by Karen Chance
And leaving those inside well and truly alone.
Zheng must have agreed, because he nodded tersely but didn’t comment. Or maybe that was because he’d finally found what he’d been looking for. It was a small bronze ball, scuffed and scratched and dented, with Chinese characters impressed into the metal. It looked old.
The vampire saw John’s interest, and gave a grim smile. “You mages aren’t the only ones with tricks up your sleeves.”
Or on them, John thought, as Zheng held the device just above his right forearm. A second later, the small orb was gone and he was wearing a bronze gauntlet. And then a breastplate of boiled leather, a pair of matching tassets to protect his legs, another gauntlet and a Chinese style helmet, all of which were covered in small, trefoil brass ornaments. Lamellar armor, where metal plates were sewn into the leather to strengthen it, had been common in ancient China, but John had never seen anything like this.
The suit had other in-your-face features: a fearsome Chinese dragon roared silently from the middle of the breastplate; matching dragon head pauldrons snarled and bit at the air; and a pair of Chinese swords with red tassels on the hilts hung from a matching sash around the waist. But it was the smaller decorations, if decorations they were, that really caught the eye. And burnt the skin, John thought, as he thoughtlessly put a hand out to touch one, and had to quickly snatch it back.
The tiny plates were sparking with filaments of white light that arced between the trefoils and glowed brighter than the show going on over their heads.
But lighting they weren’t.
“Nice, huh?” Zheng was back to the hail-fellow-well-met routine he used when not threatening to cave in a person’s skull.
“If you had that, why the hell bring me along to protect you?” John asked furiously.
A dark eyebrow went up. “You volunteered.”
John thought about decking him. He thought hard.
“Besides, this only has so much of a charge,” Zheng added. “I didn’t want to waste it.”
“Where did you get it?”
He shrugged. “Duel with a bastard a couple centuries ago. Hardest fight of my life. Took me almost an hour to take it off him.”
“Take it off him? How the hell did you take it off him?” John’s hand still burned like fire and he hadn’t even touched the thing.
Zheng grinned, and for the first time, it looked genuine. “One piece at a time.”
John had a feeling that the vamp was talking about more than just the armor, but he didn’t ask. Unless he was badly mistaken—and considering the throbbing in his hand, he didn’t think so—the armor was interwoven with a powerful force magnifier. Anyone who attacked Zheng would find his strength amplified and sent back at him, many times over.
Such items were deadly in battle, so much so that they were treated like the magical equivalent of bump stocks and outlawed to the public. But they’d never been in the Corps’ standard kit for a reason. A very good reason.
“There are spells that can muffle the effect,” John warned. “Even turn it back on you. Not to mention that taking on an entire tong—”
“I’m not taking on the tong,” Zheng said, sending him a look. “That’s not how it works. Hye-Jin will either challenge or she won’t. If she does, I’ll need all the help I can get. If she doesn’t—well, maybe I’ll last long enough to present your plan.”
“And I’ll find Caleb, and the thing controlling him,” John promised.
Zheng nodded, and then paused for a second. Before grasping John’s arm—forearm to forearm, in an almost knightly gesture. “You’re a bastard, war mage. I like that. Hope you survive.”
He started to move off, but John held on. “If I do, I’m going to need help killing this thing.” He summoned all his strength and put a simple locator spell on the two of them. It left him panting in effort, but it worked. “You’ll feel it when you’re close,” he gasped. “Come find me after!”
Zheng nodded and ran off to face the tong’s group of villains, his armor sparking and throwing spells and men alike out of his way, while John stood there, feeling dizzy from the magic loss. Or maybe that was the blood loss he hadn’t fully recovered from. Or the fact that he was armorless, weaponless, and only had one damned shoe!
He looked around, wiping smoke and rain out of his eyes. Spell bolts were flying thick and fast in the little valley below, but they weren’t much thinner elsewhere. If he was going to track Caleb across the city, he was going to need supplies. Weapons, armor, a damned war mage coat that fit him and could substitute for his . . . non-existent . . . shields . . .
John’s thoughts trailed off, as he noticed something just below the tree line. Something that looked like a tiny old man in a coolie hat, edging around the shadows. He’d arrayed a dozen shielded umbrellas along one side of a large wheeled cart, and was slinking along behind them, pushing a heavy load and trying to stay in the quieter areas.
It took John a second to understand what he was seeing, because it was so bizarre. A battle was raging between the Corps and some of the triad, spells were flying, deadly clouds of smoke were drifting, and great divots of earth were being flung up whenever a spell bounced off of someone’s shields and plowed into the ground. It was chaos.
Yet, defying it all was the old man and his cart of stuff, cutting across the battlefield. For a moment, John thought the man had gotten confused, or tried to find an alternate route out of the battle on the road only to fall into a worse one here. But then he saw him stop by a fallen war mage. And instead of trying to help the man, he began rifling through his pockets and tugging on his coat.
He was stripping the fallen, John realized. Taking anything that might have value, from tong and war mage alike, even from some who were still moving! Leaving the wounded behind, naked and defenseless.
Ensuring that, if they weren’t already dead, they soon would be!
John surged to his feet on a wave of pure fury, only to pause at the sound of someone thrashing up the hill the other side. He spun, caught between fight and flight, but with no real way to do either. His body tensed, hoping for a lost civilian, but expecting something far more deadly.
Only to pause in disbelief a moment later.
“Caleb?”
The familiar dark eyes stared at him out of a blood splattered face, just slightly distorted by the blur of the manlikan standing protectively in front of him. John had no idea what he was doing there, but he’d take a little luck for once! John grinned, joy and relief cascading through his body.
“Caleb!”
And then his old friend punched him straight in the mouth.
Chapter Twenty
A ughhh!” the boy staggered back, looking alarmed, until he hit the wall of the cave. And then seemed to recall that war mages didn’t scream like little girls. Which was probably why he sent a powerful fireball at their bloody attacker, one John barely managed to deflect in time.
The roiling ball of flame went ricocheting farther into the cave system, bouncing off walls and lighting up a very non-natural tunnel nearby. One that looked like a giant worm had gnawed a path through solid rock. John stared down at the reddish flames glinting off the chewed-up stone, and felt somewhat grateful when the light went out.
So much for the element of surprise.
He then had to abort another spell by the damned boy, who he was really starting to regret bringing along. But he’d needed someone to watch his back, and he trusted open hostility more than the cynical, jaded dislike on the faces of the other mages. If this boy decided to hurt him, he’d do it openly, and probably after warning him that it was coming—or at least John hoped so. He’d once thought that he was a decent judge of character, but after what had happened with—
He cut his thoughts off savagely. Focus! He grabbed the boy’s arm and twisted it behind his back, before he could cast another damned spell.
“What the hell are you on about?” the boy panted. “It’s going to kill us both!”
J
ohn bit back a curse. Then he let it fly anyway, because it wasn’t like everyone within five miles didn’t already know where they were. “Look at it!”
“What?” The boy stared at him. And then those bright black eyes slid over to their “attacker”, which hadn’t moved all this time and never would again. Well, unless he fell over, John thought, as the man toppled onto what had been his face before something bit half of it off.
The body appeared to have been wedged between a couple of rocks, which had left it partially upright, at least until two war mages slid into it. That had caused it to bobble around, and the rush of wind whistling through the missing back of its head had caused the eerie scream. But this fellow would never attack anyone again.
The boy swallowed, and then did it one more time, taking in the bare rib cage that appeared to have been licked clean, the missing organs, and the shredded, fleshy parts of the legs, through which yellowed bone could be seen.
John saw when realization hit, and the boy’s gaze fell onto the war mage pin still gleaming from the neck of a blood-soaked cloak.
“Masterson.” The boy’s hand clenched on John’s shoulder, hard enough to make him wince.
“What’s left of him,” John agreed.
A pink tongue flickered out to wet the boy’s lips. “He never even made it past the door.”
“No.” John started pulling the safety line away from his belt, only to have his wrist clamped down on by that same hard grip.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
John looked at him quizzically. “Getting ready to go inside.”
“Inside?” The kid looked like the word didn’t make sense. “Inside what?”
John summoned a ball of moonlight, an old fey trick, to illuminate the small cave where they knelt, along with their gory colleague. And the now dark tunnel that speared off at a considerable angle going down. And yet it still took the boy’s eyes a moment to widen.
“Are you insane?”
Oh, good, he got it, John thought, and extricated his wrist. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to come.”
The boy took a moment. John was busy, and therefore not watching him closely, if at all. But he could practically feel the indecision radiating off him.
And that was before John found a solid spot to pound in the metal spike to act as his lifeline’s anchor.
Wouldn’t want to fall and get hurt, he thought wryly, right before somebody started shaking him.
“Are you insane?” the boy asked again, with a look that said he’d already made up his mind. “That damned thing has to know we’re coming—”
“I told you; you’re not.”
“Why the hell did you bring me down here, then?”
“To watch my back.”
“Yet you’re going in alone.”
John nodded at Masterson, whose remaining blue eye was flickering with an almost lifelike intensity in the spell light. There were a few tuffs of red hair still clinging to the unopened part of the skull, which the wind had managed to arrange in a comb over, as if the body was coyly trying to hide the missing part of its brain.
“Masterson was a good man,” he said briefly. He should know: back when he consulted with the Corps, the garrulous old Cornishman had been one of his students.
John really hoped that wasn’t why he’d been sent out here, although it was fairly likely. Masterson had evidenced a real gift for the demonic arts, despite being fully human and decades older than most of John’s students. And this sort of thing was exactly why Jonas had brought John on board to begin with—to bring the Corps up to speed on how to fight the kind of things that weren’t supposed to be prowling around earth, but often did anyway.
Damn the demon high council! John thought, not for the first time. Those bastards were supposed to prevent this type of thing. Earth was a resource, and the demons who came here were supposed to be carefully vetted to make sure they didn’t lay waste to said resource. So, what the hell—literally—had gotten past them?
And just how powerful was it to have destroyed a damned fine mage before, as the boy said, he got in the door?
“So, what are you saying?” the young man demanded. “That I’m not?”
John had been staring at the remains of his one-time student, but now he looked back at the angry pup. “What?”
“You’re saying I’m not good enough. Is that it?”
John blinked at him. “How the hell would I know? I just met you.”
“But you chose me. You brought me down here, instead of one of the others. You saw something—”
“Yes. And now I’m seeing something else.”
“Like what?”
“Like hubris. This is no place for it. You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“And you’re not? What makes you so sure you can survive down there?”
John looked up from testing his line, and almost ignored the question. But for once, there was something in those black eyes besides anger. Some strange, youthful candor that pulled a similar response from him.
“I’m not,” he said truthfully, and dropped.
~~~
John came around to a nauseous feeling in his gut, a pounding in his skull and an argument in his ears. He blinked himself back to consciousness and saw a burning tree limb on one side of him, an expanse of brilliant blue umbrellas on the other, and a couple of battling silhouettes right over top. One of which was wearing a temple dancer’s tiara.
For a moment, John just stared at the pissed off, full-sized, 3-D cutie brandishing a golden stiletto. She was shaking it menacingly at a wizened little guy in a coolie hat, who John recognized as the vulture he’d seen picking over corpses on the battlefield. Which is probably what he thought John was!
Not yet, John thought savagely, sitting up with a roar, and causing the old guy to stagger back and the cutie to clock the bastard upside the head. He barely seemed to notice. He stared at John for a second, then began screaming his head off and running away, fleeing down the incline and then sheering off into the darkness as fast as his legs could carry him.
John just sat there, wondering what the hell, until he felt a large clot of blood slide down his temple and splatter onto the grass.
He probably looked like a zombie come to life, he realized, gingerly feeling his ruined face. Which appeared to have been pulverized—again. Caleb had really done a number on—
Caleb.
John scrambled to his feet, staggering a little, and looked around wildly. But all he saw was the battle raging over top of the umbrellas, darkness and drifting smoke. Caleb was nowhere to be seen.
But he had been here. John’s face was testament to that. But why had he been here? And why had he been so damned hostile?
And, more importantly, where was he now?
John stabbed at his arm, trying to activate the charm, but nothing happened. Except for a line of pain that shot up from to his elbow to his shoulder, probably because somebody had gotten there first. And literally stabbed him, ripping a two-inch hole in his flesh, John didn’t know why.
And then he realized: the tracking charm was gone.
John just stood there for a moment, swaying a bit on his feet, processing this. He supposed there was an outside chance that the old peddler had taken it, although it seemed unlikely. It wasn’t worth much, and besides, there should have been no way for the man to even know it was there. Caleb, on the other hand . . .
John was left with the disturbing conclusion that Caleb had somehow followed him here, had assaulted and knocked him out, and had ripped the tracking charm out of his forearm. But why? What on earth for?
Probably because he wasn’t the one in charge.
Damn it! Whoever was controlling Caleb must have realized what John was attempting, likely because the plan hadn’t exactly gone smoothly. He remembered the two groups of mages that had suddenly broken off from the rest and flooded the alley, before chasing him and the vampires across the rooftops—because somebody had
told them to. Somebody who wanted to find out if he had a problem.
He’d discovered that the answer was yes, but had then lost John’s group. So, he’d backtracked to Caleb, reversed the charm, and used it to trace John instead. A mage, then, or somebody who knew the kind of magic the Corps used.
And then he’d ordered Caleb to do . . . what?
Probably kill him, John thought grimly. The bastard could have just killed Caleb, but that wouldn’t have ensured that John wouldn’t try the same trick on another mage. Killing John, on the other hand, would solve the problem once and for all. But there’d been a spanner in the works that the bastard hadn’t expected: Caleb was notoriously spell resistant, and he considered John a friend.
So he’d fought the command—tired, beaten up and probably seriously confused, but he’d fought it, nonetheless. Fought and won, at least enough to leave John alive. The bastard behind this had only been able to destroy the charm and to incapacitate John for a short time.
The question was, did he know it?
John’s eyes widened a little at the implication, and then he lunged for the cart.
It looked like the vulture had been busy. There was a jumble of potion belts, most of them with their vials either missing or half depleted, but he managed to cobble a semi-full one together by quickly combining what remained. He shrugged into a war mage coat, one a little too big but that was better than the alternative, and loaded it down with throwing knives, bowie knives, grenades, garrotes, guns—including two .44 Magnums for the belt’s holsters and four smaller types for the specially made pockets in the coat. The latter could be levitated and fired independently if needed, and he assumed he would need, considering that his magic was all but spent and he had assassins on the way.
“When did Caleb leave?” he rasped at the no longer little dancer.
She was balancing on one foot, trying to put her shoe back on. “Who?”
“The mage who hit me!”