Eli made it down the stairs to them and dug around in their pockets, finding key fobs for the bikes. He removed IDs and weapons. He rolled them over and applied zipstrips to their arms. Which I should have done. Except one of us had to stand cover.
Feeling useless, I ran my eyes over the SUV. It had stopped melting. Using the edge of my uniform sleeve to keep death cooties off me, I opened the SUV hatch and took out a modified long-rifle, ammo, a first aid kit, twobottles of water. Climbing the steps to Wrassler, I handed him the weapon and gear. “Per the Dark Queen’s order. Kill our enemies if they come for you.”
“Yes,” he said, the words gurgling, “My Queen.”
I raced back down the stairs. Eli turned on a bike once ridden by an enemy human and handed me its fob. He had taken the last of the weapons from the SUV. I holstered the Benelli and adjusted my headset. I had no helmet, and I wasn’t taking one from the enemy. They probably had death cooties too.
“Pickup in eight,” Eli told Wrassler. “Stay alive or your wife will kill me.”
“True dat,” Wrassler said, sounding more like himself. “If I die, she’ll slap me alive, kill me all over again, and you all too. That said, I’ll keep these guys down and try to keep the area clear with cover fire. I don’t wanna kill a human today. The cops frown on that.”
Magic and rubber bullets and smoke bombs had taken out enemy humans. If humans died, that was going to be a problem for the Roberes to handle. Still. I didn’t care enough to ride by and see if our enemies needed help.
Over comms, Alex said, “I’m inside one of remote aircraft. Enemy security sucks. It’s moving away from y’all. Assuming it’s heading back to the remote handler.”
“Coordinates,” Eli said.
“Head west from your current twenty.” He gave us street names. Eli and I took off on the unfamiliar bikes. Not Harleys but Suzuki Hayabusas. Fast, well-balanced racing bikes, but real whiners sound-wise.
I was armed, but firing was pretty much a useless exercise from a bike. I trailed Eli, feeling his too-fast heart rate. He shouldn’t be here.
Eli wasn’t wearing armor. He had a thick bandage around his thigh. The sticky wrap was stained with watery blood. I said nothing. Followed him. Feeling his rage.
Alex said, “The drone is high enough that I can see a good ways around. Ahead is an eighteen-wheeler, parked in a large concrete parking area. Truck has a shiny, slick paint job.” He told us where to turn. Three turns later, he said, “There are three witches sitting on the street beside the truck in a protected circle. Drone is dropping to it.The back of the vehicle is open.” He told us to turn, saying, “If you want to go in unheard, you’ll have to do it on foot. You’re half a mile.”
“No stealth,” Eli said. “These are their bikes. They have magical tracking amulets on them. They think friendlies are approaching.”
“Copy that,” Alex said. “I’m getting some good footage of the witches and the inside of the eighteen-wheeler. There are two people in the trailer.”
“Get out of the system before they sense you,” Eli said.
“Withdrawing. Leaving a back door in case I happen to need it again.”
“Are all our people secure?” Eli asked.
“Negative,” Alex said, “but the assets are undamaged and converging on NOLA. The sleeper is stored in an SUV and on her way.”
Sleeper. Florence. Good. We might need her sooner than expected.
“How many of our people are still in the Slidell downtown area?” Eli asked.
“Four.”
“Send them to us.”
“Already done. They’re thirty seconds behind you,” Alex said.
We slowed and seconds later four white crotch-rockets fell in behind our red bikes. Together, we converged on the location of the eighteen-wheeler and the witches. We sped into the drive of a warehouse. Along the side of the huge building. And into an even bigger concrete parking area with loading docks every few feet along the back of the warehouse.
The witches sitting in the circle stood and disappeared. Just vanished. Like a magician’s act. But... “Their circle is still working,” I said, “still active. It’s glowing with the same weird ugly energies they attacked us with.” A half second later I shouted, “The energies are growing.”
“Abort!” Eli shouted, looking up. He gunned his bike to the right. “Abort! Abort! Disperse!”
I turned to the right, following Eli, my turn too hard, too fast on the unfamiliar bike. My boot grazed the concrete. I almost—almost—put my foot down. Which coulddislocate my ankle. At the last second, I corrected my lean and accelerated. We all took off, down the drive to the street.
I glanced at the driveway in front of me and back, following Eli’s eyes, even as I gunned the unfamiliar Suzuki Hayabusa. Above the open space at the eighteen-wheeler was a drone. A BIG one. Carrying something that glowed orange. Another magical bomb.
Below it, the concrete in the witches’ circle buckled, as if something was trying to come up from beneath the ground. The circle was a portal of some kind. Just like the transport circle in the street at the null prison. And probably at the airport. And in Natchez, way back when. This was a trap.
