“I’ve never even gutted a fish before, but I’m willing to learn,” I muttered, jerking the soldier beneath me to his feet and slinging him in front of me like a shield. I wasn’t quite sure why they let me. I’d have shot me in the back. It was a sobering thought. “Now, tell me where to find Graham or it’s going to get very bloody in here.” I grinned, showing my teeth and some of them actually cringed away.
“Over there.” One of them pointed toward a corridor across the room, and I nodded.
“Thanks.” I shoved the soldier into them, knocking them down like bowling pins. Before they could recover, I was already through the corridor, my heart hammering and my chest heaving from exertion. I had been trained for this, but that didn’t mean going full steam for minutes at a time wasn’t tiring.
The hallway was surprisingly well lit, but that was probably because there were soldiers standing at the end with giant spotlights shining toward me. A third soldier was seated in the middle of the overbearingly blinding lights. Unfortunately, this one was behind a mounted gun that reminded me of the ones the snow troopers used during the battle of Hoth in Empire Strikes Back. That could also have been because they were dressed entirely in white body armor with cowls.
“I bet you can’t even hit me!” I cried, hoping they had aim as bad as the storm troopers from the movie did. Not one to take any chances, I tucked myself into a corner anyway and flung my knife at the gunner. The weapon made it all of eighteen inches before evaporating in a hiss of ozone. My eyes widened in surprise as the soldier at the gun pulled back the slide on his weapon and a shell clattered to the floor. He began swiveling it toward me and a horrible thought occurred to me. He had really good aim.
I launched myself forward and collided straight into some sort of invisible wall. I stumbled backward, my vision woozy as laughter broke out from the soldiers.
“She totally didn’t even see the shield. See, I told you that spell was sweet!” someone behind me said and a chill ran down my spine. I whirled as a gargantuan man grabbed me by my throat and slammed me backward into the invisible wall hard enough to rattle my insides while raising his knife.
He was bare-chested and well-muscled, reminding me of a younger, dark-skinned Chuck. I kicked him in the groin and his stupid eyes bugged out of his head. He dropped me and his knife just as a laser zipped by my ear, searing a hole in the wall. The smell of melted glass filled my ears as I hit the ground on the balls of my feet and drove my knee back into the stumbling soldier’s crotch, you know, for good measure.
Then I grabbed him by his hair and flung him at the snow trooper in a surge of magic-fueled strength. And rage because, you know, I was angry.
The man impacted the invisible shield with an earth shattering crash. Deadly energy arced outward in an explosion of light as soldiers filled the corridor behind me. Damn, I shouldn’t have left them alive. The one I’d nearly knifed stood in back, looking like he didn’t want to deal with me anymore. Well, I’m glad I’d made an impression.
I snagged the giant’s dropped knife and flung it at one of the spotlights trained on me. It impacted with a smack, though the light didn’t go out. I grinned and tore forward, leaping through the air in an arc that carried me through the air. I wasn’t sure if there were more shields or not, but I didn’t want to take any chances.
Thankfully, I didn’t slam into any like some kind of deranged hummingbird as I sailed gracefully through the air. I hit the ground on the balls of my feet and lashed out with a hard sidekick that hit the snow trooper nearest to me in the chest. He wobbled backward, arms swinging out for balance. His fingers closed around the light, and he yanked it down as he fell. It shattered on the ground as the gunner came to his feet, knives glittering in each hand as he swung at me.
I ducked and threw myself inside his guard while lashing out with my fist. I caught him on the inside of the knee, and he grunted in pain, one knife slipping from his hand. I caught the blade as I sidled by him like the ballerina of death I was and came up in front of the last guard who struggled to pull his sidearm out of his holster. My knife flashed in front of his eyes, and he staggered backward before falling to the ground on his butt.
The moment he hit the steel floor, the corridor filled with gunfire. I dropped as bullets zinged over my head, pinging off the metal all around me as I rolled over the ground toward the door at the back.
It was a bad idea.
I fell down three flights of stairs because no one had told me the first step was a doozy. When I came to a stop, my vision swam. It was all I could do to lay there and not cry from pain. Everything inside me hurt, and while I was pretty sure nothing inside me had actually broken, I knew I’d have some pretty crazy bruising. No wonder most medieval knights died from being bashed to death rather than being cut open.
Grumbling, I scrambled to my feet and looked around the empty, sterile room. There was a steel table in the center along with a couple steel chairs. Some overhead lights were embedded into the ceiling lighting it up in a way that reminded me of the inside of a sterile lab. The smell of antiseptic filled my nose as I tried to jog forward but the motion made my stomach slosh so I slowed to a walk to give myself more time I knew I didn’t have. It wouldn’t be long before those soldiers came down here, guns blazing.
The room felt angry and oppressive as I moved toward the table. Toward the end, it looked like it split off into a forked hallway so that’s where I headed even though every footstep closer made sweat bead on my forehead. Was it getting hotter as I moved? No, the temperature displayed on my HUD hadn’t changed, so what was going on?
“You’re feeling the heat of my gaze,” lisped a low male voice from behind me. I spun around, my heart thudding in my chest as I did so, but saw nothing.
“Where are you?” I asked, scanning the room in every variety of way I could think of and still seeing nothing.
Something smacked into my chin, launching me upward into the air. The pain of it rattled my brain, but my body must have remembered what it was doing because I flipped around and landed in a crouch on the floor.
“I’d heard you could take a punch,” the voice said from every direction at once.
“Show yourself, and I’ll show you how well I can give a punch too,” I growled, whipping my gaze around for some sign of anything. And where were the soldiers? They should have been coming down here by now… but I hadn’t heard so much as a footstep. Why not?
“Okay.” Green arms wrapped around my stomach so tightly, it was like being encircled by steel cables. I thrashed, trying to get ahold of the invisible appendages bear-hugging my diaphragm. No good. I kicked outward, but that didn’t work either. My body lifted from the ground as I was slammed backward onto my shoulders.
My vision went blurry, and my HUD flashed red as I slumped uselessly to the ground. Then a disembodied black boot appeared on my chest, pinning me to the ground. The rest of him slowly appeared. He was dressed solely in a loincloth and had the face of a tusked boar. And he was green. Like, everywhere. I knew because that loincloth didn’t cover as much as it should from my particular angle.
I wasn’t sure how he’d managed to turn invisible, but as he dropped his weight onto his foot and pain shot through me, I didn’t care. My HUD blazed fire engine red as I struggled to pull in a breath, but before I could, he grabbed my face, palming it like a basketball, and flung me across the room like I was weightless.
My back smashed into the wall and agony exploded from spine as my breath burst from me. My body slowly slumped to the ground as I tried to figure out how he’d thrown me like that. Even Chuck couldn’t do it. Then again, he was clearly some kind of monster who not only could turn invisible but was strong as heck.
I barely even felt it as he hauled me to my feet and hoisted me over his shoulder. Then he moved forward, carrying me toward the table. He tossed me on it, and I smacked into the steel with enough force to make the sound of it rang in my ears.
“First thing first,” he said, annoyance filli
ng his voice, as he ran one finger across my abdomen. “We have to get you out of these clothes.”
I kicked him in the stomach. His breath shot from his mouth in a spray of spittle as he staggered backward, trying to regain his balance. I took my chance and rolled off the table. I hit the ground hard enough that the force of it reverberated through my body. I would have cried out if I could have, but unfortunately, all I could do was use the table for balance while pulling myself to my feet.
I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, but I sure as hell didn’t want this guy taking away my suit. It’d saved me so many times, I couldn’t imagine not having it.
When I turned my gaze back toward him, he was coming toward me. I swung at him, one hard as hell haymaker aimed at his stupid head. He ducked, his other arm coming up under mine and pulling me into his body. Before he could throw me, I elbowed him in the side of the head. The blow seemed to stagger him, which was good. I took the opportunity to tackle him to the floor. His head smacked against the steel with an audible thump as I reared back and punched him in the jaw. Once. Twice. Three times. My fourth punch missed as he slid out from under me like an eel, using a movement eerily similar to the one Flash had used when I’d fought her in the forest.
Unfortunately, instead of sending me flying, he somehow slipped onto my back and sat down, pulling my legs up behind me. My abdomen screamed in pain as he wrenched my legs backward.
“I’m not a huge fan of Boston,” he huffed. “But I do like their crabs.” He pulled harder, and I screamed in pain. “Just tap out, Abby. Give up, and I’ll let go.”
“No!” I cried, reaching out, desperately trying to grab something, anything. The only thing my fingers found was the steel walls, and somehow, I doubted that was going to do much.
25
“How’s it feel?” the tusked man asked, torquing my body so hard it felt like he was bending me in half.
I screamed in response as he wrenched my spine in a way it wasn’t designed for, the pain in my overly stretched abdomen making me want to submit. I couldn’t do that, though. I had to escape… but how?
I reached back, smacking uselessly against him with my hands as he torqued even harder on my body. I don’t think I’d ever been in so much agony before. I needed a weapon, something to make him let go. Only… only I didn’t have anything. I reached out for one last desperate attempt to hit him somewhere vital when my suit thrust a pen in my hand. I jabbed it into the guy as hard as I could.
He cried out, releasing his grip enough for me to slip free and crawl away. Everything inside me hurt as he reached down and tore the pen from his thigh. Blood dripped down his leg as he whirled, flinging the writing implement across the room.
I rolled, trying to get out of the way as he tried to stomp a mudhole in my ass. Somehow, I managed to get to my feet as his leg buckled. It wasn’t enough to make him fall, but it was enough to let me catch my breath and drive the pain from his submission hold deep down inside myself. I put my fists up, dropping back into a Muay Thai fighting stance as he came forward.
“Come on,” I said, making the ‘bring it’ gesture.
He did. One hand snaking out incredibly fast and grabbing me by the damned throat. My breath cut off in an instant as he hauled me into the air until I was a couple feet off the ground and slammed my choking body onto the steel table. Everything inside me screamed in agony as I lay there, barely able to move.
He picked up one of the steel folding chairs and raised it over his head. “Goodbye, Abby. Lights out.” He swung the metal chair at my head.
I moved out of the way. I don’t know how. My body hit the ground with a thud, pain flashing through my shoulder like fire as his chair impacted the table and bounced back, clocking him in the face. He staggered backward as I scrambled to my feet, trying to ignore all the popping and aching my bones did.
I put one foot on the table and leapt off of its surface, launching myself at him. My thighs slammed onto his shoulders, and I wrapped my legs around his neck, trying to cut off his air supply. My muscles felt like fire as he slowly staggered backward, hands gripping my thighs as he tried to pry my legs apart so he could catch a breath.
He started to slump, and I squeezed tighter as he put his hands around my back. I realized he was going to slam me down backward onto the table. As he tried to do it, I sort of let him, only I swung my body around, flipping backward and using our momentum to launch him across the room. He slammed awkwardly into the table with the center of his back and slumped to the ground on his hands and knees. I knelt there, panting so hard, I could barely believe it as he started to recover. How was that possible? Was he seriously shrugging off all my attacks? That hardly seemed fair.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I growled as the folding chair caught my eye. Without thinking, I grabbed it and smashed it into his face as he launched himself at me. He hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. Then, before he could recover, I sprinted toward the far hallway on the other side of the room.
I didn’t even look back.
Which was good because as I tore around the corner, I found myself face to face with a giant troll that sort of reminded me of Dale, the security monster back at the agency base. One giant fist came at my face, but I dropped into a baseball slide that carried me beneath the blow and between its massive legs.
It was a little harrowing, but as I popped to my feet on the other side of the troll, I tossed a sticky grenade over my shoulder and kept going. The explosion echoed down the hallway as I reached the end of the corner and a wave of heat washed over me. I smirked, somewhat pleased with myself until I slammed into an invisible wall like I was a goddamned hummingbird.
“Again, seriously?” I muttered, clutching my eye as my brain rattled around in my head. I harrumphed because I wasn’t sure what else to do and took a couple steps backward, then I ran into the wall as hard as I could.
I smashed through it and energy rained around me as I hit the steel floor in a roll and came to my feet in time for the hallway to go completely dark. Red light filled the room making it seem like a crazy sort of obstacle course and sort of reminding me of those scenes in movies with all the laser beams you don’t want to trip.
My HUD beeped, letting me know the lasers were, in fact, the temperature of the sun, and I scowled. Then I cracked my neck and stretched. Why? Because I was going to do something stupid.
I launched myself forward because if I thought about it for even a second, there was no way I was going to even try. Instead, I trusted the instincts downloaded into my brain and the training I’d received at the hands of Chuck. I twisted, turned, and pirouetted. I got so close to the lasers, I could feel the heat of them singeing my hair even through my suit, but in the end, I stood on the other side of them.
“See, James Bond has nothing on me!” I snapped, shaking my fist in triumph just before the floor beneath my feet opened up, and I fell into an abyss. I smacked into the water below with a splash. The heat was sucked from my body as cold filled me, and my HUD went all kinds of blurry.
My arms flailed wildly as I swam toward where I hoped the surface was, my lungs burning for air because evidently, my suit didn’t help with breathing underwater in the cold. Good to know.
I broke the surface a moment later, but it was so dark I couldn’t see anything. I tried to adjust my HUD to switch the night vision, but it was too wonky, so in the end, I turned it off. The cool breeze on my face made me shiver as I treaded water in the dark. That’s when things started brushing by my legs. I screamed. I couldn’t help it and searched frantically for a flashlight. Thankfully, one popped into my hand, and I switched it on.
Part of me wished I hadn’t. The water was filled with leeches. They were busy attaching themselves to my suit and sucking at me, and while I couldn’t feel them directly, it made me realize one thing. My suit no longer covered my face. I ran one hand through my hair and nearly had a heart attack when I brushed away a handful of the squirming, wiggling creatures.
“Mommy,” I whispered before realizing how stupid that was. Both my adoptive mother and my biological were dead. They wouldn’t help me. I steeled myself and scanned the room with my flashlight, ignoring the wiggling slimy things all over my body. It was one of the most difficult things I’d ever done.
Near as I could tell, I was in some kind of pool, but the edges seemed far away. The closest one was over ten meters from me. I shivered again, and as I began to swim toward it, something brushed by my leg again. The same thing from earlier. I’d dismissed it, thinking it was the leeches, but what if it wasn’t? I shined my light into the depths but saw nothing. Great.
“Screw this,” I cried and began swimming toward the edge as fast as my frantic, wounded seal-like strides would carry me. Michael Phelps, I was not. I was almost to the edge when a purple tentacle wrapped around my flashlight and tugged it from my hand. The light went out, leaving me alone in the dark.
“It’s only an octopus,” I told myself like that somehow made it better as my heart tried to hammer its way out of my chest. I bit my lip to keep more horrible thoughts away, like maybe it was some kind of giant squid about to eat me and moved to where I thought the edge was. It was hard because I could barely make anything out.
The feel of warm breath on my neck gave me a start because it had been so frigid and because, well, something was breathing on me. I whirled around, thrashing like a crazy person and wound up punching an octopus in its face. At least I think it was an octopus because I couldn’t see it, but it sort of felt like this time I’d poked an octopus at Sea World.
Tentacles wrapped around my body and jerked me beneath the surface of the pool. I swallowed a mouthful of water that tasted like slime and bugs, hurting my throat and making me gag, which was no bueno under water, let me tell you. Especially because slimy, wiggling things filled my mouth.
I kicked, my limbs lashing out as I felt myself getting pulled further down. Nothing was working. No. No this wasn’t happening. I was not going to die being drowned in a pool by a ginormous octopus. Absolutely not.
Magic for Hire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Found Magic Book 3) Page 15