Southwest Days (Semiautomatic Sorceress Book 2), Kal Aaron [book recommendations based on other books .txt] 📗

using his ultrasonic sword for leverage. His movements dug the blade into the neck of the panther. He’d become a human saw. A drip of blood became a torrent, and soon the head came off in a crimson gush.

Aisha’s attacks penetrated deeper and deeper into one side of the remaining panther’s head. Lyssa did the best she could to line up her shots near or on the previous holes until she’d produced a single large gaping bloody wound opposite the charred crater created by Aisha. With a final feeble huff, the panther fell onto its side and stopped breathing.

Lyssa glanced down at her regalia. For the second time in far too soon, she was covered in disgusting grime, but at least she couldn’t smell it. It was the small luxuries in life that kept up morale.

“Antoine, you all right?” she asked, jogging toward the downed Sorcerer.

He stirred and groaned before planting his staff on the ground and standing. “Even with the potion, that one hurt.” He blew out a couple of breaths. “What about you?”

“Let’s see. I’m scratched and burned all over,” Lyssa replied, “and I’m sure it’s going to be a lot more annoying once my adrenaline wears off.” She gestured with her gun at the nearest panther. “I’m doing a lot better than that thing.”

Aisha took a deep breath. She was bathed in sweat, which made her regalia cling to her body. “A moment of rest would be helpful. That was a challenging battle, but victory tastes sweeter against a stronger foe.”

Ryan held his hand over a deep wound Lyssa hadn’t spotted before. “I could use a little help. That guy got in some good licks.”

Antoine nodded. “Let me heal up, then I’ll get the rest of you, and we can go see what’s beyond the last panther cage there.”

Lyssa spun her pistols in her hands, then caught them and pointed them forward. “With this team, we can’t lose.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Antoine couldn’t do anything about their regalia, but his spells took care of their burns, scrapes, punctures, and cuts. Soon, Lyssa felt almost as good as when she’d started the fight. It was a little eerie.

She was used to relying on herbs for quick healing and the regalia for backup. It was nice having a dedicated life Sorcerer backing her up, though she suspected if she regularly had one, it might make her reckless.

Having a team was proving to be less annoying than she’d thought. She’d worked plenty of doubles in the past, including with Aisha in Texas, but it’d been a long time since she’d worked with three other Sorcerers on a single job.

The Shadows didn’t fully understand the importance of essence and how it empowered and limited at the same time. Each Illuminated could bend the world to their will in impressive ways, but their different essences meant their abilities varied wildly. There was no such thing as an all-powerful Sorcerer.

With the wounds handled and Antoine’s previous warning about more monsters, Lyssa took stock of her ammo as they headed toward the third chamber. She was doing all right in terms of magazines. Preparation helped.

Aisha and Ryan trudged along, their steps heavy with exhaustion, their defense spells temporarily gone. Antoine could help the fatigue from the fight, but there was nothing he could do about all the power they’d called on.

Lyssa didn’t worry. As long as no one was seriously injured, she was confident they could win. They’d need to be more careful to protect Antoine against whatever threats remained.

Each of the three Torches was a powerful fighter, but if they’d tried to clear out the mine by themselves, they would have died. The ridiculous number of monsters they had encountered spoke to an extreme level of commitment by the rogue responsible for the present insanity.

Lyssa frowned at the sobering realization. The team had destroyed entire armies of monsters, and they still weren’t finished. The moment’s respite would allow them to catch their breath as they advanced into the now-empty third chamber, steeling themselves in preparation for another fight against a horde.

Like the other chambers, it was mostly smooth. Several tunnels led out of the room, but almost all of them were at floor level, including two large enough to accommodate the armored panthers. Most of the tunnels looked larger than the ones in the other rooms.

Lyssa frowned. “I don’t get it. Why are they staging things?”

“Does it matter?” Aisha asked. “It doesn’t change our job. We destroy every last one of them.”

“They aren’t staging them against us,” Ryan said. “These chambers weren’t set up to defend against Sorcerers, which is why all it took was a few exploding bullets from Hecate.” He nodded at one of the tunnels. “They were gathering them for something else.” He lifted his head. A faint whine sounded, followed by clicks. “The tunnels lead off in all sorts of directions, but they almost all connect to the ones on the other side. From what I can tell, they converge, and a couple of major tunnels lead to the surface.”

“They were gathering an army to invade the county,” Lyssa said. “With these numbers, unless the military was ready and waiting, it could have gotten messy. Sending them up in different waves might be part of that.” She peered into the chamber, focusing on a far wall. “There were enough blocks in the other tunnels that I couldn’t go farther, but there wasn’t enough to stop a monster ready to dig or acid-vomit its way through.”

“The ones I sense farther up are all decent-sized,” Antoine replied with a shrug.

“That matches what I’m hearing,” Ryan said.

Lyssa nodded at one of the giant tunnels. “You need to get a little more specific. How big are we talking?”

“Big enough for a person or one of those lizards, easily,” Ryan replied. “But not one of the panthers.”

“That’s not so bad, then,” Lyssa said. “We’ve got a good rhythm for attacking the regular monsters.”

Antoine chuckled. “Don’t hate me, but everything I was sensing before is in the