Nyx Smith - Fade to Black

Filly shouted into his face.

Autofire erupted.

The Predator hammered the night like a cannon. The suit staggered backward, head snapping back, blood splashing his chest, Rico turned and hurled himself into a dive.

Heavy weapons thundered. Rico recognized the rapid-fire stammering of the minigun atop Thorvin's van and the higher-pitched bursts of Shank's M22A2 assault rifle. There was also a quick, clattering burst that might have been from an SMG. Rico thought of the suit's cutter. Probably him.

He tucked and rolled and came up running. All he had to do now was make it to Thorvin's van without getting his cojones shot off. Slot in and run.

One minute everything was calm and peaceable-like. In the next, Surikov was down and Rico was blasting away with that heavy auto of his, and targeting indicators were popping up all over the place and heavy autofire was coming in from every direction.

So much for any advance warning!

Never trust a freaking shaman for anything!

Thorvin revved bis supercharger and spun the weapons pods up top. Hostiles were coming up right out of the ground, like from manhole covers and storm drains. He set his minigun to stammering and fired a broad pattern of minigrenades, smoke and concussion both. What really worried him was the pair of bogies just now appearing on his radar overlay.

"PAIR OF BIRDS INCOMING!" he roared.

Make my freaking night.

Bandit stepped out through the open side door of the van and took a quick look around.

Just beyond the Eurovan that Rico and Shank had brought along was the suit's shiny black limousine. Bandit couldn't see the suit anymore. The slag had fallen, and Bandit had an idea he might be dead. Raccoon did not care much for killing or for any kind of fighting, but this was probably an exceptional situation. Things did not look good.

A few steps in front of him, between him and the Eurovan, Shank was shooting away on full auto.

Then the mana shifted. It had nothing to do with Shank. Bandit sensed what was coming before he had any real right to know. He lowered his head a little and leaned toward his left to peer around the front end of the Eurovan. From there, he saw something move on the far side of the suit's limo. The mage was emerging, standing up, using the limousine for cover. A dark hood cast his features in shadow, but not his aura. Bandit's eyes widened as he saw the pulsating power hi the mage's astral form. They widened still further as he assensed the power of the spell the mage was drawing together.

This was very bad.

Swirling energy coalesced and condensed, growing more intense, more menacing. The world seemed to slip toward blackness as the mana mounted rapidly toward a climax. Bandit wondered what would happen when that climax finally came, but decided against waiting to find out. He had a very, very strong feeling that he would not like the effects of the mage's spell one bit.

Rather than wait, he murmured two words and pointed. From his finger shot a slender stream of energy that blended with the forces gathering around the mage. Momentarily, the mage hesitated and wiped at his eyes. Then he coughed, and then he was growling and clasping his hands to his face as he hacked and coughed and rasped for breath. The stench of the vapors that now swirled around him would spread quickly. The nauseating odors took effect at once.

The mage abruptly bent over and vomited.

Bandit nodded. Another lesson learned. Powerful, complex spells had their uses. Raccoon preferred to keep things simple wherever possible. Here, simple made complex irrelevant. Or almost irrelevant. For another moment, the energies the mage had conjured continued to gather, uncontrolled, building toward a new climax, a chaotic release of immense power.

This could be bad.

Really bad.

A crackling detonation rushed across the night sky, growing in strength and volume until suddenly it erupted and a searing bolt of pure white energy struck down out of the night. Dok felt more than saw it. The hairs running up his spine to his neck stood on end. A tremendous blast shook the ground. A roaring explosion followed. A blinding white light flared. For an instant, it was like watching a nuke explosion on trid. Out the corners of his eyes, Dok glimpsed what he thought was the suit's Toyota limo leaping off the ground, disintegrating into whirling, razor-edged bits of shrapnel.

Somewhere between that first immense blast and the roaring explosion that followed, Dok felt Filly bump into his side, and suddenly she was falling right in front of his feet.

Caught in mid-stride, halfway around the front end of the Eurovan, Dok pitched forward and plunged to the pavement. He heard Shank bawling, "COVERRRRR!" He heard that roaring explosion and caught a glimpse of the disintegrating limo. He thought for sure that Filly must've stumbled. Or maybe she'd heard that first ground-shaking blast and just instinctively went prone.

Shrapnel or bullets or maybe both slammed against Dok's ballistic-insulated chest and shoulder and arm as he scrambled around on bis hands and knees to get back to Filly. She was bleeding. There was blood in the hair at the back of her head, and she wasn't moving. Suddenly the worst seemed like a possibility, but Dok knew, God now he knew, that it would be just like Filly to take a hit, even a bad one, without ever making a sound. She was one tough woman.

He seized her from under the shoulders, began dragging her toward the van. No time- no time for first aid now! He had to get her into the van- into the van and then do whatever he had to do! Patch her up good. Keep her alive till they got to a clinic somewhere, if it was really that bad!

It was hard to breathe, so hard…

Suddenly, Rico was there, grabbing Filly around the hips and helping to heft her in through the van's side door.

No time to lose.

None at all.

They were most of the night shaking their pursuit and checking and rechecking that they were clear.

The few things Bandit said about the mage who had been at the meet made the slag sound like some incredible master of the arcane arts. Like the guy could've laid waste to the whole parking field, everything in it, and half the Willow Brook Mall if he'd only had the time to get the magic together. Maybe the way things ended pointed out the advantage of learning your stuff on the street, instead of in some high-tower occult academy. On the street, you learned that you were either quick or dead. That was one thing about Bandit. As much as he sometimes seemed to be living in some other world, he knew how to be quick, and he knew when quick meant everything.

Good instincts, Rico thought.

What else could you call it?

Thorvin sent the van flying down the transitways. They crisscrossed the plex and doubled back too many times to keep track. Rico found it hard, impossible, to keep track because he couldn't believe how the meet had ended. It made no fragging sense.

There was also the action in the rear of the van.

Dok worked on Filly for more than an hour, long after it became obvious to Rico that what little Dok could do with the gear on hand just wouldn't cut it. Maybe if he'd had a full surgical kit with respirators and all the drek like in the average emergency ward, maybe then something too good to believe might have happened. The way things were, with all their asses on the line, they had to get clear, and everything else took second place.

Filly never moved. She didn't breathe. She didn't show the least sign of life. Whatever had hit the back of her head had penetrated bone. It had probably been over in an instant, before she could feel the pain, before she even knew what hit her.

If it was gonna happen, that was the way it oughta happen. That was how Rico wanted to go. Here one moment, gone the next. A death with some dignity.