by Kal Aaron
“I assume you’ll show less restraint when we encounter the rogue than you did with me,” Aisha said. “Although I’ll again admit my mistake, this will not be a situation we can solve by talking.”
“I don’t like killing people.” Lyssa kept her voice steady. “Contrary to what you might think, I only kill when necessary, but as a Torch, not killing isn’t always an option. If he leaves me no choice, I’ll do what I need to.”
Aisha fell silent with a thoughtful look on her face. She continued to scan with the binoculars before speaking again. “Were you holding back with me?”
She sounded disappointed. Lyssa took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Running from the truth wouldn’t help.
“A little, but only a little,” Lyssa said. “I thought about using a showstopper for a second if it makes you feel better.
Aisha looked up at Lyssa, her brows lifted. “That would have been rather extreme.”
“Were you holding back with me?” Lyssa asked. “You know I have that capability. It could have easily gotten that bad.”
“On some level, perhaps I was holding back.” Aisha returned to looking through the binoculars. “It’s not just that I wanted to kill you. I wanted to humiliate you and then kill you. That required more artistry and less efficiency.”
“And now?”
“We need to work together on this job. Our duty comes before our personal feelings. I only regret that I was not clear-headed in my hatred. I don’t want my actions to weaken the Society, even indirectly.”
Lyssa smiled. “I know you hate me, but I don’t hate you. I… You know what? Forget it. We both screwed up back there, and we’re a little singed from it, but it’s nothing bad.”
“It’s frustrating.” Aisha narrowed her eyes. “I thought I had been handed a perfect opportunity for revenge.” Her voice softened. “But it didn’t feel right. I ignored my instincts because it was perfect. I don’t like making mistakes.”
“We all make mistakes.” Lyssa smiled.
Aisha scoffed. “Some more than others.”
Lyssa chuckled. “Sure, but next time, maybe ask a couple more questions before you attack someone. Just a crazy idea I came up with.”
“If you were a rogue, I could have died.” Aisha scowled. “I realized that on the way here. I made a mistake by exposing myself and talking instead of immediately following up my attack.”
“That little delay might have stopped both of us from killing one another.” Lyssa shrugged. “Maybe that was you listening to your gut. Instinct’s a good thing to develop as a Torch.”
“Just so you know, if you ever do go rogue, I’ll kill you without a second thought, friend.” Aisha delivered the line in a low, pained tone. “Don’t let yourself be killed by anyone else before that time. The only one allowed to kill you is me.”
Lyssa chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll even go so far as to say I’m honored.”
“Humans are bizarre,” Jofi said. “I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand your kind.”
Lyssa ignored him to smile at Aisha. Her way of saying “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to try to kill you” and “Be careful and take care of yourself” might be twisted, but Lyssa would accept her intentions for what they were.
“Ah.” Aisha smiled wickedly. “They’re unloading it now. The blue one. The ID matches.”
“Get ready to get back on the bike, and remember the plan. We try to take them on the road after they leave the port.” Lyssa nodded. “Less chance of collateral damage that way.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“Then we improvise.” Lyssa shook a finger. “But we keep it under control. If we find a rogue at the end, I will try to get him to surrender. If he doesn’t, we take him out, but that doesn’t mean we can heavily damage this port or fling spells wherever we want. You start throwing fire everywhere, and the next thing we know, we’ll have an oil tanker burning, and both Elders pissed, along with the entire state. We might be Torches, but I don’t want to take on the entire state of Texas.”
Aisha shifted to her knees, an eager look on her face. “You know I can be precise when necessary.” She rotated her wrists and stretched out her arms. “We’ll be fine. The criminals and the rogues will suffer.”
“Knowing you can do something is not the same as knowing you will do something.”
Lyssa stared at the giant crane moving the container. Serafina’s killer doll had been a product of dangerous experimental sorcery, but the Shadows had golems, dolls, and constructs with just as much power. A fusion of the best of both might be centuries off, but that would be a true Golden Age. Humanity just needed to get there first without one side killing the other.
Lyssa and Aisha waited for a couple of minutes as the crane lowered the container to the edge of the loading zone. Aisha turned, feeling her way along the edge of the bike until she found the back and hopped on, allowing Lyssa to extend the wraith form over her.
“I think my original suggestion of death from above would have had more impact.” Aisha sniffed. “Shadow thugs don’t like being attacked from the air.”
Lyssa chuckled. “I think we’ll stick to surprising them using my wraith form.”
“It lacks style and elegance, but so be it.”
Lyssa started the bike and drove down the rock pile toward a road. The bike revved under her skillful touch, accelerating and heading toward a sharp corner. She turned and cut across, which was easy without traffic. Her bike shook as they left the road and entered a grass strip before crossing it to another road.
The disguised Ducati zoomed down the new road before sharply turning again and heading toward the maze of stacked cargo containers covering the area. Lyssa sped up as a semi with a large empty bed pulled through an open gate. She slid to the side and drove past it. The driver glanced her way, frowning at the strange shadows moving into the field of cargo containers, but he didn’t stop driving.
Lyssa continued forward before making a hard right and heading toward three stacks of containers at the far edge of the maze. The crane had swung away from the ship minutes before and gone quiet. Beyond the man running the crane, she noticed dockworkers in the area inspecting containers, but none were close to the Torches’ target. That simplified matters and lowered the chance of collateral damage.
She maneuvered her bike between containers, following a narrow passage between two rows until she was around the corner from their target. She stopped, and Lyssa visually confirmed the cargo ID.
“That’s it, right?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Aisha replied. “But we didn’t need to know that number, did we?”
Lyssa took slow, even breaths. Aisha was right. There was no doubting the familiar pressure of sorcery in her chest. It had built far past anything she’d recently felt.
The container must have been jammed full of semi-active and active shards. Lyssa had clung to the hope that Sellers had represented the pinnacle of the smuggling, but now she worried Aisha was right, and he was just the beginning of a long, painful trail.
“I don’t see anyone yet.” Lyssa frowned. “It’s almost time for the pick-up.”
“Sellers could have woken up and warned them.” Aisha looked around.
“And have them drop a container full of shards that reek of sorcery and let us grab it? That’s a lot of money to throw away.” Lyssa sucked a breath through her teeth. “I doubt it. They’ll be here. We don’t know how punctual these guys are. Sellers is afraid of Nelson. Maybe he doesn’t care if his guys wait all day for him.”
The truck she’d passed earlier pulled past the target container and stopped one container-length ahead. Their target lay on the top of another container.
Two men in yellow reflective vests, hard hats, and heavy boots jumped out of the truck. One pulled out a phone and tapped something into it before looking around.
“No masks.” Lyssa peered at the men. “Nelson isn’t here?”
“Then he’s running,” Aisha
growled. “He’s been warned. Sellers is living up to his name.”
“We don’t know that yet. Calm down.” Lyssa drew and expanded her batons, prepping them with her spells. “And we can still secure the shards. As long as we don’t kill everyone, we’ll be able to follow up on this.”
“Should you be doing that?” Aisha nodded at the batons. “If the rogue is here, he could sense it.”
“It’d be hard to sense that kind of low-level sorcery when he’s got that crate of shards interfering with everything. Let’s wait and see what happens.”
Lyssa and Aisha waited in tense silence as the minutes ticked past. Jofi remained silent as well. The two men from the truck readied chains and hooks for the load.
“It’s past 7:00.” Aisha hissed in frustration. “He’s not coming.”
Lyssa had to face the possibility that Sellers had somehow tipped Nelson off. Grabbing the container and warning the Society about a smuggling port would put an end to the shard business for a while, but as in Japan, the people behind it would wiggle away and try again in a different country. A half-victory would taste like ashes.
“If we follow up on the ship and the manifest, we might figure something out.” Lyssa frowned. “We can at least pass that on to the Elders. For now, we stick to the plan. We’re Torches. We’re supposed to burn away the trouble of the world, not make more.”
A lift truck arrived at the container, pushing its tines underneath the heavy metal box. With a rumble, the truck lifted the long blue container and backed up until it was on top of the bed of the semi. Another minute passed as the truck operator finished positioning the cargo. He lowered his tines, turned in a wide arc, and departed. The two men who’d exited the truck scrambled over it to finish securing the load.
Lyssa didn’t bother to check the time. It was obvious Nelson wasn’t going to show. She put her batons away and waited with grim determination until the men got back into the cab and pulled away. They could figure out the why later. The job wasn’t over, and they’d planned to hit them on the road anyway.
Accelerating, she stayed close to the rows of containers. The early dawn challenged her wraith form, but towers of containers and machinery cast enough shadows to introduce doubt to anyone looking. Thinning, even for a short period, wasn’t practical with another person. Lyssa wasn’t even sure she could put the spell on any living thing other than herself.
The truck took a wide turn and headed toward an exit gate. Lyssa kept close to the load so she wouldn’t be visible in the mirrors. Anyone knowingly hauling shards might be suspicious of a strange shadow in their mirror, especially after having seen one earlier.
“We should hit them a hundred feet after we’re on the main road,” Lyssa murmured.
“Just tell me when,” Aisha replied, her voice tight.
The truck’s brake lights turned on. The wheels screeched, and the trailer swung wide. Lyssa hit her brakes and turned.
Aisha released her grip and leaped backward, her wraith cloak disappearing. She avoided a nasty spill with a last-second jet from her hands and landed on one knee, her eyes narrowed. Lyssa’s bike continued sliding on its side, throwing up sparks. Her spell failed.
She hissed and rolled off her bike before jumping up and pulling her guns. The container door shot off with a loud, echoing pop. Steam billowed as the door flew toward her head.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lyssa ducked. The heavy metal passed over her head, failing in its decapitation attempt. Aisha jetted to the side and landed on her arms before righting herself with a cartwheel, chanting the entire time. Her heat shield appeared around her as the container door slammed into the ground with a resounding thud.
Instinct propelled Lyssa. She darted for the nearby container stacks while firing into the obscured container. Loud, heavy gunfire rattled from inside in reply. A river of bullets flowed out.
Lyssa hissed as rounds struck her before she made it behind her cover. The bullets vaporized against Aisha’s heat shield.
She couldn’t see through the steam. Was the source a shard? Could the men inside see through it?
“Don’t get cocky, Flame Deva,” Lyssa shouted. “Remember the shards.”
Something hissed inside the container, and the hiss became a roar as a rocket sped out. Aisha jumped and spun in the air with the help of a flame jet. The projectile missed and exploded against a container stack, knocking one container askew and leaving a ragged, blackened hole.
That wasn’t fair. They weren’t the ones blowing things up, but they were the ones who would get yelled at. It would be Sacramento all over again.
“Restraint seems foolish at this point,” Aisha shouted.
“Okay, we’ve got no choice,” Lyssa called back over her gunshots. “Let’s do this the loud way, but try not to blow up the port, Flame Deva.”
Lyssa’s rounds flashed when they entered the truck, but she couldn’t tell if anything was stopping them. The thick steam hid her enemies.
“You keep talking about me blowing up things,” Aisha yelled. “But what about that incident in Tucson? You might have kept your name out of it in the media, but don’t think I didn’t hear about it, Hecate.”
“That building was scheduled for demolition anyway. I was doing them a favor.”
Lyssa’s question about her attacks’ penetration was answered when Aisha tossed a fireball at the open container. The spell struck the same invisible barrier before dissipating in a brighter flash than the ones earned by the bullets. Another rocket ripped out of the container.
Aisha jumped into the air and shot forward on jets from both hands and feet. She flew toward a container stack. This time the explosive meant for her continued at a descending angle until it struck the road. The blast left a small crater and chunks of asphalt spread all over.
“One-way forcefield,” Lyssa muttered. “Annoying.”
Men in dark helmets and black coveralls emerged from the obscuring steam in the container and advanced toward the opening, submachine guns in hand.
They opened fire and showered the area with bullets. Whatever hope Lyssa had for an easy victory vanished with the bullet’s first hits. Each bullet exploded on contact with anything solid, blasting up dirt, asphalt, and rock.
The pressure continued to build in her chest, confirming sorcery. The explosions lacked the power of one of Lyssa’s Serafina-supplied rounds, but the shooters were spraying them around with little care and at a much higher rate.
Lyssa fired a couple of shots before leaping back to avoid three blasts. The shooters were starting to get on her nerves.
A large fireball screamed from Aisha’s hiding place. The red-orange globe changed direction, curving hard and heading toward the back of the container. The shooters backed away before it struck.
The massive blast consumed the back of the container and lifted the rear of the truck into the air. When the explosion and smoke cleared, the back wheels lay yards away, and the container was hanging halfway off the truck bed. The thick steam remained.
Lyssa stopped firing after a couple more rounds didn’t go through. “Take out the other wheels. We need to keep the shards here.”
She waited until another curving fireball struck the center of the truck, then spun around the corner and coated the front cab in a black cloud.
Exploding bullets struck all around Lyssa, showering her with chunks of metal and asphalt. One round hit her stomach and knocked her back. Fiery pain spread in her abdomen, but the attacks ceased once another of Aisha’s powerful spells struck the truck. The latest blast gave Lyssa the opening she needed to finish covering the entire truck in a black blob that was impenetrable to everyone’s sight but hers.
“You should consider the destruction of the container,” Jofi said.
“If you didn’t notice, Aisha’s draining herself to try to do that.”
Lyssa ejected one of her magazines and pulled out one wrapped in black tape from her pocket. It was her showstopper. The magazine only contain
ed three rounds, but that’d be more than enough to win a fight. She didn’t want to use it, but her options were dwindling. The enemy would win by attrition if the Torches couldn’t get through their defenses.
The ammo was not rare because of the cost. While expense was one consideration, time was another. The creation of the rounds required a lot of preparation and ritual work by Lyssa before Serafina could finalize them.
The gunmen should be proud of themselves. They’d pushed Lyssa to a point she hadn’t reached in a year.
Lyssa shoved the magazine into her gun before loading penetrator rounds in her other gun. She winced and checked her body. There was a blackened hole in her regalia, and some of the links in her mesh were missing, but she wasn’t doing too badly for someone who had been directly hit by an exploding round.
She eyed her guns. This was turning into a mess.
There was a fundamental threat associated with the showstopper rounds that was specific to her: the powerful combination of enchanted ammo, ritual, and active sorcery risked Jofi’s seal. She’d seen no indication that using a showstopper had done that in the past, but she couldn’t ignore the possibility.
It would be all right. It had been before. Why wouldn’t it be again?
Some of the shooters had made it to the open front of the darkness-choked container. They felt along the sides, guns in hand. They weren’t spraying wildly, but their continued shots kept Lyssa pinned. After a moment, the top of the container shot into the sky with another loud pop.
“Now what?” Lyssa muttered.
The top turned end over end before crashing and embedding itself in a nearby field. The sides of the container fell with a loud clang. There was no reaction from the men.
Lyssa could now make out the entire group of shooters, all in helmets and dark overalls. They stood in front of a group of crates. Half of them held guns. A discarded rocket launcher sat next to one man. They weren’t the biggest worry.