The armor would be tested more thoroughly tonight than he’d expected.
Lance saw the sword pierce his ribs before he felt it. The ninja went to shove it in deeper, but Lance grabbed hold of the blade. It sliced through his palm, but he locked down hard. His other hand reached for the holstered revolver resting next to him.
The ninja shoved. The blade slipped through his bloody palm. Now Lance felt it like a fire filling his lungs. He yanked the big revolver from the holster, thumbed back the hammer, and jammed it up into the ninja’s armpit. Lance levered it in toward the vitals. The Traveler realized what was happening, but too late, as most Travelers weren’t near as quick as Faye had been.
Lance blew the ninja’s heart out his side.
There was movement everywhere. Diamond’s oil lamp fell on the floor and ignited. Black cloth boots with the weird Imperium toe cuts were landing around him. Lance grimaced as he pulled the sword out and it scraped against his ribs. There was blood everywhere. Blood from his chest. Blood from his hand. Blood from the other knights who were being hacked to pieces in their sleep. A black shape loomed over him, but Lance fanned back the hammer with his injured hand while holding down the trigger and gave the ninja three rounds to the chest.
Before that one was even done falling, Lance had sat up and discovered that Diamond was in a wrestling match with a ninja, so he shot that assassin in the back of the head. There was one more headed his way. Lance aimed and the masked face and fired his last shot. That ninja went grey the instant he pulled the trigger, and the bullet passed harmlessly through the Fade.
“Shit.” Lance dropped the empty Colt and went for his other one.
There was a glint of steel. The Fade drew a throwing knife and hurled it, end over end, directly at Lance. It struck him in the arm in a splash of red, and he lost his grip on the other revolver. “Aaaahhh!”
The ninja quickly drew another knife and flung it.
This knife froze inches from Lance’s eyes and hung there. Then it flipped around and shot back at the ninja like it had been launched from out of a cannon. The Fade couldn’t react in time and the knife hit him right in the forehead. The ninja went limp and hit the floor.
Lance wanted to tell the Mover thanks, but he found that he was panting too hard.
Diamond stood up. Wobbling. He took a halting step, and then collapsed on his face with a moan. He’d been stabbed repeatedly, and there were bright red spots blooming across the back of his white shirt.
There were screams and gunshots coming from all around the apartment building. Shadow Guard were slaughtering everyone, and as the flames spread and Diamond’s blood spilled out of his body, it was just like being back at his home in Mar Pacifica all those years ago, on the night the Imperium had murdered his wife and children.
Not again, you sons a bitches. Not again. Such a powerful hatred filled him that he couldn’t even feel his wounds.
They’d be coming for the others. Lance activated his ring to send a warning. He was hurt bad. The stab wound in his chest was deep. He couldn’t hardly breathe. The laceration on his strong arm was making it hard for his bicep to contract, and his other hand had been cut to the bone. He’d gotten a single healing spell carved on him before leaving on this mission, and that would keep him going and slow the blood loss, so if he found a place to hide, he could probably survive.
He looked at the spreading flames and the dead and dying knights. Fuck that. These Imperium bastards were going down. Lance threw his gun belt over one shoulder and began reloading his empty Colt.
Then Lance Talon went hunting.
Judging from the engine noises, there were boats all around them. While staying at the hideout over the last few days, Sullivan had seen the Imperium patrol boats from a distance. They were sleek, grey things, heavily armed, and so fast when they were moving that they left a giant plume of water in the air behind them as they skipped across the waves. Their little boat was dead meat if the Jap patrol boats were looking for them.
Sullivan kicked Barns. “What? Huh?” Their pilot automatically reached into his leather jacket for one of the Saive GP32 machine pistols he kept there. Those things had a cyclic rate like a buzzsaw, and Sullivan had a bad feeling they’d be needing them in a moment.
“We’ve got company.”
Lady Origami was sneaking a peek out a hole in the tarp. She gasped as the hole suddenly filled with light.
They were being spotlighted. The patrol boat’s engines roared as they closed.
Sullivan’s ring began to burn.
The Nishimura armor was many things. Stealthy was not one of them.
Toru did not bother to hide his approach. That would have been impossible. The armor clanged and rattled as he made his way up the stairs. Normally, he was six feet tall and two hundred and forty pounds of muscle. In the suit, he was seven feet tall and over six hundred pounds of muscle, steel, and righteous fury. The tetsubo he was wielding was a five-foot-long, eighty-pound bar of heat-treated steel and spikes. There was simply no way the Shadow Guard could not hear him coming.
Luckily, like the first Shadow Guard he’d eliminated, they were not yet aware that he was not on their side. They were looking for the traitor Toru Tokugawa. Apparently their intelligence had neglected to tell them Toru might look like a walking samurai tank.
Two of the assassins intercepted him on the stairs. A Fade and a Traveler. “Master Hayate did not speak of any Nishimura-equipped—”
Toru swung the club. The armor may have appeared lumbering and slow, but it was not. The club whipped through the air so fast that it was a blur. The impact pulverized both of them. The Traveler died instantly, rupturing into a fine red mist. The Fade barely caught the edge and went over the side of the stairs, screaming. He might have been able go grey and survive the landing, but since one of his legs had been torn off and was lying there, twitching, at Toru’s feet, he would not be of further concern.
There were so many magical connections moving within the building that Toru could not discern ally from enemy. The building shook as some powerful Active utilized destructive magic. At first he thought that the blasted ashtray smell had somehow grown stronger, but it was smoke. The apartment was on fire.
The next floor was a chaotic dance of knight and Shadow Guard. Most of the Grimnoir had left, and it appeared that the majority of those who had been staying there had been quickly overwhelmed. Sullivan and Koenig had left to ready their respective parts in the mission. Talon was the senior knight here, but Toru did not see him.
The few survivors seemed to be fighting with the ferocity of demons. He surveyed the room and found Mottl the Icebox, Simmons the Torch, Genesse the Mouth, Willis the Reader, and two of the local Shanghai Grimnoir of unknown name and ability futilely trying to fight off the quicker and numerically superior Shadow Guard. The Mouth was shouting commands in the lull between gunfire, trying to confuse or turn the attackers against each other. Fire and ice streaked across the floor to sweep away the Imperium warriors. The Reader was firing an American automatic rifle. One of the Shanghai Grimnoir appeared to be extremely skilled in a martial art the locals called wing chun, and had engaged two of the Shadow Guard in hand-to-hand combat.