The large Mission-architecture church stood on her left, with the large open stable on the far side of the courtyard, built against the wall. An extended firepit sat in the center of the courtyard around which the soldiers had made their camp. The horses, all tightly tied together, screamed and thrashed as the assault force of six, spread out in a line with their backs to Angie, walked forward across the camp, firing their weapons in short, deadly bursts at the sleeping soldiers, focusing fire on anyone who stood up or reached for a weapon. Men in sleeping bags or under blankets cried out in surprise, pain, and fear, but their cries were drowned out by the shooting. Clothing hung on lines, but the panicked men tore the lines free in their desperate attempt to run away. A pair of terrified horses broke their ropes, adding to the confusion as they bolted about the cramped compound. At the far end of the courtyard, next to the stables, the women and children bunched together, their arms still bound behind their backs, screaming in terror. The camp was chaos and death, and the screams, gunfire, and stench of cordite, blood, and feces were an assault to Angie’s senses.
She forced her attention from the slaughter and onto the church's warped wooden entrance, the door long since fallen away. She and the other women had their own task this night.
Angie stepped through the doorway into what had once been the church’s nave but was now filled with crates of ammunition, bundles of weapons, and other supplies. The Aztalan military had gutted the church, using it for storage. The crumbling adobe walls were covered with graffiti. A large stray cat bolted from Angie, hissing and disappearing into the church. The air stank of sweat, mildew, and rat droppings. Clothing lay discarded on the floor or pushed up against the walls. Cobwebs hung from the corners and ceiling rafters. Pine cones, straw, and other debris crunched under her boots as she scanned the interior of the church, her sub-gun tight into her shoulder. She slipped past the equipment into the church's entrance, the chancel.
Not three feet in front of Angie, a man wearing only underwear rose from where he must have been sleeping. He stared at her in confusion, his mouth open. "Qué es?" he asked, his voice laced with confusion.
Angie pulled the trigger on her sub-gun, shattering his chest with a burst of subsonic ammunition. The man crumpled, and she stepped over his corpse, her eyes scanning for more targets. Just because she didn't like killing didn't mean she'd hesitate to do it. Angie was becoming a different person—one she wasn't entirely sure she liked.
As she swept into the nave, two more men rose from crumpled bedding on her right. She spun and fired at the exact same moment that Tavi did, and both men dropped, riddled with bullets. One was moaning, but Wyn Renna calmly shot the wounded man in the head with her pistol while Deldin Gar used his short sword to stab the other corpse. Elves were nothing if not thorough.
Another figure, a tall, gaunt man, dashed out from behind crates, charging at Angie so fast he became a blur. The man slammed into her—or rather, he slammed into the shield the Shade King had just created to protect her. Angie staggered back as an explosion of sparks flared out her NVGs.
"Vampire!" Tavi yelled, opening fire with her sub-gun.
As Angie's night-vision optics compensated for the sudden flare-out, she saw Tavi fire a long burst of subsonic ammunition into the man who had attacked her. No, not a man, she corrected herself. Tavi was right, he was a vampire. What the hell is a vampire doing here?
The vampire was so pale he resembled a corpse. His fingernails, like those of all his kind, were long and sharp and could cut a person open from throat to crotch. Vampires were Fey, not true undead, but some of the legends surrounding them were true enough, particularly the blood-drinking and near-invulnerability parts.
Tavi's bullets hammered into the vampire's torso, staggering him but doing no lasting damage. There were only two ways to kill a vampire: decapitation or a wooden stake through the heart.
As Tavi's sub-gun clicked on empty, the vampire surged forward, his eyes glowing with hatred. He slashed at Tavi, but her shade protected her just as the Shade King had protected Angie, and the vampire's nails scored at the translucent red disk that had appeared in the air before Tavi. If the vampire realized it couldn't reach Tavi, it didn't stop trying. It slashed at her repeatedly, each time hitting a shield with a shower of sparks. But with each strike, the vampire forced Tavi back. Her legs hit an ammunition box, and she tumbled back.
"No!" Angie yelled, trying to get the vampire to focus on her. It didn’t.
A shade would protect its mage, but only if it had mana, and Tavi's shade had already blocked several attacks. She’d be running out of mana soon enough. Tavi could draw more ambient mana from the atmosphere, but until then, she’d be vulnerable.
The vampire came at Tavi, but this time, a long crimson band of red energy whipped through the air, wrapping around the vampire's arms and pinning them to its torso. Wyn Renna held the other end of the magical band, her face contorted in effort as the vampire struggled to break free. Angie cast Shutter, magically transporting herself to the vampire's side, where she calmly placed the barrel of her sub-gun against his temple and pulled the trigger, holding it until her bullets shattered the vampire's skull, and then kept shooting into the pulpy mass that had been its brain. Just before her weapon ran out of ammunition, the vampire's corpse turned to ash, leaving nothing behind but its clothing. Wyn Renna's spell dissipated.
Does everyone know more spells than us? she wondered.
Angie ejected her spent magazine and inserted another while Tavi stared at the ashes. "Focus!" Angie told Tavi harshly. "Clear the church."
Just then, bright-red light washed out her optics as a flare ignited near the tower steps at the other end of the church. A bolt of magical red fire lanced through the air at Angie as the Tzitzime blood mage, his hand outstretched, stepped out of the stairwell where he had been hiding. Blood magic, she thought, her fear surging when she realized he was trying to burn her alive. Once again, the Shade King protected her with a shield.
She didn't bother trying to shoot the mage; there was no point. She dropped the sub-gun and drew Nightfall, moving forward in a mid-guard and leading with the hexed side-sword’s point. The mage drew his own heavy saber and came at her. Their blades met and scraped together, throwing off sparks. He was much larger and stronger and not at all untrained. But by the time their blades had met three times, she understood she was a much superior fencer.
She parried, twisting her wrist and deflecting his attack, and then flipped her wrist again to come over the edge of his heavy blade and cut his face open to the cheekbone. He cried out, staggering back and lowering his guard, and she ran him through the heart, twisting Nightfall savagely before drawing the blade free.
The mage fell dead, his saber clattering to the stone floor of the church. It was only then that she noticed the gunfire had stopped.
"Nicely done," Wyn Renna said. "Truly, you are the daughter of Chararah Succubus."
"Adopted," said Angie, her breathing rushed, her heart pounding. She turned and stormed from the church, away from the men she had killed.
Tavi raised a hand as she passed. "Angie, are you—"
Angie brushed past the other woman, desperate to get outside, to breathe air that didn't reek of death.
That wasn’t the courtyard.