by Kal Aaron
A small group of men held a bizarre collection of objects, undoubtedly shards. One man held a skull with glowing rubies in the eyes. Another held a lit candle. A third man wore a bandolier filled with small darts.
The men were all surprisingly calm considering not one of them could see, thanks to Lyssa’s spell. The shard-wielding men crouched near the ground, looking back and forth. They might have been awaiting orders or reinforcements or were trying to outwait Lyssa’s spell.
Their shooter friends dropped lower. The constant fire ceased, replaced by sporadic shots in the general direction of the Sorceresses.
Aisha hadn’t fired off a big attack in a while. Her ragged, heavy breathing proved how far she’d pushed herself, but she’d left the semi an immobile, smoking mess. Whatever else happened in the battle, the men wouldn’t be escaping with the shards.
“Give up, idiots,” Lyssa muttered. “You lost.”
Lyssa carefully aimed the gun with the penetrator rounds and lined up a shot. She fired once, clearing some of the darkness, but her bullets still didn’t reach her target, again striking an invisible field. The men returned to spraying explosive bullets her way, forcing her back behind a container. She took some small pleasure in realizing she was costing the gang far more money than they were making her spend.
The gunfire subsided after another half-minute. The men seemed far less eager to fire when they couldn’t see. Blackness quickly filled the hole she’d created with her attack.
Keeping a grip on her guns but moving her fingers, she concentrated on producing an image in her mind. She controlled her breathing while chanting her spell.
A dark circle appeared in the air a yard away from her, then another slightly higher and a third lower than the second circle and farther out. Within seconds, an uneven path of flat black circles reached from the ground and circled the now-open container and nearby area.
The good thing about pushing her sorcery to the limit without rituals was that natural exhaustion made the pain from her wounds seem distant. She sucked a breath through her gritted teeth. The Dark Steps wouldn’t last all that long in the direct sunlight, but she planned for the fight to be over before they evaporated.
Lyssa pulled shadows from the ground over her legs, leaving them obscured but recognizable, and lifted her guns. She stood with her back against the damaged container she was using for cover. “Ready to end this, Flame Deva?”
“Are you finally getting serious, Hecate?” Aisha called back, her voice strained.
“Something like that. I’m going to take down the shield.”
“I see. That would be helpful.”
Lyssa expected a volley of deadly bullets or shard sorcery from the men after their shouting, but none came. The men could hear her, judging by their shifting positions, but they weren’t shooting her way.
Sirens screamed in the distance. This whole raid had gone sideways, but she didn’t have time to chat with the cops and get it figured out. The Torches needed to end the battle before any innocents got hurt.
The man holding the candle stood up. He waved it, and the dark shroud surrounding the container disappeared in a bright flash, along with the candle.
His form wavered for a couple of seconds, then his helmet and uniform changed, shifting color to become gray and white, the pattern vaguely reminiscent of concrete. His helmet turned the same color and pattern, and opaque dark-blue-tinted goggles extended across his face. He lifted his hand, and a piece of metal tore from the fallen sides of the container and formed into a long, sharp blade—a sword without a hilt.
“Our primary target arrived after all,” Jofi said.
“I noticed,” Lyssa murmured.
She frowned, not recognizing the regalia. That wasn’t unheard of since there wasn’t any Society law forcing a Sorcerer to tell the entire Society his regalia’s current appearance. In theory, the Elders who attended his Initiation and binding ceremony would be aware of it, but it wasn’t like she could ask them in the middle of a fight.
“Hecate and Flame Deva,” the Sorcerer called. His voice carried a faint French accent.
Lyssa tried to place the voice but failed. She ran into far too many people who ended up wanting to kill her later.
She allowed herself to chuckle. The rogue knew who they were, so he had a good chance of knowing their true identities. Hiding identities from the Shadows was one thing, but the Elders felt people deserved to know who among them was a Torch or an Eclipse. Perhaps some strange sense of twisted honor prevented him from using their real names, or worse, he didn’t care because he thought they’d be dead soon.
“You must be Nelson,” Lyssa shouted back. “This is over. The cops will swarm this place and box you in, then we’re going to finish kicking your ass. Flame Deva took out your truck, so you’re not getting away with the shards.”
“Ah, it will be an honor to fight the famous Semi-Automatic Sorceress,” the Sorcerer replied with a laugh.
Had Damien been spreading that around? She wasn’t sure if she should be impressed or annoyed.
“The police won’t come any closer,” the Sorcerer continued. “They’ve received a tip that a dangerous sorcery battle is playing out at the port, and they’re waiting for the Society to finish handling it. But for it to be you of all people! Ah, fate.”
“You were expecting Torches, just not us?” Lyssa asked.
“I was expecting a confirmation call from Sellers early this morning. When I didn’t get it, I wondered what had happened. I thought the FBI had arrested him, but I thought I better prepare, just in case. My planning has helped salvage what could have been a disaster.”
“You know who we are, rogue,” Aisha spat out, her voice full of bile. “Who are you?”
“A man looking to the future and preparing his position accordingly.” The Sorcerer smiled and twisted his wrists. More pieces of metal ripped from the container wall, this time forming a constellation of twirling sharpened metal surrounding him.
Lyssa remained clueless about the regalia, but judging from what she’d seen, the Sorcerer might have a blade essence. It could have been worse, but it could have been a lot better. It’d been years since she’d last seen someone with a blade essence.
“You should finish him off,” Jofi said. “There’s no reason to leave it to an Eclipse.”
“I need to make sure he’s the end of this chain,” Lyssa whispered. “He can’t talk if he’s dead, but he’s not getting away.”
“I’ve prepared for this eventuality.” The Sorcerer raised his arms. “You can continue to weaken yourself by flinging your bullets and spells against my invisible wall, but you won’t survive. Or you can consider another option, a more sensible one. I respect women of intellect and power.”
Lyssa rolled her eyes and scoffed. “Skip the part where you offer to cut us in. Neither of us is buying what you’re selling.”
“Hecate is right,” Aisha said. “You can’t buy us. You can surrender now, or you can surrender after we beat you into submission. Or you can die. I’m fine with any of those eventualities.”
“Surrender,” Lyssa added, “and I’ll guarantee you’ll live until we deliver you to the Society for judgment. Fight us, and there are going to be unnecessary deaths, including yours. I don’t want to have to kill a Sorcerer, but I will if I need to.”
The Night Goddess schtick wouldn’t mean much to most Sorcerers, but she’d make a half-assed try. This wasn’t going to come down to psychological warfare. She eyed her Dark Steps. They were growing more transparent.
“You’re so much like your brother it hurts.” The Sorcerer shook his head. “It’s pathetic. The same self-righteousness from someone who is nothing more than a sorcery-powered mercenary.”
Lyssa’s heart kicked up. “What did you just say?”
It couldn’t be. Impossible. He was just messing with her.
“If you let me go, I might have some news for you about him.” He laughed. “I’ve heard you’ve been looking for
him. I’ve heard you don’t believe he’s dead.”
Lyssa’s jaw tightened, along with her grip on her guns. Fifteen years and nothing. It was too convoluted a plan to leak shards to Phoenix just to get to her.
“He’s attempting to undermine your morale,” Jofi said. “Your brother was a high-profile Torch. The circumstances of his disappearance are not unknown among your kind.”
“How about I offer you another deal?” Lyssa called back. “How about I beat your ass down and force that information out of you? Won’t that be fun?”
Aisha cackled. “Well said, Hecate.”
“We still have a stalemate, my beautiful Sorceresses,” the Sorcerer replied. “No.” He shook his head. “I can’t let you leave here. Know now that you’ll fall before Adrien Allard, bearer of the City Guard.”
Lyssa frowned. Giving up his real name to two Sorceresses was one thing, but he’d also revealed it to all the Shadows around him.
She thought it through. Sellers’ men were normally the ones who drove the truck, but Adrien had been expecting an ambush. They must have all been his goons.
“Destroy him,” Jofi said. “The unknown nature of the remaining shards represents an extreme risk. His full capabilities also remain unknown.”
“Flame Deva,” Lyssa yelled. “When I give the signal, you focus on his men, and I’ll focus on him. Sound fair?”
Aisha let out a snort of disapproval. “You’ll have the higher quality opponent, Hecate, but I suppose the numbers make up for it. Very well.”
Adrien barked a laugh. “You think you can surprise me while you’re openly discussing your plans? You’ll never get through this shield. You don’t understand how long I’ve prepared for something like this. Do you think I didn’t anticipate Torches or Eclipses showing up? Your arrogance will be your downfall. We can continue to attack you, but you can’t get to us. You can’t win.”
“I think you still don’t understand what pure darkness is,” Lyssa replied.
“And what’s that? Entertain me before you die.”
Lyssa didn’t respond. She chanted under her breath, her mind filled with a complex series of glyphs and arcane symbols alternated with images of celestial destruction, including a stream of material being ripped off a massive star and heading into a black hole. She shifted her visualizations, mentally drawing the glyphs in strokes in time with her chants. The glyphs were formed in her mind over a field of stars, each star disappearing when she produced an arcane symbol. A swirling void surrounded the front of her left pistol containing the showstopper rounds.
“What are you playing at over there?” Adrien asked, sounding nervous. “I can sense it. Your darkness won’t win against my blades. And you never answered my question, Hecate. What’s so special about pure darkness?”
“Pure darkness is one important terrifying thing,” Lyssa replied. “It’s why everyone has a primal fear of it. Pure darkness hides everything from sight, so people inject their fears into what they can’t see. In that sense, it’s everything, but that’s not what it is. What it is, is nothing.”
She spun around the corner, pointed the gun at Adrien, and pulled the trigger.
Chapter Thirty
Biting cold enveloped Lyssa’s body. Deep, impenetrable darkness swallowed the emerging bullet. The blackness flew toward the invisible barrier, dimming the path it flew along but not expanding, as if sucking in the nearby light and leaving a column of shadow.
The bullet struck the barrier. Jagged dark lines shot out from the point of impact, enveloping the barrier in an instant and revealing its shape as a squat dome. Panic covered the faces of the men inside.
The inky dome of nothingness lasted less than a second before dots of light appeared, a few at first, then many, as if it were flaking away into nothingness. Lyssa brought up her other gun, still filled with penetrator rounds, and waited until the dome disappeared.
The man holding the skull shard jerked back as it cracked and crumbled to dust. He yanked out a pistol.
Lyssa smiled, not disappointed with her failure to kill Adrien. She needed to take the bastard alive. Shredding Adrien’s invisible castle had been worth it just for his shocked expression.
“Annihilation,” Jofi said, “has a beauty all its own.”
Lyssa hadn’t heard Jofi say anything like that before, but she didn’t have time to worry. She’d know when and if the seals broke. It wouldn’t be subtle.
Adrien sprinted from the open container to the container maze, his blades still whirling around him. Aisha unleashed small, fast fire blasts at his men. Her spells exploded on the unfortunate lackeys, burning through their uniforms and sending them to the ground, screaming. The survivors broke away from the container and ran in different directions.
A curtain of flame from Aisha ripped over the ground and cut them off from the container maze. They ran backward as a group, laying down cover fire as they sprinted for smoking ruins of the semi’s cab, the only available cover.
The dart man pulled a dart off his bandolier and brought his arm back to throw it. Aisha whipped a fireball at his arm. He released the dart, only for it to meet the Sorceress’ attack. The dart exploded in a web of sticky filaments, imprisoning him. He yelled in surprise and toppled forward. Aisha laughed.
She wouldn’t be able to keep up that pace after the larger, earlier attacks. Lyssa needed to do her job, too.
Taking her opening, Lyssa jumped for her first conjured step. She’d meant to use the steps to get above potential holes in the shield, but now they would help her track down the fleeing Sorcerer.
She ignored the throbbing from her previous wounds and the cold and heaviness soaking her body, concentrating on charging up the steps and getting an angle on the fleeing Sorcerer. A bullet flew past her, but the man who’d shot at her went down a half-second later, the victim of a fireball.
Aisha forced the men back, alternating hands as she tossed attacks. Covered by her shield, her bare feet left blackened steps on the road.
The enemy bullets disappeared against the power of her shield, but stray shots to the side exploded on the pavement, staggering her. Aisha had already downed half the men, leaving Lyssa not very worried about her, but she went ahead and added two shots of her own at the shooters from above. Her penetrator rounds blew through the bodies of her targets.
She was out of pity. These men had understood what wielding shards against Torches meant. They’d had their chance to surrender, and they’d insisted on fighting. Like Alvarez and his thugs, they’d learn that shards weren’t enough to compete with true sorcery.
Lyssa bounded higher using the disintegrating Dark Steps. She took a side path that helped her spot the fleeing Adrien. She ran forward and leaped off the farther step onto the top of a container, pumping her cold and heavy arms and legs to catch up with him. He ducked behind a container.
Wrenching metal sounded from ahead. Lyssa kept running. Metal ripped from the top of nearby containers, lengthening into sword- and knife-sized blades. They shot out in an arc pointed in her direction.
She jumped down between containers to avoid the attack. One of the blades sliced into her shoulder, tearing the regalia and the mesh. Blood seeped from the cut.
Lyssa landed with a grunt, stumbling. In her current state, firing another showstopper would drain her too much, and she needed to take Adrien alive anyway. It’d been a risk shooting it directly at him, even behind his shield.
Her shoulder stung, and she glanced at the wound. Thin but shallow. Slicing through her stacked defenses and inflicting even that minor a wound proved both the power of true sorcery and that Adrien’s blades couldn’t be ignored. Cops or FBI who tried to take him on would be paper dolls.
A quiet whooshing noise sounded from Adrien’s direction. She kept close to her current cover, a green shipping container. More hollow wrenching echoed all around her. She needed to get eyes on him.
Dozens of tiny needlelike blades shot up and rained down around the area. They embedded th
emselves in the containers with a cacophony of pings. Others buried themselves in the ground. None hit her.
“The enemy lacks confidence in his ability to defeat you,” Jofi said. “His attacks show desperation. Finish him off.”
“Or he’s being careful so he can take me out,” Lyssa whispered. “I got overly excited, but I need him alive so I can question him. You heard what he said about my brother.”
“Taking him prisoner might not be possible,” Jofi said. “You have suffered wounds and damage and aren’t completely recovered from your encounters with Miss Khatri and Miss Dale’s creation. Your showstopper has sapped your strength and mobility. You can’t find your brother if you’re dead.”
“Then I’ll have to make sure I don’t die.” Lyssa ejected her showstopper magazine and tucked it away. She replaced it with her remaining exploding round magazine, glad Aisha hadn’t forced her to use it up in Midland. “I’ve managed to do that for twelve years. I don’t see a reason why I would stop today.”
Explosions and gunfire continued to sound behind her, along with a loud, recognizable laugh. At least Aisha was enjoying herself.
The din of nearby battle almost drowned out the whooshing noise, but not enough that Lyssa couldn’t track it. She spun around the corner with both guns ready, her eyes narrowed, creeping forward. Adrien was close to her. She could feel his sorcery.
“You’ve seen what I’m capable of when I get serious,” Lyssa shouted, her gaze darting around, seeking the enemy. Knowing he was roughly in front of her wasn’t the same as knowing exactly where the next attack would come from, especially with so many potential places for cover among the containers—and that was assuming he hadn’t crawled inside one. “This is over, Adrien. I don’t know why you thought you could get away with smuggling shards, but this was how it was always going to end. On some level, you must know that.”
Lyssa stopped near an intersection of containers. The whooshing was louder but still not close. She spun. Nothing but sharp metal embedded in the ground.