Jack felt exposed. He knew the guys were ready or at least they would be. He hoped.
The book was in a backpack slung over his shoulder. It wasn’t magic on its own, but it held magic symbols. He didn’t know if his new curse would take away the magic. He had gone into the garden, and flowers wilted at his touch. He never went in again.
He had his earbuds with the phone on. “This doesn’t feel good, Mike,” he muttered, hoping Mike was listening.
“They’re in place.”
Jack looked up to see a man with a cane walking toward him. “Here he comes.”
The man was bald, with glowing green eyes. He wore a crimson shirt, black pants, and wingtip shoes. He was a lot smaller than Jack, maybe Scott’s size, with a bit of a paunch, but broad-shouldered. He leaned on his cane, while two men in black walked behind him. As soon as he came to the top of the bridge where Jack stood, the men stayed at the bottom, looking warily from side to side.
“Mr. Cincinnati,” said the man, using the code name Jack had given out online.
“Doctor,” said Jack, using Thornblood’s code name.
“You have the parcel?”
“You have the money?”
The man flipped the cane around and pointed its handle at the wooden bridge at their feet. He made an X with some dark fluid that came out of the cane, and he tapped the middle of the X. A pair of briefcases appeared.
“Open them,” said Jack.
The man raised an eyebrow. “You don’t believe that the money is in there?”
“I don’t want to get bitten by some demon that you might have in there.”
The man chuckled. “This is obviously not your first rodeo.” As he bent to open the briefcase, they all heard a series of gunshots from an automatic weapon.
Jack, knowing how to react, dove off the bridge, into the shallow lake. One of the two men at the bottom ledge of the bridge ran up to the old man, who had stood like a deer in headlights at the opening salvo. The man tackled the old man to the ground.
Jack had gotten the book wet, but that was the least of his problems. He saw the robot at a distance, a green man with guns coming out of its shoulder. It was firing at them, not caring if anything or anyone else was firing back. It also didn’t notice the team teleport and appear at the tree in the middle of the park. Teddy already had the weapon in hand, and as soon as the teleport cleared, he started running to the robot, Alex and Andy close behind.
The robot, focused on Thornblood, advanced. Jack struggled to stand, but he had landed badly and twisted his knee. He half-crawled backwards to the shore of the lake, the side away from the advancing team.
Another half of the team appeared at the bottom of the bridge, where the guards had been. Both were now at the top of the bridge, trying to lift the old man who was screaming that he wanted the book. “Leave me here! Get the book!”
Priorities, Jack thought, as he saw Diode in his blue costume come out of the teleport, looking confused. Ollie followed, and tagged Diode. “Those guys, up there!”
Jack heard the gunshots stop. He looked over to see that Alex and Andy stood behind the robot, while Teddy had done what he was required to do—stab the robot. He chose to stab between the neck and shoulder, but the neutronium sword was still stuck in the robot’s neck.
The robot turned to Teddy, and guns appeared out of its wrists. It immediately started shooting with those guns, probably guns without magic depowering bullets, but real, armor-piercing, people-killing bullets. Alex went down. Andy dove at the robot, out of the way of the wrist-weapons firing, and began to saturate it with his ability.
The sword fell out of the robot’s neck, and Andy put his hands in the area. The robot swung around, trying to get at Andy, but he held on like a man on a bucking bronco, hands deep inside the neck of the robot, getting his hands covered with a sticky, black fluid not unlike blood.
The robot reached behind and grabbed at Andy’s hair. Andy still held on, howling. Then the earth rumbled and a huge spike of earth and water came out of the lake, going through the bridge, making one of the men tumble off it into the water near Jack. Jack reached over, grabbing the guy by the nape of his suit collar, and punched the guy out.
“Oh, my God, he’s been shot.” Jack saw Diode bend down to Thornblood, but then get pushed away by him. Thornblood stood up, one hand at his side and his other hand waving his cane around. He was yelling some gibberish that Jack assumed was some sort of spell.
“Somebody stop him!” Jack yelled. Diode touched Thornblood, who then immediately stopped his shouting. He shook, the other man who had jumped on top of him also shook, and then Thornblood collapsed to the bridge’s floor.
Meanwhile the robot had been ridden out, with Andy and now Alex—who seemed to be leaning heavily on one leg—pouring their toxins into the robot. Jack couldn’t see exactly what they were doing, covered with toxins now, and they didn’t look like they were going to stop. Alex was pissed, Jack could see it in the white man’s face.
“You okay, Jack?” asked Ollie, coming over to him.
“Twisted my knee. I’ll be all right.”
“We can teleport you out.”
“I want to see that fucking bot die.”
Ollie looked over. “It looks like there’s nothing left there but a puddle of goo.”
“I’m gonna see for myse
