All Your Wishes (29 page)

Cox had been surveying the damage around us. Now he nodded in the direction of a table that lay overturned atop a pile of rubble. “Vargas, Finlay, bring that table over here.”

They snapped to it. The table, while battered and dented, still had all four legs. Screws and twisted metal plates dangled from those legs, showing where it had been ripped from the floor.

Finlay and Vargas set the table unsteadily upright in front of me, then stepped back. Cox stepped forward and spread a map onto the tabletop. Everyone, including me, moved in to get a good view. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Turner moving out of the way, toward the medics and the injured TSA agents.

“So, ma'am,” Cox said, “What's the plan?

“Do you have a privacy disk? I'd rather the enemy didn't hear this.”

Cox reached into the pouch attached to his webbed belt and pulled out a spell disk. He muttered words that would set the perimeter of the magic and broke the disk. In an instant we were enclosed in an echoing bubble of silence.

It took a while to explain. Once we were all on the same page, and my team had made suggestions to make my plan better, it was time to go. Cox released the bubble and I followed him across the littered ground until we reached the helo, carrying the pack they'd given me earlier. Cooper carried the box with his knives. Once aboard, I changed into the nice, clean uniform and protective gear. The others were polite enough not to watch.

Clothes don't make the man, or woman in this case, but it felt really good to get into them just the same. It was also going to make it a lot easier for the illusion specialist to make me look like just another soldier if I dressed the part. Here's hoping that confused the enemy, even if only for an instant. And I absolutely adored having body armor and weapons. I'd felt so naked without them.

Now I not only had one of Cooper's throwing knives strapped onto my wrist, I had a 9mm handgun, a weapons belt filled with various spell disks, top-of-the-line body armor, and a nifty set of gloves that would not only protect my hands if we had to exit the chopper by sliding down ropes but would convert the friction into energy that would be released when I hit something. How cool was that?

Once changed, I sat down, strapped in, and began chugging nutrition shakes as I went over the plan again in my head. It was a good plan.

I felt almost confident as we lifted off the ground.

Then I made the mistake of looking out the window.

The devastation was much worse viewed from above. Most of the airport was completely flattened. Planes and rubble were scattered over literally miles of prairie, like toys thrown in a toddler's tantrum. A swath of destruction blazed a trail miles wide heading west, through the heart of the city and beyond. Glass skyscrapers that should have glistened in the sunlight didn't, and I realized they'd shattered, spraying deadly shrapnel all over downtown. We were far enough away that I couldn't see details. I was glad of that.

I swallowed hard. Hasan had done this, and more, and he hadn't even broken a sweat.
I
was going up against a creature capable of
this
.

Somebody had to, I knew. And while I felt hideously inadequate to the task, the clairvoyants all seemed to think I was our best hope.

Which was freaking terrifying.

On the other hand, I wasn't the only one opposing him. Rahim was supposed to be meeting me, helping me with my plan. Maybe Pradeep and the other Guardians were taking action, too; I didn't know.

The helicopter wasn't the smoothest or quietest ride I've taken, but it was definitely fast. In next to no time we were hovering over the crossroads where, according to my perfectly lovely plan, I was supposed to meet Rahim and his group of the Guardians.

Unpleasantly, the crossroads was empty. No sign of Rahim or his team, not even a stirring of dust in the distance.

I scanned the whole area. The ground was uneven, rocky, and scrubby desert with sparse, scraggly plant life. It would be easy to hide. Not so easy to move without kicking up dust.

I'm a planner. I do not like having to improvise. I particularly don't like being forced into it by people not doing what they've agreed to do, dammit.

Focusing my mind, I reached out.
Rahim? Where are you? You were supposed to wait at the crossroads.

You were delayed—we knew not for how long. Every minute costs lives. So we have gone ahead and are entering the caves now. You were right. My grandfather's ceremony has drawn off Hasan's attention and most of the—

A mental scream replaced his mental speech. In my mind and in the distance, I heard automatic weapons fire, saw spurts of dust rising from where bullets hit the ground.

Shit!
I shouted mentally and physically to my people. “
Rahim and his Guardians are under fire! They're the only ones who can trap the ifrit! We've got to help them!”

 

24

Pradeep and
Tarik might have drawn off some of the enemy, but the bad guys hadn't left their lair undefended. Not that I'd really expected them to. That was why I'd asked Dom for military help.

Rahim, however, had been overconfident. Again. If we both survived the day I was
so
going to kick his ass.

Still, while I'd known we were liable to take fire, it's a very different thing to experience it firsthand.

We used ropes to get from the helicopter to the ground. The journey took only a few seconds, but they were long ones. I was grateful that the gloves worked. So did the body armor. Without it I would have been cut into hamburger by weapons fire before I hit the ground. The bullet impacts felt like someone was whaling on me with a lightly padded baseball bat. Less than two yards away, someone screamed. I looked and saw Vargas fall thirty feet to the ground, the back half of her head just gone.

Shit, Vargas had the
sujay
.

I hoped I wasn't the only one to remember that, because there was too much going on for me to be able to concentrate and remind someone using siren telepathy, and too much noise for anyone to hear me say anything.

On the rope beside me, Cox reached onto his belt and pull off a grenade. Pulling the pin with his teeth, he flung it into the bit of cover from which most of the shots were coming. We were already on the ground and running when the grenade exploded, sending clods of earth, rocks, and things I didn't want to think too much about flying at me.

I could still hear Rahim in my head. There were no words—he was too far gone for that. But his sense of urgency was unmistakable. Magic and bullets were flying at us as I ran in a zigzag pattern toward where I'd last heard from Rahim. I stumbled more than once on the rocky and uneven ground, but kept moving, keeping low enough to use the scrub and rocky outcroppings for cover when I could.

I would've missed the body if it weren't for my inner bat, which smelled fresh blood and lots of it. I wasn't hungry—the nutrition shakes had taken care of that—but the smell hit me just the same, and I swallowed hard as my mouth started to water. I followed the scent and found Jones sprawled dead on the ground. Beside him, Rahim should have been. Bullets had chewed through so much of his torso that it looked like ground beef, but he wasn't dead. He also wasn't alone. One of the enemy had squatted down over him and was working to remove the dying man's gore-soaked pack.

Pulling my nine, I fired repeatedly as I charged forward. Unfortunately, the other guy's body armor was every bit as good as mine. My slugs hit hard, knocking him onto his ass, but he recovered instantly, pulling his gun and firing back.

He was a good shot, but not perfect. Plus, it's hard to hit a moving target, particularly one moving at vampire speed. I heard the buzz of the bullets flying past—felt a sharp, burning sensation, then wetness as one of them clipped my ear—but there wasn't time to think before I was on him. I kicked at his chest, but he moved aside, blocking my blow with the arm holding his gun.

That was a mistake. I've got more-than-human strength. I heard the bone of his arm break with an audible crack at the impact of my leg. His weapon dropped from his now-useless hand. Swearing, he rolled away from me as I regained my footing and drew a knife with his other hand.

I pulled the trigger, my gun aimed at the center of his face, only to hear it click, empty.

That made him smile. I snarled in response, pulling a spell ball from my belt. I could tell by feel that it was a full-body bind. When I flung it at him, he ducked, so it shattered on the rock behind his head. I felt the magic of the spell flow out, only to be countered by the wards on his gear.

He rose to his feet and faced me.

It was my turn to swear. I drew Cooper's knife and moved carefully forward.

My enemy was injured, which gave me some advantage. And I had vampire speed. But that hadn't seemed to impress him much so far, and he was bigger and taller than I was, more than six feet, and heavily muscled. That gave him better reach.

We circled each other warily.

I opened my mind, focusing my siren abilities, trying to influence him. Nada, despite the fact he wasn't wearing a charm.

“Your siren mind games won't work on me, chickie.” His smile was a baring of teeth.

Chickie?
“Then I guess I'll just have to waste your ass.” I moved in with a blur of speed, my knife slicing side to side before I danced out of reach. I heard the ripping of cloth and his hiss of pain, and smelled fresh blood, but the blow hadn't been lethal.

When I went for him again, he was ready. He sliced at my knife arm, scoring a long, shallow gash that burned like hell itself and bled freely. I danced back, out of reach, and he moved forward on the attack. His third step took him out of the protective shadow of the rock face.

The sniper round hit him in the face a split second before I heard the crack of the rifle. The impact drove him backward, blood and worse spraying behind him as his legs crumpled. It was a lot more gruesome and hideous than movies and video games make it look. I swallowed a little convulsively and looked away—I had no time to be sick. I wiped my knife on my pants, slid it back into its sheath, and hurried over to Rahim.

Squatting down beside him, I was appalled. He still wasn't dead. Despite his terrible injuries, he lived. Blood bubbled from his chest with his every shuddering breath, yet somehow there was strength in his hand as he grabbed my arm, guiding my hand to the bloody strap of his pack.

He projected the image of Ujala's face into my mind. Then he was gone. At last.

Tell me you didn't bring your ten-year-old kid into this hell.

But he had.

I heard a child scream “
Papa!
” from a shadowy cleft in a rock formation some twenty yards away. Looking toward the sound, I saw the boy trying to break free from a man who held him fast. I recognized the captor's face from the odd little meeting Rahim had held back at the condo in Treasure Island … which seemed like an eternity ago now. So he was one of the Guardians, and on our side. Good.

I closed Rahim's eyes, then stripped the bag from his corpse as the gunfire died out, leaving behind an almost echoing silence broken by Ujala's heartbroken sobs. In the distance, I heard a wolf's howl. I sent my mind outward and found a familiar mental signature.

Kevin.

Don't shoot the werewolf. He's with me.

I could sense negative reactions to that particular order. The troops weren't happy. They didn't trust the monsters. I got that. If Kevin went too wolfy, he'd be dangerous to both sides. I didn't think that would happen; his control is excellent. But …

Don't shoot the wolf unless he attacks you.

In the back of my mind, I heard Kevin's dark chuckle, but when I reached out to him there was no answer. Then again, I didn't really expect one.

If Kevin were human right now, his PTSD would make what was happening here impossible for him to handle. The wolf wouldn't care. But I was pretty sure his wolf-self had enough self-preservation instinct to bury his human-self deep enough to protect his sanity. Which, unfortunately, might be deep enough to endanger us.

I was willing to take the gamble.

Three soldiers followed me across the stony ground to the cave entrance. All three were alert, continually scanning the area for danger. As I dropped Rahim's bloody pack gently at the feet of the middle-aged Indian man who held the weeping Ujala, I opened my mouth to offer my condolences.

I couldn't speak. The minute Rahim's bag left my hand, power washed over me in a tidal wave that stole both thought and breath and left burning agony in its wake. I dropped to my knees, the jolt of the impact on the hard stone buried beneath a deeper, stronger pain. Tears streamed from my eyes. I felt Hasan's satisfaction.

You have arrived.

He was coming.

I fought for enough strength and breath to gasp out a warning, both psychically and aloud. “
He's coming! Go,
” a bare fraction of an instant before Hasan slipped into my body and, with gloating satisfaction, said, “He's here.”

 

25

Ujala made
a gesture with his left hand. There was a sound like a thunderclap, so loud I felt it as pressure. It shook small stones loose from the ceiling of the cave and raised a cloud of choking dust that set me coughing. Burning power washed through me, bringing a gasp to my lips. When my tears finally stopped and I could see again, everyone was gone—except Hasan, who was riding me like I was his favorite pony.

He dragged me to my feet; I made him work for it, fighting him for every damned inch until my muscles ached from the strain.

You will stop fighting me!
he snarled in my mind.

The hell you say.

He didn't answer. His thoughts had moved elsewhere. I felt him gathering his will to send magic flowing through the cave to heat the rock. He was shocked to stillness when the magic simply wouldn't come. He tried again … nothing.