“Tessa only cares about two things: Tessa and the Market. Collapsing this tunnel will be a minor disruption of Market business, and she can get rid of us in one fell swoop. She is ruthless and efficient.”
“I understand her wanting to crush you,” I said, sitting on a bench as the rail car sped down the track. “You pissed her off, and worse—you scared her. I’m pretty sure she’s not used to feeling fear.”
“I doubt it’s a familiar emotion.”
“But the Phantom is in here with us.”
“Actually, he’s back there”—Monty pointed behind us—“probably being buried as we speak.”
“I didn’t do anything to her. Why crush me with you?’
“Guilt by association,” Monty replied. “She can’t leave witnesses. That would be sloppy.”
“Collapsing a tunnel on us is neat?”
“Quite, actually. She gets rid of us heading into the dangerous seventh ring after she warned us not to go. She removes a Janus, which only lends weight to her ‘it was too dangerous’ argument. The explosion, if we somehow managed to escape it, notifies the entire lethal population of the seventh ring that we are on our way.”
“Tessa is one cold bitch,” I said. “Remind me to deal with her when this is done.”
“Deal with her?” Monty asked, raising an eyebrow. “What are you going to do…be extra aggravating?”
“I may not be able to do anything personally, but I know a guy. A few guys, actually.”
“Let’s focus on the task at hand,” Monty said, waving my words away. “Thanks to this explosion, Roque and the whole seventh ring will be expecting us. We may have an unwelcoming committee when we arrive.”
“Why would this be easy?” I asked, adjusting my holster and checking the sheath holding Ebonsoul. “This day can’t end fast enough.”
I looked up in time to see a flaming orb sail past.
“Looks like they’ve seen us.” Monty shook out his hands. “No questions, no warnings. Let your weapons do the speaking.”
“A mage conversation—perfect.”
I drew Grim Whisper with one hand and pulled out Ebonsoul with the other. The rail car raced toward the station. After a few seconds, I realized it wasn’t slowing down. At the end of the station, a large, steel, blast door in the closed position waited to introduce us to new levels of pain and agony.
“It would seem the rail car has been sabotaged,” Monty said, looking at the controls. “The braking mechanism is destroyed.”
“Sabotaged, really? What gave it away? The fact that we aren’t slowing down, or that the blast door that should be open is closed, waiting for us to smash into it?”
“I can try slowing us down, but if I get it wrong, we will sail into the blast door like bullets.”
“Monty, I’ve sailed into enough hard objects today—don’t get it wrong.”
“Understood,” he said, gesturing. “Brace yourself.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Monty managed to slow the rail car enough for us to jump off at the station.
“Jump…now!” Monty yelled as we leapt off the rail car. “Take them down!”
A large group of assorted badness advanced on our position. They appeared to be homeless: dressed in rags, torn clothing, and surrounded by a stench that made me want to stop breathing for a few days.
I saw a few glowing hands in the back—mages. Closer to the front, a group holding a variety of polished weapons acted as a wall of death. They looked like a hot mess, but moved with the coordination and precision of a trained fighting force.
“Their clothes look gently abused, but the weapons look new,” I said. “Seems like their priorities are out of whack.”
“Who do you think supplies them with plenty of weapons and too little of everything else?”
“Tessa. If she keeps them divided, fighting for scraps, they never organize to become a threat to her.”
I counted over thirty of them, with about ten being mages.
“I’ll deal with the mages,” Monty said. “Do not kill them.”
“Are they playing by the same rules?” I asked. “Those weapons look like the ‘kill them’ variety.”
“I thought your new name was Restraint?” Monty said, moving forward. “This would be an excellent time to demonstrate it.”
“Fuck,” I said under my breath. “I’m going to show restraint, but things are going to get broken. Just so you know.”
“‘Break, don’t kill’ is an acceptable philosophy here. Share it freely.”
“Is Roque in this group?” I asked, looking among the mages.
“No, he will be waiting for us once we clear this group.”
Monty’s hands began to glow as he ran forward, muttering words under his breath. I checked Grim Whisper, sheathed Ebonsoul to avoid any fatal accidents, and closed the distance.
I still hadn’t switched out to entropy rounds because I was saving them for Esti and the Blood Hunters who had taken Peaches. Persuader rounds were designed to scramble neural networks, making them ideal for dealing with magic-users and normals alike. For mages, it meant no more spell-casting for a good ten minutes.
It also made the target lose control of all bodily functions. It’s hard to focus on killing someone when your bowels no longer listen to you and expel, well, everything. I liked to use them exclusively on mages and supernaturals—probably another reason the magic community disliked me.
Monty slipped through the front line with extreme violence as he unleashed orbs of air into their chests, shunting them out of the way. I started picking them off as they got to their feet. It was, I have to say, a shitty thing to do—in more ways than one—but they deserved it for trying to kill us.
Monty unleashed a barrage of red orbs that slammed into our unwelcoming committee of mages. Some of the mages managed to evade and deflect the orbs, closing the distance, and Monty engaged them.
He let them get close and blocked fists and kicks with elbows, knees, hard slaps reminiscent of Karma, throws, and breaks. With a sweep of his hand, a golden shield materialized in front of him, followed by more orbs of air, punching into the mages. An angry Montague was a scary thing to behold.
In my momentary distraction, several rounds punched into my glutes, launching me forward. I tucked into a roll and got to my feet.
“Shooting someone in the ass? Really?”
Three of the seventh ring’s inhabitants must have thought I was done. The look of surprise on their faces as I unleashed Grim Whisper, firing three times, hitting all three of them in the chest, was priceless.
The skirmish was over before I knew it. I walked around and over the groaning and cursing unwelcoming committee. I thought the station was pungent before, but now we had achieved new heights of odor.
“Watching you fight nearly got me perforated. Daystrider saved my ass.”
“You were supposed to be fighting, not watching,” Monty said, gesturing.
“What style of fighting was that? Krav magus? It looked devastating.”
“Every battle mage is taught close-quarters combat. With and without magic.”
“Why not use the Sorrows?” I asked. “Would’ve been faster.”
“That would have been excessive for this group. We were trying to keep them alive, remember?” he said, turning his face away. “Although, those persuader rounds may kill them from dysentery.”
“Hey, I managed to keep them all mostly intact. Broke a few, but they’re all still breathing. I was tempted,”—I glanced at the last three I dropped—“really tempted with those three, though.”
Monty stood, holding an extra pungent mage in a lattice. It reminded me of the one Esti used on Peaches, and my rage threatened to break free. This scrawny mage looked like he was in his early twenties—it was hard to tell with mages, since they aged slowly.
He was dressed in dirty rags, and was barefoot. Parts of his hair were matted down with dirt and debris. Judging from the grime, which was basically everywhere, his s
kin hadn’t been in the proximity of water in years.
“Let me go,” the mage said. “I’m nobody. I can’t hurt you. I don’t know anything.”
“What’s your name?” Monty asked. “Why did you attack us?”
“Berm, my name is Berm. I’m Berm,” he answered nervously, looking around. “The Director,”—Berm continued, his eyes darting between Monty and me, “she said to take out anyone who gets off at this station. There’s a reward out for you two.”
“A reward?” I asked. “How much?”
“A month…She promised whoever finished you, a month.”
“A month? A month of what?”
“A month of rations,” Berm answered, staring at me. “You’re not from the Market, are you? I can tell. You’re clean…too clean. Not from the seventh, no. You’re from outside, right? Not from the Market.”
“No, we aren’t,” I said, keeping my distance. “We need to find someone, and then we’re out of here.”
Berm laughed and then hissed himself quiet. “Out of here? The whole seventh ring is coming for you,” he said with a giggle, looking around. “You’re not leaving here—not alive, at least.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said. “Monty, can you take care of him, hellhound style?”
Berm scrunched his eyes closed, turning to Monty. “If you’re going to kill me, can you make it fast, please? I don’t like pain.”
“Indeed,” Monty said and began to gesture. “This will only take a moment.”
Monty finished gesturing and produced three enormous Peaches-worthy sausages and handed them to me. I placed them on the lattice next to Berm.
“Take these and disappear,” I said in a low voice. “If I see you attacking us again, I’m going to make sure you hurt.”
Berm opened his eyes wide.
“You’re not…you’re not going to kill me?” he asked, managing to open them wider when he saw the sausages. Monty removed the lattice, and Berm snatched up the sausages, vanishing them into his coat.
“No, we’re not going to kill you…today,” I said. “Make sure we don’t see you again.”
“Thank you, thank you,” Berm said, pointing at us. “You won’t see me again, that’s for sure. You need to go back, before he smells you. He likes the tunnels…If he smells you…you’re done—lunch time. Get out now…now. Before it’s too late.”
Berm ran to the end of the station and down into the tracks, disappearing silently into the darkness.
“Starving mages in the seventh ring,” I said, my voice laced with simmering rage. “Still don’t think we need to do something about Tessa?”
“We can’t,” Monty said. “But I’m certain we can make sure that this situation is addressed, somehow.”
“Good, starting with pounding Tessa, I hope.”
“That will be unlikely,” Monty answered, still looking in the direction Berm had disappeared in. “The Moving Market is a necessary evil and provides goods unavailable elsewhere. Too many powerful individuals profit from it.”
“So, she’s just going to get a stern talking to? A slap on the wrist?”
“It will be dealt with,” Monty said, his voice filled with enough menace to make me pause. “You have my word.”
“Just make sure I’m there when it happens.”
“Done. Let’s locate Roque—if Tessa promised a month’s worth of rations, we are in serious danger.”
“We can’t roam the seventh ring with a bounty on our heads,” I said. “They will swarm us, and I don’t have that many persuader rounds.”
Monty headed into a tunnel and then stopped suddenly, causing me to nearly knock him down.
“Now may be a good time to switch to entropy rounds,” Monty said under his breath. “It seems our search will be short.”
“What? Why?” I asked, looking around in the darkness. “What’s going on?”
“Do it slowly and without any sudden movements.”
“Why didn’t you kill him?” a voice asked from the darkness.
The throaty words floated over to us in the tunnel. Whoever or whatever was speaking was just this side of ginormous. I let my senses expand and felt a familiar presence, which encouraged me to subtly switch out my magazines. If I was right, and I really hoped I wasn’t, things had just gotten a whole lot worse.
“Monty?” I asked, quietly switching the magazines to entropy rounds. “When Roque took the drake’s blood, you mentioned a mutation.”
“Yes, it completely undid his body, without diminishing his ability to cast.”
“What exactly did he mutate into?”
“That is actually a fascinating question,” Monty said, keeping his voice even. “It seems the runic energy in the blood completely reconstructed his body, giving it a new shape.”
“A new shape?”
A low rumble filled the tunnel behind us, and I sensed the motion. Monty and I both turned to look into the face of the one creature that was truly fear-inducing.
A dragon.
The dim light from the tunnel was completely obscured, and I realized it was due to the dragon’s body blocking most of the available light. Monty released an orb of light, illuminating an enormous body that took up almost all of the tunnel. Another low rumble filled the tunnel as it moved toward us, gouging the stone with its claws. Huge gashes appeared in the tunnel floor as it approached.
It crawled over to where we stood, and loomed, looking down. Turning its head slightly, it focused on Monty. Yellow eyes glimmered with violet energy as it leaned in closer. Dragons—up close—were truly, unmistakably petrifying.
“That new shape,” Monty said. “Hello, Roque.”
TWENTY-NINE
“Why didn’t you kill the mage, Montague?” Roque asked. “He attacked you and deserved to die.”
“He was no threat.”
“Are you saying he was innocent?” Roque roared. “He attacked you!”
Monty remained calm and stared up at Roque’s eyes. My first inclination was to empty Grim Whisper into Roque’s face and run down the tunnel. To that end my hand drifted near my holster, but Monty shook his head slightly.
“I didn’t say he was innocent, I said he was no threat.”
“He tried to kill you.” Roque glanced at the groaning unwelcome committee. “They all did.”
“True,” Monty said, looking at the prone bodies of our attackers. “But they have been manipulated and forced to act against their best wishes.”
“They are all corrupt,” Roque replied, “and worthy of death.”
“They are all hungry,” Monty said, staring at Roque, “and worthy of care. If you attack them”—Monty’s hands went bright violet with black overtones—“I will be forced to stop you.”
“You would dare face me for these worthless scum of the seventh ring?” Roque asked. “You would race to your death to protect these insignificant specks of dust?”
“That will depend on you,” Monty said. “We can do this easy, or we can do this hard, but you will not be touching them. The choice is yours.”
“Are you sure you want to anger the already angry dragon?” I muttered, rubbing my still sore butt cheek. “He seems to dislike everyone from the seventh ring, and they did try to kill us.”
“That doesn’t mean they need to die,” Monty answered quietly, still looking at Roque. “What they need is to be free of Tessa’s influence. This dragon will not be killing anyone in my presence.”
In that moment, I didn’t know who was scarier. Of course, Roque was a dragon, and I had almost joined the rest of the unwelcoming committee in losing bowel control just from standing in front of him. Monty, on the other hand, was unleashing his best Gandalf ‘you shall not blast’ vibe at Roque. It was a standoff of epic proportions.
It was time for diplomacy.
I stepped in front of Monty and stared down Roque.
“I’m guessing you control the seventh ring, right?” I asked. “I mean, unless there’s another dragon out here, you’re
the boss, no matter what Tessa says.”
“The seventh ring is mine!” Roque roared again. “It is my dominion!”
“Right, exactly,” I said, nodding. “You’re this powerful dragon, correct?”
“Would you like me to demonstrate my power—on you?”
“Not really, thanks,” I answered quickly. “But I do have a question. If this is your dominion, why do you let Tessa control the population?”
“She controls nothing!” Roque answered. “They cower before me in fear. I rule this ring, not Tessa.”
“Those guys”—I pointed to the committee— “are starving, and she controls them. Are you saying she controls you, too?”
“No one controls me!” Roque roared loud enough to make the tunnel shake.
“Are you trying to get him angrier?” Monty asked, pulling me back a few steps. “This tunnel is unstable as it is.”
“I got this,” I said. “He’s right where I want him.”
“Where’s that? Crushing us with a collapsed tunnel?”
I held up a hand, stilled my trembling legs and stepped closer to Roque. This was either going to work or I was going to be flattened dragon dinner.
“You think you rule this ring, but you don’t. For all your power, you are a figurehead—worse, you’re a deterrent. Tessa keeps you around to keep the population under control. Between letting you roam free and starving the ring, she can have them do whatever she wants—like coming after us. Face it, you’re nothing but Tessa’s pet monster.”
Roque let out another massive roar. This time it looked like he was going to bring down the tunnel around us. Chunks of the ceiling started crashing into the floor of the tunnel.
Monty ran over to the committee, gestured and cast a large dome of golden energy over them. Large pieces of stone hit the sphere and bounced off, adding the crashing of stone to the roars of a dragon. I ran back into the sphere.
“I’d say that could have gone better,” Monty said, as we stood in the center of the sphere. “Do you have any other ideas?”
“I do, but this one is risky.”
“Riskier than an enraged dragon crushing us to death?”
Reaping Wind Page 12