“What do you think, then?” Shay peered into the snowy haze. “Just a wild animal? I might not be Wilderness Jane, but I’ve hit the countryside a lot more than you have. I know when I’m not looking at an animal attack.”
He shook his head. “Just because the Professor knew about the Brotherhood being here doesn’t mean he was the only one. I think another bounty hunter showed up. They were probably behind getting Customs to fuck with me, and the mercenaries. They were trying to slow me down.”
“A bounty hunter who rips off arms and claws people?” Shay eyed James.
“I’ve done worse. Maybe he’s collecting arms instead of heads for his bounty credit.” He shrugged. “Could be a wizard who summoned shit to help him, or a shifter.” He gritted his teeth. “Flew all the way up to Alberta in the damned snow, and some other fucker’s gonna get all my bounty money.”
Shay shrugged. “Well, it’s the Canadian government. It’s not like they require heads. Tissue samples and pictures should be enough.”
James shook his head. “Not if the other guy finishes them all off first.”
“What do you want to do? I know what I’d do if I were on a tomb raid.” Shay raised an eyebrow in question.
James kicked some snow over the dead cultist. “Not gonna kill a bounty hunter for getting somewhere before me. That’s not how I work.”
Shay blew out a breath. “Fine, but he’s a bounty hunter, not a tomb raider, which means we can play this a little differently.”
“Meaning what? You want to kill him instead of me?”
She shook her head. “Meaning we can at least still score the artifact. If there is another bounty hunter, he might not know about the urn, but my money’s still on bad summoning.”
Gusts of wind blasted the top of a nearby snowdrift over the body. Only its wide eyes remained uncovered.
James nodded. “Fine. We’ll just continue to look for people. If we kill some of them, we can still at least get some credit, and this trip won’t be a total waste of time.”
He shook his head. My fucking luck.
Chapter Fourteen
Peyton frowned as he entered another series of commands to reroute his transmission pathway through a different satellite. A few seconds passed, and the same error messages popped up.
“Damn it,” he shouted.
His cat yowled and hopped off his computer desk, rushing out of the back office of Warehouse Two.
“It’s okay,” Heather responded through his headset. “We’ll figure something out.”
Peyton glanced at the window containing Heather’s webcam image. Judging by her face, she didn’t look that worried, but he still wasn’t convinced everything was fine.
“Maybe, but I don’t know why we’ve lost comm.” Peyton popped up another satellite display. “Do you? From what I can tell, EM interference isn’t even that severe. I’ve been able to reestablish a connection with Shay in way worse conditions than this.”
“Come on, Peyton, we both know what happened. Our bosses are going after a magical cult.” Heather sighed. “The cult must have put up some sort of spell, and unless you’ve hidden some magical ability that you haven’t told anyone about, there’s not much we can do about it.”
“Stupid magic,” he muttered. “It’s messing with my awesomeness.” He harrumphed.
“Not our first time dealing with this kind of thing.” The background clack of Heather typing came over the comm. “And as much as it annoys me, they’re right. If James and Shay can take on the Council, they can take on the Brotherhood. Even if the storm clears up, the drones are still in the damned Jeep, so there’s nothing we can do until they contact us again.”
Peyton rubbed his chin and snapped, “We can hack a drone or two in Calgary and fly it over. Maybe a military one.”
“Just what we need, the Canadian military following us.” Heather laughed. “Even if we did that, whatever’s happening will be over by the time the storm clears enough for us to get a drone there. You really think James and Shay are suddenly going to decide to sit and wait because of a little weather?”
Peyton snapped his fingers. “You know what we need?”
“A magic wand that clears up snow?”
“Some sort of sentry bot.” Peyton nodded. “They can pack it along, and then we can join the action even if the weather is bad.”
Heather snorted. “We’d still have lost the link.”
“You’re right.” Peyton rubbed the back of his neck. “But what do we do in the mean—”
“Quiet.” Heather hunched over her keyboard and typed furiously, her face pinched in concentration.
“What the hell, Heather? I know the idea wasn’t that practical, but no reason to talk to me like that.”
“Let me concentrate.” Heather narrowed her eyes, and her brow furrowed. Her fingers continued to dance over the keyboard. After a few seconds, she shook her head. “Check your system. I think someone just tried to trace me off the satellite I was using to try to reconnect to James’ phone. Weird signature. Something feels off about it.”
“What the hell?” Peyton frowned and executed a few quick defensive scripts, glancing at a side monitor to check on the results. “Shit. There was definitely something there, but it’s gone now. You still under attack?”
“Maybe.” Heather hissed. “Trying to trace it back to the source. Can’t believe these assholes came at me directly. Ballsy.”
Peyton nodded and initiated his own trace. No enemy could come at him and just run away. His pride was at stake. Both hackers worked their fingers and their programs to try to identify whoever had struck at them in cyberspace.
After several minutes, Peyton sat back and ran his fingers through his hair. “Shit. Whoever it was, they’re gone. Clean trail. I keep dead-ending at proxies. Any luck?”
Heather shook her head. “No. Similar signature to whoever was hunting James before, though. It’s definitely a repeat offender.”
“Don’t ever tell Shay I said this, but whoever is doing this is good.” Peyton took a deep breath. “Like scary good. Maybe even better than us.”
Heather shook her head. “Better than us individually, not better than us together.”
Peyton blinked a few times and nodded. “Let’s hope so.”
Aiyn glared at her display. It was absurd that despite all the advanced technology she had available to her, normal humans could defend against her electronic warfare.
“If you people used something more advanced than children’s toys, it wouldn’t be the same.”
That wasn’t the only issue. She couldn’t reestablish a link to the units she’d sent into the refinery, even if she had been able to harden them against the electrical suppression field the cult had apparently thrown up. She wasn’t sure if it was in response to Brownstone or her forces, but it didn’t matter. In either event, she’d underestimated the flexibility of the Brotherhood’s magic.
“More surprises in the snow. No matter. If it ends with Brownstone dead, I don’t care.”
James and Shay trekked away from the body toward a long, narrow, windowless building near the fence line. A single large pair of metal doors stood in the middle, both closed. There was no sign of bodies or other bounty hunters.
The harsh wind continued to push the snow into drifts on the ground and the roofs of the complex. The central building was connected to several smaller buildings by covered metal tunnels, and the storage tanks via pipes.
James closed on the doors. A simple latch secured them. He narrowed his eyes and gestured to a faint handprint. Given the wind and snow, someone had exited or entered the building recently.
Shay nodded and raised her gun.
With a quick movement, James unlatched the door and slid the two metal doors apart. The beam of his headlight penetrated the dark, unlit interior. He paused and frowned at a blood smear running across the back wall. A dead cultist lay against the wall, his head hanging forward and a large chunk of his shoulder missing, along with ha
lf an arm and a leg.
Whispy beamed pure joy at the sight.
You’re such a twisted fuck.
James turned his head, his light illuminating another body. A second later he realized it was a standing cultist, his face covered with blood.
The cultist charged James, a crazed look in his eyes and his fists glowing red. His magically powered fist slammed into the bounty hunter. James grunted as pain spiked from his chest, followed by a burning sensation.
Yes. New adaptation achieved. Kill enemy.
James threw up an arm to block the next hit. Another jolt of burning pain shot from his arm, but its intensity was much lower than the first. He threw a wide hook, his fist landing on the side of his opponent’s head. The man spun several times before crashing to the hard metal floor.
Rifle shots echoed behind James, and he pivoted. Two cultists lay on the floor, bullet holes in the centers of their heads.
Shay frowned at the bodies. “What the hell?”
James grunted and stumbled, the burning sensation strengthening and spreading through the rest of his body.
I thought you adapted to this shit, Whispy.
Full adaptation not available during previous attacks. Systemic effect will be blocked in future attacks. Systematic regeneration insufficient for current damage.
Fucking wonderful. I’m glad it’ll help going forward when I’m fucking on fire now.
Burning agony shot through James’ body, and he fell to his knees.
Shay slung her rifle over her shoulder and rushed to his side. “What’s wrong?”
“Some sort of magical poison,” James growled through gritted teeth. He yanked a healing potion from a belt pouch and downed the contents.
The seconds stretched as an inferno built in every part of his body. His vision wavered. The inferno faded to a mere fire before all the pain disappeared entirely.
James took a deep breath and stood, shaking out his arms. “It shouldn’t be a problem next time, but you better use your ring. If one of these guys hits you once, it’ll fuck you up.”
Shay nodded and pulled out her ring. She murmured an incantation, and a golden aura surrounded her.
She gestured to the dead body along the wall. “I don’t get it. Someone slipped in here and ripped that guy to shreds but left everyone else alive?”
James walked over to the men Shay had shot, moving his head a little to light different parts of their bodies. He frowned and gestured. “Look at the bodies. I didn’t notice in the fight, but one of these guys is missing a hand, another has been clawed in the back.” He knelt and turned one of the corpse’s heads. He gestured to several tears in the side of his neck. “More claws. Your bullets finished them off, but they probably wouldn’t have made it.”
They headed over to the man who’d struck James. The cultist groaned and rolled onto his back.
Shay yanked her AK down and pointed at the man. James grunted and pulled his .45 out of its holster.
Kill enemy, Whispy demanded.
James ignored his amulet and focused on the man. The bloody and battered side of his face was evidence of the bounty hunter’s blow, but now that the cultist wasn’t moving, James noticed the shredded fabric in his baggy pants and the deep slashes in his leg. Some of the wounds extended to the bone.
“Huh,” Shay murmured. “Must have some sort of pain-suppressing spell on them, given the way they were moving even with those wounds.”
The cultist’s eyes flicked open. “You think you’ve won anything?” he rasped.
James shrugged. “Bunch of dead assholes and I’m still alive. You got a couple of nice hits on me, but I’m not burning up on the inside or whatever was supposed to happen. So, yeah, I won.”
The cultist’s face twisted in anger, and he coughed up blood. “It…doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?” James glanced at Shay before looking back down at the man. “And why is that? I already told you that your little magical attack failed.”
“Because the Wendigo will get you too. You…wont…leave…here…alive.” The cultist’s head slumped to the side, and he stopped breathing.
Shay clucked her tongue. “That answers that. I wasn’t sure about us having shit luck before, but that seals it.”
James snorted. “You believe that bullshit?”
“About the Wendigo?” Shay nodded. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“He’s just trying to get in our heads.” James snorted. “Maybe the fuckers are killing themselves. Some sort of power struggle.”
Shay pointed at the slashes. “Not seeing claws on any of these guys. The guy who hit you had glowing poison hands, not claws.” She shook her head. “And if it was something they summoned, like the kind of shit we saw the Council use, I don’t think he would have called it a Wendigo.”
All local enemies killed, Whispy sent. Find new enemies. Kill enemies. Maximize adaptation to achieve primary directive.
Fuck you. We’ll take our time.
James frowned, trying his best to ignore the amulet. “So you’re telling me some fucking cannibal spirit is running around slicing up and eating cultists?”
Shay stared at him. “Why the hell not? I’ve done raids on haunted fucking houses and fought weirder shit, like those frog guys in Russia or the damned bunyip in Australia.” She shook her head. “That’s the problem with all the magic returning to the world. A lot of those legendary creatures aren’t just legends anymore.” She laughed. “Hell, think of the shit we’ve both seen at the School of Necessary Magic!”
“You mean like that fucking ferret with the top hat?” James glared around the building as if the creature would appear. “He thinks he’s so damned fancy.”
“I was thinking more about unicorns and Kirin.” Shay shrugged. “But, sure, ferrets with top hats are totally on the same level as cannibal spirits ripping people’s arms off and eating them.”
James grunted. “Yeah.”
Shay smirked.
What’s she smiling about?
James searched the dark corners of the room to make sure there were no more hidden cultists. “Doubt it’s another bounty hunter, even a shifter. This shit is too messed up.”
“Yeah, because it’s a Wendigo.” Shay rolled her eyes. “Don’t know why it’s so hard to accept. You’ve fought necromancers, giant weird Oriceran monsters, and whatever the hell He Who Hunts was, but you draw the line at Wendigos?”
“Got to draw the line somewhere.” James shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. All we have to do is find this thing and fucking waste it. If it’s just some messed-up monster, Wendigo or whatever, then I don’t give a fuck about poaching the bounties from him, since he’s doing the same to me. He can fuck off and go eat a moose somewhere.”
Shay ejected her magazine and stuck it in a pouch. She pulled out a magazine of anti-magic bullets and slapped it into her rifle. “Maybe the Wendigo was attracted to this area because of all the blood sacrifice. So they did summon it, just not the way they thought. Or, shit, for all we know, maybe the Wendigo was the reason they abandoned this refinery to begin with. Not like governments were all that honest back in the day, and this place dates from before the full return of magic.”
“I don’t give a shit why,” James replied. “If it’s just running around biting people and clawing them, I won’t even need advanced mode. It’ll barely be able to scratch me.”
Insufficient power for advanced transformation, Whispy complained. Find new enemy. Kill new enemy. Adaptation potential moderate.
Don’t you worry, James thought back. Fucker’s making something simple complicated. I’d take him out for that alone.
Shay headed toward the door. “Well, if it is a Wendigo, we better not give it a chance to eat anyone whole if we want to get credit.”
James kicked at the ground. “Fucking Wendigos. I’ll show them who the real monster is.”
Chapter Fifteen
James wouldn’t have thought it possible, but more snow choked the air. The harsh w
ind kept blasting flakes into his face, and even if their cold touch didn’t bother him much, the lack of visibility was annoying him more than he had expected.
This is why I’ve stayed in LA. Fuck snow. Fuck blizzards.
“We can’t do anything in this weather, James,” Shay shouted, the only way she could be heard over the wind. “Can you see anything? Because I can’t.”
He shook his head. “A building in front of us, but nothing else. No horizon, no nothing.”
Shay reached into her pocket and pulled out her AR goggles. She slid them over her eyes and tapped at the side with a frown. “Command, visual mode two,” she shouted. After a few seconds, her frown deepened. “Fucking perfect.”
“What’s wrong?”
“They’re completely dead.” Shay yanked off the goggles and shoved them back into her pocket. “Those things are never completely dead. Even when they shut off due to low power, the backup battery is enough to at least give me a little red light.”
James grunted. “What does that mean?”
“That something fried it or drained even the backup power from them.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and sighed. “Of course. My phone’s dead. What about yours?”
He grabbed his phone out of a belt pouch and brought it close to his face. The display was dark, and it wouldn’t turn on. He shook his head.
“EMP?” James asked. “If it was, it had to be recent. The Jeep was fine.”
Shay shrugged. “Maybe, or some sort of spell accomplishing the same thing.” She groaned. “I was thinking we could at least use the thermal mode on the goggles. No thermal on the goggles and no drone support means we’re blind here, and this storm doesn’t look like it’s gonna let up anytime soon. Heather said the same thing.”
James marched over to the door of the nearest building, which was a glorified shed, from the looks of it. He unlatched the door and threw it open, half-expecting Brotherhood men to ambush him. He grunted when he realized the headlamp had also died.
Vax Humana: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (The Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone Book 13) Page 12