Read Shadow Ops 3: Breach Zone for Free Online

He’d gotten the call sign during his favorite assignment, training navy pilots to combat Aeromancers. They gave him his call sign when he left, a parting gift and a tongue-in-cheek reference to his ‘clowning’ them in the air.
    Harlequin stabbed an angry finger at the building, drew a line from it down to the row of fire trucks and ambulances pulled up outside. EMTs were still running gurneys out, working on the victims strapped to them as they went. ‘How many kids are in that building?’
    They were always mothers. Or confused. Or kids. Or a pillar of the community. There was always a reason why they ran, why they couldn’t be bothered to do the right thing, turn themselves in and comply with the McGauer-Linden Act. Harlequin knew that this Bronx housing project had been part of Ward’s beat for his entire career. He knew the Selfer, like he knew everyone else on the block. That bone-deep knowledge, that familiarity made Ward a great cop. But it also made him waver.
    Harlequin recalled the words of his Stormcraft instructor at Quantico. We’re sheepdogs, Lieutenant. The problem is, we smell just like the wolves we guard against. The sheep can’t tell the difference.
    He refused to think of people as sheep, but he understood the motivation to frame it in those terms.
    It was much easier to put down a wolf than kill a human being.
    When Harlequin came up Latent, he’d been frightened. He’d seen the path of his old life stop short, known the society that Ward enjoyed, the easy conversation with the man who owned the corner bodega, the Sundays coaching the neighborhood basketball team in the summers, the sense of belonging somewhere, would all be lost to him.
    But he’d swallowed it. Because he had to. Distasteful as it was, his instructor’s metaphor worked here. A Latent person had to decide if they were going to be a sheepdog who protected the flock or a wolf who devoured it. He’d made his choice, and he had no sympathy for those who chose otherwise. Ward, for all his law-enforcement training, couldn’t make the hard call.
    Harlequin made a fist, let the magic curl over it, felt the lightning sizzle between the tensed knuckles.
    Thus always to wolves.
    He stepped around the side of the burning building. A ground-level window burst, hot air buffeting him from inside. He summoned a wind to force it back, his anger growing with each step. Ward said the housing project contained fifteen hundred apartments. It cost the city millions. It was the place desperate people had called home for over fifty years.
    And now it was gone because a scared old lady couldn’t be bothered to make a simple phone call. To ask for help. To follow clear rules.
    Harlequin hoped she resisted. Give me an excuse.
    She crouched by the trash bins, on all fours. Her housedress smoldered, melted to her flabby torso, the pink floral print still visible in patches. Her hair smoked. She shambled on her knuckles, thick thighs quivering. Her eyes glowered, reflecting the firelight as if they glowed from within. She didn’t appear in pain despite the burned dress, which meant she was moderating the temperature around her. She had better control than he’d thought.
    Which made her all the more responsible. Ward said she’d told neighbors months ago that she feared she was possessed by the devil. How long had she known she was Latent? Every hour made the crime worse.
    Ward said he was unsure of her English. Harlequin shouted in what little Spanish he’d picked up since being assigned here. ‘ Pare! SOC!’
    She pawed toward him, growling.
    ‘ Quieto! No se mueva! ’
    She roared and coughed a gout of flame, white hot and billowing, like the breath of a dragon out of myth. Dramatic, undisciplined.
    Harlequin didn’t bother to Suppress her. He conjured a wind that blew the flames back in her face. She squinted, rocking back on her haunches and throwing up her arms at the unexpected reversal, her demon’s roar becoming a cry of