Mage Hunters Box Set

by Andrew C Piazza

  “The hell with it,” Lysette said. “I never was good at playing nice.”

  “That’s why I love you,” Cass said, lining up the nearest ghoul’s head in her sights. “Here we go.”

  She fired and the first ghoul fell, and Cass let herself have a tiny sense of satisfaction even though she knew that the outcome of this fight was inevitable. Getting headshots on fast moving targets was not exactly a promising scenario, especially since she had to shoot one-handed to keep the other hand clamped over her bleeding wound. She knew she’d be able to drop a few, sure, but at running speed, the ghouls were going to be on them too quickly for her to kill even half of them with her pistol.

  Then, over the ringing in her ears from the gunfire, she dully heard a clank of metal behind her, and she barely had time to think who the hell just opened up that door? before a large arm scooped her up and pulled her through the gate.

  Dread

  Timing really is everything.

  Mickey and I had barely made it into the shower room through the hole blasted in the wall, when I could hear the commotion going on inside the cell block. Someone was shouting, threats of some sort, and it got my instincts on edge.

  She was close. Cass. There was only one cell block for women in this prison, and we were in it. My mind was whirling, trying to think of what I would say to her; the last time I saw her, we were on a suicide mission and failing at it. They dragged us away from that place, both of us kicking and screaming, and I hadn’t seen her since.

  I used to think about her a lot. The prison never got around to putting a roommate in with me, so I’d spent the last several months mostly alone. That’s a lot of time to reflect inwards.

  I wondered if she was okay. I wondered what she was doing. I wondered if her mind had gone yet, from our Revival. And then I mostly just thought about her; my memories of how she looked, how she felt, how she smelled. There were times in stir when I got so lonely, I could almost see her smiling face, wearing that wise-ass grin she always got around me, and I even began to talk to that memory of her.

  It’s typically a pretty bad sign when you start talking to yourself. But I knew her for so long and so well that I pretty much knew exactly what she’d say or do in any given situation. At least, I thought I did. So talking to my memory of Cass was almost as good as the real thing.

  And now… now I finally had a chance to do it for real. It hadn’t even occurred to me until I saw the stenciled letters on the side of building a few moments before. I knew Cell Block Six was the women’s block. When I saw that hole some Striker mage had blasted through it, suddenly I realized that in the midst of all this madness, I had a chance to actually see Cass one more time.

  What choice did I have? She’s the love of my life. For so long, we’d denied our feelings for each other, out of some archaic sense of professionalism, until we’d squandered all our time together and all we were left with were the scraps of fractured moments after our Revival. I wasn’t going to let that happen again. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. If I had to smash this prison to the ground to buy myself one more second with her, that was exactly what I was going to do.

  Once I realized my opportunity, I actually felt ashamed that I hadn’t thought of it before. In all fairness, I’d had my hands full with staying alive and keeping this tiny little terrified civilian with me alive as well, but still… I felt guilty that getting to Cass wasn’t my first thought once the alarms went off.

  Mickey started goofing off almost right away, setting aside her big handbag that she had slung around her and switching on one of the showers. Insane. We needed to be making zero noise and staying out of sight, and she’s turning on the showers for some crazy reason.

  “Mickey,” I hissed at her, “turn that off!”

  “I want to get some of the blood off this vest.”

  I rolled my eyes, shut off the water, and pulled her by the arm toward the interior of the cell block. She scooped up her bag and started complaining.

  “Seriously Dread, it’s really gross…”

  “Shh! Do you want someone to hear you?”

  “Fine,” she said, and fell into line behind me.

  I didn’t know this part of the prison that well, but I was pretty sure that there was a laundry on the opposite side of the cell block, with the infirmary and some other admin areas somewhere past that. My guess was, this part of the cell block hadn’t been warded against magic, and that’s what allowed a Striker mage to punch their way out of this block by knocking a hole in the showers.

  A gunshot rang out further inside the cell block, followed closely by another, and my adrenaline started to kick back in. I didn’t know if it was the guards or the inmates shooting at this point, but it didn’t really matter. Either one was as likely to shoot us as the other.

  If I had been alone, it would’ve been a no-brainer: go into the block, no matter what the danger, and find Cass. But now I had Mickey to worry about, and honestly, the decent move would’ve been to get her someplace safe first and then go back for Cass.

  I talked myself out of decency almost right away once I heard another shot. Where’s safe? I asked myself. No way to know that. Might as well find Cass… she can help us get to the central hub.

  It was a convenient lie and I knew it, but I let that lie push me toward the main hall leading down the center of the cell block. Loud, clanging sounds came from close by; it sounded like someone was pulling on the steel bars of a locked door.

  We made it out of the showers and into the main hall, peeking around the edge of the doorway to see if the coast was clear. To our right was the end of the building. Across the empty hallway were doors that I was pretty sure led to the laundry. To our left, a little stretch down the hallway, was a stone wall separating us from the main cell block where all of the individual cells were.

  There was a door set into the center of that wall, not a solid steel door but one made out of steel bars. Two women were propped up against it, facing away from us and back towards the cells, one of them holding a pistol up against some threat approaching them from that direction.

  It was Cass. Even this far away and with her back turned, I knew it was Cass.

  I realized immediately that she was trapped. It took everything I had to keep myself from charging blindly down the hall and trying to rip that door from its hinges with my bare hands.

  “Keys!” I said to Mickey, holding out my hand.

  “Um, hang on,” she said, patting her pockets to check where she’d put them.

  “Mickey!”

  The tone of my voice must’ve really got her attention, because she found them quickly and handed them over with “Okay, okay!”

  “Come on!” I said, taking off toward Cass at full speed.

  I didn’t know what Cass was facing and I didn’t care. There could have been a legion of the worst monsters Hell could unleash on Earth; I was getting that door open and getting to her even if it were only to die by her side a second later.

  I slowed down enough to keep my footing as I fingered through the keys on the keyring. Remember when I said before about how there’s nothing to do in prison except watch the other prisoners and the guards? Well, there’s also fantasizing about escape, which includes little details like watching the guards unlock doors and memorizing which keys they used.

  It helped that they marked their keys with color codes, and so I was able to narrow it down to two possibilities by the time I came up against the bars separating me from Cass. She hadn’t seen or heard me; she was shooting down the hall and would be practically deaf from the gunfire.

  Luck was with me. The key slid into the tumblers and turned easily. I stole a look up and through the bars and saw what Cass what shooting at… ghouls. Lots of them, charging top speed straight at her.

  Don’t get distracted, dummy, get the door open, I thought to myself, and the door swung open an instant later.

  They were almost on top of her. She was still shooting, only using
one hand for some reason, completely oblivious to me from her tunnel vision focused on her enemy. There was no time to mess around. I looped an arm around her waist, scooped her up, and pulled her through the door, careful to control her gun hand… she instinctively fought me and tried to blow my head off with her pistol until recognition flooded into her face and she stopped fighting.

  Her shock at seeing me didn’t last long. “Lys!” she shouted, and the woman who was with her saw what was happening and sprang through the door, slamming it shut behind her as the ghouls piled up against it.

  The one she called Lys practically flew at me, she moved so fast, and murder was in her eyes. She must’ve thought I was attacking Cass. Cass was between the two of us, keeping Lys off me for the moment, and I was able to put up my hands.

  “Whoa!” I shouted. “I’m on your side!”

  She halted before crashing into both Cass and I. She wasn’t armed but she was wearing the blue uniform of a User and she looked like she wanted to tear me apart.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  A little laugh escaped her. “You hurt me?”

  “Lys, it’s fine!” Cass said. “It’s Dread.”

  Lysette’s body relaxed a bit and she looked me up and down. “Dread? This guy? Thought he’d be bigger.”

  Normally I would’ve found that funny, but Cass turned around, still in my arms, and all I could think about was her. There she was; I was finally actually holding her, not an illusion or a fantasy or mere memory, but for real this time, after all these months separating us, and the only thing that stopped me from kissing her was seeing the bloody hand she had clamped over her side.

  “You’re shot!” I said.

  “Thanks, Captain Obvious, I hadn’t noticed,” she said, with that hint of a grin she always had when she was messing with me. “Big meathead. I see prison hasn’t made you any smarter.”

  I couldn’t help a wide grin of my own. “Or you nicer. I should’ve known you were the one I heard shooting. Always making friends.”

  ***

  “Um, guys?” Mickey interrupted. “I hate to break up this, uh, tender moment and all, but…”

  She gestured toward the nearby door. The ghouls were still pressed up against it, only a few steps away, reaching desperately through the bars in a vain attempt to get to the four of them.

  “Who’s this?” Cass asked, nodding toward Mickey.

  “Civilian,” Dread answered. “We need to get you to the infirmary, right now.”

  “No argument here,” Cass said. “Dread… there’s a death mage. A serious one. Maybe even master level.”

  “I know.”

  “You saw one? A ghoul?”

  “Up close and personal.”

  Cass winced at the wound in her side and began leading the group away from the steel bars and the ghouls pressed up against them. “How did you kill it? With that baton?”

  “Smashed its head in with a chair.”

  “You did that?” Lysette asked.

  “Dread,” Cass said, “this is Lysette. Lys, Dread.”

  “I’m Mickey,” Mickey chimed in from behind the rest of the group. “Not that anybody asked or anything.”

  “She’s a civilian,” Dread said. “Caught up in all this. She’s okay.”

  Cass looked her over. “Got anything useful in that big purse?”

  “Um, they took my cell phone and my keys, for some reason,” Mickey said, searching through her purse. “I have my work tablet and, um, some tissues. Some hand sanitizer. A couple of…”

  “No,” Cass interrupted. “The short answer is ‘no’. You could’ve just said ‘no’.”

  Mickey blew out a breath slowly. “Okay, no, I guess?”

  They stopped by the doors of the laundry long enough for Dread to unlock them with the ring of keys. He stepped through first, his baton held high and ready, but the laundry was empty of anything but piles of folded towels and clothing.

  “Lock the door behind us,” Cass said. “We don’t know how long that steel door will hold back the ghouls and the rest of the nonsense going on out there. Let’s keep us much between us and them as possible.”

  Dread handed the keys to Mickey and took a clean towel from a nearby rack. “Let’s get a look at that wound, Cass.”

  Cass pulled her shirt off painfully. Shock and adrenaline were starting to wear off now, and the hole in her side was becoming more painful as her body eased down from fight-or-flight mode. She pulled up her undershirt high enough that Dread could get a look at the wound.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Still bleeding, slow but steady,” Dread said, tearing a set of bedsheets up into strips. “We’ll tie the towel on with these to keep pressure on it.”

  “Did it come out the other side?”

  “No. I can feel the bullet right under the skin, but it didn’t go all the way through. Should be easy enough to take out; it’s right there. We’ll just need a scalpel or something.”

  “Does it have to come out?” Mickey asked.

  “It’s a foreign object,” Cass said. “It went through that other bitch and into me, carrying her blood and tissue and God knows what else all over it, which means it is going to be a major source of infection. So yeah, it’s got to come out.”

  “Ready?” Dread asked, holding up the strips of torn sheets.

  Cass nodded, holding the towel in place over the wound while Dread looped the torn strips around her. He hesitated for a moment, looking at her in concern.

  She shrugged. “Make it tight, Dread. We haven’t made it to the infirmary yet.”

  He nodded and tied the strips tightly around her, trying to ignore her grimaces and curses. A few seconds later, Cass’s bandages were secure.

  “We need to get moving,” Lysette said.

  “In a minute,” Dread said, holding Cass with both hands on her shoulders. Then, he couldn’t hold back any longer and pulled her into his arms in a full embrace, careful not to disturb her wound.

  Cass hated public displays of affection, but this had been a long time coming. They’d been so close to each other, only a few hundred yards away, but Dread may as well have been on the Moon, for all the chances of her ever seeing him. To know that he was so close, and that she would always be separated from him, was a torment she’d struggled to keep out of her mind for the last few months.

  “You came looking for me,” she said, leaning her head on his massive chest.

  “Of course I did. Of course I did.”

  They needed to get moving, but this was the first few seconds of good and wonderful that Cass had experienced in months, and so she gave herself a little bit more of it. It was like water to someone dying in the desert; she wanted to drink it in forever and never stop. For so long, it had been just her and Lysette, and she had been able to distract herself somewhat from her thoughts about Dread, but now that he was here and holding her, her feelings came crashing in like a tidal wave.

  Mickey shifted her feet around and looked over at Lysette, whispering, “Awkward.”

  “Guys,” Lysette said. “Save it for when we get to the infirmary.”

  Cass nodded and dragged herself to her feet, starting to feel the effects of her wound more and more. She noticed that Lysette had swapped out her prison issue shirt and undershirt for a tight fitting tank top she’d found amongst the laundry.

  Lysette caught her look. “They were too baggy. Might get caught on something as I’m moving around.”

  “Okay, so, the infirmary’s not far,” Cass said. “Lys, take point, Mickey, stay here in the middle with me. Dread, you’ve got our six.”

  Dread frowned. “She takes point?”

  Cass didn’t have time to explain. “Just… trust me on this. Let her take point.”

  She took a moment to check the magazine on her pistol. It wasn’t a fully automatic compensated Glock like she was used to, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Eleven rounds left. She’d have to be stingy.


  “Let’s hope he’s there,” Lysette said, leading them off through the laundry and towards the infirmary.

  “Let’s hope who’s there?” Mickey asked.

  “Jolly,” Cass said.

  Mickey frowned. “Who’s Jolly?”

  Jolly

  Everybody loves me.

  Of course they do; I’m a hell of a guy. But, there’s also the fact that I give away care that would probably cost them tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, usually in return for nothing more than snacks or simple favors.

  Being a Healer is awesome. I mean really, really, awesome. Talk about being in demand. The real wealth is health, and once people get sick or hurt, they come to realize that truth pretty quickly, and I end up making friends.

  It makes me sick to see guys with my abilities selling out to the highest bidder. I could never wrap my mind around how somebody who has the power to heal the sick and injured… the power to give that which is most important in life to those who most desperately need it… how those people could hold that gift back in order to see how much money they can suck out of those poor desperate people before they’ll actually help them.

  I mean, seriously… how much money do you need? I grew up in a pretty rough neighborhood… my parents were always scraping to get me and my brothers by… and still, I learned how to act better than that.

  Maybe it’s because I grew up poor. When you’re poor, you learn about how important people are, rather than objects. You learn that you can get by with less. You learn how few things people actually need.

  Or maybe it’s because I’m a street mage. I had to learn things the hard way. No expensive colleges or tutors for me; when you’re a street mage, you have to find your own path. You come to look at every mentor who’s willing to spend a minute on you as a godsend, and every borrowed book as a treasure beyond price. You become grateful.

  At least, I did. So once I got to a place where my skills could carry me along, I decided to walk the Earth.