“One of ours?”

  “Nope.”

  “One of theirs.”

  “Yup.”

  “Shouldn’t we be a little more nervous about this?”

  She shrugged. “Not unless you want them to have second thoughts. Remember, the point is for them to think they have the advantage.”

  “So what’s going to stop them from straight up murdering us before we have a chance to defend ourselves?”

  “Didn’t you say you trusted me?” She grinned at me. “Along with a lot of other very, very nice things?”

  “Oh, shut up,” I said. “It’s not like we have a certain level of affection for each other.”

  “A very low level.”

  “Almost unmeasurable.”

  She took another sip and sighed. “I don’t think we’re going to get to finish.”

  I grabbed my drink and took a sip, scalding my lips. She seemed immune to the heat. “Why do you think that?” I asked, trying to not let tears come to my eyes.

  “The barista’s gone and it looks like all the cashiers went on break at the same time.”

  I looked around again and saw the store was empty. “So, what would we do in this case if we weren’t expecting an ambush?”

  “We’d be getting nervous and looking to escape.”

  “But we’re not idiots, so we wouldn’t be going through the main entrance.” I stood up. “So we’d probably head for the back to sneak out.”

  She stood up as well, her sunglasses perched on top of her head. Lowering them would tip our stalkers off, but if we didn’t manifest soon, we’d get stomped. “It’s too bad we can’t drill down into a basement, or out through the roof. I don’t think we can afford so much collateral damage, though.”

  “It would be a little excessive,” I agreed.

  We moved toward the back. Each aisle was empty. The near-silence of a normally buzzing store was creepy. We rounded another corner and saw the employees-only door in front of us. “Should we leave through the back?” I asked.

  “You know, Kevin, I think the optimal time for us to get ambushed would be as soon as we walked through the door.” She pointed at the door and her eyes flashed with green light. “So, how about, no.” The door shot backwards off its hinges. There was no one behind the door. There was no reaction to the door’s sudden destruction. The only one complaining about the door suddenly ceasing to exist as a functional door was probably the door itself.

  “So, if that wasn’t where they’d choose to ambush us, where would they do it?” I asked. “I’m just trying to learn from your experience.”

  She glared at me out of the corner of her eyes. “Shut up. I’m trying to find them.”

  “Trying to?”

  “Someone’s good at covering their tracks. Each time I think I’ve found someone, they vanish.” I frowned and called up my own Sight. White lines began crisscrossing my vision and I understood what she meant. Multiple colors of psionic powers flickered up and down the threads.

  “Should I go second tier?” I asked.

  “There are so many reasons you shouldn’t. You’re not licensed or trained yet. It’s as good as putting a giant sign in the sky saying you’re here. But right now, you don’t have the skill to make it useful.”

  “I can at least use second tier Sight to find them.”

  “No, Kevin. Leave this to the professionals.”

  I started to tell her about how saying something like that was a sure fire way to get embarrassed, but before I could get the words out, a single thread tugged my attention upwards. A bookshelf full of books floated over us. Whoever had moved it had done it with such minimal energy, neither of us had noticed until the last moment. I didn’t bother to shout a warning. The shelf began to drop and I threw myself into Absynthe.

  My tackle threw us out of the impact radius. The floor shook and a few books tumbled past us as we rolled to a stop. She coughed as we disentangled and got to our feet. “Think you cracked a rib,” she rasped.

  “Sorry. Instinct.”

  “I wish you’d react with your mind first. You do have psionic abilities, you know.”

  “Sometimes it’s better to just hit someone with something.”

  “It sure is.” The unexpected voice caused us both to whirl around, just in time for me to see a heavy hardcover book whoosh past and slam into Absynthe’s face. She tumbled backwards and smacked into a bookshelf at the end of the aisle. I turned back around to face her attacked, a large man in a dark trench coat. “Thanks for the inspiration.”

  It wasn’t Shade, but the similarity made me throw a massive kinetic hammer, crushing their shield and sending them flying over the fallen bookshelf. I rushed to Absynthe’s side to check her out. She was breathing a little unevenly and she was out cold. That wasn’t a good sign. I couldn’t tell if it was due to a light twist or the impact.

  “Give up, Parker,” called a voice from across the store. “You’re outnumbered and outgunned. Try anything fancy, your girl there bites it.”

  “She’s not my girl,” I called back. “Shade would be fucking pissed if you killed Absynthe.”

  There was a pause before the voice replied. “Well, we’ll twist her a bit, then. Come on, man, we’re not idiots.”

  “You’re working for Shade. You’re asking me to give up when he wants me dead. That qualifies you as an idiot.”

  “He wants to talk to you. Not kill you.” I frowned. That was new. “You come and talk to him, we let her go. You have my word.”

  “Any guarantee I get to live after our talk?”

  “Not my call.”

  I traced psionic energy to at least three people in the store with me. If there were more, her information had been wrong. Had they laid a trap for us? “Here’s my counteroffer. I walk out of here with my friend and you fuck off. Everyone stays happy and no one gets twisted, dead, or worse.”

  “Parker, I don’t have anything against you, personally. I like your style. You’re a cool guy. But Shade’s right. You’re a walking, talking problem. I’m going to have to decline. Sorry.”

  I focused my psionic energy toward the closest person. “Well, let me be clear. I’m not going quietly. Like you said, nothing personal.” Before he could respond, I threw a full force electrical blast, cutting straight through the bookshelves in the way. My target had a shield, naturally, but it didn’t deflect enough of the blast to save them. Their signature winked out. Two left.

  “Damn, kid.” The voice sounded impressed. “I get what he means now.”

  “My offer still stands. I’m not too worried about two on one.”

  “Two?”

  I crouched as another wave of psionic energy rolled over me. Three or four more people were manifesting and moving to surround me. The trap had sprung. “All right, I was a little early on that call.”

  “Take him down.”

  I jumped backwards as I felt a threat. A figure jumped up on top of one of the bookshelves making up my aisle, a woman in jeans and a loose shirt. She smiled down at me as her eyes flashed dark green. A kinetic blow crashed against my shields, hard enough to scare me. I struck back, not directly at her, but at the shelf she was standing on. Her arms went out to keep her balance and I took advantage of her distraction to flick her upwards toward the ceiling.

  “One,” I called out. Energy flared and a ball of fire arced through the air toward me from my left. I deflected it with a tap of my own power and it crashed into the aisle behind me. “Come on, you can do better. Shit. I can’t believe I said that.”

  Their only response was a dozen of the fireballs arcing at me at once. I threw myself out of the aisle with some telekinetic assistance, barely clearing the impact area in time. The heat from the sudden conflagration made me stumble a few steps further before I snuffed the flames. Embers still glowed and new fires would start soon, but not soon enough to put anyone in danger. “Hey, guys, time out. If you’re going to start using deadly force with someone unconscious here, I’m going to take it up a notch too.”

  “Like you’re not already?” I spun and threw a shield up between myself and a series of books flying at me fast enough to tear apart in midair, each page flattening as it tore loose and coming at me edge on.

  I let my shield absorb the hundreds of impacts. “A thousand paper cuts? Are you serious?” I flung the paper away from my shield and threw a hardcover right back down the aisle at the man pelting me with shredded books. It slammed into his chest and sent him sprawling backwards into a shelf, hard enough to knock it over. “Two down. You all right out there?”

  “Doing fine, how are you?” The voice came from the far side of the store. I guessed he was letting his weaker people tire me out.

  “It’s a good workout.”

  “I’m glad you’re enjoying it.” Another figure jumped up on a bookshelf and threw a flurry of psionic assaults at me, switching between different forms of energy with every blow. Part of one attack got through and my left side, from armpit to hip, went cold and numb. I growled and hit him with everything I had, putting him on the floor.

  “Three,” I called out. “Damn, you had a big group here.”

  “Had?”

  “Fucking hell.” Another three or four people manifested powers, still keeping their actual numbers obfuscated. “Sorry, guys, I think playtime is over.” I called up all of my power and prepared to unleash it in a gigantic mindflare. It’d be strong enough to be noticed for a hundred miles and it’d blind everyone’s psionic senses for a few minutes. I tensed up and let the psionic flare explode from my mind, but something slammed into my head and the building psionic energy flowed out and dissipated. The flare sputtered and died before it could trigger. “The hell was that?”

  “Parker, we’re not amateurs here. No calling for help.”

  “That’s a new trick.” I dodged down an aisle and made for the back of the store where Absynthe was lying. If I could wake her up, the odds would shift back in our favor. If not, I had to escape with her. “Anything else you’d like to tell me?”

  “Sure. We knew you were coming.”

  “Of course you knew. We leaked on purpose for once.”

  “Seriously?” The other voice laughed. “Your timing was shit, for the record. We had multiple teams meeting today for the handover.”

  “Explains why there’s so many of you popping up out of the woodwork.” Not a trap, just bad luck. I reached Absynthe and tapped her cheek. She mumbled and groaned, but her eyes were still closed. She probably had a concussion.

  “Previous offer’s still on the table.”

  “Same here.”

  “No thanks. Keep going after him.” Two figures appeared at the end of the aisle, one throwing psionic lances at me while the other charged. I used a telekinetic twitch to make the running one stumble, then threw him toward the other, sending them both to the ground in a heap. I followed up with an electric shock to keep them out of the fight.

  I turned back to Absynthe and slapped her cheeks. “Come on, wake up, woman.” Her eyes remained closed. I didn’t have a lot of options left. I had to get her out of the store and safe before someone, most likely me, caused an accident. “Hey, cease fire? Let’s get the injured out of here before the store burns down. Deal?”

  “Deal,” called the voice. “Front door.”

  “Got it.” I scooped her up in my arms and headed for the front of the store. Before I reached the doors, two people stepped in front of them. “Hey, what gives?”

  One more appeared on my left, two on my right, and I heard movement behind me. “You don’t think we’d actually let you walk out, right?” The speaker wasn’t one of them. He was still hiding in the back somewhere.

  “That was the deal, remember?”

  “You never said you’d come back in.”

  “Really? I thought it was implied. I wasn’t trying to trick you, honestly.”

  “Oh, well, I feel like a dick now, but I wasn’t going to hold up my end of the deal regardless. Stand down, Parker, or else.”

  “Or else what?” I asked.

  The glass windows across the front of the store exploded inward. Shards of glass flew into the air all around me, psionically controlled by the goons surrounding me. “Or else we overwhelm your shields and shred you and your friend.”

  “Thought you said you weren’t trying to kill me.”

  “Shade would like to talk with you,” the voice replied. “He’s not going to mind much if you end up dead. Both of you, at this point. No, we’re not going to let you put her somewhere safe. In fact, let’s aim at least half at her.” As one, all of the shards of glass spun to present an edge or point toward me. Smoke was starting to rise from the previous fire and the shards there were reflecting red glints of light.

  “She can’t defend herself!”

  “That’s the point.”

  I sighed, then inhaled and counted to five. “All right. Now you’re pissing me off. Threaten me all you want, but when you threaten to kill someone defenseless in cold blood, you’re crossing the line.”

  “Your line, not mine. Last chance, Parker. Stand down and everyone walks out of here alive. Maybe not happy, but alive.”

  My phone chose a most inconvenient time to ring. I pulled it out of my pocket with a tiny thread of telekinesis and answered it. “Hello! You’re on speaker!”

  “Kevin? Kevin, there’s a report of a major psionic disturbance near-”

  “I know, I’m in the middle of it.”

  Star sounded horrified. “Are you in trouble?”

  “No, but there are a lot of Shade’s people about to be in trouble.” I turned and made eye contact with each one I could see. “I mean, serious, life-threatening trouble.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid. If you’re in danger, run.”

  “I can’t. Absynthe is hurt and they’re threatening her.”

  “Fuck, Kevin! I’m on my way!”

  “Wait, hang on, can you bring something?”

  “What?”

  I locked eyes with the last of the goons. “Body bags.”

  “Are you done?” called the voice.

  I hung up on Star and looked over in the voice’s direction. “Yeah. Thanks for letting me take that.”

  “It’s not like they’ll make it in time to save you, so I figured I’d give you a moment. Now, I’m giving you three seconds to stand down.”

  “I thought you already gave me a final chance.”

  “Three.”

  I rolled my shoulders and called up my power to its fullest, almost pushing me into second tier. “I’m telling you, you’re making a big mistake.”

  “Two.”

  I didn’t have a plan other than survive the incoming assault. I formed my shield into concentric layers, alternating stiff and elastic layers, shattering and slowing projectiles in turn. Absynthe would be proud. I had used a similar concept in early training. Back then, I’d caught rocks being thrown pretty damn fast at me. Today, I suspected I could catch bullets. Shards of glass would be easy.

  “One!” Thousands of shards of glass flashed in. I crouched to reduce the total area I needed to shield and pushed it out to cover both myself and Absynthe, forcing all my power into it. The outer layers tore under the assault, turning the glass into smaller shards and dust in the process. The inner layers held. A couple of pieces got through here and there, but they’d had so much of their energy bled away they only left scratches on my exposed skin.

  For a long moment, no one acted. Thousands of tiny shards of glass hung in midair around me, along with an almost immeasurable amount of glass dust. I cleared my throat. “Is that it?”

  “Finish him off!” The voice was, understandably, a bit shrill.

  Two of the goons started throwing psionic attacks at me while the others charged. There was nowhere I could run. My shields were in tatters and I couldn’t fight physically while protecting Absynthe. My choices were limited and I felt a sudden pang of pity for all those around me.

  When I ramped up the power to my shield, the shield with so much glass suspended within it, those charging me pulled up a step. The psionic lashes battering me stopped. I could sense their sudden fear, their sudden realization they had severely fucked up.

  I blew the shield.

  Blood exploded across the bookstore in long ribbons as all of the glass flashed away from me, moving at least an order of magnitude faster than when they came in. I’d converted all of the shield’s stored power into an omnidirectional kinetic blast. The shards tore through shields, flesh, books, wood, and even metal. The dust scoured skin off the nearest targets.

  The sheer force flung bodies away from me, into the front doors, across aisles and bookshelves, knocking those bookshelves over, all with me and Absynthe in the epicenter. Smoke rose from where glass had turned molten on impact. One or two electrical devices sparked and I knew a fire would start soon.

  “Fuck this!” shouted the other voice. “Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

  “Not letting you,” I snapped. I put Absynthe down and tapped my Sight. Whoever had been cloaking their presence was either dead or distracted and I found two psionic signatures moving for the back of the store. I jumped up on top of one of the remaining bookshelves and flung myself toward them.

  “Cover me!” shouted the speaker, a skinny guy wearing a balaclava.

  “You got it.” The other guy turned toward me as Skinny made it through the back door. “Come on, Parker. Don’t tell me you’re tired now.”

  I was tired, but I wasn’t going to admit to it. “I don’t suppose you want to stand down, do you?”

  He pointed toward the middle of the store. “I’d kill her first.”

  My temper had already frayed enough. That one simple threat was all it took. I threw myself bodily at him, slamming him into the wall. He tried to shield against me, but I used the last dregs of my psionic energy to snap his shield, then punched him in the side. He gasped for breath as ribs cracked. I flicked my hand and he cartwheeled through the air into a heap on the ground. I walked toward him as he got to his hands and knees. “Wrong fucking answer,” I told him. “Don’t threaten my friends.”

 

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