Mage Hunters Box Set

by Andrew C Piazza

  He looked at the table. His blood was still wet on its surface.

  “I can’t go back to being like that,” he said.

  “Deal,” Dread said.

  I couldn’t tell if there was any malice in Dread’s voice. There sure as hell was in my heart.

  A look around the room told me I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Every one of us looked like we would like nothing more than to leave Adjani to Kel’s torments or put him through some agony ourselves. Lysette was pacing back and forth, which for her, was practically a screaming fit.

  She headed toward the double doors leading out of the room, probably to keep herself from twisting Adjani’s head off his shoulders with her bare hands. On her way past me, she caught my eye.

  “I’m going to have a look around,” she said. “That asshole isn’t worth one of her tears.”

  I tended to agree.

  ***

  Getting out into the hallway and away from Adjani felt a lot like walking out of a sauna and into cool air for Lysette. Breathing in the same air that he breathed, watching what Mickey had to put herself through on his behalf, had built up a head of steam in the Physical Adept that made her feel like she might burst at the seams with rage.

  Out in the hallway, there was nothing but cool air. Cool air and quiet and doing the job.

  She stalked her way out into the corridors, placing her feet carefully, making no sound. Nothing was moving on this floor; her magically enhanced hearing would be able to pick up so much as a pin drop…

  There. A footstep, furtive, slow, off closer to the elevators.

  Lysette frowned. Only one? Perhaps a scout, come to discover where they were holed up, so that Kel’s main force could then make an assault.

  It didn’t matter. She had to take a closer look.

  She continued to glide through the hallways silently, easily following the sounds of the slow footsteps near the elevators. Lysette was certain now; there was only one target, moving slowly, somewhat clumsily.

  There it was. Standing in the middle of the corridor, not even trying to hide; a ghoul wearing a white lab coat, staring at her, swaying slightly.

  Lysette shouldered her weapon, but stopped herself before she fired. Best to conserve ammo, she thought, reaching for the handle of the sword strapped to her back.

  “Wait,” the ghoul said, holding up its hands. “I’m here to talk.”

  Ghouls never spoke, unless someone spoke through them. Lysette narrowed her eyes.

  “Kel.”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s nothing to say,” Lysette said, taking a step towards the ghoul.

  The ghoul stepped back. “I have an offer for you.”

  “You don’t have anything I want.”

  “That is not true. You and I want the same thing.”

  “Oh? Pray, tell.”

  “Power. Perfection. To make ourselves like the gods.”

  “There are no gods.”

  “We could be the first. I’ve seen what you can do. It’s extraordinary. Now imagine what you could do if your abilities were multiplied ten times. A hundred times. A thousand.”

  Lysette held her ground, letting the ghoul continue to talk through Kel.

  “That is the power of the Intron Code,” it said. “That is its purpose. To transform human beings into gods. To turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.”

  Extraordinary. Kel had used that word twice now, and it made Lysette think of what Dread had just said about Mickey. Extraordinary not because of her abilities, but because of her compassion.

  She’d always thought of Beef as an overgrown Boy Scout, but sometimes, the Boy Scout did make a point.

  Lysette paused for a moment before replying. “Let me guess. All I have to do is let you kill me and bring me back as one of your Revived puppets.”

  “No. No, you remain alive. Alive, and your own person. The Code can transform you the same way that it will transform me. I can gift that to you.”

  “Just me? What about the others?”

  “The others?” the ghoul said with a sneer. “Those insects? You don’t need them. You’re not like them. Why are you pretending to be? Do you think it makes them like you? Do you think it makes them accept you?”

  Lysette’s jaw flexed as she ground her teeth together, but she did not answer.

  “You aren’t one of them. You could never be one of them. You could never be so small. You could never be so weak. You were destined to be extraordinary, as I was.”

  There was that word again. Extraordinary.

  “They put you in that prison because they were terrified of you. And they should be. You are more than them. You know that is the truth. You are superior to them in a way they will never understand. Stop denying what you are. Stop holding back from what you really want.”

  “And what is that?” Lysette asked.

  “To dominate without question. To never doubt yourself. I understand you, because you and I are alike. I know your desires. I know your needs. To be limitless. To never need to ask for permission. To never feel shame for your actions.”

  Shame for your actions. Those words cut into Lysette a little more deeply than she expected.

  Lysette gave herself another second or two to look at the ghoul before she responded. Its eyes were all black, like every ghoul. Empty of life. Devoid of anything but hate.

  “Let me ask you something,” she said. “Do you even know my name?”

  The ghoul stayed silent, and Lysette nodded, letting the silence hang in the air for a moment.

  “You know, I’m not much of a talker,” she said at last. “Earlier today, I thought I could tell the truth about myself to someone because they wouldn’t remember any of it. It felt like confession. Now let me confess something to you. Let me tell you the truth.”

  “What truth?” the ghoul said.

  “Cass said you were nothing but a glorified street mage. I think she’s right. You, Adjani, the Cabal, all of you remind me of some rich asshole, doing anything they can, lying, cheating, stealing, all just to cram a little more money in the bank. Get a little more leverage over the people around them. It’s a hole they never fill. It’s a hole you’ll never fill, Kel, because like those rich assholes, you’re hollow inside.”

  Now she stepped closer, toward the ghoul, almost up into its face.

  “I used to be like that. I used to be like you, and wondering why I never felt right. Now I know. I found what fills that hole. I found what makes someone truly extraordinary. And it isn’t power.

  “I’ll confess something else. You said I don’t need them. You’re wrong. I do need them. And they need me. And that’s the whole damn point.

  “You want the truth, Kel? The truth is, this whole thing… all your schemes, all this death, all this destruction… is all nothing but a power trip for a scared little girl with a hole where their heart should be.”

  “I can see I made a mistake in believing in you,” Kel said through the ghoul.

  “Oh, you’ve missed your guess, all right. By a couple of years. Once, I might’ve been tempted by your offer. I might’ve believed your bullshit, that just a little more power will fill that hole inside. But I’m not that person anymore.”

  She grabbed the ghoul by the neck with both hands. “I’m not like that anymore. I’m not like you anymore.”

  Her grip tightened.

  “Your fucked-up ego trip is at an end, Kel,” she said, her voice rising in step with the pressure she put on the ghoul’s neck. “We’re coming for you to set things right, and I swear, the last thing you will ever feel in your shitty, miserable life is this.”

  Her hands twisted and squeezed with every ounce of her supernatural strength. The ghoul’s eyes went wide for an instant and then, there was an audible crack as the ghoul’s neck snapped.

  Lysette let the body fall to the floor. She was breathing heavily; from exertion or emotion, she wasn’t sure which.

  She wasn’t sure how long she stood th
ere, staring down at the inert body of the ghoul, before she heard it. Laughter.

  Not human laughter. Twittering, mocking, high-pitched laughter that could never come from a human being’s throat. Lysette heard it in front of her, past a few hallways, then to her left, then off towards the stairwell.

  Bouda. Everywhere on this floor, all around her.

  She backed off slowly, weapon shouldered, placing her feet carefully to avoid making any noise as she fell back toward the room with Adjani. With every step, it seemed like more and more of the eerie twittering filled the hallways around her.

  “Coming in,” Lysette said as she approached the double doors and the rest of the group.

  “What is it?” Shifty said.

  “Bouda,” she said, moving into the room. “A lot of them.”

  The rest of the team were standing around Adjani, listening to him spill whatever guts he had left. Mickey was back on her feet, although clearly not completely recovered from the ordeal of dragging the Revived man back from the depths of insanity.

  Cass saw her and held up a hand for Adjani to stop talking. “Lys?”

  “Bouda,” she answered. “We may be boxed in.”

  “Dread, on the door with Shifty,” Cass said. “Adjani… these monitors. Can we use them to look at the security cameras on this floor?”

  “Yes. This floor and the floor above.”

  “Make it happen.”

  He held up his restrained hands. To Lysette’s surprise, Cass used her knife to cut off the plastic restraints confining his wrists.

  “Sure you want to do that?” she said.

  “He’s not going to do anything stupid,” Cass said. “Are you, Adjani?”

  “No. Kel’s influence over me appears to be gone.”

  “For the moment,” Lysette said.

  “That’s right,” Adjani nodded. “Once I’m done, you should restrain me again. There is no telling how long I have before my mind is… no longer my own.”

  “Now you know how they felt,” Lysette said, nodding toward Cass and Dread. “All those months in prison. Wondering if and when they were going to lose their minds. You piece of sh…”

  “Lys,” Cass said. “Right now, we have an understanding. Kel wins, and she’ll continue tormenting him for… well, who knows how long. We win, his suffering ends. I’m willing to make that trade for his cooperation.”

  “Did he tell you what we need to know?” Lysette asked.

  “This room is a remote monitoring station for the device. In case something went wrong as they tested it, Adjani could stay safe down here.”

  “Figures.”

  “The Intron Code device is directly above us. This graph,” Cass pointed to one of the monitors, “shows how close she is to the critical mass of power she needs to activate it.”

  “And then?”

  Adjani answered for her. “Once the necessary power levels are reached, the subject enters a booth that is designed to channel the sphere’s power safely through the subject’s body, activating the relevant genetic structures using the Intron Code. With the extreme power levels Kel has set as the critical limit to activate the device… she really will become a god.”

  “There are no gods,” Lysette said for the second time that day.

  Adjani didn’t respond to her, but said, “The camera feed for this floor is up.”

  Cass moved to look over the monitors. Lysette could see over her shoulder that there were hyena-men moving in small groups all over the floor; by both stairwells, the elevator shaft, and areas in between.

  “They’re not moving on us,” Lysette said.

  “Not yet,” Cass said. “Dread? I need you.”

  Dread joined them by the monitors, looking over the screens. “Surrounding us. You’re right, Lys, we’re boxed in.”

  “Can’t stay here,” Lysette said. “We need to punch out. Right away.”

  “We can’t,” Dread said.

  “We need to get on the move, now, or we’ll get pinned down,” Lysette said.

  “You don’t understand. We’re already pinned down,” Dread said. “We move from this position and out into the hallways, we’re done.”

  Lysette shook her head. “We’ve fought them before. Those bouda. They go down.”

  “That was different,” Cass said. “Kel was using them as nothing more than part of a horde, mass bodies to soak up bullets until they could get close enough to grab us. The same way she uses her ghouls. Now she’s figured out how to really use them to full advantage.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “During the Polonius op,” Dread said. “We had to deal with a lot of them. They’re pack hunters. And much smarter than you think. Like real hyenas. If we get caught out in the open, they’ll attack from multiple sides, separate us, pull us away from each other, and tear us apart.”

  Shifty called out from the doorway. “Dread? Dread, I can hear them, man. They’re all over the fucking place.”

  “I know,” Dread said. “We’re watching them on the cameras. Stay cool. They’re not moving on us.”

  “Yeah, not yet,” Shifty said.

  “What’s his problem?” Lysette asked.

  “Like I said, we ran into a lot of bouda when we were dealing with Polonius,” Dread said. “It got hairy. It was just me and him and Tara, and Tara was all shot to pieces. It got pretty touch and go.”

  Lysette glanced over the monitor showing power levels for the Intron Code device. “That graph is getting pretty close to full.”

  “Yeah,” Cass said. “Like the situation isn’t shitty enough. The way that thing is filling up… we’re almost out of time.”

  “Teleport up,” Lysette said.

  “Like I hadn’t thought of that,” Shifty said from the doorway. “They upgraded their defenses. The floors are all warded against teleport now. Like FBI headquarters. You can’t teleport from one floor to another. We want to get up there, we have to do it the old fashioned way.”

  “Lys is right, though, we can’t stay here,” Cass said. “If we stay, with Martin safe and sound upstairs, he can send wave after wave of bouda… or something worse… down against us until we run out of ammo, suffer too many casualties to hold them off, or both.”

  “Okay, but there’s no way out of here,” Dread said.

  “There are the ventilation shafts,” Adjani said.

  “The which?”

  “Through that side door,” Adjani said, “there is a server farm. Lots of computers. It generates a substantial amount of heat, as does the Intron Code device. We needed to put in sizeable ventilation shafts to move enough air to cool…”

  “Can we fit through them?” Cass said, not waiting for him to finish. “Climb up?”

  “Some of you might,” Adjani said, looking at Dread’s bulk. “Some of you…”

  “Let’s have a look,” Cass said.

  Sure enough, through a side door marked MAINTENANCE, there was a wide room full of rows and rows of computer servers stacked on metal shelves. There was a low hum emanating from the machines; Lysette could feel the heat radiating off of the mass of servers surrounding them.

  Dread spotted the ventilation shaft first; an over-sized grey metal duct running the length of the room, with a shaft extending vertically up and into the ceiling. There was a large, rectangular metallic screen on the side facing them, and Dread pried it off with his multitool.

  Cass looked up and into the duct using the flashlight mounted on her weapon. “Well, Adjani’s right. Not all of us will be able to fit through this. Mickey could, definitely. And me and Lys, if we take off all our gear. But the rest of you…”

  “What, stay here?” Jolly said. “No, no. We need to stick together. All of us.”

  “Not much choice, Jolly,” Cass said. “You heard what the situation is. We have to push up against Kel to put an end to this. Staying here is certain death.”

  “So the three of you go up there, without us?” Jolly said. “With no shields from Shifty to hold
back Caleb and his lightning bolts? What if you get hurt? I’ll be stuck down here; I won’t be able to heal you. Or Lys.”

  “We’ll manage,” Cass said.

  “Cass,” Dread said. “Jolly does have a point. I mean, I’m all for a positive mental attitude, but the three of you cannot take on Kel at the same time as the three other Revived mages with all of their upgrades. Not to mention whatever else she might have up there.”

  “What’s the alternative?”

  Dread thought for a second. “We need to draw her forces down here. Caleb, Martin, Oswald… and their conjurations. Let the three of us… me, Shifty, and Jolly… tie them up, while you three take out Kel and the device.”

  “That’s going to be a lot of heat, Dread. They’re going to come at you hard.”

  “Exactly my point. You three can’t hope to take all that on by yourselves. So we split up her forces, isolate her… and then the three of you end her.”

  Cass looked over her people, looked over the ventilation ducts, did the math in her head. Dread had a point; there was no way she and Lysette and Mickey could hope to take on the whole of Kel’s forces by themselves. Kel alone would be bad enough.

  “Okay,” she said at last. “Okay. But for that to work, we need to get all of them down here, including Martin. He’s safe and sound as long as he stays upstairs; at least, that’s what he’ll think. He can just hang out and keep sending more reinforcements after us. We’ve got to take him out to take out his conjurations. So how do we draw him down here?”

  “You’re the genius,” Dread said. “Think up a genius plan.”

  “Oh, thanks,” she said.

  Lysette shifted position slightly to make room for Mickey as the little Mentalist entered the server room. She had her arms hugged around herself, looking at the large grey duct leading up towards Kel and the Intron Code machine.

  “That’s the ventilation duct we have to climb up?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Lysette answered. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay,” Mickey said, looking up at the ceiling. “It’s too bad you’re not just a little stronger.”

  “What do you mean?” Lysette said.