Mercenary Magic (16 page)

“The roof of Acceleration Magic,” she reminded them. “Or should I say, what’s left of the roof of Acceleration Magic?”

“A minor miscalculation while shifting, I’m sure,” Tony said.

“That roof did look higher than it was,” agreed Dal.

“He only breaks something less than half the time he shifts into a dragon.”

“And aren’t dragons near-sighted?”

“No, far-sighted. They have to be able to see their prey from way up high so they can swoop down on it and carry it off for lunch.”

“Or barbecue it.”

“Yeah, that too.”

Kai shot them an irate look through the rearview mirror. “You three are
not
helping.”

“Hey, at least we didn’t mention the tank,” Callum said.

Tony shook his head. “Well, now you did.”

“What happened with the tank?” Sera asked. They were baiting her, and she knew it. But she found herself really curious.

“Oh, no. You don’t want to know about the tank,” said Tony.

Dal nodded in agreement. “You’re not ready to hear about the tank.”

“Cut the drama and just tell me, guys.”

Callum stole a cautious look at Kai, and when his boss didn’t forbid him from speaking about this tank or anything else, he dove right into the tale. “Did Kai ever tell you what he did in the German military?”

“He said he played with tanks.”

Callum snorted. “That’s one way to put it. Or they played with him. Suffice it to say, he never got to drive any of the tanks.”

“Doesn’t driving a tank require special training?” Sera said.

“Which they didn’t want to give me,” Kai told her.

“Why not?”

“They kept me pretty busy running simulations.”

“Like war games and such?”

“Not exactly. They told me to shift into a dragon and then had the tanks shoot all kinds of weird shit at me.”

Sera opened her mouth to say something, but it took a few seconds for words to come out. “What happened?”

He shrugged. “Not much. Most of it just kind of tickled.”

“Tanks shot at you, and it ‘just kind of tickled’?”

“Yes.”

Wow. Dragons were supposed to be pretty resilient to most magic you could throw at them, but that was magic. And he was talking about ammunition shot out of a tank.

“They tried a few nastier things, and those hurt,” he continued. “One of them really hurt, and I got upset.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“I knocked over one of the tanks, and it broke.”

“Tanks don’t just break. They’re pretty everything-proof.”

“Well, they’re not dragon-proof. And most certainly not pissed-off-dragon-proof.”

“Did anyone get hurt?” she asked.

“No, it was remote controlled. But the military wanted me to pay for the tank I broke.”

“And did you?”

“Of course not. Do you have any idea how much a tank costs?”

“A lot?”

“Yes, a lot,” he agreed. “And it was their fault the tank broke. The German and American militaries were working on this big project together. A project that involved shooting KE uranium core bullets at me in dragon form. If they hadn’t gotten that stupid idea into their heads, I never would have broken a tank. Afterwards, they insisted I pay for the American tank I broke. I refused. There was talk of disciplinary action.”

“What did you do?”

“I left. I’d grown pretty tired of their games. In the beginning, it was funny to watch bullets bounce off my scales. I was young and cocky and liked to show off. Well, the novelty quickly wore off, and I realized I had better things to do than be their research pet.”

“Did they still try to make you pay for the tank?” she asked him.

“Yes. They sent my father a bill. He sent them his lawyer. After that, we didn’t hear anything from them again.”

“Hmm,” said Sera. “So what does this have to do with driving a tank?”

“A few months later, I came home to find a tank parked on our lawn,” Kai replied. “It looked familiar.”

“It was the tank he’d broken,” Dal told her.

Sera looked at Kai. “So your dad did pay for it after all?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what?”

“They gave it to him.”

“For free?”

“In exchange for towing it off. It was blocking a good portion of one of the fields, and they couldn’t get it out of the mud.”

Sera snorted. “You knocked a tank into the mud?” It was almost as funny as it was blood-curdling scary. Kai knocked over tanks like they were little toy cars. “And how did your dad get it out?”

“He brought along a few dozen telekinetics. They lifted the tank out of the mud, then my father towed it away. He had it restored and gave it to me for my birthday.”

“Your dad…gave you a
tank
for your birthday?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It was my parents’ way of getting me to come visit them more often. They knew I’d always wanted to drive a tank, and they had plenty of space on their property for me to do that.”

“That’s… It’s just crazy,” Sera said.

“Is it?”

“Yes. It is. Most people get things like books or clothes or gift cards for their birthday. You got a freaking tank.”

“I see.” He seemed to mull that over for awhile. Or maybe he was just contemplating how best to squeeze between the minivan and the Mini in front of him. “Do you like gift cards?” he finally asked.

“Not really. You can’t usually buy weapons with them. And they’re so impersonal. I wouldn’t say no to a gift card from Wizard House Pizza, though.”

Chuckling, he spun the car into a tight u-turn that knocked Sera against the window. Oxygen fled her lungs like an escaped prisoner flying the coop. Fresh off the spin, the car slid past a pickup truck angling for the last parking spot in sight. To the chorus of angry honks, Sera, Kai, and the commandos jumped out of the car.

“There!” Tony shouted over the wind, pointing to the ferry peeling away from the pier.

Sera ran all out, darting between tourists. The wind beat at her face, salting her tongue and chilling her skin. Kai and his team matched her stride for stride.

They were too late.

The ferry was gone, too far away for them to make a jump for it. Without stopping, Kai changed directions, angling for a row of motorboats. He hopped into a bright yellow one, and the commandos followed. Sera slowed but did the same.

“Don’t tell me you have a boat at every dock in the area,” she said as the motorboat zoomed off.

“No, of course not. That would be excessive.”

Yeah, and having a car in every garage in the city is not excessive?

“We’re just borrowing it for a short while.”

“How often do you just ‘borrow’ things? And how often do those things survive to be returned to their unsuspecting owner?”

“Usually. I’m very careful. I hardly ever break anything.”

She gave him a hard look. “You broke a military tank. And I don’t think you can simply order this floating banana out of a catalogue.”

The commandos snickered.

“Watch your angle,” Kai chided Callum, who was driving the boat. “And hurry up. They’re almost to the island.” He turned toward Sera. “Let’s worry about catching those remote-controlled mages for now. Later, we can deal with bribing owners of floating bananas.”

Sera nodded. The tour boat had reached Alcatraz. She could feel Harrison and Olivia on the island. She could feel other mages too—a lot of them. And every single one of them had that same bizarre magic. The mage zombies had taken over Alcatraz.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Alcatraz

AS THEIR BOAT pulled up to the dock, passengers were still filing off the ferry. A monstrosity of a building loomed over them, its dirty concrete walls bleeding rust. There was not a mage in sight, crazy or otherwise.

“That way,” Kai said, pointing up the hill at the old cell house.

Sera felt it too. The mages were gathering. There were so many of them. Dozens and dozens. Their mad magic sang out, broadcasting their location to every corner of the island, like a lighthouse in a storm. Finding them wouldn’t be a problem. It’s what would happen
after
they found them that Sera was worried about. Even a dragon couldn’t handle that many mages at once.

“We need a plan,” Sera told Kai as she jogged up the hill beside him.

“I always have a plan.” There was something foreboding in those eyes.

“Turning into a dragon and stepping on them all is
not
a plan.”

“Sure it is. In fact, it’s a damn good plan.”

“What if the ceiling is too low to shift into a dragon?”

“I’ll shift into a smaller dragon,” he said. “Or cast some other sort of magic. The Storm of the Four Elements is very effective against multiple targets.”

Yeah, and effective at bringing down the ceiling on us
, she thought. “Harrison and Olivia just got here, but I’ll bet most of the mages have been here for awhile.”

“How do you know?”

“They… Well, their…”

“You felt the stale magic at the docks, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” That single word scraped against her tongue like a razor. She’d spent two decades keeping her mouth shut about her magic, and now she was deciphering magic tracks with a member of the Magic Council. Had Dad still been alive, he’d have already told her off fifty times over in that cool, calm voice that was so much worse than shouting. She shouldn’t even be hanging around Kai.

“There are a few magic trails, mostly between three and five hours old,” he said.

“That’s long enough for them to have set up some defenses. What if they’ve booby-trapped their gathering space with magic that goes boom when we enter?”

“I don’t think they’re expecting company. Harrison and Olivia were obviously trying something with the Priming Bangles when we cornered them and they ran off here to join the rest of their cult. Whatever they have planned, it’s probably not ready.”

“Cult? Is that what you think it is?”

“Mages spontaneously getting more powerful and acting completely out of character,” he said. “It sure has the makings of a bizarre cult, don’t you think?”

“I suppose.” Sera had no experience dealing with supernatural cults, just that one magic-drunk mage and a whole lot of regular supernaturals who were more than enough trouble as it was. “But they could still have defenses in place.”

“My team has a lot of experience dealing with magical defenses.”

She glanced sidelong at him. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“Of course,” he said, and climbed over a ‘Closed for Renovations’ sign to enter the old cell house.

Sera followed, and as she entered a cell block, the three commandos passed in front of her and Kai, presumably to put their ‘experience dealing with magical defenses’ to good use. She looked up at the levels of cells that stretched across either side of the cavernous room. She felt at the same time both very small and very claustrophobic. Alcatraz had once been a prison for the nastiest sort of supernatural criminals. The bars in this cellblock were made of iron, which bounced and bent magic like a room full of mirrors. The magical vibrations were giving Sera a migraine.

“…in the basement,” Kai was telling the others.

Purple and yellow spots danced in front of her eyes. Heavy, resounding beats tore through her ears. Her skin was hot and sticky with sweat, and her stomach churned like the water beneath a budding hurricane. She stumbled forward and threw up all of her lunch.

“Sera?” Kai reached out and caught her as she swayed.

She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even stand. Her head felt like it was stuck inside of a trash compactor.

“Block it out,” his deep voice said over the pounding beat.

“Don’t…know…how…” she croaked. Her mouth burned with acid. Her whole body was burning.

“It’s like masking your magic but in reverse. Push out your wall and turn it inside out. Instead of bottling your magic in, you want to keep other magic out.”

Sera could hardly follow him. The pain was too much. If the entire building collapsed on top of her, it wouldn’t have hurt this much. She reached toward the walls. She didn’t have any magic that could bring down walls, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying. She’d pound it with her fists if need be. Anything to end the pain. Anything to be free.

“Sera.”

Something locked onto her, something strong and horrible that wanted her to suffer. She punched and kicked with all her strength, but the steel trap remained immovable. She couldn’t break out of it.

“Sera, stop,” Kai’s voice whispered in her ear.

“Hurts.” 

“I know,” his voice said in soothing tones. “But you can make it stop.”

She looked desperately at the wall—the wall that she couldn’t reach.

“No, not like that. I know you want to keep your magic coiled up inside of you, but that’s what’s hurting you. You need to push it out to make a barrier that will block everything out. You can do this.”

The voice sounded sincere, but dragons were liars. She tried again to break free. When that didn’t work, she reached up to the hard arms crisscrossed over her chest and pulled down on them. An unexpected jolt of magic tore out of her fingers.

“Is that the best you can do?” the voice taunted.

She dug her fingernails into him and hit him with her magic again.

He grunted. “Was that supposed to hurt?”

Sweat slid down her face like burning rivers. She dug deep for her magic, letting it flow to the surface. Her head was exploding in agony, but she fought against the pain. She wound up her magic and shot it into him, putting as much power as she could into it. It was the magical equivalent of kicking someone in the head.

Too bad dragons had freakishly hard heads.

“It tickles.” He spit out something. Blood? “Like the wings of a butterfly.”

Sera clenched her teeth, funneling all her magic into a single concentrated punch. He stumbled back, and because the stubborn bastard still hadn’t let go, she went with him. As they fell, the cork that had plugged her magic for over twenty years popped out. Her magic cascaded out of her, filling her with ecstasy that swallowed the pain. She pushed hard against her magic, flipping it out. The sickening magic vibrations winked out. The aftershocks of her own magical release lingered, slowly fading out.