I scrambled to my feet as the shadow-warg flew through the air, throwing out my good hand—
The hound slammed into a blue sphere that was suddenly encompassing Drukiski: an energy shield that’d prevent bullets, knives, or claws from getting anywhere near the witless Judge.
The Gwyllgi fell back with a confused yelp of rage before promptly throwing its weight against the shield once more; a crackle of power from the impact shook a tacky picture from one of the walls in the guest room proper. Drukiski shrieked, hands flying to her mouth as the creature collided with the glimmering dome over and over again—the only thing standing between her and certain, gruesome death.
With a growl and gritted teeth, I labored to raise my left hand, hoping to roast the shadow-warg while Drukiski was covered and protected by my shield. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t get my damn arm to work. Useless son of a bitch just hung there limp and worthless like wings on an ostrich.
Then, before I could think of another plan, the hound did something I hadn’t prepared for.
It flickered and faded, its skin taking on a translucent sheen as the beast dissolved into a walking shadow—a literal shade of its former self.
It carefully extended its muzzle toward the protective barrier, which pulsed and flared, brilliant sparks of raw power flying away in a spray. Resistance built as the warg pushed inward; the blazing blue sphere began to vibrate, to shiver, from the mounting pressure. Then, in a blink, the warg’s short, snarling snout slipped through, unobstructed.
The shadow-hound continued to press its weight inward, and though the shield was clearly slowing its movements, it wasn’t stopping them. Not completely. Inch by inevitable inch, it broke through. Drukiski let out a renewed round of frantic shrieks, creeping back, only to find her flannel-clad shoulder blades pressed up against the blue shield meant to keep the warg out. She was stuck, but I didn’t dare dismiss the shield, since it was the only thing keeping her breathing.
Drukiski didn’t have long before the hound bypassed the shield completely, though, so I needed to do something. The fiery torment in my arm, however, made it a real bitch to think. To plan.
“Drukiski, you’re gonna have to defend yourself,” I finally shouted. “I’m gonna drop the shield so you can get away, but you’re gonna be vulnerable for a second, you trackin’?”
“No, no, no, no, no, gosh no,” she stammered, arms folded tight across her body, eyes huge and wild and terrified.
“It’ll only be a second. You can do this, just focus.”
Finally, she offered a curt, fearful nod of her head.
“Good,” I said, trying to sound calm and cool and collected, like this kinda thing was no big deal. Not true, of course, but as a leader in a firefight you need to convince your fresh-faced subordinates that everything is well in hand.
I gathered up columns of bedrock strength and earthen power, binding it with thick braids of will, then drawing molten flame from deep within the earth, pulling it toward the surface. “Hands up,” I called as I prepared my working, “tuck your chin—keep that thing from getting at your throat—and throw something powerful at it. Flame lance, ice-spike, force wave, something, got it?”
She nodded again, raising shaky fists in front of her face, a soft nimbus of light blooming around her like a watery halo.
“On three,” I yelled.
“One …” I breathed out, clearing my mind.
“Two …” I put the final touches on my earth-working.
“Three …” I released the shield enveloping her, allowing it to dissipate with a nearly inaudible pop.
Everything happened at once:
With the shield gone, the wolf surged forward, solidifying in a heartbeat, only to get a face full of fire, courtesy of the Judge. Her flame lance was pencil thin, but she aimed that little beam true, blasting the warg right in its blue eyes. Fire lapped over its blunt muzzle, and the beast, blinded, slammed gracelessly into her belly, throwing her across the room. The warg blundered about, shaking its maned head, smashing into furniture—colliding with a desk, then smashing into a lamp—as a low growl poured from its throat.
Drukiski flipped head over heels.
Her beam of flame slashed wildly through the air as she tumbled. Naturally, the thin razor of heat sliced across my shoulder in the process, digging into my skin and setting my T-shirt ablaze before guttering and disappearing. I beat at my shirt, a litany of profanity—lots of variations on ass, shit, and dick—spilling from my mouth as I conjured a quick and dirty water construct to extinguish the ruined garment and cool my burnt flesh.
Dammit.
It took me only a moment to douse the flame, and thankfully the Gwyllgi still hadn’t managed to get its bearings. Finally, a lucky break. Grabbing hold of the ever-growing rage building in the pit of my stomach, I once more summoned the shimmering, defensive dome, except this time it wasn’t around the Judge. Nope, this time it encompassed the hound, keeping the creature in, at least for a short time, which was all I needed.
Next, I brought a foot down, slamming it into the ground, unleashing the pent-up earthen energy constrained by my will: the floor rumbled and quivered, splitting open as a jagged fissure tore its way toward the caged hound.
The earth beneath the shadow-warg buckled, dipping down, then swelling up, rupturing. Chunks of rock and flecks of dirt flew into the air followed by a gout of molten rock—red, orange, and black—spraying the dome’s interior, coating the warg in a liquid sheen of red-hot earth. The hound howled, the bray reedy and muted, as light and horrible heat filled the enclosed space, melting bone and eating inky black flesh. The blue dome flickered in places, turning near-translucent under the incredible strain of holding in the magma.
But, it did hold.
After a few agonizing seconds the howls cut off, the warg gone, buried beneath the seething mass of liquid rock. The shield gave out a moment later, but I was ready with a hasty working of air and water, which slammed into the molten stone, cooling it to a tortured mass of goopy black rock, simultaneously jettisoning a huge bank of steam into the air. The wave of uncomfortably hot moisture instantly soaked my clothes and slicked my skin with perspiration, but I didn’t care. A little steam was a small price to pay for not dying.
A sudden hush—save for the soft hiss of steam and the occasional groan from the still cooling rock—settled over the cottage. Strangely peaceful after the commotion, and somehow jarring because of it.
Slowly, numbly, I trudged over and plopped down onto the edge of my busted-ass bed. Breathing heavy, I eyed my bloody left arm and the red blisters now dotting my left shoulder, thanks to Judge Drukiski’s total incompetence.
Eventually, the steam disappeared completely, leaving the carnage of battle plain to see. A twisted column of black dominated Drukiski’s portion of the room. The stone floors were cracked and shattered. The furniture was smashed to pieces, chunks of wood strewn throughout the cottage. A laptop lay dashed against the ground, its screen busted to shit, its silver casing bent and disfigured.
What a friggin’ mess.
The Judge—supremely ruffled and quite the worse for wear—lumbered over to me, mouth slightly agape. “That was a …” She trailed off breathlessly, plopping down beside me, though not really seeing me. “That was a Gwyllgi,” she said, eyeing the column of blackened rock in the middle of her once fine room. “Why would there be a Gwyllgi here?” She shook her head, slow, uncomprehending.
“Two,” I said, absently. “There were two of ’em. I killed the other one before you opened the door.”
Finally, she turned her gaze on me, flinching at the sight of my injuries. “Ouch, that looks bad, really bad.” She tentatively reached toward my arm, but stopped herself from touching the myriad of lacerations and puncture wounds littering my flesh. “And your shirt’s ruined—bloodstains are so hard to get rid of. We need to get you to the infirmary. Then we …” She trailed off again, thinking. “Well, I suppose we should report this incident. Bring the
matter to the Elder Council. They’ll know what to do.” She chewed at her lip as though she didn’t believe the words any more than I did.
“Wrong-o,” I replied. “That’s the last thing we need to do. What we need to do is get our shit together ASAP, then run. Get our asses gone. Out of this room and out of this town. The sooner the better. And we can’t risk telling anyone.”
“But protocol dictates we lodge a formal incident report, then get departure clearance before leaving the compound.”
“I’m gonna stop you right there. Does any of this”—I waved an arm around the room—“seem standard to you? ’Cause here’s a news flash, sister, this isn’t normal. First thing you need to understand, this isn’t some big accident or some misunderstanding. Those shadow-wargs attacked us on purpose, which means we’re on someone’s hit list. Second—even if we wanted to report this, which we don’t, trust me—we don’t even know who to report to. Someone let loose the Gwyllgi. Someone powerful enough to bypass the compound security protocols. That means Elder Council. Which means we’re not safe. Not here. Not anywhere near here. And we can’t trust any—”
“Do you smell something burning?” she asked abruptly, nose wrinkling as she sniffed at the air.
The scent of smoldering wood hit my nostrils a second later, only a faint whiff next to the sulphurous stink from the cooling magma, but growing more potent by the moment. A few faint curls of gray smoke, wispy things, drifted in from under the front door, which also happened to be the only way out of the cottage. Between me and Drukiski, we’d certainly tossed around enough fire to burn the place to the ground, but that smoke was coming from the outside.
With a groan I gained my feet and padded over to the door, careful to avoid the still hot ground surrounding the now dead shadow-warg. I pressed my hand against the thick wooden door and felt heat soaking through.
Great. Perfect. Asstastic.
Someone had set the cottage on fire.
Probably the same asshole that’d unleashed the Gwyllgi on us in the first place. Just a little extra insurance to make sure the job got done while also, conveniently, destroying any condemning evidence. Setting shit on fire is always a solid forensic countermeasure when you want to cover up some dubious shenanigans like, say, premeditated murder.
“Get dressed, now,” I said, moving away from the door. “And do me a quick favor—check the assignment folder.”
“Why, what’s going on?” she asked, still looking rather dazed, eyes distant.
“Fire,” I replied curtly, rushing back into my broom closet of a room and pulling on my shoulder rig and jacket—equal parts leather, Kevlar, and slash-resistant fabric—before worming into my dusty jeans and grabbing my spent pistol. “Someone means to see me dead, and that means they can’t afford to leave you alive either. For the time being, you’re a loose end, and that means you aren’t safe here. They can’t risk you spilling the beans.”
When I turned back, Drukiski was a whirlwind of panicked motion. Nice to see her finally moving with a little speed and intensity.
She’d already pulled on her professional business slacks and was shrugging her way out of the flannel nightgown. She twirled and stopped when her eyes landed on me—red exploded in her cheeks and ran down her neck. “Mage Lazarus,” she said, voice breathy, aghast, “please …” She stuttered and extended her hand, twirling one finger in a turn around gesture. “I’m married.”
“Seriously?” I replied wearily. “Someone just tried to murder us, they’re burning the cottage down around us, and you’re worried about modesty?” I rolled my eyes and shrugged. “Whatever,” I said, offering her my back, giving her a handful of seconds to finish dressing. When I turned back around she was sliding on practical black running shoes.
The smoke was thicker now, billowing up around her ankles and filling the room.
I choked back a cough as the gray cloud seeped into my cramped sleeping quarters, the noxious gas ready to suffocate and kill. We needed out.
Drukiski slipped an arm over her nose and mouth, then headed for the nightstand, quickly rummaging through her obnoxious purple purse. The purse which held the folder with the case details. Specifically, the name and location of our only lead and the next link in this screwy chain. Sure we didn’t need it—we both knew the scant details already—but I had a hunch that this attack was about more than just murder.
“It’s gone,” she said, voice edging into the realm of ape-shit panic. “The dossier, it’s not in here. I checked it before bed—I swear it was right here.”
I grunted and grimaced.
Yep, not just an assassination attempt. An assassination attempt coupled with a snatch and grab. The traitor was after the Fourth Seal too, so it stood to reason they would need the same case details Drukiski and I had access to. Which meant there was probably a third Gwyllgi slinking his shadowy ass through the night with the exact information necessary to find the Seal.
Better and better by the minute.
On the plus side, I guess that ruled out the arch-mage from my suspect pool—she wouldn’t need to organize a snatch and grab of her own intel. Not that I’d ever really doubted her in the first place. She was a lot of things—cold, calculating, a distrustful she-devil—but not a sociopathic murderer with a god complex. Wait a minute, I suppose she does have a massive god complex, but she’d never endanger or undermine the Guild, that I was sure of.
“So what do we do now?” Drukiski asked, voice muffled by her arm, curled in front of her face to block out the ever growing cloud of choking smoke.
“Now we get the hell outta Dodge. Find a way off the premises, then get to the arch-mage’s contact before the shadowy, conniving douche-mage that just tried to bury us can.”
I turned toward the back wall, gathering in energy, constructing a concussive wave of force perfect for a little interior remodeling. The construct rolled out of me a second later, accompanied by a flash of angry green light as the brick wall next to my cot blew like Old Faithful. A deafening boom ripped through the room as pieces of stone and mortar flew outward in a blast of rubble and gritty debris. What was left of the back wall looked like someone had taken an industrial wrecking ball to it.
Pretty close to the truth, actually.
But as new air rushed into the room—oxygen flooding the space with sweet life—the entryway door ruptured with a crack-bang, a huge wave of dancing flames pouring in, eager to gobble up the inrush of air.
A nasty backdraft.
Flames surged toward us, toward the hole, the source of the oxygen, terrible heat clawing at us. Another few seconds and this place was gonna be a friggin’ bonfire.
I ducked my head and bolted for the impromptu back door. Drukiski gave a squawk as I grabbed her arm and roughly dragged her through the jagged opening and into a small clearing of trimmed grass behind the guest cottage. I kept moving until we were well clear of the building, then halted long enough to get my bearings, the burning building casting a sooty orange glow over the landscape around us.
I didn’t see any obvious bad guys—no one twirling a mustache or cackling manically as they watched the cottage go up in a blaze—but I did see a shitload of crazy-pants chaos. A host of fires dotted Moorchester, and the sounds of men and women shouting carried in the night.
“Do you think it’s some sort of invasion?” Drukiski asked, mouth pressed damn near to my ear.
I shook my head. “Could be, maybe, but I don’t think so,” I whispered back. “This attack can’t be a coincidence. Black Jack warned me—he told me there’s still a traitor in the ranks somewhere and that they wouldn’t be happy about having me poking around. I’m the target. Gotta be. And this”—I waved at the spattering of flames spreading throughout the village—“this is a distraction.
“Sleight of hand. Make sure everyone’s looking that way, so no one pays attention while this douchewaffle kills us and snags the case dossier. Smart. Practical. Efficient. That’s the way I’d do it.” I faltered, staring at vari
ous clouds of smoke trailing into the sky. “We need to get gone, quick as we can, before the asshole behind this shitshow figures out his assassination didn’t pan out.” I rounded on her. “I need you to think. You know this place better than I do—what’s the quickest way out?”
Drukiski pursed her lips, eyes flickering back and forth almost as though she were reading a book invisible to the world. After a long beat, she nodded. “Well, considering the level of damage, I’m sure Fist Leader Quinn will have the town on lockdown. The wards will be active and I’ll bet he’s triggered the dome. All standard operating procedure.”
The dome was exactly what it sounded like: an invisible, impenetrable force field which encompassed Moorchester, enfolding it in a field of pure Vis, powered by the immense ley lines and telluric currents below. A backup emergency precaution, capable of withstanding a nuclear blast while also ensuring no one could enter or leave until the dome was disarmed. And the only way to disarm it was via the emergency defense control room buried deep beneath the chapel overlooking the village.
That’s where all the high-level Guild officers would be.
Which meant that was a place we needed to avoid like a VA hospital run by braindead zombies. Or, as I call it, the VA hospital.
There were two sally gates, though—hidden, emergency exits which could be used to evacuate the compound if the need ever arose.
“And before you ask,” she continued, seeming to read my mind, “there’ll be guards posted at the egress points.”
“How many guards we talkin’ about?” I asked.
She rubbed her hands together, lips puckered in a grimace. “Too many, even for you. If the platoon leaders follow the tactics manual, which they should, there’ll be a squad apiece per gate. Twelve Judges at each emergency exit. They’ll be on high alert and they’ll have strict orders about who has access. And the short list of who has unrestricted access is awfully, awfully short. At this point, unless the arch-mage personally walks us through, we’re stuck.”
The distant warbling cry of a Gwyllgi carried even over the crackle of fire and the distant shouts of men and women struggling to bring some semblance of order to the pandemonium engulfing the sleepy town. Another howl answered the first, followed by a third, not far off in the distance. Gooseflesh broke out along my arms and legs, the hairs on the back of my neck rising to attention. Those were the coordinated cries of a hunting pack.
Savage Prophet: A Yancy Lazarus Novel (Episode 4) Page 5