Motor City Mage by Cindy Spencer Pape Page B

the gnome dropped as well.
    To Des’s horror, Lana did too. He emptied his own gun on the last of the guards, and turned back to Lana. Instead of a woman, a wolf lay on the floor, bleeding but watching him steadily, still tangled up in the tunic she’d had on. As the others checked the carnage, she shifted back to human, then back to wolf twice, finally staying human.
    “Thankfully, it was a through-and-through, so I didn’t heal the bullet inside my leg,” she said. She looked around at the others. “Oh, fuck. How many did we lose?”
    Vin stood, battered, but not down. “Three. Taslev, the gnome, and the Pethit.” Taslev must have been the other green Gravaki. It would be harder to fight them, now that Des thought of them as people. No wonder the Wyndewin had trained him not to.
    Lana leaned over the gnome and closed its eyes. She stood, still biting her lip as if to hold back tears, but her shoulders were square and her jaw firm. What a woman.
    Ordwel looked out into the stairwell. “Come on.” He hugged Nissettin before handing her off to Lana. “Their sacrifice shouldn’t be in vain.”
    “No,” Des said. “Now where’s this secret passage?”
    “Just around that corner.” Ordwel hugged the wall as he approached the corner. “Wait here,” he told the others. Des watched around the corner as Vin and Ordwel kicked open a wooden door and fired into a room. Vin threw a magical bolt into the area, and both fired their stolen guns on full automatic. Soon, Ordwel yelled back at the rest of them. “Hurry up.”
    Des led the others into the room, trying not to look at the three mangled Gravaki bodies, though he did switch out his empty gun for one of theirs.
    The room was some sort of lounge or break room. The three guards in it had been eating, based on the food now covered in blood on the table they sat around. Ordwel moved something off a shelf in the back corner of the room, and the shelf eased aside, revealing a darkened tunnel, with steps leading downward. After flicking on a light with a short spell, Vin took the lead, with Des close behind him, and the others following one by one, except for Nissettin, who still leaned on Lana. Ordwel pushed the shelf back into place and followed Fish.
    The tunnel leveled out after perhaps fifty feet of dipping lower as if going under a moat.
    After another hundred feet or so, it sloped upward again and halfway to the end, Ordwel stopped and pushed a brick on the wall. Des could just barely tell it held a small marking. A section of the wall opened into the shimmering darkness of a portal.
    “Time to go our separate ways,” Ordwel said. “I have to get Nissettin to a healer in the village. He’ll hide us until she can teleport us away.”
    The gray guy stood with them. He said something and Vin, in his Gravaki shape but still wearing his sweatpants and tight tank top from Detroit, translated. “His people will be looking for him on this world. He’s going with them.” Vin looked at Fish. “This portal goes to your world, though it’s on a different continent. That cool with you? I can transport you home from there.”
    Fish nodded and saluted Ordwel as he stepped through the portal. Lana waved and went through as well.
    “You first.” Des still didn’t entirely trust Vin. The guy had led them into an ambush once before.
    Vin nodded and vanished, with Des following closely behind.

Chapter Six
    Lana dragged in a breath after stepping through the portal. The land on the other side was wooded and dark, the air desert-dry and hot.
    Fish groaned. “This dryness hurts.”
    Des and Vin stepped out of the shimmer and Lana breathed a little easier, even though the four of them were on their own now.
    Vin cast a small light spell. The glow was dim, but it was enough to see that everyone, except Lana, in their little party was a bloody mess, and she wore nothing but a torn and blood-stained tunic. Des scowled and she carefully tugged it so it at least covered her