7

“C oming through! Don’t just stand there. Everybody move !” Titus’s gravelly, booming voice echoed everywhere before the enormous vuulbor shouldered much smaller operatives aside before half-hiking, half-sliding down the incline into the crater.

Rebecca was too focused on the feeling of Maxwell somewhere close by and of his emotions flooding toward her, intensifying by the second.

“Knocks?”

Titus’s rumbling voice ripped her back to the here and now, and she turned toward the vuulbor, widening her eyes at the sight of him lumbering toward her. Disheveled. Covered in dirt. Blood smeared across his bulky arms and bald head.

She offered him a distracted smile. “Yeah, big guy. All good.”

“Not like that.” He reached her, unzipped his light jacket, and whisked it off his massive shoulders before draping it around hers. The warm weight of it was a welcome protection, the normal-sized jacket for Titus falling just below her knees as it draped over her frame.

Rebecca looked down at herself in the overlarge garment and snorted. “Not exactly my style.”

Titus stepped back and folded his arms with a deepening frown. “That’s all you get. The bearskin’s mine.”

Huffing out a laugh, she zipped up the jacket around the frayed remnants of her own clothing and looked up at him, rolling up the sleeve cuffs so she actually had use of her hands. “Thanks.”

“Ditto,” he said with a nod. The concern in the big guy’s eyes beneath that remaining frown said everything else he couldn’t voice.

“All right.” Rebecca nodded toward Zida and Bor standing in the crater with her. “Help them out of here.”

Titus turned his focus onto Shade’s elders still clinging to each other. At the vuulbor’s approach, Bor gently released the healer and grunted. The big guy helped Zida out first, despite the fact that he could have carried them both out of the crater at the same time. Just not with both their dignity still intact.

Then Rebecca climbed the crumbling, debris-cluttered slope on her own, surprised to find several hands extending down toward her at the top, which she took gratefully for a final boost up and out.

When Leonard and Murray finally released her with wide eyes, nodding at her muttered thanks, they both stepped back to give their Roth-Da’al some space.

No one else around the crater moved much beyond stunned shuffling as they took in the overwhelming destruction left in the battle’s wake.

Staggered groups of operatives emerged from the tree line in all directions, weapons at the ready as they cautiously reached the parking lot only to find the battle permanently finished.

Rebecca gave them time to process what they were seeing and surveyed the extensive damage for herself.

The crater was much larger than she’d first thought, now that she stood above it. The compound had taken significant damage, multiple areas sagging where they stood, as if the rest of the building would collapse into dust at any second.

Somehow, it still held. Probably not for long.

After turning in a slow circle for an initial assessment, she turned back toward her task force. All the wide-eyed, shell-shocked faces staring at the battlefield, silently waiting for whatever came next while those who’d gone after the jump points around the perimeter finally joined the larger huddle at the edge of the crater.

“The griybreki?” she asked.

At first, it seemed no one had heard her until Diego cleared his throat and gestured toward the crater.

“That damn light snuffed ‘em all out,” he said, his voice hoarse but otherwise steady. “No bodies. No remains, even. No proof of anything.”

Then he habitually reached up to grab the brim of his baseball cap, paused when he realized it was gone, and let out a growling groan of frustration before running his hand through his dust- and soot-speckled hair. His crimson Cruorcian’s eyes flashed in the darkness, with nothing to hide their glow.

Just as Rebecca had intended, the final explosion of Zida’s magic had taken out the entirety of the griybreki swarms and not her task force with them.

“Any word about the jump points?” she asked.

“Explosion fried the comms,” Theo replied with a weary shrug. “Haven’t heard anything from anyone out there yet. But there’s Braxus.”

He nodded toward the troll approaching the crater with the rest of Charlie Team first while the other three returned from their various points around the parking lot, slightly behind.

So Rebecca asked the same question of Braxus when he finally reached them.

The troll swallowed, tried to shake out more of the stripped leaves and snapped twigs caught in his hair and clinging to his clothes, then gave up with a heavy sigh. “We got three of ‘em closed up tight before the whole world lit up and threw us farther into the woods.”

“Any injuries?”

“Nothing we can’t handle, boss.”

So far, it had turned out better than she’d expected.

The rest of their post-battle reports were delivered in a staggered line of combat-weary operatives recalling what they’d accomplished before the final explosion had ended everything for everyone.

Five other jump points had been successfully destroyed before the explosion, though the teams had confirmed a total of twelve placed around the compound in a radius of two and half kilometers.

“Whatever we didn’t shut down on our own,” Zane reported, “that explosion took care of for us. Fried all the circuitry. Melted everything else like ice cream in a fucking sauna.”

“Dude.” Leonard stepped away from him and looked the Umbál up and down with a grimace of disgust. “Please tell me you don’t actually eat ice cream in the sauna.”

Zane snorted. “Of course not. HQ never even had one.”

A round of haggard, exhausted laughter rose among the task force, though it didn’t last long.

Still, Rebecca was glad to see they’d retained the ability to banter over useless details and find some humor after what they’d been through. However unrelated.

It meant Shade was still here. That they’d survived without being entirely broken by the new set of circumstances thrust upon them.

But that didn’t mean this was over.

After confirming a surprisingly low number of Shade casualties totaling at zero and only a few minor injuries, Rebecca ordered a small group back into the woods to salvage whatever remained of the jump-point portal technology that had almost overrun them.

By the time she got that squared away, Corey hurried toward her from around the side of the crumbling compound, his eyes wide.

“Knocks!”

Behind him came a smaller stream of stumbling Shade members, some supported along the way with their arms around others’ shoulders, some refusing any help at all as they rounded the corner and entered the parking lot.

All of them stopped in awe when they noticed the giant crater and the striking lack of griybreki corpses after the battle.

Corey took a minute to catch his breath when he reached her, then glanced over his shoulder at the last of the support staff who’d defended the compound joined everyone else out here. “Grabbed everyone we could find from inside. Took a little bit to get them all out before the giant bomb went off… But I’m pretty sure it’s everyone.”

His gaze landed on the edge of the crater behind her before his eyes widened, and he pointed at it. “How the hell did that get there?”

“The giant bomb,” Rebecca muttered.

Corey choked, his jaw dropped, and he stared at the crater before turning around to eye those around them, as if wanting to make sure this wasn’t a fantastic prank.

Whether he got the confirmation he was looking for, Rebecca didn’t know.

Another surge of urgency and concern bordering on terror swept through her while the tingling warmth—now like the first stages of a shallow burn—swept across her flesh.

Maxwell was closer.

The sudden influx of his emotions and confusion, his insistent drive to move faster, nearly overwhelmed her.

She stumbled off balance, sharply righted herself, and shook her head.

“Boss?” Titus’s heavy hand settled on her shoulder before she realized he was even there again. “You good?”

Blinking against the receding surge of everything the shifter felt so strongly, Rebecca shot the big guy a brief glance and nodded. “I’m good. Got a little more taken out of me than I thought, I guess.”

Titus’s concerned frown remained, though he did release her shoulder.

She hadn’t expected to feel this drained, even after what she’d done tonight. A decent bit of healing after the fact generally tended to restore her enough that she didn’t wobble on her feet like this. But it hadn’t just been the healing, either.

All in the same night, she’d averted a deadly ambush by Rowan’s Hakalini’ir , performed an even more dangerous spell with the Blackmoon Elf for a virtual spellcast meeting with the Bloodshadow Council—whom she had then shamelessly defied—had somehow kept her operatives from attacking the Hakalini’ir and probably killing themselves when they’d discovered what Rowan’s protective dome meant, and used the full scope of her Bloodshadow magic to fight off a smaller attacking force of the Azyyt Ra’al.

All before coming back home to this .

Just so she could put herself at the very center of another battle, absorb a daraku’s Shi’il Taaríth spell, and end another hopeless battle.

If a little dizziness struck her here and there, she couldn’t be too hard on herself.

Gathering her wits again, Rebecca muscled to the back of her mind the odd sensations coming from Maxwell and returned her focus to the here and now. The important decisions right in front of her waiting to be made.

“Did you check every wing for stragglers?” she asked.

Still staring at the crater, Corey blinked heavily, as if pulling himself out of a dazed stupor, then met her gaze. “Not every wing. The front was a little harder to get to, for obvious reasons.”

“Take a count, anyway,” she told him with a nod. “I don’t want anyone in that building.”

“Or what’s left of it,” the tattooed troll murmured. “Wouldn’t call that much of a building, now, anyway.”

“We’ve rebuilt it before,” Shell piped in. “More than once. That I know of.”

Corey swung his head heavily toward the troll woman, like it weighed a thousand pounds, and raised an eyebrow. “Things are different this time.”

A grim scowl darkened Shell’s brow, but she nodded.

No one could argue with that. This time was absolutely different, on multiple different levels. This time, there was hardly anything left to even make rebuilding worth it.

“Zida! Is Zida out here? Pretty sure we need a healer!”

Echoes of responding shouts cut through the silence before Zida realized the operatives were calling for her.

“I’m coming, I’m coming. Keep your pants on.” She pushed herself away from Bor to hobble toward what little remained of the compound’s shattered, twisted entrance. “I need my supplies!”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Bor grumbled as he raced after the healer with surprising speed and clutched her arm to hold her back. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“They called for a healer,” she snapped. “Unless you see another one floating around out here on demand, that means me . And the healer needs her supplies.”

“What you need is to rest,” he snarled, not quite yanking her back but definitely not letting her go. “What you just went through—”

“Is over now,” Zida hissed, struggling feebly to free herself from the giveldi’s grip. “If I’m not dead, I can still do my damn job.”

“Step foot in there, and you will be—”

“You stubborn old worm! Who made you—” A gasping moan burst from the healer’s lips as she stumbled off balance and lost her footing. The next second, what had remained of Zida’s energy seeped out of her, and she sagged against Bor’s chest instead of trying to wrench herself away from him.

The giveldi grunted and held her in support, staring blankly over the top of the old healer’s hairless head. “Look at that. Finally came to your damn senses.”

She slapped him with a feeble, clawed hand, but that was all the resistance she had left.

Bor lifted his chin over the top of her head and bellowed, “Somebody better get their ass to the infirmary and bring her those supplies! Doesn’t matter if you know what it is. Pack up everything that ain’t broken and make it travel-ready! You hear me?”

“Travel-ready…” Zida snorted and pulled away from Bor just enough to look him in the eye. “You plan on going somewhere after sweeping me off my feet?”

The look he gave her in that moment made Rebecca feel like she’d suddenly stepped into the wrong room where this odd but still perfectly fitting geriatric couple were supposed to have been left alone in their privacy.

“Just in case,” he muttered.

The words were for Zida’s benefit only, to keep the healer’s mind off what came next once Shade had a clearer big-picture view of what they had left to work with after this battle. But Bor already knew what was necessary.

So did Rebecca, but that didn’t make it any easier.

Everything —whatever remained in their possession after the devastation—had to be travel-ready now. Because staying here in their destroyed home was no longer an option.

There was nothing left, and the previously hidden and unknown location of Shade Headquarters was no longer a well-kept secret. Especially from their enemies.

But that conversation would have to wait.

Rebecca turned her focus as much as possible to the injured operatives being guided together to receive medical attention, once Zida had her supplies.

While Rebecca surveyed the damage to her operatives and personnel, which fortunately wasn’t nearly as bad as she’d expected, the last of the teams who’d gone after the jump points returned to the parking lot to deliver their reports.

“No sign of even a single griybreki anywhere. Even out in the woods. No sign the swarms were ever even here in the first place.”

Plus the disheartening news that there was no sign of Eduardo, either.

Rebecca hadn’t needed visual confirmation of the grimbúl behind this attack. The asshole was definitely here. He wouldn’t have passed up the opportunity to witness what he had to have assumed was his own assured victory.

Two of the augmented magitek portal machines were recovered from the woods and brought to the parking lot. Shade’s resident civilian in protective custody couldn’t have picked a more perfect time to find Rebecca, just as the shredded, half-melted jump-point mechanisms were laid at Rebecca’s feet.

“Oh good. Finally decided to show up.”

Rebecca almost laughed at the shrill cynicism in Bruce Urholder’s voice but didn’t quite have the mental strength for it.

She turned toward him anyway and found the gnome huffing and puffing across the wreckage-strewn asphalt toward her.

“I’m still waiting for someone to tell me what the fuck happened to those comms while the whole lot of you were running around the city like lunatics. Without the rest of us.”

“Apparently, there’s at least one spell that disables even the most advanced comms systems,” she replied, trying not to smirk. “And no, we weren’t the ones who cast it.”

Bruce scoffed as he stopped in front of her, unfolded his arms, and looked her up and down a few times. Then his gaze settled on her right ear where her earpiece would have been, had any of the comms tech still functioned. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you just got reckless with your new toys.”

Beside her, Lerrick dumped the last few recovered pieces from one of the jump-point machines in a haphazard pile on the asphalt. Then he removed his own earpiece and held it out toward Bruce. “It worked just fine when we got here. But that blast fried everything.”

The gnome let out a choking squeak when he realized the shriveled, twisted bit of unrecognizable technology in Lerrick’s hand was one of his advanced comms-unit earpieces.

When he couldn’t seem to find the right words for an appropriate response, the gnome’s gaze dropped to the remains of the portal machinery lying in a heap of equally destroyed parts and gestured toward it. “What’s this, huh? What, you figured you’d just made some kinda peace offering? You think this makes up for everything else you’ve destroyed ?”

Lerrick sighed heavily and stepped back to let his Roth-Da’al answer that one.

“These were how Eduardo got his griybreki out here so quickly,” Rebecca replied. “And easily. There were twelve of them placed out in the woods. This is all that’s left. Some kinda portal technology the bastard somehow got his hands on.”

Bruce’s gaze darted back and forth between Rebecca and the melted remains of someone else’s tech. “Okay… And ?”

“And I’d like you to take a closer look at this when you have the time. If anyone can pick this apart and find whatever’s left that might point us to who’s really behind this technology and gave it to Eduardo…it’s you.”

“Jesus, I just don’t get it.” Bruce snorted. “Is this Eduardo guy some kind of idiot, or what? Because, I mean… Well, he did all this .”

“Only in some ways,” Rebecca answered grimly.

Admittedly, she hadn’t thought Eduardo was capable of staging this level of assault on anyone, not to mention her task force at their own Headquarters compound. But the guy had clearly possessed enough craft and cunning to put the whole thing together.

“But there’s no way he did it all on his own,” she added. “Eduardo didn’t manufacture magitek weapons or anything else. He’s a dealer. Which means he got this technology from someone else too.”

Bruce scrunched up his face and let out a long whine of indecision. Then he shrugged, still grimacing at the melted lump of portal machinery. “Yeah, all right. Fine. If there’s anything left, I’ll find it. But I can’t promise you shit, okay? This is…primitive. At best.”

“As long as you try. That’s all I expect.”

The gnome puffed out a sigh through lips, then waddled toward the melted hunk machinery, inspecting it first through a narrow squint as he bent over, propping his hands on his thighs, and apparently refused to touch his new pet project.

“Well at least let me look at them so I know what I’m dealing with!” Zida’s stark shout echoed across the parking lot, followed by the old woman shuffling toward the fortunately small group of Shade members with injuries.

Though the healer had recovered enough to stand on her own, Bor still scurried after her, his staff clicking and scraping across the asphalt over the constant murmur of his aggravated grumbling.

Rebecca almost headed toward the injured next, to see for herself that the injuries really were as minor as she’d been told. That they really had sustained zero casualties during all this.

But then the insane rush of Maxwell’s approaching presence—much closer than ever and closing quickly in—crashing right into Rebecca pulled her attention from everything else.

And with his approaching presence came all the relief and yearning and a sense of rightness rushing through their connection.

The shifter’s return demanded every ounce of her attention with its intensity. She spun away from her operatives and all the wreckage of the compound to face Maxwell’s return. He was almost at her side again. She felt it.

So where was he?

Her first quick scan of the tree line in that direction turned up nothing. Even when she slowed and peered more closely at the woods, searching for movement or the familiar silver glow in the darkness, there was still nothing.

Why couldn’t she find him?

Something must have gone wrong.

“Hey, has anyone seen Hannigan?” she shouted, unable to look away from the tree line for fear she’d miss him when he showed himself.

Before anyone had a chance to respond, a swift movement from the tree line caught her eye.

It wasn’t Maxwell, wolf or man.

Something heavy and much smaller hurtled toward her through the air.

Her stunned vision caught up to it a split second before the object hit the asphalt in front of her with a wet, squelching thump, bounced twice, and rolled across the rubble toward her.

When it stopped at her feet, wobbling beneath fading momentum, horror rippled through her before she could process any of the finer details of the severed head staring back up at her.