I could feel Curran watching me from the doorway. I wasn’t alone. He was there with me, like a rock I could lean on. I leaned on that stare and looked up.
The dais was almost in front of me. I wiped Sarrat on my jeans and took a step forward. A wall of red pulsed in front of me. A blood ward. My father had sealed the dais with his blood. If I broke it, no person in this room would have any doubt I was his daughter.
My father’s gaze fixed on me.
It was too late to turn back. I had a sword and he was feet away. My entire life had been spent working up to this moment. I could do this. I was the daughter of Nimrod, the Great Hunter, the Builder of Towers, Hero of His People and Scourge of His Enemies. My father’s kingdom and those like it had brought about the cataclysm that purged magic from the world.
I thrust my bloody hand into the ward. It shuddered like a living thing caught in convulsions and solidified into a translucent wall of red. The people behind me screamed. The wall cracked and shattered into chunks. The pieces of the ward rained down, melting into thin air.
It didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt at all.
Magic spread from my father. It rose behind him like wings, like a hurricane pulled apart into shreds that could condense into a devastating storm at any second. The barrier of the blood ward had been containing it, but now the ward was broken and I felt every iota of Nimrod’s power. I forgot to breathe.
My grandmother was not completely dead, but she wasn’t alive, not in the true sense of the word. My father was alive. Semiramis’s magic had terrified me to the bone, but against this storm, her power was a mere shadow, a candle caught in the blinding glow of an industrial floodlight. It was the kind of power that could pick up chunks of skyscrapers and fuse them into Mishmar.
If that power turned against me, it would destroy me. He would simply will me out of existence and I would disappear.
So this was what Hugh meant when he said I couldn’t win.
I had no chance. No chance at all. If I lunged at him now and tried to bury Sarrat in his heart, I would simply stop being, as if I had never existed. I felt it with complete certainty, the same certainty I’d feel if I stood on the roof of a high building and looked at the hard pavement below. To jump was to die.
Christopher and Robert would die a second or two after me, Curran would never leave this place, and Atlanta would fall.
“Do it!” Voron screamed at me in my mind. “Do it! Kill him!”
I felt no fear, just an utter calm. Things became really simple. If I tried to kill my real father, everyone else, especially the man I loved, would pay the price. I could feel Curran’s gaze on me. There were people waiting for me to protect them from Roland in Atlanta. I couldn’t throw my life away. It wasn’t completely my own anymore.
I stopped and stood still. It took all of my will.
My father was looking at me and his eyes told me he knew what I was thinking.
“Do it!” the ghost of Voron roared. “This is what you worked for. This is why I trained you!”
Something fluttered inside me and I realized it was hope. I wanted to live. I wanted Curran to survive this. I thought of him. I thought of Julie. Of Derek and Ascanio. Of Andrea and Raphael. Of Jim. I wanted to bring Robert back to Thomas. I wanted Christopher to smile again and tell me he was trying to remember how to fly.
Death is forever. Death is nothing. But to save a life, that’s everything. My mother understood this and now I finally did, too.
Voron had a purpose for me, but it was his purpose, not mine. I loved him, I still mourned his death on his birthday, and I was grateful because he made me what I was. But I was done living for someone else’s purpose. I had to live for mine. I had people to protect. Curran had sacrificed everything to save me from Mishmar. Now I would sacrifice my vengeance to save him from the Swan Palace.
I walked up the dais and put my hand on Robert’s shoulder. “I claim them.”
My father nodded slowly. “Take them.”
The two men rose, their eyes still glassy. I turned and walked back along the gore-splattered walkway. They followed me, two androids on autopilot. At the doorway Curran looked at my father one last time.
“I’ll see you both in Atlanta,” my father said.
Curran smiled, his eyes like two burning moons. “If you want a war, we’ll give you one.”
I passed him and kept walking, out of the room, out of the garden, into the winter, Christopher and Robert following me and Curran guarding our backs. Nobody stopped us.
• • •
I MARCHED ALONG the cobbled road, Robert and Christopher following me. They still wore the warm clothes they had brought to break me out of Mishmar, but I had left my jacket in Landon’s car. The cold was scraping the flesh off my bones.
I had met my father. I had met him and survived.
I’d failed Voron. I should’ve killed Roland, but I had walked away and I’d done it deliberately. I’d betrayed Voron’s memory. And I didn’t care. I lived. We all lived.
I felt free.
“We survived,” I whispered. The words tasted strange. “We survived.”
Curran picked me up and kissed me, his lips burning mine.
“I killed Hibla,” I told him.
“I saw,” he said. “Do you feel better?”
“Yes.”
“We’re going to have a nice dinner with Martina when we get back,” he said. “I think that would be a really good idea.”
Ahead a steady pounding of hooves announced an approaching horse. A cart rolled into view, pulled by a roan horse. Naeemah held the reins. I sped up.
“Get in!” she called.
Shit. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t have come.”
“I went to get a cart.”
Oh no. I turned back to look at the palace. “She didn’t know she couldn’t come with us.”
Silence reigned.
“She didn’t know.”
No answer. Somehow I didn’t think it would matter.
“Get in,” Naeemah called.
“Climb in,” I told Christopher and Robert. The two men didn’t move.
Curran picked them up and set them into the cart one by one. Naeemah pulled a blanket out and threw it at me. “Here. Come before Roland changes his mind.”
Curran climbed up next to her. I sat in the cart with the two men. They lay stiff like two wooden statues. Naeemah turned the cart and the horse clopped its way down the road, heading out of Jester Park.
“Well?” she asked. “How did it go?”
“I had a shot and I didn’t take it.”
“You chose to live. Smart choice. Life, it should mean something. A death is just a death. If you died there, what would your death mean? Nothing. You would stop nothing. You would change nothing.” She blew on her fingers and waved them at the road. “A bug under a shoe. But you lived. And now they live, too.”
“Damn right,” Curran said.
“I killed Hibla,” I said.
“Did she need killing?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t exactly a killing,” Curran said. “It was more like punishment piece by piece.”
Naeemah looked at him. “And you? Did you roar at the wizard?”
“No,” Curran said. “I’ll roar at him if he comes to Atlanta.”
“See, you both did good. You accomplished things and got out alive. Best behavior.”
The laughter finally broke free and I laughed, gulping in the cold air.
• • •
THE MAGIC WAVE receded three hours after we had left the Swan Palace. Twenty minutes later a lone figure dotted the field ahead of us.
“God damn it,” Curran swore.
The dot grew at an alarming rate until it finally became Thomas, running full speed over the snow. He sprinted to us, leaped into the cart, and hugged Robert to him.
“It will wear off,” I told him before he could freak out over Robert’s stasis. “The more distance between us and Roland, th
e better.”
Thomas turned to me. “Make her go faster, Consort.”
We found the rest of our people waiting where we had left them. We loaded up our gear and headed toward Atlanta.
At some point I climbed into the back of the cart and fell asleep. I dreamed of Christmas and garlands. They wrapped around me in long shiny strands. I kept trying to break free, while Jim was reassuring me that I was a lovely Christmas tree and the Pack was appreciating my efforts on its behalf.
Another magic wave hit closer to the morning. I felt the moment we passed out of Roland’s territory. It was like hitting a speed bump in the road. I lay there with my eyes open and took a deep breath.
He’d let us go.
We weren’t done. He said he would see us in Atlanta. Things would only get worse from here. Not only that, but both Naeemah and Thomas had disobeyed. It was a partial disobedience—Naeemah had left to get the cart before I announced that they had to stay put, and Thomas ran to us after we had left the Swan Palace—but still, there was a price to be paid. I half expected their eyes to melt from their sockets.
“Incoming,” Curran said.
I raised my head. A swirling clump of darkness appeared on the road in front of me. The tightly wound whirlwind of dark twine, snakes, and feathers spun on its end, stretching to seven feet high.
“What the hell now?” Curran growled.
“No clue,” I told him.
The clump broke open and spat a person onto the road. He or she wore pants and a tunic of animal hide with patches of fur sewn onto it at seemingly random places. Pale paint covered the person’s hands and face, with two scarlet vertical lines stretching from the hairline on both sides of his or her nose down to the lips. Three scarlet lines curved from those two, tracing the cheekbones. A pair of longhorn’s horns, painted with bands of red and white, rested on top of the person’s head, positioned so the tips pointed downward.
The person shook a staff at us. “Daughter of Nimrod!”
A man.
“I cast my eye upon you!”
The man threw something to the ground. Red smoke exploded. The wind cleared it, and the man had vanished.
Shaman ninjas. Perfect. Now my life was complete.
Curran looked at me.
“I’ve blown my cover,” I told him. “Now every weirdo with a drop of power will be coming over to investigate.”
“It’s like you had a coming-out party,” Andrea said. “You’ve been presented to polite society, except now everybody wants to kill you.”
“Spare me.”
“Kate Daniels, a debutante.” Andrea grinned.
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s hilarious.” The smile slid off Andrea’s face and she vomited on the snow.
“Karma,” I told her.
“Daughter of Nimrod?” Curran asked quietly.
“Nimr Rad, if you want to get technical about it. He who subdues leopards. The great hunter.”
“Nimrod like in the Bible?” Curran asked. “The one who built the Tower of Babel?”
“It’s an allegory,” I said. “My father and his contemporaries built a civilization of magic. It was great and mighty, like a tall tower. But they made the magic too strong and the Universe compensated by starting the first Shift. Technology began to flood the world in waves, and their civilization crumbled like the tower. The language of power words was lost.”
“How old is your dad, exactly?”
“A little over five thousand years old.”
“Why does he build towers?”
“I don’t know. He has a thing for them, I guess. I think they might help him with the claiming of his territory.”
“The claiming?”
I explained what the witches had told me about the genocide of the Native tribes and the lack of natural protection for the land, and the Witch Oracle’s vision of Roland claiming Atlanta.
Curran stared straight ahead, his expression grim.
“Are we okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. We’re okay,” he said. “I just need some time to process.”
It was one thing to know that you were sleeping with Roland’s daughter. It was a completely different thing to have met Roland. And to have challenged him. “Why the hell did you invite him to start a war?”
“He needed to know. We’re ready and we won’t roll over for him. It had to happen sooner or later. We knew he was coming and we’ve known for a while. If he shows up, we’ll deal with it. We’ve dealt with Hugh and Erra; we’ll deal with him as well.”
An hour later Robert began to cry. He didn’t say anything. He made no noise. He just rode in the cart, tears rolling down his face. Thomas talked to him, saying quiet soothing words. Eventually Robert stopped, and then Christopher began to weep.
Half an hour later Robert cleared his throat. “Tom?”
“Yes?” Thomas bent to him.
“If Roland tries to capture me again . . .”
“He won’t.”
“If he tries, kill me.”
• • •
BY NOON WE reached the ley line point and the two Pack Jeeps they had parked there. Naeemah told me she wouldn’t go any farther.
“Thank you,” I told her.
“I will see you,” she said.
We boarded the Jeeps and steered them into the ley line. The magic current grabbed the vehicles and dragged them southeast. We rode the ley line for hours. I slept. I was so tired. Sometimes I would wake up and hear Jim and Curran discussing war plans or see Christopher asleep next to me with a small smile on his face, or hear Andrea vomit into a paper bag. At some point Jim asked her how she could possibly have anything left to throw up and she threatened to shoot him.
Finally the magic squeezed the Jeep, compacting us inside it, as if some unseen force somehow moved our atoms closer together. The pressure vanished and the ley line spat us out onto solid ground. I opened my eyes. “Where are we?”
“Cumberland.” Curran was looking at something ahead.
Northwest end of the city. We were home.
I raised my head and looked in the direction Curran was looking. Barabas stood on the sidewalk.
“How did he know we were coming?”
“He didn’t,” Curran said.
We got out of the car and Barabas trotted to us. “I’m so glad you’re alive!”
“We’re glad, too,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“The People notified us that you would be coming in at this ley point. Actually they gave us the exact time you would arrive, which is odd.”
Not odd at all. Apparently my father had us watched.
“The People want to have a Conclave meeting tonight, and they requested the presence of both of you and the Pack Council. They said they want to bury the hatchet. It’s in two hours.”
“Tell them no,” Curran said.
“I tried,” Barabas said. “They said, quote, ‘Sharrim’s presence is requested.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
Curran swore.
“I’ve sent our guys to sweep the location and establish our presence,” Barabas said. “They’re reporting that the People are already in place. The Pack Council is on standby. Do you want me to cancel?”
“If we don’t go, it will make things worse,” I said. “Roland’s giving us the time and place. If we ignore him, he can hit us at the Keep, and the loss of life will be greater.”
Curran put his arm around me. “It’s your call.”
I was as ready as I was going to be for now. Another few days or even a few more weeks wouldn’t make a difference. I would’ve taken a century or two if it was offered, but it wasn’t on the table. “Screw it. I’m tired of waiting. Let’s get it over with.”
Curran looked at Barabas. “Call the Council. The Pack will make a stand.”
18
THE RUINED CITY slid by outside the Jeep. Atlanta. Ugly and beautiful, decaying and rising, life and death at the same time. Home. For better or worse, home.
The sun was just beginning to set and the sky burned with a riot of orange and red. Curran drove, his face somber.
“This isn’t the way to Bernard’s.”
“The Conclave isn’t being held at Bernard’s,” Barabas said from the backseat. “We’re going to Lakeside.”
“What’s Lakeside?” I asked.
“It’s a new development where North Atlanta High School used to be.”
“The one that was overrun by boars with steel quills?” I remembered that. Took the city two years to boar-proof the area.
“Yes. Supposedly it’s been constructed by the same firm that made Champion Heights.”
Champion Heights was the only surviving high-rise in Atlanta. “It’s a tower?”
“Twelve floors.”
I laughed. What else was there to do?
“Did I miss something?” Barabas asked.
“You should drop me off and bail,” I told Curran.
“What, and miss the fun? Not a chance. We’ll pound him into the ground.”
We couldn’t win. I knew it. He knew it. But I loved him so much for those words, he didn’t even know.
We turned onto Northside Parkway. The ground rose, forming a hill, and on top of it a tower perched above a long, narrow lake. Built with yellow rock and turquoise glass, it faced the setting sun and the sky set its windows on fire.
Curran parked in front of the tower near a row of black SUVs that probably belonged to the People. A row of Pack Jeeps sat at the opposite end of the parking lot. The party was all here. Now I just had to bring the entertainment.
“Who is running security?” Curran asked.
“Derek,” Barabas answered.
Well, the place would be secure. Also, Derek would probably die. I needed to get him and our people out of the building.
The second Jeep parked next to us and spat out Jim, Andrea, Thomas, and Robert. When I tried to suggest Robert should stay behind, both wererats acted mortally offended. I let it go. I was tired of trying to talk people out of this mass suicide.
We walked through the double doors, manned by two guards. The taller of the men on the right stepped forward. Curran looked at him for a second and the two guards turned around and decided to look somewhere else.