Phaze

by S. C. Mitchell

  She fired.

  This time the beam caught him right in the chest. His eyes widened before his head fell back.

  “Good. Stay down.” She shot him a second time for good measure.

  And because if felt so damn good.

  ~ ~ ~

  Joel led the charge toward the attacking army.

  Army.

  God, how had this many armed troops and this much hardware gotten through their security. There were three freakin’ tanks here.

  “Z-Bot, Shade, and Wylde on the battlefield.” Jason Pike’s commanding voice cut through the din of battle.

  Six rangers formed up behind Joel. Other groups moved toward Chris and Wylde. Special combat teams assigned to each of them whenever they entered a mass combat situation.

  Joel initially rejected Jason’s idea, until he pointed out that Kayla would also be assigned special protection when in combat. She would never have approved of the situation if it was just for her, but she couldn’t fight it if they each had their own squad.

  And it worked on a number of levels. In the commotion of a large battle, smaller combat groups helped focus different objectives.

  Joel’s team would watch him for direction, and he’d give it.

  Wylde, on the other hand, tended to ignore his group entirely. His team basically just covered his ass as he waded into combat. As Wylde charged, his six fanned out behind him, firing and moving to catch up. They’d be safe enough. Wylde created enough chaos to draw all the attention and gunfire in the area.

  More cautious, Chris moved slower, utilizing a battle strategy program and letting the computer in his brain work out the best tactical advantages. He’d direct the men and they’d respond.

  Jason hand-picked men to each team well suited to the powers and inclinations of the superhero.

  Superhero? It still sounded so ridiculous.

  Jason directed his remaining rangers to take up defensive positions along the side of the building and returned fire on the attackers. Yoda was an amazing man. No special powers, yet always ready to put his life on the line. Joel felt honored to fight by his side.

  He’s the real superhero.

  Chris sprinted toward Joel. “Should we take on the tanks or robots first?”

  Yeah, the supers would have to handle the heavy lifting here. The robots were a complete unknown, but the tanks had already blasted several holes in their headquarters building. He’d spent so much of their budget repairing that building. Maybe they needed a new headquarters. A secret headquarters. Then again, that was Aaron’s problem now.

  Joel needed to make a decision between taking on the armored vehicles, or the robots first? “Tanks.”

  Chris bashed the heads of two of the attackers together as he sprinted toward the nearest tank. “You’re welcome.”

  It took Joel a moment to get the joke. He rolled his eyes as he fought through a group of armed assailants. “That was lame,” he hollered at Chris.

  As it rolled past, he grabbed onto one of the Tank’s treads and let it pull him up onto the side skirt. Leaping toward the turret, he yanked the top gunner from the hatch and tossed him to the ground, then dove inside.

  One punch sent the main gunner to na-na land, and a kick did the same for the driver.

  While in the service, Joel spent a little time in a tank crew, so he possessed a basic knowledge of the big gun’s workings.

  Flint Eastland moved into the driver’s seat and Byron Jakes took the top gunner spot. Joel assumed the others would take up positions around the tank.

  “Hold position here,” he said to Flint.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Joel spun the turret and scanned the skies above, searching. This had to be Amber’s army. She had to be here.

  Moonlight provided just enough illumination to make out her dark wings against the starry night sky.

  Could he even hit her? And if he did, would it do any good?

  “You won’t know unless you try,” he told himself.

  This modern tank sported an advanced targeting system, and Amber was in a stationary hover over the battle.

  Maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to hit her. But would even a 75 MM shell be able to kill her.

  “She killed me twice. I at least owe it to her to try.”

  He fired.

  ~ ~ ~

  Kayla hoisted Port’s unconscious body into the closet, broke off the interior knob, then slammed the door. She also wedged a doorstop under the door, to keep it from opening, then pulled a piece of paper from the printer and snatched a marker off Heather’s desk.

  PORT IN HERE. She taped the hastily scrawled note onto the door.

  Hopefully someone would get the message. The last thing she needed was this asshole getting away. But there was more fighting to do, and she wasn’t about to stand around up here babysitting the thug while others fought below.

  The sounds of gunfire still permeated the night air as she phased straight down to the main floor of the building. Time to see how she could help in the battle outside.

  “Phaze on the battlefield.” Jason’s voice rang out as she exited the building. How the hell did he manage to have eyes everywhere?

  Then again, Yoda was kind of a superhero in his own right, as much a part of the team as any of them.

  Still, she hadn’t been fool when he told her he’d assigned a special task force to each Xi Force member. He’d done that for her. Bless the man, he did worry about her.

  So for Jason’s sake, she accepted the additional protection. She just hoped none of her team would get injured or worse protecting her.

  Rory Miller, her new task force commander, fell into position at her side instantly.

  “What’s going on, Rory.” A battle. Duh.

  “These dudes just came out of the forest, and no one seems to know how they even got here.” Rory’s laid-back attitude didn’t hide the tension that colored his tone.

  She wasn’t about to lead these brave men into a hail of bullets. She could phase and have bullets pass right through her, but that would just put the men behind her at greater risk.

  “Well, let’s go see if we can get around behind them and find out where they came from.”

  “Cool.”

  She pulled her POS, and led her team around the east side of the fighting. About two hundred yards into the forested area she located a swirling, pulsing energy mass. A portal? It would have been big enough to move the tanks and robots out of.

  “Stay back,” she directed her men as she poked her head into the swirling mass.

  “Ma’am, let me—”

  She cut Rory off with a wave. “Who’s the superhero here?”

  Her head came out the other side of the energy field to view an alien landscape. Purple mountains rose up against an ebony sky filled with stars and planets, real planets, and close enough to see. Some with rings, others with shifting colors of yellow and red. Like Jupiter and Saturn had been drawn so close to earth they could be seen without a telescope.

  “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”

  Certainly not a place she was ready to jump into.

  She pulled back, and not a moment too soon. With a snap, the portal disappeared.

  It looked like Amber wasn’t planning on retreating, or at the very least not going to allow her troops to. “Let’s hit ‘em from behind.”

  The men with Kayla would have plenty of trees and forest scrub for cover.

  Shifting to mostly-phased, she advanced directly into the battle, taking on the rear guard of the enemy force. Any stray bullets would simply pass through her, but she kept the pads of her feet solid to keep her from sinking into the ground. Controlling each part of her was becoming easier and instinctual.

  She
solidified, drew and fired her POS to bring down one of the attackers, then holstered the weapon and phased while charging at a second man. He got off a shot, but the bullet passed harmlessly through her. With a quick shift back, she swung her fist, catching him in the jaw and sending him tumbling to the ground.

  As other attackers turned her way, she phased out once again.

  The darkness in her peripheral vision did make it harder to see, but even with that she was learning to cope. Heather called it a view into a different dimension, and wanted to study it at some point. A dark void with nothing in it, yet a real, physical place.

  “She’s here, hermano.” Olivia’s voice.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  Not that she could be hurt and she wasn’t a child. She was over thirty years old and a ghost. Nothing could touch her anymore. “I’m spotting for Carlos. He wanted me to find you. He has a plan.”

  Around Kayla, the squeal and rumble of the heavy tanks and huge robotic vehicles echoed in the night sky as Pike’s Rangers fired automatic weapons at the attackers, adding a staccato rattle to the clamor. An oily stench hung heavy in the air from the battle machines.

  To her left, Joel’s team held the ground around one of the tanks. The turret turned, and the barrel elevated. Following the line of sight, Kayla’s gut chilled.

  Amber hovered above the battle, her wings beating a slow, lazy rhythm at odds with the frantic chaos on the ground.

  With a resounding boom, the tank fired and an explosion lit up the night sky around Amber’s demon form.

  Kayla turned her head to shield her eyes from the blinding flash. When she looked back and her vision cleared, Amber still hovered in the sky above, not a scratch on her.

  What did it take to down that witch?

  “Damn bitch.” Rory spat as he sent a hail of bullets up at her from his automatic weapon.

  Rory had been one of Pike’s Rangers Amber had flirted with and seduced when she’d been here among them. Before her betrayal and that other deadly attack.

  Usually laid-back and detached, Rory rarely showed emotion. Now his stance and tone radiated hatred. But his bullets never reach their target.

  Some kind of shielding again.

  Solidifying, Kayla pulled her POS from its holster and sighted in on the demon above. The pulse beam was something different, maybe something Necromance wasn’t prepared for.

  The beam shot into the night sky, striking her right in the chest.

  “Argh!” The cry tore from Amber’s lips as her form flickered back to human. She lost her wings and plummeted toward the ground.

  Yes.

  “She’s down.” Wylde bounded on all fours across Kayla’s path, heading into the fray toward where Amber dropped. Growling, he tore into any adversary that stood in his way. Enemy troops flew in all directions, barely slowing him, as he soaked up a hail of bullets.

  From behind, Jason called a charge, and the Rangers moved out from cover toward the now stalled attacking force.

  Maybe, just maybe, they could win this without too many casualties.

  ~ ~ ~

  When the tank shell failed to even scratch Amber, Joel lowered the barrel and sighted in one of the giant robotic attack vehicles. Humanoid in form, the things towered over the battle, probably twenty feet tall. He chambered another round and fired.

  The explosion tore into the metal hulk, ripping chunks from its torso and sending it toppling backward.

  Rangers in the area finished the job with a few well-placed grenades.

  Chris, following on Joel’s lead, took control of another one of the tanks, turning command of the vehicle over to his personal guards to use as he sprinted toward one of the other robots.

  Avoiding the swinging arms of the mechanical foe, Chris climbed toward the head—the control center. More rangers moved up to surround the vehicle.

  Two of the three tanks were now in their hands, and one of the three robots was down, with another in trouble. Things were starting to swing their way.

  Then Amber, in demon form, rose once again from behind the battle lines. She dove into the fray, sword swinging left and right.

  And men died.

  Joel surrendered the gunner’s seat of the tank to one of his guards, and flung himself toward the heated battle.

  “The demon is fully in control now. The woman has given up her soul to win the war. She is fully Necromance now.” The words drifted down from above.

  Carlos flew above him.

  “How do we stop her?” Joel shouted at him.

  Could they stop her?

  Fisting his hand, Carlos fired a beam of energy toward Necromance. The ray struck, but only succeeded in pushing her back a step.

  “No, warlock, not this time.” Red bolts of energy shot from her eyes, striking Carlos and knocking him from the sky. Joel managed to catch the man as he fell.

  Carlos looked in rough shape as Joel lowered him to the ground. But his eyes flickered open for a moment. “The sword. Phaze can affect it from the other side. Maybe . . .”

  His eyes closed and his body went slack.

  The other side?

  “Maybe I can do that.” Kayla knelt beside him. He hadn’t even noted her approach.

  She fired off another shot from her pulse gun toward the demon.

  But Necromance raised some kind of magical shield, and the beam bounced off. “I was ready for you this time, bitch.”

  Jason Pike used a bazooka to take out the third tank, leaving Necromance with just two of the giant robots and a handful of ground troops.

  Behind the demon, Chris struggled with one of the robots. He’d climbed to the top and bashed on the clear dome protecting the vehicle’s controller. The window shattered, and Chris pulled the man out, flinging him to the ground.

  The two captured tanks took aim at the remaining robot as the enemy troops began to throw down their weapons and raise their hands.

  But Necromance laughed. “You think me defeated? This was her plan, not mine. I knew she would fail.”

  Raising her sword, the demon began to pulse with a reddish glow. She brought the sword down on the remaining robot, slashing through the dome, the man controlling the machine, and the robotic vehicle itself.

  “Tune carno,” she cried, and the thing exploded.

  Chapter 27

  Kayla phased as the world around her shredded. The blast shook the ground. Shrapnel from the robot flew in all directions. Men fell. Pike’s Rangers, the enemy troops, everyone.

  Could even Joel and Chris’s armor protect them from something like this?

  She’d managed to phase in time and the projectiles passed harmlessly through her. But what of the others?

  “Death. So much death. Now she is fully mine.” Necromance chuckled as her body pulsed and grew to twice its original size.

  One of her troops rolled in agony at her feet, and she skewered him with the sword. Red energy writhed from his limp body up the blade and into the demon.

  Then Necromance raised the sword to the sky. “Power. Victory.”

  Joel was more metal than skin. The blast had torn his uniform to shreds. His face was unrecognizable, expressionless. But contempt drenched his tone. “We aren’t through here yet.”

  Chris pulled himself to his feet in little better shape than Joel. And Wylde, bleeding from dozens of wounds, staggered to his feet and growled.

  But it was just the four of them. No one else around moved.

  What had Carlos said about that sword? Something about getting it from the other side.

  This side.

  It was solid here in the Dimension of Death. It could cut her, which meant she could touch it, even when fully phased.

  “Keep her busy,” Kayla said as she rolled
to the left behind a pile of wreckage that had once been a tank.

  Joel spoke through clenched teeth. “Oh, I plan to.”

  Fist raised to punch, he sprinted toward the demon. Chris closed on her from the left, and Wylde from the right.

  Kayla needed to hurry. That sword could bring down both Joel and Chris. And she wasn’t about to lose either of them.

  Keeping low, she sprinted around back, hopefully out of sight of the demon. The creature towered above her, could she even reach the sword?

  The wreckage of the exploded robot offered a platform to vault from, and Kayla leapt, just as Necromance brought the sword up and back for a swing.

  Kayla’s hands passed through the demon’s, but were able to fasten onto the handle of the sword just below the hilt. She pulled and swung, causing the demon to stumble.

  “What?” Necromance swung wide, and Joel came in from underneath, with a fist to the chin.

  Kayla hung on for everything she was worth as the demon tried to shake her off.

  Joel and the others closed on Necromance. The zombiebots punching, as Wylde clawed and kicked. Every time the demon tried to attack them with the sword, Kayla would swing, throwing the blade off target.

  “Damn you, woman,” Necromance cursed. But the demon couldn’t touch her, and couldn’t bring the sword to bear on her as long as Kayla held on to its handle.

  Then the sword handle heated. Searing pain laced Kayla’s hands as she struggled to hold on. But the demon also shrunk back down to normal size, and shifted to Amber’s form.

  “Don’t leave me.” Fear laced Amber’s tone.

  “Foolish mortal. You have proven unworthy.” Necromance’s voice sounded closer. Like it was right behind Kayla.

  When Phased, sounds from the real world became muffled and echoy. Necromance now sounded clear, like when she heard Olivia speak when phased.