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

to hit her but didn’t challenge her. She fired a shot with each step but alternated guns and picked out a new target for each.

Anger clouded her mind. There was no careful consideration of ammo or worry about looking for the commander. Instead, she relied on her years of muscle memory and careful training on head and heart shots. Man after man fell, their vests and helmets doing nothing to protect them from the enchanted penetrator rounds. Whatever lingering concerns she had about their defenses disappeared.

Each round struck with a bright flash. Combined with her rhythmic firing, it created a strobe-like effect, highlighting the collapsing bodies and the showers of blood. They’d gone from having decent control of the battle to getting slaughtered.

The first hints of panic set in, and men turned to flee. They didn’t escape since Lyssa emptied her magazines to down every mercenary on her side of the road. Between her latest rampage and the earlier casualties, the mercenaries were down to six men clustered on the other side.

The enemy abandoned their careful shooting to practice the fine art of pray and spray, but she ran up the wall and jumped on top of a sloped roof. She sprinted over the peak and jumped in time to avoid a grenade blast. After hitting the ground and rolling to her feet, she ran away from the mercenaries and loaded new penetrator magazines.

Two more grenades finished shredding the building behind Lyssa, but she wasn’t trying to use it for cover. Instead, she ran around the far side and kept moving, determined to head toward Aisha. Even without wraith form, she was in an all-black outfit in the middle of the night and could see perfectly. Flickering flames and flares provided some illumination, but there was no way they could match her regalia’s natural night vision with their goggles.

“Now you’ve done it, Hecate,” shouted a mercenary. She recognized the voice from earlier. Perhaps the commander had survived. Sometimes the universe took, and sometimes it gave. “Those were good men. Damned good men I’ve worked with for years. If you’re angry, blame yourself. Flame Deva didn’t have to be part of this. She wasn’t part of the contract. I would have preferred to have just dealt with and finish you off, but you had to go and make this difficult.”

Lyssa cleared the corner and found Aisha at the end of a trail of blood. The flame Sorceress had dragged herself into a sitting position behind a large rock outcropping. She’d dimmed her regalia aura and held a hand to her stomach wound.

“Damn it.” Lyssa reached into her pocket, pulled out pain and healing herbs, and shoved them into Aisha’s mouth. “Do you need me to move your mouth?”

Aisha grabbed her hand. “I’m not so far gone that I need you to feed me, Corti.”

Her voice was weak. Blood covered her regalia. She swallowed the herbs.

“I’ll finish them off,” Lyssa announced. “You just stay out of sight.”

“Don’t die,” Aisha said. “Not at the hands of these men.”

“Same to you.”

Lyssa thought for a moment before swapping out one of the penetrator magazines for an explosive magazine and running back the way she came. She’d modified the plan to a simple “kill everyone left except the commander.”

Between him and the others she’d downed but hopefully hadn’t killed earlier, they could begin the investigation. Identifying the commander again would require a little risk on her part. It was time to goad him back.

“You’ve pissed me off,” she shouted. “First, you and your buddies keep going after Sorcerers. It’s one thing to fight when someone attacks you, but ambushes and assassinations? What did you think was going to happen? Did you think we wouldn’t come after you eventually?”

“I don’t know about all that, Hecate,” the commander yelled back. “Our assignment was you, but it sounds like our client’s got deep pockets. You Sorcs think you’re gods, that no one will dare touch you, but it’s all about knowing what to expect. Research—that’s what a pro does. It’s like with Flame Deva. We expected her to be here; if not her, then Ultrasound or one of the others. You think we wouldn’t take precautions?”

Lyssa gritted her teeth. The men did seem well-prepared. Did that mean they had shards that could offset a variety of types of sorcery? That was all but impossible.

No. The flares they’d used earlier weren’t shards. Was it only the bullets?

Lyssa resummoned her wraith form. There were no Sorcerers among the men. They had not shown any ability to sense her spells. Heavy weapons and raw numbers had let them stand as equals, but only because the two Torches were trying to minimize deaths. Now that Lyssa had gotten serious, they were down to a handful of men.

“Precautions didn’t save your other men,” she yelled. “And they won’t save you, asshole.”

She counted to five before running across the street, watching the mercenaries. They’d spread out among the buildings. That’d make it harder for her to finish them off but would make her other job much easier.

“I’ll pour a drink for my fallen brothers,” the commander replied. “But their deaths were part of a cost to make the rest of us legends. We’ll be the ones who killed Flame Deva and Hecate.”

“Legends?” Lyssa scoffed. “Did you all smoke meth before you showed up?”

“You’ve been talking about the Society,” the commander said. “They aren’t going to come for us. How many Sorcs will they be willing to lose after we take out you two?”

Lyssa smiled. He’d given away his position; the man was the farthest back. Now it was just a matter of finishing off the others.

None of the men had exposed themselves for easy, direct fire, so she’d need to flush them out. She aimed the gun with the explosive magazine and opened fire at the mercenary in the middle of the group before shifting firing to the edges of the remaining squad.

Explosions rocked the buildings and disrupted the mercenaries’ counterattack. Lyssa charged across the