by Chloe Garner
The first thirty seconds of the ambush were over. They hadn’t killed her yet, and they’d spent their best advantage.
Her mind clicked into work mode, and the math crystallized.
If she couldn’t kill the demon holding Sam and Jason, immediately, and get them back in play, she was going to die.
They had her on numbers, they had her on organization, and they had a specific target. When she died, the bag would come loose and they’d be gone. Sam and Jason likely wouldn’t survive, but they weren’t the targets. The strike team had a focus that gave them an advantage. There would be no milling about, no confusion, no infighting. Just hard focus on the bag tied to Samantha’s waist.
Sam warned her when one of the wolves glitched behind her, and Samantha put Lahn through the spot, but he was gone, and his mate was at her elbow. Samantha had her arm wrapped around her own waist and a demon standing against her. She dropped, but felt the knife the woman carried slide up inside of her shirt, slicing the skin and jutting against bone. The only reason Samantha survived it was that the woman wanted the bag, and hadn’t proven that it was going to take killing Samantha to get it. The knife jerked away, trying to cut the chain, and Samantha was lifted off her feet again. The knife torqued against the chain again and snapped around, digging a gash in Samantha’s side as it rotated, and Samantha landed heavily on her side.
Her air was gone, and she knew she only had a few minutes before she would no longer be capable of fighting.
Survive.
She didn’t know how to survive, but she knew how to fight.
She did.
Lahn hit flesh, more because Sam had put her there than because Samantha had, and more ash rained onto Samantha. She rolled onto her knees, bending time harder as she tried to find the watery-eyed demon.
She needed her feet under her.
She reached deep, finding the pain of the stab as bad as she had expected it to be, and turning it off.
We’re hard to kill, she thought to herself. Even if we die later, anyway.
There was a growl that she realized was coming from her own throat as she got back up to her feet and finished the one-armed tank. Lahn tore a hole through his heart and she and the dark demon met eyes for a moment before he sloughed to ash. The watery-eyed demon was still a long way off, and had the benefit of glitching, but Samantha started for him anyway.
Hard to kill.
Her motions were mechanical, perfect, as Sam corrected them for what she couldn’t see. He threw her to the ground again as a bullet went whizzing overhead, and she rolled back to her feet, feeling the weakness in her left leg but moving on it the same, anyway. The wolf pair were after her in a flurry of glitches and grabs and slashes, and she found concrete again. Lahn was fast and brutal, though, and she got a solid gash through the woman. The Amazon grabbed her around the chest and Samantha took Lahn over her head to stab the woman in the head, pulling her legs up to defend her stomach. She heard a rib pop as the woman crushed her. Samantha screamed hellspeak obscenities, and the woman glitched away again before Lahn found home. Samantha landed hard on her tailbone, forcing herself back forward, over her feet.
Up.
The man from the wolf pair was before her, his closed fist coming down toward her face. She was too slow.
Between micro-glitch and his head start, he would crush her skull before she could stab him in the chest.
He ashed.
Deep, carbon-black ash sheeted down in front of her and Samantha found herself looking down the blade of Kelly’s sword. His defiant eyes met hers and he glitched away.
Players on the field.
Samantha spun, looking for the next target.
The watery-eyed demon glitched away from her, appearing well down the culvert. Sam pulled Lahn around and the sword met resistance, which built then gave as the blade hit bone, then slid through ash.
Kelly ashed the amazon as she tried to regroup, and the shooter and the watery-eyed demon glitched out.
Sam fell five feet to the ground and landed in a sprint as Samantha melted to the concrete.
She turned on the pain. She needed it to tell her what she could and could not do.
Hard to kill.
Sam’s hand found the gash and she shifted, letting the flare of pain that roared up her side go by.
“Call Peter,” she whispered. Sam was pale. Samantha nodded at him, or at least she thought she did, but the intent was enough. “Call Peter.”
Jason was standing over her, as was Kelly. Her side was warm and wet, but Sam had that under control. She rested her head on his knee and let her mind wander away. She didn’t really need to be here for this part.
<><><>
There was pain.
“You do have a knack for getting yourself in trouble,” Jason said.
“Shut up,” she mumbled.
“I told you to keep her away from them,” Kelly said.
“And you told her to stay away from them, too. How did that go for you?” Jason asked.
Sam was close.
Sam was always close.
<><><>
“It’s Carter,” Sam said.
“What’s Carter?” Jason asked.
“On the phone.”
“I hate it when you do that.”
The phone rang. Samantha edged herself up in bed, her side sore but not unworkable. Breathing was a trick, but she’d figure it out.
“She’s still asleep,” Sam said. He was lying. He knew Samantha was awake, but he wanted to keep Carter away from her, for now. Samantha listened to him listening, feeling his temper spike. Carter was insisting.
“Let me have the phone,” Samantha said. Her voice croaked, and she swallowed, looking for water. She recognized one of the guest rooms from Peter’s house just outside of New Orleans. Sam came in with a glass of water and the phone, handing her the first and waiting for her to drink before he let her have the second.
“What do you want, Carter?” Samantha asked.
“Samantha,” Carter said, a special quality of voice telling her it was important. She’d only ever heard him use that voice with her.
“What do you need?” she asked, answering with her own private tone.
“I need you here.”
She forced herself up higher. Sam sat down next to her, close enough that she could edge against him for support. Kelly glitched into the room.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Samantha closed her eyes.
“We’ll be there.”
<><><>
The drive from New Orleans to New York was a rough pair of days. She might have done it differently, but knowing that Carter needed her enough that he was willing to do something other to demand it meant she put all of her energy into healing. She let her body hurt, she slept when it told her to sleep, and she laid off training Jason at all. Sam sat with her in the back of the Cruiser, leaving the front seat to Kelly, who watched Samantha like a hawk.
“We should not be doing this,” Kelly said.
“Can it,” Jason answered.
They pulled into the garage below Carter’s building, finding Carter leaning against a wall. Samantha sat up and tested her side, turning off the pain when she decided it was going to make her walk funny. Now was time for work.
“No returns on broken merchandise,” Carter said as she got out of the car.
“Screw you,” Jason said. Carter smiled.
“Come on upstairs.”
“Is Abby here?” Samantha asked.
“Yeah,” Carter said as the doors to the elevator closed.
“Good.” She leaned against Sam, still sleepy and worn down from healing. She had contacts in the city who could help finish it up; that was next on her list of things to do. “I’m in no mood to deal with you on my own.”
Carter chortled, his eyes up, watching the numbers flash above the doors.
“She said you’d say that.”
Samantha felt Sam dissipate into the building, checki
ng the rooms for ambush or anything out of place. It was comforting.
“We’re here,” Jason said. “What’s this about?”
“There’s trouble here,” Carter said. “Seemed like the right way to deploy forces.”
“You’re afraid,” Jason said. “And you’re calling in reinforcements.”
Carter’s eyes were sharp in the elevator door reflection.
“Now isn’t the time,” Samantha said. Jason shrugged.
“Just saying.”
Samantha waited until they were in the apartment and she was sitting on the couch next to Sam before she started asking the questions she had accumulated.
“Who is it?” Samantha asked.
“Everyone,” Carter said, sitting down at a stool at the counter. Jason took a chair by Abby at the table. “The factions are unstable, and they’re going to war with each other. Whatever it is that’s happened, it’s got them all excited, and they’re jockeying for power.”
“It’s about you,” Samantha said. Her side twinged, and Sam edged closer to take the weight off the muscles there, still only partially repaired and very sensitive. Samantha took a moment, rooting around through her nervous system to find the source of the downstream pain and turning off broader swaths of it. She looked at Carter, face even. “That’s what they tell me, anyway.”
Carter raised an eyebrow.
“I’d like to know what they think they’re going to do to me,” he said. He spread his arms, standing, his light jacket falling off the stool as he approached.
“You’re kha?” Samantha asked. He stopped, the mirth on his face dropping away.
“So?”
“So is Jason.”
He jerked his head, looking at the table.
“What did they do to you?” he asked. Jason shrugged.
“That much time, a lot of things.”
Carson looked back at Samantha.
“And you think that they…?”
“It’s what they think.”
He licked his lips.
“What do you think?”
She glanced at Jason, looking for permission, and he gave her the tiniest of nods.
“I think it’s possible that someone out there has the recipe.”
He shook his head, going back to his stool.
“No, we’re immune. They can’t touch us.”
“I hope it’s true, but that isn’t want they’re saying.”
“You’ve been hunting them?”
“Of course.”
“What happened in New Orleans? Abby said it was bad.”
Samantha pulled up her shirt, indicating the satchel.
“Bad timing.”
“They’re hunting you now?”
“Looks like.”
“How did you let them get that close?”
“They were strong. Someone funded a cross for six of the most powerful demons I’ve seen on this side.”
“It won’t be the only set to come across,” Carter said.
“I know. Kelly held his ground.”
The angel looked sullenly from his spot on the wall. He hadn’t opened his mouth except to say that he didn’t want to be here. Samantha respected his resolve.
“He’s a liability,” Carter said.
“He saved my life.”
Carter’s mouth twitched.
“That must have been humiliating.”
“What is it that you want her to do?” Kelly asked.
Carter stared the angel down, but Kelly didn’t flinch. Samantha heard Abby giggle.
“What she does. Rattle cages, crack heads.”
“Why aren’t you doing that?” Jason asked.
“I have obligations,” Carter said. “She’s unstable. Everyone knows she could go off any time, and kill everyone.”
“Very convincing,” Sam said.
“I have obligations, too,” Samantha said. “I need to find out who opened the gate. If I can find him, maybe I can track down who was on the other side when he did it.”
“Rooting them out from the top,” Carter said. Samantha nodded.
“I can hunt them all day every day, and it would take me a year or more to get them all. Depending on how the power structure works, I might never find the demon who orchestrated it, and I might never eliminate the knowledge of how to…” She paused. “Aspen, I may never be able to eliminate the knowledge. You need to learn to be careful.”
“Says the one with a hole in her side,” Carter said. “I’m the most careful person alive.”
“And you’re also the most powerful, and you act like it,” Samantha said. “You need to be aware of what this means.”
“You think I don’t know?” Carter snapped. Sam stiffened, and Samantha put a hand on his arm.
“No. I think you know, but you’re going to be too stubborn to change, because you think they should be afraid of you.” She lifted her shirt to expose the wide section of bandages. “We should all be afraid of them. Even you, standing in this apartment - this apartment - they could line a gun up on you and take you out.”
“And where would they have gotten that idea?” Carter asked pointedly. Samantha smiled.
“They can’t glitch on that side.” She sighed, feeling the nothing where pain should have come off her ribs. “I’ll look into it. We’ll be visible for a few days and see if we can’t cast a few shadows for them to run away from, but I’ve got work I need to do.”
“Sam,” Abby said. Both of them turned to look at her. “What should I be doing?”
Samantha tipped her head toward Carter.
“You watch him. Keep him safe, and keep yourself safe. They know you’re the lever.”
“She doesn’t take orders from you,” Carter said.
“When I believe it’s in your best interest to disobey you, I can,” Abby said.
“I will not let a bunch of demon power struggles turn me into a shut-in,” Carter said.
“You already are a shut-in,” Abby answered. Carter flushed, and Samantha stepped in, as much as she liked to watch the two of them fight.
“Carter, there are too many pieces floating around right now, and it all revolves around you. They get you, who knows what else they get. I don’t even think they know.”
“This assumes you got good information,” Carter said.
“I did.”
“You want me to let a few demon rumors and a power struggle change my behavior,” Carter said, shaking his head. “Not going to happen.”
Samantha stood.
“Everyone out.”
No one moved. Sam tried to get her to sit again, but she ignored him.
“I mean it. Please. Let us talk.”
“I’ll be outside,” Kelly said, glitching. Sam stood and touched Samantha’s elbow.
“We all will be,” he said. She nodded, letting the sound of feet and the door tell her when the room was empty, rather than watching. She and Carter stared at each other.
“Are you really asking me to go on the defense?” he asked.
“I am.”
He turned his face away.
“I don’t do that.”
“I know.”
“And you’ve got hit teams after you.”
“Yes.”
“Damn Mahkail and his rules.”
“Would you have carried it?”
He shook his head.
“How long?”
“Maybe six months.”
They paused.
“He’s getting stronger.”
“He is.”
“But he isn’t strong enough.”
“No.”
Another gap.
“I’m going to be very upset if you get yourself killed.”
“Thank you.”
Their eyes met again. Abby and Sam would both be trying to watch, but the defenses on his apartment were tied to Carter’s mood, and he would have the whole thing locked down. As she considered it, Samantha was impressed Kelly had been able to glitch.
; “How long?” he asked again.
“Until things are normal again?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s my responsibility to take charge,” Carter said. “Not send my minions out into the world to do it.”
“It’s what Ian would do.”
“Exactly.”
She smiled.
“I know. Maybe I’m wrong, and this is about something else, but Brandt mentioned you without me even thinking to ask. I believe you’re part of it, and I believe it’s because you’re kha.”
“You don’t believe the demonic mythologies,” Carter said.
“But they do.”
He shrugged and nodded.
“If I have to be careful, you do, too.”
Samantha pulled up her shirt to look at the bandage again.
“Bad timing all around,” she said. “We’re so fragile, Carter. We don’t think about it, but it takes almost nothing to extinguish us.”
“You think I don’t think about it? They’ve got wagers and bounties on my soul, over there.”
“Doesn’t have to be like that,” Samantha said.
“Samantha. I am what I am.”
“And so am I, Aspen.”
The corner of his mouth came up in a genuine smile.
“Yes, you are. They’re coming along very well.”
“I didn’t want this for them.”
“You knew the day you got in the car with them what you were doing. Abby told me.”
“Doesn’t mean I wanted it.”
He nodded.
“I suppose that’s true.”
“Hole up,” Samantha said. “Call it a power play. Get a receptionist and an assistant and make everyone come to you, one at a time. Stay where you’re strong.”
He looked around the apartment.
“I suppose I could get used to that.”
Samantha nodded.
“I’ll find them and I’ll end this.”
“It’s what you do.”
“It’s what I do.”
He sat back down with his back to her and she watched him for a moment, then left. In the hallway, Sam and Abby were waiting by the door. Kelly was across the hall and Jason was sitting on the floor by the elevators, reassembling his gun.
“What now?” Sam asked.
“Keep an eye on him,” Samantha said to Abby. “I’ll do my best.”