Kyle shot east, to the lake, arriving there in a fraction of a second. He then followed the shoreline north, looking for the lakeshore at North Avenue, where he and Walsh had passed over it. He continued north, finally stopping at the break in the shoreline which he knew to be Fullerton. He was now too far north.
Kyle cursed again, knowing that his stupidity was costing him valuable time that he couldn't afford to waste, when he felt a shock, a short, quick pain in his left arm. His perception blurred, and he felt himself pulled back to his body by the force of what he took to be Hanna Uljaken’s blow. Then he felt the sensation again, harder across his neck, and he slammed into his body and a wave of pain.
His physical senses returned and he was on the floor, covered in something warm. A man yelled. "Grab him! Grab him!"
Kyle rolled over, pushing against a booted leg near him, just as another spray of blood exploded from Sergeant Walsh's neck. Still in the chair, pinned there by another Eagle officer, Walsh's body thrashed and the side of his head darkened as blood vessels ruptured and bone shattered. Still on the floor, Kyle cast a web of protective magical energies around Walsh. He could do nothing to stop what he took to be a vicious assault on the mage's astral form, but he was suddenly afraid that any magicians present at the other end could use the connection between Walsh's spirit body and physical form to "ground" a spell directly into the command van. The best he could hope for was to disrupt those energies if they leaped through.
Walsh's body jerked again, and his bloodied eyes flew open as he screamed and pitched forward even against the strength of the two officers holding him. He fell across Kyle's legs and onto the floor. Kyle immediately dropped the protective energies and placed his hand on the man's neck in an effort to staunch the arterial flow.
The thrashing subsided as Walsh's resistance collapsed and his body slipped rapidly into shock. His eyes glazed and his breath faltered.
"Harlem, north of Irving!" Kyle screamed, and then focused his magical talents on me dying mage. He quickly synchronized their two auras and began channeling living energy directly into Walsh's being. Kyle felt the other mage's spirit faltering when it needed to be strong, at least strong enough, if he was going to be able to continue healing him.
Walsh's spirit flickered, slipping from Kyle's control. There, just as Kyle's essence meshed with his, Kenneth Walsh died, his True Self dissolving into chaos, back into the dance of energy from which it came.
Kyle leaned back, releasing his grip and allowing the last spurts of blood from the mans sputtering heart to arc across the room. He was covered in Walsh's blood, as Malley and the other trooper who'd tried to restrain his thrashings. Beyond them and equally as stunned, Hanna Uljaken stood ashen, except for a spray of Crimson across her face and blouse. Kyle collapsed back against the cold wall of the van.
“Harlem, north of Irving," he said again. "That's where they are…
16
The storefront, when Kyle finally got a clear look at it, was simple and drab. As he and half a dozen Eagle troopers moved toward it from an alley across the street, he could see paint peeling from the door and window frames, the view inside blocked by old newspapers and plastic garbage bags hanging in the windows. A lopsided sign still hung over the entrance, the letters themselves long gone, but the ghostly outline of the words were still visible-UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD: FOR THE NEXT STAGE OF YOUR LIFE.
Thoughts of Beth's sister Ellen rushed into Kyle's mind, And Strevich's warnings, Mitch Truman's destroyed mind, the true form of Linda Hayward, and the vicious roach spirit he'd killed in the hospital. The Brotherhood was somehow mixed up in this. But he couldn't think about it now, there was no time as the strike team rushed forward from the alley, steps behind a two-man team coming in from the side.
The lead trooper dropped into position covering the closed door as Kyle's group reached the middle of the street, the traffic stopped in both directions by Eagle troopers at the flanking intersections. Kyle was just reaching the curb when the second trooper slammed his heavy riot shotgun against the door lock mechanism and pulled the trigger.
Kyle's group reached the doorway moments after the shot splintered the doorframe and sent the metal lock hurling inside. The lead trooper in Kyle's group hit the door hard, his solid metal riot shield braced in front of him.
The rest of the door shattered under his weight, and the team moved inside. Kyle could hear similar noises as the team led by Malley and Woodhouse entered through the rear. Some of the troopers were armed for urban combat, carrying riot guns firing high-velocity flechette or SABOT rounds designed to cut lightly armored targets to bits. Others were armed with more conventional assault weapons and submachine guns. A couple were armed primarily with nonlethal weaponry-riot guns firing gel rounds, stun batons and gloves, shock/concussion grenades, and net guns in case they met "questionable" targets. It was they who fired first on the two men who rushed forward against the onslaught. The pair fell quickly, knocked off their feet by a barrage of gel rounds, and then subdued by the skillful application of shock batons.
The interior of the storefront was a large waiting room filled with plastic chairs and tattered propaganda posters. Twin rows of rusted fluorescent lights supplemented what little light crept in through the dirty, partially covered windows. Of the six people-men, women, and a child-in that outer waiting room, all but the two who attacked immediately did not resist the police rush.
On a small desk at one end of the room was a notepad computer and some piles of paper now strewn about or fallen onto the floor. Beyond that, against the wall, was a small table holding a soykaf maker and a three-dispenser sodapak machine adjoining a closed door.
The baby began to scream as Kyle reached the middle of the room and the trooper immediately ahead of him took up position covering the door. Kyle moved in opposite him and twisted the door handle open, turning away as he did.
The door swung open quickly, pushed wide by the rush of six brown and black shapes the size of large dogs that darted into the room with lightning speed. They were roach spirits, much smaller than the one Kyle had fought at the hospital, but unquestionably deadly. Three of them, drawn to me odor of power reeking from Kyle and his foci, immediately turned on him.
They stayed low, scuttling close to the ground, and Kyle crouched to meet their attack. The first two came at him, their long, threadlike antennae vibrating wildly, but the third took a vicious stamping kick from one of the other troopers. The thing let out an unearthly squeal and the man's impact with its shell made a crackling sound that was terrifying, but the kick only sent it flying to the side.
Kyle slashed at the first with his blade, catching the hideous thing across the head, severing it completely and dissipating the spirit in one blow. Surprised, Kyle continued the slash against the other spirit, which tried to twist aside now that it had seen the deadly touch of the knife. It was fast, but Kyle's blow came faster, raking across the gleaming carapace, splitting it open. The roach spirit tried to dart aside, shrieking amid a gush of yellow-green fluid, but was stopped dead by a hail of flechettes from one of the Eagle troopers. The spirit thrashed, its legs twitching furiously as its body ricocheted into the air among a cloud of flying splinters. Unable to withstand the dual assault, it too disintegrated. The stink of its foul odor did not.
Kyle stood and immediately moved toward the door.
"That seemed too easy," the trooper said, coming abreast.