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An army of naga? From where? “A diversion?” I said.
Seth nodded.
I’d thought the small group was scouting, but they were fodder. The actual scouts had hung back along the entryway from which the expendables had come, gathering intel on our positions and firepower while their brethren died. I tried to move, to peek—hell, to warn Ethan—but Seth put a hand over my mouth.
“He’s looking for you.”
Color me confused. I shook my head, and he removed his hand. “How do you know that?”
Seth tapped his temple. “We’re connected, remember?”
My heart started beating faster. “Are we in danger? Right now, you looking at me, are we in danger, Seth?”
He shook his head, exhaling slowly, like I do when I’m meditating. “I’m keeping him out for now, but Hartiej wasn’t lying about how strong he’s gotten. I’m sorry about the eyes, but I can either look like a bad guy or be one. Zoë, he’s calling me. I don’t know how much longer I can resist.”
I slid my hands on either side of his face and pulled him in close. “I need you to hold on for me. Hear me, not him. Focus on me.” My hands glowed softly, brightening until his entire face was lit up from the inside out. “Listen to the sound of my voice.”
He slid his hands over mine with an expression akin to joy. “I can see why he wants to eat you,” he whispered. “You are so powerful. It’s like drowning in lavender.”
I raised a brow. “Are we done reveling in my gifts? Can you focus now?”
He slow-blinked twice, and his eyes were back to normal. “Thank you.”
I removed my hands and punched him square in the jaw. Now who was confused? Yeah, that guy. “I promise to pick you up on the way out,” I whispered, and dragged him behind a big curtain formation.
I looked up to see that much had happened in my distraction. Several bodies were being rushed out on stretchers, and medics gave first aid to the wounded. Had we lost more people? The thrumming beneath my feet returned, stronger, heavier, a clear indicator of many more nagas headed our way, and fast.
I pushed through the crowd until I found Ethan and Mike.
“Where’s the doctor?” Ethan asked.
“Good doctor, terrible naga. He’s taking a nap while we get this shit done.” The men exchanged a look. “He’s alive, for gods’ sake. I just punched him in the face.” I lifted a hand and measured an inch with my fingers. “Just a little punch.”
Mike smirked, but Ethan was less amused. “What about the enemy?”
I sobered. “They’re on their way.” I explained to him about diversion, and neither of them seemed surprised. Apparently I was the only battle noob in the cave. “But seriously....” I paused to listen to the earth. The rumbling shook me from the inside out. “We’ve got to get ready.”
Ethan stepped away, talking low and fast into his shoulder mic.
I glanced around the cave as a handful of gloved hands went up to ears. Gotta love technology.
Mike grabbed my arm. “Are you going to be safe?”
I tapped my sidearm. “Yup, I’ve got my pistola. I’m good to go.”
He laid a hand on each shoulder. “Zoë, it’s about to get really ugly in here, and there’s going to be a lot of output from everyone in the room. Are you going to be safe from all of that? You’ve had a helluva week. I doubt you’re in the best condition for this.”
I grimaced. “It’s not about being in the best condition. I’m not going to be in the ‘best condition’ for the foreseeable future, and I need to be here, so don’t worry about me.”
He made a face.
“Okay, worry about me later, when we’re all done, but for now, let’s just cover our asses and take down the bad guys, okay?”
“You do what you need to do,” he whispered. “No one’s going to judge you.” Then he let go, leaving me standing there as he melted into our ranks.
‘No one’s going to judge you.’ My wolf howled, long and low. Let’s hope he was right.
Ethan waved at me, and I took off running. He started to say something, but I raised one hand.
“If you’re going to ask me if I’m okay, the answer is no. If I need to be here? The answer is yes. Am I going to get myself killed? The plan is no. I’ll do my best. Now, if you want to direct me to where I’ll be best used, then let’s talk about that. Otherwise, Ethan, I am barely holding my shit together, and now is not the time for a good cry.”
He closed his mouth and considered me for a moment. “Fine. I’d send your ass out of this cave if I thought you’d actually listen, but seeing as you and I both know you won’t, find a spot where you’re comfortable shooting from, and shoot until either the nagas are all down or surrendering, r you’re out of bullets. Extra magazines?”
I nodded, patting the ammo pouch on my left hip. “Mike gave me three.”
“Once you’re out, if things aren’t settled, you do what you need to do.” As if he knew what that meant. Ethan was one of the few people who hadn’t seen me in monster form.
They must’ve powwowed behind my back at some point.
I squashed the hurt down inside me and gave him a hug, then ran off to find a vantage point. I searched the crowd and found Mike. I waved, and he waved back. Right now, these were my important people. If I could keep track of them, I could focus better.
I needed that focus. The rumbling filled me with a deafening crescendo, peaking when the first of the nagas poured into the cave. Each snakeman released a bauble of light into the air, filling the ceiling with a hundred points of light. The unexpected introduction of light rendered the policemen’s night vision goggles useless, but did not illuminate the entire chaotic scene around them.
The nagas sent the middle of their force forward in human or half-human form, armed with modern weaponry. They opened fire on us, and our guys returned it. Their guys were flanked on both sides by full nagas dual-wielding those wicked blades. Their movements were quick, blurring them in my sight as they severed hands and cut through Kevlar vests.
I worked my way through the first magazine, aiming for the sword guys’ heads hovering above the sea of our guys, and I managed to drop one with just about every shot I squeezed off. Way to go, me. Real moving targets were harder than the ones at the shooting range, but in my head, Daniel’s voice spoke calmly, “Lead with your muzzle. Squeeze when they get there.”
Ducking down behind my chosen rock, I popped in another magazine and steadied my breath. Then I got back into position, as if the top of the rock were holding my arms. I lined up my sights with another scaly head, and pulled the trigger. Down he went. Another head, another pull, another dead naga. Daniel would be so proud.
No matter how many we took down, more arrived. How could there possibly have been this many naga in the area and no one noticed? Even Seth’s outline only showed a handful, a couple dozen at most. Can it be...? I shook my head. No way. No way was Simon’s magick strong enough to pull this off, not reacting the way they were. Is it?
I pressed my back against the boulder and snuck a glance at the ‘dead’ with my other sight. Sure enough, they fell, hit the ground, and slowly dissipated into nothingness.
“Well, holy shitballs.” How hadn’t anyone on our side noticed? No, I shook my head, it was more likely that if they had noticed inside all that shadow-play, they didn’t know how to process the information. After all, maybe this was how they died—like television vampires gone poof.
We couldn’t fight endless magickal holograms, though. I had to get to Ethan, who, of course, was almost all the way on the other side of the cave.
The naga from the scale vision entered the cave, standing a good ten feet tall, covered in scales and with thick bandoliers of shotgun shells strapped to his chest, and the biggest shotgun I’d ever seen in his hands. Two long, wicked looking scimitars hung from his waist.
Simon. I sighed and looked upwards. “Can’t make any of this easy, can you?”
I checked my handgun, and scanned the space for the quickest route to Ethan. Boulders dotted the floor, but they were big enough and spaced out enough that I could sprint between them.
Man, I’m doing so much running lately. This case is going to make me a size eight.
I wasn’t the sprint and shoot type. Hell, I wasn’t the meander and squeeze off bullets type, but a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do.
“Oh, gods save me from myself.” I took off for the first boulder, then the second, and in that pause, a couple of bullets whizzed by my head. I inhaled and ran to the third one.
“Little witch!” Simon’s voice roared over the fray.
Well, shit. I leaned against the third boulder, trying to make my body as small as possible. If I couldn’t see him, maybe he couldn’t see me.
“Little witch, I can taste your fear,” he taunted.
I peeked over the boulder and flinched as he emptied the shotgun into the nearest police officer’s chest. The other nagas might not be real, but Simon’s damage was.
Back against rock, I steadied my breath before popping up again, gun out, sight searching for his head. There. I squeezed off three quick rounds, but the bastard lifted one hand, and in a shimmer of magick, the world around us slowed.
Just for an instant, but it was enough for him to pluck the damn bullets out of the air.
“Who does that?” I seethed as we returned to normal time. I engaged the safety and pressed against the stalagmite. “Ethan,” I yelled. “The nagas aren’t real! Not all of them. Maybe two dozen. That’s it. The rest are magick.”
“You going to take care of that?” he bellowed back.
Oh, hell yes. “Roger that, sir!”
Wiccans didn’t need specific items to do magick, and I was about to pull off a doozy. I scooped up dirt from the cave floor with one hand, and spit into my other palm. Water and earth were excellent armor materials. I mushed them together as best I could, and then painted a line down my forehead. I drew additional lines down both wrists. In my mind, the points connected with my power.
I touched my left breast above my heart, and the tops of both feet, and everything continued to connect in a shimmery glow, like dwarven mithral armor. I smiled. If I could manage to be a nerd right before walking to my own death, things couldn’t be so bad.
Or I’d finally lost all my marbles. Either way, if this was my last hurrah, I was going with a bang.
I tucked the gun back into its holster, because.... Yeah, that’s so coming with me. Then I drew a hasty outline of a sword in the ground in front of me. I’d already asked a lot of my abilities, but building a sword out of dirt? Yeah, I’d lost my marbles.
I held both hands over the drawing. “Power of Earth, I invoke thee. In my time of need, I summon thee forth to make whole what I have wrought.” Was the fancy language necessary? Nah, the elements didn’t care, but it made spellcasting and invocations more meaningful for me—focus and all that jazz.
Light sparkled at the base of the hilt and traveled down the indention, until my entire drawing glowed. “Thank you, O’ Earth, for your blessings. Thanks be to the gods that my aim be swift and true. So mote it be.”
With a held breath, I reached into the glow and was rewarded by cool metal in my palm. I curled fingers around the hilt and lifted a thin rapier from the cave floor. Magick thrummed down my arm.
“Little witch.” There was a note of, dare I say, awe in his voice now.
I turned around, sword shiny and raised like a torch. “I’m right here, you asshole.”
Simon handed the shotgun off to a minion, drew the scimitars from his belt, and spun them in his palm.
My heart sank. Not that I expected Matrix-like instant abilities to wield this magickal sword, but it occurred to me that I was a mouse, albeit a Mighty Mouse, standing in front of a snake.
Fuck my life.
It was too late to go back now, so I marched on, the cave lit up like a million Yuletide lights, and stood to face him. “Is there any way we could sit down with drinks and discuss this like civilized people?”
Simon blinked at me, a smile spreading across his serpentine lips to show off his sharp fangs. “I think you know the answer to that question, little witch.”
“My name,” I said, trying not to grind my teeth to pulp, “is Zoë Delante. If you’re going to try to kill me, you should know that.”
He raised a brow. “Try? There is no try.”
“Indeed,” I said, and added in bet Yoda impression, “Do or do not.” I rested the sword on one shoulder and raised a hand to look at my nails. “Bored now.”
