by Annie Bellet
I threw the tags into the snow beyond us as I stood up. They sank away into the white wet, the feel of Samir’s power fading as the snow engulfed them.
“I am free,” Vollan said with awe in his voice. “I can’t hear him anymore.” He looked at Cal, and a wild grin broke out on his face.
Alek looked at me and I nodded. He released Vollan and backed up, his hand casually resting on the gun at his waist.
“Good to have you back, Boss,” Cal said, offering Vollan a hand up.
“How did you know?” Vollan asked.
“Talk later,” Alek said. “We upheld bargain. Your turn.”
“Bargain?” Vollan looked at Alek and then to Cal.
“We free you, you help us stop Samir,” I said. “What’s his plan? Where is he now?”
“That the deal you made, son?” Vollan said to Cal as he bent and retrieved his gun.
Alek growled, but the big bear just made a sour face at him. “I ain’t gonna shoot you,” he said. “Just not leaving my weapon on the ground.”
“Yeah,” Cal said. “That’s the deal I made. We shouldn’t be here, Boss. This isn’t our thing.”
“All right.” Vollan ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up in the growing chill. “Sorcerer is up that way, in that field tucked down at the bottom of campus. Not that far if you go through the woods. The humans are up doing something around that church. I think they are going to blow the place up. Lot of shifters been taken up there in cages. We ain’t been a part of that.”
“Blow the place up?” Harper said, moving toward us. Behind her I saw Ezee and Levi exchange a worried look.
“I smelled some things, like Semtex, maybe. I never did much with demolitions, but you don’t really forget the smells,” Vollan answered her.
That made sense in a sick way. Samir liked explosions. He had blown up things before. Like my adoptive family. At a school, no less. Maybe time really was a flat circle like that character in True Detective had said.
“Could you bring down the building with that? Enough to kill shifters? He needs a sacrifice,” Harper said.
“He could if he augments it with magic, I suppose,” I said. Not a happy thought. He’d used a regular-old-dynamite-type bomb before, but also had exploding stones placed at intervals to magnify the blast. The school had burned for days. My nails dug into my palms hard enough to hurt. Freyda, her pack, Vivian—all of them were locked up in that chapel. Not again. Not fucking again.
“Worse than that,” Ezee said, exchanging another worried look with Levi. “There’s an old boiler room and some steam tunnels that run right under the Commons. I ran a Spycraft game set here once, before Jade’s time. We used blueprints and figured out you could drop half the school in on itself if you put enough explosives in those tunnels. Put them right under the chapel? Boom. No more chapel.”
I’d been in those tunnels with Ezee before. An evil warlock had been using them for his lair. It was true; nothing good happened to gamers in steam tunnels.
“We stop Samir, the bomb won’t go off, right?” Harper said.
“Humans are in charge of the bomb,” Vollan said. “I don’t know what their orders are, but given where they put their trailers? I’d say they are expecting the center to go. Samir seems the type to build in contingencies, too.”
“He is,” I said. I rubbed the bridge of my nose. We were fucked.
“I know a way into those tunnels,” Ezee said. “What if we got to the bomb—could we disarm it?”
“This isn’t a spy movie,” Levi said.
“Yes, I could,” Cal said. “It’s what I did for the army.”
“You waited until now to say that? Seriously?” Harper glared at him.
“Dramatic reveal,” he said with a half-smile.
I couldn’t decide if I wanted to shake his hand or punch him. He was almost likeable, for a stone-cold killer.
“I kind of hate you,” Harper muttered.
Cal just shrugged.
I looked up at the sky. It wasn’t dark yet, but we could count the daylight left in terms of minutes, not hours.
“Can you get your men away from Samir? Or at least get me through the line?” I asked Vollan.
“Maybe,” he said. “I can get you through to the sorcerer. We’ve got orders not to shoot you until he gives the signal anyway. That’s why I came out of the trees when I saw Cal wasn’t alone. I remembered you. The little part of my head that was still mine hoped you could help.”
“Glad you were right,” I said. “Can you stop them from shooting?” Last thing I wanted to worry about was dodging bullets and shielding myself from gunfire while trying to fight Samir also. It warmed my heart that my ex was scared enough to give orders to shoot me if he needed it, though. He wasn’t as confident as he appeared. That or he was just a deck-stacking asshole. Probably a little from column A and a little from column B.
“If you give me enough time to get around to their positions,” he said.
“I can stall Samir,” I said, hoping I wasn’t full of shit. I could certainly distract him, at least.
“What about the bomb?” Harper asked.
“You guys are going to have to handle that,” I said, turning to her. “Think you can get Cal into those tunnels? Show him where the room is?”
“Zomg, you are letting us help?” Harper leaned forward and squinted at me. “Pod person, I’m sure of it.”
“Maybe I learned that friendship is magic,” I said. “Don’t push it. Don’t do anything stupid and do not get yourself killed. I’ll raise you from the dead and kill you again if you do. Promise.”
“I go with Jade,” Alek said in a tone that shut up any argument I had.
“I face Samir alone,” I said. “Nonnegotiable, Alek.”
“Ah, there’s our girl,” Harper said.
We hashed out a quick plan that was likely suicide. But we were gamers. Rushing into certain death hoping we could win was pretty much par for the course for us. I was putting my friends’ lives in the hands of a mercenary who had helped kidnap Max and Rosie. Who had also helped free Harper. I was putting my and Alek’s safety in the hands of a bear who had, in another timeline, killed two of my friends.
Desperation breeds strange bedfellows. With quick hugs all around, I followed Alek and Vollan into the woods. It was endgame. The boss fight loomed, and no matter how unready I felt, there was no turning back. Not this time. Not ever again.
In fox form, Harper ran along behind Cal, Levi, and Ezee. Cal and Levi stayed in human form, carrying the guns. Ezee was in his coyote shape, running slightly ahead, scouting for them. As they got to the edge of the first set of dorms, they had to slow down.
Three big RVs were parked in the lower lot, barely visible as they ran through the trees toward the center. A dozen men were clustered around the Campus Security building, but they were definitely human. None of them even glanced their way, though a shifter probably could have heard or smelled them coming. The wind was not in Harper and her friends’ favor.
Ezee skirted the brick dorm building. The Student Commons lay in the center of everything, like the circle at the heart of a wheel. Ezee had explained there were two ways to get the old boiler room below it. One was through the Commons itself, but that had been sealed off when the renovations were done to convert the chapel into what it was today. The other entrance was in the Math and Science building to the right of the Commons, dead ahead of them now.
Campus was dead quiet once they snuck past the men around the security office. When she glanced that way, she saw the Commons’ main doors were locked with a web of silver wire. Harper shivered as she ran, and it had nothing to do with the snow. Samir’s magic was sealing the door, she was sure of it. Not a good sign.
Three men sporting automatic weapons and wearing body armor emerged from the Sciences building. She’d been so focused on what was beside and behind that Harper didn’t see them until they were shouting and raising their guns.
Cal dropped one of
them with a headshot worthy of any zombie killer. The shot rang out like a clarion call in the silence. Harper dove into the deeper snow off the path. Ezee charged ahead as Levi dropped the rifles he’d been holding and drew a pistol. A bullet whizzed by Harper’s ear.
More shouting. More gunfire. All three of the men ahead of them were down. Harper charged past them and into the building, shifting to human as soon as her feet hit the tiled floor.
Cal took up the rear and yanked the door shut behind them.
“We’ve got seconds. Let’s go,” he said. He wasn’t even breathing hard, the bastard.
Harper reminded herself that he was on their side and shoved away her annoyance and anger. She followed Ezee, who had also shifted to human, down the hall and then down a narrow set of stairs.
Harper stayed on his heels as they crashed through a fire door and into an even narrower hallway. Ezee stopped abruptly and threw her to the side as a bullet clipped his arm, spraying her face with warm blood. The gunshot sound was booming and disorienting in the narrow space. More shots from behind them rang out and Harper twisted, shifting back to fox to lower her profile.
The fire door banged shut, cutting her off from Levi as he and Cal turned to fire up the stairs. Ezee went down beside her, shifting as he fell. No shots came at them. Down the hallway, Harper saw the silhouetted figure of a man. He was messing with something in his hands. His gun? She didn’t care.
Harper threw aside her fear and charged down the hall at the gunman. His gun had jammed. He threw it at her and tried to pull something from his belt but she was too fast. Harper remembered body armor so she went for his throat, letting her animal instincts guide her. Her teeth sank home, blood filling her mouth, flesh squelching and crunching in her jaws. It was disgusting but she ripped and tore, thinking only of survival.
Ezee barreled past them, leaping over them both as Harper took her prey down to the ground. He grabbed her by her scruff and dragged her forward with him, still running. Harper didn’t fight, but got her legs underneath her and scrambled beside him. Ezee was shouting. Shouting a word over and over.
Blood rushed in her ears, and they still rang from the gunfire but Harper made out what he was saying.
Grenade.
The gunman hadn’t thrown his jammed gun at her. He’d thrown a grenade.
The explosion rocked the world, or so it felt like. Chunks of concrete rained down and the ceiling groaned. A wave of force threw Harper and Ezee down, knocking the air from Harper’s lungs. There was a secondary crash and then all she heard was ringing, like an alarm someone had forgotten to shut off.
She reached into the mist and found her human form, shifting away from the injured, unhappy fox.
“Harper, you okay?” Ezee whispered. Or shouted. She couldn’t tell. His face was caked with cement dust.
“Biblethump,” she said.
“Thank God,” he said. He helped her to her feet.
Feet. She still had them. Small mercies. Her human body had been safe from the blast, so she bet that she looked ridiculously clean compared to Ezee. Harper turned to look behind them and saw only a pile of rubble. Complete cave-in. The blast had shoved the body of the gunman down the hallway with them. He lay in a dusty, crumpled heap. She could still taste his blood.
Harper swallowed the bile that rose at that thought. Nope. Big fat cup of nope. She wasn’t going to barf. They had to figure shit out.
Her ears were healing, the ringing retreating. She looked at Ezee.
“How do we get out of here?” she asked.
“That’s the bad news,” he said, brushing ineffectually at his coat. “That was the only way in or out.”
“Where’s the boiler room?”
“That way,” Ezee said.
Harper started walking. Her heart was still beating. She could mostly breathe. She felt strangely numb, and wondered if that was shock. They found the boiler room right where Ezee thought it was, about thirty feet farther down. There were no other gunmen in their way. They seemed to be completely alone down here.
“Least there are no more bad guys,” Ezee said from behind her. “We can’t get out, but nobody can come down here either. Hope Levi is okay,” he added, almost too softly for her to hear.
Pushing through the metal door into the boiler room, Harper groaned.
“Never lucky,” she muttered. “Great. We’re locked in with a freaking bomb.”
The old lower field wasn’t used much except by the Ultimate Frisbee team. It was tucked down into the woods surrounding Juniper and a bit of walk down a hill from the main part of campus. The woods around it were kept clear of invasive species and brush, but otherwise left to grow wild. Vollan was in his bear form, but he pointed with his muzzle in the direction of the field, his silent intent clear.
I was to go that way. He and Alek would go along the perimeter and alert his men to the change in plan.
I leaned into Alek’s chest and he curled his arms around me. We didn’t risk words, just stood for an all-too-brief moment.
“I love you,” I mouthed to him as we pulled apart finally.
Alek smiled and mouthed “Good” back to me.
There was nothing more to say. He shifted to tiger, and then he and the huge white bear disappeared into the trees, moving quickly and quietly, Alek’s black-and-white tiger blending into the shadows.
I turned and made my way to the edge of the field. Magic and adrenaline flowed through me, washing away my fear and my fatigue. This was it. The last midnight. The boss fight.
First would come the talking in the hopes I could distract him so he didn’t blow up my friends.
Yeah. Some things never change.
I felt his power in the form of a ward on the field before I stepped out of the trees. The field was pristine with snow, except for a huge charred circle burned into it. Samir stood at the center of the circle, his honey-sweet power rippling around him. A stone box carved with ornate patterns I couldn’t quite make out at this distance lay to one side of him. Balor’s head, I assumed. Samir was prepared for the ritual, waiting for moonrise.
Moon wasn’t up yet. I walked out of the trees, ready to shield myself and hoping nobody shot me in the back. I’d been shot enough for one lifetime.
Samir didn’t seem surprised to see me. He stood silently watching me approach. When I reached the edge of the circle, he held up one hand. I stopped, mostly of my own volition. I wasn’t ready to provoke him yet, so there was little harm in doing what he wanted. For the moment.
He was dressed more like a man attending a nice dinner than someone preparing a winter ritual. He had on dark grey pinstripe slacks and a maroon sweater. Samir’s only concession to the snow and cold were a very functional-looking pair of black boots. Not a hair was out of place and his face still looked thirty, handsome and unlined.
His golden eyes were wary, tiny creases giving away a hint of strain. I might have been imagining that part. Wishful thinking is a powerful thing.
One thing was painfully clear to me. I was not ready for this. I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready. My heartbeat slowed. My fingers tingled with more than the chill of the air. I tried to think up something clever or snarky to open with, but my mind wouldn’t obey.
“Jade,” Samir said. “I had a feeling you would come.”
“What? Miss you trying to do something this stupid? Never,” I said.
“Stupid?” His golden eyes narrowed slightly.
“Raising Balor? A god of blight and other bad shit? You think he’s going to stand here while you eat his heart?” Keep him talking, I thought. Let’s go.
“No, I don’t intend to let him stand at all. This circle isn’t just for resurrection.” Samir motioned to the black circle and I saw there were other patterns cut into it, burned down into the bare and blackened earth. Looking at them made my brain hurt.
“The Fey are letting you do this because they think the gods will return. You won’t be the baddest thing out there anymore,” I said, playi
ng one of my trump cards. I doubted that Samir cared, but I was willing to say just about anything to keep him talking.
“You always were too clever,” he said. “I underestimated you, Jade. I don’t do that often.”
I snorted. “Really? You might want to reexamine your track record.”
His eyes were slits now, his mouth tight. Samir definitely didn’t like me laughing at him.
“Raising Balor will not break the Seal,” he said. “But it will weaken it. More magic in the world is a good thing. The humans and other animals have ruled too long. We used to be revered, not hunted and hiding in the shadows.” So, he knew about the Seal. And didn’t care. Not a surprise there.
“What if I smudge this line?” I asked, poking a toe forward at the black line.
“It’s representational. The magic is in place. The lines were just there as a guide. Mess with it all you want.” Samir shrugged, too casually. His eyes flicked over my head.
I worried he had noticed some kind of movement in the woods, and then I realized that the moon would be rising in the direction he looked. He was keeping track of the time. Which meant I was running out of it. Samir would want to end me before he had to do his ritual.
“Moon up yet?” I asked, not wanting to turn and look. I knew it wasn’t. Not quite. The sky was still too light. The sunset made the woods behind Samir look like they were on fire.
“You will know when it is,” Samir said. “We’ll be celebrating with a bang.”
“The bomb you have under the Student Commons?” I said. His eyebrows went up. He hadn’t realized I knew. “I don’t think so.” It felt so damn good to be able to surprise him.
His cloying magic rippled out from him in the direction of the college center. To my dragon-enhanced mage-vision it looked like a thick cord running up the hill. Until he awakened it, I hadn’t noticed it among all the other magic stacked up around us. His line to the sacrifice. I was going to have to snip that somehow.