AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And it won’t hold forever,” Rose said, her face drawn. “Not with a bunch of them hitting us.”
“Can we just drive through them?” Kyler asked.
Rose shook her head and pointed to the windshield. Beyond the glass, several feet down the road, a glinting wall of magic rose from the asphalt.
Not just a wall. A ring. And as I watched, it contracted in on us. Shadowy figures moved behind it—directing it, I guessed. My body tensed defensively.
“What happened to keeping a low profile with their magic?” I said.
Jin grimaced in the driver’s seat. “I think they redirected the other traffic to set up this ambush, the way they cleared the streets in New York that time. I thought things were just quiet because it’s so early in the morning. I was just starting to think it was strange I hadn’t seen any other cars in a few minutes when they hit us.”
“We can’t let them close in on us,” Rose said. “We’ve got to push them back, break our way through.”
The bus shook. Naomi swiveled her arms in a quick magicking. She swore under her breath. “There’s hardly enough room in here to work properly.”
“We can—” Gabriel started, and the bus door wrenched open.
Two enforcers charged up the steps, magic blazing around their hands. Rose cried out and whirled with the fastest spell I’d ever seen her cast. A blast of air tossed our attackers off their feet, but there were more rushing in. A sizzling bolt of magic flew through the open doorway and smacked the back of Jin’s seat.
Rose threw herself forward through the doorway, moving in the strange dance of her magic as she went. The energy she gave off let out an electric crackle. Someone on the road beyond yelped. Naomi raced after her, her face pale and her hands tight.
I wasn’t letting them go out there alone. I brushed past Ky and Greg to the doorway, gun raised. Seth was already hurtling out, and Gabriel came right at my heels.
“Hold back,” Gabriel said. “We don’t want to get in the way of the girls’ magic. Just be ready if the enforcers try to rush the bus again.”
I was already swinging around, searching for those shadowy figures through the hazy shell of magic they’d pushed up around us. My finger squeezed the trigger. The bang of the shot reverberated up my arms and rang in my ears. Someone beyond that barrier flinched, clutching their arm. Good.
As I swerved to the left, Rose and Naomi let out a shout in unison. Wind rushed past me, and the magical barrier that had hemmed us in shattered. I caught one glimpse of scattered men and women on the asphalt and the grass beyond the guardrail, and then they were charging at us, hands and magically charged batons waving.
I fired two more shots, my back against the bus, and then Naomi dodged into my line of fire. Gabriel leapt in to tackle a woman near the edge of the fray. Fuck. I couldn’t keep shooting when I was as likely to hit one of us as one of them.
I shoved the pistol into the back of my jeans and hurled myself into the fight. A guy with one of those glowing batons charged at me. I could tell in an instant that he wasn’t used to any kind of hand-to-hand fighting. I ducked under the thrust of his baton and elbowed him in the gut.
He staggered backward. I didn’t give him a second to recover. Ramming into him with my shoulder, I knocked him right to the ground. My hand lashed out and yanked the baton from his grasp, sending it rattling under the bus.
The guy tried to shove himself up and me off him, but I was faster. I whipped the pistol out and pointed it at his forehead. He froze.
Yeah. This dude didn’t have any magic outside of that glorified wand to protect himself with. Nothing that would block a bullet from entering his brain. Maybe he was rethinking this whole career path he was on right now.
Shouts and sizzles of magic carried around me, but I didn’t risk looking away from my captive for a second.
“Who sent you here?” I said, jamming the muzzle of the gun against his forehead. “Tell me every name you know that’s in on this mission.”
The guy stared back at me with his mouth clamped tight.
“Come on,” I said. “Just one or two, and maybe you’ll walk away from here.”
When he didn’t answer, I waggled the gun. “Or you could tell me about this Cliff you all think is so important.”
His eyes twitched with a flicker of panic. Huh. I leaned in, and he spat out at me, “I don’t know anything about what happens at The Cliff. But even if I did, I’d let you kill me before I told you. You think there aren’t worse things that could happen to me? The people I work for have been very clear.”
Maybe he’d weigh his options a little differently if I started with his kneecaps. I hesitated, wondering if that was the direction I wanted to go in—if I wanted to be the kind of guy who would shoot someone lying helpless to try to get an answer from them, if I evencouldbe that kind of guy—and a wave of magic resounded across the freeway with the force of a sonic boom.
It jostled me off the guy, and it sent the guy’s body slamming even more solidly into the pavement. His head lolled, his muscles going limp. Not dead, I realized at the rise of his chest. Just unconscious.
“I think we knocked them all out,” Rose said, spinning around. Her black hair was wild around her face. Beside her, Naomi wiped a smear of ash and blood from her cheek with the back of her hand. “Let’s go—let’s go! We don’t know how many more might be coming.”
* * *
