Magic Binds

CHAPTER 15

NICK TALKED FOR almost forty-five minutes. Sometimes I added things to clarify, sometimes Curran did. To say Nick didn’t sugarcoat things would be an understatement. In his two years undercover, he had been forced to see things and do things that violated the very core of who he was. He let his hate flow.

Adora sat quietly through it all, her face stoic. Sometimes she looked to me or Curran for confirmation. When he finished, she said, “Thank you.” I couldn’t tell if any of it made an impact.

Nick fixed me with his stare. “The Pack burned Nimrod’s base.”

The Order always had good intel. “Yes.”

“He isn’t going to let it slide.”

“No.”

“When and where?” Nick asked.

“At the Keep,” Curran said. “Direct assault with overwhelming force, as soon as the new magic wave hits. In daylight.”

“Blood is best viewed in daylight,” Nick said.

I nodded. “He wants the shapeshifters to see their relatives die in gory detail.”

“We could use help,” Curran said.

“We’ll be there,” Nick said. “As an independent force.”

“Thank you,” I told him.

“This doesn’t mean I like you,” he said.

“I don’t need you to like me, Nick. I need you to show up at the battlefield and kill as many of my father’s troops as you can.”

Nick smiled.

Outside Adora looked at me. “Did that man tell the truth?”

“Yes.”

“And your father, Sharrum? He lied?”

“Yes.”

“There is no heaven?”

“I don’t know if there is a heaven,” I said. “But I know that you won’t get there by serving my father. There are many different kinds of evil. Some people are evil because they like to cause pain. Some people are evil because they are selfish and care only about themselves. He is the worst kind of evil. He believes he knows how to bring about a better future, and, if he has to, he will pave the road to it with corpses of innocent people. He has no boundaries. There is nothing he won’t do to get his way.”

“What about you?” her eyes narrowed.

“I’m trying not to be evil. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don’t.”

“So you’re like him?”

“Yes. When I didn’t kill you the first time, it was because I acted exactly like him.”

“But you saved me the second time, too?”

“Slavery is wrong, Adora. People should be free to make their own choices. They might be bad choices, but it doesn’t matter. I didn’t want you to die before you realized that there’s a whole life you could live on your own terms. You don’t have to take anyone’s orders. You are in charge of yourself. I broke my father’s hold on you. I’m responsible for you. I’ll try to help you as much as I can.”

“Because you feel guilty?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Curran said.

She narrowed her eyes. “How do I know you and that man aren’t lying?”

“You don’t,” I said.

“You have to look at what everyone has to gain,” Curran said. “Kate says that Roland is an evil liar. Roland says that his blood is divine and will get you to the happy afterlife. One of them has to be lying. If we suppose that Roland is lying, what benefit does he derive from it?”

Adora frowned. “My loyalty.”

Curran nodded. “He gets to use you and your skills. And if you suppose that Kate is lying?”

“She derives no benefit,” Adora said. “If I believe her, I won’t serve her.”

“Yes. She has no incentive to lie. People go through the trouble of lying to get something they want. Kate doesn’t want anything from you, but she feels responsible for you. She wants you to have a life that’s your own.”

She pondered it. “I’ll follow you, Kate. I need to follow someone. It’s too much change all at once. But I’ll think. And I’ll find out more, so I can decide who’s lying. And if I decide not to follow you anymore, I will leave.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“And I won’t call you Sharrim anymore, even in my head. You’re not my queen.”

“That’s fine.”

“And you will ask me if you want me to do something.”

“Will you please come with me to the Casino to impress the Masters of the Dead?”

“Yes,” Adora said. “Yes, I will.”

WE STOPPED BY the Guild next. Curran went to talk to the mercs and I made a beeline for Barabas’s office. Barabas had posted the sign-up sheet for the battle. There were seven names on it already. It was hanging between next week’s menu and the petition to add free weights to the training yard. There was a deep and meaningful life lesson about the nature of human existence in there somewhere, but I didn’t feel like looking for it.

“How are we going to pay them?” I asked.

“Battle spoils,” Barabas said.

I stared at him.

“It’s a time-honored tradition.” Barabas bared his teeth at me. You could almost see the mongoose under his skin.

“Can I talk to Christopher?” I asked.

“He’s his own man.”

I lowered my voice. “How are things?”

“Horribly awkward. Also confusing. I used to have to keep track of when he bathed and ate. Now he’s patrolling the grounds. We discussed your father last night. Christopher may be the smartest man I’ve ever spoken to.”

“And that’s bad how?”

Barabas heaved a sigh. “It’s complicated.”

“I thought you found intelligence attractive.”

“I do. As I said, complicated.”

I stepped outside the office and waved at Christopher on the beam.

He dropped down. His wings snapped open at the last moment and he landed gently on the floor.

“Show-off,” Barabas muttered.

“I’m going to the Casino,” I said. “I’m going to try to convince them to fight on our side.”

Christopher frowned. “It will be difficult.”

“The alternative is for them to reinforce Roland.”

“You could kill them.” He studied me.

“Yes, that would be the smart thing to do, but I’m not going to kill them. If I fail, I will let them leave the city.”

“Why?”

“Because there is a difference between war and murder. Killing them would be murder.”

“Do you want my help?”

“Yes. No pressure. I understand if you say no.”

Christopher looked down at his bare feet, worn-out jeans, and white T-shirt.

“I’ll need different clothes. A suit.”

“We can get that.”

“Okay,” he said, and started toward the exit.

I leaned into Barabas’s office. “Do you want to come help pick out a suit for Christopher?”

“No,” Barabas said firmly, tapping a stack of papers against his desk to even it out.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t need to see him in a suit.”

Curran walked over to me. “Parks came back from the Casino. He says they are refusing customers.”

They had been given the order to evacuate. We had to get to them now.

I SAT IN the passenger seat of our car and watched Julie walk toward the Casino. The beautiful white palace all but floated above the parking lot. She strode between the long stretches of rectangular fountains carrying the green and blue standard.

Next to me Curran sat quietly, watching Julie. He reached over and covered my hand with his.

“Nervous, ass kicker?”

“No. I don’t want to kill them.” I would if I had to. I wished I didn’t have to. The technology was up. If I went in there during magic, I could’ve used it to impress the navigators.

“You can do this. You will walk in there like you own the place and you will kick ass. Don’t let them think and don’t give them any reason to doubt. Walk in and hit them with everything you’ve got.”

In my head, I kept going through the People’s leadership. The lineup had changed over the years. Currently, there were eight Masters of the Dead. First, Ghastek and Rowena. Orlando Beasley, a trim, short black man with smart eyes and a quiet, cultured voice. Constance Hyde, an older woman with a platinum head of hair who always looked mildly displeased. Ryan Kelly, tall, well-built and well-groomed, every inch a CEO, except for his purple Mohawk. Filipa, a Hispanic woman, about my age, who wore glasses with a red rim and never said anything in my presence. Toakasu Kakau, a dark-eyed woman of Tongan ancestry, in her forties, with a white smile and the kind of no-nonsense gaze that stopped you in your tracks. Dennis Pillman, a tall, thin man with a two-thousand-dollar haircut, whose suits were always a size too large.

Julie walked through the gates into the Casino.

“It’s time,” my aunt said in my ear.

I stepped out of the car and followed Julie. Curran walked next to me. Adora shadowed me on the right. She’d changed back into her sahanu outfit, but instead of purple she’d now added a green-and-blue scarf. I didn’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole.

Christopher Steed walked on Curran’s left. Barabas had no idea what he was missing. The coal-black suit combined with Christopher’s nearly white hair made a killer impression. The seamstress in the shop had actually stammered while cutting and sewing the slits for his wings. Time was short, but the suit was a necessity. The Masters of the Dead had to recognize him.

“Feel the land,” Erra said in my ear. “Feel it breathe.”

It felt odd after last night. Before, the land was an ocean, and I stood within it, distinct and separate, like a rock. Now the ocean and I had melded. I was no longer a rock. I was . . . I didn’t know what the hell I was. A tangle of seaweed, a current, something that stretched to the farthest reaches of my land. Still distinct, but no longer separate. And I couldn’t touch any of that magic with the technology up. Not even a drop. My aunt had been clear on that.

“This is your land,” Erra said. “You protect it. Your blood waters it. You’ve bonded with it for months. Reach deep inside you and sacrifice for its sake.”

The Casino loomed, the vampires within it a constellation of bright red lights in my mind. The two men guarding the entrance saw us coming and stared straight ahead, determined not to notice us. Denial was the better part of valor.

I needed to convince Ghastek and the Masters of the Dead. Once they committed themselves, the rest would follow. I had to get them to see me not as Kate Daniels, but as my father’s daughter.

I walked onto the Casino’s main floor. Usually the din of slots hung above the floor, but today the casino was completely silent. Journeymen moved back and forth, carrying boxes. Julie stood in the middle of the open space, holding her standard. My standard. The journeymen ignored her.

Rowena emerged from the side entrance and approached me. She was the only woman I knew who could be equally radiant in a gown or a business pantsuit like she wore now.

“Sharrim, we are honored by your presence. You caught us at a busy time, unfortunately.”

“Oh?” “Oh” was nice and neutral.

“We’ve received some orders from headquarters.” Rowena stepped closer to me and whispered, her voice urgent. “You should leave, Kate. It’s not safe for you here.”

“He’s pulling them out of the city,” Christopher said.

Rowena glanced at him and clamped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes widened. She backed away toward the stairwell and almost walked into Ghastek as he descended the stairs. The remaining six Masters of the Dead followed Ghastek. The gang was all here. They looked like they had left a board meeting.

Ghastek saw us. His gaze fixed on Christopher.

“Nice touch, Kate. But this man is not Christopher Steed,” he said, making sure his voice carried. “This is Saiman. This woman isn’t sahanu, although she’s dressed like one. Clothes are easy to acquire.”

Ghastek two, Kate zero.

“Five miles, sixteen hundred and thirty-five yards,” Christopher said.

Ghastek winced.

“What is that?” Ryan Kelly asked.

“That’s his real range,” Christopher said. “This is how far he can send a vampire before risking losing the connection with its mind.”

“You’re wrong,” Filipa said. Apparently she was able to talk.

“No,” Christopher said. “That’s why I passed you over, Matthew.”

Ghastek took a step back. Christopher had used his real name.

“It wasn’t politics and it wasn’t your petty fight with Kowalski. It was because you lied and shortened your range by two hundred yards on your official evaluations. You didn’t want me to know the full extent of your power. I required complete transparency.”

Curran smiled next to me.

“Very well,” Ghastek said. “You have Steed. This changes nothing.”

Ha!

“Should Adora also demonstrate her skills?” I asked, my voice so sweet you could dip a pancake into it. “Would you like to pick a target?”

“No. Now that the theatrics are out of the way, what can we do for you?” Ghastek said.

Here we go. “My father intends to attack the Keep at the beginning of the next magic wave. I intend to defend Atlanta against this invasion. I’d like you to join me.”

“You expect us to fight?” Constance asked.

“Yes.”

“Against your father?” Ryan Kelly asked. Even his purple Mohawk seemed incredulous.

“Yes.”

Toakase shook her head.

Ghastek raised his hand. “No.”

“Think about it,” Curran said. “It will make sense to you.”

Ghastek’s eyes narrowed. He was running through possible scenarios in his head trying to figure out what he’d missed. Maybe we’d get lucky and he would talk himself into it. Reach deep inside and sacrifice. I wish I knew what the hell she was talking about, because it would sure help right about now.

Pillman checked his watch. “This is ridiculous. After this morning’s phone call, we’re under no obligation to humor her any longer. Just throw her and her has-been shapeshifter out.”

Erra tore into existence in front of Pillman and backhanded him. The Master of the Dead flew back and fell on his ass.

“Bow, worm!” My aunt’s magic raged. “Bow before my niece. You’re not fit to lick her boots.”

The Masters of the Dead froze, horrified. Rowena’s face turned completely white. Next to me Adora unsheathed her katana. Blood-red wings snapped out of Christopher’s back.

A sharp calculation was taking place in Ghastek’s eyes. Above us vampires sprinted as he pulled them to him. Julie was a full twenty feet from me. This was about to turn bloody.

Now. I had to do it now.

Show them that you love them above all others.

I did love this land. I loved the city and the people within it. That’s why I fought so hard to protect it. I couldn’t ask it to give its magic, but I could give up a little of my own. I reached deep inside me and took the magic the same way I had taken it from the land, except now it came from within my soul.

It hurt.

“There is no need to shout.” I stepped toward Pillman, and my aunt moved out of my way. The Master of the Dead stared at me. His pupils widened. I reached for him. My hand almost glowed, as if dusted with gold. “Are you hurt?”

He reached out, hesitant, and touched my hand. I grasped his fingers. “Rise.”

“You . . .” Pillman stood up, his face stunned.

“Behold In-Shinar,” Julie intoned. “Daughter of the Builder of Towers, niece of the City Eater, Guardian of Atlanta.”

Burning my own magic hurt so much. I couldn’t let them see the pain.

“Don’t be afraid,” I told Pillman. “I’m not my father. He doesn’t value you. I do. He is far, unreachable, and distant. But I am here.”

He swallowed, his fingers fastened on my hand. I motioned toward the others. Pillman took one hesitant step back. Then another. That seemed to be as far from me as he was willing to go.

“My father doesn’t recognize your talents.” I looked straight at Ghastek. “I do. I know what you’re capable of.”

Their faces looked torn between hope and fear, caught in some weird emotion I couldn’t pin down. The technology was up and I stood among them, emanating magic. And each second I did cost me more than they would ever know. It was that or the city would fall.

They recognized this magic. Some of them had seen it before, because I saw the excitement and fear in their eyes. They were drawn to it like moths to a flame. It was the magic of my blood, the one that made the vampires possible, except now it was directed at them. They wanted my approval. I sensed it. Beyond them journeymen stood unmoving, shocked.

I finally pinned down their expressions. Awe.

Rowena knelt. Filipa was praying, her voice an urgent whisper.

Ghastek walked toward me and went down on one knee, looking up at me.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

“Saving all of us from being drowned in our blood and my father’s fire,” I whispered. “He’s going to throw you and your vampires at the Keep. You will be decimated. Your vampires will be gone; your position within Atlanta will be eliminated. If you survive, you will have to start from scratch, Ghastek.”

His face told me he didn’t want to start from scratch.

“You’re outside the inner circle. It will take you years to climb higher. Even if you become his Legatus, your life will be short. He will never care about you, Ghastek. I care. You are my friend. You are the best there is at what you do. This is your chance. Don’t do it because of what’s happening now. Do it because it makes sense.”

“You know my price,” Ghastek whispered.

“I know.” The irony was that he already had what he was asking for. He was my friend. I already cared about him. I would already do whatever I could to keep him breathing.

“Swear it,” Ghastek said.

I smiled at him. My voice rang. “Rise, Legatus of my Legion. Work with me, advise me, be my friend, and you will live forever.”

THE AIR OUTSIDE the Casino tasted sweet.

“How did you do that?” Curran asked.

“She burned her own magic,” my aunt said. “If she were a normal human, you would’ve seen her aging.”

The look on Curran’s face was indescribable.

“Relax, half-breed,” Erra said. “She has lifetimes to spare. That wasn’t half-bad for your first time. You’ll get better with practice.”

“I won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have no plans to conquer. I don’t want any more troops. I don’t want to do any more persuading.”

“You say that now.”

I turned toward her. “Look inside me.”

Erra’s eyes narrowed. “You mean it. You have no ambition.”

“No. I don’t want to conquer or rule. I want to contain my father.”

“This will be interesting,” my aunt said.

Behind us the banner of In-Shinar, a field of pure emerald green with a single blue stripe, streamed from the spire above the Casino’s walls.

THE PACK ARRIVED in time for dinner. One moment our kitchen was empty and Curran and I were quietly cooking dinner, while Julie tried to make it through some ancient text Erra decided she should read. The next it was filled with shapeshifters. Jim and Dali, Robert, and Andrea and Raphael. Jim’s face was flat. His eyes told me that he hadn’t come because he wanted to patch things up with me. He’d come because his back was against the wall. Our friendship was truly over.

“Where is the baby?” I asked.

“With about a dozen babysitters in the bouda clan house,” Andrea said. “You just want me for my baby.”

“Yep, you nailed it.”

“Peace offering,” Robert said, holding an envelope out to Julie.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Jezebel’s confession,” Robert said. “We found it in her quarters. Some of it is addressed to you.”

She grabbed the envelope and bolted to the living room couch with it. I could still see her. That was the fun of an open floor plan. We were never too far from each other.

“Give me a CliffsNotes version?” I asked.

“Jezebel, Salome, and the woman who was supposedly their mother joined the Pack when Salome was seventeen and Jezebel was fifteen,” Robert said. “Clan Bouda failed to verify their background.”

“Oh please,” Andrea said. “Please make it sound like it is all our fault.”

“The clan had very low numbers at the time,” Raphael said. “This woman showed up, told my mother a sob story about running away from abuse, and offered herself and two able fighters who were almost adults. My mother took them in.”

“He approved it.” Andrea pointed to Curran.

Curran shrugged.

“Veronica, Jezebel and Salome’s supposed mother, left the Pack about four years after joining,” Andrea said. “According to Aunt B’s records, she met a man from Montana and went with him. Salome and Jezebel stayed behind.”

“Jezebel had written a summary of her life before joining the Pack. Does the word ‘sahanu’ mean anything to you?” Robert asked.

“Julie, can you get Adora for me?” I asked. Julie got up and left the living room.

I went into the hallway, took a framed photograph off the wall, and brought it into the kitchen. It showed Julie and her friend Maddie, smiling and making cute faces at the camera. Jezebel loomed to the side, watching over them.

Julie returned with Adora. I showed her the photograph. “Do you recognize this woman?”

“Isabel,” Adora said. “She and her sister, Leanna, were in the fort with me. They transform into hyenas.”

“What happened to them?”

“One day they disappeared. We were told they were needed elsewhere.”

“Thank you.” I turned to Robert. “Sahanu is an order of assassins created by my father.”

“He must’ve pulled them out of training and inserted them into the Pack,” Curran said.

“That appears to be the case,” Robert said.

“It says here she did it for me,” Julie said, her voice quiet. She took the papers and went upstairs.

“Jezebel’s assignment was to get as close as possible to the Beast Lord,” Robert said. “When Kate entered the picture, Jezebel saw an opportunity. She and Salome put on a show for Aunt B and afterward Salome suggested that Jezebel should be reassigned. Then her assignment changed. Julie became her priority. She loved Julie very much. She wanted to separate with you but was ordered to remain with the Pack. Eventually, she was ordered to kill Andrea’s child. She refused and was told that Julie would suffer if Jezebel failed.”

“Where is Salome now?” Curran asked.

“Dead,” Jim said. “Anybody who touches Dali is dead. Anybody who helps them is dead.”

Dali sighed. “I’m okay. I’m here, I’m alive, and I would appreciate it if everyone butted out and stopped making a giant deal out of this.”

It hit me. Jim was an excellent Beast Lord: smart, efficient, and painfully fair. He would be admired and respected, but he would never be loved the way Curran was. Curran had wanted to be loved, needed it because he’d come to the Pack as an orphaned kid. Jim didn’t want to be loved by anyone except Dali. He didn’t need friends. He didn’t want anything else. Only Dali.

“Why are you here?” Curran asked.

“You know why,” Jim said. “You’ve taken the People. Are we at war?”

Oh my God, you moron.

Dali elbowed Jim in the ribs. “What he meant to say was he is sorry that duties of his office and his own paranoid nature caused him to overreact.”

Jim looked like someone had hit him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper. “Yes.”

“And he knows that both of you have been his friends, of which he doesn’t have many, for years. He is aware that you would never do anything to harm us or the Pack and that you have protected us on several occasions and have been injured as a result several times.”

“Yes,” Jim said.

Dali looked at him. Clearly, there was more.

Jim turned to me. “I apologize.”

“Not a problem,” I told him.

Jim faced Curran. “And I would be honored to still be best man at your wedding.”

Jim was who he was. This was the best we were going to get, and we wouldn’t even have gotten that without Dali.

Curran smiled. It was a bright, infectious smile, the kind that could change the mood of an entire hall of shapeshifters. I had seen it in action before. It signaled that all was forgiven. The tension in Jim’s body eased. But I knew Curran better than Jim did. Curran would never forget this.

“Who else would be my best man?” Curran said.

The mood in the room lightened.

Curran leaned back. “You burned Roland’s castle. He will retaliate the morning after the next magic wave hits.”

“We’ll be there to defend you because you are within our borders,” I said.

“We’re coming either way, Jim,” Curran said. “Without Kate’s protection, he will shatter the Keep with magic.”

Jim looked at me. “Can you stop him?”

“I can stop his actions against the land itself. I can’t stop him from physically riding onto the battlefield and sniping people with his magic.”

“Roland will bring an overwhelming force,” Curran said. “It’s a show of strength. And he’s angry. He wants to crush you.”

“He will breach the walls at the very least,” Jim said.

“You should let him,” Curran said.

Jim thought about it. “Yes. I should.”

Curran got up and got a piece of paper. I reached for the phone.

“Who are you calling?” Jim asked.

“Ghastek and then Roman. If we’re going to plan, they should be in on it.”

FIVE DAYS LATER I stood on top of the Keep’s main tower. The sun rose above the horizon, its first rays banishing the twilight. Clear, crystalline blue sky spread above me. The woods around the Keep stood still. Birds sang. It was so peaceful.

Almost a week had passed since Jim’s attack on my father’s tower. The first magic wave came and went without any action from my father, but last night magic hit hard and Jim’s scouts reported a large force heading our way. This was it.

Somewhere within those woods, Curran and the bulk of our forces hid.

Christopher waited next to me. Behind me the seven Masters of the Dead stood, each with a single vampire parked by their feet like a mutated hairless cat. Jim put renders all around us with Desandra in the lead. We wouldn’t be able to enter the main Keep, but he understood what was about to happen. If my father attacked with his magic and if I blocked that attack—which was a pretty big “if” at this point—people had to see it. The Masters of the Dead had to see it.

The Keep below us swarmed with shapeshifters. Jim was front and center, Dali next to him.

Jim had shared intelligence from his scouts. My father couldn’t pull the entire Golden Legion together on short notice, but he had put together a force of over two hundred undead, enough to decimate an army five times that size. He’d kept human reserves in Virginia, something none of us knew about, and they had arrived last night. Together with his mages, the Pack scouts estimated that he was fielding almost three thousand combatants.

Jim had called for a complete mobilization. Everyone older than eighteen would fight. Anyone above sixteen could volunteer. He ended up with around six hundred troops. We brought one hundred twenty vampires to the fight. Ghastek had gotten every journeyman with half a hint of talent and put them on the field. He stood next to me now, the skin on his face too tight.

We were outnumbered and outgunned, several times to one.

“Wondering if you shouldn’t have rolled the dice?” I asked.

“No. It’s too late.”

A red light claimed the horizon, glowing like a second sunrise. Wolves fled from the woods and sprinted to the safety of the Keep.

“It begins,” my aunt said in my ear.

If I failed, everything was over.

In the distance trees collapsed as if torn aside by an invisible tornado half a mile wide. Smoke billowed, white and thick, and lightning crackled within it. My father was coming.

“Take and hold,” Erra’s voice whispered.

“Hey, Kate? You’re nobody’s bitch,” Desandra said.

Behind me, one of the navigators drew a tense breath.

The smoke was almost to the boundary. My father’s fury loomed, a magic storm devouring all before it.

I felt every drop of life within the land I claimed. It was enough to make you go mad.

The storm rolled across the land, swallowing the distance in hungry gulps. A hundred yards.

Eighty.

Sixty.

A sound like the roar of a distant waterfall rolled through the land.

Forty.

Take . . .

Twenty.

Below me in the Keep, the shapeshifters stood frozen.

The trees before the boundary collapsed, snapped like toothpicks, and were sucked into the storm.

And hold!

Magic shifted like a mountain that somehow moved. It wasn’t an isolated stream or a burst. The entirety of the magic around us changed somehow, and everyone felt it.

My father’s storm splashed against an invisible boundary and stopped. Smoke billowed. Lightning struck, licking at the boundary with glowing snake tongues. The storm didn’t move.

It pushed.

I held.

The storm melted into nothing.

Ghastek laughed.

I released the magic.

The ground trembled.

Hold.

The budding earthquake died.

A ball of fire appeared in the sky. It hurtled toward us, an enraged inferno of red and yellow, threatening to demolish everything in its path.

Hold.

The impact shook me. The fireball evaporated in midair.

Ghastek grinned at me. “My queen, you have inspired me greatly. I shall now go and do what the Legatus does.”

“Don’t strain anything,” I told him.

“I won’t.”

The vampire picked him up, grasped a metal pole on the side of the tower, and slid down. The other Masters of the Dead followed suit. Pillman lingered.

“Yes?” I asked him.

“I . . .” he faltered.

I let the magic suffuse me. “Are you afraid?”

“No,” he said.

“I’m always afraid,” I told him. “Before every battle. Use the fear. It will make you sharp.”

He nodded, and his vampire took him off the tower.

“You’re starting to scare me,” Desandra said.

“That’s one off the bucket list.” I took a deep breath and yelled at the top of my lungs. “Chernobog! Living darkness, father of monsters, I ask for your aid in battle. I invoke your name. Lend us your power. Those who are afraid, let them pray to you and hear their prayers.”

Okay. The invocation was done.

“He’s coming,” Erra said.

In the distance the trees fell. Five huge shaggy forms burst out of the forest, their massive tusks wrapped in metal. Behind them vampires galloped with their odd jerky gait, followed by human troops.

“Are those fucking mammoths?” Desandra asked.

“Yes.” Enormous, colossal mammoths, bigger than any reconstructions I had seen. Where the hell did my father get mammoths?

Desandra’s eyes lit up. “Kate, get off the tower, so I can get down there. I’ve never killed a mammoth.”

“Christopher?” I asked.

He leaned back. Blood-red wings snapped open from his back.

“Whoa.” Desandra backed away.

Christopher picked me up and leapt off the tower. We glided and turned right. I craned my neck. The ground gave under the leading mammoth, and the massive beast collapsed into a hidden trench. A chorus of eerie cackles filled the air. Jim had put boudas into the trenches.

Christopher’s eyes turned blood-red.

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“The battlefield is calling.” His voice wasn’t his own.

“Can you hold on for a little while longer?”

“I’ll try.”

We swung toward a large oak. Christopher plunged down and landed, setting me down next to Barabas and Julie. Barabas looked like he’d jumped out of some D&D book featuring thieves and assassins. He wore leather armor and carried a sharp knife. A dark rag covered the bottom part of his face. Above it, his eyes were blood-red with demonic horizontal pupils. Julie stood holding the reins of our horses. She would be riding a roan mare. We all agreed that Peanut was much too beloved to take into battle. I would be riding Hugh’s mean Friesian. No horse on this battlefield would stand up to him.

Around me a sea of vampires waited, each bloodsucker crouching, perfectly still like a statue, a stripe of bright green running down their spines.

Christopher closed his wings around him and walked off, pacing, gripping his left forearm with his right hand so hard, his fingers turned the flesh completely white. Barabas walked over to him. I couldn’t tell what was being said, but I caught Barabas’s voice, soothing, calming . . .

A battle horn roared.

I ran up to the oak and climbed up the rope ladder Jim’s people had conveniently left in place for me and clambered to the wooden platform at the top. Next to me a vampire crouched.

“Ghastek?”

“Of course,” Ghastek’s dry voice said from the vampire mouth. “Did you expect Santa Claus?”

I gave him my hard stare and turned to the field. We were in the woods on the south side. The Keep was a little to the left of me, and my father’s advancing forces were to the right. Somewhere to my far right, Curran and his forces waited. I had kissed him this morning and didn’t want to let go.

A battle raged less than half a mile from us, across the open ground. Two mammoths made it past the trenches and battered the Keep walls while waves of my father’s troops splashed against it. Vampires swarmed up the stones and shapeshifters met them among the parapets. The fortress held.

No sign of my father.

“Erra?” I said softly.

She appeared next to me.

“I cannot tell you how disturbing this is,” Ghastek said.

“You’re telling me. You know she killed my favorite mule?”

“You killed me,” Erra said. “I think we’re even.”

My father wouldn’t commit to the field until he was reasonably certain of a victory. And that wouldn’t happen until the Keep’s front door was kicked in.

The bodies of shapeshifters fell from the wall. Argh.

“Your lion built it too well,” Erra told me.

“Yes, everything is my fault.”

“What’s going on with Steed?” Ghastek asked.

“He’s having difficulty with bloodlust.”

“It is really him?”

“Yes.”

“Life moves in mysterious ways,” Ghastek said.

Blood smeared the gray stones of the Keep, as the mammoths threw themselves against it again and again. The left side of the wall trembled, rocked, like a rotten tooth ready to come out, and collapsed. My father’s troops flooded into the gap and broke like a wave on shapeshifter claws and teeth.

Come on.

Bodies flew. People screamed.

Come on, Father. Come to the slaughter.

Minutes ticked by.

More bodies.

A new line of troops spilled onto the field and in its center a shiny chariot sped, drawn by horned horses.

“Is your father riding a gold chariot?” Ghastek asked.

“He’s a product of his times. It’s what he grew up with.”

“There is nothing wrong with a gold chariot,” Erra said. “It’s meant to be symbolic.”

We watched the line of troops advance, gaining ground against the isolated clumps of shapeshifters. Slowly Jim’s forces retreated to the Keep.

Not yet.

The trenches emptied as boudas scrambled toward the Keep. Jim’s forces broke and ran for the safety of the walls, leaving their dead on the battlefield.

Now.

I looked down. “Now, Christopher!”

He shot into the air, spinning as he rose. Barabas waved at me and sprinted through the woods, heading east to where Curran’s forces waited.

The trees across from us, on the other side of the battlefield and to the right, turned black. Dark magic gathered there, cold and terrible. The trees rustled and a gigantic black dragon head emerged from the trees. My father raised his hand. Golden light poured from it, shielding the troops directly around him.

Aspid slithered across the field. Roman rode atop his head, feet anchored, his arms opened wide. A black crown rested on his hair. Behind him black smoke stretched like an impossibly long mantle. A wall of black flames, thirty feet tall and twenty feet wide, cut the field in two in the dragon’s wake.

I scrambled off the tree. Two vampires stepped forward, spread a sheet of clear plastic on the ground, and knelt on it. I felt the navigators let go and grabbed their minds. The bloodsuckers opened their throats in unison and I crushed their minds as they bled out.

I sliced my arm, let my blood mix with that of the undead, and felt it catch on fire with my power. The red spiraled up my legs, climbing higher, over my thighs, over my waist, forming armor. It felt clunky.

“Awful,” Erra said. “You are an embarrassment. Stand still.”

My aunt circled me, words of a long-forgotten language falling from her mouth. It felt like forever, but it took only seconds. When I looked down at myself, I wore blood armor. My aunt stopped in front of me and rested her ghostly fingers under my chin.

“Go and free yourself from your father.”

“I will,” I told her.

I swung onto the Friesian. He pawed the ground, his nostrils flaring. Julie was already on her mare, her eyes wild and scared.

“Raise the banner.”

She raised the flag, and the green standard of In-Shinar fluttered above us.

I let the stallion go. He tore out of the woods at a gallop. We burst into the open. The wall of black flames rose to the right of us, and within it monstrous mouths and claws writhed, grabbing any who strayed too close and tearing into their bodies. We had cut my father’s forces in half. I was on the Keep side of the flame wall, and Curran and his mercs, the Order, and Jim’s reserve were on the other.

More vampires poured from the other side of the woods. Roland’s troops still pressed their attack on the Keep, not realizing what was happening.

Above the Keep Christopher dived from between the clouds, his wings opened wide, like a fallen angel. He opened his mouth and screamed.

The mass of troops churned, as hundreds of men and creatures tried to flee in unison, away from the Keep and toward the smoke. Christopher screamed again and again, his shriek gripping my spine with an icy hand even from this distance. The offensive broke apart. People fled. Christopher swooped down, grasped a writhing body, and flew up, burying his fangs in the man’s neck.

We tore into the retreating troops. I swung Sarrat, slicing, severing necks and backs. Around me vampires swarmed without a sound, silent, merciless, slaughtering everything in their path.

The field was chaos. Men, beasts, shapeshifters, and animals clashed, screaming, snarling, and ripping at each other. The air smelled like blood. Harpies dived through the sky. One aimed for me and a winged form shot out from the clouds and sliced it in half with a flaming sword. Teddy Jo. I didn’t think he’d come.

A vampire headed for me. Not one of ours. I rode it down. The stallion stomped on the undead, and I finished it, crushing its skull with my magic. Across the field, green and bare undead crashed against each other, fighting silent duels.

A massive beast shaped like a leopard but twice that size leapt at me. The impact of its weight took me off the horse. Claws scraped my blood armor. I thrust Sarrat between its ribs, twisted, heaved it off me, and rolled to my feet.

A ring of fighters waited for me.

They charged me and I danced. It was a beautiful dance, of blood and steel and severed life. My breathing evened out. The world was crystal clear, the sounds crisp, the colors vivid. Everything I tried worked. Every strike found its target. Every thrust pierced a body. They cut and slashed, but I didn’t wait for them. I kept cutting, losing myself in the simple rhythm.

They’d come here to kill me. They died instead. Corpses piled up at my feet. My aunt was laughing. And then they broke and ran.

I looked up. The wall of black flames was thinning. I could almost see through it.

“Retreat!” I screamed. “Retreat now!”

The green-striped vampires fled from the field toward the Keep. Once the wall went down, my father would be able to reach them. The bloodsuckers would die by the dozens and so would the navigators piloting them.

I turned. The black smoke had dissipated. The entire front of my father’s army was gone. Mammoths lay like burial mounds of fur. Bodies, vampire and human, sprawled on the grass.

Most of the remaining army gathered around my father, forming a mass of bodies. I saw Curran roaring, enormous, demonic, tearing into monsters left and right. The mercs followed in his wake.

My father froze in his chariot, his face bloodless. One moment he had a vanguard and now it was all gone. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking to the left. I turned my head and saw the sea of green-and-blue banners the bloodsuckers had left thrust into the dirt as they retreated.

“Glory to In-Shinar!”

The hair on the back of my neck rose.

I spun around.

Julie sat on her horse, holding my banner. Her voice rolled, charged with power. “Glory to In-Shinar!”

The air screamed as the first blast from Andrea’s sorcerous ballistae tore through it. The green missiles shrieked over my head and pounded the front of my father’s remaining force. Bodies flew, burning with magic fire. Andrea’s ace in the hole.

My father raised his hands. A sphere of light appeared in front of him, shielding the troops. The missiles crashed into it, their magic splashing over the light and falling down, powerless.

My father brought his hands together. The corpse of the mammoth about two hundred yards to the left of me shuddered. Magic built within it, spilling out as thin green smoke. I reached for the magic around me and froze it, but the green smoke thickened. Whatever he was doing couldn’t be blocked by the land’s defenses. I started toward it, climbing over bodies.

The carcass burst. Three creatures emerged, clad in tattered rags. A foul magic wrapped around them. I had felt many fucked-up things over the years, but this . . . this felt like death. Every instinct I had screamed at me to turn and run the other way.

“Plaguewalkers,” my aunt snarled in my ear.

“Shapeshifters are resistant to disease.”

“Not this disease.”

I ran, scrambling over the bodies.

The plaguewalkers started toward the Keep.

A ballista missile smashed into the middle of the three and exploded. They kept walking. Shit. Magic didn’t do anything. They had to be physically cut down.

Shapeshifters burst from the hole in the Keep wall. The first shapeshifter, a lean wolf in warrior form, reached the leading plaguewalker. Ten feet from it, the wolf collapsed, clawing at his face. Another shapeshifter, another fall.

Where the hell was my stupid horse?

The plaguewalkers moved forward. Arrows flew from the Keep and sank into the plaguewalkers, but they kept going. They would keep walking, just like that, until they walked straight into the Keep.

A huge Kodiak bear charged through the shapeshifter ranks. The leading plaguewalker raised his hand.

I heard Curran roar.

Lesions split Mahon’s hide. He kept running, too fast, too massive to stop. Pus slid from the wounds, falling to the ground.

I was running as fast as I could.

The bear tore into the plaguewalkers. The massive paw crushed the first one’s skull.

All of Mahon’s fur was gone now. Pus drenched his sides. The great bear of Atlanta spun and slapped the second plaguewalker’s head. The creature’s skull cracked, like a broken egg.

The third plaguewalker raised his hands. A stream of foul magic poured from it. The flesh on Mahon’s sides rotted away. Bone gaped through the holes. Oh my God.

The bear threw himself onto the last creature and missed, collapsing. I lunged between the plaguewalker and Mahon. The creature stared at me, its eyes glowing green dots on a rotting face.

I sliced. The plaguewalker flitted away, as if made of air.

The blood armor on my hands turned black. Bits of it began to chip away.

I thrust Sarrat into the plaguewalker’s chest and withdrew. Foul slime dripped off the blade. The creature seemed no worse for wear. I wasn’t doing enough damage.

Curran landed atop the plaguewalker and locked his hands on the creature’s shoulders. The plaguewalker shrieked. Curran’s hands blistered. He roared and tore the creature in half. The pieces of the plaguewalker’s body went flying.

The first corpse was re-forming.

“Curran!” I screamed, pointing with my sword.

He spun around. The first plaguewalker was rising like a zombie from a horror movie.

A white tiger landed next to us. Dali opened her mouth and roared. Magic emanated from her, sliding over me like an icy burst of clear water. The pieces of the plaguewalkers rose up, melting as if the air itself consumed them.

She purified them. Wow.

I dropped to the ground by Mahon. The Bear shrank into a man. The skin on his torso was missing. His hands and face were a mess of boils. Oh God. Oh my God.

Curran, still in warrior form, knelt and cradled the dying man.

Mahon saw him. His lips shook. He struggled to say something.

“Best . . . son. Best . . . could ever have.”

“Shut up,” Curran told him. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“Best . . .” Mahon whispered.

Nasrin knelt by Mahon, chanting.

Curran rose. His gaze fixed on my father’s chariot.

My father had to die.

“We take the shot!” I yelled at him.

He glared at me, his eyes pure gold.

“I’m on my land. I’m strongest here. We can end this now!”

A pale light slid over his body. He fell on all fours, growing larger. All traces of humanity vanished. Only lion remained, the biggest lion I had ever seen, woven from bone, flesh, and magic. He wasn’t human. He wasn’t an animal. He was a force, a creature, a thing that was beyond the understanding of nature’s human stepchildren.

I grabbed Curran’s mane and vaulted onto his back. He didn’t even notice. He charged across the battlefield toward the chariot and my father in it. We burst into the melee like a cannonball. He tore and bit. I sliced and cut, and we forced our way through the bodies, through the flesh and blood, closer and closer to my father.

He turned around.

He saw us coming.

Our gazes met.

Curran leapt, sailing above the mass of people. I raised Sarrat. We would end this here.

My father saw the promise of death in my eyes. In that fleeting instant he understood I knew we were bound and I didn’t care.

We landed in an empty chariot. My father had vanished.

Curran roared. I clamped my hands over my ears as the chariot beneath me shook.

He leapt off the chariot and raged across the battlefield and I raged with him until there was nobody left to kill.