Read Shadow Ops 3: Breach Zone for Free Online Page A

surprise.
    ‘That’s enough.’ Harlequin gave up on the Spanish. ‘Quit fucking around. I’m taking you in.’
    That meant a Suppressed convoy to Quantico after the NYPD finished booking her. The richest city in the country had long lobbied for its own Suppression/Detention facility, and Harlequin was pleased the SOC had crushed that particular idea’s head before it could breed. Magic was a federal issue. This might be the Bronx, but Selfers like this risked the safety of the entire nation.
    She recovered enough to stand. A big-framed woman even without the obesity, Harlequin had to admit she looked like a towering demon, huge and flame-wreathed. But he was unimpressed. For all her power, she lacked discipline.
    He reached her in five long strides, blowing off another burst of stylized fire-breathing. It was close enough to singe him this time, his uniform crisping and shrinking as the heat washed over him. He called up his magical current and Bound it across hers.
    The flames winked out as her magic rolled back. She shrieked, covering herself as if he had left her naked. Then she screamed, reaching for him.
    She was old, but she was a big woman, and Harlequin was in no mood. He ducked her clumsy swipe and punched her hard in the gut. He grabbed her wrist as she doubled over, forcing it around and stepping behind her, immobilizing her elbow and torquing the limb down until she cried out.
    ‘Stop resisting me!’ he shouted. ‘We’re going to walk back out to the parking lot, nice and easy. Right foot first. If you continue to resist, I’m just going to yank on this arm, and I swear, it’s going to hurt. If you comply, I’ll bring you back to your buddy Sergeant Ward. Now, let’s move. Do it now!’
    She whimpered but moved as he pressed his forearm into the flab over her shoulder blades. She reeked of brimstone, dried sweat, and unwashed clothing. He felt her current pulsing against his own, seeking to break through. She was strong, he’d give her that, but nowhere near strong enough to throw off Suppression.
    They rounded the corner of the building, Harlequin leaning far to see around the Selfer’s bulk. Ward was stepping slowly around the open door of his cruiser, pistol pointed at the ground. ‘She okay?’ he called.
    I’m fine, thanks for asking , Harlequin thought. ‘She’s fine! She just . . .’
    The big woman twisted hard in his grip, her free arm wrenching so high it must have pulled her muscles. She dug a rusting corkscrew into Harlequin’s chest, dragging it down, ripping through his uniform, tearing a line of agony across his chest.
    He shouted, yanked on her arm, pivoting his body to spin her, put her on the ground. Her huge weight overbalanced and she pitched forward, escaping his grasp, head rebounding off one of the metal posts that held the chains screening the parking lot from the housing-complex grounds. Blood sprayed from her mouth, misting Harlequin’s face. Her eyes rolled up in her head, and he felt her current go slack as she collapsed across his leg, pinning him. He felt her pulse, watched her chest. She’d taken a nasty knock on the head, but she was alive.
    He looked down at his own chest, blood welling up to soak his shirt, mixing with hers. ‘Jesus,’ he said as Ward helped move her off him. He sent lightning crackling across his wound as soon as Ward let him go. It was an old wives’ tale that immediate electrical cauterization of a wound could keep disease out, but Aeromancers all did it anyway.
    He brushed a fragment of the woman’s tooth off his shirt as Ward stared at her. ‘Jesus, Lieutenant. You didn’t have to bash her head like that.’
    ‘I didn’t do it on purpose,’ Harlequin growled. ‘She weighs like three hundred pounds, and she was fucking trying to dig out my heart with a . . .’ He looked around for the corkscrew. It had vanished somewhere in the grass. The dancing shadows of the firelight made it impossible to see anything.
    ‘Well, we