Chapter 9

 

Olga knelt on the sand in the shade of a coconut palm.

“You like living dangerously.” Austin, the wizard from Darius’s combat courier team, grinned down at her. He had his hands in the pockets of his trousers, looking idle even as he scanned their environment.

Like the other team members, including Donna, he was dressed to blend in with the casual island setting, but also to be ready for action. It was his boots that gave away his serious intent. They were battle-scarred. Darius had asked Rest to courier Olga and him to an island an hour’s boat ride from Svenson’s island. The whole team had invited themselves into the action on the excuse that they had to carry the boat.

The boat was an inflatable, high speed assault craft. The combat courier team believed in being prepared. Their base might be Rest’s Arizona desert ranch, but they had a boat ready to go all the same.

“Those things can kill you.” Austin took a hand out of his pocket to point up at the coconuts growing in the palm tree. “Drop. Crash. Splat. No more Olga.”

“Enough, Austin,” Darius growled.

By his grin, Austin was satisfied at having annoyed his fearless leader.

While Darius worked on storing sunlight in a diamond the size of Olga’s fist, she enchanted the boat to protect against magic and physical attacks. Then she’d take a nap. It might be a beautiful sunny afternoon in Papua New Guinea, but her body was on American time and she needed sleep. Lack of sleep led to poor decision making and slow reaction time. They couldn’t afford either.

Fortunately, they hadn’t had to go diamond hunting in Botswana. Having checked with Darius about how the diamond was to be used against the shade, she’d determined that a manufactured diamond would work just as well, and that was something she could create via pressure and heat, using her magic. As a bonus, using her magic which had been all churned up by her emotions enabled her to calm it. The last thing they needed, especially after her lecture to Darius on the dangers of animate magic, was having her sorcerous magic act independently.

Donna had stripped down to her underwear and splashed in the translucent, blue sea with Rest. “We have to come back here.” Her voice carried over the water, along with her delighted laughter. “It’s beautiful.”

Olga glanced at the horizon where gunmetal gray clouds were massing. The islands of the Bismarck Sea experienced violent tropical storms. The scene might be beautiful now, but the oppressive atmosphere and growing cloudbank foretold a dramatic change in weather conditions.

And speaking of foretelling.

“Donna, have you seen anything about Svenson?” she asked her seer friend.

Donna waded out. “Nope. And I’ve tried.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not,” Gabe muttered.

Olga slowed the flow of her magic into the enchanted protections on the boat and sealed them. She stood and brushed the clinging sand grains from her knees.

Donna had pulled on a t-shirt and shorts. She tugged Olga out from under the coconut palm and plopped a spare straw hat on her head. Up close, the frown between her eyebrows indicated that her relaxation and pleasure was forced. She spoke abruptly. “I’m not a powerful seer, and sometimes what I do see, I shouldn’t mention. It’s hard to tell what knowing the future might do. People might choose something different and change the future I’ve seen.”

She sat down on the sand and patted it, telling Olga to sit as well.

Rest and Austin kept watch. Gabe was reading on his phone. Darius continued to channel sunlight into the diamond.

Sunlight mixed with magic, Olga corrected herself. Darius was storing the sunlight in a way that the light would answer to him. He’d be able to shape it into a weapon when he faced the shade.

“The thing is,” Donna continued. “I’ve seen you with Darius.”

Olga’s gaze flicked to her friend.

Donna looked apologetically—why apologetically?—at Gabe. “I think the vision came because we’re old friends, you and me, as well as Rest and Darius. The relationships reinforced one another.” She straightened her shoulders, seeming to brace herself for a confession. “I saw our children playing together.”

The sunlight streaming steadily into the diamond stalled for a couple of seconds before Darius regained control.

Olga remembered to breathe. “You’ve had a vision of Darius and me as a family?” she asked to confirm what her shocked brain thought she’d heard.

Donna nodded vigorously. “I haven’t seen Gabe and Austin’s families, but I believe that’s because I don’t know Gabe’s partner so well, and haven’t met Austin’s yet.”

“Nor have I.” Austin’s would-be humorous comment fell flat. The sense that he craved what Donna and Rest had together came through too clearly.

Correction. Not just Donna and Rest, but also Olga and Darius. Donna saw her as part of a couple, of a family. Children! Olga stared at “her” man.

His dark stubble gave him a piratical look. He kept his gaze on the diamond. He had to. The chance at neutralizing a shade was too important to be derailed by personal upheavals. Nonetheless, his whole stance showed a new tension. His ex-fiancée’s departure had killed dreams he’d once had of a perfect future.

“I debated whether I should tell you,” Donna said. “But you’re working together so well. You obviously trust each other. And the fact that I had the vision.” She raised her hands a fraction, letting sand fall through her fingers. “Maybe you need to know that there’s a good future waiting for you.” Before they fought Svenson and his shade, she meant.

Olga stared into the distance. She could only just see Svenson’s island from here thanks to the cone of its extinct volcano that jutted up from the island’s southern half.

If they were right about the cost of creating a Shangri-La and Svenson’s determination to do so, then the inhabitants of an unknown city depended on them stopping Svenson. “You should leave, now,” she said to Donna.

Her friend stared at her from beneath the shade of her wide-brimmed hat.

“We’re here to help,” Austin said.

Darius wound up his spell and shoved the solar powered diamond into his trouser pocket. “Not this time.”

“Do you have a plan?” Gabe asked, ever the voice of reason.

Darius shrugged. “Confront Svenson, neutralize the shade. If Svenson dies during the operation, so much the better.”

Austin kicked sand. “You know that’s not a plan.”

Gabe ignored his team mates’ argument, one founded on concern for one another, and addressed Olga. “Stopping Svenson won’t be enough. In a sense, whether you kill him or not doesn’t even matter.”

She rubbed her eyes. They were tired. She was tired. “I’m aware.”

“Clue in those of us who aren’t so smart,” Rest demanded.

She stood up. If she continued sitting, she’d fall asleep. What she hadn’t expected was Darius’s assistance in helping her rise, and that he’d keep his arm around her. If anything, she’d have expected Donna’s vision of their shared future to freak him into keeping his distance.

Or freak me into doing so. But some of her barriers were down here with friends and people she trusted. Plus she was tired. It felt natural to lean on Darius.

She smothered a yawn. She was worried, but even fear couldn’t hold off a person’s need for sleep. “Svenson has to have shared with people the potential for a Shangri-La. The billionaire, Jerome Oro, for instance, wouldn’t lie to government agents, or lend his plane, or fly here with Svenson, without a compelling personal gain. People, wealthy or poor, don’t let go of an idea they’re emotionally invested in unless you shake it loose.”

“Destroy it,” Gabe said.

She nodded. “We can stop Svenson, but there’ll be other attempts at a Shangri-La, others willing to sacrifice cities, unless we negate the whole concept.”

Austin whistled low. “Huh. Any idea how?” He glanced between Gabe and Olga, where she stood with Darius.

Gabe answered in his slow Cajun accent. “I have one piece of information, and then, I’ll—we’ll—get out of your hair.”

“We’re staying,” Austin contradicted him.

“Nope.” Gabe was firm. “They’re sorcerers. We’re distractions. We’ve been over this. The smaller the incursion force the greater the chance of evading detection. These two are powerhouses.”

Austin scowled. “What are we? Ice creams in the sun?”

“You know your role,” Darius said.

“As a freakin’ driver! That’s crap, Darius. Donna could do that.”

Rest grumbled immediate disagreement.

Olga spoke over their argument. “Gabe, what info?”

“Your friend Nick.”

Austin shut up.

“What about Nick?” she asked neutrally.

Gabe rested muscled forearms on his knees, his gaze following a tern as it skimmed over the water. “He believed in revenge. And he knew where some of Svenson’s metaphorical bodies are buried. He had to have been studying Svenson for years.”

“Probably looking to take over his network,” Darius said.

“How do you know?” Olga demanded. But her question was of Gabe, not Darius.

Gabe tapped his phone. “The news is breaking, if you’re a member of the right forums.”

Olga took a deep breath. “Nick set up data to leak onto the dark web in the event of his death?”

“Yes.” Gabe stood and brushed the sand off the seat of his jeans. “Svenson’s reputation is taking a hit. Promises he twisted. People he cheated. You might be able to use that.”

She nodded.

He crossed the beach to slap Darius’s shoulder. “Be safe.” He jerked his head at Austin.

“Call if you need us,” Austin said. His vehement tone made it an order. He and Darius exchanged back slaps. Surprising the heck out of Olga, Austin added a kiss to her temple. “Think of your kids and don’t be dead heroes.”

She blinked.

Donna hugged her.

Rest opened a portal. “Anytime,” he said to Darius and Olga, and it was a promise not just of escape, but of assistance.

“Thank you.” Olga hugged him, too.

The courier combat team walked through the portal and vanished. Each knew their role, even if—in Austin’s case—they didn’t like being out of the action.

Darius bent his head and kissed her fiercely. He broke off before she could get with the program enough to fully respond. “We’re discussing us later. First, sleep.”

“Then planning.” She locked away her confusion. Olga hadn’t even considered the complications of a relationship with Darius, and there was Donna promising them a happy ever after.

She couldn’t afford to think about any of it. Not now. She had to calm her milling thoughts and grab some sleep. There were too many things that could go wrong without handicapping herself with sleep deprivation. She had to concentrate on Svenson and their mission. They had to do more than stop him, now. He’d opened Pandora’s Box, and they had to reseal it.

On arrival through Rest’s portal they’d enclosed their spot on the beach in a ward that prevented any magic leaking through whilst simultaneously turning away any physical observation. Since both Darius and Austin were able to shield Rest’s portals in the same manner, no one on Svenson’s island should be aware of their presence.

Although Svenson would guess that they’d try to halt his plans, he mightn’t credit them with having located the island. Nick hadn’t thought that she’d be able to crack Svenson’s ownership of the slave compound.

Svenson probably calculated that they planned to meet his plane in Sydney and trail him from there. And he’d undoubtedly called on his network to try and detain her and Darius. It was why she’d ditched her phone. She wouldn’t get in contact with 13OPS until she’d dealt with this situation.

Rest and the other members of the combat courier team would also be on high alert until this was done. They were Darius’s known allies.

The magical talent Svenson had hired to protect his island would be alert, but maybe expecting trouble to arrive in Svenson’s wake rather than anticipating him. They’d take their cue from Svenson, and his inflated ego probably convinced him that he was seven steps ahead of her and Darius.

Olga mumbled her revelation through a jaw-cracking yawn. “Svenson’s like a cult leader.”

“Hmm?” Darius moved beach sand into the shape of a bed. More sand created pillars.

“Cult leader. How do you break followers’ belief in their messiah?”

He levitated the inflatable boat and flipped it upside down on top of the pillars, creating a shady roof. “I don’t know.” Then he squinted at the sky. “That’s going to be a monster storm.” His magic shoveled up yet more sand and formed walls.

Then he slapped his chest where the rune for his guardian construct was branded. The shadow lion leapt forth, as large as a real lion but with the tropical beach scene visible through it like a black-and-white movie.

“Naptime,” Darius said.

Olga walked through the doorway he’d left on the leeside of the semi-sandcastle. It was dark and cool inside, the water in among the sand grains acting like a swamp cooler as the strengthening wind swept against the structure. She was confident his magic would hold against even a hurricane.

She lay down with a groan of relief. Her emotions, mind, and body all needed a rest, and Darius had made the sand bed gloriously soft.

He sunk down beside her and she rolled into him, already half-asleep. His arm went around her as she put hers over his flat stomach.

The beep of the alarm on his burner phone woke them four hours later.

Night had fallen.

“Tell me there’s iced coffee in the cooler,” she pleaded.

Donna had packed them a cooler full of food and drink. Darius carried it outside.

Following him, Olga inhaled the mixed scent of rain and sea spray. The rain had ceased. She’d evidently slept through the fast-moving storm.

When he tipped the boat right side up and levitated it down to the ground, puddles of water ran off. The clouds were breaking up, passing in front of the moon, providing alternating darkness and sudden silver light.

She investigated the cooler, although she wasn’t sure if this would be dinner, a midnight supper, or breakfast.

There was no iced coffee, but there was iced tea, along with water and peanut butter and blackberry jelly sandwiches, granola bars and apples. Donna had packed food that wouldn’t spoil too fast in the tropical heat if the cooler ceased to cool. Olga mentally saluted her friend for avoiding the risk of food poisoning. Grand battles could be won—or lost—by overlooking those sort of details.

“Darius, recap what you know about shades for me.” She passed him a bottle of iced tea and a packet of sandwiches.

Magic kept the inflatable boat from blowing away, and kept the walls of the sandcastle in place.

“It’s at least dry in there,” he suggested.

They settled down to picnic inside the walls where the wind wouldn’t blow sand into their sandwiches.

“Shades.” He paused. “Shouldn’t we be deciding how to discredit Svenson?”

“We are. I need to understand how you intend to fight the shade so that I can be sure my plan doesn’t interfere with you.”

“You have a plan?”

She washed down a mouthful of sticky peanut butter with a gulp of iced tea. “I’m going to be on a sugar high.” Her comment was a muttered aside. “I have the beginnings of a plan. Give me a ten minute briefing on shades, their history, and fighting them.”

“All right.” A moment of bright moonlight revealed his frown before clouds obscured the moon once more. “Shades have been summoned for millennia. They’ve been mistaken for demons, which is understandable since both are summoned beings, although demons are their own individuals whereas shades are their host’s malevolent nature concentrated and unfettered. Shades have also been confused with vampires. As far as is known, vampires don’t exist.” Despite the confident wording, his last statement had the intonation of a question.

“That’s the 13OPS position on the question. Vampires fake. Werewolves possible.”

He finished his sandwich. “The most effective means of neutralizing a shade is derived from vampire lore. Sunlight. The obvious deduction is that the most successful method of eliminating a shade-ridden person from a community was entrusted to folklore so that future generations afflicted with the problem could save themselves.”

After a drink, he resumed, and now his briefing was all business, without reflection or philosophy. “I’ve stored sunlight in the diamond. Day or night, it should blaze for fifteen minutes.”

Startled, she interrupted. “Is that all?”

“Either I defeat the shade in that time, or I’m incapable of it. Neutralizing a shade is about breaking its connection to its host. Once created, a shade isn’t powered by magic or solely by its host’s life energy. The shade is like a twisted empath. It draws on the negative emotions of the people around it. However, it can only do so via its host’s willingness and ability to exploit those emotions.”

She swore. “And Svenson is the equivalent of a cult leader. He’s preaching the possibility of eternal youth in an earthly paradise sheltered from the world’s troubles. He’s a pro at manipulating people. He’ll be able to restore his shade as fast as you attack it. Unless…do you need to isolate Svenson? If we removed everyone else from the island…”

“I can hear in your voice that doing so would screw up whatever you’re planning.”

She crumpled the paper wrapping from her sandwich. “I can find a way around—”

“No need. The sunlight stored in the crystal is intense enough to light up Svenson for fifteen minutes. That’s sufficient time for me to erode the shade. Or rather, to disintegrate it. Sunlight, by itself, mightn’t be enough, but I’ve been working on a modified flora crescare spell. There’s a legend involving deadly nightshade. The flora crescare spell will break up the shade and digest it. I just have to feed the spell more power than Svenson can supply the shade.” He grinned crookedly. “Good thing I’m a sorcerer with all that magic to draw on.”

Humor failed to hide the danger involved.

The strategy he outlined was solid, but as with her own scheme, it relied on his ability to push his sorcery to the edge.

She had to accept his confidence. An equal partnership meant trusting his judgement as much as his abilities. He could handle this. She’d observed his casting over the last few days.

She had to take a few seconds, though, to swallow the cold lump of fear she felt for him. Failure in a fight with a shade meant death. When she could trust her voice to be unwaveringly professional she responded with her own strategy. “My plan is structured around imagining what I’d write in a report if I had to fudge happenings on the island for 13OPS.” She lifted her fingers in a slight gesture to silence his protest. “I’m not going to tell them the truth, but I am loyal to 13OPS. The agency is bigger, and more important, than the few people within it whom Svenson has suborned. I intend to remove their influence, and them, over time.”

“They’ll fight you.”

“Of course.” She took a deep breath because that fight was for the future. Here and now she had to set the up her battlefield to win. “A well-written report tells a story. I need this story to be compelling, so compelling that no one goes looking for alternative explanations. Therefore, everything we do on the island has to support the story I want to sell. I intend to use his own network to disseminate the information that ends his influence. He has to be utterly discredited. If there’s one thing people hate, it’s to be fooled. The bigger the failed con, the bigger their hatred. Nick,” her voice didn’t falter, “laid the groundwork with his post-death revenge as reported by Gabe. We’ll build on that to ridicule the very notion of Svenson’s Shangri-La.”

He squeezed the empty iced tea bottle. The plastic clunked and popped. “How?”

“You destroy the shade. Without it to the channel the magic, Svenson won’t be able to cast the Shangri-La spell. While you fight his shade, I’ll hold an illusion that shows something very different.”

She looked down at her hands and realized she’d clenched them. No wonder they hurt. A tiny part of her, that part born of childhood loyalties, would enjoy the poetic rightness of this revenge against Svenson, the man who’d ordered Nick’s execution. “I’m going to turn Svenson’s own tactics against him. He is a conman on a grand scale. He grew his power and influence by manipulating people. But that only works if you stay in control of the fantasies you feed other people. Once a conman begins to buy into his own fantasies, he’s lost his edge. Svenson is obsessed with living forever. More than that, he wants to live forever in paradise. He sold that dream to other people. I intend to show them that he lied.”

“Even though he didn’t.”

She smiled. “It takes a con to destroy a con. Svenson’s network is only as strong as the trust its members have in him. Trust doesn’t mean liking. It’s the calculation that he can deliver what he promises. If we break that trust, we break him, and I’ll make sure that his Shangri-La promise is wrecked along with him.”

“Huh.”

While he contemplated her broad-brush plan, she stashed their trash inside the cooler and carried it back to the boat. She kept out her crumpled sandwich wrapper. Anything could serve as an anchor, and this would be the boat’s. It would act as a magical anchor, not a physical one. She buried it high up the beach, away from even the biggest waves. When she and Darius reached Svenson’s island, she’d send the boat back here, still stealthed, using the buried sandwich wrapper as the anchor for the return spell. She had enchanted the boat for protection and stealth, but a well-trained wizard could still detect it if they literally stumbled over it. The safest place for it to wait for them was away from the island.

“We can always steal a boat if we have to.” Or they’d phone Rest for a portal.

“From the guards,” Darius agreed, looming up behind her. The wind was easing, but the sea was still rough from the receding storm. “If we’re going to get in place tonight, we should go.”

They were heading in fully stealthed. That meant personal wards and shields as well as the enchantments she’d placed on the boat. They’d prepared for this, and the activation of their wards only took a few seconds.

Darius levitated the boat down to the water. “I almost regret that we’re not fighting our way in. I’d have liked to see what the shadow lion could have done in terms of chewing a path through the wards.”

Instead, they’d be sneaking in, evading magic in the same manner in which they’d infiltrated the slave compound.

“If you neutralize the shade fast enough, you can watch your guardian construct siphon the magic of Svenson’s guards.” She hadn’t had time or energy to spare to scry the island, but Darius’s combat experience provided an estimate of up to a dozen wizard mercenaries protecting the island. Under any other circumstances, Svenson would have been suicidal to gather that many capable wizards on his prospective Shangri-La, but with a shade to protect him from threats, the wizards couldn’t touch him if—when—the mercenaries mutinied in an attempt to gain control of the new Shangri-La.

“I look forward to it,” he said, referring to watching the guardian lion devour the magic of their enemies. He massaged his knee. He never mentioned his prosthetic leg or showed that it hampered or pained him, but no matter how well he compensated with magic and experience for the loss of his limb, psychologically it bothered him. That would be a point of vulnerability he’d have to shield when he fought the shade.

She covered his hand with hers. “The shade will strike at your negative emotions. Just so you know—if Donna’s seer vision hasn’t already made it clear—you could lose everything and I’d still want you. I won’t ever walk away.”

He moved shockingly fast, pinning her to the wet sand. His mouth bruised hers. This wasn’t tenderness or sweet promises of the future.

She pulled him to her just as fiercely. After a life alone, he could fill the emptiness in her heart. She had to remember, she had to trust, in that hope. If events unfolded as they should, Darius’s direct attack on the shade and Svenson should focus its attention on him. She wouldn’t be its target. Nonetheless, she needed to bolster her own psychological defenses.

She valued this physical reminder that she was wanted.

However, it couldn’t continue. One final kiss and they separated. In silent accord, the personal was put aside and both donned the professionalism of an active mission.

She picked up her backpack. It was a familiar item on stakeouts, containing a change of clothes, food for three days, and a canteen of water. The canteen was enchanted to continually refill. Making a cornucopia was theoretically possible, but magically draining since food was complex stuff. But water was everywhere in the air, and the canteen condensed it.

Her spare canteen was in Darius’s backpack. He shrugged his shoulders, settling the backpack, before strapping it into place. A transitory moonbeam showed the wet gleam of the boat’s black inflatable hull.

She climbed inside. A drying cantrip would take care of her wet boots and clothing when they reached the island. Every bit of extra magic used on the island was a risk when they were sneaking in for a stakeout. However, the cost of not using it was higher.

In discussion with the whole combat team they’d agreed that Svenson would cast the Shangri-La spell from the top of the extinct volcano on the island’s southern half. Any geomage would tell you of the power volcanoes, even extinct ones, stored in their depths. Plus, the high point would enable Svenson to view all of his proposed Shangri-La and map its perimeter for the spell.

For Olga and Darius, that meant they needed to get in place at the summit, which meant a night trek through the jungle that grew thickly on the volcano’s steep sides. Pushing through the nearly impenetrable jungle would be hard enough, especially as they tried to avoid detection and ascend the sometimes precipitous slope, without adding the raw misery of feet blistered by wet socks.

She debated with herself. If she was being sensible about physical realities, then there was one more issue she needed to deal with. “I think I’ll keep active a cantrip against insects.” The beach had been clear of mosquitoes, especially given the storm and the sandcastle shelter, but the jungle and its tiniest inhabitants would eat them alive. It wasn’t just mosquitoes and tropical diseases that they risked, but bites from more venomous creatures. She’d risk adding the cantrip to her magical signature which she had to stealth shield anyway.

“And one against snakes.” Darius piloted their boat, confidently handling the choppy waves.

“Oh.” She shuddered. She hadn’t thought of snakes. And I’m not going to now. Sometimes you weighed up a situation and chose the least bad option. Maintaining a cantrip had a lower chance of exposing them than having to heal from a venomous bite. She cast the cantrip that would discourage all venomous bitey creatures. They needed their spells in place before they reached the island.

 

In the aftermath of the storm, the smell of the jungle was almost overwhelming; so rampantly alive that you could all but smell the color green. When the sun rose, the aroma and humidity would further increase.

Darius walked ahead of Olga. He followed a hint of a trail. There was no open space in the jungle, but the route he took had the least resistance. He preferred to pass through without leaving signs of a hacked path. He sweated and panted slightly. A jungle was no respecter of your fitness level. It tested everyone.

Olga kept up with him.

He’d glance back occasionally and she’d be there, watching his progress and picking her path in his footprints; a moving shadow in the darkness of the claustrophobic rainforest.

Dawn came with a lightening of the sky and another of the magical scans of the island that they’d been avoiding since they’d leapt from the boat. Around them birds shrieked a noisy greeting to the day and squabbled with each other.

The magic scan slid over their shields, turned aside by the subtle twist and play of their magic. Both of them had experience in evading detection.

Ahead of them, the vegetation thinned out. The summit of the volcano was more exposed. Plants still grew, but not the bigger trees.

He gestured for Olga to wait while he scouted for a location where they could hole up until Svenson arrived.

They were counting on him racing here. The man was obsessed with Shangri-La. Now that he’d pulled the trigger on pursuing eternal life in paradise, he’d commit everything to achieving it as soon as possible. Even an egomaniac had to fear someone stopping him, given enough time.

Searching for a safe place of concealment which would also offer them a good view, his thoughts circled back to his partner.

His leg hadn’t hampered him on the hike. Magic had helped him regain a mobility far beyond that which the prosthetic offered. Olga worried that when he faced the shade he’d be vulnerable to dark thoughts of his lost limb and weakened by them.

But it was her who’d changed that.

Two years ago it hadn’t been the loss of his leg that had destroyed him. It had been Candice’s betrayal. That his ex-fiancée had walked away from him so easily had shattered his sense of self. He’d put himself back together, and his combat team and family had helped, but it was Olga who’d finished the healing.

For her, he was enough.