Magic Slays

Chapter 21

 

  AN HOUR LATER THE INSIDE OF THE STEAK HOUSE had been cleared, every table in the house set into a square. The People had brought four out of their seven Masters of the Dead, headed by Ghastek. Nataraja must've declined to make an appearance. Because the meeting was held in the Pack's territory, the People had their choice of seats and positioned themselves with their backs to the window, so they could observe the front and back doors.

  The four Masters of the Dead--Ghastek, Rowena, Mulradin, and Filipa--took their places at the table. Behind them a gaggle of journeymen sat in their chairs flush against the window, their faces carefully blank. Between the journeymen, vampires crouched like monstrous gargoyles: hairless, corded with a tight network of steel-hard muscle, and smeared in lime-green and purple sunblock. Bubble-gum-tinted nightmares.

  I had to fight the urge to keep glancing at Rowena. Short, only about five two or so, Rowena was a teenage boy's wet dream. Perfect figure, sensual face, emerald-green eyes, and fiery red hair falling in a cascade of glossy waves all the way past her waist. An elegant business suit molded to her curves like a glove. When she smiled, male heads turned. If she said something, people nodded in agreement. There was something about her that made you want to earn her approval. She could make you feel like a hero for passing her the salt.

  This was what my mother must've been like. I might've had her DNA, but not a drop of her magic had made it through.

  To the left of the People sat the representatives of the Mercenary Guild. I recognized three veteran mercs and Mark, nominally the Guild's admin and in reality the Guild's overseer now that Solomon Red, the Guild's founder, lay six feet under. At least some of him did. After my aunt was done with him, there hadn't been much left.

  Next to the Guild sat representatives of the Natives. I recognized shamans from the Cherokee, Apalachee, and Muskogee Creek tribes, but the other two I'd never seen before.

  Norse Heritage took up the next three seats. The Norse Heritage Foundation claimed that their goal was to preserve Scandinavian cultural traditions. In reality, they took the idea of Vikings and ran with it as far from any cultural or historical accuracy as they could go. Norse Heritage took everyone in. As long as you were willing to drink beer, get rowdy, and proclaim yourself a Viking, you had a place at their table. Ragnvald, their jarl, a huge bear of a man, came easily enough, but Jim's people had the devil of a time getting his escort to surrender their axes and horned helmets. There was a lot of roaring and cursing and promises of doing indelicate things and screams of "Make me!" and "Over your dead body!" until Curran came out, looked at them for a while, and went back inside. Ragnvald read the writing on the wall, and his crew decided to disarm voluntarily. The College of Mages provided three representatives, followed by us, and then by the witches, volhvs, druids, and half a dozen other smaller factions. Getting everyone to take a seat and be quiet was like trying to roll Sisyphus's boulder up the mountain. By the time we were done, I wanted to stab myself in the eye. Nobody seemed ready to make trouble, but I kept Slayer on my lap under the table just in case.

  We put Kamen in the middle of the square in his own special chair. Just in case he decided to wander off and invent a black hole generator out of a box of matches and paper clips while we weren't looking. Rene and the Red Guard brass sat at the table directly behind Kamen. Rene looked a bit green in the face.

  Tea, coffee, and water were served, and then Jim rose and gave a succinct summary of Kamen's invention and the aftermath of its usage. The Red Guardsmen were presented as being heroic; the volhvs' involvement was tactfully omitted. When he moved on to explain the third device, silence claimed the steak house. Five miles. Absolute destruction. If you had a drop of magic, you would not survive.

  People paled. The jolt was so strong, even Ghastek looked disturbed.

  Next Andrea stood up and profiled the Keepers. Most of it I already knew, and I watched the faces while she spoke.

  "The Keepers are very well connected and financed. During the attack on Cutting Edge, the Keepers deployed exploding boltheads," Andrea continued. "Analysis and an m-scan of the residue provided a profile consistent with Galahad Five warheads. These warheads are manufactured exclusively by the Welsh to combat giants. They're prohibitively expensive and their export into the United States is limited and only semilegal. I had obtained a small number of said warheads for the Atlanta Chapter of the Order during my tenure there, and I had to call in several favors just to get them through customs. Either the Keepers have a unique connection or the Order's armory has been compromised. "

  "Or the Order has been infiltrated," Rowena said.

  "It is a distinct possibility," Andrea agreed. "I can guarantee that no boltheads had left the Order's armory prior to November, because the inventory and security of the armory had been my responsibility up to that point. "

  "Is that why there are no representatives of the Order at this Conclave?" one of the druids asked.

  "The Order has never been a part of the Conclave," Curran said.

  Ghastek permitted himself a narrow smile. "Considering the success the Keepers had with infiltrating the Pack, if we were to exclude all the organizations whose screening and security measures couldn't stand up to close scrutiny, this assembly couldn't take place. Banning the Pack alone would halve our numbers. " Even now, with threat of complete destruction, Ghastek couldn't pass up the opportunity to poke at Curran.

  Jim bared the edge of his teeth.

  "They recruit damaged children," Andrea said. "Victims of abuse and tragedy, who have reason to hate themselves and their own magic. They find teenagers who are most vulnerable and indoctrinate them, and then these children go on to have careers and lives until they are called to duty by the Keepers. Nobody is immune. Not the Pack, not the People. "

  "Where is the device now?" Ragnvald asked.

  "Hidden," Curran answered. "It will be destroyed shortly in a secure location where it will cause minimal damage to the environment. "

  "How can we be sure that you will follow through with it?" Mark said.

  Ghastek condescended to stare for half a second in Mark's direction. "I was led to believe that you possessed at least moderate intelligence. That assessment was obviously in error. "

  "What?" Mark recoiled.

  "How do I know that if I hand you a loaded gun, you won't thrust it into your mouth and pull the trigger? Of course he isn't going to keep it, you idiot. None of us would keep it. Using it would be tantamount to suicide. "

  Jim nodded and Derek and Barabas circled the table, handing out paper. "This is a list of the chemicals with quantities required to build the device. Some of these are rare. Purchasing them would leave a paper trail. "

  "We have ten hours and fifty-nine minutes from the beginning of the next magic wave," Curran said. "Either we find the device or we . . . "

  Barabas leaned over to him and whispered something in an urgent tone.

  Curran's eyes flared with gold. "Bring it here. "

  Barabas nodded. A female shapeshifter set a phone in front of Curran. He pushed the speaker key. "Yes?"

  "Who am I speaking with?" a clipped male voice asked.

  "You're speaking with the Beast Lord. " Curran's face could've been carved from ice.

  "Ah. You're a difficult man to reach. Of course, I'm using the term `man' loosely. "

  "What do you want?" Curran asked. "As I told your staff, I represent the Lighthouse Keepers. These are our terms: Return the device you've taken and cease all efforts to find us. In return, you have my personal guarantee that the Keep will not be targeted. "

  Aha. And that seaside property in Kansas he was selling was a steal.

  Curran graduated to a full alpha glow. "Is that so?"

  "To be honest, destroying you isn't on our short-term agenda. It's simple logistics: the location of the Keep makes it impossible to target you and the city center at the same time. We prefer to deploy wi
thin the city limits. Returning Atlanta to its natural state and making it suitable for habitation by an unpolluted population is our primary goal. However, if you refuse our terms, we will classify you as an imminent threat. Evacuating will accomplish nothing. We will simply follow your people to their destination and destroy you at the evacuation point. Cease your endeavors to apprehend us. "

  Andrea's eyes widened.

  I'd heard those words before. Shane had used them in a letter he'd sent to Andrea about her guns. Shane. Holy shit.

  To the left, one of the Vikings whispered, "What did he say?"

  Ragnvald glared at him.

  "Will you acquiesce to our terms?" the man asked. "Your answer?"

  "No," Curran said. "Here are our terms: you line up in front of the Capitol, beg forgiveness for murdering hundreds of people, and blow your brains out. You can hang yourselves or fall on your swords. You can set yourselves on fire. I guarantee that any method of suicide you choose will be pleasant compared to what we will do to you. You have until the end of the tech. "

  The disconnect signal sounded like the toll of a funeral bell.

  Ghastek grimaced. " `Cease your endeavors to apprehend us'? Really?"

  "Clearly he reads a thesaurus before bed," a Cherokee shaman opined.

  Bob, one of the Guild's mercs, grimaced. "He sounds like a rent-a-cop who read too many police procedure manuals. "

  "Or an MSDU officer," someone from the other end of the table offered.

  No. No, he was a knight of the Order. Ted had to know. We would never prove it, but Ted had to know. "As I was saying, we have ten hours and fifty-nine minutes from the beginning of the next magic wave," Curran said. "That's how long the device will take to charge. Either it's in position already or they are moving it into position now. If we find it with time to spare, Adam here will disarm it. "

  A vampire at the far left tensed, gathering its muscles. It was a minute movement, barely noticeable. I squeezed Slayer's hilt, feeling the familiar texture under my fingers.

  "If there is no time, whoever finds it may have to disarm it themselves," Curran said. "Now Adam will explain to us how to do this . . . "

  The vampire jumped, claws raised for the kill. It sailed through the air toward Kamen, clearing the table in a single powerful leap. I jumped onto the table and sliced left to right, in a classic diagonal strike. Slayer's blade cleaved through undead flesh like a sharp knife through a ripe pear.

  The bloodsucker's body dropped at Kamen's feet.

  The bald, fanged head flew and bounced off the table, spraying the People with thick undead blood.

  A dark-headed journeyman jumped to his feet so quickly that his chair toppled backward. A gun flashed in his hand. I ran to him. I was jumping over Rowena when he shoved the barrel against his temple and pulled the trigger. The gun spat thunder. The gory mess of blood and brains sprayed the window.

  The steak house exploded with noise, Ghastek's voice cutting through it, shaking with rage. "Find the person who admitted him, find the people who did his background check, find his Master. I want these people in front of me in half an hour!"

  I SAT IN THE GLOOM OF THE HOSPITAL ROOM. JULIE lay unmoving on the white sheets, her exposed semihuman arm caught in the web of tubes of the IV drip feeding sedative into her body. Her face was twisted, her jaws too large and distorted, with fangs cutting through her lips. Her eyes were closed. A shock of pale blond hair was the only thing that remained of my kid.

  It felt unreal.

  I'd come here straight after the furor at the steak house had died down. I'd been watching her, sitting here hoping against everything I knew that somehow her body would beat this, that she would flow and streamline and shift back into a human. Or a lynx. I would settle for a lynx at this point. Anything but the twisted thing she was.

  The magic would hit tomorrow. If not, then the next day. I would have to perform the ritual. If the device worked as Kamen promised, if the witches managed to channel power into me, if if if . . . If everything went as expected, I still had no idea how exactly I would pull the blood from her body. At the end of it either Julie, or I, or both us could end up dead. Of all the strange and rash things I'd done, this was the craziest. If someone had told me a week ago that I would be contemplating cutting Julie's throat, I would've knocked them out on the spot.

  Doolittle said she couldn't even hear me. To keep the loupism at bay, he'd had to put her completely under. I wanted to tell her that I loved her, that I was sorry, so, so sorry. That I would do anything, give anything to fix it. But she wouldn't hear.

  The door opened. A tall, lean woman slipped inside. Jennifer. Surprise, surprise.

  She sat next to me. How did she even get here? The room was supposed to be restricted.

  "Came to gloat?" I asked.

  The wolf alpha startled. "Do you really think I would . . . ?"

  "You tell me. "

  Jennifer said nothing. We sat side by side and looked at Julie. Her chest rose and fell in a steady, slow rhythm.

  "Do you ever think about how fucked up life is?" Jennifer asked.

  "Yes. That's why I have a punching bag. "

  "I think about it a lot lately. "

  We looked at Julie some more.

  "I'm pregnant," Jennifer said. "Four months. Doolittle says it's a little girl. "

  "Congratulations," I told her. My voice came out monotone. "Does Daniel know?"

  "Yes. My scent has changed. " Jennifer looked at Julie. "Every time I see you, you remind me of the way Naomi died. "

  "I can't help that. "

  "I know," she said. "But every time I see you, you make me think of all the things that can go wrong. I hate you for that. "

  "Is that a challenge?" I asked, unable to keep fatigue from my voice.

  "No. " Jennifer looked at her hands.

  We sat quietly for another long minute.

  "I can't do it. I can't kill my own daughter, if she becomes a loup. That's all I think about. It would be my duty as a mother and an alpha, and I just can't. " "That's why there are two of you," I said.

  "What if he can't do it? Things happen to alphas. Daniel could be challenged. He could fight a threat to the Pack and lose. If something happens to Daniel and later our daughter becomes a loup, I'll have to kill her. Then there will be nothing left. " She looked at me. "Nothing. "

  If she was looking for wisdom, I had none to offer. "Look at it this way: if we don't find that device tomorrow, we will all die. Problem solved. "

  Jennifer shrugged her narrow shoulders, her eyes haunted. "I suppose so. I didn't ask to be born a shapeshifter. It just happened. Sometimes you want to stomp your feet and yell, `It's not fair,' but it won't change anything. "

  I didn't ask to be born Roland's daughter. I just had to live with it. The world was screwed up. Fanatics tried to murder us, and sometimes we had to kill our own children.

  "I'm so angry," Jennifer murmured. "If I could just get over my anger, I'd be all right. "

  What the hell did she want from me anyway? Was I supposed to hug her and tell her everything would be all right, with Julie lying there as far from fucking all right as she could get?

  "Sometimes it helps to live through it," I told her. "Find a time when nobody will bother you, and imagine it. Imagine the worst-case scenario in as much detail as you can manage. Let yourself live through it; feel the fear, feel the pain. It's a terrible thing to put yourself through, but once it's done, the anxiety goes away. It never disappears completely, but it leaves you alone enough so you can function. "

  "Thanks," Jennifer said. "I might try that. "

  Doolittle walked into the room, quiet as a ghost, and patted my shoulder. Jennifer rose and slipped out of the door as silently as she'd arrived.

  "It's time to take a break," Doolittle murmured. "Come. I'll fix you a nice glass of iced tea. "

  I rose and followed him out into a small room across the
hall. It looked just like an ordinary kitchen: a stove, a fridge, a table with a bench and three chairs . . . Doolittle pointed at the padded bench. I sat. He got a pitcher of iced tea from the fridge and two tall glasses. Oh no.

  The iced tea splashed into the glass. I picked it up and drank. Fifty percent honey. Maybe more.

  "People think it's the beast that makes us lose our sanity. " Doolittle sampled the tea in his glass and sat down with a sad smile. "They think the beast takes over and we become loup. Animals don't destroy each other for pure pleasure. They don't have serial killers. They kill, they don't murder. No, it's not the beast in us that makes us lose our balance. It's the man. Of all the animals, we're the most aggressive and the most predatory. We have to be, otherwise we would've never survived. You can see it in children, especially adolescents. Life is hard for them, so they attack it and fight for their own place in it. Homo homini lupus. " "Man is a wolf to his fellow man?"

  Doolittle nodded. "A wise Roman playwright once said that. "

  "Did he write tragedies?"

  "No. Comedies. Good ones, too. " Doolittle drank his tea. "I don't trust tragedies much. It's easy to make a person sad by showing him something tragic. We all recognize when sad things happen: someone dies, someone loses a loved one, young love is crushed. It's much harder to make a man laugh--what's funny to one person isn't funny to another. "

  I valiantly drank my tea. "That's what I don't understand about the Keepers. They're people. They laugh, they cry, and somehow they kill hundreds of their friends and neighbors with no remorse. There is no emotion involved in any of it. "

  "No, my dear. It's all emotion," Doolittle said. "It's rage. "

  "Against what?"

  "Themselves, mostly. Rage is a powerful thing. People get upset over many things. Frustrating jobs, small paychecks, bad hours. People want things; people feel humiliated by others who have the things they want; people feel deprived and powerless. All this gives fuel to rage. The anger builds and builds and if there is no outlet for it, pretty soon it transforms the person. They walk around like a loaded gun, ready to go off if only they could find the right target. They want to hurt something. They need it. "

  He refilled his glass and topped mine off. "Humans tend to segregate the world: enemies on one side, friends on the other. Friends are people we know. Enemies are the Other. You can do just about anything to the Other. It doesn't matter if this Other is actually guilty of any crimes, because it's a matter of emotion, not logic. You see, angry people aren't interested in justice. They just want an excuse to vent their rage. "

  Doolittle sighed. "And once you become their Other, you're no longer a person. You're just an idea, an abstraction of everything that's wrong with their world. Give them the slightest excuse, and they will tear you down. And the easiest way for them to target you as this Other is to find something that's different about you. Color of your skin. The way you speak. The place you're from. Magic. It comes and goes in cycles, Kate. Each new generation picks their own Other. For the Keepers, it's people with magic. And for us, well, it's the Keepers. We will murder them all. No matter if some of them are confused, or easily led, or feebleminded. Or if they have families. They will die. It makes me despair sometimes. "

  There was such profound sadness in his voice that it made me want to hug myself.

  "And then there are lost souls like Leslie, so full of selfhatred that they trample the world in a rush to blame someone for their pain. " He shook his head. "Well, look at me, getting all melancholy in my old age. I don't know what came over me. " I knew. It was looking at Julie's tortured body for the last twenty-four hours. He looked on her and felt terrible sorrow. I looked at her and I felt rage.

  "When Erra died, did you get hold of any tissue samples?" I asked. "Blood, hair, that type of thing?"

  Doolittle looked at me from above the rim of his glass. "Why don't you just tell me straight what it is you're hunting for. "

  "There is a ritual that may be able to save Julie. To do it, I need to be able to do what Erra did. I need to know if there are any differences between my blood and hers so I can figure out if it's possible to compensate for them. "

  "That will take time," Doolittle said.

  "Can you keep her asleep long enough?"

  Doolittle nodded and stood up. "Follow me. "

  We walked down the hallways, deeper and deeper into the medical ward. "This ritual, how certain are you that it will work?"

  " `Certain' might be too strong a word. "

  "And if it fails?" Doolittle asked.

  "Then I will finally be out of your hair and you won't have to patch me up anymore. "

  Doolittle stopped and looked at me. For a moment he looked stricken, and then he crossed his arms. "There will be none of that, now. You are my finest work. If I ever go to one of those medmage conferences they keep inviting me to, I will take you with me. Look!" He held his hands out toward me. "Bone dragons, sea demons, rakshasas, and worst of all, our own people, and these magic hands kept her alive through it all. Look at her walk! You can't even see the limp anymore. As long as you don't open your mouth, you will appear as a perfect example of a healthy adult female. With your history, they'll be calling me a miracle worker. "

  I snickered. "I promise to keep my mouth shut. "

  Doolittle shook his head in mock sorrow. "It's bad luck to promise impossible things. How is the knee? Honest now. "

  "Hurts. "

  "I'll take another look at it when the magic wave hits. " Doolittle stopped before a door. "Ready?"

  For what? "I was born ready. "

  Doolittle thrust a key into the lock and unlocked it with a quiet click. The door swung open, revealing a small chamber with a metal barrel in its center. Two feet wide, three feet tall, sealed with a flat lid. Doolittle approached it, twisted the metal clasp, and swung the lid aside. Cold assaulted my face. Inside, bags of red ice sat in neat rows.

  "Erra's blood," Doolittle said. "After you and our lord fought her, Jim brought me her body. Before we buried her, I drained it dry. "