The Realms

Vol 2: Two Worlds

De: Anthony Harrington

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

In Volume 2, Jude divides her time between helping the FBI resolve major incidents, and discovering how her world, Warangia, works. I held my hands out and flared the ‘no-fire’ spell. It was visible for about two seconds as a spreading magenta-coloured flare which ran along the wharf side, up the ship and over the buildings opposite. Somebody must have tried to shoot something, because a panicked voice shouted: “My goddamn gun doesn’t work.” A megaphone bellowed into life. “This is the FBI. You are surrounded. Put down your weapons. Lie on the ground with your hands on your heads and you will not be harmed,” the voice roared. I disappeared the cloaking spell and we became visible to anyone looking our way. Three men, not thirty feet from us, tried to level their weapons and dropped with arrows in their chests. Then Nyuna, Clyde and Pindar were among them with their katana’s flashing. Deodor stayed at my side. He notched arrow after arrow and let fly. Gunmen fell off the ship into the water. The four who’d taken high positions on cranes somersaulted to the ground, landing with solid, wet-sounding thuds. I saw Nyuna throwing knife after knife. I drew my katana. Another three men ran at us from out the shadows, with knives in their hands. That made me blink. Knives against Samurai swords? In which universe was that going to work? Deodor nailed one with an arrow from twelve feet. I took the heads off the other two and just about managed to avoid the ensuing fountains of blood from out the neck stumps as they toppled. We ran for the nearest packing shed. The interior was lit by a row of light bulbs dangling on flex. Someone came out from behind a crate and swung a crowbar at me. I was about to gut him when Deodor grabbed the man by the throat and stabbed him through the heart with an arrow. Four more were running at us, and there was a crowd behind them. I threw up a cloaking screen and pulled Deodor to the side. Our attackers looked around in confusion. Deodor’s bow was lying on the floor where he had dropped it, but they could not see us. There were perhaps ten of them, milling about in confusion. “You take those five, I’ll take these,” I said, pointing at the ones I was going to take. Deodor nodded and drew his katana. I kept the shield until we were right alongside them then dropped it. My katana flashed out as I spun amongst them. Limbs and heads flew in all directions. I ran my sword through the back of the last of Deodor’s assailants just as he swung his katana and took the man’s head off. “Thank you, Taishan, but I believe I had that covered,” Deodor smiled. “Better safe than sorry,” I replied. There were at least ten large packing crates in the warehouse, four of which were opened. I went to them. There was a layer of ground coffee on the top of each open crate, with white plastic sheeting hanging down over the sides of the crates. I pushed the coffee grounds aside with my hand and felt plastic. Underneath were dozens and dozens of nine-inch plastic bags stuffed full of some white powdered substance, probably cocaine. Four FBI agents, with batons in their hands came running into the shed. “Holy Mary Mother of God,” one of them said, looking at decapitated bodies, and then at us. “Good news, we have the drugs,” I said. “Did you have to kill them all?” another agent asked, belligerently. “What can I say?” I said. “They were trying to kill us, so it seemed reasonable....”