by Charley Case
After two steps, the Valkyrie phone in her pocket vibrated, followed by a ringing that echoed off the steel walls.
Mila’s heart spiked as she pulled the phone out and mashed her fingers onto the screen, silencing it. It was far too late, though.
When Mila looked back over the rail, Yaminah was nowhere to be seen.
“Run!” Mila barked, but Remmy was one step ahead of her and already making the turn on the catwalk.
Chapter Twelve
Remmy sprinted down the catwalk, Mila hot on her heels.
“Back through the room we just came out of!” Mila waved at the still-open door. “There was an exit on the first catwalk!”
Remmy nodded and grabbed the frame of the door, using it as a pivot and rounded the doorway without slowing down. They ran down the middle aisle, arms pumping.
Movement caught Mila’s attention. She glanced to the side just as three thralls dove for her. Mila shouted in surprise, then instinctively aimed the Ivar and pulled the trigger.
The dark room lit up as if lightning had struck as the magical bolt ripped through the three thralls and exploded when it hit the metal shelf beside them.
Mila and Remmy flew through the air toward the far end of the room as the shock wave blasted them off their feet. A crashing sound followed by a second broke through the ringing in Mila’s ears. As she hit the floor, tucked her shoulder, and rolled back onto her feet, she saw that the shelves had tipped and now knocked over the ones beside them in a domino effect.
They didn’t have time to watch the chaos as thralls poured out of the aisles and stumbled towards them. Thralls even crawled out of the spaces between the fallen shelves.
Remmy grabbed Mila’s hand and pulled her toward the door. “Come on, boss! No time to gawk!”
Mila ran for the doorway. Luckily they had left it open when they first entered, so they didn’t have to take precious seconds to open it. Mila grabbed the handle and yanked it shut as they passed through, slamming the heavy metal into the frame. She looked frantically for a lock, but this was the outside of the door, so she was SOL.
On instinct, Mila channeled magic into the metal of the door through the handle. The draw on her already limited magical reserves drained her even more, but the door heated up at an exponential rate. In seconds, the flaking paint smoked and bubbled, and the metal underneath glowed cherry red.
Mila pulled hard, warping the metal slab and mashing the now soft metal of the door into the frame. As she withdrew her magic and its effects, the soft metal hardened as it cooled, the door welded to the frame.
She jumped back when thralls slammed into it and began pounding on it as they tried to get through.
“Dude, that was sweet!” Remmy shouted in surprise.
Mila pointed to the door at the end of the catwalk. “There.”
A small purplish black lightning bolt sizzled past Mila’s face, missed her blood-encrusted jaw by inches, and slammed into the wall. The metal wall rang with the impact as a hole the size of Mila’s fist appeared with glowing orange edges where the metal had melted away.
Mila spun and saw Yaminah at the far end of the catwalk where the interior of the building they had just run through ended. She chugged a healing potion and aimed a finger Mila’s way.
Another witch bolt shot from her extended finger, and Mila deflected it with a hastily formed shield. The bolt slammed into the door she had just welded shut and blasted a hole in the top corner. Immediately a dozen hands gripped the still-hot metal and pulled hard to rip apart the welded surfaces with a loud screech.
The sound of scrambling claws on steel yanked Mila’s attention back to Yaminah just as a dozen Rougarou charged around the corner at full speed past the still-healing woman.
“Go! Go! Go!” Mila ran for the exit. She prayed the door wasn’t locked, then aimed the Ivar at the handle and shot.
The celestial bolt blasted the handle, disintegrating it and the lock in one go, and slammed the door wide open.
Remmy burst through the opening and leaped over the rail of the stairway that led to the ground. Mila vaulted the rail with one hand, half-blinded by the bright light of day.
She hit the pavement right behind Remmy who sprinted for the chain-link fence that surrounded the property. Mila ran after her, using a bit of magic to help her speed up. As she passed Remmy, Mila slammed her hand against the fence links and quickly channeled more magic into them. A four-foot circle of the metal wires instantly turned to liquid and dropped to the ground with a series of splattering sounds.
Still at a full run, Remmy hopped through the hole with Mila right behind her.
They had crossed into a large dock operation, with thousands of shipping containers stacked four or five high in neat rows. Remmy aimed for the closest stack and didn’t stop running until she hid behind the bottom-most orange metal container.
Mila slid to a stop beside the goblin and leaned around the corner of the container.
Yaminah stood on the platform at the top of the stairs, her face sour and her fists clenched. They made eye contact for a few seconds before Yaminah turned, pulled the door closed behind her, and returned to her lair.
Mila breathed a sigh of relief, slamming her back against the container and sliding down to sit on her butt. She wrapped her arms around her legs and put her forehead on her knees while she caught her breath.
“That was exciting,” Remmy said with enthusiasm.
Mila snorted. “Yeah, it was a real butt clencher. Too bad we need to go back soon.”
Remmy nodded as she pulled her phone out from her waistband and unlocked it. “We should probably get some help for that. It was fun the first time, but it’s going to suck if they know we’re coming.”
“Agreed.”
“Hey!” A male voice rang out not far away.
Mila looked up in surprise and saw an overweight man in a hard hat and a vest walking toward them, a clipboard in one hand.
Mila quickly put the Ivar back in its holster, then stood up and stepped out of the shadow of the stacked containers. She glanced back, but Remmy was nowhere to be seen.
The man’s expression went from angry to shocked to concerned in the blink of an eye as he took in her shredded hoodie and bloody face and hands.
“Are you okay, little lady?”
Mila realized what she must look like and thought fast. She smiled and nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. This is just makeup…for a movie we’re shooting. Down the street.”
He looked doubtful. “A movie?”
“It’s a horror movie?” Mila suggested.
The man frowned, but could obviously tell that she was fine, despite the grisly look of her. “Well, I don't really care why you look like you just jumped through a woodchipper; you can't be here. This is a shipping port. How the hell did you even get on the property?”
Remmy appeared behind the man, exhaling as quietly as she could as she leaned against a container with one hand, fanned her face with the other, then sucked in a quiet lungful of air.
“Oh, I got lost looking for the set.” She pointed towards the fence with the hole in it and continued in as innocent a voice as she could muster. “I came across a hole in the fence and headed over here. If only authorized personnel are allowed on the premises, you should close up that hole.”
The man looked towards the fence with concern, then his eyes went wide. “Holy shit. That’s a big hole. Right, you come with me. I’ll escort you off the property.”
As the man turned, Remmy sucked in another breath and vanished before he caught a glimpse of her.
Mila chuckled at the goblin’s great efforts not to be seen. While her actions might be admirable, they were completely unnecessary. It seemed Remmy had completely forgotten that her concealment spell was still active.
As they followed the man through the enormous shipyard, Mila looked for clues as to where they actually were, but all she could tell was that there was water and the weather, while a little chilly, wasn’t all that b
ad. Then they came around a row of stacked containers, and Mila knew exactly where they were.
In the distance, the unmistakable lines of the Golden Gate Bridge spanned the large bay that fed the shipyard.
San Francisco, California. She had never been to the city before, but anyone who watched even a little television knew what the Golden Gate Bridge looked like.
Along the way, Remmy would appear in a shadowed corner to catch her breath, then vanish again after an exaggerated inhale only to pop up half a minute later in a different location.
The man led Mila to a gated entrance with several guards packed into a tiny glass booth that checked every vehicle in and out. Beside the barricades was a gate for foot traffic, and the man opened it and used his clipboard to wave her through.
“Thanks for letting me know about the hole in the fence. We’ll have it fixed within the hour, so don’t even think about sneaking in here again.” His stern face came back as he stared down at Mila as if she were lucky he was so kind.
Given what little she knew about the shipping industry and their regulation by the government, she decided he might very well be doing her a favor. “Thank you, good sir. I’m just glad you found me and showed me the way out.”
She walked through the gate and headed down the sidewalk in what she hoped was the opposite direction from the old factory Azoth was using. The walk out had taken several turns through the maze of containers, and she wasn’t sure where she was.
After walking the several hundred yards down the street it took to pass the truck and rail entrances to the shipyard, Mila finally came upon some buildings lining the street. She ducked into the first alley she came to and found Remmy waiting for her, huffing deep breaths.
“You know you still have your concealment spell on, right? You could have just walked out with me. We could have told the guy you were my little sister or something,” Mila said with a smile at the puffing goblin.
Remmy’s eyes opened wide. “Oh, yeah! I totally forgot about that. Oh, well. I needed the practice. So what now, boss?”
“Now I need to call in the cavalry,” she said, pulling the Valkyrie phone from her pocket. “Then we need to find some clothes that aren’t either shredded or covered in blood. You think you can use your phone to find us a thrift store or something?”
Remmy nodded. “That’s what I was doing when the fat guy came over. I’ll find us something close.”
Mila nodded and went to turn on the phone but saw that it was already connected to someone. She must have answered the phone when it went off in the factory instead of silencing it.
Holding the phone up to her ear, Mila couldn't hear anything, but it was connected to a call.
“Hello?”
The phone must have been on mute because Mila had to quickly pull the speaker away from her ear as a roaring noise of wind suddenly blasted from the other end of the call.
“Mila!” Missy shouted through the receiver. “What the hell are you doing over there? It sounded like you were just in the middle of a fight.”
“Missy! We have a huge problem.”
“Tell me about it. There’s a Drude stealing our sisters out from under us. And to top it all off, Victoria isn’t answering my calls. That’s why I rang you. Have you talked to her since this morning?”
“Funny you should mention that.”
Chapter Thirteen
Mila explained the last half-hour to Missy as quickly as she could, starting at the Market and ending with their run from Yaminah and Azoth’s minions.
“We need to get the rest of the Valkyries out looking for his next victim,” Mila said with conviction. “It sounded like he already knew where she was located, so time is of the essence. If we can get eyes on all the Lone Valkyries, then we will catch him alone, without his army to back him up. We could end this right now.”
The wind noise on Missy’s side of the call was distracting and made the eldest Valkyrie have to shout to be heard. “I’m on my way to one of the lone sisters now, and the others have sisters either headed their way or already close by. When he shows up, we’ll know. Everyone has been alerted to send a message as soon as anything happens. I need you to stay close by the abandoned factory and let us know if anyone tries to leave. Once we take care of Azoth, then we can free Victoria. Being close by will drain you and Victoria’s power, so don’t be alarmed when you feel the effects. It’ll be fine. You won’t need to fight, and I can call when we’re arriving to warn you away, so your presence doesn’t affect the rest of the sisters. You did great work, but please don’t go jumping through portals to unknown locations again. You got lucky this time.”
Mila frowned. “You just want me to stand around keeping watch? I should go in and get Victoria while you’re keeping Azoth busy. This might be the best chance to save her. What if he gets away from you and comes back? We can’t fight Azoth and his minions; there are way too many of them.”
“No!” Missy shouted, a little too loudly, making Mila have to pull the phone away for a second. “Don’t go in there alone. Victoria will be fine. You would just be throwing your life away. It’s impossible, besides the drain on your magic being that close to Victoria has to already be affecting you. Every minute you two are close, you’ll just get weaker. Forget about Victoria, and just stay close by, watching for anything out of the ordinary. I’ll call you when we have taken care of Azoth. I have to go, I’m here. Remember, don’t go in for a rescue mission; you’re not ready for something like that.”
Mila gritted her teeth. “You got it, Missy. I’ll just keep watch.”
“Good.” Missy sighed with relief. “Talk with you soon.”
Mila stabbed the end call button hard enough that she nearly broke her finger. Why did everyone underestimate her? The corner of her mouth went up when she realized that wasn’t true. Finn didn’t underestimate her. Hell, most of the time he even warned people ahead of time that she was going to kick their ass, and they still didn’t believe it.
That got her thinking like a dwarf. What would Finn do? Sit tight and keep watch? Fuck no. He would charge in, his berserker rage whipped into a frenzy, and start chopping people in half. While that sounded appealing, it also sounded like something she would have to call plan C. She wasn’t exactly the front-line brute force kind of weapon. She wasn’t even the knife-in-the-back kind of weapon. No, she decided she was more the twist your disadvantages into advantages kind of weapon. The kind the enemy didn't expect.
The problem was that this whole thing wasn’t adding up. On the surface, she could see how they had gotten here with Azoth and the Valkyries being hunted down one by one, but when she really started examining the situation, it seemed like there was a third player working in the background. Mila suspected it was Yaminah. That woman was defiant and wickedly smart, only giving Azoth the bare minimum of obedience. Mila suspected she was orchestrating a lot more behind the scenes than Azoth realized. Mila just needed to figure out how and why. What did she stand to gain by making Azoth so powerful?
“So, we have watch duty, huh?” Remmy looked up from her phone.
“No,” Mila replied, her eyes narrowed in deep thought.
After a moment, she shook off her contemplative mood and smiled down at the tan-skinned Remmy. “No, we are not going to stand by and watch. We’re going to rescue Victoria, but there are a few things we need to do before that. Did you find anywhere we can get cleaned up and some new clothes?”
Mila closed her eyes and sighed as she remembered something. “Fuck. I don’t have my wallet or my phone. I can’t pay for anything.”
Remmy reached into her black sports bra and pulled out her roll of cash. “Don’t worry. I have us covered.”
“Thank fuck. Where did you get that much cash anyway? I meant to ask when you bought lunch, but we were interrupted by Braid Girl back there.” She hiked a thumb in the direction she thought Yaminah most likely was. “Did you get a job I don’t know about?”
Remmy started searching along the si
de of the old brick building in the alley. “No, I can’t get a job out there with the Peabrains; they all think I’m a kid or a freak. I wouldn’t want to do some borin’ job anyway; I’m a warrior. Ah, found one. Come over here.” Remmy began rummaging through a trashcan, tossing out an old coffee filter and a bag of onions that had green shoots two feet long sticking out of them, before her face brightened and she pulled out several crumpled-up newspapers. “This’ll work.”
Mila walked over to Remmy and saw a water spigot without a handle in the wall beside a metal door that had Furmin & Shuke Attorneys at Law: Package Delivery written on it.
“I guess you could say I work for Finn mostly. He has me run errands for him, and he pays me in cash. He always gives me way too much, and I try to tell him so, but he doesn’t believe me. That guy doesn’t get money at all.” Remmy stacked the papers on a trashcan lid, bent over the spigot, stuck her finger into the square socket where a handle key would normally fit, and twisted. A blast of murky water coughed out of the spigot a couple of times before it started to flow at a steady rate. After a few seconds, the murky water turned clear as the sediment in the pipes was washed out.
“He understands money. He just acts like he doesn’t so he can overpay people and get away with it. He wants you to have it. Uh, what are you doing?” Mila cocked her head to one side as she tried to figure out if Remmy was thirsty or if she just wanted to mess with a couple of lawyers’ water bill by leaving the spigot running. It wasn’t a bad prank, but hardly the time for it.
Remmy gave her a once over. “I’m not exactly sure what I look like right now, but if you’re any indication, I must look like I just chopped twenty people up with an axe and rolled around in the gore for ten minutes.” She undid her holster and gently placed the two daggers and belt on the trashcan lid beside the newspapers. Then, in one quick motion, she pulled her blood-soaked sports bra off and began rinsing it in the water. “We need to clean up a little if we’re going to be walking out in the open. I know this is San Francisco, but even they have a line we can’t cross.”
