Darkness Ascends in Magic City Read online

  Darkness Ascends in Magic City

  Magic City Chronicles™ Book Seven

  TR Cameron

  Michael Anderle

  Martha Carr

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2021 LMBPN Publishing

  Cover by Fantasy Book Design

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  A Michael Anderle Production

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  Version 1.00 July, 2021

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-64971-880-8

  Print ISBN: 978-1-64971-881-5

  The Oriceran Universe (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are Copyright (c) 2017-21 by Martha Carr and LMBPN Publishing.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Thank you!

  Author Notes - TR Cameron

  Author Notes - Martha Carr

  Other series in the Oriceran Universe:

  Books By Michael Anderle

  Connect with The Authors

  The Darkness Ascends in Magic City Team

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  Larry Omans

  Wendy L Bonell

  Dave Hicks

  James Dyer

  John Ashmore

  Dorothy Lloyd

  Jeff Goode

  Diane L. Smith

  If I’ve missed anyone, please let me know!

  Editor

  Skyhunter Editing Team

  Dedication

  For those who seek wonder around every corner and in each turning page. Thank you choosing to share the adventure with me. And, as always, for Dylan and Laurel.

  — TR Cameron

  Chapter One

  Ruby Achera crouched on the roof of a nondescript building a block away from the Magic City Strip. Light and noise spilled from the nearby casinos, interfering with her ability to survey the surrounding area properly. She complained, “I don’t know why you had me start here.”

  Over the comm built into her magical mask, which displayed her face as a dragon to hide her true features, Demetrius laughed. “You’re aware that you’ve been whining since the moment you got out there, right?”

  “Easy for you to criticize, back there comfortable in your bedroom.”

  “As I recall, it was you who couldn’t relax enough to hang out and who needed to get out and do things.”

  Ruby sighed. “Yeah, my life is full of dumb decisions. Let’s stop this discussion right here, shall we? You’re no kind of armchair therapist, and even if you were, I don’t want to be analyzed by my boyfriend.”

  He laughed again. “Coward.”

  She managed a grin. “Sure, that’s it.”

  The technologically advanced lenses that Kayleigh, the tech for Diana Sheen’s agency, had installed highlighted a moving dot in her visual field an instant before Demetrius reported, “Inbound.”

  “Got it. South?”

  “Yep, plan hasn’t changed.”

  She turned and ran, calling up a force shield close to her body to protect her from any attacks by the drone. For now, she was counting mainly on evasion, and portioned another bit of magic into her muscles to increase her speed. When she reached the end of the building, a force blast propelled her up and over to the next.

  Ruby hit and tumbled into a somersault, the heavy leather of her base layer protecting her from sharp edges on the gravel surface beneath her. She rolled up without losing substantial momentum and noted she could now hear the whine of the pursuing vehicle’s propellers, which motivated her to shift into a jagged serpentine to discourage any attacks. “Any answer yet as to whether this thing is autonomous?”

  Demetrius replied, “It’s almost certainly driving itself, my analysis bot says. It could get taken over at any moment, of course.”

  The warning tone in his voice inspired another smile. So nice that you’re that protective after putting me out here in the crosshairs in the first place. Yeah, okay, I’m the one who decided to come out here, it’s true. “Like the agents in The Matrix. I get it.”

  She cut hard to the right and turned, abandoning her southward route for a westerly one. The yellow line in her eyepiece told her where Demetrius wanted her to go, and she laughed inwardly for a moment at the thought that she was no longer truly autonomous but was an extension of the infomancer’s will. Not going to mention that. He’d enjoy it way too much.

  Ruby leapt over another of the intervening streets that made up the grid layout of the southern part of the city. Fortunately, the roads were single lanes in each direction, this area not having to deal with all that much traffic. For all the attractiveness of the Strip and the tourist trade it inspired, Ely, Nevada, was still a fairly small town. Nothing like Vegas, which is good. Can’t compete one-on-one with the big dog, but we can certainly carve out our niche. The eyepiece told her to swing south again, so she complied. Demetrius reported, “Uh-oh, the PDA has noticed you now.”

  He fed an image into her lenses that showed a schematic map from above, with two dots on it, one of which was outside her normal scanning range. “Are you sure it’s them?”

  His tone was annoyed. “Of course I am. Do you think I’d let you continue to be in danger if it wasn’t the ones we were looking for?”

  “You might, rabbit, you might.” One of their favorite downtime activities was watching old Bugs Bunny cartoons, and they worked hard to insert as many references into their conversation as possible.

  He laughed. “Rascally rabbit. Now we have a third. You should speed up so you hit the mark before they reach you.”

  “Easy for you to say, sitting on your ass in comfort,” she grumbled as she put more magical power into her body. Her skill in that area had increased dramatically in recent weeks, more or less as a requirement for continued survival in the challenges she’d faced. Who I am now and who I was when I returned to Magic City aren’t particularly similar. That woman was hopeful she could scratch out a living while working toward her dream of becoming a professional technomancer. Now, I’m in a costume running across the rooftops, and, oh yeah, just one other little thing, I’m the new leader of the Mist Elves. I wish I could go back to punch former me in the mouth and order her to get the hell
out of town.

  She laughed at herself. Demetrius is right. I’m totally a whiner. Perhaps it’s because I’m running rather than fighting. “Okay, so tell me what you’re getting that makes this all worthwhile.”

  “Well, I have vectors on each of the drones, and combined with the other sightings we’ve had and what I’ve gathered from the monitoring stations you all placed, I’m quite sure I can triangulate the drones’ bases. Plus, once my bots get time to analyze the signal flow we’re recording, we might be able to figure out where the PDA is controlling them from.”

  “You don’t think it’ll be at their launch point?”

  “I wouldn’t hazard a guess. If it were me, I’d put the two facilities in different locations. There’s no reason they need to be near one another as long as they have powerful enough communication equipment. But then, I tend to be conservative about that kind of thing. If someone finds a trail to my stuff, I don’t want them to find a trail to me, too.”

  She launched herself a little farther than intended, the momentum from her magically amped muscles combining with the force blast to send her skidding onto the next roof. She caught her balance by frantically windmilling her arms and dove to the side as the first drone flew in low and fired a stream of bullets at her. Ruby hit it with a force blast, the glancing blow enough to knock it out of line but not enough to take it down, and sped into a run again. “Says the guy working out of his bedroom. Also, that was a little close.”

  He replied, “Run faster, then. If anyone tried to trace my activities, they’d wind up looking somewhere far from here, believe me. If they got past that one, there’d be another false location and another, and after that, you guessed it, another.”

  “So what you’re saying is you could do a total disappearing act on me at any second. That totally gives a girl relationship confidence.”

  Demetrius retorted, “That’s not at all what I was saying. Does your brain really work like that?”

  She felt a little silly admitting, “Well, more or less.”

  Her sister’s voice joined the conversation. “Oh, please, D. You’ve been with her long enough to know that her brain doesn’t work in any way. Or maybe you didn’t notice. Like the pretty, vacant types, do you?”

  He laughed. “I like Ruby’s type, whatever that is.”

  Idryll, her shapeshifter companion, countered, “Oh, that’s a safe answer. Clearly, you’re afraid of her. Is she making you date her against your will? If so, you can tell us the truth. We’ll rescue you.”

  Ruby sighed as she hurtled over the last street that separated her from her objective. The three dots were now all close enough that her local sensing had acquired them, and she did a jittering dance to avoid their attacks as she ran into position. “Okay, first, jealousy isn’t a good look on either of you. Second, Morrigan, if you ever find someone willing to be your partner, you can feel free to have an opinion. Until then, remember, whatever makes me annoying is also in your genes.”

  Her sister inserted smoothly, “Oh, so you’re saying Demetrius just likes you because of what’s in your jeans?”

  The infomancer burst out laughing, and Ruby growled, “I swear to heaven, I am going to set up a training date with Diana so I can beat your face in for the sheer pleasure of it.”

  Morrigan replied, “Anytime, anyplace. You probably won’t want your boyfriend to see you humiliated, though.” Her voice turned thoughtful. “Unless he’s into that. Are you into that, D?”

  Ruby stopped, spun, and cast a semicircular wall of force to separate herself from the drones with her left hand. With her right, she summoned a rectangle of metal about the size of her torso that they’d planted here earlier. “Social hour’s over. Get your butts out here and help me fight these things.”

  Chapter Two

  Morrigan released the veil concealing her and Idryll atop the building they’d selected for their ambush on the drones. The dissipating magic revealed her, clad in her scarlet uniform with a hood covering her hair, and Idryll, in her natural fur and a magical mask. The shapeshifter wore an equipment belt low around her hips carrying some of Margrave’s toys, but other than that was weaponless. Well, aside from her claws, which could probably cut through steel.

  Morrigan's bow was extended and ready, and she reached back over her shoulder to pull an arrow from the quiver. Notches on the ends of each allowed her to differentiate between them, and she chose the new, heavy-duty lightning arrow. She wouldn’t use it against a human unless keeping them alive wasn’t a concern, which it usually was. Against a drone? No mercy required.

  She fitted it to the bowstring on the run, then let it loose at the nearest unmanned craft, which had dipped lower to make a strafing pass at her sister. The projectile flew true and slammed into its nose. Electricity burst from the magic arrow, engulfing the drone and dropping it smoking to the roof. Morrigan laughed. “Man, I love lightning.”

  Idryll flashed by, growling, “Don’t you dare destroy them all before I get a shot at one.”

  Morrigan was already searching for another arrow. Unfortunately, she’d only brought one of the special lightning versions due to her limited supply, so she selected explosive instead, reserving her regular lightning arrows in case of human targets. She drew the string backward and looked for a target. “Better move fast then, cat.”

  Idryll replied by cutting in between her and the nearest drone, which Morrigan found both annoying and satisfyingly trusting since Ruby’s companion assumed she wouldn’t wind up with an arrow in the back. The tiger-woman ran toward Ruby and shouted, “Give me a boost.”

  Ruby spun and cupped her hands. When the shapeshifter leapt into them, a powerful throw set her flying toward the nearest non-smoking attack drone. Idryll twisted in midair, and by the time she reached the craft, her claws were ready. They sliced through the mountings for two of the four turbofans in a single pass, and the vehicle careened out of control.

  Ruby snarled, “Of course it’s headed for the street.” She threw up a wall of force and the drone slammed into it, rebounding to land on the building’s roof.

  It burst into flame, and Morrigan shifted the bow and arrow into one hand and used the other to cast ice over the fire before it could catch the building alight. “You two are completely reckless.”

  Ruby snorted. “Like you’re one to talk, trigger-happy Barb.”

  Morrigan scowled at Ruby’s use of the callsign Diana Sheen’s people had given her. Somehow, when her sister said it, it always seemed like an insult. She muttered low curses and drew a bead on the third drone. Ruby shouted, “Mo, down.” Without hesitation, she threw herself into a forward roll just in time to avoid a hail of bullets that punched into the roof behind her.

  They’d chosen this particular building because it was currently unoccupied and slated to undergo a serious renovation. Demetrius had searched to find the location that would have the least impact on innocents while still serving their needs, and this had been the winner. The idea had been Ruby’s, but they wouldn’t have been able to pull it off without the infomancer’s skills. So, I’ll give him all the credit. She rolled up to her feet and growled, “What the hell? Where did that come from?”

  Demetrius replied, “Additional drones. Must have flown in under a cloak of some kind or stayed undercover with active electronic countermeasures. I couldn’t see them on cameras or signal sensors until they attacked. Probably operating autonomously with a limited instruction set.”

  Morrigan grinned. “Excellent. More robots to kill.”

  Ruby turned in a circle, taking stock of the new situation with her eyeballs as well. “Apparently, the Paranormal Defense Agency is all in today.” A total of six drones were within a block of the building, and four more were less than a dozen seconds away.

  Demetrius said, “We’re lucky this one got out ahead of the others. If they’d all shown up at once, it could have been ugly.”

  “You think?” Ruby summoned the metal plate to her arm again, using a consistent st
ream of force magic to lock it in place as if she’d strapped it to the limb. The octopus tattoo chose that moment to squirm, sending nausea into her stomach as the artifact made yet another try to influence her decisions. Knock it off, scumbag.

  She reached back and drew her sword, wishing she could cast through it. Sadly, there hadn’t yet been an opportunity to engage in the training the Atlantean had offered. When her fingers met the hilt, the queasy feeling vanished as the twin entities inside Eidolon protected her mind.

  Thanks, you two. Ruby positioned the shield in time to catch a barrage of bullets from the drone closest to her. She ran at it and jumped, slashing her sword at one of its fans, but it bounced into the air, clearly anticipating her move.

  Demetrius advised, “Signals are flowing all over the place. They’re probably remote piloted now.”

  Morrigan snarked, “Are you going to hit it, Jewel, or dance with it?”

  Ruby spun and threw her sword at the one that had dodged her, sending it tumbling hilt over blade. The ungainly projectile passed right through a propeller, the sharp weapon shattering it and sending the vehicle out of control. Idryll had climbed onto one of the cooling units mounted on the roof and pounced on the drone, riding it down to the surface and stabbing her claws into and through it. Ruby reached out with her force magic and brought the falling sword back to her hand. “Less talking, more arrowing.”