Reload Faster: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (I Fear No Evil Book 3)

by Martha Carr

  A blue orb winked into existence in front of them.

  Shay held her breath and rubbed the medallion underneath her parka. If the artifact given to her by the client didn’t work, she might have to deal with some difficult magical security. The orb circled her for a few seconds before zooming to a stop right in front of the medallion. A second later, it vanished.

  “Okay, I guess that’s that. Nice.”

  “This is pretty easy money,” said Lily in a hushed voice.

  “Yeah, that’s when you need to have your guard up the most. Stay close and let me know if you get a vision.”

  The tomb raider and the gray elf went down the shelves until Shay finally located Box 34.

  Shay smiled. She reached into her parka to pull out the medallion and waved it over the box. A series of glowing glyphs appeared and vanished just as quickly. She removed the top without any surprises. It was time to see what was inside.

  “What the fuck?” she growled.

  “What? What is it?” Lily looked over Shay’s shoulder into the box.

  Empty. Completely empty.

  Shay gritted her teeth. Had the client screwed up? Or Peyton?

  Her gaze flicked to the nearby boxes. She had no idea if the medallion would grant her access to them, and searching blindly in a magical vault in a facility filled with people didn’t strike her as a good idea.

  “Wait right here.”

  Shay rushed into the hallway to look at the computer screen and tapped a few commands into the pad. Peyton had taught her a few useful commands, but she hadn’t thought they would be important. Turned out she was wrong.

  The last few lines of the access log displayed.

  “Damn it.”

  According to the log, someone had been in there just minutes before Shay. She might have even passed them in the hallway.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  Shay ran back to where Lily was waiting and asked her, “Did you see anyone else?” as Lily shook her head. “Still no vision?”

  “It doesn’t work in reverse. I never see the past.”

  “We need to get out of here. Follow me.”

  Shay closed the vault and they ran toward the elevator. It was too much of a coincidence. There was no fucking way someone had conveniently shown up to the magic vault minutes before her and not taken the beans.

  She stood with her teeth gritted the entire way back up. Once clear of the elevator, she sprinted back toward the garage with Lily in tow, her head on a swivel. The kid had good tactical instincts. More than a few passing scientists eyed Shay like she’d gone crazy. Great way to mentor somebody. It is if you’re a tomb raider.

  Shay burst into the garage and spotted the driver from earlier. The hood of his truck was up, and he was inspecting the engine.

  The man looked over at her. “Doctor Calvers?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Got a question for you.”

  “Oh, if it’s about this, don’t worry. Just a routine check.”

  “No, I have a different question. Has anyone left the facility since we arrived?”

  “Just Doctor Petrova. I think that was her name. I don’t know, I wasn’t her driver. She flew in yesterday.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She took a snowmobile out to inspect some monitoring station.” He shrugged.

  Shay jogged toward a line of snowmobiles. “I need to talk to her ASAP. We’re gonna borrow one of them.”

  “Oh, you working with her? You know where she is?”

  “Yeah, we collaborate at times, and I know the station,” Shay lied. She nodded to the closed door. “Can you open that?”

  “Sure, one sec.” The man pulled out a remote control. He pressed a button, and the massive doors rose, the hum and grinding of metal echoing in the garage.

  The tomb raider laughed as she spotted the keys in the vehicle. She hadn’t even worried about it, but it made sense. Vehicle theft wasn’t high on the list of concerns in a place like this.

  Shay mounted the vehicle as Lily got on the back, and started it, zooming out of the garage before the doors had risen all the way.

  “So far, I’m not sure what I’ve added to this whole thing,” Lily yelled from the back.

  “It’s a first run. No expectations.” Besides another kink in the mission.

  A fresh trail lay right outside. The mysterious Doctor Petrova might be nothing but another scientist, but she was the only immediate lead the tomb raider had. If it didn’t pan out, she was going to have to figure out a different way.

  The snowmobile tore through the snow as Lily hung on tight. After a few minutes, Shay realized she was heading right back toward the airport. Her doubts about Petrova being a scientist grew.

  Some bitch took my damned magic beans. But who? Did the client set me up?

  Shay ground her teeth together. A conspiracy was unlikely. It wasn’t like this was the first time she’d shown up on a tomb raid when someone else was poking around. She was only surprised that none of their research about the job had caught wind of someone else being interested.

  The tomb raider continued to follow the tracks. The dark vehicle and white-clad rider appeared in the distance, but she was closing slowly on them—too slowly. They’d likely hit the airport before she arrived at this rate.

  Shay took a deep breath and tried to stop her heart from pounding. She could still salvage this mess. Whoever had grabbed the seeds couldn’t just hop on a plane and take off, which meant she still had hours to get the beans from them—by violence if necessary.

  The radar tower of the airstrip rose in the distance. The snowmobile ahead suddenly stopped, and Shay frowned. She continued driving toward the person and cut the throttle as she closed, stopping when there was still a good ten yards between them.

  The person dismounted. Their thick parka and goggles blocked their face.

  “Doctor Petrova?” Shay called. She wasn’t going to gun down some random scientist without proof the woman had stolen her beans.

  “Ah, that explains it.” The response was female, cold, and Russian-accented. If the woman was a fake, at least she was Russian. Something about the voice was familiar, though.

  “Explains what?”

  The other woman pulled up her goggles. A familiar face, Yulia Solokova—Snegurka the Ice Witch. A jagged scar ran across her left cheek, likely a memento of Shay’s last encounter with the woman.

  “Huh, you’re not dead.” Shay unzipped her parka. She was going to need her gun. She could feel Lily’s arms tense.

  “No. I’m not.” A blue crystal wand dropped from her parka’s sleeve into her right hand. “It’s funny that we should run into each other like this. Very funny.”

  “I’m guessing you took my beans.”

  “They aren’t yours, now, are they? And you brought a playmate. Who is that with you?” The Ice Witch tried to get a better look but Shay was blocking her line of sight to Lily. Save that surprise for just a moment.

  Shay shrugged her left shoulder. Her right hand rested on her pistol. “You could hand them over. We don’t have to do this. It’s nothing personal, you know. Just the job.”

  “I could say the same, Aletheia.”

  The tomb raider narrowed her eyes.

  Yulia nodded. “Yes, maybe I know not who you truly are, but I know what you are, tomb raider.” She ran the tip of her wand over her scar. “I don’t even begrudge you this. It was an important lesson in overconfidence.”

  “Why are you even here?”

  “To get the beans, of course.”

  “You’re a mercenary guard, though. Who the fuck are you guarding?”

  Yulia smiled. “I’m many things.” She laughed. “But this is pointless. Don’t you realize the situation you’re in?”

  “What situation? It’s not like I’m unarmed.”

  “No, I wouldn’t imagine you’d be that short-sighted, but you really think you’re going to take down an Ice Witch in the middle of the land of snow and ice?” The witch s
ighed. “Foolish.” She snapped her wand up and shouted something in Russian. Six blue stones shot from the ice in front of the wand. A blue hexagonal pattern appeared.

  Lily suddenly lurched forward and yelled, “Duck,” in Shay’s ear.

  Shay and Lily dropped behind the snowmobile. Shay knew how this show ended. Lily’s vision kicked in to save them from the ice spear that hit where Shay had stood. Shay opened up with her pistol, but each bullet fell to the ground encased in ice.

  “Damn it.”

  Preparation meant different things to different people. Shay assumed that being prepared for the milk-run job would involve just bringing her gun and her knives. Now she wished she had a few grenades or a pit to blow the witch into like she had on Oak Island.

  Still, she had brought Lily.

  Have to close on her. If my knives can win against that possessed elf, they can help me against Yulia.

  An icy arm rose from the snow right beside Shay and smacked her, sending her sprawling but not before Lily got off a shot of her own, grazing the Ice Witch. A look of recognition came over the Ice Witch’s face followed by a sneer.

  “This is going to be more fun than I thought. Two birds, one icicle.”

  Shay rolled to her side. A thick wall of ice shot in front of her. She fired, but her bullet didn’t penetrate. Three other walls shot up encasing her. A good jump would get her over the top, but there was no way she could accomplish it without the Ice Witch blasting her.

  “Fuck.” Shay glared at the Ice Witch through the ice keeping her gaze fixed on her. Less chance the Witch would notice that Lily had seen it all coming and was in position. The teenager fired off another shot, the bullet passing through the Ice Witch’s thigh.

  She let out a surprised yelp and spun around, her wand in the air, an icicle already on it way at Lily. Lily neatly slid underneath it but not before a rising wall of ice knocked her in the head, her body slamming against a second wall, leaving her unconscious on the ground.

  Shay beat her fists against the ice wall, leaving spidery cracks down the sides.

  Yulia stepped forward, smiling, but her breathing was ragged, and her hand was pressed against her thigh. She flourished her wand. “As I said, you have no chance. You were lucky in Canada, but here the entire land is my plaything. You were doomed the minute you decided to follow me.” She turned toward her snowmobile, glancing over at Lily and raising her wand.

  Shay yelled out quickly, doing her best to taunt the Ice Witch and draw her attention. “Aren’t you going to finish me off? I’ll be honest—it’s not like I’d spare you in the same situation.”

  “No, you will live for now. Continue to live in your humiliation, Aletheia, knowing that you’ve been defeated and failed your client.” The witch snickered. “Vengeance is pointless if the other person doesn’t suffer first. But don’t worry, I’m not going to make this easy. After you’ve suffered enough, then and only then will you die. I’ll even leave this little pest for later, if she’s even still alive.”

  The witch pointed her wand at Shay’s snowmobile and blue stones floated in front of it. This time, several nested hexagonal blue patterns winked into existence. Ice coated the snowmobile for several seconds and finally formed an almost solid block.

  Yulia waved and hopped on her own vehicle. She drove away laughing.

  “You should have killed me, bitch. This isn’t over.” Shay took several deep breaths and ran toward one of the ice walls. She pushed off and leapt, using the momentum to carry her up to the top, freeing herself from her ice prison.

  Her elation was short-lived. She ran to Lily and dropped to her knees, feeling for a pulse. She was still alive. She gently shook the teenager till she opened her eyes and helped her sit up.

  “We’re in a situation.” Shay didn’t have a chisel or hammer to free her snowmobile, and even if she had, the witch had probably killed the vehicle.

  Lily tried to sit up but cried out in pain, holding her arm in front of her. “I think it’s broken,” she said between clenched teeth.

  “I shouldn’t have brought you.”

  “Fuck that, I’m not complaining.” Lily winced and squeezed her eyes shut. “Do you have something I can use for a sling?”

  Shay pulled off her scarf and tied it around Lily’s neck, helping her ease her arm into the makeshift sling. Lily blinked back tears and let Shay help her to her feet. “Most fun I’ve had in a long time and still better than living in the pipe.”

  “That is really saying something, kid. You will make a great tomb raider.”

  Lily smiled despite the pain and leaned on Shay as they started walking. At least Shay could see the airport in the distance and wouldn’t die in the middle of Antarctica.

  Eh. Lily has a point. Still better than bleeding out in my kitchen.

  An hour passed as Shay and Lily trudged toward the airport, occasionally resting for a moment as the chill seeped into every part of Shay’s body despite her layers of clothing and parka. They marched straight toward the parked plane but didn’t see anyone in the cockpit. Shay left Lily resting inside. “It’s okay, you saved my ass back there. I’m glad you’re here.” Shay brushed the gray hair out of Lily’s face. “Rest and I’ll be back before you know it.”

  Shay headed into the hangar connected to the only building present.

  Once inside, she cautiously opened the door leading into a hallway. She savored the warmth for a minute before continuing. A male voice sounded from ahead, and she hurried toward it, reaching inside her parka to pull her gun if she ran into the witch.

  The only people she saw were the pilot and another man she didn’t recognize. They were sitting in a waiting room with two tables and chairs.

  Shay lowered her hand. “Is Doctor Petrova here?”

  The men exchanged glances, uncomfortable expressions on both their faces.

  “It’s important,” the tomb raider barked.

  “She…was here.”

  “Did she go back to the Repository?”

  Shay could still catch her. The woman was powerful, but she’d be more limited inside a building compared to an ice and snowfield.

  “No, she didn’t. I don’t even get it. Some unscheduled plane suddenly showed up. The pilot was a crazy son of a bitch. Petrova pulled up on a snowmobile and rushed onto the plane before the guy had even stopped, and…”

  “And?”

  “She lifted herself to the plane on ice. And had a wand. Pretty sure she was a witch.”

  Shay sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Thanks.” She snorted—might as well cover her tracks. “Pretty sure she stole something from the Repository.”

  “That would explain a lot.”

  The tomb raider slumped into a seat at the other table.

  Even though she’d survived, she’d failed and would come back to the client empty-handed. Her reputation would take a hit, and even worse, a lot of things still didn’t make sense.

  A mercenary witch shouldn’t have shown up in the middle of nowhere to snatch magic beans.

  Shay still didn’t know what the beans even did, or what the implications of Yulia having them were.

  Is that bitch a tomb raider, or is all this shit connected?

  11

  The Ice Witch still haunted Shay’s thoughts a couple days later. Peyton hadn’t been able to track down any information, and the great Aletheia had had to admit to a client she wouldn’t be able to deliver.

  Lily’s arm was a clean break and would heal nicely. She had a cast that Peyton quickly decorated in different colored pens and had set her up in his old space, even resurrecting some of the cubes. He had fussed with the pizza oven, trying to make Lily a pizza but so far the results were a lot of smoke and an oversized burned cracker.

  Shay reassured Lily’s worries about going out again by buying Lily her own tomb raiding belt, with a few accessories.

  “You’re just like Robin, now,” said Peyton. “Your own utility belt.”

  As much as it bothered
her, Shay didn’t have time to fixate on the failed mission, or even Lily because the Professor had contacted her for another quick job. Quick, but not necessarily safe, or so the man had told her.

  She patted the bag of salt in her pocket. It wasn’t all Morton’s.

  The salt had been mixed with the remnants of an enchanted stone allegedly used by a Renaissance-era wizard who had dabbled in spirit-summoning on the down low. It had kept him from the hangman’s noose or worse.

  Don’t worry, Miz Carson. Just sprinkle a little of this on them and the spirits will go running. Not saying there will be any, but better safe than sorry, right?

  “Your shit better work, Smite-Williams,” Shay muttered to herself as she parked her rental truck in front of the decaying mansion.

  Weeds and shrubs had long since completed their invasion of the yard, and holes marred the one proud Tudor-style mansion. What had once been a slice of elite living in upstate New York had since given way to complete ruin.

  Poor Halliday. No wonder you’re haunting this place.

  Heiress Grace Halliday had an avid interest in the occult and had collected one of the more impressive collections of artifacts until her death in 1960. Her family had sold off everything, not believing that any of her so-called magical items had any real power. Even if most of them were garbage, the fact that Smite-Williams had sent the tomb raider proved that the woman had owned at least some magical artifacts.

  Shay snickered, wondering if any of those people were still alive to regret their decision. Her target that afternoon was a small golden Celtic torc. The Professor had been cagey on the details, other than it had some dampening ability he’d need to make the best use of the jade from the Green Dragon Crescent Blade.

  Between the vimana key and ancient weapon of legend, Shay wouldn’t have been surprised if she woke up one day to find out that Smite-Williams had taken over the world.

  I guess it’ll be a very drunken New World Order.

  The tomb raider stepped out of the vehicle, started toward the house, and froze. A translucent woman stared at her from the window and vanished a second later.