Magic Slays

by Ilona Andrews

Chapter 23

 

  I CROUCHED ON THE HUGE CONCRETE BOULDER jutting from the pavement like the stern of a sinking ship. To the left, an abandoned building rose from the street, its stucco and concrete long turned to dust. Only a rusty cage of the framework remained, thrusting brown grates to the sunlit morning sky. Down below, the wreckage of Downtown unrolled: oncesolid buildings reduced to heaps of rubble and abandoned ruins, crisscrossed by roads, once busy, now mostly atrophied, and stubby blocky structures born of the new age. To the right, the golden dome of the Georgia State Capitol building caught the light, the copper statue of Miss Liberty on its top thrusting her torch upward. To the left, in the distance, Unicorn Lane boiled with wild magic. The air shimmered there as a dark mist rose between the fallen high-rises marked with garish stains of magic-mutated vegetation.

  I scanned the horizon. Nothing.

  The sighting at Nameless Square turned out to be a bust. Someone had caught a glimpse of a large metal cylinder and sounded the alarm too early. The metal cylinder turned out to be a massive charged-air converter being installed at the Capitol as a backup system, in case the main charged-air lines went down. Since then we'd been to a half dozen spots within the city, as the magic users scouring the city for the Keepers raised the alarm here and there. Every lead sounded promising, and every lead turned out to be a miss. We were playing Whack-A-Mole and we were almost out of time.

  I squinted at the sun. Around ten. Four hours left? Less? Atlanta was a huge sprawling beast. Every ruin doubled as a potential hiding place.

  I hadn't seen Jim or Andrea or Derek since yesterday. It worried me.

  Below me, Curran gathered himself, jumped ten feet in the air, bounced off the concrete into another jump, then another, and landed next to me.

  "Me Kate. You Tarzan?"

  "No. " Curran bared his teeth at me. "In the first book, he grabs a lion by the tail and pulls it. Never gonna happen. First, an adult male lion weighs five hundred pounds. Second, you grab my tail, I'll turn around and take your face off. " He surveyed the city.

  "Nothing," I told him.

  Curran stroked my back. "If the countdown is down to an hour and we still don't know where it is, I want you to leave. "

  I turned to him. "The children are out of the Keep," Curran said. "They were shipped out overnight into the Wood. " The Wood, otherwise known as Chattahoochee National Forest, served as the hunting grounds for the Pack. Curran had bought a hundred-year lease, and once a month each shapeshifter made a pilgrimage there to run among the trees without his or her human skin. "They have orders to scatter. Julie is in Augusta under heavy sedation. Barabas and two of our guards are with her. "

  "I'm staying," I told him.

  "No. " His eyes were clear, his voice calm. "You owe me for agreeing to the ritual. If the countdown reaches one hour and we still have no leads, you will leave. The Pack must have an alpha. You will take over. The betas from each clan have evacuated; they are spread out all over the state. They will be your new Council. "

  Fear grabbed my throat and squeezed, crushing. In a blink I could lose him. "I can't run the Pack, Curran. You're kidding yourself. "

  He looked at me. He wasn't giving me a hard stare; he just looked at me. "I need you to tell me that you will do this. No arguments, no bullshit heroics. Just do this for me. "

  "Why?"

  "Because I want you to be safe. I want you to survive and if I'm not there to protect you, the Pack will be the next best thing. Promise me," he said.

  "Okay," I told him. "But if we find them, I'm staying to the end. "

  A bright burst of green blossomed to the right. South. A new lead. What was south of the Capitol. . . "The airport?"

  Curran swore.

  BEFORE THE SHIFT, THE HARTSFIELD-JACKSON AIRPORT had served as the primary hub for all flights to the Southern United States. Almost three miles wide and flanked by highways on all sides, the airport ate a huge chunk of the city's Southside. The damn place was so big, there was a train going through it. If you died in the South, you had to stop in Atlanta for a layover before getting to the other side. The Shift fixed that right up. The commercial aviation industry took a century to grow and only five minutes to die, as the first magic wave dropped five thousand planes out of the sky. Overnight, the airport was dead.

  The structure didn't sit abandoned for too long. When the MSDU officially came into being, christened in the blood of the Three-Month Riots, the local Unit took over the airport, turning it into a fortified base and the HQ of military operations for the Southeast. Over the decades that followed, the MSDU's forces had continued steadily increasing the airport's defenses, turning it into a full-fledged fortress. As I drove along a narrow access road, I could see the edge of the runways, the concourse, and beyond them the white and sea-foam spire of the control tower. The place looked impenetrable. The long gray building of the terminal bristled with siege engines and machine guns, aided by square boxes of concrete bunkers. A hundred yards out, the second row of bunkers guarded the concourse. Between the bunkers and us lay half a mile of clear ground. Nothing but the old pavement of the runways and brownish grass, mowed down to mere fuzz. No cover, no safe approach, nothing.

  Three wards shimmered in the air. The first sheathed the tower in a bluish translucent cocoon. The second rose just past the bunkers. Glowing threads of pale magic wound through it, swirling like colors on a soap bubble. The third and final ward, a translucent wall tinted with red, extended the length of the field.

  Why were all three wards up? MSDU usually didn't bother with activating the defensive spells unless they had to contain something nasty, and even then, only the perimeter and the killing field ward went active. I could see the killing field to the left--no ward shielded it. What the hell was going on?

  "Could the Keepers have taken the MSDU?" I murmured.

  Curran stirred in the passenger seat. "If they have, the device is in the tower. "

  I'd stick the device in some sort of storage room in some forgotten concourse, but if the Keepers somehow claimed the base, they would choose the tower. They knew we were coming. The tower was an excellent place for their last stand. Stick enough sharpshooters with crossbows at the top and we'd all look like hedgehogs by the time we got to it. Assuming we'd manage to breach all the other defenses first.

  "The red ward is a bouncer," I said. "It's not too hard to break. With all of our magic juice, we can breach it in fifteen, twenty minutes. We go through it, and it will bounce shut right back behind us. We'll be pinned between that ward and whatever is in those front bunkers. "

  "How can you tell?"

  "The red is more opaque near the ground, which means magic is concentrated there. That's usually a mark of a bouncer. Regular wards have uniform thickness, like the ones I used to have on my apartment. They can be opened or closed, but once they break, they take several magic waves to regenerate. This one will surge right back up. "

  "Your wards are transparent, too," Curran said.

  "I could make them in color. Transparent wards take more effort. In this case they are warding an area about three miles in diameter. They went for the most bang for their buck--the strongest ward with the least effort. And to people who don't know about wards, giant red domes look impressive. "

  The access road spat us out into the field. It was half full--search parties trickled in via the other two roads. A vampire completely covered in purple sunblock rose at our approach and waved his claws. I parked. The moment I stepped outside, Andrea was there. "The Keepers took over the MSDU. "

  "How?"

  "Remember that buddy of mine I called to check out de Harven?" Andrea said. "He has three kids. All of them chock full of magic. So I called him. " She held up her hands. "I know, I know. I wasn't going to say anything. I just wanted to suggest to him that he take his family on a trip to the coast or something. He wasn't at his number. So I called the reception in his building. Some guy I never spo
ke to answered and said that my friend was on bereavement leave. I was right there, so I dropped by his house. His wife says he didn't come home last night. She called the base, and MSDU told her they were holding him overnight due to an emergency. She didn't think anything of it. So I came by here. Look!" She thrust a pair of binoculars at me. "Third bunker from the left. "

  I looked through the binoculars. First, second, third . . . A leg in urban fatigues and an Army-issue steel-toed boot stuck out from behind the bunker. I waited a couple of seconds. It didn't move. Either he was suffering from a sudden bout of severe narcolepsy or we had a dead soldier. A body like that wouldn't be left lying about if the base were still under military control. The Keepers must've ta ken the base.

  I passed the binoculars to Curran. He looked through them.

  Jim came striding up, his cloak flaring behind him. "The gate's shut down. The ward's blocking the approach. "

  "Did you try the emergency channel?" Curran asked.

  "Twice. No response. The People tried it on their end as well, and nothing. The base is shut down. Phones are working, but they aren't taking any phone calls. "

  "All right," Curran said. "Send up the flares. Get everyone here. "

  Jim turned and raised his hand. A young shapeshifter ran from group to group. At the far end of the field, mages raised their staves. Magic popped, like a large firecracker, and seven green bursts exploded in the sky.

  THE SHAPESHIFTERS LINED UP ALONG THE WARD'S perimeter. Some I knew, some I didn't. I sat on top of the Jeep. I'd need the energy for the fight.

  Next to me Ghastek stood, leaning on the Jeep's hood, looking slightly absurd in a formal black suit and a gun-gray shirt. Two vampires sat at his feet like bald, mutated cats, both coated in bright lime-green sunblock. Ghastek had enough range to navigate vampires from the other end of the city. Unlike us, he didn't have to be here in person.

  "Why are you here? Shouldn't you be off hiding in some armored bus miles away?" Ghastek glanced at me. "Derision, Kate? How unlike you. I'm here because when this unfortunate affair is over, people will remember who was here and who wasn't. "

  "I take it Mulradin chose to evacuate. "

  Ghastek bent his lips a little. It was almost a smile. "It's an unfortunate fact of life that some people value discretion above valor. As the saying goes, fortune favors the brave. "

  Or the foolish. "And of course, the fact that if we survive this, you'll come out looking like a hero has nothing to do with your decision. "

  He widened his eyes. "Why, Kate, you might be right. If only I had thought of that. "

  Maybe one of the Keepers would shoot him.

  Below us Kamen stared at the ward. Two younger volhvs watched him. He said that about twenty minutes before the activation, the device would send out a "plume" of magic. Whatever the hell that meant. When the shit was about to hit the fan, we'd get a short warning.

  Kamen also said that raising the device off the ground extended its range by about a mile. We thought the Keepers were aiming for the city center. We were wrong. They were aiming for the densely populated neighborhoods just outside. The MSDU provided protection in case of emergency. Real estate next to the Unit was highly priced, and the Pack owned a quarter of it. That was where the shapeshifters who worked in the city built their homes.

  All the Keeper claims of "we regret casualties" had been complete bullshit. They aimed for casualties. Wiping out these neighborhoods would snap the backbone of the city. Atlanta's citizens would panic and flee, and the Keepers could purge the entire city at their leisure.

  A long forlorn cry rolled through the sky. I raised my hand to my eyes, shielding them from the sunlight. A huge dark bird circled the dome once, enormous wings stretched wide, and landed in the far field. A man slid off its back and jogged over. Amadahy, one of the Cherokee shamans.

  Amadahy came to a stop near Curran. His voice carried to us. "The bunkers have no roof. There is a catapult in each one and a small cheiroballista. There are guns, too. "

  "Are there people in the bunkers?" Curran asked.

  Amadahy nodded. "They were priming the catapults as I flew over. "

  The catapult would lob something nasty our way, and the cheiroballista would shoot us with bolts while we ran around trying to avoid it. Great.

  Thomas and Robert Lonesco came along the line of the shapeshifters. Thomas was tall, well over six feet. Robert, his spouse, leaned toward dark and delicate, with large brown eyes and a narrow face. They spoke to Curran. "Just out of curiosity, does your paramour have an actual plan to breach this ward, or is he just making it up as he goes along?"

  "Ghastek, do you want to lead this attack alone?"

  "No thanks. I'm after the benefits, not the responsibility. "

  "Then shut up. "

  Robert Lonesco stepped forward to the ward and raised his hand. Behind him members of Clan Rat formed into five columns, four people wide, three people deep. Robert closed his hand into a fist. The columns split into an upside-down V formation, with Robert at the head of the center V.

  Robert stripped off his sweats. For a second he stood nude, and then his skin burst. Muscle whipped and stretched like elastic cords, and a wererat crouched in his place, one enormous clawed paw leaning on the ground. A green glow washed over Robert's eyes. Behind him the rats shed their humanity. Robert raised his muzzle to the sky. A deep ragged voice broke free of his mouth. "Foooooorrrrrrwaaaard. "

  The rats crouched down as one and dug into the ground. Dirt flew.

  "Interesting tactic," Ghastek murmured.

  We wouldn't need to break the ward. We would simply tunnel under it. Nice.

  Andrea ran up to the Jeep and climbed up next to me. "Hey. "

  "Hey. "

  Teams of four shapeshifters began dragging wooden beams and laying them down behind the rats to reinforce the tunnel.

  I glanced at Ghastek. "Aren't you going to help them dig?"

  Ghastek shrugged. "A vampire is a precision instrument, not a bulldozer. "

  The front lines of the rats had vanished into the ground. They only had to go about fifty feet or so. The ward itself was narrow, but to get under it would take some effort.

  Twenty minutes later the ground on the other side of the ward shifted. The first of the wererats emerged from the dirt.

  Something sparked with orange in the slit of the bunker's narrow window. Probably the catapult inside. Sound rolled, and a bright orange ball shot from the roofless bunker. It whistled through the air and crashed right at the middle column, exploding into orange liquid. The liquid splattered in a wide arc. Two other bunkers followed suit, adding more orange goo to the mess. Yellow lightning danced on its surface. The fluid caught fire. Hoarse screams, half growls, half yelps followed. The tunnels on our side of the ward vomited the wererats in a dark flood. The front ranks of the diggers bore blisters where their fur had been burned clean. Robert was the last to emerge. His left arm was a mess of scalded muscle, the skin charred, almost black. He snarled and walked over to Thomas. The rat alpha clasped his mate's hand into his and pointed at Doolittle and his medics, set up in the field behind us.

  The fire raged beyond the ward. The shapeshifters continued to carry wooden beams into the tunnels, reinforcing them.

  I petted my sword. Every second counted.

  "Does Curran not involve you in his strategic sessions?" Ghastek asked.

  "Nope, I'm just here to look pretty. " Curran didn't need me. I wasn't a general; I was a weapon in need of a target. Arranging large groups of people into an attack force wasn't my thing.

  Finally the flames subsided. A group of volhvs stepped forward, led by Grigorii. The druids formed up next to them behind Cadeyrn, their leader. The two groups split among the five tunnels and went in.

  Silence claimed the field. The three bunkers closest to the tunnel blazed with orange, ready and primed to throw more burning crap on our heads.

&nbs
p; Above the tunnel exits, beyond the ward, the air shimmered like heat rising from the pavement on a scorching summer day.

  "What is that?" Ghastek squinted.

  "Insects. "

  The shimmers condensed into dark clouds. For a long second the five swarms hung above the ground, and then they streaked across the field to the bunkers. The swarms sank into the fortifications as if sucked in. Sharp screams followed. A man dashed from the right bunker, chased by a dark insect cloud, ran ten feet, and fell. The cloud peeled off. He didn't move.

  The volhvs and druids emerged from the tunnels and into the open.

  Ghastek took a box from his pocket and checked it. "One hour and three minutes until activation. "

  I rose. First ward down. Two to go.

  THE SECOND WARD OF TRANSLUCENT PALE BLUE wasn't a bouncer. Less than two miles in diameter, it covered the concourses and the inner buildings of the airport. It also looked thick and hard to break. Solid concrete stretched for twenty-five yards on either side of the ward. Digging under it would take forever, and we were short on time.

  Beyond the ward, a barbed-wire fence rose. The ground directly behind it looked freshly plowed. Odd. To the left, a gate opened in the bottom of the concourse. Bodies poured out, about six feet tall at the shoulder, dark, with sharp bristles rising in a crest along their necks and humps on their backs. The animals galloped along the inner perimeter, flooding the space between the strip of the plowed ground and the tower.

  "Are those buffalo?" someone asked behind me.

  The leading beast braked directly in front of us and dipped its head. The colossal maw gaped open, displaying twin pairs of yellow tusks; the larger set looked bigger than my arm. A deep grunting roar burst from its mouth and broke into pissed-off snorts. It wasn't a buffalo.

  "Boars," a druid next to me said. "Calydonian boars. "

  I'd fought a Calydonian boar before. They were strong and aggressive as hell, and pain only pissed them off. Their bristles cut like razor blades. It took four mercs to bring one female down, and two of us had automatic weapons. There were at least three dozen pigs out there, and all of them were male. Each pig was six and a half feet at the shoulder. Two and a half tons of pure stupid rage. Curran might kill one in single combat. Mahon could as well. Aside from that, a regular-sized shapeshifter didn't stand a chance. Not even in a half-form. The pigs would bulldoze over them.

  Curran came up to me. A group of alphas followed: Mahon and his wife, Martha; Daniel and Jennifer; Thomas Lonesco; Aunt B; Jim . . .

  Curran nodded at the tower. "Can you break that ward?"

  I glanced at the tower. Six hundred yards away. About two thousand feet of distance, full of boars. "If you can get me to it. "

  My blood would break almost anything, with enough magic. The question was, did I have enough power in me? I guessed we'd find out.

  Curran grinned, looking slightly evil. "Get ready to run. "

  Daniel and Jennifer stepped in front of me. I looked at Jennifer. Should you really be here?

  Her upper lip trembled in a precursor to a snarl. Right. She would do her job, and I had to do mine.

  Derek took a spot to my left, Jezebel to my right. Aunt B and Thomas brought up the rear. Behind them six shapeshifters formed into two rows, three people in a line. The renders.

  Bob from the Mercenary Guild shouldered his way into the group and heaved his sword.

  Eduardo emerged from the tunnel, dragging a huge sack. Over six feet tall, the werebuffalo was slabbed with thick muscle even in his human form. Behind him three members of Clan Heavy pulled identical sacks. Eduardo dropped his burden on the ground. The canvas fell open. Inside, thick tangles of leather belts and chains connected a mess of spiked armor plates and chain mail. "Get your glass slippers and fairy wings, ladies. "

  Members of Clan Heavy began pulling the tangles apart. Mahon gripped a mess of belts, arranged it on the ground, and stripped. He took a deep breath, and a giant Kodiak bear boiled forth, filling out the belts with his shaggy body. The harness caught him, stretching and sliding into place. A row of armored plates sheathed the bear's back and hindquarters, flaring down on the sides to guard the vulnerable flanks. Mahon stretched his front limbs and rose up, testing the armor, and dropped back down. On all fours, he was at least a foot taller than me.

  All around us werebears, some gray, some brown, and one white, rose up. A wereboar snorted next to a huge moose.

  The beasts of Clan Heavy formed an armored line around us, with Mahon in the lead. Eduardo stomped over to his right, a colossal buffalo, almost eight feet tall at the shoulder.

  Curran kissed me. "See you there, baby. "

  "Try to keep up," I told him.

  His body twisted, sprouting fur. The gray lion shook his mane, winked at me, and took his spot on Mahon's right.

  To the left, the mercs finished hammering long wooden platforms, brought together board by board through the tunnels. They'd had the same idea I did--touching that strip of plowed ground wasn't a good idea. It just didn't look right. There was no reason for it to encircle the base, unless something nasty hid in it.

  The mages formed into a semicircle near the ward, right between the two closest bunkers. Behind them the witches formed their own line, and then the druids and the volhvs. Three vampires crouched on the ground across each bunker, hugging the dirt.

  The mages raised their hands.

  "On three," one of them called. "Remember, low spectrum. And three. Two. Go. "

  Power burst from the ten mages, flowing into a single bright current, threaded with flashes of green and yellow. The current smashed into the ward, dancing on its surface.

  The druids and the volhvs raised theirs staves. Between the two lines the witches snapped into a rigid pose, their arms outstretched. Magic poured from the volhvs into the witches and out into the mages. So much magic. The current shook, sliding back and forth against the ward, like caged lightning.

  On the left one of the druids went down. Then another. A volhv fell.

  Hairline cracks formed in the ward. The witch on the left screamed.

  With the sound of a collapsing building, the ward fractured and broke. Chunks of it floated to the ground, like weightless shards of foot-thick ice, melting into nothing as they fell.

  The vampires charged, clearing the fence with laughable ease.

  The three lines of magic users collapsed onto the ground.

  The bloodsuckers swarmed the bunkers.

  Before the first mage rolled to his feet, the vamps emerged, their claws bloody.

  On the left a shapeshifter tossed a rock at the strip of plowed ground. A green fiery glow shot from the ground, licking the stone. The rock sparked with white. The glow vanished, leaving the stone, smoking on the ground. Trapped. That was what I thought.

  Behind us, the shamans conferred and began to chant in unison, their voices like a beat of a human heart, rhythmic but overlapping. Magic flowed from the shamans and condensed directly in front of us. The mercs heaved the platforms forward. The boards slid over the plowed ground and froze, suspended three inches above the dirt by the shamans' magic.

  The wereboar on my left roared, snorting and pawing the ground.

  The four boars in our view raised their heads at the challenge.

  The wereboar lowered his massive head and charged across the makeshift bridge with a fierce screech, hurtling like a cannon ball.

  For a split second the Calydonian boars stared in shock, and then as one they gave chase. The group galloped behind the buildings, out of sight.

  Mahon started forward. We followed. The bear picked up speed, at first moving slowly, then faster and faster, until I was running full speed in the middle of a stampede.

  A boar shot out from behind the concourse. The bear on the left peeled off to intercept. Another boar came from the right, a grizzled scarred male. Eduardo sped into a charge and rammed him head on. The bo
ar and buffalo went down in a tangle of tusks and hooves.

  I could barely see. The huge furry backs blocked my view. A snort, and another shapeshifter went down. Again. Again. And again. Mahon and Curran made a sharp left and suddenly I saw the tower, a hundred yards in front of us, and three giant pigs rocketing toward us like shots from a sling.

  "Get her to the tower," Curran roared, and charged toward the pigs. Mahon followed. Our armored barrier was gone. It was just me, Bob, the alphas, and a handful of renders.

  We ran. The air turned to fire in my lungs. Blood pounded through my temples. Eighty yards.

  Sixty.

  Forty. I pulled Slayer from its sheath.

  Above us, within the ward, magic streamed from the tower, unfolding in iridescent feathery smudges. The plume. We had twenty minutes before the device went active.

  To the left, a squat building flew by, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a huge boar rushing at us, mouth open, tusks ready to gore. He looked as big as a house. Vicious eyes glared at me.

  I sprinted, squeezing every last drop out of my muscles.

  The boar loomed, closer and closer.

  Twenty-five yards. The boar was on top of us. We wouldn't make it.

  Jennifer spun toward the pig, baring her teeth. Daniel's clawed hand closed on her shoulder. He shoved her aside and flung himself at the boar. The werewolf's claws raked across the pig's head, gouging the left eye. The boar squealed in mad fury. His tusk caught Daniel in the stomach. The boar shot forward, half-blind, and smashed into the ward. Daniel's blond head hit the pale glow. The back of his skull exploded, his face still intact, his blue eyes staring straight at us, and then both the werewolf and the boar disintegrated in a flash of blinding white.

  Ten yards.

  Jennifer screamed a single hoarse howl of pain, ripped straight from her heart.

  I sliced Slayer across my forearm, coating the blade with my blood, and rammed the ward, sinking all of my magic into the power word. "Hesaad. " Mine.

  Agony ripped through me in a fiery cascade.

  The ward shuddered. Veins of pure, intense red shot through the magic barrier. It shattered and the shapeshifters burst through it, smashing into the tower.

  I stumbled forward, trying to hold on to reality. Don't pass out, don't pass out . . .

  Derek ripped the tower's door off its hinges. A man raised a crossbow, blocking our way. Jennifer lunged at him. The bolt took her in the thigh. She ripped the man's head off, pulled the bolt out, and bounded inside, where more shooters waited on the stairway.

  We climbed the tower, step by step. For the first couple of minutes Jennifer was in front venting her fury, and then she took off into the side corridor raging, and someone else took point. We killed and killed and climbed, and the stairs behind us ran red with blood. A door loomed ahead. The shapeshifters crashed through it, drunk on blood fumes and anger. People spun to us, a familiar face among them. Shane. I lunged and disemboweled him with one precise strike. He clutched at his stomach, trying to hold the slippery ribbons of his intestines inside. I sliced across his chest and neck and kicked him to the ground. He crashed at my feet, bleeding to death.

  The device loomed in front of me, a cylinder of gleaming metal, encrusted with gems and inlaid with glyphs and patterns, spinning magic from its top in feathery glowing strands. A control console rose next to it, bristling with levers. Three gauges, long narrow rectangles half-filled with pale light, glowed above the console.

  Around the cylinder, the shapeshifters tore into the Keepers like sharks into baby seals. I pulled Kamen's instructions from the pocket of my jeans and unfolded them, careful to keep my bloody fingerprints off the text. According to Kamen, shutting down the machine required pushing the levers in a precise sequence. He said it would take anywhere from three to ten minutes. I had no idea how many minutes I had left.

  Don't think about it; just do it.

  I pushed the first lever. The gauge on the left turned blue. If it turned bright green, the device would become unstable and we'd all vanish in an explosion of magic. I jerked my hand back.

  The gauge glowed with blue, slowly growing lighter and lighter.

  Seconds ticked by. Come on. If I ever commissioned a world-destroying device, it would have a two-second shutoff: turn the key and that's it.

  Come on.

  The gauge turned white. I pushed the second lever. The third gauge shot into blue-green. I held my breath.

  The light shone, holding at the almost-green mark.

  Turn white. Turn white, damn you.

  Behind me someone snarled.

  White. Turn white.

  The gauge paled, sliding into pale gray. Good enough.

  I pulled the first lever again. All three gauges remained steadily pale.

  Third lever.

  Second lever. Third lever again. When this was over, I would screw Kamen's head off his shoulders like a cap off a beer bottle. First lever.

  All three gauges turned green.

  Fuck.

  The top of the device slid open, magic curving around it like veils of white smoke, nipping at my skin.

  Don't blow up. Just don't blow up.

  The gauges slid into blue. Wait for it.

  My hands shook. I clenched them into fists.

  Wait for it.

  Wait.

  Wait.

  The gauges turned white. I pushed the final lever.

  Nothing.

  What the hell?

  I had done it right, I'd memorized the instructions, they were in my hand . . . Maybe Kamen had lied. Maybe he wanted the device to activate . . .

  Something clanged within the machine. The gauges drained, the glow vanishing. The veils of magic dissipated, dissolving into nothing. The last sparks of power melted from the device and it sat inert, just a hunk of metal, dull and harmless.

  I slumped on the floor. Around me shapeshifters moved. Someone threw a body out the window.

  We'd won. Somehow we'd won.

  My gaze snagged on Shane, sprawled on the floor in the mess of his innards. He stared at me, his eyes wild.

  "We won," I told him.

  He glared at me with eyes full of hate.

  Behind him Curran loomed in the doorway. He was human and smeared with blood. He stepped over Shane and crouched by me. I put my arms around his neck and we kissed, both covered in gore and neither one caring. We kissed while around us, the soldiers of the Pack tossed the bodies out the windows, stepping over Shane as he lay dying slowly, bleeding his life out, watching his intestines contract and shiver on the floor in front of him.