After being in town three days, I didn’t know exactly where Anderson street was, but I didn’t need to. Maksohm sprinted all out up the slope, leading the way, and we all kept up with him. The agent that reported initially struggled to keep up, answering the questions that Maksohm snapped out.
“When?”
“We noticed the formation fifteen minutes ago, sir.”
“How far along is it?”
“Not quite shard shape, just the first phase when I last saw it, sir.”
“Containment barrier?”
“Someone tried to put one up but I don’t know how effective that was, sir.”
“Rena!” Maksohm turned his head just enough to speak to her. “Can you deal with this?”
“If the shard has formed its core, yes, it will be quick and easy to destroy it.”
“As soon as you can, do it, don’t wait on direction from me.”
“Understood.”
Three streets up, and I could see the news had spread already, people panicking and quickly moving away from the area, shouting at each other to go, get down the slope, retreat to the far side of the city. Quite a number of them streamed past us, willy-nilly, bumping shoulders with us, yelling at each other, sometimes cursing, the words loud enough to beat against my eardrums. I went ahead of Rena, protecting her from the worst of it, as I was afraid in this rush someone would knock her down. They nearly sent me to the rough cobblestone streets several times. Some part of me felt relief they had the sense to get out quick, to not try and carry anything with them, because we’d already seen enough death due to a shard.
Maksohm led us over two streets, up one more and then I had the vantage to see over the roofs and spot the shard still forming up. It stood near the barrier but not, perhaps three buildings away, inside the city limits. It didn’t have the strength yet to create minions, did it? I didn’t think so but we’ve never seen a shard in its infant stages before either. We’d always come in after the thing had formed.
It looked strange, more like a dust devil than anything, no form or real substance to it. The dust had an eerie shade to it, bright green mixed with dirt brown, shades of silver and black—a whirling mass of light and darkness, color and nothingness, and it twisted my stomach to see it.
Several agents appeared in and around the shard, some standing on the rooftops, and they tried to put up a barrier. I could see the forms of it start from the ground up, and then something would get thrown at them, and the barrier would falter and splinter like falling glass.
Maksohm swore. “Vee, you’re loudest, tell them to retreat three streets back.”
“ALL AGENTS PULL BACK THREE STREETS,” Vee obediently bellowed. “I REPEAT ALL AGENTS PULL BACK THREE STREETS IMMEDIATELY.”
I shook my head a little, feeling deaf. Thunderation, but this woman had a pair of lungs on her. “Repeat it again, Vee, I think the people on the moon didn’t quite catch you the first time.”
She gave me a quick grin.
“Apparently they didn’t,” Maksohm growled in aggravation, “as only some of them responded to that order. Chi, get up top and get those idiots down.”
“Sure thing, sir. Vee, my darling?”
Vee snagged him around the waist and in a move far too smooth, tossed him in the general direction of the nearest roof. Chi caught hold like a cat and scaled up it, running along the tops and yelling for people to get off, orders, back away.
I hoped they listened as this close, with no personal shields up, they were likely to be the shard’s first minions.
I didn’t have the same sense as Rena did about distance, but I could still guesstimate rather well, and it seemed to me that from here she could do her magic well enough. If even my eyes could see it whip around, gaining shape, then certainly hers could. I looked askance at her. Why hadn’t she already moved?
Maksohm half-turned, expression demanding the same answer. “Rena?”
“I can’t,” she growled in frustration, eyes narrowed in concentration. “The core isn’t formed, it’s all just energy and chaos and random strands of elements that it picks up. There’s no schematic, no pattern, nothing I can use yet. As counterproductive as this sounds, we need to let it develop a little more before I can destroy it.”
Our team leader did not like that answer one little bit. He had the sense to not shoot the messenger but he cursed long and loud before he jabbed fingers toward the others. “Get me a perimeter set up and if there’s anyone still left here, get them evacuated. Nora, with me, we need to set up some sort of containment barrier until this thing is formed enough Rena can work with it.”
They sprinted ahead and I felt like I should help with some of those orders, but only in part, because if the shard formed, it would create minions too, and if that happened the only place I needed to be was at Rena’s side.
She stared at it, eyes tracking every flicker, every change, and I didn’t dare speak and risk breaking that concentration. I didn’t even breathe loudly. I stayed as silent and as still as her shadow. And waited.
Rena’s focus had to be on the shard but I watched everything else. I saw Chi get the agents off the roof, and then stay planted there, calling down to the rest of the team if he spotted movement. Sometimes I forgot that Chi’s eyes were good, because in comparison to Rena’s eyes, nothing can quite match up, but he saw far better than the rest of us. Part of being such a good marksman.
Maksohm and Nora between them got a barrier up, and then it failed almost instantly, and I flinched as it did. If even they are having trouble with it—what was going on here?
“At this stage, the shard is drawing on all energy around it,” Rena stated as if I had asked the question aloud. “Even, or perhaps especially, magical energy. They won’t be able to get a barrier up until it reaches the next stage, I would think, and by that point I should be able to destroy it. It’s almost there now. I can see the core half-formed.”
While that sounded good, I had to wonder: “Does that mean that everyone nearby is in danger?”
“Yes. And no. They should be fine if they don’t venture any closer and I can take this thing down fast enough.”
Of course the words were barely out of her mouth before two agents appeared from a side street, spells flying hard and fast, and the forming shard reacted. It flared high and hot, obscuring the area and making it feel oppressive, like a storm system had swept through, pressure rising. I could almost smell the dense humidity of it.
Rena swore under her breath, low enough I didn’t catch the words, just the tone. “It just drained them. They’re both in a mind down.”
I felt like swearing myself and my eyes flicked shut for a moment, fatalistically. “You mean to tell me that two of our mage specialists are down for the count? Are they breathing?”
“Life signs are still there. Uh-oh, three more are coming up from a different direction and I don’t think they’re listening to Maksohm.”
They should have, as I could hear him yelling all the way from here. I had this feeling that after all of this was over, heads would be rolling. Maksohm was not going to take insubordination well, especially when it ended with multiple agents recovering from magical drain.
“And now we have five idiots who are going to be bedridden for the foreseeable future,” Rena growled, vexed. “If Maksohm doesn’t murder them, I will.”
“I think there’s a long line of people who get first crack at them, Rena. The shard?”
“Almost there. Two more minutes, I can evaporate the thing.”
“Hopefully no one else does anything categorically stupid in the next two minutes.”
“If the deities are willing,” and her tone alone said she wouldn’t bet on it.
Vee turned up at the end of the street, in view and cupped her mouth with one hand. “STATUS?”
“TWO MINUTES!” Rena yelled back. “Was that loud enough?”
“Must have been, she just nodded.” Rena was always insecure about people hearing her, for good re
ason. She wasn’t a loud person. “You’re good at this distance, right? You don’t need to be any closer?”
“I’m good.” Her eyes flicked to me for a moment. “After all of this is over, we’re going to talk.”
So she’d caught my fidgeting, eh? And I’d tried so hard to not let on how uncomfortable I felt around her right now. “Okay.”
Two minutes ticked by, and it felt like torture, every breath slow in my lungs, the trickle of sweat down my back itchy and uncomfortable. I felt like I would explode if I didn’t move soon, but I couldn’t. I didn’t dare. My impatience was never worth Rena’s safety.
A snarl of triumph passed Rena’s lips before she started speaking the magical incantation that I’d half-memorized at this point. The shard must have finally reached a stage of semi-completion.
Relieved, I waved both arms over my head, getting Chi’s attention. The archer waved back, and I couldn’t see his expression from this distance, but his body language told me enough. I pointed at Rena in an overly exaggerated movement, then gave a bright thumb’s up.
He caught on quickly enough and turned to yell down at the street. I only caught a few words but I didn’t need to hear him to guess what he said.
The ground around the forming shard cracked and splintered, the buildings coming undone, and I knew that we had a race against time. How much damage could the shard do before Rena destroyed it?
With a hiss, the last word left Rena’s mouth and the shard dissipated like smoke, whirling up with the air and blowing away as if it had never been. She panted a little from speaking so quickly, an infectious grin on her face. “Well, hopefully that didn’t do too much damage, aside from our idiots.”
“May they rest in peace. At least, they’ll be wishing they’re dead after Maksohm gets through with them.” I spoke lightly but I had a feeling I’d be looking for a grave as well when Rena dragged me away for our little ‘talk.’
“We’ll report in,” Rena patted me on the shoulder, smile bright and unnerving, “and do some cleanup, and then we’ll have that chat.”
I gave in with all of the grace of a freshly showered cat. “Fine.”
Bannen kept spooking like a freshly plucked goose headed for the family dinner table. He didn’t make any obvious jumping motions but his eyes and the tic of his jaw gave him away. I’d spent two years with this man, basically attached at the hip, and I knew when he was ready to leap out of his skin. Just what was he hiding from me that made him so unnerved he didn’t want to say anything to me?
I swallowed down a wave of hurt—because really that’s a ridiculous feeling, I had no reason for it at all, I didn’t even know what he kept from me—and ignored it for now. We were still on the job. Feelings and yelling came later. We moved at a jog toward where the shard had been and I took in the area as we moved. The shard hadn’t warped anything yet, too busy forming itself up.
Agents poured in, gathering around the ones collapsed on the street, calling for stretchers and giving emergency aid. I watched them work, bringing the men and women out of danger of a complete magical drain, and a detached part of me wondered how badly this would affect our strategy. I didn’t want to ask, even though a part of me knew the answer.
We caught up with Maksohm, who gave me an aggravated smile. “Thank you, Rena. Expertly done.”
“Sorry I couldn’t do it faster,” I apologized, feeling a smidge guilty. “It’s ridiculously hard to destroy something when it’s in flux like that.”
“I know, don’t apologize, this is not at all your doing, and we would have lost the area if you weren’t so quick. I’m aggrieved at the agents that,” here his voice darkened to a growl, “ignored a standing order and engaged anyway.”
Vee strolled up with a sardonic twist to her mouth. “They were under the impression that because we hadn’t made a move, something had to be wrong, so they stepped in. Young agents. It’s just as well they’re cute, otherwise I’d bash their heads together.”
From the building behind us, Chi neatly flipped himself off the roof and landed with the grace of an alley cat. “We lost five of them because of their rash gung-ho-ness. Do I want to know what that’s going to do to our plan?”
“No,” Maksohm and Nora grumbled at the same time.
I winced. “We’re not going to be able to come anywhere close to our original plan.”
“I asked if I wanted to know, not for the answer,” Chi complained.
No one said the obvious, that this made an already hard situation more desperate, and I found myself glad for that. Words held power; magic taught you that, and words spoken were given power. I didn’t want to tempt fate by saying something. “What now?”
“Now, we write reports on this, clean up, take care of our baby agents that really should know better, and certainly will know better later,” the dark gleam in Maksohm’s eye would scare any soul and I fleetingly felt nervous on behalf of his victims’ sakes, “but the two of you are going straight back to the hotel.”
I blinked at him. “We are?”
“You are,” he agreed benignly, and somehow his expression became more nerve-wracking, “because I absolutely do not like this awkward atmosphere that’s hanging over your heads like a black cloud. You are ordered to talk to each other, and by that I actually mean communicate, not yell, and then kiss and make up. If I make it back to the hotel tonight and find that you haven’t made up, there will be consequences.”
It scared me that he didn’t tell me what consequences. Chi, behind Maksohm, mouthed ‘Don’t ask.’
I managed a tight smile. “Don’t worry. I have every intention of getting to the bottom of this.” I turned that expression on Bannen and he looked back, alarmed. If we didn’t share a very tight magical bond between us, I think he would have bolted.
Actually, he still might try bolting. I grabbed his hand and clamped my fingers around his. They spasmed in my grip, like he wanted to fight me off, but he’d have to break my fingers to get free of me right now. He seemed to realize this and held his hand rigidly still. Most of the time he wouldn’t react like this, he’d twine his fingers with mine, like it was the most natural thing to do. I hated the stiffness, it felt like a personal affront to me. Gritting my teeth against yelling at him on the spot, I turned and marched straight back the way we had come. He followed like a disobedient dog, not fighting me, but dragging his heels the whole way.
Really, what was going on here?!
People passed us as we went, but we weren’t in uniform, so no one thought to stop us, ask for help or information. I could hear them chatter to each other, either asking if it was safe to return or sharing the information they knew. I ignored them all. Not my problem right now.
We went directly into my room at the hotel, where of course Bannen actually dug in his heels, right at the threshold. Turning, I fixed him with a look that promised thumb screws and lye if he didn’t move it. Whatever hesitation he had tried to hold firm, faltered, then died as he shuffled inside and closed the door.
Mostly closed the door, that was, and left it open a crack.
What. The. Sarding. Deity.
I had literally fallen asleep in this man’s arms. Multiple times. We were engaged, technically, even though we didn’t act like it. Did someone say something to him? This awkwardness really ramped up when we hit Turransky’s border, so odds were it happened then, but we weren’t even out of each other’s sight for more than five minutes at a time, so when? No, not important. I stared at him incredulously, waffling between the urge to shake him or put a boot up his arse. Maybe both, both sounded good.
He shuffled in place, actively not looking me in the eyes, staring at the floor. You’d think a circus show lit up the carpet, the way he stared down at it, seemingly mesmerized.
Ever been in silence so oppressive that it made your heartbeat sound obnoxiously loud? Normally people cracked under that kind of silence; they’d say anything that came to mind just to break it up, to get some relief from it. Bannen especia
lly was a poor friend with silence, being a natural chatterbox, so to see him willingly silent for any stretch of time was strange. In fact, if I saw him silent for more than three minutes, I normally checked for a fever.
I let it play out for a moment, willing him to talk to me.
After a solid five minutes of me staring at him and him actively studying the carpet—which might be blushing at this point, poor carpet wasn’t used to this kind of fascination—the urge to put that boot where the sun didn’t shine grew infinitely stronger.
“I’d ask,” I finally said, then watched him jump and felt the world get a little stranger because when was Bannen ever afraid of me? “but I don’t actually know what’s got your spine in a knot. Or why you’re suddenly weird around me. So you’re going to have to find your words and spit it out.”
I could almost see the idea of feeding me a lie cross his face and I crossed my arms while I gave him an unimpressed look. Try it, punk.
Grimacing, he snapped his mouth shut and blew hard through his nose, aggravated and pained all at once.
“I realize,” his voice sounded a little hoarse, “that you’re pushing this because you don’t want us to be awkward around each other, but actually if I fully explain what’s going through my head right now it’s going to be more awkward, which defeats the whole purpose, so can we just pretend that we had the talk? Or I don’t know, let’s just hug this out, I promise to stop acting strange, and we can all just focus on the big baddie over yonder?”
“You clearly don’t understand women at all if you think you can toss that out and I’ll be satisfied,” I opined. Beating it out of him became an increasingly tantalizing idea. How badly could I hurt him and still have him functional tomorrow?
“No,” he sighed and finally lifted his chin to meet my eyes. “You especially. Alright. I don’t really know how you’re going to react or what you’re going to do with this, but if you really, truly want the answer?” He read my expression well enough and drew in a deep breath, eyes flicking shut for a moment, digging deep for courage. His hands flexed at his sides, just once, a quick fist sending the tension in the room ratcheting up several degrees. I knew that gesture, it meant he wanted to grab a weapon, just to have something to hold, like a security blanket. I’d only seen him do that a handful of times, when he felt truly, completely insecure, and there was very little in this world Bannen felt insecure about.
The Void Mage (The Familiar and Mage Book 2) Page 25