Chapter 17

I was now on my third continent, sixth country, and seventh city—if you ignored the smaller towns, villages, and suburbs I'd passed through—in less than a week. After a nearly twenty-four-hour flight that had stopped in Frankfurt, then again in Singapore, Lienna and I finally met up with Darius outside of arrivals at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

I'd spent over twenty years of my life confined to a single ketchup-chip-loving nation, and now I was a jet-setting international man of mystery. I wished I'd had more opportunities to collect a tacky memento at each pit stop to add to my collection of case souvenirs currently cluttering up my desk. Maybe a set of goofy patches to adorn the worn and fraying backpack I'd been hauling around with me.

An hour after landing, we were cruising westward, away from the city formerly known as Saigon, in the back of a silver minivan. Our driver, Khuong, was a local mythic with thinning black hair and deep laugh lines around his eyes. He was either one of Darius's old contacts or someone the GM had found through his vast global network of eyes and ears. I wasn't fully in the know regarding their relationship.

As the urban environment of Vietnam's most populated metropolis disappeared behind us, overtaken by the lush greenery and occasional cluster of industrial buildings that dotted the countryside, Khuong gave us a rundown on what he knew about Floris Visser.

"Floris Visser arrived about a month ago and formed an alliance with L?a và B?ng," he said, his tone grim. "‘Fire and Ice' in English. They're a notorious criminal guild, all of them mages. Their GM owns a private airfield where Visser has been spending a fair bit of time."

"Is that where the handoff is happening?" Lienna asked.

"According to the rogue I bribed for information, yeah," our driver confirmed. "It's supposed to happen tonight, but they didn't know the exact time."

I glanced out the window at the sun dipping below the horizon, its few remaining streaks of light silhouetting the roadside vegetation. "Tonight" could be an hour from now, which meant our mission clock was ticking.

In the passenger seat, Darius glanced from the road to Khuong. "What can you tell us about the airfield?"

"Heavily guarded by the Fire and Ice crew. At least thirty of them, probably more. There's an electric fence around the perimeter, so the only way in or out is the front gate. That means you'll have to get past the guardhouse, which always has at least two men on duty."

Sneaking past unsuspecting sentries? We could handle that.

"I'll drop you off down the road from the guardhouse, but after that, you're on your own." Khuong glanced at Darius. "I can't help you with the layout inside the fence, but I did hear that Visser has her own protection detail that never leaves her side. That's all I know."

"We'll figure it out," Darius murmured.

Khuong nervously adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. "Fire and Ice isn't like the rogue guilds you're used to. They're constantly at war with other gangs, mythic and human. They'll be armed with magic and non-magical weapons, and they won't hesitate to kill a trespasser on sight."

Sounded like a real welcoming batch of baddies.

"They're one of the deadliest rogue guilds in the country," Khuong went on, doing his best to ensure my nerves were wound as tight as possible. "I know you're good, Darius, but one misstep and…"

"We'll manage, Khuong."

Our driver said nothing more, but his doubt hung in the van's interior like an extra humid cloud of doom.

For the next forty minutes, as nighttime closed in around us and all signs of civilization faded away, Darius, Lienna, and I hashed out our plan. Though we had a whole host of sorcery, psychic, and lumina magic at our fingertips, we collectively agreed that in a situation like this—where information was limited and the stakes were high—it was best to keep it simple.

"We'll only engage if absolutely necessary," Darius said. "Nothing attracts attention faster than a dead body."

Words of wisdom the former assassin had mentioned once or twice before.

Our plan was to sneak onto the airfield using our respective invisifying powers—Darius taking care of himself, and me keeping Lienna and her cat's eye safe from prying eyes. Once inside the airfield proper, we'd split up to search for Visser.

From there, it was only a matter of remaining unseen, locating the weapon, and retreating back to Khuong and his getaway van before Visser—or anyone else—was the wiser.

Our contingency was even simpler: if it all went south or we couldn't steal the weapon undetected, we'd spam the entire airfield with the most potent forms of our collective magic—Blackouts, blinding flashes, and Lienna's new gravity bomb spell—then use the ensuing chaos to snatch what we came for, avoid death or capture, and peace out.

Through the windshield, a tall metal fence came into view—and if a fence could look mean, this one was maximum nasty, with bars too thick to cut and barbed wire coiled along the top. A ways ahead, the guardhouse was a dark shape in the deepening twilight.

Khuong brought the minivan to a stop on the side of the road. Darius, Lienna, and I climbed out, our wireless earpieces tucked into their required head holes.

We circled to the back of the van, where Darius opened the hatch. We covered our vital organs with bulletproof combat vests. Darius buckled a weapons belt around his waist, two sets of long daggers neatly sheathed against his hips. Dressed in all-black civvies, he didn't look like a combat-ready soldier, but he sure as hell looked dangerous.

I added a potion-filled gun to my belt, and Lienna strapped her satchel over her vest before adding two new necklaces and an engraved gold ring, slipped onto her right index finger, to her arsenal. We were ready.

"Well," Darius murmured, "this should be?—"

"Don't say it." I squinted a warning in his direction. "So help me Zeus, if you tell us this should be a very straightforward mission."

"… fun," he finished delicately.

Together, we began our trek down the dirt road to the airfield, leaving Khuong to wait in the dark van on the side of the road. The sun had completely set, and the moon competed with the bright, beckoning lights that lit the airfield.

A hundred feet from the guardhouse, Darius gave the signal. Lienna whispered her cat's eye incantation, and all three of us vanished.

As we approached the guardhouse, I heard the low murmur of men talking in Vietnamese. They didn't notice as we slunk through the shadows toward the well-lit entrance, harsh white lights directed at the dirt drive.

As we ducked under the boom barrier, I glimpsed the men inside the guardhouse: black fatigues, bulletproof vests, and machine guns hanging from their shoulders. Holy soldiery shit. They looked more like military black ops than mythics.

Feeling both highly grateful for the miracle that was my invisi-warp and increasingly apprehensive, I surveyed the airfield. Dead ahead, across a wide expanse of tarmac, we had a clear view of the single runway, its length marked by orange lights. On our right was a cluster of smaller single-story buildings, and on our left, beyond a couple of corroded aluminum sheds, was a long, bulky structure—the hangar, large enough to house half a dozen medium-sized aircraft.

I knew Darius was only a few feet away. I could sense his mind, and my ability to gauge distance was improving. Handy, but also low-key alarming.

"Going left," I whispered.

"Heading right," Darius replied, his voice crackling faintly through my earpiece.

My faint awareness of his presence veered away from us. So weird.

Lienna and I peeled off to the left, straight toward the colossal rectangular hangar. Pairs of goons patrolled along the fenced perimeter and between the buildings. Some were easy to spot, while others were dark shapes in the shadows between lights. Out on the tarmac, a handful of them were leaning against a maintenance truck. My adrenaline steadily rose as I subconsciously counted them. Eighteen mythics. All mages.

When it came to classes of magic, the consensus was inarguable: mages represented the most dangerous combination of firepower and flexibility, especially when you grouped up several elements.

This might be the deadliest band of rogues I'd ever encountered.

Even though my halluci-bomb hid both my and Lienna's footfalls, I still felt the urge to tiptoe as we snuck past the sheds and approached the nearest side of the hangar. I wasn't super keen on getting burned, iced, blasted, and crushed into nonexistence by a violent melee of the elements.

We found a door partway along the hangar's exterior wall, but it was locked. Lienna dug into her satchel, searching for a bolt-busting artifact, and I pressed the mic button on my earpiece.

"Darius," I whispered. "Anything yet?"

"No," came a short, terse reply.

"How many rogues have you counted?" I had no doubt he'd been tallying them up, just like I was.

"Twenty-three."

That brought the total to over forty. These guys weren't merely dressed like soldiers; they had the numbers too.

Footsteps crunched, heading our way from around the backside of the building. I put a hand on Lienna's arm, halting her quiet rustling.

Two mythics appeared, patrolling the shadows between the hangar and the electrified fence. They turned the corner and moved toward us, conversing in a low tone.

We pressed ourselves against the building, holding our breath as the two men passed within a couple feet of us. One had daggers strapped to his thighs, while the other carried a polearm. Based on Khuong's intel that these guys were all mages, I assumed those were their switches.

"Should we break open the door?" Lienna whispered once the guards were well past us.

I shook my head, not wanting to linger too long in one spot. "There's got to be an easier way in. Let's keep moving."

We crept along the wall until we reached the front corner, then peered around it, my head above hers like two of the three stooges spying down a hallway they weren't supposed to be in.

The first thing I saw was the tail end of a steel-gray, transport-style military plane waiting just outside the hangar, its cargo bay opened into a long ramp that rested on the pavement. Inside the bay, I spotted a jacked-up blond dude with the kind of hair and beard that gave off definite Thor vibes, which got me thinking that this plane wasn't owned by the Fire and Ice guild.

Did it belong to Floris Visser? Or the Consilium buyer?

A dozen or so black-garbed mythics stood around the entrance of the open hangar door, about fifty feet away from us. Past their heads, I could see a tall woman: Floris Visser. Her long hair was white-blond and her face sharp and angular under the bright illumination.

Behind her, four hulking bodyguards formed a protective semicircle. Each one looked like they could run a marathon, rip your head from your body to use as an improvised shot put, then wrestle a puma as a cooldown.

Sitting at Visser's feet, right in the middle of all that muscle, was a black Pelican case. It was pretty large for a single amulet-style artifact, but maybe she wanted her thirty-million-dollar weapon to seem more weighty and impressive.

Lienna tapped her earpiece. "Darius? We have eyes on Visser. She has a case that probably contains the weapon."

There was a crackle across the mic.

"Copy. I'll join you… in a few minutes."

Was it just me, or did he sound a touch out of breath?

Lienna must have noticed too because she asked, "Are you okay?"

Another crackling pause.

"A minor setback," he replied. "I just need to hide some bodies."

Once an assassin …

Assuming our time was about to run short, I refocused on the obstacles in front of me. Between Floris, her personal guard, and the assortment of rogue mages meeting with her, over a dozen mythics were loitering in the hangar. A couple of spiffy six-seater planes looked remarkably small beneath the high ceiling, while tool chests, rolling staircases, spare parts, and other supplies cluttered the space along the walls. My eyes zipped across the collection of enemies and objects, mapping a path.

"I think I can grab it," I whispered to Lienna. "I can slip between those muscle heads, lift the case, and we can skedaddle before anyone notices Darius's bodies."

"Are you sure?" Lienna shifted anxiously. "Maybe we should?—"

"We don't have time." I straightened from my crouch. "I'm going for it. Wait here."

I sucked in a breath and focused my mind on my invisi-bomb, paying special attention to the play of light and shadow created by the eyeball-abusing illumination in and around the hangar. Then I launched forward.

I got exactly one step before Lienna grabbed my arm and hauled me back. Her nails dug painfully into my elbow.

"Kit, look."

The barely tempered horror in her voice sent a wave of fear rushing down my spine. I followed the direction of her pointing finger, and that fear morphed into a zero-Kelvin cold spell that turned my blood to solid ice.

"You've got to be shitting me," I muttered.

Descending the ramp of the transport plane was another man. A familiar man. A chrome-domed, psychotically sadistic, resistant-to-my-powers, bane-of-my-existence man.

Benjamin. Fucking. Kade.