“Miu, you’re with me.”
Felix opened the door and stepped out.
A second later and Ioana, Lily, and Miu did as well.
Lily and Ioana took off at a pace akin to a leisurely walk. Ioana unlimbered her sword and Lily began calling runes into existence. She was getting better every time with them. Faster. Denser.
In a handful of seconds, Ioana had a small silhouette of power outlining her body, followed quickly by one that enveloped Lily.
Whoever was on watch wasn’t slacking. Twenty or so people rushed out of the restaurant the second Lily and Ioana crossed into the street. The muffled bark of pistols with silencers could be heard following that. They weren’t waiting or taking chances.
Either they own the cops, or the neighborhood. You don’t fire guns in the street that brazenly otherwise.
Guns with silencers are still loud.
Felix and Miu eased back around the corner and peered around.
Bullets crashed into the silhouette of power and fell to the ground.
Realizing that bullets were pointless, they switched from pistols to knives and whatever they could find close at hand.
Two men in trench coats stood to the rear of the battle. They started to glow faintly. One waved his arms through the air while the other held perfectly still.
A bolt of electricity crackled from Lily’s palm and speared through the chest of the one holding still.
As Ioana walked forward, she swung her blade in wide, swift arcs when people got close enough. She took hands, arms, or lives with each flick of the sword.
“Once they’re inside, grab whatever corpses or body parts you can and let’s get it inside,” Felix said distastefully. “While I doubt the police will be coming, I’d rather not tempt fate.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Kit said from behind him.
Looking over his shoulder to her, he managed to keep himself from asking why she had gotten out of the car.
When he looked back, Ioana was just entering the building. Miu led them into the street at a slow walk, her eyes scanning the area as they went.
Bodies, both dying and dead, and body parts, were lifted from the ground and moved back to the restaurant in a parody of a parade.
Miu entered the building and then Felix followed behind her after a few seconds.
The sound of battle could be heard from deeper inside.
A man in a white collared shirt rushed at them with a bat from a side room.
Miu stepped in front of him and swept her arm across her body, intercepting the man’s arm. The man was disarmed before he could even swing his weapon.
Taking a grip on the bat, Miu brought it up from below and cracked into the man’s chin.
There was a sick pop and he dropped to the ground.
Searching the room with her dark eyes, Miu confirmed there was no one else.
Felix patted Miu on the shoulder. “Good show.”
Then he followed the trail of bodies and destroyed furniture Ioana and Lily had wrought.
The confidence the enemy had was surprising. Corpses were everywhere.
If Felix had been cornered like this, he would have had everyone scramble and get out.
Pride is a commodity that can be purchased again later.
One’s life is not.
As Felix entered yet another back office, he caught only the tail end of Lily disappearing down a trapdoor.
“The hell is this? It’s so damn cliché,” Felix muttered.
“Clichés exist because they’re based in reality.” Miu shoved him gently to one side and entered the trapdoor ahead of him.
“She’s not wrong,” Kit said, pushing him to the side again when he tried to move to the trapdoor.
Felix couldn’t argue with their demeanor. He was nothing more than a civilian.
Maybe I should have Miu and Ioana train me. This is getting pathetic. I might as well remain at the shop and send them out on missions like a starship captain.
Go get ‘em, Number One. I’ll sit here and mind the coffee.
Felix sighed and then dropped down the trapdoor.
At the bottom of the ladder was a simple entry room with a single doorway.
Ioana, Lily, Miu, and Kit were standing around what looked like a desk in the other room.
Felix walked in, looking around in each corner as he did so.
It was a rather well-decorated study.
My office looks horrible in comparison.
Sitting behind the desk was a man with an iron circlet around his brow.
He looked smug. A man without a care in the world.
“I can’t get into his head. That pretty princess crown of his is keeping me out, I’d bet. Enchanted, probably,” Kit said, turning her head to Felix.
Ioana grunted and then moved around to the other side of the desk.
Then he saw Felix. His eyes glazed over, his pupils rapidly expanding as if he were in complete darkness.
Then the man lifted a pistol from his lap that no one had noticed. He leveled it at Felix and pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed into the shield around Ioana, who stood between him and the gun.
Before the boom of the first shot even registered, the man swiftly placed the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger again without hesitation.
The two shots from the handgun in the small room made Felix jump. Blood began pumping out of the man’s skull in rhythm with his still beating heart. It quickly covered the desk and started to pool on the ground.
That looked strange. As if he was commanded to.
“Lily, take his soul before it escapes. Kit, was this the man giving orders? On top of that question, I take it you can’t read anything if his brain has a bullet in it?” Felix asked.
“It was him, and no, I can’t read his mind now,” she said softly.
Lily gave herself a visible shake and then laid her hand on the dead man’s shoulder.
The purple haze surrounded Lily and the man for a few seconds and then vanished. It seemed quicker than usual, but Felix didn’t care to ask about it.
Instead, he went to the coatrack in the corner and pulled a jacket off it. Walking back over to the man, he threw it over his head.
“Search the room for anything that might tell us information. Leave the valuables. Let’s get out of here quick like. Once the bleeding dies down, let’s take that thing he had on his head. I’d like to be gone in five minutes, so chop, chop, people.”
It took a moment, but everyone started moving even as the man continued to bleed out.
Felix was angry. He’d hoped they’d find out who was behind this whole mess. It seemed now, though, that it was only going to get worse. To keep going. To keep draining his patience and resources.
Lily pulled the car into the garage. There’d been no one on the streets during their trip home, mercifully empty of onlookers or would-be heroes.
Lily sighed as the garage door closed behind them.
“I’m going to bed,” Lily grumbled, opening the driver-side door.
“Good work today, Lily, Kit, Ioana, Miu. All of you did great. Thank you,” Felix said sincerely.
Positive reinforcement for a job well done was always a good thing.
Kit, Miu, and Lily abandoned the car, stepping out and shutting the doors after themselves.
Felix and Ioana were left in the vehicle alone. For himself, Felix only wanted to sleep. He was exhausted and felt like he’d been running around far too long.
“Thank you,” Ioana said, a grumpy frown showing up on her face.
“For what?”
“Fixing me. Again. Didn’t have to.”
Felix shrugged his shoulders. “No worries.”
Ioana nodded at that, then slid over and left the car.
Sighing, Felix opened his door and dragged his feet to his bedroom. It took more concentration than he had available, but he managed it.
Crumpling into the bed, Felix was asleep instantly.
Only to be woken up too soon.