“I’m going to draw their fire,” Val murmured. “Sneak around behind them and hit them with your faerie dust.”
Tetra nodded. “Got it.”
Val gripped her dagger in a sweaty hand and stepped out from behind the pallet of drugs, holding her shield high. The gun muzzle reappeared as a gangster darted from behind the truck’s cover, and Val threw her dagger. More gunfire joined the first gun’s deafening reports, which stopped when Val’s dagger hit the shooter’s upper thigh. Bullets zinged and whined on her shield as she jogged toward the cover of the next stack.
Come on, Tetra! Val kept her movements slow as the remaining gangster fired at her. Nine rounds in the average pistol. He fired five, six, seven, then screamed.
“Got him!” Tetra yelled. “Oh, shit!”
The crack of a gunshot cut her off short, and Val’s heart froze. She skidded to a halt and lowered the shield. Tetra flung herself under the truck, hands over her head, and cowered as bullets ricocheted around her and sent shards of glass flying.
“Tetra!” Val thundered.
She charged in, and her bloody dagger zipped to her hand. Tetra squealed in panic, and Val flung herself in front of the faerie, shield raised. Bullets pinged and whined off the disc, and Val peered past it to see two gangsters firing from behind another stack. The torn tarp revealed that cartons of beer bottles wrapped in plastic made up their stack.
A bullet ricocheted and punched into the floor a few feet from Val. She tilted the shield, and the succeeding rounds bounced in different directions. The glass bottles shattered and beer sprayed everywhere, removing the gangsters’ cover as the stack collapsed in a shower of foam.
They quit shooting and bolted, but they weren’t fast enough.
“I’ve got the one on the left!” Tetra yelled.
She scrambled out from under the truck and sprinted after the fleeing gangster. Val just threw her dagger with a lazy flick of her wrist, and her magic propelled it forward. It zipped toward the guy’s shoulder, and when he whirled around, gun aimed at Tetra, Val twitched the dagger’s trajectory, and it landed in his heart.
“Tetra!” Val spun, hand outstretched as her dagger flew back to her.
“I’m okay,” Tetra called, standing over the groaning gangster in a haze of faerie dust. “I’m fine.”
“For Merlin’s sake.” Val looked around. “Where’s the other guy?”
Tetra gasped. “Shit! The office!”
Val’s heart flipped. When she’d rushed to save Tetra, she’d left a gap between herself and the office. Through the grimy Plexiglass, Val saw a human silhouette…and a yellow flame.
“Crap!” Val bolted.
Tetra caught up in a couple of strides, then passed her. Val lumbered behind.
The truck’s cover stirred.
“Tetra, look out!” Val bellowed. She lunged and tackled the faerie at the knees. Tetra went down with a grunt as a roaring flame rolled over their heads.
The two guys in overalls sprang out of the truck. One wielded a flamethrower, and the other had a shotgun.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Val curled her body around Tetra’s and held up her shield. The shotgun blast at point-blank range slammed into the shield with enough force to shove them both back. Val scrambled to raise the shield again, but Tetra yelled and flung faerie dust at the guy with the shotgun.
He screamed and tried to drop the gun, but his skin had melted onto the metal. Gurgling and shrieking, the guy fell to the ground and lay there, convulsing.
Val lurched to her feet and charged Flamethrower Guy. He aimed the nozzle, and a stream of fire rolled toward her. She raised the shield and charged through it blindly. Heat scorched the back of her hand as the flames covered the conductive metal. Then the shield slammed into something that crunched, and the fire stopped. Val trampled the fallen gangster as she charged the office.
“Right behind you!” Tetra barked.
Val plowed into the office door shield-first. Hot metal collided with Plexiglass and shattered it. The door collapsed in a shower of plastic shards and wood splinters, and the gangster standing by a scorched oil drum in the back corner raised a handgun. He held a heavy ledger in the other hand. It gaped open to show handwritten pages.
“You guys don’t learn, do you?” Val snarled, tightening her grip on the dagger. There was dried blood on the blade and hilt.
The guy fired. Val blocked with the shield and felt the thud as the bullet lodged in the softened metal instead of bouncing off. She grunted and raised her dagger.
“Get him, Tetra!” she roared.
The gangster released the book, and it tumbled toward the flames as Val hurled the dagger at him. Tetra darted under her arm almost as fast as the blade flew. Faerie dust appeared in front of her in a cloud of holographic sparkles.
The dagger slammed into the ledger, and the faerie dust hit the gangster in the chest. His head snapped back like he’d been punched, and he crumpled to the ground as the dagger pinned the ledger to the opposite wall.
Tetra delicately stepped over the fallen gangster and tried to pull the dagger out. Sirens yowled in the distance, rapidly coming nearer.
“Merlin’s baby-smooth butt cheeks,” Tetra growled. She braced a foot against the wall and pulled, but the dagger didn’t budge.
Val peered into the scorched oil drum. A burned laptop lay within, melting and releasing a horrific plastic-y smell.
“Do you think they destroyed everything?” Tetra asked.
Val stepped over the gangster, who was dead. No one could be that color and still be alive. She plucked the dagger from the wall with an easy jerk. Tetra caught the ledger.
“It all depends on what’s in that.” Val nodded at the book.
Tetra flipped it open. “A shitload of numbers, that’s what.” She paged to the front. “Oh, hang on.”
