Silver Clouds Dirty Sky A Montague and Strong Detective Novel (Montague & Strong Case Files Book 4)

by Orlando A. Sanchez

The two remaining escorts managed to get some shots off before I could raise a shield. One of the bullets grazed Monty’s arm before he whacked that escort with a Sorrow and sent him flying. Chi took a shot in the leg before burying a fist in the last escort’s abdomen and doubling him over.

  That was just the opening act. Six of the seven mages fanned out, leaving Delane seated at the table. Monty was looking pale and Chi was looking pissed. I saw Delane gesture and the energy in the room shifted. I felt the flow of magic rush through the room.

  Chi upended the nearest table and we took cover behind it.

  “What did they hit you with?” I noticed that Monty wasn’t bleeding much, but the wound looked angry and red. “That looks bad.”

  “Erasure rounds,” he said, and cast a rune that floated toward the wound. It sputtered and partially manifested before disappearing altogether. “Bollocks. No casting for now.”

  “You’ve run out of magic?” I asked, incredulous. “Are you kidding me—now?”

  He gave me the ‘don’t be dense’ look. “I don’t run out of magic,” he snapped. “Erasure rounds block access to magic, usually by permanently stripping a mage of the ability to cast. I was only grazed. The effect will wear off shortly.”

  “Well, Delane did the magic finger wiggle and now this is a magic zone,” I said, peeking over the table. “Those mages look anxious to unleash a huge can of magical whoop-ass.”

  “He must’ve reversed the polarity of the runes, turning them into magic enhancers. Fascinating,” Monty said, marveling at the feat that could lead to our eventual destruction. “The power it takes to do that—he must be an accomplished Arch Mage.”

  “Spoken like a true Vulcan.” I heard one of the mages cry out in pain, and peeked over the edge of the table again. Peaches had latched onto a leg and shook the mage across the floor before disappearing again. He materialized next to me seconds later. “Good boy,” I said, rubbing his neck.

  “We have five mages coming our way,” Chi said matter-of-factly. “I can take two, possibly three, before they hit me with something nasty and fatal. I would prefer not to die in London.”

  I looked at the window-wall behind us, and remembered Peaches’ bark in the butcher shop.

  “Can you break that glass?”

 

  “We don’t have much of a choice. They’re coming over here to hurt all of us.” I rubbed his neck. “Can you do it?”

  He spread his legs and sank half an inch into the marble floor. Iridescent runes appeared on the sides of his body and his eyes became bright red. He expanded and grew more muscular as the runes flared along his fur. His hardened claws cut grooves into the marble as he hunkered down. For a brief second, I understood the fear the mages felt. Peaches could be one scary hellhound.

  I raised Grim Whisper and fired over the table. I heard the soft thud of the rounds hitting a magical shield and falling to the ground.

  “Your attack is pathetic.” I recognized Anderson’s voice. “We will destroy your demon and the rest of you.”

  A blast of flame hit the table and began consuming it.

  “What the hell is that, a napalm spell? Not cool,” I said, looking down at the rapidly disappearing table. “Now, boy. Do it now!”

  “What is he going to do?” Monty asked, concerned. “The reversed polarity of the runes in here will magnify—”

  Peaches barked, and Monty gestured.

  Sound travels at seven hundred and sixty-one miles per hour. At that velocity, the pressure waves compress together until they merge into a shockwave. That’s the speed known as Mach 1. That speed causes a wonderful sound called a sonic boom.

  Peaches’ bark pulverized the window-wall and two of the other walls, compromising the integrity of the chamber. The shockwave of the sonic boom followed soon after to finish the job. The mages were flung back, and I managed to see Delane gesture before he pressed a section of the wall behind the large table and disappeared. Four of the mages managed to get out of the room before the ceiling started to collapse.

  One of the remaining mages was crushed and killed instantly by debris, and the other was unconscious and pinned by one of the large steel beams, that made up the structure of the Tate. I signaled to Monty and ran for the remaining mage. Chi came up beside me and lifted the beam. I pulled the mage behind me as we ran out of the chamber. I felt the entire building shake around us.

  “We feed the trout of the building,” Monty said in a muffled voice, and pointed. “Fat quay.”

  “What?” I looked for the nearest stairwell. “We need to get out of the building!”

  I heard my voice coming from a distance. Monty gestured, and my ears popped as normal hearing returned.

  “I just said that, but the stairwells appear to be sealed.”

  Both stairwell doors were blocked by a crisscross of thick metal bars. The top half of the building was exposed and collapsing. Across a gap, I could see the Thames.

  “How deep is the Thames?” I asked, gauging the jump across the gap. “At its deepest.”

  “Are you suggesting we jump into that moving cesspool?” Chi gave us a look of disgust. “I would rather drink rat blood.”

  “I’m open to a better idea that doesn’t involve being crushed under this building.” I held on to a railing as the building shuddered. “Dawn is coming soon.”

  “You’re remembering the river the way it was a few centuries ago,” Monty said. “The Thames is now the cleanest river flowing through a city in the world.”

  “How about an air spell to launch us to the promenade?” I asked, looking for an alternative.

  “From this height, you’ll break several bones on the initial landing.” Monty shook his head. “Not life threatening for you—potentially fatal for us.”

  I crouched down and grabbed Peaches by the scruff. “I need you to go down there, and then get away from the building,” I said, rubbing his ears. “We’ll be down in a second.”

 

  “Absolutely, right after we’re done. Go, boy.”

  He leaped over the railing and disappeared.

  “This is going to be imprecise at best,” Monty said. “I’ll release a blast here, then try and correct our angle upon descent.”

  “What about her?” I looked down at the unconscious mage. “We can’t leave her here. She’ll be crushed.”

  “No less than she deserves,” Chi said, crossing her arms. “They tried to kill us.”

  “I could try a bridge, but I won’t know the outcome.” Monty started to gesture. “The quantum probabilities make it incredibly risky.”

  “The probability of her death is certain if she stays here. Do it.” I moved back as runes fell on the unconscious mage and her body vanished.

  “Don’t want to risk that again,” Monty said. “Especially not with three of us.”

  “Let’s go with the launch plan.” I heard glass shatter and the building groan as it moved to the side several feet. “This would be a good time, Monty.”

  I held onto Chi, and Monty launched us into the night.

  EIGHT

  FLIGHT WAS WORSE than teleportation.

  At least with teleportation, I never saw the trip between point A and point B. It was usually instantaneous, and the only downside was winding up in a different country, with the usual wonderful feeling of my intestines being ripped out of my body.

  Flight truly sucked. We launched off the top floor of the now crumbling Tate Modern. Half the building was collapsing and the other half didn’t have long left before it too, fell into a heap of bricks and steel. I hoped they stayed away from the nouveau industrial look for the next Tate.

  The black band that was the River Thames raced up at us. I could see the brightly lit Millennium Bridge. It took me a few seconds before I realized we were heading for the bridge, not the Thames.

  “Monty, I don’t think the bridge is going to move for us.”

  �
�Working on it.” He gestured rapidly, leaving golden trails floating in the air as his hands moved. “This isn’t my preferred mode of travel. Forgive me if I need to make mid-course corrections.”

  A blast of air shunted us to the side. We changed direction and headed straight for the Thames. “Are you okay?” I looked down at Chi, who stared up at me with an ‘are you serious right now?’ look.

  “I’m traveling through the air, about to crash into a river in the middle of the night, and you’re wondering if I’m okay?” She pushed off me and put her arms in front of her like a diver.

  I felt the shift in energy around us, and turned quickly to Monty. “Did you…?”

  He shook his head. I saw Chi disappear before the energy slammed into me, and the Thames disappeared. We landed in a large space in what appeared to be a church. Somehow we had just ported in an island where porting wasn’t supposed to be possible. Monty and Chi landed smoothly, recovering quickly. I landed smoothly right into some benches and ended up sprawled next to them.

  “Sorry about the abrupt tug.” Thomas stepped into view in the darkened space. “The rift port runes are still in development.”

  “Were you experimenting again?” Monty glared at him. “Do you know where we were?”

  “One hundred seventeen meters above the Thames,” Thomas said. “Your mid-course correction—which was prudent, considering you would have impacted the Millennium Bridge at an eighty five-degree angle—provided you with zero chance to impact the Thames at a proper vector to facilitate survival unscathed.”

  “How? What?” I looked around the church in shock. “Monty said you could create a Smith bridge, but how did you grab us mid-air?”

  “I didn’t. Not entirely,” he said, and opened a door heading downstairs. “Please, follow me.”

  “Do you think he used the Force?” I asked Monty as Thomas headed to a stairwell leading down.

  Monty gave me a withering look as we followed Thomas down several flights of stairs. At the bottom, he placed his hand on a large ironwood door covered in runes, similar to the one in the Randy Rump, just on a smaller scale. He moved his hand around and the runes shifted position, unlocking the door.

  “Random runic combination?” Monty asked, admiring the door. “You’ve been practicing.”

  “What happens if you get the order wrong?” I asked, looking at the runes. The ones I could decipher looked painful.

  “Everything around and above you collapses,” Thomas answered, pushing open the door. “The excavation teams would find us—eventually.”

  “Good thing you didn’t forget the combination, then,” I said, looking at Monty. “Wouldn’t want to transpose runes or anything.”

  Monty just shook his head and sighed.

  We stepped into what could only be described as a lair. It was a Wayne-worthy layout. Large tables occupied the sides of the room, the tops of which were covered by several projects, each in varying stages of completion. The center of the lair was easily twice the size of the lobby of the Tate. It was dominated by an enormous runic circle etched into the stone floor, easily forty feet in diameter.

  On the far side, I saw what appeared to be a living area, complete with kitchen and bedroom. A door must have led to a bathroom. To our side, on a raised platform, sat a bank of four laptop computers, two of which appeared to be running what looked like advanced mathematical computations at a speed that was impossible to follow.

  The computer area was set up around a large wall screen. The screen was divided into quadrants. Each one corresponded to one of the laptops. In the upper right corner, I saw what remained of the Tate Modern building. It was slowly imploding. Someone was going to wake up angry, but most of London would breathe a sigh of relief, I thought.

  “How did you manage that, Tristan?” Thomas pointed at the collapsing museum. “This has to be some sort of record, even for you.”

  “Finally someone understands who the wrecking ball is,” I said, giving Monty the ‘I told you so’ look.

  Monty gave Thomas the stink-eye. “That wasn’t me,” he snapped. “It was his creature.”

  “A hellhound brought down the Tate? With what—his bark?” Thomas laughed, and then grew serious when he looked at us. “You’re kidding me.”

  “I think Peaches started it, but the Consortium finished it,” I said. “I saw that Delane guy do something right after Peaches barked.”

  “Did the Consortium survive?” Thomas zoomed in on the image of the dying Tate. “Did they make it out of that?”

  “Most of them made it out.” I stepped closer to the image of the Tate. “One was crushed, and Monty ported another out of the building, but we don’t know where.”

  “Where are we?” Monty looked around. “Where is this place?”

  “One second.” Thomas held up a hand and gestured. White runes formed a lattice and spread out into a small opening. “There you go.”

  Peaches bounded through a second later, ramming into me and nearly knocking me down.

 

  “You did good, boy.” I crouched down and rubbed his neck. “I didn’t think there was a place Peaches couldn’t jump to. Where are we?”

  “This is under St. Paul’s Cathedral.” Chi looked around the room. “Quite a distance under.”

  Thomas nodded. “This level was constructed by Wren, after the last Cathedral was destroyed in the Great Fire,” Thomas answered. “It’s an interstice. This is why I was able to pull you here mid-flight.”

  “Wren was a mage?” Monty examined the large circle in the center of the floor without stepping into it. “I had no idea.”

  “He was before our time.” Thomas looked at Chi. “Ms. Nakatomi, with dawn approaching, I felt underground was the best place to be. You can find accommodations beyond that door.”

  “Thank you,” Chi said. “I do need some rest, and your actions this evening will not be forgotten. Is that circle functional?”

  “The Consortium blocked access to the immediate ley-line that would power it.” Thomas pointed to the computers with the mathematical symbols flashing across the screens. “I’m working on an alternate power source, but I don’t know how secure it will be or how long it will last. I’m close to solving it, though.”

  “I need to get back to the Dark Council— preferably before my seat is challenged and a war starts.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Thomas said. “I may have a partial solution and, with Tristan here, it may just work.”

  “I would be in your debt,” Chi said, and stepped close to me. “I need to speak to Valen, the Clan Head of London, and repair my Daystrider. Please wake me when the sun sets.”

  “Will do.” I was conscious of her proximity. “Wouldn’t it be better to stay here instead of meeting with this Valen? It’s not like the Blood Hunters have suddenly given up.”

  “If I don’t meet with him, it will be viewed as an insult. I would rather not offend a large group of vampires on their home soil.”

  I nodded. “We have enough people after us, and by ‘us,’ I mean you two.”

  “I only have a few days, Simon,” she said. “If I don’t get back, the Council will splinter and they will attack Ken. He no longer holds Kokutan no ken.”

  “We had to use it,” I said. “The Blood Hunters still want it. Monty said he put it somewhere safe.”

  “I know you had to,” she said, touching my cheek. “I wanted to thank you for coming for me.”

  “I wasn’t going to let them bake you.” I remembered seeing her strapped to the window, facing the rising sun, and shuddered. “But now that Ken doesn’t have it—they won’t hesitate to challenge him—you.”

  She nodded. “Without that deterrent or my presence, they will feel emboldened, which is why I must return as soon as possible,” she said. “See if your mage can get that circle active.”

  “I will.”

  She headed off to the other side of the floor, and I walked over t
o Monty and Thomas. They were standing near the laptops, and Monty had the ‘I’m unconvinced’ face going full blast.

  “The ley-line runs right under St. Paul’s and connects to the Tower of London.” Thomas tapped some keys on one of the laptops. A topographical map of London appeared on the screen. Superimposed on the city were yellow lines in different configurations. He tapped again, and most fell away, leaving a triangular diagram.

  “Tapping a ley-line is suicidal, Thomas, even for an Arch Mage—a level neither of us has attained.” Monty crossed his arms and shook his head slowly. “How do you propose to grab this power?”

  “It’s not tapping—that would fry us both.” Thomas tapped on the keys again. “This would be skimming power off the line. The Consortium blocked the access to the ley-line by using an inhibitor rune. But they can’t control the line—that would be like trying to turn off the sun. They can only control the access.”

  “Yes, an inhibitor rune strong enough to block the entire island,” Monty answered, shaking his head. “What you’re proposing requires a shift beyond both our levels combined. It’s impossible.”

  “Improbable—not impossible, and not without a measure of risk.”

  “Measure of risk?” Monty pointed at the ley-line diagrams. “Harnessing a ley-line would require several Arch Mages. The measure of risk involved could reduce us to ash in seconds.”

  Thomas tapped the keys in response. A diagram popped up on the screen with a string of runes beside it. It zoomed out until the city of London appeared under it. The diagram traced the earlier triangle from a place called Bryn Gawr, to a place called Tothill, and then to another point named Llandin, farther north.

  The Cathedral was on the Llandin-Bryn Gawr arm of the triangle. It popped up on the map with a grouping of runes next to it.

  “I can make it work.” Thomas stared at Monty. “You just left an island that has a similar rune. How did you use magic there?”

  “I had help,” Monty said, glancing at me. “Why do you want to activate this circle? Something this large will attract the wrong kind of attention once it’s functional.”

  “Someone is killing mages. I can use this circle to stop them when they summon.”