CHAPTER 5

Daniel stepped back to his spot in the defensive group with Blood Drinker held ready to intercept anything that got through the front lines while his mana recovered. The flies kept building up as more drifted in from upstairs. It was difficult to imagine how many of them must exist in the structure above as they kept coming.

They defended grimly and despite their effort the number of flies were multiplying back to critical levels. The majority of the warriors restricted to melee attacks could do nothing as their numbers built in the restaurant and were only slightly thinned by the occasional ranged attack.

Alex turned to him with a smirk. “Daniel?” He used his thumb to point at the flies.

“I can, but my mana is only up to sixty percent.”

“Go slightly weaker than last time.”

Daniel stepped forward to the edge of the defence line with the defenders splitting to give him access. He raised his club and examined the room in more detail. There were definitely holes to the next level and presumably significant ones.

He duplicated what he did with his previous lightning bolt, with the slight exception of taking his time to gather and focus the energy. Priscilla helped and her efforts to slow time, giving the leeway to be significantly more accurate in the web he was creating.

Arm over his eyes, and…

Boom!

Daniel pulled his arm down and blinked to try to see the extent of the damage. The flies were on the ground. He had adjusted his attack this time to hit fewer but with more energy. None of the ones which had fallen were moving. That was good. He edged forward the problem with hitting them at this distance. If he did not kill them over the following ten minutes, they could fully heal.

A hand grabbed his clothes and hurled him backward.

Speed.

He initiated it instinctively, bringing Blood Drinker up, but he was already airborne. Time had frozen and without purchase there was little he could do with the extra time. Priscilla shared her vision, and it was Alex who had pulled back.

There was a pause as their minds meshed. Alex was not trying to hurt him. The other man must have seen something. Priscilla thought he was an idiot for reacting by engaging speed in a situation that it was useless, and she agreed with his assessment on the man’s actions.

Me Check.

She moved running till she was perched on Alex’s head. She looked at the flies and Daniel via her eyes saw a swarm descending upon them. There must have been over twenty of them. The tanks were responding, and other spells had been cast.

The counterattack, and a bigger one than usual. Daniel had forgotten, but Alex hadn’t and had pulled him backwards to let the dedicated fighters meet the attack.

His connection with Priscilla broke, and he released his speed because it was useless when he was suspended in the air.

Time started up.

Alex stepped defensively in front of him. There were a series of crashes. More lightning flashed through the sky. Daniel hit the ground, ending up under the table the ranged fighters fought on.

There were curses, and then the crashing sound stopped.

“Good job, Everyone,” Alex proclaimed.

Daniel pulled himself to his feet.

Alex patted him on the shoulder. “Sorry mate, might have overreacted.” He shrugged.

“It’s fine.” Daniel answered. “You’ve got a bit of strength there.”

“Nothing outrageous, only twenty-three. I was surprised by how easily I could throw you.”

“You did what you had to. I should have retreated immediately.”

“Yes, you should have.” Alex agreed with a laugh.

“I wanted to confirm that my spell worked. Whether I killed them outright.”

Alex shrugged. “Reasons don’t matter. You were stupid to stand on the front line without a shield to protect yourself. But all’s good that ends well. Percentage?”

“That took me just under fifty.”

“We’re too slow.”

Daniel smiled at the other man’s grumbles/ He was not complaining directly about Daniel just the situation. They held position. Alex was comfortable defending where they were, but obviously wanted to make sure they were all recharged before entering the stairs. Daniel agreed with his caution. It was easy enough to imagine opening the door and then getting swamped with a massive wave of flies like the moths there could be hundreds in the stairwells.

Animal Sense.

It was a tiny pulse that only covered the emergency stairs. He was hoping they would be empty, but it was not to be. “They’re in the stairwell.”

“I know. Only a few, but when we checked, a few more appeared.”

Daniel hadn’t noticed anyone poking into the stairwell, but it made sense that such an obvious avenue had been scouted.

“I don’t think they’ll swarm down there, but they might.” Alex shrugged. “I would prefer to take an extra hour and keep everyone alive than to needlessly rush.”

“We all would.” Tamara agreed.

Another ten minutes passed. Daniel could see the density of the bees’ building.

“Daniel, it's not going to work can you fry them again. Try to kill thirty.”

Once more, he unleashed and this time he retreated immediately. They countered but with the bulk of their forces already defeated the eight that tried to reach him got wiped out without stressing the front-line.

“Someone in and out of the stairwell.” Alex ordered.

Ingrid moved quickly, opening the door and then shutting it rapidly. There was a crack, and the door splintered like a sledgehammer had struck it from the other side.

“Still occupied boss.”

Alex glanced at her promptly. “Any extra?”

“I only saw the one, but it reacted quickly.”

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A tank shifted over and a moment later his magic was protecting the door.

“Keep annoying them in the stairwell and try to reduce their numbers in there.”

There was a subtle shift as a tank and three melee fighters joined the stairwell. Ingrid kept opening the door and then every minute or so, a fly would get through the gap and be immediately taken care of. It was slow but effective.

“Daniel, I’m assuming you’re about eighty percent.”

“About that Alex.”

“We’re going to need another lightning. Try not to use too much of your magic.”

Daniel did his instructed. Already he had killed well over a hundred flies with most of his personal kills being in the restaurant proper and out of sight but even here in the foyer the flies’ bodies littered the ground in front of the tanks and behind them Daniel corrected when he looked down at his own feet. If there were not vulnerable people upstairs, then camping here and thinning their numbers would be the best choice but Alex knew they had to keep coming.

Tamara saw him studying the corpse. “It’s progress. That’s undeniable, but these hives can have ten thousand.”

Daniel appeared alarmed at that information.

She giggled. “This one won’t be, but don’t be surprised if it’s in the thousands. I doubt we’ve reduced their capacity by much. A couple of days of this, then sure, we can clean them all out.” It was unspoken that the survivors if they were still alive did not have that sort of time.

Tamara sent another one of her lightning bolts flashing across the room and a clump that was far smaller than Daniel’s but larger than what anyone else was managing fizzled and died.

Alex stepped out of a tank wall and the others seamlessly moved to cover for him.

“Everyone, in about one minute Daniel’s mana is going to be fully topped up. When that happens, we’ll retreat to the fire stairs and camp within it. We’ll move up and establish new positions. I hope that a couple of floors up the flies will be denser and then Daniel can blast the flies from the safety of the room, and we can start really reducing their numbers. And no, we haven’t made a lot of progress. I haven’t seen any change in how quickly replacements are coming through the roof from upstairs.”

Daniel cleared his throat. “Are you sure that isn’t too risky? I’ve got a pretty good routine happening here where we’re killing a couple hundred an hour. We can just bleed them dry.”

Alex chuckled. “Not like you to be so risk averse. Daniel.”

“I would argue it’s not like me to have open heart surgery, but that’s clearly not the case.”

There was nervous laughter at the joke.

“More seriously.” Alex scratched his ear. “I’m worried about us going too slowly. If we can hold the fire stairs, we’re safer than down here and hopefully find denser clumps of flies for you to fry. Effectively speed up our kill rate.”

Daniel shrugged, accepting that he was beaten. Then a different thought occurred to him. “Why don’t we just skip all the floors and go straight to the top?”

“I’m channelling my inner Daniel here, but I would prefer to eliminate a threat if I can.”

“That’s not what I did. I skipped floors to save humans.”

Alex smiled at that. “I know my real concern is the escape and what happens if the whole hive attacks us in the open while we’re fleeing. If that occurs, we’ll be slaughtered.”

“Surely that isn’t likely?”

The other man shook his head. “The problem is, I just don’t know. Anyway, unless you’ve got an actual objection, I think it’s time to brave the stairs. If we can go all the way up and avoid the fight, then we will.”

Alex immediately reorganised everyone. Two tanks at the front, a couple at the back and the remaining spread amongst the rest of the team. It all seemed very chaotic, given their efficiency and coordination to that point. Daniel guessed they were about to be going to be squishing into what was a two-person stairwell where they would have to defend against small mobile bugs. The other decision Alex made was to get Tamara up the front and the secondary lightning user right to protect the rear with Daniel in the middle. It was clear that the tanks and the lightning users were the only people Alex cared about in the setup and Daniel couldn’t fault that approach.

The melee spearman pulled the door open, and Alex rushed through. There was an immediate thump as something hit his shield and a right on Alex’s back the guy who used to be fat hustled in behind him. The two of them charged up the stairs. There were further bumps but no noticeable slowing because everyone ran in after the two trailblazers. Lightning flashed in the stairwell and there was the secondary sound of wood or steel hitting concrete as the following fighters took a moment to finish the flies that had been knocked out of the air from the front-line fighters.

Then Daniel was funnelled into the stairwell. There were fresh fly corpses on the stair and three glowing balls of light lit up the place. The stairs went up and down and a tank who had been fifth in had positioned himself three steps down ready to defend against anything coming from the basement. Above, Alex and Tamara had already turned the corners out of sight. There were more thumps from above, demonstrating they were not unopposed. Now that he was in the stairwell Daniel appreciated Alex’s reluctance to push into here. They were not great conditions for the way they had been fighting against the flies. It would be difficult to coordinate anywhere near as effectively as they had managed in the foyer. She looked up as there was a gap between the up and down stairs of around forty centimetres, which is what made the area so dangerous. A coordinated attack by the flies through the space would let them a reach a position to strike across the entire group.

High above, maybe four stories there was light and the look of debris. He couldn’t confirm from this distance, but his bet was that the stairs ended there.

The group kept running upward, and Daniel matched their speed. When he got up to the second-floor stairwell, the forces above him and slowed to a halt. Alex and the other tank had their shields up in a holding position in view by looking across the stairwells. There were a couple of flies above them, but they were easily being repelled by the two men. Daniel knew what to do. He looked at the group that was there to guard him. A pair of tanks and two spear fighters. Carly was behind him, acting as a shadow along with Ivey.

The tank closest to the door put his hand on the handle.

“Wait.” Daniel ordered. “And everyone try to be quiet.” These fire escape doors were solid wood, which made them easy for him to manipulate. He put his eye against it and the timbre shifted away, giving him a clear view outside. It was some sort of lobby and from the sign downstairs probably served multiple businesses. He could see a reception desk a sign still displayed with the numbers to call for the various co tenets of the floor and a single chair of the type you might see in a doctor’s reception and only a single fly.

He leant backwards, and the gap closed over. “Alex.” He whispered.

“I’ll get him.” a blond-haired tank said, pushed his way up the stairwell to relieve positions with Alex.

The other man came down. “What?”

Daniel poked at the door. “This exits into some sort of communal reception without flies.”

“Too much to hope that it was open plan office wasn’t it.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Daniel told him. “But from that board of business downstairs, the bottom couple of floors had almost ten businesses each on them.”

“Which means pokey little corridors from a design perspective even if the structural elements are more widely spread.”

“What do you want to do?”

Daniel watched Alex, thinking.

“We’re trying to kill as many as possible.” Alex mused. “So stick with the plan. Stick our heads out if there are dense groups, we can find we fry them. If not, we go up.”

“Fine.”

Alex caught the eye of the second tank and nodded. They threw open the door and spilled out into the reception. Daniel followed his eyes immediately searching for a target. His guess about the room was accurate as there were about ten of the same chairs alongside three of the walls. The greeting desk and three exit corridors. The first had a partially broken door that was labelled Burke’s accountant, and they could see a secondary reception area behind the door and the other two were corridors with a solid door still in place. Four flies were in the room, and they were taken out with clinical precision with Daniel only bashing one of them.

“That way.” Alex said, pointing. It was the door which would lead to the spot where all the flies had been coming in from downstairs in the restaurant.

“Do we?” He asked.

“Yes.” The two tanks once more led the way, with Daniel following. They reached the room it was labelled Dr Fredricks Psychologist.

Alex counted down on three, then he pushed it. Daniel already had his electricity up and was ready to fire.

The door was thrown open, and he mapped out the electricity pathways. His core had adapted to what he wanted, and the arcing spread of power clicked into place with hardly any effort.

Only fifteen flies Daniel realised in disappointment, but the spell was already past the tipping point. He had to discharge the power no matter what he did, so he figured he might as well get a few kills while doing so. His mind registered the remaining details. The roof of the room had been knocked down at one point and those fifteen visible flies were moving freely between upstairs and the current floor.

Daniel covered his eyes.

Boom!

Then the door was slammed shut by Alex. The older was frowning. “Upstairs.” He concluded after a moment.

They retreated to the stairwell and pushed up more slowly than the initial rush from the ground floor.

Alex went to open it.

Daniel grabbed his wrist. “Wait.” He activated plant sense. The feeling he got from the room was like downstairs. “I don’t think it is any good.” He created a spyhole in the wood and Alex immediately put his eye against it.

There was a pause, and then he pulled back and shook his head. Daniel closed the gap.

“There was some potential but too many debris and not enough flies. Higher.” Alex ordered, and the entire group of them shifted up to another floor.