Mage Hunters Box Set

by Andrew C Piazza

  “There are several dozen barrels of acetone in storage,” Adjani said. “We used it for… it doesn’t matter. All that matters is, it’s here.”

  “What’s acetone?” Dread asked.

  “A highly flammable, highly explosive chemical,” Adjani said.

  “We spread the barrels around, open one up so that the vapors get out…” Cass said.

  “And then I will ignite them,” Adjani said. “Once you are clear of the building.”

  “Sure you won’t get second thoughts?” Dread said. “Try to figure some last-minute way out of this?”

  “There is no way out of this,” Adjani said. “There is no cure for Revival Psychosis. I told you. I can’t go back to being that way. It’s better… it’s better to simply end it.”

  “All right, let’s see,” Cass said. “Let’s see if you’re as good as your word.”

  Cass

  Turns out, he was as good as his word, the dead son of a bitch.

  We stood on the far edge of the Revival Technologies parking lot, most of us leaning in exhaustion against the armored vehicle that Dread had somehow managed to back out of the ruin of the building’s entrance. I sat on the hood of the vehicle, staring at that big ugly monster of a building, waiting.

  Waiting.

  The power was still out, but the city was quiet now, except for a few scattered sirens far off in the distance. In the darkness, against the night sky, the Revival Tech building looked like a massive, black headstone, and I couldn’t help thinking of it as a monument of death and decay and madness. So many nightmares had been born here. So much death and misery were created within its walls. All so a few people could chase their dreams of power.

  Then, finally, the quiet night split open. A bloom of wide orange flame burst out of the windows halfway up the building, lighting up the night sky briefly.

  Burn, you bastard, I thought. Burn.

  I wasn’t only thinking about Adjani. I was thinking about the entire monster burning up in front of me; Adjani, Kel, the sphere, the Code, Revival Technologies itself.

  It isn’t often that you get to completely destroy a cancer on society; usually there’s a few cells left to grow back and cause trouble all over again. But this time… this time, we’d finally burned out the entire tumor.

  The fire spread quickly, sending black smoke into the air. We watched it for a while. Something about watching the flames spread out of control throughout the building was therapeutic.

  No fire engines came to put out the blaze. They were too busy around the city with other problems. Good. Lysette deserved a funeral pyre fit for a warrior.

  We drove back to the office in silence. Everyone was so exhausted and spent emotionally that I was surprised nobody passed out by the time Dread pulled that big armored vehicle into the secure parking garage at the office.

  We made sure to leave all our weapons in the vehicle before heading inside. After all, technically, we were still wanted fugitives who had stolen everything we’d used in the fight at Revival Technologies.

  Dennett was less than thrilled to see us. He barked and spluttered and shouted, and to my surprise, I was too damn tired to say anything back. It was Jolly who tipped over the edge.

  “Hey, asshole!” he said, and I swear, he actually got up in Dennett’s face. “You owe your life to Lysette. She died to save your stupid ass, and I bet you didn’t even know her name.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dennett said.

  “The sphere,” I said, mostly to keep Jolly from going off on a rant that would ruin his life.

  I explained to them about Kel damaging the Intron Code machine during our fight with her, how it started an overload in the sphere, how someone had to get into the booth to bleed off all that energy. How it was a one way trip, and Lysette knew it.

  “Is this accurate?” Dennett asked Keaney.

  Keaney nodded. “The kinds of power levels Kel was putting into the sphere… if it was transferred into kinetic energy, we’re talking… several times Hiroshima.”

  “Not to mention, she killed Kel,” Jolly said. “And all those ghouls that were tearing up the city died with her. And Dread got Martin, which ended all the conjurations. So maybe you should shut the fuck up.”

  “That doesn’t excuse their actions,” Dennett said. “Theft of government property, insubordination…”

  He stopped talking for a moment, looking as if he were fighting a sudden migraine, pinching his fingers to the bridge of his nose and shutting his eyes. After a second or two, he blinked and straightened back up.

  “Lys was a hero,” Dennett said.

  Okay. That was odd. Not only that he had abruptly pulled a one-eighty on his feelings on the matter, but also… he never called Lysette “Lys”. Jolly was right; I don’t think Dennett knew her name at all.

  “She was a hero,” he said again, nodding to himself. “She saved the city. We… we’ll talk about this later. Maybe… maybe we can arrange some pardons.”

  We all looked at each other, not quite believing what we were hearing. I, myself, fully expected to end the conversation in handcuffs, but instead, we were free to go.

  The five of us slowly wandered off, as if still not sure we were allowed to leave. I fell in next to Mickey and spoke to her in a low voice once we were out of earshot of Dennett and Keaney.

  “Mickey,” I said, “did you… um… do that back there? Give Dennett a little push? Mentally, I mean?”

  She didn’t look at me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Cass.”

  “No? None?”

  “Nope. But I was getting sick of his shit.”

  I left it at that. Better that I not get any answers that I didn’t want to hear.

  Michael joined us as we waited for the elevators. “Listen. I am sorry about Lysette. She… well. I can’t say I knew her well. But I am sorry.”

  “Thanks, Michael.”

  “I’m going to hold Dennett to what he said about pardons. For all of you.”

  “Lysette too,” Dread said.

  “What?”

  “A pardon for Lysette, too. Posthumous.”

  Michael frowned. “I suppose I could try…”

  “It’s important, Michael,” he said. “With a pardon and an honorable discharge, she could be buried with military honors at Arlington.”

  “Right. All right. I like that sound of that,” Michael said. “I’ll see what I can put together. Plus, with your criminal records cleared, that will make things a lot easier for you around here. For starters, you can start carrying firearms again.”

  “Who says any of us are still going to be here?” Jolly said, getting on the elevator as the doors opened.

  He didn’t say another word. None of us did. We filed on to the elevator, and left Michael standing there.

  I understood how Jolly felt. When you lose somebody that you’re close to, when you’ve had to fight and struggle against your own supervisors to get the job done against all odds, only to have nobody appreciate the sacrifices that were made… it can make you want to jump ship pretty badly. There was a part of me that wanted to walk away from the FBI. Screw ‘em. Let them deal with this. See how well they do without us. Find someplace else to go where my team and I were actually appreciated for what we did.

  I could tell that Jolly and I weren’t the only ones thinking that way.

  Mickey looked numb. Shifty was quiet and withdrawn and didn’t make a single sarcastic joke. Jolly stared and fumed and looked like he didn’t know whether to cry or commit murder. We were all just plain spent.

  Mickey offered to let Jolly stay at her place, considering his apartment building was pretty torn up. He refused. He didn’t even relent when Mickey said she’d get her mom to make them the dumplings that Jolly loved so much.

  “I just want to be home,” Jolly said. “Alone.”

  Dread and I didn’t say a word as we went home to the apartment we’d shared since the prison. Some people in our position might’ve felt
the urge to talk it out or hold each other or something like that, but we just stumbled our way into the bedroom and both passed out on the bed without even bothering to take our clothes off.

  It felt like I slept for a year. But as bad as I felt, the sun did rise the next day, and me with it.

  Turns out, Michael really came through. Not only did the three of us with criminal records… Dread, Jolly, and myself… get pardons for our past crimes, but Lysette did as well. On top of that, she’d even received a posthumous Medal of Valor from the Secretary of Defense, which got her bumped up on the list for burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

  The ceremony was only a few days after her death. There wasn’t a body to bury, so we just put up a marker with her name on it. Her parents didn’t show up, or anybody else for that matter. It was only the five of us, and Michael, his arm still in a sling.

  Dread wore his dress blues from the Corps. He’d never worn them before; I didn’t even know that he still had them. I asked him why he wore them that day.

  “She earned it,” he said. “Whatever else she was, she was a soldier. She earned it.”

  Shifty didn’t stick around very long. He was never any good at funerals. Any time we lost somebody on the Squads, he’d put in an appearance, but then disappear to find some bar in which to drown his sorrows.

  I never saw him drink any other time, only after funerals. He smoked weed plenty and often, but it was only after someone died that he would drive out the emotions with alcohol. He’d find some bar to get drunk, and chase some mindless sexual conquest or another.

  We all deal with loss in our own way.

  Jolly was… well. Inconsolable. He tried to hold it together as best he could through the ceremony, but it got to be too much for him, and then he, too, retreated though the headstones of Arlington to find a place to be alone with his sorrow.

  “I got him,” I said quietly.

  Dread stopped me with a hand on the arm, handing me two soda cans. “Take these. Trust me.”

  I found Jolly sitting on a bench a short distance away, staring at the white headstones arranged in in neat lines on the perfectly manicured grounds. I sat down next to him, handing him one of the soda cans and keeping the other for myself.

  He looked at his. “Dr. Pepper. My favorite.”

  Dread was surprisingly good at remembering the little things.

  We sat there for a while, sipping quietly from our soda cans, staring at the headstones. When he finally spoke, he couldn’t look at me. His voice shook and tears were running down his cheeks.

  “It’s just… it’s just fucking bullshit, Cass.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It is.”

  We didn’t say anything else. Nothing else needed to be said. That pretty much summed it all up.

  Besides, a lot of times, with men, talking about their feelings actually makes things worse for them. It drags those emotions up and shoves their noses in it. Sometimes, they just need you to shut up, sit there, and be with them as they work it all out inside.

  And it was bullshit. It was bullshit that a handful of power-mad egomaniacs had caused so much death and misery. It was bullshit that Lys was taken away from us, right when it seemed like she was turning her life around.

  It was bullshit that I lost my friend.

  Later, after some time had passed and allowed the recent pain of her loss to fade, I was able to walk Jolly through the streets of our city. What we saw, can only be called extraordinary.

  Our city can be pretty rough. Not a lot of friendly faces smiling at each other on a regular basis. A lot of cold, stern faces and occasional fists thrown a little too easily.

  But now, in the aftermath of tragedy, everybody began coming together. Neighbors who had never bothered to learn each other’s names before, now worked side by side rebuilding the damage. Sharing their food. Sharing their time.

  I walked Jolly through all of that, pointing out kids playing and neighbors laughing and joking with each other, even as they nailed the wreckage of their lives back into place. I pointed out buildings and restaurants and neighborhood bars, filled with people who were alive and living together, and that all of it was a gift that Lysette had given to us with her sacrifice. That it wasn’t for nothing.

  That day, though, at Arlington, the pain was still too fresh, and we had to simply endure it until it faded enough for us to see more clearly. We sat there for a while, and then finally rejoined the others. Jolly left with Mickey… she didn’t want him to have to be alone.

  Dread and I walked arm in arm through the tombstones of Arlington Cemetery, Michael accompanying us.

  “Thanks for this, Michael,” I said. “Making sure Lysette got her pardon, her posthumous honorable discharge. For all this.”

  “She deserved it,” Michael said. “You all deserve it. They still want you, you know. The FBI. They want to keep the whole team.”

  “They do?”

  “So do I,” Michael said. “Full disclosure, this was all a big experiment for me when I came to you in the prison. But you and your people stepped up. More than stepped up. We need you, Cass. We need all of you.”

  Dread and I traded a look. I gave Michael a nod.

  “We’ll be around.”

  It was a few days later that I realized something was different.

  I was on the shooting range. People mourn in different ways; I watched after my people to make sure they were as good as they could be, and then I found something to lose myself in.

  Lots of people think of shooting as an aggressive, violent act. The reality is, like archery, if you want to reach your maximum potential as a shooter, you need to let go of anything like anger or fear or anxiety and enter into a Zen-like state. There’s nothing at all natural about the act of firing a gun; you’re holding… and trying to control with fine motor skills… a machine that releases an actual explosion in your hands.

  It’s inherently distressing. In order to master the various components of something like a one-shot fast draw with a handgun… the draw, the grip, sight alignment, trigger pull, all that sort of thing… you need to be calm, and most of all, focused.

  So there’s no room for extraneous thoughts or emotions. Which was exactly what I needed. Something I could lose myself in, and escape the sense of loss I felt with Lysette’s passing.

  My favorite thing to train in those kinds of moments is the one shot fast draw from an open holster. Here’s what that means. You stand like an old West gunslinger, pistol in a holster that’s on your belt, open, not concealed under a jacket or clothing. Your hand rests naturally by your side. There’s a little electronic box called a shot timer on your belt that beeps to tell you “go”, and you pull your pistol and fire on the target as fast as you can. The goal is to get a solid hit on the target… which I defined as a head shot… as fast as you can. The shot timer hears the gunshot and measures your time for you.

  Before I met Lysette, I was pretty good. My times were just under one second. After our training in Physical Magic, I got noticeably faster, but I ended up plateauing at around 0.8 seconds, with a personal best at 0.73. No matter what I did, how hard I focused, I couldn’t get the time down any further than that.

  The last time I’d come to the shooting range, Lys had been here with me, coaching me as best she could. I remember her being surprisingly patient with me, even though we both knew I’d hit a plateau that I’d never be able to push through. You have to start training as an Adept when you’re young. There’s no way around it.

  Let it go, she said to me. Forget everything. Don’t think. Let your hands do what they already know how to do.

  It didn’t make any difference. I was stuck. I would simply have to accept that I’d come as far as I could.

  But I wasn’t thinking about any of that when I came to range that day, the day that I realized something had changed. I just wanted to do something to lose myself in, something that I used to share with Lys.

  I hung the shot timer on my belt, seated my pistol
in its holster and centered myself. Let it go. Let it go. Forget everything. Let your hands do what they already know how to do. Don’t let your mind interfere.

  The timer buzzed and I drew. I knew I got a solid shot on target; I could see the hole in the paper. I checked the timer.

  0.47 seconds.

  Great. I get all settled and set up, and my shot timer’s glitching. I took out the batteries, put them back in to reset the timer, re-holstered my pistol, centered myself again. The timer buzzed. I drew and fired and checked the timer.

  0.43 seconds.

  The timer itself must have been screwed up. Perhaps I’d dropped it at some point and messed it up. I dug around in my range bag and found an old one, swapped out the batteries, got set up again. The new shot timer buzzed. I drew. Fired. Checked the timer.

  0.41 seconds.

  A strange sensation started to creep over me; not fear, not anxiety, not awe, not confusion, but some strange combination of all of those emotions. I’ve seen some extraordinary things in my life, from the terrible to the sublime, but I’ve never been the physical cause of any of those things. I’ve never had the exceptional find its birthplace in me. But there it was, three shots now, far faster than I’d ever shot before, faster than anyone I knew could make this shot, and it couldn’t be a glitch from the timer.

  Okay. All right. Accept for a second that it’s a real thing you’re seeing. Let’s see how far it goes.

  That’s what I told myself as I reset the timer and let it go ten more times. Ten more buzzers. Ten more shots. Ten more hits. Ten more scores registered on the shot timer.

  By the tenth shot, I was down to 0.32 seconds.

  That was faster than any world record holder. By a wide margin.

  I took down the target and put up another. After I slid the target back on the motorized track about twenty yards, I stopped it. Turned my body ninety degrees to it so that my right side was pointed at it. I turned my head to look at the target, then looked forward and away from the target, drew, and fired to my right, without looking, shooting at the memory of where I’d seen the bullseye.

  The target came back on the track. It was in the nine ring, maybe an inch and a half off of the bullseye. I could make that shot no problem while facing the target with a two-hand grip, but this was one handed and not even looking at the damn target.