Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) (6 page)

The first several BBs did nothing, simply sailing past the
Oni which was too busy fighting the fire extinguisher to notice. Belatedly,
Capie realized that she wasn’t using the fusion spell at all, so the BBs flying
past the beast were being wasted.

The Oni cast a spell, using a blast of plasma to knock the
fire extinguisher up against the wall, smashing and destroying it. As the
monster flipped back around towards Capie, she finally managed to engage the
fusion spell on two BBs.

An explosion the equivalent of two sticks of dynamite ripped
up and down the corridor, the shockwave punching the walls and floor near the
Oni hard, cracking sheetrock and tile alike. The blast hurled the beast upward
and backward against the far wall.

Capie was thrown backwards into the middle of the office,
but she fortuitously missed all of the furniture, the carpeting saving her from
any serious injury.

Dazed, she managed to get slowly to her feet. Everything
seemed to hurt, and the ringing in her ears was so incredibly loud!

She cast a spell on herself and immediately began to feel
better. And too, she could hear again. She looked out into the hallway for the
Oni.

It was sprawled on the floor, not moving.

For another moment, she hesitated. What to do next?

Oh, yeah, Paul had said—back in the planning meeting at the
restaurant—that he hoped he could capture an Oni’s talisman along with an Oni.

The corridor was full of drifting dust from the explosion
and even some residue from the blue smoke bombs she had used on this floor. Holding
her breath and gritting her teeth, she made herself cross over to the hideous
monster and grip the circular talisman on its belt. With a sharp tug, she
jerked it free. She knew she couldn’t use it without breaking the protective
spell cast on it or unless she could get it far enough away from its owner that
the protective spell would no longer work.

As valuable as the talisman was, however, capturing an Oni
was the priority and she had one.

She looked up to see a half dozen Normals, nurses and
orderlies mostly, standing a few yards away, staring silently at her, their
expressions denouncing her, accusing her of a horrendous criminal act.

Suddenly feeling guilty and unsure of herself, she clasped
the talisman hard and fled, the Oni seemingly not so important anymore.

• • • •

As Paul rounded a purple smoke-filled corner on the sixth
floor, he nearly ran full tilt into an Oni.

Outfitted in a security guard’s uniform, the Oni growled at
him.

“You dressed up for Halloween?” it snarled at him. “What’s
going on here?”

Paul’s heart threatened to climb up into his throat as he
flashed his badge again. “Homeland Security. It’s a terrorist attack. The
hospital is being evacuated.”

The Oni scowled. “Don’t sound right. McDougall would have
said something if it were a terrorist attack. What’s your name? Take that stuff
off!”

Paul snapped off a glove and held forth his hand, concentrating
hard on his vacuum permittivity spell.

In front of him, in a bubble of space three feet in diameter
and centered on the Oni’s head, he lowered the value of vacuum permittivity as
low as he could force it. By his estimate, it went down roughly ten percent.

The Oni’s eyes bulged wide, its mouth dropped open and its
arms jerked up against its body. Then, it buckled its knees, falling to the
floor, its eyes rolling up into its head. It twitched for a moment, then
stopped. When Paul released the spell, the Oni fitfully started to breathe
again but remained unconscious.

For a moment, Paul stood there frozen in surprise. It had
actually worked! He had actually stunned an Oni with his vacuum permittivity
spell!

Two orderlies and a police officer stumbled past, each
helping to carry or support a hospital patient on their way to the elevator.

“I’ll be back to help you!” shouted the officer.

Paul waved him on. Grabbing the Oni’s arms, he dragged the
heavy limp form into a patient’s room. With a glance around, Paul confirmed
that it was unoccupied.

Without warning, the whole hospital shook, the windows
rattling as a loud boom reverberated through the building.

“Capie!” he said breathlessly. “What was that?!”

He took hold on the creature’s talisman on its belt and
pulled it loose. He now had the creature’s talisman, which was much more
powerful than his tantalum block.

“Capie? Can you hear me?” he asked again, suddenly very
concerned that she had not responded.

“Capie!?” he cried loudly a third time.

Paul started tearing off his hazmat suit, using his magic
freely to shred it into small pieces, freeing both himself and the airsoft
weapons underneath.

“Capie?” he cried yet again.

“Yes, Paul, I am here,” she responded in his headset.

“Oh, thank God! Did you feel the building shake?”

“Yes, but don’t worry. That was just me.”

“Are you okay?” he asked, suddenly worried again for her
safety.

“I’m fine. But the Oni I ran into isn’t.”

He froze for a moment. “You ran into an Oni?”

“I did. I have his talisman too.”

Paul chuckled in sudden release. “Way to go girl! Do you
have him tucked away somewhere? Can we sneak him out of the building?”

“No,” she answered sharply. “Too many Normals saw me do it.”

“Okay. It just so happens I have an Oni too, on the 6
^th
floor. I’ll take him out through one of the roof access points and fly him to
the west, to Washington Park, to Bynum Island. We can portal out from there.
Can you go back to the second floor, maybe take the north exit?”

“Yes, I think I can,” she replied, and despite the
limitations of the radio link, he could hear the relief in her voice that her
part was nearly over. “I’ll meet you in the park.”

With access to his tantalum block (it had been stuffed
inside his shirt in his waist band), Paul used it to frantically scratch the
surface of the Oni’s talisman. That act broke the protective spell on the
talisman, allowing Paul to use it now for his own purposes.

Using a levitation spell, he floated the body of the Oni
into the air and hefted it across his shoulders. Then he peeked out into the
corridor, in both directions. There was still a lot of purple smoke in the air
but it seemed to be clear of movement. Apparently, the Normals had now pretty
much evacuated this wing of the hospital.

He moved out, heading for the nearest stairwell. From there,
he could go up to the roof.

Behind him there was a sudden cry. He spun awkwardly around.
Down the corridor, through the smoke, he saw another Oni. This one too was
dressed as a security guard.

It raised a hand and screamed, “Stop!”

Paul turned, dumping the Oni he was carrying to the floor
and ran, ducking down another corridor as a plasma burst struck the wall near
him.

• • • •

Feeling a great deal better about their chances for success,
Capie headed towards the nearest stairwell. All she had to do now was to sneak
down to the second floor and then over to the north walkway leading over to the
Medicine Corner Children’s Hospital. That would put her far enough away from
the Bernard A. Mitchell Hospital to allow her to use a magical spell to fly off
to Washington Park without fear of discovery.

She took it slow and carefully, checking the path in front
of her as she went. At the stairwell, she noted that there were still a few
stragglers from the upper floors making their way to the first floor. She
grinned as she joined in, tromping down the stairs, each step taking her that
much closer to escape and safety. Soon, they would have an Oni to question and
to pry from him where Dad was being held captive.

As she neared the landing on the second floor, there was an
Oni waiting.

Oh, no! Her heart beat faster and the feeling of
satisfaction she had been experiencing was instantly replaced by trepidation.

The Oni was visually scanning the Normals as they went past.
She didn’t know what it was looking for. Perhaps for another Oni or maybe for
her or Paul. But she still had the airsoft rifle, tucked up tightly against her
side, the pistol in the shoulder holster and in her right hand she held the talisman
she had taken. Sure, if there were a place to dump them, she could probably have
walked past the Oni, head held high, and it wouldn’t have known any better. But
here in the stairwell, there was no such place.

Edging out of the flow of Normals, she spun around to climb
the stairs, her movements slow and deliberate, in contrast to the beating of
her heart.

However, there just weren’t enough people to hide her
movements. The Oni spotted her immediately. And it saw the airsoft rifle.

“Hey there! Stop!” it shouted, advancing toward her.

With a spell, she levitated upward, bypassing the handrails
and corkscrewing up the stairwell, just as fast as she could go.

There were cries of alarm from the Normals as they ducked
away from her.

As she rapidly negotiated another tight turn, a bolt of
plasma streaked past, singeing the right side of her face. It impacted on a
concrete wall, eliciting screams of panic and near hysteria from the Normals.
Suddenly, everyone on the stairwell was stampeding for the exits.

Capie couldn’t let it continue. She dove through the top of
the doorframe at the fourth floor, dodging quickly to the left, narrowly
averting being hit by another plasma bolt.

She ducked and weaved in flight, heading toward the connecting
corridor with the south wing of the hospital. What neither she nor the pursuing
Oni noticed was a fire extinguisher tearing itself out of its glass door
cubbyhole and flying out after them.

“
Paul
!” she screamed into the headset. “Paul, I need
your help!”

Bernard A. Mitchell Hospital

5841 S Maryland Ave.

Chicago, IL

June

Monday 9:21 p.m. CDT

U
sing
his elevator door trick, Paul ducked down to the fifth floor and through the
maze of labs there. He wasn’t sure, but thought that the Oni was still in
pursuit.

And then he heard his wife’s cry for help.

“
Paul
!” her voice screamed. “Paul, I need your help!”

“I’m being chased by an Oni!” he cried. “I’ll be there as
soon as I can. Where are you?”

“Fourth floor, south west wing!” she screamed. “
Hurry
!”

The whole plan, so close to success, was unraveling on them.
Capie was in trouble and needed his help but he had to deal with the Oni on his
tail first. Muscles trembling in near panic, Paul ducked into an office and
behind a desk. He forced himself to be still, to lie in wait.

It didn’t take long. He could hear noises in the corridor
and some muttered obscenities from the Oni. There was a loud bang, apparently
from a door being smashed open. It was searching for him.

And it would find him here, there was no doubt.

Paul hefted the talisman in his hand. It was equal to what
the Oni in the corridor was carrying. And he had the vacuum permittivity spell
he could use.

Still, the Oni was faster and on guard.

If only Paul had X-ray vision, then he could see the Oni
through the wall and hit him through it.

An idea came to him. Ah, maybe there was a way! An article
he had read in Wikipedia a few weeks ago.

“In the name of Wilhelm Röntgen, Superman, and Geordi La
Forge, may a display appear in front of me showing the Wi-Fi reflections in the
corridor on the other side of this wall.”

Like most public buildings these days, Paul knew that the hospital
had Wi-Fi capability and, from Wikipedia, that the IEEE 802.11ac standard
operated at 5 GHz. That put it
above
most radar operating frequencies.

The display appeared, showing a purplish background hue,
quite a bit brighter off to the right. There was obviously a Wi-Fi repeater
somewhere off in that general direction.

There was also a clear outline of the major features of the
corridor: the doorways, the beams in the walls, the plumbing, and wiring and
girders.

And one Oni striding toward an open doorway across the
corridor. It dashed in, searching the office on that side of the corridor then
emerging again.

Paul turned, aiming his rifle at the right spot on the wall
over the top of the desk.

And fired a five round burst.

The first two BBs blew a huge hole through the wall, the shockwave
pulverizing the sheet rock and hurling debris both back at Paul and into the
corridor on the other side. The detonation from the other three BBs destroyed
not only a greater portion of the wall, but took out parts of the corridor’s concrete
floor and ceiling, creating huge clouds of smoke and flying detritus.

The shockwave was appalling, smashing the desk against Paul,
pressing him against the wall behind him. And the noise!

As the blast subsided and the dust started to clear, Paul pushed
the desk away using a spell. Another one helped to clear the air even faster and
let him survey the results of his attack.

The devastation was fantastic, with huge holes now in the
walls, floor, and ceiling, the edges cut to ribbons like tissue paper in a
shredder. The Oni had been thrust through the opposite wall of the corridor,
and now lay in a heap inside the office it had just searched. Moreover, it
wasn’t moving.

Rising into the air on a magic spell, Paul flew out into the
corridor, fully intent on going to Capie’s aid.

• • • •

Capie was in full flight, heading outward along the deserted
southwest wing, dodging the occasional plasma blast. Twice, she aimed the rifle
back over her shoulder and successfully fired, the blast from the BBs blowing
holes in walls, destroying light fixtures and a water cooler. It also slowed
the Oni chasing her but not stopping it.

Up ahead, she was running out of corridor.

Aiming the rifle forward, she fired a short burst.

The explosions tore at the wall. But this was an outside
wall and it was rebar reinforced concrete, several inches thick, and while the
blasts damaged it, there were no large holes created. Certainly nothing large
enough for her to fly through.

The back blast was enough to smack her out of the air and up
against a wall. Dazed, it took a few seconds for her to recover her wits and
look around.

The Oni was standing several feet away, looking at her and
making a strange strangling noise.

It was laughing at her.

Her rifle was nearby and she seized it, aiming it at the
monster and firing.

But the BBs hit an invisible wall less than halfway to the
creature. She kept firing until the gun was empty, the cylinder clicking but
nothing coming out.

The Oni laughed again.

And then, suddenly, it was engulfed in a dozen streams of
white spray from as many fire extinguishers cavorting in midair around the Oni.
It roared in anger, turning to fire bolts of plasma, knocking the offending
devices from the air.

But Capie reached out, levitating a handful of fallen BBs
from the floor and hurled them past the Oni, around the sides of its invisible
barrier and closer to their target.

She triggered them.

This explosion was much larger than before, as eight BBs,
each the equal of a stick of dynamite, exploded. The shockwave completely took
out the walls on both sides of the corridor and the windows in all the adjacent
rooms. The floor under the center of the blast shattered, the concrete falling
to the level below. Ceiling tile for fifty feet down the corridor was ripped
clean off and hurled all the way to the far end of the passageway.

The Oni was hurled upward, impacting on the concrete
ceiling, then falling heavily through the huge hole in the floor down to the
floor below. There it lay face-down on top of the rubble, critically injured, with
a dozen broken bones, several serious cuts, and a massive blow to its head from
the impacts.

Capie herself lay unconscious and unmoving, covered with concrete
dust, and bleeding from several cuts, her body squeezed up against the building’s
outer wall.

• • • •

There were now
two
Oni chasing him! Blast it, where
were they all coming from? Geez, the building seemed to be positively
crawling
with them!

Paul hurled himself down the corridor as fast as possible,
firing BBs at the two Oni in an effort to slow them down, at least.

The hospital suddenly shook itself violently, the hallways
visibly rolling as if from an earthquake, an enormous clap of thunder striking
a physical blow at him.

What was that?

“Capie?!” he screamed. “Are you okay?”

There was no answer.

He needed to get to her! How was he going to get rid of
these monsters chasing him?

It was past time to think outside the box.

He burst into an unoccupied patient’s room and, on the fly,
he aimed and fired a single BB at the window. The explosion totally
disintegrated the glass as he punched through the center of the blast and out
into the warm night air.

Turning sharply upward, he leveled off twenty feet above the
smashed window, spun around and counted off two seconds…

…And then held down the trigger on his rifle, spraying the
windows of the room he had just flown through.

A rapid series of explosions tore at and then pulverized the
entire outside wall of concrete, not only for the fifth floor but the fourth
and sixth as well, blowing smoke and bits of concrete shrapnel in all
directions.

The blast pushed at him, threatening to dislodge him from
his position, but he used a spell to hold himself in place and protect him from
the flying debris.

He took his finger off the trigger, and used a spell to
clear the air. He waited a moment, to see if anything would emerge through the
huge gaping hole in the hospital, but there was nothing now but the sound of
sirens and loudspeakers near the hospital entrance in the background. Nothing
moved.

Until the shattering of glass off to his far left and the
roar of another Oni.

A blast of plasma tore past him, grazing his left leg and
burning his jeans. He cut the spell that was holding him in midair and dropped
out of the path of the next plasma blast.

He fell forty feet before he re-engaged the flying spell,
angling around the southwest wing of the hospital. With surprise, he saw the
shattered windows there and the outward bulge in one wall. That was probably
where Capie was and where the explosion that had shaken the whole hospital had
been. He cried out in pain and anguish, and his whole soul screamed at him to
go to her aid.

But another plasma bolt howled through the air, barely
missing him yet again. As much as he wanted to go to her, he could not, at
least not until the Oni behind him had been dealt with.

He flew up, doubling back over the roof, crossing over to
the space between the north and south wings, then through the hole in the fifth
floor that he had created only a minute earlier, through to the other side and
out the window missing its glass there. And then he went back up, over to the
southeast wing, to the east of the helipad.

There was an Airbus AS365 N3+ Dauphin helicopter sitting on
the pad. Paul angled behind it, using it for a screen.

And then two plasma blasts hit the helicopter dead square
on, the blasts gutting the fuselage like a sardine can. Worse, it touched off
the three hundred gallon fuel bladders under the passenger cabin. The fireball
of explosion lit up the night sky for miles, hurling Paul through the air and
throwing him onto the roof of the Arthur Rubloff Intensive Care Tower.

Stunned and bleeding from several small cuts, Paul slowly
rose to his feet.

Boiling mad, he was!

He lifted up into the night air, looking for and seeing the
Oni that was skirting the site of the raging fire of what used to be the
helicopter. And he saw it spot him. Turning, he looped around the utility
mechanical room of the building’s roof, waited two seconds and then opened a small
portal only a few inches in diameter. He aimed the airsoft rifle and fired
through it…

The BBs emerged through the other end of the small portal,
not far behind the flying Oni.

It turned, roaring in anger as it tried to intercept the
BBs.

But they exploded first. All ten of them.

The explosions swept the Oni from the sky, like a swatted
house fly, knocking it all the way to the Midway Plaisance Park and into the branches
of the top of a tall tree, where it came to rest, unconscious and critically
injured.

Ignoring the pain in his leg, Paul quickly flew back to the
hospital, smashing though a window on the fourth floor on the southwest wing
and into the corridor.

And was instantly frozen by a magical spell.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” a sadistic sarcastic
voice said.

Open eyed, Paul stared at the man. There was little else he
could do since none of his muscles would move.

Of medium height, the newcomer was young, blond, and of
muscular build. And the face! Far more handsome than any movie star that Paul had
ever heard of. The man was wearing tight fitting pants, a very loose open necked
white shirt and a midnight blue cloak that reached down to mid-calf. On top of
his head the curly locks of his blonde hair poked out from under a black Bowler
hat with a conical crown.

He looked so totally out of place in the hospital that Paul
knew instantly that the man was a wizard of
Errabêlu.

The wizard slowly strolled up the corridor to get a closer
look at Paul, eyeing him closely.

“Yes, you match the description and the photo,” the
individual said. “Paul Thomas Armstead. Well, it is indeed a pleasure to meet a
myth. At least,
I
thought you were one, but Ruggiero and Celeste were so
insistent and Clarke…well, he thought it was best to check it out. After all,
there was the unexplained talisman in the Karakoram Mountains and the
disappearance of several Oni. All of which is why
I
am here.”

Paul noted that there was another Oni standing nearby,
occasionally growling softly at Paul.

The wizard waved a nonchalant hand. “In a minute, Kenzo, and
I’ll let you go see after your brethren.”

Turning back to Paul, he said, “My name is Kenneth William
McDougall. I am the one who set the trap for you here at the hospital.” McDougall
smiled cruelly. “I hadn’t realized it might be such a challenge. I was in the
process of investigating that rather large explosion, the one that rattled the
entire hospital,” and he turned to point to the huge hole in the floor and at
the Oni lying sprawled on top of a pile of rubble below them and then at the
other devastation around them, “when you showed up. This is going to take a bit
of effort to explain to the Normies, all this damage, but I’m sure Clarke can
manage.”

The wizard waved a hand and the Oni talisman that Paul had taken
earlier was forcibly seized from him, flying through the air into McDougall’s
hand.

“I see that you’ve been hard on at least one other of my
Oni. Shame on you, Paul. Now, as soon as you tell me where your handicapped
wife is located, I can gather up my Oni and we can leave.”

• • • •

A general sense of pain and discomfort kept nattering away
at the edges of the darkness encompassing her. Plus, there was a buzzing sound
around her, like that of ten thousand angry bees.

She opened her eyes, blinking in surprise at the bits of
concrete lying only inches away.