Crawer knocked on the door. “Lunis Cegal? Metro Enforcement Bureau. Open the door.” He put his ear against the door. Then he swore. “He’s scrambling.” He stepped back, and kicked the door open.
We moved in.
The first things to meet us were bright blue bolts of mana. I whirled out of the way, as two from our tactical division were thrown screaming back out the door. Evon and Crawer jumped behind the kitchenette wall, and fired from around it. Crawer tried to advance, but a blue light hit him, smashed him up against the ceiling, and tossed him aside like a ragdoll.
I swore.
Firing, I rushed to take his cover behind the wall. Multiple waves of blue just kept flying by.
“Flaming pitch-muck,” Evon shouted, as she blasted back. “How many of them are there?”
I had caught a glimpse on my way to cover. “One,” I shouted back, though I couldn’t believe my own words. “It’s one guy.”
Suddenly, the blue waves stopped. There was the sound of breaking glass. I chanced a glance around the wall.
A window was shattered.
I ran to the window, and spotted Lunis running into an alley. “Check on Crawer,” I said, climbing onto the ledge.
“Don’t die.”
It was the last thing I heard before leaping to the concrete below. I dropped, rolled, and tore after Lunis, following him right into that alley.
There was chain-linked fence with a hole in it: a gaping hole with sizzling, gooey edges that looked like they’d been burned through. I swore to myself as I ducked through the hole.
What kind of weapon was he using?
I caught sight of him, running up the next street. This street was occupied. Just my luck. Horns blared deafeningly around me as I shot across busy roads, and in front of speeding transporters.
“Stop,” I screamed, as I ran. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”
Lunis was shoving pedestrians out of his way, twirling away from obstacles, leaping over manholes. I pushed harder, tried to close the gap. I followed blindly as he dashed across the next street.
Hooonk! A transporter objected. I slid across the bonnet, and… I stopped.
Lunis had disappeared.
I swore. How had I lost him?
The driver I had just crossed was screaming obscenities at me now, but I ignored him. I just looked frantically around, growing more and more angry with myself.
I swore again, louder this time.
My cell rang. “Hello?”
“Arra?” It was Evon.
“I lost him, Evon,” I panted, still walking up the street, still looking. “I had him right in front of me, and I flaming lost him.” People were staring at me like I was crazy.
“Crawer is hurt, Arra. He’s hurt really bad. The other guys too.”
I stopped. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest.
“I’ll find him, Evon,” was all I managed to say.
“No, come back.” She sounded angry. “You don’t have any backup.”
“Then get me back up,” I yelled. Just then, the growl of an engine filled the alley behind me. I turned around just in time to see a white transporter squeal against the asphalt, and make for me at full speed.
I dove out of the way. The transporter rocketed out of the alleyway, screeched neatly into the street, and shot into the distance.
“What’s going on?” Evon asked. “Arra?”
“It’s Lunis,” I said. “The bastard’s got a transporter.”
“What?”
I started to walk. “Use the tracer on your cell. Tell me what street I’m on.”
“Street?” Evon sounded confused, but after a moment she answered me. “22, Garden Avenue.
“And where does it lead south?”
“The interstate highway.”
“Is there a shortcut to that highway?” I asked, and picked up my pace to a jog.
“No, but it goes around to run beneath that street you’re on. Wait, what are you going to do? Arra Kellar Everglade, don’t you dare do what I think you’re going to do.”
“He’s not getting away,” I said.
“Arra—”
“Talk to you in a bit.” I cut the line, and reached the overhead road, holstering my blaster. I looked over the railing at the incoming traffic below, and spotted the white transporter. Lunis was in it. I crossed over to the opposite sidewalk, and swung my feet over the railing, all the while ignoring the panicked shouts from bystanders.
I took a deep breath, muttering the last numbers of my mental countdown. Then, I jumped.
For a moment there was only emptiness beneath my feet, the feel of wind rushing into my face. I flailed as the asphalt came up swiftly to meet me.
But then—thump! I met instead with the roof of Lunis’s transporter. The slam was so hard that it knocked the air out of me. I was almost thrown off the roof by wind resistance, but I managed to hang on, dangling above blurred asphalt from the tire rack. My face hurt; I was sure my nose was bleeding. I gripped the rack for dear life, and pulled myself back onto the roof.
That was when I saw the tunnel.
There was an agonizing screech and a brilliant fountain of sparks, as the side of the transporter met with the tunnel’s walls. I shut my eyes, and gritted my teeth, determined not to slip off.
In moments, we were back in the light.
I swore. This transporter had to stop. Now. Before I got myself killed.
Spotting a dirt road branching up ahead, I reached through the driver’s window, and grabbed hold of the steering wheel. Then with everything I had, I forced the wheel right.
The transporter cut in front of a rider, and then nearly smashed into the tail of a taxi. It crossed three lanes and veered into a dusty side road. As it did, I felt Lunis sinking his teeth into my wrist.
I cried out, and let go of the wheel. Still, the transporter slid down the gravelly road, and into the open space of a vacant construction site.
The transporter stopped abruptly, pitching me through the air. After rolling a considerable distance, I came to a stop in a pool of mud. Coughing, I got back on my feet, and drew my blaster.
The transporter rumbled.
I changed the setting on my blaster to high. “Come get me, muck face,” I dared.
The transporter lurched forward.
Pow! I took out one of the transporter’s tires.
Pow! I took out another.
I fired persistently, furiously, at the approaching bonnet. And just when it was too close for comfort, my last shot did the trick.
The transporter jumped as its bonnet exploded in a ball of orange flames. I didn’t bother lifting my head, but I felt its shadow passing over, as the mass of burning metal sailed through the air, and crashed down behind me.
Only then did I drop my weapon, and turn around. Lunis was crawling out of a broken window. In the distance, I could hear the sirens of approaching enforcers.
I watched Lunis stagger to his feet, and wondered where his weapon was.
“Stay back!” he spat, and stretched a hand towards me. “I’m warning you.”
Ugh, I was so tired of his tripe. “Stand down,” I said. “Or by the Great Light, I will fire. And I will not miss.”
Lunis’s hand started to glow blue. Immediately, I knew what his weapon was.
‘Damn black-bloods.’
We fired at the same time.
He missed.
I dropped my blaster in the sand. And Lunis? He just stood there, and stared at the charred stump that used to be his hand. Then he started to scream.
I walked up to him, and punched him out.
“Told you I wouldn’t miss,” I muttered.
CHAPTER 11
After squad transporters had taken Lunis down to the station, I grabbed a taxi to the district hospital.
Evon, of course, was already there. I found her pacing in the waiting room.
“Where are they?” I asked.
“Emergency room.” She looked scared.
&nbs
p; I remembered the hole in the chain-linked fence. Suddenly, I was scared too.
“I got Lunis,” I mumbled.
“Good,” she mumbled back.
We sat in silence for about an hour and a half. Finally, a doctor came to see us.
“They’re going to be alright,” was the first thing he said, and immediately, a weight was lifted off us.
“Those morons.” Evon laughed breathily. “Making us worry like that.”
“Your tactical agents suffered minor concussions and burns. They can leave in a few more hours,” the doctor continued. “Your sergeant on the other hand, suffered more extensively. Thankfully, we were able to stop the mana energy from eating at his muscles, but it’s going to take our healers some time to reverse the damage.”
Evon and I nodded, like children.
“Afterwards, we’ll transfer him to a larger facility for skin reconstruction. Our healers here are just not that proficient. You can see him before we transfer him, if you want.”
We nodded again, and followed him.
Crawer was in a private ward. He was lying in a bed, almost naked, and covered entirely in a clear, faintly luminous healing gel.
“Take any pictures,” he croaked, when we’d stepped in, “and I will kill you.”
Evon smirked. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Tell me you nabbed the bastard,” he whispered.
I nodded. “Shot his hand off.”
Crawer closed his eyes, mumbling, “Good girl. Get back to the station. Don’t need a babysitter.”
We grinned. “Yes, sir.”
As we turned away, Crawer added, “Oh, and Everglade?”
I turned around. “Sir?”
“You’re in charge.”
I stood there, stunned. Eventually I managed a “yes sir,” and exited the room.
“Did he just say you were in charge?” Evon whispered, after we’d thanked the doctor, and were walking down the corridor. “Of what? The station? Can he do that?”
“I think he means the case.”
“But the case is over.”
“Is it?” I said. “You don’t wonder why a guy who was brought up to be invisible would kill his sister, and then go right back to his apartment?”
“No, because I know why he did.”
“Don’t say—”
“Because he’s stupid.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I’m serious,” Evon said. “He attacked us the moment we stepped into his apartment, and then scrammed. You know who does that?”
“Um, people who’ve been raised paranoid?”
“No, guilty people.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Doesn’t add up. Not to me. I want to interrogate him first.”
Evon stopped suddenly.
I stopped too. “What is it? Are you okay?”
Evon was looking around. The hall we were in was empty. “Just wanted to make sure we were alone,” she said.
“Why?”
“So that I can do this.”
She shoved me.
“What the muck was that?” she cried.
I almost lost my balance, stunned. “What?”
“Jumping off an overhead? Are you out of your flaming mind?”
“Huh?” It took a moment for the meaning behind her words to fully register. “Oh.” My voice sounded weak when I said, “But he was going to get away.”
“And so you jumped off a muckin’ overhead?”
I didn’t know what to say. Evon’s dark green lips were twisted in anger, but the rest of her features were marked with concern.
“I’m…sorry,” I finally said.
“It’s a miracle you weren’t killed.”
“I was careful. I timed the jump.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Sorry,” I repeated.
“What were you thinking?”
I thought back to the moment on the ledge; the feel of adrenalin as it pumped through my veins, the feel of my heart banging against the walls of my chest, the feel of the wind whipping at my hair and clothes. There was a lot of feeling. Not a lot of thinking.
Evon glared at me for a moment, and then her face softened. “I don’t know what came over you, but you can’t do things like that. You want people giggling at your funeral? No case is worth that kind of risk.”
“You’re right,” I said.
But Evon wasn’t done. “When this case began, it crossed my mind that we might be in over our heads. And now, three injured agents and one horribly burned sergeant later, I was obviously right. Now repeat after me: we did a great job catching Lunis Cegal.”
“We did a great job catching Lunis Cegal.”
“I will not act like a crazy person, and obsess over every outlandish possibility, like I do with every case.”
I hesitated, but I repeated her words.
“And finally,” Evon said, “now that I am in charge of this case, I will do the smart thing, and call Senior Intelligence the fraction we get back to the station.”
I started, and then stopped. “Wait, what? I can’t do that Evon.”
“Black-bloods are not our job.” Evon’s voice was getting louder. “We are not trained to deal with people who can shoot mana out of their fingers like…” She suddenly stopped because a healer was coming around the corner, pushing a young Ruby girl in a wheelchair. When they had passed us by, Evon finished in a whisper: “…like muckin’ wizards.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Evon asked.
Still, I said nothing. I did understand what she was saying; I understood her concern. But she’d said it herself: I was obsessive. I liked to finish what I started. She was asking me to go against everything that made me a good detective.
Also: Great Light, it was such a great case.
“Arra, say something,” Evon prodded.
Right then, my cell-comm rang. Saved. Evon frowned as I picked up. “Hello?”
“Hello? Ms Arra Everglade?”
“Yes, this is she.”
“This is the District 7 Learning Centre. Your ward Katrice was in a fight.”
I stopped. “Wha—?”
Evon nudged me. I repeated what I’d heard to her.
“Is she okay?” Evon asked.
“Is she okay?” I asked the woman on the line.
“I think it’d be better if you just came here yourself, Miss Everglade.”
I said goodbye, and hung up. “I have to go,” I told Evon. “Meet you back at the station?”
Evon nodded, and as I ran to my transporter, I heard her yell after me, “But this conversation is not over.”
I was at the centre in less than a quarter of an hour. Kattie’s learning centre, as all learning centres in Crystal Lake were, was one minimalist block of concrete and glass. Black metal letters said D7-LC on the face of the building, and I knew that in the night, they would glow a light purple.
Despite the simplistic external design, the inside of the centre was decked out with brightly coloured plants, artsy wall paintings, and enormous posters on a range of learning subjects like nutrition, DNA, and combustion. There was a screen hanging from the ceiling on every corridor, showing muted news clippings and study tutorials.
The learning centres back at my hometown, Whitewater, weren’t half this sophisticated. I was grateful. I hadn’t enjoyed school much.
One child gave me directions to Administration. When I stepped in, the receptionist told me to take a seat. So, I did. Then, I stood up again, because I was antsy.
After an agitating wait, the door to the principal’s office opened. A Tamish woman and her son stepped out. I tried to stifle my gasp. Tamish were supposed to be smallish, but this child was enormous—taller than me even. And yet, when I looked at his face, it was tinged black and blue.
Great Light. My stomach turned. If that was what he looked like, would Kattie be in a wheelchair?
The boy’s mother glared at me, as they wa
lked past.
“Miss Everglade?” the receptionist said. “Mrs Wripple will see you now.”
I stepped into the office. Katrice was sitting in one corner of the room, looking as small as small could be. But I couldn’t see any bruises on her. Not a scratch. A random stranger wouldn’t have even been able to tell that she was in trouble. My dear little sister looked like she could give a muck.
“Sit down, Miss Everglade,” the principal said. I took a seat in front of her, and tried not to wilt beneath the elderly woman’s glare. How was it that principals always made me feel like a child again?
“Katrice,” Mrs Wripple said, her Lillith eyes cold. “Do you want to tell your sister what you did?”
“I punched Filiminus Jone,” Katrice uttered evenly. “Twice.”
“Twice?”
“He tried to get back up.”
“Oh,” I said, speechless. This was not how I had envisioned this meeting.
Mrs Wripple, obviously underwhelmed by my response, said, “We take acts of violence very seriously here. Under normal circumstances, Katrice would be facing immediate expulsion.”
“Oh sweet Light.” I panicked. “Please, she’ll do whatever punishment you have in mind.”
“But,” Mrs Wripple continued, ignoring me. “I have been informed that Katrice suffers from an antisocial personality disorder, and that she is currently undergoing psychological counselling.”
“She is,” I jumped in. “And she’s getting better. She really is. This is the first time she’s even gotten into this kind of trouble. It’s the first time she’s gotten into any kind of trouble.”
“Yes, I have considered that as well,” Mrs Wripple said. “And that is why instead of expulsion, I am giving your sister a two week suspension.”
Two weeks.
“And when she returns, she shall spend a month of her afternoons detained in the study hall.”
Well, anything was better than expulsion. In fact, didn’t Kattie spend most of her afternoons at the public study hall anyway?
“But it needs to be very clear, Miss Everglade,” Mrs Wripple added. “This sort of nonsense will not be tolerated at our learning centre. Should this happen again, your sister will be dismissed swiftly. You are fortunate that the boy convinced his mother not to press charges.”
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