Page 38 of A Blade of Lies and Spirits

Walker and Chance shifted back among the trees, the fog swallowing them whole. Joan remained a shadow in the mist. An odd flicker of concern bothered me as Walker left my view.

I rushed through the clingy mist. The door was twenty paces to the right, the gunroom next to it. Just beyond the door, I cannoned into an unmoving armored bulk. The guard didn’t respond when I bounced: time still slowed. I grabbed the combat knife and pistol, unsnapped the seals holding the armor together, and cut her exposed throat. Dots of red within the line of the cut. She’d bleed out when time started running normally again.

Joan’s magic was a wispy, pervasive presence carried by mist, while Chance’s burned and Walker’s froze in the garden. The house had become an unhealthy place.

The woman’s helmet gave me eye protection, while the still-running internal fan would provide a measure of protection from inhaled attacks. Joan’s fog carried some kind of interference that negated the helmet’s sensor array; they would have to target us visually.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

The door bumped open at a nudge from my hip, and I slid into the gunroom. It held rank upon rank of firearms, from antiques to the latest military issue, since Robert had a collector’s license and the money to afford the newest toys. He had better pieces in his armory than what was available on the military or black market. Spotlights shone on the prizes of the collection: a disruptor and a revolver from the early twentieth century.

Robert used discreet force fields to protect his collection from idle hands. He’d been too cheap to select the biometrics option. The passcode he’d come up with, a simple string of numbers and letters, I’d memorized the first time he keyed a gun open in my sight. Worse, he used the same code for all of them.

I keyed the code in on the pad, then pulled the Q139 pulse laser from the wall. Since William was a thorough commander, I counted the security code as compromised. I keyed in the destruct order.

Confirm? The red light blinked at me and I pushed it. I ran out of the room, the red glow of melting plastics and metal speeding me on my way.

Good. They wouldn’t be able to pull the nerve weapons or disruptors down to use them against us.

I’d practiced with lasers when I was pregnant. It was a basic part of training for law enforcement, and Silver had forced me to sit through all the classes on weapons and procedures. Boredom made me learn, since even a droning lecture was more interesting than the blank walls in the learning cubicles. And that had been my only occupation for weeks.

I fiddled with the controls and narrowed the beam. The Q139 could get through armor rated against lasers, but only on a narrow beam. I hoped it would be enough.

Keeping low, I ducked through the opposite door into the sitting room. Unable to see them, I threaded my way through the delicate furnishings. I shot three armored figures as I ran to the stairs, then dashed up. I shoved the sentry at the top over the ebony banister. The fog was much thinner on the second level. I fired at another merc standing in the hall on the top floor. He hadn’t been visible from the sitting room.

Outside, the rain crashed as the downpour resumed, and the merc collapsed to the floor, the black hole in his chest armor wisping smoke.

I dropped behind the banister. Smoke from the wood trim stung my nose. Faint hissing from below confirmed that their covering fire was directed at my position, rather than any approach Walker or Chance might be making. The hissing was a built-in sound effect required by the Guild government; lasers were silent. These must be new, since the noise was the first feature a covert troop disabled after the identification tags.

I wished I had a grenade to drop. Grenades didn’t need much in the way of precision.

“Hey, William, how’s it hanging?” I yelled.

“Just fine, bitch. The money for your worthless hide will help pay for that.” The answer came from down the hall on the same level, rather than below. He stepped out of the master bedroom, still tall and broad, though I couldn’t tell how well they’d fixed his face, as his helmet covered it.

Damn. The red dot of light shone on my chest as I looked down.

“Up, nice and slow, ’Lys. Take the helmet off. Drop the guns, and keep in mind I want you dead. Hands behind your head.”

His aim didn’t waver at the screams from below as the air pressure changed and a wave of reeking smoke and fire rolled up the stairs. The weapons room had finally detonated.

I gagged and doubled over, exaggerating the effects as I bolted down the hall in the opposite direction, crouching.

William was faster than I remembered. The shot burned my right shoulder before I’d taken two steps. I staggered, and his gauntleted fist tangled in my hair. He jerked me forward, heading in the direction I’d tried to run, toward the upstairs study. He dropped the rifle and dug his pistol in under my chin. I cooperated with him in seeking cover as more screams and a second wave of heat rippled up from the sitting room.

He kicked the door in and shoved me face down onto the Persian carpet. His knee dug into my back as plastic restraints secured my wrists and elbows before I could get to the knife shoved through my belt. Using my hair as a handhold, he yanked, and I shifted back to my knees. “Who’s with you? Where’s the kid?”

“My current.” I grinned at him. “The short guy. Dunno who the oth—”

The cartilage in my nose cracked and crunched when his slap connected. Blood hit the cream-colored wall in a bright spray. It poured down my face like a faucet as the backhand that followed loosened teeth.

The sharp stinging ache in my face was as bad as any injury I’d taken before, and my eyes swelled so much that it was hard to see. Half-blind, I struggled to touch my face before I remembered the zip ties.

“It’s a good look on you,” William said. “Have to do it a couple more times before we get down to business.”

He pulled me to my feet, using my arms to control my movement. I kicked back as hard as I could, trying not to choke on blood.

A grunt rewarded me. “Gotten lazy, ‘Lys? Barely felt that.”

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