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

earlier, and his staff attacks hadn’t done a good job. He must have known his potions wouldn’t work against the armored panthers.

A roaring fireball screamed down from Aisha and blasted apart the center of the advancing horde. The mindless monsters continued to advance, reinforcements from the sides filling the gap in the formation. The man’s crude control wasn’t enough to introduce impressive tactics.

Antoine continued tossing potions with skillful accuracy. His newest ones didn’t eat away at their victims, but their bodies began flaking away, dark patches spreading until they collapsed to the ground.

For all his protestations, he wasn’t half-bad in a fight. She wasn’t ready to suggest he become a Torch, but he was a powerful reminder there was no such thing as a weak Sorcerer. Even Tricia could be scary under the right circumstances.

Ryan met the first surge of arriving monsters with a wide swing, slicing through three snake-roaches like they were paper. Loud warbles sounded as he attacked and moved into his next swing so quickly he became a blur. No one could follow his enhanced movements with the naked eye.

A little jealous of Ryan, Lyssa pulled her triggers but didn’t aim, relying on the density of enemies to ensure kills. Her explosions shattered the line before one of Aisha’s massive fireballs descended from above and unleashed a rippling wave of fiery death on the enemy.

Continuing to attack made it hard to concentrate on her spell, but the shadow tentacle continued to grow behind her, thin and getting huge. Even if the man saw it, he might not realize what her plan was.

He was reluctant to die. He must have convinced himself the last horde could defeat the team. She doubted he had a shard that had let him watch the earlier battles.

“You see?” the man shouted from behind the rock. “It’s pointless. You’re going to be overwhelmed.” He held the runic shard with two fingers. “Don’t you understand? Your stubbornness doesn’t serve any purpose. I’d rather not kill Illuminated if possible.”

“Then surrender, fool,” Aisha shouted. She split a massive fireball into two large ones. The pair crashed into the swarming monsters, scorching a clear path through the army for a brief moment.

Lyssa shoved one empty gun into a holster and whipped her hand forward, along with the tentacle. It flew toward the shard and yanked it out of the man’s loose grip in a whiplike motion. She gritted her teeth and forced the tentacle to stop in front of her, then grabbed the shard and stuck it in her pocket while shredding the advancing monsters with the rest of the explosive rounds in her remaining gun.

“No!” the man shrieked. “No! No! No!”

“Not so cocky now, huh?” Lyssa grinned.

She reloaded both pistols with ablative rounds, then swept them back and forth to deliver a storm of purple fire in an arc around her. Knowing she wasn’t going to be crushed really motivated a woman.

Ryan’s warbling blade dance continued. An acid-spitter nailed his side before he cut it in half and cleaved through two lizards with one swing. Lyssa wasn’t sure how long he could maintain the technique, but she liked the trail of death it was leaving behind. She needed to catch up with him and Aisha.

Antoine kept popping monsters with one-armed swings while he chucked his few remaining vials. His attacks hadn’t killed as many monsters as quickly, but the half-dissolved, half-necrotized twitching and writhing creatures near him were slowing the advance of the others. A shower of firebolts rained from above, burning through monsters threatening to overwhelm the team.

The monsters weren’t any tougher than they’d been in the other rooms, but the greater amount of open space made it harder for the team to concentrate their fire. They were all downing monsters one after another, but now that Lyssa had grabbed the shard, the battle had become four separate fights than a cohesive team effort.

Their earlier strategy had collapsed. The occasional claw or bite made it through, and the monsters were doing a decent job of encircling them individually.

Aisha dropped to the ground, her jaw tight and sweat covering her face. She threw up her arms and launched two more blasts into the crowd.

Something bright flipped over the rock. Lyssa fried two more monsters before looking that way. It was a tumbling coin. She didn’t have enough time to grow a new tentacle. Instead, she dropped one pistol and aimed at the falling coin, then fired.

Her first round missed. Her second round burst into purple flames around it, but the coin flew sideways, spinning even faster before dropping to the ground. A great pulse of sorcery shot through the room, knocking the team back and leaving them gasping for breath. The light in the room vanished except for Aisha’s orb.

The room shook, knocking some of the monsters to the floor. Lyssa had been wrong. They were going to be buried.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The rock sank into the ground, revealing a man in a hooded robe and a secret passage. They weren’t going to die after all. Lyssa was too annoyed to feel relief.

She tried to shoot the man, but a monster leaped at her and took the round. Her next few rounds also found monster shields. She snatched her second pistol and reloaded both with ablative rounds before growling at the man dropping into the passage.

“I can get through these things in my wraith form,” Lyssa shouted. “We can’t let him escape!”

“Get him, Hecate!” Aisha shouted. “We’ll handle these creatures. Their numbers are dwindling. He wouldn’t flee if he believed he had any chance of victory.”

Ryan diced one lizard into four pieces before nodding his agreement. “We need to know who he is so we can track down the rogue calling the shots. He’s just an errand boy with delusions of grandeur. Your advice applies back to you. Try to keep him alive.”

“Sure, but like I said, things happen.” Lyssa backed away from the front line before becoming a living shadow. She charged through the crowd of