“ETA five minutes minimum. We’re still in the shuttle.”
Holly bit her lip. Root was in the shuttle?
“That’s too long, Commander. This whole town is going to explode in ten seconds . . . I’m going in.”
“Negative, Holly . . . Captain Short. You don’t have an invite. You know the law. Hold your position.”
“But, Commander—”
Root cut her off. “No! No buts, Captain. Hang back. That’s an order!”
Holly’s entire body felt like a heartbeat. Gasoline fumes were addling her brain. What could she do? What was the right decision to make? Lives or orders?
Then the troll broke through the wall and a child’s voice split the night.
“Aiuto!” it screamed.
Help. An invitation. At a stretch.
“Sorry, Commander. The troll is light-crazy and there are children in there.”
She could imagine Root’s face, purple with rage as he spat into the mike.
“I’ll have your stripes, Short! You’ll spend the next hundred years on drain duty!”
But it was no use. Holly had disconnected her mike and swooped in after the troll.
Streamlining her body, Captain Short ducked into the hole. She appeared to be in a restaurant. A packed restaurant. The troll had been temporarily blinded by the electric light and was thrashing about in the center of the floor.
The patrons were stunned. Even the child’s plea had petered out. They sat gaping, party hats perched comically on their heads. Waiters froze, huge trays of pasta quivering on their splayed fingers. Chubby Italian infants covered their eyes with chubby fingers. It was always like this in the beginning: the shocked silence. Then came the screaming.
A wine bottle crashed to the floor. It broke the spell. The pandemonium started. Holly winced. Trolls hated noise almost as much as light.
The troll lifted massive shaggy shoulders, its retractable claws sliding out with an ominous schiiick. Classic predator behavior. The beast was about to strike.
Holly drew her weapon and flicked it up to the second setting. She couldn’t kill the troll under any circumstances. Not to save humans. But she could certainly put him out until Retrieval arrived.
Aiming for the weak point at the base of the skull, she let the troll have a long burst of the concentrated ion ray. The beast staggered, stumbled a few steps, then got very angry.
It’s okay, thought Holly, I’m shielded. Invisible. To any onlookers it would seem as though the pulsing blue beam emanated from thin air.
The troll rounded on her, its muddy dreadlocks swinging like candles.
No panic. It can’t see me.
The troll picked up a table.
Invisible. Totally invisible.
He pulled back a shaggy arm and let fly.
Just a slight shimmer in the air.
The table tumbled straight toward her head.
Holly moved. A second too late. The table clipped her backpack, knocking the gas tank clean off. It spun through the air, trailing flammable fluid.
Italian restaurants—wouldn’t you know it—full of candles. The tank twirled right through an elaborate candelabrum and burst into flames like some deadly firework. Most of the gas landed on the troll. So did Holly.
The troll could see her. There was no doubt about it. It squinted at her through the hated light, its brow a rictus of pain and fear. Her shield was off. Her magic was gone.
Holly twisted in the troll’s grip, but it was useless. The creature’s fingers were the size of bananas, but nowhere near as pliant. They were squashing the breath from her rib cage with savage ease. Needlelike claws were scraping at the toughened material of her uniform. Any second now, they would punch through, and that would be that.
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 lo
t 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.