Nadir’s phone rang loudly, making me flinch hard. It was an odd, cute little tune, familiar but bitcrushed beyond recognition. I turned my head and gave her a look. She stared back, looking almost bashful. Victor smirked, crossing his arms.

  “Are you going to get that?” he asked, sounding intensely smug. I gave Nadir a nod and she slowly pulled the phone from her pocket.

  “Nadir,” she answered sharply.

  “It’s Fidel, enemy reinforcements incoming,” Fidel yelled, loud enough I could overhear easily.

  “Understood,” Nadir sighed, shutting her phone. “Callise.”

  “Too late Victor,” I yelled. “Already killed your buddy.”

  “The twin realms will live,” Victor replied confidently. “You and your friends won’t.” I raised my carbine and fire a shot. He didn’t twitch as the round zipped past his ear. “Ah ah ah, children shouldn’t be handling firearms.”

  “Kill him,” I spat.

  Nadir raised a hand as Victor reached into his belt and threw his arm forward. I leaped up as Nadir flinched, catching the throwing knife on my cheek. When I hit the ground, I quickly fired a burst at the Nazi bastard, the rounds going wide as he dashed towards a toppled table. Nadir recovered quickly, raising her hand as Victor aimed a pistol our way.

  “Whoof!” Nadir exclaimed as Victor’s pistol barked. She fell to the ground, as did Victor behind the table. I was torn, but finally knelt at Nadir’s side.

  “You okay?” I asked, hands patting over her body, checking for blood.

  “Fine,” she wheezed. “Vest caught it.”

  “Stay here,” I warned her. “Actually, scratch that. Get the others and get out. I’ll make sure Victor either runs or dies.” And I was deeply hoping for the latter. “Try and make sure Fidel holds an exit for me.”

  “You sure?” Nadir asked hesitantly.

  “Sure,” I confirmed, patting her shoulder. “I got this.”

  “‘kay.” She grunted and pushed herself up until she was kneeling. “Good luck Amaranth.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  I took her pistol and stuck it in my belt, then grabbed my carbine. I went first, racing towards the table Victor had been behind. Holding my carbine low, I sprayed a burst into it to keep his head down. He sprinted out from behind it and I nearly fell over coming to a quick stop. I knelt and raised my carbine, aiming carefully before firing a shot.

  No dice. The fuck was going on? I slapped the magazine and racked the charging handle, checking the chamber. It looked fine but— Fuck, Victor was a skill vampire. All the training I’d done was going straight into his brain, making him better and me much, much worse. Well fine, I could deal with that. As I raced after him, he brought his arm back and fired a shot into my carbine. I cursed and tried to fire, but was rewarded with absolutely nothing.

  I threw the useless weapon to the ground and kept after him. A glance over my shoulder made me swear violently. Not all the fire had gone with Muspelheim… I’d have to speed this up before I got cooked. Victor was running towards the back and a door into what look like an office or something. I sprinted after him as something glinted in his hand, then I slipped and fell to the ground with a huff of shock. Looking back, I saw he’d thrown a knife under my foot. Must have been just before I took a step.

  The door slammed as I clambered too my feet. He wasn’t far ahead, but now out of sight. The fire was getting worse, but wasn’t spreading this way too fast, not yet anyway. The door opened with a loud bang as I forced my way through. It was a sparsely furnished space, a fridge off to one side and a microwave on the counter that ran along the wall next to it. Even drug peddlers needed lunch breaks, it seemed.

  Victor was nowhere to be seen, so I headed deeper. There was another door, locked until I turned that bit of metal to an abstract art piece. I entered a hall with a few doors to either side, and one at the end with a glowing sign above it reading ‘EXIT’. I drew my pistol and approached the first door, twisting the handle and rushing inside, ready to kill.

  Huh, I guess this was the office. It looked normal, or as normal as a drug lord’s lair could. There was a plain looking desk with bill counters on top, ledgers strewn all over. I knew I couldn’t dawdle, but I took a minute to look around for anything I could use…like the safe hidden at the back. I bit my lip, considering it. Could I spare the time when my team was potentially fighting for their lives? I had to, because if I didn’t then everyone was getting hurt for nothing.

  I tore into the metal box, heart racing as sweat dripped down my back. Had to be quick, because Victor was getting away, but had to make this worth it. My heart sank when I got into the safe. There was a little money, yes, but mostly just a bunch of documents. I took the lot, stuffing them under the skintight clothes I’d worn under my burned off gear.

  Seconds later, I was done and running down the hallway towards the exit. I was under no impression Victor had remained inside, and if he had then he’d be cooking soon enough. I drew my pistol and bashed the door open with my shoulder, racing into the alley out back of the warehouse. A scraping sound made me twist to the side, and I caught a tremendous spear to the stomach.

  It pulled away and I skipped back, raising my pistol as a giant loomed over me, blocking out the moonlight. I realized in a flash it was Menja, or Fenja, whichever survived Leviathan. My pistol barked, spitting rounds at her face as she charged towards me. I stuffed it in my belt as she got closer, raising my hands toward her weapon.

  I snapped my hands forward, but her strike was just a feint. The point of the spear dipped down below my grasp and the shaft went between my knees, twisting and tangling them until I fell over myself. The haft of the spear came up, then hammered down between my shoulder blades, driving me to the ground.

  “Stay down,” she said coldly.

  Instead of taking her advice, I twisted my arm painfully until I could grasp my gun. I fired wildly, and like that the pressure on my back vanished. Elbows, knees, then I was up and facing off against the giantess again. She was suddenly lit in orange, and I turned to see Muspelheim limping out of a wall of flames towards me. First then…

  I raised my pistol and fired, but it was knocked aside by a quick strike from Menja. I tried again, but was thwarted by a block of ice that sprung up in front of my gun. Fucking fine then. The pistol dropped to the floor and I dashed forward, driving my knee into Nifelheim’s groin. No chance to swap and dodge that, fucker.

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  Fire burned around me, then I was frozen solid. Only for a moment though, as Menja’s spear crashed through and slammed me to the ground once more. This time, I caught it as she tried to yank it away from my belly. I was lifted along with it, then thrown back and forth as she smashed me against the walls of the alley. It only ended when I tightened my grip and snapped the haft of the spear off, dumping me back to the ground.

  Muspelheim was back on top of me, flames roaring as he tried to keep me down. Too close for his own good though. I reached back and grasped his knee, then pulped it in a heartbeat. His scream was loud, cut off as the weight on top of me vanished in a blast of fire. I pushed myself up, laughing as I faced down Menja.

  “Three, four versus one, and you can’t win?” I couldn’t help giggling, giggling, at it. “You people are fucking pathetic.”

  “My orders were to hold you here,” Menja replied simply, casting her broken spear aside and drawing a sword taller than I was. “And I will.”

  A chill went up my spine. I’d practically tuned out the chatter of gunfire, but I realized it was quieter than before. Menja noticed my hesitation and smiled, the smug, rotten bitch. I would kill her...no, no I had to go back my team up. There was no telling how bad it had gone, since I didn’t have a phone thanks to Muspelheim.

  Barely thinking, I rushed forward. Menja swung her sword, but I raised my arm and bounced it off my wrist. She swung her shield down as I ducked low, but it crashed harmlessly into the dirt behind me as I slipped between her legs. I didn’t bother turning to fight, instead charging towards the road. Skidding around the corner, I raced for the parking lot, praying I’d be in time to save someone.

  My worry was for nothing, it seemed. When I rounded the corner, I found more than a dozen Nazis laid out, their identical uniforms giving them away. On the other side of things, my team was sheltered behind our cars, taking potshots at the remaining gangsters when they popped out from cover.

  I joined the fray, running towards a dumpster that sheltered two gunmen. They got to fire a few rounds apiece, before I savaged their limbs with my grip and took their weapons. The humble AK, ever reliable. Weird that Nazis were using them, but needs must and all. I racked the charging handle and let off a burst at another team that were laying prone behind a shed. One twitched violently and laid still, while the others scrambled back into the trees surrounding the property. With the immediate problems solved, I ran over to the cars where my team was, waving a hand.

  “Amaranth!” Nadir exclaimed. “Behind—”

  There was a tremendous shriek, then what sounded like a thousand crystal shards shattering around me. Lighting flashed and a molten bolt of pain erupted in my stomach and skull. I fell to the ground, gasping as rounds from my team zipped and cracked overhead. Craning my neck, I saw Nadir run forward and fought to drag myself to the cars. She grabbed my shoulders and pulled me to cover, then pressed a hand to my stomach.

  “Fuck!” I screamed, writhing from the agony it caused. I grabbed her wrists and shook my head. “Gotta go, escape,” I panted.

  “I need to treat you first,” Nadir snapped, raising her voice to be heard over the gunfire. “Fidel! Call one of the vans up!”

  “Will do!”

  “They didn’t leave,” she reassured me, digging into a battered looking first aid kit. She grabbed a patch of gauze and pressed it to my belly. I looked down and saw it was soaked red in seconds.

  “That’s bad,” I mumbled. “That’s really bad.”

  “You’ll be okay,” she said firmly. “You’ll be fine, trust me.”

  I blinked slowly, a chill settling in my bones that made me shiver. I felt so, so tired…

  A ragged gasp of chilled air filled my lungs like ice. I moaned as my stomach flexed painfully, hands pressing to the wound. They were slapped away, and I finally opened my eyes and turned my head.

  “Good morning sleepyhead,” Whatchamacalit said, voice chipper. “Stay still would you? I’ve only got a couple Regener-orbs left, and if you reopen your wound you’ll have to wait while I make more.”

  “What happened?” I groaned, twisting my neck to look around. I was laying on a metal table along a shelf lined with drawers. It was cold enough I could see my breath, and Nadir’s where she sat next to me on a stool. “Last thing I remember—”

  “You lost a lot of blood,” Nadir cut me off. “That shitheel Victor fired some kind of gun, a big, glowing one. I didn’t see much, it was too bright. Whatever it was it took out your kidney and a good chunk of your liver. Lucky you’re alive.”

  “All thanks to me of course,” Whatcha chattered. “After all, if you didn’t have my devices on hand she’d have been dead before you got back here.”

  “And here is…?” I stared at her.

  “One of the city morgues, the mortician owes me a favour.” The Tinker grinned manically. “Lucky we didn’t have to actually use it, but the cold was important for making sure if you did croak we’d stand a chance at resuscitating you. Luckier that you had a nurse on hand to stabilize you before you got too bad.”

  “I’m not a nurse,” Nadir corrected her. “Anyway, we all got out. More than half the guys got injured, same with ANTIFA and RFB; some of them are in pretty bad shape too. No question Werwolf took the worst of it, but I don’t think we’re going to be fighting again soon.”

  “Any idea how they did it?” I asked as a green glow lit my belly.

  “Tried to engage us all at once,” she explained. “Teams teleported in on Fidel and Richard just after we got hit by Muspelheim and Nifelheim. Lucky for us, they were evenly split, which meant the RFB managed to overwhelm them and keep the door open for us to get out. I guess they weren’t expecting you to get out either.”

  “Menja said she was there to delay me,” I muttered. “Sorry, should have stuck with you.”

  “It’s fine,” she replied, shrugging. “We all got out, right?”

  “Right,” I sighed.

  “By the way, some interesting reading you picked up,” Whatcha said after a moment, replacing the dull, spent orb on my stomach with a fresh one. “Well, what I could make out through the blood anyway. You’ve attracted a lot more attention than you thought.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, knitting my brows.

  “Gesellschaft,” she said. “It’s worse than you thought. They’re not just sending money. Soldiers, guns, artillery. You’ve pissed them off pretty bad, and with the open call they put out they’re going to have plenty of people eager to kill you. Some of them are going to be capes too, so for as many as you take down here, there’ll be more waiting in the wings.”

  “Great,” I huffed. “Spectacular even.”

  “At least the PRT took their sweet time,” Nadir said. “Cops never showed at all.”

  “We’re still in the Third Precinct’s jurisdiction,” I said, shaking my head slowly. “They probably got called off by their buddies in the reich. That and, you know, they got pretty humiliated last time. I doubt they’re eager to get their asses beaten again.” The door banged open and Richard barged in, Fidel in tow.

  “Amaranth.” Oh Richard sounded pissed. “We warned you.” I sighed and stared at my belly, and the ugly, puckered wound that was slowly closing under a sickly green light.

  “You did,” I admitted, feeling like the idiot I was. “Should have just torched the place.”

  “We should have continued our strategy of small raids at the edge of their territory,” Fidel countered. “It was working, and would have until others joined our fight.”

  “Are others joining our fight?” Nadir asked sharply. “I heard you put out the word, but it’s still just us.”

  “We’ve had a good response,” Fidel said, crossing his arms. “We’ll be meeting with the leaders of several other groups within the week.” He glanced pointedly at my stomach. “I hope you’ve learned the merits of patience.”

  “Eh, I’ve had worse,” I said with a shrug, earning a glare from everyone but Whatchamacalit, who just looked curious. “Kidding, jeez. Fine, I’ll wait. Maybe we can spend the time training or something.”

  “Or maybe we can spend it treating our many wounded,” Richard retorted.

  “I’ll need a little while to make enough Regener-orbs,” Whatchamcalit said. “And you’ll probably need to buy some more guns, and armour, not to mention supplies for little ol’ me.” She batted her eyelashes at me.

  “Okay,” I sighed. “We’ll step back operations, for now. I want to get back out there ASAP but...yeah, let’s lick our wounds and crush them when we can.” I didn’t want to stop at all but...the shriek of whatever went through me still rang in my ears.

  “Hey,” Nadir said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “We might not have come out with everything we wanted, but we came out on top.” I nodded slowly, reaching into my pants and pulling out a wad of cash I’d stuffed there earlier. The edges were dark red from where I’d leaked all over it.

  “Blood money,” Whatchamacalit said flatly.

  We burst out laughing. It wasn’t funny but...it could be for now.