Southwest Days (Semiautomatic Sorceress Book 2) by Kal Aaron (ebook reader for manga .txt) 📗

for recon and cleaning, not specimen preservation. It’ll make it more efficient if I don’t have to be careful.”

“Be my guest and kill ‘em all, ma’am,” Adams replied. “The sheriff said we’re to defer to you on all this, but if you don’t think you can take care of it, to let us know so he can talk to the National Guard. I think his plan was just to have soldiers walk in with flamethrowers, burn everything, and then blow the entrance to the mine with explosives.”

“I’ll make sure that isn’t necessary.” Lyssa collapsed her baton and shoved it back in her pocket. She pulled out her pistols. “The Society cleans up its own mistakes, and monsters are a sorcerous mistake.” She marched toward the fence. “The best thing you can do is what you’ve been doing. Make sure no one comes in, and, on the off-chance something comes out and I’m not right behind it, you get the hell out of here since I’m probably dead. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the deputies shouted in unison.

“Oh, and one more thing.” Lyssa stopped at the fence. “I’m going to need to borrow a crowbar to pry off those boards.” She held up a gun. “My ammo’s expensive. Sorry.”

All the daylight was gone five minutes into the mine. Lyssa’s regalia kept her vision unencumbered in the slick, uneven rocky terrain, but it suggested that whatever was living in there didn’t depend on normal illumination. That wasn’t a surprise, but the more facts she could nail down, the better prepared she’d be.

Lyssa continued down a wide, deep slope, following footprints and dried blood droplets. The rotted remnants of wooden cart tracks followed the path. The dryness of the outside air was giving way to cooler temperatures, slick walls, and bugs, so far all normal-sized and far from monstrous.

She’d tucked one gun away and pulled out her phone to consult a scan of a fifty-year-old map Damien had provided. Her first arrival at a Y-shaped intersection challenged the map’s usefulness. The intersection didn’t appear to have been carved by monsters, and it didn’t appear on the map. With a shrug, she headed into a passage on her left and walked faster.

Lyssa wrinkled her nose under her mask. “You should be happy you can’t smell, Jofi. I can’t even describe it. It’s a nasty, fetid mess with enough rotten-egg stench to kill small birds.”

“That suggests a higher probability of a monster than a normal animal or a human with an unusual weapon,” Jofi replied.

“Maybe.” Lyssa pointed her gun toward something scurrying in the darkness, only to see it was a beetle. “It could be gas buildup and dead animals.” She narrowed her eyes when she spotted a large S-shaped line and a trail of shallow holes in a patch of mud. “But I’m guessing you’re right. Oh, those stupid kids. What a way to go.”

Faint scratching came from around the corner. Lyssa shoved her phone back into her pocket and pulled out her second gun.

“Let’s see how ugly this thing is. And let’s test something.”

Lyssa flattened her back against the wall and took a deep breath before beginning her chant, along with the mental weaving of strands of darkness to become a living shadow. Using her wraith form in a pitch-black tunnel was her best chance for stealth. It was time to see how good these monsters were.

Chapter Nine

A long, thin creature about the size of a small dog walked around the corner. Dragging its wide tail, the monster skittered along on eight skinny legs that emerged from the top of its flat body and curved down to sharp points. It was hard to tell the head from the rest of the body other than the slight taper near the front. A layer of translucent slime coated its smooth gray hide.

Lyssa wrinkled her nose. The appearance of the creature answered the most important question.

Everyone had different definitions for what constituted a monster. Lyssa’s was simple: Was the lifeform modified by sorcery beyond what could be found in nature?

She aimed a gun at its head. There were no apparent eyes. Its open mouth showed off two rows of dripping curved fangs. Her regalia would protect her, but that didn’t mean she wanted to let it latch onto her.

The monster scuttled at a relaxed pace without giving any indication it noticed Lyssa. She thought through the possibilities. Her wraith form didn’t hide her body heat. That meant the monster wasn’t relying on thermal detection. Her spell also wouldn’t hide her from things like echolocation or radar. It was only a visual trick unless she went farther with something like thinning.

Just because she didn’t spot any eyes, it didn’t mean the creature couldn’t see. It might rely on subtle contrasts or modified arrays of cells difficult to perceive from her perspective. Given the constant olfactory assault, it might even be relying on smell. Or it could be any combination of those things.

That was the annoying part of dealing with new creations. It turned what should have been routine battles into challenges. She had only basic locomotion intel so far, with no real information on the number and disposition of the creatures. A handful of monsters would be the best-case scenario, but she harbored doubts about that being the reality.

The monster crept forward and moved past her. It stepped over her boot prints without slowing or giving any indication it could sense her presence. That suggested it couldn’t sense sorcery, but then, it was rare for a monster to possess that ability.

“It’s like someone crossed a snake and cockroach,” Lyssa whispered. “Snake-roach. I’m suddenly missing fighting cartel guys and smugglers. They don’t smell or look this bad.”

“You don’t have effective antivenin sorcery,” Jofi said. “Please exercise caution in dealing with possible poisoning incidents.”

“I’ve got Tricia’s herbs,” she replied. “But point taken.”

The snake-roach jumped and faced Lyssa. It hesitated for a couple of seconds before charging her location. Good hearing. That was useful to know.

“Here’s your caution,” she said.

Lyssa