapon. I wasn’t sure what the weapon was made of, but I knew it couldn’t be normal steel since I’d once used one to cut through a brick wall during a training exercise. The path to my left was blocked with wreckage so I started down the right fork, feeling slightly like I was being herded somewhere, but that was impossible, right? Why would someone be herding me anywhere?
Still, the thought flitted through the back of my brain as I made my way toward the curve ahead. As soon as I turned the corner, there was another guard slouched forward in a chair, blood dripping down his chest from his torn neck. It sort of looked like someone had slit his throat from behind, but instead of using a sharp knife, had used a dull saw.
I knelt down, searching him for weapons but found none. Damn. It was a little unnerving because it meant someone had already taken the guy’s gear. Why would they do that?
I swiped his key card and smacked it angrily against the door. It flew open with a hiss of compressed air to reveal a pitch black room. Darkness seemed to spill into the hallway instead of the emergency light illuminating the threshold. It was enough to make fear well up in my stomach and a cold sweat covered the back of my neck. This was getting crazy. I’d been through this compound dozens of times, but for some reason, everything felt different, and well, scarier in the near darkness.
Besides, I had no idea what security protocols were active, and from the look of things, those intruders had managed to take over at least some of the defensive systems. How they’d done that was beyond me, but I was going to find out. Not because I really cared what happened to the agency, but because I wanted to do it myself someday.
I pushed down the feeling of ridiculousness spurred by me trying to save an agency man and stepped into the darkness. The first thing I noticed was how cold the room was. It made me shiver through my sweat soaked clothing.
I’d barely taken three steps inside when the door at the other end exploded open, flinging shrapnel and debris in my general direction. I ducked, turning away from the explosion and shielding my face with my arms. My katana came up as I whirled back around, and just as I was about to throw the weapon at whatever came through the door, flashlight beams split the darkness, revealing a team of three agency men. My arm slowed, and against my better judgment, I decided not to impale the leader through the chest even though he was pointing an angry looking machine gun at me.
“Abby?” said the leader, his voice low and gravelly as he gestured amicably to me. “I’ve brought help. Show me where Chuck is.”
I nodded once, spinning on my heel as the man came forward, trailed by two medical personal dragging along a stretcher that seemed a little too small to fit Chuck’s enormous body. I thought about remarking on it but decided against it. For all I knew, it was a super spy stretcher with jet propulsion or something.
“You did good, kid,” the leader added, clapping me on the shoulder. “Real good.”
5
“You’re going to have to say that again,” I said partially because I hadn’t been listening as closely as I should have been and partially because what I had heard sounded insane. “I must have missed it through all the crazy.”
“How is what I said crazy?” Chuck asked, raising one blond eyebrow as he watched me carefully from inside his giant fish tank. Instead of responding, I reached out and tapped the glass of the tank with my index finger a couple times.
“Hey, don’t tap the glass,” the medic to my left said, briefly looking up from his clipboard and gesturing with it toward a sign in the lower corner of the tank that read, “do not tap the glass. Fish don’t like it, what makes you think humans would?”
I smirked and looked back at Chuck as he bobbed in the vat of raspberry jelly colored goo and barely resisted the urge to flick the glass one last time. You know for funsies. Still, the disheveled medic had scolded me several times now, and I was starting to think I was getting on his bad side. If I’d learned anything in my short time at the agency’s facility, it was to never piss off the medics, and the lady who served sloppy joes.
I still wasn’t quite sure why their cafeteria was something more akin to a high school lunchroom than not, especially since I knew people had invented awesome food preparatory machinery, but I’d never really received a response on that.
Chuck rolled his eyes as I turned back toward him. “Even if it sounds crazy, Abby. You’re the only one who can save the director from Flash and Bang—”
“Assuming they haven’t just drowned him like an unwanted kitten,” I replied, crossing my arms over my practically nonexistent chest. “I hear you people do things like that. And besides, why would I want to help you guys? I can throw most of you pretty far, but I don’t trust you to land.”
“Have you even been listening to me?” Chuck roared, and I was slightly irked his breathing apparatus had a speaker attached to it. Usually, they didn’t, but I guess when you’re the ranking guy around, and you have to be kept in a fish tank full of healing Jell-O to survive, exceptions are made.
“Yes,” I replied. “But I’m not going to do it.” I uncrossed my arms and recrossed them for effect.
“If you don’t save the damn director and get his codes to take the system out of lockdown the place will shut down in three days. Do you know what that means?” he asked, voice so low and calm it made a chill dance along my flesh.
“What?” I asked, looking away from his icy blue eyes and staring at my feet because they were suddenly terribly interesting.
“The power shuts off. If the power shuts off, the life support system keeping your father alive stops working.” His words had an air of finality to them, and as I looked up into his face, I knew he was telling the truth. If it had been anyone else, I might not have bought it, but Chuck had always been pretty honest with me. I guess when you could crush a bowling ball in your bare hands, you didn’t need to do silly things like lie to get people to do what you wanted.
“You’re lying,” I said anyway because I couldn’t deal with having to save the creepy ass director in order to save my father, Roberto. And even though Roberto was a supervillain at his core, he was still my only living relative. I’d had pretty much everyone I knew stripped away from me by the agency, and now he was the only one left. I’d be damned if I let him get taken away too… even if I had to save the agency to do it.
Chuck didn’t bother responding to me. Instead, he moved in his tank and tapped something inside I couldn’t quite see. A monitor to my left burst to life showing video footage of Roberto’s unconscious body. He was stuck full of tubes and other gizmos and looked more like a porcupine than not. He was still big, but his body had lost a certain amount of its density due to inactivity. The sight of him lying there like that made my heart hurt.
The screen split so the top right quadrant showed a timer, and the one just below it had a little bar that sort of reminded me of a power icon on a laptop computer. It was nearly full but as I watched, it seemed to dip.
“When that reaches zero, the life support will go caput,” Chuck replied, voice calm. “I’d go after him myself, but by the time I’m better, we won’t have enough time, Abby.” I turned back to him, and he shook his head, a grimace on his face. “Please, Abby. You’re his only hope.”
I fought the urge to swear and scream at him and instead, nodded as gracefully as I could. Then I turned and walked away from him. As I reached the door, I glanced back over my shoulder to see him still watching me. Good. He had better remember my display of overwhelming maturity.
“I’m going to the armory to get something big, shiny, and dangerous. Have the files ready for me by the time I’d done.” I felt my face twist into a snarl. “I have some mercenaries to beat up and an evil overlord to save.” I swung back around and kicked the door open. It smacked against the outer walls with a c
rack like a gunshot. I strode out.
I made it about six steps into the hallway before I collapsed against the wall. I barely noticed the cool press of the metal between my shoulder blades as I struggled to pull in breaths and keep from hyperventilating. I’d wanted to act badass and angry, and I guess I’d succeeded, but was I seriously going to do this?
Flash and Bang had taken on the agency and turned most of the defenses against us in a matter of seconds. It had taken hours to decommission all the overridden systems and now, more than a day later, we were still trying to patch everything together. I was supposed to go after them and stop them, on their home turf?
That seemed crazy. Still, Chuck thought I could do it. If he thought I could win, well I had to trust him, right? I mean he’d been the one training me, after all… I took a deep breath and got to my feet. The armory was just ahead, and while I knew a few grenades had been detonated inside, I was hoping most of the good stuff hadn’t been damaged.
It still looked blown out inside the armory and most of the shelves had toppled to the floor, throwing debris across the ground. No one had bothered to clean it up, but someone had gone through and made a pile of broken weapons, which meant, presumably, the weaponry still strewn across the room was good to go.
I picked up a compact machine gun looking thing, and without realizing what I’d done, field stripped the weapon and reassembled it, confident the gun worked fine. I held it in front of me as I moved toward the back of the room and pressed my thumb to the blackened keypad along a featureless white wall. It beeped and started to slide open before screeching to a halt with a sound that rent my brain and made my teeth hurt.
It had opened only about a foot so it was enough for me to squeeze through. It was dark inside, and I bent down, scooping up a black, steel flashlight and switched it on to no avail. Three flashlights later, I shined a beam into the room revealing what I’d been hoping for. My training suit was inside protected behind three-inch thick bulletproof glass.
Magic for Hire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Found Magic Book 3) Page 3
