Southwest Truths (Semiautomatic Sorceress Book 3) by Kal Aaron (the red fox clan .txt) 📗

She jumped into an old tavern to avoid a trio of grenades. The booming attack shredded the support beams of the front awning, collapsing it with a crunch and knocking a thick cloud of dust into the air. The next attack blew a hole in the side of the building. So much for her cover.

Bright fireballs streamed from Aisha and exploded on the ground and against the buildings near the mercenaries. The enemy returned to splitting their fire between the two Sorceresses.

Lyssa emptied her other pistol. Her bullets knocked another mercenary down, but he rolled behind the remnants of a wall. Even the increased power of her pistol wasn’t enough for one-shot kills through their vests with non-enchanted ammo.

She aimed higher and nailed a man in the neck, and he collapsed in a spray of blood. No interrogations for him. She hoped he wasn’t the commander.

“These Shadows are demonstrating superior capability compared to your average quality of enemy,” Jofi said. “You might want to consider being more aggressive in your resource usage.”

“Less color commentary and more letting me focus on shooting people, please.”

Another grenade barrage blew apart what little remained of the far wall of the tavern. Lyssa jumped through a window, the glass shattering loudly around her like she was in an old-timey barroom brawl. It wasn’t like the Earps and the Clantons had had to deal with grenade launchers.

Lyssa stayed low while reloading both pistols with conventional rounds. Her heart thundered. She could still feel a little sorcery in the direction of the mercenaries, but Aisha’s spells were masking anything distant.

“I again suggest increasing your level of offense,” Jofi said.

“These guys are tough, but they aren’t using any shards yet,” Lyssa replied after catching her breath. “There’s no reason to go crazy, and the more special ammo I use, the less chance I have of taking anyone alive. The whole point of this thing is intelligence-gathering, not thinning out the world’s mercenary population.”

She popped up to fire both pistols, and a rifle round nailed her in the shoulder, ripping her regalia. A spike of pain shot through her arm, and she ducked again, gritting her teeth. Blood dripped from her arm, but the bullet had left only a mild laceration, thanks to her regalia. It was a solid hit from a high-powered rifle. These weren’t cartel goons with pistols. She needed to be more careful.

“You should reconsider your strategy,” Jofi said. “They will win a battle of attrition at this rate.”

“I’m doing fine,” Lyssa muttered. “These are just the lackeys. I need to be ready for the real fight later, and I’ve got Aisha.”

She hadn’t seen the mercenaries attack with anything that suggested shard use, but she also couldn’t dismiss the faint sorcery she felt from their direction. Their vests and guns were impressive but not any stronger than she’d expect from high-end but conventional equipment.

Aisha zoomed back and forth while flinging fireballs at the men. A fireball struck near the feet of a man, launching him burning and screaming into the air.

That was another problem. Waiting too long might end with Aisha killing everybody.

The mercenaries returned fire, but their bullets kept vaporizing on Aisha’s heat shield. She zigzagged through the air on each attack pass, moving closer. Her efforts drew enough fire that Lyssa downed two distracted men with headshots.

Lyssa had been wrong in one way to chastise Jofi. Somebody needed to survive, but not everybody. Thinning the pack would make it easier to wound rather than kill individual mercenaries.

She fired a couple more times, surprised the men weren’t nailing her with more grenades, but they’d already burned down half the town. They might have been out.

A blast in the air near Aisha proved Lyssa wrong. Aisha grimaced before jetting over to drop down on the roof of a building. The blast had ripped some tears in her regalia and scorched her, but her heat shield had burned off most of the shrapnel before it hit her. Her current roof began to smolder, a victim of her heat aura, but she was only there for a moment before rocketing back into the air and heading toward another roof.

Lyssa quickly fired at the mercenaries, more interested in distracting them than downing men. Their answering bursts ripped through the wall near her, and rounds struck her thigh and side. She hissed in pain. Their rifles were starting to piss her off.

She resummoned her wraith form and darted along the buildings, leaving the mercenaries to rip apart the wall she’d been using for cover. Aisha launched three fireballs before flying backward and dropping onto an old barbershop just before a grenade barrage caved in its roof.

“Flame Deva,” Lyssa called once she was closer. “Have you seen them use any shards?”

Aisha brought up her hands, ready to throw a flame blast, before frowning. “Be careful about surprising me, Hecate. I thought one was coming for me just now, and I was going to greet him in a glorious manner.”

“Sorry.” Lyssa dropped her wraith form. “I keep sensing sorcery from them, but I don’t get what it might be from.”

Aisha scoffed. “These are Shadows. Like you, they might rely on toys, but I’ve not seen any indications that they are Illuminated.”

“I get that, but most of the other attacks involved shards.” Lyssa scowled. “They’re planning something.”

“They are losing strength. We aren’t. Don’t overthink it.”

Lyssa nodded. “We were ambushed not all that long ago by hired guns with shards. We should be careful.”

“We were ambushed, and we then proceeded to devastate those men.” Aisha shrugged. “You’re being overly cautious. We should finish these men off and then question the survivors. If they had an impressive weapon, they would have used it already.”

The gunfire stopped. Lyssa peered around the corner. The mercenaries advanced a couple of buildings with more textbook point-to-point sprints. She couldn’t help but admire the tactics and the caution.

“And if they aren’t using them, it doesn’t matter,” Aisha said. “Trying to defeat them without killing them is proving annoying. The longer