by RJ Blain
“There is something to be said for not indiscriminately killing people.”
“Don’t get me wrong. I’ve killed plenty of people.”
“I do my necessary killing with a gun. Supernaturals die from bullets as readily as they do from magic.”
“Good to know. Let’s make a generalized agreement. I won’t use my magic on you, you won’t use your gun on me.”
“That sounds like a wise agreement to make. Now, that said, if you go on a rampage, I’ll give you a few love taps.”
“Love taps?”
“I’ll shoot you in locations you can readily recover from.”
“Would you like a job with the FBI in a quad?”
“Due to scheduled seductions, I’m going to have to reject your offer.”
“Seductions is plural. I’d hate to miss something on my new schedule. When else are you planning to seduce me?”
“I figure every evening for the next few weeks should make sure you come home from work. I’ll maintain the calendar and give you a text when I expect you to show up.”
“Normally, I hate when people manage me, but I’m going to make an exception this once.”
“Excellent.”
Chapter Fourteen
At first glance, the koppa oni was a green child, and it crashed into Raymond’s windshield and plastered itself to the glass, displaying a mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth and a long, black tongue. Onyx eyes locked on the detective, and I narrowed my eyes.
He slammed the breaks and spewed curses.
“Koppa oni. Generally harmless, but its bite hurts like hell. Think of it as a demented child on a sugar high with a preference for water. Pull over, roll down the window, and let it in. It’s probably wanting me.”
Koppa oni flocked when I came around, and had the critter sensed me coming close, I could see it doing something reckless for a chance to get near me.
“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”
“Only if it’s a girl and wants in your pants. Fortunately for you, nine out of ten koppa oni are males, and they prefer non-human females. The female koppa oni are equal opportunists.”
“I didn’t want to know that.”
I laughed. “Just pull over and put your hazards on.”
Raymond obeyed, and the instant he rolled down his window, the koppa oni scrambled across the windshield, dove into the vehicle, and pressed against the metal grate. “Momma?” he whined.
I sighed. Why did koppa oni insist on calling me momma? “What’s the matter, little one?”
“There’s a death fish in the water, and it’s going to get me.”
Damn it. The local waters were full of sentients ripe for the pickings; most of them couldn’t defend themselves against fishermen let alone a warlock or a being like Hypnos. I held my thumb and index finger apart in a rough estimation of Hypnos’s size. “This big, white and yellow? Did it turn the water black?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” the koppa oni hissed. “Yes. The death fish is going to get me, too.”
“Too?”
“It got the others. They die at the bottom. The silt covers them, and they sink. Gone, gone, gone.”
On a regular day, the koppa oni annoyed most people with their childlike tendencies and vindictive personalities. Most humans could avoid stirring their ire by being kind, but most people weren’t kind. The koppa oni knew better than to lure humans to the water and drown them, but that hadn’t always been the case.
They could assume many forms, although they usually manifested as green-skinned children ready to devour the world.
I considered the quads I had on shift, and none of them had a water elementalist I’d trust to handle a panicked koppa oni. The best I could do was release it back into the bay and convince it to swim to safer waters. I’d also promise to do what I could for its kin. “Raymond, how far are we from the shore?”
“Ten minute drive,” he reported.
“Please let the koppa oni back here with me. We’ll detour to the shore, and I’ll handle this situation.”
“How do you plan on handling it?”
“Very carefully.” Damn it. I’d have to call in at least two quads to handle the inflicted koppa oni. Perhaps they weren’t human, but they were sentient—and they were denizens of my city. “I’ll call my boss and get some backup.”
“I’ll take you Pier 1. That’s closest I can get us to the library, I think.” Raymond wiggled out from beneath the koppa oni, opened the back door, and waited.
“Come back here, little one.” I pointed at the open door to guide the koppa oni. “You’ll need to guide me to the others.”
He hesitated, but he joined me in the back. “You help?”
“I’ll help you and your kin as much as I can,” I promised. “How long can your kin survive outside of the water?”
The scaled brow furrowed. “Days?” He held up three fingers.
“Salt water or fresh?”
“Can be any water, just no stinky stuff. We don’t like the stinky stuff.”
Chlorine. I smiled at that, and I patted the seat beside me. “I won’t let them take your kin to anywhere with chlorine.”
“Okay.”
“Run your sirens, Raymond.” I got out my phone and called my boss.
“What do you have for me, Olivia?”
“Hypnos has hit the koppa oni in the bay. I’m going to need two quads and a place with salt or fresh water, no chlorine. A koppa oni jumped onto the cruiser and begged for help. I can’t leave it.”
“Right. I’ll get you two quads and a transfer truck for them. Any idea on numbers?”
“No idea. Get Eddy, Luke, and his quad at the library getting anything they can on Hypnos, hypnosis, and anything useful. I also want a data sheet on comas and the care of comatose patients. I’ll take a doctor willing to answer questions.”
“I know a neurologist. I’ll bring her in for a briefing. How is the koppa oni’s aggression?”
“He showed some teeth to get Raymond to stop, but he’s behaving. He’s scared.”
“I’d be scared in his shoes, too. Definitely a male?”
“Yeah, he’s a male. He didn’t try to make any moves while on Raymond’s lap.”
“Get what you can out of the koppa oni, and report in as you can.”
“I’ll probably be busy ferrying unresponsive koppa oni to the surface. I’ll ask Raymond to handle the reporting.”
“On the hour, every hour. You miss a check-in, and I’ll show up personally.”
Shit. “Understood, sir.”
My boss hung up.
“I’m to report in on the hour every hour, and I’m going to have my ass handed to me if I don’t.”
“Can he hand your ass to you?”
“He’s a dragon, Raymond. He can probably do whatever he wants, and the bastard knows I’m not going to put up much of a fight. There’s nothing worse than being sat upon by a dragon. Not recommended.”
“Like Eddy?”
“He’s a smaller dragon, but yes, like Eddy. They were caught in the same blast, but it was a tactile. All survivors of that one became dragons of some sort.”
“How many survivors?”
“Six.”
“Where did it drop?”
“I wouldn’t say it was dropped. It was more of an accidental detonation at a military complex.”
“They’re former military?”
“Interior personnel, but yes. They were working with the scientists. The scientists got themselves incinerated along with most of the complex. Eddy, my boss, and a few other support crew survived. They were close enough to get a full dose of radiation, far enough where they weren’t blasted to smithereens. That bomb was weird.”
“All of the bombs are weird. How is that one weirder than most?”
“No dead-zone survivors at all, no fringe survivors. Only this narrow goldilocks zone. Eddy explained it was like a ring of Saturn, and they were just standing in the right place when the bomb detonated.”
“Sabotage?”
I shrugged. “Nobody knows, and if you’re wise, you won’t ask them about it.”
“Good to know.” Raymond turned on his sirens and drove with the general expectation people would get the hell out of his way, which they did, much to my amazement. Half the time I ran my sirens, the civilians spent a long time thinking about if they’d get out of my way.
I blamed the cruiser. An obvious cop versus an unmarked vehicle likely made the most difference.
He made good time, reaching the pier in eight minutes. He left his lights on but killed the siren before releasing me from the back. I emptied my pockets into my purse and handed my purse over. “Answer my phone if anyone calls, introduce yourself when you answer, and tell them I’m going for a swim.”
“In your clothes?”
“You’ll get your chance to see me naked later.”
“I was more thinking about the weight of the water in your clothes.”
“I don’t have to worry about that. Best of all, I’m a self-drying unit. You’ll get used to it. I’m going to go evaluate the situation and surface when I know what’s going on.”
“How deep can you go?”
“As deep as I need to go.”
“Decompression sickness?”
“It’s good to be a water elementalist.”
“Be careful.”
I nodded, crossed the sidewalk and the yard leading to the pier, and waved for the koppa oni to join me. He did. “Show me your kin.”
Without bothering to hold my breath, I dove into the water and angled towards the bottom. Once submerged, I inhaled, allowing the water to flood my lungs. I coughed air, which bubbled to the surface.
The koppa oni stayed close, and it pointed towards the ocean.
In the water, my field of visibility shrank, although I surpassed what any human could manage without the aid of a light. Instead of my eyes, I relied on my magic to guide me. I sensed the obstructions in the water, from startled fish to cigarette butts drifting in the currents.
The koppa oni sliced through the water, his childlike appearance at odds with his grace. I needed to use my magic to propel me along to keep up with him. He guided me to the Golden Gate Bridge and out towards the sea where the land made way for the untamed ocean.
Then he dove deep to the bottom where a small colony of koppa oni slept.
“The others left,” he sang, his voice the harrowing cry of a whale blended with the mourning call of a dove. “Gone.
I didn’t want to know if he meant gone as in left or gone as in dead, but I reached out with my magic to sift through the silt for signs of life. Just beneath the surface, I found six koppa oni, one larger than the others. “Your female?”
“My female,” he confirmed, his tone heavy with grief.
That would make the five tiny lives his children. “I’ll make sure someone cares for your babies and your female,” I promised, sinking down to the silt to dig them out. I could cup his babies in my hands, and I reached out until I found kelp growing in the deeps, the long fronds stretching towards the life-giving sun.
I gathered enough to cradle his young so I could carry his female in my arms as I would a child. “Have other koppa oni fallen?”
“Yes, but they are gone.” He pointed out towards the ocean, and I closed my eyes, concentrating on the silt and what it hid. I found the small bodies where the ocean began in earnest, buried in the sand.
He was right. They were gone, and I regretted I hadn’t killed Euthal.
I also regretted I hadn’t squished the ghostly koi for its part in the deaths of the koppa oni.
“They are gone,” I agreed. “We will care for your female and your babies as best we can. No smelly water and food they can swallow while they sleep.”
I’d have to give someone directions on how to care for the koppa oni, and no one would like me until they could care for themselves. I’d fed a young koppa oni once, and it had involved fresh fish, a blender, and a disgusting amount of seaweed. A few other ingredients had gone into the goop, and my stomach churned at the memory of coaxing the little creature into eating.
He’d bitten my fingers for my troubles, too, and I still had a few scars from his infantile bite.
Once satisfied the babies and their mother were secure, I swam back for Pier 1, monitoring the koppa oni I carried for signs of decompression sickness. Like me, their bodies adapted to the changes of pressure without needing me to filter the gasses in their blood, although I took my time approaching the surface.
Raymond waited on the pier, staring into the water. “Ah. There you are. Your phone won’t stop ringing, and I’m tempted to toss it into the water.”
“Welcome to my life. Honestly, I’m impressed it’d been quiet for so long. The other koppa oni near his home are dead, but his female and babies are still alive. They’ll need to be fed and cared for.”
“Hypnos has struck downtown near the library.”
Shit. “My quad?”
“Outside of the zone. It looks like fifty unresponsive victims so far. No major accidents. The few runaway cars didn’t have far to go before hitting something. Your boss wants you headed that way stat.”
“I need a quad to take these koppa oni somewhere safe. They’re babies.”
My phone rang, and Raymond answered it. “Raymond Davis speaking. Olivia’s in the water and can’t answer at the moment.”
A moment later, he sighed. “I wish you the best of luck with that, sir. She’s cradling several infant koppa oni and their mother. I don’t think she’s going to abandon them.”
“Damn straight I’m not going to abandon them. I’ll make a bubble in the back of your cruiser and feed them myself if I have to.”
“Try not to do any permanent damage to the vehicle. Other than that, go for it,” Raymond replied.
I closed my eyes and scanned the nearby water for enough fish to feed the koppa oni mother and her babies, and I settled on a school of small fish, picking off fifteen of them and dragging them towards the pier with my magic. I’d hate myself for it later, but I smashed them against the concrete until little more than paste remained, which I gathered and brought to me. “I’ll be beneath the water for a few minutes,” I reported while Raymond dealt with my boss, who was giving him an earful.
While comatose, the mother and her babies swallowed without intervention. None of them roused, but I hoped I’d be able to preserve their lives long enough to free them from Hypnos’s draining grasp.
When I surfaced, Raymond was no longer on the phone. “Your boss is pissed.”
“He can be pissed.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say. Honestly, that’s what he thought you’d say, too, but he asked me to notify you of his opinion. A quad will be here in five minutes to take the koppa oni to Lafayette. There’s a wildlife rescue center near the lake there, and they’re rigged for koppa oni. That should be out of the danger zone, too.”
“That’ll work. Did he say which quad?”
“Rachel’s.”
I nodded. “Good. They’re soft hitters, and they have nothing of use against someone like Euthal. I’ll have them stay out of the line of fire and earn some good will with the male. I always need quad members the koppa oni like, especially when they swarm the Golden Gate.”
“You’re predictable, apparently.”
“When it comes to basic management, yes. This is a no-brainer. Rachel’s good with the non-human sentients. She’s not good in a firefight. Her team’s not good in a firefight. They’re a negotiation quad, and Euthal and Hypnos? They’re not going to negotiate.”
“Hey, Bubbles?”
“What?”
“If you get to this Euthal guy before I do, hit him for me.”
I’d do more than hit him. I’d do everything in my power to kill him. “Swift but brutal is my speed for this guy, assuming he gives me a chance to take him out. And if he doesn’t, well, I’m willing to go in for the long haul.”
; “I’d just shoot him in the head,” Raymond admitted.
“I’d do that, too, but I’m not all that good with a gun. I barely qualify.”
The cop scowled, his eyes narrowing. “That’s unacceptable.”
“Don’t you even start.”
“It’s unacceptable, and I’ll drag your ass out of bed and show you exactly how I take out rowdy supernaturals while a pure to get you to the range if I must.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Watch me.”
I created a surge of water beneath me to propel myself up onto the catwalk, shot the detective a glare, and stomped to his cruiser, muttering curses under my breath every step of the way.
On a good day, Rachel Pauldry hated me.
Today was not a good day. The twenty-something mother of two regarded me with a scowl. “The boss said you needed us?”
As usual, she focused her gaze on my forehead so she wouldn’t have to look me in the eyes.
Knocking the woman down a few pegs would make the next five minutes of my life easier, but I’d have to deal with the whining from the three men partnered with her. Like Rachel, they were convinced she could do my job better. I sighed. “How about you look at the five baby koppa oni and their mother and reevaluate your tone, Pauldry. You’re here to save lives, not dick around because you want my job. Today, that involves playing with a warlock.”
“I do not want to go play with a warlock!”
“Good. Neither do I. Pretend to be grateful I’m sending you to Lafayette, where your job until they wake up is to take care of these babies and their momma. When you’re not busy with that, you’re to keep their male company. Consider it an interspecies diplomacy mission. I’m not up for your bullshit today, Rachel. I’ve got an incident with a warlock in the works, and these little ones could die because you think a proper American should be managing personnel in the FBI.”