Magic Shifts

CHAPTER 15

LUTHER JERKED THE door open and sprinted down the hall. Julie and I chased him.

“What the hell is that?” I yelled over the shrieks.

“My alarm! Someone just broke into my lab.”

We rounded the corner and almost collided with four other people, one in a suit, two in scrubs, and one in a biological containment suit without helmet or gloves. Each was charged with enough magic to level a small building. Luther shoved past them and thrust the door of his lab open. The metal hood was raised, the body of the draconoid out in the open. A deep puncture wound gaped in its side.

“Damn it!” Luther dragged his hand through his hair. “He stabbed my specimen!”

Someone had gotten into the building, bypassing all of the security measures, and broken into Luther’s lab. If the press found out that Biohazard, the repository of all things strange and dangerous, had had a security breach, there would be no end of heads rolling.

“This way!” a woman screamed. “He’s going out the front door!”

The mages spun and gave chase. The guy in the biocontainment suit shoved the nearest window open. Flames burst over his fists. He punched the air. A fireball broke free of his hand, streaked down to the street, and exploded.

Oh boy.

Everybody except for the firebug ran for the staircase. I decided to run too, just so I wouldn’t be left out.

We collectively burst out the front door. The street lay empty. Nothing but five-foot-wide scorch marks.

“Where did he go?” Luther yelled.

Nobody answered.

“Where is Fluffy?” a woman asked.

“Jana took her on a job,” a man answered.

“Oh, come on! What good is a tracking dog if she’s never here to track?” Luther threw his hands up.

A fireball tore over our heads and splashed flames onto the street.

“Garcia, will you stop setting things on fire?” Luther roared.

“Sorry!” the man from the window called. “It was an accident.”

I put my hand over my face. Next to me, Julie pressed her lips together and was making small meowing noises trying not to laugh.

The door of Biohazard flew open and Patrice Lane, the head of the Infectious Diseases department, emerged with a gaggle of her techs behind her.

“Alright, where is he? I’m charged with Staphylococcus. Give me two seconds, and he’ll be covered in boils. He’ll tell us everything.”

“He got away,” a dark-haired woman explained.

“What?” Patrice blinked.

Julie bent in half and began snorting.

“Stop that,” Luther told her.

A man walked out of the shadows. He wore jeans and a brown jacket with a hood that right now rested on his back. Of medium height, he had light brown, slightly curly hair and a pleasant, friendly face with hooded blue eyes, a big nose, and the stubbly beginning of a mustache and beard. There was something vaguely familiar about his eyes.

He came over to me. “Consort. It’s such an honor to meet again. Oops. Shouldn’t have called you that.” He had a light Irish accent.

“She might not remember you,” Julie said. “She—”

“Jardin,” I said. The last time we had met he was in his wererat form and I almost stabbed him. He worked for Robert, Alpha of Clan Rat and the Pack’s current security chief.

“Ah,” Jardin said. “You remember. I am so flattered.”

“Who is he?” Luther demanded. “Who are you?”

“It’s not him,” the dark-haired woman said. “The other guy was older and taller and wore black.”

“He’s a member of the Pack,” I told him.

“Oh. Wait!” Luther’s eyes lit up. “Can you track?”

“Yes.” Jardin nodded.

“Great. A man ran out of here. Do you have his scent?”

“Sure,” Jardin said. “I saw him and I can smell him, but you see, you won’t catch him.”

“What?” the man in a suit demanded. “Why?”

“He had a horse.”

“A horse?” Luther waved his arms. “We have several advanced vehicles. We can beat a horse. With all of us chanting, we can start it in under three minutes.”

Ha. If more than one person chanted, the cars started faster. Why hadn’t I ever tried this? I filed that tidbit away for further study.

“It was a very fast horse,” Jardin said.

“How fast?” the dark-haired woman asked.

The wererat smiled. “It had wings.”

The street turned completely silent.

“Beautiful black wings,” Jardin said.

So. We had an ifrit holding Eduardo at some undisclosed location and our only lead had flown away on a winged horse.

Everybody spoke at once. The mages waved their arms.

Luther’s voice cut through it. “I’ll call the Order.”

Really? I raised my eyebrow.

“Sorry, Daniels,” Luther said. “It’s protocol. We need the heavy artillery now.”

I stepped away and smiled at Jardin. “Black horse?”

“Yes.” He nodded.

“An Arabian?”

“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t know.”

I bet it looked like a million-dollar horse.

“Was there something you wanted?”

He reached into his jacket. “My alpha brought this to the attention of the Beast Lord, but Jim doesn’t feel this is the right time. My alpha has a different opinion. He feels this is a threat to the Pack and to the city. He said you should know about it.”

He handed me a stack of Polaroids. The first one showed a big gray block formed from the remnants of different buildings. A person stood next to it. The block had to be at least thirty feet tall. My heart jerked in my chest. I had seen this before. That was how my father had made Mishmar.

I flipped through the rest of the Polaroids. Another block. Another. A small wooden model standing on a folding table in the middle of a field. My father standing next to a man holding a blueprint. He was still wearing his “wise father” persona, an older man with the features of Zeus or perhaps Moses toward the second half of his life, wise, beautiful, possessing otherworldly power, his dark brown eyes ageless . . . My father’s profile blurred. He turned toward me in the photograph and winked. Cute.

Julie clamped her hand over her mouth. Jardin turned pale.

Sonovabitch. He was building another tower. He would not take this land.

“Where was this taken?”

Jardin recovered enough to speak. “Near Lawrenceville.”

Just outside my territory. Oh no, you don’t. Over my dead body. Better yet, over his.

“Thank you,” I told Jardin. “Tell Robert I will handle this.”

I turned and marched toward our car. Approaching my father directly could be seen as an act of war, and trying to contact him by magic means was just asking for trouble. In the magic arena he was miles ahead of me, and opening any kind of connection through magic was unwise. I had no idea how to get hold of him, but I knew someone who did.

“Are we going home?” Julie asked, speed-walking next to me.

“No.” My voice had a lot of steel in it. “We’re going to the Casino. I’m going to have a chat with my father.”

“HOW DID HE do that with the photograph?” Julie asked. “How? The tech was up when the picture was taken.”

“I don’t know.” I would’ve loved to know what Sienna’s vision meant as well, but so far I had no sage insights. It bothered me.

We were walking through the parking lot of the Casino, where the People, my father’s pet cult/undead petting zoo, made its headquarters in Atlanta. The Casino, a replica of the Taj Mahal, perched in the center of a huge lot where the Georgia Dome had once offered seventy-some thousand seats to sports fans. The Dome was long gone, fallen casualty to the magic waves, and now the Casino dominated the area. During the day, the tint of its pure white marble changed depending on the color of the sky, but at night, painted by the glow of a powerful feylantern, the intricate marble lattice work appeared completely otherworldly and weightless, as if the entire massive building had been spun out of moonlight by some magic spiders. Long rectangular fountains, decorated with statues of Hindu gods caught in mid-move above the tinted water, stretched toward its doors, and as we walked between them toward the Casino, the tiny red lights of vampire minds glowed in my mind. They crawled along the textured parapets, they moved inside the Casino, and below the building, where the stables lay, the ground was completely red, like the tide of some bloody sea. I would’ve loved nothing more than to reach out and crush them one by one, until the sea of red lights vanished and only peaceful darkness remained.

“How does this not freak you out?” Julie demanded.

“I can’t afford to be freaked out. Neither can you.”

“Well, I . . .” Julie stopped, her eyes wide open.

I turned to her.

She stared at the Casino, looking down, where the stables would be. “Are those . . . ?”

This wasn’t her sensate magic at work. We were too far away and separated from the stables by tons of rock and soil.

“Vampires,” I told her.

A while ago she had almost died and I had purified her blood with mine to save her. It was my father’s blood ritual, but it was the only way. It bound her to me in the same way Hugh was bound to my father, and like Hugh she could never defy a direct order from me, something I had tried my best to keep secret. Unless my memory failed me, so far I had avoided it, simply because Julie usually did what I asked without my having to order her, and in those rare times when I had to issue a command, Julie was willing to obey. One day the time would come when she would want to do the exact opposite of what I said and would find out that I had robbed her of her free will. I dreaded that day, but I would deal with it when the time came. Right now I had to deal with a whole different side effect. It seemed that my blood was changing Julie.

“They have so many,” Julie whispered.

“Yes.” I stood next to her. “They keep it quiet. If people knew how many vampires are under the Casino, nobody would ever come to gamble.”

Her gaze swept the Casino.

“Can you feel each one?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you think you could reach out and grab one?”

She narrowed her eyes. “It feels like I could.”

“Good. Once we find Eduardo, we can practice. Now follow me and keep your power to yourself.”

We walked up to the door of the Casino. Two guards studiously ignored us. We passed into the lobby. The sound hit me first: the mechanical whirring of the slots, redesigned to work during magic; the din of human voices; the excited shouts of someone winning that sounded almost like a bird in pain; the clanging of metal tokens; all of it blending together into a disorienting, hysterical cacophony. I saw the main floor: dozens of machines, lit up by feylanterns and crowded with users, and, past them, green card tables and roulette wheels, the faces of the poker players devoid of any human emotion. Servers glided through it all, and here and there a journeyman in black-and-purple Casino colors watched over the patrons.

One of the journeymen, an average-sized man in his midtwenties with a pinched face, stepped in my way. “Excuse me, we will need some ID.”

I frowned at him. “My ID?”

“Hers.” He pointed at Julie. “Minors are not permitted on the Casino floor.”

“Tell Ghastek that Kate is here to see him. He’ll make an exception for me.”

The journeyman’s face took on a pompous expression. “I’m sorry, he isn’t accepting visitors right now.”

“He will accept me.”

“No, I don’t think so. I work directly under him and I’m quite sure he won’t be seeing you today.” He pointed at the door with his hand. “Please. I would rather not call security.”

I sighed. “Fine. I guess I’ll tell him myself.”

I reached out with my magic and grabbed the sea of red lights underneath us. The entire vampire stable sat still. Holding two hundred vampires was really difficult and my brain really, really didn’t like it.

The journeyman in front of me noticed nothing. “Perhaps I wasn’t clear,” he said, speaking with exaggerated slowness. “Sometimes I go too fast.”

“That’s because of your blinding intellect, isn’t it?” Julie asked.

I tried really hard not to laugh. Here’s hoping someone noticed that all of their undead were facing in the same direction and not moving, because I could feel my magic ripping at the seams.

The journeyman’s face turned red. “Look, you, there are two kinds of people who belong here: those with talent like me who work here and those who come here to have a good time and spend money. You don’t work here and”—he gave my jeans and beat-up boots a long once-over—“you don’t look like you have any money.”

Rowena emerged from the back. Her bright red hair crowned her head in a heavy complex braid. She was five feet, two inches tall and her figure, adorned by a kelly-green shimmering gown, was impossibly perfect: tiny waist, generous breasts, perfect butt, nice legs. Her face was shockingly beautiful. She didn’t just turn heads, she kept them turned, and given that she was the Casino’s PR person, this was quite handy. She was also the third strongest Master of the Dead in the city and made a formidable enemy. Normally her entrance was an event, but right now it was rather comical. Rowena was running as fast as her narrow gown and six-inch-high green pumps would allow, which wasn’t very fast. Behind her two journeymen, a man and a woman both in their midtwenties and wearing business suits rather than uniforms, were trying to find a delicate balance between hurrying and overtaking her. The late-year apprentices, close to graduating.

I let go of the vampires.

Rowena saw me and put an extra effort into her speed-walking.

“You don’t belong here,” the journeyman continued. “We don’t tolerate panhandlers.”

“You’re in so much trouble,” Julie told him.

Rowena caught up with us. True to form, she was smiling, but her eyes were terrible. The journeyman saw her. “Master, I can handle—”

She hit him on the back of the head. He flinched.

“Bow,” she squeezed through the smile.

“What?”

“Bow, you idiot.”

The journeyman bowed, his face surprised.

Rowena smiled at me. “Sharrim. Our deepest apologies for the misunderstanding. He is new and we didn’t expect you.”

Sharrim. Of the king. I hated being called Consort while Curran was the Beast Lord, but I would take it over Sharrim any day. “No worries.”

The journeyman was still bowed. Judging by his face, he had no clue what was happening.

“This way, please.”

Julie and I followed Rowena. Behind us the journeyman straightened. “Who was that?”

“Never mind,” the female journeyman told him. “This is your sick pass. You need to go home.”

“What?”

“You’re very sick,” the male journeyman ground out. “You need to go home and lie down. You were home all evening, and if Ghastek asks, you have no idea who was working the floor instead of you. Go.”

We turned the corner and descended the staircase. A dry revolting stench washed over me, the odor of undeath. A vampire hung from the ceiling directly above us, fastened to it with its long claws. Skeletally thin, gray, and hairless, it shed foul magic. Gagging would’ve totally ruined the moment, so I did my best to ignore it. We moved down, and the undead followed us, its eyes glowing dull red.

Rowena kept her expression carefully neutral. Her mother and mine were distantly related, which she had probably figured out by now. She owed a favor to the witches, and the witches in turn had bound her to help me, because at the time they were trying to make me stronger since the Covens didn’t fancy being enslaved by Roland. Nobody except the Witch Oracle and the two of us knew about this arrangement. Whatever emotions churned inside Rowena, she was keeping them under lock and key.

We descended deeper and deeper, into the bowels of the Casino, passed through a steel door and into a concrete hallway, and kept walking into a maze of tunnels designed to confuse the unpiloted vampires in case the locks on their cages somehow failed. The tunnels finally ended and we emerged into a vast round room filled with vampire cells, two to a row, stretching toward the center of the chamber. The stench was overpowering. Next to me Julie inhaled sharply.

“No need to worry,” Rowena said. “They’re secured.”

Julie glanced at me. I put a hand on her shoulder, trying to reassure her. Too many undead. Their magic was overloading her senses.

“I see Ghastek didn’t want Nataraja’s office?” The People’s former head used an opulent office in the dome of the Casino, complete with a golden throne and priceless works of art on the walls.

“We stripped it and converted it into a club for children, so they would be entertained while we separate their parents from their money,” Rowena said. “We are aiming to be a family-friendly destination.”

I almost choked on that.

We turned left and walked up a staircase to a balcony of opaque glass overlooking the enormous room. Rowena knocked and held the door open for us. I had been in Ghastek’s office before. It hadn’t changed much—same shelves supporting books and assorted odd objects lining the walls, same late-sixteenth-century witch shackles hanging in a place of honor on the wall, same crescent-shaped reed sofa, and of course, a vampire perched in the corner, like a vigilant hairless cat.

Ghastek stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, sipping coffee from a white mug that read, Graveyard Shift: We do it in the dark. From this side, the glass of the window was crystal clear, offering an excellent view of the undead stables, and Ghastek surveyed it like he owned it, because he pretty much did. He wore a tailored pair of sleek navy pants and a woven gray sweater with a hint of blue. Both looked elegant and deceptively simple, which probably meant they were hideously expensive. A small black velvet triangle interrupted the texture of the weave just below the flat-knit collar. The triangle alone probably cost him an extra three hundred dollars.

The clothes fit him with some slack. He needed to eat more.

For some reason, the thought of Ghastek and food made me uneasy. I puzzled over it until the answer floated up oh so slowly: we’d starved together in Mishmar. That was it.

“So you liked the mug?” I asked. I had sent it to him for Christmas.

Ghastek pivoted toward me. Rowena sat on the sofa.

“Thank you for the lovely gift,” Ghastek said, managing to put exactly zero emotion into those six words. “What can I do for you?”

“I need you to call my father.”

GHASTEK STARED AT me. Rowena blinked.

“What do you mean, call your father?”

“Dial his number, use the phone, and ring him up.”

Ghastek struggled with it for a few seconds. “One does not simply ring Roland.”

Oh boy. I supposed I would get a lecture on the dangers of wandering into Mordor next. “Okay, how do you normally contact him?”

“We don’t,” Rowena said.

“If something that we view as crucial arises,” Ghastek said, “we file a petition.”

The phone rang. Ghastek picked it up. “I said hold my calls.”

His eyes widened. Very carefully he set his mug down and held the phone out. “It’s for you.”

I took it.

“Blossom,” my father’s voice said in my ear. His magic washed over me, as if someone had split the atmosphere and the universe in all its glory rained down on me. The sheer monumental power of it took my breath away. He must’ve been working on something—probably on that damn tower—because the last time I spoke to him, he took the time to tone it down and the impact of his words wasn’t quite so cosmic.

I pressed the speaker button and put the phone down. I wanted both hands free in case something jumped out of it and tried to rip out my throat.

“My night is brighter,” my father said.

Rowena froze, completely still like a statue. Julie pulled a piece of chalk out of her pocket, drew a protective circle on the floor, and sat in it. At the other end of the room, Ghastek clenched his teeth, probably trying to mitigate the effect of Roland’s voice. Yeah, good luck with that.

“How have you been?” my father asked.

Say something diplomatic . . . something . . . “If you build a tower in Lawrenceville, I will smash it, set it on fire, and salt the ground it stood on.”

Ghastek put his hands over his eyes and pressed them into his face. I couldn’t tell if it was from frustration or terror.

“We should have this conversation in person. I know, why don’t we go out to dinner?”

What? “No.”

“When I first awakened, a few years before the Shift, I used to frequent this low-key chain of restaurants, with a wide variety on the menu. I can’t quite recall the name but it had a fruit and an insect.”

Ghastek mouthed something at me. I shook my head. I was distracted enough already trying to keep my magic shields up. Talking to him during tech was a lot easier. “I consider the tower to be a declaration of war. You are preventing me from expanding my domain. That specifically violates our agreement.”

Ghastek grabbed a piece of paper off his desk and drew furiously.

“I would love to see you.”

Ghastek held up his drawing. It was a butt with a bee flying over it. What?

“I haven’t spoken to you in over one hundred days.”

“That’s wasn’t an oversight on my part.”

I must’ve made a face, because Ghastek scribbled on the paper and held it up. He had drawn a leaf on the butt. Well, yes, that explains everything. Thank you, Mr. Helpful. I waved him off. Rowena got up, tiptoed over to Ghastek, and took the paper away from him.

“I’m free tomorrow at five,” he said. “Bring the family.”

Rowena held up the paper. On it in large letters was written APPLEBEE’S.

Oh. “I’m not having dinner with you at Applebee’s.”

“Tomorrow at five. Thank you for inviting me into your domain. I am so glad we could do this. It will give me a chance to stop by our local office as well. I look forward to catching up.”

The disconnect signal beeped at me.

God damn it.

I reached over and carefully pushed the off button.

Julie exhaled and stepped out of the circle.

“Did that help?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said and looked at Ghastek. “I’m sorry I drew on your floor.”

He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “It’s fine.”

Rowena raised her eyebrows at him. “Did you forget how to write?” she asked softly.

Ghastek just looked at her. I understood perfectly. Being in the presence of Roland’s magic demanded your attention. You concentrated on blocking it until it short-circuited your normal thoughts. It was like trying to carry on an intelligent debate while being sucked into a maelstrom. You had to tread water to stay afloat and it took every iota of concentration you had.

I had come here intending to declare a possible war and instead ended up planning a dinner date with my father at Applebee’s. There was only one Applebee’s that had survived the Shift in Atlanta. The chain had started in Decatur, Georgia, in the 1980s, and a single restaurant bearing the name still stood there, claiming to be the first and original Applebee’s.

I would have to go to dinner. Stopping by the local office was a threat. I wasn’t sure if Ghastek and Rowena knew it, but I understood his message crystal clear. It was up to me how this surprise inspection would go and how many heads would roll because of it.

For a man who hadn’t been sure I existed for most of my life, my father got my number very fast.

Ghastek leaned back and crossed his arms. “I had a promising career. I had achieved recognition and some infinitesimal measure of security. And then you came along.”

Aha. He and the dozens of hostages working in this building could cry me a river. “Who taught you to draw, Ghastek? That doesn’t even remotely look like an apple. It looks like a butt.”

“More like a peach,” Rowena said.

“I have an inspection in less than twenty-four hours,” Ghastek said, his voice dry. “If we have quite finished critiquing my ability to draw fruit, I have things to do.”

I leaned back. “Are you worried about it?”

He looked insulted. “No. We can be inspected at any point, and we would stand up to scrutiny.”

“If you are anxious, I can make sure he eats something deliciously sweet before he comes over here. Like a generous helping of tres leches cake or a chocolate sundae.”

Ghastek stared at me. “Get out.”

I rose and made a show of sniffling. “Come on, Julie. Clearly we are not wanted here.”

“I will show you out,” Rowena said.

I went to the door, turned, and looked at Ghastek. My father had my number, but I was his daughter and I had made a career out of studying him.

“You keep thinking of him as a god. He is a man. He loves life and he pays attention to every moment. Each second is filled with endless wonder for him. He notices the texture of the couch under his fingertips and the color of the tea in his cup. This is how he stays alive, because if he ever grows bored and disillusioned with the world, he will become a shadow of his former self and die, just like my aunt. Treat him as a man. If you want to make a good impression, don’t do a big official welcome. Meet him yourself and make sure to afford him the small, everyday courtesies.”

I walked out.

“CAN I SPEAK to you in private?” Rowena asked under her breath as we walked into the lobby. “Outside?”

“Sure.” I had a pretty good idea how that conversation was going to go. Why didn’t you tell me you are my nearly immortal boss’s daughter? It didn’t come up. Where do we go from here? Ugh.

But she was bound to me by the oath she had sworn to the witches. I turned to Julie. “Go ahead of me and start the car, please.”

Julie gave Rowena a sideways glance filled with enough teenage scorn to instantly incinerate a small army and sped up ahead of us.

“That child is just like you,” Rowena said, her voice making it obvious it wasn’t a compliment.

“Thank you.”

We were almost to the door when a journeywoman with short dark hair nearly sprinted to us across the floor.

“Trouble,” I told Rowena.

She turned. The journeywoman ran up to her.

“Not now,” Rowena said.

The journeywoman gulped some air and whispered, “Frederick exposed himself to two young women in front of the ladies’ bathroom.”

Rowena’s eyes went wide. She turned on her heel toward me. “One minute.”

“Take your time. I’ll wait for you by the fountain.”

I walked out of the Casino’s doors. After the stench of the undead, the night air tasted refreshing, like a gulp of cold water in the heat of a summer day. I’d had enough of the People’s hospitality for one night. Maybe if I splashed some water from those pretty fountains on my face, it would wash the stench off.

A man stepped in my way. “Kate!”

How did I know him . . . I had seen him before. He stepped forward and the light shone on his face. Lago Vista. Except this Lago seemed to have lost at least two decades. The Lago I recalled had seen forty-five. In my head, his hair was thinning, his muscle drooped a bit off his frame, and lines had begun to crop up on his face. This Lago was in his prime. He stood straight, his shoulders were broad, his chest filled out his leather, and as he sauntered toward me, his gait betrayed no trace of a limp. His hair was thick, his eyes bright, and his smirk had gone from self-deprecating to smug.

All my warning sirens went off at the same time.

“Hey.” Lago winked at me. “Didn’t know you gambled.”

“I don’t. Strictly business.” There was something important I needed to remember about Lago. Something vital. It was making my head hurt, but when I reached for those memories, there was nothing there.

“I just wanted to tell you that you and I are cool. I don’t hold grudges.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Lago grinned. “That’s the right kind of attitude. Water under the bridge.” He waved his arm as if tossing an invisible baseball. “Whoosh, gone and forgotten.”

Okay. An important chunk of my memory was definitely missing.

“So where is your guy?”

“At home.”

“Oooh. Out on the town by yourself.” He nodded. “I like it. Come on, I’ll treat you to a couple of spins on the roulette wheel.”

“Can you afford to gamble, Lago?”

He reached into his jacket. It looked brand-new. New pants, too. New boots. Lago pulled out a wad of cash held together with a rubber band and held it up between his index and middle finger. “I’m flush.”

I could almost remember it. I could feel the tail end of a memory squirming somewhere just outside my reach. “You got a rich uncle I don’t know about?”

“Nahh. I’m a self-made man. So what do you say, Kate? Let me show you a good time. Your guy doesn’t have to know.”

Lago had some serious balls.

“Sorry,” I told him. “I’m meeting someone here in a couple of minutes and then I’m going home.”

Lago pondered it. “You know, you’re right. Why go in there? Too many people. Let’s go for a drive instead. I always thought you were hot, Kate. Mmm, legs.”

And we had gone straight into creepy territory. I really didn’t want to break his arms. “No.”

“No?”

“Move on, Lago.”

He smiled at me. “Well, shoot. I guess I’ll have to do it the other way. I want this one.”

Magic clamped me, trying to pull me forward. Overwhelming, catastrophic power squeezed me. An alien intelligence brushed against me. Every hair on the back of my neck rose. I dropped my shields and pushed back. My legs shook from the strain. I couldn’t cry out. I had no voice. It was taking everything I had to not move.

Lago made a come-here motion with his hand. “Car, car, car. Quickly now.”

A sleek silver convertible slid from the shadows, completely silent.

Lago swung the door open. “In you go.”

The magic squeezed, grinding me. It was streaming from Lago, but it wasn’t his magic. He was merely a shell, an anchor for something ancient and powerful with a familiar flavor. We’d just had a chat in Biohazard’s dumping ground.

So here you are, precious. Didn’t wait long.

The power pressed on me, demanding compliance. Strong. So strong. I clenched my teeth and pushed back. The ifrit’s magic recoiled slightly, shocked at the resistance.

That’s right, punk. Try me. I’m coming for you.

The power clamped me, harder and harder. I concentrated on lifting my hand. Lago must’ve gotten hold of whatever shiny thing the giant wore in his ear. Oh, you stupid fool. Never bargain with beings you don’t understand.

“I said, I want this one,” Lago said. “What’s the matter with you?”

The power squeezed, trying to pull me off my feet.

I’m going to kill you. I’m coming for you and I will kill you.

My hand crept up, ever so slowly, as if I were swimming through cooling tar. It felt like my muscles tore and snapped off my bones one by one. The presence behind the spell threw all of its weight against me. My magic and its magic ground and clashed like two swords locked against each other.

My hand was almost to Sarrat’s hilt. Another inch and I am so there. Sorry, Lago. Take out the anchor and the ship will drift away.

“Kate?” Rowena walked up to us.

Lago stroked his chin. “Oh my God. No offense, Kate. Forget that one, let’s take this one instead.”

Rowena’s face went slack. The magic vanished. I flew backward twenty-five feet and landed on my ass on the pavement. It took me half a second to roll to my feet. The car was already speeding away into the night, Rowena in the passenger seat, her eyes blank.

I sprinted after the convertible.

A vampire barreled into me, knocking me off my feet. We rolled and it landed on top of me, red eyes burning. The massive mouth unhinged an inch from my face, the twin fangs like sickles in the moonlight.

“Do not move!” A navigator barked in my ear. “Identify yourself.”

I punched the bloodsucker in the head. “You moron. He’s kidnapping your Master of the Dead. Get the hell off me. Get Ghastek! Tell him an old power took Rowena. Move, damn you!”

For a moment the vampire froze.

The gates of the white minarets above me opened wide and vampires rained onto the pavement.