Shadowstorm (Sorcery and Science Book 6) (4 page)

“I think he will,” countered Everett. “That boy is so infatuated with you that he doesn’t know what to do with himself.”

“Did you just call Jason ‘that boy’?”

Everett paled. “Please don’t tell him. He might just decide to kill me.”

Terra zipped her finger across her lips.

“Thanks.”

“Everett, I’m not sure this is a good idea,” she said.

“Jason is longing for a way to ignore his flimsy excuses. The Winter’s Mint is it. Being drunk doesn’t make people do things they would never do. It merely allows them to do things they want but are too scared to follow through with.”

“I’ll…think about it.”

Smiling widely, he patted her on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit!”

Terra looked at him, allowing her mouth to curl into a smile. “So Jason’s ‘scared’?”

The grin faded from Everett’s lips. “Don’t tell him that eith—”

Terra held up her hand. The wind had shifted, blowing new scents her way. Unwashed hair. Burning spice mixed with the stench of month-old sweat. Steel.

“Scavengers,” she said under her breath.

Everett took a step away from her and drew his pistol, which he’d concealed beneath his leather jacket. By order of the Selpes, guns were forbidden on the newly-decimated Rev islands, and they’d thought it unwise to openly flaunt their disregard for this law.

Someone was watching them. As a band of four ragged men stepped out from behind a building, Terra was just happy it was only scavengers and not Selpe soldiers. She drew her own weapons—twin Versatile swords that had, coincidentally, been a gift from the same Jason who was currently grinding on both their nerves.

One of the scavengers walked toward them, brushing his fingers through his chin-length hair, black speckled with grey. It was unwashed, of course, just like his grubby shirt and mud-stained pants, both so filthy that Terra couldn’t even tell what color the fabric had once been. The rest of the band looked no better, and there was a look of manic desperation in all their eyes. She poised herself for a fight. Desperate men made for dangerous opponents. Often enough, they had nothing to lose.

“Hello there, pretty-pretty,” the lead scavenger said, flashing Terra a crooked smile.

“Careful, Mick. Them there’s Elitions,” warned a man with a purple fringed cowboy hat—probably stolen. It certainly didn’t match the rest of his attire. For one, it was actually clean. The scavenger had probably killed another man for the garish item.

“Dolt,” one of his companions said, knocking Purple Cowboy upside the head. The hat tipped precariously but remained on. “Only the girl’s Elition.” He pointed at Everett. “He ain’t got no glowing eyes.”

“Come to think of it, she looks some kind of familiar,” said Mick, scratching his head as he gawked at Terra.

“Don’t tell me you know these hooligans,” Everett whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

“Certainly not,” she assured him. “I’ve never seen them before in my life.” She grinned at him. “I figured these were your mercenary guild friends.”

“Cute,” he snapped back. “Very cute.”

“So, I’ll take Purple Cowboy and Thumper, and you handle the others?” she suggested.

He shrugged. “Whatever. They don’t look too tough. I can take them all if you don’t want near the stench. I know how sensitive Elition noses are.”

“True.” Terra sheathed her swords, then slipped two throwing knives out of the band around her arm. She handled one to him. “In that case, perhaps a long range attack would suit the situation better?”

“Mick, I think we’s being insulted,” said the fourth scavenger, drawing a shiny gun. It appeared to be a fake. Did such shenanigans even work on real people?

Everett seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “Put that plastic toy away before—”

He stopped, staring at the buzzing knife handle that was now protruding from the fake gun man’s chest. As the rest of the scavengers scattered like field mice, Everett looked at his own hands, then at Terra’s. They each still held a throwing knife.

“Do you think your assassin boyfriend managed to track us down already?” Everett asked her, handing her the knife.

She slipped both of her knives back into her arm band and hissed in a whisper, “He’s not my boyfriend!”

He smirked. “Purely a technicality.”

Terra looked into his smug face and bit back a growl. Before she could think of a snappy retort, the synchronized stride of six pairs of boots heralded in the arrival of a group of Selpe soldiers. Their dark grey-blue uniforms were as immaculate as the scavengers’ clothes were dirty. The soldiers had probably been assigned to patrol the ruins. But why? Any Rev stranglers had long since been found.

And then it hit her. They’d heard whispers on their way here this morning. The Selpes and Avans had gone to war. With a new war brewing, the Selpes would be looking to set up bases close to their enemy’s territory. There were few places as strategically relevant as Hope. Terra scrutinized the six soldiers before her carefully. The obvious leader strode forward, a rifle over one shoulder and a smug expression on his face. Terra was intimately familiar with both. After all, she’d worked for the Selpes for over a year, and that job had far too often involved sharing unpleasantries with their military’s minions. At least these weren’t Diamond Edges, the Selpe elite soldiers.

Terra didn’t fail to notice that a throwing knife was missing from the band around the patrol leader’s arm. Throwing knives were forbidden in the Selpe Empire, but of course those rules didn’t apply to their own soldiers. And this one apparently fancied himself an assassin today.

All six soldiers sported a rifle each. Two of them carried machine guns, and beside them walked two men with machine pistols and enough ammunition for the machine guns to decimate the city block all over again. Metal poles appeared to protrude from their shoulders. Terra took a closer look and identified them as replacement barrels for the machine guns. Six rifles, two machine pistols, two machine guns, and oodles of ammunition. The Selpe soldiers had come loaded to deal damage.

Tucked in between the others, the sixth man held a gigantic metal block in his hand. The radio. Everett met Terra’s eyes and subtly inclined his head to indicate the radio-toting soldier. If they didn’t destroy that radio quickly enough, he would call their base for reinforcements. Everett still held his gun, but he wasn’t aiming it in the soldiers’ direction. As far as Terra could see, he didn’t yet have a clear shot. The soldiers
were
aiming their guns at her and Everett.

“What do we have here? More scavenging scum?” one of the soldiers with a machine gun asked his ammunition partner.

“No,” said the patrol leader, his eyes locking on Terra. “Someone much more valuable.” His lips lifted in a sick smile. “Terra Cross.”

“Bringing her in alive is worth a promotion apiece. Emperor’s decree,” said the soldier with bulging vest pockets.

The man with the second machine gun licked his lips. “What’s she worth dead?”

The patrol leader shot him a hard look. “A free trip to the coroner. She’s Emperor Selpe’s wife.”

The other men snickered.

“What about him?” Licking Lips pointed at Everett. “What’s he worth?”

“Nothing, I’d imagine. He looks like one of those ragged Revs,” said Bulging Pockets.

“I suppose we’re obliged to rescue the Empress from the Rev who kidnapped her,” Patrol Leader said to his men. Then he dipped his head infinitesimally toward Terra and smirked. “Don’t worry, Your Majesty. We’ll have you away from this wretch and safely back in the Emperor’s arms before you know it.”

As the Selpe soldiers chuckled, Terra nearly choked on the rising acid in her throat. She favored the leader with a stony glare, which the soldiers seemed to find even more amusing. Chortling, they fanned out into an imposing—but stupid—solid line. They began to close in on Terra and Everett, kicking up a dusty mist.

Everett used the opportunity to cough and whisper under his breath, “You take the guys with the machine guns.”

Then he shot the radio. Terra heard the second shot go through the radio bearer’s head, but she’d already sprinted around the dilapidated remains of a building. Keeping out of sight, she watched each of the two men with a machine gun take his ammunition partner and run off toward a different debris pile. Both pairs very quickly had the gun set up and shooting. As Terra snuck toward the first pair, she hoped Everett had managed to take cover.

She crept up silently behind the men, whose eyes were fixed on the area beyond the ridge of debris. They didn’t even notice her. As the machine gun’s barrel began to glow, the ammunition soldier pulled out a new one. Terra slipped out two slender cylinders, each no larger than a pen. She waited until they’d just finished changing the barrel, then she cupped her lips around her dart blower and shot them one after the other with a tranquilizer. They collapsed immediately, thanks to the potency of the magical herbs. Terra rigged the machine gun to fire automatically at a pile of junk, then ran off, hoping the deception would buy her the time she needed to deal with the next pair of soldiers.

She darted around rickety piles and over a ground littered with twisted metal and shattered glass. The men with the second machine gun were clear across the street, hunkered down behind the remnants of a concrete wall. Terra raced under a fractured canopy of building husks. The house behind the two soldiers’ hiding spot was considerably more intact than its neighbors. Some of the roof was even still standing. Using the surviving beams and patches of balconies, Terra leapt from floor to floor, scaling the house all the way to the roof. She crouched into her knees and stared down upon the two soldiers. She refilled her dart blowers and fired them off in quick succession. The scrape of unconscious bodies hitting gravel was accompanied by a sudden silence in the rapid beat of gunfire.

Terra climbed down to the second floor and hopped to the ground. As she dropped, adrenaline pumping, her skin buzzed and popped. Her boots hit the ground, and she sighed, her heart still racing from the free fall. Of course, Jason would have jumped off all the way from the roof.

Sometimes, Terra wished she were a Phantom. They got to have all the fun. As it was, she was a Prophet with Triad tendencies, which meant she could also wield some abilities of the Prior and the Phantom. Unfortunately, her control of those abilities was tenuous at best. She could improve this with serums, but considering the fact that she was already teetering on the edge of madness, it probably wasn’t the best idea to mess around too much with mind-altering drugs.

Terra caught a hint of movement from a building across the street. She drew her swords and settled into her knees, ready to move.

“It’s just me,” Everett said, crawling out of a rectangular hole in the house. He jogged over to her. “But you do look as imposing as a girl with pink pigtails could possibly be.”

Haha.
“Just one braid,” she told him. “And my hair’s not that pink.”

“It’s getting pinker by the day. Silver’s doing?”

Silver was Eclipse’s Elition healer. For many years, Terra had taken an Inhibiting Serum to subdue her gift of Prophecy—or as many Prophets called it, gift of madness. It had kept her mind relatively tranquil, but just a few months ago, she’d begun to develop an immunity to it. That probably had something to do with her being the Elite Prophet.

Since then, Silver had been helping her acclimate to her abilities again. He had made her a Balancing Serum, mixing in smaller and smaller amounts of her old Inhibiting Serum in the hopes that a gradual withdrawal would spare her from a sudden shock that could catapult her into madness. So far, it was working, and as she consumed fewer and fewer of the inhibiting drugs, her appearance grew more Elition. Her eyes sparkled sapphire blue, and her blonde hair had taken on a pink undertone. Her previously pale skin now glowed with a lively warmth. And Terra had to admit she really enjoyed her gift—at least those times when it wasn’t making her go mad. Perhaps this really could work. Perhaps she could learn to control it.

“Yes, Silver has made me Elition again,” she said to Everett.

“You know how much certain Elitions completely creep me out, but I do think the look suits you,” he told her.

She inclined her head. “Thanks.”

His eyes twinkled with amusement. “And I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

A sigh rocked Terra’s chest. Jason. She was just thinking up a clever retort when she noticed shifting shadows atop a nearby building. She looked up onto the roof and honed in on three crouching figures.

“There are people on top of that building,” she told Everett.

“Which one?”

“The grey one.”

Everett rolled his eyes. “All the buildings are grey. At least they are now.”

“The one with a cast iron rail along the roof. Three people are ducked behind it, their faces pressed to the bars.”

“Soldiers?” he asked, squinting up.

“I don’t think so. They’re not dressed like soldiers. They’re wearing tan clothes and dark brown boots. They have leather straps across the hips—a gun on one side, a short sword at the other. One is wearing a black bandanna around his neck… Why are you laughing?”

“Those are no Selpes,” Everett said.

“Certainly not!” a voice called down. It was the man in the bandanna, and he was laughing too. “Hey, Everett. I saw your little scuffle. Some things never change, even in nearly a decade. How is it you always manage to attract the attention of every Selpe soldier within a ten kilometer radius?”

“Must be my pretty face,” Everett replied, rubbing his hand across his scruffy chin.

“Yeah, that must be it,” his friend chuckled. “Ok, stay there. We’ll come down to you.”

“Wait, Ryder. If you saw our fight with those Selpes, why didn’t you bother to lend a hand?”

“You two seemed to have everything well under control,” replied Ryder. “Besides, I wanted to make sure your time with those Elitions hadn’t made you go soft. Now stay put, and we’ll be with you in a minute.”

The three heads ducked back out of sight, and a few seconds later Terra heard the creak of the building’s remaining steel beams as the Revs made their way down to street level. They swaggered toward Terra and Everett, loaded down with nearly as many weapons as the Selpe soldiers. In fact, many of their guns were Selpe. Terra wondered if they’d taken out a patrol or two of their own.