Addicted (3 page)

London tucked her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, conscious of how close her hands were to the holster on her low back. Rand hadn’t clued her in on what to expect, but she’d figured hiking boots and field jacket wouldn’t look too out of place in any situation. She crossed to the guy with casual directness. “Next time Rand calls me in on something like this, I think I better bring a vest.” She meant the bullet-proof kind and figured he knew that. “I don’t imagine many of them have a lot of discipline or experience.”

“Probably a good idea,” he agreed. He stuck out a hand toward her. “Joe Lansing.”

She shook it. “London Eyer.”

“Well, London. If you know how to handle yourself in a scrape, then I have a proposal for you. You watch my back and I’ll watch yours.” His accent was American. Southwestern, she guessed. “Not an easy thing, to trust your blindside to someone you don’t know, but it isn’t like we got a lot of choices and this here’s shaping up to be a hairy one, if you know what I mean.”

“You’ve worked with Rand before?”

“Never this much firepower before. Or this much fodder.” He lowered his voice so the others couldn’t overhear. “Rand’s expecting losses. Body count. Whatever we are going into is bad.”

London couldn’t help but cast a glance around at the others, wondering if Joe was right and which of them wouldn’t make it out. How many of them wouldn’t even be here if not for the addiction? Probably all of them, she surmised.

Rand strode out of the shop’s rear entrance. “Huddle up,” he told them and then used the hood of Joe’s jeep to spread out a map. “This is where we are going.” He pointed to a spot on the map void of any markers, towns, or even roads. “If you don’t have an all-terrain vehicle, get with somebody that does. There is a bit of an unmarked path about two minutes north of this roundabout. Take it and when it dies, keep going until you get to the trees. Hike the rest of the way to this hill. Rendezvous there before noon. This is a straight up sweep. If it breathes, you kill it. Got it?” He glared at the uncertain faces surrounding him. Rand snapped, “Kill like you mean it, people, or you’re cut off. Everybody got it?”

The threat hit them where they lived. There wasn’t a voice that wasn’t raised in agreement, London’s and Joe’s included. Rand folded up the map, “Move it, Junkies. Impress me.”

Joe waited for everyone to filter away from his jeep before giving her the nod. “Get in.” The tension in his face made his jaw seem hard as granite. She climbed in and belted up. Joe didn’t wait for the others. “Jackknifed cluster hump is what this is,” he growled, peeling out and kicking up gravel dust. “You know what’s out there, don’t you?”

“Not a clue.”

“The Mounds.”

“The Mounds? I thought they were gone.” She braced a hand on the dashboard as he jerked the wheel into a tight turn.

“Damn straight. Nothing but a crater now.” The sour frown carried more to it. “But overlooking that crater is the temple for Danu, the Sidhe All-Mother.”

“So we are raiding a temple full of fey?” London double checked her extra clips. “Maybe even a Sidhe?”

“If there is a Sidhe in there, and I am not talking about one of these earthborn kids that don’t know shite, but a for real Mounds born and bred Sidhe warrior, then none of us are getting out of there alive.”

Chapter Five

Silver bullets. They weren’t just for werewolves any more.

London drew her weapon. With as much stealth as she possessed she dodged through the trees and came upon the temple from a wide angle. The Glamour did a good job hiding it. The building looked like English ivy had completely overgrown the place, dipping in and out of windows, curling around the pillars. Wrapping the entire building utterly until not a bit of it showed past the foliage. And yet, when the breeze blew the trees, the ivy did not blow with it. It remained fixed. So the longer she watched it, the more her eyes grew accustomed to defining the shape of it against the movement of the real greenery around the illusion.

In her peripheral vision London kept tabs on the two human teams coming up the hill from either side. Joe paced her on her left, close enough to easily reach out and brush against his arm. She kept two hands on her pistol with the muzzle aimed down. London sprinted to keep up with Joe’s longer strides, while remaining bent low. The humans rushed the temple depending on the element of surprise.

Joe and London weren’t the first to reach the temple entrance, nor were they the first to fire their weapons. Moving through the Glamour on the wide portico was downright freaky. The illusion was like a hologram. She passed right through it. The real surface was deeper than the ivy illusion suggested and she nearly stumbled as she dropped inches lower than she anticipated. It wasn’t some worn granite beneath her, but polished marble, slick to the soles of her boots despite the treads. Where the others recklessly charged into the temple, Joe and London each manned positions on either side of the doorway and stole glimpses inside. The humans were running and gunning, shooting anything that moved, occasionally even each other. “I hope those aren’t Sidhe they are gunning down.” London gripped her pistol tighter, preparing to rush inside.

“Go right, down the hall,” Joe directed. “We’ll avoid the crossfire.”

London nodded and then rushed into the temple. She bore right as the semi-automatic gunfire echoed with sharp reports through the main entry chamber. Joe covered their rear as London skirted the wall deeper into the hall leading to side chambers.

Right before she reached the first doorway a dwarf burst out, a war hammer raised overhead ready to strike. A patch covered one eye and he limped heavily, which slowed him down, but the fury in his battle cry and the swing of his hammer left no doubt as to his intention to cave in her skull. London squeezed off two rounds that hit him dead in the chest. Sidestepping, she avoided his falling body and weapon.

She surveyed the room. Someone’s private chamber, probably the dwarf’s. No frills to the furnishings and at a glance she could tell there were no hiding places, at least no natural hiding places. Glamour was a tricky thing. She unsnapped the pepper spray from her belt and swept a stream through the room.

The Glamour fragmented as a second dwarf screamed with the pain of the spray burning his face. Giving up on all attempts to hide, the dwarf swung blindly with a mace. This time Joe fired, dropping the dwarf with a single headshot.

London paused, leaning against the wall as Joe overtook her for the next stretch. She cringed at the sound of gunfire and screaming, hating the thought that they were killing innocents. But there hadn’t been an option to spare the dwarves, she justified to herself. It had been kill or be killed. Once the sounds of gunfire invaded the temple, any fey with the strength to teleport could have easily fled the danger. In her estimation, those that remained intended to fight.

Already she heard fewer gunshots and more screaming. The combination didn’t bode well for the humans. Joe kicked in the next door and snapped off a couple efficient shots. London didn’t even glance in, focusing instead on covering the hallway and watching their backs. After a few moments, probably double checking for anyone hiding in Glamour, Joe reemerged.

One more door on the short hallway, London took her turn on point. The door was closed, but a twist of the handle proved it wasn’t locked. She shoved it open and burst in, weapon up and ready to fire.

She absorbed the scene instantly; another simply furnished room, two child-sized beds on either wall. Two fey girls clutched to each other, with their huge, innocent eyes making them resemble living Precious Moments figurines. The taller of the two barely stood more than four feet high and had a more fairy cast to her, with the classic open-backed dress for her wings. Only she had no wings, just the stubs where the wings had once grown. The fey she hugged to her like a younger sister was certainly a pixie in her full-sized incarnation. The dragonfly wings made the identification as a pixie pretty straight forward. Tears streaked their delicate faces, but they both remained silent with terror.

London’s first guess was that the injured fairy couldn’t teleport and her pixie friend had refused to abandon her.

London jerked her head toward the long open window behind them. She mouthed the word “go.” When the humans charged the temple, they hadn’t left anyone to guard the perimeter. If the girls made a run for it they had an excellent chance for escape. She glanced back to make certain Joe wasn’t watching, and when she looked again the girls were gone.

Methodically, London swept the room to search for any Glamour that might be hiding another fey, but found none. “Clear,” she called out the Joe and then rejoined him in the hallway.

The hallway ended with a stone facade. If Joe hadn’t gone to inspect it for Glamour London would have. The abrupt end of the hallway wasn’t logical, not that the fey were known for their logic. Joe ran his hands over the stonework, and London could see perfectly how his fingers followed the shapes of the stones. Had the stonework been Glamour his fingertips would have passed through the illusion to whatever was veiled beneath.

From a tactical standpoint London had to agree with Joe, this whole mission was a cluster hump. They didn’t have a layout to work with, so couldn’t plan their attack. There was no perimeter to cover their assault, which turned out to be a good thing for at least two of the fey. No communication to know how the other teams progressed and who might need back-up. And even clearing this hallway gave no assurance that it would remain free of hostiles, given their talent for teleportation.

Things had quieted down. No more gunshots. No more screaming.

London glanced over at Joe and saw the tension in him. Pretty much that was what she figured. Her impression was that while the human attack force probably caught several fey by surprise, the tables quickly turned. There were no more gunshots not because all of the fey were dead or wounded, but because the humans were.

Guns against magic were like pitchforks against cannons.

Again they stayed close to the wall, listening to the ominous silence for any whisper. Even with senses hyper alert London detected nothing but the scent of gunpowder and the tang of blood. Joe crept to the end of the hallway and peered around the corner with a quick jerk and then pulled back. He met her eyes as he lifted two fingers and then waved indicating the far side of the wide receiving hall. He mouthed “elves.” Joe pointed to her and then to the left, London nodded.

Gun in one hand. Pepper spray in the other.

They burst into the hall and London opened fire on the elf on the left. Joe fired at the one to the right. The bullets ripped through the illusion of the elves like light projections on smoke.

“Shit!” Instantly the real elves struck them from behind. Joe went sprawling first. London managed to twist and catch only a glancing blow. As she fell, she spun and released a stream of the pepper spray. She caught them both, hitting only one in the face. A line of the irritating spray cut across the chest of the other one, who teleported away before London even hit the ground.

Joe rolled to his back and fired three times at the blinded elf who was too pain-shocked to teleport, taking him down in a splatter of blood and brains.

The second elf reappeared crouching on Joe’s chest. He trapped Joe’s outstretched arm between his ribs and the inside of his upper arm. The elf thrust down the knife he clutched, aiming for Joe’s heart.

London shot the elf in the face, knocking him to the side so the knife missed Joe’s chest and impaled his shoulder instead.

Joe clutched his shoulder, gritting back most of the scream. London hooked her arms around him and helped him to sit up. With the wound in his gun arm, he was pretty much out of commission and London wasn’t going to attempt to press further alone. Those elves might have been the last of the fey defending the temple, but she seriously doubted it.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, helping Joe and keeping her gun ready in case of attack. They made it out onto the front steps just as half a dozen of Rand’s Changelings reached them. They got out of the way, leaving whatever remained inside for the second wave to deal with.

Rand strolled up the steps last, letting his companions handle the clean-up work. From the sound coming from within there was still a bit of it to do. “Nobody else make it?” It was a casual question, without the least bit of surprise or concern.

“Not that we saw,” London replied. Joe didn’t need her help to walk, given the shoulder wound, but he leaned on her anyway so she made a good show of helping to keep him upright.

“Survived another one, Joe? You have a talent. Both of you. Comes in handy for me and for you.” Rand gave them a brilliant smile. “Good to work with you again. See you tonight, Joe. London, you are good for a few weeks. I’m sure the boss will have more work for you by then.”

“Swell,” Joe winced.

“Let’s get you to a doctor,” London murmured, loud enough for Rand to overhear. Joe limped against her all the way back to the tree line, where he straightened up and walked on his own power the rest of the way. She cast a questioning glance at him.

“If he thought we were still battle worthy, he wouldn’t have let us leave until the last body hit the floor. We earned our pay.” He kept pressure on his shoulder. The blade hadn’t hit any vital arteries or there would have been way more blood. Back at his jeep, Joe leaned on the front bumper while London peeled off his bloody shirt and used the supplies in his field kit to stitch and then bandage the wound.