Manny’s eyes glazed over at the mention of magic, but he got the gist of the message. “We’d be leaving our allies in a bad spot if we bug out,” he said.
“Also, I’m not sure our ‘escape hatch’ will work,” I said. “At that distance, the energy requirement would be tremendous. It would be like juggling hand grenades.”
We were interrupted by a polite rapping at the door. Mike opened it to reveal Lady Birdsong and a middle-aged man in uniform.
We ushered them in and sat around the table.
Lady Birdsong started the conversation. “We are surrounded by Saudi military. They have tanks and anti-aircraft batteries that preclude an evacuation. All the local nationals have been released. Currently, we have only about fifty embassy personnel remaining.”
“Ladybird, can’t you just give them the magic lamp back?” asked Manny. “It’s just a fucking good luck charm. It can’t be that valuable.”
Lady Birdsong took a deep breath before answering, “I have been ordered to maintain control of the object until such time as it can be neutralized. Until then, it is considered a weapon of mass destruction. As such, it cannot remain in the hands of persons who have misused it.”
“Without the imprisoned genie,” I said, “the vessel is no danger.” At her look, I added, “I’m fairly certain the genie won’t be returning soon.”
“‘Fairly certain’ is hardly enough assurance for me to countermand my orders,” said Lady Birdsong.
Her questioning look irritated me. Should I tell her we had entrapped the genie in a home-made lamp? Then I would have to tell her we held the secret to manufacturing genie traps. Why not throw in that I could manufacture gold at industrial levels? Or any number of extremely valuable elements?
If Lady Birdsong and her superiors were willing to risk war for an empty genie bottle, what more would they risk for someone who could mass produce those bottles?
“Forget arguing about Indiana Jones artifacts,” said Mike, “and brief us on the tactical situation. Is there a back door to the embassy?”
“There are no other exits,” said the SAS officer, “and anti-aircraft batteries preclude evacuation by helo. Our armored vehicles cannot drive over the blockades they have set up.”
“And what are the Americans doing?” I asked.
“After a briefing by Mr. Jonathan, the US government has decided to urge a ‘diplomatic solution’ to the conflict and offered to broker a deal with the Saudis.”
“A deal brokered by Mr. Jonathan would be worse than no deal,” I said.
“You guys have any glassblowers in this dump?” asked Manny. At our surprised looks, he continued, “Give the bastards a fake genie bottle to get them off our case until we can blow this joint.”
Mike raised an eyebrow, but I shook my head. Sure, I had made a globe that could hold the genie. But that had taken almost all of my strength, coupled with all the magic I could channel from a magic sandstorm. Even if I wanted to risk revealing these talents, creating a fake would deplete all my magical resources—resources we might need to escape.
“Creating a convincing duplicate is beyond our capabilities,” said Lady Birdsong.
“If we can’t fake ‘em out, and we can’t run away, we’ll have to fight ‘em,” said Manny.
“Thanks to Luna, we still have our handguns,” said Mike. “Can you give us anything else from your armory?”
The SAS office briefed Mike and Manny on the firearms available. Soon we were supplied with several L1911 carbines and a dozen thirty-round clips.
The SAS officer tried to hand me one, but I refused.
“Princess, this is no time to be a pacifist.”
“I’m no pacifist,” I said, “but I’m such a bad shot that I’m more of a danger to my friends than I am to my foes.”
I popped my razor-sharp claws and held them in front of his eyes. “I prefer the weapons I was born with.”
He gulped, then nodded agreement.
When Logan woke, we briefed him on the situation. Unfortunately, he had no insight to offer that might resolve the situation.
Lady Birdsong’s phone rang and she answered. Her dour look improved and she smiled as she hung up.
“Good news. Our government deployed a ship for our evacuation.”
“A ship?” I asked. “Isn’t the Gulf over five hundred kilometers away? Even if they sent helos, your SAS man said the Saudis have anti-aircraft weapons.”
“But this ship has a squad of MI-13 magicians on board. Graduates of our Academy.”
“You have a magic academy?” asked Mike. “Like Hogwarts?”
“What,” interrupted Logan, “are we going to be rescued by a bunch of teenagers on flying brooms?”
“Nothing like that. These are adult magicians trained to the peak of their abilities.”
“How are they going to help us?”
“Not with flying brooms, certainly. We have a teleportation team that can set up a portal between the ship and our location.”
Fifteen minutes later, we had all gathered in a vault on the ground floor. This was deemed to be the safest location for the transfer.
It was also the location where the embassy held all their classified material. As soon as we entered, both Logan and I said, “C-4!”
The SAS officer nodded and said, “We’re prepared to destroy the embassy to prevent any invaders from getting their hands on our materials.”
“Timer or self-destruct?” asked Manny.
“Both.”
The vault room was crowded, with nearly fifty people inside. A clear space against one wall was roped off.
It was fascinating to watch how human magicians created a portal. Instead of one person performing the spell, it seemed a team of ten magicians on the ship were handling the incantation and spellwork.
At first, it looked like a projection on the wall, dim and blurry and jumping up and down by six feet or more. Then as the distant team poured more energy into the spell, the portal brightened and came into focus. It was like watching a large-screen monitor cycle through progressively higher and higher resolutions.
Suddenly, the image shifted from 4K to something even better. The image was now a hole in the air that showed the chanting group of magicians.
One magician, head nodding up and down in synchrony with the bobbing of the portal, suddenly made a leap through. He had a harness affixed to his back with a long silken rope that was tied to a stanchion on the far wall of the ship.
He just barely made it. The portal shifted while he was in mid-air, dropping suddenly as his feet cleared it.
His silken rope did not survive. The edge of the portal cut cleanly through the material, a warning that this was a dangerous escape route.
I examined the spell while the red-haired young man gathered himself. Why was the portal moving up and down so violently?
Of course—it matched the motion of the ship as it bobbed up and down in the distant waters. But why didn’t they use a compensation algorithm?
It would be so easy to adjust, so easy to tweak. But this wasn’t my spell. Any touch by an outsider might wreck it. I kept my magic to myself.
“Splendid work, Warrant Officer Cameron!” said Lady Birdsong. “Quickly now, stabilize the portal so we can evacuate.”
Warrant Officer Cameron blushed deep red. “I’m afraid this is the best stability we can obtain at this distance, milady.”
Lady Birdsong looked down at the neatly severed length of rope, gulped loudly, then nodded.
“I’m sure it will prove sufficient.”
“It looks like jumping from a small boat to a ship’s ladder,” said Manny. “It’s just a matter of timing.”
Mike nodded at Manny. He stepped to one side of the portal and motioned Manny to the other side.
“We’ll time it for you and toss you through at the right moment,” said Mike.
“Don’t worry, Birdie, I won’t let you get cut in half,” Manny said with a smile as he held out his hand.
/> Lady Birdsong gritted her teeth, tucked the genie bottle into her purse, and took Manny’s hand.
“One, two, three,” said Mike and Manny in unison. On three, they tossed Lady Birdsong through the portal.
The ambassador was next, then the rest of the embassy staff lined up.
If they could hold the portal, we would all be safe soon.
The senior SAS officer moved over to examine one of the monitors. “The crowd is pushed right up to the main gates. But they’re leaving a space open in front. Are they afraid it’s mined?”
Then with a gasp, he said, “No! They’re stoning a naked woman at our gates.”
Logan and I looked over the dwindling group and said in unison, “Where’s Alisha?”
27
Logan and I raced from the room. At our rear, I heard the SAS officer say, “We can’t keep the portal open much longer!”
I hit the huge double doors of the entrance at full werewolf speed, snapping the three-inch-thick tongue of the lock like it was a toothpick. My wrists broke, but they had healed before I reached the driveway to the main gate.
Logan was inches behind me as I jumped to the top of an abandoned limo, using the roof as a springboard to fly more than twenty feet up and over the immensely thick carbon steel gate.
The tingle of high voltage tickled my stomach as I curled over the top of the gate. There was a thump, then a crackle as Logan hit the gate in an attempt to duplicate my leap. Voltage that would kill a human would only knock him out for a moment, but I couldn’t wait for him to recover.
I landed on the balls of my feet and crouched down in front of Alisha. Somewhere along the way, I had shifted to my hybrid form—still human-shaped, but much larger, much stronger, covered in fur, with fangs and talons extended.
Alisha’s arms and face were covered in sulfuric acid, and her skin was peeling away. Lord, I had no cure for this type of damage.
In a snap decision, I neutralized the acid with magic. If I couldn’t cure it, at least the damage would not continue.
A thrown stone hit me from the rear. I turned and snarled at the crowd, all traces of compassion gone.
Several members of the crowd turned to run away, fearful of my monstrous form. Others, either too stupid or too caught up in mob outrage, continued throwing stones at me and Alisha.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I caught a rock, then visually retraced its path to a swarthy middle-aged man with a fringe beard and bad teeth.
My return pitch hit him square in the forehead, cracking his skull like an egg and splattering all those around him with blood and brain matter. Thank the Lord for high school softball practice.
Three more cast stones with the same deadly rebounds gave the crowd pause. They pulled back slowly.
Then I used my loudspeaker spell and howled loudly enough to shatter eardrums. The murderous mob fled.
The soldiers moved up, intent on killing the unclean animal guarding the British Embassy. I loosed my bullet-killer spell before they could open fire.
The chorus of impotent clicks brought a smile to my jaws, and dozens of soldiers decided to retreat.
That still left hundreds of opponents. And the tanks were turning their turrets toward us.
Alisha whimpered at my rear. I pushed down the urge to race to the tank, rip the hatch off and feast on the blood and entrails of my enemies.
I stepped over Alisha’s body and grabbed the central pillar of the main gate. I was prepared for the shock, and the electricity flowed over my body and into the ground. I used the mental command I had learned in prison, the one that manipulated electronic locks, and the gate clicked and started opening slowly. On the other side of the gate, Logan was finally getting up.
I turned back to the crowd, astride the body of the girl I had come here to save and howled again, even louder than before. All the unprotected soldiers and civilians scattered under the force of my howl.
Even the tanks halted in place. Logan stepped through the gap in the gate, risking electrocution yet again to get to Alisha.
He picked her up with a gentleness I had never seen in him before, then slipped through the gate.
I followed him and urged, “Get her to the portal as fast as possible. I’m going the jam the gate.”
Once Logan was twenty feet away, I could use magic again. The gate slammed shut under the force of my spell and werewolf strength. Then I used the still-flowing electricity to weld the two sides together. This gate would never open again.
I raced behind Logan, catching up to him at the vault door.
We entered and slammed the vault door behind us. My mind was already racing through our next steps: Get Alisha through the portal, into the ship’s infirmary, maybe I could heal her more serious injuries—
Then the quiet hit me, the lack of ship sounds and scents. A quick look around showed it was just Mike, Manny, Logan, Alisha, Warrant Officer Cameron, and me. All other embassy personnel had escaped through the portal.
The portal was down. We were trapped in here.
Warrant Officer Cameron looked at us with dread in his eyes. “We couldn’t maintain the portal. Several of the group collapsed and won’t recover quickly.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “The outer gate is still up, we have a bit of time. Maybe we can hold off until the magicians restore the portal.”
Two massive thumps shook the floor like an earthquake.
Mike and Manny exchanged a look.
“High explosive tank rounds. The outer gate is down,” said Mike.
“Can this day get any worse?” I asked.
Then a high-pitched alarm sounded.
“What the hell is that?”
Warrant Officer Cameron said, “Breaching the outer gates set off the auto-destruct timer. We have between nine and seventeen minutes until the C-4 blows.”
I bit my tongue to avoid repeating my earlier question. Sometimes the gods of irony seem to take a special interest in a part-time princess.
“Options?” I asked the group.
Manny shook his head, and said, “We might be able to dis-arm the C-4 charges in here.”
He didn’t sound confident.
Mike said, “We can make another portal.” He touched the portal coin hidden by his shirt.
Warrant Officer Cameron just shook his head. “I have no spells for this situation. Without the rest of my team, I can’t create a portal.”
Logan was sobbing over Alisha. Her heartbeat was getting weaker. She might not last until the self-destruct.
“Warrant Officer Cameron,” I said, “will you promise to not reveal anything you see here today?” I flashed the sign of a magician’s promise.
There was a moment’s hesitation, as urgency fought duty. Then he nodded, made the sign, and said, “I swear that I will never reveal to anyone what I witness here today.”
“Okay. Mike, pull out your portal coin. We’re going to make a jump.”
Mike was puzzled, but pulled out the coin. “Won’t this just be short range? Even if we get out of this locked vault, you’re probably the only one who’s fast enough to get outside the blast radius.”
“With Cameron’s help, and a lot of energy, it will be long distance.”
Mike opened his mouth to question, then closed it abruptly. “I wouldn’t understand your explanation. Just tell me what to do.”
“Logan. Logan. Logan!” I shouted. That got his attention. “We’re going to use one of Mason’s gadgets to portal directly to our hospital in Nevada. As soon as the gap opens, race through and take Alisha into the emergency room. Tell them she’s been doused in caustic chemicals and will need neutralizing agents.”
Manny wore the dazed look most humans get in the presence of magic.
“Manny, we’re going to open a door to a tunnel. Logan goes first, then you follow him as fast as possible.”
Manny nodded and stood behind Logan, who was cradling Alisha in his arms.
“Mike, stand here in front of me.
Cameron, stand to Mike’s left and start your portal spell.”
“Without a target? Or a link to the destination? Where are you aiming for?”
“Las Vegas.”
“In America? That’s impossible. That’s halfway around the earth. Where will you get the energy to open a portal that long?”
“I’m going to power it with the energy of fifty pounds of C-4 going off.”
“But, but—”
“Shush. If it works, great. If it doesn’t work, it’s been fun.”
Warrant Officer Cameron gulped, then started his chant.
I kicked in my pure oxygen spell, put my left hand on Cameron’s right shoulder, reached around Mike to put my right hand on the portal coin he wore around his neck, and started my part of the spell.
Mike was saying a prayer in slow motion, something about Saint Christopher and travelers. I’d take any help I could get at this point.
Cameron’s chant seemed to slow as my perceptions sped up to superhuman velocity, I fixed the location of the emergency room entrance in my mind, focusing so hard I could see it in front of us.
The image blurred, shimmied, and shook, then solidified.
Now to kick the C-4 in the ass and hope we could make it through the portal before the wave of destruction hit us.
Logan was moving, racing toward the portal, Manny was right behind. Mike, Cameron, and I moved forward in lockstep.
I turned and looked over my shoulder as I counted down.
Three, two, one!
28
I woke in the ICU, my head swathed in bandages and my eyes completely covered. My entire body ached in a way I hadn’t felt since my first shift.
I wiggled fingers and toes, and felt joy when they moved. Okay, no spinal damage. That would have taken a full shift to heal from.
I tried to raise my arms to remove the eye coverings, but they were tied down.
Anger surged, but the scents of Mom, Dad, and Christopher calmed me down.
Dad touched my wrist and Mom stroked my bare cheek under the bandages.
I tried to speak, but my throat was raw and my tongue felt like sandpaper.
Lycan Legacy - 4 - 5 - 6: Princess - Progeny - Paladin: Book 4 - 5 - 6 in the Lycan Legacy Series Page 73