Federal Agents of Magic Boxed Set

by T. R. Cameron

  They nodded confidently as Diana continued. “When we reach the magicals, that’s where we need to be focused and do our thing. I have the most recent similar experience, so I’ll take lead. Once we’re in the heat of it, target choice is yours unless I say differently. We have the gear, we have the smarts, and most importantly, we have each other to depend on. That’s an advantage the other side won’t be able to match.” She finished with a grin. “When the mission is over, I’ll buy the drinks.”

  Tony laughed. “That bar tab could be a little expensive, boss.”

  “Work hard, play hard. But don’t forget, there are no days off for the Black-ops Agents of Magic. Even though it seems like a big deal, this is simply another day for us. Let’s get to it.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  BAM Pittsburgh deployed from a pair of boring gray sedans a little over two blocks from the museum. It was still early evening but already dark thanks to the persistent cloud cover, and the area was devoid of foot traffic.

  The comms carried Cara’s quiet comment perfectly. “Everyone’s probably at the protest.”

  Diana nodded. “Yep.” A telltale glow in her vision indicated an incoming request, and she warned the team. “Adding in local SWAT.” With a couple of taps on the side of her glasses to navigate through menus, an encrypted channel was established with the Pittsburgh Police Department’s SWAT division. Not for the first time, Diana wished there was an AET unit in town. Despite being a reasonably big city, Pittsburgh still carried a risk-avoidant attitude about certain things, and it seemed the advanced anti-magic version of SWAT was one of them. It had never been said in so many words, but she was sure that was a reason for locating an ARES bureau there.

  “This is Sheen, ARES Actual. What’s our status?”

  A deep baritone responded instantly. “Lieutenant Donalds, SWAT Commander. We’re posted as planned, ready to enter on the northwest corner.”

  “We’ll be there in ninety seconds. Any sign of activity?”

  A quiet male voice answered. “This is sniper one. No action in the back.”

  A younger-sounding and notably more excited person reported in. “Sniper two. It seemed there was motion near the eastern front entrance, but it turned out to be nothing.”

  Diana exchanged glances with Cara, and they pushed into a jog. She checked left to make sure Rath still paced beside her. His three-foot form kept up easily. Tony, whose day-to-day routine hadn’t involved quite as much physical training, gamely brought up the rear a couple of strides behind. She tripped her mic. “It could be illusion magic. There’s probably no way to tell until we get inside but it seems likely they’re timing this with the protest.”

  The SWAT leader’s voice responded. “Which began for real about fifteen minutes ago.”

  She cursed. “Earlier than expected, right?”

  “Affirmative. Apparently, they couldn’t wait to start shouting at the office building.”

  Tony joined the conversation with a laugh and heavy breathing. “I talked to the warden again just before we rolled out. Murphy's convinced she has all she needs if this is a decoy and the Cube is a target. Not coincidentally, the prison received an additional shipment of drones today. Armed drones.”

  Diana’s voice contradicted her words. “That’s reassuring.” She shook her head to clear everything from her mind other than the impending mission as they rounded the corner to the front of the building. She deactivated her mic, raised a fist to circle her team, and gave them the signal to kill their mics as well. Rath bumped into her leg, and she smiled and shifted her expression to neutral.

  “Okay, game faces. We start nonlethal, but only so long as it’s abundantly safe to do so. We won’t trade one of us to prevent some scumbag from receiving the consequences of his actions.” Cara and Tony nodded. Their expressions hardened as they individually prepared for what was to come. Diana turned and led them at a jog toward the entrance as she reactivated her comm. “All right. As we agreed, Donalds, your people lead. We’ll bring up the rear until magic beyond your ability to manage shows up. Best case, you handle the whole thing and we get to watch.”

  The deep-voiced lieutenant chuckled. “Perfect.”

  Ahead, a fully geared unit materialized from hiding places among the architecture and landscaping outside the front of the museum. By the time SWAT was lined up on both sides of the entrance, Diana and her team were in place behind them. Donalds unlocked the door with keys he’d acquired from the museum’s curator. The appropriately cautious woman had argued during their call that she should bring in additional guards to lie in wait for any thieves, but the two leaders had persuaded her that doing so would simply ask for a bloodbath, given the nature of the opponents. They had reassured the executive that they had the matter well in hand.

  I really hope we have the matter well in hand.

  The time for thinking ended abruptly as the door swung wide and the SWAT team flowed into the building. Shouts of contact rang out. Diana crossed the threshold and took stock of the situation. Ahead was the opening to a large exhibit that looked to be filled with ancient facades and statuaries. An event hall stood off to the right, separated by a set of eight glass doors.

  The SWAT team had already leapt into action down a long, wide corridor on the left. Its walls and floors were made of polished marble. Pedestals supported smaller statues and precious objects at precise intervals. Lighting modeled after gas lamps hung above and the gun barrels that protruded from the more distant pillars glinted in the dim illumination. The weapons clattered as the enemy fired first. She flung herself behind a pedestal on the right wall as her mind cataloged the opposition.

  I see a mix of rifles and pistols—maybe a handful, depending on how far back along the hall they go. We clearly outnumber them, which is basically what we anticipated.

  They had decided that the thieves would need to prepare for an incursion from any of the museum’s many entrances, so initial resistance would be light and scattered. She had guessed, and the SWAT lieutenant had agreed, that the enemy would have surveillance outside the building and a mobile response group ready to supplement small delaying units positioned at each breach point. They had considered splitting their own people but discarded the notion early on. Overwhelming force seemed like the right play for the situation.

  It usually is.

  Grunts sounded as bullets struck Kevlar, and one of the SWAT troops collapsed, the victim of simultaneous attacks from multiple opponents. The sizzle of stun rifles filled the air, and several enemies dropped their weapons when the limbs holding them numbed. The distraction that resulted from the disarming was substantial enough that the officers could advance and subdue the remaining defenders.

  As the last opponent was disabled, a multi-forked bolt of lightning hurtled down the hallway and struck the lead SWAT component. Three of the four troops screamed in pain and alarm as they fell. The second group rushed to drag the wounded clear as a wash of flame followed on the heels of the first magical attack. The sprinklers activated and drenched the party.

  “Isn’t that lovely?” Diana muttered under her breath, momentarily glad she’d bound her hair in a ponytail before the mission. In a louder voice, she commanded, “ARES, forward.” They shoved ahead in a staggered line and dove behind the nearest cover as another sweep of fire filled the center of the wide hallway. It seemed less intense than the last, possibly because of the water from the sprinklers. The lightning storm that followed, on the other hand, looked even more dangerous. Whether that was simply a natural reaction to mixing electricity and water or an actual danger, Diana neither knew nor cared. She simply ran faster once it sizzled past.

  Rath and Cara were a step behind and one to each side when a wizard and witch appeared ahead. Diana raised her stun gun and pelted forward to hurl bolts of energy that streaked at the wizard. The wave of a wand dissipated the blast and she let the rifle fall to her chest with a curse. Its positioning prevented her from drawing her carbine with the anti-magic bull
ets, so she snagged her Glock from its hip holster instead. She raised it and fired a triple burst at each enemy in a continuous track from left to right. As expected, their shields raised. Cara’s pistol barked beside her, and Diana shifted her aim to the wizard once more. The sizzle of a stun gun nearby confirmed that Tony was doing his part, but to negligible effect.

  They maintained a steady barrage as they closed and forced the magic users to focus on defense. The wizard found a momentary hole and thrust a lance of lighting at Diana, but she weaved right and Rath somersaulted over it. They both avoided injury and it smacked into the wall behind them with a sizzle and pop and reduced a nearby statue to dust and shards. The witch on the other side of the hallway had retreated from Cara’s bullets and no longer had a clear angle to attack her. She continued to backpedal and opted to send a wash of fire at Rath, instead.

  The troll stopped on a dime and vaulted into an acrobatic roll that enabled him to avoid the fiery cone that reached for him. This gave Diana the opportunity she needed. In the moment of distraction, she dropped and fired at floor level. The anti-bullet shields were often less comprehensive than a full-body shield, and the witch’s didn’t fully cover her. The bullets pierced her foot, and she collapsed with a cry. The agent holstered her pistol, switched smoothly to her stun rifle, and pulled the trigger. Despite the pain of the wound, the witch had the presence of mind to interpose her shield and deflect the blast, which drew another growl of annoyance from Diana.

  Heaven save us from competent enemies.

  Rath took advantage of the witch’s focus on his partner to circle and deliver a jump kick at her head. His descending feet smacked her skull against the marble floor with a resounding crack, and her wand tumbled from nerveless fingers. They turned to the wizard together, but Cara was engaged with him and Diana couldn’t risk a shot. The woman had closed to hand-to-hand combat and hurled punches and kicks at her opponent. Tony stepped beside her with his rifle trained on the pair but was also unable to intervene.

  The wizard generated small barriers to intercept his adversary’s attacks with flicks of his wand and retreated a step at a time. The concerned look on his face changed to fear when she used the wall to her left as a launchpad to hurl herself at him. His hasty shield slowed her in midair but wasn’t strong enough to prevent the inevitable collision. The elbow she’d thrown as she vaulted finished its arc and connected with his temple. The sharp snap as she rode him to the floor and landed on her knees atop him indicated broken ribs, without a doubt. His prone body slumped and she celebrated with a victory curse.

  Diana mopped the sprinkler drizzle from her face. The SWAT team had joined them in the combat zone, which lay immediately outside the gift shop. She checked the map in her AR display and stroked her watch to zoom in on the image. “Okay, the most likely enemy path is through the souvenir store, then through the dinosaur exhibit, and finally, down.”

  Donalds nodded. “Is it worth going around?”

  She zoomed the blueprint out to make sure she hadn’t missed anything in her pre-op reviews and confirmed that she hadn’t. “This way will be the hardest for them to defend. A single enemy could keep us bottlenecked along the other approaches, so it might be safer in the long run, but we’d take forever to get there.”

  Tony sounded annoyed, perhaps because he had been stuck on the sidelines of the earlier fight. “They’re deliberately stalling. Those two magic users could’ve run after the first attack, but they wanted to make sure we spent time here.”

  Diana and the SWAT lieutenant spoke together. “Bastards.” She glanced at him and finished for them both. “Through the gift shop we go.”

  An officer who’d taken a lightning blast was still down, and Donalds told another to stay with him and apply a healing potion, until the officer could be extracted. The third member looked shaky. An ugly red welt ran diagonally across her face from the left ear, but she held her stun gun at the ready. Diana wondered if this wasn’t the appropriate moment to more lethal weaponry, but it wasn’t her call to make. They obviously had their orders to minimize lethal force unless unavoidable, given that some of the protesters might simply be innocent people swept into something they didn’t fully understand. If they somehow flooded the building, stun guns were the preferred option.

  The lieutenant detailed a trio to secure the area outside the gift shop. One faced the hall to the left, one the hall to the right, and the last guarded the staircase opposite its entrance. The stairs were not a viable option for the team because they led to an easily defended bottleneck a floor below.

  They reestablished their marching order, and SWAT moved into the store. The lead officer reported, “Clear,” and the blue-clad troops advanced to the antechamber positioned before the next exhibit. The BAM team entered the room as the officers left. Cara beat her to the punch and yelled, “Illusions present!”

  Diana and Cara both intoned, “What is hidden, let it be found,” and a shimmer appeared behind the cash register. Her first thought was, Ha. So she does have magic. Her second thought was, Holy Hell, as Rath dashed past, executed his now signature somersault over the counter, and delivered his perfect two-footed kick into the face of the suddenly visible wizard who had brought his wand to bear on the women.

  The troll and his target vanished behind the desk with a resounding crash, and Diana heard the snick of batons extending, followed by the snap of the stun element built into the tips. The first time was surely essential to render the mage unconscious. The second might have been useful, assuming the enemy was particularly tough. The third sizzle, though, seemed like overkill.

  “Rath!” The troll darted around the side of the counter with a smile on his face. She shook her head, and his grin brightened.

  You’re a loose cannon, short stuff.

  Warnings of contact sounded ahead, and she dashed through the mineral exhibit into the Hall of Dinosaurs. The troll dropped behind to cover Tony. The enemy had deployed in force among the skeletons. She counted at least six in the time it took to find cover and avoid the flurry of lead that peppered the display she now crouched behind.

  “Okay, enough playtime,” she growled. She unclipped the stun gun’s strap and set the weapon aside.

  Diana raised her rifle and rotated the selector from safe to semi-automatic. She positioned the barrel on top of the concrete barrier that formed the exhibit’s base and sighted through the leaves of the tall artificial plants it contained. Three pulls of the trigger forced the closest enemies into cover. The SWAT team advanced but quickly found themselves at a stalemate with the foes ahead as they engaged in a vicious exchange of fire.

  The attack from above shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was since she’d dismissed it as a threat because there was no one there when they'd entered the room. Whatever magic users had since crept into position announced their presence with a blast of fire directed at Tony. The detective cursed as he stumbled away in panic. The pops of his anti-magic deflectors being consumed mixed with that of renewed enemy gunfire.

  “Tony, fall back,” Diana ordered.

  He scowled as he complied.

  She announced, “Switching to anti-magic rounds,” and let the partially-expended magazine fall as she slapped in the expensive replacement. Calmly and precisely, she sighted the wizard on the balcony. His expression displayed the kind of smugness that only came with perceived invulnerability. She smiled and depressed the trigger three times. The bullets plowed through his hasty shield unhindered and blood blossomed from the trio of center-mass hits, while the recoil from the impact catapulted him back. She moved her rifle to the next target on the platform, but the lack of spells or obvious magical attack implied that this one was simply an ordinary scumbag who fired his rifle at the fighters below. A little disappointed by that, she set her finger outside the guard.

  Dammit. I can’t waste them. I have to figure out who’s pulled our supply down, the sooner the better.

  Diana drew a deep breath, scanned the room, and grinned
.

  She moved into position for a clean line of sight to the far wall. Hanging there, mounted against a thick window, were the bleached bones of a huge prehistoric fish. The largest were two-and-a-half times Rath’s current height. She reached out with her telekinesis and yanked one free from the rest, then hurled it at the enemy above. He scrambled back with a shout and ducked beneath a heavy glass and metal partition as the bone smashed to splinters.

  You didn’t expect that, did you?

  The opposition's gunfire ceased momentarily as they reacted to the shards of fishbone that rained down on them. The BAM team was not affected, fortunately, and used that lull to strike. Diana raced up the center aisle, snatched more fish bones telekinetically, and raised them high before she cast them down at enemies who hid behind the displays. Cara sprinted wide to the left and fired sideways at those she passed. She vaulted over a planter and slid into cover before the enemy could react. Rath followed in her wake and found a foe to batter and shock with his batons.

  The assaults from above and the side disoriented the defenders enough that SWAT was able to take advantage of the moment. Working methodically and efficiently, they cleared the remaining adversaries in a series of quick advances. A pair of wizards on the balcony announced themselves by a sudden shower of sharp-pointed icicles that forced the team back into cover. The opposition seemed content to hold them in place, and the steady hail of ice javelins made it dangerous to move.

  Rath, clearly excited, grated over the comm as he said, “Big bones guy. Ramp. Shield?”

  Diana immediately understood his plan. The skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex filled the right side of the space, and its head towered above the second-floor balcony. It was a jump the troll could make easily but far too dangerous to reach without protection. She searched for the power she had used only the other day in her training with her partner, but magical energy proved elusive. In this situation, she hadn’t built any anger at the enemies—the trusted go-to that triggered her power—and only had a dispassionate need to get past them to the real threat.