The Drow princess took several steps down the hallway, her movements all but silent. The buzz of radios and the heavy bootsteps drew her toward the voice. Her heart thundered, desperate for her vengeance to take a physical form.
You think you know violence, humans? You think you know death?
YOU KNOW NOTHING!
A man in uniform turned a corner, rifle in hand. The uniform looked military, but a patch caught her attention: Grayson PMC Services.
“I’ve got a target,” the mercenary said. “Target appears to be wounded. Not Brownstone.”
Three more mercenaries hurried toward him, all keeping their guns aimed.
Nicole took a few deep breaths, and a faint burning sensation spread through her body. She didn’t have much time. But despite her rage, she needed to make sure her targets deserved it. If the appearance of James Brownstone proved anything, it was that good humans still existed on Earth. She’d at least take the time to establish if these new arrivals were his friends or his foes.
“You don’t seem like Harriken,” she asked, eyeing their uniforms. “I would consider letting you leave here with your lives, provided you’re no threat to James Brownstone.”
The man’s face tightened. “Sit down, shut up, and put your hands in the air.” He nodded to the other men. “We’ll ask the Harriken what to do with her later.” His gaze lingered on her legs for a second. “Maybe we’ll have a little fun first.”
Nicole inhaled deeply. “You threaten Brownstone and you do the bidding of the Harriken? And you’re men of base appetites. I appreciate you explaining the situation. Thank you.”
The man’s face scrunched in confusion “’Thank you?’”
“Yes. I was worried for a second that I wouldn’t be able to taste any vengeance, but you’ll do nicely.”
“Just shoot the bitch, man,” said one of the other mercenaries. “We’ll say Brownstone did it. We don’t have time to fuck around with her.”
A shadowy nimbus of energy surrounded Nicole, and her eyes turned solid black.
“What the fuck?” the mercenary shouted. “This is Alpha Four. We have a magic user of unknown ability. I repeat, we have a magic user of unknown ability.” He swallowed, keeping his gun trained on her. “Great intel on this op. Fucking Harriken.”
Nicole tilted her head. To her eyes the men glowed now, their life forces pulsing around them. “How many people have you killed, Alpha Four?”
“Stand down, woman, or I will kill you. This is your only warning.”
“Have you killed innocents? Children?”
The mercenary snorted. “I kill whoever I get paid to kill, you freak bitch.”
Nicole sighed. “Then you have no honor to salvage.”
The Drow was a blur as she ran along the wall parallel to the floor, her magic anchoring her. Bullets blasted through the hallway, narrowly missing her. A blade of dark energy extended from her wrist, and she leapt from the wall. Alpha Four couldn’t even scream as the shadow blade slammed into his throat.
Nicole somersaulted off his body, a glowing scarlet tendril connecting the shadowy energy field around her to the man. The tendril pulsed brighter as she drained his life.
“Humans don’t have much life force,” Nicole lamented, shaking her head. “It’s a wonder you spend so much time trying to waste it.”
The other three men backed up, their eyes widening in fear. They sprayed bullets at her, but they bounced off the shadow armor surrounding her body.
“Target is immune to bullets,” a mercenary yelled into his mic. “I repeat, target is bullet-immune!”
Gray smoke hung near the ceiling now. She didn’t know how long it would be before the hungry fire crawled down the stairs in search of more prey, but she wouldn’t let these Harriken-funded killers escape with their lives.
Nicole’s shadow blade disappeared, and she held up both hands. “Rejoice! Your friend gave his life so that you could experience a death few humans have.”
The men turned to run. Three dark orbs burst from Nicole’s hands and blasted into each man. A smokeless fire surrounded them, charring them, their flesh devoured as they fell. They collapsed to the ground, screaming in agony.
The Drow princess stepped toward the dying men, tendrils extending from the energy nimbus to implant into each and feed what remained of their lives into her armor. She used the rest of her life to form two jagged shadow blades, one for each hand. She marched toward the living room, the fire within her body building.
She sucked in a breath and gritted her teeth.
Just a little longer.
Dead Harriken and other thugs covered the floor, their blood staining the carpet. She admired the straightforward brutality of James Brownstone and his associate, even as she regretted not having been the one to have killed these men.
She had left her people, but their training had not left her.
Twelve mercenaries popped up from behind bullet-riddled cars outside, and their weapons came alive. Bullets splintered the wood and shattered the windows, but pounded uselessly against the shadow armor flowing over Nicole’s body.
The Drow rushed the door, her movements again blurring. She decapitated a man before slowing, and his head hadn’t even hit the ground when she stabbed her blade through the second’s heart. She spun, her other blade cutting another man in half.
One mercenary, seeing his impending doom, pulled the pin on his grenade and tried to tackle the Drow princess. She impaled his hand on the blade and waited as tendrils sucked the life out of him and his friends. The grenade exploded, doing nothing more than annoy her.
The din of eight rifles firing full auto at near point-blank range overwhelmed the area, and casing after casing clattered to the ground.
“Fuck fuck fuck,” shouted a mercenary, the gun in his hand battering his arm as he fired round after round. “Just die already, bitch!”
Fiery pain spiked through the Drow’s body. The bullets continued to bounce off her shadow armor, but she was nearing the limits of her already broken magic. She’d fed on her own life to bring herself to this point, and now the bill was due.
Nicole swept both arms wide, and dozens of tightly-woven dark energy ribbons shot from her arms and blasted holes through the chests of the nearby mercenaries. They collapsed to the ground within seconds of each other, moaning through the last few moments of their lives. She drank in what little life they still had before they died.
More mercenaries rushed from either side of the house, a couple dozen or so. None fired.
“Have you learned you cannot oppose me?” Nicole shouted.
One man rushed right at her with a knife in his hand. She laughed.
“I honor your bravery, soldier.”
The weapon slammed into her stomach and she gasped, coughing up blood.
“You like that, bitch?” the man snarled. “That’s a little something I picked up in Cairo. They said it’s good for killing djinn. Looks like it’s good for killing witches, too.”
“I...am...no...witch.” Nicole grabbed his throat, and the man gagged and shuddered as his life flowed directly into the Drow. She yanked out the enchanted blade and tossed it to the ground, not even bothering to redirect any magic to the stomach wound. Fire burned through her veins now, and she’d be dead long before she could bleed out.
A strong pulse of energy propelled her high into the air and four wings of shadow sprouted from her back, keeping her aloft. Six of her shadow spears took out some of the mercenaries before they realized what was attacking them.
“Light her up!” shouted one of the men. “Everything you’ve got.”
The sky came alive with bullets and rocket-propelled grenades. Explosions blasted in rapid succession, filling the sky with smoke, flame, and shrapnel.
For a few seconds, the smoke lingered, and no one spotted the Drow.
“We got her,” someone yelled. Several men cheered.
Nicole flew out of the smoke, her eyes flashing and her white hair flowing
in the wind. “Too weak.” She launched an orb into the man who’d made the false pronouncement, and he collapsed in dark fire. The mercenaries held station long enough for her to burn six more before they broke and ran in all directions.
The Drow princess pulled the energy from her rings and slammed her hand into the ground, and a nova of dark energy blasted from her. All but one of the remaining mercenaries screamed, collapsing to the ground. They twitched, coughing up blood and convulsing.
Nicole took a deep breath, trying her best not to collapse. The burning sensation from before had intensified.
The single surviving mercenary dropped his gun and walked toward her, his hands up. The man’s weathered face and graying hair suggested this was far from his first battle. She assumed he was in charge.
“What are you?” he asked.
Nicole stared at him. “I am a princess of the Drow. I gave your men a chance to leave, and they threatened murder and rape.”
“I’m sorry for my men’s actions.” The mercenary commander slowly lowered his hands. “But it seems like they’ve paid, and then some.”
“And you’re not angry with me for killing your men?”
“Maybe I’m just accepting the cards I’ve been dealt. Doesn’t matter if I’m angry or not. I can’t win against you.”
Nicole looked him up and down, curious why he was still alive. “You survived. How impressive.”
“I’ve got an instinct for survival.” The mercenary patted his chest. “I’ve got something on under here that helps protect me. Bullets aren’t enough anymore in this world. Funny how things have changed since I started.”
He shrugged. “Look, you killed my men, but that comes with the job. You’re more powerful than a lot of the weird shit I’ve seen. I can help make you wealthy beyond your dreams.” He nodded toward a dead man. “You like killing people? Gets you off? Lots of people out there who need killing, and lots of people willing to pay for that.”
The Drow princess let out a cruel laugh. “I left behind wealth and power for love. I’ve no interest in your petty offer.”
“Everyone has a price.”
“Perhaps.” Nicole sauntered up to the mercenary leader. “I have one question for you.”
“Sure.” The mercenary commander licked his lips, the fear still heavy in his eyes.
Nicole’s eyes blazed with a feral hunger. “Does your trick work with bullets?”
The mercenary shook his head. “Good old Kevlar for that.”
“Interesting.” She held up her hand. A shadow arm shot out and snatched a rifle from the ground, bringing it to her hand.
The man held up his hands. “No, wait. We were just hired to take out Brownstone. We could make some sort of de—”
Nicole pulled the trigger, and his head exploded.
The Drow princess collapsed to her knees, coughing up blood and trying to keep her eyes open. Infernos burned in every cell of her body now, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Oh, my sweet Alison. I tried so hard not to leave you alone.”
21
Shay paced at the bottom of the stairs. “I don’t hear any more gunfire or screaming.” She shook her head. “We should have been up there, not sitting here in the basement of a burning building like some dumbass JV kill squad.”
James shrugged. “When someone gives you a warning like that, you listen.”
“And what if they killed her?”
“She was already dying. You heard it, and if they did, the answer is simple.”
Shay put her hands on her hips. “Oh? Enlighten me with your great wisdom then, Brownstone.”
“The answer is, we kill the people who killed her.”
“Okay, fair enough. I like that plan.”
James grunted. “Anyway, you’re right. Whatever happened is over. Let’s go.”
They pulled their guns and hurried up the stairs. Thick smoke now hugged the ceiling, and the crackle and hiss of the fire grew louder. Shay coughed a few times.
“Yeah, leaving’s definitely a good idea,” she muttered.
The pair traveled down the hallway to where four new bodies lay on the ground.
“Grayson,” James commented as he viewed their patches. “I know these guys. Mercenaries. Real scum. Never really had a run in with them since we hang in different circles, but I’ve known people who have. They’d shoot their own mothers for money.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of them.” Shay’s nose wrinkled as she gestured to the three crispy corpses. “Smells like burnt pork.”
The bounty hunter’s gaze shifted from the burn victims to the other man, who had a clean hole in his throat. The Drow woman had been tortured for days, and still took out trained mercenaries with ease. If she’d been killed, it hadn’t been in this hallway.
James and Shay rushed toward the front door, both coughing. They paused for a moment to search for live enemies, but seeing only bodies, they stepped outside. It took them a moment to separate the people they’d killed from the mercenaries Nicole had destroyed.
“I pity the cops who have to investigate this shit,” James remarked.
Shay shrugged. “They’ll play it off as some sort of gang war gone bad, or maybe even a gang summit gone bad. When it’s scumbags killing scumbags, it’s not like the cops try that hard. I think they think that every dead gangster means the world’s a safer place.”
“What the fuck?” James said, looking at half a body. It took him a few seconds to realize the man had been cut in half and not flayed on one side. He shook his head. “Can’t say I’ve seen that before.”
Shay leaned down and poked her gun through a hole in a dead mercenary. “If this is what she does when she’s weak, I’d hate to see what she’s like when she’s at the top of her game.”
Both turned at the sound of a soft moan. They rushed to the source and found Nicole kneeling on the ground, blood covering the front of her hospital gown.
James wasn’t sure if it was her blood or that of the nearly-decapitated body lying in front of her. A quick inspection of the rank insignia suggested he was the commander of the unit—yet another man who’d picked a really bad day to try to make ten thousand dollars.
“You okay?” the bounty hunter asked, reaching down.
Nicole put out a hand and let him help her stand as she stared at the burning Belmont House. The fire had engulfed the entire structure now, the conflagration sending a thick plume of smoke into the sky.
Part of the roof collapsed with a loud groan.
“Glad we’re not in there anymore,” Shay mumbled. “Be pretty weak to die in a fire after going through all that.”
Nicole smiled at James and spoke softly. “I wish I’d married a man like you.”
James grunted. “Trust me, you wouldn’t wish that if you knew me that well. I don’t think I’m marriage material for you or anyone else on this planet or Oriceran.”
“I know that my daughter’s own father was prepared to sell her to criminals for power, and you, a man who didn’t even know her, protected her.”
James shook his head. “I’m paying my debts. She helped me find my dog when he was missing. There’s nothing more here. I pay my debts so I don’t owe anyone. I like my life simple.”
“You told me about all the men you’ve killed.” She waved a hand around, “You’re trying to tell me this is just about paying a debt concerning your dog?”
He looked at the carnage around them and turned back to her, running a hand through his hair. “Like I said, things got complicated. I was trying to simplify them.”
Nicole weakly laughed. “Most men do everything they can to declare their honor and glory to the world. Are you so afraid of admitting you’re a good man, James Brownstone?”
James snorted. “I killed a lot of people this week. ‘Good man’ would be stretching it. Some might say I’m okay or useful, but I don’t think anyone would say I’m a good man.”
“James, I’ve lived on Earth for decades, and I still find hum
an morality strange. You worry over the strangest things, while letting the meaningless and trivial things distract you.”
“Probably shouldn’t have moved to L.A. if you wanted a place with understandable people who aren’t easily distracted by meaningless trivia,” Shay interjected.
James shot her a harsh look.
She shrugged, putting up her hands. “Just sayin’.”
Nicole sighed. “It’s taking all my control to keep my power from consuming the last of me, but I will die satisfied, knowing that at least I saved you from these fake soldiers.”
James glanced at the dead mercenary company commander. Grayson had access to some heavy weaponry, and unlike the Harriken, they had hardcore battlefield experience. He wasn’t so sure he could have escaped unscathed from an encounter with them, let alone brought Shay through.
“We can still take you somewhere,” he whispered. “It doesn’t have to end this way.”
She shook her head. “No, it ended the second Walt betrayed me. There’s nothing anyone could do, even back on Oriceran.” Nicole wrapped her arms around herself and took a shuddering breath. “I need you to take care of my daughter, the new Princess of the Shadow Forged. I’ve harmed her by keeping her heritage from her, and I just hope she’ll forgive me.”
“I… Shit.” James rubbed the back of his neck. “All she wants is for you to come back.”
Tears leaked down Nicole’s face as she shook her head. “I know, but there’s nothing I can do. My time is done, and I must see to her future. And that’s why I need you.”
James didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t like he was prepared to tell this dying woman that he wouldn’t take care of her daughter. After everything she’d gone through, the betrayal and the torture, she should at least be able to go to her death without worrying about her daughter ending up in some poorly-funded group home.
James sighed. He’d figure something out. Maybe Father McCartney could help after all, or at least point him in the direction of someone other than social services. Los Angeles wasn’t some stupid village. There had to be a good solution that didn’t involve James playing at being a foster father.
Feared By Hell: The Revelations of Oriceran (The Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone Book 1) Page 17