Defying Fate Read Online Free Page B

many kopides passed through the Fallon base, that didn’t mean much of anything.
    “Go on,” he told Wright.
    “That’s it. No communication within Fallon, and Zane is missing. When I lost contact, I came back immediately, per regulation sixteen—”
    “So he’s probably dead by now.” Zettel waved to an approaching pilot, who jammed a helmet onto his head as he jogged over. Wright gaped wordlessly at him. “Get back to the SUVs, Wright. You’re on the ground team.”
    He swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”
    The entire base had woken up now. In the dim light, Zettel could see lines of men pouring out of the building as they mobilized. Only the faces were visible. Their black uniforms rendered them invisible in the night.
    “The chopper’s secure for confrontation,” Allyson said. “An angel could jump in with his wings at full blast without dropping us.”
    “What do we have to do to get the rest of the power back?” Zettel asked.
    As if to respond, emergency lights flooded the platform with red light. The wail of sirens pierced the darkness.
    “Passive wards in the perimeter,” she said with a small, satisfied smile. “They even work against angels. Our newest invention.”
    “Well done,” Zettel said. A unit joined them on the tarmac: two kopides with guns and another witch. Enough power to take down most demon threats.
    They all climbed into the helicopter. Zettel turned on his earpiece. The buzz of control’s voices immediately came to life.
    Barely even midnight, and Zettel was ready to kill an angel. There were worse ways to start a day.
    It was a short flight to Fallon. Zettel hung halfway out the door, watching the spotlights scan the desert underneath them. Coyotes darted away from their light. The white tails of jackrabbits flared and vanished.
    “Control has a transmission for us,” Allyson said. She showed Zettel the screen of her cell phone. It was a blurry, pixelated feed from a uniform camera.
    A circle of power on the floor, a body in the center of a pentagram, smears of blood—it was a ritual space unlike any he had ever seen before. The body on the ground wore Union black, but the detail was too poor to make out the features of the witch beside him.
    Mono audio crackled through the speaker. “Come and get me,” said the witch.
    A white flash, and the image was gone.
    “That’s it?” Zettel asked.
    She nodded as she tucked the phone into one of her leg pouches. “We’ve been invited to party.”
    “Good thing we brought presents.”
    Zettel signaled to one of the women, who handed him an MSG90. It was a great sniper rifle—strong, but light. He sat in the door of the helicopter with his feet braced against the skids as he loaded it.
    The first signs of destruction appeared in the form of cracked roads, and the damage worsened as they approached Fallon. It looked like a shift in tectonic plates had split the highway from the main street; a few buildings were trembling, on the verge of collapse. Half of Walmart had already fallen.
    Zettel kept a hand hooked in a strap as the helicopter banked hard, whipping wind through the open door.
    “Check this out,” Allyson said, pointing over his shoulder.
    The helicopter finished its ninety-degree rotation. They hovered over a circle of devastation: flattened buildings, a flipped Union SUV, a few black-clad bodies. The ground team that had been chasing the chopper took positions around the crater.
    A dozen kopides and aspides jumped out of their vehicles, training their guns on the same point: a man standing beside three dusty bodies in the center of what used to be a bar, with a notebook in one hand and a brush in the other.
    Zettel lifted the scope of the rifle to his eye to see who had caused so much destruction, focusing the crosshairs on his cheek. Zettel recognized that face. He had seen it in Hell, right before the Union had seized control of the Palace of Dis.
    It was James fucking Faulkner: most powerful witch alive, aspis to