Snarling, the halfling yanked on the chain and pulled it free. The purple-gray skin and bone-white hair of her drow form took over before she stuffed the Heart of Midnight pendant into her jacket pocket, and then she was running up the front steps beside two FRoE agents she knew a lot better after last night. I trust them. Time to nail those shitheads.
* * *
Corian sat in the basement apartment, scrolling through the newest topic threads posted by desperate parents on the Borderlands forum. With a sigh, the Nightstalker scrubbed a hand over his face and shook his head. How the hell am I supposed to keep this under wraps as long as I need to? I should be looking for those blood-traitors.
He started to type out another response to the latest panicked inquiry, then a bright silver flash erupted from his finger. Corian froze. “No. She wouldn’t!”
The chair scooted back across the cement with a hollow screech when he leaped to his feet, then the Nightstalker stormed across the basement toward the metal shelves full of pretty much everything he needed. The metal box was right there where he’d left it, and he jiggled off the lid again to peer inside. His eyes widened, and he hissed in anger before slamming the lid onto the box again. “Damnit, Cheyenne!”
The laptop shut with a click beneath his hand, then he pulled down the wards protecting the metal door and stepped out into the crisp autumn evening. I don’t care whose kid she is. This better be the last time I have to save her halfling ass.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Hands up, asshole!”
A burst of green light hurtled toward the FRoE agent standing just inside the doorway. Whoever it was fired fell darts, then Cheyenne Summerlin burst through the door into the chaos of another FRoE raid—this time on purpose.
A column of violet fire streaked toward her head, and the drow halfling ducked before sending a missile of crackling black energy toward the sneering goblin who’d attacked her. His blue-green grin disappeared when her spell hit him in the face a second before the fire crashed into the wall behind her. Something heavy and metal toppled to the ground with a clang.
Cheyenne spun around to see the helmet rolling away from the rest of a fallen suit of armor before she returned to the fight.
“Jesus, what a place, huh?” Beside her, Yurik fired his fell pistol. The skaxen he’d aimed at dodged the first and caught the rest of the weapons fire in the gut, screaming as he hit the floor.
“Shitbags in a mansion are still shitbags,” Bhandi said, ducking a flashing attack of red magic spinning toward her like a throwing star. Her fell pistol caught the attacking troll in the hip and then the knee, and she growled when he went down.
The FRoE spread out across the huge foyer and into the multiple rooms on the first floor, magic and fell darts flying everywhere and obliterating the expensive décor.
Cheyenne’s lashing black tendrils shot from her hands and wrapped around an orc with his meaty fist clamped down around an agent’s arm. The tendrils whipped around the orc’s wrist and jerked his arm back. The FRoE agent was tossed aside, but the orc was a lot more focused now on the thick coils of drow magic crushing his windpipe.
The halfling let the orc drop and raised a black, shimmering shield of magic between Yurik and the bullet some asshole had tried to put in his helmet. The bullet pinged off Cheyenne’s shield and the huge, muscular goblin turned toward her, his grin barely visible through the mask of his helmet. “Yeah, I’m stickin’ with you.”
“I don’t care what you do as long as we find those kids,” Cheyenne snarled. She let off one crackling burst of black energy after another at the screaming, sneering magicals poorly defending their new hiding place. “That’s why we’re here.”
She moved through the chaos and the multi-colored spells crossing the foyer against fell darts and larger fell explosives. Glass shattered somewhere behind her, and Bhandi nudged Cheyenne forward from behind just before a massive pane of stained glass crashed to the floor where the halfling had stood.
“We got your back, drow.” The troll woman nodded toward the rest of the battle and the agents destroying the well-kept mansion. “Let’s go.”
Cheyenne flung attacking magicals aside with her lashing tendrils, ducking under flying spells and weaving around the black-magic targets and FRoE agents alike. Bhandi and Yurik flanked her without a word, picking off their own targets as they moved through the house.
On the other side of the foyer, a huge, winding staircase led up to the second floor. Five FRoE agents were spread out along the first few steps, exchanging fire with a giant ogre crashing down the staircase toward them. Cheyenne glanced up at the second-floor landing and the balcony overlooking the fight below. Off the top of the stairs was a set of double doors guarded by another ogre and a scrawny orange skaxen. Both of them hurled attack spells into the fray, but they didn’t move from their post beside the door.
“There! Second floor,” Cheyenne shouted.
Bhandi and Yurik glanced up at the balcony and nodded.
The ogre on the staircase let out a mighty bellow and swung a huge fist at the agents in front of him. Most of them leaped aside, firing before one poor bastard took an ogre fist to the side of the helmet. The agent staggered sideways into the staircase banister, and the ogre lifted his fist to bring it down on the stunned operative’s head.
Cheyenne threw a shield up over the agent’s helmet. The ogre’s fist
