Free Orders of Magnitude (The Genie and the Engineer Series Book 2) by Glenn Michaels

permittivity
spell!
    Two orderlies and a police officer stumbled past, each
helping to carry or support a hospital patient on their way to the elevator.
    “I’ll be back to help you!” shouted the officer.
    Paul waved him on. Grabbing the Oni’s arms, he dragged the
heavy limp form into a patient’s room. With a glance around, Paul confirmed
that it was unoccupied.
    Without warning, the whole hospital shook, the windows
rattling as a loud boom reverberated through the building.
    “Capie!” he said breathlessly. “What was that?!”
    He took hold on the creature’s talisman on its belt and
pulled it loose. He now had the creature’s talisman, which was much more
powerful than his tantalum block.
    “Capie? Can you hear me?” he asked again, suddenly very
concerned that she had not responded.
    “Capie!?” he cried loudly a third time.
    Paul started tearing off his hazmat suit, using his magic
freely to shred it into small pieces, freeing both himself and the airsoft
weapons underneath.
    “Capie?” he cried yet again.
    “Yes, Paul, I am here,” she responded in his headset.
    “Oh, thank God! Did you feel the building shake?”
    “Yes, but don’t worry. That was just me.”
    “Are you okay?” he asked, suddenly worried again for her
safety.
    “I’m fine. But the Oni I ran into isn’t.”
    He froze for a moment. “You ran into an Oni?”
    “I did. I have his talisman too.”
    Paul chuckled in sudden release. “Way to go girl! Do you
have him tucked away somewhere? Can we sneak him out of the building?”
    “No,” she answered sharply. “Too many Normals saw me do it.”
    “Okay. It just so happens I have an Oni too, on the 6 th floor. I’ll take him out through one of the roof access points and fly him to
the west, to Washington Park, to Bynum Island. We can portal out from there.
Can you go back to the second floor, maybe take the north exit?”
    “Yes, I think I can,” she replied, and despite the
limitations of the radio link, he could hear the relief in her voice that her
part was nearly over. “I’ll meet you in the park.”
    With access to his tantalum block (it had been stuffed
inside his shirt in his waist band), Paul used it to frantically scratch the
surface of the Oni’s talisman. That act broke the protective spell on the
talisman, allowing Paul to use it now for his own purposes.
    Using a levitation spell, he floated the body of the Oni
into the air and hefted it across his shoulders. Then he peeked out into the
corridor, in both directions. There was still a lot of purple smoke in the air
but it seemed to be clear of movement. Apparently, the Normals had now pretty
much evacuated this wing of the hospital.
    He moved out, heading for the nearest stairwell. From there,
he could go up to the roof.
    Behind him there was a sudden cry. He spun awkwardly around.
Down the corridor, through the smoke, he saw another Oni. This one too was
dressed as a security guard.
    It raised a hand and screamed, “Stop!”
    Paul turned, dumping the Oni he was carrying to the floor
and ran, ducking down another corridor as a plasma burst struck the wall near
him.
    • • • •
    Feeling a great deal better about their chances for success,
Capie headed towards the nearest stairwell. All she had to do now was to sneak
down to the second floor and then over to the north walkway leading over to the
Medicine Corner Children’s Hospital. That would put her far enough away from
the Bernard A. Mitchell Hospital to allow her to use a magical spell to fly off
to Washington Park without fear of discovery.
    She took it slow and carefully, checking the path in front
of her as she went. At the stairwell, she noted that there were still a few
stragglers from the upper floors making their way to the first floor. She
grinned as she joined in, tromping down the stairs, each step taking her that
much closer to escape and safety. Soon, they would have an Oni to question and
to pry from him where Dad was being held