by Rose O'Brien
There were tales of spirits, creatures, and even demons that could seep through old portal scars and go crawling around this reality. Alayna had never seen it first hand, and she wasn’t sure she believed in demons. Still, it didn’t hurt to limit the portal use as much as possible, just as a precaution.
Everyone talked over everyone else for a few minutes. In a lull in the conversation, Alayna injected, “I think I might have to try projecting.”
Dumeril and Burdock immediately began shouting objections to this plan.
“It’s too risky!”
“Not a chance!”
She held a hand up.
“It’s the only way I can think of to get in there undetected,” she told them.
They couldn’t risk tipping off anyone that they knew what was going on. The hunting grounds they had discovered indicated they were dealing with a ring, not just one killer. The destruction of that property likely had the bad guys scrambling, but it wouldn’t be long before those hostages were moved around and they lost them, maybe for good.
Projection involved separating one’s consciousness from one’s body for a short period of time and sending the consciousness to a specific location. It was rumored that there were powerful mages who could project through time even, but Alayna had no desire to push the boundaries that far.
Just projecting a few miles across town would take a tremendous amount of energy and several hours of ritual preparation.
Alayna hated rituals. She rarely had the patience for them. Ritual magick used specific incantations, symbols, and items to focus and direct a mage’s elemental energy to a specific purpose. While Alayna had to use incantation and movement to direct her energy all the time, most mages could manipulate their element with a thought. They only used ritual magick for things like communicating across long distances, scrying the future, or changing the nature of an object, such as making a blade stronger.
It was similar to drawing a ward, but on a much larger scale.
The risk with projection was that, occasionally, a mage’s consciousness didn’t make it back in their body. Without the consciousness, the body would die after a few hours, even with the protection of a ritual circle.
And she’d never attempted it before.
It was risky, dangerous, and there was no guarantee of success. Basically, her life in a nutshell.
“It’s the only way, guys,” she told the group.
Alex looked confused and more than a little concerned about the objections of the others. She ran down a list of components she would need and asked Lu to get them and meet her downstairs.
Chapter 21
As Alayna walked down to the training floor, she motioned Dumeril to follow her. Ellie returned to her desk and her machines.
Burdock, who had made it out of the med-bay, was sticking unusually close to her, and Alayna wasn’t sure why. His big body was throwing off tension.
“What’s got you jumpy?” she asked him.
“I don’t like this plan, Commander.”
“Duly noted, Sergeant.”
“If ritual projection is the only way to obtain a look inside that warehouse, then let me do it. It’s a bad idea to put you at risk at this point,” he said.
“You suck at ritual,” Alayna said. “More than I do. Besides, if this fails, the team is going to need some serious firepower to bust in there and a leader who can get them out of there. That’s you.”
Alayna regarded the big fire mage for a moment and reminded herself that he was just three years out of the Academy. He was rigid and a bit too linear in his thinking at times, but he was young. She’d been that young just four short years ago, but this job had aged her soul.
Burdock could be a little quick on the draw and a little too eager to put himself in harm’s way to protect others. She desperately wanted to protect him long enough for him to grow a caution center in his brain. Almost losing him the night before had her gun shy.
Alayna met Alex’s concerned gaze over Burdock’s shoulder. She sent him down to the training floor and took Alex aside.
“Listen,” she said. “It might be better if you stay up here for this. Ritual magick can get a little spooky for those that aren’t used to it.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Alex said, crossing his arms over his chest and looking at the floor.
That was certainly a different tune than he’d been singing a few hours ago. She didn’t want to press him about it. Maybe he just wanted to make sure this went smoothly so the case could be wrapped up that much faster and he could get away from her.
“I’m also a little worried about your magick sucking chi disrupting my ritual.”
“I’ll stay back, but I want to be there.”
She nodded and headed for the office door, unwilling to argue with him. This hot and cold routine had her stomach in knots. Not what she needed before a potentially dangerous ritual.
“Just be careful,” he murmured.
She wasn’t sure if she’d been meant to hear that.
She headed downstairs while Alex stayed on the landing just outside the office door. She took up a piece of chalk and drew a large circle on the concrete floor. She began inscribing the intricate symbols needed to focus and direct her power. It took time and patience, but she let her mind get lost in the delicate work.
When she was finished, her back and knees were aching a little from having knelt on the floor and the squares of sunlight coming in the high windows had changed position.
Lu placed a box next to her while she worked with the other components she would need. Next, she took salt and poured it over the white chalk of the circle and poured a line of black charcoal over that. She wanted the circle as strong as it could be.
Alayna took a worn scrap of yellow cloth from the box, without disturbing her circle and held it up, calling the guardian spirits to watch over her.
“Spirits of the East, guardians of the air, watch over and protect me.”
She placed the cloth, a scrap of Tibetan prayer flag that her brother had brought her from the Himalayas, just inside the circle. It had snapped in the mountain wind for countless years and the air element was bound in every thread.
Next, she took up a candle and called the flame with a whispered word and wave of her hand.
“Spirits of the South, guardians of fire, watch over and protect me.”
She had poured the candle herself, and her blood was mixed into the wax.
She took a blue glass bottle of water from the box next and called, “Spirits of the West, guardians of water, watch over and protect me.”
The bottle had been a gift from her brother Xander. It had arrived in the mail several years ago with a note from him that said he’d found it on the beach after a hurricane. If anything carried the spirit of water, this vessel did.
Lastly, she took a large pink quartz from the box. She ran her hand over it. The stone had been a gift from her sister, Kyla, before she disappeared. Kyla had been a powerful earth mage even as a teenager and had called the stone out of the ground.
“Spirits of the North, guardians of the earth, watch over and protect me.”
Gifts held a special significance for mages, and they almost always wore something that had been given to them into battle as a kind of armor. There was magick in gifts. Knowing that someone she loved had thought of her when they held these objects held the kind of impact she was going to need to get through this.
She touched her fingers to the circle and closed it with a few words. The air in front of her took on a slight shimmer as the magickal field snapped into place.
Alayna lay down within the circle, careful not to disturb the intricate symbols she had drawn. Long minutes passed as she worked to clear her mind and focus her energy.
When she felt at peace, she began. The words of her spell poured from her throat and she began to feel her power drawing her consciousness out of her body.
At first it was just a feeling of floating, but gradually she bec
ame aware of looking down on her own body. She saw Dumeril, Lu, and Burdock gathered a few feet away. She floated by Alex, still standing on the stairs, arms crossed over his chest and a look of worry in his beautiful eyes.
Before she could think too hard about that, she was moving up and away, out of the building and over the city. In the March sunlight, it was shining.
The pink granite of the capitol building was sparkling in the sun. The light was dancing on the river, just visible to her left.
In just a matter of seconds she could see the target warehouse and felt herself descending through the roof. It was pitch black and it took a few moments for her spectral sight to adjust.
There were no windows, just thick metal walls. There were rollup doors on one wall, regular doors on another. Two beefy vampires, clearly guards, were walking through the cavernous space.
She moved toward the door they had just come out of and slid through it. That was the oddest feeling.
There were storage rooms here, smaller than the giant room she’d just left. There were racks of guns, wicked looking black blades, and explosives. Another room held refrigerators full of bagged blood. Another room had protective equipment, like vests and helmets. In the corner was a stack of about twenty-five adjustable rods with loops of steel cable at one end. They looked like the kind of equipment animal control officers used, but these loops had wicked looking steel barbs protruding from them. Most had dried blood.
The sight unsettled Alayna as she turned away and moved back through the cavernous main room. There were more guards here now, about a dozen or so. Some were gathered at a table to one side, others were grouped in twos and threes, talking. She didn’t recognize anyone.
Along one wall, she saw cages like the ones the vamps had used to keep people in at the other warehouse. There were more than thirty, and they were filthy. There were about a dozen figures huddled back away from the hatches. They all appeared to be adult men.
She desperately wished she could do something for them, but in spectral form, they couldn’t even see her.
She drifted toward the back of the warehouse. It was darker here and harder to see. She had to find out what was back here. She pushed against the blackness, but it was getting thicker and harder to move and see.
She mentally frowned and pushed at the darkness again. She’d never seen anything like this.
Suddenly, she felt like she had come up against a solid wall. There was a green flash of light, and a sigil glowed in the air in front of her.
Shit! This area of the warehouse was warded. And against astral walkers too. She spun back around and saw that the guards had seen the ward become active and begin to glow. They might not be able to see her yet, and she needed to get out of here fast.
Slowly, a dozen pairs of gleaming eyes turned in her direction. If they couldn’t see her, it was a good bet they could sense her.
Eyes started to bleed red, and fangs descended as the vamps went to predator mode. Several sniffed the air. They could smell the magick. Whether they could smell her under the power that ward was throwing off was a good question, but not one she wanted to stick around and find out the answer to.
Taking one last look around, she willed herself back to her body. It was a short fast trip and a few seconds later she found herself lying on the concrete floor of the headquarters building, gasping for air.
A worried looking Dumeril and Alex crowded the edges of her circle, but didn’t dare cross it.
“What the hell happened?” Dumeril asked her. “You were fine, and suddenly you started breathing like you were running a marathon. Scared us half to death.”
“The place is warded but good,” she answered. “Couldn’t see what was behind the wards, but I saw enough to know that we need to go in there. They have hostages.”
Standing up slowly, she broke the circle with her foot and released the guardian energies. She described what she had seen, from the guns to the guards.
“I need everyone upstairs in five,” she said.
As the others collected themselves, Alex took her shoulders in his hands and looked into her eyes, fear and concern making his eyes a little wide.
“Are you really okay?”
Not even close. She had screwed up, miscalculated, and now those hostages were in danger. She’d put them there. Guilt gnawed at her.
“The wards. They almost had me. Scared the shit out of me, but I’m fine now,” she lied.
“Did they know you were there?”
“They know something triggered those wards.”
He ran a hand through his hair in what she had come to recognize as his anxious/frustrated gesture.
“That was a close one, Commander,” he said, looking around to make sure they weren’t being watched, though he needn’t have bothered. The whole team knew anyway.
***
A few minutes later, they were all upstairs and Alayna was sketching out the layout of the warehouse and what she had seen. She indicated the warded area and where the storage rooms were.
“As far as we know, the only entrances and exits are these two rolling doors in front,” Alayna said, indicating the sketch.
“How many guards?” Dumeril asked.
“I saw a dozen, but you can bet there will be more there soon,” she said.
“Is it possible to make a door?” Burdock asked.
“The walls were reinforced, so it would take an attention-grabbing level of firepower to open one.”
Ellie chimed in. “Catwalks?”
“Around the perimeter of the main room and two running across,” Alayna answered. “The main area of the warehouse is easily seventy-five yards by thirty. That’s not counting the warded area I couldn’t see.”
Ellie spoke again. “I’ve been running some thermal imaging from that building and pretty sure the roof isn’t reinforced. I think I have a good chance of making myself an entrance there and setting up on one of the catwalks with a sniper rifle.”
Alayna nodded and drew an X on the catwalk to indicate where Ellie might have the best vantage point and most concealment.
“Burdock,” she said, turning to the big fire mage. “You are on demolitions and heavy artillery. I want you to rig up some charges to take down the main doors.”
They all knew Alayna could take the doors down with a wind blast, and Burdock could melt right through them, but the mages would need to conserve all their energy for the fight.
“Once we’re in, you will have free reign to neutralize targets,” she told Burdock. “Load up on grenades and high caliber ammunition. And when we’re done, we may need to bring that building down in a way that looks like it was a gas leak and explosion.”
“You ever wonder if the sapiens are going to catch wise to that tactic?” Burdock wondered to no one in particular.
“They haven’t yet,” Ellie answered. “And let’s hope they never start to wonder why we have such leaky gas lines in this town.”
Alayna turned their attention back to the board.
“Dumeril, I want you to concentrate on getting the hostages clear. Once they are secure, you are free to engage at will. Use your medic skills as needed and get anyone critically injured clear of the building.”
Dumeril nodded.
“Lu and Alex, I want you working as a team. Lu, I want you in your hulkingest, flesh shredding form. We’re going for maximum impact and damage here. Alex, you’ll be providing cover fire for Lu. Stick close to her, and make sure nothing gets close unless it’s on the end of her claws.”
They both nodded.
“What will you be doing?” Dumeril asked.
“I’m going after that warded area,” she said. “Whatever is behind those wards is something these folks took a lot of time and effort to conceal. Only a powerful mage could have crafted something like what I saw, and to call in a rogue mage is damned expensive.”
Internally, it galled her that a rogue mage had come waltzing through her city and right back out again undetected wh
ile giving aid to some of the nastiest creatures she’d ever encountered. If she lived long enough, she’d file a report with the Wraiths, the highly specialized mages that hunted rogues. Her brother, Xander, was one.
It would take time, she explained, and she’d be out in the open, but with a little luck, she could unwind those wards and find out what was there.
“Any questions?” Alayna asked her team.
Dumeril put his index finger in the air.
“So, just to sum up, we’re busting in the doors on a location with a warded area that could conceal anything, while taking on an unknown number of pissed off vampire guards, all while trying to rescue a dozen sapien hostages and hopefully keep ourselves alive in the process. Have I got the shape of that?”
Alayna nodded, a slight smile twisting her lips.
“Don’t forget that we have to keep all of this from grabbing the attention of sapien authorities,” she said.
“Honestly, Commander, I’m beginning to feel underutilized. I feel like you never challenge us,” Dumeril replied.
She laughed, his attempt at humor breaking her tension. She was asking them to walk into a dangerous unknown and the fact that they could still joke about it told her that she had made all the right choices in choosing a team.
These were her dearest friends, and they were all closer than her own family. She hated to lead them into danger, but they had all known what they were signing up for.
“I need to make a report to the Corps brass and apprise them of the operation. We’ll see if there are any additional resources they may be able to provide, but we all know not to hold our breath on that one. In the meantime, get your equipment together, get your affairs in order, and say your prayers, because come midnight, we’re pulling the trigger on the biggest operation we’ve ever tackled.”
The team should have looked somber, but instead they looked ready to cheer. They had been chasing these cases for too many months and they were finally ready to kick in the doors and knock some skulls together.