Mage Hunters Box Set

by Andrew C Piazza

  Mickey hands clenched and unclenched; she had to make a move, but she didn’t know what that move should be. One mistake and she would be torn apart. Kel was right there in front of her, almost close enough to touch, and Mickey had seen first-hand the kind of damage the death mage was capable of.

  Back at the prison, she’d overwhelmed Kel’s mind with a barrage of neurological input, and Mickey thought for a second about repeating the same attack, but then discarded that idea immediately. A mental assault of that kind required physical contact, and Mickey didn’t want to get one inch closer to the psychotic necromancer.

  I could try to knock her out like I did to Dread, or maybe paralyze her legs like I did to Fly, she thought. That had potential, but she didn’t know if either of those would work on a mage as powerful as Kel, and if they didn’t work, there was no telling what Kel might be able to do as a response.

  Kel moved behind the desk as Mickey debated with herself. The death mage searched over the desk briefly and then turned to the woman she had brought back as a ghoul.

  “Show me the feed for all of the cameras on this floor,” she said.

  “Yes, Master,” the ghoul said, tapping on the computer mouse in front of her.

  Mickey had decided to sneak over to Lysette and get help before trying anything, when she stopped cold. The camera feed, Kel had said. Show me the camera feed.

  Mickey would be clearly visible on the camera feed. Her Invisibility Trick worked by creating a visual blind spot that the target’s mind then filled in automatically with whatever was around her; but if they were looking in another place… like a computer screen displaying a camera feed… it wouldn’t work. Mickey would have to know exactly where on the computer screen her image would appear, and make another blind spot there, which was definitely not going to happen.

  She’s going to see me, she thought, swallowing hard on a dry throat. Any second now, she’s going to see me on these cameras and then I’m screwed.

  She had to fight down the desire to sprint wildly down the hallway toward Lysette; she could move slowly while using the Invisibility Trick, but if she moved too quickly, she risked outrunning the blind spot and dispelling the illusion. She was trapped; couldn’t run, couldn’t stay still, couldn’t do anything but panic and wonder what Kel would do to her once she saw her.

  Her hands started to clench in nervousness, and her fingers squeezing on the grip of her pistol reminded her that it was there. She slowly, carefully undid the thumb break on the holster, sliding the pistol out in tiny degrees.

  Kel’s eyes were glued to the computer screen; she must’ve been scanning all of the images coming in from the various cameras around the hospital floor. Mickey had no idea how many cameras there were, but she could see the flat black eye of one of those cameras standing sentinel in the far corner of the waiting room, and knew that it was only a matter of time before Kel got around to checking that particular camera’s feed.

  Her pistol finally came free of its holster, and Mickey began to move it up in the direction of Kel, again moving with what felt like excruciating slowness. She’d learned on the shooting range that she needed to lift it high enough to line up the sights properly, or her bullets would fly wildly and almost randomly around the room. Her hands started to come together in front of her chest to form a two-handed grip on her pistol, and as she lifted it past her chest, she began to feel like she might just make it.

  Kel frowned, leaning in closer to the computer screen. Mickey’s heart nearly burst when the death mage looked up from the computer screen, into the waiting room… and directly at her.

  The death mage’s eyes narrowed in hateful recognition. “You.”

  “Lys! She’s here! She’s here!” Mickey screamed, and started pulling the trigger.

  In her panic, all of Mickey’s practice and training over the last few months went straight out the window; she backed away from Kel, shooting as fast as she could, barely aiming in her haste. Bullets hit all around the death mage, smashing into the computer monitor, punching a hole in the desk she stood behind, chewing bits out of the wall next to her.

  On the third shot, Mickey got lucky and scored a hit on Kel’s left shoulder, drawing a shout of pain and rage from the necromancer. An instant later, Kel’s shield was up, and the rest of Mickey’s wildly fired shots impacted uselessly against it with sparks of blue energy.

  Mickey continued to back away, further into the waiting room, even after her weapon clicked on empty and Kel vaulted over the desk, her eyes as black and night and talons tipping every one of her fingers. The little Mentalist looked wildly left and right, looking for someplace to run, someplace to hide, but Kel had her cornered in the waiting room and was on top of her in an instant.

  There wasn’t time for Mickey to such much as scream; Kel lifted her like a toy and hurled her clear across the waiting room. She slammed against the far wall four feet off the ground, feeling the air rush out of her lungs and hearing the crunch of breaking bones as her ribs snapped under the impact. She then dropped heavily to the floor, more pain lancing through her ribcage as her broken ribs were jarred by the fall.

  Her adrenaline and panic made everything seem to burst into a white light; everything was so bright, her vision seemed almost washed out. She writhed on the floor in agony, unable to draw in a breath to scream or cry out, and then Kel was on her again, her shield gone now, dragging Mickey up to her knees with one hand.

  “Little worm,” Kel said, her sneer baring her elongated fangs, her eyes like a shark’s eyes, a doll’s eyes, as she drew her free hand back with an open palm. “I want you to know before you die… this is going to hurt.”

  The palm of Kel’s hand started to come forward. As lost to panic as she was, Mickey knew what Kel intended to do; Wither her, use the spell Cass had told her about, make her age sixty years in as many seconds as Kel tore the life out of her.

  Except Kel’s hand never fell. A blur of motion, and Lysette’s hand grabbed Kel’s arm before it could make contact with Mickey’s chest.

  Now it was Kel’s turn to be hurled across the room. The death mage hit the vending machines with a crash of glass, falling to the ground. Unlike Mickey, though, she recovered immediately, leaping to her feet as quickly as she’d fallen.

  “You’re right about that, bitch,” Lysette said. “This is going to hurt.”

  “The Adept,” Kel said, breathing heavily now, her voice becoming more and more unhinged with every word. “Well. You’re not the only one who’s strong.”

  Lysette beckoned to her with one hand. “Let’s see.”

  Kel charged her, shrieking like a banshee, swinging her talons at Lysette in wide arcs. The Adept side-stepped her attacks easily, moving with the fluid speed and grace of a master ballerina.

  Her expression never changed; it remained as calm and expressionless as if she were doing nothing more mundane than sweeping the floor. Kel was strong enough to hurl Mickey across the room like she was a doll, and she had the advantage of talons which were the equivalent of a tiger’s claws, but she had nothing to match Lysette’s supernatural speed and agility.

  Lysette let Kel take a few more swings at her, each time staying no more than a hairsbreadth out of reach of the lethal talons whistling through the air. With each attack that barely missed their mark, the death mage became more and more enraged. Her swings became more desperate, more clumsy, making it even easier for Lysette to avoid them, and finally, once she decided she’d learned Kel’s patterns well enough, Lysette began to counterattack.

  She waited until Kel took a wide swing at her face and stepped back and just out of range of the attack, bringing her own fist up in a backhand strike to her enemy’s extended forearm. It would’ve broken the arm of a normal person, or at least rendered it numb and useless, but Kel merely winced slightly and continued the attack with her free hand.

  Lysette’s backhand strike had thrown Kel off-balance, though, and the death mage’s second attack whistled uselessly through the a
ir where Lysette used to be standing. Lysette lashed out with a low kick as she moved, hitting Kel on the side of knee with enough force to snap a wooden plank.

  Once again, though, Kel seemed able to endure the impact with no more than a wince of pain. She showed no signs of so much as a limp from a kick that would’ve crippled a professional kickboxer.

  So she’s tough as well as strong, Lysette thought. Fine. The longer the fight, the more satisfying the victory.

  Lysette’s two strikes may not have incapacitated Kel, but they did seem to give her pause. The death mage no longer charged in with wild swings of her talons, but now circled Lysette warily, feinting occasionally, watching for a weak spot in Lysette’s guard.

  Mickey lay on the floor nearby, still rolling back and forth and groaning in pain, but Lysette didn’t have the luxury of stopping and checking to see how badly she was hurt. She had to stay focused on Kel, and keep the death mage fixated on the fight and enraged enough to forget that she could simply teleport away before Lysette could fit in a killing blow.

  Don’t let her grab you, Lysette thought to herself. If the fight becomes a grappling match, your speed becomes less of an advantage and the odds get more even.

  Kel seemed to be thinking along the same lines. She tried circling closer, feinting a few times in an attempt to trick Lysette into moving the wrong way and coming within reach of Kel’s grasp.

  Lysette countered with a series of jabs and kicks to keep Kel at a distance. Kel planned her attacks with the mind of a chess player, but Lysette had vastly more hand to hand combat experience, to the point where she seemed to be able to read Kel’s thoughts as the death mage attempted one gambit or another to outsmart her.

  One of her kicks landed squarely on Kel’s hip, and the death mage stumbled backward under the heavy impact. It was all the advantage Lysette needed; she was able to dart in and knock Kel’s right arm aside before twisting and punching full force into the bullet wound in Kel’s left shoulder. This time, her strike had definite effect; Kel screamed in pain and paused in place, stunned by the agony.

  Even better, her left arm dangled uselessly, and Lysette saw her chance. With Kel’s guard down, she could now strike upwards with the ridge of her hand and crush the death mage’s throat.

  She caught something moving out of the corner of her eye, and Lysette only had enough time to think Oh shit before the ghoul that Kel had made out of the receptionist grabbed her from behind. Talons dug into her skin and dragged her away from Kel; she was forced to forget her finishing blow and grab the ghoul’s hands before it could tear out her throat.

  The ghoul had grabbed her from behind, but Lysette had spent countless hours training in unarmed combat, including drills to counter exactly such a move. Moreover, she didn’t need to see her adversary to counter its moves; her bodily contact with the ghoul told her supernaturally enhanced kinesthetic senses everything she needed to know about where the ghoul stood relative to her. She could feel its body position, center of gravity, and every other bit of data she needed to know in order to turn the tables on her attacker the same as if it were standing in front of her in plain sight.

  Her hands were locked on to the ghoul’s wrists; she bent her knees and ducked low, stepping to the side and underneath the ghoul’s arms with a fluid speed and grace that seemed impossible. A quick twist and spin of her body, still holding the ghoul’s wrists, and she was able to use her enemy’s arms as levers to flip it end over end.

  She followed it as it flew through the air and hit the ground, delivering a stomp kick to the ghoul’s head before it could recover and regain its feet. Two more heavy stomps from Lysette’s powerful legs smashed the ghoul’s skull, leaving it inert.

  Lysette spun to face Kel. The waiting room was empty of everyone but Mickey.

  For an instant, Lysette thought Kel might have teleported away, but there had been no tell-tale sound of rushing air which always accompanied such a Trick. The death mage was still here, in the hospital, somewhere.

  “Oswald,” she said to herself.

  She was already on the move before she’d finished saying it, until a cry from Mickey brought her to a stop. The little Mentalist was curled up in a ball on the floor, crying and groaning in pain, and Lysette had no way of knowing how badly she’d been hurt.

  She looked down the hallway toward Oswald. There was no doubt Kel was in there, slowed down by her injuries. Lysette might be able to finish her off once and for all.

  Then again, there was Mickey lying at her feet. She might have a collapsed lung or internal bleeding from how hard she’d hit the wall, and if that was the case, the clock was ticking on her life.

  Lysette gritted her teeth, muscles on her jaw flexing as she made her decision.

  “Fuck Oswald,” she said, and knelt down next to Mickey.

  The little Mentalist was wheezing, eyes wide with terror, barely able to speak. “Can’t… can’t… breathe…”

  “It hurts to breathe, or you can’t breathe?” Lysette asked.

  “H…hurts. Hurts… here,” Mickey said, pointing to her ribcage. “Hurts… bad.”

  “You probably broke some ribs. Try to take shallow breaths.”

  “Dying,” Mickey wheezed.

  “No, you’re not dying, Mickey.”

  “Dying,” Mickey insisted.

  “You’re in a hospital, Mickey. You’re going to be fine.”

  “Promise.”

  Lysette took Mickey’s hand and squeezed it, gently. “I promise.”

  She made another promise, this time in her mind. You’re not getting off that easy, Kel. A re-match is coming. I promise.

  Cass

  I had just decided that I needed to stab myself in the eye with a pencil to end the misery of having to listen to Egghead The FBI Expert droning on and on, when the call came from Lysette. The phone buzzing in my pocket felt like a lifeline tossed to a drowning victim; I tried to hide my excitement at getting the hell out of that room and away from Egghead’s monotonous lecture, but I think I may have broken the sound barrier as I dashed out of the room.

  Dread followed me out. “Who is it?”

  “It’s… Lysette,” I said, blinking a few times in surprise.

  “She has a phone?” Dread said.

  Lysette had never called me before. She wasn’t much of a talker to begin with; like Dread, I’d always thought of a cell phone in Lysette’s pocket as being much like a vestigial organ… present, perhaps, but never actually used.

  I pressed the button on the phone. “Lysette?”

  “Kel attacked the hospital. Took Oswald. Mickey’s hurt.”

  Like I said, she never was one to use too many words. “How badly is Mickey hurt?”

  “The docs say three broken ribs, maybe a mild concussion. They gave her some pain meds, but the only Healer they have on staff here is an intern. I’m taking her to Jolly.”

  That was pretty common for most hospitals, especially the smaller ones who couldn’t afford to keep a fully trained Healer on staff. Healing magic was considered one of the more challenging forms of magic to learn, and so following the law of supply and demand, anyone with a decent Healing array could price their services out of the range of a typical community hospital’s budget.

  It was one of the things that made Jolly so special. As talented as he was… and he was as good of a Healer as I’d ever seen… the fact that he made a habit of giving his services away for free made him an anomaly amongst an already rare profession.

  Dread had stiffened up when he’d heard me ask about Mickey being hurt, and I held a hand over my phone so I could tell him, “Broken ribs. She’ll be fine. They’re going to Jolly.”

  That seemed to be sufficient to settle Big Brother Bear down for now. Dread was protective of pretty much everyone, but the smaller and weaker you were, the more Dread felt compelled to stand up for you. With as tiny as Mickey was, Dread was more or less on high alert at all times.

  “Are you okay, Lys?”

  “F
ine. Scratches. Kel can turn into a ghoul.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what it looks like, at least. Eyes get black. Grows claws. Teeth get all crazy. She gets strong, too. Strong enough to take a punch from me. We took a chunk out of her, though.”

  “We?”

  “Mickey shot her in the shoulder, and I got a solid hit on the bullet wound. Might’ve shattered the joint.”

  “How did she get away?”

  I could practically see her shrugging over the phone. “Mickey got hurt. Had to stop and help her.”

  If getting a phone call from Lysette was surprising, this little bit full-out floored me. You have to understand. Lysette was a pure predator, through and through.

  She’d spent her entire adult life doing two things: training to perfect the art of Physical Magic, and killing people for the government. She was a woman of absolute focus. When it came to Physical Magic, she was obsessive in her quest for perfection. During her countless missions for SOCOM and then whatever black ops organization plucked her out of Special Forces, once she was given a target, she was equally obsessive in eliminating it.

  That kind of relentless focus served her well in becoming an exceptional killing machine; but, it also gave her a tendency to have blinders on to anything but her mission and her goal. There was no such thing to her as concerns about collateral damage. There was only the target.

  I’d been worried about how well she’d integrate into the team, even as I’d insisted on it to Michael when we made our deal after the incident at the prison. Superstar players don’t always work and play well with others; sometimes, they get caught up in the delusion that their efforts are the only ones that make a difference.