Mercenary Magic (8 page)

There wasn’t anything Sera could say that wouldn’t make this worse. The best she could hope for was to distract him long enough that she could get away. “Glyphs?”

He took the bait. “Ancient, powerful magic. It’s not used by many mages anymore. I recognize these glyphs. They are a gateway.”

“You use them to teleport?”

“Yes.” He bent down to get a closer look at them.

“Where do they lead to?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. As I said, it’s old magic. I’ve never used it before. I know only what I’ve read in books.”

“Well, now we know how your thieves keep vanishing into thin air.”

“So it would seem.” He brushed his fingers across one of the glyphs. “There’s still magic in these. It’s mostly decayed, but there’s a little left.” He looked up at her. “Sera, I want you to touch these glyphs.”

“Why?”

He rose. “When I was in school, my Diagnosis teacher added the Sniffer label to my profile. Do you know what a Sniffer is?”

“Someone who can sense the presence of magic.”

“Right. It’s like what I was telling you earlier about monsters being drawn to magic. Some mages can pick up on it too. About one in a hundred can sense it to some degree. And one in a thousand feel magic strongly enough to follow it to its source. They’re called Sniffers. My teacher told me I was one of the strongest Sniffers she’d ever seen.”

“Just another one of your ‘many talents’?”

Kai didn’t look amused. “These glyphs were buried under so many cloaking layers that I couldn’t find them. You did. I’ve never felt magic like yours, and we
are
going to talk about it. Right after we figure out where this gateway leads.”

Before Sera could come up with an answer to that, a burst of magically-charged lightning split through the sky and crashed down between them. A moment later, a trio of mages stepped onto the parking lot. And they sure didn’t look happy to see them.

CHAPTER NINE

Elemental Circus

HALOS OF LIGHTNING and fire encased the three mages. As they walked across the parking lot, a second burst of lightning split through the magically-charged air. Kai bumped Sera aside, lifting his arm to catch the lightning. Blue-purple sparks slid up and down his arm, then fizzled out in his hand.

“You absorbed it,” Sera said, her voice cracking.

“The lightning bolt was more flashy than powerful,” he replied calmly. “I can absorb low-quality magic.”

“What are you calling ‘low-quality magic’?” demanded the lightning mage. The tips of her spiky blonde hair sizzled with pink sparks. Her nose ring would have made a bull envious.

The two male mages on either side of her remained silent, their arms folded across their chests. They each wore an identical hoody featuring a peculiar arch over a string of symbols. They could have been sweatshirts from one of the magic fraternities. Their electric companion wore a leather jacket over purposefully torn jeans. From the looks of it, she was the one in charge.

“Either your magic is low quality, or I am a mage you really don’t want to cross.” Kai shrugged. “Take your pick.”

A haughty sneer bounced off her coral lips. “You’re in my way, hotshot. Either get lost or get hurt.” The sneer spread further up her lips. Electric sparks crackled in her smokey-blue eyes. “Take your pick.”

Kai didn’t blink. He stepped forward, flipping his hands over. A layer of golden sparks spread out from his palms, quickly consuming his hands.

In response, Miss Lightning arched back, throwing her hands over her head. A swirling ball of electrical energy formed between them, its sparkly tendrils snapping at the air. She hurled it hard at Kai. He ducked, and it smashed into the building behind him, tearing a concrete chunk off the corner.

The hooded mages moved in front of Sera, cutting her off from the lightning duel. In unison, they spread their arms open. Rocks and gravel rose from the ground all around her.

“Telekinetics, huh?” she said.

The mages grinned, manic delight dancing in their eyes. The stony bits formed into a chunky river that began to orbit around the parking lot, like an asteroid belt on earth. Sera looked down at the sword in her hand. It suddenly felt horribly inadequate.

“Step aside,” said telekinetic twin number one.

“You are no match for us,” added number two.

“You are weak.”

“And we are too powerful.”

Hit someone hard enough, and they’ll go down—well, except maybe a vampire. Damn vampires. Sera hated vampires. They had skulls of steel. Hitting them was like punching a wrecking ball.

Assorted signs tore off the fence and joined into the home-brewed asteroid belt, which continued to spin like the apocalypse was upon them. One of the signs shot out of orbit. Sera ducked, narrowly avoiding what would have been the most bizarre beheading in the history of the world. Rising up again, she glared at the mages. Telekinetics weren’t much better than vampires.

“Give up.”

“If you want to live.”

They sounded like a pair of robotic henchmen out of a cheesy science fiction movie.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll take my chances.”

Sheathing her sword, Sera picked the battered ‘Private Property’ sign off the ground, keeping her eyes trained on the twins. Most mages had a dead giveaway that they were about to do magic, even when they were trying to be all stealth about it. In the case of the telekinetic boys, that giveaway was a twitch in their noses that made them look like they seriously had to sneeze.

She eased forward toward them. She made it three steps before Telekinetic Twin Number One’s nose wiggled, and a wad of something stony shot out of the belt. She lifted up the sign in front of her, using it as a shield. A hollow, heavy clink echoed as the stone bounced off. She peeked over her shield, only to find a flock of stones swarming toward her.

She looked back at the building, then at the smirking mages in front of her. There wasn’t time to be smart; she just had to hope that being fast was good enough. She sprinted for the twins. The stony swarm changed direction to intercept her. Sera pushed herself faster. Her sides burned. Her lungs were screaming out for oxygen. She couldn’t stop to give it to them. She stopped, she died. The end.

The swarm dove low and hard. She threw herself forward, stones spitting against the ground, ricocheting at her heels. She landed and rolled, angling toward the twins. If she could just get to them, she’d win. Mages like these—ones who depended on their magic to keep them safe—were total lightweights. They couldn’t take a punch. And for the hell they were putting her through, she’d be sure to gift them a few extra punches.

She was almost there. The swarm changed direction again. The backs of her legs felt like they were on fire. The swarm dove. Just a few more steps…

An ice umbrella formed over her head, then spread up like a rainbow, encasing the entire swarm. Sera looked up, her eyes following the frozen arch speckled with stones—then pivoted around to Kai. He was standing over the unconscious lightning mage, brushing snowflakes off his hands. It was a regular elemental circus today.

“You’re welcome.”

She glared at him.

“Careful there, Sera. When you’re upset, your wall cracks. I’m getting a whiff of your magic.” He inhaled long and deep. “Mmm. Delicious.” He shot her a roguish smile. Which she ignored. Or pretended to, anyway.

“I had it.”

“Really? Because it looked to me like you were in distress.”

In distress, my ass.
“I had it,” she ground out, passing under the ice rainbow.

She spun around, launching herself up to slam a kick hard against the twins’ heads. One, two, they went down like a pair of dominoes. See? That’s what she meant. Total lightweights.

“Good,” Kai said as she passed back under the rainbow.

“I’m glad you approve,” she said drily.

“Fighting without magic against magical foes certainly has forced you to be creative.”

“Yes.”

“But you’d make it much easier on yourself if you just used your magic,” he said. “Why don’t you? What are you afraid of? That you’ll get addicted?”

That happened to some mages. They used their powers so much that they turned into magic junkies, always after the next hit. The quest for the next hit quickly escalated into mages going mad, attacking people randomly until the Magic Council sent in a team to deal with the menace. Sometimes, the Magic Council was too slow to act, and that’s when scared people started flocking to Mayhem and the other mercenary guilds, begging them to take out the psycho mage well on his way to turning their neighborhood into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Sera had once been on a team Simmons had charged with taking out one of these magic junkies—and she had the scars to remember him by. Mages drunk on magic were powerful and resilient. They didn’t feel pain like a normal person would. To them, it was just background noise. The power was all that mattered. Using that power was all that mattered. Sort of like Finn when she’d fought him, come to think of it.

“Are you afraid you’ll get addicted to the magic?” he repeated.

“No.”

“You think you can avoid talking about this. You can’t,” said Kai.

“Sure I can. Just. Like. This.” Sera turned and started to walk away.

“Running away?”

“Walking away.”

Behind her, ice roared, and she pivoted around to watch the entire rainbow collapse like a shattered mirror. A million shiny shards rained down on Kai. They burst into flames, dissolving into whiffs of steam before they could touch him.

“What is the matter with you!” she demanded, charging up to him. “Normal people don’t act like this. They don’t—”

He body-slammed her to the ground, rolling as they fell so that she landed on top of him. Something whistled over their heads.

“What the hell do you think—”

He pressed his finger to her lips, then pointed across the parking lot at the fence that separated his plot from Battery Spencer next door. Magic rippled down the metal web, tearing it from the posts.

“Oh, so you’re telekinetic too? Wow, aren’t you one special guy.” She jumped off of him.

He rose from the ground. “I’m not telekinetic.”

“What?”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Then who is?”

“I am,” a woman’s shrill voice sang out.

Sera turned. The mage was standing on top of one of the buildings, her arms extended high to the heavens. Nearby, Miss Lightning stumbled shakily to her feet and pounded her fist against the ground. A river of lightning split across the asphalt, hitting the glyphs, which burst into a halo of glowing light.

The telekinetic swung her arms around, and the metal web shot toward them. A second lightning blast hit Kai in the chest, knocking him back. As he fell toward the shining glyphs, Sera reached out and grabbed his hands, pulling hard.

But the blast was too strong, its momentum sucking her up. They both fell through the glyphs into darkness.

CHAPTER TEN

Falling

SERA HIT THE ground, dirt and pebbles scraping against her bare shoulder as she slid down the hill. She slammed face-first into a spiky bush, which stopped her uncontrolled descent. It also hurt like hell.

A hand caught her around the wrist, pulling her to her feet. She glanced back at Kai. His clothes were neat, his face clean. He certainly didn’t look like a tornado had sucked him up and spit him out. How was that even possible? He’d been fighting just like she had.

“You’re hurt,” he said.

Sera followed his gaze down her legs to the mess that was her jeans. The bottoms were frayed and dirty, and a thick spread of pointy stones had sunk through the fabric and into her calves. That explained the burning sensation that had been steadily growing since the fight.

“I’ll be fine.”

His eyes narrowed, and his lips drew thin. “How much pain are you in right now?”

None, because I’ve blocked out most sensation below my knees.
“I’ll be fine.”

“Are you always this stubborn?”

“Yep. Stubborn and rude. That’s me.”

Sighing, he pointed at a nearby boulder jammed into the hill. “Sit. I’m going to take a look at those wounds.”

She considered telling him to shove it, but he was right. She was hurt. If someone else decided to attack them—which, based on how splendidly her day had played out so far, was pretty likely—she’d be next to useless in this state. And if there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was being useless. She could be mature for a few seconds and let Kai take a look at her torn-up legs.

“Will I live?” she asked, wiping the back of her hand across her dusty, sweaty forehead.

Kai looked up from scrutinizing her ruined jeans. “No.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He flipped open his pocket knife.

“I hope you’re not thinking of amputating anything with that toy.”

“If I don’t amputate your jeans, your blood will paste them to these puncture wounds.”

Resigned to her fate, she waved for him to proceed with the operation. As he began to cut, she kept her eyes high. She didn’t need to watch her favorite pair of jeans be butchered. Those mages were going to pay. She didn’t know how, but she was going to make sure of that.

“So, we’ve been transported across the bridge,” she said, staring out toward the water. The Golden Gate Bridge shone red-gold in the warm afternoon sun.

“Yes.”

Snip. Snip. Snip. The tiny scissors were taking forever, but she supposed they were preferable to her sword.

“At least it wasn’t across the country,” she added. “If we hurry, maybe those mages will still be there.”

He set a hand on her shoulder, pushing her back down onto the boulder. “Remain seated. If you keep going on like this, you’ll pass out.” He continued cutting away the bottoms of her jeans. “I messaged the facility’s security and told them to protect the vault.”

“So, did you manage this feat while we were falling through the glyphs or while you were rescuing me from the clutches of that disgruntled bush?”