ONE

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? JUVENAL

My blood Pollocked the wall outside of the new Abyss Club with fresh spatter, as the blasts of energy punched into me, introducing my body to the brick wall with force. I wiped the blood from my lips and tried to catch my breath. This night had taken a seriously dark turn.

This was just supposed to be a simple recon op. Luca assured me low to no contact with hostiles. My body begged to differ.

The Abyss had been rebuilt after Bruce opted for early retirement by Luca, the Division’s second-in-command and occasional acting director. The Stone Troll Clan, which Bruce belonged to, decided it was good business to keep the club open, and started on the renovations immediately after his death. Division 13 left them alone as long as they adhered to the rules. This was my first stop and, if I wasn’t careful, it was looking to be my last.

“Fuck,” I managed, when the air returned to my lungs. “That hurt, even with the dragonscale I’m wearing, you bastard.”

I may as well have been speaking to the freshly bloodied wall. Judging from the vacant look and fresh drool dribbling down his chin, the mage in front of me was clearly on an extended mental vacation. This was not good.

He kept gibbering about fear and darkness under his breath. His unstable mental state seemed to have little effect on his aim though. As dangerous as the little shit was, I realized the real threat stood behind him.

My brain was still trying to process the image. Just beyond the mage, like some kind of freakish bodyguard, stood a mishmash of fresh nightmare. It stood as large as an ogre, but had the features of a rummer. Besides being hideous, infecting the street with its odor and destroying any hope of my smelling anything ever again, it was the behavior that threw me…it was waiting.

Usually these kinds of creatures had two settings: mayhem or destruction. Patient observation wasn’t in their wheelhouse. The fact that this thing just stood there, watching the mage trying to reduce me to a pulp, was more unnerving than having it race at me mindlessly, set upon my destruction.

I glanced around to make sure Mr. Serling wasn’t in a corner, drink and cigarette in hand, explaining my journey into an alternate dimension of sight, sound, and mind.

My gun, Thorn, lay shattered in several pieces on the ground next to my feet.

<Cait, what the hell is that thing behind Tall, Dark, and Deranged?>

<It appears to be some combination of a rummer and an ogre.> I heard Cait answer in her cybersexy voice. <I would advise extreme caution. It does not appear to be an imminent threat, yet.>

Sounded like great advice.

Cait was my Combat Artificially Intelligent Techbrace. Every operative in Division 13 wore one. My model was equipped with all the bells and whistles; some were even approved by the head of the Division 13 Sciences Department, Reese. The techbrace was connected to me on several levels, and was designed to work with an operative’s unique DNA signature. This allowed me to ‘speak’ to silently as I assessed the situation.

On occasion, depending on my focus, and how much damage I’ve sustained, the silent function took too much effort. It was similar to my trying to have a coherent conversation in the morning without Deathwish, not physically possible and incredibly taxing on a caffeine-deprived brain.

“You ask too many questions, Ronin,” the mage slurred. “Questions that will get you killed.”

“You know what they say: no such thing as a stupid question.”

“Yours are stupid and fatal.”

“My feelings are all hurt now,” I said, trying to gauge how much of this was the mage, and how much of it was whatever was inside him. “No need to be insulting.”

Someone, or something, was controlling the mage and killing him. Someone powerful.

The mage smiled in response. All teeth and demented intention. He lowered his head and started laughing. That’s when I knew this little bastard was going to try his best to kill me. Angry black orbs of power formed in his hands, even as blood trickled down his nose and out of his eyes.

“I’m going to end you now,” Crazy Mage hissed. “The only good operative…is a dead one.”

“I’m not going to take that personally, because clearly you’ve left insane and sailed right into batshit crazy.”

I drew my backup weapon and fired. It wasn’t Thorn, but it was lethal. 9mm runed rounds were effective against humans, even those who wielded magic. They were devastating, powerful, and immediate. I hit the mage three times center mass, and watched them punch holes in his body.

“Kill him,” the mage said, as he fell to his knees and slowly departed this plane. “Kill him—now.”

Crazy Mage crumpled to the ground and breathed his last even as the blood continued to exit his body. I looked up at the ogrummer and we locked eyes. I want to say we made a connection. Very similar to when a gazelle gazes upon a hungry lioness and realizes it’s on the menu.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, raising a hand. “I’m sure he was mistaken. I think he meant to say: ‘I killed him’, which if you look, he was right.”

Thorn carried my negation rounds. I looked down at my shattered gun and holstered the backup. Ogres and trolls were ridiculously runically resistant. Shooting the creature with regular runed rounds would do little more than tickle it. I’d probably do more damage if I threw the gun than fired it.

“Time to die,” the creature growled. Its voice was a cross between crushed gravel and nails on a chalkboard. “You’ve made a mistake. A lethal one.”

“Look at you,” I said, stomping on the fear threatening to squeeze my bowels empty as I backed away. “Using words and everything.”

Rummers didn’t speak, and ogres less so. They were mindless engines of thirst, mayhem, and destruction. Conversation wasn’t part of the package. Whoever was playing Frankenstein with these creatures, was getting creative and making the hybrids intelligent. This night just slid into full-blown horror show mode.

At least, I had an advantage.

Ogres were usually lumbering hulks. You set them to destroy and unleashed them. I could outmaneuver this creature, using Cait to enhance my strikes and put it down. That plan ended when his fist smashed into my side, bouncing me off the nearby wall.

These hybrids were not lumbering anything. They moved fast. Faster than anything that size had a right to move. I rolled to the side and avoided another brick-shattering fist.

<Cait, options.>

<Don’t die?>

<Really? I’ll work on that.>

I backed up even further, and circled around as I tried to gain my bearings. I pushed the pain away as Cait flushed my body with a medkit. The only thing that saved me from being a broken heap was my dragonscale-lined suit.

<I suggest the use of your bladed weapon against the creature. It was created for situations such as these.>

<That means I have to get close. Do you see the size of this thing?>

<The blade is runically enhanced and designed to be used against creatures of this nature. Or you could run, but the probability of being caught and then crushed to death is ninety-eight percent.>

<Never tell me the odds. I’m going to pass on the running and dying tired, thanks.>

I pulled out my blade, Sliver. It was designed as a wakizashi—a short sword used by samurai to end their lives. The irony wasn’t lost on me. Honor, a mage and old friend was the current leader of the Light Council. He was also the owner of Dragonflies, which operated as part of the Central Archive, a neutral location.

He had given it to me a few months ago. His words came back to me: “Bullets, even runed ones, won’t work on everything you face out there. This”—he handed me the blade—“won’t run out of ammunition. When you learn to understand it, you will have something better than any gun.”

Sliver was a paradox for a technomancer like me. On the one hand, I favored using and manipulating tech. On the other hand I didn’t enjoy being reduced to a bloody pulp. I didn’t understand the magic behind it, but energy is energy, tech or otherwise. As long as it worked, I didn’t need the details. I needed it to cut the menace in front of me.

I felt Sliver pulse in my hand. The blade was covered in soft, blue, glowing runes. This wasn’t one of those sentient, creepy-as-hell blades. I told Honor I’d shoot him if I woke up one day to the blade speaking to me.

“What’s that?” the creature said, looking at the blade. “You plan on stabbing me?”

“Something like that, unless you’d like to call off the whole ‘breaking me into little pieces’ plan?”

It laughed in response and grinned.

“I’m going to take that as a no,” I said, closing the distance.