Crossfire (Book 1) (The Omega Group) (17 page)

Mirissa pulled the Humvee into the driveway of Daedric’s
house. There was no need for stealth as Daedric already new she was coming. A
quick glance around told her there were at least six pairs of eyes watching
her, so she turned off the engine, pocketed the keys, and slowly exited the
vehicle.

Before she had taken even a few steps, a tall man that
looked to be in his forties appeared a few feet in front of her.
This must
be the teleporting thing Mom was talking about,
she thought.
He was
looking at her with a smile on his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes and,
without a word, he walked to the front door, gesturing for Mirissa to follow.

This is it,
Mirissa thought
.
The look in her
host’s eyes reminded her of the cartoon characters she had watched as a kid.
The evil fox looking at a scared chicken and seeing it as a savory roast on a
platter.

“Where are they?” Mirissa asked when she reached the top of
the front stairs.

“They are quite safe. I’ll take you to them if you like,”
Daedric said.

Mirissa took in every detail of this man’s face. From a
distance, she had to admit, he was an attractive man. He stood about an inch
and a half taller than she did and wore a beautifully tailored designer suit
over his slender yet muscled physique. His black hair was cut short and swept
off his face, while his blue eyes were cold steel. Despite his physical beauty,
Daedric emanated an evil so clear that as soon as she got close to him, all
attraction was lost.

A shiver ran through her as Daedric took her arm and led her
into the house. Mirissa didn’t speak as he guided her toward the back of the
house; rather she tried to memorize as many details of the layout as possible.
They passed dozens of men in uniforms, scattered throughout the first floor,
all of which eyed her with a mixture of trepidation and suspense
. Perhaps
they were waiting for the big show
.

Upon reaching a set of large double doors, Daedric stopped
before opening them and turned to her. “I must say, young Mirissa. I am a little
disappointed. Over the twelve years since I learned of your existence I have
often wondered what you would be like. Your destiny being what it was, I
expected someone more”—he paused as though trying to find the right
word—“Formidable.”

Mirissa gave him her best “I’m bored” stare. There just
didn’t seem to be any reason to engage this maniac in conversation. She focused
only on getting her father out of this place safely. In the hopes of moving
things along, she reached past her host and opened the door.

Mirissa’s heart leapt into her throat as she took in the
scene in front of her. Daedric’s soldiers surrounded a large stage at the far
end of the room. Her father was tied to a post in the center of it. The two
SEALs on one side, and Grainger and his wife on the other, bound and kneeling.
The expression on her father’s face as she walked in the room went from
defiance to defeat in an instant.

Although she wanted more than anything to run to her
father’s side and wrap her arms around him, she kept her emotions in check
.
Stay calm. Stay focused
. Turning to Daedric, Mirissa said in a voice that
she hoped sounded stronger than she felt, “You have me; now let them go.”

“I don’t believe I can do that. You see, young Mirissa,
Grainger betrayed me when he helped the Omega group escape their safe house.
His fate, and the beautiful Meghan’s, was a foregone conclusion. Your father
and his Navy friends sealed their own fates when they broke into my home. What
kind of example would I be setting for my men if I simply let them walk away?”

Mirissa fisted her hands so tightly that her fingernails
threatened to draw blood from her palms. The now familiar sensation of her
powers began to course through her body as her ring came to life, wrapping
around her arm and extending its blade. It took all of her self-control to keep
from shattering every window in the room, but she couldn’t allow herself to do
that. Mirissa had no knowledge of her powers until yesterday, so there was no
way that Daedric could know of her abilities. Yes, she was on his home turf,
surrounded by his army, but she did have that one advantage.

With lightning speed, Mirissa swung her blade at Daedric’s
throat with enough force to sever his head, but her blade hit nothing but air.
His teleportation powers made him a difficult target as he moved instantly from
one side of her to the other. Sensing his presence behind her, Mirissa
continued her swing another 180 degrees, only to be met with air again.

A low, rumbling chuckle came from the stage, where Daedric
now stood next to her father. “You are fast, Mirissa, but not nearly fast
enough. Perhaps my anonymous caller had it wrong all those years ago. Again,
I’m disappointed.”

Mirissa watched as her father pushed himself as far away
from Daedric as he could with his arms still tethered to the post behind him,
and looked her right in the eye. She knew he must have been pleading with her
to run and save herself. But as she looked into his eyes she didn’t see worry
or sadness or pleading. Instead she saw determination. He stared at her,
flicked his gaze behind him and slightly down, then back at her again. As his
intent dawned on her, she gave an almost imperceptible nod of her head.

“So, you’re the big, bad, Daedric. I have to say, I’m a
little disappointed, too.” Mirissa said with a smirk. “Don’t get me wrong. That
teleporting thing is cool and all, but you have to admit it’s really just a
faster way for you to run like a little girl. I expected a lot more from a
half-breed god than that.”

The ice in Daedric’s eyes turned to fire as he shot his arms
in front of him and Mirissa was thrown violently through the air. She landed
hard on her behind but used her martial arts training to tuck and continue the
roll until she was up on her feet again.

She sauntered back toward him as she continued to taunt.
“So, teleportation and telekinesis. That’s two of the three T’s. What about
telepathy?” Mirissa waited with her eyebrows raised, then continued. “Guess
not. Must be the half-breed thing.”

Daedric was shaking with anger now and Mirissa could see the
blanched white faces of his men surrounding the stage.
Just another minute.
Keep focusing on me.

The snake on Mirissa’s arm began to vibrate. Just a slight
tingle at first, then it felt as though her entire arm was inside a sub-woofer
at a heavy metal concert. Something was happening, but she didn’t know what.

Daedric walked toward her with his arm outstretched and his
hand fisted so tightly his knuckles were white. “Something wrong?” she asked.
His frown turned quickly to a snarl as he lowered his arm. The vibration in her
arm dissipated immediately.

All eyes in the room were on her, which was exactly what she
wanted. Behind Daedric, she could see her father and his SEAL team friends
silently communicating through looks and small gestures, just as they’d done a
hundred times before. A moment later they made their move.

With their bindings falling to the floor thanks to Mirissa’s
newfound powers, the three of them jumped off the stage toward their guards,
incapacitating one each with a well-placed chop to the throat. Before the
bodies hit the floor, they were stripped of their knives. Her father and
Blackjack took out the next two guards with a quick upward thrust of those
deadly blades under their rib cages and into their hearts, while Lincoln threw
his knife expertly at the sixth man’s chest. It all happened in mere seconds.

Daedric turned in time to see the last man drop to the floor
with nothing but the hilt of the knife protruding from his chest. He let out a
primal yell, but before he could raise his hands against her father, Mirissa
swung her left hand out and Daedric was yanked off his feet and thrown to the
wall. At the same time, she raised her right hand and pushed it fiercely
forward. The entire wall of windows behind the stage blew out in a cacophony of
shattered glass. “Run!” she screamed.

Grainger, who had pulled his wife behind the stage when the
fighting started, now grabbed her by the arm and dragged her outside. They
turned to the right and were gone.

Mirissa watched, horrified, as her father ran into the room
toward her, instead of running out. “Go!” she yelled.

“Not without you,” he said calmly. He grabbed her hand and
pulled her to the now open back wall.

As more of Daedric’s guards streamed into the room, Mirissa
and her father ran, with his two former teammates right on their heels. When
they rounded the stage she looked over her shoulder in time to see Daedric
raise both hands above his head in a wide sweeping motion. He looked like a
conductor bringing his orchestra to a dramatic crescendo. A moment later
Mirissa and her father hit what felt like a cement wall.

Her nose bloodied by the impact of Daedric’s force field,
Mirissa turned back toward the room. The guards, more than two-dozen of them,
formed a line behind their boss that stretched from one side of the room to the
other. Their assault rifles were raised and at the ready.

“Not bad,” Daedric said as he clapped his hands in a mock
show of appreciation. “You caught me off guard. Not something that happens very
often. But did you really think it would be that easy?”

Mirissa remained silent.

“Not so chatty now, are we young Mirissa? No matter. I have
other ways of entertaining myself.” With a quick look over his shoulder,
Daedric gave the order. “Shoot the one on the left.”

A moment later, Lincoln grabbed his chest as the bullet tore
through him. Steve and Blackjack jumped to his side as he fell to the floor,
the red stain on his shirt spreading quickly. Steve put pressure on the chest
wound in a desperate attempt to save his friend’s life, but it was too late.
Lincoln’s vacant stare said he had already passed.

“You bastard!” Steve screamed as he launched himself at
Daedric. Before he’d made it even three steps he was jerked from the floor and
flung against the wall so hard the drywall gave way in a man-shaped depression.
Blackjack grabbed the knife that was still embedded in a dead guard’s chest and
threw it with everything he had at Daedric. His aim was true, but the blade
stopped a few feet short of hitting its target and fell uselessly to the floor.
Another flick of Daedric’s wrist and the SEAL was thrown to the ceiling before
falling unceremoniously to the floor, his left arm bent at an unnatural angle.

“Stop!” Mirissa wailed.

Daedric simply raised his eyebrows and waited for her to
continue.

“I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt them anymore.”

“No, Mirissa. Please,” Steve begged.

“Dad, I love you. I need you to know that.” Mirissa turned
so she was facing her father head-on but could still see Daedric on her left in
her peripheral vision. She felt the tears welling in her eyes as she spoke.
“You are the most important person in my life and I can’t let you be hurt, or
worse, because of me. Just know that what comes next is because I love you.”

Unbeknownst to Daedric, Mirissa had used these last moments
to not only say goodbye to her father, but to ensure his safety as well. She’d
been forcing her blade into the wall of energy that was separating them from
the outside, using her body to shield the movement. She didn’t know if she had
the ability to erect such a barrier, but she was sure she could break one down.
As the power surged from her body into the snake wrapped around her arm and
down the blade into the wall, Mirissa felt the energy expanding until it hit
critical mass. There was an audible “pop” when the wall finally disintegrated.

“Sorry. This is gonna hurt.”

Mirissa immediately did two things at once. Swinging her
right arm in a wide arc, she used her power to lift her father and Blackjack
into the air and flung them outside with all the strength she had. She watched
them sail over the yard toward the water until the sun, still rising in the
eastern sky, blinded her to their progress. All the while she used her left
hand to create miniature tornadoes, seven of them, whirling around Daedric and
his men.

Once Mirissa felt she’d carried her father and Blackjack a
good enough distance, she turned her full attention to Daedric. The cyclones
were causing havoc with the guards, stripping them of their weapons and turning
everything in the room that wasn’t nailed down into deadly shrapnel. They were
effectively out of the game.

Daedric, on the other hand, was cocooned safely in another
one of his force fields. His shield was acting the same way Beck’s had during
the attack at the safe house, which was what Mirissa had counted on. It was
keeping everything out—the shrapnel, the errant bullets from startled guards,
and the cyclones themselves—but it was also stopping him from fighting back.

As she stepped toward the opening in the wall, Mirissa could
feel her power waning. There was no way for her to know what her limits were
but she had the distinct impression that she was quickly reaching them. One
last burst to ensure the cyclones would continue to spin long enough to allow
her escape, and she turned to run, catching a glimpse of Daedric as she did.

He was smiling.

Why is he smiling?

When the water hit her it was like standing in front of the
business end of a fire hose. The wind was knocked from her lungs at the sheer
force of it. She was sent tumbling back into the room, both flying over the
floor and impacting brutally against it as she somersaulted violently. The back
of her head hit something solid while the rest of her body continued to somersault
until it, too, made contact.

The water stopped as suddenly as it had started and Mirissa
fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs and dripping hair. She struggled to pull
air into her lungs as she righted herself as best she could. She felt as though
every ounce of her strength had been sucked out of her, leaving her too weak to
stand. She lifted her chin enough to see the source of the water jet that had
pummeled her and immediately wished that she hadn’t.