The lawyers and their bodyguards filed into a spacious suite. A dark coffee table—some sort of wood, nearly black and sealed to a mirror shine—stood in the middle of the room, flanked by a dark grey sectional sofa and two chairs, one upholstered in royal purple and the other in zebra print. The lawyers sat down. Rogan’s people spread through the room, one by the dark red draperies, one by the door to the bathroom, and the rest by the walls, forming a killing field in front of the door. Four people stayed with the lawyers.
The four feeds on the split screen showed every angle of the room. On two of them Luanne’s face was clearly visible and she was frowning. She was looking at the window. What did she see . . . ?
Condensation. A thin layer of fog tinted the glass.
“Bug,” Luanne said quietly. “What’s the humidity in here?”
“Ninety-two percent.”
“What’s the humidity by Cole on the roof?”
“Seventy-eight.”
“Abort.” Luanne bit off the word. “Move them out now.”
The room iced over. In a blink a layer of ice sheathed the walls, the weapons, and the furniture.
“I’m reading a temperature drop!” Bug’s voice called.
Then everything happened all at once.
A short African American soldier standing by the lawyers clenched her fists and jerked them down, as if ripping something. A low sound rolled through the room and the air around her turned pale blue. An aegis, a human bulletproof shield.
Three other soldiers by the aegis jerked the lawyers to their feet and shoved them into the blue sphere.
At the door another soldier grabbed the handle, yanked his hand free as if burned, and kicked the door. It held. The layer of ice on it kept growing, at least an inch thick.
“Make a hole!” Luanne barked.
The two men by the door snapped into mage poses, arms slightly raised, palms up as if holding an invisible basketball in each hand. Crimson lightning flared around their fingertips. Enerkinetics, commanding the raw magic energy. The wall was about to explode.
Suddenly Luanne’s face turned blank. She snapped her MP7 up and shot both enerkinetics in the head.
Across the room a middle-aged African American man spun toward her and fired. The bullets smashed into Luanne, jerking her back with each hit. The view of her camera trembled as each projectile ripped into her body. A small explosion flared before her camera, the bloody mist flying. A bullet hit Luanne in the skull.
She turned, oblivious to the stream of bullets. She should’ve been dead. She had to be dead, but her body rotated, swung the MP7 around, and unloaded the full blast into the aegis’s blue sphere. The bullets slid through, making ripples in the barrier and clattering harmlessly to the floor. The middle-aged man who’d shot her turned as well, the same slack expression on his face, and pumped a stream of bullets into the shield.
What the hell was going on?
I looked into Rogan’s eyes. I had expected anger and pain, but what I saw in their depths made me want to cringe. They were full of darkness, as if a layer of ice had formed over bottomless black water. There were terrible things in that water.
“Give me an exit!” the aegis screamed.
The soldiers near her fired back. Luanne careened and crashed down, her head bouncing off the floor, her camera still recording.
The two soldiers, one by the door and the other by the window, spun in unison and sprayed the room, cutting down the lawyers’ guards like they were straw, then turned their weapons onto the shield. The aegis screamed as multiple impacts ripped into her sphere. Blood poured from her nose. Her hands shook with effort.
The faces of the lawyers behind the shield were so frightened—contorted with panic and helpless.
The first bullet broke through and hit the young blond lawyer in the throat. Blood landed on Nari Harrison’s cheek and I saw the precise moment when she realized she wouldn’t be going home.
The blue sphere vanished as the shield failed. The aegis dropped to her knees, blood pouring from her mouth. Bullets ripped into the unarmed attorneys. For a few moments they jerked, suspended by the stream of armor-piercing rounds tearing into their flesh, and then collapsed. Nari landed four feet away from the camera. Her wide-open dead eyes stared at us through the screen.
Cornelius made a strangled sound.
A boot blocked Luanne’s camera view. Two shots popped like dry firecrackers. The boot moved as the soldier stepped over to Nari. A gun barrel loomed over her head. Two bullets punched her temple, misting blood onto her face. The soldier walked from lawyer to lawyer, pumping bullets into their heads, then stopped by the blonde female lawyer’s body. Blood soaked her blond hair. He crouched, pulled something from her hand, and stepped away. Glass shattered. He returned to sink two bullets into her skull.
The camera in the left top corner swung up and we saw the soldier’s young freckled face. His eyes were brimming with pain and fear. Slowly, he raised his middle finger and held it. A little message to Rogan. Fuck you.
The soldier pulled his sidearm out. His hand shook, as if he strained against the movement. His lips quivered. His eyes, wide open, nearly black with desperation and fear, stared straight at us. He pressed the huge black barrel of the Smith and Wesson against his own temple and pulled the trigger.
The camera clattered to the floor.
It hurt to breathe. I wanted to cry, to stomp, to do something to let what I’d seen out of my head, but instead it sat there, hot and painful, while I grew numb. I looked at Rogan and saw everything at once: his impassive face, his hands quietly locked into a single fist, and his eyes, dark with rage and grief.
“May I have some privacy?” Cornelius asked, his voice ragged and broken.
Rogan and I rose at the same time.
Rogan led me across the room and we walked out onto the balcony. Comfortable chairs and a chaise lounge with blue cushions circled a coffee table. I sat down.
Rogan pulled off his tabard. The black pants and the shirt hugged his frame, showing off his flat, hard stomach, his chest, and his wide shoulders. Normally I would’ve stared. Now I was too numb.
The menacing elemental force that had terrified Forsberg was gone. Instead Rogan was grim and resolute now, his magic coiling around him like an injured wolf with savage fangs ready for revenge.
“Beer?” he asked, his eyes dark.
“I can’t.”
He walked over to the fridge built into the stone side of the balcony and brought me a bottle of cold water.
“Thank you.”
I took the bottle and stared at it, trying to purge the visions of blood, Nari Harrison’s dead eyes, and the young soldier’s desperation. Right now Cornelius was inside struggling with images of his wife dying. The tinted wall of glass, opaque from the outside, hid him from us. Bug was probably monitoring Cornelius via his tablet. The swarmer had escaped through the back door as Rogan and I stepped out, but I highly doubted Rogan would leave Cornelius completely unsupervised.
“Can Cornelius hear us?” I asked.
“No. He can see us, but I’d guess he’s currently preoccupied.”
“Why did you ask him if he was bonded to his wife?”
“Pretium talent,” Rogan said.
The price of talent? “I don’t understand.”
“Animal mages bond with animals at a very young age, some in infancy. They’re too young to control their magic and they become attuned to dogs, cats, wild birds, squirrels, any living creature their talent can reach. That power comes at the cost of cognitive development and their relationship with humans. Some of them never learn to talk. Most don’t develop empathy toward other people, except for a bond with their parents, but, when parents themselves are animal mages, they don’t always bond with their offspring. It’s not something they advertise for obvious reasons. Meaningful adult relationships are very rare for them.”
The four feeds on the split screen showed every angle of the room. On two of them Luanne’s face was clearly visible and she was frowning. She was looking at the window. What did she see . . . ?
Condensation. A thin layer of fog tinted the glass.
“Bug,” Luanne said quietly. “What’s the humidity in here?”
“Ninety-two percent.”
“What’s the humidity by Cole on the roof?”
“Seventy-eight.”
“Abort.” Luanne bit off the word. “Move them out now.”
The room iced over. In a blink a layer of ice sheathed the walls, the weapons, and the furniture.
“I’m reading a temperature drop!” Bug’s voice called.
Then everything happened all at once.
A short African American soldier standing by the lawyers clenched her fists and jerked them down, as if ripping something. A low sound rolled through the room and the air around her turned pale blue. An aegis, a human bulletproof shield.
Three other soldiers by the aegis jerked the lawyers to their feet and shoved them into the blue sphere.
At the door another soldier grabbed the handle, yanked his hand free as if burned, and kicked the door. It held. The layer of ice on it kept growing, at least an inch thick.
“Make a hole!” Luanne barked.
The two men by the door snapped into mage poses, arms slightly raised, palms up as if holding an invisible basketball in each hand. Crimson lightning flared around their fingertips. Enerkinetics, commanding the raw magic energy. The wall was about to explode.
Suddenly Luanne’s face turned blank. She snapped her MP7 up and shot both enerkinetics in the head.
Across the room a middle-aged African American man spun toward her and fired. The bullets smashed into Luanne, jerking her back with each hit. The view of her camera trembled as each projectile ripped into her body. A small explosion flared before her camera, the bloody mist flying. A bullet hit Luanne in the skull.
She turned, oblivious to the stream of bullets. She should’ve been dead. She had to be dead, but her body rotated, swung the MP7 around, and unloaded the full blast into the aegis’s blue sphere. The bullets slid through, making ripples in the barrier and clattering harmlessly to the floor. The middle-aged man who’d shot her turned as well, the same slack expression on his face, and pumped a stream of bullets into the shield.
What the hell was going on?
I looked into Rogan’s eyes. I had expected anger and pain, but what I saw in their depths made me want to cringe. They were full of darkness, as if a layer of ice had formed over bottomless black water. There were terrible things in that water.
“Give me an exit!” the aegis screamed.
The soldiers near her fired back. Luanne careened and crashed down, her head bouncing off the floor, her camera still recording.
The two soldiers, one by the door and the other by the window, spun in unison and sprayed the room, cutting down the lawyers’ guards like they were straw, then turned their weapons onto the shield. The aegis screamed as multiple impacts ripped into her sphere. Blood poured from her nose. Her hands shook with effort.
The faces of the lawyers behind the shield were so frightened—contorted with panic and helpless.
The first bullet broke through and hit the young blond lawyer in the throat. Blood landed on Nari Harrison’s cheek and I saw the precise moment when she realized she wouldn’t be going home.
The blue sphere vanished as the shield failed. The aegis dropped to her knees, blood pouring from her mouth. Bullets ripped into the unarmed attorneys. For a few moments they jerked, suspended by the stream of armor-piercing rounds tearing into their flesh, and then collapsed. Nari landed four feet away from the camera. Her wide-open dead eyes stared at us through the screen.
Cornelius made a strangled sound.
A boot blocked Luanne’s camera view. Two shots popped like dry firecrackers. The boot moved as the soldier stepped over to Nari. A gun barrel loomed over her head. Two bullets punched her temple, misting blood onto her face. The soldier walked from lawyer to lawyer, pumping bullets into their heads, then stopped by the blonde female lawyer’s body. Blood soaked her blond hair. He crouched, pulled something from her hand, and stepped away. Glass shattered. He returned to sink two bullets into her skull.
The camera in the left top corner swung up and we saw the soldier’s young freckled face. His eyes were brimming with pain and fear. Slowly, he raised his middle finger and held it. A little message to Rogan. Fuck you.
The soldier pulled his sidearm out. His hand shook, as if he strained against the movement. His lips quivered. His eyes, wide open, nearly black with desperation and fear, stared straight at us. He pressed the huge black barrel of the Smith and Wesson against his own temple and pulled the trigger.
The camera clattered to the floor.
It hurt to breathe. I wanted to cry, to stomp, to do something to let what I’d seen out of my head, but instead it sat there, hot and painful, while I grew numb. I looked at Rogan and saw everything at once: his impassive face, his hands quietly locked into a single fist, and his eyes, dark with rage and grief.
“May I have some privacy?” Cornelius asked, his voice ragged and broken.
Rogan and I rose at the same time.
Rogan led me across the room and we walked out onto the balcony. Comfortable chairs and a chaise lounge with blue cushions circled a coffee table. I sat down.
Rogan pulled off his tabard. The black pants and the shirt hugged his frame, showing off his flat, hard stomach, his chest, and his wide shoulders. Normally I would’ve stared. Now I was too numb.
The menacing elemental force that had terrified Forsberg was gone. Instead Rogan was grim and resolute now, his magic coiling around him like an injured wolf with savage fangs ready for revenge.
“Beer?” he asked, his eyes dark.
“I can’t.”
He walked over to the fridge built into the stone side of the balcony and brought me a bottle of cold water.
“Thank you.”
I took the bottle and stared at it, trying to purge the visions of blood, Nari Harrison’s dead eyes, and the young soldier’s desperation. Right now Cornelius was inside struggling with images of his wife dying. The tinted wall of glass, opaque from the outside, hid him from us. Bug was probably monitoring Cornelius via his tablet. The swarmer had escaped through the back door as Rogan and I stepped out, but I highly doubted Rogan would leave Cornelius completely unsupervised.
“Can Cornelius hear us?” I asked.
“No. He can see us, but I’d guess he’s currently preoccupied.”
“Why did you ask him if he was bonded to his wife?”
“Pretium talent,” Rogan said.
The price of talent? “I don’t understand.”
“Animal mages bond with animals at a very young age, some in infancy. They’re too young to control their magic and they become attuned to dogs, cats, wild birds, squirrels, any living creature their talent can reach. That power comes at the cost of cognitive development and their relationship with humans. Some of them never learn to talk. Most don’t develop empathy toward other people, except for a bond with their parents, but, when parents themselves are animal mages, they don’t always bond with their offspring. It’s not something they advertise for obvious reasons. Meaningful adult relationships are very rare for them.”
