“Oh, shit, sorry,” I looked down at my awesome hellhound protector. “Let him go, boy.”
<No. They still want to hurt you.>
“Excuse me?” I said, glancing behind me quickly. They still looked plenty twitchy. “Tank, you did tell them to stand down, right?”
I didn’t sense any of the mages spooling energy, but by this point they could have had enough energy stored to blast me to bits several times over, if I recalled Rey’s analogy correctly: Mages have the capacity to store energy within, like the bucket heads they are, or something like that. It wasn’t an exact recollection, but I knew I was close.
Tank didn’t immediately respond. His delay made me twitchy.
“Tank? Did you tell your team to stand down?”
“Yes, sir,” he replied quickly. “I’d like to keep my arm, sir.”
“Good, because Roxanne would kill me if I did anything to destroy her—”
I sensed the orb before it slammed into my back. I managed to rotate my body to avoid the brunt of the impact, and a broken back.
Percussive blasts, how fun.
Percussive blasts were low on the showy energy that Monty used, and high in the kinetic department. It was why I hadn’t sensed much of an energy signature. That explained the bouncing mages. I should’ve known something was up. Most mages don’t bounce; at least I’d never seen Monty bounce.
Using percussive blasts only required kinetic energy by the user. (Yes, I had been studying.) The two mages in the back didn’t need runes to cast. Just moving their bodies was enough. It was similar to my magic missile, except instead of using life force, they used motion—and it hurt like hell.
The blow punched me across the reception area and into a very solid wall which, rudely, had no give at all. Pandemonium ensued. The lobby, which was still fairly populated as Tank and I conversed, now lost its collective mind.
As I slid down the wall and onto the floor, I wondered why this chaos was called pandemonium. Pandas were slow-moving, gentle bamboo eaters. What was happening in the lobby presently was closer to hellhoundemonium.
It’s never a good idea to attack the bondmate of a hellhound. Never.
Peaches blinked in and out of sight as he pounced on and mangled the security personnel. In a few seconds, the entire security team was incapacitated and in serious need of medical attention. Luckily, we were in one of the best medical facilities on the eastern seaboard.
He reappeared in front of Tank and gave off a low bark which spider-webbed all of the glass in the lobby. Someone had the presence of mind to hit an alarm which locked down the lobby. Klaxons went off and all the doors locked. Red emergency lights flooded the area in an eerie glow. Under the noise, I thought I heard the sound of metal grinding against metal, but, honestly, I couldn’t be sure.
I walked over to the now scared shitless Tank and drew Grim Whisper.
“That was not cool, Tank,” I said as Peaches growled in agreement. “Not cool at all.”
“It wasn’t me,” Tank pleaded, holding up a hand. “It was the Knockers.”
“The who?”
“Knockers,” he explained. “That’s what we call percussives—Knockers.”
“Your Knockers slammed me into a wall, and—you know what? I can’t even finish that sentence. You’re lead, your team, your responsibilty…your pain.”
Peaches growled in agreement again—a little louder this time.
“Wait a second, Mr. Strong,” Tank replied nervously. “This is all a misunderstanding, like you said. Remember diplomacy? Let’s try that—diplomacy. We can talk this out.”
“Funny you say that,” I said, looking around. “Every time I try diplomacy, it usually ends up looking like this. Turn off that infernal alarm. You’re explaining this to Rox—Director DeMarco.”
“Do I have to?”
“Look around, Tank. This lobby went from Welcome to Haven to You have just entered a militarized zone in the span of a few minutes. Who do you think is to blame for that?”
Tank looked down at Peaches then back at me.
“My team?”
“Good answer. Right answer,” I said, holstering Grim Whisper. “When the Director gets here—and she will be coming in hot—make sure you inform her that she has a huge pair of vicious knockers.”
“What?”
“You may want to rephrase that, but you know what I mean,” I said quickly. “Your team, your responsibility. You didn’t have them stand down, your percussives, jumped the gun, and decided I made excellent target practice. A Vetted Visitor, mind you.”
The klaxons turned off and I took a moment to collect my thoughts. I looked around and took in the scene. Roxanne was going to be so pissed. The red emergency lights switched off and normal lighting returned. That’s when I was able to appreciate the level of damage one hellhound could inflict in a confined space.
The reception area had been transformed into a small warzone. It looked like the walls had taken mortar fire. I stepped close to one of the holes and realized they were about the size of a certain hellhound’s head. The front desk had a sizable chunk missing from one corner. The missing section looked vaguely like an enormous bite mark, complete with drool residue.
Several of the tables, which earlier held magazines for visitors, now resembled strange abstract sculptures. Steel shutters had descended over the main entrance and egress points, effectively cutting off the lobby from the building. That had been the sound of metal grinding on metal.
The shutters themselves were runed with symbols I couldn’t decipher, except to know that trying to break through them would result in massive amounts of pain. Roxanne was really not fooling around. The new security measures were impressively scary. Much like the Director herself.
No one was leaving the lobby under their own power.
After a few moments, the shutters on the stairwell doors slid up with a surge of power. It was a familiar, dangerous, surge of power.
The stairwell doors erupted outward, and more mage security poured into the lobby. Behind the mages, I caught sight of one very angry-looking sorceress making her way to the front of the group.
<Over here, boy. Let’s
