Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Every head on the roof turned toward the stairwell.
The buyer saw Luke first. Recognition sharpened his expression before his gaze shifted to Connal and the glowing sigil around his wrist.
“You,” he said.
Luke tightened his hold on Connal’s arm. “Good to see you too.”
Luke checked the other side of the roof. The dark stone at the masked leader’s throat pulsed again. He immediately signaled to his warriors, sending two toward the receiver while the others turned their weapons toward the stairwell.
The buyer reacted just as quickly. “Keep them away from the receiver,” he ordered.
One of his guards raised a hand. Magic slammed into the roof-access door hard enough to tear it from Connal’s grip. It struck the concrete wall inside the stairwell, filling the landing with the shriek of twisting metal.
Connal pulled Luke through the opening before the next attack could trap them inside. Keir and Zer followed, spreading apart as soon as they reached the roof. Avaneel darted back into Zer’s hair and disappeared beneath the dark strands.
The second strike hit the concrete where Luke had been standing.
He and Connal ducked behind a ventilation housing. Magic passed over them in a wave of pressure that rattled the metal panels and drove fresh pain through Luke’s ribs.
Across the roof, Asterius rose from cover and attacked the buyer’s nearest guard from behind. Tyson stayed low behind the ventilation housing while the buyer’s attention remained fixed on the stairwell.
The masked warriors did not welcome the help. One intercepted Asterius before he could reach the receiver, forcing him away from the barrier.
Three sides. Zero allies.
Luke risked a look around the edge of the ventilation housing. The receiver’s panels continued tracking Connal and his brothers, adjusting each time one of them moved. Red lights traveled across its surface while the antennae held their new positions.
The same translucent barrier Luke had seen in Hale’s office curved around the buyer, his remaining guards, and the receiver. Every strike from the masked team made it flare, but none broke through.
Connal crouched beside him, sword ready. Pain tightened his face as the sigil continued burning around his wrist. “What do you need?”
Luke studied the receiver, the barrier, and the exposed cables running toward the equipment bank.
“A path to the controls.”
Connal glanced at the fighting between them and the platform. “Is that all?”
“And enough time to remove the core without someone killing me.”
“That may be more difficult.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
Another attack struck the barrier. The buyer staggered, but the translucent wall held.
Luke followed the cables with his gaze until they disappeared beneath the receiver’s raised platform. The core was somewhere inside that protected equipment, and the man who intended to own it had wrapped the entire system in his magic.
Before Luke could take it apart, they had to bring the barrier down.
“I can make a hole.”
Luke turned toward the tiny voice. Avaneel had emerged from Zer’s hair and stood on the edge of the ventilation housing, studying the barrier.
Zer reached for her. “No.”
Avaneel flew above his hand. “You cannot fit through it.”
“That does not mean you should.”
Another strike from the masked warriors hit the barrier. The translucent surface bowed around the receiver before snapping back into place. For an instant, four points of concentrated light appeared where the shield met the platform.
Avaneel pointed. “It is tied down.”
Luke followed her gesture. The buyer’s personal shield had been expanded and anchored around the equipment. “You can break a barrier like that?”
“I can eat one.” Avaneel considered the barrier. “Enough to get inside.”
Zer’s expression hardened. “Absolutely not.”
She landed on his shoulder and touched his cheek with one tiny hand. “I am very small.”
“I am aware.”
“He will not see me.”
“He will if you bite him.”
Avaneel smiled.
Zer closed his eyes briefly. “That was not permission.”
“I do not need permission.”
Luke looked toward the receiver. The masked team’s attacks were already weakening the barrier, but the buyer adjusted after every strike, pouring more magic into the anchors before they could fail.
Unless something disrupted him from inside, the fight could continue until everyone on the roof was dead.
“We can give her one opening,” Luke said. “If she can’t get through immediately, she comes back.”
Zer glared at him.
“I don’t like it either, but I can’t eat magic. Can you?”
Zer’s glare deepened. Apparently not.
Connal studied Avaneel. “Can you do this?”
“Yes.”
“Then we make certain you reach the barrier.”
Connal rose from cover and signaled to Keir. Across the rooftop, Asterius saw the movement and drew his sword. The three brothers attacked from different directions at once.
The buyer’s guards reacted immediately. One turned toward Connal, another moved to intercept Keir, and the third shifted to protect the platform from Asterius. Their divided attention gave Zer the opening he needed.
He ran low behind the ventilation housings while Avaneel clung to his shoulder. Luke followed, keeping the equipment between himself and the magic crossing the rooftop. When they reached the final stretch of open ground, Zer stopped.
Avaneel launched.
She flew inches above the roof, darting beneath one magical strike and around the boots of a masked warrior. No one looked down. Every eye remained fixed on the larger threats converging around the receiver.
Avaneel reached the nearest anchor and opened her mouth.
Her teeth closed around empty air. Light bent toward her.
A section of the barrier vanished between one breath and the next, leaving a gap no wider than Luke’s hand. Avaneel folded her wings and slipped through before the magic began knitting itself together.
The buyer’s head snapped toward the damaged anchor.
He saw Avaneel too late. She flew straight at the hand he held toward the receiver and sank her teeth into the band of magic wrapped around his wrist. The buyer shouted and jerked his arm away.
The magic around his wrist broke apart, and the expanded barrier flickered.
A masked warrior drove a blast of dark power into the weakened anchor. Cracks of white light raced across the shield. A second strike hit before the buyer could repair it.
The barrier shattered.
Magic burst outward, throwing Avaneel into the air. Zer lunged and caught her against his chest before she struck the platform.
The buyer staggered but did not fall. A smaller shield snapped into place around his body, leaving the receiver exposed behind him.
They had their opening.
“Go,” Connal said.
Luke pushed away from cover and ran.
Connal moved with him long enough to intercept the first guard who tried to block his path. Their collision carried both men away from the platform. Keir engaged another near the damaged anchor while Asterius maneuvered the masked warrior into the path of the buyer’s remaining guard.
Zer stayed close enough to cover Luke’s approach. Avaneel clung to the front of his shirt, one hand pressed over her mouth as if trying to remove the taste of the buyer’s magic.
Luke reached the platform and climbed onto it.
The receiver’s hum vibrated through the soles of his shoes.
Red lights continued racing across the panels, and the antennae adjusted as Connal and his brothers moved around the roof.
Whatever damage Avaneel and the masked team had done to the barrier, the system itself remained fully operational.
Luke followed the cables toward the center housing. A narrow access panel sat beneath the main controls, secured by another black reader. He pulled Hale’s keycard from his pocket and pressed it against the panel.
For one terrible second, nothing happened.
Then the reader flashed green.
The housing unlocked with a heavy mechanical click. Luke pulled it open, revealing a cylindrical core secured between two metal braces. Light pulsed inside it in time with the signals traveling across the receiver.
There you are.
Luke reached for the first brace. The air struck him like a fist. He flew backward and hit the platform hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs. Pain tore through his ribs before he could roll onto one side and force air back into his chest.
The buyer stood several feet away, one hand extended. His smaller shield shimmered close to his body. “You have no idea what you’re destroying.”
Luke pushed himself onto one knee. “A tracking system that got Hale killed.”
“A tool that could change the balance of power in the human realm.”
“And you thought you should be the one holding it.”
“I thought it should belong to someone capable of using it.”
That answered more than the buyer probably intended.
Behind him, the masked leader shouted an order. Two warriors broke away from the fight and advanced toward the exposed receiver. The buyer turned enough to strike at them, forcing one behind cover while the other continued forward.
Luke used the distraction to grab the edge of the platform and pull himself upright.
Connal drove his sword against the buyer’s shield. The impact made the magic flare, but the blade did not penetrate.
The buyer threw out his other hand.
Magic struck Connal and hurled him across the roof.
“Connal!”
He hit a ventilation housing and disappeared behind it.
The bond remained present, strained but not broken.
Alive.
Luke stepped off the platform before the buyer could turn his magic on him again.
He needed something capable of disrupting the buyer’s shield without requiring magic of his own.
His gaze swept across the rooftop. Near the stairwell, a red metal cabinet stood mounted against the concrete access structure. White letters marked the door.
FIRE HOSE.
Luke looked from the cabinet to the exposed receiver, then to the shield flickering around the buyer. An idea took shape.
“Tyson!” Luke pointed toward the red cabinet. “Find the valve.”