Dozens of meters away, he heard the man named Jack make a confused huh sound before saying, “Weird. It’s like he’s not even there. I can’t find a single trace of him.” Rather than sounding upset, he sounded curious.

“What’s a norm doing with shielding like that?” The woman also sounded more curious than alarmed, as if safely taking half a dozen bullets at point-blank range was as normal as going to the bank.

Fourteen pulled out his phone and opened the app controlling his security cameras. He was in luck. Out of the entire system of cameras, only four had been damaged in the attack earlier. Pulling up the live feed from the front of the warehouse, he could see three areas of distortion, grouped ten meters from where he was standing, right in front of the main loading door.

Fourteen made his way stealthily back into the warehouse via the hole and got into his heavily modified SUV. While nearly a small tank, it still had a quiet engine, but he chose not to rely on the witches not being able to hear it.

The second the engine turned over, Fourteen had it in gear, put the pedal to the floor, and aimed straight for the loading door.

The SUV punched through the door like it was made of wet paper, and Fourteen had a brief impression of a blue flash when the whole vehicle bounced off something and spun across the parking lot.

The hood had popped open in the crash, and the airbags were inflated, making it impossible to see.

Fuck a fucking duck.

Fourteen’s injured shoulder leaked and protested loudly as he reached behind himself and pulled out his spare AK-47, trying not to get it tangled up in the airbag as he exited the vehicle.

Fuck. He’d just leaked all over his favorite vehicle.

No.

He bled. Humans bled and machines leaked. Fourteen was fairly certain that enough of him was human to call it bleeding.

Well, whatever it was his shoulder was doing, it was destroying the upholstery. He didn’t know why that bothered him more than the damage to the front of his SUV, and he didn’t bother delving into it. He had magic wielding assholes to kill and/or interrogate.

As low to the ground as he could get, he crept to the edge of the car to survey the scene. A quick glance told him very little. All he could see were three glowing shields, one orange, one blue, and one that reminded him of the night sky in Norway.

Funny. He didn’t remember going to Norway.

The shields were completely opaque, obscuring the witches inside. Another glance told him they were heading straight for him.

They were definitely different than the shields he’d come up against earlier, but he reasoned that if he’d been able to take out Stella and Sterling’s shields so easily, he could defeat these as well.

Fourteen stayed low as he got back into the SUV and dug under his seat for extra magazines. He dragged his loot back out and set himself up next to the hood, bracing himself for what was to come.

The ebb and flow of emotions had now reached a crescendo in his mind. Maim, rend, and destroy was foremost in his mind, but on the edges of the maelstrom, his conditioning said, “Watch and wait. Right action will come.”

As he put round after round into the approaching spheres, the bloodlust eclipsed the calm. All he wanted now was for someone to pay for what had happened to Cym.

The spheres were almost on top of him and showed no signs of faltering under his attack. They nearly had him surrounded, and he tried to retreat. He couldn’t save Cym if he were deactivated.

No.

Killed, not deactivated.

Fourteen’s mind was a cluster-fuck of confusion as unfamiliar emotions and long-time conditioning fought for supremacy, and he was too preoccupied to figure out which side he was rooting for.

The orange shield darted forward impossibly fast and cut off his escape. He pulled out a knife and slashed, but the knife sank into the sphere and was held fast. Under his disbelieving gaze, the blade began to dissolve, so he released it.

Behind him, the other two spheres closed in and began to morph, each one creating a solid-looking wall to pen him in. The orange one followed suit and joined with the other two, trapping Fourteen in a colorful triangular prison.

He still had several weapons tucked in various places on his body, but with the exception of the grenades—which he knew were a bad idea—he had a feeling his entire armory would be absorbed if he tried to use them.

“So, first I just want to say that you’re absolutely terrifying. If we weren’t who we are, I’d need new pants right now.” Jack’s voice came from the shimmering, multicolored sphere.

Fourteen wanted to say Jack was an asshole. If he wanted to talk to him, that is. Fourteen didn’t want to talk. He wanted to hurt someone so he didn’t have to feel things.

Feeling things was horrible, and he didn’t recommend it at all. It was almost as bad as not feeling anything at all.

“There’s a time and a place, Jack.” The unnamed man’s voice came from inside the blue sphere. “Let’s just give him a minute to calm down, okay?”

Fourteen’s heartbeat was so rapid it was hard for him to breathe. Calming down sounded like a good idea, but he couldn’t figure out how to accomplish it. If he could, he probably wouldn’t have tried to kill all three of these guys the second they arrived.

Fourteen was better than this. He wouldn’t have lived as long as he had if he couldn’t think under pressure. He hadn’t been thinking at all just now. Only reacting.

Fucking hell.

He had to get his shit together now, otherwise he was going to get taken out by a handful of asshole witches.

For lack of a better thing to do, he crouched down on the ground, a position that allowed him to rest and prepare to wreak maximum damage on all sides. He needed to get a handle on his body. If he could calm it down, he could regain control.

He closed his eyes. He’d still be able to hear the witches if they tried anything.

For the count of one hundred and thirty breaths, Fourteen listened to his heart race. His captors stayed silent, allowing him the illusion of solitude. When his heartbeat slowed, he saw past the bloodlust burning in his mind. It allowed him to start thinking again.

Fourteen’s first thought was that this fight wasn’t anything like his earlier battles with witches. From the moment the Blaikes arrived on the scene, they’d done nothing but throw spells, heedless of innocent bystanders. This skirmish, while brief, was nearly one-sided.

Now that Fourteen wasn’t being controlled by the mess inside his head, he could see the possibility that the people he was currently up against might not be part of the Blaike family.

Everything inside of him stopped. His stomach lurched as he realized he might have just attacked innocent people. It didn’t matter to him that they could easily take care of themselves. He wondered what Cym would think of him.

Without opening his eyes, he asked, “Are you Blaikes?”

An audible sigh of relief came from his left and the unnamed man said, “No, we’re guardians, actually. We were brought here by a blanket spell. We had one set up over the city to let us know if another magical battle occurred. We almost didn’t come, you know.” Fourteen could hear amusement in the man’s voice. “The spell claimed that a battle was both happening and not happening at the same time. I’m guessing that had something to do with you.”

“Guardians.” Fourteen opened his eyes. “That means nothing to me.” Which was a lie. He remembered Cym saying something about the Guard shortly after he met him. It wasn’t a stretch to assume the guardians were connected to it in some way, but he preferred to play dumb. It was his favorite method for gathering information from a potential hostile.

The blue shield went transparent, revealing the face of the man he’d tried to murder in cold blood moments earlier. Instead of anger, Fourteen saw calm in his eyes.

The man continued, saying, “We’re members of the Guard, an organization that oversees the magical community. Guardians are like peacekeepers. We try to keep everyone, including norms like yourself—” His speech was interrupted by a snort from the rainbow sphere.

The sphere became transparent as Jack said, “If you think this guy is a norm, you haven’t been paying attention.”

“I just meant that he has no inner magic. Obviously there is something different about him, er, you.” The man turned his attention back to Fourteen. “Forgive my rudeness, I’m usually better at this sort of thing. The past twenty-four hours have been… especially challenging. I’m Marshall, by the way.”

The third sphere became transparent as well, but the woman inside stayed silent, her face radiating a calm presence similar to Marshall’s.

Fourteen didn’t know what to think of these people. He’d done everything in his power to kill them. Up til now, that had meant the target died, sometimes horribly. His captors should be raging at him, torturing him, or even attempting to kill him, but instead he was getting treated like a potential ally. Like a person.