Authors: Scott V. Duff
“Everybody into the positions you want to start in,” I said, pulling the Day lose from its scabbard with my right hand and the Crossbow from my shoulders with my left. It might have been awkward but the weapons were helping. “Jimmy, I will be four feet in the air and falling. You will be on the ground behind me. Watch in front of us.”
Both Dad and Mike had magic ready I hadn’t seen before and were crouched into a striking position. Jimmy sidled up beside my left arm, outstretched to fire the Crossbow and stepped once to stay behind me, leading with his left.
“Everybody ready. On three, one, two, three,” I called as I wrapped portals around the four of us. I sent us into battle on three.
My first four kills were easy and fast: four shots, four thunks. By the time I hit the ground, the Bolts were arriving back into the Quiver and I was swinging around for another shot, one team down and no one the wiser yet. I got another two shots from the Crossbow before I felt the blossom of Dad’s first attack then Mike’s chaotic fireball bloomed near it, like the one in London but weaker. Shielding went up around the mages, nearly fouling my second shot. My group of five was now three, though it took them a few seconds to notice.
I didn’t give them those seconds, instead pressing the attack. Since we needed information, I didn’t hold back any on the Daybreak mind tricks. I didn’t want to, but we needed to know. As I ran up to the first of the three, surprising him and swinging the Day Sword in a fatal blow to the throat, I ripped through his mind and tore out every bit of knowledge he had as to why he was here and who brought him.
The next two wheeled around to face Jimmy then, startled, reoriented suddenly seeing me. It was too late. I had what I needed by then, names, faces, a number. They were extraneous now. Over seven billion people on this planet and they were trying to kill me? Oh, yeah, they were very much extraneous at that point.
I felt the bullets hit the armor before I heard the report of the gun. Jimmy got his first, second, and third swings in as I pulled downward with the Day, decapitating the second wizard in this group. That was the Day’s favorite method of killing, the true separation of mind and body. I turned to the last man before the second hit the ground, but I didn’t have to do anything. The Summer Princess had once turned my head in that direction and if Kieran hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here. And then there was the matter of that long cylindrical dent in the top of his head that wasn’t bleeding just yet. The body hit the ground about four tenths of a second after the head of my kill did.
“Good job. Let’s go help Mike and Dad,” I said and jumped us over, putting us in the same spot I’d put them. Mike had the smaller group, but they were the more violent and aggressive. He was handling them, though.
As we landed, Mike leapt forward from his position behind a tree as the mage he faced snarled a curse at him and flung a knife, trying to pincer him between the magic and the blade. I heard Jimmy’s gasp of fear at Mike’s predicament, but I just turned to Dad, relieved that Mike was in his element. Mike ducked under the curse in front of the tree, bouncing it up off of a shield and throwing two spheres of blue between the two wizards. When the first mage’s curse hit the tree, it exploded into a burst of fire and ice, two different energy patterns competing for the same space. Mike’s spheres erupted into light, blazing intensely—a flare hidden behind something darker—catching both wizards in temporary blindness.
Mike shot another blast of magefire at the last wizard as the tree dropped hard vertically to the ground, its six-inch thick trunk cut away by the curse meant for Mike. Both mages were distracted with their loss of sight and the awful racket of the tree falling horizontally past its neighbors, the fire ate through the enemy’s shield like tissue paper. Mike ignored the last man, turning wide to avoid the falling tree and heading for Dad and us. The tree, however, had its revenge on its killer a second later, ultimately piercing the blinded man in several hundred places and crushing him under several thousand pounds of cellulose.
I’d rather have the tree back.
The wizard facing Dad made the mistake of thinking I was one of his feints, a trick of sound thrown behind him to make him turn, but Dad was concentrating on the man to his left. Prisms of purple flew through the air at that man, crystallizing out of nothing in front of Dad.
“Dad, down!” I yelled and launched the Day into flight over his left shoulder while I called for the Night into my left.
Dad’s prisms hit the shields of his target sending loud and fiery cracks of purple energy firing lightning quick between each prism. The man screamed as the energy ate through his imperfect shield, then ate at his body. It evaporated with the energy as Dad ducked into a roll to avoid the gleaming Day Sword in its path to the battle mage sneaking up behind him. The Night Sword traveled quickly from its scabbard to my hand and thrusting its power directly into the controls of the spell the man was trying to launch at my father. As the Day sunk into the chest of the backstabber, the Night disrupted the other’s spell and both Swords gleefully destroyed their enemies.
Eighteen down and six to go, we needed to go after them, but I gave everyone a moment to catch their breath first.
Jimmy stayed at my side, leaning on the staff, excited but leery. Dad stayed on the ground panting. He wasn’t hurt, just a little winded, and Mike leaned on his knees panting just as hard.
Dad glanced up at me and grinned, shaking his head slightly. “Why does he need us?” he asked Mike as he stood slowly.
“Moral support?” Mike suggested, grinning back at him.
“Don’t kid yourselves,” I said, calling for the Day to return to me. “Y’all ready for round two?” They nodded and crouched into an attack position, squinting against a change in light. I said, “On three, then. One, two, three ,” starting an inward swing with the Day. I jumped us below the field directly in line with the direction of travel of the two retreating teams.
Three man teams meant a stronger magician leading with two gunmen. Frankly, if this weren’t a death match, I’d say that either Dad or Mike could take either or both of these guys down like a chicken coup in a tornado. But “to the death” always has a way of screwing things up, so I was still incredibly anxious.
On the fourth beat, the Day sliced through the neck of one of the gunmen of my attack team. Jimmy appeared directly in front of the battle mage, swinging his staff with incredibly fast strikes against the man’s shield. Starbursts of golden and red energy flared across the man’s sight as I twisted myself around to follow the Day’s momentum behind me to face the last gunman, already turning to aim at me.
With the Night still in my left hand, I continued with the turn and lunged out with the rapier, thankful for the greater speed that Daybreak gave me. I pierced the man’s shield, just one section, but he was distracted enough for a second. Wrapping Jimmy and me in portals, I jumped us again, me to one side of the gunman, Jimmy behind him. The gunman fired at where I had been, hitting the battle mage repeatedly in the back. The wizard’s shield stayed in place long enough to show the bloody splotches in the air for a second or two. The gunman stopped firing when I removed his head, most of his gun, and left arm from the rest of his body.
Dad and Mike were quietly jogging in our direction, their team similarly removed from the field of action. While we waited the few seconds, I scattered a few bodies through portals across the Atlantic Ocean. Hawaii might be in our future soon, just to have the Pacific to litter biological refuse in. Radioactives and plastics, I’d keep on land where it was made; I’m pissy like that.
I brushed against the anchor again to find Ethan waiting on me.
You guys okay?
Ethan asked.
Yes, all of our attackers are dead with no casualties on our side. You?
I sent back, holding the torrent of worrying in check.
Richard was hurt, but not badly. Seth’Dur’an o’an and Kir du’Ahn are seeing to him now,
Ethan said.
Dad and Mike entered the small clearing we waited in, so I started talking to Ethan out loud. “Does he need my help? I can lock onto you…”
This is Richard we’re talking about. If Pete was the slightest bit worried, he already be yanking on your apron strings. As if you could do better than Kieran anyway…
Ethan was right on both counts and that small humor let me relax some.
“Our attackers were the advance team from last night, repurposed to take the house,” I said. “Their backup was the four hundred and they aren’t coming anymore. Mike said that it looked like the way these guys were setup for their attack looked like the work of someone called ‘the Russian.’ Ask Peter to call Dillon and ask if he knows how to set up a meeting between us. If that’s impossible, just have him start a rumor as rampantly as he can that Daybreak is after the Russian.”
Daybreak? Not McClure?
He asked with a hint of a snicker attached.
“If he can use code words, why can’t I?” I said.
We’re going to try to find out why the Borlands were attacked. What’s your next move?
“Savannah,” I said. “They were trying to take the house. They already knew about losing the army over the hill, so why come to my house and why Peter’s? Whoever is behind these two was looking for something. I bet if we check with Harris that we’ll find there were no other attacks today, at least on record. I think we’ll find a third in progress in Savannah.”
Why?
Ethan asked.
“Why is what we need to ask the Russian,” I said. “My bet would be they’re looking for something.”
Happy hunting, then,
he broke the connection.
“Ready for round three?” I asked Dad, knowing Mike and Jimmy would follow.
Dad hesitated, looking at Mike and himself. “Food first and a change of clothes would be smart.”
“Clothes I can get from here,” I said, moving the four of us back to the house and back under the care of the wards. Reaching into my father’s closet in the Palace, I pulled the mirror forward for him to see. He faced the wall that just a few minutes ago held the images of six teams of attackers. Dad looked at his reflection, twisting his hips around to see the slash of blood along the back of his right leg.
“Olivia cannot see this,” he said sternly. “Not right now.” He started to take his pants off, but I stopped him.
“Wait, wait, Dad, I can fix this,” I said and started dressing his reflection in similar clothes to what he had on. Pulling the clothes onto him, I dropped the dirty clothes to the ground just before his reflection reentered the mirror. Jimmy swooped down and ran them towards the laundry room. “Thanks, Jimmy. Mike, you need to change, too?” I asked, checking out his clothes.
“I think I’m awright, ‘slong as I don’t stink,” he said, back to his soft voice again.
“Fast food burger joint be okay?” I asked Dad. He nodded. “Everybody got cash and their key on them?”
“I don’t have any money on me,” Dad said. “I wasn’t expecting to need anything.”
Mike and I both pulled our wallets and counted our cash. “Four hundred,” Mike said.
“Keep it,” I said and counted four hundred out of my seven and handed that to Dad. “This is for emergencies. It’s mostly yours anyway so whenever you want it back…”
“Yeah,” Mike snorted, laughing. “What’s he need your money for? He’s got a diamond mine in ‘is bedroom!”
I shrugged to answer Dad’s raised eyebrows. “Not really a mine. More like a pool with a couple a thousand of ‘em sittin’ on bottom. Not that I’d ever sell ‘em.” Taking a quick scan of the one fast food restaurant I could remember well enough—the steak house in Arkansas was definitely out, but I could remember it well enough—I said, “If everyone is ready, let’s grab something to eat and head south.”
Once I had a view onto the restaurant, I could pick any place I wanted to put us, moving tiny spy holes around fairly freely. While not something you wanted to do around a warded landscape, this was open and public. Pushing a low-power avoidance spell through first and igniting it, I wrapped us in portals, shifting us down a short distance across the Earth’s surface onto the sidewalk of a nondescript burger joint in downtown Huntsville. It was a local favorite for reasons I couldn’t identify, but that was true in many things.
A smile lit Jimmy’s face when he saw where we were. “Somebody should grab a table before they’re all gone. What’da y’all want?” he asked, apparently offering to stand in line for all of us. We stepped up to look at the glowing menu board to read. I already knew I wasn’t going to get prime fare but my memory didn’t do the odor justice. I didn’t think anyone fried with lard anymore. Mike and Jimmy waited in line while Dad and I sought a table.
The whole order finally came down to eight burgers, five fries, three clear sodas of some off brand I didn’t know and some house specialty for Jimmy that I swear would glow in the dark. This was short order cooking so we had a few minutes.
We found a picnic table near the street, not ideal for anything normal, but I could fix that. Dad sat down opposite me and he was anxious and nervous, like he was…
“Dad, are you afraid of me?” I asked, capping the table in a barrier against the sounds around us. I thickened it a little to keep away the street fumes pouring over the black metal railing next to us. Dad’s aura spiked emotionally, a searing red streak of guilt followed by a calming bluish-green denial.