Austin watched JT climb out onto the fire escape and up.
“Your glamour interacts poorly with the orc’s blood,” Victor the Wizard said.
“My glamour interacts just fine, same as the rest of me,” Austin said with a sharp glance at Buzz.
Buzz? Seriously? What did Buzz have that Austin didn’t? Out of shape, pasty, naive, spineless. Okay, he was Irish, so that counted for something (though it was hard to imagine Austin and Buzz sharing the same ancestry no matter how far back you went). And, okay, so Buzz had stolen the Blue Unicorn, and that took some balls (but it was still stupid as shit). And “history”? Seriously, Buzz and JT had “history”? Well what about Austin and JT? They had history. A lot more fucking history than some kiss that went bad. Austin and JT, they had whole years that went bad.
“You shouldn’t have lied to him,” Buzz said.
“He would never have come if I hadn’t lied.”
“The Triad will destroy my home,” Victor the Wizard said. “I want a cut.”
Buzz said, “There isn’t—”
“One-quarter, even split,” Austin said. As much as he didn’t like wizards, they could use one.
“Austin, we aren’t—” Buzz complained.
Add to Buzz’s list of shortcomings: he was too honest by half. Austin would break the news to Victor that they weren’t getting paid after the dust settled. “Shut up, Buzz. One-quarter, Vic. And you’re coming with us.”
“Agreed.”
“I can’t believe you.” Buzz went to the window.
“Where are you going?” Austin said.
“To find JT.”
“If you’re going up there, give me that data block.”
“No. I stole it. I’m holding on to it.” And he climbed out onto the fire escape.
Austin huffed and plopped down into an overstuffed chair. He pulled out one of his magic-filled stones without looking. It was the one JT had given him. He frowned and chose another. He drew it along arrow heads, transferring their magic, and enchanted sparks flew.
Austin and Victor sat quietly, attention on the lava lamp between them. Its red globs bubbled the same way a lava lamp normally did, except occasionally the bubbles almost looked like something the way clouds almost looked like something. When that happened, Victor would wave his hand and the globs would flow backward, then forward again. Finally he would drop his hand and the lamp would go back to its normal abnormality.
Victor said, “Your glamour is remarkably strong.”
“It ain’t easy being me.” What were they doing up there on the roof?
“Volatile as orcs are, it’s a wonder JT can tolerate it. Even I can feel it.”
“Yeah, and what’s it feel like?” He could ask Victor to look in on them, but that might give the wizard the wrong impression. Austin didn’t get jealous. Getting jealous meant you felt inadequate.
“It feels old.”
“I’m twenty-six.” Jealousy meant you felt second-best.
“Like a secret.”
“That’s me: Austin Shea, elf of mystery.” Jealousy meant you felt flawed.
“Like if I only looked closer, I would learn something no one else knew,” Victor the Wizard said softly.
So it couldn’t be jealousy. Maybe Nebraska could take a quick peek? A mostly invisible familiar was as discreet as it got.
“If you let me study you, Austin—”
Austin’s clothes snapped, he moved so fast. Victor blinked his strange silver eyes at the arrow against his throat. Austin whispered into the wizard’s ear, “No one will ever study JT or me again. Ever. Do you understand?” Austin was probably overreacting, but he wanted to make sure his point wasn’t lost. He didn’t like wizards. He especially didn’t like wizards who had a disproportionate interest in the strength of his glamour.
Victor nodded carefully toward the lava lamp. “It’s starting.” The not-wax had formed itself into a stream of objects like parading ants. It took Austin a moment to process the scene: not ants, bullets. Austin let Victor go, all offenses forgotten, and Victor’s eyes went argent with power.
The spray of 20-mm bullets left the dual-rotored Kydoimos 647 Nightshrike gunship at 550 meters per second. Given loss of velocity due to drag, three seconds to impact. Target: two men standing in close proximity on a rooftop. The men would hear the shockwave of the supersonic bullets—a loud crackle—a moment before they died. Not enough warning for anything.
Except that Drone Four detected the multiple shockwaves at 100 meters out and transmitted the sound to JT via narrow microwave. JT recognized the sound immediately, about 95 nanoseconds, which gave him almost a half second to react.
And except that Victor the Wizard’s oracular lava lamp was keyed to find threats, not sounds, and had a range determined mostly by aetheric confluences. In fact, it didn’t understand distance any more than it understood past or future. Inexactness all around. So Victor had no idea how long he had to deliberate over the transmutation of a cloud of 100 gram bullets into something less deadly (though with equivalent mass and still traveling at around 300 meters per second). So he did the first thing that came to mind.
“Duck,” JT said and tackled Buzz down to the solar-paper roof. With nothing to hide behind but scrawny ventilation tubes, a small profile was the only defense they had.
JT sent all four airborne drones toward the Triad gunship, and braced himself for the impact. He buried his face into Buzz’s hair. If you’re about to die, priorities.
Thuds all around him, strangely dull for bullets. Cold wet sprayed over him. Cold trickled down his cheek. “What the hell?” he said and rose up and looked. He rose too far up, and a loose-packed snowball the size of a softball hit him in the shoulder and exploded. It hit hard as a hammer; there’d be a bruise. More snowballs came in—bam bam bam bam bam—a wide spray of them that left white streaks on the rooftop and snow bursts on the low walls.
“That’s Victor,” Buzz said.
“Let’s go!” JT hauled him standing. They scrambled, crouching low through the storm of snow, to the fire escape. He checked all his eyes: the fire escape and alley were clear. Drone Two in the apartment building foyer saw nothing, all clear. Drone One was still on repeater duty.
Drones Three through Six saw the gunship. The gunship saw them and switched targets.
Down the ladder: Buzz first, JT hot after. Clang, as they hit the landing.
The truck was still one minute out. JT sent the emergency responder code to take it off the Traffic Net. What the hell was the Triad thinking, pulling out firepower like that? Gunfire over the city would trigger a citywide traffic lockdown. What the hell had Buzz stolen?
As JT ducked through the window back into Victor’s apartment, he caught shadows across the street flitting up and down walls and through fog. He thought they were police fliers, but there was no way to know; all his eyes were one K away engaging the gunship.
Buzz followed him into Victor’s weird, lava-lit living room.
BATN rejected his first ER code, his second, his third. They were all too old, obsolete. BATN locked down JT’s truck just like he’d expected. They weren’t going anywhere.
“We’re trapped,” he told everyone.
“You okay?” Austin asked them.
“Yes.” And JT fell into his old coordinator’s role, second nature. “Nightshrike a kilometer southeast, Drones Three through Six engaged, repositioning Drone One”—along streets gone deathly quiet—“Drone Two, front door, all clear, blind on the rooftop and alley. No, there’s something on the street.”
It hadn’t been the SFPD he’d seen. It had been 49ers, triad foot soldiers, called that for the numerological significance, not for the football team. They were running windowsill to windowsill, wall-crawling effortlessly, dressed in black, with runeblades flashing red and QCW-10 submachine guns shoulder-slung.
“49ers. Opening fire.” And they heard the rattle of Drone Two’s guns from below. Tenants awoke in neighboring buildings. JT heard their cries of panic through electronic ears.
“Austin, cover the fire escape window. Buzz, I need emergency responder codes for BATN. Are you linked up?”
“On it,” Buzz said, and though he looked pale and shaken as any sane person would, he sat cross-legged on the floor and then slumped, looking for all the world like he’d fainted.
And seeing Buzz go into a hacker’s trance the way Roan used to do, JT almost changed his mind. Buzz was a forger—he didn’t belong in a gunfight. On the job that had gone bad, Roan had been sitting right next to JT in the van, not a meter away, looking just like Buzz did now, like any hacker did when they went deep in. And five minutes later, when all hell broke loose, blue fire had shot out the top of her head and she was dead. JT almost said, Stop, Buzz. Never mind. We’ll find some other way.
JT didn’t say it. Worse, he froze completely.
Things happened around him that didn’t register the way they should. There was Austin at the window with his bow and a handful of arrows, firing out into the alleyway—at what, JT didn’t know—broadheads sparking through the air as he whispered old elvish magic over them. There was Victor over a lava lamp working some kind of spell, his eyes glowing argent, and an immense, endless crash as the fire escape fell away from the building.
“Still coming!” Austin yelled.
But what just had happened JT couldn’t form, all of it dreamlike and slow, none of it sensical except . . . Buzz was sitting there the way Roan used to do, the way she’d done just before she died.
Data flooded through JT’s head, visions of things he shouldn’t have been able to see: four different views of a bi-rotor helicopter, air filled with tracers and SFPD fliers ascending (real ones this time). He saw a street littered with wounded. Someone with a scarred riot shield threw a grenade toward him (toward Drone Two).
He saw the suppressor of a QCW-10 sneak around a fire-escape window. Austin didn’t see it.
The grenade popped. Whiteout, then blackout, and Drone Two was lost.
An encrypted code appeared in JT’s head. Buzz opened his eyes and smiled. “Done!”
A black-gloved finger pressed the trigger of a QCW-10.
“Down!” Austin shouted and dove. Victor tried his snowball thing again, but his concentration broke and he had to dive too. And there was Buzz just sitting there. Buzz. The one thing that made sense to JT: Buzz.
The gun sprayed bullets wide and blind, and JT threw himself through all of it toward Buzz. Thup-thup-thup, shots quieter than the impacts, and bullet-shattered shelving, plaster, and cushion stuffing erupted everywhere. JT hit Buzz hard (“What the fuck, JT!”) and both of them sprawled behind a divan. The bullets kept on, and JT held him still while Buzz panicked and tried to get away. Lava lamps burst, water and glass. The lamps’ captured air spirits broke free and zipped around, smashing everything the bullets hadn’t before returning to some other world.
The bullets stopped, clip emptied. Three 49ers slipped in through the window, submachine guns and swords up, but Austin was up too, long knives out, and the first 49er didn’t even touch the floor before Austin had cut her throat. The second wheeled on Austin. Austin parried his with his knife and flame spat as the two blades slid along each other. Fire drizzled over the floor. The third raised her gun, but at a word from Victor, it became a viper and bit her three times. She fell screaming and thrashing, and the viper clattered to the floor, a gun again.
JT transmitted the code Buzz had stolen and freed his truck from lockdown. He pulled drones Three through Six away from the Nightshrike and police fliers. Let them battle it out—he needed his drones here.
Austin against the last 49er: parry, parry-riposte, feint with his left, and through the 49er’s heart with his right. The 49er slid to the floor. Austin flourished his killing blade and blood spattered the eyes of soldier number four, already through the window. The foot soldier fired blind and hit nothing that hadn’t already been ruined, then Austin killed him too. The window became a wall.
“Why didn’t you do that before?” Austin said to Victor.
Victor the Wizard shrugged. “Didn’t think of it.”
Victor’s eyes were tarnished dull and nowhere as bright as they’d been before. JT guessed they worked like Austin’s rocks and their wizard was almost tapped out of mojo.
“Are you going to tackle me every time someone shoots at me?” Buzz squirmed to get out from underneath him. JT liked the feeling of Buzz squirming under him.
“Until you learn to duck, yes.” JT stung all over, from bullet wounds or debris, he didn’t know. But Buzz was safe, Buzz was safe. He gave Buzz his hand and helped him up.
Austin laid a hand on JT’s shoulder. “Hey, you okay?” From the quiet with which he said it, the deep concern of his face, the weight of his hand, and the warmth of his glamour closing around JT like a childhood blanket, JT knew Austin didn’t mean diving through a hail of bullets. Even in the middle of his own fight, Austin had noticed JT had lost it. And for a moment JT was trapped in Austin’s soft, golden-flurried eyes. Almost, JT’s heart felt ready to burst. He let go of Buzz’s hand because just then Buzz couldn’t ever be enough. For one heartbeat, JT stood confused, rawly in love, the two years apart from Austin a bad dream.
JT shook himself from his confusion and gently shrugged Austin’s hand from him, now not the time, and said, all business, “Drone Two’s down, and they’ve probably taken the stairwell. The Nightshrike’s pulled back. It was a distraction to get me to send the drones off so a ground attack would work, and it did. I’ve called them back. Police fliers are tied up with the Nightshrike, but they’ll be coming soon enough. Truck is on its way. We need a way down to the street.”
“Okay then,” Austin said as if that was an answer to his question. “Vic?”
“Vic-tor. Victor the Wizard. Victor the Transmuter.”
From the stairwell, gunshots punched holes through the door.
Victor the Wizard waved at the floor. It disappeared, and they all fell down.
JT and Buzz half fell, half clambered down the hole Victor had made. Victor descended floating, and Austin jumped like the three-meter drop was nothing but a step. On the way, they glimpsed someone else’s living room, hands over faces stifling their terror in the corner. Then Victor did it again, then again, and they ended up in a car-less garage, street level. They scattered away from the holes above them.
Above, someone shouted, “Tóuxiáng! Tóuxiáng!” Surrender. Like it wasn’t a few minutes too late for that. Then the triad soldiers found the hole in the floor and one of them shot a burst down it into the garage floor. Everyone flinched and covered their heads.
“Out the door, right, down the hill. Austin, cover,” JT said, and they all nodded. JT had a view from Drone One clacking its way up the hill: there were a half-dozen 49ers outside. They had QCW-10s like the ones before, suppressors on, all aimed at the front door of the apartment building. And it sounded like the 49ers upstairs were coming back down.
Time to go. JT popped the lid on Drone One, prioritized targets, checked his truck (ETA thirty seconds), checked his airborne drones (ETA twenty), and opened fire on the soldiers outside. A few flailed and hit the ground, dead or wounded; the rest scattered, took cover, and returned fire.
JT hauled the garage door open and everyone ran out onto the street and to the right just like he’d told them to.
Behind them, four men from the apartment stairwell charged out the front door. JT heard the hiss of Austin’s magic arrows. He glanced back to watch (because it was impossible not to). Austin was running backward. He vaulted from a fire hydrant like it was a spring, hit the wall of a building, ran a few steps along it, then back-flipped to the ground. The 49er’s bullets tracked him all the way, striking a moment behind him, exploding wood, concrete, and asphalt. He returned fire: five arrows as he leapt and tumbled. Each arrow streamed fire behind it and dropped a 49er. One arrow dropped two. The fires stayed where they were, twisting and snapping like pennons in a gale, and made a loose net the 49ers couldn’t cross.
Sweet fucking goddess, where had Austin learned that? JT stumbled and bowled into Buzz and Victor both—they’d stopped running—and they all nearly went down in a heap. JT started to cuss them, then saw why they’d stopped.
In front of them stood a man in Ming dynasty gold, red, and black robes, embroidered at the hems with white chrysanthemums. He wore a jade mask, jade rings on all his fingers, and a necklace of tiny jade skulls. In his hand he held a staff made from the bones of a human arm. The hand at the end twitched and curled like a wizard casting spells. It was pointed at Buzz.
“What’s that?” Austin said, skidding to a stop behind them.
“Owen Ren Leng, Necromancer,” the Chinese wizard said. “Bearer of the Withered Arm of the Seventh King of Hell.” And he touched the pointing finger of the staff to the street.
“Of course you are,” Austin said, and Austin and JT both shot him. JT drew the pistol he’d forgotten about and, two-handed, emptied the clip into the necromancer. Austin fired his last two arrows. Bullets and arrows all punched right through him, holes in the front, holes in the back, but all he bled was tiny bits of shredded paper, and that didn’t seem to bother him one bit. As they fired away, green mist boiled up from the ground where the Withered Arm touched, and slithered toward them.
The tendrils slid past them, beneath the net of flame Austin had created, to the bodies that littered the street. They slid into noses, mouths, ears, and any other hole they found. Dead eyes filled with green light, and the corpses rose, jerky like marionettes with an unskilled puppeteer. The zombies shambled toward them. They passed through the net of fire, shredding it into a shower of sparks. Some of the zombies burst into flame, but they kept walking, human torches lighting the street orange and filling it with the smell of burnt pork. Dead mouths opened. Teeth erupted into fangs. Hands rose and nails sharpened to claws.
“What the fuck did you steal?” JT shouted at Buzz. “Everyone off the street!” and he bullrushed them all to the side of the road. Drones Three through Six came blazing through, one after the other, strobing the street with gunfire. The bullets chewed up pavement and blew bodies to smithereens, but the zombies didn’t care, and there were so many of them, so many more than there should have been.
And Austin was in the middle of it all. Knives out, he rushed the necromancer. The necromancer whirled into the air and came down behind Austin, his bone staff sweeping. Austin leapt the staff, made his own impossible midair spin, knives all a blur, and ribbons of embroidered cloth fluttered away. But even with the necromancer occupied, the zombies kept coming.
Buzz tried to bolt, but JT held him back. “Just a few seconds,” he said.
The necromancer shrieked and swirled through the air around Austin, parrying Austin’s strikes. Then the staff’s skeletal hand simply grabbed one of Austin’s blades. It went white with frost, and Austin dropped it, cursing and shaking his hand like he’d been burnt.
And from down the hill: headlights high above ground, coming in fast. Austin leapt. JT’s truck slammed into the hovering necromancer with a sickening whump. Broken jade scattered over the street like shrapnel. A cloud of hell money burst from the robes as if that was all the necromancer had been. Empty, the robes swept beneath the truck. Stamped paper joss swirled angrily in the back draft. The truck kept right on going, smashing zombies beneath wheels the size of elephants. It screeched to a stop, backed up and did it again.
“Stop messing around, JT!” Austin yelled from the truck bed where he’d landed. “Let’s go!”
“That’s your truck?” Buzz said awestruck as they all ran, dodging broken-up zombies. Even ruined and smashed, they hissed and clawed and dragged themselves across the pavement toward them.
“I made it from scratch.”
“Gods help us all,” Victor said.
They climbed the ladders into the cab. Austin stayed in the back. JT threw the truck into gear, and they barreled down the street. And the last thing JT saw of Telegraph Hill were three SFPD fliers up in the air bathing the carnage behind them in stark white spotlights, while the silhouettes of a score of broken zombies reached up to them, hungry. JT shook his head in sad disbelief.
What had Buzz and Austin stolen that had been worth so much?