Midnight set the VTOL down just outside the ring of posts surrounding the cinderblock buildings, slapping the controls to power down the engines with one hand while unbuckling her safety harness with the other.

  "Wait for me!" She barked at the sound of the side hatch hissing open. After locking down the ignition, she slipped her ID lanyard around her neck. "Let me take the lead."

  "Where's the fame and glory in that?" quipped Steve.

  "Captain Walker is a guy, and he's probably the only person in here who isn't a dupe or a bad guy."

  "Oh. Go ahead then." He waved her through the hatch with a mocking little bow.

  "Watch our six, Jack?"

  "Yes, ma'am." He flipped her a little salute, then grabbed up a medical kit and passed it to Angela. She took one look at it, dropped it, and muttered something under her breath. A moment later she stood armored in police issue riot gear. Grace leaned over and picked up the discarded box, cradling it in her arms to handle the weight.

  Drew jumped out of the hatch, ignoring the steps, and landed in a sprint. She'd seen Jane cleave through the outer defenses of the building less than a minute ago and didn't want to see the same violence visited on innocent servicemen if she could help it.

  Only the Osprey's landing lights cast any light on the yard in front of the blockhouse. Smoke rose from the tops of the posts and the corners of the building. A faint glow of blue light inside the doorway drew her eye. "Agent Donaldson! Wait for us! Agent Johnson sent us as your backup!"

  The light didn't die down, but it steadied a bit. Drew took that as a good sign and charged forward. Just inside the doorway ragged holes gaped in both walls, the ceiling, and the floor. A trail of glowing blue spots led into the building, turning a corner about five feet in.

  "Agent Donaldson! Are you in here?"

  Blue light flickered around the corner, lingering on Drew before racing across the others following. Jane's voice echoed through the hall.

  "Doctor Merilyn is with you. Possessed again. Identify yourselves, and do not try to fool me."

  "I'm Drew Williams with the Blue Bloods; my code name is Midnight. Behind me are Axeman, Widget," she paused, searching her memory, before whispering over her shoulder. "What's your code name again?"

  "I'm made of ice, and I burn things. Frostfire seems to fit."

  "Right. Frostfire, and Jack Hammer holding the door against any intruders. He'll be interfacing with the MPs from the base when they arrive."

  "Thanks loads," muttered Jack, but his voice held the ghost of a smile.

  "Am I talking to Agent Jane Donaldson?"

  Jane's voice echoed hollowly through the hall, the light growing stronger as she spoke. "Once I was known by that name. Once I sought the perpetrators of injustice with my poor, imperfect mortal vision. But now, in the pure azure light of justice, I see..." A burbling cough interrupted Jane's monologue. Anger filled her voice when she continued. “You try to fool me by hiding behind your true names, but you only fool yourselves.”

  “Are you injured?”

  “Death does not scare me! I…” Another bout of wet coughs silenced Jane once more. This one didn’t stop, and Drew heard a tiny sound of metal sliding against metal.

  “Blue Bloods! With me!” She charged around the corner. Jane, still wearing the remains of Widget’s lab coat, lay on the floor leaning against one wall. Glowing blue blood pooled beneath her. One hand reached out toward a door beyond her, but the globe of light surrounding it flickered and died. The moment the blue glow dimmed the door slammed open.

  The glint of gunmetal spurred Midnight into motion, throwing her through the door, slamming herself against the soldier on the other side. A rapid series of pops drove the breath from her, but she managed to slam one hand into the side of her assailant’s head. He stumbled; his Kevlar cracked by the impact. Before he could regain his senses, she wrenched the gun from him, throwing it beyond Jane, well out of the soldier’s reach. Gasping to pull in a breath, she wrenched the soldier’s arm around, forcing him toward the floor.

  She dangled her badge in front of the soldier’s face while she caught her breath. Once she could speak, she twisted his arm one more time to get his attention.

  “Soldier, did you see my badge?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “My name is Drew Williams. You may refer to me as Midnight. I am a contracted law enforcement officer, currently representing the Federal Bureau of Investigation. What is your name and rank?”

  “Private First Class Mike Adams. Ma’am?”

  “What is it, PFC Adams?”

  “Why the hell did that freak blow her way into the compound?”

  Midnight stumbled a bit, twisting Mike’s arm further. When his hiss of indrawn breath ended, she spoke firmly and clearly. “Special Agent Donaldson came on base in pursuit of a kidnapping victim she’d tracked to this location. When whoever was manning your guns decided to open fire, she defended herself. Aggressively. Apparently not aggressively enough, since she’s bleeding to death in the hallway behind me. Now, if you’re very lucky, and our field medic manages to keep her alive, you might avoid being put up on charges if you cooperate.”

  “Ma’am, I had no idea she was a real FBI Agent. I thought she was just some nutcase trying to bust in. When she started throwing blue light around, I thought we were under attack by one of those… blue blooded individuals with powers, Ma’am.”

  “And what about the kidnapping victim we came here in search of?”

  “Which one would that be, ma’am?”

  Midnight kept the shock out of her voice, if not off her face. “Explain.”

  “When I was assigned here, I was told we were guarding two extremely dangerous military criminals, experts in subversion and psych warfare. We were instructed to take our cues from the only remaining soldier from the former detail, and he told us not to talk to the prisoner; our predecessors had, and they were sent off to the ass end of nowhere. Begging your pardon, Ma’am.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Is one of your prisoners a Captain John Walker?”

  “I have no idea, Ma’am. Oscar might.”

  “You cowardly sonofabitch!” A metallic orb followed the scream from around the next corner of the hallway. Reason gave way to instinct, and she leapt toward the tiny bouncing projectile. Before she could swat it back toward the hidden aggressor, she heard another door slam. Instead, she pulled it in, wrapping herself around it.

  “Grenade!”

  A door slammed behind her. A giant kicked her in the stomach, and Drew’s world filled with light, heat, and pain.

  ***

  Grace heard Midnight’s shout, but before she could respond Jack pushed past her, slamming the heavy armored door closed. A moment later a dull thump sent ripples through Jane’s pooling blood. Grace set the medical kit down and opened the top. As she did, the sides slid outward to display a rack of equipment and supplies. She reached for the bandages, but a soft hand on her shoulder stopped her.

  “Not yet; she’ll need something sopping the blood from the direct hits or she’ll bleed out internally.” Steve’s voice, uncharacteristically subdued, left her reassured, but set her heart racing, nonetheless.

  “Do you wish to do this?”

  “You gonna lay smackdown if more gun bunnies show up?”

  “They’re soldiers doing their duty, Axeman.” Jack’s voice conveyed less disapproval than the content of his statement.

  “Oh. My. Protocol. Proper respect. I so regret not having those. You gonna smack down the duped soldiers, Frostfire?”

  Grace rolled her eyes and shook her head. “No. I think not. What should I do?”

  “See the tampons?”

  Grace didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm from her voice. “I don’t believe her menstrual cycle is the problem.”

  “Ooh. You’re feisty when you get riled. Pity about the potential for frostbite. Anyhow, stick them into the bullet wounds. They’ll soak up the blood.”

  Grace leaned close to Jane and spoke in a clear, soft voice, “Agent Donaldson, can you show me where you’ve been hit?”

  Jane pulled her hand away from her gut, exposing a pair of ragged wounds. When she did, another half dozen small gashes on her arm tore open and began oozing glowing blue at an alarming rate.

  “Ah, shit. Gut wounds suck, and those cuts are gonna bleed her out fast.” Steve’s axe clanked to the ground, and then he was there, pushing Jane’s hands aside and stretching her skin out taut. The smell of burning pork filled the hallway, but Steve only winced.

  “Look, blue eyes, I’m all for getting hot and heavy when you’re healed up, but right now that’s burning the shit out of my gut.” He nodded to the wounds, and Grace quickly unwrapped and inserted the hygiene products. The moment they were in, he released Jane’s stomach and grabbed at her head, forcing it around to face him. Tendrils of blue light danced over his face and body.

  “Frosty, grab that glue gun and glue those limb wounds shut. You,” he shook Jane’s head slightly, causing all the tendrils to wobble, “cut that burning blade shit out. Right. Now.”

  The sizzle of burning fat went silent, and Grace applied herself to closing up wound after bleeding wound. Halfway through the process she exerted her will, and Widget’s lab coat became a cloud of dispersing ash.

  “That ought to be a hell of a lot hotter, Frosty.”

  Frostfire.

  Grace shuddered as the voice of eternity once more echoed through her head from a million miles away. “Frostfire, please.”

  “Sure. Anybody who can mess with the laws of physics that bad I’m not gonna mouth off to.” He grinned up at her while he grabbed up a pair of gun style injectors from the medical kit. “Unless it gets you hot. Does it get you hot when I get mouthy?”

  You have no idea what I’m capable of, little shifter.

  Grace just smiled back, faint wisps of fog rolling off her as a wave of damp air rolled into the corridor. The moment she finished gluing the last cut shut, he waved her back and rammed the smaller of the two injectors into Jane’s bicep, the larger into the crook of her other elbow. The hiss of injectors competed with the renewed sizzle of burning flesh.

  “I told you, Janey, I’m not into fire play. If that’s the only way you can get off, we’re gonna have a problem.”

  “Axeman, knock it off.”

  “Hey, you keep a civil tongue when someone’s trying to make haggis out of your guts without bothering to remove them first.”

  “Yeah, but the MPs might not get your particular brand of humor.”

  Grace looked up from her patient to see two men in uniform standing in the remains of the hallway. One of them looked shaken, but the other stepped forward. “Corporal Rogers, sir. You’re with the FBI?”

  Jack and Steve both held their badges out for inspection. Angela fumbled under her armored vest, but then did the same. When the soldiers turned to Grace, she shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t have a badge, gentlemen.”

  Jack glanced at her. “We’ve got to get that fixed. Of course, if it keeps going the way your clothes do, that’s gonna be a problem.”

  “Sir, is she supposed to be here?”

  “Yeah. She’s a trainee on her first field mission. I’ll vouch for her, but if you need her to, she can stay up here with the wounded. She’s already seen this much.”

  The corporal looked mulish for a moment, but after looking at Grace kneeling in Jane’s cooling blood he nodded. “That’ll do, sir. What’s the situation?”

  “The servicemen inside opened fire on Agent Donaldson when she attempted to gain access. She defended herself, but they took her down with a mantrap in the corridor here. When we arrived, she was standing them off. We captured one and were sorting out what was going on our own selves when someone just beyond here,” he nodded at the heavy steel door, “tossed a grenade. That was about a minute ago.”

  “We should wait for backup before we go through, I guess.”

  Jack just smiled at the Corporal. “Nah. I took a peek through right after the grenade went off. You’ll want to stay out here until the Doc’s got things copacetic in there, but the situation is… static for the moment.”

  “Is it worse than out here?” The corporal nodded to where Steve had shifted Jane.

  “Different, that’s for sure.” He looked over to Widget, who stood frowning. “You ready to go in, Doc?”

  “I’m as prepared as I can get. For the life of me, I can’t seem to summon up anything to block my vision. I believe I’m getting a firmer grip of the limitations of that ability.”

  The corporal pursed his lips. “She’s going in blind?”

  “Yes, corporal, I am. Beyond this door lies something which has tested the control of greater men and women than I. Last time I used a welding mask I had lying around, but I don’t have anything convenient at the moment.”

  Gauze ripped where Steve knelt on the floor next to Jane. “Yeah. I got half a roll of this left after wrapping her so the plugs don’t fall out. She needs surgery, stat.”

  “You hit her with the stabilizer and the blood replacement serum?”

  “Yep. No protein shake though. I’m not into unconscious chicks.”

  Jack reached down, took the gauze, and then slapped the firefighter on the back of the head. “Keep a civil tongue when we’ve got guests, Axe.” Unspooling the bandage, he wrapped it around Doctor Merilyn’s head several times and then tied it off. “Will that do?”

  Widget twisted her head left, right, up and down, and then nodded once. “Good to go.”

  With that Jack slipped the door open just wide enough for the doctor to slip through, careful to keep his back to the door and his body between the opening and the MPs the entire time. When she got through, he pushed it nearly shut, leaving an opening just wide enough for them to hear her fumbling exploration of the hallway.

  “It appears PFC Adams got lucky. The blast knocked him unconscious. Some bleeding, but his pulse is steady. We’ll want to drag him out of here as soon as is feasible; I think he’ll be waking up soon.”

  “That’s lucky?”

  The MPs whisper must have carried through the door. Widget’s reply held the cold, clear detachment of a professional medical practitioner. “It most certainly is. From what I’m feeling, Midnight suffered no major cuts or lacerations, even at the point of contact with the grenade.”

  The MP let out a low whistle. “I’d heard you guys were tough, but… damn. How did they get her?” He nodded to Jane.

  “We’re not all tough. She’s more of a mortar than a tank.”

  “Right. Well, we’re good to go in then, right?”

  Jack stopped him with an upraised palm just as Widget’s voice echoed through the door. “Not really. Two other things I should note. First, the next door appears to be jammed, since they haven’t unlocked it and opened fire. Second, I need to get Midnight tougher armor.”

  “God, tell me she’s not naked again,” groaned Steve.

  “No. Not really,” temporized Widget. “After all, the back half of her body armor survived.”