Holly couldn’t think. The restaurant was a carousel of chaos. The troll was gnashing its tusks, greasy molars trying to grip her helmet. Holly could smell its fetid breath through her filters. She could smell the odor of burning fur too, as the fire spread along the troll’s back.
The beast’s green tongue rasped across her visor, sliming the lower section. The visor! That was it. Her only chance. Holly wormed her free hand to the helmet controls. The tunnel lights. High beams.
She depressed the sunken button, and eight hundred watts of unfiltered light blasted from the twin spotlights above her eyes.
The troll reared back, a penetrating scream exploding from between rows of teeth. Dozens of glasses and bottles shattered where they stood. It was too much for the poor beast. Stunned, set on fire, and now blinded. The shock and pain made their way through to its tiny brain, ordering it to shut down. The troll complied, keeling over with almost comical stiffness. Holly rolled to avoid a scything tusk.
There was complete silence, but for tinkling glass, crackling fur, and the sudden release of breath. Holly climbed shakily to her feet. There were a lot of eyes following her—human eyes. She was one hundred percent visible. And these humans wouldn’t stay complacent for long. This breed never did. Containment was the issue.
She raised her empty palms. A gesture of peace.
“Scusatemi tutti,” she said, the language flowing easily from her tongue.
The Italians, ever graceful, muttered that it was nothing.
Holly reached slowly into her pocket and withdrew a small sphere. She placed it in the middle of the floor.
“Guardate,” she said. Look.
The restaurant’s patrons complied, leaning in to see the small silver ball. It was ticking, faster and faster, almost like a countdown. Holly turned her back to the sphere. Three, two, one . . .
Boom! Flash! Mass unconsciousness. Nothing fatal, but headaches all around in about forty minutes. Holly sighed. Safe. For the moment. She ran to the door and slid the latch across. Nobody was going in or out. Except through the big gaping hole in the wall. Next she doused the smouldering troll with the contents of the restaurant’s fire extinguisher, hoping the icy powder wouldn’t revive the sleeping behemoth.
Holly surveyed the mess she had created. There was no doubt, it was a shambles. Worse than Hamburg. Root would skin her alive. She’d rather face the troll any day. This was the end of her career for sure, but suddenly that didn’t seem so important because her ribs were aching, and she had a blinder of a pressure headache coming on. Perhaps a rest, just for a second, so she could pull herself together before Retrieval showed up.
Holly didn’t even bother looking for a chair. She simply allowed her legs to buckle beneath her, sinking to the chessboard linoleum floor.
Waking up to Commander Root’s bulging features is the stuff of nightmares. Holly’s eyes flickered open, and for a second she could have sworn that there was concern in those eyes. But then it was gone, replaced by the customary vein-popping fury.
“Captain Short!” he roared, mindless of her headache. “What in the name of sanity happened here?”
Holly rose shakily to her feet.
“I . . . That is . . . There was . . .” The sentences just wouldn’t come.
“You disobeyed a direct order. I told you to hang back! You know it’s forbidden to enter a human building without an invitation.”
Holly shook the shadows from her vision.
“I got invited in. A child called for help.”
“You’re on shaky ground there, Short.”
“There is precedent, sir. Corporal Rowe versus the State. The jury ruled that the trapped woman’s cry for help could be accepted as an invitation into the building. Anyway, you’re all here now. That means you accepted the invitation, too.”
“Hmm,” said Root doubtfully. “I suppose you were lucky. Things could have been worse.”
Holly looked around. Things couldn’t have been a lot worse. The establishment was pretty trashed, and there were forty humans out for the count. The tech boys were attaching mind-wipe electrodes to the temples of unconscious diners.
“We managed to secure the area, in spite of half the town hammering on the door.”
“What about the hole?”
Root smirked. “See for yourself.”
Holly glanced over. Retrieval had jimmied a hologram lead into the existing electricity sockets and were projecting an unbattered wall over the hole. The holograms were handy for quick patches, but no good under scrutiny. Anyone who examined the wall too closely would have noticed that the slightly transparent patch was exactly the same as the stretch beside it. In this case there were two identical patches of spiderweb cracks and two reproductions of the same Rembrandt. But the people inside the pizzeria were in no condition to examine walls and by the time they woke up, the wall would have been repaired by the telekinetic division, and the entire paranormal experience would be removed from their memories.
A Retrieval officer bolted from the rest room.
“Commander!”
“Yes, sergeant?”
“There’s a human in here, sir. The Concusser didn’t reach him. He’s coming, sir. Right now, sir!”
“Shields!” barked Root. “Everyone!”
Holly tried. She really did. But it wouldn’t come. Her magic was gone. A toddler waddled out of the bathroom, his eyes heavy with sleep. He pointed a pudgy finger directly at Holly.
“Ciao, fulletta,” he said, before climbing into his father’s lap to continue his snooze.
Root shimmered back into the visible spectrum. He was, if possible, even angrier than before.
“What happened to your shield, Short?”
Holly swallowed.
“Stress, Commander,” she offered hopefully.
Root wasn’t having any of it. “You lied to me, Captain. You’re not running hot at all, are you?”
Holly shook her head mutely.
“How long since you completed the Ritual?”
Holly chewed her lip. “I’d say . . . about . . . four years, sir.”
Root nearly popped a vein.
“Four . . . Four years? It’s a wonder you lasted this long! Do it now. Tonight! You’re not coming below ground again without your powers. You’re a danger to yourself and your fellow officers!”
“Yessir.”
“Get a set of Hummingbirds from Retrieval and zip across to the old country. There’s a full moon tonight.”
“Yessir.”
“And don’t think I’ve forgotten about this shambles. We’ll talk about it when you get back.”
“Yessir. Very good, sir.”
Holly turned to go, but Root cleared his throat for attention.
“Oh, and Captain Short . . .”
“Yessir?”
Root’s face had lost its purple tinge—he almost seemed embarrassed.
“Well done on the life-saving thing. Could have been worse, an awful lot worse.”
Holly beamed behind her visor. Perhaps she wouldn’t be kicked out of Recon after all.
“Thank you, sir.”
Root grunted, his complexion returning to its normal ruddy hue.
“Now get out of here, and don’t come back until you’re full to the tips of your ears with magic!”
Holly sighed. So much for gratitude.