Firewall (Magic Born) (3 page)

Nate and the other two drivers—one Magic Born, one Normal—flanked Tuyet. She turned on the headlights again, the sudden brightness meant to be disorienting. It worked on most of the River Ghost group, except for Doran, of course. The leader still stood calmly in the middle of the chaos, gazing at Tuyet.

Tuyet smiled as she wove a spell similar to calling on neon. It siphoned energy from the headlights, the night once again plunging into darkness, this time slowly. Tuyet gathered the energy under her control then directed it outward in a wide blast. Every member of River Ghost was caught in it. Even Doran was knocked to her butt. Dirt and chips of busted asphalt swirled in the air in the aftermath.

There was nothing to be gained by lingering or gloating. “Let’s go,” Tuyet said. Nate and the others began to move.

A tiny light split the dark, flickering in the faint breeze. Doran held out a lighter, her grin maniacal in the play of fire and shadow. “Better luck next time,
chica.
”

“Hurry!” Tuyet backpedaled toward the van.

Doran called out, “Juanita! Mama needs you.”

Shit
. Tuyet grabbed the stun gun clipped to her belt. A car door slammed and the temperature plummeted. What had been a mild breeze quickly whipped into a high wind that tore at her hair and clothes and tossed grit into her eyes. A funnel cloud as tall and wide as an adult took shape. From behind it, a child stepped into view.

Juanita joined her mother. “What do you need, Mama?”

“Let me think, baby. Maybe a thunderstorm.” Her eyes flicked to the stun gun in Tuyet’s hand. “Or maybe a tornado. But a big one, you know. A really big one.” Humor filled her voice.

The last thing Tuyet felt like doing was laughing. Concentration painted the little girl’s face, molding her soft features into hard angles and flat planes. She couldn’t have been older than ten, but she was already one of the most powerful witches Tuyet had ever crossed paths with, and that was saying a lot.

She tossed her stun gun to the ground. “Okay, okay. You win this round.”

“Tuyet...” Nate said.

She shook her head. “Forget it. We’re outmatched here.”

Doran stood and took her daughter’s hand. “Yes, you are. Now fix my cars while I decide if I want to be nice or not.”

Tuyet did as ordered, frustration chafing her.

Juanita tugged on her mother’s hand. Doran leaned down so the little girl could whisper in her ear. The child wore a solemn expression but Tuyet knew the kid had some of her mother’s offbeat humor. She’d seen it, or rather heard her giggling as she chased Tuyet with lightning bolts.

Tuyet suppressed a shudder. Weather magic unnerved her.

Doran straightened. “Juanita has convinced me to be generous. You can take what you can carry.”

“Oh, come on,” Tuyet said. “One vehicle. Just let us keep one.”

“Tell you what. I’ll leave it up to you. You can either keep one vehicle, or you can take what food you can carry. I’ll even give you a whole ten seconds to think about it.”

“God damn it, Doran.”

“Watch your language around the kid. You’re down to five seconds.”

Tuyet weighed their options. The walk back to New Corinth would be bad, but coming back with no food might be worse. Infant formula especially was badly needed. The rations had not been increased despite almost all of the Magic Born in FreakTown losing their off-zone jobs. It would be weeks before the underground could get them another shipment of supplies.

“We’ll take what we can carry,” she said quietly. Nate went to work immediately, going through the van to reach boxes of formula cans.

One of the younger Normal volunteers approached Tuyet. “There’s no way we can walk all the way back to New Corinth. We’ve got to leave the food.”

Tuyet strode to the open van doors. “Stay if you want. We’re going.”

“But—”

“Nope. No buts. This is it.” She forced a box of formula into his hands. “Welcome to the suck.”

Nate laughed as he shrugged a full duffel bag onto his back.

The only other woman in the group, also a witch, walked up with bottles of water perched on the boxes she carried. “Everybody grab a bottle.”

Tuyet shoved one into an empty pocket of her cargo pants. “Everyone stay close. If we push we can make it to the tunnels before daybreak. Let’s go.” She didn’t wait to see if the volunteer who’d protested came with them. He was inexperienced, but he wasn’t totally stupid. He’d make the walk out of fear of what Doran and the River Ghosts would do to him.

Nate tossed the van keys at Doran as he passed her. “Nice meeting you.”

“A duffel bag!” Doran nodded in appreciation. “Good thinking.” She locked eyes with Tuyet. “The big guy’s a keeper.”

“I’ll be sure and tell his wife.”

Doran laughed. “Get out of my sight, city witch.”

Tuyet adjusted the boxes she carried to make them more comfortable and refused to think about the miles ahead. Instead, she would think about the single steps. One by one, they’d get there.

Hours and miles later, she climbed the stairs to her tiny apartment. Slowly. Painfully. Grime covered every inch of her. Sweat matted her hair into snarls and tangles. Exhaustion had long since settled heavily into her bones. They’d made it back safe, if worse for wear, with at least some food to show for it. Now all she wanted to do was take a shower and fall into bed.

Tuyet leaned against the door as she swiped the key card. The door beeped and unlatched before she realized something was missing.

Her wards. She never left the apartment without activating the magical wards designed to discourage intruders. Glamours woven into the spell made the wrong number appear on the door, or sometimes they showed stacks of debris that made it seemingly impossible to reach. Should someone forge past the glamours, electric shock awaited them.

But now the wards were gone, dissolved into stray energy that lingered as nothing stronger than static electricity. Tuyet shook off the weariness and tried to think. Who? How?

The door opened, her past staring straight at her.

“Hi, honey.” Her former Magic Ranger team leader wore a familiar, insouciant grin. “I’m home.”

Tuyet did the first thing she could think of. She put her fist in his face.

Chapter Three

2060

Hayes reeled from the punch and blinked tears from his eyes. Blood leaked from his throbbing nose. Worse, she was getting away. He picked himself up and launched into an ungainly run, one hand applying pressure to his face. His left knee burned with pain from a kick and his right foot screamed in agony where she’d planted one of her high heels. He shouted into the receiver in his watch as he turned a corner. “Osman, get on the CCTV footage, now!”

Hayes came to a halt as he reached a crowd of people leaving a theater. He searched for a sign of her, waiting for the agent he’d contacted to get back to him. It was rare to encounter enemy agents on U.S. soil. This was more likely a case of corporate espionage. He was dressed in a civilian suit, in an area frequented by defense contractors who worked at the various campuses. Rather than specifically targeting him, she’d probably been trolling for whatever she could find via trancehacking into any electronics on display.

The fact that she’d been able to get deep enough into his watch to reach the really sensitive information and trigger an alert was cause for concern. No matter what her intent, he needed to bring her in.

There. The wind lifted her hair as she crossed the street against the light, traffic stopping for her. Hayes ran, narrowly avoiding a collision with an SUV. She ducked into another alley.

He hit the comm button on his watch again, slowing as he neared her location. The last thing he wanted was another blow to the face. “Hey, buddy, can I get some help here or what?”

Static crackled in his ear. “A unit’s on the way. How many non-friendlies should they expect?”

“So far just the one.” The alley was dark. No sign of the woman.

Pain exploded across his jaw, then a hit to his chest tore the breath from him. He went down hard. A blur of movement above obscured his vision before he was finally able to focus. The woman stood over him, her high heel poised above his Adam’s apple and her hands held in a fighting stance.

“Hi,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Hand over your watch or I’m going to make you cry uncle.”

His gaze traveled up her slender leg. The voice in the comm unit said, “Uh, could you identify yourself again? I’ve got a message here saying a Lieutenant Hayseed is part of an exercise tonight. And could you give me a description of the operative you’ve engaged?”

Shit
. He relaxed against the broken concrete. Might as well enjoy the view since he’d probably just blown a test. “It’s Hayes, not Hayseed. And the operative is wearing a short black dress and black undies.” He shifted for a better look. “With a little red bow at the front.”

Laughter bubbled through the earpiece.

The woman scowled and moved to cut off the enticing view. “Who are you?”

Before he could answer, someone at the mouth of the alley did it for him. “He is Lieutenant Dale Hayes of the 728th Special Operations Command Unit.” Footsteps approached. “Soon to be Captain Hayes.” A woman with deep mocha skin and ramrod posture stopped two feet away. She wore a Class A uniform. “Soon to be our commanding officer.” She extended a hand.

He took it and came painfully to his feet. “This was an exercise?”

“Yes, sir.” She snapped a quick salute. “Warrant Officer Yolanda Gibson. Good to meet you both.”

More laughter bubbled through the earpiece. Hayes eyed the trancehacker who’d beat the crap out of him. “And you are?”

“Tuyet Caron.” Her amber eyes dimmed to a soft brown. “They said this was a job.”

Gibson said, “First time off the campus?”

Tuyet nodded.

“They do like their tests. You both did fine.” Gibson looked Hayes up and down. “Well, she did better than you.”

“Hey, I’m injured here.”

“I did notice multiple injuries.” The warrant officer glanced at Tuyet. “Nice job with that, by the way. Glad to see you’re as proficient at hand-to-hand as you are trancehacking.”

“Thank you. So what happens now?” The younger woman smoothed her skirt, then gathered her hair and let it fall to lie on one shoulder.

It would feel like silk between his fingers. Hayes pushed the inappropriate thought away. “I vote for first aid. I am, after all, bleeding.” When they both turned to look at him, he wished he hadn’t drawn attention to that fact.

His best suit was now ruined. Something suspicious and smelly had left the alley floor to take up residence in the back of his hair. Blood still trickled from his nose, and the tightening of flesh that promised to bloom into bruises had already started in various places. Hayes looked like shit in front of two beautiful women and that deeply rankled.

Though not as badly as the laughter in his ear did. “Oh, man. I just pulled up the camera from the end of the alley. You look so trashed.”

Gibson said, “I’ll take it from here, Osman.”

The communication line went dead. Hayes said, “He’s part of the team too?”

The warrant officer who would be his second in command nodded. “We’re scheduled to meet him and the fifth member back on campus.” She glanced at her watch. “And we’re running late. Let’s go.” Gibson strode to the top of the alley.

Hayes retrieved a handkerchief from his inside jacket pocket and dabbed at the sticky mess on his upper lip. He glanced at the young woman who stood three feet away with her arms crossed over her abdomen. She looked scared and alone and he didn’t like it that he’d noticed. She was not only Magic Born, but he’d have to give her orders.

“You coming?”

She was still and silent for a beat, then nodded. “It’s just...” She stopped herself and shook her head.

“What?” He stepped closer, peering at her in the uneven light. “What did you say your name is?”

“Tuyet. Uh, Agent Caron, I guess. I graduated but I didn’t have field status.”

“Until tonight.”

She nodded, eyes on the ground.

“Yeah,” he said. “I wasn’t a team leader until tonight.”

Tuyet raised her head, the light from a neon sign catching her eyes, giving them an otherworldly glow. “So, first night on the job, I beat up my commanding officer.”

Hayes flashed her the smile that he’d thought attracted her in the first place. “Think of it this way. There’s nowhere to go but up.”

2067

Tuyet snapped her leg out in a fast kick while Hayes reeled from the punch. Her foot connected with his midsection and he fell to the floor. She ran to the apartment’s single closet and the bag hidden there behind a secret panel in the wall. As she fumbled with getting the panel open, she also struggled to keep the swirl of questions in her head from overtaking her concentration. It was really just two questions, framed a dozen different ways: How had he found her, and why was he here?

Strong hands grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her backward. She twisted out of his grip and scrambled for the door. His foot swept across the back of her legs and she hit the floor in a painful crash that knocked the breath out of her. Hayes rolled her over and held her down with the weight of his own body, trapping her wrists with his hands.

“Stop fighting me,” he said. “I just want to talk.”

“Let me go.” She refused to meet his eyes, staring at a point on the ceiling instead. No good could come of looking into those bright blue eyes. So many things she didn’t want to remember crowded into her head all at once.

“Just talk to me, Tuyet. A time-out. No fighting, no running away. Just talk.”

The scent of sandalwood teased her senses. God damn it, he still wore the same cologne. He’d always smelled like sandalwood and coffee and sometimes gun oil, a strange combination she’d found unbearably appealing. So much about him had been attractive to her, right from their rocky start. His insouciant grin and exuberant attitude had been so different from what she was used to that she’d been charmed by him despite her best efforts at defense. His good looks, his intelligence, his abilities—it all seemed effortless on his part. Eventually she’d learned that was far from the truth, and she’d liked him even more.

But there’d been no room for acting on those feelings then, and there was even less now.

“Either arrest me or don’t. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“My face hurts from that punch,” he complained. “And you smell like the seventh day of a three-day hike. What the hell have you been doing?”

How thoughtful of him to remind her that he could be a jackass at times. “Walking all night. Working a desk isn’t doing you any favors. Turning you soft, I guess, since you can’t take a punch anymore.”

The temptation to watch his face as the insult hit home was too great. It was also a mistake. The vivid blue of his eyes caught her and drew her in.

Hayes released her wrists and sat up while still straddling her. “I may be working a desk these days but that doesn’t mean I’ve gone soft.” A smirk curled his mouth into something sinful. “I found you, didn’t I?”

Tuyet amended her earlier thought to
arrogant jackass
. “Let me up or I’m going to make you cry uncle.”

The smirk broadened into a sexy smile. “You promise?”

She softened her expression and slipped her calf over his ankle. Just like in their old sparring sessions, he fell for it. He licked his lips as he trailed his gaze down her body, totally unprepared for the moment she canted her hips upward and rolled. He landed on his side, catching himself with his hands on the floor. “I mean it, Tuyet. I’m just here to talk.”

Tuyet didn’t believe him for a second. She rose and walked backward to the nearest wall. “You want to talk, answer me one question. Truthfully.”

He pulled himself to his knees, hands resting on his thighs. “Ask me anything.”

A slow, deep breath helped her ground. She raised her arm to the wall but didn’t touch. “Are you still with the Rangers?”

It played out across his face as he added up the math: her stance, her question, what she could draw through the wall, and what her likely response to his answer would be. “Shit.”

The single word confirmed her suspicions. She slammed her palm to the wall and
pulled
, gathering as much energy from the electrical wires beneath as she could in her already exhausted condition. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for one good stun blast. She raised her other hand and directed the energy outward, right at Hayes.

He started to rise but was caught by the arc of electricity. It knocked him to the floor, where he slumped unconscious.

Tuyet hurried to the closet and retrieved her emergency bag, then grabbed a few more items in a quick pass through the room. A tiny bit of guilt bubbled up as she reached the door. She paused, tempted to check on him. He looked so pathetic and defenseless, sprawled out on the floor like that. Then she remembered a training session where he’d conned her after that exact same move. Hayseed was just going to have to take care of himself this time.

She took one last look around at the tiny apartment, biting her lip against a swell of emotion. This dump had almost felt like a kind of home. Then she left and didn’t look back.