by TR Cameron
Goryo had been prepared to make his way through the chaos inspired by the attack on the Kraken to reach his targets, but before he committed to that action, Scimitar cracked the systems of the Atlantean casino. Included among the documents she found was the catastrophic escape plan. It apparently assumed that any threat to the casino would originate from one of the other magical groups since the contingency procedure was not to portal back to the underground city as he’d expected but instead appear in a garage on the property. I guess they’re not popular with the rest of the magicals in town, or at least they think they aren’t. It wasn’t a complete shock since people in power frequently made decisions based on paranoia, but it did change his plans dramatically.
Balancing safety against opportunity, he decided to see if the attackers would be the hounds that chased the prey to him. He moved into the garage after Scimitar deactivated its alarms. The space contained several vehicles, one of which was a heavily armored truck like those used to transport money securely. He figured it, or maybe the heavier than usual SUV that sat beside it would be the targets’ escape vehicle. He crouched in the shadows, pistol held loosely in his right hand and the dart gun in his left, ready for whatever came next.
The infomancer gave him a play-by-play of the events in the casino as seen through the security cameras. Her synthesized voice betrayed no particular interest. They’d never met in person, and he very much wondered what she was like. Or if she was a she at all since, to his knowledge, no one had ever met her in the flesh to confirm anything about her. When the attackers cornered the family in their office, and the Paranormal Defense Agency arrived on the scene, he began to think he would need to fade away without engaging and choose a different target.
Then two cat-people and an archer who had been fighting against the invaders all along, according to Scimitar, gave the Chentashes the opportunity they needed to get out of that trap. He tensed, and a moment later the Atlanteans emerged from a door at the back of the garage with two security people ahead of them and two behind. He waited until the first arrived at the armored truck, then calmly rose from his hiding place. Two squeezes of the trigger dropped the nearest guards, the rounds perfectly placed to avoid armor and helmets, and an equal number of pulls on the dart gun’s trigger took down the two adult Atlanteans.
The kid rabbited, running for the front of the garage. His guards shouted for him to wait and tried to follow, but Goryo was faster, getting the angle he needed to put those two down as well. The door banged open, the kid ran through it, and he pounded in pursuit. The chemical in the darts was a product of government research that he’d stolen, a tranquilizer strong enough to be effective against any magical smaller than a Kilomea combined with a poison that would kill them in hours if no one applied the proper antidote. If he made it back in time to capture them rather than letting them die, that would be useful. If not, he’d still have the other one to deliver to his employer, and the contract had been clear that either dead or alive would be fine by him.
As he broke through the door, he was greeted by the unexpected sight of the costumed trio landing right in front of the fleeing boy. He lifted the pistol, sighted on the nearest, and fired.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ruby’s leap from the window landed her far enough in front of the running Atlantean that he could skid to a stop before smashing into her. She instinctively looked behind him for pursuit, and when the masked man with the pistol burst from the garage, she reacted instantly. The bracelets chimed as she slammed them together, using their final charge to throw a protective dome around her and her companions.
She opened a portal to the abbey and pushed the stunned Atlantean through, then grabbed her sister by the arm and yanked her toward the opening. “Take care of him.” Morrigan tried to resist, but Idryll gave her a boot to the backside to force her the rest of the way across, and Ruby let the rift close. The process took all the time the shield offered, and they dashed in different directions as it dissipated.
She had no idea how this person fit into the bigger picture of what was going on in her city, but he matched what the cameras had recorded during the Deep Woods attack. She summoned a shield to intercept his bullets and tried to draw his attention toward her, counting on Idryll to sneak behind him and take him out. She threw magic at him, first a force bolt that he dodged with an impressively fast move to the side, then a cone of electricity that hit him squarely. His body glowed for a moment, and when it faded, he stood undamaged.
Dammit. The armor. That threat had faded from her mind during the battle’s chaos. The throwing knives were her ace in the hole, but she’d need to be closer to strike true, either at a vulnerable spot that would take him out of the fight or at one of the pieces of the magical defense. Collar, wrists, ankles, right, I remember. He slithered aside from Idryll's sidekick and backed toward the garage.
She couldn’t use flame because of the tiger’s proximity, so she tried for shadow bolts, but the armor absorbed them as well. He dodged another attack from the tiger-woman and stared into Ruby’s eyes for a second. She could almost see the wheels turning in his mind, wondering whether he should run or if he wanted to make those who had stolen his prey pay the price for doing so. She’d expected him to take the first choice, but he rushed into the garage. In her ear, Glam warned, “The Atlanteans are in there.”
Ruby dashed in pursuit, and Idryll caught up to her right before they reached the door. “You distract him, and I’ll get the parents to safety.”
Her partner unexpectedly removed her mask, handed it over, and replied, “My pleasure.” As they entered the garage, Idryll's body changed, stretching, growing, transforming into the amazing tiger form she’d worn at their first meeting. She roared a warning to her prey that death had arrived and loped ahead to find him. Ruby spotted a pair of feet sticking out from behind a large truck and headed in that direction while she shoved the mask in a pocket, confident the huge feline would capture their opponent’s attention quite easily.
The joy of the hunt thrilled through Idryll. Her clothes had shredded and fallen away during the change, and now she felt like herself, all rippling muscles and primal power. The garage’s scents filled her nose, acrid, cloying, and mostly foreign to her, but she recognized the smell of the man who’d been outside. She’d expected it to come with a tang of fear, and her estimation of her opponent’s prowess increased when she failed to detect it.
He betrayed himself with a small noise before he pulled the trigger, and she was instantly in motion, rolling to the side out of the bullets’ path in plenty of time to evade them. Her claws scraped on the concrete floor, not as strong a grip as she would’ve liked, but perfectly adequate to her needs. She jumped and touched down on the roof of the tallest vehicle, the armored car, and leapt at him. The man fired again, and the gun clicked instead of continuing to bark. He holstered it and drew his sword, and she landed in front of him with a growl.
Her foe wove the weapon in a slow pattern, seemingly ready for whatever she might do. His free hand dropped to his thigh and pulled out the pistol that rested there. She charged before he could bring it to bear, forcing him to focus on defense. He swiped with the sword, and she crouched with her front paws, letting it slide over and past her, then slashed out in a move that would rip his leg off and allow her to exert her will upon him before administering the deathblow.
Her claws struck his thigh and slid off, completely failing to penetrate. Worse, a painful tingle of magic spread up her arm. She retreated and skittered to the side, the gun’s discharge forcing her to turn and dash behind the nearest vehicle for cover. After a few moments, her limb returned to normal, and she prowled around the back of the car looking for a new angle of attack.
Ruby moved in a straight line toward the Atlanteans and took position at their shoulders. When she heard Idryll's attack, she threw down one of Margrave’s capsules to hide any possibility of their foe seeing what was on the other side of the portal, and opened the tunnel to the
abbey. She wrestled the first Atlantean through, then Morrigan was there to assist with the second. “Thanks. Take care of them. If this guy beats us, he’ll come for them again, I’m sure.”
Her sister’s eyes spoke volumes about how much she wanted to join the fight, but she only nodded. “I will.”
Ruby stepped back through and closed the rift, then focused on the moment at hand. She rounded another vehicle that blocked her sightline in time to see Idryll's attack on their enemy. The way she rebounded and ran for cover made Ruby rethink the idea of a frontal attack. She reached out with a line of force to grab a tray of tools sitting on a bench nearby and hurled it at the man. He interposed his sword, twitching it to intercept each projectile as they arrived, then sheathed the weapon unexpectedly. She threw lightning at him with her left hand while her right extended another force line to lift a large tire and hurl it at his head.
His armor absorbed the electricity, and he ducked under the projectile and stepped calmly to the side to let it pass. The magazine from his pistol clattered on the floor, and another one clicked into place almost immediately after. Ruby called up her buckler and strengthened the force shield around her body, then extended her arm toward the heaviest object she could see, a large metal armor plate leaning against the wall. She threw it as he fired, lifting her buckler to intercept the bullets. The first round hit like a punch in her left shoulder, wrenching her to the side, and the next one buried itself in her right thigh. The pain was greater than anything she’d ever felt, and she screamed as she spun to the floor, all her magical protections vanishing. She breathed, “Kagji,” activating her last-resort shield pendant to keep her from further damage as darkness encroached on her vision.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Seeing Ruby go down, smelling the blood splashing out of her suddenly frail-looking body, pushed Idryll into the place where she lost consciousness of anything but the need to take down her prey. Her magic was more than changing forms, and some powers only existed in certain bodies. This one could craft a veil to obscure the sight of her, which allowed her to hunt more effectively as long as she moved quietly to avoid detection. She summoned it and faded into invisibility.
She retracted her claws and prowled forward in a low crouch, padding softly on the concrete. One eye surveyed the surface in front of her to detect things that might cause noise and betray her, and the other remained locked on her foe. He’d fired twice more at her partner, but Idryll couldn’t see the results of those shots. A heartbeat that sounded as if it was struggling to continue was the only sound from that direction.
She angled at the man as he walked toward his fallen target with a smug expression she longed to claw from his face. She instinctively understood the emotional need to close and finish off a foe, but she wasn’t about to let him have that satisfaction. When he crossed in front of a large open pit, she pounced. Her strong legs threw her body forward, and she smashed into him with all her weight behind the thrust. She didn’t bother with her claws, knowing they wouldn’t penetrate, merely slammed him bodily to hurl him into the pit.
Dashing to Ruby, she lay down beside her and called upon another of her tiger form’s powers. She’d never attempted to use it on a non-shapeshifter and had no idea if it would work on someone outside her kind. With a heart full of hope, she extended her aura over the Mist Elf and concentrated on healing.
Ruby swam up to consciousness with two dominant feelings. The first was the agonizing pain caused by the quartet of bullets lodged inside her. The second was the psychological pain of her inner voice asking in disbelief, “Did you really think that a different magical shield was going to work better than the other ones?”
She growled, “Shut it,” whether mentally or out loud she had no idea, and used her working arm to pull a healing potion from her thigh pouch. She drank it and screamed, her back arching with even more pain as it forced the bullets out of her body and the flesh filled in the holes they’d made. It felt like it took hours, but she knew from what Keshalla had told her that it would only have been seconds. This was by far the most grievous set of wounds she’d ever had to heal. She opened her eyes to see a giant tiger staring at her and managed a grin. “Hey. That explains the bad breath. How are you doing?”
The tiger chuffed, and her mouth did that weird stretching that happened when she talked in this form. “Knocked him into a pit. He’ll be back soon.”
She nodded and forced herself to stand. “Okay. The pistols have to go, first priority. Then, we drop things on him or throw things at him. Shentia said the more damage we apply, the more likely we are to overwhelm his protection. So, let’s get it done.”
A flicker of concern crossed the tiger’s face, but she rose to her feet. “I’ll follow your lead.” She shimmered and vanished, leaving Ruby blinking, impressed at the power of her veil. Good idea. Two can play at that game. She called up hers and moved away from the place where she’d almost died.
She watched quietly from the side as the man pulled himself up over the edge of the lower section used for oil changes and other maintenance. He surveyed the surrounding area, holding his pistol pointed at the ceiling but ready to use it. She reached out with force magic and grabbed a wrench, then hurled it at him. She didn’t have to calculate how to make it happen consciously. The magic took care of figuring out how the object she wanted to move would get to where she wanted it to be. It slammed into his left wrist, the kinetic energy behind it knocking the weapon flying.
Before he could go after it, she dropped her veil, snapped her body shield around her, and started hurling everything that wasn’t nailed down at him. He drew the sword again, holding it in two hands and weaving it through defensive strokes to intercept all her improvised projectiles. That defense was sufficient until the moment Idryll moved in, only becoming visible as she slammed into his spine and sent him hurtling forward to smash down on his face. Ruby grabbed the huge armor plate that she’d missed with before and threw it in an arc.
It smashed down on his back as he was pushing himself up, completely covering his body. A shout of pain or anger came from underneath, followed by a loud thump as Idryll landed on top of the steel, smashing him down again. She stayed in that spot, her weight pinning him to the concrete, and for a moment Ruby thought they had him, that the tiger could sit on the metal and keep him in place. There would be a lot of explaining to do when the PDA arrived, but it was better than getting killed trying to take him out. Maybe we vanish and run. Yeah, smart plan. When the agents arrive, veils, portals, gone.
That plan fell to tattered ruin as a loud explosion sent the heavy metal plate flying in one direction, threw Idryll tumbling in another, and propelled the man in a slide across the floor in a third. All she could figure was that he’d had grenades and set them off, trusting that his armor would protect him. Bold move.
It’s now or never, Ruby thought and reached down to snag a throwing knife. She ran forward, counting on her enemy at least being momentarily distracted, and threw the blade at his neck the moment she entered a reasonable range. It was an instinctive decision, and she had no idea if it was because that was his most vulnerable spot, given that the knives weren’t all that long, or if it was because she knew that’s where the collar portion of the armor was. The second was already in the air to the same target as the first struck.
She charged in after the projectiles, knowing that if the throws hadn’t worked, things would likely go poorly for her. Ruby was on him in an instant, sword in her right hand and dagger in her left. A shallow cut bled lightly on the side of his neck, but nothing gave her a clue whether his shield was still active or not. She slashed down with her sword, aiming for his leg. His weapon snapped out to block it, then swiped up at her face. She blocked it with the dagger and whipped out a roundhouse kick to the nerves that ran along the outside of his thigh.
It connected, and his sudden look of pain revealed his shield was indeed gone. He realized it as she did, and panic flickered on his face. He tossed his
sword to his left hand and drew the pistol from his right holster in a blur. Three things happened almost simultaneously. First, Ruby smashed him in the forehead with a force blast channeled through her dagger, upending him. That caused his shot to go over her head and ricochet off one of the vehicles with a metallic whine. Finally, Idryll rippled into existence behind him, and her claws slashed across both his ankles, shredding his boots and severing the Achilles tendons that lay beneath.
His skull hit the concrete hard, and he was out. Ruby panted, adrenaline making her tremble, and sheathed her sword on the second try. Glam’s voice came over her earpiece. “Nice fight. I have a recording from a drone in there if you want to watch it later. Right now, the PDA is headed your way, and you should get the hell out.”
Ruby replied, “Thanks. Come on, kitty cat, help me gather up some of his stuff, and let’s vacate the premises.” By the time the agents burst into the garage with guns drawn, the only people left inside were four dead security guards and one highly damaged assassin.
Morrigan was waiting when they crossed through the portal into the abbey’s landing chamber. “Did you find anything that looked like a poison, or an antidote?” she asked, anxious.
Ruby feigned a scowl. “We’re fine, thanks for asking. Are you perhaps referring to these?” She held up two small, matching vials that she’d found on their fallen foe. One was empty, and the other was filled with what looked like lemonade and glitter.
Her sister abruptly snatched them from her hand and took off at a run.
Ruby and Idryll followed at a more reasonable pace and caught up with Morrigan as she came out of a room, closing the door behind her. “The parents were poisoned with something. The healer thinks you might have brought the antidote.”