He pulled the trigger and the bullet ricocheted behind her with a loud smack. She punched his triceps with her left hand, and he jerked from the pain and the shock the glove delivered. Her fist was already in motion to swing in a vicious backhand at his face. He jerked away in time to take the blow on his jaw rather than his temple. She felt something break, but any sound he made before he fell unconscious was lost in the loud snap of the shock discharge.
Cara stepped forward into the three-sided shield to avoid any counterfire from the man she’d tried to harm with her knife throw and drew her pistol from its holster. A deft twist slid it into the firing slot, and she pulled the trigger until the magazine was empty. She crouched to peer through the hole and saw that her nearest opponent was very much out of action. His vest had caught a few of the rounds, but the way she’d rotated the gun had resulted in wounds to a leg and an arm. And that’s why smart people wear armor there, too, boys and girls.
She felt the vibrations before she heard the footfalls on the catwalk and turned quickly. The other man on her side had abandoned his shield to make a direct attack. He had already pulled the trigger when she flung a hand out and launched flaming darts from her fingertips. They seared through his vest and into his body, and he collapsed instantly. She did as well but a line of blazing pain drew itself along her thigh, just below the armor plate. It was a through and through but still hurt like someone had poured acid into her leg. She fumbled for a compression bandage and by the time she had it in position, Hank was there to help her finish securing it.
He nodded toward her belt. “Healing potion?”
She shook her head. “I’m not damaged enough and don’t want to waste it. When you have something that could mean the difference between life and death, you don’t use it on a flesh wound. Even one that hurts like a bastard.”
She stood with a groan from the pain and discovered that while she couldn’t put her full weight on it, she could limp along well enough. Hank extended her knife to her with a grin. “That might have been the worst throw I’ve seen in quite some time.”
“Shut it, new guy.” She took the weapon from him and shoved it back into its sheath but wasn’t able to banish the smile that accompanied the words. He laughed and waved an arm to gesture for her to lead. She did so, painfully aware that her boss had already dispatched the defenders on her side and dashed into the office area.
“Son of a bitch, they shot my last canary.” Kayleigh’s voice was harsh in Diana’s ear. “I will come down there and kick their asses personally, every goddammed one of them.”
She shook her head with a grin at the tech’s ire and continued to stalk into the office space. She and Tony had cleared the control booths first and found both empty. The thermal displays on their glasses revealed bodies ahead, but without triangulation from the techs’ toys or more agents, pinpointing their exact position was difficult. They could be around the corner or on the other side of a wall, and the display couldn’t tell the difference. Diana dialed the detection down to minimum active mode, which gave a generalized glow but didn’t interfere with her vision.
The lights had been doused, which left the area almost completely dark. The night-vision function of the glasses was robust enough to compensate, and the main features were clear. Two intersections lay before them in the hallway, one roughly in the middle of the space and one at the back wall. There were no visible doors so presumably, the remaining enemies were down either one or both of those paths. There was no telling which one might hold the pirate, and she desperately wanted to find him herself since the last time it had been Cara who grabbed him while she lay bleeding on the floor. The bastard has earned some personal payback from me.
She frowned at the sudden realization that the defenses had been unexpectedly light, but before she could say anything, figures emerged from each of the four hallways, completely undetected by her heat sensors. “Contact,” she yelled as the four wands they held spat death and destruction directly at her and Tony.
Chapter Fifteen
The aggressors in the front dropped to a knee to allow those behind to attack as well. Diana summoned a force shield that filled the hallway, and it intercepted the attacks. Her mind cataloged them—one ice, one force, one fire, and one damn shadow—while her energy trickled slowly away. At four-on-one odds, magically speaking, she wouldn’t be able to counter their power with her own for very long.
Nylotte’s voice whispered in her mind, fortunately merely a memory rather than the woman communicating telepathically with her. Make it your own. She focused on the different sensations and found the force attack, then allowed that power to trickle through, grasped it, and cycled it into her own shield. It worked but it needed all the focus she could spare, and even that wasn’t adequate. She freed up enough brainpower to speak.
“Tony. Lower left. About a foot.” His face turned thoughtful like he planned his moves, and he nodded. She reached within, modified her shield, and opened it where she’d indicated. The former detective dropped his shotgun and sank to his stomach as he drew and extended his rifle on the way. After a second of stabilization, he pulled the trigger four times to deliver bullets into both feet of the mages nearest him.
Their attacks fell with them, which left her to face only ice and shadow, neither of which she was strong enough to be able to co-opt. Those in front fired at Tony and Diana closed the barrier again. She sensed Cara and Hank moving in from behind. “Make sure you’re under cover. I can’t hold this much longer.”
Cara’s voice was filled with pain. “I can blast them with magic once you drop the shield.”
“You sound like that will put you all the way out. Maybe go with bullets instead.”
“Yeah, that’s a good—” An odd noise followed, and Diana looked over her shoulder to see that her second had fallen, the bandage around her leg scarlet and soaked with her blood.
“Idiot. You need to think about yourself sometimes.” She scowled. “Stark, take her back and feed her the potion. Make sure there’s nothing in the wound that can be sealed inside as it heals. Hank, you’re with me.” With no way to know what was ahead, she decided having the option of magic would be a good thing. She focused ahead again, and the newest agent stepped beside her.
“What’s the plan, boss?”
“I’ll break the shield into four and throw it at them. It should block their attacks until it reaches them. They’ll probably deflect or nullify it before it does damage, but that’s not the point. You go left, and I go right, head down the corridor, and look for cover. If they’re stupid enough to follow, shoot ʼem. When you’re halfway down, stop and wait for instructions. If you see a door, move past it so they can’t come at you from behind.” She was aware that someone from the far hallway could circle if the whole thing connected but was willing to gamble it didn’t.
“Go.” She quartered the shield and hurled the four individual pieces. The enemies acted as she’d anticipated and blocked the attack with their own magic, but it gave them the necessary time to reposition. Diana was glad to see her guess was right, as the hallway ended at a wall. There was a door about halfway down, and she dashed past it before she turned back about twelve feet or so from the intersection.
She watched for someone dumb enough to stick their heads out, but no one did. “You throw sonics. Let me know when you’re ready with two.” A moment passed while she prepared her own grenades.
Hank sounded eager. “Ready.”
“Execute.” She heard the clatter a few seconds later as his ordnance struck the intersection and threw her own. His detonated, the wicked aural attack an effective tactic to make wizards and witches lose focus. Her earpieces protected her from the noise, so she also didn’t hear the results of her own contribution to the assault—a pair of fragmentation grenades. When her ear protection allowed sound again, silence reigned.
After waiting for a moment to listen carefully, she strode forward, and the other agent mirrored her on the opposite side. They peek
ed around the corners of the hallway to confirm that the attack had worked as she’d envisioned it. The sonics had removed their defenses, and the fragmentation grenades had inflicted a series of wounds. All four were eliminated. She shook her head. “This guy does not surround himself with the cream of the crop.”
“What would you have done?” He sounded genuinely interested.
Diana thought about it for a second, then shrugged. “I wouldn’t have clustered together in such a small space if I could help it. But I definitely would have dashed out of the intersection as soon as the sonics landed.”
“It might have been difficult if you were shot in the feet.”
She chuckled as she waved him toward the door on his side and jogged to the other one. “Good point. Still, I’d like to think I wouldn’t find myself in that situation.” She extended the tiny camera in her left sleeve under the door and the feed appeared in her glasses. The room was filled with cubicles but apparently empty. She retrieved a flashbang and a roll of gaffer’s tape that was included in each belt’s supply of miscellaneous items and secured the grenade to the door. If someone was hiding inside, she’d hear it when they came out.
Hank reported that his room was clear, and she helped him to rig that door as well. They returned to the intersection, and she considered her options. As far as they knew, there were only a couple more rooms in the facility if their initial scans and the blueprints were both correct. It was safe to assume that at least one would hold their target and a number of guards. There was no way to tell what challenges the other might hold.
Anik’s voice came as a surprise. “Doors are done.”
Diana replied, “Okay. Get into position to go after runners if necessary.”
“Affirmative.”
“Glam, any read on the rooms nearest us?”
Kayleigh sounded highly irritated. “No. I’ve tried to use Rath for triangulation—he’s directly above you at the moment, actually—but something is messing with the sensors in that section. Maybe they built it with radioactive materials or shielding.”
Hank almost yelped in alarm. “You’re telling us this now?”
The tech was dismissive. “It’s a joke. Mostly. Chill. We always check for that kind of thing, and nothing environmentally harmful is present other than the goons with the guns and the magic and the ‘hey, hey, it hurts me.’”
Diana laughed. “Professor Frink. Nice impersonation. Maybe we should change your callsign. But on to serious matters.” She pointed down the hallway to the left. “I’ll take a look. You stay here and guard the other way.” Her steps were slow and careful as she searched for traps and triggers but discovered none. Odd. I’d expected a more entrenched defense.
When she reached the door, she lay on her stomach next to it to snake the camera beneath. It showed a barricade made of office furniture and metal scavenged from the factory floor below. The room was deeper than anticipated, which suggested she’d lost her bearings on the structure’s dimensions. The tiny microphone picked murmurs up, and she heard the Prince of Plunder’s voice.
Kayleigh confirmed it a moment later. “Alfred says that’s him.”
She stood and put her back to the wall on the far side of the door. “Tell Alfred thanks. Hercules, move up to the other side of this door. Stark, is Croft stable?”
“I’m fine but I can’t stand yet.” Cara sounded seriously annoyed. “If anyone comes near me, I’ll shoot them, stab them, and roast them with fire for pissing me off.”
Their leader couldn’t contain a chuckle, which earned her another growl from her second-in-command. “Right. Stark, come up to the far intersection and guard the hallway in case there are surprises from the other room.”
Hank had retrieved his shotgun and held it in the ready position, aimed at the door handle. She positioned herself at an angle from the door with her back against the opposite wall. “You shoot it, and I’ll blast it in. We’ll follow immediately. You go right and I’ll go left.” He nodded.
Diana reached for her magic and readied it, then nodded. “Go.” He pulled the trigger and she followed with a blast an instant later. The door flung open. He dashed into the room and she followed a step behind, moved left, and scanned for enemies. Time slowed as her magic sense warned her something was wrong, and her illusion detection bracelet froze around her wrist. Not good. She shouted a command to dispel the magic, and the false image fell away to reveal the strangest weapon she’d ever seen.
Someone—presumably the pirate and his crew—had put four of the mechanical arms from the factory below on a turntable. With their entrance into the room, the contraption had activated and now began to move. The limbs ended with the cutting lasers and featured a kind of sensor package on top. The robotic appendages moved into position with the lasers closest to her and those closest to Hank arcing to bear on them. There was no time for subtlety, so she grasped the first idea and put it into action. She ran to her left and cast a sustained channel of fire into the center of the device. The laser cutters tracked her, but she was faster than the turntable and it apparently wasn’t smart enough to change direction.
As if she’d called for it with her thought, another of the arms rotated toward her. She growled and reached deep for her magic to release a massive wash of fire into the middle. Small detonations followed—presumably, important pieces had overloaded or melted or something—and it fell silent. She panted, then realized Tony was yelling over the comms. “They’re on the run. The pirate and four others. And they have illusions active so they look exactly like him.”
Diana snarled her fury and frustration and launched into a sprint with Hank at her heels. Dammit, you bastard. You will not get away.
Rath listened to the chase inside the factory over the comms as he tracked the heat signatures. Now that the fugitives were out of the office area, they were visible. Two moved to the front and two to the back. He’d heard the deep satisfaction in Cara’s voice as she’d eliminated one of them, then the frustration that replaced it when the illusion vanished to reveal he wasn’t the right pirate.
Diana pursued the pair who raced toward the front, and Tony and Hank raced after those who headed to the rear. He considered where he might make the most difference and decided that their leader didn’t need backup. Besides, Anik waited in that direction as well. He ran along the centerline of the rooftop toward the back of the building. “Gwen, all systems ready?” He’d checked at least a dozen times but still wanted to hear her say it.
“Affirmative. It’s all good.”
He grinned. Her personality grew stronger every time they patrolled together. Below, one of the heat signatures stopped and darted behind an object on the floor plan. Rath toggled his microphone. “Rear ambush. Careful.”
Tony replied, “Thanks, Rambo. It’ll take us a second, but we’ll get him.”
It wouldn’t make sense to stop running if he was the Prince, and it wouldn’t make sense for someone to sacrifice themselves for anyone other than the Prince. Which means…
The troll grinned at the turn of events. He kept pace as he loped above the target, then launched himself into the darkness as the pirate exited the factory. The low light function of his goggles worked perfectly, and Gwen put an outline around his quarry as an added bonus. The man paused briefly before he veered aside on an odd vector across the grass at an angle from the building.
A drone whizzed overhead, and Kayleigh spoke into his ear. “The one nearest you is running on a line toward what is probably an outbuilding. It’s fairly far away and not even part of this facility, but he might have hidden a car there or something.”
“Got it.” Rath banked, his flight silent as he rode the currents and wove to match pace with his target. When he judged that everything was right, he swooped at the fleeing buccaneer. He retracted the wings about ten feet off the ground and plummeted toward his foe. His calculations were perfect, and the troll thunked into the pirate’s back heels-first and hurled the man onto his face. To his credit, the
enemy recovered quickly, stood, and extended a wand with a snarl. Before he could cast, Rath’s batons struck him in sequence—left leg, right leg, left rib, right arm—and culminated with a double thrust into his chest. The Prince lost consciousness as the stun batons discharged and he landed heavily in the dirt.
He looked down at his captive with a cheerful smile. “Happy trails, pirate.”
Kayleigh laughed and delivered her next comment with the perfect amount of sarcasm. “Come out to the coast. We’ll get together, have a few laughs.”
The troll grinned. He was always happy when someone recognized one of his action-movie quotes, and his new housemate was getting better and better at it. Of course, it helped that they had watched Die Hard together only a few days before.
Tony and Hank arrived, lifted the stirring pirate, and put one of his arms around each of their necks to drag him to the car. Rath trailed them happily as he tossed the man’s wand in the air and caught it a few times. The chatter on the comms was all positive. They had minimal injuries, their objective was achieved, and police and ambulances were on their way to deal with the low-level defenders inside the factory. The prisoner would be taken to a safe house Bryant had acquired to use as a transit point for prisoners headed to Ultramax or Trevilsom.
Everything was perfect, right up until a bullet—fired from so far away that they didn’t even hear it—drove through the Prince’s heart and killed him instantly.
Chapter Sixteen
Dreven materialized in the ruined courtyard already in motion toward his position. He concentrated on transforming the intense rage on his face to a more neutral expression. His excursion to Nehlan’s bunker had not gone as planned.
In fact, it had almost killed him.
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