by TR Cameron
The punch she had aimed at the third only scraped it, thanks to the involuntary stumble. She shouted “Kagji” reflexively, then cursed when she remembered that magic didn’t faze the foxes. She lifted her arm and whipped the sword around her head, blade pointing straight down, and felt the creature jump away. A hunk of her hair fluttered through the air as she spun to find him and finish the job, but he was already out of range. Should’ve brought my dart bracelet. Or pistol. Or maybe some grenades. Sure do wish we had some grenades. Even with her magically increased speed, the creatures were faster than she could ever be.
Ruby spotted a hole nearby and ran for it, hoping that proximity triggered the steam jets. She screamed as if in fear, trying to entice her enemies to follow, then dove at an angle away from it as the pillar of super-heated vapor materialized. A screech from behind told her that at least one fox hadn’t managed to dodge. When she turned back, the one with her dagger in its hip and the two that were still active had all grown larger by a third. “Not fair,” she growled.
Idryll had already figured they would both have to live to win the challenge. She knew that Mirra Kaeni's companion had been a fox, and the notion that the guardians they’d faced were all previous companions had seemed like a logical conclusion. Thus, companions had to be worthy as well. She and her foe were now evenly matched in size, and both were similarly injured. The burn she’d taken had healed some during her shape change and was now nothing more than a minor annoyance and distraction.
She circled, snapping at his tail when he didn’t move quite fast enough and yanking before he twisted and pulled it away. He turned to her with an expression that seemed to say, “Really?” and barreled in at her. Part of her wanted to meet that charge head-on, but she leapt instead, waiting until he was committed to the motion to take to the air. Her claws slashed at his back as she flew over him, and she landed in a twisting skid on the dry earth. He was already inbound again, the new furrows in his flesh not seeming to bother him in the least. He whipped out an arm and clawed at her, the attack unexpected since she’d focused on his teeth. Stupid. She took cuts on her flank, but they were shallow and not immediately worrisome. By the time I bleed out, this fight will be over. We’ll either have won or lost a different way.
Idryll was starting to get the impression that she was only strong enough to keep the creature at bay and decided that should be her strategy until Ruby told her differently. She shifted tactics, staying crouched, feinting and fading, avoiding his attacks instead of meeting them. His style changed in response. The oversized fox’s efforts became faster and less powerful, clearly hoping to catch her in an evasion. It was the right call since one good lick could potentially slow her sufficiently for him to finish the fight. However, Idryll had been in battles like this before, and there was no way a fox, no matter how big he was, was going to beat a tiger in a war that resembled a hunt.
Ruby spotted Idryll facing off against a giant fox. She knew that if she didn’t act quickly and didn’t take out the pair in front of her simultaneously, their remaining enemies’ growth would put them at a severe disadvantage. She sped into a run again, this time toward her partner, around one of the obsidian-like rock formations. Stopping on the far side of it, she sheathed her sword and pumped energy into her muscles. She gave a loud shout and kicked at the rock, hoping it shared a certain fragility with its Earthly cousin when attacked from the right angle. Her target splintered and flew, shards jetting out at the pair of foxes following her. They fell, bleeding profusely, pierced in a half dozen places each. She spun at a roar from the other direction and saw that the fox facing Idryll had doubled in size again, now taller than she was despite its four-legged stance. Ruby charged, and Idryll did the same, circling to the opposite side before making her rush to force their foe to choose between them.
The fox selected her and nimbly blocked the sword strike she sent at it, her blade lopping off one of its claws while the rest of them stopped her blow before it could do any real damage. The creature lurched forward, snapped its body around at the last minute to slam into her, and sent her flying. She landed between the smaller foxes and among the shrapnel that had killed them. The sharp stones slashed into both her hands and the back of her head.
She ignored the wounds and got back to her feet, pumping more magic into her body and using her free hand to scrabble at the potions on her left thigh as she moved in an unsteady run back toward the fight. The oversized creature had thwarted Idryll's attack from behind, and she was circling it, dashing in to nip at its legs but skittering back out of range to avoid its blocks. Ruby didn’t think she’d have adequate strength to administer a killing blow in one strike, and without her magic to finish the job, she wasn’t sure she’d survive long enough to end her opponent. So, I need a different option. Unfortunately, there’s only one left that might work.
She gritted her teeth and opened her mind to the sword, imploring the beings within to help her. Then she released the Atlantean representation of the artifact into her mind as she called upon its power. He crowed with glee, and she felt battle lust surge as the shadow tendrils reached out to wrap around the fox. He turned in surprise at the presence of functioning magic. These things don’t follow the same rules as other magic, which is mostly bad but useful at this moment. She tightened the tendrils and stalked toward him, ready to slice his throat and end the fight. When she got near enough to administer that final stroke, he vanished, and suddenly they were in the library again. Ruby’s legs wobbled, and she fell, only then realizing that the wounds to her hands and head were far worse than they’d seemed and had come back from that other place with her. Channeling too much magic to my body to notice. Keshalla warned me. Stupid.
Through blurry eyes, she saw the fox, still in position on top of the chair, gazing down at her. Her focus was only for him, but she did note a hand opening the pouch containing her potions and knew her allies would keep her from death if anyone could. She had no energy remaining to do anything and felt like she’d burned away a core part of herself.
He announced, “Your trials are over. You have proven yourselves adequate to follow in the steps of those who have gone before. A messenger will arrive to lead you the rest of the way.” He gave a respectful nod to her and Idryll, holding each for several seconds. “You are now able to portal out of this place.”
Liquid trickled into her mouth, and she felt the healing potion begin its work on her damaged body. Messenger, is it? That could be a day, a year, a decade away. Not going to hold my breath.
Idryll's voice came as if through a long tunnel. “Let’s portal her back to the village so she can rest.”
Ruby murmured, “That sounds like a great idea,” and heard her words as a bunch of slurred, mostly unintelligible syllables. She concentrated and managed to force a few coherent sentences out before she lost consciousness. “Grab a book or three. Anything that looks interesting. The archivist will be ticked if she finds out we were in a library and didn’t bring her books.”
Chapter Fifteen
Julianna Sloane rose from the couch in her Las Vegas apartment with a smile as her lieutenants entered. She hugged each of them, part of the “New me, new rules” attitude she was trying to take with her people. It would be some time before she felt like dating or being social with anyone other than those who worked for her, so she wanted to ensure that those relationships were as strong as they could be. She gestured the pair to the couch, another change from previous practices, and served them both coffee from the pot she’d had sent up. When they were all arranged, she said, “So. Bring me up to date.”
Smith began the report. “Things here are secure. We’re getting along well with the people who own the building. They’ve granted us access to all the security feeds, and one of our staff is now watching them at all times. Plus, we’re running surveillance programs we brought with us from Reno.”
Julianna nodded. Her husband had been justifiably paranoid and hadn’t scrimped on the security in their ca
sino penthouse. Their surveillance and defensive tech were top-notch. He continued, “I think it’s safe to say we now have a reliably secure base of operations here. Our people are checking into the restaurants you asked about, making sure we know who’s working in the back, and discussing arrangements for possible visits.” Another of her husband’s fears had been poison, a tactic he’d used on multiple occasions in his previous career. So, before she would eat at a restaurant, she would need to be certain no assassins lay in wait for her to give them an opportunity. For now, she’d brought her chef from Reno along, and trusted employees were buying supplies in other cities and bringing them back to Vegas.
“Excellent. And our operations in Ely?”
Thompson nodded and took over the speaking role. “Aces did a nice job of knocking the security company the Council invited in back on its heels. The partners report that they made off with a great deal of new tech and injured quite a few of their operatives.”
“Only injured?”
Thompson shrugged. “That’s what they said. Of course, they also blew up the building, so anyone who didn’t escape beforehand is probably rather more than injured.”
Julianna laughed. “Well, well. I didn’t think they had that level of nastiness in them. I bet it was the dwarf’s idea.” The others nodded. “He seems the more bloodthirsty of the two. Although,” she thought of herself and her husband, “looks can be deceiving. Anyway, good. What did we learn about the other company?”
Smith shrugged. “From what the Aces people said, the Worldspan folks fought well. We’ve been checking into them, and they seem quite competent. They come with outstanding recommendations from a large number of clients.”
“Anyone we know?”
He shook his head. “Mainly Utah. The boss, uh, the previous boss, hadn’t put much effort in there yet.”
She laughed softly. “Well, maybe that will be the next market we move into once we finish up north. So, do you think it’s worth seeing if we can get this other company on our side?”
Her lieutenants looked at each other. Smith shrugged, and Thompson nodded. The latter said, “From what we’ve heard, they probably won’t respond at all well to having been attacked. Chances are strong they’ll increase their efforts in Ely, rather than stepping them down.”
Julianna nodded. “Good. I think this has potential. You should drop in on them.”
Thompson lifted an eyebrow. “Unannounced?”
“Sure. Let’s see how they respond to the unexpected.”
Thompson was in the passenger seat as Smith drove. They’d rented a helicopter for the quick trip from city to city, then rented a car at the airport. A large black SUV was their chosen conveyance, in case they needed its power or its toughness if things went awry. She certainly didn’t expect a social visit to turn into anything bad and doubted the vehicle selection would matter much if it did. Still, it didn’t take long in the security business to learn that you always prepared as if it would. Especially when working for someone like the Sloanes.
She’d spent time in the military and kicked around in a couple of mercenary units masquerading as government-contracted security companies before taking the gig for the Sloane family. The employees who worked under her and Smith were an almost equal mix between people who had come up through criminal organizations and those who had been military or law enforcement and decided to make a change. She’d experienced enough of the seedy side of life to not feel too many moral compunctions about what the Sloanes were into. On the rare occasions when she drank enough to get brutally honest, she would accuse everyone of being a criminal and explain that when everyone was, no one was. Those episodes usually ended with fists flying and furniture breaking.
Smith said, “One minute out,” as if she wasn’t already tracking their progress on her phone as she paged through the Worldspan Security records their infomancer had provided. That’s one really good thing we got out of working with the Aces people, the connection to Scimitar. She’s the sharpest computer jockey I’ve ever worked with. The car stopped at a gated security booth, and Smith said, “Representatives of Julianna Sloane, here to meet with someone from Worldspan.”
The guard, clad in a bulletproof vest and with a rifle hanging across his chest, nodded. “Hang on, let me check.” They’d debated having Scimitar create a fictitious back-dated appointment for them, making them seem legit until they got inside, but had decided the people they wanted to talk to were more likely to be annoyed than impressed with such a tactic. So they’d chosen the more respectful route. After several moments, the guard hit the button to open the heavy metal gates and waved them forward. “Pull in over there.”
“Over there,” was a concrete pad off to the side of the two-lane road that ran into the industrial park. Smith complied, and when the vehicle was solidly in place on the slab, a barrier of spikes that would shred their tires if they tried to drive over them shot up around the border of it to keep them immobile. Thompson nodded. “Clever. Not a bad plan if you have the space for it and don’t care about ticking off your visitors.”
Another SUV much like theirs pulled up, and two men climbed out, both with hands resting on pistols in drop holders. Thompson and Smith opened their doors slowly and climbed out of the vehicle, keeping their arms spread away from their bodies. A third person appeared from the SUV and patted them down, noting the guns in their shoulder holsters but not taking them. He informed them mildly, “You’ll have to leave those in the lobby. We’ll give you a receipt.” He seemed like law enforcement, in his forties, probably with military in his background. The other two, both younger, felt the same to her.
She gave him a quick nod. “Whatever it takes. Smith, don’t forget the case.”
Her partner opened the back door and pulled out a briefcase. The man asked, “What’s in it?”
Smith replied, “The usual. Some papers for a proposal, a laptop, nothing exciting.”
The other nodded. “It stays with you until we get to the lobby, where we will thoroughly inspect it. Any questions?”
Thompson shook her head. “We’re in your hands.”
They rode in the back seat, with one of the men next to them and the other two up front. Their seatmate was twisted to face them and had liberated his gun from its holster, holding it calmly against his leg. Professional. They do things right. That’s a good sign. When they reached the lobby, they entered what was essentially an airlock, with heavy glasslike doors on either side. She guessed it was bulletproof glass, if not something tougher. Smith put the briefcase into a scanner as directed, and the guards stood and waited after casually taking positions that would allow them to shoot without creating a crossfire.
With no visible sign of communication, the one who seemed in charge said, “Okay, it’s cleared, you can grab it. Go in, turn to your left, and surrender your guns.” Once they did, their escort brought them beyond the single set of doors that led on from the lobby. The man who’d been their conversational partner led them, and the pair that had accompanied him trailed behind. He explained, “Boss isn’t available yet, so she asked me to give you the dime tour.” He took them through the building, a strange three-story combination of bunker chic and corporate modernism. The walls were painted and decorated as they would be in any business park, but when passing through doorways, Thompson noted they were twice as thick as they would have been in a more innocent place.
The doors were all open, but she imagined when they shut, they would have some serious locking mechanisms that snapped automatically into place. Small camera domes were present throughout the facility. Probably why all these doors are open for us. Someone is charting our progress and making it happen. Their escort took them through meeting rooms, a modest cafeteria, and into a garage on the first floor, which held five black SUVs and several vehicles of other sizes. They ranged from what looked like an armored car to a Winnebago-sized command center, to judge by the communication antennas on the top.
The second floor turned out t
o be offices, many of them filled with people sitting behind computers. It appeared to be a stereotypical tech business until you peered closer and realized that every worker was a little harder-looking than you’d expect. The third floor comprised a wide-open meeting space in the middle, with couches and a table, a large conference room along one wall, and two offices along the other. Their research had indicated that the company had two principals, and the man took them into the office of the one who, according to their information, had been present in Magic City prior to the attack on their headquarters there.
The elf rose from behind her desk and extended a hand, moving comfortably toward them, showing no signs of injury from the fight with Aces. Thin dark braids hung down over her shoulders, and her leather pants and tunic definitely weren’t business casual. They exchanged introductions, and she moved back to her chair, gesturing for them to take the ones across the desk from her. She asked, “So, what can I do for the family of The Nightmare?”
Smith slowly lifted the briefcase and set it on the desk. He said, “Our boss has an offer for you. Is it okay if I open this?”
She casually drew a pistol from an open desk drawer and pointed it at him, then nodded. He opened the case, pressing the almost invisible button to release the concealed compartment. Inside, hidden from physical scans by advanced technology that had cost a serious amount to procure, was an encrypted video communication link strong enough to get past the jamming field surrounding the headquarters. On the large display was Julianna Sloane, who grinned out of the screen at the three of them. “Ms. Prash, thank you for agreeing to meet with us. I have a proposition that I think you’re going to find very interesting.”