Posted using PostyBirb",
"writing": "“De brige iz coming,” the driver said.\n\nNiel looked away from the passing scenery he hadn’t been seeing and ahead, searching for the object and why the driver thought it was worth mentioning. Not seeing a bridge, and then remembering the little conversation they’d shared on the way to the village, he glares at the driver, ready to lay into him about how he was in no mood for flippant—\n\nThe eyes he locked with had no mirth in them, and Niel remembered this was a Society man. He wasn’t suggesting they fuck around. He was offering him something to take his mind off what had happened back there. The level of thoughtfulness pissed him off, but he could see that was also just him trying to avoid thinking about Jarod.\n\nHe shook his head and went back to looking out the side and not seeing what was there.\n\nHe did want to feel something, but about what Jarod had done to him, not to distract himself away from that… nothingness. This void was too much like how he remembers the days after his mother passed. Emptiness, demanding to be filled. Only it made no sense that he felt like that. He hadn’t known Jarod existed only a week ago. This had been their first time meeting, so it wasn’t like he’d lost a parent when Jarod dismissed him as he had. \n\nSo, why the fuck did this feel so much like he’d lost another parent and was all alone?\n\n“I do not know what dat was,” the driver said, eyes remaining on the road. “But you tell me and I drive back. I put my foot to his ass for you.”\n\n“It’s kick his ass,” Niel snapped. “And wouldn’t you rather put your cock to it?”\n\n“Oui. But you ar who I take care of. I do what you say.” The driver looked at him in the rear-view mirror, and this time, there was mirth in those eyes. “I fuck you, if you want.”\n\nNiel stopped himself from snapping his reply. Maybe he should say yes. What was so bad about distracting himself, and since when did he say no to sex? He opened his mouth, but nothing came, distracted by what he saw in the distance. That was smoke; it was thick and dark. Much more than he thought could come from the chimney he’d seen on the houses.\n\n“Do they have bonfire—” Niel was pressed to the seat as the car picked up speed, the driver looking ahead and cursing in French.\n\n* * * * *\n\n“Remain in de car.”\n\nThe car skidded to a stop, and the badger was out, running toward the fighting that took place before the burning house as he rolled up his sleeves.\n\nThe roof was partially collapsed and the thick smoke he’d seen from the distance escaped from there, with fire raging around it. On the yard before it, two dozen people fought. Few of which Niel recognized.\n\nA ferret swung something that looked like a wooden stick—no, a baseball bat, and the detonation as it stop rocked the car Niel was in even if it was aimed away. The bear that had been the target vanished in the distance so fast he wasn’t even sure he’d seen him there. A lot of the people fought using weird weapons. Weirder than a baseball bat, anyway. A woman pointed a crook right out of that old Bo Beep fairytale at a bear in the process of aiming a gun at her, and he contorted until he dropped out of sight. \n\nHe located someone he knew just as the baseball wielding ferret stuck Jacques. Years of calculating trajectories to intercept players and the occasional ball had Niel out of the car just in time not to be there when the badger flew through the back half of it, sending shrapnel flying. \n\nThe badger climbed out of the furrow he left, cursing in French. His clothing was burned, ripped, melted and… was that Christmas wrapping paper dangling from below the knee?\n\n“What is going on?” Niel demanded, and Jacques replied in a string of angry French. “English.”\n\n“What are you doing here?” the badger asked, crouching, only now seeming to realize who was talking to him.\n\n“Jacques!” someone yelled, then German followed.\n\n“I’m fine,” the badger told the collie, who rounded the wreck of the car. “It’s not like they can hurt me.”\n\n“Don’t give me that!” Hubert’s accent was thick. “You had no idea your power made you immune to transmutation.” He pointed at the Christmas wrapping which Niel now saw merged into Jacques’s pants. \n\n“It’s not like I know anyone with that kind of power.” He pushed Niel at the collie. “You need to get Niel to the others behind the barn.”\n\n“What the fuck is going on?” Niel demanded.\n\n“Chamber attack,” Hubert replied.\n\n“What?”\n\n“Not the time or the place to answer your questions.” Hubert looked over the car’s hood. “I don’t see Thomas.”\n\n“He was popping in and out, getting people behind the barn, last I saw him,” Jacques replied. \n\n“Which of the farmhands are left to get to safety?”\n\n“I don’t know. Most of the fieldworkers were in the house eating lunch. Orinda was cooking today.”\n\n“But the house is on fire!” Niel exclaimed, and got a look from both that had his ears folding back. Of course they knew. They’d been here when this started.\n\n“Grant took care of the woman with the fire staff,” Hubert said. “But there is no water in any of the reservoirs, and none of the Dumier here has a fire or water-based power, or anything that could be used to put the fire out. There’s nothing we can do to save the building.”\n\n“That makes no sense,” Jacques said. “A group of them ran in before it was firebombed.\n\nHubert shrugged and grabbed the edge of the car’s frame with a hand and pulled it onto its side. “Stay with me, Niel.” He took hold of the undercarriage with both hands, raised it off the ground an inch and looked at Jacques. “A Citreon? Really? Doesn’t anyone in this country have a decent German car?”\n\n“Look, my family is into the arts, not military armament.”\n\n“A volkswagon is better built than this tin can. Where are you going?” he yelled as he stepped forward, and the badger ran off in the opposite direction.\n\n“The house! There’s no way they killed their own people! Don’t worry, I can’t burn!”\n\n“You can still suffocate!”\n\n“I’ll hold my breath!”\n\nWhat followed was the kind of German high school German 101 didn’t cover. By the tone, no class covered it. “Niel, you need to run. If I let him get in the house, he’s going to kill himself of smoke inhalation.”\n\n“Isn’t the fire going to kill you before you can reach him?” Jacques was already almost at the house.\n\nThe collie grinned. “Who said anything about getting close to that thing? Run.” Hubert turned and threw the car at the badger. Niel stared in shock. Then he noticed the three people looking in their direction. They held something in their hands and were in the process of pointing them—\n\nNiel took off like he was after the ball holder and Coach Horgar was threatening him with the cock cage if he let him make the play. Light flashed behind him, heat washed over him, then the barn offered protection and he turn to look. Yep, he hadn’t imagined it. That woman held a flashlight that threw out laser beams straight out of an old science fiction movie.\n\nWho the fuck were these people? A laser flashlight? A baseball bat that packed enough punch to send Jacques through a car, someone had a… okay, enough was enough. There was no way, the wand from that old potter movie did— the clothing the badger running at that man shimmered and melted, taking the fur and, by the horrified scream, because Niel didn’t keep watching, more of the badger along as it sloshed down.\n\nSomeone’s fear filled screamed behind the barn had him running in that direction. He rounded the corner on a giraffe pointing a scythe at a group of men and women huddled against the barn’s wall. One was on the ground, withering away.\n\nThe man holding the scythe had his back to Niel, so he ran and tacked him before he could do that to anyone else. The man buckled under Niel, but he held on. The scythe moved up, in the direction of the workers, and Niel grabbed it to—\n\nIt fucking hurt!\n\nNiel hardly felt the impact of crashing down from whatever had caused that pain. He couldn’t move, barely think. How was so much pain possible? He wanted to scream from it, but his throat was constricted. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs weren’t working. He was suffocating on top of being torn apart.\n\nThen he took a painful gasp and pushed himself to his side. He still felt like screaming, but watching the kangaroo rip the scythe out of the giraffe’s hand, then kick him away was too awesome to be interrupted by something as meaningless as his pain. Grant brought the scythe handle down on his knee, and instead of breaking into two, the whole thing exploded into hundreds of pieces.\n\nNiel remembered to breathe as the giraffe got up, screaming, and ran at Grant, only to be rendered unconscious by two solid punches from the kangaroo.\n\nNiel still couldn’t move by the time Grant kneeled next to him. “That was brave. Especially since I warned you a staff won’t let someone claimed by a god touch it.”\n\nMaybe Niel would keep the fact he hadn’t realized that’s what it had been, or even remembered the warning, to himself. Being brave sounded better than being stupid.\n\nThe kangaroo pulled Niel to a sitting position and wrapped something around his chest. Niel nearly lost consciousness from the lack of pain.\n\n“Can’t have that,” Grant said, shaking him as he kept the raccoon from falling over. “We aren’t done. And I’m going to need the help.”\n\n“With what?” Niel forced his eyes open. The pain was gone, so he had to help. You didn’t bail on the team just because you’d been an idiot and partied all night. He got to his feet, and Grand steadied him.\n\n“They’re here for the staff. We have to keep them out of the house until it’s burned down.”\n\n“Jacques saw three of them go in.” The buzzing of his phone kept him from adding anything. “Hello?” he asked, wondering who could be—\n\n“Finally,” a woman said. “Don’t you ever answer your phone? There are like a dozen missed calls in here. Do you have any idea how hard it is to work through all the disruptions the Chamber’s throwing up? You are lucky I got my worm in your phone before you crossed the threshold.”\n\n“Hi, who is this?” He decided not to address whatever she’d said was about. He had had just about enough nonsense for the time being.\n\nShe sighed. “Just let me talk with Grant if he’s around. I’m not wasting time explaining things to you.”\n\n“It’s for you.” He handed the phone over to the kangaroo.\n\n“Shila?”\n\nThomas appeared, lowered an injured bear to the ground by the barn and looked at the giraffe, the withered body, then Grant, ears canted in a question. The kangaroo shook his head and made a shooing motion. The rat looked over his shoulder and vanished.\n\n“I don’t know if we’ll be able to hold them out that long. The Chamber hit us with everything this time. I had seven Dumier watching over the property, and they’re all down at this point.” He looked at Niel. “They might already have reached Joan’s staff.”\n\nRoland rounded the corner, carrying an older man over his shoulders.\n\n“I know,” Grant snapped. “What do you think I did when I got here two years ago? But I just told you they hit us with everything. Blew right through all the talismans I added to the existing security. Fuck, I think they brought every Chamber agent in all of Europe for this.”\n\nNiel went to Roland and helped with the injured man. “What happened?”\n\n“Theses assholes showed up in the middle of our family lunch and totally ruined it. The Dumier fought back while Grant got Vic and the rest of my family to safety.”\n\n“Then why aren’t you with them?”\n\nThe rat stared at him, dumbfounded. “Because I can help.”\n\n“How? You’re just like me, like them.” He indicated the workers, who’d gotten over the fear and were comforting each other.\n\n“I’m Society,” Roland said. “I have a duty to help.”\n\n“You don’t even have powers.”\n\n“I do.”\n\nNiel narrowed his eyes at his best friend.\n\n“Okay, so I don’t know what it is, yet. But I had my ceremony, so I do have a power. I know it’s not precognition, or telekinesis, or teleportation, or controlling fire, or—”\n\n“I get it. You have no idea what your power is. More reasons to stay out of the fighting.”\n\n“These assholes attacked my brother’s home,” Roland snapped. “Do you have any idea how terrified Victor is of anything relating to magic? This is going to set the progress the shrink made decades.” He paused. “And it gets worse. They attacked before I had dessert. Orinda made mom’s pineapple upside down cake, Niel.”\n\nNiel opened his mouth to call Roland out on his stupidity. “Is it anywhere near as good as when your mom makes it?” He had had Nadia’s upside down pineapple cake, and it was worth the stupidity of the rat’s actions.\n\nHe put his index and thumb so close they almost touched. “She nearly has it.”\n\nNiel regained some of his senses. “If you get yourself killed, you’ll never get to taste it when she does. Or have your mom’s cooking again.”\n\n“I’m not getting in the middle of that,” Roland said defensively. “You have any idea what my dad’s will do to me if I get myself killed? I’ve just been getting to the people Thomas hasn’t had time to get to. He’s getting those in really bad shape.” He motioned to the unconscious bear.\n\n“The Mercier are twenty minutes out.” Grant handed Niel his phone. “That’s how long we need to stall the Chamber.”\n\n“Thomas isn’t going to be happy,” Roland said.\n\n“Fortunately, the Mercier aren’t one of the things your brother is irrational about. He’ll understand they were the closest to us. I just wish they’d be here sooner.”\n\n“Then we keep rescuing people.” Roland stood. “Most of them are here already.”\n\n“Roland, this isn’t—”\n\n“You are not benching me,” the rat snapped. “This is Vic’s home. These people are his friends. We bring them here, then Bruno can blast anyone who tries anything, isn’t that right Bruno?”\n\nThe bear missing an arm gave a thumbs up with the working one, which then dropped as if it was too heavy. Next to him were two other unconscious bears.\n\n“If they’ve hurt Vic,” Roland said. “I swear on His balls that I will—”\n\n“Your brother’s fine, Roland. The panic room can survive anything short of a nuclear explosion with the amount of magic that went into building it. Getting yourself killed isn’t going to help his state of mind.”\n\n“I have magic and power,” The rat stated.\n\n“I wish you were more like Thomas,” Grant said, rubbing his face and cutting off Niel pointing out Roland had claimed to be worried about how angry his father would be if he got hurt. “At least he was wisely reluctant to throw himself into danger.”\n\n“We are talking about the same Thomas who ran toward the fight you were in the process of losing against six Chamber agents?”\n\n“It was only three,” the kangaroo replied. “And he didn’t know how dangerous it was.”\n\n“Right. Because lasers and earth moving are so normal.”\n\nGrant closes his eyes and groaned. Roland gave Niel a victorious grin. “Fine. But be careful. Thomas isn’t going to forgive me if you get yourself killed.”\n\n“I won’t.” Roland turned and ran for the side of the barn. “Come on, Niel!”\n\nNiel watched him. “You think he means he won’t get himself killed, or be careful?”\n\n“He’s your best friend,” Grant said in exasperation. “If you don’t know, how the fuck Will I?”\n\n“He’s high on the idea he has a power. Makes him hard to read.”\n\n“Then we better make sure he survives this long enough to figure out what it is.”\n\nNiel reached the side of the barn, and his best friend was already off, ducking behind an overturned minivan. Explosions, lasers and fireballs flew around and, as far as Niel could tell, these people were just blasting random stuff. Grant said the Dumier were all down, and there was no one reacting to the blasts.\n\nRoland motioned to him, and Niel only hesitated a second before running at him.\n\n“I’m going to that car. The driver was on the other side the last time. He’s a Dumier, but I don’t know his power. I’ll signal you when it’s clear to follow.”\n\nBefore Niel could object, the rat was in motion.\n\nThe car in question was halfway between the house and the barn. It could have been driven there at the start to give cover, but now it was on its side, which would offer more cover to anyone by the barn, if those Chamber people weren’t already between it and the barn.\n\nNiel was glad it wasn’t his job to build the play for this scenario. He had no clue who had what power on the field, and he wouldn’t even know how to make use of them in all this chaos. Luckily, plays weren’t a tight-end’s job. He just reacted to what the plan turned into once it made contact with the enemy.\n\nRoland poked his head around the car and waved.\n\nBefore Niel moved, something exploded out of the house. Roland screamed, then something large and metal impacted the car the rat had been next to. The car didn’t even shake from this impact as metal wrapped itself around it and seemed to take Roland along.\n\nNiel raced to the car and pulled, but the metal didn’t more. His grunts of effort sounded loud, and he realized they were the only sound. The attack had stopped, and the people with staves in their hands looked at the house.\n\nNiel felt compelled to follow their gaze even as his heart demanded he had to save Roland.\n\nFire engulfed the hole the blast had created, much like most of the house. It parted and three figures became visible, stepping into the outside light. A vole in a suit and holding a metal staff with red spot was in the lead. A vixen holding a glass rod stood on his left, but it was the rottweiler resting a sword on his shoulder that froze Niel. There was something not right about that expression.\n\n“Kingsley!” Grant yelled, striding toward the group. “That doesn’t belong to you!”\n\n“Why Grant,” the vole replied, sounding amused. “Don’t you think it’s high time you and this little group of wanna bees stop hoarding treasures like this?”\n\n“It’s too dangerous to be used.”\n\nThe vole rolled his eyes. “Only for people who don’t know what to do with that power, or who go around destroying what they claim to stand for,” his tone turned dark. “instead of giving himself over to it.” He moved his elbows away from his body. “You’re going to want to hold on, dears.”\n\n“No!” Grant ran for them, but the baseball bat wielding ferret stepped out from behind an upturned truck and swung. Grant turned and took the hit on his shoulder, but while the detonation happened, he only slid back a foot. \n\nIt was enough for the vole to raise his staff. Niel jumps aside as cars slid toward them. \n\nAs he picked himself up, he threw himself back down as the cars reversed directions and the vole and his group shot off in the air.",
"writing_bbcode_parsed": "“De brige iz coming,” the driver said.
Niel looked away from the passing scenery he hadn’t been seeing and ahead, searching for the object and why the driver thought it was worth mentioning. Not seeing a bridge, and then remembering the little conversation they’d shared on the way to the village, he glares at the driver, ready to lay into him about how he was in no mood for flippant—
The eyes he locked with had no mirth in them, and Niel remembered this was a Society man. He wasn’t suggesting they fuck around. He was offering him something to take his mind off what had happened back there. The level of thoughtfulness pissed him off, but he could see that was also just him trying to avoid thinking about Jarod.
He shook his head and went back to looking out the side and not seeing what was there.
He did want to feel something, but about what Jarod had done to him, not to distract himself away from that… nothingness. This void was too much like how he remembers the days after his mother passed. Emptiness, demanding to be filled. Only it made no sense that he felt like that. He hadn’t known Jarod existed only a week ago. This had been their first time meeting, so it wasn’t like he’d lost a parent when Jarod dismissed him as he had.
So, why the fuck did this feel so much like he’d lost another parent and was all alone?
“I do not know what dat was,” the driver said, eyes remaining on the road. “But you tell me and I drive back. I put my foot to his ass for you.”
“It’s kick his ass,” Niel snapped. “And wouldn’t you rather put your cock to it?”
“Oui. But you ar who I take care of. I do what you say.” The driver looked at him in the rear-view mirror, and this time, there was mirth in those eyes. “I fuck you, if you want.”
Niel stopped himself from snapping his reply. Maybe he should say yes. What was so bad about distracting himself, and since when did he say no to sex? He opened his mouth, but nothing came, distracted by what he saw in the distance. That was smoke; it was thick and dark. Much more than he thought could come from the chimney he’d seen on the houses.
“Do they have bonfire—” Niel was pressed to the seat as the car picked up speed, the driver looking ahead and cursing in French.
* * * * *
“Remain in de car.”
The car skidded to a stop, and the badger was out, running toward the fighting that took place before the burning house as he rolled up his sleeves.
The roof was partially collapsed and the thick smoke he’d seen from the distance escaped from there, with fire raging around it. On the yard before it, two dozen people fought. Few of which Niel recognized.
A ferret swung something that looked like a wooden stick—no, a baseball bat, and the detonation as it stop rocked the car Niel was in even if it was aimed away. The bear that had been the target vanished in the distance so fast he wasn’t even sure he’d seen him there. A lot of the people fought using weird weapons. Weirder than a baseball bat, anyway. A woman pointed a crook right out of that old Bo Beep fairytale at a bear in the process of aiming a gun at her, and he contorted until he dropped out of sight.
He located someone he knew just as the baseball wielding ferret stuck Jacques. Years of calculating trajectories to intercept players and the occasional ball had Niel out of the car just in time not to be there when the badger flew through the back half of it, sending shrapnel flying.
The badger climbed out of the furrow he left, cursing in French. His clothing was burned, ripped, melted and… was that Christmas wrapping paper dangling from below the knee?
“What is going on?” Niel demanded, and Jacques replied in a string of angry French. “English.”
“What are you doing here?” the badger asked, crouching, only now seeming to realize who was talking to him.
“Jacques!” someone yelled, then German followed.
“I’m fine,” the badger told the collie, who rounded the wreck of the car. “It’s not like they can hurt me.”
“Don’t give me that!” Hubert’s accent was thick. “You had no idea your power made you immune to transmutation.” He pointed at the Christmas wrapping which Niel now saw merged into Jacques’s pants.
“It’s not like I know anyone with that kind of power.” He pushed Niel at the collie. “You need to get Niel to the others behind the barn.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Niel demanded.
“Chamber attack,” Hubert replied.
“What?”
“Not the time or the place to answer your questions.” Hubert looked over the car’s hood. “I don’t see Thomas.”
“He was popping in and out, getting people behind the barn, last I saw him,” Jacques replied.
“Which of the farmhands are left to get to safety?”
“I don’t know. Most of the fieldworkers were in the house eating lunch. Orinda was cooking today.”
“But the house is on fire!” Niel exclaimed, and got a look from both that had his ears folding back. Of course they knew. They’d been here when this started.
“Grant took care of the woman with the fire staff,” Hubert said. “But there is no water in any of the reservoirs, and none of the Dumier here has a fire or water-based power, or anything that could be used to put the fire out. There’s nothing we can do to save the building.”
“That makes no sense,” Jacques said. “A group of them ran in before it was firebombed.
Hubert shrugged and grabbed the edge of the car’s frame with a hand and pulled it onto its side. “Stay with me, Niel.” He took hold of the undercarriage with both hands, raised it off the ground an inch and looked at Jacques. “A Citreon? Really? Doesn’t anyone in this country have a decent German car?”
“Look, my family is into the arts, not military armament.”
“A volkswagon is better built than this tin can. Where are you going?” he yelled as he stepped forward, and the badger ran off in the opposite direction.
“The house! There’s no way they killed their own people! Don’t worry, I can’t burn!”
“You can still suffocate!”
“I’ll hold my breath!”
What followed was the kind of German high school German 101 didn’t cover. By the tone, no class covered it. “Niel, you need to run. If I let him get in the house, he’s going to kill himself of smoke inhalation.”
“Isn’t the fire going to kill you before you can reach him?” Jacques was already almost at the house.
The collie grinned. “Who said anything about getting close to that thing? Run.” Hubert turned and threw the car at the badger. Niel stared in shock. Then he noticed the three people looking in their direction. They held something in their hands and were in the process of pointing them—
Niel took off like he was after the ball holder and Coach Horgar was threatening him with the cock cage if he let him make the play. Light flashed behind him, heat washed over him, then the barn offered protection and he turn to look. Yep, he hadn’t imagined it. That woman held a flashlight that threw out laser beams straight out of an old science fiction movie.
Who the fuck were these people? A laser flashlight? A baseball bat that packed enough punch to send Jacques through a car, someone had a… okay, enough was enough. There was no way, the wand from that old potter movie did— the clothing the badger running at that man shimmered and melted, taking the fur and, by the horrified scream, because Niel didn’t keep watching, more of the badger along as it sloshed down.
Someone’s fear filled screamed behind the barn had him running in that direction. He rounded the corner on a giraffe pointing a scythe at a group of men and women huddled against the barn’s wall. One was on the ground, withering away.
The man holding the scythe had his back to Niel, so he ran and tacked him before he could do that to anyone else. The man buckled under Niel, but he held on. The scythe moved up, in the direction of the workers, and Niel grabbed it to—
It fucking hurt!
Niel hardly felt the impact of crashing down from whatever had caused that pain. He couldn’t move, barely think. How was so much pain possible? He wanted to scream from it, but his throat was constricted. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs weren’t working. He was suffocating on top of being torn apart.
Then he took a painful gasp and pushed himself to his side. He still felt like screaming, but watching the kangaroo rip the scythe out of the giraffe’s hand, then kick him away was too awesome to be interrupted by something as meaningless as his pain. Grant brought the scythe handle down on his knee, and instead of breaking into two, the whole thing exploded into hundreds of pieces.
Niel remembered to breathe as the giraffe got up, screaming, and ran at Grant, only to be rendered unconscious by two solid punches from the kangaroo.
Niel still couldn’t move by the time Grant kneeled next to him. “That was brave. Especially since I warned you a staff won’t let someone claimed by a god touch it.”
Maybe Niel would keep the fact he hadn’t realized that’s what it had been, or even remembered the warning, to himself. Being brave sounded better than being stupid.
The kangaroo pulled Niel to a sitting position and wrapped something around his chest. Niel nearly lost consciousness from the lack of pain.
“Can’t have that,” Grant said, shaking him as he kept the raccoon from falling over. “We aren’t done. And I’m going to need the help.”
“With what?” Niel forced his eyes open. The pain was gone, so he had to help. You didn’t bail on the team just because you’d been an idiot and partied all night. He got to his feet, and Grand steadied him.
“They’re here for the staff. We have to keep them out of the house until it’s burned down.”
“Jacques saw three of them go in.” The buzzing of his phone kept him from adding anything. “Hello?” he asked, wondering who could be—
“Finally,” a woman said. “Don’t you ever answer your phone? There are like a dozen missed calls in here. Do you have any idea how hard it is to work through all the disruptions the Chamber’s throwing up? You are lucky I got my worm in your phone before you crossed the threshold.”
“Hi, who is this?” He decided not to address whatever she’d said was about. He had had just about enough nonsense for the time being.
She sighed. “Just let me talk with Grant if he’s around. I’m not wasting time explaining things to you.”
“It’s for you.” He handed the phone over to the kangaroo.
“Shila?”
Thomas appeared, lowered an injured bear to the ground by the barn and looked at the giraffe, the withered body, then Grant, ears canted in a question. The kangaroo shook his head and made a shooing motion. The rat looked over his shoulder and vanished.
“I don’t know if we’ll be able to hold them out that long. The Chamber hit us with everything this time. I had seven Dumier watching over the property, and they’re all down at this point.” He looked at Niel. “They might already have reached Joan’s staff.”
Roland rounded the corner, carrying an older man over his shoulders.
“I know,” Grant snapped. “What do you think I did when I got here two years ago? But I just told you they hit us with everything. Blew right through all the talismans I added to the existing security. Fuck, I think they brought every Chamber agent in all of Europe for this.”
Niel went to Roland and helped with the injured man. “What happened?”
“Theses assholes showed up in the middle of our family lunch and totally ruined it. The Dumier fought back while Grant got Vic and the rest of my family to safety.”
“Then why aren’t you with them?”
The rat stared at him, dumbfounded. “Because I can help.”
“How? You’re just like me, like them.” He indicated the workers, who’d gotten over the fear and were comforting each other.
“I’m Society,” Roland said. “I have a duty to help.”
“You don’t even have powers.”
“I do.”
Niel narrowed his eyes at his best friend.
“Okay, so I don’t know what it is, yet. But I had my ceremony, so I do have a power. I know it’s not precognition, or telekinesis, or teleportation, or controlling fire, or—”
“I get it. You have no idea what your power is. More reasons to stay out of the fighting.”
“These assholes attacked my brother’s home,” Roland snapped. “Do you have any idea how terrified Victor is of anything relating to magic? This is going to set the progress the shrink made decades.” He paused. “And it gets worse. They attacked before I had dessert. Orinda made mom’s pineapple upside down cake, Niel.”
Niel opened his mouth to call Roland out on his stupidity. “Is it anywhere near as good as when your mom makes it?” He had had Nadia’s upside down pineapple cake, and it was worth the stupidity of the rat’s actions.
He put his index and thumb so close they almost touched. “She nearly has it.”
Niel regained some of his senses. “If you get yourself killed, you’ll never get to taste it when she does. Or have your mom’s cooking again.”
“I’m not getting in the middle of that,” Roland said defensively. “You have any idea what my dad’s will do to me if I get myself killed? I’ve just been getting to the people Thomas hasn’t had time to get to. He’s getting those in really bad shape.” He motioned to the unconscious bear.
“The Mercier are twenty minutes out.” Grant handed Niel his phone. “That’s how long we need to stall the Chamber.”
“Thomas isn’t going to be happy,” Roland said.
“Fortunately, the Mercier aren’t one of the things your brother is irrational about. He’ll understand they were the closest to us. I just wish they’d be here sooner.”
“Then we keep rescuing people.” Roland stood. “Most of them are here already.”
“Roland, this isn’t—”
“You are not benching me,” the rat snapped. “This is Vic’s home. These people are his friends. We bring them here, then Bruno can blast anyone who tries anything, isn’t that right Bruno?”
The bear missing an arm gave a thumbs up with the working one, which then dropped as if it was too heavy. Next to him were two other unconscious bears.
“If they’ve hurt Vic,” Roland said. “I swear on His balls that I will—”
“Your brother’s fine, Roland. The panic room can survive anything short of a nuclear explosion with the amount of magic that went into building it. Getting yourself killed isn’t going to help his state of mind.”
“I have magic and power,” The rat stated.
“I wish you were more like Thomas,” Grant said, rubbing his face and cutting off Niel pointing out Roland had claimed to be worried about how angry his father would be if he got hurt. “At least he was wisely reluctant to throw himself into danger.”
“We are talking about the same Thomas who ran toward the fight you were in the process of losing against six Chamber agents?”
“It was only three,” the kangaroo replied. “And he didn’t know how dangerous it was.”
“Right. Because lasers and earth moving are so normal.”
Grant closes his eyes and groaned. Roland gave Niel a victorious grin. “Fine. But be careful. Thomas isn’t going to forgive me if you get yourself killed.”
“I won’t.” Roland turned and ran for the side of the barn. “Come on, Niel!”
Niel watched him. “You think he means he won’t get himself killed, or be careful?”
“He’s your best friend,” Grant said in exasperation. “If you don’t know, how the fuck Will I?”
“He’s high on the idea he has a power. Makes him hard to read.”
“Then we better make sure he survives this long enough to figure out what it is.”
Niel reached the side of the barn, and his best friend was already off, ducking behind an overturned minivan. Explosions, lasers and fireballs flew around and, as far as Niel could tell, these people were just blasting random stuff. Grant said the Dumier were all down, and there was no one reacting to the blasts.
Roland motioned to him, and Niel only hesitated a second before running at him.
“I’m going to that car. The driver was on the other side the last time. He’s a Dumier, but I don’t know his power. I’ll signal you when it’s clear to follow.”
Before Niel could object, the rat was in motion.
The car in question was halfway between the house and the barn. It could have been driven there at the start to give cover, but now it was on its side, which would offer more cover to anyone by the barn, if those Chamber people weren’t already between it and the barn.
Niel was glad it wasn’t his job to build the play for this scenario. He had no clue who had what power on the field, and he wouldn’t even know how to make use of them in all this chaos. Luckily, plays weren’t a tight-end’s job. He just reacted to what the plan turned into once it made contact with the enemy.
Roland poked his head around the car and waved.
Before Niel moved, something exploded out of the house. Roland screamed, then something large and metal impacted the car the rat had been next to. The car didn’t even shake from this impact as metal wrapped itself around it and seemed to take Roland along.
Niel raced to the car and pulled, but the metal didn’t more. His grunts of effort sounded loud, and he realized they were the only sound. The attack had stopped, and the people with staves in their hands looked at the house.
Niel felt compelled to follow their gaze even as his heart demanded he had to save Roland.
Fire engulfed the hole the blast had created, much like most of the house. It parted and three figures became visible, stepping into the outside light. A vole in a suit and holding a metal staff with red spot was in the lead. A vixen holding a glass rod stood on his left, but it was the rottweiler resting a sword on his shoulder that froze Niel. There was something not right about that expression.
“Kingsley!” Grant yelled, striding toward the group. “That doesn’t belong to you!”
“Why Grant,” the vole replied, sounding amused. “Don’t you think it’s high time you and this little group of wanna bees stop hoarding treasures like this?”
“It’s too dangerous to be used.”
The vole rolled his eyes. “Only for people who don’t know what to do with that power, or who go around destroying what they claim to stand for,” his tone turned dark. “instead of giving himself over to it.” He moved his elbows away from his body. “You’re going to want to hold on, dears.”
“No!” Grant ran for them, but the baseball bat wielding ferret stepped out from behind an upturned truck and swung. Grant turned and took the hit on his shoulder, but while the detonation happened, he only slid back a foot.
It was enough for the vole to raise his staff. Niel jumps aside as cars slid toward them.
As he picked himself up, he threw himself back down as the cars reversed directions and the vole and his group shot off in the air.",
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