Call to Quarters (A Gaeldorcraeft Forces Novel Book 1)

by Honor Raconteur

  Lizzie did stay put for a long moment, making sure that she had it covered, before moving. Ducking around, she looked at the whole area before continuing to direct the men. “Lars, this chunk here, lift it about two feet. Perfect, stop. Cameron, shift this piece out slowly. No, no, the other way. Just like that, yes. Now put it directly behind me. Lars, move yours to bracket it.”

  “What are we doing here, Lizzie?” her partner asked her as he did as directed. “It sure looks like we’re playing Jenga or something.”

  “A little, yeah,” she admitted with a faint smile. “There’s no room to stack things off to the side, we risk setting off an avalanche eventually. Let’s just rearrange the area here enough to get people out.”

  That sounded like a good plan to Noriko. She’d been wondering what they were going to do with all of these heavy slabs of broken concrete. There were steel I-beams and bricks and other things that were so mangled she couldn’t begin to guess what they originally were. It made for a very cluttered area.

  Cameron flung up a hand. “Wait, stop. You hear that?”

  They all went still. Noriko’s heart flew into her throat as she heard the distinct clang clang clang of metal striking something hard. “I sure do.”

  Cameron leaned down toward the fissure and yelled, “WE HEAR YOU!”

  It was barely discernable, but she thought she heard a sob of relief.

  Lars came in closer and called down, “HOW MANY INJURED?”

  “THREE! HURRY!” a male voice yelled back.

  “Must be bad,” Cameron said to the air in general.

  Turning his head, Lars called down, “I NEED A MEDICAL TEAM ON STANDBY!”

  The man with the bullhorn raised it to his mouth. “Did I hear a request for a medical team on standby?”

  With all of the noise, even though he was a stone’s throw away, Noriko was actually impressed he’d heard Lars.

  Lars didn’t try to repeat himself, but instead lifted a hand high in the air and gave the man a thumbs up.

  Noriko tracked movement out of the corner of her eye as a medical team poured out of the ambulance and headed for them, scrambling over the debris with equipment clutched tightly in their hands.

  Cameron paid them no heed and asked, “Lizzie, how careful do we need to be for the rest of this?”

  “Depends,” she answered grimly. “How much can you lift at once?”

  “A lot more than what I’ve been doing.” Cameron looked up and for once there was no trace of the jokester on his face. “Lars?”

  “Hey now, I’m more of a veteran than you are. You think you can outdo me, punk?” The challenge was meant to be joking but even Lars wasn’t in the mood to kid around. “Give me a number.”

  “Sixty tons is my comfortable max,” Cameron rattled out. “You?”

  Lars blinked. “Sixty? Alright, if you’re sure, that’s what you do. Lizzie, you know my limit. Tell us what to move.”

  Hopping lightly to the side, Lizzie pointed. “Cameron, that beam down there, see it? From there up and to this slab just behind you. Lars, same spot down, and everything you can from where I’m standing to the slab under your feet. All at once now, ready? Three, two, one, go!”

  Noriko adjusted the power flow as necessary and fed them every bit of power they needed plus a little extra. It became more of a challenge as they demanded more kilomerlins all at once, and she drained everything within a six-foot radius for the power they needed. It also made the area safer to walk through. It was two birds with one stone, as they would soon have injured people that needed to leave the area and clearing it now was a plus in their favor.

  Seeing that the medical team had reached them, she waved them to a stop and they did, hovering, bodies leaning forward as if ready to spring into action at her command. She dared not let them in any closer than this, not while hunks of concrete and metal still moved around.

  Watching the men lift the slabs up was something like watching a superhero in an action movie. It seemed impossible, what they were doing, as neither of them physically touched a thing in the air. Noriko could see every thread of power they had around the slabs, netted over and around it, hoisting it upwards like an invisible crane. Under Lizzie’s direction, they set it all off to the side, and only then did they release and let it all settle again. It did so with a grating, grumbling sigh.

  Noriko again adjusted the stream and lowered the power she fed them. Lars was breathing a little hard, Cameron had sweat beading along his forehead, but neither man paused to catch their breath. They scrambled for the hole they had just created.

  Fortunately, the hole was not deep, only eight or so feet. With the area clear, they could see the blast door. Well, what was left of it. The impact had been so severe that it left the door nearly caved in. Lars did the honors and wrenched it free, setting it off to the side and stacked on top of everything else. Cameron swung his feet over and dropped into the clearing right in front of the doorway. Noriko followed him to the edge, as she had to stay within a certain range of him; otherwise she wouldn’t be able to give him any merlins of power.

  The scene inside was horrifying.

  Mangled computer parts and shattered chairs, all tangled up with each other, lay strewn across the room. The shockwave hadn’t been severe enough to do true structural damage to the block building, but it had sent everything not bolted down flying. Dust hung thick in the air, so much so that it was almost impossible to see anything. One person had a phone on them that still worked and he had a flashlight app on to light up the area. That small beam was their only illumination until Cameron flicked on the light in his baseball cap, which shed a halo of light all around.

  In a merry tone, Cameron gave them a little wave of the hand. “Hello, folks. I’m Cameron Powers with the Gældorcræft Forces. I’m here to escort you off the premises. We’ll do so in an orderly fashion, with the most injured first. Who’s our lucky winner?”

  One person snorted at his dry humor. “I think that would be Michelle. I don’t know how bad, but I think some of her ribs are cracked, and she’s not breathing too well.”

  Noriko did not like the sound of that at all. She threw her legs over the side then paused when she realized she didn’t have anywhere to land. The area down below was tiny and crammed with seven bodies. It was a miracle Cameron had found a clear space. “Cameron, catch me.”

  Cameron’s eyes lit up. “Are you finally going to do trust exercises with me?”

  “You drop me and this will be the last time,” she promised him firmly.

  He stretched his hands out. “Come to papa.”

  Noriko decided to deal with him later and dropped down. He caught her, as he had before, without a second of hesitation. She patted him on the shoulder. “Nice catch. Who’s Michelle?”

  A woman weakly lifted her hand a few inches.

  Carefully stepping over a tangle of limbs, she maneuvered her way around to the woman’s side. “Let’s get your ribs wrapped before we move you,” she said, fighting to keep her voice level. A lifetime of looking after younger siblings and their multitude of boo-boos helped steady her nerves as she slung her pack around and pulled out bandages. “Otherwise we risk damaging things further. You, what’s your name?”

  “Mike,” the man next to her responded. He’d had a hand on the woman, helping to prop her up. Under the bad lighting, and with the thick coat of dust on his skin, he looked like a ghastly zombie.

  “I’m Noriko,” she introduced herself with a brief smile. “You hurt?”

  “Just scrapes and bruises,” he assured her.

  “Then if you’d be so kind, can you help her sit up a little more? Just like that, perfect. Let’s wrap the ribs. Cameron, help the ones that can move out first.”

  “Can you wrap and feed me power?” he asked in faint surprise.

  She shot him a Look over her shoulder.

  For some reason, that made him chuckle. “I should have not questioned. Of course my Spidey can do that. Lars?”

/>   “I’ve got Jack standing by!” Lars responded, already forming up power. “Someone’s got to clear a better path so the paramedics can get through here, though. Can you handle getting them out?”

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  Lars and Lizzie both immediately moved. Noriko paid Cameron enough attention to give him the power that he needed to work, listening with half an ear as he lifted people up and instructed them on where to go. Some spots were safe to walk on, others not as much.

  The woman under her hands was sweating profusely, skin white with pain, and there were little tendrils of whistling in her breathing that spoke of a bruised lung. Noriko had a First Aid certification—everyone in the Forces did—but also a summer internship with Search and Rescue that gave her enough experience to know when someone needed help ASAP. This woman qualified. “Mike?”

  “Yes?”

  “Someone needs to get this woman’s medical history down and go into the ER with her. Can you be that person?”

  “You bet I can.” Tapping his phone, he pulled up a dictation app, although the holograph screen was a little fuzzy due to the dust flying about. “Michelle, tell me what I need to know.”

  Michelle was barely aware at this point, her body trying to suck her into unconsciousness as a way to deal with the pain. She fought it long enough to give Mike the highlights, waiting as Cameron lifted someone else out.

  Cameron turned and knelt down next to them. “You ready to get outta here?”

  Mike had a very worried expression on his face as he looked at his co-worker. “We need to go next.”

  “Yup, ready for you,” Cameron assured him. “Spidey, she all wrapped up?”

  “She’s good, get her out.” Noriko wouldn’t have delayed them, but she had been afraid that lifting the woman in the air without wrapping the ribs first would exacerbate the damage. Cameron would have been able to slap a magical brace on her well enough, true, but then she would have been on top of the rubble with ribs that needed to be wrapped. It was impossible to treat her in that narrow space on top and Noriko hadn’t liked the idea of her being jostled over the rough ground either. Better to wrap them down here and then move her.

  Cameron was the definition of gentle as he lifted Michelle and Mike out together, using a slab of nearby concrete as a platform to elevate them to the surface. Noriko couldn’t see it from her angle, but she heard the sirens of the ambulances and the different wail of the fire trucks. “Sounds like more emergency crews have arrived. Is the area clear enough for them to do that?”

  “Must be, otherwise Jack wouldn’t have let them in,” Cameron replied. He dropped his gaze and looked around, the light perforce moving with him. “Man, what a mess. The place is well-built, though, to be able to withstand this kind of explosion. I mean, Michelle was hurt by flying equipment. The building itself is still mostly standing.”

  Which was a miracle. When Noriko had done the official signup with the Forces, she had been intellectually aware that her job covered a wide gamut. It wasn’t just earthquakes that she was meant to guard against and prevent, but anything in the area that the police or emergency crews needed assistance with. That covered Search and Rescue, police work, firefighting, whatever was needed. She had known then that, sometimes, her work would send her harrying off to the rescue. She’d also known that no matter how fast she might work, there would be people that she couldn’t save. Having everyone still alive on her first rescue mission was against the odds. She was profoundly grateful for it.

  Still, seeing the damage done here and envisioning what would have happened to these poor, trapped people under a more intense explosion made a shiver go straight up her spine.

  Maybe Cameron realized what she felt. He put an arm around her shoulders and urged gently, “Let’s go, Spidey.”

  He was right. With a mental shake, she pulled herself together and gathered power, automatically channeling it to him. “You’re right. Let’s go. Where’s your elevator slab?”

  “Up top. Lars took it from me to use so he could transport Michelle all the way to the ambulance.”

  The opening was just too high for them to easily climb out. Even having something to step on, to bridge part of the height, would be enough to give them the boost they needed. “Hmm, then what about that piece?”

  “Too big, I think. But the one next to it should be about right.” Cameron focused on the slab in question and started gingerly maneuvering it free from the corner it was leaning in.

  “Noriko, Cameron, come in,” Jack’s voice came in crystal clear over the team’s frequency. “What’s the status down there?”

  Noriko lifted the radio band strapped to her wrist up to her mouth. “We’ve got everyone free. There were three injured. We should be up in a min—”

  Several things happened all at once, too fast for her to process or react to. The tenuous balancing act over their heads abruptly collapsed, sending every loose piece of slab and beam straight downward. Cameron jerked her in closer to him, his free hand slamming directly upwards, power rippling out in a visible wave into a dome shape. Noriko was pressed up against his chest, face buried in the curve of his neck, nerves jumping in reaction.

  Everything slammed into the dome of Cameron’s power in a clatter, dust flying, but it did not penetrate. There was a loud, ominous grating sound overhead as metal and stone and concrete all screeched together. Then, abruptly, silence.

  With Cameron’s abrupt snatch, her mask had been knocked askew, so that it was near her ear instead. A hand over her mouth, she tried not to breathe in any dust as it flew and settled around them. A few motes still got in her mouth, sending her coughing for a moment. She fought to get the mask back in place, and only then did she draw a proper breath.

  “—do you read me? Come in! Noriko, Cameron, talk to me!” their captain demanded.

  It was Cameron that responded, tone as lackadaisical as usual: “Hey, Cap. So, I pulled at a piece of broken slab, and I think it set everything off. My bad.”

  There was a collective breath of relief from the channel. Then Banderas was back, sounding calmer, although still strained. “Either of you hurt?”

  “I’m not. Spidey?”

  “I’m good,” she assured him, still a little strangled because of the dust.

  “Looks like we’re both a-okay, Cap. Gotta tell ya, though, I’m not really enthusiastic about busting our way out from down here. I mean, I can try if you want—”

  “Powers, you so much as twitch, and I’ll suspend your butt and put you on half-pay, you copy?” Banderas growled. “Do NOT try to dig your way out of there. We will dig you out. You sit tight.”

  “Roger that, Cap, we’ll be good little damsels in distress and wait for your rescue.”

  Noriko snorted at the image. If there was anything Cameron Powers was not, it was that. “Cameron, you can let go of me.”

  “No, really can’t,” he disagreed, and only then did she hear the faintest hint of strain in his voice.

  She became taut as she sharpened her focus on him. This close, she could feel the flow of his power, see how he was using it, and she realized that while he had enough to keep the dome steady, it was straining his control to the max. She instantly searched out, found another power source, and channeled it to him.

  He blinked at the increase of merlins and looked down at her. “How’d you know?”

  “I could see it,” she responded simply. “This good?”

  “Exactly what I needed.” There was a strange expression on his face, one of somber thoughtfulness even though the ever-present smile still lingered on his face. “Even when I grabbed you, even when all of this crap started falling, you never once faltered in giving me power. Didn’t I scare you, by snatching you like that?”

  “You did,” she acknowledged readily. In fact, her heart was still thumping. “But if you were acting like that, then something serious was going down. And if it was, then you needed all the power you could get. Of course I couldn’t risk breaking off t
he flow.”

  His smile grew, stretching from ear to ear. “They really didn’t rank you right.”

  “That a complaint, Powers?”

  “No way. Thanks to their screw-up, I got you. Who’d complain about that?”

  “You’re making me blush,” she drawled. He really was, too. Although statements like that made her wonder about his first intended partner, the one that he’d never gotten to work with. Did he not have any mixed feelings over that? Wonder what she would’ve been like? With a mental shake, she shelved the question. “I’m just glad you have such good reflexes. How’d you react that fast, anyway?”

  “I sensed it start to come down. Glad I had you at hand, though, otherwise I might not have made it to you in time.” Lifting his head, he listened hard for a moment. “You hear it?”

  “They’re clearing the rubble out fast,” Noriko stated, admiringly. “I think we scared them. How much you want to bet that we’re going to be in trouble for doing something reckless?”

  “We weren’t, though,” Cameron protested.

  She shook her head knowingly. “Captain’s something of a worry-wart. You think that’s going to save us?”

  Her partner opened his mouth, paused, and closed it with frown. “Got a plan, partner?”

  “I don’t. But we have about ten minutes to figure one out.”

  7th Merlin

  Cameron’s mother might have been a hippie out of time, but she knew how to raise a gentleman. When the last of the debris was lifted off, Cameron insisted she get out first, and wouldn’t budge until she was back on solid ground.

  It was Lars who put a large chunk of concrete down, giving her the height she needed to climb out. He gave her a hand to brace against as she pulled herself up and through. Free of the hole, she took a look around and discovered that while they had been buried, even more help had arrived. There were lights strung up now, and huge lamps set up so that people could actually see what they were doing.

  Jack was the one to greet them at the top of the rubble. Extending a hand, he helped her over the last of it. “You’re looking a little grey, Noriko. Alright?”