Guardian (The Protectors Series) (28 page)

Holy shit
. The ghouls had heat-seeking missiles. Serious firepower. If she’d called in her comrades, they wouldn’t have been prepared. The losses would have been devastating. Mel put her hand to her mouth, harsh reality sinking her into a devastating pit.

More explosions thundered below. “Ground forces are going in,” Stefan said. “They’re magically detonating ghoul land mines.”

These ghouls had antiaircraft missiles and land mines. FBI SWAT units weren’t equipped to fight those. The army or marines could, but they weren’t legally allowed to act within U.S. boundaries unless the country was under martial law. Nobody wanted that. People would panic if they knew about this. Just as Stefan had said.

“Bringing her down.” Josh banked the chopper and headed north to land in a clearing beside the big Pave Low. Griff, Carter, Val, and Will charged out to join the ground troops.

Stefan clapped the pilot on the shoulder. “Thanks for the rescue, Josh.”

“Yes,” Mel said. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, ma’am.” Josh nodded. “Doc.”

Stefan extended a hand to Mel. “They brought medics, and I can’t go back on duty until I have a full evaluation, so I’ll watch with you. Then I have respects to pay.”

“The woman who died,” she realized.

“Yes.” With her hand in his, Stefan walked her up the rear ramp of the camouflage-painted Pave Low. Inside, he introduced her to a pair of medics, a graying, stocky man named Lem Rodriguez, and a petite, blond woman, Edie Lang. The two paused from setting up a wound-dressing station to offer quick handshakes.

“Anybody have binoculars we can borrow?” Stefan asked.

Lem produced two sets from a locker. “Rex and Jarrod are moving in with the ground troops, but I know they’re glad to have you back, too, Doc.

Edie grinned. “The ghouls had to know your escape would bring hellfire down on them, but I bet they didn’t realize you could bring it quite so soon.”

“Yeah.” Lem bared his teeth in a fierce smile. “Too bad for them.”

“Let’s hope,” Stefan said. His hand at the small of Mel’s back guided her out of the chopper. “Keep your helmet on, sweet.”

Kra-kow!
A thunderous, sizzling crash rocked the ground.

Stefan caught Mel’s waist to steady her. “That’s the first salvo from our side.”

Standing in front of the medical helicopter, Mel and Stefan watched the action through binoculars. Flashes of silver or blue or green or muddy yellow light, like fist-size laser beams, flew around the ghoul nest. Some bounced off mage or ghoul shields. The mages were visible only when they ran because movement made what had to be magical camouflage seem to ripple. One blast hit a mage. It must’ve gone through his shielding because the mage staggered and fell.

As Lem and Edie ran toward the downed mage, another blast hit a big oak tree, exploding it like a lightning strike. Mel gaped. No body armor, maybe not even a tank, could stand up to a strike like that.

Behind Mel and Stefan, two medics she hadn’t met worked on mages injured by bullets or explosions in the first attack. Other mages, walking wounded, stumbled into the clearing on the arms of comrades who then ran back to the fight.

Lem and Edie suddenly appeared in the clearing with a stretcher. Mel blinked before she realized they must’ve translocated. Stefan hurried to help the mage they carried. Kneeling, he removed a sword from the injured man’s grip and set it carefully aside.

“Lem!” Watching the battle, Edie tapped his shoulder. “Gotta go!”

“Shit,” he snapped. “Doc, can you—?”

“Got it. Go.” As they raced away, Stefan knelt by the injured man. His hands glowed.

“Sanere,”
he said.

Was that Latin? And why had the two medics run instead of doing that popping in and out bit?

Mel turned back to watching the fight. The mages were moving into the ghoul nest now.

Behind her, someone shouted. The wind shifted, bringing the stench of ammonia. Mel wheeled.

Three ghouls had appeared, including one with purple eyes. They charged at Stefan and at the two helos, the purple-eyed one heading for the medical station.

Stefan was on his feet again, blasting silver energy from both hands and barring the way to his patient. “Mel, get down,” he shouted.

No way. She started toward him, but a purple-eyed ghoul rushed him. As he drew his sword, Mel halted. She would be in his way if she moved up.

Silver energy rippled up the blade as he stepped into the ghoul’s charge. His blade skated off its aura, but Stefan ducked a swiping blow and slashed at its side. It wheeled.

One ghoul charged the big helo, but someone inside, out of Mel’s view, blasted it back. Out of his Huey now, Josh shot green energy from his palm before following up with a basket-hilted sword. She couldn’t see the third ghoul, but the sizzle of energy bolts came from behind the chopper.

Edie blasted the purple-eyed ghoul, her power forcing it back. “Keep it busy,” she shouted. “Don’t let it shift out.”

A dirty, towheaded mage with a bandaged leg rolled out from under the helo to blast the same ghoul in the back.

The one that had attacked the troop carrier disappeared, probably inside. Shouts and the sizzle of energy blasts erupted.

A second purple-eyed ghoul appeared behind Stefan. A female mage blasted it as she ran out of the trees. Pressed against the helo, Mel looked for some way to help. Bullets might distract the thing, but the ricochets were dangerous in a crowd.

Stefan ducked, slicing, but the ghoul dodged easily. It angled for his arm, trying to get the sword. Sooner or later, it would. Stefan was giving ground, exposing Edie and the patient she stood beside.

A sword lay next to the patient Stefan had been treating. Mel snatched it and charged the ghoul fighting Stefan. Fast, the mother was fast, had to remember. She couldn’t hurt it, but maybe she could distract it.

Coming up behind the ghoul, she sliced at the backs of its knees and leaped away as it turned. She dived and rolled, evading the energy it blasted at her.

With a roar of “
Morere
,” Stefan stabbed it, his sword breaking through the shields to spit the thing from behind.

Later, maybe, Mel might feel squeamish over that. Now she felt a savage pleasure, for Cinda and for herself and Stefan.

She spun to the fight by the helo’s ramp. Edie had taken a position there, and Lem had returned. Together, they blasted the ghoul. A third mage, a brown-haired youth probably too young to drink, hurried toward them. A sling cradled his right arm, but he slashed at the ghoul with the sword in his left. Under their combined onslaught, it fell.

Mel scanned, turning, but saw no more ghouls.

“Clear,” someone in the troop carrier called out.

“Clear,” Josh announced with a feral grin.

“All clear,” Stefan confirmed.

Mel ran to him. He caught her in a tight hug, but she knew they had only a few seconds. Celebrating their survival could wait until he tended the patient who needed him.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he muttered into her collar.

“Likewise.”

His hold tightened. He kissed her quickly and stepped back. More casualties were arriving.

The battle seemed to be over. Maybe the ghouls’ best fighters had come out here, trying to strike a lethal blow by taking out the mages’ medical staff and their wounded.

Mel took the water bottle someone handed her and sat on the ground to watch Stefan. He was healing a wound, his hands glowing over it. She felt no fear at seeing his hands glow, she realized. She’d gotten used to the idea that he could wield powerful magic.
Interesting
.

A few minutes later he helped the wounded mage sit upright and signaled for Edie to help the patient onto the transport. Then he crouched in front of Mel and tipped her chin up, his gaze searching hers. “Doing okay?”

“Tired.” Mel smiled because she knew he needed her to. But she didn’t feel cheerful. What she’d just seen proved his point. Nothing short of a military unit could take out one of these places.

“Good.” Stefan took her hand. “Val just came back. Deke says it’s a complete rout, and they’ll be bringing out freed prisoners. No ghouls escaped. He’s starting mop-up.”

Anger and loathing shoved into Mel’s throat, making her pulse pound and her breath run shallow. “I want to see it, then. I want to see it in ruins.”

“We can do that,” Stefan said. “But we’ll have to walk. Just in case there’s a ghoul on the loose. Shielding doesn’t survive translocation.”

That must be why the medics ran into battle but translocated to the supposedly safer base camp.

He spun a shield around the two of them as they walked through the trees. Mages retrieved ghoul corpses for burning. Stefan chose the bodies of two purple-eyed ghouls he wanted saved for testing. The stench of ammonia threatened to sear Mel’s throat.

The scene that met their eyes inside the crumpled chain-link fencing filled Mel with fierce satisfaction. Ghoul structures burned, and corpses, turning green in death, littered the ground. Mages led out or carried out the devastated people and animals who’d been held captive.

“It’s not enough,” Stefan said quietly.

“No, but it has to be, doesn’t it?” She stared at the destruction around them. “What will you do with their prisoners?”

“We’ll see that they get medical treatment and go home.”

Frowning, she asked, “Even the normal people? With what they know?”

“Our creed demands it,” he said. “Our oath is to protect humans at all costs.”

Mel’s mouth dropped open. She shut it abruptly. She was the protector. Or she had been. In this group, she was the one needing protection.

Stefan continued, “We’re not monsters. Memory wipes are rarely used. Fuzzing memory is easier than deleting specifics. It’ll come back as they’re ready to deal with it, but the magical elements will seem like posttraumatic hallucinations or be written off by those who treat them as damage from the drugs they were given. Most of them would rather not remember anyway.”

He looked directly at her. “We tell them we’re government agents and this is classified.” When her brows winged up, he said, “It’s true. We’re agents of the mage government. We never say we’re in the U.S. Government.”

Mel shook her head. “I can see the reason for that, but I don’t like it.”

Cupping her cheek, he peered into her eyes. “So what are you thinking, sweetheart?”

“I see your point about fighting these ghouls, finding this place. We’d need a damn big bomb, and an explosion that massive wouldn’t leave much to prosecute. Or rescue. You’re much better at targeting the enemy without collateral damage, it’s obvious. We’re the best of the crime fighters, but we’re outclassed.”

Faced with having to convince a federal agency of the existence of all this, without being declared loony and losing her job, Mel had to concede the truth of what Stefan had been trying to tell her—that secrecy for the mage community was the lesser of two evils.

 And with that realization came a deep hopelessness. A sense of helplessness for humankind, and for herself. Stefan’s friends had been careful when speaking with her, but she’d eavesdropped, heard one of them use the word
Mundane
in reference to non-mages and non-ghouls. It felt insulting, though she knew they didn’t mean it to be. From their standpoint, it was simply fact.

No matter how good she was at her job, compared to Stefan and his friends, Special Agent Mel Wray
was
mundane. Ordinary. Different in the most fundamental and boring way.

Talk about not fitting in.

She lifted her eyes to his. “I don’t know, Stefan. It’s a lot to think about.”

“I can give you time, Mel. All you want.”

Because he looked so tired, she slid an arm around his waist. “Let’s go pay our respects.”

She had a lot to think about, and she owed them both an honest choice. At least this time she would be making it with all the cards on the table.

Mel finally walked out of the Wayfarer courthouse after three hours of hashing and rehashing what had happened in that compound with Burton and agents from the Atlanta Bureau office. She and Stefan had worked out their story in advance, that they’d been kidnapped, drugged somehow, and that after a propane tank had exploded in the compound, they’d escaped. The rest of it, they’d said, was fuzzy, with no clear memories.

With a respected physician and an FBI special agent corroborating each other’s stories, there was little the Bureau—or Dan Burton—could say.

She’d lied. Violated her oath.

She’d deceived her fellow agents to protect Stefan and the mages.

She could not do that again.

Half a block down the street, she met Stefan where he leaned against her Jeep. He’d finished his statement first, and he’d waited. He looked as exhausted as she felt, and not just physically. He stood as she approached.

She ached to walk straight into his arms. If she’d had any doubt she loved him, the way her heart kicked and her breath caught when she saw him would’ve squelched it.

Unfortunately, love did not conquer all.

“Hi,” he said in that beautiful voice that made her heart ache. He kept his arms crossed over his chest, not touching, and her heart ached with loss. He studied her for a moment. “You’ve made a decision.”

“Yes.” Mel swallowed hard. This was going to be so difficult, so painful for them both. If only she could see another way. “I understand why you doled out information the way you did. Seeing your friends in action, seeing what you can do, I get why you can’t trust everybody with that.”

“Thank you, Mel. I know that’s not easy for you, and it means a lot. I had a tough line to walk. I hoped you would understand after seeing that battle.”

“Watching that battle, realizing the extent of what mages can do, I see why your world needs to be kept secret. I get what you were trying to tell me, and I understand why you held back. I’m not upset about that anymore.”

“I do love you, sweetheart, with all my heart. Please believe me.”

 “I do.” Her breath caught. Helpless, feeling trapped, she touched his cheek. He caught her hand and held it, but his eyes turned bleak, as though he knew what she was about to say.