“Show-off.”
She smirked. “Don’t act like you’re not impressed. There’s thirteen in there, I think. Four orcs, five goblins, two trolls, and some other type. You guys deal a lot with Raugs?”
“That’s real funny, rookie.”
“I’ll take that as a no. Then it’s probably two more Skaxen in there.”
“Yeah, that sounds more like it.”
Cheyenne frowned over her shoulder at the church. “They’re all just standing there in a weird circle. Like, not moving around or anything. I heard a bunch of whispering but couldn’t make it out.”
Rhynehart turned back toward his team standing patiently behind them—well, they might be patient since their faces were covered by the giant space helmets—but no one moved. “You telling me you saw them in there?”
“Just their shapes. And colors.” She shrugged.
“Uh-huh. Standing around in a circle.”
“Fine, don’t believe me. You’ll be shaking my hand when you storm in there and it’s set up exactly like I said.”
“You wouldn’t let me shake your hand if both our lives depended on it.”
She snorted. “Maybe.”
“Okay, rookie. Talent show’s over.” Rhynehart turned toward his team and flashed a series of quick signs with fists and fingers and flat palms that Cheyenne didn’t even try to reason out. Then he pointed toward the front door of the church, and his guys swarmed around him and the halfling to go get the job done. “You’re stickin’ with me.”
“We’re going in too, right?”
“Duh.” The man pulled a rather large pistol from the holster on his hip and clicked off the safety. A low whine rose from the weapon, followed by a green glow inside the mechanism that grew quickly brighter.
Cheyenne glanced at it, then smirked at him. “Couldn’t get a bigger one like your friends’ guns?”
“Didn’t have room to bring Lorena along for the ride.”
“Lorena’s dead.”
“Lorena 2, then.”
As the halfling and the FRoE team leader reached the bottom of the stairs, the two operatives closest to the doors threw them open and burst inside, weapons drawn. There were six guys in all, not counting Rhynehart, and they moved in unison as if they’d been practicing this one maneuver all week.
“Put it down, asshole!”
“Hands up. You’re done.”
“I said now, orc. Drop the—”
A snarl of rage and challenge erupted inside the church as Cheyenne and Rhynehart hurried in after his men. Sure enough, the church was already lighting up, with different-colored magic flying around the vestibule. The magicals currently getting busted still stood in a ring in the center of the room, where all the pews had been pushed against either wall. Around the circle of magicals were twelve tall iron candle holders, each with lit candles.
In the center of the circle was a fourteenth body Cheyenne hadn’t counted when she’d used her drow sight to look through the walls of the church. A new burst of rage flared through her when she realized it was because the fourteenth body, lying on the floor in this messed-up circle, was dead.
“Drop it!” Rhynehart shouted, moving into the room with his men. “Hands in the air!”
A snickering goblin with a beaker of some dark-purple substance leered at the operative and tossed the whole thing at Rhynehart’s head. He ducked, and the beaker smashed against the pews behind him. The smell of rotting vegetation mixed with cheap perfume filled the church.
Rhynehart fired his fell pistol at the goblin, spinning the magical sideways until he tripped on his long black robes and nearly fell on top of the body. The two orange auras Cheyenne had seen belonged to two more Skaxen, only these stood as tall as the goblins and looked like bright-orange rats—what Q’orr must’ve looked like before he shriveled himself with black magic. They hopped and skittered all over the main room of the church, snatching up vials and beakers and glasses and throwing them in every direction. The substances exploded on the floor and the walls, sending up clouds of black and purple smoke on impact. One of them bounced off an operative’s thick dampening vest and dropped at his feet.
“Ah, shit!” The guy leapt aside to avoid what was probably the same kind of acid burn Cheyenne had gotten full in the shoulder. The closest troll took the opportunity to rush at him head-on.
The halfling threw her hand out and flung the writhing black tendrils from her fingers. They coiled around the troll’s purple neck and jerked him backward. He let out a surprised choke before she tossed him into two other trolls trying to round up what remained of their black-magic stores.
A flash of green light came from Cheyenne’s left, and she ducked beneath an orc’s column of fiery magic. It blasted into the wall behind her, tearing out chunks of stone, and she rushed him.
The entire church slowed down to a crawl, blue, orange, purple, and green spells from the criminal magicals floating through the air toward their FRoE targets. Bursts of green light flared at the tips of the fell weapons in the operatives’ hands. One of the Skaxens was suspended midair as he leapt for the closest agent, long claws glinting at the ends of his fingers.
The drow halfling went for the closest orc first, firing a black orb of crackling energy at his face. She didn’t wait for the impact but ran past him toward the troll firing a spell that looked like hundreds of tiny needles at an unsuspecting operative’s back. Cheyenne’s black tendrils whipped at the shards of magic and batted them from the air, then she shoved both hands into the troll’s chest and launched him into the air. When she made it to the Skaxen leaping toward another FRoE agent, she jerked on his ridiculous black robes and he crashed to the wooden floor of the church.
A wave of searing pain burst through her head, and she screamed. Her enhanced speed dropped just like that, and she staggered away from the fight. The orc with a face full of black drow
