It was the standard Legion disclaimer, and the words rolled off his tongue like he’d been practicing them since he could talk.
“Are all Legion soldiers so charming?” Bella asked me.
“Why don’t you ask your boyfriend?”
Bella blushed. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
I grinned at her.
“Girls, must I remind you that we have a castle to storm?” When Calli was on the job, she was all business and no nonsense.
Bella and Calli were already dressed in the standard wilderness outfit: tank tops, shorts, and boots. They looked the part. My wardrobe, on the other hand, would need some work.
I peeled off my jacket, stripping down to my tank top and shorts. Without any insignia, it wasn’t immediately obvious that I was wearing part of a Legion uniform. I swooped down and grabbed two fistfuls of dirt, tossing it all over my clothes. Then I grabbed the bottom of my shirt and tore it. The fabric ripped halfway up my abdomen. I ran my fingers through my ponytail. A few messy strands tumbled out of my hairband. Almost there. And now for the finishing touch. I pulled out my knife.
“What’s that for?” Bodybuilder One asked, watching me closely.
“I’m going to make a few blood stains. For verisimilitude.”
Bodybuilder One looked at Bodybuilder Two. “The crazy girl is going to cut herself.”
“Oh, I’m not cutting myself,” I told him, smiling. “And no one will know the difference.”
I grabbed hold of his thick arm. His muscles bulged as he pushed against me, trying to free himself. Holding him steady, I slashed my blade across his arm. I wiped my hand over his cut, then smeared streaks of his blood all over my clothes and skin.
“You’re completely out of your mind,” Bodybuilder One said, stumbling away from me.
“Please heal Mr. Panic Pants before he bursts any more arteries,” I said to Bella.
Even as Bella dabbed a potion over his skin, he continued to glare at me.
Nimble Knife laughed. “Actually, I think she’s growing on me.”
I winked at him.
The other soldiers just gaped at me in shock.
“This is so crude,” Petite Soldier commented in a low voice.
I shrugged. “Sometimes to get the job done, you have to get your hands a little dirty. Didn’t your angel leader teach you that?”
Her jaw dropped. I’d apparently rendered her speechless.
I wiped the last of the blood on my shorts, then turned to Jace. “How do I look?”
“Like you wrestled a troll in a mud pit, ran across a live minefield, and then rubbed yourself against some barbed wire to top it all off.”
“Perfect.”
Calli tossed me a hood. “Ready?”
I lifted it over my head, casting my face in shadow. “Yes. Just don’t do it too hard this time,” I said. “I have sensitive skin.”
Calli snorted. “I’ll get you some moisturizer for that.”
Then she slapped a pair of handcuffs on my wrists. She moved to one side of me, Bella to the other. It was like that, sandwiched between my sister and my foster mother, that I set down the broken brick path that led to the castle gates.
16
The Medieval Magitech Castle
As we approached the castle, I looked up at the high stone walls. I counted over twenty guards standing on those walls, all of them armed with guns or bows. The guard on the north tower had a machine gun. The east tower guard stood behind a catapult that hurled magic balls.
And that wasn’t the worst part. The whole wall was glowing gold-green, a cheaper, dirtier, less pure flavor of Magitech than the one protecting the walls that separated humanity from the plains of monsters. Hardwicke’s wall was likely not strong enough to survive a herd of charging monsters, but it was more than powerful enough to kill a human, or even a Legion soldier.
Two guards stood in front of the closed drawbridge, each one dressed in a suit of shiny armor. Wow, these fellows sure took their medieval fantasies seriously. The guards didn’t shoot us on the spot as we approached, which meant they weren’t really as clever as they thought they were.
“What business do you have here?” demanded the guard in the silver armor as we stopped in front of them.
“We’re bounty hunters,” Calli said. “You put out a bounty on this girl.”
The red-armored guard took a long, good look at me. He even had the nerve to reach under my hood and touch my hair. I snarled, snapping my teeth at him. He retracted his hand in alarm. I shot him a gleefully savage look.
“Don’t get too close to her. She’s been out here so long that she’s gone a bit crazy,” Bella warned the guards.
She’d put on a different voice, one that was rougher than her usual sophisticated accent. It was the voice of the Frontier. She handed the guards the wanted poster of me that she’d made while I was smearing dirt and blood all over myself.
They were paying more attention to her than to the poster. Bella smiled, but I could see the annoyance in her eyes. She’d put a lot of effort into forging that poster. She was proud of it, and these guards were only interested in gawking at her.
“Are you going to let us in already?” Calli said, tapping her foot impatiently. “We’re on a tight schedule.”
Silver Guard blinked, stammering, “Yes, of course, I wouldn’t want to be in the way of your tight schedule.” As he spoke the word tight, he stared right at Bella’s ass. What an idiot.
I rolled my eyes at Bella from behind the guard’s back. She swallowed a snort.
Calli grabbed me roughly by the cuffs, tugging me toward the door. As the guards turned to watch me struggle wildly against Calli’s hold, Bella plugged a tiny device into a power outlet in the stone wall.
I was still wondering why they’d need a power outlet outside the gates—vacuuming the drawbridge?—when Red Guard hit a button. The magic on the wall faded out, the drawbridge extended, and we walked through the gates.
“You two need to stop goofing off,” Calli whispered to us as we entered the castle. “Honestly, I expected more dignity out of a Legion soldier.”
“What can I say? You should try to have fun in whatever you do.”
“She is the black sheep of the Legion, after all,” Bella reminded Calli.
I nodded in agreement.
“That would explain why she’s so fond of black feathers.” Bella was referring to Nero’s beautiful dark feathers.
I looked at Calli. “Why do I always get the lecture anyway? Bella is goofing off just as much as I am, and she’s a witch. Even more than the Legion, the witches live and breathe dignity, from their tight corsets to those adorable little boots and cute belts.”
We passed into the courtyard between the towers. Armed guards moved about in every direction.
“It looks like they’re preparing for war,” Bella commented.
Dread sank heavy in my stomach, and I couldn’t shake the foreboding cloud hanging over my head. We had to find the prisoners and get the hell out of here. But where could Hardwicke be keeping them?
Inside, I decided, somewhere they could be secured. I scanned the castle towers, trying to locate the prison from the window placement. Surely, Hardwicke couldn’t be so cliche as to keep them in the dungeon.
On the other hand, I thought as a group of soldiers in heavy armor clanked past us, this place was one enormous medieval fantasy park.
We passed from the courtyard into the building. A guard moved forward, stopping us in our path. Tall, wide, and muscular, he would have given Jace’s bodybuilder twins a run for their money. The guard also had the benefit of a heavy suit of armor, which made him look even larger. Shiny and gold, the armor made him look like the quintessential commander of the castle guard, which was probably exactly what he was.
He wore a monstrous two-handed sword on his back. This was the sort of fellow who’d hit hard, cutting people apart with the blade, breaking noses and bones with the pommel. In a fight, I’d have to take him out before he had a chance to tear through my team.
“What are you doing here?” The guard addressed Calli, picking her out as the one in charge.
“We’ve come to collect on this bounty,” she replied, roughly tugging me forward.