Red Gambit: Book One of the Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

  In one motion, he shoved the bloody Red back toward Baldy while aiming a reverse-grip stab at the second Red with the borrowed knife. The Red on his right managed to get an arm up to intercept his attack.

  He dropped the box cutter freeing one hand to deal with the block. He caught the Red’s wrist and gave a twist and a yank as he threw his other elbow into the guy’s ribs twice. On the third strike, he flipped the knife around in his hand and stabbed upward, sinking the blade under the Red’s chin.

  Too much time, his instincts screamed. He’d taken too much time.

  He didn’t think about it—he hurled the hunting knife to his left. Only as the blade left his hand did he get a look at Baldy. The torturer had been about to shoot, and now his eyes were wide.

  Jarek didn’t wait to see how his throw would fare. He snatched up the box cutter and attacked the leather tethering his legs to the chair.

  “Fuck!” cried Baldy to his left.

  A clatter of heavy metal on concrete.

  One strap down.

  Shuffling to the left.

  “—ing son of a bitch.”

  The light scrape of metal sliding over concrete.

  Two straps down.

  He vaulted off the chair, box cutter clutched in a reverse grip, and came down on Baldy just in time to knock his gun hand aside and stab him in the side of the throat.

  He clenched his teeth at the spurt of dark blood that hit his right thigh, warm and wet through his pants. He held Baldy’s eyes, watching as the torturer’s struggles weakened from the furious thrashing of a sadistic bastard to the pathetic floundering of a lonely, frightened man.

  Baldy stopped struggling.

  Jarek swallowed and stood up, an odd combination of victor’s pride and abhorred nausea swirling through him.

  “Phase One complete, assholes.” His voice sounded flat in his ears.

  He bent to scoop up the hunting knife he’d thrown at Baldy, not really sure whether the blade had found a mark or if the projectile had simply stunned him. From the other Red, he took an old H&K MP5 submachine gun and an extra mag, which he tucked in a pants pocket.

  He cracked the door open and listened. It was hard to tell past the buzzing alarm pulses still pouring from the speakers, but he couldn’t make out any more gunfire.

  Maybe they’d already taken care of whoever the hell had been crazy enough to storm the Fortr—

  The pieces came together at once in his mind. The events at The Rath, Michael’s reaction to them, the comm broadcast, and an intruder. Singular. One crazy-ass intruder …

  The same person who’d been crazy enough to pick a fight with an entire pub’s worth of hardened thugs?

  “And so the plot thickens again,” he mumbled.

  If that was the arcanist out there, and if she was still alive, she’d be after Michael as well. Whatever their business was, he couldn’t imagine it was going to make his life easier. He’d busted his ass and now killed three men to find out what Michael knew, and he’d be damned if he was going to let anyone jeopardize getting Fela back now.

  Time to move.

  He checked outside once more, stepped into the hallway, and set off for the brig, moving like a ghost in the fog.

  Six

  Gunfire roared down the hallway. As spent bullets clattered to the floor and the temperature dropped another several degrees around her, Rachel decided she might have to rethink the design of the bullet catcher—or at least get used to wearing something warmer than her worn leather jacket. Assuming she made it out of the Red Fortress alive in the first place.

  Things had been going so smoothly until a minute ago. She’d had her quiet route planned. She’d nearly had the door unlocked. Skip ahead two minutes, and now there was a trail of wreckage behind her and a Fortress’ worth of men bearing down on her.

  She threw herself behind the cover of an inset doorframe, not wanting to rely too heavily on the catcher and end up freezing to death before she reached Michael.

  The key, she decided, was to keep moving to warmer patches of air, but that wasn’t easy with this much hot lead flying in her direction, especially when she still wasn’t sure the device wouldn’t simply miss a bullet or two at some point. Even so, she needed to keep moving before the rest of the damn base arrived on top of her.

  She gritted her teeth, pointed her staff blindly around the corner, and fed a wallop of energy from her batteries through the glyph that resembled a tiny sun. Even around the corner and through closed eyelids, the flash was bright. Down the hallway in the direction the staff was pointed, the effect would be monumentally stronger, like being at the epicenter of half a dozen lightning strikes.

  Through the muffled ringing the gunfire had left in her ears, she thought she heard a few startled cries at the arcane flash. Time to move.

  She whirled out from cover, staff at the ready. Four men lined the hall, weapons partially lowered as they shook off their disorientation. The closest of them fired a few blind shots that struck the wall unnervingly close to her.

  She thrust out her open hand, pulling from her energy stores, and the two closest men slammed into each other headfirst.

  One of the guys at the end of the hall must’ve recovered enough to see it happen, because he took careful aim and fired over his fallen allies. Two bullets pelted into the catcher’s field and dropped to the floor, sending a chill through the air. She raised her staff and unleashed a strong telekinetic blast in response.

  It caught the shooter full on, rocketing him back into the wall. His partner wasted no time in scrambling behind the corner for cover. She shifted her aim and sent a more focused blast.

  Unseen force tore through the corner of the wall and drove the gunman across the hallway in a rain of concrete chunks and a cloud of gray dust.

  She tromped down the hall as quickly as she could, panting and leaning heavily on her staff as the sheer volume of energy she’d just slung caught up to her. The staff alleviated some of the exertion that came with heavy-duty channeling, but she still had her limits. She’d have to pace herself if she wanted to have anything left on the way out.

  The last gunman was recovering as she reached the end of the hall. She dealt him a solid blow with her staff and turned left down the next hallway.

  A surge of panicked energy seared through her exhaustion at the sound of voices crying after her. Coming into the Fortress might be the last mistake she’d ever make. She clenched her teeth and told that tiny voice in her head to shut the hell up and get moving.

  First, though, she needed to shake her incoming tails.

  She turned right down the next hallway, which was mercifully empty, and ducked through the second door on the right as the voices drew closer behind her.

  A broom closet. Wonderful.

  She closed the door behind her, plunging the space into darkness. Footsteps pounded closer outside. The darkness pressed in around her, squeezing tighter and tighter with each approaching boot fall. Her fingernails dug painfully into her palm.

  Then the footsteps were receding, continuing down the hallway. She forced herself to breathe.

  Off to a great start.

  She reviewed the directions she’d extracted from the patrolman, slipped out of the closet, and doubled back to continue her original direction. She did her best to extend her senses as she ran, scouting ahead for imminent threats. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do while moving, and the result was far from perfect, but the effort at least enabled her to duck out of sight of a group of six men moments before they caught sight of her.

  A minute later, she came across a man retying his boot as his partner bickered at him that now was a hell of a time and that he’d better hurry it up. She didn’t feel particularly accomplished or proud when she managed to take them down, but at least she managed it before any shots were fired.

  She passed a hallway and caught sight of the busy central hub she knew from her brief mental tour opened up at the heart of the facility. Apparently it acted as a mars
haling ground too, judging by the din of voices and activity drifting out. At least she was getting close.

  She crept carefully on until she’d passed the hub, then hung a right. The Red Fortress wasn’t exactly teeming with direction signs pointing the way to the brig, but a couple of minutes later, she spotted the barred door she’d been looking for.

  It was open.

  She thanked her lucky stars and hurried into the antechamber of the quiet brig. By the time she returned her attention to her extended senses, it was already too late.

  A guard had already emerged from a room she’d passed. He slammed the barred door shut and winked as its lock engaged with a heavy click.

  She thrust her staff toward him with a growl, and his smirk flashed to shock as he rocketed upward and slammed into the hard ceiling. He fell limply back to the floor, a slow shower of dust following in his wake. She turned to face the door to the cell block.

  Now that she took the time to properly explore with her senses, the situation was quite obvious: nine minds lying in wait among the cells. They might have been prisoners but for the armor and weapons she could feel on them.

  She couldn’t sense Michael, but that was to be expected. The Resistance had seen to it that his mind was shielded from telepaths like her. Her gut told her he was near, and that was enough.

  A rush of hope welled up but was quickly tamped down by the realization that she’d just walked straight into a trap. Why else would so many armed men be lurking around the brig and waiting to close her in? They’d been waiting for her, which meant they’d figured out what she was after. She probably had that asshole Tom to thank for that.

  It didn’t matter now. She was here, and so were they. And if her gut was to be trusted, so was Michael. That was all that really mattered.

  She tightened her grip on her staff and stepped into the brig proper. She swept out with her senses again. Three men on each side behind the first group of cells, and three more in the back right corner of the room. All waiting for her.

  Did they already know who she was, what she could do?

  She thought about making a big boom to show them, then decided advertising her presence to the rest of the base was unwise. Something subtler, then.

  With a wicked grin, she raised her staff and focused her mind. Then she drove the weapon toward the floor as hard as she could. At the last second, she directed the energy of the blow into one of the staff’s glyphs, adding a pinch of energy from her battery stores for good measure. The staff jarred to an oddly silent halt, the only sound that of the rushing air that sprang into existence and swept through the brig.

  The currents weren’t strong enough to do much more than yank at clothing and ruffle hair, but judging from the way the men shifted around in her senses, the display succeeded at unsettling them.

  “Hey, assholes,” she called, doing her best to keep the waver out of her voice. “You took someone I care about. I’m here to take him back. That simple. Get out of my way, and I won’t hurt you.”

  She wasn’t really sure she meant the last part, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

  A chuckle drifted from the back of the brig, alone at first but soon joined by another voice, then more until the whole brig was laughing it up.

  So much for the easy way.

  Another voice pitched in then, not with a chuckle but with a series of frantic, muffled cries. It was a voice she couldn’t miss.

  Michael.

  That did it.

  She rushed forward. The first few men caught sight of her and opened fire. She blasted the one on her right as bullets began to slam into the catcher’s invisible barrier. He crashed into the bars of the next cell with a gross crunch. She spun the staff around and gave the same treatment to a shooter on the left, never stopping.

  The remaining men opened fire from both sides as she cleared the first cluster of cells. By the time she reached the center of the intersection, a trail of spent lead lay on the floor in her wake. The air around her had grown frigid enough that her breath condensed in front of her, and a breeze stirred through the room as air pressures attempted to equilibrate.

  The incoming fire momentarily faltered as she drew directly between the pairs of shooters on either side. Then three more men emerged from behind the next group of cells and opened fire.

  She cursed and darted right, putting the cover of the cells between her and the newcomers while also closing on the pair of men there. Her approach apparently overrode their concern over catching their allies in the crossfire, because both shooters opened fire again. Spent bullets fell to the ground in front of her, and she blasted one of the men into the wall. She closed on the second, shifted her grip to the end of the staff, and brought it around in a sweeping arc aimed at his raised rifle.

  One last shot roared. Burning pain lanced across her left shoulder, then thudding impact as her staff slammed into the guy’s rifle and arm. A cry escaped her as she whipped her staff back around. This time she found the bastard’s head.

  She reached for her shoulder and cursed when her hand came away streaked with blood. Shock gave way to terror as a pair of strong arms wrapped around her. Hot breath on the side of her face and arms constricting around her like a pair of pythons sent her into a panicked frenzy. Her staff clattered to the floor. She clawed at his hands and forearms. She’d just pulled her wits about her enough to stomp the holy hell out of the guy’s foot when something struck the side of her head.

  The world exploded into a disorienting blur of shapes and colors and pain.

  Rising above the pain, though, she felt anger—hot, indignant fury at being struck, at feeling utterly powerless against the strong arms that held her like a vise. She embraced it, forging it into the iron of her will as she reached out, drawing energy indiscriminately until she felt she would explode with it.

  She let it go with a wordless yell. Telekinetic force exploded outward from her like a bomb, tearing through the air with a clap and a boom. The two Reds blasted away from her like dolls caught in a hurricane.

  A wave of exhaustion rolled over her. She bent to scoop up her staff and fell to one knee, her vision swimming with spots.

  Move! she screamed at her suddenly uncooperative body. MOVE!

  She planted her staff and pulled herself back to her feet.

  Footsteps behind her. She spun and let loose a blast of force before she even had a chance to properly aim.

  The attack clipped one of the three men advancing on her, sending him corkscrewing through the air. The effort sent her staggering back down to one knee. One of the others kicked her staff aside and descended on her, taking her throat in one hand and driving her smoothly to the floor.

  Her head slammed to the concrete, and she sputtered for breath as her vision danced with stars. The hand tightened around her throat with an iron grip.

  As she struggled weakly and looked up through her darkening vision, she could’ve sworn her attacker’s eyes were glinting with a reddish hue as he grinned a wolfish grin and cooed, “My, my, what a bad girl you’ve been.”

  Seven

  Something barked at the edge of Rachel’s awareness—a crack of thunder, followed by two more in rapid succession. Gunshots.

  Whose?

  She reeled in her extended senses and pulled herself back to her body. Her attacker lay slumped over her, two-hundred-plus pounds of warm, dead weight.

  A soft thunk and a groan.

  “Mmm.” Michael’s voice, thickly gagged. “Mmm!”

  “I know, dude,” someone said to her left in a loud whisper. “Phase Two!”

  She couldn’t see past her attacker’s bulk. She pushed at him, her head swimming. Something warm dripped onto her neck. The guy on top of her had a neat bullet hole in the side of his head.

  She jerked reflexively, her stomach turning over, and pushed again, frantically.

  A dark-haired man appeared at the edge of her vision—the same guy she’d seen being hauled into the base, she realized. “It’
s all right, sweet—”

  He cut off in mid-sentence, whirled around, and raised a weapon toward something she couldn’t see. Three more shots cracked out.

  She struggled harder. With a mighty heave, she rolled the slack body off of her just as the dark-haired man lowered his weapon and turned to face her.

  She extended a palm toward him, preparing to reach out and wrap him in her will. The guy clearly wasn’t on team Red, but he seemed to be one to shoot first and ask questions later. She wasn’t keen to wait to find out what he thought of her.

  She extended her senses. Nothing. Apparently, her surprise showed.

  He raised a single finger for pause, holding a knife reverse-grip with the other digits, then he let his gun hang loose on its sling and reached up to tug his shirt collar down, revealing a lean chest and a tattoo of a simple kite shield set in a circle.

  A glyph?

  *

  An easy grin slipped over his mouth. “Call me superstitious, but I do what I can to avoid surprises, sweetheart.”

  Her frown deepened. His grin followed suit. Did this guy know what she was? Either way, he was an ignorant fool if he thought that glyph would protect him.

  He let go of his shirt and took his weapon back up.

  In a moment of heart-wrenching panic, she let out the energy she’d gathered in a tidal rush of force that sent him flying. He hit the ground rolling, then thumped to a halt against the wall behind him.

  “How’s that for a surprise, asshole?”

  She scrambled to her feet and over to Michael’s cell as quickly as she could manage and placed her hand over the lock. Michael scurried to the side of the cell, crying something through his gag, but his concerns were unnecessary. As exhausted as she was from so much channeling, blowing the lock would’ve been a pricey way of saving a few seconds.

  Instead, she let her mind trickle into the keyhole like hot wax, creeping through every nook and cranny until the tumblers aligned and the cylinder simply turned with the faintest application of telekinetic force.