The absorbed heat of the day leeched out from the sidewalks and buildings, providing me an endless stream of updraft that kept me aloft with minimal effort. I didn’t need to know which roof I was looking for, I just followed the glowing arrow in my vision. I heard the faint rumbles of low revving cars as the other gang members drawn in by the spotters cruised the streets. We would just have to hope we could smash our way in, find Liza, and jump out of danger again. The chances of us fighting our way past both the CID and the Disciples was zero. Our powers aside, we couldn’t survive a hail of bullets for long. Even our trusty demon lord couldn’t shield us from every barrel.

From the top down view, the square outline of the building was just a mass of red dots, surrounded by yellow markers of neutrality. I expected those to rapidly change as soon as we engaged the mercenaries within. There was no way to change the view, so for all I knew, there might’ve been three enemies on each floor, or all of them in one place. I’d make sure to ask Bart for a 3D system update as soon as we were clear.

I swooped around on the thermal currents, surveying our target. Thanks to my radically enhanced vision, I spied two cameras on the rooftop attached to a set of overhead pipework. One was aimed at the steel rungs of the fire escape, and the other at the same style of roof access that we’d recently passed through. A glimmer of light caught on something else just below the parapet wall, and it looked to be a small dome. As I circled, I found another one on the outside of the structure housing the lift motors, directly facing the first.

Electronic trip wires?

It made sense that they would have protection on top of protection. I wasn’t versed in military security measures. Whether they were a form of mine that would blow in the event of the beam being cut was an unknown.

Probably best not to find out.

Leaving the roof, I dropped lower, flying around the building. In protecting their position with steel shutters at the windows, I easily found them on the eighth floor. The homes above and below were just that, and I found families playing board games or eating dinner, the TV screens blank. We’d have to be extremely careful or they would get caught in the crossfire.

The Disciples below were completely unaware of my presence as they smoked drugs and drank. They were still looking for us up and down the street, but they didn’t think to look straight up.

I beat my powerful wings, rising once more, and began circling again. Finding nothing else of note, I slowly swooped in, catching the wind in my wings to settle gently on the rusting pipe. Shuffling sideways, my talons clinked on the metal. Each of the cameras had two wires, and I guessed the thinner one to be their output. If not, I was about to become fried chicken. Or eagle, to be more precise. Catching the cable in my beak, I worried at it, stripping back the insulation. Getting a better purchase, I started to yank my head back, until whatever connection lay within the housing snapped and I was left with a frayed end that wasn’t sparking. Repeating the manoeuvre with the second camera, I flew off and climbed higher.

I got to about a hundred feet above the rooftop, cupped my wings, and hovered with the aid of the wind I caught. To my right, I saw Cris and the others bounding across the gaps, proving that the levitation spell wasn’t tied to the ground. They held off crossing the final alley, which was fortuitous as my plan yielded its fruit. The reinforced access door swung open, and a man stepped through, sweeping the roof with the scope of his rifle. A second followed, clearing the other corners. They moved through the invisible beams without anything going boom, but I still didn’t trust that they hadn’t just deactivated them for their checks.

The first soldier reached the cameras, saw the damage, and whirled around with rifle raised again. He searched the shadows slowly, before reaching up to his throat. “The wires are hanging from the cameras.”

The reply was lost to his earpiece, but he looked back and checked them again. “Negative, they look like they’ve been chewed and pulled. No signs of cutting.”

His partner was scanning the other rooftops, and I was heartened to see my companions were holding off. They couldn’t see our goal from their vantage, so it could’ve just been their intuition. Below me, the partner was leaning over the parapet, checking for any signs of trespass. With the sheer drop waiting, they’d have had to be Spiderman. Or me.

“Can you roll back the feed? There’s no sign of life up here,” asked the camera inspector, his guard still firmly up.

The second man looked over the fire ladder, checked the escape route, and then shook his head.

“Then I don’t know what to tell you. Rats or something? You know how those fuckers love chewing cables for their insulation.”

He checked the wires once more.

“Fucked if I know. Just lucky I guess. They had a fifty-fifty chance of snagging the juice and got away with it. Twice. What do you want me to do?”

Leaning in closer, he pulled one of the wires towards himself.

“Not a chance. We’ll need to put a call in to one of our engineers.”

He muttered a curse under his breath as the unheard reply came back.

“You really want us to babysit a fire escape because of some vermin? What did the feed show?”

Rubbing a frustrated hand over his face, he gave his partner the wanker sign before responding.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. There’s nothing up here. There’s nothing to watch out for. Unless the rats are planning on attacking us.”

The other soldier shrugged and lowered his gun.

Camera guy shook his head wearily. “Yeah, yeah, fine. I’ll spot the first hour, but you best not mess with my hand.”

Whatever came back had him chuckling.

“Fuck you. Tonight’s my night. I can feel it. Out.”

“You sure you’ll be ok up here, all by your lonesome?” mocked the other mercenary. “I can stay and keep you safe.”

“Fuck you, asshole. Don’t think I’m not taking your money too.”

The second man burst out laughing and headed back down into the stairwell. I waited for a few seconds as the newly appointed sentry moved to the ladder and lit up a cigarette. Letting the wind push me to the other side of the building, I landed out of sight and transformed back into human form. We had our way in, and they had no idea what was about to hit them. I slipped into my silkweb set, and moved with caution around the small structures on the roof. When the guard was in sight, I withdrew my sharktooth dagger and phased directly behind him with my shimmer strike. Rather than stabbing him, I held the point under his chin with enough pressure to let him know what it was.

“I’m…” was all I managed to whisper as he used my grip to lift both feet and kick off against the wall. We slammed back onto the roof, and it was only because he was holding his smoke that he hadn’t fired off a burst of bullets in warning. He bucked and twisted, driving elbows back into my ribs in an effort to break free. Having no choice, I rammed the blade up through his mouth and brain. He twitched in my grasp, gurgling wetly as the last breath bubbled from his lips. Feeling disgusted with myself, I kicked off his corpse and stared into the dark sky. At least the quick kill had spared me the spectacle of him drowning from the inside out.

He wasn’t the first, and he’d be far from the last.

The reminder did nothing to help.

I’d hoped to get confirmation of Liza from the soldier, as well as their number and positions. What I got was another stain on my soul. Climbing to my feet, I dragged the body into the darkest corner, mindful of the possibly reactivated beams. I carefully removed the live mic and earpiece before slipping it into my pack. Changing back to my avian form, I circled over my friends and cawed to indicate the way was clear. Cris cast the spell on Sun and Cody who gamely leapt across the gap as if it was nothing. I was waiting on the last roof as they landed, back in my true form.

“They’ve got motion sensors on the floor. When we get across, just follow my lead, ok?”

“What did you do with the cameras?” asked Cody.

“Ripped out the cable. They sent people to check, and I, uh, I took care of the one left on guard. They’re on the eighth floor, but there are civilians all around.”

“There needn’t be,” said Cris, mysteriously. “Is everyone ready?”

Sun and Cody took up position as if they were about to start a race. With two quick swirls of her hands, Cris nodded and they ran forward as she cast the spell. They soared over the street below, easily making the distance. Once they had landed, I saw Cody point out the dangers of the ankle high sensors to Sun.

Cris turned to me. “You want to try it too? It’s not as much of a rush as flying, but it’s still pretty cool.”

“Do you have enough mana potions?”

“Plenty,” she confirmed. “Are you ready?”

My old friend vertigo tried to dig himself from the grave, so I picked up my shovel, beat the hand to a pulp, and covered him back up. It was so bizarre to be completely free of the fear in bird form, even though it was a damned sight higher, but riddled with doubt as a human facing a ledge and narrow alley. Before I could change my mind, I nodded. “Let’s do it.”

We took up the same positions as our companions, and I pushed off at Cris’s command. Jumping at the edge of the roof, I felt the weight of gravity fall away from me as I floated out into space. Rather than panicking which would’ve been my default response, I went with it. Sun and Cody caught us both, preventing our feet from disturbing the sensors if they were live.

Cris caught sight of the boots sticking out from behind the lift motor housing and gave me a look of commiseration. “You ok?”

“Yeah, he left me no choice,” I replied. “You said something about the civilians?”

“It might alert the CID that something’s amiss, but it’ll clear the building,” she said, no less cryptically. When she pulled out one of her own torches, I understood what she meant.

“You’re going to light a fire?”

“No need,” she replied, moving into the stairwell, looking around. “Yup, just as I thought.”

I spied the sprinkler overhead as I followed her. “You’re going to flood the place?”

“Jeez, someone’s watched too many movies. They open one by one, not altogether,” she said.

“Let’s pro and con this first,” I warned. “Pro, it’ll possibly clear the innocents before we engage. Con, it’s bound to get a lot of attention.”

Cody chimed in. “Pro, that attention might work as a good distraction. Sow a bit of chaos out among the Disciples as all the people escape the building. And don’t forget, we’ve got to engage the CID people at some point, right?”

“Pro,” said Cris, “if it does bring a few CID to the roof to investigate, we’ll have less to face in the halls below.”

“Con, why can’t they just have a fucking house in the middle of nowhere where there aren’t any people to get caught up in this shit?” I asked, sardonically.

“Con, because that would be too easy,” said Cris.

“Tell me about it,” I muttered. Retrieving the earpiece, I slipped it in. At least I might glean some information before they realised their man was dead. “Ok, do it.”

Cris raised her arm, gingerly waving the flames over the chrome head. Whatever was holding the water back burst, drenching us until we jumped back out onto the roof. The alarm started to shrill on every floor, triggering a furious diatribe over comms.

“Curly, what the fuck’s going on? Can you see any fire from up there?”

I wanted to buy some time, so I moved close to the trilling bell and pressed the transmit button. Doing my best imitation of Curly’s gruff voice, I said simply, “Negative.”

“If it’s the Disciples fucking around again, I swear to god I’ll kill the lot of them. Stay frosty, this might be linked to the cameras. I’m sending up Tops, Del, and Happy, just in case. Out.”

I let the mic drop back to my chest. “We’ve got company coming. Three of them.”

“No going back now,” said Cody, over the noise of the alarm.

“Get into stealth mode and get ready,” I said to the others. “I want them taken out as quietly as possible.”

“Shall we take one prisoner?” asked Cody.

I nodded at the feet of my first attempt. “I don’t think they’ll let us, but if the chance arises, have at it.”

We all found a suitable place to wait and phased with the background. The alarm’s shrill dirge wailed on.