Somnus III - Chapter 13 (Patreon)

Kat slipped the datastick into her pouch and sheathed her knife.  “Deal. I have a safe house in Chiwaukee where we can stash you until I can buy you a new identity.  I have contacts in GroCorp that would be more than happy to trade a stack of credit chips and some new paperwork for the intel rattling around in your head.”

“Great,” Otto winced.  “I don’t suppose you have a bandage or something?  As much as I would love to hash out our little agreement, I’m losing a lot of blood here.”

“I can do you one better.”  Kat began casting Cure Wounds I.  A moment later she touched Otto’s injured arm, her hand glowing a gentle gold.

The wound closed under her touch, leaving behind a grayish smear of blood and smooth unblemished skin.

Otto grunted, pulling himself to his feet, left arm hand still flopping uselessly.  He glanced down at it, confusion distorting his face.

“It’s a first level ability.”  Kat shrugged helplessly.  “It’ll stop bleeding and heal bruises but I cut a tendon to make you drop your shotgun.  We’ll need to take you to a street doc to fix that.”

“I guess I’ll just have to deal with it,” the big man shook his hand once more, watching it wobble back and forth.  “It doesn’t even hurt.  I just can’t control it anymore.”

“I hate to break up this wonderful new friendship,” Whip’s voice sounded in Kat’s ear, “but two SUV’s just pulled up outside.  I’m keeping my head down right now but it sure looks like you have at least ten incoming, all heavily armed.”

“Otto,” Kat turned toward him.  “My partner says that-”

Before she could finish her thought, her instincts screamed a millisecond of warning.  Kat threw herself to the side, interposing Otto’s bed between herself and the apartment’s wall.

The room exploded into light in sound, a scalding pressure wave washing over her as the side of the building shattered inward, spraying the room with bricks.  Otto staggered backward, lifting his arms to try and ineffectually defend his face and torso.

Her vision stuttered as Kat’s perks prevented her senses from being overwhelmed by the sudden assault.  The ringing in her ears began to fade almost immediately, replaced by the rattle of rifle fire.

Otto spun around, slapping his limp arm to his right shoulder before flopping onto the ground.  Then the gunfire stopped, leaving the two of them on the ground, backs to the large bed as they gasped for breath.

The building shook as something exploded nearby.  Outside, Kat heard a clamor of voices as the attackers began shouting instructions to each other followed by the crash of another explosion.

This time, she barely made out a small dark cylinder, silhouetted in front of the stars as it arced toward the destroyed wall, before ultimately it exploded.

“Kat!”  She jerked slightly as Whippoorwill screamed into her ear.  “Are you all right?  One of the samurai pulled a rocket propelled grenade out of an SUV and just blew up the upper floor.  Now they’re encircling the building while one of them is launching grenades at you.  Both of you need to start moving, now!”

“Otto.”  Kat ducked as a three round burst from a rifle sent chips of drywall flying as they hit the building.  “My partner is telling me that-”

She paused.  The big man was grimacing as blood poured from a bullet hole in his upper arm, but he hadn’t seemed to notice her.

Kat reached out and put a hand on his wrist, trying to grab Otto’s attention.  He flinched when she touched him, glancing back at her with pain clouded eyes.

“We’re being flanked,” she tried again, only for Otto to motion helplessly toward his ears.  Kat frowned.  Apparently the chrome that let him to avoid the effects of Dazzle didn’t extend to his hearing

She motioned with a hand, forming a rough circle before pointing toward the gaping hole in the bedroom wall.  He frowned at her for a moment for nodding slowly.

Kat pointed at the two of them and then the door into the bedroom with her index and pointer fingers.  This time Otto nodded more decisively.

The floor seemed wobbled under Kat as she stood up, another near miss from the grenade launcher shaking the building.  Otto followed her as she pushed aside the door and stepped back into the hallway.

Gun drawn she made her way to the samurai’s front door and undid the metal chain barring the entryway.  He lumbered after her as she stepped out into a landing.  Kat tuned out another burst of gunfire as their attackers sprayed the bedroom once again.

“They’re moving Erinyes,”  Whippoorwill whispered urgently as Kat drew her pistol and glanced down the stairwell.  “I’ve lost track of most of the flankers, but the time out front just got really excited about something and all but two of them are on their way into the building.”

Below her, Kat heard a door slamming upon accompanied by the fearful screams.  She turned around, practically plowing into Otto as the big man leaned his good shoulder against the wall, hyperventilating quietly.

“Back the way we came!” She had to shout over the sound of another rattle of gunfire, pointing back into the apartment.  “The stairwells are full of samurai, we’re going to need to go out a window.”

Otto cocked his head at Kat as she rushed past him.  Even if he could make out what she was saying through his damaged hearing, the combination of blood loss and shock from his bullet wound was clearly slowing his ability to process what was happening.

He followed her into the living room as Kat glanced out the window she’d used to enter the building.  The alleyway was dark and strewn with trash, but big enough for Otto even with his injured arms.

Kat turned around, waving to get the large man’s attention before hooking a thumb out the window.

“You’re going first,” she shouted hurriedly.  “I can use magic to slow your descent while I hold off whoever’s coming.”

“What?”  He asked, looking from the open window to Kat.

She put a hand on Otto’s back pushing him toward the exit as she began pumping mana into Levitation.  Behind them, she heard more shouting from the stairwell as the invaders made their way up.

He ducked through the opening, leaving a smear of blood on the frame before he lost his balance and tipped into the alley below.  Levitation caught the huge samurai a half second after he left the building, slowing his fall to a manageable rate.

Just as Kat put her hand on the top of the frame, the door from the landing burst open.  A woman lunged inside, the green glow of night vision goggles on her face and a shotgun pressed to her shoulder.

Almost without thinking, Kat aborted her second casting of Levitation, spinning on her heel and unleashing Dazzle around head level at her attacker.  The woman grunted, recoiling backward into the doorway and the samurai behind her.

Kat flashed into motion, grunting as her left forearm slammed into the shotgun barrel, slamming her opponent’s weapon to the side before she stabbed upward with the knife in her right hand.  The blade moved lightning quick, finding a gap underneath the woman’s arm and sinking hilt deep into her armpit.

She released the dagger, letting her injured opponent slump backward, limbs tangling with the rest of the combat team as she clogged up the narrow passageway.  Kat drew her unsilenced pistol, drawing a bead on the head of the man behind her victim and opening fire.

In the split second as Kat brought her gun to bear, he tried to wrestle his own weapon free, unable to extricate it from the back of the wounded and disoriented woman before she opened fire.

The handgun barked, Kat’s perks protecting her hearing in the enclosed hallway.  The first shot caught her target in the upper shoulder, staggering the man but unable to penetrate the layered kevlar and polymer of his armor.  Her second shot took him in the neck, and the third hit his forehead, shattering the faceplate of the night vision goggles and killing him instantly.

She shifted her aim, firing at the third and final invader as they tried to backpedal away from the clogged doorway as they brought a rifle to their shoulder.  Kat wasn’t sure how many of her three shots hit the figure, but they stumbled at least once before ducking out of her line of sight.

There was no way for Kat to know whether her shots made it past her attacker’s armor, but they were moving under their own power and still had their weapon meaning it was time for her to go before reinforcements were called.

Kat fired a final shot into the injured woman’s face, killing her insantly.  She shoved her pistol back into its holster before ripping her knife from the body’s armpit.

A gun barrel popped around the corner, prompting Kat to duck as the final attacker fired a three shot burst over her head.  Plaster rained down on her shoulders before Kat lurched away from the doorway, leaving the pair of dead bodies behind.

Barely a second later, Kat was pouring mana into Levitation as she pushed her way through the bent bars guarding the window and tumbled toward the alleyway below.

The dirty pavement drifted toward her, slowed by the power of her spell.  Kat glanced over her shoulder toward the window above.  She suspected that the samurai inside wouldn’t be equipped to jump down the three stories needed to follow her, but at the same time, he had a rifle.  For the moment, she was little more than a sitting duck as she hung in the air.

Gunfire erupted from the mouth of the alleyway.  Kat’s head whipped around, rotating her entire body in the air.  Otto shouted something indesphirable from the street just around the corner only to be silenced by another rattle of gunfire.

She judged the distance between herself and the cracked pavement and cut off her spell, landing on her hands and knees with bruising force.  Kat jumped to her feet and sprinted around the corner only to find another trio of samurai standing around Otto’s still body.

Cat Step silenced her movements, and before any of the three gunwielding individuals could react, Kat was amongst them, her Tower enhanced agility speeding her movements past the point where they could be tracked by the unaided eye.

Her knife flashed in the distant streetlights, drawing a crimson line across a man’s throat and finding a gap between two plates of armor to stab a woman in the bicep.

“Target is down!”  Kat couldn’t tell which of the two women was shouting as her remaining targets scattered.  “We are under attack and retreating.”

She ducked behind the the staggering body of the injured male samurai as one of the running figures sprayed rifle fire in her general direction.  He jerked twice, his hands still clutching emptily at his throat as bullets slammed into his armor as the remaining attackers tried to keep Kat in place while they escaped.

“Chiffon!”  Kat screamed into her microphone as she slipped back into the open and pulled her hand back to throw her knife.  “Otto is down and they’re scattering.  Give me some help here!”

Kat didn’t wait for a response, investing stamina into her arm as she activated her new Throwing ability, whipping her hand forward.  The knife tore through the air, glowing a gentle red before it tore through one of the samurai’s armor and buried itself between her ribs.

Mana surged out of Kat as she sprinted toward her victim, activating Overpressure.  The woman sumbled and screamed as a geyers of blood sprayed from her wound, almost dislodging the weapon.

Blood loss slowed Kat’s target just enough for her catch up.  One leg snapped out, hitting the stumbling woman just below her right knee and knocking her feet out from under her.

Before the target could fully hit the ground, Kat grasped the back of her head with both hands crunching the woman’s face and night vision goggles into the street.

Skidding to a halt, Kat turned around.  In the distance, the other samurai made her escape as Kat flipped the body over.  Whoever the woman had once been, between blood loss and the shards of ceramic and hardened lodged in her face, she wouldn’t be answering questions.

Kat pulled her knife free and scanned the empty street.  An back SUV, pulled off the curb down the block, tires squealing is it peeled off into the night.

She turned back to the apartment building and winced.  A good portion of its top right corner was blown open, shattered bricks covering the nearby structures.  On the ground level, men and women ferried valuables out of their apartments as the entire edifice began to list to the side.

“Erinyes.”  Whip’s voice made Kat’s head jerk upward.  “Both of their vehicles were on the move, and I wasn’t able to get off a shot.”

“Don’t worry,” Kat responded, shoving her knife into its sheathe as she started making her way toward the other woman’s hiding spot.  “I only wanted you to take a shot if you had both a clean angle and the drop on someone.  I’d rather you be safe than take a risk when I’m not around.”

“Actually…”  Whip’s voice trailed off.  Kat kept walking, making sure to keep her paces steady and measured to avoid attention.  The pedestrians behind her had their own concerns, what with massive damage caused by the various grenade blasts, but she still didn’t want to give them a focus for their ire.

“Got it,” Whip continued exultantly.  “I’m riding piggyback on the Chiwaukee traffic security camera system right now.  The SUV is drawing all sorts of chatter.  It’s practically edged at least three cars off the road already.  Apparently at least two people have called for assistance from the precinct’s private police force.”

“So we know where they are going?”  Kat asked as she slipped into the alley mouth where Whip was crouching, her cranial jack plugged into the terminal at the base of the nearby lightpole.

The other woman sat in silence for a couple more seconds before she looked up, excitement and concern in her eyes.

“It’s sure looking like Homan Square Erinyes.”  Whippoorwill nodded her head slowly.  “If it isn’t Homan Square its almost certainly going to be somewhere nearby.  The security system doesn’t have enough cameras to cover every side street, but still-”

“You’re thinking about the Millenium black site aren’t you,”  Kat replied.

“What else could it be?”  Whip asked.

Kat nodded her head thoughtfully.  There wouldn’t be enough time to scout the target out.  The survivors would bring enough information to put the entire hideout on high alert.  If she gave them time, Kat could almost guarantee that she’d be sneaking right into a state of the art security system complete with razorwire, landmines, and automated turrets

If she was going to hit the black site, she’d need to do it now.