Chapter 30: Shifting the Element
Brennan couldn't help the involuntary curse. He should have known it had been too easy thus far. "I don't suppose you guys'll just put down the guns and surrender," he asked the four men now standing alert in the living room of the house.
The automatic weapons clicked into readiness.
Shalimar glanced over to Brennan. I guess not, she thought, diving behind the couch as all four men fired at them. The flimsy couch was more effective at stopping the men from shooting at what they couldn't see than actually stopping bullets. She didn't have much time. It wouldn't take long for them notice that she hadn't gone anywhere else and would simply shoot through the furniture. Frantically, she looked over to Brennan, who had been able to take refuge in a narrow hallway branching off the room.
He caught her look and took action. He thrust his arm out, sending a surge of electrical energy at the men. The black vests the men wore absorbed the blue tendrils; all four men remained standing. But it was enough.
The men must not have been accustomed to the vests; they still flinched, distracted long enough for Shalimar to dart from behind the couch and toward the hallway to where Brennan waited. It was a close call, and she could fell the breeze from a couple bullets whizzing past as the men recovered and started shooting again.
"It's been a while since they've taken a shot. Think they're gone?"
Jesse raised an eyebrow, silently asking, Are you serious?
"Yeah, okay." Her fingers resumed tapping against her thigh. She cracked her knuckles.
Both sounds managed to grate on Jesse's already frayed nerves. He sighed and opened his mouth to tell her to calm down when a voice interrupted.
"Jesse? Lexa?"
He abandoned his intention. "Yeah? Katie, what have you got?"
"I finally managed to get through those firewalls and got a thermal reading on that house. Besides the four of you, there are seven heat signatures. A couple of minutes ago, they were all moving around, but now two of them are stationary in the back yard."
Lexa's hands shifted to her hips. "So Brennan and Shalimar are here."
"Yeah," Katie confirmed. "As for the rest of the other guys, one is in a room on the back side of the house, and the remaining four are in the front room, and they seemed to have been drawn off by something. I managed to get a fix on Bren and Shal's com signals and David brought up the building's specs. They're in a hallway on the ground floor, and based on the patterns on the thermal scan, I'd say –"
"Jesse, Lexa! We're pinned down in here." Brennan's voice yelled over the thwap of bullets and sizzle of tesla coils.
Jesse looked at Lexa as he sprung up from his kneeling position. "We're already on our way."
For the third time, Brennan sent electricity flying toward the men. It didn't seem to matter if he aimed for the chest or the legs or the head. The suit managed to absorb the extra energy from any part of the wearer's body. Frustrated, he retreated back behind the wall. "Damn," he told Shalimar. "They must have made some improvements to those things. It doesn't matter where I hit them. Is there a way out this way?" He indicated the other end of the hall with a nod of his head.
Shalimar shook her head. "No. I checked. There's only a laundry room with no windows and a half bath with a tiny window. I'd be able to get through it, but I don't think you'd be able to."
"Well then get the hell out of here."
"Brennan…"
"Oh, don't go thinking I'm going all noble…"
"Don't worry, I wasn't," she said promptly.
He tilted his head and couldn't stop a modicum of hurt from entering his features.
Shalimar rolled her eyes. "I just wanted to make sure that you were sure. I'll see if I can get around and come at them from behind."
Brennan smiled. "I'll keep them distracted," he said as she turned toward the bathroom door. "Be careful, okay."
She turned back for a half second as she went through the bathroom door. "Always," she said with a smile.
He laughed and turned back to the task at hand. This time, he sent electricity at the nearby television. The appliance promptly short circuited and blew into pieces.
Jesse and Lexa crept along the side of the house, careful to stay below window level. Massing in case a bullet came flying his way, Jesse rose up and glanced through the front window. Coming back down, he turned to Lexa. "All four of them are in the front room. Brennan's doing what he can, but his power's not having much of an effect against them. If we go in through the front door, we'll come up on their back left side. They're focused on Brennan right now…"
"…so let's move while the surprise is back on our side," she finished, already moving toward the door.
Jesse agreed, and together they moved to and through the front door, Jesse making sure to put Lexa behind him. With the caution and efficiency of experienced fighters, they moved around the furniture slowly, trying to avoid the gunmen's peripheral vision. At almost the same time, they noticed that the four men, who all wore black but differed in slightly in height and build, had finally stopped flinching at Brennan's attacks and had started to advance on his position. Before Lexa could do anything, Jesse was moving, leaping over the coffee table, on his way to intercepting the four gun-wielding thugs.
Lexa cursed silently and automatically took up a support position, and what happened next happened almost too fast for her to comprehend.
Jesse slid in between the four men and Brennan, automatically massing. The men reacted, all four of them unloading their weapons on Jesse. It only took a few seconds for the magazines to empty, and that was all the time it took for Lexa to jump at them from behind. She attacked the nearest one, knocking him down. His weapon clattered to the floor and Lexa seized the opportunity to kick it to the other side of the room with her left foot. While the other three struggled to reload, Jesse unmassed and swept out with a high roundhouse kick, hitting them on the hands and knocking the guns from two more sets of hands. Knowing they had no chance or time to retrieve and reload their weapons, the two men charged Jesse, who stopped one hit by throwing up an arm and reduced the other to a glancing blow by twisting away. The fourth man, who had been just out of reach from Jesse's sweeping kick, managed to retrieve another magazine from his belt. Glancing down, he slid it home with a click audible over the grunts and thuds of the engaging combatants. Lexa, leaping back to avoid a high kick, wondered how the hell the guy expected to fire accurately now that they were in such close, scrambled quarters. She didn't have to worry long though, because just as the young Asian raised the gun to fire, a booted foot arced in and knocked it away. Blond hair swirled as a figure vaulted over his head and a fist shot out, connecting solidly with the side of his head.
No longer the decoy, and with the threat of firearms gone, Brennan quickly rushed out from the hall. Reaching out he grabbed the shoulders of one of the men who was attacking Jesse. Spinning the lean, wiry black man around, Brennan dealt him a powerful uppercut. To the thug's credit, he shrugged it off and retaliated with a swing of his own. Brennan blocked, and threw another punch. The man lashed out, hooking the back of Brennan's foot. Feeling his balance go, Brennan used his other foot to add momentum to the tumble and he managed to flip instead of fall. The act put distance between the two combatants, but the other man was already closing.
Now that he only had one opponent, Jesse was less hurried. It may have been a while since he was really out in the field, but the instincts were coming back in a hurry, he realized, as he exchanged a series of blows with the other man. The man danced back to avoid one of Jesse's punches, but came back charging. Taking a quick breath, Jesse phased, and the man, his fist leading the charge, passed right through him, momentum taking him down toward the ground. Before he even hit, Jesse had returned to normal density and swung down and around, delivering a sharp uppercut to the falling man. He landed face first on the hardwood floor, unconscious.
Jesse straightened and looked over the man, making sure he was truly unconscious. Seeing that he was, Jesse let one hand trail to and rub his shoulder, where one of the men had landed a blow. Looking left, he saw Shalimar kick out and flip spin backward, landing on the back of her now fallen opponent. Ouch, he thought, remembering the high heeled boots Shal was wearing that day. On his right, Lexa was kicked a man square in the face as he scrambled up from his knees. The man lolled over onto his back and lay still, blood dripping from his nose. The two women, finished with their fights came over to Jesse and together, the three of them stood there, watching Brennan engage the last goon.
Brennan was exchanging punches with the man, none of them landing. Finally, Brennan found enough of an opportunity. The other man followed one punch with another too quickly, leaving his midsection unprotected. While blocking one arm, Brennan ducked under the other flying fist and sent a powerful punch to the solar plexus. The man doubled over, giving Brennan the chance to level a two fisted punch at his head, knocking him out and to the ground. Brennan relaxed, letting his breath even, pulling his coat back into place. Turning his head, he saw that Shalimar, Jesse and Lexa were standing, hands on hips or crossed over their chests.
Brennan's mouth quirked. "Yeah, I know. Took me long enough, right?"
