That explained the gloves. The glove on the right hand covered the firing port. The glove vanished with the roar of the cybergun and a flaring red tongue of fire.
As the roar began to fade, Rico had the Predator from his hip holster gripped in his hand and coming up, coming on-line, and putting a red targeting indicator on the suit's face.
In the background, on the far side of the limo, the suit's cutter was moving.
This time, Rico realized, the game was for keeps.
Bandit discerned nothing of any interest on or around the parking field or for a kilometer or more in any direction. The spells he used uncovered no imminent threats, no enemies. The only thing that really seemed to merit his attention was the suit's limousine.
In astral space, the distance between Thorvin's van and the limo was negligible. Bandit crossed it in practically no time at all. Getting further than that was another matter. The limo at first seemed like an ordinary car, but that wasn't quite true. Something about it was wrong, out of character for a car. Several minutes of probing brought Bandit an answer. The limo was protected by a powerful ward. He hadn't realized this before because the ward was masked, hidden, deliberately concealed. This was very unusual. Concealing a ward was difficult. It suggested to him that someone or something of great value must be inside the limo. Unraveling the ward would be a worthy challenge.
Before he could finish, however, he assensed the violence erupting around him on the physical plane, and gained a sudden insight as to the reason for the limo's astral ward.
He returned to his physical body, looked toward Thorvin, and said, "I think there's a mage in that car."
"What CAR?" Thorvin shouted over the roar of gunfire.
"The limousine."
The blast of the cybergun caught Dok completely off-guard. He saw the suit lift a hand palm-out, then that hand disappeared behind a flaring of fiery red. The blast assaulted his ears. He caught himself in mid-stride, saw Rico's gun coming up and felt Surikov falling, pulling him off-balance.
Dok tightened his hold on Surikov's arm, but it was pointless. The man dropped like meat, collapsing onto his back. Dok staggered, men caught his balance, looking down in time to see the results of the suit's single shot unfolding. The blast from the cybergun had shredded Surikov's neck. He was dead or close to it. Dok began bending toward the man and opened his mouth to shout, but too late. It happened too fast. Surikov's eyes quivered like gelatin, then began boiling. A dark, viscous fluid began trickling from his ears. Steam swirled. The man's face began collapsing in on itself. Dok knew exactly what was happening. He'd seen effects like this before. Not every cortex bomb was designed for explosive force. Some were rigged with white phosphorous or burn-gel. They might be keyed to life signs, or to a remote, and they left nothing behind but a puddle of simmering goop.
Filly shouted into his face.
Autofire erupted.
The Predator hammered the night like a cannon. The suit staggered backward, head snapping back, blood splashing his chest, Rico turned and hurled himself into a dive.
Heavy weapons thundered. Rico recognized the rapid-fire stammering of the minigun atop Thorvin's van and the higher-pitched bursts of Shank's M22A2 assault rifle. There was also a quick, clattering burst that might have been from an SMG. Rico thought of the suit's cutter. Probably him.
He tucked and rolled and came up running. All he had to do now was make it to Thorvin's van without getting his cojones shot off. Slot in and run.
One minute everything was calm and peaceable-like. In the next, Surikov was down and Rico was blasting away with that heavy auto of his, and targeting indicators were popping up all over the place and heavy autofire was coming in from every direction.
So much for any advance warning!
Never trust a freaking shaman for anything!
Thorvin revved bis supercharger and spun the weapons pods up top. Hostiles were coming up right out of the ground, like from manhole covers and storm drains. He set his minigun to stammering and fired a broad pattern of minigrenades, smoke and concussion both. What really worried him was the pair of bogies just now appearing on his radar overlay.
"PAIR OF BIRDS INCOMING!" he roared.
Make my freaking night.
Bandit stepped out through the open side door of the van and took a quick look around.
Just beyond the Eurovan that Rico and Shank had brought along was the suit's shiny black limousine. Bandit couldn't see the suit anymore. The slag had fallen, and Bandit had an idea he might be dead. Raccoon did not care much for killing or for any kind of fighting, but this was probably an exceptional situation. Things did not look good.
A few steps in front of him, between him and the Eurovan, Shank was shooting away on full auto.
Then the mana shifted. It had nothing to do with Shank. Bandit sensed what was coming before he had any real right to know. He lowered his head a little and leaned toward his left to peer around the front end of the Eurovan. From there, he saw something move on the far side of the suit's limo. The mage was emerging, standing up, using the limousine for cover. A dark hood cast his features in shadow, but not his aura. Bandit's eyes widened as he saw the pulsating power hi the mage's astral form. They widened still further as he assensed the power of the spell the mage was drawing together.
This was very bad.
Swirling energy coalesced and condensed, growing more intense, more menacing. The world seemed to slip toward blackness as the mana mounted rapidly toward a climax. Bandit wondered what would happen when that climax finally came, but decided against waiting to find out. He had a very, very strong feeling that he would not like the effects of the mage's spell one bit.
Rather than wait, he murmured two words and pointed. From his finger shot a slender stream of energy that blended with the forces gathering around the mage. Momentarily, the mage hesitated and wiped at his eyes. Then he coughed, and then he was growling and clasping his hands to his face as he hacked and coughed and rasped for breath. The stench of the vapors that now swirled around him would spread quickly. The nauseating odors took effect at once.
The mage abruptly bent over and vomited.
Bandit nodded. Another lesson learned. Powerful, complex spells had their uses. Raccoon preferred to keep things simple wherever possible. Here, simple made complex irrelevant. Or almost irrelevant. For another moment, the energies the mage had conjured continued to gather, uncontrolled, building toward a new climax, a chaotic release of immense power.
This could be bad.
Really bad.
A crackling detonation rushed across the night sky, growing in strength and volume until suddenly it erupted and a searing bolt of pure white energy struck down out of the night. Dok felt more than saw it. The hairs running up his spine to his neck stood on end. A tremendous blast shook the ground. A roaring explosion followed. A blinding white light flared. For an instant, it was like watching a nuke explosion on trid. Out the corners of his eyes, Dok glimpsed what he thought was the suit's Toyota limo leaping off the ground, disintegrating into whirling, razor-edged bits of shrapnel.
Somewhere between that first immense blast and the roaring explosion that followed, Dok felt Filly bump into his side, and suddenly she was falling right in front of his feet.
Caught in mid-stride, halfway around the front end of the Eurovan, Dok pitched forward and plunged to the pavement. He heard Shank bawling, "COVERRRRR!" He heard that roaring explosion and caught a glimpse of the disintegrating limo. He thought for sure that Filly must've stumbled. Or maybe she'd heard that first ground-shaking blast and just instinctively went prone.