We rob banks! What else you want us to do? Bonnie's got a gift, I tell ya, a real gift. She draws them pictures on my skin and it's like magic. I get strong and fast and can't hardly miss when I shoot, see. Let 'em come and try to take us.

  ~Clyde Barrow, of the Bonnie and Clyde gang.

  When they emerged from the temporary holding cell, Eirene found the halls empty. That upper level where the council met was rarely used for other purposes.

  She didn’t bother to ask what he’d done with the other enforcers. He wouldn’t have permanently damaged them or risked exposing his true allegiance.

  “Where to?” Tomas asked.

  “I need to study that machine.”

  “They moved it to the smaller conference room,” Tomas said.

  “Is it accessible?”

  “I think so.”

  Eirene squeezed his hand. “Good work.” Then she frowned. “It’s Mai Luan.”

  He nodded, expression grim. “I heard. Madness.”

  “They can’t understand the danger.”

  “I don’t think they’ll listen to me either.”

  “We’ll figure out a way. For now, I need a closer look.”

  They slipped back along the hall and down a cross corridor. The distraction of the bomb would wear off all too soon, but she figured they had a few minutes before they absolutely needed to be away. The greatest risk was running into Mai Luan.

  They reached the small conference room and Eirene motioned Tomas to wait. She pushed open the door and peeked inside.

  The table had been pushed to the far wall near the barred window. The machine sat in the middle of the room, with Tereza perched on a stool, typing on the keyboard.

  Eirene slipped through the door and advanced. Tereza looked up when she was six feet away. The woman’s eyes widened in shock and she opened her mouth to cry an alarm.

  Eirene lunged and slammed Tereza’s head onto the top of the Sotrun machine. The steel case made a surprisingly musical tone from the impact. Tereza might have a B-ranked body, but Eirene hit her with enough power to make that moot.

  Tereza left a face-sized dent in the smooth metal. As her head bounced off, Eirene hit her with a spiritual sucker punch of nevron, just to be safe. The woman’s eyes rolled up and she fell unmoving to the floor.

  That was remarkably satisfying, but Eirene resisted the urge to kick her a couple of times for good measure. She’d remove the woman’s soulmask before they left. Tereza had a lot of questions to answer.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  She ignored the tempting little screen, borrowed Tomas’s phone, and began snapping photos of every component. She noted more tiny runes engraved into the inside of the helmets, and snapped more photos of those.

  “Hurry.” Tomas called from near the door. He had shifted to the wall on one side, pulled a satchel off his shoulder, and was fiddling with something inside.

  “Almost done. They’ve inscribed runes all over this thing. These symbols are new.”

  The door crashed open and Mai Luan stepped into the opening. “Of course they’re new. No one’s seen those runes in millennia.”

  Eirene’s heart sank. With Mai Luan standing in the only exit, they were trapped.

  Tomas shifted to the right along the wall away from Mai Luan until his shoulders struck the corner. She ignored him and took a confident step into the room.

  With a heavy thump, the satchel Tomas had left beside the door belched a heavy projectile and a gout of flame five feet long. It caught Mai Luan in the ribs. Bones shattered as it tore into her torso, creating an astonishingly huge hole.

  Then the projectile exploded inside of her. The blast threw her off her feet and sprayed most of her guts across the room. She tumbled halfway through the wood-paneled wall and hung there, her torso shredded.

  Eirene bolted for the door. S-ranked bodies could be hurt if hit hard enough, but they regenerated insanely fast.

  Mai Luan leveraged herself out of the broken wall, her expression livid. She tried to speak, but only bubbles of blood dribbled out her mouth. She lunged toward Eirene, but her legs buckled.

  Eirene paused in the doorway to glance back. Mai Luan’s gaping wounds were already closing. In seconds she’d be mobile again. Eirene had faced cui dashi a couple of times, but seeing her regeneration was still terrifying.

  As they ran down the hall, Mai Luan’s voice chased them. “I’m not through with you, Eirene. Your soul is mine!”

  Tomas dropped a couple of smoke bombs onto the floor behind them, and threw another far down the hall in front. The sharp reports of their detonations sounded muted to Eirene.

  Her ears still weren't working right after that explosion in the small room. Thick smoke billowed into the hall, obscuring everything. Three seconds later, the fire alarm began wailing and sprinklers blasted them with water.

  “What did you hit her with?” Eirene asked as they ran for the stairs.

  “Latest gadget from Quentin. He calls it the mini-mortar.”

  “I love that man.”

  They descended to ground level, paused to compose themselves, then exited the stairs into the main lobby. That was the most dangerous part. If anyone recognized her, enforcers could drop them before they escaped the lobby.

  They needn’t have worried.

  The huge open space with domed ceiling, tiled floor, and museum-quality statues lining the wall was filled with shouting people. It was the one semi-public place in the building and some of the people forced from the nearby Vatican museum had come there to loiter near all the excitement.

  The new klaxon alarms triggered a near panic, and Eirene and Tomas slipped unnoticed into the crowd pouring out of the building onto the street.

  With so many emergency vehicles already in the vicinity, police and firefighters were converging on the building, probably worried it was a second terrorist attack. The bedlam made the perfect cover for a getaway. Only when they were safely in a cab did Eirene allow herself a sigh of relief.

  “Thank you,” Eirene said. She’d known Tomas since his first life, and thought of him as one of her many sons. Today he’d made her proud.

  “Consider one of the many debts I owe you paid in full.”

  “You know your cover is probably blown.”

  He grimaced. “I need to return at least one more time.”

  “You’ll need your battle suit for sure.”

  “What did they do to you?”

  “I’m not entirely sure, but it’s nothing good.”

  He leaned back against the seat. “I can’t believe they let her in the building.”

  “It’s even worse than that.”

  “How can it be?”

  “I don’t understand it all yet, but it’s clear Mai Luan’s maneuvered the council into a trap. She has some leverage over them that’s blinded them to the truth about her.”

  “She’ll annihilate them,” Tomas said.

  “I’m afraid you’re right. What worries me more is what she might have planned afterward.”