by Karen Chance
As if the blank faces of his colleagues hadn’t done that already!
His one piece of luck was that whoever had positioned the portal had only been looking for a large enough space for it to materialize. They hadn’t bothered with what was around it, including a set of temporary bleachers on wheels that had been brought in for people waiting to use the main salle, or for classes taking instruction in new techniques. And which now served a different purpose when John let loose the wheel lock and shoved them in front of the portal’s great mouth.
And, all right, that provoked a response.
The crowd, which had not cared about getting elbowed in the ribs or knocked aside or even pushed completely over, did care most emphatically about a barrier that stopped them from reaching their goal. John suddenly found himself engulfed in a barrage of spell fire, which he barely shielded quick enough to avoid. But his watery shields were immediately steaming and wouldn’t last long under a combined attack. Already, the bleachers were burning.
Burn then, John thought viciously, and shoved them outward, forcing the crowd to stumble back to avoid immolation. It bought him only seconds, but seconds were all he needed. He sprang toward the portal, the strongest disruption spell he knew on his lips, and sent his body crashing through the giant maw.
The backlash was immediate and terrible. Power howled all around him, hurricane-like winds tore at his shields, and the spell he was using to bend the thing to his will was ripped to pieces almost before it left his lips. He switched to silent casting, but it wasn’t much better. Any kind of casting takes concentration—which is a little difficult when it feels like you’re being thrown down the throat of some great beast!
But his second spell worked, dragging all that power out of its loop, forcing the maelstrom to stop cutting through metaspace like a giant drill and instead to swirl up behind him like a cloak. A burning, searing cloak that lashed anything it touched. And it was touching more every second, shearing away great swaths of his shields like they were nothing.
John growled out a curse and hung on, dragging all that power almost physically off the wall and forcing the portal’s mouth to close up behind him.
That prevented any more mages from entering the tunnel, but it left a boiling mass of smoke and purple lightning welling up in his wake like a living storm, one with only one target now: the tiny man in front of it. John felt it snap at his heels as he tumbled forward, heard it roar in his ears, smelled his panicked sweat. And saw his shields start to buckle as the magical storm fought to rip him apart.
It almost succeeded.
It should have succeeded, because this portal was unlike any he’d ever seen—a tornado compared to a summer squall. It raged and howled, boiled and thundered. Yet, somehow, miraculously, his shields held.
He wasn’t sure why they did, but he didn’t have time to worry about it before he was abruptly dumped out onto a road, smoking and sizzling. The mighty wave of energy behind him disappeared with a deafening whoosh as the portal reached its end and ate itself. It fucked off to release its remaining energy into metaspace, while John lay where he’d fallen, trembling and choking and wondering whether he was coming apart at the seams.
He was fairly certain that the answer was yes.
His shields took that moment to finally give up the ghost in a huge cloud of steam. He couldn’t see a damned thing as a result, but he could feel, and it was wrong. Instead of the hard-packed earth of HQ’s tunnel system, his searching fingers found only rough stone. And before he could figure out what that meant, headlights pierced the vapor in front of him and he was almost run down by some kind of vehicle.
He rolled out of the way just in time, landing in a gutter as whatever it was zipped past, belching dark exhaust in his face. And finally putting him out of the path of the clouds of steam. He paused, halfway through an attempt to get back to his feet, and stared around, utterly confused.
Because this . . . was not HQ.
Chapter Five
J ohn stumbled into a phone booth and somehow managed to get the door shut behind him. His hands were shaking, his vision was blurry, and his knees kept threatening to give way. But not because he’d been hit by a vehicle.
But because he’d been hit by a spell.
Specifically, the spell, the damned enthrallment that was pulling at him with what felt like the strength of ten men. He muttered a counter curse, which did exactly fuck all, just like the last three, except for marginally calming his trembling hands. Enough that perhaps, just perhaps, he could make a blasted call!
He didn’t have his phone with him, not having worn it to bed, and the booth was similarly lacking. But that didn’t matter, because it had something better. Or, at least, it was supposed to.
The large mirror in front of him should have been reflecting back John’s harried face, the inside of the booth, and parts of the noodle shop across the street, where a cheerful yellow sign was gilding the cobblestones. Or, rather, it was trying to, but it was constantly being eclipsed by the crowd of war mages passing in front of it. Their silhouettes caused the light to blink, blink, blink as they strode down the cramped little street like men on a mission.
Which was what they were, which was why he needed to get the damned phone to work!
But the surface remained cloudy and silvery gray, even when he thumped it. So, he thumped it again, harder this time, enough to send the facade rippling a little. And then sent a bolt of magic through it, hot enough to have melted regular glass, and finally. No wonder nobody used these bloody things anymore!
The surface started to sluggishly swirl about, and a slightly annoyed looking face emerged. It was the same silver gray as the mirror, long and hairless, with minimal facial features because it was just an avatar that the spell used and nobody gave a damn what it looked like. Which wasn’t the case in reverse, apparently.
It gave John a disdainful once over, taking in the dirty and now sweat-stained sweats, because it had taken him minutes to locate a phone booth and the summer night was hot and humid.
John scowled back at it, raising a hand menacingly, and the thing finally began to speak—
In Cantonese.
John zapped it again, only to have it abruptly switch to Portuguese. And then to Mandarin, Spanish, French and something that might have been Azerbaijani, for all he knew, but it wasn’t helping! Goddamn it! It was a bastard thing in a bastard box in a bastard town—
“Sir. Please refrain from shaking the booth,” the mirror told him, or John presumed so. The latest language was German and his was rusty, since he primarily used it to swear in. Something he demonstrated to the box, before switching to English when he ran out of expletives.
“Oh.” The thin faced operator sniffed. “I might have known. British.”
John snarled at it. “Put me through to Stratford HQ. Now.”
“And which HQ would that be, exactly, sir? Amalgamated Alchemists? Astley’s Charms and Hexes? Avon Extreme Home Furnishings—”
“You know damned well which! War Mage HQ!”
“I don’t have a listing for a War Mage company, sir,” the box told him, smugly regretful. “But perhaps you meant Warring Herbs and Tinctures? Or Wimberley Magical Exterminators? Or—”
“The Stratford Branch of the Silver Circle, War Mage Division, Office of the Lord Protector,” he said, slowly and distinctly. “And don’t tell me you can’t find it!”
“Well, we’ll just have to see, won’t we?” the face in the mirror said pertly. “Please hold.”
It disappeared, and John fantasized about putting a fist through the bloody surface, but it might affect the enchantment. He didn’t know. He didn’t know how anything worked around here!
The booth was in a city that John had minimal experience with, and which bore very little resemblance to the human version of Hong Kong. At least, he was pretty sure that was where he’d ended up, along with half of the Vegas branch of the War Mage Corps. He’d visited a few times in the past on assignment, an
d it wasn’t the sort of place you forgot.
Most cities of any size had supernatural enclaves of one type or another, carefully hidden from human view. Some of the larger ones, like New York or London, or those containing the headquarters of important supernatural organizations, such as Stratford or Paris, had a number of them. But there were a few, scattered around the world, that weren’t human cities at all.
Supernatural Hong Kong was one of them.
Of course, it wasn’t called that. Colloquially, it was known as Rogue’s Harbor, after the port of choice for smugglers and pirates, assassins and thieves, that it had once been—and some would say still was. More often, though, it was just Hong Kong, because it occupied the same space as the human version, living among it, beside it, but slightly phased out of existence with it, so that two cities could occupy the same space at the same time.
That marvel of metaphysical construction was centuries old now, but had never been surpassed due to the huge ley line sink that lay directly beneath the city. Ley lines, the mysterious rivers of magical energy that crisscrossed the planet, were prized for the power they possessed, some of which the supernatural community had tapped into to fuel wards, run large spells, and cut portals from one line to another, creating short cuts around the world. Some crazy bastards even surfed the lines themselves, going directly into the current protected only by their shields.
The wells of power created where lines crossed were even more valued, and Hong Kong had one of the largest on earth. Almost every ley line of any importance in Asia ran through it, generating so much magical power that it could keep the supernatural city in a slightly different space, quantumly speaking, than its human counterpart on an indefinite basis. Resulting in a community that didn’t have to hide anything.
And, oh, the difference that made.
John eyed a bunch of little cards that had been tucked around the mirror, with more scotch taped to whatever space was available in the booth. Some were ads for local restaurants or businesses, but most were of a more . . . personal . . . nature. Blondes, brunettes and redheads, of every type and description imaginable, shook their collective groove thing in his face no matter where he looked, trying to get him interested in the charms provided.
And for once, John found himself wishing them every success.
The damned spell was so much stronger here.
He’d felt the flood of memories back in Vegas, but not the spell behind them. But he was making up for that now. It had taken everything he had to get here, fighting through streets crowded with dead-eyed war mages, half of whom he didn’t know, maybe because they weren’t from Vegas. He had no idea how many of the Circle’s bases had been compromised, but it was definitely more than one, and the implications of that . . .
He didn’t want to think about the implications.
Especially since it was all he could do to stay in the booth and not join them! His body was shaking, sweat was breaking out on his face, and he felt like he might throw up. And all the while, cards of sultry beauties shook their assets at him.
He stared at a pert brunette directly in front of his face, in pride of place on top of the mirror. And tried to will some of the incubus side of himself to the surface. It had plagued his life for years, that legacy from his father, causing him to lose concentration at inopportune and even dangerous times, and resulting in countless sleepless nights, tossing and turning with emotions he couldn’t afford to feel. But now—
Damned if he couldn’t use a distraction now!
The figure on the card was doing her best to oblige. She shimmied and shook, posed and preened. She was going for the exotic, or maybe the sacrilegious; he wasn’t sure. But she was wearing an Indonesian temple dancer’s headdress in chased gold, along with a few diaphanous wisps of a matching fabric that revealed . . . pretty much everything. She made some attractive poses, only stopping every so often to point at the number on top of the card.
Which, John assumed, one could call to find out what fetish, exactly, she catered to.
He took the little card down, causing the level of gyration to reach almost contortionist levels, because the animation spell was obviously designed to respond to any indication of interest. But try as he might, he didn’t have any. And that fact suddenly did help, although not in the way he’d imagined.
A wash of pure fury coursed through his veins, so hot that it felt like it displaced the blood. It was so typical! When his nature could hurt him, it was Johnny on the spot, yes, sir, be right there, sir! But in one of the few instances where it might actually help—
Where the hell was it now?
Magic prickled at his fingertips and surged with every heartbeat as John tried to calm his famous temper. It didn’t work. But the rage did do something else: it pushed back the effects of the spell, giving him a clear head for what felt like the first time since he’d woken up, and making everything come into sharp, even brilliant focus.
Allowing him to see clearly the burst of magic erupting from his left hand before he could stop it, a dazzle of white-hot fire that—
Shit!
Had just melted the door handle.
John struggled with the now-fused door, wondering what was next, and what the hell was wrong with his control lately. He’d never had this much trouble governing his power. Was the spell interfering? Because that made no damned sense. He hadn’t been spelled all week, when he’d been threatening to burn down the casino he called home. So why would it—
His thoughts cut off abruptly, as another flood of power sizzled through the air, but this time, it wasn’t coming from him.
It also wasn’t a spell. But more like the feeling he sometimes had at HQ, when too many overpowered mages were squashed together in too small a space. As if the very air was electric.
It therefore wasn’t exactly a surprise to look up and see a large group of heavily armed men and women appear at far end of the street. They didn’t look like police, if this place even had police. He frankly doubted it, because the city wasn’t run that way. The first time he visited, he’d been told that it had been divided into territories by the vampires who first built and still ran it. And while personal fiefdoms were now outlawed, Hong Kong—especially magical Hong Kong—wasn’t known for being particularly law abiding.
And it didn’t look like the local vampire mafia were pleased to have a bunch of war mages suddenly show up on their turf.
They were about to be a lot more displeased, John thought, and redoubled his efforts to get the damned door open. But then a miracle happened: his call finally went through. “Mage Pritkin?”
He glanced at the mirror to see the 3-D face of Jonas’s long-time secretary, old Betty Armitage, poking out of the surface and looking disapproving. This was not a surprise; she’d never liked him. Of course, from what he’d been able to tell, she’d never liked anyone, so John had somehow developed a soft spot for her. It was rather refreshing to be hated in exactly the same amount as everyone else, for a change.
“Betty—”
“Mage Pritkin!”
Oh, bloody hell.
The elderly—she had to be pushing two hundred—woman’s face scrunched up, leaving only the prominent nose and chin clearly visible. If anybody had ever looked like the stereotypical version of a witch, it was Betty, except for the grandmotherly white curls and English rose complexion. The attitude, however, was spot on.
“If I have told you once, Mage Pritkin, I have told you a hundred times, my name—”
“Yes, of course. Special Agent Armitage—”
“—is Special Agent Armitage! I have been at this organization longer than you, and indeed, longer than most people, and you will address me by my proper title—”
“Yes! Yes, I will, I merely—”
“—or else we shan’t have anything to talk about! Is that clearly understood?”
“Yes.” John said again, and attempted to look chastened, because arguing with Betty never got anyone anywhere and he needed to
talk to Jonas, damn it! “Yes, it’s understood. My apologies. Could you please connect me with—”
All hell broke loose, silencing his request in a massive ball of sound and light and magic. And unlike the previous burst, this wasn’t simply the passive power of a large number of magic users in a small area. This was a spell, one that tore down the alley toward the vampires like ball lighting, if ball lighting was the size of a house, burning the sides of the brick buildings as it went, and crumbling the stone into ash in a long line on either side. It was so hot, John was sure it had burnt his face from here, and so bright that he knew he shouldn’t look directly at it.
He did anyway.
That wasn’t the sort of thing you saw every day.
He’d seen mages try to throw collective spells before, but it rarely worked. War mages tended to be lone wolves, making it unusual for a group to be assigned together long enough to learn to time their magic perfectly. What normally resulted instead was a bunch of individual spells that never really linked up.
Not this time. The boiling mass of power, the combined spell of the maybe fifty or so mages still on the street, roared down the alley, loud as a banshee and bright as the sun, and John could only be glad that it wasn’t headed in his direction. Until it hit a shimmering blue shield that the vampire squad had somehow erected, and bounced off—
Straight back the way it had come.
John cursed, dropped and shielded, like the rest of the street was doing, with bright blue, green and white bubbles popping up everywhere.
He didn’t see if they worked.
He didn’t see anything.
Except for the phone booth melting around him, its bright red paint turning black and sliding off, the metal underneath dissolving and dripping down the sides of his shield like liquid mercury.
John stared at it, and then at his shields, which were somehow withstanding that along with the fury causing it, how he didn’t know. But they were holding. Even while the monstrous spell lashed the small alley like the whips of every demon in hell.