Magic Breaks (Kate Daniels Book 7), page 36
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, the 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.
We crossed the lobby.
“The elevator doesn’t work yet,” Barabas informed me. “The bottom floors aren’t finished. Only the top three are.”
“That’s fine. We’ll take the stairs,” Curran said.
We climbed the steps. I knew stairs would be the death of me one day.
Twelve floors went by fast. I opened the door and we stepped into a wide hallway lined with green carpet. Six journeymen stood on the left, six vampires sitting by their feet. Across from them Derek and five of our combat-grade people stood on the right. Derek saw us and pushed himself from the wall.
If I knew anything at all about Derek, this wasn’t the totality of the Pack’s forces in the building. They would have people stashed on the roof, on the floor below, in the parking lot.
“No need for everyone to die,” I murmured.
Curran nodded at Derek. “Clear the building. Take our people out.”
He didn’t even blink. “Yes, Lord.”
“Everyone, Derek,” I added. “A complete recall.”
“Yes, Consort.” He turned to the shapeshifters. “Full evac.”
They turned and took off toward the stairs. He followed them, his voice raised, talking to people with supernatural hearing above and below us. “Full evac. I repeat, full evac. Clear the building.”
The journeymen looked at each other. One of them, a young girl with red hair, barely a woman, ran toward the door at the far end of the hallway. Curran and I followed. We weren’t in a hurry. We wanted to give our people enough time to leave Lakeside.
The hallway ended. Curran pushed the door open and walked into the room. A hundred feet long and about half as wide, the room housed two long tables, one at the left wall and the other at the right, each covered with a tablecloth, the floor between them empty. The alphas of the Pack Council sat on the right. The People sat on the left. I saw familiar faces, Mahon and Martha, Raphael, Desandra . . . Everyone was here.
We took our seats. I reached under the table and squeezed Curran’s hand. He squeezed back.
“We’re about to be attacked,” Curran said.
“We know,” Mahon said.
Across the room, the seven Masters of the Dead gaped at me, each holding two vampires arranged in a precise line against the wall behind them. Six familiar faces, and one new, an older man with gray hair. The red-headed journeyman was whispering to Ghastek. He glared at us and waved her off. “I don’t care who Lennart pulled out of the building.”
The gray-haired man rose, walked over, and knelt on the floor directly across from me. Oops. Looks like I sat down too soon.
“Sharrim.”
I’d heard his voice before. When we tried to escape Hugh’s burning castle, before Aunt B died, Hugh had sent vampires after me. I had slaughtered the undead, ruining the minds of the navigators who had piloted them, but I left one alive. When that vampire had spoken to me, it spoke in this man’s voice.
The People stared at us. Rowena was blinking rapidly, stunned. Ghastek leaned forward, focused on me with a laser’s precision. I wondered what Landon had told him. Maybe nothing. Wouldn’t that be funny?
“Sharrim,” the man repeated.
Showtime. I got up and walked over to him. He looked up at me, his hands folded on his lap.
“You are young,” the Master of the Dead said. “You have the power, but lack control. Think of all the things he could teach you. Think of the secrets that would open to you.”
I felt a power gathering beyond the walls of Lakeside, like a distant storm flashing with lightning on the horizon. The windows didn’t permit me a view of the sky, but I bet it churned with storm clouds. My father was coming.
“Think of what you could become.”
Oh, I was thinking about it. I did nothing but think about it the whole time it took me to get from Jester Park to Atlanta.
The arcane storm drew closer, terrible, swirling with power currents.
There were twenty-two vampires in the immediate vicinity. Six in the hallway, twelve in the room, and four in the adjacent room.
It would have to be enough. There was one power I didn’t demonstrate to my father. It was about time.
“There is no need to fight a battle that can’t be won.”
The storm swelled just outside the building, about to break on us.
“Think of who you are.”
The hurricane of magic burst. Lightning flashed outside the narrow windows and smashed into the wall in front of me. The stone cracked. I grabbed the vampires and pulled them to me. The navigators’ minds kicked and bucked like runaway horses. Rowena cried out. The Masters of the Dead pulled back, struggling to keep control.
I opened my mouth. “Hesaad.” Mine.
The power word tore from me, cracking like a whip. The navigators’ resistance vanished. The Master of the Dead in front of me got to his feet and pressed himself flat against the left wall. The vampires streamed to me.
The wall in front of me split open. Chunks of stone moved back, away from me, held apart, hung in the air for a long moment, and plunged down. The sky was black and gray with the full fury of a storm, and below the clouds, the sunset bled onto the sky. Icy wind bathed me, tugged my hair.
The mass of vampires circled me, forming an undead maelstrom around my feet.
Golden light burst into the space where the wall had been. Tendrils of pale smoke rose from it. The wall of light shimmered with yellow and white as if someone had ripped away a chunk of the sun’s corona and thrust it into Lakeside. My father’s face filled it, enormous, his eyes blazing with power.
