by TR Cameron
She raced ahead and whipped out a claw as she dashed past him, slicing through his shoe, sock, and the tendon in his heel in a swift move, causing him to fall to his knees while gagging in pain. The noise alerted the second man, who turned in time to see a tiger flying toward him in midair. She retracted her claws before the impact, the momentum and mass of her hurtling body enough to slam him down to the ground. Bones crunched in a satisfying manner as she landed on top of him.
Her moment of satisfaction was ruined as a bullet plowed along her side, fired in panic by one of two guards in front of her. She idly cataloged them as belonging to the gem sellers, not that it mattered to her in the least. Her predator mode viewed any enemy as an equally viable target. She raced forward in an evasive charge, causing the shots to miss as she dodged and varied her speed. Then she was on them, slashing at the chest of the first with her claws as a distraction while she bit the arm holding down the trigger of the other man’s rifle. She landed and spun, smashing her body into the one she’d clawed and knocking him from his feet while shifting her teeth to the second man’s leg to yank him to the ground with his friend. She jumped on them in turn, breaking their bones as well. Ahead stood a Kilomea, and a slow grin spread across her face as she crouched and stalked toward the giant creature.
Diana ran at full tilt toward the quartet of magicals firing spells at the sheriff’s cars. One vehicle was already aflame, and another had all of its tires blown out. The officers’ return fire was inadequate to say the least, and she cursed at local law enforcement’s lack of access to anti-magic rounds. Even though they were rare and expensive, certain things should be mandatory.
She led with a force blast at the feet of the foremost, causing him to topple as he advanced and sending the others into momentary chaos as they tried not to trip over him. She drew her sword, Fury, and used it to stab the nearest attacker through the shoulder. Her skills with the weapon were profound, and she possessed adequate knowledge of anatomy to make the wound nonlethal, as long as someone stopped the bleeding relatively quickly. If he’s smart, he’ll get out of the fight and deal with that right away.
Diana dove aside as one of the PDA drones slammed bullets at her previous location and fired back at it with a concentrated beam of shadow magic. It pierced the drone and wiped out something essential inside, judging by how it smoked and spiraled to the ground. “Idiots,” she muttered. “Friendly fire is not cool.”
In the moment of distraction, the other two had turned toward her. The one on the left bathed her in fire that her anti-magic deflectors drank in with a loud crack. Diana went for her rifle, but the other grabbed it telekinetically and ripped it away from her, the strap breaking after jerking her forward a couple of steps.
She countered by throwing out a line of shadow magic that wrapped around that elf’s neck. A yank smashed him into his partner, and Diana bolted ahead to deliver a flurry of punches to each, her shock gloves blasting them into unconsciousness.
She activated her comm and quipped, “Another group down. Tell the bad guys to send more goons. This is getting boring.”
Laughter sounded across the channel and Cara replied, “I’m out too.”
Rath added, “Same here. Heading for the middle.”
Diana said, “I’ll check in with the authorities. Croft, go help Rambo.”
“On it.”
Jared Trenton watched the battle from the drone’s perspective, shaking his head in annoyance as the tables turned against his side and the costumed freaks again managed to evade his carefully planned trap. He texted, “Bringing the Feds in was a nice move on their part. Too bad it’s going to end badly for all of them. Are your people out?”
The dwarf typed back quickly, “Yeah. They started in, then decided it was too much risk for their taste. I can’t argue.”
Jared grinned in anticipation as he pushed the buttons. “Excellent. I say the time to pull the trigger has arrived. You?”
“Agreed.”
He pressed an icon on his phone and triumphantly crowed, “Fire in the hole, you freaks.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ruby had her eyes on the black bag inside the car that surely contained the diamonds when the ground did its best to send her into orbit. Her brain scrambled to figure out what was going on, and words like explosion, meteor, and Armageddon passed through it. The noise was deafening, but in it, she could hear specific sounds—the creaking of metal, the rending of flesh, the screams of pain.
She reinforced the force barrier around her body, spoke the activation command for her pendant, clashed her bracelets together to create yet another shield, and slammed into something that felt like metal. As she fell toward the ground, the sound of whatever she’d hit ominously shifting overrode the other noises and filled her with alarm. She strengthened the reflexive shield she’d created at the initial explosion, just like on her first day back in Magic City at the bar in the Mist. Then everything turned dark as falling objects that came down in an endless rain pummeled her.
Idryll was in midair when the detonations went off, so she had a moment to react free of the concussive effect of the heaving earth. Dirt flew everywhere, suggesting separate traps rather than a single huge one. She touched down briefly on a car as it flipped through the air and used it as a springboard to leap toward safety. She whipped her head in both directions, looking for Ruby, and spotted her a second before a cascade of metal pipes fell on top of her. Idryll hit the ground in an all-out run, weaving and dodging as things landed all around her, her only thought the need to get to her partner.
The eruptions didn’t directly reach Morrigan's high perch, and she looked around in fear as detonations occurred seemingly everywhere. Secondary explosions from damaged cars and who knew what else buried in the rubble added to the cacophony. Her weight shifted suddenly, and the creaking and shrieking of metal signaled that the structural support for the containers was compromised.
She scanned the area frantically for any option to keep herself away from the increasingly unsafe ground and blasted herself off the top with force magic as the containers fell. The unsteady launch platform sent her slightly off target, and she said a small prayer as she twisted her body around so her forearm pointed in the right direction. She released the harpoon, and it sped out toward a point midway along the arm of the crane, which was remarkably still standing tall.
It caught on the metal, and the magnet took hold. Gravity pulled at her, and she swung like a pendulum. Her sigh of relief at the safe escape vanished as the crane shifted with a sudden jolt and the sound of a snapping guy wire, listing notably to that side before starting to topple in her direction. She screamed and slammed the failsafe on the top of the launcher to release the line, leaving her free-falling. From her vantage point, it was clear the crane would land directly on her, eliminating all her alternatives.
Morrigan wrenched herself around, cast a portal a foot above the ground, and fell through it. She skidded across the floor of her bedroom to slam into the wall on the far side, releasing the magic before the crane would’ve followed her in. Her vision tunneled, and she knew no more.
Diana was far enough away from the explosions that they didn’t affect her beyond the requirement to throw up a shield to protect the sheriff and Ely PD personnel. She had the momentary pleasure of watching the falling crane take out one of the PDA drones, then forced herself to focus. “Rambo, Croft, report in.”
Cara answered, “That sucked, but I’m fine. Position near the middle.”
Rath replied, “All good. Safe. Saw the tiger running toward the Mist Elf.”
Diana said, “Okay. Go help. If there are any bad guys, make sure they go down. Helping our people is top priority, assisting anyone else, a distant second.” She turned to Sheriff Alejo. “We have people down. I need you to run interference if the PDA shows up. Do not let them in until we’re clear.”
The other woman nodded. “Count on it.” She started yelling orders to deploy her subordinates to block the
various entrances to the Casino Graveyard.
Diana reached the scene to find the tiger-woman and Rath, in his large form, pulling pieces of rebar off the pile. Cara arrived as she did, and they added their magic to the effort, helping to lift the heavy objects. They uncovered Ruby, who was delirious from pain and whose leg had bent at an unnatural angle. The troll pulled her free of danger as the rest of the rebar collapsed into the space she’d occupied, and the woman moaned pitifully.
She said, “We have no time. Cara, give us a hole. Rath, carry her. Idryll, come with us.” Cara opened a portal back to the vimana, and they all fled the scene.
Ruby came to coughing and choking on the healing potion dribbling into her mouth and screamed as her right leg reassembled itself. Hands pressed her down on the bed. She catalogued everyone around her and instantly noticed her sister’s absence. “Is Morrigan okay?”
Diana nodded. “We checked in. Nasty bump to the head, but she took care of it with a healing potion. She’s fine but couldn’t come to visit you.”
Ruby frowned. “Why?”
Diana replied, “Kayleigh, play it back.” Demetrius’s concerned tones came into her ear. “Hey Ruby, you got this message on your phone. Hope you’re okay.” A harried-sounding female voice replaced him. “Ms. Achera, this is White Pine Regional. You’re listed as the emergency contact for one Phineas Margrave. He’s here in the hospital. You can return my call at this number or come to the ICU and announce yourself.”
Ruby swung her legs off the bed and tried to stand, and strong hands grabbed her to assist. She wobbled a little as she gained her feet. “I have to go.”
Diana stepped directly into her line of sight and shook her head. “No, you need to do three things first. One, take a minute and let your brain slow down. You can afford sixty seconds to get right. Second, you need a shower. You can’t go in there looking like you’ve been in a massive fight.” Ruby looked down at herself and realized the other woman was right. The explosion had torn holes in her gear, and she felt as dirty as she ever had. “Third, new clothes. Cara will take you to get cleaned up, and I’ll find something for you to wear. Then we’ll help you get where you need to go.”
Twenty minutes later, she was clean, dressed, and no longer completely frantic. Partially frantic, that’s about all I can offer at this moment. She’d exchanged words with her sister, who hadn’t been able to get past the waiting room, then had visited the nurse’s station. Now, she was finally getting to talk to the doctor. She was a competent-looking woman, probably in her fifties, a brunette with gray starting to creep in. Her eyes were sharp and seemed to give Ruby a once-over for her health before she spoke.
“Mr. Margrave is responding well. He was shot three times, once in the leg, once in the chest, and a through-and-through in the arm. We got the bullets out without too much trouble, and he’s fortunate they didn’t do more damage. He’ll need to stay in bed for a while as his internal injuries heal. Do you know what happened to him?”
Ruby shook her head. “I have no idea. This doesn’t make any sense at all. Have the police talked to him?”
“No. I’ll call the detectives in now that he’s conscious, but he was unable to speak until a short time ago.”
“Can I see him?”
The doctor nodded. “You have ten minutes, no more. Just a warning, he might be a little loopy.”
A nurse took her in, and Ruby thanked him and asked to be left alone. She stepped up next to her longtime friend and rested her hand on his shoulder. “Hey, show-off. How about you leave the hero stuff to the experts?”
His eyes fluttered open, and he coughed as he laughed. “Ow. Don’t be funny. Your jokes hurt more than usual.”
Relief washed over her, and she grinned. “Well, at least your brain’s not any more broken than it was before this. I only have a few minutes, so tell me what happened.”
He nodded. “A man showed up. Tough-looking, seemed dangerous right off the bat. I closed the door on him, and he kicked it in and demanded the armor you brought me a while back.” Ruby gritted her teeth but didn’t interrupt. “I handed it over. It’s broken, so why not? I could tell he wasn’t going to leave, so I triggered the house’s defenses. He ran, but not before shooting me in the chest as he left.”
She nodded. “And the arm, and the leg, if we’re counting.”
He gave a small snort. “Didn’t notice them. Having never been shot before, I was rather focused on that novel experience.”
“Don’t worry. It gets easier the more you do it. How did he know the armor was there? I didn’t tell anybody.”
He lifted a hand, then weakly let it fall. “I contacted some people about the symbols. Never mentioned where they came from, never talked about the armor. That’s all I can figure. They’re trusted friends, though. There’s no way they would’ve shared it casually.” Alarm crept into his words, and he grabbed her hand. “Please make sure they’re all right.”
She could tell he was fading under the influence of the drugs, and she patted his hand. “If it’s the guy I’m thinking of, everything suggests he has some really good infomancy on his side. I’m positive that’s how he figured it out. I’ll check on them, don’t worry. You rest.”
He was asleep before she finished, so she said goodbye at the nurse’s station and marched out of the hospital filled with murderous thoughts. Okay, you feckless scumbags. Now you’ve gone too damn far.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ruby sat on a boulder in the center of the clearing that was her Oriceran village's centerpiece. After leaving the hospital, she’d felt unmoored, with no idea where to go or what to do. Everything seemed to be closing in on her, so she fled to her native planet where at least her problems weren’t quite so pressing. Sure, the place has tried to kill me a bunch of times during the venamishas, but what’s a little lethal conflict between friends?
The sun had started to creep over the horizon a couple of minutes before, and she’d been there long enough for the nighttime cold to seep into her bones. She felt as if she had become an extension of the stone, that its solidity had fused with her skeleton and she would be part of it for the rest of her life. At the moment, that doesn’t sound so bad. She hadn’t even made an effort to change into her training gear, which might’ve kept her warmer than the clothes she’d obtained from Diana. I am now a rock. Like Simon and Garfunkel, I am an island.
Her teacher’s voice didn’t come as a surprise. It was earlier than expected, but Keshalla's arrival to counsel her student was as inevitable as the dawn breaking. She said, “I don’t think I’ve seen you in this outfit.”
“Borrowed. Mine was damaged.”
Her teacher sat beside her on the rock, pulled her knees to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them. “Did you win?”
She shook her head. “Nobody won that one.”
“Sounds like you have a story you need to tell. Go ahead and get started.”
Ruby gave her the broad strokes of the battle, identifying moments where a different choice might have made a difference in the fight's outcome. When she’d shared it all, she shrugged and sighed. “Although there were places I could have maybe improved things a little, I don’t see how I could’ve done better overall, except by choosing not to fight. That wasn’t an option. Then, while I was involved, one of my allies was attacked.” She explained what happened to Margrave and finished by saying, “I know it’s not my fault. He made his choices, as we all did. I still feel responsible.”
Keshalla nodded. “Guilt would be inappropriate because of all the things you said. Responsibility is not. That’s another choice you’ve made and one I respect.” She slapped Ruby on the arm, startling her. “Now go in and put on some proper clothes. We need to visit the mystics.”
Much of Ruby’s angst burned off on the quick march Keshalla demanded for the ascent to the mystics’ community. Nadar greeted them warmly and seemed to sense they were there for a reason. He ushered them into the main building and seated them with tea
, fruit, and small rectangles of the Mist Elves’ traditional trail bread. For several minutes the only sound was chewing as everyone enjoyed the repast. Finally, Nadar clapped his hands together and asked, “So, what can I do for you?”
Keshalla replied, “I think it’s time you shared the rest of the prophecy with Ruby.”
He nodded. “Of course.”
Ruby interrupted, “Wait, now there’s a defined prophecy? I thought we were connecting dots?”
Keshalla shrugged. “Get enough dots in a line, and it leads somewhere. In this case, to a prophecy.”
Nadar added, “Quite a doozy of one if I might be so bold. It appears that you’re destined to be the leader of the Mist Elves.”
Ruby burst into laughter. “Nice joke. Now, really, what’s the deal?”
He shook his head and grinned. “I would never joke about such a thing. Your completion of the second venamisha and your success in bonding with the sword both point to you as the next Mirra. No one had held that title since Kaeni was in the role.”
Ruby blinked, unable to process the information for a moment. Then she asked, “So that’s it, then? I’m queen?” She lifted her chin in an attempt to be aristocratic. “Very well, I want my crown, my scepter, a bevy of beautiful servants to attend to my every whim, and more of this trail bread, immediately. Chop, chop.”
Keshalla and Nadar laughed, and the mystic replied, “I’m sorry, but the last of those requests is the only one we can fulfill.” He tapped gently on the table, and another mystic appeared, exchanged words with their host, and bustled off. “To answer your question, no, you’re not the ruler yet. You have a great road left to travel. But now, we understand the route.”