Chapter 41 - A Man Flying Past

  Alex fired off another Ice Blast right at one of the oncoming lobsters. It fell back, crashing to the ground, but he’d only winged it. A police officer beside him shot a Fireball spell, engulfing the already injured monster with flames.

  “Nice shot!” Alex called out.

  “You, too,” she replied.

  As good as that felt, it was clear the battle wasn’t going their way. When Alex first arrived to help, the police had still held the plaza near City Hall. They’d lost that soon after and been forced to retreat across Cambridge Street into the long, arcing building on the other side. It was a weird structure, with a long chain of restaurants, bars, and retail stores. The police weren’t even bothering to try defending those. Instead, they’d focused on holding the trio of stairs running through the middle of the building, connecting the sidewalk on the east side with a small park on the west. If the enemy poured through those, there would be no stopping them. The lobsters would rush into the sections of city behind him.

  People were out there, rushing around, trying to get themselves to safety. They were just regular people, most of them probably without any magic to protect them. If the defenders’ line fell, a lot of people were going to die.

  A little north of where Alex fought, another batch of police struggled to hold the lobsters back from just parading north along Cambridge Street. That would lead them directly toward MGH, where most of the refugees from the North End had fled. If they’d listened to what he and Castle told them, those people would be trying to make their way across the bridge to Cambridge, but there had to be thousands of civilians trying to evacuate. They needed time.

  Time he and the other defenders were buying, often with their lives. They’d left a lot of dead behind when they withdrew to this latest defensive position.

  The woman with the Fireball spell came up and nudged Alex with an elbow. “Want to tag team them again? It might keep our mana costs manageable.”

  Alex nodded. “Good thinking.”

  She lashed out with another Fireball. It exploded, sending a trio of lobsters in all directions. Alex hit one with an Ice Blast before it even struck the ground, skewering it. He killed a second before the third dove behind cover.

  Return fire flashed across the road in the form of a pattering of Ice Blasts. The woman beside him grabbed Alex and hauled him to the ground just as the Blasts burst through where he’d been standing. They shattered harmlessly against the brick wall behind him, but they’d only barely missed.

  “Thanks!” Alex told her. “I’m Alex.”

  “Marion,” the cop replied, flashing him a smile. “Nice work out there, but you’re going to want to keep your head down. I’ve seen those Blasts break through even our bulletproof vests, and you’re not wearing any protection.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. Alex had managed to pick up enough Natural Armor stones to give himself tier three. It wasn’t even close to the level of protection Castle had, but it would probably be enough to keep him alive if a tier one Ice Blast hit. Not that he wanted to find out the hard way he was wrong… Better to stay ducked down behind the concrete barrier they were using as cover.

  Alex felt like he’d done a decent job of gathering more of those precious crystals during the battle, though. The lobsters might only be tier one or two, but there were a lot of them, so he’d ranked up more than a few of his powers and abilities, including hitting tier five with his Ice Blast.

  Alex’s Magical Stones

  Point 1: Blue Stone (Tier 5) - Ice Blast

  Point 1, Second Ring: Blue Stone (Tier 2) - Create Water

  +

  Point 2: Grey Stone (Tier 3) - Natural Armor

  +

  Point 3: Clear Stone (Tier 4) - Intellect

  +

  Point 4: Clear Stone (Tier 4) - Will

  +

  Point 5: Blue Stone (Tier 2) - Control Water

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  Alex fired another Ice Blast over the barrier. This one hit the target dead center, punching right through the lobster’s armor. It dropped in its tracks.

  Marion’s eyebrows shot up. “Damn, man! How high do you have that ranked up, anyway?”

  “Tier five,” Alex replied, feeling proud of the accomplishment.

  “Nice! My Fireball is only tier one. Picked it up from some goblins this morning, but I haven’t seen any more drop during the fight with these whatever-they-are lobster things,” Marion said. “Not that I’m expecting fire rewards to drop from a water type, but one can hope, right?”

  Alex laughed. “You think this is like Pokémon?”

  “Maybe?” Marion shrugged. “The crystals that drop do seem to follow some sort of logic, anyway.”

  “True, that. Hey, that squad of attackers there, behind the SUV—you think you can flush them out?”

  “With pleasure,” Marion replied. She tossed a fireball so it landed right behind their position. The tier one spell wasn’t damaging enough to kill any of the enemy outright, but the concussive blast sent them sprawling away from their cover.

  That made them easy prey for Alex’s Ice Blasts. He nailed two of them before the others found another hiding spot.

  “Nice work!” Marion said.

  “You, too. We make a good team,” Alex replied as he fired another Ice Blast. That one missed, but it kept a lobster head down, which was something.

  All of this was about delaying their foes, not stopping them. The longer they could hold them back, the more people could escape. That was what Captain MacGregor told them when they took up these defensive positions, anyway. But Alex knew they were delaying for another reason, too.

  Somewhere out there was a person who could stop this attack. If Castle hadn’t gone haring off after the girl, they might have the entire enemy army in retreat already. It ground Alex’s gears, seeing the man go off to save one person when he ought to be here in the fight, but he’d known better than to try to talk him out of it. Those kids, the ones he hauled out of the tunnels, they meant a lot to Cameron. It was easy to see from the way he looked at them or talked about them. He was personally invested.

  That was going to bite them all in the butt sooner or later, if he didn’t get a lid on it.

  But he’d be back. Alex felt almost certain of that. Even if Castle had been forced to chase the stupid bird all the way to the bridge where they’d seen the nests earlier and then fight every roc there, Alex had a hunch he’d manage to save the girl and escape in one piece. Once he had, he’d be back here fighting the good fight.

  Alex thought the man’s priorities were off by a mile, but his heart? Even having known him for all of two days now, he had no doubts on that score.

  That meant this fight wasn’t just about trying to hold the line long enough for Bostonians to escape. They had to keep the lobsters busy long enough for Cameron to get back here so he could finish the job of kicking their asses.

  “Marion, blast that bunch there,” Alex called out.

  She did as he asked, sending two of them flying from the explosion. Alex nailed one before it scurried back behind cover. Two Ice Blasts struck the wall behind him, one narrowly missing his head.

  A quick peek told him there were more forces moving up through the City Hall plaza—a lot more. Maybe a hundred or so lobsters, but the bigger issue were those crabs. He spotted maybe a dozen of them. They split into three squads of four each, heading directly for each of the stairwells.

  One set of four marched directly toward his position, his stairwell.

  “My Fireballs won’t do anything against those things! I tried, earlier. I can’t even slow them down,” Marion shouted.

  “Me, either,” another officer called out from nearby. There were six of them in all, holding this position, although only a few of them had ranged attacks.

  The lobsters had just been biding their time, waiting for reinforcements to arrive. Now that they had, the lobsters fell in behind the tank-like giant crabs, using them for cover to advance.

  Alex fired off his strongest Ice Blast at the lead crab. It hit, exploding in the thing’s face. The crab stalled. It looked stunned, and it crouched down like it was trying to escape more attacks. But one of the lobsters walking alongside it poked it with a spear, urging it forward.

  He’d hurt it, but the damage was nowhere near enough to stop the thing. Alex ground his teeth together, calling up more mana for another Blast. He sent it shooting across the street to smack into the same crab. This time, the ice punched through part of the shell protecting the monster’s front. The armor near the face wasn’t as strong as the stuff on top, so the icicle stabbed right through it.

  All around him, the other defenders cheered.

  “Go, Alex!” Marion said.

  “Just doing my part,” Alex replied. Okay, the modesty was false, but he felt like it was the right thing to say in the moment.

  He was already low on mana, though. If it was going to take more than two shots to kill each crab then there was no way he could keep four of them away.

  The giant crabs stepped out onto the street, marching slowly forward. They tipped their shells downward as they walked. Now, he could barely see their eyes, and the vulnerable front armor was hidden. By tipping forward they were presenting their strongest area. He’d already tried punching through the shell on top of those things. It wasn’t happening, not at his spell rank, anyway.

  “Better get ready, people,” Alex said. “We’re about to have company!”

  The monsters continued their inexorable advance. Where the hell was Cameron, anyway? They could use his Strength and Natural Armor. Even he might not be enough to save the day against a horde of this size, but at least with his help they could maybe escape to fight another day.

  They had to withdraw, but where? How? Alex knew from talking to some of the cops that Boston Common was completely overrun by goblins. If they fled that way, they’d be trapped between a rock and a hard place. Moving north might save them, but they’d have to be fast, or the lobsters would cut them down as they fled.

  Alex looked around, trying to think of some way to get himself and these other people out of this mess. No obvious exit strategies revealed themselves.

  But it was as he was looking up that he saw something flash by, about thirty feet above the street. It was there and gone so quickly he couldn’t tell for sure what he’d seen, but…for just a moment, it looked like it was a man flying past!