The doors to the small elevator slid open with a soft ding. Miya blinked her sleep deprived eyes and tried to keep up with an icy Otto as he led her through the mob headquarters.
“They’re gone, right?” she asked, more to fill the silence than anything else. They only came out of lockdown minutes ago, once one of their patrols found some hoodie left behind when the vigilantes escaped the would-be death trap.
“Yes,” he replied, as if it were obvious. Someone is angry. I didn’t think he was that close to Tod.
She’d caught sleep where she could, though with the hustle of Sanchez’ war room it didn’t amount to much. Vigilantes probably won't shoot a woman curled up on a chair. Probably. It’s not like they’d be any worse than the mob. Probably. She had mostly sat around and waited for something to happen. The hidden backup elevators they’d taken hadn’t even been used during the fight, the vigilantes never making it past the first floor.
They strode up to the doors of the equipment depot, where they had watched the triumphant, then crushing, fight over camera. A pair of grim faced guards waved them through at the sight of Otto. Inside, through the rows of equipment and materials, they found their goal. Laid out on a blanket was Solid Tod, two bullet holes in his chest. Several others lay in a line next to him, with various wounds and damage. Sanchez and Omar stood on the opposite side of the bodies from Miya, arms folded over their chests.
“Anything you can do?” asked Sanchez, pointing to Tod.
She shook her head, studying the blank face of the dead man. “I can only work on living things. He’s been dead for a bit.” Looks almost peaceful. What will I look like when I die?
“You sure?”
She tore her gaze from Tod and replied, “Very. There’s no such thing as necromancy.”
“I’ve seen you use cow and chicken bones before.”
“Those aren’t people. If it could potentially use magic, you can’t use magic on it once it’s dead. Alien, human, doesn’t matter. I could maybe puppet his body around, but I don’t think you want that,” she said, reciting the answer she’d been preparing the moment she saw Tod go down.
He studied her for a few moments, long enough for her to break eye contact out of discomfort. “Help the wounded, don’t get in the way of the clean up crew,” he ordered her.
She did the best she could for the two survivors with bone breaks, one of them unconscious for the entire time, the other squirming and fidgeting no matter how many times she scolded him. Once she finished, she looked up to find the depot nearly empty of people. Otto had vanished along with the bodies, as Omar helped the man she’d healed up and towards a waiting car.
Sanchez waved her over, by the door of his SUV alongside Jess. “You’re with me. Get in. If the cops come sniffing they won't find anything.”
He’s got me following him around everywhere now. Am I his good luck trinket now? He hasn’t been very lucky lately.
***
A meandering road on the outskirts of town took them up the flank of a hill, the last before the mountains gave way to flat golden plains until the Mississippi. Miya leaned her head against the window, watching giant, three story mansions pass by. Skinny young trees grew around vivid green lawns and pristine rocky landscaping. Well, I guess crime does pay. I was stuck shoplifting. Nearly a hundred feet separated each house from its neighbors, along with a solid, eight foot tall fence.
They pulled into one of four garages of a sleek grey house, the driveway flanked by a pair of wrought metal lamp posts. Their lightbulbs shone out even as the sun started to rise. As the three of them climbed out, Sanchez called out, “You’ll get the guest bedroom on the ground floor. Get some rest, we have work to do very soon.”
Without another word, he stomped off. Jess shot her a look dripping with false sympathy. “Take the first left, second door down that hallway,” she said, also leaving Miya alone to her own devices.
Miya only managed two hours of sleep with the sun coming in through the curtains and directly over the bed. Fuck it, I may as well explore. Most of the house seemed simply unused, or barely used. Decorations stood in perfect rows. Entire rooms held just a table, or a desk with the occasional abstract painting on the wall.
The first place she found that looked lived in was a den, with a giant sinfully comfortable looking reclining chair in front of a wide TV. Here were touches of personality. A gun safe stood in the corner, its door shut tight. A long line of movies stood in the cabinet holding up the TV.
A picture on the wall caught her eye. Half a dozen men in rugged camo stood side by side, smiling in the bright sun. Leaning in, she could spot a humvee in the background, and American flag patches on their arms. Half wore dark sunglasses, it took her a moment to recognize Tod, a decade younger and forty pounds slimmer. On the other side of the line, she saw Omar and Sanchez, arms slung over each other’s shoulders. She glanced at the bottom right corner, catching a date written in pen. June 12th, 2003. Is that Iraq?
She continued through the empty house. No guards? There were always a bunch at headquarters. Wait, he had the ones at his house moved to help Omar out. Something about Russians. She came across the kitchen. A spotless granite countertop, marred only by a pair of empty rice cartons from some Chinese restaurant, dominated the center. Along the back wall stood a blender, a set of knives, and a mixing bowl, none of which had ever been used. Jess sat at the kitchen table, pecking away at a laptop.
She shot Miya a too wide smile as she padded in. “Oh, you’re still up. Be a dear and grab the Bossman for me, would you? He’s in the second garage, to the right of where we came in. This goddamn thing isn't,” she trailed off for a moment, eyes refocusing on her laptop. “Fuck.”
“Will do,” said Miya, slipping out before Jess could say anything else.
Miya tracked down the door Jess had talked about and twisted the door knob, finding it locked. She knocked on the heavy wooden door. The sound of a buzz saw came from behind it, loud even deadened by the door.
“It’ll take him a while, he gets real into it,” said a deep voice behind her. Miya nearly jumped out of her skin, spinning around to find Omar walking up behind her. What the hell? When did you get here?
“What, sawing something?” she asked to cover up her surprise.
“Yeah, dude loves woodworking. Relaxing, apparently. Knock again, he might not have heard you.”
Miya pounded on the door again, throwing all of her tiny weight into it. The saw stopped and after a few moments the door clicked and swung open. Sanchez stood before her, sawdust in his curly dark hair and protective glasses over his eyes.
“What?” He caught sight of Omar, surprised. “Hey. What’s going on?” You weren’t expecting him?
“Got a problem,” said Omar, before Miya could answer.
Sanchez frowned and nodded, holding the door open for them. “Come on in, I’m almost done.”
A carved crucifix hung up on the wall overlooked the garage turned woodworking shop. Several different machines lined up another wall, the only she recognized being the circular saw with a small pile of wood dust on the floor before it.
In the center, on a solid metal workbench, stood a nearly completed spice rack. Miya paused for a moment. The dude who holds my life in his hands is making a spice rack. Why can’t anything be normal? Omar stood before Sanchez as he began measuring a plank of wood, nicking a few notches on the side with a pencil. Sweet beaded at the back of Omar’s neck. The shop was warm, but not hot enough for that. Miya stood beside a wall covered in well used tools, keeping her distance.
“What are you here for?” Sanchez called out to her.
“Oh, your wife just wanted to know when you’ll be done.”
“Soon. Is that all?”
“She started cussing out her computer, I didn’t stick around.”
A smile split his face, the first she’d seen in the last day. “Alright, I’ll head back up once I’m done here.” He gave her a nod of dismissal.
Miya left, dragging her feet. What’s going on now? “You have a plan, boss?” asked Omar, Miya already forgotten.
“Hunker down and regroup.”
“That all?”
“What else do we need?” replied Sanchez.
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“Otto’s cousin got found by those four. They all had powers. Shrink says it set him back five years, easy.”
“Not much I can do about that now,” grunted Sanchez. “We’ve moved him and Otto, same as everyone else. Look, we’re all worn out, once we get a moment to cool our heads, we’ll get everyone together and hash out a new plan.”
Sanchez’s attention returned to his project. Omar shook his head as his hand drifted behind him. Miya spotted the hint of a pistol grip, hidden in his waistband.
Miya glanced over at the door behind Sanchez. Her breathing quickened as it dawned on her. There’s no one here but Sanchez. I’m not sure which of these two would be worse. Neither has done anything for me. But if Omar will fuck over his Army buddy of a decade, he’ll fuck over me.
“Watch out!” Miya screamed as Omar reached for his gun.
She rushed forward and collided with his arm. His footing didn't so much as budge, but the strange angle she caught his arm at knocked his hand away from the gun. The door slammed open once more. Two men she didn’t recognize stormed in, pistols in hand. Sanchez shot up, and a table flipped at the two newcomers. Sanchez didn’t touch that. Miya didn’t see what happened next, as Omar let out a roar and drove a fist into the side of her head. She hit another table, sending a stack of sandpaper clattering to the ground. She caught herself on the edge, all her strength now focused on standing through the pain.
“I got the girl, get him,” shouted Omar.
Before Miya could muster up the wits to move again, he grabbed her shoulder and pinned her to the table. She grabbed his wrist, and gathered magic that wasn’t there. Just past Omar, she could see Sanchez wrestling with one of his assailants, keeping his gun pointed well away from him, and the man’s body between Sanchez and the second attacker. He spared a glance up, catching sight of Miya’s situation.
His eyes lost focus for a moment. Miya felt her magic pour into her, following her commands once again. The man held by Sanchez shoved him back while he was distracted, sending the mob boss staggering against the tool bench. Sanchez reached out his hand and telekinetically snapped a carpenter's hammer into his grip.
A pair of gunshots went off as Miya focused on the man in front of her. She began to seep her magic into Omar’s bones. Though he couldn’t see the red ribbons coiling from her hands around his wrist, he could certainly feel something happening. “Stop,” he growled, shoving his gun into her face. Just a little more, come on.”
“OK, OK,” she gasped, trying desperately to keep from looking at the barrel of the gun an inch from her eye. Finally, his bones become brittle enough. She ducked her head and squeezed.
Omar screamed in pain as her hands fractured his wrist. His finger twitched, firing the gun into the wall behind her. Miya wiggled out from beneath his grasp, now half deaf in one ear. She heard another couple gunshots from where Sanchez fought, Omar grasped his ruined wrist with his one good hand, the gun forgotten at his feet. “What the fuck?”
She dove at him, the race between her as she tried to break his bones, and him as he tried to rip her in half beginning. Omar turned to take her clumsy blow on his shoulder, even as he swayed on his feet with the pain. His good fist slammed into her skull once more, nearly breaking her grip, and thus her rapidly forming magical tether. He wrenched his arm back and slammed his elbow into her as she clung for dear life, barely conscious.
Magically brittle bones or not, the man still had a hundred pounds of mostly muscle on Miya. His arm knocked her back and knocked some of the wind out of her lungs. Unfortunately for Omar, arm bones fractured with the blow even as they knocked her back. He dropped to one knee, breathing heavily.
On the other side of the shop, Sanchez hit the man in the knee with his hammer. With a sickening crunch, something gave way and the man collapsed, screaming and grabbing at his leg. Sanchez ducked just in time to avoid being shot by the last man.
Sawdust flew up on its own, flinging itself into the gunman’s eyes. With a roar, Sanchez charged. His hammer swung at the attacker’s head, who had enough sense to duck under and let it sail past. As Sanchez came back with another swing, the man tried to backpedal, still blinking sawdust out of his eyes.
Omar grasped for his pistol, not too far from him. Miya kneed him in the ribs as her magic sunk deeper, causing something important to crack. Omar groaned and gave in, his breath coming in wheezing gasps as his skeleton struggled under his own weight.
The last man abandoned his gun and grabbed for the hand with the hammer, trying to wrench it out of Sanchez’s grasp. Sanchez grunted and drove his forehead into the bridge of the man’s nose. The man blinked, hesitating for a moment, and that was the end of him. Sanchez swung the hammer in an overhead blow directly into the man’s chest. The hammer swung three more times, the last one drawing a loud crack as something in the man’s skull broke. Miya disentangled herself from Omar and stood, the adrenaline still pumping in her veins. She and Sanchez both stood stock still for a moment, panting. They exchanged a look, the only sound of them breathing, with the whimpers of Omar and the man with the broken knee.
“Get the guns, I’ve got the door,” he said.
“Right, she mumbled, hands shaking. She scrambled around the now tossed woodworking shop and grabbed the two guns the men had held, then went back for the one Omar had threatened her with.
“Wait, Jess!” Sanchez shouted, charging out of the shop.
Wait, what do I do? Miya froze, attention split between the down but not dead men and Sanchez, before opting to run after him. She followed the sound of an anguished cry, finding him seated on the floor of the kitchen, Jess’s head cradled in his lap with her throat cut. The misbehaving laptop had been thrown to the side, its screen flickering.
“Fix her.” The command cut through the early morning air, still save for their panting.
Miya stared back at him for a heartbeat, trying to decipher the nonsense he’d just said. “She’s dead,” she explained slowly.
“Don’t give me that,” he snapped, halfway through lunging at her, stopped only by his wife’s body on his lap. Miya flinched back at his curled fists. “It hasn’t been more than a minute, you can do something.”
“I can’t!” she cried, throwing her hands up.
“Mages do shit like this all the time. Earn your fucking keep.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out Miya’s silver controller.
“No, no, no,” she said in horror, trying to back away.
Power flowed through her as he hammered a couple buttons, and not at her direction. Overlord’s implants and machines hijacked her body and mind. It latched on to Sanchez’ will and intent, wild and raw and unfocused. It poured into Jess’ body, attempting through brute force to restart organs, to draw breath once again, though it slid off anything not made of bone without Miya to guide it. Her hackles rose as something else took interest in the spectacle.
“You’re going to summon a demon, you fucking lunatic!” she shouted through the strain on her brain.
Under no natural power, Jess’ free arm began to rise into the air, as if the dead woman were simply a child answering a question in class. It convulsed, the flesh swelling around twisting bones. Miya threw herself to the floor. Sanchez regained his senses and managed to click a button, shutting off the magic flow. The arm detonated the moment Miya’s haphazard control was cut, slivers of warped and twisted bone embedding themselves into the nearby walls and table, as well as Miya and Sanchez.
“The fuck?” he whispered in horror, the controller slipping from his grasp. His arm he’d used to block his face bled from at least two cuts.
“There’s no such thing as necromancy, I don’t care what stories you’ve heard!” Miya shouted, half blind. “Demons notice when you mess around with dead people.” She jabbed a shaking finger at the bloody mess for emphasis.
She peeled herself from the ground, mercifully unscathed from the horror, and leaned her back against the wall in exhaustion. Old surgical wounds ached, despite the lack of physical stress they’d been put under. An old, half forgotten buzzing vibrated in the base of her skull. Not again. Stupid of me to think I was free of that.
Something metal tapped on the glass door in the back of the house. Both Sanchez and Miya jumped at the unexpected sound in the otherwise still house. A robot slid the back door open and walked in as if it owned the place. Miya blinked blood out of her eyes, trying to confirm what they saw for the second time that day. Its head hung off to the side, a huge semicircular chunk of its neck and upper chest ripped off. Its screaming cheek brushed against the sleek rifle bolted to its chest as it walked.
A voice emanated from the chest of the robot, if not a person’s then a very good impersonation of one. “Associate,” it addressed Sanchez, once he bothered to look up and acknowledge its existence. “We have information you may be interested in.”
“What?” he demanded.
“In the recent attack, a tracker was attached to the feral. We have traced its signal here,” it said, displaying a satellite map with a red circle. An address and GPS coordinates were written just beneath it. “If you wish to remove this continual problem, we recommend striking at its source.”
The robot paused for Sanchez and Miya to digest the news. Miya shook her head, trying to get the buzzing out of her brain. Sanchez simply started blankly at the robot.
“In addition, we have detected magical defenses protecting the feral.” Magic feral? Bull fucking shit. Is it even a feral?
“So that’s why everything bounces off of it. I don’t suppose you figured out how to make good iron bullets,” he replied, his voice raw and cracking despite his efforts to cover it up. “That thing is a blender up close.” It hasn’t done anything other than bite and claw.
“No. However, we believe we have developed a blunter solution which may interest you.”
A dog sized drone flew in through the open sliding glass door in the back, the four sleek fans on each corner letting out a quiet hum. It lowered itself onto the kitchen table and deposited a small crate, then flew off. Sanchez set Jess’ head down gently on the hardwood floor before he stood and popped the top off. Miya hauled herself into an upright sitting position and craned her neck to catch a glimpse of half a dozen metal balls, the same gunmetal grey as the robot.
“A new development. Cold iron grenades,” the voice in the robot explained. “The shrapnel will bypass magic, but retain its lethality despite the brittle nature of pure iron. It will not be equal to a true grenade, but will allow some measure of ranged offense against magic use. In this case, a peculiar feral.”
“No such thing as a free lunch,” grunted Sanchez, shooting a side glance at the robot.
“We would ask for the feral’s corpse for study. Alive would be preferable, but for obvious reasons we do not expect this.” I wasn’t just a one off. Overlord has his eye on magic for some reason.
“It’s yours, but that can’t be it,” replied Sanchez, skepticism crossing his face.
“In addition, another request concerns the one you know as Amanda Broussard. There is a reward on offer for her, if captured alive.”
“Overlord wants another techie for his stable?” Poor girl.
The robot replied, “No, in this we merely represent an interested third party. A favor for them, if you will.”
Sanchez grunted, “We’ll see. No promises.”
“Understood.”
“Will you, or the bot, whatever, be assisting?”
“This unit requires more adequate repairs. We judge this current investment suitable, given your current manpower.”
“Great, get out. We’ll get our shit together, do some house cleaning, and head over.”
The robot performed a shallow bow, made macabre by the rolling of its loose head, and slipped out as quickly as it had entered. It at least had the courtesy to slide the door closed behind itself. The TV still played, a merry jingle from some commercial drifting in from down the hall. Sanchez shut the lid to the grenade crate and sighed. Now what?
Miya eyed him as he absent-mindedly cleaned himself with a dish towel. “You believe Overlord?” she asked. “He’s just giving you this out of the kindness of his heart?” You can’t be that stupid.
“No. Omar would have gotten the exact same talk. It’s just business. If we can’t do this we’re of no use to him.” He grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and hauled her to her feet without so much as a grunt of effort. “Get up. You’re my magic expert and I’m in the mood to kill something else.”