Contractor (51 page)

ground even as Daniel absorbed its power.

Daniel spun his bat in his hand. He took

a few test swings, testing his iron-plated

gloves on its grip. He could work with this.

Land of the free, home of the brave.

A deep hum grew in his ears. He looked

up. A black ship appeared over the edge of

the buildings. It looked like a flying wedge,

ink black and cut at sharp angles. It had to be

one of the fighters from the fortress. He

ducked behind a corner to watch.

A door opened in its side. Daniel’s eyes

widened. Overseers dropped out, at least ten

of them. He noticed the white tattoos on their

faces differed between individuals. They all

wore the same green robes. Maybe it was

some kind of uniform.

They spotted the bodies of their fallen

warriors and reverently gathered them up.

One of them, guarded by two of its fellows,

set itself against the column. The base lit up

like it had back in Boston. Extractors began

to exit from the gates and stream onto the

street.

The ship set down, one side projecting

off the edge of a rooftop. The overseers

raised their hands. Grey sigils on the side of

the craft began to glow. The end of the ship

came alive with their inscriptions.

Five gates opened in the back of the

ship. Something new emerged from them.

They were made of the same grey metal as

the extractors, and had the same multi-

jointed, robotic features, but they were much

smaller. Sharp fans unfurled from their

backs. Even as Daniel realized they were

wings, the tiny steel birds took off, quickly

spreading in all directions like a fleet of

remote-controlled helicopters.

Daniel’s odds had grown significantly

worse in a matter of moments. If he caught

their attention and led them on a chase, he

might be able to string them out. Then he

could double back and pick them off one by

one. He needed to learn what the birds were

capable of doing.

He wanted the first strike to count. He

gathered his power and exploded off his feet.

His target turned its head just as he reached

it with the end of his bat. The white bar of

light in his hands smashed its skull like a

grape.

He was a wanted man in moments. A

flock of birds cruised toward him. Daniel

flew away at top speed before he could get

attacked by the overseers, jumping off sigils.

He was shocked to find the birds

keeping up with him. Their wings glowed

with magical circuitry. He changed direction,

and they swerved to follow. He hit the street

and ran flat out. Intersections and empty cars

blurred past him. The birds stayed with him,

holding a few yards over his shoulders.

Their heads glowed blue. Sapphire

lasers twisted out from their mouths and

scorched across the road.

Daniel hooked left. A car was sliced in

half behind him and paused in mid-

explosion. Glass shattered when lasers

contacted it, then refroze, hanging in midair

because of the dome’s magic.

Daniel jumped, then rebounded off a

sigil, reversing his momentum entirely. His

bat caught a bird on the wing. It flew out of

control and crashed into a building. He felt

the same boost he did after killing an

extractor. It was good to know he could get

something from taking them down.

A larger flock at least 30 strong was

following its friends. Daniel immediately

regretted his decision to turn around.

Lasers stormed at him in a flurry of blue

lightning. He launched himself up. The blue

blasts roared below him, taking out more

abandoned cars and the bottom half of an

apartment.

That turned into an even bigger mistake.

They were at home in the air. The birds came

from all sides, dozens of them, pouring up

from the alleys. He spun like a jet fighter

doing tricks to throw them off.

A laser caught him from behind. His

magically-bolstered armor protected him, but

he could feel the hit to his stamina. He

tumbled away from the fire.

His bat was useless. It was like swatting

at a swarm of flies with a toothpick. Even if

he chased after one and caught it, he was

harassed constantly from all sides.

The overseers had caught up. They

didn’t care about taking out their own

machines. Grey orbs carved through the

flock, multiplying the threat of the lasers that

were slapping him around. He had to get out.

Daniel put his arms in front of his face

and powered forward blind. He felt the

impacts and the scrapes as he bashed through

the swarm of birds. In a moment, he was

free. He dived for the street and ran.

The birds were still there, firing lasers

as they went. He leapt over cars and off of

buildings. He skipped along awnings and

bounced off walls. It was like running

through a hallway of death. The birds didn’t

have any fear. They didn’t get tired. The

single-mindedness was starting to worry

him. He couldn’t run forever.

He saw a road sign for the Whitestone

Expressway. The world opened up. He was

on long steel suspension bridge that arced

over the edge of the bay. The towering high-

rises of Manhattan leaned in the distance,

dominated by the onyx mothership.

He glanced back. The flock was still

racing behind him. Further down were four

overseers in hot pursuit. Fighting them with

the birds on his ass was too much for him to

handle.

The road behind him blew to pieces. A

sound like a thousand chainsaws firing at

once cut through the air a second afterward.

The metallic twang of snapped iron rocked

the bridge. Daniel fell, rolled, then skipped

back up to his feet.

He turned his head to follow an actual

fighter jet as it whipped over the bridge. He

could actually see every bit of it, even at that

speed. A green sigil was glowing on the

underside of the jet’s fuselage. Two men

were sitting in the cockpit. One of them had a

white-gold tabard. The next second, the

plane was gone, roaring out over the bay. Its

engines were a bright flare of orange-white

against the greyed-out backdrop of New

York.

His senses alerted him to an overseer

that was still kicking. He readied his bat at

his shoulder. The dust slowly dispersed,

leaving behind shredded pavement and

damaged suspension cables. The overseer

was hovering in midair, preparing more grey

spheres.

There was another sound. He recognized

the womph-womph-womph of helicopter

blades beating at the air. A chopper blazed

in on the tail of the jet. Another green sigil

was bright and vibrant on its tail.

The grey orbs shot for the helicopter.

Magic barriers formed in midair to meet

them, reminiscent of Eleanor’s ice,

absorbing the overseer’s volley. Magicians

perched on the open door of the helicopter

returned fire with white-blue lightning. The

overseer’s black shield protected it, but it

was pinned down.

Another man dressed in normal

camouflage lowered himself onto a massive

turret hanging out the side of the chopper. A

second later, explosions tore across the

water and up the side of the bridge. The

magically-charged grenade launcher

overwhelmed the overseer’s defenses in

moments. It was destroyed in a storm of

gunpowder and shrapnel.

Another cable snapped. Then another.

Then another. The bridge started to tilt in

where the jet had ripped it in half. Daniel

scampered to keep his balance as the asphalt

crashed into the water.

An iron support beam was beginning to

drop like a felled tree. It was heading

straight for the helicopter. The engine roared

to pull them out of the way, but it wasn’t

enough.

Suddenly, it all slowed, then stopped

entirely. Daniel clambered up over a broken

piece of concrete.

The bridge was half-sunk in the water.

A huge wave was just coming up. Bits of

water hung and sparkled in the air. It and

everything else was frozen in place, right

down to the smoke from the explosions. It

was like a giant sculpture of a collapsing

bridge, sitting there, unmoving. The spell had

taken over.

The helicopter doubled back towards

Daniel. Half of him wanted to cheer and

jump up and down after the small victory, but

for all he knew, he was next on the hit list.

He offered them a mental salute, then

sprinted the rest of the way across the

bridge. He left them behind and cut off the

highway at the first exit.

He ducked into a department store, then

checked his cell phone. He didn’t have a

signal, but the clock was still ticking. It had

been half an hour since the dome had

dropped.

Half an hour.

He slumped against a rack of clothes. It

felt like a week.

He was exhausted from sprinting so

long. He’d killed some overseers, but he’d

hardly stopped them from activating their

extractors. And now he had the birds to deal

with. They were more a pain in the ass than

seriously threatening, but they were exactly

the distraction the overseers needed to punch

a hole in him with one of those spheres. It

would be even worse for the normal

magicians.

He was definitely stronger, though. One

good hit would break through even one of

their black shields, something that was very

impossible for him back in Boston. The more

he fought, the easier fighting would get.

He thought back to the jet fighter. A

sudden, lethal strike, then away before

anything else could happen. It sounded like

something to emulate.

Daniel climbed back up to his feet. First

he had to find some food. Then he could

think about his next attack.

He passed a metal rack holding a few

backpacks. In his hurry to get into the city,

he’d left his at the camp, so he grabbed one

and swept it onto his shoulders. It thumped

against his armor. With the world under

siege by magical alien soul-suckers, the

simple familiarity of a bag felt good.

Daniel wondered about how the dome’s

magic worked. He was still able to breathe

normally, so the air wasn’t frozen. Light

couldn’t be frozen, either—he could still see

things. The sun was still shining. It was a lot

more involved than simply stopping time.

He paused for a moment and scryed,

sending his awareness up, up over his

position. Sure enough, the Vorid weren’t the

only active force. A stealth bomber ran a

pass over one of their pillars, unleashing

what had to be a magic-guided payload on a

small army of extractors. He could feel

another pillar under assault from ground

forces, supported by several more

helicopters. Flashes of magic were sparking

up all over the city. The Ivory Dawn and the

army had teamed up. Better late than never.

The good news was that he wasn’t the

only one that had reacted. The bad news was

that both sides considered him something to

shoot at.

****

Daniel moved slowly and scryed often,

keeping abreast of trends in the battlefield.

He compared what he could sense with his

maps and started to put together a picture of

the battle.

He figured out his own travel route.

He’d run south through the Bronx. The bridge

he’d crossed took him across the East River

and into Queens.

Further east, the border of Queens and

the rest of Long Island was a warzone. The

army was pushing in toward downtown, and

the Vorid were trying to get at the hordes of

refugees that had been shuttled out into

Nassau County. Daniel was well within

Vorid territory, but he could hear and feel

magic rumbling in the distance. No pops of

gunfire, though. Maybe it was too difficult to

put a sigil on every bullet, or maybe they

weren’t as effective against the metal

extractors and Vorid shields.

There were two other fronts further

away, one pushing north from Staten Island,

and the other attacking south from Yonkers.

They’d essentially surrounded the core of the

Vorid forces, whom, along with their black

fortress, were situated on Manhattan in the

city center.

Daniel already knew that half the US

navy’s entire fleet had gathered along Long

Island. If it wasn’t for the shortage of

magicians, they probably would have

leveled the city by now. As it was, jets still

flew at regular intervals. The fortress and the

black columns were peppered with bombs,

but it didn’t look like they were taking much

damage.

Daniel kept a low profile and explored