46. Chapter 46

46

E very decision Rebecca could have made came with its own deadly consequences.

With the magitek bomb roaring through their brains, and Diego and Titus screaming to the Blue Hells and back, and that foreboding light growing brighter from the balcony, she had to make a choice, either way.

So she chose to tackle the immediate danger right on top of them.

“Everyone get down!” she screamed before the first blast from that unseen weapon above cracked across the theater hall.

The next second, a buzzing line of yellow-brown energy crashed into the base of a balcony and the wings on the opposite side of the auditorium.

Enormous chunks of plaster, shredded wood, and bits of banister railing cracked away beneath the attack and plummeted to the floor. Fortunately, none of Rebecca’s team stood directly below the falling debris.

It also went entirely unnoticed by every other Shade operative, because no one had heard the giant weapon going off in the balcony or the ensuing wreckage.

No one had even heard Rebecca’s warning shout.

“The balconies!” she shouted, pointing and flailing her arms and unable to get a reaction, because no one was looking at her.

The others were too busy clamping their hands over their ears and hunching over, gritting their teeth against the noise that seemed intent on frying their brains.

Shell had become so disoriented, she’d already stumbled down the sloped floor toward the very front base of the stage. With her fingers in her ears and her balance thrown, she stumbled dangerously close to the first proximity ward and the casting circle at the base of the stage that would blow them all to bits if it activated.

Too close. And it didn’t look like she was going to stop herself.

With a shout she couldn’t hear but which burned her throat on the way out, Rebecca leapt toward the troll woman, reaching out with both hands and ready to snag any piece of the other woman she could get her hands on.

Rebecca’s fingers closed around Shell’s elbow just before she was about to step back onto the casting circle. The troll woman’s cry of surprise also disappeared beneath the bomb’s mind-numbing roar as Rebecca yanked her away from the stage and toward herself.

The other woman was so out of it already, she didn’t even try to stop herself. She hardly seemed aware of her body at all before she crashed into Rebecca with a painful thud and a tangle of limbs.

Rebecca caught her in an unsteady embrace to keep them both from hitting the ground as they staggered backward, made even more difficult by the fact that Rebecca now stumbled backward up the steep incline of the slanted auditorium floor.

Then she felt the searing heat from the next bolt of grotesque yellow-brown light zapping down toward them from the balcony.

Not a second too soon, either.

She threw her full weight sideways, hauling Shell with her in her arms. This time, they both crashed to the chipped, stained auditorium floor as the next weapon blast from the balcony zapped the space where they’d just stood.

Splinters of wood and chunks of the cement foundation beneath exploded on impact, every particle shuddering with electric crackles of yellow-brown light as they tossed through the air, peppering Rebecca and Shell and anyone else close enough to the blast.

Rebecca grimaced at the throbbing pain in her hip where she’d landed sideways with Shell practically on top of her, wishing she’d had a better way to get anyone’s attention than physically tackling them to the ground.

Once again without warning, the torture bomb on the stage finished its unavoidable release of excess energy. The deafening roar fell into a low, warbling growl, then a clinking whine, then nothing but a low click and hiss like an overheated car engine cooling off on a after finally being pulled into the driveway.

“Knox?” Whit called out.

Rebecca shoved Shell away from her and tried to stand as she pointed up toward the wings. “Watch the balconies!”

She hauled Shell to her feet again a split second before the weapon from above sent that obliterating brown-yellow light zapping down toward them again with a crackling buzz like an overacting generator.

The blast hit the floor much closer this time and sent both Rebecca and the troll woman flying forward to sprawl across a slanted ground face first while more chunks of cement and splintered wood rained down all around them.

“Take cover!” Maxwell bellowed before he opened fire up at the balcony. Bursts of deep green light erupted from his augmented rifle.

Up above, the insane machine that was almost as bad as the magical laser at the docks powered up again for another blast.

At their team leader’s cry—and now that they could hear it—the operatives leapt into action, wasting no more time. They split down the middle, half of them diving as far as they could beneath the balconies on one side of the room while the other half did the same on the opposite side.

Finding cover from above at least enabled them to look up into the wings without being shot for it. Then the firefight was in full swing.

The Shade team returned the vast amount of magitek weapons fire volleyed down at them from the balconies, lighting up the otherwise darkened theater hall with ballooning explosions of blue, crackling nets of electrocuting yellow, or sharp, bursting stutters of bright orange darts ramming up into the balconies and enemy targets overhead like exploding throwing knives tossed by an expert hand.

It briefly occurred to Rebecca that someone might want to offer cover to Diego, Titus, and Burke, all of whom were unconscious again after the last power surge. But then she realized every enemy raining magical blasts down on them had to know about the ward-bomb traps.

So unless someone was trying to get themselves killed on purpose, no one was stupid enough to fire at the three prisoners on the stage. Even an incoming magical attack would trip the ward’s alarms and end this fight instantly.

True to her theory, none of the overhead enemy fire came anywhere close to the stage or the warded contraption holding them all captive now.

At least she and her team didn’t have that to worry about on top of everything else.

While Maxwell barked orders, squeezing off his own shots in the process and ducking to avoid wayward shots, Rebecca scanned the theater hall.

There had to be a better way to stop this. To get behind enemy lines and put a stop to this whole thing before it got any worse.

Just when she realized she could go up the stairs toward the balconies the same way their attackers had, the double doors into the theater hall burst open, and in rushed backup.

For the enemy.

The place lit up with battle magic and augmented weapons fire in one endlessly flashing, strobing, violently rippling light show of every color imaginable. The air sizzled with concentrated magic, heat, cold, and every other sensation a skilled alchemist could have produced for magitek weapons.

Rebecca aimed her freshly loaded pistol at the new enemies streaming down the empty slanted floors toward her and her team, joining in without thinking much farther into the future than surviving this.

The enormous weapon on the left-hand balcony, with its crippling yellow-brown shots, turned on again, blasting an endless stream of destruction even more reminiscent of the energy laser on the docks. It pummeled the auditorium’s floor to flying pieces and bashed aside enemy targets spilling through the doors, failing to differentiate between friend and foe.

All to the Shade team’s advantage, because it seemed whatever hulking creature had attempted to take control of that weapon had since lost some of that control.

Rebecca fired more augmented rounds into the chaos, then turned to blast an orb of crackling red battle magic at a dwarf who’d hobbled much too close. Her attack launched him off his feet and sent him sailing backward up the floor’s incline until he caught an accidental burst of yellow-brown friendly fire and disintegrated on the spot.

She couldn’t have said how long she stood there with her team, fighting back with nothing but survival in mind. Any way out now was blocked to them when they hadn’t freed their captured operatives yet.

But she did become acutely aware of the growing change in the air when something new appeared to join the fight.

Something ancient and powerful, slowly brought into being and then to life somewhere close.

The use of this growing magic made Rebecca’s entire body tingle with warning shivers. Nothing like the mostly pleasant sensation she still felt every time Maxwell came close.

This was more like the hot and cold pins-and-needles of a limb having fallen asleep and the nerve endings now painfully waking up.

This magic was dark, insanely powerful, and if Rebecca remembered correctly, not particularly legal on Earth, as per the MJC’s constantly updating and evolving Earthside regulations.

There was some serious power here with them in this building. That was for damn sure.

The kind of magic much like Rebecca’s Bloodshadow abilities that had come straight from Xahar’áhsh, bringing all its destructive fury with it.

Even while she pinpointed the type of this new magic, she couldn’t spot the source. That immediately became her most pressing issue, because that dark energy was only growing. She could feel it.

And when it grew enough to be unleashed on her and her team, it would already be too late for anyone to do anything about it.

Whoever they were, Rebecca had to find them now.

Then her first beneficial window of opportunity presented itself when she realized her team were all too busy trying not to die and exchanging fire with the new group of enemies on the ground floor—while also avoiding the scattered magitek shots from above—that no one paid attention to anyone who wasn’t screaming at them about where to aim next.

It was the perfect opportunity for Rebecca to slip away, which she did, firing her weapon at any enemy target who leapt at her.

She slinked along the left-hand wall toward the front of the auditorium, taking out two other attackers who’d posted up beside the double-doored entrance. Then she burst back into the lobby, which was fortunately empty, and made her way around the perimeter, hoping to reach the back of the building.

On her first try, she found the door leading directly into a staircase up to the balcony wings on the second story.

Bingo.

She launched herself up the stairwell, refusing to stop even when the old door crashed back against its frame so violently, it ripped itself off half its hinges with a grating shriek. It banged shut repeatedly, now hanging steeply crooked in its frame.

The feel of that dark, growing energy right here with her in this building only intensified the higher she climbed. This was intense magic, hardcore shit, almost of the same caliber as her own abilities she’d sworn she would always keep a secret.

It was magic she could probably handle on her own and would simply have to, because she was the only one who stood even half a chance.

The call of that magic to the darkness inside her—the one thing that made the Bloodshadow Heir such a valuable and highly sought commodity among certain old-world circles and now probably even Earthside as well—flared and rippled in response. It made her want to both near the source of that dark power and flee from it at the same time.

The only reason she let herself give in to that pull was the knowledge that if she didn’t, even if she was only a few seconds too late in finding the magical who wielded it, her entire team was going down. Rowan, Diego, Maxwell, all of them.

Even Rebecca, if she didn’t do this right.

The mastermind behind this entire assault was absolutely that—a mastermind. The Shade team had been lured into such an effective bespoke trap like this, it had almost rendered them completely hopeless.

Almost.

That was what she intended to fix.

The pull of darkness only intensified, taking her breath away as she pushed herself ever higher up the stairs.

Above her at the top landing, another door swung open and crashed shut again before the stairwell echoed with desperate footsteps thumping down toward her.

For as disoriented as she’d already been tonight, and for all her necessary urgency to get this done, she still couldn’t help a surge of overwhelming relief and giddy gratitude when she realized one more opportunity here.

An enclosed stairwell separating her from the balconies above, and three hulking, leering, magicals—two brainwashed trolls and a blackhorn with scars crisscrossing his already mottled red-and-black flesh.

And no possible way for Rebecca’s team to see her now.

Meaning no more restrictions on her current combat response.

Gritting her teeth until it felt like she might have been grinning as she stomped up the stairwell, Rebecca conjured an orb of swirling mercurial silver in her right hand just as the enemy turned a corner on the narrow staircase landing to face her.

One of the trolls snarled and leapt at her.

Rebecca was always faster.

With a quick flick of her wrist, the swirling silver orb in her hand flashed and materialized as her Bloodshadow spear. Its otherworldly blade winked beneath the stairwell lights as she hefted the weapon in her hand, switched her grip on the shaft, and threw the spear at the first troll heading toward her.

Her weapon hit him through the center of the chest, just as she’d intended, skewering his straight through.

His shocked grunt served as his dying words before an equally surprised groan arose from just behind him.

The first troll’s knees buckled, his life’s spark already gone. As he fell, Rebecca got a clear view of her Bloodshadow spear having punctured straight through the first troll’s back and into the middle of the second’s gut.

The second troll wobbled as his comrade’s dead weight pulled him down with him by the swirling silver spear skewering them both, fighting desperately to pull the weapon free of his own body.

The blood pouring from the wound and staining his t-shirt made finding a good grip impossible, but he tried his best.

Rebecca reached for her spear and called it back.

With a wet slice and two heavy ensuing thumps, the Bloodshadow spear pulled itself free, sent two troll corpses toppling down the stairs toward her, and sailed in the blink of an eye right back into Rebecca’s open, waiting hand.

The blackhorn snarled when he saw what she’d done, but it didn’t deter him from picking up the pace down the stairs toward her.

She leapt over the first body thumping down the stairwell step by step, gaining speed as it rolled, then tightened her grip on the spear. When she stepped over the second body, she ducked beneath the blackhorn’s wild swipe at her head.

And thrust up with her spear.

The blade stuck him through, though she didn’t pause to see exactly how. She did let his wild downward momentum send him flying over her shoulder before he toppled down the stairwell after the others.

The blackhorn’s agonized scream cut off halfway. Rebecca didn’t need to see it to know he was dead before he reached the bottom landing. She could feel it through her spear still embedded in him, which she called back to her again and caught in her hand.

Then she reached the door at the very top.

Any other time, and she might have slowed down to enjoy herself, to consume what remained of one or two sparks from her recently deceased attackers. But this wasn’t a Bloodshadow mission, nor did Rebecca need any extra help with special healing.

She was racing against the clock, and all she had the time for was to keep moving.

Then she burst through the door, and she was there.

Standing on the same balcony with the enormous enemy magical operating the insane energy cannon that had almost blown her to smithereens down below. Several times.

At first glance, she figured he was an ogre, or maybe even a half-giant, judging purely by the size of him. She didn’t take the time to look any more closely.

The guy behind the enormous weapon spewing yellow-brown bursts of cripplingly destructive magical attacks whirled toward her the second the door to the balcony banged open.

Rebecca had already summoned a furiously churning fireball in her hand, the roiling flames struck through with bits of deep turquoise. She launched it at him, happy to be using fireballs again just to switch things up.

Her attack crashed into the center of his chest and knocked the guy back by several feet.

The big guy’s clothes erupted in flames, crackling across his entire body from head to toe in seconds. His curdling scream didn’t come anywhere close to the cries of agony this asshole and his entire outfit had produced from Diego and Titus with that machine bomb.

Pity. Rebecca would have liked to make him suffer even more than they had. She just didn’t have the time.

So while he staggered across the balcony, his arms flailing as he screamed and her fireball consumed everything it touched, she followed it up with two quick bursts of crimson battle magic. The first sent the big guy crashing back against the balcony railing, and the second hit him high enough in the chest to send him toppling backward over the banister.

He dropped to the auditorium floor, the flames flickering madly as he screamed all the way down.

She didn’t hear him hit the floor over the deafening weapons fire still spewing across the room in all directions, but his scream cut out almost instantly.

Still, she wasn’t finished.

Her mind was so set on keeping the rest of her team as far from more danger as possible, she reacted instinctively, lunging for the enormous weapon spewing yellow-brown obliterating streaks in all directions. Its powerful mechanism made it turn sporadically on its swiveling mount, and it was surprisingly difficult to haul back under control while it fired randomly.

After a quick search of the weapon’s bulky frame, she took a wild guess that the giant red knob on the side was as likely as anything else to be what she wanted. She slapped a hand down against the switch to see what happened, and she was right.

The grinding whine of this new weapon fizzled out with a hiss and more metallic clicks as it powered down and stopped rotating on its mount.

One threat down, a few dozen more to go.

Whatever relief she might have felt drowned with the overwhelming, surging intensity of that dark, ancient, purely old-world magic she now felt again. This time, the familiar sensation prickled across her skin with intermittent heat and bone-shattering cold before she remembered the big guy manning the big gun wasn’t the only enemy combatant up here.

The other person on the small balcony with her. The source of all that dark, consuming energy that made her own Bloodshadow magic hunger for the rarely encountered power within another that truly matched her own.

He was still here too, and with her back turned while she’d fiddled with the weapon, Rebecca had made herself a wide-open target.