Oblivion Stone. James Axler

hand automatically went to his hip, pulling free the Heckler & Koch USP he had strapped there. “Keep your head down, Harry,” he ordered Harrington, his voice low.

      A few paces ahead, Domi had pulled her Detonics CombatMaster .45 from its hidden holster at the small of her back. The handgun, finished in silver metal, looked large in her tiny, milk-colored hand. Domi scampered forward, leaping over the potholes that marred the road, making her way toward the crooked doorway of the building shell where she had detected people. She moved like something liquid, each motion blending effortlessly into the next as she sped toward the door. Edwards chased after her, his long strides struggling to keep up with her swift progress.

      As Domi reached the open doorway, its lintel hanging at an awkward thirty-degree angle, she saw a figure moving within, its features hidden in the shadows. Warily, Domi waited at the door until Edwards caught up with her.

      “On three?” Edwards proposed, mouthing the words without speaking them aloud.

      Domi nodded, and watched as Edwards counted down on extended fingers.

      When Edwards’s count reached zero, the two Cerberus warriors rushed through the doorway, guns held out before them, scanning the lobbylike room where they found themselves. The floor was littered with rubble and, when they looked up, they saw that the ceiling had almost entirely disappeared. Just its edges remained, clinging to the scarred and pitted walls of the higher stories. The whole structure had sunk by at least two stories, and so they found themselves on what was in fact the third or fourth story, despite being at ground level. There was no one inside the room, and the two warriors made their way swiftly into the next room, Domi taking point as Edwards covered her from beside the doorway.

      The movement was so quick that Domi almost missed it. In fact, it most likely would have been missed by anyone else; only Domi’s eerily heightened senses caught the motion before it disappeared from her field of vision. The figure was rushing from the room, a foot visible for a fraction of a second as it ran through the crumbling archway of the next door, the dust of rubble puffing up in its wake.

      Domi initiated pursuit, shouting, “Stay where you are. We mean you no harm.” It seemed a curious instruction. Technically, it was Domi and her team who were trespassing here, and yet they hadn’t expected to meet with anyone else after the ville had been destroyed.

      Domi dashed toward the doorway, and another of the gray-feathered gulls came swooping out, shrieking an ugly cry as it flew at her. Domi ducked, and the confused bird flew on, flapping its wings and ascending into the open area above through a gap in the broken ceiling. Behind Domi, Edwards tracked his pistol on the bird as it disappeared, before returning his attention to her progress.

      Ahead, Domi rushed through the next doorway, leaving the corridor behind her. She found herself face-to-face with a half-dozen people dressed in the ragged clothes of Outlanders. They were huddled around a fire that had been set in an upturned canister, warming their hands as they cooked several rats and birds at the ends of greasy sticks hung over the yellow flames. Domi cursed herself for missing the cooking smells—the breath mask had hidden them from her, obscuring the natural senses that she relied upon.

      The room itself was a vast open area. The floor was tiled in terra-cotta, a swirling pattern like sea spray created using a series of darker tiles within the mosaic. The tiles had been cracked by the earthquake that had shaken the ville weeks before, and a number of them were missing, now just crumbled to dust. On the far side of the room stood a counter at roughly chest height, indicating that the room had probably been some kind of reception area just a few weeks before. Now it was simply a corpse, the rotting remains of a once magnificent building.

      As Domi dashed forward, she became conscious of something coming at her from behind, and she moved just swiftly enough to avoid a harsh blow to the back of her head. She spun to face her attacker, seeing the tall figure dressed in a dark, hooded cloak with a lighter pattern in the weave. The lighter pattern was almost undetectable now, so much dirt had become ingrained in the man’s clothes.

      “Submit,” the hooded man spat, following through on his first attack.

      Domi ducked as the cloaked man lunged at her again, inexpertly driving a heavy fist toward her face. As the man’s fist sailed over her head, Domi rushed at him, barreling shoulderfirst into his gut and knocking him off his feet. The man fell backward and became tangled in his cloak even as he struggled to right himself. Leaping back, Domi held her gun on him, instructing him not to move. The whole attack and rebuttal had taken less than four seconds.

      Behind Domi, Edwards was making his way through the doorway, the black barrel of his Heckler & Koch nosing into the room before him. “Everything okay in here?” he asked.

      “Just peachy,” Domi said. “Fuckwit here tried to ambush me.”

      Edwards glanced at Domi’s would-be attacker sprawled on the cracked tiles. “Looks like you had it covered.”

      Domi’s red eyes flicked to Edwards for an instant, and he saw that her expression was one of irritation. He ignored it, turning to assess the other people in the room.

      “Now, why don’t you nice people tell us what the shit is going on here?” Edwards asked, striding toward the group huddled around the fire.

      For a moment, no one answered. Edwards glared at them, his snarl visible through the transparent cup of the breath mask. Then, keeping his movements slow and smooth so that everyone could see just what he was doing, Edwards lowered the Heckler & Koch until he had it held loosely at his side. Still, he left the safety catch off so that he could fire it at a moment’s notice.

      Then, her voice timid, a woman with ragged ginger hair and dirt-caked clothes spoke to Edwards, her pleading eyes wide. “Are you the new baron?”

      “What?” Edwards spit. “Shit, no. The barons have all gone.”

      “But how can we have a barony without a baron?” another of the ragged figures spoke up, this one a man with stubble darkening his jowls, a woollen cap pulled low over his brow.

      Other members of the group muttered their assent as they cooked the vermin over their little, contained fire.

      Domi backed across the room on light feet until she was standing beside Edwards, her pistol still pointed firmly at the hooded man sprawled on the floor. Wisely, the hooded man stayed where he was, his eyes locked on the silver barrel of Domi’s CombatMaster.

      “These guys are looking for a baron,” Edwards explained.

      “So I heard,” Domi replied, her words laced with cynicism. She glanced over her shoulder, turning her attention from the hooded man for a moment while she addressed the group. “Care to explain why your friend here attacked me?” she asked.

      “He’s a Magistrate,” the ginger-haired woman who had first addressed Edwards explained. “You must have broken laws.”

      Domi spoke to Edwards out of the side of her mouth, keeping her voice low. “The way he attacked me—guy was no Mag. Way too sloppy.”

      Edwards addressed the ginger woman, his gaze taking in the other people in the group before him. “Has your friend here been a Mag for long?” he asked. When no one answered, Edwards turned to the hooded form lying on the floor, casually turning his gun over in his hand so that it caught the light. “Well?”

      The man in the hood groaned as he spoke. “Three days,” he said. “Volunteered three days ago. Ville needs Magistrates, right? What the hell did your freak girlfriend hit me with?”

      Domi reacted angrily. “What did you call me?” she asked, taking a menacing step toward the self-proclaimed Magistrate, jabbing her gun at his face.

      “Mutie, right?” the hooded man asked. “Figures.”

      Domi looked irritated, but Edwards told her to ignore the man’s comments.

      “So,” Edwards asked, “you’re all here building a ville? That right?”

      As one, the group of stragglers