Marked by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #4)(34)

“This won’t hold long,” the Legal Secretary warned as he got to his feet. “We need to neutralize the threat outdoors if we want to get back to the Palace safely.”

“Yeah, no shit.” I rose and peered through the blue shield so I could get a look at our attackers. The two deserters were standing outside, along with eight other men with the Resistance’s red bands around their arms. And all of them were carrying rifles. “Is there any way to disable their guns?” I asked as I watched several of our enemies split off from the group, running around to the back of the building. “They’re not that much of a threat without them.” Not against us, anyway, I thought as I eyed the Legal Secretary. “I’m hoping you can use your magic for more than defense?”

“All mages are trained in the basics of magical combat,” the Legal Secretary said stiffly. “I have not had much cause to use it up until very recently, but I daresay I won’t prove entirely useless.”

“Great.” I glanced at Fenris. “You should change,” I suggested. “You’ll be way more effective as a wolf if you have to fight.”

Fenris bared his teeth. “I don’t like the idea of having to sit back –” he began.

“You’re no good against a bunch of guys with guns,” I said sharply, switching to mindspeak. “I took a bullet yesterday, and it hurt like hell and took a long time to heal. I don’t think we can survive a whole lot of them, especially if we get shot in the heart or the head.”

“I’ll just use my magic in wolf-form, then,” Fenris snapped. “As long as I’m subtle about it, no one will notice.”

I sighed. “Fine. Just don’t die.”

Fenris crouched down behind the desk, and I turned away from the glow of bright, white light as he began to change. “Come on,” I told the Legal Secretary. “Let’s head them off from the back.”

We split up, as there were two corridors that wrapped around each end of the building, and left the other mages to hold the shield at the front. I sprinted for the rear exit, fairly certain they would come through there, then skidded to a halt as a door flew open, and two men charged in. Guess they’d broken in through whatever room lay beyond. They were big, and the corridor was narrow, so they fumbled to aim their guns. I took advantage of their slowness, blasting them both with balls of flame. The stench of burning human hair and flesh filled the air, along with their screams as the fire slammed into them, and I ducked as one of their guns went off, narrowly avoiding a bullet. They both dropped to the ground, trying to extinguish the blue flames by rolling around, and I blasted them again, then kicked them back through the door and shut it on them.

Footsteps sounded, hard and heavy against the tile. My nose told me the runner was human, so I whipped a chakram out and flung it. The large, metallic circle whizzed through the air as it spun around the curved hall, and I heard a loud gurgle as it struck flesh. My ears told me there was no one else around the corner, so I peeked around and watched as the blue-haired ex-enforcer dropped to his knees with my chakram sticking out of his throat, blood pouring from the wound and gushing all over his chest. He toppled sideways as his last breath left him, and I stepped forward and yanked the chakram from his throat.

“I see you’ve got things under control,” Fenris said dryly as he came around the corner, in his wolf form, as I had suggested. I was wiping my bloody chakram on the dead man’s clothing, and I straightened to look at Fenris, twirling the circular blade around my finger. “Good thing too, as the two men who’d stayed out front have shot holes into the engines of our steamcars.”

“Lovely,” I muttered. “Do the phones still work in this place? I think we’re going to need to call for transportation.”

“Indeed,” Fenris said. “It is neither expedient nor safe to try and return home on foot or by use of public conveyance.”

By unspoken agreement, we trotted to the rear of the building to make sure there was no one else lurking. The Legal Secretary was already waiting there, a dead mercenary at his feet, and my eyes widened as I noticed he was clutching a bloody shoulder.

“You got hit,” I exclaimed, closing the distance. “How bad is it?”

The Legal Secretary waved me off with his free hand, a gesture that caused him to wince. “The bullet only grazed me,” he said, briefly lifting his hand so I could see the wound. True to his word, it looked like the bullet had only ripped through cloth and a few layers of skin, rather than puncturing muscle. “Painful, but survivable. How many did you take out?”

“Three.”

“I’ve done the same,” he said, and I couldn’t help but be impressed. Guess the Mages Guild wasn’t just filled with useless bureaucrats after all. “Now there’s just the two in the front to deal with.”

“How do you suggest we take them out?” I asked. “I guess we could sneak around from the back.”

To my surprise, the Legal Secretary gave me a small grin. “I think between the two of us, we can do better than that.”



In the end, the solution turned out to be surprisingly simple. We took the stairs up to the second floor, then opened magical fire on the two remaining men from above. It was quick and efficient, and anybody watching them get struck down by a combination of magical lightning and fire would be scared shitless.