It was the sound of the doors across the room being kicked open that gave us the second to react that ended up saving our lives. For an instant, I thought that maybe I’d been wrong about Dread saving the day and more bouda were coming to eat us, but that wasn’t it. It was Caleb, that son of a bitch, standing in the doorway with murder in his eyes and a glowing nimbus of electricity dancing around his fists.
Pretty much by reflex, I ducked behind my warded riot shield. Shifty tried to get a shield of his own up, too, a magical one, but when the lightning strike hit, I could feel sharp needles of electrical current run though my arm that held the shield. The feeble shield that Shifty had put up was easily swept away by the blast, and Shifty screamed and dragged me down to the floor with him as he fell.
It was a good thing that we did fall. A bunch of those magedarts that Caleb loved to spread around so much sailed over our heads in a lethal flurry, punching though the thin cubicle walls like they were nothing. I fumbled and angled the riot shield around as best I could to protect the both of us from the foot-long shafts of energy turning the cubicle walls around us into Swiss cheese. Several of them hit the shield with the sound of arrows hitting metal plate.
While we were pressed flat to the floor and pinned down, I took a second to use my abilities to check on Shifty. He was alive, but suffering from serious electrical burns and barely conscious. His body was trembling from the after-effects of the lightning strike, and his eyes fluttered, but breath still pulled in and out of his lungs and his heart was still beating.
My shield must’ve caught a good chunk of that lightning strike. And what little defenses Shifty could scrape together had taken some more out of what was left, or he’d have been blown to pieces.
“I’m going to shred you, you bastards!” Caleb shouted at us from across the room. “You fucking killed Martin!”
Another machine-gun flurry of magedarts flew through the cubicles, driving me even flatter to the floor. I wanted to fight back but I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think; every time I tried to do either, a hail of energy darts filled the air around me and punched against my shield like bricks thrown against a car door.
“Shifty,” I said. “Shifty!”
But Shifty wasn’t going to answer and I knew it. I was on my own.
Great. What the hell was I supposed to do? I couldn’t fight this guy. I had no idea how much more my warded riot shield could take before it fell apart or melted or something, and no idea whether or not it would stop another lightning strike.
I glanced down at Shifty. Maybe I could heal him, get him back into the fight?
No, that wouldn’t work. I didn’t have enough time to put Shifty back together, and even if I could, he’d still be too exhausted to fight.
I had to do something, though. I couldn’t leave Shifty here. Like Dread said, I was responsible for him.
And then, thinking about leaving Shifty actually gave me an idea. Mostly, I thought it was a stupid idea, but a part of me thought it was at least something.
“Stay here,” I whispered to Shifty. “Stay down. Play dead. I’ll draw him off.”
I had no idea if Shifty could hear me or if he was even still conscious, but Caleb hadn’t thrown any magefire at me for a little while and I figured that meant the Striker mage was searching the room for the two of us. I backed up out of the cubicle that Shifty lay in and crawled into the aisle.
After a quick glance either way to make sure the coast was clear, I started to scurry on my elbows and knees away from the door Caleb had used to enter the room. Trying to hang on to both my shield and my submachinegun was turning my progress into a snail’s pace, and after a few seconds of fumbling around like that, I decided I had to risk getting to my feet and staying as low as I could that way.
I really thought I’d been doing a good job of keeping low enough that the cubicle walls would hide me from Caleb, but that thought went out the window as soon as I heard the crackle of electrical energy coming from my left. I had barely enough time to drop down before the thunder came and the lightning blast tore through several cubicles to hit full force against my shield.
Again, it felt like I’d grabbed a live wire; needles of electricity stabbed all along my arm until I let out a scream of pain. I almost dropped the shield from my numb and nerveless fingers. Still, for all that, the shield held together, and I was still alive and not blown to pieces, so I figured I made out okay in the deal.
“What is that you’re carrying, a shield?” Caleb said. I couldn’t see him on the other side of all the cubicles but I could hear his stupid voice loud and clear. “An actual metal shield? Who are you supposed to be? King Arthur?”
The second time that day somebody had called me that. Son of a bitch.
“Where’s the rest of your shitheel friends?” he said. “Hunh? I only saw two of you.”
I stayed low, behind the cubicles, letting Caleb talk. My left hand was curled spasmodically into a fist around the handle of the shield from all of the electricity that had gone through it; my entire left arm felt like a foot that had fallen asleep after the circulation had been cut off for too long.
There was no way I could take another hit like that; I wasn’t even sure if I could lift the shield again. I could heal my arm, sure, but I could hear Caleb getting closer, and if I was hit by another lightning strike, I wouldn’t have enough time to fix my arm again to keep my shield held up.
I scooted along the ground as low as I could, dragging the shield with my numb arm. Right when I was starting to worry about where Caleb might be lurking, that loudmouth douchebag let me know by calling out taunts at me.
“Come on out, asshole,” Caleb said. “I fucking hate Hide and Go Seek.”
It was the sound of Caleb’s voice that gave me the idea. I couldn’t see him, but the sound of his voice told me exactly where he was. Maybe it was time to return the favor.
I leaned the shield inside a nearby cubicle, letting only the smallest corner of it protrude into the aisle. Just enough to be seen, not so much that it was obvious that I wanted it to be seen.
At least, that’s the effect that I hoped for.
Now, the bait. I needed something to pull Caleb to exactly this spot.
I unclipped the radio from my vest, fiddling with it, making sure the volume was turned up to maximum.
“Adjani,” I whispered into it. “Adjani.”
“Yes?”
“Keep talking into the radio,” I said.
“What do you want me to say?”
I rolled my eyes in frustration. “I don’t care. Say anything. Just keep talking.”
I set the radio underneath the shield and stepped back, checking my fiendish trap one last time before scurrying underneath the desk in the cubicle across the aisle. I pulled my legs in tight, trying to tuck them up underneath me as best I could so that Caleb wouldn’t be able to see them as he walked past.
After that, all there was to do was wait. The only sound in the room was Adjani’s voice reciting some sort of chemical equation over the radio. I guess that must’ve been the only thing he could think of to say.
Hey, as long as it got the job done and drew Caleb in, he could recite his favorite recipes, hip hop lyrics, whatever the hell he wanted.
It seemed like another eternity before I heard Caleb’s footsteps approaching. Hiding from the bouda had been bad enough, with their obscene laughing and twittering; waiting for the quiet creep of Caleb’s shoes sliding along the floor was somehow even more agonizing. As I waited, I could actually hear my heart pounding against the inside of my body armor, and I wondered if Caleb would be able to hear it, too.
Finally, a shadow fell across the entrance to the cubicle I was hiding in. For a terrifying second, I thought he’d spotted me, then, the shadow moved on, and I swear, I heard a low smirk coming from Caleb.
He thought he’d outsmarted me. That I was hiding behind that riot shield like a frightened little turtle. Well, the joke was about to be on him.
; Slowly, painfully, I stretched out my legs so that I could get them underneath me, and then I crawled out from beneath the desk as quietly as I could. Right when I was ready to jump up, I heard Caleb’s clothes rustle as he leapt around the corner of the cubicle where I’d left my radio as bait.
There was a clanking sound as Caleb kicked over the shield. I stood up slowly behind him, aiming my weapon at the back of Caleb’s head.
“Son of a bitch,” Caleb said to the radio lying on the floor.
“Surprise, motherfucker,” I said, and pulled the trigger.
Well, I tried to pull the trigger.
Short arcs of electricity fanned backwards from Caleb’s low left hand, punching through the cubicle and straight into my midsection. I could feel my teeth grinding together involuntarily from the electrical current coursing through me and my submachinegun dropped from my twitching fingers to the floor.
My entire body followed suit a second later, crumpling to the ground in a heap. The glyphs on my body armor glowed blue. It must’ve absorbed enough of the energy from Caleb’s sneak attack to save my life, but I still found myself trembling and momentarily paralyzed from the surge of electricity coursing through me.
Worse than the pain, was the humiliation at my stupidity. What was I thinking, talking trash before an ambush? Turns out, Caleb was in agreement with me on this particular point.
“Surprise, motherfucker?” he said. “Right back at you, dumbass.”
He moved to stand over me, shaking his head. “Don’t you know? It’s Striker Mage 101. When you don’t know where your target is, you keep one hand pointed in front of you, and the other one low and pointing back, in case some dipshit tries to creep up behind you… like you just did… then you can give that dipshit a little somethin’ somethin’.”
Man, I couldn’t believe it was going to be this asshole who was going to kill me. Oh, I could feel my limbs start to come back under my voluntary control, somewhat, but there was no way I was going to be able to get to my pistol before Caleb blasted me to pieces.
Just… not this guy, you know? Anybody but this bigmouth dickhead.
It looked like I wasn’t going to get a vote in the matter. Caleb raised his right fist in the air, and a glowing three foot magespear appeared it in like a short javelin.
“Cute armor you’ve got there,” he said. “But it won’t stop this. So long, shith…”
A burst of gunfire cut him off in mid-sentence, catching him low in the abdomen and hip. Caleb’s eyes went wide with surprise and pain, searching around the room for the source of the gunfire.
“Surprise, motherfucker,” Shifty said, leaning heavily on a nearby cubicle wall, his gun barrel smoking.
Well, shit! It looked like the fat lady hadn’t sung for me, after all! I scrambled for my pistol… no easy task when your hands are all twitching from just being electrocuted… and brought it up as Caleb blinked a few times, lost in shock. He rallied himself enough to raise his magespear again, but I got my clumsy mitts around my gun and popped him once in the chest before he had a chance to hurl it.
Shifty joined in from his spot nearby and together, we dumped round after round into Caleb, sending him staggering backwards until he finally came to a stop against the far wall. The magespear continued to glow in Caleb’s fist, getting brighter with every second, and now he ignored Shifty and I completely, staring instead at the magespear, grabbing it with both hands, his eyes full of desperation.
I stopped shooting. Caleb held on doggedly to his magespear, bleeding from about a million bullet wounds, but he only had eyes for the three foot lance of energy now pulsating a sickening yellow color in his hands. His entire body shook as he hung on to it like a firehose that was flailing out of control.
“Shifty,” I said. “I don’t think he can…”
The magespear exploded in Caleb’s hands, momentarily blinding me. Something wet hit my face, and once I recovered, I saw what was left of Caleb, still teetering on his feet, both arms shredded to the elbow and his ribcage blown wide open.
For a second, I swear I could actually see Caleb’s exposed lungs expand for one last breath before he fell first to his knees, then to the ground. It sounded like a wet side of beef had hit the floor.
“Damn,” I said, staring at the smoking carcass.
My legs still weren’t working quite right from all the electricity going through them, so I was forced to crawl my way over to Shifty, who was now sitting with his back propped up against the wall of a nearby cubicle. At first, I thought he might be unconscious, but first one and then both of his eyes fluttered open weakly.
“So, that happened,” he said.
I sat up against the side of the cubicle next to him, breathing heavily. I felt like I’d been beaten with a stick and tortured with a cattle prod.
“Dude. You’ve got… Caleb… on you,” Shifty said.
I wiped at the muck and filth on my face and my hand came back red and nasty. Normally, I might’ve been revolted to the point of vomiting, but right now, I was too damn tired to do anything but stare at my hand dully.
As bad as I felt, though, I figured Shifty had to be worse off, from the amount of lightning Caleb had dumped into him. A closer look showed me that although Shifty looked charred and exhausted, and his hair was even smoking slightly, he wasn’t in any immediate danger.
“You’ll be okay,” I said. “I’ll fix you up in a second. I just need to catch my breath.”
“Hey, great, take your time,” Shifty said. “I mean, I’m only slightly electrocuted. Oh, and Jolly?”
“Yeah?”
“A little constructive criticism. Next time, don’t say ‘surprise, motherfucker’… just shoot the guy.”
“Right. Right. Good tip,” I said.
I couldn’t stop looking at Caleb. He’d come back from the dead once already to electrocute us and talk no end of shit. I wasn’t sure which was worse.
“Hey, uh, Shifty?”
“Yeah, man?”
“Those Revived guys,” I said, gesturing at Caleb with my pistol. “They stay down after that, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
“You’re sure? Because I do not want to do that again.”
The two of us looked at Caleb. Then at each other. Then back at Caleb.
Without a word, we both raised our guns and emptied them into what was left of Caleb’s smoking corpse.
***
The instant Dread teleported in, he knew he was in the wrong spot.
Adjani had said Oswald and Martin were by the elevators; Dread had presumed that he meant by the lobby directly in front of the elevator doors. Wherever Adjani had meant, it definitely wasn’t where Dread was now.
He found himself in an empty hallway that he didn’t recognize. The disorientation caused a moment’s panic while he tried to get his bearings, and then he spotted a small hallway placard with ELEVATORS printed on it and an arrow pointing the way.
Well, at least Shifty didn’t drop me halfway into a wall, he thought, and then he heard them.
The twittering, laughing, damnable bouda, seeming to mock him with their laughter. They were nearby, so close that he was worried that they might come on him at any moment while he was still exposed in the hallway.
He should’ve known it wouldn’t be easy; nothing ever was once the fight was on. He couldn’t afford to get tangled up in a fight with the bouda, not now, not alone. Even if he could fight them off, the noise from his F-shok would only draw more of them, not to mention tip off Martin and Oswald that he was coming.
More laughter now, from the next hallway over, and Dread hurried to test the handle on the closest door to him. Luck was with him; it was unlocked. He slid inside the room as quickly and quietly as possible for a man his size in full body armor.
He heard them moving into the hallway he’d just left as the door began to slide shut automatically. Almost too late, he realized that the sound of the latch clicking would be like ringing the dinner bell for the bouda. He
jammed a booted foot into the doorway to keep it from sliding shut.
Dread let out a slow breath of relief at his close call, pulling out his foot and using his free hand to ease the door further closed, and then stopped. He couldn’t let it slide shut. Which meant, he had to stand there like an idiot, holding a door cracked open as a gang of bouda moved past in the hallway, hoping and praying that none of them looked his way and noticed that his door was ajar.
What a stupid way that would be to go. Dying because of a cracked-open door. Still, he’d seen men die for less. During his time with the Corps, more than once, he’d seen a man lose his life over something trivial or mundane or downright silly.
Once, he’d seen a man get killed by a mortar shell because he was out of his hole taking a shit. He’d had the runs for days, and from dumb luck, he’d been out with his pants around his ankles, and the enemy decided to throw a few random mortar shells at them while he was in mid-shit.
It was almost funny. Almost. Unless you knew the guy. And even then, Dread learned that he had to keep a certain gallows humor about death, learn to laugh at it, or his mind would never hold up under the strain of life in a war zone.
In any case, Dread had no desire to die to the bizarre today. He eased the door as far shut as he could, moving in tiny degrees. He heard the bouda now, close, very close, and he started breathing shallowly, barely drawing breath in fear of those laughing bastards hearing him and rushing in to tear him apart.
Their footsteps were heavy in the hallway just outside. He could hear their clawed feet and scattered laughter, and as they went by, the crack of light visible through the edge of the door began to flutter with darkness as heavy bodies blocked the light with their passing.
As slowly as he forced his breath in and out, his heart still beat double-time, slamming around his chest like a bouncing ball. They were so close. So close. He could practically smell them.
As if it could hear his thoughts, one of the bouda stopped in the hallway outside his door. Dread could hear its heavy breathing. A quick yelp of laughter almost made him jump out of his skin; if the door was open, he could probably reach out and grab the bouda by its mangy hide.
Mage Hunters Box Set Page 78
