by Kal Aaron
Lyssa aimed her guns at the queen’s mouth. “No, turns out it sucks to be me.”
Chapter Eleven
Whatever doubt Lyssa had about a rogue being involved had vanished. The setup of the colony was unnatural, even before considering the creatures. There was no way they’d dug there from another location with so many creatures and bred so quickly without someone noticing. The convenience of them being in a mine was hard to ignore.
She didn’t have much time to think about it as the queen lumbered toward her. Each step was a loud crunch in the remnants of the hatchery. This abomination needed to be ended.
Lyssa grimaced at the huge mouth. The damned thing could swallow her whole if she wasn’t careful. She fired a couple of shots, hoping the queen was as weak as the rest of the swarm. The creature twitched and reared back before crashing forward and almost crushing the Sorceress.
“Damn it.”
Raking her side with gunfire didn’t help much. Her attacks left dripping wounds, but they weren’t slowing the queen down. The monster whipped toward Lyssa and charged with its mouth open. She sprinted out of the way.
The queen collided with the wall, knocking off more rocks and shaking the chamber. Lyssa fell but rolled back to her feet and took a couple of shots at the rear of the queen and what she assumed was an ovipositor. The attack provoked another angry charge.
The giant monster wasn’t any more intelligent than her progeny, but her size made up for it. Lyssa couldn’t risk being careless, and right now, the only hope she had was to put more rounds into her royal opponent.
Lyssa sprinted toward a nearby remnant of a mound and hopped on top with a grunt. She spun and jumped toward the queen, clearing the top of her head and running along her back while firing her pistols into her body. The queen reared back and bucked Lyssa off, sending her hard into a wall.
Pain shot through the Sorceress’ back. With a hiss, she slid down the wall. Her opponent thrashed, flinging thick green blood everywhere.
She had no idea where the brain was in the snake-roaches or if they even had one. Firing through their mouths had killed them, but she’d put plenty of rounds into the queen’s mouth without doing anything but annoying the creature. The queen wasn’t even slower than before.
Taking advantage of the queen’s distraction, Lyssa rushed toward the open chamber. A sickening odor greeted her arrival, along with the splash of her boots in the shallow pool of thick green fluid covering the floor. There were no eggs left in the chamber except for the rapidly deflating victim of her earlier attack.
The bleeding queen battered through a cracked mound and turned toward her original chamber. Having to jog backward in deepening fluid slowed Lyssa’s progress, but it gave her enough time to eject her empty magazines and load ablative rounds into one pistol and penetrators into another.
Lyssa expected another charge from the queen. Instead, the wounded monster swayed, its mouth half-closed as if waiting for something. Was it charging up some sort of attack?
“It’d be really helpful if you would die already,” Lyssa said. “You’re just embarrassing yourself now.”
She backed up some more, grateful to find the fluid shallower toward the other end of the chamber, but that left her soaked to her waist. After this was over, she’d need to down every herb she had from Tricia and ask for a few more to make sure she didn’t end with some nasty disease.
The queen advanced, taking one slow step toward Lyssa. Her mouth opened again. Without an attack in progress, Lyssa could see the sheer size of her fangs. She didn’t want to test her regalia or vest against teeth that were half her height.
“Okay, you don’t regenerate, and you’re just big.” Lyssa scoffed. “You’re not even that fast. I’m not some unarmed twenty-year-old internet star, you slimy bitch. I’m going to die someday, probably violently and doing Torch work, but damned if I’ll let myself get swallowed by an overgrown snake-roach. Even if you do, I’m going to make sure you have the worst case of indigestion ever.”
The queen advanced, her tail swishing behind her and knocking rubble and dead kin out of the way. All her earlier hurry had vanished.
Was she dying? Lyssa didn’t believe it. But she also wasn’t mindlessly charging like earlier.
No. She was being careful.
The monster thought she had the advantage in her chamber. She’d felt safe and secure there, not even bothering to help the rest of the swarm during the massacre in the hatchery until Lyssa fired directly into her room.
The creature had thought she was above the fray, and Lyssa had shown her that she wasn’t. Now she needed to prove the queen should have stayed hidden.
Lyssa lowered her penetrator-loaded gun and pointed the other pistol at the queen’s mouth. “This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me.”
She pulled the trigger, and yellow-tinged purple flames lit the throat of the monster. A sickening sizzling followed.
The queen scurried back, rising on her back legs and jerking her head. Lyssa aimed for one of the previous wounds and fired another ablative round, searing the upper layer of the flesh. She fired another, but the queen crashed down and the round clipped her side, leaving a blackened, smoking mess.
Now staring down the gaping maw of the queen, Lyssa kept firing. The loud sizzle and smell of burnt flesh reminded her in a sick way of a barbecue. She emptied the magazine into the thrashing queen, who shot forward, slicing and bashing with her legs.
Lyssa shoved her empty gun into her holster before launching a penetrator through the queen and leapt into the muck to avoid the spear-like tips of the monster’s legs. The queen slammed down near her, splashing fluid all over. Lyssa kicked her legs, regretting her lack of water sorcery to keep her gun from getting jammed with gunk.
She rolled toward the queen and squeezed the trigger, moving her pistol up and down as she sought a brain, a heart, or some other vital organ.
Monsters weren’t spirits. They were living creatures. They could challenge Mother Nature, but that wasn’t the same thing as being free of her grip.
Lyssa kept firing. Round after round dug deep into the queen, leaving her mouth filled with blood. How many enchanted bullets could the damned thing take?
She stopped and concentrated, murmuring an incantation under her breath. She grew insubstantial. Her spell complete, she took slow steps, watching the queen for a reaction.
The queen writhed and splashed fluid for a long moment before calming and crawling into the deeper parts of the pool. Lyssa crept along, moving as fast as she could manage without splashing.
Holding her breath, she reloaded with ablative and penetrator rounds. She continued circling to the side of the injured queen, aiming for one of the deep burns from an earlier ablative hit. Anything that could be wounded could be killed.
Lyssa pointed both pistols and backed away, trying to put enough distance between them that the monster couldn’t nail her with an immediate reaction. She exhaled slowly and pulled both triggers, winking into existence with the loud echoing blasts from her pistols. Another puff of yellow flames ripped into the wound as the powerful second round carved through the queen.
Now visible, Lyssa ran toward the back of the monster, trying to keep her angle on the wound. Relentless trigger pulls sliced away at the queen until Lyssa had drained her magazines and left a gaping hole in the side of the huge monster. The blood leaking from the wounds mixed with the fluid in the pool.
The squirming and violent jerks intensified. Lyssa ran toward the hatchery and loaded her last set of magazines. Running might not work if the queen charged through the cavern and smashed her way through the intervening walls.
“You should consider retreat, given your ammo situation,” Jofi said.
“I made her mad,” Lyssa replied. “It’d be rude to leave now. This might be my only chance to finish her off.”
She rapid-fired into the open wound, careful to use only half her remaining ammo. The queen grew wilder, swinging her tail and stri
king the wall and the pool. Lyssa rushed into the hatchery, but the monster didn’t follow her.
“Come on, already!”
With one last spasm, the queen reared, holding her entire giant body on her two rear legs. Lyssa’s concerted efforts had burned a hole through the queen’s body. Heart pounding, the Sorceress took slow steps back, pointing her guns above the wound. Did she need to annihilate the entire body?
The queen swayed, then collapsed on her side. The body smacked hard into the fluid, launching a huge wave of muck that splashed Lyssa.
She shook her arms, trying to get some of the mess off. “I’m going to have to shower for a week to get this smell off.”
Chapter Twelve
Taking slow, deep breaths, Lyssa stared at the body of the queen for a good minute to ensure she was dead before ejecting her magazines and inspecting them. She had eight bullets left in each of her guns, more than enough to stop any leftover small monsters that decided to take a chance on killing her, but she’d have trouble against any other huge ones.
Part of her wanted to believe she wouldn’t run into any other large monsters on the way out, but the difference between a dead Torch and a live Torch was proper preparation, not luck. The quick recon sweep had turned up a large and self-perpetuating horde rather than the handful of leftover stray monsters she’d expected. It’d been a long time since she’d used up almost every bullet in a single day.
“We should retreat while you have the opportunity,” Jofi said. “The monsters are dead. You’re no longer being rude, as odd as that statement was.”
Lyssa shook her head and went back into the hatchery. “We’re still not done.”
“The contract specified elimination of the monsters,” Jofi replied. “I fail to see how you’ve not accomplished that. Even if you aren’t finished, it would be wise to return to your home and rearm.”
“We need to verify we’ve done enough that nothing’s going to come barreling out later.” Lyssa nodded toward the queen. “I didn’t know she was in here at first. If I’d just killed the guys at the front and turned away, I could have left a big problem. Those deputies don’t deserve to be eaten.”
“I understand, but I suggest you expedite the rest of this verification process if you’re not going to rearm.”
“If it comes down to it, I can use the showstoppers to cover my retreat,” Lyssa replied. “I need to inspect this place as well as possible to make sure the immediate threat is gone. It’s not like I want to be in a rank cave filled with dead monsters.”
She wrinkled her nose as the unpleasant smell of the room reasserted itself. That was what she got for thinking about it. She kept getting used to it and being able to ignore it, but then her mind drifted, and it came back in all its torturous glory. Killing the queen hadn’t helped.
She did her best to breathe through her mouth. Her entire regalia was coated with polluted monster blood. The only way things could have been worse was if she didn’t have a mask. Somewhere out there, a Sorceress with a cleanness essence was laughing to herself.
Lyssa wasn’t surprised Jofi wanted to make a quick exit. Everything she knew about his true nature pointed toward him wanting to fight intelligent creatures, or at least something with souls, not mindless monsters. This outing was only a little more diverting for him than a trip to the range.
“We’ll be smart about this since they can’t see through my sorcery, but I need to make sure there’s no hidden sorcery or shards left around,” Lyssa said. “I don’t want to find out at the end of this that the whole point was to distract us while a freaking sorcery bomb goes off and blows up everything for three miles.”
“That seems like an outlandish and unlikely scenario,” Jofi replied. “From what I’ve observed, no individual Sorcerer is capable of such a feat.”
“Why assume a single rogue is involved?” Lyssa pulled out and expanded a baton.
“You suspect more?”
“I don’t know,” Lyssa replied. “But ignore things, and the next thing you know, boom!” She traced an explosion in the air with her hands. “I’m doubting these monsters ended up here by accident, but I don’t see the plan.”
“Would the destruction of an abandoned mine be a particular concern?”
Lyssa shook her head. “Terrorism isn’t always about killing people. It’s right there in the name. The point is to terrorize people. Monsters can do that by looking weird and poisoning people.”
“You think someone is attempting to scare the Shadows with these monsters?” Jofi asked.
“It’s occurred to me. Abandoned mines in the desert aren’t exactly the places to begin a great world-conquering plan.” Lyssa poked open the mouth of a large snake-roach with her baton. “I only had to crack out the good stuff because there were so many of these things. Adams and Ortiz could have taken out a small pack without too much trouble. Get the National Guard and some rocket launchers, and they’d have a good chance of taking down the queen if they could keep calm.”
“You’re saying you’re roughly equivalent to a military unit with heavy weapons?” Jofi asked.
Lyssa snickered. “Yeah, actually, I am. Just call me the Lyssa Squad.” She moved on from the body. “I’m not saying they shouldn’t have brought me in. If these things left the mine and got near a town, they could hurt a lot of people. I had the advantage of them being all clustered together in close quarters.”
“Do you think the goal was breeding a large army?” Jofi asked.
“It’s possible,” Lyssa said. “The thing is, I’ve fought tougher monsters, and the ones I usually hear about are created to be more dangerous than normal animals. Otherwise, there’s no point in wasting time and energy on sorcery versus grabbing a bunch of javelinas and jamming them in the back of a truck, where you torture them with T-Pain songs on a constant loop before releasing them in the middle of a city to bite people.”
“I don’t know who T-Pain is,” Jofi replied. “But I would suggest your alternative plot appears overly elaborate and questionable. I don’t know if javelinas would be effective terror weapons.”
“The point is any monster that doesn’t have a good chance of killing an armed Shadow isn’t worth the trouble,” Lyssa said. “It’s not the tenth century. Sorcerers have to up their game.” She looked around. “There’s a good chance I’ve cleared everything out, but nothing says we can’t check things out with me hiding. No shame in surprise attacks against monsters.”
“You’re sure about this?”
“Hell, no, but I’m sure I want to minimize the chance of loose ends.” Lyssa leaned over one of the corpses. “I have a bad feeling I’m going to be back here anyway.”
“Next time, I’d suggest you bring more ammunition,” Jofi said.
“That’s probably a good idea.”
Lyssa allowed the shadows to swallow her. Her heart had long since stopped pounding from the fierce series of fights, and she’d not used much sorcery, meaning she’d be able to maintain her cloak while inspecting the rest of the mine without it being a struggle.
That was one advantage of merging technology with sorcery, despite what some Illuminated thought. Aisha could pull off flashier stunts, but Lyssa could deal death for a longer period.
“You know, I just thought of something,” Lyssa said, heading toward the queen’s chamber. “I’ve never actually been in a mine before.”
“Does it impress you?” Jofi asked.
“The monsters kind of ruined the whole atmosphere.”
She walked along the edge of the pool before wading in again. The queen’s body took up most of the space, and Lyssa risked hopping up and walking down the length of the huge corpse for more clues. It wasn’t like she expected a QR code, but anything could help.
“All that fighting, and I didn’t feel any sorcery,” Lyssa said. “I’m even more convinced our guy’s a wimp. I don’t think it’s crazy to assume a potential rogue at the other end of this might not be much of a combat Sorcerer, hence the big army
of monsters.”
“Terror requiring regalia would ensure Eclipses are sent,” Jofi replied.
“That’s a strong point.” Lyssa nodded. “And you’re right. It could be a ridiculously dangerous Sorcerer and a huge horde of monsters. I’ll sleep well tonight.”
Lyssa crouched near the hole and peered inside the body. She wasn’t a biologist when it came to normal animals, and she was all but clueless as to what she was looking for in a sorcery-enhanced creature. Dissection via thorough application of bullets was her scientific exploration strategy, but her analysis needed work.
At least she could verify she didn’t feel anything resembling active sorcery. The lack of a Sorcerer at the end of the incident would be helpful, but she needed to be sure. Unfortunately, not feeling it didn’t prove anything.
“I don’t get it.” Lyssa jumped off the body. “Was the plan to just breed an army of monsters and wait until they killed someone? That seems sloppy. They got their one kill, and now I’ve cleared out this whole horde. If a Torch got killed, the Society would send in a big group to guarantee this nest got wiped out.”
“You previously suggested this might be terrorism,” Jofi said. “Doesn’t that suggest the requirements are different?”
Lyssa nodded. “Yes, but terrorism works best when it’s planned and pointed at a high-profile target. When things go off at random, you mess everything up, and it isn’t scary. Nobody’s going to be that afraid of monsters that were discovered in an old hole and promptly cleaned up. Right now, the EAA could bury this incident with almost nobody hearing about it.”
“But a man has died.”
“Sure, but I know how people think. They’ll tell themselves Jake could have avoided trouble by not poking around an abandoned mine. They’ll say that if he stayed in LA, he wouldn’t have ended up dead.”
“That’s true,” Jofi said. “Both those actions led directly to his encounter with the creatures.”