Federal Agents of Magic Boxed Set

by T. R. Cameron

  “Okay. Glam, any clue as to where the Remembrance jerk we put away was stored?”

  Kayleigh’s voice was scratchy. Something in the Cube’s construction apparently interfered with the comms. “He was to your right. But every indication is that the enemy had a plan, and they’ve been in there long enough to set the prisoners free.”

  Cara sighed. “Do we know how they intend to get out?”

  “The warden’s best theory is that they’ll use the escape tunnel on three. They’ll probably try to hold inside the entrance so they can deal with the guards or whoever one at a time.”

  “Okay, I guess that’s our target. Quinn, give me the quickest route there.” Her AI put a map into the corner of her glasses and a dotted path headed directly ahead into the recreation area before it cut to the right. “Copy that to Stark and Khan.” She advanced in a crouched walk, setting one foot carefully in front of the next with her rifle up and ready.

  She was prepared for anything except the ambush that triggered as soon as they reached the guard tower.

  Diana and Bryant walked side-by-side, their rifles in position, each of them responsible for one part of the area as they made their way through the fourth floor. Several enemies with weapons appeared and quickly ducked again as the duo delivered shots to center mass and kicked anyone still functioning in the head to keep them down.

  Rath trailed them, and every now and again, when she turned full circle to check behind them, she saw him swing his batons as if itching for someone to hit with them. I know the feeling, my man. She kept the potential appearance of the clever pirate at the forefront of her mind, ready to make sure he understood exactly how she felt about him but truly didn’t expect him to show. The one she really wanted was the enemy leader, Vincente.

  Not only because he’d tried to throw her into the World in Between, although that was high on the list of reasons. He had been a thorn in her side and a risk to her city since the first day, and it was time for him to be permanently removed from the equation. After the failure of the Cube, Diana planned to argue that the worst of the worst should be sent to Trevilsom prison because keeping them around was clearly too dangerous.

  Let the experts in magic punish those who abuse it the most. That punishment is appropriate. We’ll keep the lesser offenders and their henchmen in the Ultramax.

  They’d chosen to travel along the right side, not really trusting the structural integrity of the middle portion and a little alarmed by the way the turret in the hall to the left kept momentarily coming to life and shutting down again. Despite a list of worries as long as her arm, it felt strangely good to have Bryant with her again and to know that Rath was nearby.

  Ahead, short hallways led off to the cellblocks, and she’d have expected noise from within them. There was none. She stuck her head around into the hall and saw that the individual cell doors had been warped, likely from the same sonic blast that devastated the building’s structure. We’ll be lucky if it doesn’t collapse with us inside. “We have to check them. We can’t leave them unsecured behind us.” Bryant nodded, and they cleared the first set, which was empty of prisoners. In the second hallway, they found one prisoner, a wizard, cowering in the corner and muttering to himself. “Dammit. We can’t leave him here, and we can’t take him with us.” The three looked at each other, and then both she and Rath stared at Bryant.

  He rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll take him back to the entrance and toss him out of the building. Will that make you happy?”

  Rath grinned. “Don’t break.”

  He let out a long sigh. “No, I won’t break him. Try not to get killed before I get back, okay? If Diana gets a beat down, I want to be there to see it, at least.”

  She snorted. “Nice. Love you too. Go.” She waved for Rath to accompany her and they crept forward slowly and eventually reached the door that led to the recreation area. Sound came from inside—laughter and shouting—and she slipped her camera tube around the corner near the floor and under the barrier.

  The window in her glasses revealed that the space was full of criminals who systematically stripped and donned the clothes of the guards who lay unconscious or dead nearby. Diana spoke softly into her mic. “Enemies putting on guard uniforms on four.” She pointed the camera more carefully. “Friday, snap pictures of these guys and upload.” The expected chime confirmed her command. She panned the lens to include all of them and caught motion in the corner of the room.

  “Oh, how cute. The witch and wizard reunited.” She watched as Sarah handed Vincente a wand and the mage took it reverently, pointed it at a downed guard, and ejected a cone of fire at the prone form. Diana twitched, ready to attack, but there was nothing she could do for the burning figure except hope he wasn’t conscious for the experience. Okay, no more prisons for you two. The worlds will both be better off without you in them. She whispered to Rath, “This one looks ugly, buddy.”

  He clicked his batons against each other. “Partners. Together to the end.”

  She nodded. “You know it.”

  Bryant came around the corner and dropped onto the floor beside where she crouched. He breathed as if he’d run all the way from his previous task. “It’s getting bad outside and more enemy reinforcements have arrived. Word is that the choppers might have to join the battle, and they’re calling up the National Guard to set a perimeter in case.”

  Diana frowned. “I didn’t hear that.”

  He nodded. “There are comm issues inside the building. Kayleigh has promised to create a portable base station or something like that. Who knows? There were a lot of unfamiliar words.”

  She laughed. “There always are with her. Don’t feel bad because you’re stupid. We won’t judge.” She paused and when he tried to speak, interrupted him. “Okay, the room inside sucks. Sarah and Vincente are both there, along with a ton of goons. There may be friendlies alive but all are down, which rules out frag and incendiary grenades. So, here’s what we’ll do.”

  After a minute of planning, they were ready. Diana held a sonic grenade in her left hand and crouched in front of the door. Rath pressed his back against the wall beside the metal barrier with a flashbang in each hand. Bryant stood on the other side of the door, his carbine raised, and braced to dash into the room. The plan was to eliminate the leaders in the first barrage while they recovered from the grenade attack and before they could bring their magic to bear. Especially their shadow magic.

  She looked at her teammates. Bryant smirked and Rath gave her a double thumbs-up around the grenades before he pushed the primers down. I couldn’t ask for better people. I hope the others are okay. She pushed all worry out of her mind to focus on the moment. “Here we go. Three, two, one….”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The turrets mounted on the guard station spun to life as they advanced and the two nearest their position swiveled to face them. People in street clothes appeared inside the partially transparent diamond-shaped room with wicked grins on their faces at their clever play.

  Cara reacted instinctively and flung herself forward and away from the turrets and to the right of the defense post. She hadn’t accounted for the weapons on the back, which rotated to face her. Anik, quicker on the draw, grabbed Tony and pulled him directly against the side of the tower and below the guns’ deflections to keep them both safe. They kept their chests pressed against the bulletproof glass as they sidestepped around toward the door that led into the structure.

  She rolled onto her knees, released her carbine, raised her hands, and fired flaming darts at the turrets on the far side before they could acquire her. The bolts of fire sliced through the gun emplacements and they sparked briefly before they fell quiescent. She stood and her legs wobbled a little. Her intention was to break the door open and eliminate the criminals inside, but the steel barrier that separated the elevator lobby from the hallway to the recreation center retracted to reveal a cluster of foes behind it, arranged in pairs. The first duo held rifles aimed at her head.

/>   “Oh, hell. A little help,” she yelled. A quick flip of a switch set her carbine to full-auto, and she knelt and released a volley at the enemies at the same time that they pulled their triggers. She counted on them being amateurs and not allowing for recoil, and they luckily obliged. Their initial shots went high and the next ones even higher. She rode the weapon’s pushback and used it to drag the rifle from lower left to upper right and stitch the pair with bullets.

  She fired until the magazine ran dry and annihilated the first four in moments. The criminals behind them clambered over their bodies and flooded into the room. Tony came around the corner firing, and Anik turned to the guard post windows, held up a claymore so the enemies inside could see it, and made sure they saw him slap it against the doorway and place a trigger. His grin was audible. “That’ll keep the bastards bottled up unless they want to eat steel.”

  Cara decided the nearest ones were too close for her to free her pistol in time to stop them from overrunning her position. She stepped forward with her left foot and brought the right around in a crescent to drive the closest one’s weapon aside. Before he could respond, she turned her motion into a spinning sidekick that hurled him back into his allies. Tony double-tapped foes one after the other, and in short order, none remained in the hallway. She ejected the magazine in her rifle and replaced it with standard rounds, then knelt and emptied it at the turret ahead to leave it a smoking lump of metal.

  Tony looked at her with a grin. “Did you have something in particular against that one? It bullied you in school, maybe?”

  She groaned. “Honestly, you’re an idiot.”

  He laughed. “I know. But you love me anyway.”

  “Is that what that sick feeling like you’re going to throw up, is? That’s good to know.” She reloaded with anti-magic bullets and led them forward. “Okay, recreation area ahead and tunnel entrance off to the right. Don’t get too comfortable. These guys didn’t have vests, but we know some of them do now. These were total cannon fodder. There will be something more dangerous waiting for us.”

  Anik chuckled. “I’m not locked in here with you. You’re locked in here with me.”

  Cara groaned again. “Okay, you’re both idiots.” The sound of the two men exchanging a high five followed, and she shook her head with a grin. If you’re going to risk life and limb, it’s good to be able to do it with people you like.

  Diana gathered force in her cupped palm, then pitched a fastball at the metal door before her. It rocketed off its hinges and into the room beyond, and she had the satisfaction of hearing a shout of pain from one of their adversaries when it smashed into them. Rath threw his grenades around the corner, set for short-duration, and they detonated as they landed about halfway across the large space. Hers flew in an instant later and did the same.

  Bryant was in motion immediately after the grenades and ducked into the room, and Diana was right behind him. Her glasses and earpieces dulled the impact of the flashbangs and preserved her from the effects of the sonic grenade, although the concussion still rattled her teeth. She couldn’t hear the bullets leaving Bryant’s gun but saw the witch summon the dented door and position it in front of her and Vincente to protect them from the barrage. Bryant shifted his fire to deliver rounds into the chest of the nearest enemy. When the woman didn’t fall but returned several shots from her pistol, he lowered his rifle and shot her in each leg before he moved on to the next target.

  Diana’s initial force attack had also been blocked by the metal barrier, and she wasn’t up for another game of tug o’ war with the heinous witch. Instead, she used her telekinesis to take hold of the tables that had been pushed to the perimeter of the room and hurl them at anyone other than Bryant who still stood. She ran out of fresh ammunition and reused the ones that hadn’t broken from the first use. Enemies fired at her, but she maintained a full-body shield while she worked. The energy drain was substantial, and she recalled and quickly discarded Nylotte’s warning. Maximum effort, like Deadpool would say.

  In her peripheral vision, Rath hurtled forward and weaved through the chaos toward the two primary enemies. She launched random shards of furniture toward them to cover the troll, and he slid along the slick floor with his batons raised, then stabbed them into the feet of the witch that were visible under the barrier. He rolled aside as the door’s bottom clanged down, and Diana saved him from being crushed with a force push that shoved him out of the way of the toppling metal and out of immediate danger.

  Sarah snarled at the pain from the shock Rath had delivered, but otherwise, didn’t react. The man beside her smiled. “Agent Diana Sheen. I have longed to see you again.”

  “I’m happy that my pain can be your pleasure. I had hoped never to see your ugly face again.”

  “Well put. Your pain will be my pleasure, and I dearly hope you’ll last a long, long time as I carve the flesh from your bones.”

  She turned to Bryant. “You heard that, right? Did he actually say that?”

  He nodded. “Yep. It’s like evil villain primary school in this place.”

  Diana laughed and faced the wizard again. “Are you cranky? Do you need a nap? Maybe a juice box? Listen, you can be honest, I won’t tell anyone. do you have Mommy issues?”

  Vincente’s face had grown steadily redder, and the last comment broke the dam that restrained his fury. He raised his wand, and a fireball rocketed at the troll. His other hand clenched into a fist and tentacles of translucent darkness erupted from it. All eight of them moved unerringly toward her. She summoned a shield, and the wizard’s satisfied smile grew large in her vision as they bent to the left and impaled Bryant, two in each limb, and hoisted him off the floor. His scream of pain rang in her ears, and she dashed toward him. She skidded to a stop as a line of shadow orbs from the witch forced her to conjure a buckler that wasn’t nearly fast enough and staggered as the magical attack consumed half her deflectors.

  She met Rath’s eyes and saw determination in them. “Go help Bryant.” He nodded and broke into a run. Diana reached deep for her fire, envisioned the shape she wanted to form it into, and let it flow. Her shield was replaced by two large fans of flame that extended from her hands, the edges sharp and rounded. She sprinted at the tentacles that held Bryant, ducked under them, and spun to sever the translucent limbs one after the other. Her twist ended on the far side with a telekinetic burst that lowered him gently to the ground. Rath was there in an instant, and she protected them both with a force bubble seconds before Sarah’s magic covered them.

  Her left hand was free, and she acted without conscious volition to draw the Ruger and empty the six chambers into the woman. The witch’s eyes widened, and she called upon the shadow skin she’d used before, but the anti-magic rounds were not impeded. The bullets struck her in the hip, twice in her chest, once in the shoulder, and once in the arm she’d raised in defense. The final bullet missed because the witch was already falling, out of the fight for the moment at least.

  She holstered the weapon in time to raise her own arm against the table that careened toward her face. Dammit, I hate it when the idiots use my own tactics against me.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Cara led the way into the recreation area, which was unexpectedly empty. She stepped in, moved right, and swung her rifle to cover that part of the room. Tony did the same for the center and Anik the left-hand portion. Only echoes greeted them.

  She sighed. “That’s weird.”

  “Right?” Tony replied. “It sucks when you get all dressed up to annihilate criminals and they don’t show up.”

  The other man’s voice had lost its playfulness. “This means they’re ready for us somewhere else, doesn’t it?”

  Cara nodded toward the door that led from the right side of the room. “Probably. What do you think the chances are that they left a present behind on the other side of that door?”

  The demolitions expert moved to it without answering, extracted a rectangle with a display screen, and ran it from the b
ottom to the top. “Yep, there are explosives somewhere around.”

  Tony asked, “Could it be from the gunfire?”

  “No. I detect the signature of C-4. The enemy must have brought some along.” He stowed the sensor and dug into the pouch on his thigh, withdrew three small bricks of explosive, and pushed them into place at the top, middle, and bottom of the door on the side opposite the hinges. Anik pulled three compact chips from a separate bag and inserted them into the soft beige compound.

  He disappeared into the hallway they’d come from and stuck his head out. “Unless you’re really looking for a close-up view of things going boom, you might want to join me.” They did, with hasty steps.

  He extracted a black cylinder from his belt with a large yellow button on top covered by a plastic cap, with three colored buttons on the side. A twist of its upper and lower sections in opposite directions caused the top button to glow. He pressed the red one. “I’m selecting the detonator group.”

  Tony sounded concerned. “What if you didn’t use all of them? Wouldn’t the ones in your pocket blow up?”

  He chuckled. “Of course not. They need to be armed on the device, then they need to be armed with this. Double safety. Plus, there’s a distance lockout so if the detonators are within three feet of the trigger, they won’t go off. So, triple safety.” He flicked the cover open with his thumb. “Fire in the hole.”

  He pressed the button and a large bang sounded from the next room, followed by an even larger one. Cara stuck her head around the corner and saw that the door, plus part of the wall, no longer existed. “Wow. That was certainly something.”

  Anik tucked the device back in his belt. “What can I say. I’m good at what I do. All the things I do.” He put a lecherous lilt in his last sentence and both Cara and Tony broke into laughter, which teased a dramatic frown from the demolitions expert. “What? I am.”