Cameron Haley - Mob rules

So I wasn't surprised when we arrived and I saw the factory grounds were only lightly guarded, about like they'd been on my first visit. The ward surrounding the site had been reinforced. The magic was much stronger, and a lot more complex. Papa Danwe had probably come down and done it himself, after my little incursion.

The team remained out of sight of the guards and split up. Honey and I stayed out front, along with Ilya Zunin and Sonny Kim. Ismail Akeem took the north side, Amy Chen the east, and Frank Seville the south. When everyone was in place, we all hit the ward's anchor points with chaos magic. It went down within seconds, and the alarm bell began to toll.

Sonny Kim chanted something in Korean, and a cyclone tore through the gangbangers positioned around the building. A few had time to get off a single spell or fire their weapons wildly before they were borne away by the wind, as if a giant had reached down and brushed them aside. We were joined by the other three as we walked across the lot to the factory.

As we approached the building, Zunin flung out one arm and the tattoos inked into his skin burned red. The force spell hit the brick wall like a cruise missile and punched a hole in it large enough to drive a school bus through. The back-blast from the spell blew out all the windows on the west side of the building, and tiny, winking shards of glass showered down on us like rain.

Papa Danwe was waiting for us inside with his own posse of hard-hitting gangsters positioned around the gate machinery in a semicircle. There were a lot more of them than us, enough that I didn't have time to count them all. The Haitian stepped forward when we appeared out of the choking clouds of brick dust and smoke.

He was old and impossibly thin, like a skeleton draped in papery black skin. His eyes were as pale gray as Rashan's. He was stooped, his bony shoulders hunched forward, and his shriveled right hand clutched the silver pommel of a walking stick. A necklace of human finger bones rattled on his chest as he hobbled toward us. I waited for him to get within twenty feet, and then I brought the Mossberg down from my shoulder and leveled it in his general direction.

"That's far enough, old man."

The Haitian squinted at me, as if he wasn't sure what he was seeing. "Where is your master, girl? It is time we finish this." His voice was a dry rasp. Not as bad as Akeem, but still pretty damn hard to understand.

"He couldn't make it. It's amateur night at the strip club, and he's the judge."

"He too craven to face me, yes?" Papa Danwe laughed. It was more of an insane giggle, really.

I wasn't going to mention why Rashan hadn't made the trip. The vibe I was getting from Papa Danwe led me to believe he should have sat this one out, too. For all I knew, he'd been spinning spells as long as Rashan, and he was clearly on speaking terms with crazy.

"Anything he can do, the six of us can do almost as well."

"Seven," Honey corrected.

"Seven," I said. "Sorry, Honey."

Papa Danwe scowled. "None of you is welcome here. This is my ground. Go now, or I kill you here."

I just shook my head. Everyone knew the game, and the stakes. Why couldn't we just get an early start on killing each other? Why did we have to talk about it first? Probably because bad guys have limited educations and even worse social skills. They just don't know how to act. Once the Haitian started jawing, though, I felt like I at least had to hear him out. Maybe he actually had something to say. Maybe he wanted to back down, if I gave him a chance.

I sighed. "Okay. You and your boys walk away, and we'll take down this gate. There will still be some unfinished business between our outfits, but nothing we can't work out."

"Who are you to give orders to me, girl?" Papa Danwe spat. "I was a king on a gold and ivory throne when your people were still beating each other with sticks. You cannot dream so darkly to imagine what I will do to you."

I gave it due consideration. I tried to work it from every conceivable angle. "Yeah, that's what I figured." I shrugged. "Vi Victa Vis!" I shouted, and hurled a lance of kinetic energy at the old man's withered heart. His counterspell swatted it aside with a lazy wave of his left hand.

The plan was for me to handle the wards on the gate machinery, which meant I didn't have time to tangle with Papa Danwe. Fortunately, my team knew the plan, too. Frank Seville shouted something inarticulate and charged the Haitian. He was flowing all his juice into defensive spells as he barreled at the old man, and the malevolent energy that crashed over him from Papa Danwe's posse lit him up like a fluorescent bulb. He hit the Haitian's shriveled body like a train running down a deer on the tracks, and they tumbled out of sight and out of mind.

I started fighting my way toward the tower. I wasn't entirely sure how the gate apparatus worked, but I was certain I'd been more or less on the money with the Tesla machine theory, when I'd thought it was just a magic cannon. I was convinced the crystal suspended at the top of the tower was the business end, that it was the device that would tear a hole in the world and let the fairies in.

Images of the first few moments of battle were imprinted on my mind. I saw Amy Chen standing her ground, calmly casting spell after spell at the gangsters that tried to bring her down. The phantasmal shapes of serpents, dragons and lions sprung from her outstretched arms and savaged the ranks of her attackers like nerve agents carried on the wind.

Ilya Zunin waded in like a Russian bear, flailing about him with force magic that sliced through flesh and smashed bone. Sonny Kim stayed by his side, spinning protections and defensive spells with impossible precision, carefully deflecting the hostile magic that assaulted Zunin from all sides.

Ismail Akeem danced convulsively in a circle and writhed in pain as he disgorged one spirit after another from his tortured body. The spirits howled and wailed as they descended on their terrified victims and devoured them.

All of this I saw in those first few seconds. After that, the battle dissolved into chaos. There was so much juice coursing through the place and so many mind-twisting spells in the air it was difficult even to think, let alone make sense of what was happening around me. I would remember the sound. It was like the shriek of ravaged metal and lost souls, and it went on and on and on.

Honey stayed with me. She sang her wind-chime war spells and laid about her with her silver sword. We left a trail of the dead and dying behind us as we fought our way to the tower. I didn't feel like climbing it again, so I spun my levitation spell and fired the Mossberg down at the gangsters who came after us as I rose into the air.

I half expected to find another thug battalion on the roof, but I guess Papa Danwe was running low on guys who had enough juice to make a difference. The roof was deserted. I continued up to the small platform where the crystal sphere was suspended above the silver bezel. I could see the fairy magic warding the device this time, and I knew it would be impervious to both magic and physical attack. I landed on the platform, and Honey and I got to work.

It was a little like I imagined defusing a bomb would be. The warding spells were woven around and through the apparatus like tiny, intricate threads. I reached out with my mind and the changeling's magic and began unweaving the spells thread by thread. The terrible sound of the battle below cut through the roof and set my teeth on edge. The juice rose like heat from a burning building and lifted all the hair on my body like a static charge.

I'm not sure how long we were at it, but after a time we had undone most of the warding spells. As the threads were pulled free from the whole, they fell apart and the juice evaporated into the air. I'd just isolated the few threads that remained when Honey cried out in alarm.