Magic Breaks

“You keep staring, you’ll set me on fire,” I told them.

Neither of them answered. Great.

Mauro stepped into the vault.

“Did you call the Pack?” I asked him

“The phones are out,” he said.

Can I just f**king catch a break?

“But I sent a courier to Atlanta Medical, asking for assistance,” Mauro said. “They’ve got a new satellite office about four miles from here.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“It won’t help,” Steinlein said. “His chest and everything inside it is crushed. If he were weaker, he would be dead already. I’m only delaying the inevitable.”

Ascanio trusted me. He trusted me and I had let him come with me. He had no fear, because he was young and he thought he was immortal and because he counted on me keeping him alive. I couldn’t lose him. “If you’re done, chain me next to him, and I’ll keep chanting.”

The medmage turned to me. “I didn’t say I was giving up. I’m just telling you that there’s no light at the end of this tunnel. You have a couple of hours to come to terms with it.”

Doolittle would’ve ripped a new hole somewhere in him for his bedside manner. If he hadn’t been holding Ascanio’s life in his hands, I’d have told him exactly what I thought about it.

“We don’t have a couple of hours,” Robert said, his eyes still closed. “D’Ambray is coming.”

And soon, too. We’d been inside the chapterhouse for about fifteen minutes. Everything I had read about the wendigo said they regenerated in anywhere from five minutes to half an hour, depending on the magnitude of the magic wave. We hadn’t had the time to cut it into little pieces and then burn them. As soon as his wendigo got on its feet, Hugh would come. I had taunted him, and my ward had kicked his ass. He wouldn’t let it go.

“D’Ambray would be an idiot to attack the Order,” Diana said.

“We’ve got backup coming in,” Mauro said. “I’ve talked to the knight-protector. Ted reached out to the Paranormal Activity Division and the National Guard.”

Neither the PAD nor the National Guard would get here in time.

“We’ve fought one of them before,” Mauro said. “It was me, Kate, and Nash, and we all lived through it.”

We had lived through it, because I was one of “them.” Pointing that out wasn’t in my best interests. “Let me out. I’ll fight with you.”

“Sorry, Kate.” Mauro grimaced. “Orders are orders.”

“Kate,” Maxine’s voice said in my head.

“Yes?”

“I’m being evacuated out of the office. I’m instructed to stay within my range so I can make a full report of what happens.”

Ted was expecting trouble.

“Thank you for your help,” I whispered. “I truly appreciate it.”

“I know, dear. I’m very sorry you left. It hasn’t been the same without you and Andrea.”

Heavy steps came down the stairs and Ted Moynohan walked into the room. The knight-protector had aged since I last saw him. He’d been in his early fifties when we met. Now he seemed closer to sixty. He was built thick and had gotten thicker. The layer of fat was deceiving—there was hard, powerful muscle underneath—and Ted didn’t look soft. He looked like a heavyweight fighter who had let himself go a bit. He wore blue jeans, a gray shirt, cowboy boots, and a belt with a buckle that had illusions of grandeur. A black cowboy hat sat on his head, and if it got real hot, he could shelter a gaggle of street orphans in its shade.

Ted stopped by my cage and peered at me, his square jaw locked. I looked back. He would do me no favors and I expected none.

“Here you are in a cage, Daniels. I always knew you’d end up in one.”

I didn’t answer. If he got it all off his chest, I’d have a better chance of making him understand what was coming.

“You put the Consort of the Pack in a cage,” Robert said.

“I don’t see a consort. I see the same smart-mouthed merc with a sharp sword, except she’s dressed better now. Mercs have no loyalty and this one has no brains. She’ll get you killed just like that kid over there. You should’ve found yourself someone smarter to follow.”

“D’Ambray is coming,” I said. “He has a detachment of Iron Dogs and at least one wendigo with him. He also has access to the entirety of the People’s stable of vampires. He wants to bring down the Pack and he has decided that killing me is the way to do it.” It wasn’t the complete truth, but close enough. “He’s pissed off. If you let me go, d’Ambray will follow me.”

“Mm-hm,” Ted said.

“He has superior numbers and he’s very determined. You don’t have the manpower to oppose him. Let me out.” I just needed them to keep Ascanio, Derek, and Desandra safe. That’s all. Robert and I could go and draw Hugh off with us.

Ted shook his head. “No. This is a human fight and you’ve picked the wrong side. Live with your choices.”

Stubborn bastard. “You have no authority to detain me.”

“Yes, I do. When you petitioned the Order for protection, they gave us sweeping power to guard you in the way we see fit. Enjoy being guarded, Daniels.”

Argh. Listen to me, you dense a**hole. “They will breach your defenses. You’re throwing your people away. Hugh isn’t some Joe Blow off the street, he’s the preceptor of the Order of Iron Dogs. He has Uath with him. She likes to skin people alive.”

Ted smiled.

He wanted it.

The crazy sonovabitch actually wanted a shot at Hugh d’Ambray. As long as the Order held us, there was a chance that Hugh would pick a fight, and everything I had just said only confirmed Ted’s decision to keep us here. My mind wrestled with it and I clamped my mouth shut.

Why? What could he possibly gain by this? My aunt had left this building a smoking wreck, and she hadn’t even done it in person. She’d used a flesh golem to do it. Ted was a bigot, but he wasn’t an idiot. He had to know there was a chance Hugh would break through the Order’s defenses. The Iron Dogs were the elite of the elite, and according to Mauro, his knights, who’d be outnumbered two to one, weren’t exactly the Order’s cream of the crop.

Why risk his people? Was it some sort of last-minute attempt at some glory before he died?

I had to change my strategy and fast. I scraped my brain for the contents of the Order’s Charter. I learned slowly, but once I managed to chisel information into my brain, it stayed there.

“Under article one point seven, a petition is valid only when it’s been signed by the petitioner after the terms and conditions of the petition have been explained to said petitioner. Show me that signature.”

Ted took a paper off the desk and raised it. Robert Lonesco. Got you.

Robert shrugged. “It was that or they wouldn’t let us in.”

“Article one point twelve, a group petition may be filed by an individual, provided said individual has been selected by the group to act as its representative. Robert, have you been selected to act as our representative?”

The alpha rat smiled. “No.”

The knight with the scar raised his eyebrows. He knew where I was going with this and he knew I was right.

“To the best of your knowledge, who has the right to represent our group?”

“You do, Consort,” Robert said.

I looked at Ted. “This petition is invalid. You are detaining us illegally. Release us now.”

Magic crackled through the building, followed by a hair-raising desperate wail. Hugh’s wendigo had just tested the strength of the wards.

“She’s right,” the knight with the scar said. “We have no right to hold them.”

Ted looked at him. “This is D-day, Towers. This is what you’ve trained for.” His voice rose. “This is what we all trained for. This is important. We make a stand today. Can I count on you?”

Muscles played on Towers’s jaw. “Yes.”

“Good. We’ll continue this talk after we’re done.” Ted moved to the weapon rack and picked up a mace. Diana began to chant under her breath.

“Let us out!” I snarled.

Ted ignored me. “Diana, Towers, Mauro, with me.” He pointed at the medmage. “Steinlein, back us up.”

“Ted, listen to me, you stupid sonovabitch! Maybe you want to go out in a blaze of glory, but—”

They moved out. Steinlein, the medmage with the long braid, followed them. “Sorry.”

No. No, damn it. “Wait! The boy will die!”

“I’m sorry, but he’s dead anyway.” The knight left the room.

The wendigo’s enraged howl erupted. The building shook.

• • •

I TOUCHED THE bars. Magic surged through me in a flash of agony. Warded. Ascanio was dying, Hugh was breaking in, and we were trapped in a cage. Like sitting ducks. Well, this was going well.

I had a lock pick on my belt, but the knights had taken my belt, my jacket, and my sword.

Above us something shuddered with rhythmic, loud thuds, as if someone were hitting the building with an enormous hammer.

Robert rolled to his feet, hunched over by the lock, and tried to pass his hand between the bars. Magic nipped at his claws. He grimaced, baring vicious teeth, and tried to touch the lock. His forearm grazed the bars. He jerked his arm back. A gray scar crossed his skin, where the silver had killed Lyc-V.

Robert clawed at the floor of the cage, pried a board open, and dropped it back down. “Silver and steel.”

Same with the ceiling. We weren’t going anywhere. If I used a power word, it would bounce off the defensive spell protecting the bars and backfire at me. I had tried it in a warded cell under other circumstances and the pain left me crippled for an hour.

The pounding was getting louder.

I turned to Robert. “If Hugh gets through and you get a chance to run, I need you to leave us and run. Somebody has to tell the Pack what happened.”

Robert gave me a small smile. “If Hugh gets through, it’s unlikely I’ll survive.”

Magic slapped me with an invisible hand. I reeled.

“What?” Robert asked.

“Someone just broke the Order’s main ward.”

Something tore down the stairs and Hugh burst into the room. Blood slicked his clothes and cloak, but they were intact. None of it was his own. Too bad. A woman could hope.

He saw me and paused. “In a cage.”

Yeah, yeah.

Hugh shook his head. “How the f**k did you let yourself be put in a cage?”

He sounded offended on my behalf. Well, wasn’t that sweet? “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. My ears are still ringing from that big boom your head made when it hit the stairs. Is your brain okay? Because your skull sounded hollow.”

Behind him Nick walked through the door. The crusader stared at each of us in turn, his eyes cold. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Hugh had turned him.

Hugh strolled around the room, paused by Ascanio’s prone body, and grimaced. “I hate amateurs.”

I wanted to snap at him to leave the kid alone and caught myself. Anything I prized and anyone I cared about, Hugh would use against me. He was savoring the moment.

Hugh walked to the back of the room, with Nick at his heels, turned, and faced the entrance. “Don’t interfere.”

Nick nodded and leaned against the far wall.

Diana burst into the room, her face and arms smudged with soot. Towers, the one with the scar, was only a step behind. A gash tore his chest from left to right. Bloody but shallow.

“Is this it?” Hugh asked.

The two knights stared at Hugh.

Towers jerked a crossbow up.

Hugh said something. Magic popped like a huge balloon exploding. A power word. The cages shook. Pieces of the crossbow clattered on the stone floor.

“You have a problem.” Hugh shrugged off his cloak and hung it on a weapon hook in the wall. “You know who I am. You know what I can do. I’m here for her.” He nodded at me. “I won’t leave without her. I won’t let you shoot me. You could try locking me in, but your walls can’t hold me. And containment isn’t really what you had in mind, is it?”

Hugh unsheathed a gladius. A simple, ancient sword, with a straight double-edged blade, twenty-five and a quarter inches long, two and a quarter inches wide, weighing barely two pounds. Simple and brutal. The sword that carved the Roman Empire out of Europe.

Diana hunched her shoulders, whispering under her breath. Towers eyed him warily.

Above us the wendigo screamed again. Something thumped, followed by hoarse human cries.

Hugh hefted the gladius and turned the blade, warming up his wrist. Towers’s eyes narrowed. Hugh held the sword as if it were an extension of him, as if it had no weight. He was intimately familiar with it. He must’ve used it so much for so long that if he closed his eyes, he could probably reach out and touch its tip, because he knew exactly where the blade ended. I knew he could, because even in absolute darkness I knew exactly how long Slayer’s blade was.

“Get me out of this cage,” I growled.

“Shhh,” Hugh said. His eyes were hard. “Just watch.”

He shrugged, stretching, and nodded to the knights. “If you want me, you’ll have to come and get me.”

“Don’t,” I said. “He’ll kill you.”

Diana pulled a slender saber out. She held it like she knew what she was doing, but Hugh was in a class of his own. Fire dashed from Diana’s hand onto the blade, coating the saber in flames.