“Good plan,” replied the chief.
The area was pretty packed with fae and Temperance was obviously at the front of that pack, but we couldn’t see her from here. There were a few fae goons scanning the area as well. My guess was that they were tasked with making sure they didn’t get flanked.
They’d have to be the first to go.
“Okay, guys,” I said as I continued looking for locations to attack from, “we’re going to need to split up. Each of you has to find a well-hidden spot. Take careful aim and pick off fae one at a time. Don’t just unleash on them or they’ll catch your position.” I continued talking as I made sure my Death Nails were fully stocked. “Three shots and then move.”
“What about me?” asked Methkins.
Honestly, I hadn’t considered him in this plan. Wizards weren’t known for using weaponry, and Methkins didn’t really look like the type who would be useful in a hand-to-hand situation. My thought was to just tell him to scoot and we’d send him a coupon for hotdogs or something by way of a thank you.
But the look on his face told me he was in it to win it.
“Can you shoot a gun?” I asked.
“Never have,” he said, glancing down at my weapon with a face of worry, “but I’m willing to try.”
“Sorry,” I replied, “no time for on-the-job training here. Just come with me and do as I say, agreed?”
He nodded firmly.
“No, wait,” Reaper interjected. “I think it’d be better if he and I worked together. I have an idea, but I’ll need genuine magic to accomplish it.”
“Fine with me,” I said, and then I looked at each of my crew in turn. “Let’s fuck with their heads, boys.”
Chapter 28
Once everyone called in their position as being set, I was ready to give the word to commence firing. It wasn’t exactly the way I wanted to handle this, but five against however many fae were out there wasn’t going to work.
“I don’t suppose we have other cops coming in to help?” I asked hopefully. “There’s an army of fae out here.”
“There are armies of fae throughout the city,” Chief Carter replied. “I told them to stay put and keep the people as safe as possible. Of course, the people are fighting back anyway, so who knows how much the PPD is really helping out there?”
“Got it,” I said. “Well, our plan is only going to help buy you some time. If you have other ideas to clear these fuckers out…” I stopped and winced. “Sorry, Chief. Anyway, tear gas or whatever would be good.”
“Already planned, Piper,” Pecker replied. “We’ve got a number of cadets in the high windows prepping to launch canisters into the crowd right now, in fact.”
“Then we’d better get started,” I said, satisfied that we’d be attacking these guys from multiple positions. “Let’s crack them off, guys.”
I had a feeling that Methkins, Brazen, and Kix were all giggling at my statement. Reaper wouldn’t, obviously, but that was only because he was too mature for that sort of thing.
“You heard the lady,” Brazen said, chuckling. “Let’s crack a few off.”
Yep.
Three fae hit the ground an instant later. They were all sentries, too.
That caught the attention of those closest to them, but before they could react, we placed Death Nails into them as well. This started a chain reaction, though. Fae spun and lifted those automatic weapons that they so sneakily hid. They didn’t even bother to pinpoint where our shots had come from. They just started lighting up everything.
So much for moving to a different position.
“I’m hit,” Kix called out. “Leg only, but holy fuck does that hurt.”
“Hang in there,” I called back. “Fire back if you can; otherwise, scoot back and try to hide yourself.”
“I’ve scanned his position,” Reaper replied. “I can get to him, but it will—”
“No, don’t,” Kix interrupted. “I’ve still got a couple of healing potion bottles on me.”
“Are you sure they’re healing potions?” Brazen asked.
“Shit.”
If he accidentally gulped down one of the concoctions of pain, that would reveal his position to the fae because he’d be screaming. They’d make quick work of him at that point.
“Reaper, how close are you to him?” I asked in a direct connection.
“Close, but I don’t think I can get there without being spotted.”
“Then don’t try. We have to take out the fae first, if we can. Keep doing whatever you were planning to do.” I didn’t wait for his reply before opening to a full connection again. “All right, Kix, you’re going to have to tough it out.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, slurring his words a bit. Blood loss was already hitting him, obviously. “Just need to sleep for a bit.”
“No sleeping, pal,” Brazen yelled back. “We can’t do this without you. Now, get your ass moving or drink one of those fucking bottles. I don’t know if it’s pain instead of healing, but it’s worth a fucking shot.”
“Yeah,” was all Kix said.
“Pecker, can you transport him in?”
“Not without stopping our fluctuations,” he answered, “and they’re getting closer and closer to breaking through already. If we hold up for even a second, we’re busted.”
Damn it. I had an officer bleeding out, an army of fae about to bust through, and…
“Reap, can’t you just transport straight to Kix?”
“I can try,” he said as if just thinking of this for the first time as well. We were under a lot of pressure here, after all. “I’ll at least be able to get close.”
“Do it,” I commanded. “Everyone else, start firing like mad.”
We began unleashing round after round into the fae. They were firing back at us, of course, but we kept plugging away. Their shots weren’t as carefully placed because they were all trying to avoid being hit by us. They had the numbers, but we had the advantage of the proverbial ‘shooting fish in a barrel.’
“I’ve got him and am applying healing,” Reaper announced. “He’s lost a lot of blood, though.”
I direct connected again. “Reap, what were you going to do with Meth?”
“He was drawing up runes to help power me so that I could unleash a large energy pulse, but there wasn’t enough time.”
I fired off a few more rounds and then ducked back behind a wall.
“Piper, I don’t think I can save Kix.”
“Well, you have to, Reap,” I replied fiercely. “Either that or find a way to get him inside that building.”
I didn’t wait for a response from him. If I knew Reaper as well as I thought I did, he’d find a way. Even if…
Oh, damn.
“I’m giving him the potion,” Reaper replied. “Don’t worry about him screaming. I will stun him first.”
Oh, good.
“Smart!”
A few moments later, with projectiles littering the area where I was ‘hiding,’ Reaper announced that Kix was fully healed. I knew I could count on Reaper to do his job.
“That’s great,” I said through our standard broadcast. “Now, we have to figure out how the hell to get through these fae. Where are those fucking canisters, Pecker?”
“We’re trying.”
Right then, the rat-a-tat-tat sound of gunfire stopped. Everything stopped. It was like we’d stepped out of a war zone and into a soundless world of peaceful reprieve.
I glanced around the edge of the building and saw that the fae were all staring off to the right. Even those who were focusing on breaking into the precinct were looking up the street.
Slowly, I turned and spotted what they were seeing.
Another army of fae were incoming.
“You guys seeing this?” I said with a gulp.
Brazen’s was the sole reply.
“We’re fucked.”
Chapter 29
Just as I was about to make peace with my maker—something I neither
believed in nor did I truly believe I could make peace with even if I had believed in it—the fae at the front of the oncoming army became clear.
“Uh, guys,” I said, “I think that’s Minos.”
“The dude from the Faeland who let us go?” asked Methkins.
“Yeah.”
“Remember that they’re tricksters, Piper,” Brazen warned me. “Don’t let them fool you.”
I looked around at our situation. What difference would it make if Minos and his fae army were fooling us? It wasn’t like we were going to survive anyway.
“I don’t think it will matter what their plan is,” Reaper said, being the voice of reason. “If they decide to support Temperance, we will fall.”
“Canisters are ready, Piper,” Pecker informed us.
“No, wait,” I called back. “Hold off on that. We may have a supporting army here.”
Chief Carter chimed in. “What?”
I explained the situation to him. He agreed that it would be best to let this play out, but he commanded Pecker and the crew of rookies to be ready at a moment’s notice.
Minos stopped not far from my position.
He glanced over at me and nodded.
I nodded back, thinking that he was a guy I could definitely add to my one-night-stand list. Not only because he was hot as hell, but also because he was playing that knight-in-shining-armor card right now. No, I wasn’t one of those damsel-in-distress types. In fact, I usually stuck my foot up the ass of any man who treated me that way. But Minos had a certain something that demonstrated he wasn’t doing this for me, he was doing it because it was the right thing to do.
Call me crazy, but I found that sexy.
“Minos?” Temperance yelled from her position. “You are supposed to be in prison with the other traitors.”
“I believe it is you who has turned on your fellow fae, Temperance,” he replied sharply. “Going in league with that mage has twisted your mind, turning your beauty to nothing but filth and hate.”
I glanced over at her.
Nope, she was still one incredibly attractive woman.
Minos must have been talking about her inner beauty or something. Then again, maybe there was a hair out of place that I couldn’t spot from here.
“Back off now, Minos,” she warned, “or we will destroy every last one of you.”
“Is it not your intention to do that anyway, Temperance?” he countered.
She held up her hand and slowly pointed at him.
“I give you my last warning, Minos.”
Minos mimicked the hand up and pointing bit. I’d never heard of that before, but I guessed it was a fae thing.
“And I give you mine, Temperance.”
With that, all of Minos’s people flicked their hands, and weapons appeared out of nowhere. But these weren’t the badass guns like Temperance’s fae had. These were shiny swords like the ones elves had.
I jolted at that thought. Were fae what the elves were based on? No fuckin’ way. They did look like them though, minus the pointy ears, anyway.
Temperance began to laugh heartily.
Honestly, I could see her point. The saying that you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight was being demonstrated here. But, fortunately, Minos wasn’t stupid.
He snapped his fingers again.
Those swords flashed and turned into guns that were just as fancy as the ones Temperance’s gang carried.
Her laughter stopped.
Tricksters, indeed!
“Chief,” I said, “I think you may want to pull everyone away from the windows. It’s going to get messy out here.”
I wasn’t suggesting it because I thought the carnage may be too much for the rookies to deal with, though it probably was. My point was to make sure that nobody got shot while hanging out and watching the show.
“Already done, Piper.”
A warrior’s cry launched from Minos, making my girl parts tingle uncontrollably. Oh yeah, he was totally one-night-stand-list-worthy. I highly doubted he’d feel the same about me, being that I wasn’t a fae, but a girl could dream.
But now wasn’t the time for fantasies.
“Let’s help them out, boys!” I yelled through the connector as I stepped out and began firing at Temperance’s mob.
My primary concern was making sure I only hit the bad fae. Maybe they could tell who was good and who was bad, but I couldn’t, so I just fired at the back of the crowd and hoped for the best.
Chapter 30
With all that firepower, it hadn’t taken long to build up a mass of casualties. If it had continued, there’d have been barely any fae left standing.
But Minos did something that I hadn’t expected. He charged right into the fray and slammed directly into Temperance, knocking her on her ass.
The two began fighting like a couple of crazed demons.
That resulted in all weapons being stowed away on both sides while hand-to-hand combat took over. It seemed rather stupid to me, but it was definitely less murdery… sort of.
Fists flew, kicks landed, and throws launched.
My adrenaline was driving me to join in and grab the nearest fae for a bit of face smashing. But something told me that the only fight that really mattered was between Minos and Temperance. She was the key to all of this. If she beat him, there’d be no stopping her.
Just as I was about to run in, Reaper called out, “Stand back.”
I halted a millisecond before a massive wave of energy rolled from about a block down from me. It knocked every fae out there on their asses, except for Temperance.
She merely appeared to grow stronger.
“Didn’t expect that,” Reaper admitted.
But I did.
She was simply too powerful to be taken down by an energy pulse. We needed to use something a little more pointed with her.
Without hesitation, I walked straight across the mass of twitching bodies and up the little landing that sat in front of the precinct.
“What do you think you’re going to do?” she asked with a laugh. “If your reaper can’t kill me, you have no chance.”
“You mean because my Death Nails won’t penetrate your shield?”
Her smug look was precious. “Precisely.”
“Yeah, well, here’s the thing I’ve learned about shields,” I said, leaning in conspiratorially, “they don’t work close-range.”
Her eyes widened momentarily as the Death Nail burst from my gun. She grabbed her chest and grunted for a few moments.
Then, she began to laugh.
I stood there, confused, until she punched me so hard that I flew off my feet and landed on my back. My gun bounced away.
“Do you think I’m some type of idiot?” she snarled, ripping open her shirt to show that she was wearing a vest. “Of course I know that shields can’t stop projectiles at a close distance.”
“Ah,” I replied, rubbing my jaw.
“Now,” she said as she stepped over toward me with menace in her eyes, “it’s time for you to die.”
“Nah, dude,” came a completely unexpected voice. “It’s you that’s gonna kick it.”
We both jerked our heads to the side and saw Methkins standing there. He was holding my gun and he had it pointed right at Temperance’s head.
“Now, wait,” the fae gasped, holding up her hands, “you don’t need to do this.”
“She’s right,” said Reaper as he stepped up. “We can have her prosecuted.”
“Yes, yes,” Temperance agreed quickly. “That would be the ethical thing to do.”
I pushed myself up and went to take my gun back from Methkins, but he was having none of that. His face was hardened and he definitely had some unresolved business to work out.
“Think she’ll get the death sentence?” Methkins asked after a moment, though he kept his eyes firmly on Temperance.
“There is no death sentence in the Netherworld, you pathetic little asshole.”
Then, she winced.
&
nbsp; “Oooh,” I breathed. “Shouldn’t have said that.”
“According to this gun, man, there is a death sentence,” was the last thing that Temperance heard before a Death Nail entered her skull and she fell over.
“Wow,” I said, staring over at Methkins with wide eyes. “Meth, I owe you a fucking hotdog.”
Chapter 31
Reaper and I sat in the chief’s office, going over everything that had happened. While technically we weren’t able to collect a commission on Temperance, seeing that she wasn’t a runner and this wasn’t our jurisdiction, Chief Carter still hooked us up with a bonus.
“So Temperance was working with Keller on all of this?” asked the chief.
“Yep,” I replied. “We saw her talking to him when we ended up in a dimensional box. But it turns out that he turned his back on her and left her to clean up the mess.”
“Because he just wanted to sow seeds of discord,” the chief mused.
Had the chief started playing World of Warcraft or Dungeons & Dragons or something lately? I mean, who uses ‘seeds of discord’ in a sentence, except for people who fiddle around in games like that?
Methkins, probably.
Which reminded me…
“Listen,” I said, not believing what was about to come out of my mouth, “I think that Meth has turned a corner.”
“Meth?” said the chief.
“She’s speaking about the wizard, Mr. Methkins,” explained Reaper.
“Ah, right. Go on.”
“Well, whatever happened to him down there changed the guy. I don’t know if it had to do with the electricity or having his fingers smashed or…” I shrugged. “That sick fae did a lot of crazy shi…stuff to us, Chief.”
He nodded tightly. “I’m sorry for that.”
“It did suck,” I muttered.
Reaper glanced away.
“Anyway, I think that maybe Meth has a chance to make something of himself.” Seriously, that was not easy for me to say. “He just needs to have a purpose and the right people to watch over him.”
Deathly Temperance: A Piper & Payne Supernatural Thriller (Netherworld Paranormal Police Department Book 3) Page 10