“It means that when something sufficiently large and dangerous threatens the city, like my father trying to invade, I will use Atlanta’s magic to protect it.”
“So Atlanta has personal magic?” Cabrera snorted.
I ignored her.
“Well, does it? Is Atlanta a person?” she pressed.
“I don’t have the time or the inclination to educate you,” I told her. “The Mage College is up the street and over the bridge. If you go by there, I’m sure they’ll bring you up to speed.”
“Do you rule Atlanta?” the blond diviner asked.
“No.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Atlanta is doing fine on its own without my leadership. We have a democratically elected government, and I have no intention of interfering with it.”
“If you claimed Atlanta, why don’t you stop the crime here?” Cabrera asked. Her eyes were calculating. She was asking leading questions they already knew the answers to. They wanted confirmation that I wasn’t omnipotent and omniscient.
“Because it’s not my responsibility to stop crime. We have a well-funded police department, GBI headquarters, and local sheriff departments, not including a number of private organizations, like the Guild, the Red Guard, and, of course, the Order.”
“But could you stop all crime?” Younger asked.
“Nobody can stop all crime, knight-diviner. You, of all people, should know that.”
Norwood studied me. “The Order is interested in forging a relationship of cooperation and mutual understanding.”
“I already have a relationship of mutual understanding with the Order.”
“Really?” Norwood asked.
“Yes. Nick thinks I’m fruit from the poisoned tree and hates my family, and I tolerate his assholeness because occasionally I need the Order’s help. Nick and I understand each other very well.”
“We find that people tend to be more productive in a less hostile environment,” Norwood said.
I sighed. “Okay, so the Order would like to be friendlier. Great. What do you know about dragons?”
“What?” Cabrera asked.
“Dragons. Weaknesses, habits, how one might possibly go about killing one?”
“That information is classified,” Norwood said.
“And here we are. When it comes down to it, there isn’t much you can do because you have regulations that bind you. You divide your world into humans and nonhumans, and your definition of human is so circumscribed, your influence is collapsing. I sympathize. It’s hard to fight with your arms tied behind your back, but it’s not my problem. You are not my problem, unless you make yourself into one.”
Cabrera opened her mouth.
I didn’t wait for her. “Go back to Wolf Trap. Nick and I have a working relationship. It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. I don’t need him to be my friend. I need him to put manpower on the field when it counts.”
“Nikolas Feldman will be replaced,” Norwood said.
“That’s the Order I know. Always putting appearances above the welfare of their knights.”
“What actions will you take if Feldman is removed?” the knight-diviner asked.
“I will bar the Order from having a chapter in Atlanta.”
“You can’t do that,” Cabrera said.
“I can, and I will. I’m tired of your turnover problems. I prefer to work with Nick. After everything Moynohan put him through, he deserves to have his own chapter. His performance is exemplary. You want to get rid of him because he’s politically inconvenient, go ahead. But don’t put lipstick on a pig and pretend it’s on my account. If you take him out, I promise you, the new chapter of the Order won’t be welcome in Atlanta.”
“You’re a nobody,” Cabrera said, biting off words. “You’re all talk. I can feel your magic. It’s nothing.”
The phone rang. I held up my hand and picked it up. “Kate Lennart.”
“Conlan escaped,” Curran said.
“What?”
“He shifted and ran away from Martha. They are chasing him now, but they’re too far behind. He’s coming toward you.”
Our son was out in the open, with sahanu all around the city.
I focused on the magic around me, stretching through the arcane power drenching the city. Where are you, baby? Where . . .
A bright spark moved through the magic. Conlan! He wasn’t far.
I grabbed my sword and dashed out the door. The three knights sprinted after me.
I ran like I’ve never run before in my life. Streets flew by. I turned, guided by magic, focused on the brilliant glowing drop of magic. I was almost on top of him. A deserted street lay in front of me. On the left, the shell of a building waited, its first floor all empty brick arches. The entire building lay exposed, its roof gone long ago, the arches at the far end dark and shadowy.
Conlan was in there.
Someone had cleared most of the debris, pushing it into a large pile at the far end and a smaller one to the right, outside the building. Not a lot of places to hide.
I walked to the building. Behind me the knights rounded the corner.
“Conlan?” I called. “It’s Mommy.”
A small creature exploded out of the pile and jumped into my arms, shifting in midleap into a human baby. I hugged him to me. My heart was beating so fast, it was about to jump out of my chest.
“Mama!”
“What were you thinking, you little idiot?” I squeezed him to me.
Big gray eyes looked at me, wet with tears. “Bad.” He sniffed. “Bad.”
Oh no. “Where? Where is the bad thing, Conlan? Show me.”
He buried his face in my chest.
Something moved within the building, deep in the shadowy arches on the other side.
The sahanu had stalked my son. They’d found him and scared him, and he ran across the city to me.
They’d scared my son in my domain. Never again.
A splash of magic landed within the arches and died. I see you.
A vampire landed next to me, smeared in grape-purple sunblock. “We found the sahanu,” it said in Javier’s voice. “In-Shinar, do you require assistance?”
A second vamp dropped on my other side.
“Yes.” I thrust Conlan into Javier’s vamp’s arms. “Protect my child.”
The vampire took my son.
I grasped the second vamp’s mind. The navigator let go.
I unsheathed Sarrat, dropped the sheath on the ground, and marched into the building, the undead at my heels. The sahanu waited for me in the arches. I felt them. The damn building had too many holes.
“I see you.” My voice spread through the building. Fury boiled inside me, blotting out everything else. “I see all of you.”
I yanked the magic to me. Words of power burst from my lips, the pain barely registering. I’d had a lot of practice.
“Ranar kair.” Come to me.
Magic ripped from me like a tidal wave. The arches rained sahanu, my power tearing them out of their hidey-holes and throwing them to the ground. I saw familiar faces in that split second: Gust, pale, green hair, air magic, twin swords; Carolina, seven feet tall, brown-skinned, chain mail, hammer, muscles like a champion weightlifter; Arsenic, bright red hair, wrapped in diaphanous cloth like a mummy, poisonous to the touch. Fourteen sahanu. They had all come for my son. All except Razer.
I sliced the back of my left forearm and slammed the cut against the side of the building. My blood shot out in a hair-thin stream, running along the walls, across the open spaces of the arches, across bricks and holes until it touched itself, completing the circle. A translucent red wall burst into existence and vanished, the blood ward sealing itself.
One of the sahanu, a lean dark-haired man, leaped, aiming to escape through one of the arches, and fell back from the ward. The assassins turned toward me. They finally realized the truth: they were trapped in here with me.
“There is no escape.” I crushed the vamp’s mind. Its skull exploded. The undead blood surged out of it, obeying my call, mixing with my own.
“Don’t let her don the armor!” Carolina screamed.
They charged me.