Read From Hell With Love: A Secret Histories Novel for Free Online Page B

“You really want to just charge right in?”
    “Two armies; one for each of us.”
    Luther shook his head slowly. “There is such a thing as overconfidence, even for a Drood.”
    “First problem,” I said. “Our armour should get us through the hotel’s outer defences okay, but we are going to set off all kinds of alarms . . . The last thing we need is for the two sides to discover who’s coming, and team up against us.”
    “Worry not,” said Luther. “I’ve got a basic can opener and alarm-suppressor that the Armourer sent through, just the other day. For testing. He thought I might find a use for it, given that LA has so many secrets to hide, and so many different ways of hiding them. It should open up the force shields and the magic screens, while shutting down the alarms. Notice my emphasis on the word should.”
    “The Armourer has always believed in the triumph of optimism over experience,” I said solemnly. “It’s not that his wonderful gadgets don’t work; it’s just that they will insist on working in unex pected ways. But you can’t complain, or he sulks. All right; let’s do it.”
    “Lock and load,” said Luther. “And God help the guilty.”
    “Native,” I said sadly. “Definitely native.”
    We moved forward, two golden statues striding across the plaza towards the Magnificat Hotel. No one noticed a thing; we were both in full stealth mode, our torcs transmitting telepathic You can’t see me! commands to all the passersby. Luther pulled something that still looked half finished from inside his armour and pointed it at the hotel. Looking through my golden mask I could clearly See the hotel shields split and break and vanish, dismissed almost casually by the Armourer’s new toy. Luther and I kept going, the last remnants of the more stubborn shields clinging and dragging at our armour as we strode through them. They broke and fell away like cobwebs, thrown off by the sheer power inherent in the armour. Shaped curses and proximity mines detonated harmlessly, and howling ghosts burst like soap bubbles as we marched right through them. Spirit bottles shattered under the patio, releasing their demons, and they reared up to grasp at our golden legs. We just kept going, dragging them along with us, and they soon broke up and fell apart, too fragile to last long outside their bottles. Defence magics shattered and spattered against our golden chests in rainbow bursts of dispersing energies.
    I kicked in the front door, shattered glass falling like hail on my shoulders, and led the way into the lobby. Two armed guards opened up on us with automatic weaponry. The bullets stitched across the front of our armour, which absorbed all the impact and then swallowed up the bullets. We worry about ricochets, these days. This rather upset the guards, who turned to run. I picked up the nearest table and threw it at them, and it slammed the two guards against the far wall like a flyswatter. Luther looked at me.
    “Now that’s not fair. I never got to do anything.”
    “You can have the next two. Where are the elevators?”

    “At the back. But they’re all locked off, till the Grand Opening ceremony tomorrow. And you need a special key, to get you to the top floor. Watch and learn.”
    He moved over to the main desk, located the main computer, and instead of powering it up and using the keyboard, he just stuck one golden fingertip against the monitor screen. Golden filaments spread out from the fingertip, spiderwebbing the screen.
    “I’m accessing the hotel’s security protocols through its own operating systems,” said Luther, quite casually. “I’ve unlocked the elevators . . . shut down the alarm systems . . . and turned off all the CCTV cameras. We don’t want any record of our being here. The armour should render us electronically invisible, but this is LA—who knows what upgrades they’ve put in? Why take a chance you don’t have to, especially when we don’t know what the auction