Belinda plucked the bill from Astrid’s grasp and slipped it into the hem of her pants. ”Better luck next time, perhaps?”

Astrid growled low in her throat and glanced at the corpses. ”Doesn’t look like there’ll be a next time for a while.”

They both laughed.

“Come on, let’s clean up here then get moving,” Belinda said.

As she spoke, Belinda took an essence battery from a pouch at her waist. So she had one too! I was starting to feel like nothing would surprise me tonight.

Astrid took her essence battery out, and together they began to move among the wreckage, absorbing the essence of the corpses. Astrid gave me a glance as if to see what my reaction was, but I just shrugged and followed them over to inspect the wreckage.

Unlike Astrid, Belinda didn’t glance at me or attempt to offer an explanation. I was getting the feeling that Belinda was the ’business’ part of their little outfit.

I looked at the flaming remains of my car and felt a little sadness at the destruction of such a faithful friend. The enchantments had taken me years to complete, and the arcane ink had cost me every spare bit of cash I could throw at the project. I’d risked prison time for making them, but at least I’d gotten to see them in action. The enchantments hadn’t had any secondary protections, so they wouldn’t outlast the fire, and no one would ever find them now.

I was well and truly roped into this now, so I needed some better way of defending myself. I no longer had an enchanted car to plow into any potential enemies and blow them apart.

“Hey,” I said as I approached Belinda. She had her palm held out over a corpse, the essence battery in her other hand.

“Yes?” she muttered. She was concentrating hard on absorbing essence into the battery, and sweat dotted her brow.

“Mind if I take one of their spell-rifles?” I asked. “You know, just in case we run into any more of those guys.”

“I doubt there’ll be any more,” she said. “But if you want one of their toys, then you can have it. Help yourself. I don’t need the extra essence.”

She finished siphoning the energy from the corpse as I leaned down to pick up the soldier’s rifle. I knew a bit about firearms. I hefted it, feeling the weight and balance. It was a semi-auto magitech MP5 variant, a standard issue firearm for security forces of all kinds the world over. It wouldn’t fire regular ammo, but instead was inscribed with a magic rune system that brought it into line with the user’s chi, allowing magical energy blasts to be fired.