Mage Among Supers 2, page 23
Much as I wanted to get on with taking out the big bad, I had more than enough to handle right now. With silver skulls shining at their necks, the Scorpions poured in with high kicks and carefully directed punches while the zombies charged at us with a reckless disregard for pain and a strength that came with their supernatural power.
I kept myself moving fast with the power of air, delivering kicks and punches, sending guys reeling back with bruises and broken bones. As a sword swung my way, I ducked at the last minute so that the blow sliced down a zombie charging at me from behind.
Beside me, Stiletto fought with all the grace and deadliness she habitually showed. A whirling frenzy of knife attacks carved up the flesh of the zombies, but it was hard for her to hack pieces off them using these smaller, lighter weapons, and they kept coming, even as flesh and skin hung from their ravaged bodies.
Across the room, Mind Game and Hoplite had huddled back against the wall, working together as best they could. Mind Game shouted directions as she saw the aims of the oncoming martial artists while Hoplite moved in response, swords slashing through the air. But the mob was still closing in on them, giving them less room to maneuver, less time to communicate and respond.
I flung up an earth shield to block a zombie’s attack, then punched it back into the throng behind. Spinning around, I brought the shield up again, but a punch from one of the enhanced Scorpions shattered the magic, and the shield fell away. I grabbed his fist as it went past, inches from my head, and twisted until bones crunched. Still, he kept coming until I brought a knee up hard into his gut, and he curled over, out for now at least.
I took a breath, trying to work out how we could get through this. The answer was probably just to punch and kick and stab until we were clear, but it would have been nice if there was something smarter.
Then there was a distant thud, and the building shook around me.
“What was that?” Stiletto asked.
“Wish I knew.” The thudding continued like the steps of a giant heading toward the top of the beanstalk, ready to swat Jack away. The shaking grew stronger, dust falling from the ceiling.
I stared around me, trying to see out of a window, but the view was blocked by all the people trying to kill me. At least the sound was alarming them, too; a lot had turned to see where it was coming from. Hopefully, that meant that it wasn’t on their side.
The problem was that, just because it wasn’t on their side, that didn’t mean it was on ours. I’d seen all sorts of monsters unleashed in magical accidents down the years, and Ashbearer was out there in the city somewhere, carrying on his terrible experiments.
Could he have summoned something that was coming to eat us now? Or was this a new supervillain, someone with size-changing powers or monstrous strength, coming to prove their power by taking on both the Scorpions and the Offenders?
Maybe it was some backup that Riken himself had called in before getting out of the way, and he just hadn’t told his people about it. He wouldn’t have been the first villain who left their people to suffer the same fate as their enemies, just to protect their own hold on power.
I touched the amulet sewn into the edge of my hood, speaking its name and the magical word for fire. A momentary haze blurred my sight before the heat vision settled in.
It was hard to see past the crowds of Scorpions. That many warm bodies blocked the view, turning it almost into a red block. But there were places where I could see more: through the cold bodies of the zombies, over everyone’s heads, and down through the floor and lower walls of the tower block. That was the way I looked now, following the sound and the vibrations.
At first, all I saw were the lines of hot water pipes and the occasional block of a boiler. There was even an oven on, someone cooking despite the carnage going on above their head. In a city full of superheroes, people learned to carry on with life in the craziest of circumstances.
But looking past all of that, I saw something far larger and more intimidating. It was a huge shape, at least four floors tall, with what looked like arms and legs. Not all of its body was warm, which made it hard to work out what its shape was or what it might be. There were odd angles and sharp lines, pieces that didn’t connect up right. What the hell was I looking at?
Whatever it was, it was coming this way, clambering up the outside of the building. One of those arms swung up to hook into a window and haul the body up. A pipe burst as one of its feet kicked a foothold in the wall. It was powerful, monstrous, and very determined to get where it was going.
“Hey, Codex!” Stiletto shouted. “Focus on the fight, man!”
I let the heat vision go, and my attention snapped back into the room. The Scorpions, having overcome their initial distraction, had clearly decided to focus on the enemy they knew about, saving the mystery monster for later.
I dodged a sword blow, jumped over a low, sweeping kick, and punched a guy in the face as he tried to grab hold of me. I was back in the melee, given no choice but to fight for my life, even as the shaking grew stronger and the thuds louder, the monster almost upon us.
With a crash, a section of wall burst in. We all ducked and covered our heads as chunks of concrete flew across the room. The cloth in the front of my cowl kept the dust from getting to me, but the others coughed as it scratched at their throats. I took the opportunity to knock out a wheezing Scorpion, then turned to see what we were facing.
A long, mechanical arm swept in through the hole. It looked like it was made out of scrap, the outside battered and dented, paint in a variety of mismatched colors flaking off its exterior. The arm swung through that hole, scraping across the ground and sweeping a group of zombies out of the gap. Then it reached in again to grab a bundle of Scorpions, scoop them up, and fling them screaming down the outside of the tower block.
“What is that thing?” I asked, bewildered. I’d only been in this world a few years, and there were still plenty of things that caught me by surprise, but I was pretty sure that if they had machines like this, I would have seen them by now, and not just in the posters for anime movies.
“Cars,” Stiletto said, sounding as confused as me. “It’s made up of cars.”
As soon as she said it, the shapes made more sense. Someone, somehow, had connected together a collection of cars and car parts, turning them into a single large machine. The battering they’d taken on the way up the building had badly dented the chassis, smashed out a lot of the glass, and mangled mechanical parts, which was why I hadn’t initially recognized the shapes. But now, I realized that the arm shoveling zombies out was made up of two town cars, and the head was an old Volkswagen Beetle. A human shape, blurred by dust across the windshield, was in the driver’s seat.
Someone had built a giant fighting machine out of cars, and I could only think of one person who might have the skills to do that. Someone with superheroic power over machines. I grinned as the windscreen wipers on the VW moved, clearing away enough grime to reveal Crypto, electrical currents running from her hands as she gripped the small car’s steering wheel.
There was a cracking sound, then a voice emerged from a pair of speakers that had probably come out of one of the other vehicles and now sat on the shoulders of the fighting machine. It wasn’t Crypto’s voice, but a snippet from an old rap tune, blaring out at top volume.
“Guess who’s back? Back again?”
A mechanical arm swept in. The Scorpions had the good sense to jump clear, but the zombies didn’t. Mindless in their pursuit of any enemies that threatened Riken’s empire, they charged straight at the machine. It smashed some of them against the wall, then swept back the other way to fling a bunch out past its head. Two landed on its shoulder, and it flicked one off, then grabbed the other between tire fingers and flung them at some of the others like it was bowling with human bodies.
Impressive as the machine was, the strain of holding it together was clearly taking a toll. Behind the windshield, Crypto’s brow furrowed, and there was a clang as something fell off.
As long as she could hold that thing together with her powers, we had an opportunity, and it was time to take it. Stiletto and I charged at the Scorpions separating us from Hoplite and Mind Game. Distracted by the mechanical menace, some of them didn’t even see us coming before we knocked them out. Others turned to face us, only for Hoplite to plow into them from behind, sealing their fate.
The four of us stood together in a circle of black-clad martial artists. It seemed that the Scorpions had decided to let the zombies take on the machine while they dealt with the super-powered intruders. But their numbers were lower now, and the four of us stood together, ready to back each other up.
“Now would be a good time to run away,” I said. “Unless you want us to kick your asses, too.”
“We never run,” one of the Scorpions replied.
“Suit yourself.” I shot three earth blasts into the ceiling, and a section of concrete fell on his head. “Anyone think he was wrong?”
Apparently not. They leaped at us. Weapons clanged, fists thudded, and bones snapped. Hoplite moved with purposeful determination, and Stiletto, like the dancer that she was, turned violence into ballet. Seeing her opponents’ attacks coming, Mind Game moved with a deft minimalism, never using more energy than she had to.
Compared with any of them, I felt like a clumsy fighter, except that my own moves were becoming smoother, more confident, one punch flowing into the next, a kick turning into a step forward and a shift to gain ground. Li Han’s guidance really was rubbing off on me.
Crypto’s machine swept another group of zombies out of the gap in the wall, but this time half its arm went with them, flying off at the elbow and falling away to the ground below. The head of the machine wobbled uncertainly, and the walls shook again as it struggled to hang onto the building.
“Get out!” I shouted. “Before that thing takes you down with it.”
Crypto swung one of her batons at the windshield of the Volkswagen. Glass shattered, spinning out in sharp slivers across the floor. She hauled herself over the steering wheel and out onto the hood as the whole machine wobbled. There was a scraping like a thousand nails across a blackboard as it lost its grip, and half a car slid clawing across the concrete floor. Crypto jumped, just as the machine completely lost its balance. It fell from the side of the building and down to the parking lot with an almighty crash while she landed on a stretch of floor strewn with blood, glass, and dust.
Two last zombies were standing by the groove in the floor where the machine’s hand had scraped past. They loomed over Crypto, hands raised, and each brought up a foot, ready to stamp on her.
“No!” I lunged through the crowd around the rest of us and across the hall. My magic might be useless against the Scorpions, but it would work against the living dead. I cast a pair of wind blasts that knocked the creatures off their feet and flung them toward the broken wall. As they wobbled on the edge of the precipice, I hit them again, with fire blasts this time, and they fell flaming out into the empty air.
“Are you OK?” I reached down to help Crypto to her feet.
“Did you see how fucking cool that was?” She laughed. “I’ve never managed anything that big before.”
“Don’t suppose you could whip one up again?” I asked, jerking a thumb at the remaining Scorpions. “We’ve still got some problems to clear out.”
“Only if you’ve got a few cars handy. Otherwise, I’ll have to make do with these.”
She pressed the buttons on her electric stun batons, and sparks flew bright from their ends.
“That’ll do,” I said. “Let’s go.”
The whole team was together now, and having all four ladies at my back made me feel like I could take on any enemy in the world. We tore into the remaining Scorpions, who were finally starting to look a little nervous. They backed toward the opening of one of the hallways, but we didn’t relent, pressing them hard so that they wouldn’t have time to regroup and go on the attack. The crackle of Crypto’s electric batons and the swish of blades interspersed the erratic thud of kicks and punches while Mind Game shouted instructions and warnings to the rest of us.
At last, we were down to the last five opponents.
“One each?” I asked.
“Why not,” Mind Game replied.
“On three, then. One, two—”
“Three!”
We flung ourselves forward in unison. Fists, feet, and blades connected, and the last of the Scorpions crumpled to the ground.
Mind Game crouched by one of them, touching the silver amulet around his neck.
“Should we gather these up?” she asked. “Stop someone else using them?”
“Let’s tackle the root of the magic first,” I said. “It might fade once the source is cut off. If not, then we come back to clear up.”
“And you think the source is up there?” She pointed to the ceiling.
“It’s got to be. Riken wouldn’t have put all this power where he couldn’t use and protect it.”
“So Ashbearer will be there, too?”
“Not if he’s smart, which I think he still is. He’s got to have seen the way the wind is blowing on this one. For now, we deal with Riken and make the city a bit safer. I can follow my geas another day.”
We walked over to the elevator. The buttons were lit up, and when I pressed for up, the doors swished open.
“Someone’s feeling confident if he didn’t think he needed to switch this back off,” Mind Game said.
“Or it’s another trap,” I said. “Luring us into the next layer of whatever he’s got planned.”
“So we shouldn’t use it?”
I hesitated. We could go back to the stairs and go up that way, fighting past whoever came down in the meantime, but that would mean it took us longer to reach Riken and whatever magic Ashbearer had left him with, including the stolen altar. If we wanted to stop this before more people got hurt, then we needed to be as quick as we could.
“Screw it,” I said. “He might think that we’ve been finished off down here. And if not, it’s not the first of his ambushes we’ve walked into. I reckon we can take on another one.”
I stepped into the elevator, and the others followed me.
“Which floor?” Crypto asked, her thumb hovering over the controls.
“Which one do you think?” I said. “A guy like Riken, he wants the very best view.”
Crypto pressed the button for the top floor. The doors swished shut, there was a whir of motors, and I felt the pull in my stomach that came with being carried up.
Elevator music started, something bland and unobtrusive, the gentle murmur of synthesized nothingness.
Stiletto rammed one of her blades into the speaker in the top corner of the elevator, and the music died.
“I hate that shit,” she said. “Give me proper tunes any day.”
Then the elevator lurched to a stop, and there was a ping. The doors started sliding open.
“Now it’s time to make someone else face the music,” I said.
Chapter 23
The elevator doors opened, revealing the top floor of the apartment complex.
Things here were distinctly different from how they’d looked below. This place was clearly occupied by Riken, who had converted it into his own private realm. Walls had been ripped out, combining multiple apartments into one. There was a large open area that included a kitchen in one corner and a home gym in another. Doors led off to what I presumed were bedrooms, bathrooms, and storage closets, all doubtless far larger than his minions’ whole apartments. It was the sort of place that could have appeared in a reality show about the homes of the rich and famous, in direct contrast with the building’s bleakly functional exterior.
Riken had decorated this place in the same style as his manor house, which was to say an affected minimalism. The furniture was plain but with lots of cushioning and leather covers. The walls were an unobtrusive off-white, decorated with just two large paintings in an abstract style with touches of Japanese calligraphy. Samurai swords hung over the doors of several rooms. The hi-fi system in the corner looked expensive and impressive, with speakers bigger than my torso.
Riken himself stood in the middle of the room. There was a sword in his hand, the same sword that he’d recaptured from me when we attacked him before. The sword I wanted him to be using. Maybe this plan would actually work if arming my opponent with a magical blade didn’t turn out to be a terminally dumb idea.
I’d expected Riken to be backed up by more of the Scorpions, but it seemed that he’d already thrown them all into the fight. We’d worked our way through his whole martial arts army—or at least as much of it as he could muster here—but that didn’t mean that he was alone. Instead of the black-clad warriors, he was flanked by a stranger assortment of people.
One had a brown outfit and box for a head. Another was dressed in silver with a bandolier of knives down the front. Next to him was a woman with force fields around her fists. They were low-level supervillains, several of them ones I recognized from his conference that we’d interrupted at Caliber Park. It seemed that Riken had decided the best way to fight superpowers was with superpowers of his own.
But these weren’t just the lowly grifters that made up the bottom-tier supervillain set. Sure, they might have lame powers or a bad reputation, or else they wouldn’t have been hiring themselves out to the likes of Riken, but they had an advantage they hadn’t been able to wield before: each of them was wearing a silver skull amulet. This must be the price he’d paid to win them over to his alliance and whatever plans he had for the city. It would also work to his advantage; superpowers and magical martial arts would make for a deadly combo.
“You’ve got further than I expected,” Riken said. “And now you’re interrupting me in important work.”
His gaze flicked from the floor to the far side of the room, where the shrine stolen from the museum stood. Its sides were glowing, filled with a magical power that hadn’t been there in the photo on the museum’s website. Ashbearer had worked his magic, then left it at Riken’s disposal. No wonder we were facing so many zombies and so many of those magical amulets.
