Tess held her crossbow, cocked and loaded, in her right hand.
“Welcome to the party, Tess. You might want to turn around,” I said.
Armstrong had a pistol, held in a shooter’s stance, and Frazier was just finishing her spell. A shimmer appeared in the air in front of her and Armstrong.
Without turning, Tess dropped to one knee and placed her left hand on the floor just outside the circle that bound me.
I felt energy being released. Tremendous amounts of energy.
What the hell was Tess doing?
Armstrong raised her handgun to firing position, apparently not realizing that Frazier had activated a shield in front of them both.
The earth surged.
With a tremendous cacophony of rending metal and cracking cement, the floor beneath me split open and bulged toward the ceiling. Great chunks of concrete and tile cracked and rose. The walls began shaking and pieces of the ceiling rained down around me. The chair and I were hurled back from Tess. I slammed into the back wall just as my spell finished dissolving a section of the handcuffs. I triggered my shield tat and focused it immediately in front of the doorway just as a pistol fired twice.
I stood slowly and brushed at the dust that coated my leathers. Tess still knelt in a small circle of clear floor amongst the devastation that had destroyed the room. She rose on wobbly legs. I reached for her, but my hand was stopped by her shield. Good, I was afraid she’d forgotten it.
“Nice rescue, Tess. I’ll take it from here, if that’s all right with you,” I said as I moved beside her.
“No, problem, Boss. They’re all yours. I’m just going to watch from here on out,” Tess said. Her voice sounded tired.
Armstrong still held her pistol in shooting position, but she was staring at the two bullets that had fallen to the floor at her feet after hitting Frazier’s shield.
I raised my right hand and triggered an energy blast.
Frazier’s shield held, but she’d not anchored it. The two of them were blasted through the doorway at their back, taking a good share of the wall with them. I moved to the door and took a quick look down the hallway to either side.
My senses tat was fully active now, and I could hear running footsteps. Many footsteps. I stepped into the hallway, reforming my shield into an ovoid that stretched across the hall. The ladies were getting to their feet. The room I’d knocked them into looked like a storage room. Filing cabinets and shelves of equipment had been knocked over and office supplies and weapons lay scattered about the floor.
I raised my left hand and pointed down the hallway to my left. I didn’t really need any interruptions while the ladies and I finished our discussion.
I triggered my fire tat and flame swept down the hall. I left it on for a few seconds until the walls and ceiling were burning. Then I repeated the gesture to my right until that hallway too was filled with flames.
I turned back to the two women who had so recently held me captive.
I smiled broadly, okay, it was probably a threatening smile, at least it had the effect of appearing threatening to them.
Frazier started to speak a spell, and I shook my finger at her.
“We’ll have none of that. You get to keep living as long as you cast no other spells. Stop immediately.”
Frazier stopped and stared at me with unhidden venom.
“There now. See you can be civilized about this. Now, tell me where my friends are.”
“Can’t you do anything?” Armstrong asked without taking either her eyes or her gunsights off of me.
“Rowle told me to not try and best him with magic,” Frazier said.
“How good of Rowle to give you a warning, but that doesn’t answer my question. Where are my friends?”
Armstrong tipped her head to her right. “They’re in another room at the opposite end of the hall.”
I heard a crackle of static and a voice came from Armstrong’s suit. “Ms. Armstrong, are you all right? The hallway is on fire, and we can’t get to you.”
“Ah, your lackeys. Tell them that if they want to keep breathing, they are to holster whatever weapons they are carrying and stay clear of the hallway,” I said.
Smoke was filling the hallway and making it difficult to see past the flames. There must have been a door open somewhere because the smoke was flowing into the room at my back and out the opening, Beast had torn in the ceiling.
Armstrong looked to Frazier for instructions, and the mage said, “Do as he asks. There’s no point in dragging this out.”
Armstrong pulled a small electronic device from her pocket. It was the size of the cell phones Tess had forced me to buy. She raised the device to her lips and said, “Holster your weapons. No shooting, I mean it, none. Then move back from the hallway.”
“Are you sure, Boss?” The man’s tone was concerned.
“Of course I’m sure,” Armstrong said. “Just stay out of the hall and don’t interfere.”
“Should we call the fire department?”
“I wouldn’t have him do that,” I suggested. “Unless of course, you’d like to explain to the police why you kidnapped my two friends.”
“But the fire–” she began.
“I’ll handle the fire,” I said.
“No, don’t call anyone. Just move back to the front of the building and wait for further instructions,” Armstrong said into the phone or radio.
“Yes, Boss.”
I raised my left hand and triggered my chiller tat. A wave of cold encompassed the hallway to my left. Within a dozen seconds, the fire was out, and frost was forming on the walls. I repeated the spell on the right hallway and then called the wind to clear the remaining smoke.
When the hallway was mostly clear, I motioned for the women to join me.
They walked toward me but stopped when Frazier’s shield impacted the destroyed walls on either side of the opening.
“My shield won’t
