Page 92 of Junk Magic

“Dark mages. And saving your life. Go!”

“I’m not leaving my people!”

“It’s you they want! This was a trap. Killing Windward was done to draw you here—”

And that seemed to light a fire under Ulmer at least, who said something profane and changed with a snarl, putting himself between his bardric and the end of the alleyway. Sebastian snarled back, and I thought the two were going to have at it right there, even though they barely fit in between the walls. But I didn’t have time to worry about it.

I grabbed my phone, which, of course, was dead. If I’d tried to call out earlier, I would have realized that something was wrong, but I hadn’t. I’d been chatting in the office while the trap was sprung, just as I’d been lying under a tree in my backyard when it was set up.

I’d been on the back foot all day, just a little too loopy, a little too slow. And now, I was about to pay for it. I sent up a distress flare, even knowing how useless it was, because who would see it out here?

And that was the last thought I had that wasn’t in the oh, fuck category, because the enemy were coming. And even though I couldn’t see them yet, because of the way the corridor twisted, there were a lot. My shield almost buckled at the first volley that came ricocheting down the hall, and just that fast, we were out of time.

“Go!” I yelled at Ulmer, who was trying to corral his bardric, and started running ahead, reaching for a gun I didn’t have because I didn’t have anything. For the first time in years, I’d left the house unarmed, not thinking to grab even my crappy, second-best coat.

I’m going to die, I thought, and threw everything I had into my shield, gathering strength and pushing it out in front of me in a wall of magical power, while Sebastian’s entourage poured into the hall from a rock cut doorway I’d just passed. The thick stone must have shielded them from the effects of the disorientation spell, but they nonetheless seemed pretty oblivious. A few of them were still holding coffee mugs or saucers with small slices of cake.

I grabbed one of them by the lapels of a very nice suit, just as the gate gave way. And was immediately replaced by the shield I’d reinforced to the thickness of a bank vault’s door and sent barreling down the corridor. It slammed into place, knocking several mages off their feet on the other side, and I shook my captive.

“Guns?”

“What?” He was a handsome young man with the traditional Were coloring, plus an added flush of confusion on his cheeks.

“Do you have guns? Weapons? Anything?”

“We do.” A small, grandmotherly-looking women with a topknot and skin the color of red mahogany told me. “Got a cache.”

“Get them. Get everything you have. Shoot any mage you see but me.”

“Wait!” the young man said, as I turned him loose. “What—what’s going on?” he looked past me, to where a couple dozen men in black leather coats had washed up against the shield. “Who are they?”

“Dark mages, here to kill you and your bardric. And anybody else they can find. Unless you kill them first!”

“What? No, that can’t be right—” he began, only to be drowned out by a dozen Weres Changing all at once and howling at the gibbous moon, while the old lady reemerged from inside with an armload of shotguns, which she started handing out to everybody else.

“Kill them first!” she yelled, a refrain which was quickly taken up by the part of the crowd who hadn’t been spelled out of their minds.

I heard it echoing down the corridor, along with slamming doors and more wolf howls, but it quickly cut off. The acoustics in here were deliberately terrible, like the non-existent lines of sight. This place had been designed as a killing field.

Let’s hope it lives up to his reputation, I thought, and then the mages were through the gate and flooding this way, along with a host of their friends.

They were met with shotgun shells and a mountain of living fur, but they had individual shields up, like the type riot police use that allow them to fire around the sides. Those were common in battle, where you bled energy and needed to reserve every drop, but it was a bad choice here. With shields deployed, only six attackers could advance at a time in the narrow hall, leaving the rest bunched up behind them.

And it didn’t take the Weres long to realize their advantage. They surged ahead, like a wave breaking onto a beach, only this wave also washed over top of the mages. I saw a Were go down from a spell and several more get strafed by gunfire, but it didn’t stop the rest from leaping over the shields and dropping into the middle of the phalanx, shredding anything they found inside.

Red splattered the mages’ transparent protection, soaked the walls beside them, and slicked the floor below. It was rocky here and slippery, and more than one man went down by having his boots slide out from under him. And once on his back, that was usually it.

With Were speed it took all of a second to disembowel someone, and while one or two of the fallen mages was good enough to get off a spell, including something that slammed a Were into the air and backwards over my head, most weren’t.

Most died horribly, with a gray wolf I vaguely recognized as the surprised young man of a moment ago, turning toward me with a maw filled with somebody’s dripping intestines. He said something, but I was too busy sending a spell to knock back a group of reinforcements to hear. It hit them like a car sized bowling ball, ruining their tight configuration, and that was all the Weres needed.

They jumped them, sending gore flying, but we were too near the arena. The sounds of battle were going to carry, and there’d be more soon—a lot more. Because no way had they attacked Wolf’s Head with anything less than an army.

And then the gray wolf spat out entrails and rounded on me. “Where is the goddamned bardric?”

I didn’t answer, because I didn’t have to. The next second, a tawny bullet shot overhead, leaping past us before we could blink, and using the mages’ remaining shields as stepping stones to vaunt over top of them. And then—

“Shit!” I said, as Ulmer bolted after the boss.

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