Just Cause Universe 2: The Archmage (13 page)

Jack stepped forward, pistol raised. “Hold it right there, sucker.”

Frazier
smiled coolly. “Simpleton.” He made the smallest of gestures with one hand.
Something
passed through the air between him and Jack.

“What the
hell?
” Jack looked perplexed as whatever-it-was lifted him from the ground and suspended him in a swirling cloud of nothingness.

“Magic, fool,” said
Frazier
. Jack was hurled against a wall with enough force to crack the stones behind where his body impacted. He crumpled to the ground and lay still.

“
Jack!
” Sally tried to step forward, but found she couldn’t move. From the angry grunts of her teammates she figured that they were likewise paralyzed.

“Now, William. We can’t have your little friends interfering. You and I have unfinished business.” Tiny sparks rose up from the floor as the Archmage’s heels touched the ground.

“Let them go,
Frazier
. This is between you and me. They’re innocent bystanders in this.”

Frazier
threw back his head and laughed. “Ah, William. Don’t you know by now that
nobody
is innocent?” With a gesture of his hand, Stratocaster’s guitar flew from his grasp. The brilliant white instrument spun through the air and bounced across the floor. Each impact looked like it caused physical pain to Stratocaster.

“
What… do… you… want?
” hissed Juice through lips and teeth that were mostly paralyzed.

“I’m impressed,” said
Frazier
. “Speaking through my magic paralysis has got to be very painful. Perhaps I
will
indulge you. After all, I
am
going to kill you.”

Another cliché
, thought Sally.
He’s going to tell us his plans
.

A new voice interrupted. “Perhaps that’s not such a good idea, my lord.” An older man wearing blue jeans and a cotton work shirt stepped out of the shadows. His silvery hair fell around his face and shoulders and he would have looked more natural on the back of a horse than in a magic castle.

Frazier
lifted a languid arm and Sally felt herself rise into the air. “Why?”
Frazier
asked, full of petulance.

“Suppose they got free? Then they would know about your plans.”

Sally wondered if she could somehow shake herself loose using her super-speed.

“But it’s a
brilliant
plan, Seth, and it’s all going
exactly
as I figured it would. Did you
see
the way that plane went down? Magnificent!”

“Of course, my lord. But just the same… it might be better to merely kill them and be done with it. You have more important tasks than to waste time on these would-be heroes.”

Frazier
rubbed his chin in thought. “Yes, perhaps you’re right. It’s time I began the spell in earnest.”

Sally’s paralysis had slight play, enough to allow her to breathe. She twitched herself back and forth against it by shifting her weight as fast as possible. Each time she moved against it, it gave a fraction of an inch, as if the spell were weakening. If she got free, she only needed a second to close with him and hit him hard on the head. Mage or not, a 600-mile-per-hour punch would knock him into next week.

“Of course, my lord. I’ll begin making prep—” a muffled pop interrupted the man and a bright green feathery growth appeared in the center of his throat. A look of confusion crossed his face before he fell to the ground.

“What?
Seth?
”
Frazier
ran over to the other man and stared down at him in horror. Sally felt the paralysis give a little more.
One
second. Come on
.

“He’s done for the day, and you’re next unless you release my friends right now!” Jack’s voice echoed throughout the large chamber. Sally managed to turn her eyes enough to see him leveling a small pistol at
Frazier
. His clothes were torn, and he was covered with rock dust from where he’d smashed into the castle wall. He’d retrieved Stratocaster’s guitar and hung it over his shoulder by its strap. “That was a tranquilizer dart. This next one’s a bullet. Your move,
Frazier
.”

Sally was never so happy to see Jack alive and in one piece. She renewed her efforts to free herself and wiggled herself back and forth until the room blurred.

“
You shall pay for that!
”
Frazier
rose into the air, his face blotchy and red. Flames limned his hands. Jack fired as
Frazier
cast a jet of incandescent flame at Jack and enveloped him in a burning cloud. The bullet flared briefly in midair and disappeared into acrid vapor.

Jack stepped closer toward
Frazier
, his grin plain through the firestorm around him even as his clothing flashed into ashes. “Can’t hurt me that way. Now knock it off… there are ladies present.” His pistol melted under the onslaught and he dropped the glowing lump of metal.

Frazier
’s eyes narrowed. “Breaking you will be a pleasure. I shall have you lead my armies. An indestructible general.” He halted his fiery attack.

Jack turned to the only thing he had left: Stratocaster’s guitar, somehow incredibly unscathed by the recent abuse it had sustained. Jack swung it around in front of him. “All right, I
really
didn’t want to have to resort to this. Give up,
Frazier
. I’ve got a guitar and it’s loaded.”

Frazier
’s eyes narrowed. “You’re bluffing. You hold no power.”

Jack lowered his right hand to the strings, ready to strum. “You want to find out the hard way?”

Sally struggled at the magical bonds which held her in place, but to no avail; they wouldn’t weaken any more than they already had.

Frazier
raised his arms over his head, a gesture not of surrender but of aggression. “
You have no power!
” he screamed. His palms glowed with a violet aura.

Jack brought his hand down across the strings and released a discordant shriek from the white guitar. Sally and the others were dumped to the ground as
Frazier
’s magical bonds dissolved.

A glowing, swirling storm of energy the size of a baseball appeared in the air between
Frazier
and Jack.

“Jack, give me the guitar,” hissed Stratocaster.

“You
fool!
What have you done?”
Frazier
backed away as the glowing sphere grew to the size of a bowling ball. Sally felt a breeze move past her face toward the energy ball.

An evil grin crossed Jack’s face. “I don’t know. But if you don’t surrender, I’ll do it again.”

“Jack, give me the guitar
right now!
” Stratocaster’s voice was urgent and tinged with fear. The sphere grew to the size of a beach ball and now Sally could feel it pull at her.

“Sally, return Will’s instrument to him.” Juice picked himself up off the ground.

Sally ran to Jack’s side. He handed her the guitar without looking; his eyes never left the Archmage.
Frazier
’s attention was transfixed only on the glowing energy, which continued to swell.

“Ace? You got him?” Jack called toward the Israeli woman.

“Dead to rights, sir,” she replied, her pistol clutched in both hands and leveled at
Frazier
.

As Sally handed the guitar over to Stratocaster,
Frazier
waved a hand and circles of crackling blue lightning enveloped him, his assistant, and Jack. The three men vanished.

“
Jack!
” screamed Sally.

The sphere in the center of the room grew to the size of a small car. Sally felt her feet skid across the floor toward it.

“Will, can’t you stop it?” called Juice.

“I’m
trying
.” Stratocaster played hard and fast. His fingers flew across the fretboard. Sparks danced around him like he was an Independence Day attraction. Everyone looked for anchor points as the pull of the sphere increased.

Ace lost her footing and slid toward it. Her gun spilled from her fingers and whirled into the vortex to vanish with a crackle like an overloaded capacitor. Sally leaped forward and locked her hands around Ace’s wrists to help brace her and keep her from sliding into the glowing ball. She felt hands on her ankles and glanced back to see Shannon hanging onto her, her face contorted with grim determination. A moment later, Juice added his own considerable weight to try to anchor them all.

There was a flash of lightning and a powerful smell of ozone filled the air. The thunder nearly deafened them all. A crack appeared on the front of Stratocaster’s guitar. “
Shit,
I’m losing it!”

Sally gasped as Ace left the floor, pulled straight toward the heart of the swirling vortex. Her own body lifted as well as the sphere’s pull exceeded even the Earth’s gravity. Blood pooled in her head and made her vision go red. Sally felt like her arms might rip right from their sockets. Ace looked into her eyes with resigned hopelessness and released her hold on Sally’s wrists.

“
No!
” growled Sally through clenched teeth. “I won’t let you go.” She owed Ace her life after the pilot had rescued her from a twenty-thousand foot fall over Guatemala in a daring maneuver that could have splattered both of them as well as the
Bettie
across a dozen square miles of jungle.
 

Lightning flared again and one of Stratocaster’s strings broke with a twang. Then another snapped, and in a quick chain reaction the remaining four strings separated. Whatever magic he’d been working failed and his guitar shattered into pieces. He succumbed to the pull of the vortex. Juice lunged out with one hand to snag his ankle as he flew past.

This is
another
fine mess you’ve gotten us into, Stanley
, thought Sally. If Jack was still there, and she’d had any breath to spare, she’d have said it and he would have laughed.

The energy sphere grew again. Ace’s flailing feet contacted it with a flare of dark red energy. The pull increased a thousand fold, and they all disappeared into the whirling storm of energy.

Chapter Eight

“Numerical superiority is of no consequence. In battle, victory will go to the best tactician.”

-
General George Armstrong Custer
 

Location Unknown

The first thing Sally felt was strong heat on her face; she was sweating underneath her breath mask and goggles. Through her closed eyelids, she could see great light as it poured down upon her. She became gradually aware of sounds as they filtered in through the fog in her brain: wind, birds, insects. She wondered if she might be able to move one arm. Pins and needles jabbed through her as her nerves awoke, but she still reached up to pull her goggles and breather mask off. A breeze played across her sweaty, hot face. She rolled onto her side and opened her eyes.

She lay on dry prairie grass on the side of a hill. The bright sky held few clouds. A wave of vertigo and nausea swept over her and she fell back to a prone position, and threw an arm over her face to shield it from the merciless sun. She felt terribly thirsty and her head pounded like a drum solo from Jason’s band. She told herself this was no time to be sick, and made herself look around.

Juice was sprawled face down on the grass, one arm outstretched in Sally’s general direction. Shannon, Stratocaster, and Ace likewise laid in the grass nearby. Juice was closest to her and she thought she could cover that short distance without fainting. She reached him, but only barely. The entire world spun around her for a few moments and threatened to send her careening off into oblivion once more.

She stripped off her gloves and checked for a pulse on Juice’s neck. She sighed in relief when she found a strong one fluttering under her fingertips. “Juice?” she croaked with a mouth almost as dry as the surrounding land.

He stirred and groaned. “What the hell happened?”

Sally licked her lips. “I don’t know, sir. But we’re all here. I mean, all of us who fell into the… the whatever it was.”

Juice rolled up into a sitting position and hung his head forward between his knees. “I haven’t felt this bad since my bachelor party. Let’s make sure nobody’s hurt and then figure out where we are.”

They got the other three awakened in short order. Everyone complained of dizziness and nausea, but other than that nobody was injured.

“Just Cause, this is Juice, come in,” said Juice into his radio. There was no reply. He changed channels. “Doublecharge, Juice. Please respond.”

Sally’s eyes met Ace’s. She found no comfort there.

Juice made one more adjustment to his radio and switched it to the emergency channel. “Breaker nine, breaker nine, anyone receiving this message please reply. This is Juice from Just Cause requesting any agency to respond.”

Only gentle, unbroken static issued from the radio.

“Why do they not answer?” Ace scanned the horizon.

“Where
are
we, anyway?” asked Shannon.

“Any ideas, Will?” asked Juice.

The mage shrugged. “We could be anywhere.”

Sally checked her phone. “No signal at all. I thought these were satellite phones.”

Juice looked skyward, as if he might be able to spot a satellite. Something about the sky struck Sally as odd, but it was Ace who identified it. “No contrails,” she said. “I haven’t seen a sky this empty since 9/11.”

“Feel up to a little run, Sally?” asked Juice.

She nodded. “Yes, sir. How far?”

“Two miles out, circle our position, and report back. And be careful until we find out where we are.”

Sally lit out at an easy lope of sixty miles per hour. She wanted to feel the wind on her face as a reminder she was still alive. Gentle rolling hills filled the landscape, covered with wild grasses and weeds, with a few stands of trees here and there. It was actually very beautiful country, wherever it was.