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  Sarah grinned. “If that ever happens, you won’t be around to see it.”

  Diana thrust into a charge, leading with cones of fire from both hands. Suddenly, the air in front of her changed and became a rift in space with a dark room on the other side. She skidded to a stop to avoid the portal, but it swooped toward her and she was teleported away.

  Rath watched Diana vanish and bolted at the witch with a loud cry, ready to crush individual pieces of her into tiny bits until she revealed where she’d sent his human. But Sarah summoned another circle and stepped into it before he reached her, departing with an arrogant grin that mocked his efforts. He went momentarily crazy, first lashing a punch into the face of the wounded wizard who’d staggered to his feet a moment before and then smashing everything near him until he ran out of non-living breakables. The troll sank to his knees and shrank to his three-foot size before he spoke quietly to Gwen, instructing her to share the news with the others.

  He didn’t know where Diana was, but there was not a single doubt in his mind that he would find her or that she would find him. When their end came, whether sooner or far, far, later, there was no question that they would face it together.

  Chapter Twelve

  Diana hadn’t realized that it was possible to send a portal over a person, rather than a person into a portal. Something to file away for the future, I guess. The surrounding room was dark, and as the rift closed and extinguished the small amount of light coming in before she could dive back through it, she was effectively blind. She crouched defensively, on guard against an attack that failed to materialize. She released a trickle of magic to summon a flickering flame along each fingertip of her left hand.

  The place resembled Nehlan’s receiving room—basically a blank space with a single door leading out. Although she was curious as to what might lie beyond that barrier, she was more than willing to leave it unexplored. She waved her other hand to summon a portal to her bedroom, but despite a few sparks in the air that trailed behind the gesture, the circle refused to hold itself together long enough to reach completion.

  What the hell is this now? She frowned, concentrated harder, and attempted to cast again. This time, she managed to get the oval about three-quarters of the way around before it collapsed into nothingness. She stubbornly tried one last time, expanding her senses as Nylotte had taught her to investigate the magic she created. Another presence was noticeable on the periphery of the spell, sensed almost like a subtle spice that clashed with her own power. So, something is blocking me. But it can’t be anti-magic since my improvised candle works. She shrugged. Okay then, I guess it's time to explore.

  She crossed to stand before the door, then thought better of it, backed up, and took a step to the side. Her telekinesis reached out and yanked on the handle, and the barrier swung open without a hint of anything untoward. She stuck her head around the corner and whipped it back scant inches ahead of a hail of spikes that hurtled directly toward her. Oh, so that’s how it is, is it? After her indecisive battle against Sarah, she was more than ready to mix it up. Plus, she didn’t fancy hanging out in the entry room for the rest of her life.

  Diana crafted a tall shield of force, entered the doorway at a run, and turned toward her adversary. Another volley of spikes rocketed toward her from another wizard she hadn’t seen at the opposite end of the corridor, and she hid behind the magical barrier as she raced forward. The projectiles hammered into it but failed to penetrate and simply quivered and remained stuck in the shield. They resembled long nails with a flattened end opposite a wicked point. Her danger sense activated, and time slowed. Since no other threats were visible ahead to cause it, she flung herself forward in a somersault to the left.

  Fire washed through the area she’d occupied, bathing her in its heat but vanishing before it reached the wizard at the far end. She glanced at the witch she hadn’t seen previously at the opposite end of the corridor. Clever. Delaying until I was distracted. She rose and put her back against the near wall, summoned a buckler of flame with her right hand, and maintained the force shield with her left. Attacks came from each direction and she weathered them easily, siphoning some of the incoming fire to power her defense. She noticed that she didn't seem to be draining as quickly as usual.

  Damn. I must be on Oriceran or in a kemana or something. At that moment, though, more power seemed like a good thing. When the hail of projectiles paused as the wizard retrieved another round of ammunition, she dispelled the force shield and scuttled forward. She kept her attention divided between her two opponents and maintained her fire buckler, which had grown in size to accommodate the multiple streams of flame her opponent now directed at her. The mage launched his nails again, and she reached out with her telekinesis, located each one, and guided them past her, then gave them an extra push with her own magic. The fire-casting witch at the end of the hall yelped when she realized what was happening but had no time to marshal a defense before the tiny spikes pinioned her, liberally covering the front of her body. She fell back with a moan and the flames vanished.

  Diana felt suffused with fire and decided to share her good fortune. She gathered a ball of flame in her hand and hurled it at the wizard. He intercepted it with a sphere of ice, and they exploded when they collided. She threw another, followed by another, and stalked forward as she continued to lob them at her foe and intercept the extras he whipped at her in reply. He started to retreat a step at a time, and a sneer curled her lip. “Oh, you’re fine with attacking an unsuspecting opponent, but you run from a real fight? I don’t think so.”

  She envisioned her force rope and threw it past him, then snatched it back to slam into his feet. At the same time, she gave him a telekinetic push on his forehead, and none of his magical powers could keep him from toppling. The sound his skull made as it cracked on the stone floor was deeply satisfying, and she saw that he was clearly out of the fight when she arrived at his side. She summoned a wave of force to hurl his unconscious form down the hallway to join the witch at the far end. That’ll keep them both out of my hair.

  A nod sent a piece of something dark floating in the air, and as she spun toward it, fearing another attack, her hair whipped in front of her face to reveal that a large section of it had been burned away. She growled. Now you’ve done it. Trying to kill me is one thing, but wrecking my hair is mean. She snorted at the stupidity of the thought as she reached the end of the hallway and turned the corner cautiously. There was a room ahead, a combination of living and dining areas to judge by the furniture. It was all attractive but not fancy, made of woods she didn’t recognize and fabrics that looked like satin but probably weren’t. There was no one present, so she continued. She tapped her glasses to activate the infrared overlay and saw nothing nearby. The range seemed to be minimal, which was logical since the technology no doubt relied on or at least accessed other technological networks that didn't exist on the magical planet.

  She cleared several more vacant rooms before she found a door that exited the apparent living quarters into a work area. It was an anteroom with seats around the edges, presumably for those waiting to meet with someone important behind one of the three doors that led from the space. The trio of wizards who had waited in ambush attacked as soon as she crossed the threshold. She rolled to the right and reached for her pistol, ready to swap out the empty magazine and ram in another and berating herself for not having done so already, then remembered only when her hand found air that Sarah had stolen it from her. Damn her to hell.

  Diana regained her feet and activated one of the experimental charms Nylotte had bestowed upon her. Three identical images of her appeared and ran a crisscross path around her. She moved with the illusions, and all of them turned together to attack the wizards. Their faces registered shock, but they rallied quickly and their leader released a horizontal fan of fire to intersect all the versions of her.

  However, Nylotte was not simply an everyday magic user but a Dark Elf with decades, if not centuries, of experien
ce. Two of the illusions went high and leapt upward to flip over the assault, while Diana and one of the others slid beneath it. She crossed behind the illusion and fired a beam of force at the wizard who’d been the first to attack, then bolted away as he staggered back and launched a cone of flame at the illusion. Her copy vanished, but she had used the moment of distraction to close with another of the enemy.

  He started to wave his wand in a slashing motion across her, but she darted inside his guard and caught his hand, turned to put her spine against his stomach, and hammered the back of her head into his mouth. Her left elbow continued the momentum of her turn and impacted with his face, and he made a pained grunt through teeth broken by the two attacks. She spun under the arm, maintained her grip, and snapped the joint that connected his upper and lower arms with a palm strike that sent his wand clattering onto the floor and pulled a scream from deep inside him.

  Then, borrowing a page from her enemies’ playbook again, she used her telekinesis to throw him toward the other two wizards. The middle one waved him aside using his own magic, but her projectile’s outstretched leg caught the first wizard she’d hit and he spun away. Diana glanced up at a series of chandeliers hanging in the room and reached out with a telekinetic fist to yank the nearest down on her reeling foe. The crash of metal and stone signaled his exit from the battle.

  The remaining wizard took several steps back and nodded in appreciation of her skills. “You are as good as we were led to believe. I suppose I must thank you for elevating me to the top of the heap by virtue of demolishing my allies.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Should I know you? Are you someone important?”

  He chuckled. “No, you need not think of me in any way other than the wizard who defeated you and presented your corpse to his master.” He thrust his wand forward and a storm of shadow washed over her, feeling like a blizzard of blades and despair. Diana realized she was creating those feelings internally as her anti-magic deflectors encased her in a protective oval that stopped the assault from reaching her. Her opponent’s face registered surprise, and she laughed. “The fancy magician forgot that technology is a thing.”

  She darted in and ducked under the shadow blade he slashed over her head. The absence of the sound to indicate the deflectors activating revealed that they’d been consumed far quicker than she was used to. She kicked him low and pounded her shin armor plate against the nerve bundle in his upper thigh. He swiped down diagonally with the blade as the limb collapsed. She stepped back to let it pass in front of her, then swung in to deliver a triple punch combination to his head, each blow punctuated by a snap from her shock gloves. He was unconscious before he tumbled. She picked her way through the debris to the one she’d hurled across the room and tapped him on the temple as well to ensure that he couldn’t follow her. The enemy mage buried under metal and stone wasn’t a cause for concern.

  Diana straightened and took stock of her situation. Her first priority was to check herself for damage, but other than her crisped hair, all she felt was a little tiredness from the energy expenditures. She said a silent thank you to Nylotte for her clever experimentation and ongoing enthusiasm for using her student as a guinea pig. A tap on her glasses revealed two warm bodies on the other side of a door and no others nearby. She tried to cast a portal again but was blocked by the same interference before the oval was a quarter complete. It’s probably one of those two. Or at least I hope so.

  She moved to the center of the chamber and faced the door, gathering her force power and letting it build around her fists. When they reached full capacity, she thrust them both forward and the door exploded off its hinges and rocketed into the room beyond. It veered to the right to reveal a grinning wizard in a set of ancient-looking leather and chain armor. She was reflexively worried that it was Rhazdon’s Defense, but from what she recalled, those pieces were a different style. So, merely a garden-variety asshole, then. He beckoned her ahead, and she sighed. One of these days, I’ll be the person on the home turf. Her mental voice, which had remained pleasantly quiet through the whole experience, suggested, “Maybe you ought to think that through a little better. Do you really want enemies in your base? Or in your house again?”

  Irritated, she shook her head and stalked forward into the room, her fists clenched. She pushed on her magical sense, seeking any obvious danger, but none registered. Clearly, the closest of the two figures was a threat, and the one in the back seemed unaware that she was there, locked in a trance of some kind. He must be the jerk blocking me from portaling out of here. She snapped a bolt of flame at him as a test, but the wizard before her flicked his fingers to nudge it away from its target. It splashed harmlessly off a wall as he broke the silence in a voice that dripped with condescension. “It is a true pleasure to see you again, Agent Diana Sheen.”

  She frowned. “Do I know you? I thought I had a fairly solid handle on all you Remembrance assholes.”

  He laughed. “Last time we met, I was stealing your quarry from you in the prison.”

  Dianna stared in surprise, having mostly forgotten about the man who appeared at the end to thwart their capture of the witch. “Good. I’ve been looking forward to repaying you for that.”

  The man shook his head slowly. “The only payment will be your death. When you arrive in whatever hell your kind believes in, be sure to tell them Dreven sent you.” He swept his arms wide and a hail of tiny shadow orbs flew at her.

  Dammit, why did it have to be shadow? She summoned a force shield, but he waved his hands and they evaded the barrier and curled toward her back. Hastily, she created more slabs to cover herself and they connected violently with it and drained her power. Even the ubiquity of magic couldn’t compensate for defending against such a strong barrage. The stream didn’t decrease, and she felt herself weakening. She tried to investigate the shadow, to siphon from it despite using a different form of power as a defense, but the effort failed.

  Knowing that to stay in place was to eventually lose, she dropped the shields and used her magic to launch herself upward, accepting some shadow hits in return, and somersaulted in midair to hurtle down at her enemy. He gestured and thrust her to the side with a blast of force, but she controlled her flight with her own power and settled herself onto the ground. As he turned to face her, she threw darts of fire at him, an attack she’d learned while Nylotte trained Cara. He was forced to defend against the tiny shards of flame with sweeping motions that interposed barriers of solidified darkness, but the assault kept him from attacking.

  She closed the distance while he battled her magic. When she was finally near enough to act, she let the fire attack fall, summoned a force blade in her left hand, and darted into close range. He swung at her with a shadow blade that appeared instantly in his hand, and she caught it on her own magical weapon. His other hand stabbed at her with another, but she blocked the arm with a raised knee and levered a punch into his chest. The snapping shock was dissipated by his armor, but the force-assisted blow drove him stumbling back.

  Wasting no time, she pressed her advantage, but he recovered quickly and fired a needle-thin blast of flame at her face. It was so small it was barely visible, and only the slow-motion provided by her magical warning sense allowed her to fall out of its path. She landed hard and rolled immediately to the side, fearing his follow-up attack, but wasn’t fast enough. The onslaught struck her shoulder blade and burned through her armor to her flesh in an instant. She flipped and conjured a shield, and he began to pepper it with multiple attacks. Her wound throbbed, and the weakening sensation she felt told her she was bleeding.

  Diana huddled under the shield and covered herself with it while he continued the barrage. He stared relentlessly at her with a smug smile on his face, knowing that she would weaken and he would win. As her back arched involuntarily from the pain of the wound, the upside-down man in the corner behind her came into view. She stretched with her right hand, snatched the Bowie knife from her vest, and hurled it at the entranced mage. It st
ruck him in the chest, and his eyes flew open as he uttered a choking gasp. She cast a portal beneath her, dropped through it, and yanked it closed before the enemy could pursue. Her descent continued for several feet until she landed hard on a stone floor.

  She rolled over with a groan as Nylotte pounded down the stairs of her shop into the training area. The Drow gave her a glare that was part worry but mostly annoyance. Diana laughed painfully. “Hey, teach. Thanks for the charms.” She put her forehead down on the ground and sobbed at the pain as her teacher hurried forward to assist her damaged and ever-disappointing student.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tony groaned as he climbed the final stairs to the roof of the tall building. Even though the elevator had carried them most of the way to their objective, the top several floors were only serviced by a freight elevator, and the illusions they wore didn’t give them access to it. They’d tried unsuccessfully to entice the company to sign on with Two Worlds Security Consulting, and the stairs provided the only remaining option.

  His partner’s laugh settled into a broad grin. Anik looked completely comfortable in his coveralls and large backpack. “Come on, old man. You gotta get that cardio in.”

  The investigator wiped his face as they broke out into the sunlight. “Bite me, Anik. You suck. Some of us have big brains to carry around.”

  The demolitions expert nodded sagely. “Yeah, it’s your brain that’s causing the problem. Sure.” He gazed pointedly at the place where Tony’s midsection pushed against the seals of his coverall. “You keep it in your stomach, then?”

  Tony flipped him off amiably as they walked in step to the corner of the roof. He tapped his glasses to activate his comms, which he'd disabled to avoid detection inside the building. “Glam, how do we look?”