Reload Faster_An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure Read online

  Reload Faster

  I Fear No Evil Book Three

  Martha Carr

  Michael Anderle

  RELOAD FASTER (this book) is a work of fiction.

  All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2018 Martha Carr and Michael Anderle

  Cover by Andrew Dobell, www.creativeedgestudios.co.uk

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US edition, July 2018

  The Oriceran Universe (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are Copyright (c) 2017-18 by Martha Carr and LMBPN Publishing.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Author Notes - Martha Carr

  Author Notes - Michael Anderle

  Other Revelation of Oriceran Universe Books

  Books by Michael Anderle

  Connect with The Authors

  Reload Faster Team

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  Mary Morris

  James Caplan

  John Ashmore

  Kelly Bowerman

  Peter Manis

  Joshua Ahles

  Daniel Weigert

  Kelly O’Donnell

  Paul Westman

  Larry Omans

  Micky Cocker

  If we’ve missed anyone, please let us know!

  Dedications

  From Martha

  To everyone who still believes in magic

  and all the possibilities that holds.

  To all the readers who make this

  entire ride so much fun.

  And to my son, Louie and so many wonderful friends who remind me all the time of what

  really matters and how wonderful

  life can be in any given moment.

  From Michael

  To Family, Friends and

  Those Who Love

  To Read.

  May We All Enjoy Grace

  To Live The Life We Are

  Called.

  1

  Shay pressed her back against the smooth cement wall of the darkened La Brea Tar Pits museum, Peyton’s voice screaming in her ear.

  “Tone it down or I’m ditching this thing,” she whispered.

  “Sorry, that one was a little close for me.”

  “Your ass isn’t even on the line.”

  Peyton was sitting back in the safety of the warehouse, watching everything on a computer monitor. He was wearing a safari outfit with red, white and blue suspenders. It was his homage to dinosaurs and to big oil.

  “That pin camera makes it feel like I’m there. I heard that bullet whizz right past your ear!” He stood up, excited, knocking the chair back.

  “Send up the drone and tell me where they are now.”

  Shay could see from her position below, the blinking red light in the darkness as the drone disappeared just over the edge of the tall building.

  “Okay,” said Peyton, “there’s one crawling up the fire escape toward the roof and two moving down the sidewalk. Tell me again how you managed to piss them off?”

  Shay grimaced and made a mental note to shortsheet Peyton’s bed with a nice mixture of spiders. “I didn’t piss anyone off. I got to the treasure ahead of them. Hometown girl, I know the turf better.” They were definitely out of town hired help. Goons with guns.

  Peyton had found her a job digging out an old amulet near the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. She would be home before dinner if it weren’t for the hired army who had the same idea at the same time.

  Shay would have to look into that later. See if someone betrayed her or it was just dumb luck.

  “Well, they came prepared because they’re crawling all over,” said Peyton, a buzzing voice in Shay’s ear. “Gonna call them the Ant Hill gang.”

  “I’m sure that won’t inspire them to put a bullet through you.”

  “From the looks of things, Shay they don’t need inspiration. Oh shit, get out of there. The guy on the roof is coming over to your side. Time to move.”

  Shay checked the bag slung across her chest and scanned the area for the best way to get out of there with the least amount of visibility. At least she was able to draw them away to a more deserted location.

  The coordinates for the amulet put it closer to Wilshire Boulevard, still hopping even at three in the morning. Just a different kind of crowd.

  Peyton’s voice, still excited, flew back into her brain. “My idea of a disguise turned out to be brilliant.”

  “That wasn’t a novel idea. I was already going through the warehouse.”

  “Well, I gave it the theme. School marm was a good choice. You managed to get the hell out of there without pulling out your gun.”

  “Who says marm,” Shay hissed under her breath as she ditched the costume. “And it’s not a marm, it’s average suburban white woman.”

  Underneath Shay was wearing an all-black, tight fitting suit; her first choice when tomb raiding. She slid the black hood up over her head, tucking in her hair and made a run for it from the back of the building.

  She looked back in time to see someone dart behind some trees. The tomb raider raised her gun, still making her way across the open area. Not a good place to stop and reconnaissance anything.

  “Average suburban white woman on Wilshire during the day would make you stand out like a sore thumb,” said Peyton. “Where’s the Gucci? But at night, it has I need a drug buy written all over it. Brilliant! Where are you running to? All I see are trees.”

  Shay heard the buzz of the distant drone and angrily spat out, “Fly that damn mechanical gnat in the other direction, away from me!”

  “Right, good call. Or roger that. Fuck!”

  Shay heard the shouts in the distance behind her. “What? Now you stop talking?”

  “Sorry, swallowed my gum. Uh, Shay, they’ve brought in reinforcements.”

  “Why do they want this amulet so badly? The price doesn’t warrant this much attention. You did research the amulet’s history, right?”

  “Pshew, yes, of course I did.”

  Shay could hear the sound of frantic typing. Snakes in his bed, definitely snakes.

  Shay glanced over her shoulder and saw something run across the open space, diagonally away from her. She thought about taking a shot but too many people came out at nigh
t to play in this city. She wasn’t going to take the chance of killing a nosey bystander.

  Old life protocol versus new life.

  “Great, now I have to keep track of two directions.” Shay’s rented Jeep was parked a mile back behind the Park La Brea apartments under a burned-out streetlight. Once she was past the open ground it would get easier to move along the smaller streets and get to her car unnoticed.

  First, she had to get a few more hundred yards.

  “What’s that? What’s going on? Okay, I found it. Not my fault,” said Peyton.

  “No one likes excuses. This is right about where I would have just shot you in the old days, just so I wouldn’t hear it.”

  “Well, thank goodness times change. Okay, this was hard to find. Obscure little mention on the dark web. Right… excuse… The amulet was part of a set of jewelry once owned by some ancient Oriceran. I mean ancient, even for La Brea Tar Pits. Dropped there a few gate openings ago. Really dark and ancient magic was poured into it just before this Oriceran queen bought it.”

  Shay took off at a run just as klieg lights went on behind her, scoping the ground. They were ditching subtle altogether.

  She ducked lower to the ground and kept moving. The figure to the left took off running as well, easily passing her in the distance. “What the hell?” she whispered.

  “This way,” a deep voice shouted as the growing crowd of mercenaries focused their attention on the back grounds of the museum.

  Getting closer…

  “What exactly does the damn thing do?” Shay hissed, running as fast as she could.

  “This says it has the power to bestow magic on its owner. Something weird here about if it wants to. I don’t know. A lot of this was translated from an old Oriceran language.”

  “No wonder they want it so badly.”

  The sound of dirt bikes coming over the hill filled the air.

  “Shit, I’m gonna need a few clever moves to get out of this one.” Shay stood up and ran full out, grateful for all the hours of training. She was going to need it.

  She kept her focus on the buildings ahead and a chance at ducking in somewhere, not looking back even as she could hear the bikes getting closer.

  She felt a hand wrap around her ankle, startling her even as she put out her hands to break her hard fall. The wind knocked out of her but she was trained for something like this too. She rolled over, ready to kick her assailant in the face, the hand still gripping her ankle.

  “Shay, what was that loud thump? Shay? The camera’s gone dark.” Peyton’s voice was pleading for an answer.

  Shay hesitated when she saw the girl’s face in the dim light. The girl was partially out of a grass-covered hole, doing her best to pull Shay inside. Shay didn’t need to ask questions, not right now. She easily slid herself inside the opening as the girl let go, pulling the cover over both of them.

  Shay found herself standing on the rungs of a metal ladder, squeezed next to the girl as they scrambled down. They both paused when the bikes squealed overhead, followed by the sound of running footsteps.

  “Where the fuck did she go?” An angry male voice shouted. Shay couldn’t help smiling.

  “Police helicopter coming.”

  “We pay them more than enough. Maybe they can spot her.”

  “Who the hell is she?” Another voice shouted, just as angry.

  The girl looked at Shay and pulled out a small flashlight, lighting the way. “Come on, we better get out of here while we still can. Not too many people know there’s an old abandoned nuclear escape tunnel back here, but better safe than sorry.”

  Peyton’s voice had gone silent. Shay looked around at the cement walls, guessing they were pretty thick if they were built to withstand a nuclear blast. No signal would penetrate that.

  “Who are you?” Shay adjusted the bag and moved behind the girl as they entered a large, circular cement opening that stretched ten feet over Shay’s head.

  “I could ask the same thing. I go by Lily. It’s a name I gave myself. Backgrounds don’t matter down here.”

  “Down here?”

  They hurried down the wide tunnel, splashing through brackish water, making two left turns and then a right. “You know your way around down here pretty well.”

  “I should, I’ve been living down here for over a year.”

  They came into an even larger tunnel just as a small gathering of teenagers scattered into other openings, disappearing down other tunnels.

  “I had a feeling that would happen. You’re a little old and dressed like a remake from Mission Impossible. They were gonna run first, slap me around for answers later.”

  “My kind of crowd, and what the hell do you mean by old? I’m in my twenties.”

  “Exactly… old. This is one of the best underground hangouts for people like me. Under twenties with nowhere else to go. Protected from the elements, out of harms way. Pretty good circumstances.”

  Shay pulled out her own flashlight and shone the beam around the tunnel. “Sure, if damp smells and hard ground are your thing.”

  “Better than where I came from. Father got picked up by a bounty hunter. Dark magic was his thing. Mom disappeared a long time ago.”

  “You’re magical?” Shay shone her flashlight on Lily. Long gray hair hung down to her waist. “You’re a gray elf. I’ve heard of your kind. I thought you were all about good.”

  “You mean my father? Yeah, well, there has to be one to prove the rule, right? Mom was human. That put me on the outs with the rest of my kind. They don’t take well to mixing blood.” Lily found a tattered sleeping bag spread out over cardboard and a tarp and sat down on the ground.

  Shay tilted her head and took in the teenager. “That your corner of this Eden?”

  “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. Yeah, this is all mine. Everyone knows not to touch any of it. I’d know who did it. Part of my weird powers.”

  Shay went and crouched down next to the pile of books. Hemingway, Kafka, Harry Potter. “Interesting mix.”

  “Yeah, well, thieves can’t always be choosers. I like to read and I need a steady supply of books.”

  Shay stood back up, brushing the dirt off her hands. “What weird powers do you have, exactly?”

  Lily looked up at her, narrowing her eyes. “I know that look. Like I’ve suddenly become a useful tool. No thanks, not interested. Look, I saved your life up there because I don’t like watching the steel boots take out a woman, especially a kick ass one. I saw what you did to a bunch of them up there.”

  “And you still managed to get ahead of me. Pretty impressive.”

  “I know the territory better than you. Micro-knowledge of the area and they weren’t looking for me.”

  “And…”

  “And my weird powers. I sometimes get glimpses of the future. Only about fifteen minutes in advance and not always. Must be part of that mixing blood thing. A little unreliable.” Lily patted her belly, her gray hair falling over her shoulder, covering half her face. Her deep gray eyes shone in the light.

  “I get a gut feeling that tells me it’s legit. I saw what you were up against and I was in the mood to help. Those mindless thugs can go fuck themselves.”

  “You don’t care what I was doing up there?”

  “Not even a little.”

  Shay weighed the options in her head, wondering what to do when she saw something. She leaned down and reached out to turn over the piece of metal, but Lily was faster and snatched it out of her reach.

  “That’s mine,” Lily said, breathing a little hard.

  “How did you get that?” Shay could feel her heart rate pick up and she took in longer breaths to control it. Last time she saw that artifact it was hanging off the belt of the Ice Witch. How did a kid get it off the witch that came close to taking down Shay?

  “Weird powers. I needed it. I took it.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Close to it. Bitch didn’t anticipate my move. Got this nice little
scar for my troubles.” Lily held up her arm. There was a long, thin red scar that ran from her wrist to her elbow.

  “Ice did that.” Shay’s mind was working on a solution.

  Lily’s eyes grew wider and she sat up. “You’ve seen her. Do you know where I can find her?”

  “No, and for your sake you should stop looking for her. Why were you so desperate you’d tangle with her for that artifact? What does it do?”

  “It’s not what it does, so much. It’s who it belonged to. It was my father’s. That’s the bitch who turned him in. I plan to even the score.”

  “That’s something I can understand. Interested in a trade?”

  2

  The terms didn’t take long. Shay agreed to help Lily with her quest in exchange for Lily’s help on a few missions. No social services, no cops and Lily could change her mind after a month. Shay would put her up in one of the warehouses and feed her. Hell, she was already feeding Peyton. What was one more mouth?

  Shay helped her gather up what there was of her things, careful not to touch the metal artifact.

  “What does that thing do, anyway?”

  “It’s a kind of divining rod. It can help find things.”

  Shay smiled as they came to a ladder. “You and I are going to get along just fine, one way or another.”