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

fired into the monster’s mouth. Her muzzle flashes lit the tunnel, and her shadowy form solidified.

The bullet ripped through the creature and out its back. Green blood splattered all over the area. The creature collapsed, twitching and spewing blood from its wound for several seconds before dying.

Lyssa counted to ten to avoid any unpleasant surprises. No one wanted to be close to a monster when it exploded into a shower of goo. Nothing happened.

“Ha!” Lyssa chuckled. “That wasn’t so hard. It might be ugly, but it wasn’t tough. I bet one of Serafina’s little dolls could have taken that thing out without much trouble. That poor bastard might have survived if they’d brought a gun.”

Scratching noises echoed from around the corner, and a scuttling mass of the snake-roaches erupted from that direction, blocking Lyssa’s way forward. They surged toward her with their mouths open.

Their appearance didn’t surprise her. She had known that the second she fired her weapon, she invited trouble. She’d also verified they could see her as long as she was a shadow.

She didn’t sense external sorcery. Any rogue who might be in the mine wasn’t nearby, though she had her doubts about anyone staying in the mine. If a rogue was involved, it was more that they had visited the mine just long enough to drop off their creations.

Lyssa grinned. “Fine. Let’s play. It’s time for my daily target practice, you freaks.”

She pointed her guns at different targets and opened fire. Her shots didn’t go down their throats, but they blasted through the creatures with ease, dropping them. Their allies didn’t react to their deaths and continued toward her. Confirmed intel was piling up with the monster corpses.

“No armor.” Lyssa fired again. “You’re not going to win against me that way.”

“These creatures are unlikely to be able to understand you,” Jofi said. “Your taunts are a waste of time.”

“Sometimes a woman wants to hear herself talk trash,” Lyssa shouted over her gunshots. “Is that a crime?”

“Very well. Carry on.”

With quick, precise motions, Lyssa lined up new targets in the front of the enemy pack and fired. Her loud shots echoed through the tunnel. She backed up slowly to avoid tripping over rocks. Despite the unimpressive showing of the monsters so far, she wasn’t ready to test their fangs’ abilities to pierce her regalia and armor. Sometimes a creature was designed for maximum offense and minimum defense.

One of her shots nailed the back of a snake-roach. The monster thrashed its tail, but it continued rushing Lyssa until she ripped it in half with her next shot.

Not one of the creatures demonstrated fear or concern. That might prove annoying later, but for now, it meant they weren’t being careful. That made it easy for her to pick them off.

More monsters rushed to reinforce their fallen brethren from farther down the passage, but what had been a scuttling mass of nightmarish doom was now a scattered group of desperate monsters facing a far superior foe. She might be able to find pity for a human, no matter how corrupt, but not a mishappen soulless mass of flesh. The world would be a better place without these creatures in it.

Lyssa continued downing monsters with ease. This was better than the range. They were moving mindless targets, and she didn’t even have to pay for the special session. She also was earning a little revenge for a dead man and ending a threat to the regular people living in the area. It was almost enough to make a woman feel warm and fuzzy despite being in a disgusting-smelling hole in the ground, knee-deep in monster gore.

Two final gunshots boomed before Lyssa lifted her pistols. She surveyed the area, satisfied with the destruction of her enemies. Silence replaced the scratching noises from earlier. Dying monsters twitched in front of her, but they didn’t squeal or chitter in their final moments.

“You never had a chance,” she said. “But there were a lot more of you than I expected. This job might end up being more annoying than I thought.”

Lyssa reloaded her pistols before walking over to nudge a body with the tip of her boot. She stared at her leather, looking for any sign of acid burns from the slime, but there was nothing. At least it couldn’t possibly smell worse.

She tried her boot with the blood. Again, there was no problem. It didn’t hurt to check, but the opposite wasn’t always true, as she’d found out earlier in her career. Being damage-resistant wasn’t the same thing as being immune to injury. Tricia’s herbs would help, but they couldn’t help her if she was dead.

Lyssa let out a sigh of relief. The monsters lacked acid blood and burning slime, but their stench was so overwhelming as to almost be a weapon itself. She was grateful for what small protection from the odor her mask provided.

“I need a gas mask,” Lyssa said, wrinkling her nose. “I should have one as standard equipment. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with something this rank. Someone might drop gas on me.”

“You don’t seem to be suffering any harmful effects,” Jofi said. “More unnecessary equipment leads to inefficiency in travel and conducting your duties.”

“You’re saying that because you don’t have lungs or a nose.” Lyssa snickered. “It smells really, really bad.”

“My physical nature is irrelevant to your situation.”

“My stomach disagrees with you.” Lyssa shoved a snake-roach corpse out of the way with her boot. “I can see how those things could have messed up college kids with Go Pros, but they aren’t much of a threat otherwise.” She gave a nod. “Nice to know. I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell Samuel he’d need major PR to explain away a nest of super-monsters. You know how he can get. It’s a sad day when I’m the one telling someone they need to be more of an optimist.”

“We have no confirmation we’ve eliminated all threats,” Jofi replied. “Significantly more dangerous creatures might still