Chapter Sixteen #2
“Stop,” EJ said. Theta unfolded in an instant, Delta hovering close. There was a command in the single wyrd, a magical compulsion that EJ never used. Everyone turned to him, even Grampa. Alex’s face appeared on video, watching.
EJ held up a hand, thoughts flitting. He reached out fast with his magic, whistling an interrogative, listening, note to note.
EJ said, “Fighting aerial drones in heavy snowfall is a piece of cake, because they’re overwhelmed by snow that melts in contact with the drone’s heated parts and then ice-melt freezes over, making them impossible to fly and drive.
Therefore, either our enemy launched from nearby, or this thing is spelled, or this is a feint. ”
He turned to Grizz. “You’re our second-best sniper. Take demon-rounds for you and Boots to the roof.” He tossed two amulets from a pocket. “These will mask your and Boots’s heat signatures from magical and electronic sensors. Take the drone down if you can. No collateral damage.”
“Sure, kid,” Grizz said. She grabbed a single long rifle case, a box of ammo, and a coat, and flew from the room to join Boots on the roof.
“I’m your top shooter,” Raccoon said. “Why not me?” It wasn’t a complaint; it was curious, for information.
“If you’re the best, you cover a one-eighty, first-floor hallway, front and back entrances. First line of defense from street-level incursion.”
Raccoon huffed a dismissive breath and began gathering weapons and ammo. “If I’m the best,” he muttered.
EJ gave a hard grin and gestured to the wall screen.
“Ojos. Protocol Lockdown, except this floor, the stairway, and the roof access. Street-level doors are under Raccoon’s verbal orders.
Notify all tenants of potential danger and close all steel shutters.
Send all perimeter cams, roof cams, hallway and stairwell cams, up and down the stairs, to this wall screen.
Monitor for movement and energy patterns in all cams, filtering for snow and atmospheric conditions.
Interrupt Angie and tell them to arm up for possible demons.
Get Villetti in here. If anyone from PsyLED is still in Chattanooga, send them relevant vid and info.
Uncle Ricky-Bo would be helpful right about now. ”
The system said, “Roger that, EJ,” its voice suddenly as hard as a sergeant at arms.
“I’ll be following all cameras,” Alex said, leaving him in charge of Protocol Lockdown.
“Of course you will,” EJ said, his tone caustic. “But since you’re here, I want intel. At the end of the war, there were rumors that the Rus witches had created a magic-powered battery that could take energy from air currents, static electricity, solar, even the pull of the moon on Earth.”
“The Rus had production problems, or we’d have lost the war,” Alex said.
EJ wondered if people in special ops and undercover, like Villetti, had contributed to the “production problems,” keeping the weapon off the battlefields.
He said, “The Allies never found proof of the tech or the working. Maybe it was all rumors. Or maybe the Rus overcame the production problems and we’re their test case.
They’d only need one battery to keep a drone ice-free. ”
Alex muttered under his breath, muted his mic, and turned away from the screen.
“Boots,” EJ continued. “Update on the drone.”
“We have visuals. It’s circling the apartment building,” Boots said. “Probably camera recon, staying just far enough away for the snow to make a kill shot difficult. It’s low enough that if we miss, we could have collateral damage.”
Alex said, “Walter. Per the Consort, the queen’s standard should be flying from the roof.”
Walter was moving before Alex finished, the small pop of displaced air the only thing left behind him as he tore up the stairs into his apartment to unlock the chest where the standards were stored.
EJ said, “We’re not flying her standard on the building.”
Walter reached his apartment and banged on the door, staring at the security cam in his hallway. He looked pissed. Grizz, silent, reached around EJ and touched a button, opening Walter’s apartment door.
His voice dry as stone, Alex said, “You can try to stop Walter. I’ll give your mom tissues at the funeral.”
At a dead run Walter raced from the apartment, wrapped in a white sheet to hide his black clothing, like a superhero with fangs. Dead run. If EJ hadn’t been so coldly furious, it would have been funny.
Angie
I smoothed back my loose hair and picked up the null cloak. Villetti was already upstairs. That was where I was supposed to be. But…
I placed the ear-patch over one ear, the auto-pliable ag-plas settling tightly against the cartilage, its tiny input self-inserting into the auditory canal, what my musical brother called the external acoustic meatus.
I listened to the chatter, voices battle-calm, their verbiage half acronyms and numerals.
The queen’s people were already inside Ojos. EJ was pissed. Same ol’ same ol’.
I let it go. Closed my eyes and breathed. There wasn’t time, but…Yeah. But.
I dropped the cloak on the bed beside the staff.
Breathed again, slow and easy, lifting my arms up with each inhale and dropping them with each measured exhale.
Deliberate. Almost leisurely. Waiting. Feeling.
Adrenaline and fear had opened my precog.
Maybe it could give me something useful.
I let the potential futures settle upon me.
After a full minute, I knew. Not what. But where and when. And that there was more than one. And that people would die unless…I shifted through the potentialities.
“Yes,” I whispered, finding a potential future I could live with.
I secured the null cloak around me. Slipped my feet into snow booties.
Pinched five small pieces of rosemary off one of the plants beside the front window, took some short lengths of cooking twine from a drawer, and quickly tied each rosemary snippet to a small stone lying on the black stone charging battery.
The herb from Mama’s twenty-plus-year-old ever-living rosemary, made workings created by the family more powerful. No one knew why.
I turned off the fireplace. Turned off the lights. Tapped my ear-patch.
“I’ll be on my balcony,” I said into comms. “Grizz, aim true. Ojos. Secure my door. Privacy Protocol Blockade.” EJ and I had created only one protocol that was stronger than Privacy Protocol Blockade. I was hoping I didn’t need to initiate that even more effective protocol.
The chatter rose in urgency, everyone calling my name and making demands, asking questions.
I opened the balcony door, stepped into the mound of snow, and trudged through it into the cold and the dark of night.
The snow just a few inches from the invisi-windows was two-and-a-half-feet deep, up to my knees.
Some meteorologist somewhere would claim it to be the largest accumulation in decades.
Mega-blizzard. Every storm was always mega to the media.
Once, back when I was a kid, enemy witches working together had created a rainstorm that inundated New Orleans.
That storm had been strange, had felt funny to my magic.
This didn’t feel like a magic storm. No abnormal energy currents rode the air.
But the storm had stalled over the mountains and snow blew in a sideways slant in an off-and-on-again whiteout, piling heavier on the street side of the balcony than the back, overlooking the parking area.
“Back of the building, Grizz,” I said, monotone, detached, as I felt the futures shuffle into being.
Someone cursed.
“Be careful of your words,” I said, sliding through the less-deep snow next to the wall of invisi-windows.
“Someone—something—is listening.” I peered over the balcony wall into the parking lot.
“Alex, tell the guard in the tent to get away from all electric vehicles. Safest spot is…No. Tell him to get out of the parking area. About a fifty percent chance we’re going to lose a lot of cars. ”
Below, a man raced through snowdrifts that were higher than his waist, hopping and shoving, his body a battering ram to get away, leaving a path of disturbed snow. He raced into the street, slid and nearly fell, and disappeared toward the front of the building.
Behind me, Villetti stepped onto the porch. I felt him without looking. I knew where he was, how he was armed. How he had overridden my protocol would be a topic of discussion later. “Get on your knees, Lee, deep in the snowdrift. Hide in it. Aim to the front.”
“The front? But—”
“Do it,” Alex said over comms.
EJ slid out behind Villetti. Into the snow.
“Baby brother,” I said, my tone emotionless as the futures shuffled again, like a deck of cards. “More drones from above. Look to the alley. I can’t feel them. Can’t see them.”
“I hear them,” EJ said softly. “More than two.”
“I have some of the family toys,” I said.
EJ laughed, a low, vicious sound.
I said, “Uncle Alex. The big drone is both a bomb and a distraction. Several smaller ones are hidden in the snowfall.” Comms went silent for a dozen heartbeats, before I added, “Minimum of four. They’ll be here soon. Less than a minute.”
“I’ve got a shot on the big drone,” Grizz said.
“Not until it’s level with me,” I said. “It’s got a demon signature. A red and sick green energy pattern, like tentacles all over it. Camera five, Alex.”
“Copy that. Camera five,” Alex said. In the background, at the queen’s HQ, other voices chattered. Alex said, “Grizz?”
“Target acquired with IR,” Grizz murmured, her tone emotionless, the too-soft reply of the born warrior.
“We have everyone on visual,” Walter said. “Ready. Aim.”