Nyx Smith - Fade to Black

What was it? Atropine? Working this quickly? He felt his legs give way and suddenly found himself lying on the floor on his back, staring blindly at the ceiling.

How had that happened? What was going on? Why was he so hot, burning up? He couldn't breathe. It felt like he had a metal strap ringing his neck and another around his chest, crushing him. He tried to force air into his lungs, but the pain was overwhelming.

Angels. He heard angels singing…

Surikov was wide-eyed and looking around as the towers swung by, but then the winch above their heads pulled them up beside the door in the helo's flank. Dok reached out, and in another moment Rico, Shank, and Surikov were all inside.

Dok hooked a safety line onto Surikov. Rico popped the line off his own harness and moved forward to the copilot's seat. The helo banked and picked up speed, vectoring down a long chasm of steel and crete towers.

"Three birds!" Thorvin shouted. "Coming in on freaking intercept!"

Rico shouted back. "Port Authority cops?"

The Port Authority had jurisdiction over Manhattan air space and regularly put patrols in the air. Thorvin shook his head. "I don't think so!"

Who the hell could it be? Rico wondered. Piper'd had the Crystal Blossom tower locked down solid. They'd been in and out in just minutes. Who could even know they'd been there, much less have helos in the air and coming down on them this fast? "Can ya lose 'em?"

"Do I HAVE A FREAKING CHOICE!"

"Master," the voice whispered.

Bandit closed his eyes to the tilting, vibrating world of the helicopter's interior and looked to the astral plane. The raccoon-like form of the watcher crouched before him.

"You must come," it said.

Bandit considered that.

Very risky.

Claude Jaeger dead? Killed by a woman? There was no doubting the witness of his astral senses, yet Maurice struggled with the concept, astounded. The physical adept had often seemed sufficiently formidable to be virtually indestructible. He should have known, Maurice thought Time disproved all such lies.

Now he would have to finish the job himself.

Disgruntled, he left his biffs in the Mercedes and crossed the street to the narrow front of the warehouse. The smaller of the two doors clicked and opened at a word. He stepped into the long, narrow, rectangular space of a loading area, then mounted the loading dock at the rear and continued on through another door, down the hall and into what looked like a lounge. The woman was there, huddled on a cushioned bench and quietly sobbing, her face and head completely hidden under a disheveled mass of shiny whitish-blonde hair. Jaeger lay dead on the floor, on his back, a look of inexpressible bliss monopolizing his features.

"Master," said Vera Causa, his ally, murmuring into his ear. "Beware …"

Maurice shifted to his astral perceptions in time to see the radiant figure emerging from the wall at the back of the lounge.

The shaman…

The slags in the pursuing helos were pros. Thorvin's evasive maneuvers didn't throw them. Neither did the halfer's E.C.W. They came in high and low, and Rico had no choice but to point Thorvin toward the Hudson River. They'd have to sprint for the Jersey Side, hoping Thorvin could find the speed to get them dear of their pursuit.

As they passed out over the dark expanse of water, the first slugs clattered against the helo's hull. One penetrated the airframe to gouge Shank in the upper right thigh, another fractured the window at Rico's side, spitting a jagged sliver of transparex across his cheek. The wound wasn't deep and the blood loss was minimal, but it didn't improve his mood any.

He looked to the rear and saw Bandit sitting cross-legged, unmoving, eyes closed, flute lying across his lap.

No help coming from that quarter.

They're GAINING!" Thorvin shouted.

"Push it!"

"I'm freaking pushing, ALL RIGHT?"

Bandit paused at the rear of the lounge. He had seen the corpse in the stairwell and now he saw the body on the floor here in this room. Things were happening. It seemed that Rico's concern for Farrah Moffit's safety had been more than justified. Bandit only wondered how two men had come to be dead, while Moffit still lived.

A tall, thin man stood at the head of the lounge, just in front of the door to the hallway. His aura now grew radiant, revealing truths. The man was a magician, and he was using his astral senses. That meant he was probably looking at Bandit, seeing him. That didn't bother Bandit much. What bothered him was what he saw standing beside the man.

The spirit had a female form. It looked from Bandit to the other magician and back again several times. Was this a conjured spirit or an ally? Either way, it boded no good.

Two against one.

Bad odds.

Bandit felt inclined toward just leaving. The equivalent of one step back and he would be on the other side of a physical wall and all but immune to spellcasting. There was a problem with that, though. Farrah Moffit was important. Rico had made a point of impressing that on everyone. If Bandit simply stepped out, she would be at the mercy of this magician.

" I regret this," the magician said. "Have you any last words?"

Bandit nodded. "Goodfellow."

The spirit so named emerged from the wall at the rear of the lounge and paused at Bandit's left. It took the form of a human, but slim, short, and bearded, and wearing peculiar clothing with ruffles and lacy trim. It looked at Bandit for a moment, then across the astral terrain to the other magician, then, with a flourish, bowed, extending one arm with the hand palm up.

The floor rumbled and quaked and split open. The magician opposite shouted and fell through the hole, down and out of sight.

Goodfellow bowed again and vanished.

The other magician's spirit leaned over to gaze into the hole, then looked at Bandit and smiled. "You should go away," it said, "before my master wakes up."

Bandit could see the wisdom in that.

Manifesting on the physical plane, he moved over to face Farrah Moffit. She sat on a cushioned bench with her back pressed to the wall and her legs drawn up before her body. Her eyes were wide and round and she held one hand thrust back against her mouth. She looked terrified. She went on staring at the hole in the floor till Bandit moved directly into her line of sight, then her eyes widened further as her gaze met his.

"Come with me if you want to live."

Moffit gasped, then slowly nodded her head.

The LZ became a killing zone.

They had no choice but to put down. It was that or wait to get shot out of the air. The pursuing helos didn't hesitate to fire even as they passed over heavily populated sections of the Newark metroplex. Populated, sure, but by who? Nobody that mattered.

Thorvin's hideaway for the helo was in the ruins of Sector 13, an old abandoned airport near the wastes of some long-forgotten cemetery. Chain-link fencing topped by coils of razor-wire surrounded one of the smaller hangars. Thorvin put the helo down inside the fencing, and the other helos closed in.

Bullets hammered against the airframe. Thorvin turned the helo parallel to the front of the hangar to provide cover. One of the hangar doors slid open and Thorvin's van came rolling out, guided by remote. The weapons pod on top opened up and began blazing. By then, Rico could see that the other helos were dropping uniformed troops to the ground.

Bandit was still in a trance. Shank grabbed him up and Rico grabbed Surikov and they broke for the van.

It was a straight run-from the side of the helo to the side of the van-no more than about five meters.

The troops moving in cut loose with a storm of autofire.

Abruptly, Dok veered left and out beyond the front end of the helo, shouting and blazing away with his Ingram. It was a suicide move. The instant he saw it happening, Rico thrust Surikov toward the van and lunged across the ferrocrete. But not even his enhanced reaction time and speed could get him going fast enough. His ears were full of the stammering of autofire weapons and Dok's shouts of vengeance and wrath, and none of it mattered. None of it made any difference.