Power Mage 4

by Hondo Jinx

  “Excuse me, gentlemen,” the blonde called, twiddling her fingers toward the sentries. “I do hate to interrupt, but I was wondering if—”

  “Back in the fucking trailer, bitch!” the deep voice bellowed, and that’s when Brawley realized whose voice it was.

  “Sorry!” the blonde squeaked, slipping back into the trailer and slamming the door.

  Brawley tried again to break free. Was there some way to supercharge the drone and boost its power?

  The fence gate opened with a squeak, and Jarvis strode into view. The big Carnal scowled up at the camera. “That’s a fucking drone!”

  The other man appeared beside him, holding an AR across his body. He squinted up at the camera, mouth open with confusion. “A drone? No, it’s a—wait a second…” He tilted his head. “No shit. It is a drone.”

  Brawley was pissed. What the hell had happened to the drone? Why had he lost control? And why the hell hadn’t he thought to put some kind of self-destruct device in this thing?

  Next time, he would. Live and learn, as they say.

  Of course, the only trouble with live and learn was you had to live long enough to learn.

  The sentry raised his AR and chuckled. “Watch this, man. Bye-bye, little dro—”

  Jarvis batted the man’s barrel aside. “What are you, a fucking retard? That thing’s cloaked. Climb up there and get it.”

  “Climb up there?”

  Jarvis took the man’s rifle, grabbed him by the collar, and shoved him toward the fence and out of Brawley’s view. “Get climbing, or I’ll throw you up there.”

  Brawley cursed. Jarvis would give the drone to Cherry, who would drill through the cloak and trace the thing. And since Cherry had already seen Brawley use telekinetic force, evidence of Seeker and Gearhead efforts would make him all kinds of curious.

  And that, Brawley could not afford.

  He heard the chain link shaking as the man scaled the fence, coming for the drone.

  Sneering up at the camera, Jarvis flipped Brawley the double bird. “You just screwed the pooch, buddy.”

  And Brawley’s perspective jerked away, half covered by the hand that closed over the drone.

  27

  “If they’re coming for us, why not just wait for them?” Nina said, double-checking her extra mags. The stubby Mac-10 lay on the table before her.

  “No,” Brawley said.

  “Husband,” Sage said. “Perhaps Nina is correct. We could prepare a defensive position and construct an ambush.”

  Brawley shook his head. “We fight here, it’s going to make one hell of a psionic racket. Somebody’s going to notice. The Order, the FPI, bounty hunters, maybe even the Tiger Mage himself. And it doesn’t matter who notices because the others will follow. But Blanton Cherry has that whole ranch cloaked. We fight there, tucked away from the world.”

  The girls nodded. They were on edge but taking it well. All of them, even Frankie, who had never been in a fight.

  Jamaal shuffled in from the hallway, looking bleary-eyed. “Did you say Blanton Cherry?” Then he glanced around at everyone gearing up with firearms and hand grenades. “Oh shit. What have you people gotten into?”

  “You know Cherry?” Brawley said.

  “I know of him,” Jamaal said. “Everyone in the Order does. We’ve been hunting him for years. But Blanton Cherry is an alias. Man’s real name is Burdett Cobb. Started out as a garden variety con man and smuggler, then hooked up with the Psionic Cartel. He’s an expert at concealment. He had this machine that would cloak people, vehicles, anything.”

  “I saw it,” Brawley said, and quickly explained the situation.

  When Jamaal heard about the blonde and the fenced-in trailers, he frowned. “Son of a bitch is at it again. He’s a human trafficker. That’s how he got in with the Cartel. He ran an operation in Arizona, just outside of Nogales, smuggling girls back and forth over the border. Young psi mages. Runaways, mostly. He hobbled them and kept them locked up in this place he called La Hacienda. Held underground auctions on the Dark Lattice. Highest bidders got to come out to La Hacienda and crack the girls’ strands.” Jamaal shook his head, and his angry expression suddenly shifted to disgust. “Of course, some of them paid extra for the double boost.”

  “Double boost?” Frankie asked.

  “Fuck and kill,” Callie said. “My uncle told me about La Hacienda. He always worried something like that would happen to me.” The lithe cat girl holstered her massive Desert Eagle and swept a grenade off Brawley’s kitchen table. “Let’s kill these assholes.”

  “I appreciate your enthusiasm, darlin,” Brawley said, “but I need you to take care of something else.”

  Callie narrowed her amber eyes. “I can do this. You can count on me.”

  “I know I can,” Brawley said, “which is why I need you to watch my back. Me and Remi are going to hit Cherry fast and hard.”

  “Hell yeah!” Remi shouted. “Fast and hard. Just the way I like it.”

  “I reckon Cherry’s at the ranch house,” Brawley said. “It’ll take him a minute to penetrate the cloak. We gotta hit him before he can get organized. Callie, I need you and Nina to set up just north of the trailers. There are a couple of guards there, and a bunch of people down the road at the quarry. If anybody tries to join the fight, pin them down and hold the line.”

  Nina nodded. “Kill them?”

  Brawley nodded. “If they put up a fight.”

  “Cool,” Nina said. “Just wanted to make sure.”

  Brawley couldn’t help but grin. What a fierce tribe of women he’d assembled.

  “One problem with your plan, handsome,” Remi said. “You and I are Carnals. We’ll get to Cherry way faster than these two will reach the trailers.”

  “I’ll take them in the Ford,” Frankie volunteered, “and if anyone drives up from the quarry, I’ll hack their vehicles.”

  Brawley looked at his newest wife for a second. Frankie looked ready but had no experience with this sort of thing.

  Oh well. Gotta start somewhere. “Sounds good, darlin.”

  “I will also go, husband,” Sage said, removing the slimline Glock from her little black carry purse. “I can cloak my sister-wives, sense the best path to our objective, and analyze any unexpected developments.”

  Brawley nodded. “Good thinking.”

  “Give me one of those bullpups?” Jamaal said, gesturing toward the stubby MDRs lined up against the wall.

  Brawley handed him a weapon, but said, “You’re not coming with us.”

  “Bullshit,” Jamaal said. He examined the weapon quickly and expertly. Brawley couldn’t help but notice how smoothly the man was suddenly moving, all the stiffness seemingly gone in an instant, the old warrior coming to life again on the doorstep of combat. “I was kicking in doors and killing assholes when you were still just a twinkle in your daddy’s eye.”

  “Which is why I need you to stay here,” Brawley said, “or rather, down at my parents’ house. Protect them. Wake up Pa and Hazel and Tammy. Let them know what’s going on. Cherry might could attack. He might even be on his way now.”

  Brawley considered handing Jamaal the golden key and telling him to take everybody to Red Haven. But he instantly rejected the idea. Partly because he didn’t know if the key would even work for someone else but mostly because his gut told him it was a terrible idea.

  “All right,” Brawley said. “Everybody good?”

  Nods all around.

  “I wish we had more time to hash out our plans, but we have to strike now.”

  More nods. His people were ready.

  “Cherry’s got a bunch of people over there. A telepath, a cryokinetic, probably a Gearhead, and a whole passel of vicious-ass fuggles. And at least one Carnal. Maybe more.”

  “Headshots, then,” Jamaal said, sighting down the MDR.

  Remi nodded. “Ruby crowns all around.”

  A tense silence descended as everyone finished gearing up. Jamaal and a few of the girls slippe
d into body armor.

  Brawley drew his arms full of telekinetic force, loaded his skull with glowing red rounds, and geared up as he had for Red Haven, except he added an AK and instead of the Glock, he holstered the Peacemaker.

  This was shaping up to be a range war. He would carry the weapon of his forefathers into battle.

  Outside, he beckoned the collies and loosed the hunting hounds and told the mixed pack what to do.

  The dogs turned as one and headed toward his parents’ house. Jamaal followed after, eating the ground with wide, smooth strides, his limp temporarily forgotten.

  Then Brawley saw the cats strolling in this direction and told them to join the dogs. They were just a bunch of half-feral felines, but if Cherry attacked, Brawley wanted all the help he could get. Those cats would hide outside the house, pounce at the last second, and go straight for the eyes.

  He glanced toward the barn. If he had more time, he would set Redbone and the other horses free, too.

  And that’s when the idea occurred to him.

  Maybe…

  A minute later, Brawley and Remi were deeply cloaked and sprinting westward across the moonlit range.

  “Fuck yeah, handsome. You know how to get a girl’s heart beating fast. I’m ready to kill. I just wish we had time to stop and fuck.”

  Me too, darlin,” he said. “Afterward, we’ll double down and celebrate with an orgy.”

  “Sweet,” Remi said. “Congrats on bonding, by the way. And oh, that was awkward as fuck, thank you very much.”

  “What?”

  “We were sitting around with your parents, eating ice cream and listening to Tammy and Nina sing. Then, wham-o, we’re all cumming hard. Nina really hit the high notes.”

  Brawley laughed.

  “How’s Frankie in the sack?” Remi asked.

  “Hot,” Brawley said. “Super hot.”

  “Mmm,” Remi said, grinning playfully. “I know she’s straight, but it’s my personal mission to turn her.”

  “That’s between you and her, darlin.” Then he laughed again, realizing just how ridiculous their conversation was in context with what they were doing. “You do realize we’re about to waste a lot of people, right?”

  Remi grinned, savagely beautiful. “Why do you think I’m so horny?”

  “I love you, Remi Dupree.”

  “I love you, too, handsome. Heads up.”

  They cleared the barbed wire fence without breaking stride and entered Widow Callahan’s acreage.

  Sprinting up a rocky ridge, Brawley felt them out there in the darkness.

  Not Cherry’s crew.

  Widow Callahan’s neglected cattle, the Angus he’d seen while flying the drone.

  He could feel the neglect they had been suffering, feel their hunger and desperation. Not wanting them to panic, he reached out to the Angus with calming vibes.

  And yet the herd started to bolt when he and Remi bounded over the ridge.

  Brawley double-tapped his Bestial strand and stopped the herd with a sharp command.

  “Neat trick,” Remi said, coming to a stop beside him.

  The cattle blinked at Brawley expectantly.

  He beamed his will at the herd, focusing on the bulls but also broadcasting to the steers and heifers. The cows and calves he cut aside with separate orders.

  Then he and Remi charged once more into the night.

  Quickly, he reached out and gut-checked his other wives. He could sense them off to the south, driving through the darkness at the proper speed. Sage would be guiding them, holding the target in her mind, dictating pace, and helping Frankie to weave through obstacles and hidden dangers.

  With another squeeze of Seeker juice, he wondered how things were going back on the ranch. He didn’t get much in return. A sense of tension but no alarm. It would have to be enough for now.

  Brawley came over the rise and hit the dirt.

  Remi slammed to the ground beside him, and they low-crawled forward until they were tucked behind a squat boulder.

  Three hundred yards away, Widow Callahan’s ranch house was all lit up like a Friday night football game.

  28

  The driveway was packed with pickup trucks. A bunch of guys—maybe forty or fifty—stood among the trucks, holding rifles and shotguns, looking like a two-roster gang of deer hunters getting ready to put on an epic drive.

  Of course, most folks didn’t hunt deer with automatic rifles and combat shotguns. And most drives didn’t start with a big, ugly Carnal shaking a sledgehammer overhead and bellowing from atop a tailgate, “Two groups! Roscoe’s crew, you hit the farmhouse. My crew, we hit the trailer.”

  Brawley’s arms crackled, ready to unleash telekinetic hell. He considered releasing his entire telekinetic strand. At this range, he could open the choke and waste a bunch of these assholes.

  But he didn’t see Blanton Cherry anywhere. And he couldn’t risk killing Cherry outright. Not in the opening volley. Because if Cherry died, the overarching cloak might vanish, and the rest of the psionic battle would register all the way to San Antonio.

  Brawley scanned the group, looking for Cherry but not seeing him anywhere.

  Come on, you sneaky son of a bitch. Where are you?

  Remi lay prone beside him. She shouldered the AK and slid the barrel across the top of the stone.

  “What’s the move, handsome?” she whispered.

  Brawley raked his eyes back and forth. Where was Cherry? Was he in the ranch house? Had he bailed altogether, leaving his men to sort this out?

  Whatever the case, Brawley couldn’t wait much longer. Pretty soon, all hell was going to break loose, and after that, he would lose the element of surprise.

  “I gotta get closer,” he said.

  Remi nodded and leaned into her weapon again. “You move, I cover.”

  Cloaking hard, Brawley rose and sprinted forward, knowing Cherry’s men would be less likely to spot something coming straight at them versus something charging at an angle.

  As he sprinted, he continued to scan the gang of killers.

  Standing atop the tailgate, Jarvis bellowed, “We aren’t taking any chances. Kill everybody. Men, women, kids. I don’t give a shit. Kill the fucking dogs. Then burn everything.”

  That son of a bitch needs to die, Brawley thought—and then, with a jolt of excitement, he spotted Cherry standing between the short-haired telepath and a mean-looking guy with close-cropped black hair at the edge of the drive, half-hidden behind the engine block of a pickup truck.

  But before Brawley could swing his telekinetic crosshairs to the other side, Blanton Cherry jerked with surprise and threw himself behind the truck. But that wasn’t all. Because Cherry vanished mid-dive, going invisible just prior to slipping behind the pickup.

  That was aggravating.

  “They’re here!” Cherry’s voice rang out.

  Brawley emptied both arms.

  A second later, the snowplow of Brawley’s massive telekinetic blast slammed into the formation with a tremendous bang, crunching metal and smashing glass. Trucks hopped and jerked and smashed into each other like hammers against anvils. One jacked-up Chevy pitched into the air, tumbling away and flattening a bloody swath through the field of assholes.

  All around the trucks, men’s bodies twisted and snapped and pitched into the air. Bodies tore open, hurling guts. Others folded in half at strange angles as if they had suddenly developed hinged joints midway up their shins or thighs or midsections.

  Remi lit up the night with her AK.

  Brawley followed suit, raking the bullpup’s blazing barrel back and forth as he sprinted over the rough ground.

  Since he was attempting headshots while sprinting over rough terrain, most of his rounds went high or wide. But others drove home, bestowing ruby crowns on half a dozen of Cherry’s assholes.

  When the AK’s bolt locked back, Brawley let it fall from his hands, dropped to the ground, and unslung the MDR.

  At the same second, Cherry’s men sca
mpered for cover and opened fire, igniting the night in frantic muzzle blasts.

  Something small and dark arched over Brawley’s head and disappeared among the southern-most edge of the driveway.

  “Grenade!” someone yelled.

  A blinding explosion rocked the night. Brawley had never seen or heard a grenade detonate in real life. The sound was tighter than a gunshot and much louder. Even from this distance, he felt the force of the explosion vibrate through the ground and air. Shattered bodies rained down near the blast.

  Roaring commands, Jarvis charged. He was covered in blood and snarling with fury, sprinting straight at Brawley with the big sledgehammer in one fist. What a dumb fucker, bringing a hammer to a gunfight.

  Brawley swung his rifle, pinned his sights on the Carnal, and pulled the trigger.

  But at the same instant, Brawley’s head jerked violently as if he’d been kicked by a stallion. His head filled with light and pain. His face shattered, caving in on itself. A bullet had punched through his cheekbone, blown out his jaw, and smashed into his upper body, nicking his clavicle, burrowing through his lung, and lodging in his guts.

  The shot stunned him for a second. His head rang, briefly disoriented. His lung collapsed, his heart fluttered, and his mouth filled with blood. His whole body shuddered around the tunnel the projectile had carved through him.

  An instant later, his skull reconfigured itself, shards of shattered bone clicking into place and fusing together, good as new, even as his body sealed the wound and inflated his lung.

  Everything was gunshots and pitching sand and hot lead whistling close overhead.

  Remi tossed another grenade, and the blast bought Brawley a second.

  Spotting cover, he lifted off the ground—and took another devastating shot to the face.

  His head exploded with the crunching of bones and an eruption of bright sparks. Only this time, a bullet hadn’t done the damage.

  A sledgehammer had.

  Sprinting with Carnal speed, Jarvis had closed the gap while Brawley was recovering from the gunshot.