Jen moved on to the next victim. It took her team two minutes to free all twelve prisoners and carry them up and out of the pit. Jen paused as Rhys carried the last woman up the iron steps. The black disk on the ceiling shimmered like water and a drop of darkness fell into the bowl.
Jen grimaced and kicked it over. The nasty stuff oozed across the floor, sizzling and burning stone. She shuddered. What could they use that crud for?
Maybe she didn’t want to know. Jen leapt up to the catwalk and followed Rhys out the hole in the wall. Above them streaks of energy lit the sky. She couldn’t tell who was winning.
“Did we get everybody?” Talon asked.
“All the prisoners, but some of the gang escaped.” Not a perfect victory, but when she looked at the huddled figures shivering in the snow Jen figured maybe it was close enough. “Let’s take these people somewhere warm.”
An explosion shook the night and Master Shen fell from the sky. Jen leapt and caught him eight feet from the ground. They landed close to the hole he’d cut in the wall. “You hurt?”
He grunted and looked up. Jen followed his gaze. Hovering above them, an armored figure sat astride a black horse with glowing red eyes and flames around its feet and tail. The knight wore a great sword strapped to his back and a full helm shaped like a leering demon that hid his face. Inscribed on his breastplate was a huge, horned skull.
Beside him the sorcerer floated, a little pout on her pixie face. “You spoiled my fun, Mikhail.”
Mikhail!
This was the missing Santen heir?
“Don’t call me that!” Mikhail said. “Mikhail Santen is dead. I am Sir Darkness, a demon knight.”
The sorcerer grimaced. “I am not calling you Sir Darkness, Mikhail, or anything equally pretentious.”
Black flames gathered around his bare hands. “You dare question my commands?”
Jen hoped they’d kill each other and save her a lot of work, but the sorcerer raised her hands. “Of course not, my lord. Hey, how about that? ‘My lord’ would be a good thing to call you.”
He nodded once and the flames vanished. “It will do.”
“Hey!” Jen shouted. “Where’s your father?”
Mikhail turned his attention to her and a chill ran through Jen. His eyes were pits of fire. “Dead. I cut his heart out and his blood fueled my ascension to greatness. I’ll never again have to listen to his prattle about obedience and following the rules. I make the rules now.”
His gaze shifted. “I wondered what became of those.” He held out his bare hands and the gauntlets on Talon’s belt flew up and slid over them. He flexed his fingers. “Now die, worms.”
A black ball of crackling energy formed in the air in front of him.
Jen grabbed Master Shen and ran back to the others.
The sphere shot toward the alley. Master Shen raised a golden barrier.
White snow and black energy washed over them. Jen braced the slender sorcerer.
The assault lasted only moments. When the snow settled, all that remained of the Unkindness’s base was a smoking crater. Master Shen slumped in her arms and his barrier vanished.
Jen eased him to the ground. “Everybody okay?”
Her squad all indicated that they were, even the prisoners survived the attack. Jen studied the sky. No sign of the sorcerer or Mikhail, thank heaven.
Master Shen groaned and sat up. Jen helped him to his feet. He wobbled, but stayed upright. “Are you all right, Master?”
He nodded. “Some of the corruption penetrated my shield. It would have been unpleasant if I was in peak condition. As I am now it stunned me. Is everyone safe?”
“Yes, you did it.”
“Good.” He turned toward the smoking crater. “It’s a good thing we were only on the edge of the blast. If his aim had been better…”
“I have a lot of questions, Master Shen.”
He smiled and patted her shoulder. “I’m sure. I have my share as well, but they’ll all keep until we reach somewhere warm.”
Chapter 20
“I thought I told you to keep the breakage to a minimum.” Captain Tosh sat behind his desk. A vein in his forehead throbbed in time with his heart. “Do you call blowing up a building in the docks minimal breakage?”
Jen and Master Shen sat across from him. They’d retreated to Jen’s inn long enough to change clothes before leading the victims to watch headquarters. Some kid fresh out of training had been dispatched to fetch the captain. He’d arrived ten minutes later, shirt half tucked in and hair uncombed. Jen managed not to laugh.
The former prisoners were downstairs getting looked at by the healers. The rest of the squad had stayed with them to offer what reassurance they could. That left Jen and Master Shen to handle the inevitable explanations. She would have preferred to fight a dozen thugs.
“I didn’t destroy the building. I rescued the prisoners and their jailor didn’t appreciate it.”
Tosh ran a hand through his rumpled hair. “Just walk me through it. Start with what happened after we parted ways.”
Jen paused to gather her thoughts and try to figure out how to tell the story without revealing the secret spying operation, but couldn’t see any way around it.
“I told Jennifer to look up an old friend of mine if anything happened,” Master Shen said, saving her the trouble of making up a story. “Mariela told her about my efforts to investigate the Unkindness so she tracked them down and freed me along with the other prisoners. Mikhail Santen murdered his father to gain demonic powers which he used to destroy the building in an attempt to murder us. He fled with a female accomplice. Where they are now we have no idea.”
“A handful of the gang escaped under the building, I assume into the sewers,” Jen said.
“That’s it? That’s your whole explanation?” Tosh stared at them.
Jen shrugged. “That’s what happened. It hasn’t
