Chapter Twenty-Five #2
I didn’t drop the air shield right away; it might be the only thing keeping the car roof from crushing us. I gritted my teeth and looked around. The roof was caved in and mere inches from our heads, stopped by the air shield. Without the shield, our brains would have been soup on the ground.
‘Seatbelts,’ I told Channing. ‘We need to get out of the car. We’re sitting ducks here.’
‘Yes, sir,’ he agreed and fumbled with his seatbelt but it wouldn’t come away. ‘It’s jammed,’ he said, a hair away from panic.
My seatbelt came away easily, and I used the flip knife I always carried on me to saw through his seatbelt. His door was far less crumpled than mine.
‘Ready? On the count of three, I’ll release the shield, you’ll open your door, and we’ll both scramble out your side.’
He nodded and reached for the handle.
‘Three, two, one, move!’
He pushed the car door open and we scrambled out. When we were out of the vehicle I released the protective air shield around us. The instant I did, the car roof crumpled, and sound slammed in at full volume.
Shouting.
Gunfire.
Fuck.
Bullets screamed into the car. They were shooting at us!
I hurried after Channing and barked, ‘On my six.’
He manoeuvred behind me, and we crouched to take in the tableau before doing anything rash. We used the car as a shield as more bullets flew our way.
Black-clad mercenaries strode towards us, weapons up. Not Other realm weapons, but guns.
‘Raise an individual air shield around yourself!’ I ordered.
‘Thick enough to stop bullets.’ Then I raised one around myself.
It was easier without having to extend it over Channing or needing to hold up the weight of a car as well.
It also gave Channing and me greater manoeuvrability as we didn’t need to move as a pair.
I looked around me and assessed the situation. As well as the mercenaries toting guns, three fire elementals strode behind them, the flames on their hands cast forward and the air shimmering around them as if the world were melting.
Then I saw a dryad emerge out of a tree. For a moment, I thought it might be a good Samaritan come to help us, but then he threw a knife right at me. It bounced harmlessly off my air shield but my heart thundered all the same.
This wasn’t a kidnapping. It was an execution.
I picked the blade up. On the hilt was the mark of the Domini.
Oh fuck.
This wasn’t Reed playing games. This wasn’t Jingo wanting to scare me. This was a Domini execution squad, and they were gunning for me.
Robbie’s vehicle slammed to a stop behind us, the doors flew open, and my fiancé was out first, moving like a deadly athlete. Ivan and Maktel were on his heels, Hanlon flanking, all of them armed and ready.
Robbie’s eyes were mercury-bright and furious, and the relief that rushed through me at the sight of him was instant and stupidly fierce.
Thank Hel. Channing and I were wildly outnumbered, but the tide had turned. Maybe that would be enough to make the Domini rethink their attack.
But no, the mercenaries didn’t hesitate. Gunfire erupted again.
Ivan opened the boot of the car and threw out a shield. Robbie caught it, manoeuvred his body behind it, then charged at the mercenaries. Ivan passed a shield to Hanlon and Maktel and then all four of them rushed to meet the enemy.
Ivan barrelled straight into the nearest man and snapped his rifle clean in half like a twig.
Maktel ploughed into the line with a bellow, swinging his mace in a brutal arc that landed with a wet crunch in the side of one of the mercenaries. His screams ripped into the air, but they were lost amongst the noise of the battle and the rush of blood in my ears.
Hanlon moved like a shadow, less massive than the others but just as lethal, catching the dryad mid-lunge and slamming him into the ground so hard he let out a broken ‘oof’.
I focused my efforts on the fire elementals. As one rolled a fireball towards Robbie, I sent a blast of freezing air to snuff it out, like blowing out a birthday candle.
Over and over, I snuffed their flames out, but then the fire elementals coordinated. They lifted their hands together, and a large flame bloomed. At the same time, they sent smaller ones hurtling towards the ogres and I had to choose.
‘Stop the smaller flames!’ I shouted to Channing while I tackled the larger one.
I pushed as much air at it as I could, but it wasn’t enough. Instead of blowing it out, I’d given it more oxygen to grow.
A wall of heat surged towards the ogres, roaring and hungry.
Robbie, Maktel and Hanlon formed a line of shields. They looked like Roman soldiers locking their shields in a line. They crouched behind their protection and met the flames head-on.
They didn’t flinch, even as the flames curled around the sides of their shields.
Robbie roared, the sound vibrating in my bones, as the flames licked at his skin, his hair, his clothes.
My throat closed in sheer fear for him. God, this was the worst part of loving someone. I’d never felt such fear for another.
‘Robbie!’ I screamed as another fireball surged towards him. I combatted it as best I could, sending a ball of air towards it. Strong enough, that time, to snuff it out.
The king of the ogres didn’t look back at me. He couldn’t. He was in the thick of it, in the brutal crush of bodies and magic and bullets.
The Domini had brought an army.
Terrifying though the ogres were, they were still outnumbered, and more mercenaries poured in from the tree line. They’d held back, waiting for my backup to engage, and then they’d fallen in to crush us. To crush me.
More fire elementals strode out.
Another couple of dryads.
They moved with chilling coordination. They’d trained for this. They’d planned it.
When had I last recharged? I felt drained. I was running on empty and itching. I didn’t have much more to give.
I dropped the air shield around me to focus my remaining energies on snuffing out the fire whipping towards my ogres.
I used the IR to rip a branch off a tree, and then I thrust the sharp sheared-off edge towards the neck of the nearest fire elemental. The branch thrust through his vulnerable skin and he died in a dramatic spray of blood. I turned to the other fire elemental.
Loki shrieked in my head, frantic and sharp. Behind you!
I spun.
For a heartbeat, I saw what Loki saw.
Channing was down on the ground behind me. Dead or unconscious, I didn’t know.
My eyes were so fixed on him that I didn’t immediately register the man moving next to him, lunging at me with a cloth in his hand.
I expected my air shield to rebound him before belatedly realising I’d dropped it. I started to raise it again, but it was too late. The cloth was around my nose and throat. I held my breath and refused to breathe in.
Only then did I recognise my attacker. It was Reed’s gloved fingers clamped around the cloth.
He’d been in on the plan to kill us this whole time.
He’d led the ogres and me straight into the kill box.
I’d known it was a trap but I’d thought it was to kidnap me, not kill me, and I’d thought the ogres in the car behind me would be more than a match for a few untrained criminals.
Yet it wasn’t the mob we were fighting, but the Domini.
Reed was in cahoots with them. Goddamn. Maybe Jingo was Domini too.
Reed’s gaze locked on mine. There was amusement there. Satisfaction. Like he’d just arrived at the theatre to watch the best part of the show.
‘Inspector,’ he greeted calmly. ‘You’re coming with me. Take a deep breath and I’ll take you somewhere safe. If you stay, the Domini will kill you.’
I struggled, fighting back. I thrust the Domini blade towards my attacker.
‘Don’t be like that,’ he tutted, moving his body away from my flailing attack, his hands still clamped around my head and mouth. ‘I’m saving you.’
Lungs burning, I gasped in a breath, and a sickly sweetness assailed my nostrils. Not chloroform, no chemical element. Fuck! It was a potion. A knockout potion. And it had already touched my skin.
‘You’re not saving me. You’re kidnapping me!’ I tried to say but the words were muffled by the fabric he was determinedly holding over my nose and mouth.
‘Tomayto, tomahto.’
My ears were ringing and my vision tunnelled.
I reached out to Loki. I’m being taken.
Loki’s scream of rage echoed in my head and ears, and I knew he’d relayed the message to Robbie because across the field I heard him bellow in rage.
‘Robbie,’ I said, but it was nothing more than a whimper on the air.
Reed laughed softly. ‘He’s busy, Inspector. Let him play hero. You and I have somewhere to be. Sleep well, Ms Wise.’
My eyelids drooped.
My knees gave.
And I was out.