Can't catch a single fuckin' break! "Stebbins!" Jeremy shouted through his earpiece.

  "Nothing, sir!" he called back, barely audible through the crappy cell phone connection. Jeremy wished they had a proper radio, but he had to improvise.

  "Fucker's got a black stick he uses to make the bastards! Find him!" Jeremy turned and kept moving, while the golem advanced on the other three. He yelled at the paramedics to get moving. "That thing doesn't care about you! Get out of here!"

  The ambulance shrieked away, ferrying Jessica out of the fight. Hailey, screaming in rage, grabbed up the entire front half of the truck body by its fender. She twisted around, then swung it like a massive baseball bat.

  Metal smashed against solid amorphous asphalt. The golem skidded across the pavement, cracking up the pavement as it went. Part of it was annihilated by the sheer impact — but as it turned and started advancing again, it shifted, and soon looked the same as it always did.

  "Let's just get the fuck out of here!" he shouted. "Leave that thing!"

  Hailey shook her head. She hurled the truck cab at the golem, driving it back another couple dozen feet. "I'm going to find him. Right now."

  "Hailey!"

  "They shot Jessica!"

  Hailey burst into the air, climbing two dozen feet up in a second. She twisted around left and right, and the whole place lit up with fire. A dozen spheres of withering flame erupted around her in a huge circle, illuminating the whole street. The trees on the sides of the road wilted under the sudden blazing heat. A few caught fire. Jeremy scanned the area, but he couldn't see anyone either.

  The Japanese girl with the tattoos carrying the unconscious blonde-haired white guy — Ryan fucking Walker, Jeremy realized with a start — looked up as well. She was bleeding too, but not severely. "Hales, we need to get the fuck out of here!"

  As if to echo her point, another gunshot echoed down the street. Someone screamed.

  Jeremy whipped around. That was from the neighborhood. What the fuck?

  "Stebbins!"

  "Shots fired, southeast. Somewhere in the residences. Unclear. Heavier than a pistol, sir. Rifle fire."

  Jesus Christ. "Cover us." He glared up at Hailey. "Hailey, it's not clear! We gotta move!"

  "So move!" she shouted back.

  Well, can't argue with that. Jeremy moved to grab Ryan's other shoulder, and between the two of them, they made a pretty good pace down the road toward Stebbins' position. As soon as they reached Jeremy's commandeered truck, they loaded Ryan into the back seat. He was still groggy, but coming to fast.

  "Who the fuck are you?" the girl asked.

  "Jeremy Ashe."

  "Fuck me, the FBI guy? You're with Hailey?"

  "Yeah."

  He glanced around. Another couple gunshots rang out, cracking down into the bushes on the right side of the road. The shots seemed to be coming from the houses along the same side, right near Jeremy and his truck. The houses were on an elevated patch of land overlooking a huge field to the north, forming a wall of buildings that started the neighborhood. The ground level of the houses was a good ten feet up on stone foundation, behind a row of tall bushes and a cheap fence.

  "What the hell are they shooting at?"

  "And who the fuck's doing the shooting?" the girl added.

  "Hailey!" Jeremy shouted, trying to get her attention. Hailey was still flitting back and forth over the street to the north, while a circle of fireballs provided light for her in every direction. She whipped around at his call, the fire turning in sync with her. "Grab the fucker who's still alive down there! I need to talk to him!"

  To his relief, she did it, swooping down to snatch him up and flying to their truck. She deposited him like a sack of bricks into the truck bed. Before she could take off again, Jeremy caught her by the sleeve.

  "Let me go," Hailey said, tugging away. Jeremy felt like she might break his arm if she pulled any harder, even though she was barely putting in any effort.

  "Hailey, they're armed. You fly, you're just an easier target." Jeremy got into the truck bed, and slapped sense back into the man she'd picked up. "Stay down til we figure out what the fuck's going on."

  A huge crash from up in the neighborhood, something they couldn't see. A cloud of dust blew through the air a second later. More screaming, and the sounds of people running. The gunfire picked up, now accompanied by an automatic weapon. Holy fuck.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  "Stebbins, call in some backup. Every single thing you can get," Jeremy snapped. The man nodded and got on the phone, while he got back to his impromptu interrogation. "Hey, hey you. Wake up."

  "Go… go fuck yourself."

  "Did that this morning." Jeremy slapped him again. "What the fuck is going on?"

  The man didn't respond. He just glared. Jeremy started to dig through his pockets, but the man didn't react in the slightest. He's way too good for this. They had a pro driving that thing. He doesn't care if I search him. This guy isn't one of Brian's. Sure enough, Jeremy didn't find a single useful thing in the man's pockets. Ammo, smokes, and some loose cash. Not even a wallet.

  "Who are you workin' for?" he asked, slapping the guy in the face again.

  "Fuck... off."

  The Japanese girl's face paled at Jeremy's question. "Thought he was with Brian."

  "No fuckin' way. This guy isn't some riled up civvie."

  She shook her head in dismay. "No fucking way. They wouldn't."

  "Rika?" asked Hailey.

  Rika ignored her and leapt onto the truck bed. "Hey, asshole. Hey, wake up."

  He spat onto the truck bed. "What?"

  "You know a guy named Viper?"

  A split-second reaction, which was more than enough for both of them. She slugged the guy in the chest, causing him to cough up hard and double over.

  Jeremy turned around. "The fuck was that? Who's Viper?"

  "A mercenary with a shitload of capital behind him." Rika glanced up at the row of houses. "And I'll bet anything he's the one with the guns up there. This just became a threeway. Not the fun kind, either."

  "What happened to him?" asked Hailey. "Alden never said."

  "I made a deal with him to get out of town. So apparently he's a motherfucking backstabbing bakayaro!" Rika's voice rose to a fever pitch as she glared up to the row of houses. "Asshole!"

  "—told not to touch you," muttered the mercenary.

  "Shinjimae," Rika snapped, kicking him in the chest. She winced in pain from the action, clutching her side. "The fuck do we do now?" She glanced at Hailey, and Jeremy followed her gaze.

  Hailey was looking up at the row of houses, where another round of gunfire echoed out into the street. Another muffled explosion. A second house had collapsed, throwing another pile of dust into the air behind the row they could see.

  "Hailey, wait—" Jeremy started, but it didn't matter. A rush of wind blasted his face as Hailey took off, hurtling into the sky.

  He twisted around. If she's gonna go, I'm gonna get her everything I fuckin' can. "Stebbins, where's that fucking backup?"

----------------------------------------

  Hailey swung around the south end of the block, opposite the gunfire. She took a quick survey from afar, squinting in the dim light. Most of the street lights were out (shot out, in fact, as she peered more closely), and she could make out guns peeking through second floor windows and over the edge of balconies. People were streaming out of the block to the south and east as fast as they could, fleeing the gunfire and the monsters.

  Oh god… not this. Please, not this. Not again.

  Viper's men hadn't learned how to deal with the golems yet, apparently. As one of them burst onto the street from the alley between two houses, a rattle of gunfire peppered it. It moved, as if sentient, to respond, sliding across the street. As it did, a rougher-sounding gun — a hunting rifle, in comparison to the modern military pops from Viper's men — opened up in return.

  A balcony window shattered, just above a rifle that Hailey could barely see even from her vantage. The man holding it didn't move an inch, even with a gunshot that missed him by centimeters.

  Return fire flooded the street. A puff of blood behind a fence as one of Brian's men took a bullet and collapsed. The golem continued forward, approaching the patch of grass along the sidewalk in front of the houses. It slid up the curb, making for the house with the most gunfire.

  The sidewalk exploded.

  Hailey looked away before the flash blinded her. As she turned back, she realized it was actually the grass that had exploded, though the sidewalk around it hadn't done much better. A crater had completely replaced the stretch of concrete and dirt.

  The golem was gone.

  Okay, so explosives can kill them… Good to know.

  As she watched, Viper's men were starting to retreat. Police cars rolled up, lights and sirens blaring. A helicopter with a spotlight beat its way in on the air currents, not that far from where Hailey was flapping in place, and another was en route. The mercenaries fled to the west, blending in with the civilians or just fading into the forest. Hailey considered diving after one of them, but she wasn't sure she could beat them one on one. Not in her current state.

  She was totally exhausted after the day she'd had. She'd flown up to Tacoma faster than she'd ever flown before. Even now, she was relying on her tourmaline pendant just to stay airborne.

  Hailey kept scanning the area, and tried to force her eyes into better night vision. She wanted to catch Brian, or whichever of Brian's men was summoning the golems. She couldn't see anything though, just tons of faceless people. He could be anyone, or he could even be hiding inside one of the houses. It wasn't like she could just go through every house and interrogate them one by one — as tempted as she was by that idea.

  Jess… Oh god. She must be in so much pain right now.

  Reluctantly, Hailey gave up on finding anyone. She'd lost track of Viper's men, and she had no idea where Brian's might be. It was too much of a mess, and now with rescue vehicles and the huge police presence, she couldn't do anything.

  I can help. Jess would want me to help.

  There was someone crying out in pain. Hailey zeroed in on it. She dove toward the wrecked house, landing in the debris outside the front door. Firefighters were already trying to bust though the front door. Hailey hurried forward and slammed into it with her shoulder, blasting through it.

  With the two guys at her back, she sprinted through the house and up the damaged staircase. A young man was trapped underneath a fallen beam, his arm pinned. The firefighters started to call for equipment, but Hailey shook her head.

  She grabbed the huge crossbeam with both arms, prepping the spell as she did. She was still exhausted, and could feel the magic draining from the gemstone just to pull this off, but she had to. After what she'd done down on the street… she couldn't leave.

  The firefighters braced the guy, then one of them gave her a signal. Hailey grunted with exertion as she heaved the beam up and out of the way. They slid him out, and started bandaging his wound even as they carried him bodily from the building. A split-second later, Hailey found out why they were rushing.

  The beam, lifted free of supporting the structure frame, split in half. The ceiling collapsed, with Hailey underneath.