Blade Bound

“Excellent ideas, Wile E. Coyote.”

  Mallory growled.

  “Maybe you should switch her from kale to chocolate,” I suggested.

  “Could we unmanifest him?” Jeff asked. “Turn him back into the Egregore?”

  “Even if we could,” Mallory said, “we’d still be left with a very pissed-off Egregore, which puts us back to where we were yesterday—with too much magic in Chicago. We need to eradicate him completely.”

  My grandfather’s phone rang, interrupting any follow-up questions.

  “I really don’t want you to answer that,” I said, knowing what he’d be called about, what monster was awaiting us again.

  “That’s the job,” he said, then rose and walked to a corner, spoke quietly into the phone. And when he came back, his expression was grim. “It’s back.”

  • • •

  It wasn’t just back. It was perched atop the Water Tower, according to the photos that were already making their way across the Web, from humans who’d been either unlucky enough to be downstairs when the dragon returned, or stupid enough to seek out the dragon so they could take pictures.

  It hadn’t been the mayor who’d called my grandfather. It had been Arthur Jacobs, a detective and friend on the force. “Eighty percent of the city has been evacuated,” he said. “The mayor has ordered everyone who remains to shelter in place. The CPD is enforcing that order. She’s handing the ‘situation’ to the Guard.”

  “She learned nothing,” Catcher said, words tight with anger. “She tried to apply human strategy to a supernatural situation, and it failed. She was bamboozled by the Order, and they failed. All due respect to our men and women in uniform, but what is the Guard going to do? They can’t use jets. The dragon can fly and walk. It can evade anything they send at it. They put a plane in the air, and she’ll blow it out of the sky, and kill everyone unlucky enough to be standing beneath it. They’ll end up setting missiles on the city, and destroying it in the process.”

  “They’ll use armored vehicles, I suspect,” my grandfather said. “Try to get it on the ground in order to contain the collateral damage, at least as much as they can.”

  “So they’ll roll tanks down Michigan Avenue? Shoot mortars at Willis Tower? She’ll destroy more of the city that way, too, and for what? That’s not going to take down the dragon. They need pinpointed magic.”

  “She’ll have decided—or the polls will have decided for her—that a joint human-supernatural approach wasn’t effective. That last night was a failure because we were involved.”

  “Last night was a failure because she involved the wrong people.”

  “She had a magical problem, and she sought a magical solution,” my grandfather said. “The problem has only gotten bigger—”

  “And scalier,” Jeff put in.

  My grandfather nodded. “So it was a failure, and she’s going in the other direction.”

  “We stay home,” I said, “and she gives the city to the men and women with guns.”

  “That’s about the way of it,” my grandfather said. He rose, water bottle still in hand. “I suppose we should be going.”

  “Going?” Jeff asked. He looked crestfallen, bummed we wouldn’t be joining the fight.

  My grandfather’s smile was grim, but determined. “If we’re going to step in and try to fix this nonsense, we’d better hit the road before the CPD comes.” He looked at me, Mallory. “She’ll do as much damage as she can as quickly as she can, because she’ll want your attention. Give it to her, and take her down.”

  He walked to the door, leaving all of us staring after him.

  “And that’s where your wife gets her moxie,” Catcher said, rising.

  “Apparently so,” Ethan said, and glanced down at me. “Sentinel, is your sword ready?”

  “And eager,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  • • •

  Luc, Lindsey, and the rest would stay at the House in case Sorcha tried a direct attack. My grandfather would take Catcher downtown in the van. They were official, so the odds they’d be stopped by the CPD were low.

  And as for us . . . we had speed. Ethan, Mallory, and I squeezed into the Audi R8 I was still pretty sure Ethan had purchased because he idolized Iron Man. Whatever the reason, she was beautiful, and she was fast. The odds the CPD would attempt to stop us were high. The odds we’d be caught? A little less.

  We wanted Mallory—and her magical know-how—on the ground with us, so Jeff volunteered to stay at Cadogan, futz with the foldouts. Mallory had pretranslated the pages, so he was tasked with rearranging them like puzzle pieces until the magic clicked into place. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was the best option we had.

  With the snow’s melting, the city was humid, but the streets were dry, the night clear. It was a perfect night for a sports car with six hundred horses under the hood. People were wary enough of the dragon that the streets were relatively clear (for Chicago), and we made it downtown in a reasonable amount of time (for Chicago). Still, we avoided main roads and opted for backstreets, and didn’t see a single officer or soldier.

  We found them downtown, creating a barrier around Michigan Avenue north of the river, so we parked a few blocks away, met my grandfather in front of the Carbide & Carbon Building, with its dark granite and gold touches that gleamed beneath the streetlights.

  “Keep your weapons sheathed,” he said, “and let me do the talking.”

  We crossed the bridge to the barricade at Ohio Street, where he communed with the two soldiers stationed behind camouflaged vehicles.

  Beyond them, Michigan Avenue had been cleared of vehicles—except for the tank parked in the middle of the avenue a few blocks down, its barrel pointed at the monster that was, sure enough, balanced on a crenelated turret atop the white stone Water Tower. The dragon had found its castle.

  He showed his badge, and there was quiet discussion before he gestured to us. Then more discussion, and my grandfather walked back.

  “We in?” Catcher asked.

  “We are not,” he said, frustration in his eyes. “No supernaturals allowed in the vicinity, for fear that Sorcha will use them as she used the sorcerers last night.”

  “Sorcha didn’t use Simpson,” Mallory said. “She bested her.”

  “I believe that’s a detail they aren’t currently interested in. Their job is to bring down the dragon, and they’re going to do it the way they know how.”

  “They haven’t fired yet,” Ethan said.

  “They’re negotiating with Sorcha. They don’t want to start destroying property, and the rounds in that tank will bring down buildings.”

  Catcher shook his head. “It won’t work. It’s too much weapon for downtown Chicago. If they’re hoping she has a conscience, or will be moved by that weapon, they’re doomed for disappointment.”

  “They have to try,” my grandfather said. “That’s the paradigm—”

  His next words were drowned out by the loudest noise I’d ever heard, a boom that echoed all the way down Michigan Avenue and had my heart hammering inside my chest like it was trying to beat its way out.

  Smoke poured down the street, along with the sound of falling rocks and glass. Everyone near the barricade went still, staring into the smoke for confirmation that the tank had hit its target.

  My ears rang for the five seconds it took for another concussion to rip through the air. By that time, the world was hazy, and we couldn’t see past the end of the block.

  There was a thud, the screech of metal, and the whine of something moving toward us.

  “Out of the way!” Ethan said, pulling my grandfather and me back as the tank barreled past us, landed upright in the plaza in front of the Tribune building, smoke pouring from the turret.

  The dragon had thrown a tank half a mile down Michigan Avenue.

  The soldiers at the barricade ran fo
rward to help the soldiers still in the tank, worked to pry open the turret hatch.

  “Did the tank miss?” Catcher quietly asked. “Or did that hundred-twenty-millimeter round have no effect?”

  When very human screams began to echo through the streets, we decided it wouldn’t matter. Ethan unsheathed his sword, streetlights catching the polished steel.

  “There’s a good chance the sword can’t do what a tank can’t do,” my grandfather said as we prepared to help whoever was screaming.

  Ethan’s expression was grim. “It’s not for the dragon. It’s for the rider.” He looked at Catcher. “How much magic do you have?”

  “I’ve got plenty of energy,” Catcher said. “The question is what to do with it.”

  Ethan glanced at Mallory.

  “Less energy than he does,” she said. “Last night wore on me. And the same question about what to do with it.”

  Ethan nodded. “Go for Sorcha. She can be hit—we saw it last night.”

  “And she’s probably even more pissed off.”

  “Then maybe she’ll make a mistake,” Ethan said. “Because we could certainly use one.”

  My grandfather nodded, looked at me. “Be careful,” he said, then went to talk to the soldiers.

  • • •

  I’d seen plenty in my year and change as a vampire, death and joy and destruction and rebuilding. But I’d never run through a war zone. I’d never seen Michigan Avenue—the Magnificent Mile—smoking and strewn with gravel and glass, empty of people beneath streetlights.

  This is how the world will end, I thought. With destruction and chaos, and except for the screaming of humans we couldn’t yet see through the smoke, a silence that seemed almost impermeable. The Guard had moved in the other direction, chasing the dragon across the city, looking for a better shot; the emergency vehicles hadn’t gotten here yet. There were undoubtedly humans in these buildings—they were full of condos, apartments, hotels. But they’d taken the shelter-in-place order seriously. That, I guessed, was the effect of Towerline.

  We were nearly on top of the Water Tower before we could see it—and the thin tower had been toppled like toy blocks. The dragon was gone, but the screams grew louder.

  How was it fair to bring a child into this? Into a world that could be so easily broken down, torn apart? Into a world that had been torn apart?

  Figures emerged from the haze. Two men and two women working to free a girl from beneath a pile of twisted steel and brick. Either the dragon or the tank had taken out a chunk of the building on the next block up, leaving a ragged hole where the corner of the building had been.

  They caught sight of us, gestured us over with waving flashlights. “There’s a kid trapped over here! Can you help?”

  “It’s my Taylor,” said an obviously frantic woman, tear tracks in the grime on her face and a squirming white dog in her arms. “We were going to the bomb shelter, like they told us, but Tootsie got loose, and Taylor went after her, and that’s when the bomb went off. She’s in there, somewhere.”

  It hadn’t been a bomb. It had been a gun fired by humans to kill a monster they didn’t understand. But that didn’t matter. The girl mattered, so we ran toward the pile, joined the others in moving rocks and shards of glass and steel.

  “Let us try,” Ethan said, gesturing to me. “We’ve got the strength.” We handed Catcher our sheathed katanas. “Keep watch,” he told Catcher. “Sorcha’s shown herself to draw us out. She’ll come back, and she’ll be looking for us.”

  “Eyes peeled,” Catcher confirmed, turning his back to us and scanning the street.

  We climbed onto the pile, rocks shifting beneath us, and began hefting stones away. The stones had been blown apart, the edges as sharp as glass, and shards scraped into tender flesh with each rock we moved. I’d done this before—had dug through rock in darkness to search for Ethan, not sure he’d still been alive.

  Now he was my husband, my partner, fighting the good fight on the other side of the rubble pile.

  I heard a chirp of sound, turned toward it, climbing across the mound to the spot on the other side.

  “Help.” The word was weakly spoken, but it was still a word. Taylor was alive.

  “She’s here,” I said, and pulled rocks faster, tossing them behind me onto asphalt already littered with the detritus of battle.

  “Taylor!” her mother screamed, going to her knees in the rubble, the dog now in Mallory’s arms. She stretched out an arm, grazed the girl’s hands. “Baby? Can you hear me?”

  “I’m stuck!” Taylor said. “I’m okay but I’m stuck. There’s a bar down here. Some kind of big bar on my leg. I can’t get it off.”

  Ethan dropped to his knees, accepted the flashlight offered by one of the humans, and peered into the hole where Taylor was wedged.

  “Steel bar,” Ethan said.

  Can we move it? I silently asked.

  Ethan pulled back, looking over the mountain of debris we hadn’t yet moved. We’d moved a lot of rubble, but the concrete on top of the cavity where Taylor lay was at least five feet long.

  It’s not the bar, he said. It’s the concrete that’s pinning it in place.

  I wasn’t giving up.

  “Mallory,” I said. “We need some of that good magic.”

  She passed the dog to one of the humans, dusted grit from her hands, pulled out a small, worn notebook from her pocket. “Okay,” she murmured. “Okay.” She walked to the rubble, grabbed a broken rod of rebar, began scratching in the sheet of concrete.

  “Jesus, is she doing magic?” One of the humans who’d asked us for help walked toward Mallory, looked ready to snatch the rebar out of her hand.

  Catcher pushed him back. “She’s my wife, and she’s on our side. You lay a hand on her, and you’ll answer to me.”

  Whatever he saw in Catcher’s eyes had the man reassessing his position, his desire to start a fight.

  “She’s on our side,” I confirmed to the man, stepping up to them. “Focus on Taylor, and don’t worry about the magic.”

  I took my sword back from Catcher. “Help her,” I said, and unsheathed it. Because I had a bad feeling I knew what was going to happen when Mallory fired up her magic. And sure enough, the wind shifted, and suddenly there was heat and sulfur on the air, a burning zephyr through downtown.

  I think Mallory just dialed Sorcha’s number, I told Ethan.

  We’re moving as quickly as possible, Ethan said.

  Move faster, I said, scanning the street, the air, with narrowed eyes, trying to pierce through the veil of dirt that still clung to the humidity in the air. Too bad dragons didn’t have headlights. That would have made the spotting easier.

  “Jesus,” the human said, and I jerked my head around.

  Mallory stood in front of the block of concrete, arms shaking as she reached toward it, palms out, lips moving in that quiet cadence sorcerers seemed to prefer. Catcher and Ethan held up opposite sides of the slab, which was now four feet off the ground.

  “Not Jesus,” Mallory quietly said, eyes closed in concentration. “Just futzing with some testy Higgs bosons. Oldest trick in the book.”

  “Quit staring,” Catcher snapped to the other humans who stood by, dumbfounded, as he and Ethan held up the concrete, “and get Taylor out.”

  Snapped out of their haze, they dashed forward. One began tossing aside the rest of the debris that pinned Taylor; the other took her hands, began to pull her free.

  And then we heard the sound of a voice in the sky.

  Sorcha and the dragon.

  I took a step forward, trying to nail down their position, but the sound echoed across the buildings. “Ethan,” I said, a warning.

  “I hear it. Nearly there, Sentinel.”

  “Taylor!”

  I glanced back as the humans pulled a slender and dirty girl from bene
ath the rubble.

  As Ethan and Catcher returned the concrete to earth, Taylor’s mother screamed and pulled the girl into a fierce embrace, both of them crying, the tears carving more streaks in the soot that marked their faces. “Taylor, Taylor, Taylor,” her mother sang, rocking the girl, who sobbed in her arms. “My baby girl.”

  “It’s because of Tootsie,” Taylor said. “Where’s Tootsie?”

  “She’s right here,” said the human who’d held the fuzzy dog, walking it to the pair, at least until it leaped into Taylor’s arms. Taylor sobbed and hugged the dog, and her mother embraced them both.

  This is why, Sentinel.

  I looked up, looked across the mound of debris, and met Ethan’s gaze.

  This is why you take chances, with love, with life . . . with children. Because sometimes you lose them . . . and sometimes you don’t.

  The dragon’s scream interrupted the thought—angry and shrill.

  “Incoming!” Catcher yelled.

  “Inside!” Ethan said, guiding the humans back through the hole and into the remains of the building, where at least they wouldn’t be visible.

  We stepped into the street: Sorcerer. Sorcerer. Vampire. Vampire.

  “Just four crazy kids against the world,” Catcher said, warming up.

  “They should make a Lifetime movie about us,” I said.

  Mallory snorted. “It’s cute you think he hasn’t already written to the company with a proposal.”

  The dragon burst through the haze like a rocket. And even after what we’d seen last night, the shock of seeing a dragon fly past the tony shops on Michigan Avenue was nearly visceral.

  They came in low and trailing blood. The dragon was wounded, bleeding from a gaping hole in its back driver’s side flank. The Guard had hit their target; it just hadn’t been quite enough. In fairness, I didn’t know who manufactured tank rounds, but I was pretty sure they hadn’t calculated the effect on a giant flying lizard.

  “Attack!” came Sorcha’s demand, followed by a greasy pulse of magic.

  The dragon turned, swooped back, but it was whipping its head from side to side, as if trying to dislodge the magic and its creator.