Chapter 12

"It's a fragging city spirit!" Diana shouted

Without thinking I shouldered the Colt and clamped down on the trigger, spewing a stream of high-velocity slugs at the rusted monstrosity. Bullets pinged and ricocheted off of its corroded hide, but still the spirit continued to claw its way free of the detritus at its feet.

"Bullets aren't going to work, goddamn it!" Diana yelled. "There's not enough force of will behind a gun!"

"You could have told me that earlier," I growled as the magazine ran dry and the Colt clicked on empty.

"Can't you dispel it or something?" Sugar asked.

Daina shook her head. "I can try, but it's going to take a while. I can't do it and concentrate on the rest of the drek going on in here too."

The city spirit stooped by a portion of the fallen catwalk and hooked its hands under the torn metal. With a rending shriek, the spirit tore the catwalk from its moorings and flung it in our direction. We scattered as the walk bounced and clattered along the concrete floor. The somersaulting debris barely missed us, sailing just inches above our heads before finally coming to a halt scarcely ten feet away. Before we had a chance to react, the spirit had already started moving toward us.

"The shaman who summoned this thing has to be around here somewhere," Diana shouted. "I'll take care of the spirit. You two find that fragger and flatline him!"

She didn't wait for a response and raised her hands above her head in the beginnings of an incantation. I pulled Sugar after me as Diana finished her spell and thrust her hands toward the spirit. A wave of bluish fire leapt from her fingertips and splashed against the magical behemoth's chest. The fire in its furnace blazed intensely for a brief moment, but otherwise the spirit seemed unphased as it closed the last few paces to Diana's position.

I didn't see what happened after that because soon Sugar and I were engaged in a headlong flight along the factory floor. The spirit left us alone in favor of Diana, but we still weren't out of the woods yet. One of the sec-goons fired on us from the far doorway, but a blast from Sugar's shotgun sent him diving for cover. We reached the doorway a few seconds later. I pressed my back against the wall and ejected the spent clip from my Colt. I slammed a fresh one in and chambered the first bullet, and glanced to Sugar where she stood on the side of the doorway. She finished reloading her weapon and gave me a curt nod. I nodded in return and leaned around the corner, triggering a pair of minigrenades from the Colt's under-barrel grenade launcher.

The first round slammed into the far wall before a burst of automatic fire chased me back through the doorway. I switched back to standard mode and blindly reached around the corner to spray the room with suppression fire. Inside I heard the room's occupants scatter, evidently diving for cover.

"Go!" I shouted to Sugar, anxious to press our advantage before the yabos inside were able to recover. We swept in, weapons held before us like executioners marching toward the gallows.

The room inside was a mess. It had evidently been an office once because various bits of decrepit office furniture lay strewn about the interior. Several of the desks had been upended and positioned near the back corner where the last pocket of resistance was holed up. Sugar opened fire at another goon as he made a headlong rush for the make-shift barrier. Her hasty shots blasted huge chunks out of the cinderblock wall behind him, but still he made it through the hail of bullets unscathed.

I hadn't fully raised my weapon before I clamped down on the trigger. I rode the recoil of the yammering assault rifle upward, stitching a ragged line across the floor and into the far wall. The gunman leaped into the air just as a trio of bullets slammed into his side. Instead of sailing over the barricade as he had intended, his body slammed into one of the desks head first. He struck with a bone-crushing thud and sunk to the ground.

Even before his body had come to a stop, we were in motion. I headed straight for the barricade as Sugar swept around to the side. With the neurostun gas permeating the room, I didn't expect the rest of them to offer up much resistance, but still I wasn't taking any chances. Thus I wasn't surprised when, with a hacking cough, one of them rose up behind a fallen filing cabinet. He was dressed in a black duster with a mangy mane of hair and multiple talismans hanging from his neck and shoulders—no doubt the shaman we were looking for. In spite of all the gas, he coughed and started to move his hands in the act of casting a spell.

I clamped down on the trigger and pumped a trio of shots into his abdomen. The air around him briefly flashed in an opaque film as the rounds slammed into some kind of magical barrier, but the force of the blast was still enough to knock him off his feet. He fell backward, his head and arms curling inward toward his body like a scared turtle drawing up into its shell. I advanced forward, pumping more rounds into his fallen form. As I poured the fire on, the magical shield grew fainter and fainter until finally it flashed and disappeared altogether. Crimson flowers bloomed on his chest as lead met with tender flesh. He gave a gurgling sigh and went limp as his lifeblood spread around him in a growing pool of vermillion.

Then the Colt's magazine clicked dry. I started to reach for another reload, but froze as I caught a blur of movement out of the corner of my eye. One of Rei's yabos stood just to my side—the same suit we'd seen at the distribution center earlier that day. Despite the neurostun gas, he stood tall over the sprawling female form at his feet, making it painfully obvious he had some sort of toxin filtration system installed in his meat. More importantly, though, he had an Ares Predator in hand, holding it unwaveringly at my face.

He started to say something, but suddenly his knee cap exploded in a haze of red as a slug from Sugar's shotgun tore into the unprotected joint. The Predator fell from his hands, and he pitched forward as his leg literally went to jelly. I glanced to where Sugar stood just a few meters away and gave her a nod of thanks, then turned my attention back to the suit. I gave his face a few love taps from the butt of my rifle and tickled his ribs a bit with my steel-toed boots. When I was satisfied he wasn't going to be getting up any time soon, I hauled his shattered form off of the woman beneath him and rolled him over to the side.

Rei lay on her stomach, her chocolate-brown hair strewn about her head in disarray. She wore a pair of jeans and a leather jacket with a Seattle Timber Wolves logo emblazoned on the back—a far cry from the charcoal business suit I'd seen her in last. At first I thought she was unconscious, but then she gasped, reaching for the goon's Predator where it had fallen on the floor.

Calmly I slung the empty colt across my back and drew the Warhawk from its shoulder holster. I grabbed her by the nape of her neck and pressed the muzzle of the revolver into the back of her head. "Make another move and I blow your fragging head off."

With the effects of the gas, I didn't know if she actually understood what I was saying or not, but she sure as hell understood what my gun was saying. She froze, her fingers just inches from their prize.

In the faint light, I caught a glimmer from the inscription along the weapon's side—With this bullet, I thee wed. I wanted so badly to plug a hole in the back of her head and end this thing once and for all. I wanted my revenge so bad that I could taste it, fermenting in the back of my palate like a swig of bathtub gin. But I couldn't go through with it. My vengeance would have to be sated later. We still had a job to do, and I wanted answers.

I growled and scooped up the other pistol, tucking it into my waist band before grabbing Rei by the back of her jacket and rolling her over face-up. Her Eurasian features were red and flushed, and her cheeks were streaked with tears from the gas, but she still looked the same as I remembered. Again I pushed down extraneous emotions and pulled a tranq patch from one of my vest pockets. I peeled off the backing and pressed the patch to her neck. As soon as she realized what was going on, she started to struggle, but her fight was short lived. Absorbed directly through her skin, the drug took effect almost immediately, and in a matter of minutes she was unconscious.

I bent forward and hoisted her body onto my shoulder, clicking the commlink as I went.

"Diana, how are things going out there?"

The voice that filtered through seemed haggard and drained. "I've got things covered. Just mopping up now."

"Okay, we're on our way out. Blitz, you still there?"

"Yeah," came the weary voice. "That dumpshock when the Lynx bought it through me for a loop, but I'm alright."

"Any sign of trouble out there?"

"Nope. I think we scared the drek out of some squatters, but I'm not getting a peep out of Lonestar or any of the gangs."

"Good. Get ready to slot and run. We're out of here."

With Rei in tow, Sugar and I made for the exit. As soon as we reached the factory floor, we saw Diana and the city spirit, but things had changed since the last time we laid eyes on them. The spirit's corporeal form had collapsed on the ground, and Diana stood at its head where the furnace still glowed faintly. Upon our arrival, she lurched forward and struck the thing's head with the palm of her hand. There was a brief shudder before the light in the furnace finally died and the behemoth's rusted parts clattered to the ground, inanimate once more.

She straightened as we approached and took off her gas mask with a weary sigh. "Goddamn that sucker was pissed off."

"Are you okay?" I asked

She nodded. "Yeah, all that magic just took it out of me."

Sugar moved over and helped her to her feet. "Good, now let's get out of here before people start snooping around."

"Agreed."

We headed out the way we had come in, scrambling over rubble and debris on our way to where the van waited just beyond the fence-line. I heaved Rei's body into the back and stepped up after her. Sugar and I helped Diana in, and then Blitz hit the accelerator, sending us screeching off into the night.

I ripped my gas mask off and collapsed in the floor, my breath coming in weary pants as the battle exertion finally caught up with me.

Blitz craned his neck backward to look at me. "You gonna call Michelson and arrange the meet?"

I swallowed and shook my head. "No."

"No?"

Suddenly all eyes were upon me as I shook my head again. "No. We're going to get some answers before we hand her over. We're going back to the safe house. Michelson can wait a few hours."