“You asked her out,” I said. “You’re going on a date.”
“Well, yeah,” said Russell. “I figured that was obvious. But I didn’t want to be obvious about it with her, you know? You have to play it cool.”
“Oh, you do?” I said.
“Yeah,” said Russell. “After I broke up with Julia, I decided…”
“Wait,” I said. “You had another girlfriend before her?”
“What?” said Russell, gesturing with one of his Crusader books. “No, no. I had two girlfriends before. Well, three, if you include Anna, but we only went out twice so I don’t think that really counts.”
“Three,” I said. “But two if you don’t count Anna.” I took a sip of coffee to collect my thoughts. The coffee might have had sugar, but at least it was hot. “Um. Were you ever going to tell me about this?”
Russell raised his white eyebrows. “Were you going to tell me about your boyfriend?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said.
“And you’ve never had one?”
I opened my mouth, tried to think of an answer, and came up with nothing. I’d had a boyfriend…and he’d almost killed me.
And a whole lot of other people, too. Of course, I turned the tables on him, but after surviving Nicholas Connor I had come to regard romance of any kind as a mistake at best and a fatal weakness at worst. It felt strange to be standing here in a mall bookstore with my teenage brother, discussing his girlfriends as if I was a normal twenty-year-old woman instead of an Elven lord’s trained thief, as if I did not know things that would get me executed in a heartbeat.
“Okay,” I said at last. “Maybe I’m not the best person to talk to about this.”
Russell shrugged. “Don’t worry, though. The thing with Lydia won’t last. It never does.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“The girls all like me, and their moms and dads do, too, but once they find out about the frostfever…” He ran a hand through his white hair. “I’ll never be a man-at-arms, right? The parents want their daughters to marry an Elven lord’s man-at-arms. So they shut it down before it gets too serious.”
“Oh, Russell,” I said.
He shrugged. “It is what it is. And I should be dead, right? So I really can’t complain.”
“Then why do you do it?” I said. “I mean, if you know it’s going to fall apart? Why take the chance with girls?”
He shrugged again. “I dunno. Because I think they’re hot?”
I snorted. “Good answer.”
“And…I should be dead, you know,” said Russell. “If Lord Morvilind didn’t keep casting spells on me, I know I would have died as a baby. So what’s the worst that can happen to me? I mean, I should have died already. So why not take the chance?”
“That’s…a good attitude,” I said.
“Besides,” said Russell, and he grinned. “You know what I found out?”
“What?”
“Girls like confidence,” he said. “Seriously, they really do.”
“Oh, we do?” I said.
“They do!” said Russell. “I mean, look at me. I kind of look like a scarecrow with snow on my head. But if you walk up and look girls in the eye and don’t show any fear, they’ll go for it. They’ll try and push back a little, make fun of you, but if you flip the joke on its head, they’ll laugh, and the next thing you know you have a date.”
I laughed. “Russell Moran, ladies’ man. I never would have guessed.”
He grinned…and then, right then and there, everything went to hell.
I felt a surge of magical power around me. Usually I could only sense the presence of magical force when I used the detection spell, or when I stood near a powerfully enchanted object. I spun in alarm, my hand twitching towards the pocket in my coat that held my gun, expecting to see someone right behind me casting a spell.
Nothing.
At the moment, Russell and I were alone the aisle.
The surge of magical power peaked and then faded from my arcane senses.
“Nadia?” said Russell. “What’s wrong?”
“I…” I tried to think up a good lie, but came up blank. “I…don’t know.”
“Are you sick?” He gave a suspicious look at the coffee cup still in my other hand. Though if anything was going to make me sick, it was that damned chicken sandwich.
“No,” I said. “I think we should go home. I think we should go home right now.”
“I haven’t paid for the books yet,” said Russell.
“Fine,” I said. “Go pay for them, and then…”
The lights went out, plunging the bookshop into darkness. The glow from the rest of the mall vanished, and I heard a sudden murmur of surprise from the crowds on the concourse. A click came from the ceiling, and the battery-powered emergency lights by the doors flicked on.
“Oh,” said Russell. “The power must have gone out. Good thing I brought cash.”
“Wait,” I said, reaching into my jacket and grabbing my phone. “Check your phone. See if you can call out.”
“Okay,” said Russell, puzzled. Light flickered next to me as he checked his phone. “Huh. No signal. Maybe the power outage knocked out the cell tower.”
“No,” I said. My phone, too, displayed NO NETWORK AVAILABLE on the screen. However, my phone had a little after-market module, one not available in most consumer phones. A cell phone could lose network access for two reasons – the network was down, or something was blocking the phone’s radio. Most consumer cell phones couldn’t tell the difference.
My phone could.
Below the NO NETWORK AVAILABLE message appeared another line of red text.
ERROR: BROAD-SPECTRUM JAMMING DETECTED. UNABLE TO CONNECT.
The network wasn’t down. The network was being jammed. Someone was deliberately cutting off cell phone access to the mall. Combined with the surge of magical power I had just felt, that meant…
I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it wasn’t anything good.
“We need to get out of here right now,” I said, grabbing Russell’s arm.
“I haven’t paid for the books yet,” said Russell.
“Leave the books,” I said. “We’ll come back for them later. We have to go right now.”
“It’s just a power outage,” said Russell. “What’s the big deal? We’ll sit down in the café until the lights come back on.” He glanced in that direction, and in the dim glow of the emergency lights I saw him smile. “We could keep Lydia company.”
“I don’t think this is just a power outage,” I said. “Someone’s jamming the network, which means the power failure was deliberate. Someone shut off the electricity, and I don’t want to be here when…”
“Excuse me, miss?” said a male voice. I turned and saw Mr. Loman coming towards me, his MANAGER pin flashing in the emergency lights. Up close, I saw that he had a graying mustache that looked kind of like dryer lint. “Company policy says all customers must shelter in the café area in the event of a power outage.”
“No, it’s fine, we’re leaving,” I said. Mr. Loman seemed affronted at that, but I didn’t give a damn. Something was wrong here, and I wanted to get the hell out before it got worse.
“I’m sorry, miss,” said Mr. Loman, “but I really must insist…”
His voice trailed off, and his eyes went wide.
I turned to see what had caught his attention, and shock jolted through me.
An orc walked past the cash register and into the bookstore.
The creature couldn’t have been anything else. The figure stood nearly seven feet tall, its skin a peculiar metallic blue, its eyes black, its face fierce with tusks rising from its lower jaw. The orc wore a peculiar combination of armor, with chain mail beneath a ballistic vest. A massive double-bladed battle axe had been slung over its shoulder. Backed with an orc’s strength, the weapon could split a man in half, and even a glancing hit from an orcish axe had left James Marney in need of a cane for the rest of his
life.
Of course, the orc didn’t need the axe. It carried a long black gun with a wooden stock, an AK-47. The AK-47 had been designed centuries ago, even before the Conquest, and had been used ever since.
For a terrible instant I was frozen, and then my brain kicked into overdrive as three important facts occurred to me.
First, there weren’t supposed to be any orcs on Earth. The High Queen hated them, and refused to ally with them.
Second, the Archons, the rebel Elves that ruled the Elven homeworld, used orcish mercenaries extensively. The Archons had driven the High Queen from the Elven homeworld, but their war had continued, and sometimes the Archons crossed the Shadowlands and launched attacks upon Earth.
Third, if the orc was standing here, if the power was out and the network was jammed, that meant the Archons were launching an attack. They were launching an attack on Milwaukee right here, right now, and Russell and I were in the middle of it.
The orc growled and raised the AK-47.
“Get down!” I screamed, and I shoved Russell to the ground.
I ducked and Russell had the wit to throw himself behind a row of shelves, but Mr. Loman stood frozen, gaping at the intruder. The orc squeezed the trigger, and the AK-47’s end chattered. The gun must have been set to full-auto, because Mr. Loman’s chest seemed to explode in a crimson spray, and the poor man collapsed dead to the floor, his blood soaking into the gray carpet. The bullets had shredded his heart and lungs, so at least it had been quick.
In the distance I heard Lydia screaming, the sound of gunfire erupting throughout the mall.
The orc strode into the bookstore, seeking for more victims.
Chapter 2: Prey
I grabbed Russell’s white hair with my free hand and whispered into his ear.
“Get into the café,” I said. “Get under one of the tables and stay there. Don’t move until I come for you.”
Russell started to speak, and I released his hair and clamped my hand over his mouth.
“Don’t argue,” I hissed. “Move.”
He nodded once, and crawled down the aisle, vanishing in the gloom to the café area. I watched him long enough to make sure he had obeyed, and as I did, the distant roar came to my ears. For a moment I thought it sounded like the sea pounding against the shore, or a crowd cheering at a football game. Then I realized that it was the roar of hundreds of people shouting at once, screams of terror and grief and shouts of defiance, accompanied by a lot of sharp popping sounds.
The sound of gunfire. A lot of gunfire.
The Ducal Mall had just become a war zone. A lot of people went about armed – veterans with an honorable discharge had an automatic license to carry a firearm of any type, and a permit to carry a handgun was not that hard to get. I suspect the High Queen preferred the majority of her subjects to remain armed. Normal bullets could not hurt Elves…but if the Archons launched a raid upon Earth, armed locals could slow down the invaders.
But a few armed shoppers would not stop the Archons and their orcish soldiers for long. The orcs would seize the mall in short order and hold it. The Baron of Brookfield would summon his men-at-arms, likely calling for aid from the Barons of Wauwatosa and New Berlin and West Allis and probably Duke Tamirlas of Milwaukee himself. That meant attack helicopters and tanks and men from the Wizards’ Legion, maybe even some members of the High Queen’s court coming to lend magical aid.
All of that meant that the Ducal Mall would likely become rubble by the time this was over…and a lot of people were going to die.
If I didn’t want Russell to be one of them, I had to get him out.
First, that meant getting past the orc who had just killed Mr. Loman.
I crouched at the end of a row of bookshelves, watching as the orc prowled forward, the dim emergency lights glinting on the polished wooden stock of his AK-47. Plans blurred through my mind. I didn’t know how many shots the orc had left, but it would be best to assume he had nearly a full magazine. Besides, I saw several more clipped to his harness, along with a pair of grenades. If I tried to rush him, he would mow me down. That meant I needed a distraction.
I drew out my little .25 revolver from the interior pocket of my coat. The gun seemed puny against the towering orcish soldier, but if I hit him in the skull, it should do the trick. I still had the coffee cup in my left hand. The coffee wasn’t very good, but the cardboard cup was nice and thick, which meant the coffee was still hot. I popped off the plastic lid with my thumb, and wisps of white steam rose from the black liquid, ghostly in the dim light.
The orc reached the end of the aisle, his head swiveling back and forth, his black eyes narrowed, his nostrils flaring. Could he smell me? I had heard that orcs had keener senses than humans, but I didn’t know if that was true. Or maybe he could smell the coffee. Hell, I could smell the coffee.
My fingers tightened against the revolver’s grip. I had one chance to do this right.
The orc stepped out of the aisle, and in one smooth motion I got to my feet, swung around, and flung the coffee at his face.
The effect was immediate. The orc roared in fury, one hand slapping over his face to wipe the steaming coffee from his eyes. The other kept its hold on the AK-47’s grip and squeezed the trigger. The orc might have been stronger than a human, but even for an orc firing a weapon on full-auto one-handed was not a recipe for accuracy. The end of the gun chattered and flashed, spitting out a stream of bullets, and the weapon jerked to the right as I went left.
I raised my pistol, both hands on the grip, and squeezed the trigger twice.
The orc’s head didn’t explode or anything like that. Orcish bone is thick and dense, and .25 bullets aren’t that big. Yet the two bullets slapped into his head, one into his forehead and another into his temple. The orcish warrior staggered, his hands falling to his side, his eyes going wide, blue blood tricking down the side of his face. For an awful moment I was sure the orc would shrug off the wounds, that he would lift the AK-47 and mow me down.
Then he fell sideways into a bookshelf, knocking it to the floor and sending paperbacks skittering across the carpet.
I flipped my revolver’s safety back on, jammed the weapon into my inside pocket, and ran to the orc’s corpse. I eased the AK-47 from his hands and flipped the selector on the weapon back to semi-auto. If the orc had trouble controlling the weapon’s kickback in full-auto, the damn thing would probably flip out of my grasp, and I suspected I would need the firepower before much longer. My little .25 revolver wouldn’t be much use, and I didn’t want to use magic in front of Russell.
That would lead to an awkward conversation I didn’t really want to have right now. Or ever.
But if I had to do it, if it was the only way to save our lives, I wouldn’t hesitate.
A plan flashed through my mind as I grabbed the spare magazines from the orc’s harness and stuffed them into my coat pockets. The bookstore had a stock room in the back, but beyond that it would have a back door opening into the mall’s service corridors. I just needed to grab Russell, vanish into the service corridors, and get out of here. Of course, the Archons and their orcish soldiers might have already gotten into the service corridors.
That was why I had taken the AK-47.
I straightened up, the big gun cradled in my arms, the heavy magazines weighing down my coat. I intended to find Russell, head out the back door, and escape. Then we would head back for the Marneys’ house. If the orcs had already spilled into the streets, we could make for my apartment. It was closer, and I had never taken Russell there, but it was underground, it would be easy to defend, and I had a lot of weapons stored there.
I started to turn, and then froze in alarm.
Four more orcs stood at the entrance of the bookstore, all of them armed in the same way as the soldier as I had killed. All of them held AK-47s, the weapons pointed in my direction. Yet that didn’t hold the most of my attention.
The tall figure in the crisp black and gold uniform did that.
It was an Elven man, his features too gaunt and angular to be human, his ears rising in sharp points to his thick black hair. His brilliant green eyes fixed on me with a mixture of contempt and amusement. Gold glittered upon the chest of his coat, and the emblem of a three-headed dragon had been worked upon the front of his uniform, its tail coiling down his left sleeve. I had seen that three-headed dragon symbol before, but only rarely. To display it meant arrest and flogging on Punishment Day, maybe even execution.
It was the symbol of the rebels who had overthrown the High Queen on the Elven homeworld, who had driven her and her nobles here.
It was the symbol of the Archons.
I squeezed the trigger, the AK-47 bucking in my hands. The Archon waved a negligent hand as I did, and a shimmering barrier of grayish light appeared before him and his soldiers, deflecting the bullet. Not that the gun would have done much good against the Archon. Normal bullets did not work on Elves. Only bullets forged from the metal of the Shadowlands would work, and I was pretty sure the Archons were not stupid enough to equip their orcs with those.
The barrier vanished, and the Archon regarded me.
“The human female presumed to take arms against me,” said the Archon in the Elven tongue. “Kill it.”
I stepped back, expecting the orcs to open fire, planning to dodge behind a bookshelf for cover. Instead one of the orcs plucked something from his harness and flung it at me, something small and oblong and a dull shade of green…
A grenade.
I threw myself into the next aisle of bookshelves. The blast would likely knock over at least some of the shelves, and I didn’t want to find myself buried beneath a pile of books with half my bones broken. A thick, heavy-looking table stood in the next aisle. I threw myself under the table and rolled into a ball, my face buried in my knees, my hands gripping the back of my head, the gun propped against my side.
An instant later the grenade went off.
There was a crack, and then a shredding, ripping sound as the explosion tore through a hundred paperback books at once. A crash filled my ears as some of the shelves toppled over, more books sliding to the floor, and I looked up to see a haze of smoke filling the shop, ripped pages fluttering through the air like dry leaves. Fortunately, the shelves had soaked up most of the explosion and all of the shrapnel, and the thick table had shielded me from the rest.
Cloak Games: Rebel Fist Page 3