Time had stopped. Menchú could have sworn he felt the world turn over on its poles. All the clichés were coming true around him and he didn’t know what to do about it. “What are you saying? How long have you opposed the Society? Are you working with Hannah? Are you trying to let magic in and destroy the world? You’ve seen what it can do, Asanti, how could you?”
Asanti shook her head. As though he were the one being dense. It was possible. He certainly didn’t understand what he was hearing. “Of course not. I’m trying to save the world.”
“Then we’re on the same side.”
“You’re trying to save the team, which is laudable. But the Society is too set in its ways to see that the old approaches aren’t enough. The tide is rising, or the land is sinking, it doesn’t matter which metaphor you use. The Society is fighting a losing battle unless it radically changes tactics, and we both know that’s not going to happen—”
Menchú had heard enough. “So you stab us in the back?!”
“Five minutes,” Frances murmured.
“Either get out, or get out of my way, but I am not going to let your interference doom the city—”
“Knock it off!” Grace’s voice cut, sharp and merciless, across their argument. The room fell silent. Grace continued in a more moderate tone. “This argument is both important and a waste of time. You are welcome to have it at some point in the future when I don’t have to be awake for it, and more importantly, when we are not on a countdown.” She turned to Frances, who looked pale. “What happens in five minutes?”
“A little less than that now, but we believe that’s when the … thing … that Hannah summoned will fully manifest in our world. Here.” Frances glanced down at her computer, then up again. “Perry says it’s called the City Eater.”
“Because it eats cities,” Perry supplied. “Angels aren’t big on nomenclature.”
Grace nodded. “Who in this room is in favor of preventing that?”
For a moment, everyone remained frozen, not sure how to respond. Grace’s expression did not encourage a vocal interruption. Then Liam slowly raised his hand. Sal followed suit, as did Perry and Frances. Menchú put his own palm in the air and turned to see Asanti mirroring the gesture.
“Good,” said Grace. She looked at Asanti. “You have a plan to send this thing back where it came from?”
The slightest hesitation. “Yes,” said Asanti.
“Then let’s save the city, and after that you two can debate operational philosophy.”
Menchú swallowed his anger, and his pride. “She’s right. I know you don’t want any help, but since we’re here, how can we assist you?”
Asanti didn’t seem any happier with the situation, but they had a common goal and a decade-plus of working together to fall back on. Surely that could be enough. “It’s rather complicated to explain,” she said.
“Four minutes,” Frances supplied. Menchú raised a brow.
“So I suppose I will explain quickly,” said Asanti.
• • •
In truth, the explanations were not onerous. Since the plan had been conceived with only Perry, Frances, and Asanti herself available to execute it, it wasn’t as if any of the members of Team Three had a vital role. Liam came the closest to being truly useful. His knowledge of magic wasn’t very deep, but computers were still computers, and with him on the laptop it saved Frances having to go back and forth between her monitors and the machine.
Sal and Grace stood where they would be both out of the way and able to intercede quickly in case something went horribly wrong. If the creature broke free of whatever trap Asanti had laid, at least it would likely be vulnerable to conventional applications of force.
When Menchú asked what he could do, Asanti told him, “Pray for us,” and was surprised to find she meant it.
Prayer was a sort of magic, and they needed all the help they could get.
They were less than a minute from the creature’s arrival. Asanti could feel her heart pounding. At the same time, her mind was strangely calm. This was it. This was what she had been preparing for. Every experiment, every secret, every lie and omission. All of it, so that she could be ready for this moment.
“Thirty seconds.”
It was all she had ever wanted. To be the right person, in the right place, at the right time to make a difference. For her children, for her grandchildren, for the world.
The brass and copper on Frances’ machine gleamed. It had rather fewer silver accents than the Orb in the Archives, given the budget differential between being an official part of the Society and a secret group scrounging around the edges of the Vatican. But when it was active, as it was now, it glowed with the same warm and constant light.
“Twenty seconds—”
The light of the machine flickered, dimmed. She felt the power in the runes on the floor pulse and hum. “It’s here,” she said.
On her left, Asanti half-heard Liam and Frances exchanging a steady stream of readings and adjustments. The light dimmed again, and a shadow appeared inside the circle on the floor. It wasn’t black, but gray, with hints of blue and green, like looking over the side of a ship at the heart of the ocean. Its form was loose and shifting. One instant there was a flash of teeth, the next a bit of wing, a moment later it appeared to burst into flame only to then erupt in tongues and claws.
Asanti sensed, rather than saw, Menchú move to stand beside her.
The shifting forms of the creature snapped at the edges of the circle, but did not pass over her wards. She waited for it grow larger, force its way out, but instead it pulled in on itself, becoming more dense. More solid. More—“It’s transitioning,” said Asanti, cutting through Frances and Liam’s background chatter. Not all demons had a physical form. Many, like Aaron and Hannah, had to borrow a body in order to take action in the world. But this one was trying to shift from being a creature of energy to one of matter. “Turn up the interference,” she told Frances. “We have to force it back where it came from before it solidifies in its physical form.”
“I’m trying,” said Frances, “but it’s not working. It’s like … it’s like it’s being pushed from the other side.”
“Or pulled from this one,” said Sal. “Hannah called this thing. She could have it on a leash.”
“If we can’t force it back, what do we do?” asked Menchú.
“Give me a minute.” Frances was already at Liam’s side by the computer. “If we can’t send it back, we might be able to cut it off from the mystic energy of the museum and trap it in the circle.”
Asanti nodded, understanding Frances’ aim instantly. “Trap it in limbo: in our world, but without a physical form.”
“That’s a good thing?” asked Sal.
“What do we do with it once we’ve trapped it?” said Menchú.
“Let’s make sure it stays trapped first,” Grace gritted out, “and then worry about step two.”
Asanti bent to the floor, using her marker to add more protective layers to the circle. “Without a physical body to process nutrients in this world, or a link to the metaphysical it’s currently feeding on, it should gradually lose cohesion. Starve to death, in effect,” she translated.
“I have to cut energy to the machine, or the creature will just feed off it. Can your circle hold it on its own?” Frances asked.
“Just a second …” Asanti drew a last line and quickly scanned her work. No breaks, no gaps. She murmured an incantation, made sure the circle was as strong and whole as she could make it. Her vision grayed around the edges. There was no more time for precautions. If it is now or never, let it be now. “Cut it loose,” she said.
Frances grabbed a dial on the base of the machine and spun it all the way to the left. The glow died.
Asanti checked the circle. The creature shuddered as its connection to the nourishment of the collection terminated. It surged forward in the air, only to hit the invisible wall of Asanti’s wards.
The circle held.
3.
Liam watched Frances … flit. There was no other word for it. He was watching her flit across the room, back and forth between her machine, her computer, and the circle drawn on the floor that was somehow trapping a half-manifested demon and preventing it from destroying the city of London and the rest of the world. And, okay, he had to allow that the shifting thing didn’t seem to be going anywhere at the moment, but he wasn’t sure that he believed some marks on the ground actually had it confined. He would have felt better if Asanti had at least drawn the damn thing in permanent ink.
But the point was: Frances, flitting, and maybe he should have been disturbed that she was flitting around on tentacles, but honestly, after all his years with Team Three—and especially now that he had his memories of his time with the Network back—Liam had seen some really strange things. A woman who was some kind of reptilian octopus from the hips down barely made his personal top ten. No, what was bugging Liam was how gosh-darned happy Frances seemed to be about the fact that they were all hiding in a boiler room with a demonic monster from another dimension.
He tried to point this out to her. But Frances was stubbornly obtuse to his point. “We really do need a better term than ‘demon’ for these creatures. I mean, the Catholic Church has used ‘demonic’ at various points in history to refer to everything from supernatural manifestations, to ideas they don’t like, to disease. In this case, I don’t even know that ‘creature’ would be appropriate. Surely fixed physical form isn’t necessarily part of the definition in our work, but I haven’t seen anything that indicates the City Eater has responses more sophisticated than reflex, let alone a coherent sense of self.”
Something in that last sentence snagged at Liam’s attention. “Reflex? Are you experimenting on that thing?” He had a sudden vision of Frances looking for a knee on the shadow so she could tap it with a hammer.
Frances scoffed. “Of course not. It’s in a sealed and warded circle. I’m just observing.” She let out a small sigh. “It’s a shame. But even so, this is an amazing opportunity to learn.” She moved to return to her machine.
Liam interposed himself between her and it. “The only thing we need to be learning about something called a City Eater is how to send it back where it came from and keep any more from following after.”
Frances easily skirted around him—for a woman who spent most of her time in a wheelchair, she sure could move when she was out of it—and adjusted a brass ring on the base of her device. “That is both simplistic and short-sighted.”
“Well, maybe I’m just a simple man—” Liam cut himself off. He hadn’t gotten this close to Frances’s contraption before, and now that he was, he noticed something that made his blood run cold. From a distance, the machine looked like some kind of hacked-together Orb knockoff, which was disturbing enough, but now that he could see into the guts of it … “Is that a circuit board?” he asked. He leaned closer and felt a shiver dance across his skin. Even from a foot away. Liam took a step back.
Frances didn’t look up from her notes. “Probably. There are several melded with the internal mechanics. The original builders had more precious metals, but they didn’t have access to the kind of technology we do now.”
Yeah, that was pretty much what Liam had been afraid she was going to say. “I suppose you tinkered with your laptop too?”
Frances was staring at him openly now. “Of course I did. I had to harden all the components or it wouldn’t be any use at all this close to the machine.”
“So, in addition to building a new version of a magical device when we still don’t understand how the original works, you also decided to go ahead and make it a technomantic machine, you know, for shits and giggles, because that hasn’t gone horribly wrong every other time someone has done it before!” Liam could feel his voice rising and didn’t bother to bring it back into check. “Have you not been paying attention during the last two years? Did you not notice what turned your legs into tentacles?”
Frances looked back at him, utterly cold. “I am aware of the dangers.”
“You’re not acting like it.”
“Why do you think I started studying the union of magic and machines?” she demanded. “The Network is down, but they’re hardly the only group out there with a similar philosophy. You may be too squeamish, but I intend to use every tool at my disposal to save the world. I’ve come to terms with what happened to me, Liam. You should try it sometime.”
“This isn’t about me! It’s about—having morals, and if you don’t hold on to something, what exactly are you saving?” Liam shook his head. “You’re trying to save us from capsizing by drilling a hole in the bottom of the boat. We might not turn over, but only because we’re going to have bigger problems.”
Liam turned away then, but Frances added to his back: “While you cling to the mast and curse the sea for being wet.”
• • •
Asanti sat on a case of dish soap. She realized dimly that she had been staring at the patch of floor between her feet without seeing it for the last … for some number of minutes. She smelled tea. Where was that coming from? There was no tea down here. Oh, please don’t let me be having a stroke. She didn’t think that she’d tapped herself that deeply to contain the creature. On the other hand, there was probably a reason why all the advice on the practice of magic she had been able to find stressed the foolhardiness of putting yourself directly into your work. Hair, blood, and other fluids were one thing—their physical nature made it obvious how much of yourself you were using at any given moment. Otherwise, her sources warned, the first sign that you had given too much of yourself to a spell was when you passed out. Or died.
Tea.
She could see it now too. Menchú was holding a mug in front of her. It had a picture of a dog on it. That must be where the smell had come from. It all made sense now. Except …
She looked up. “Where did you find tea?”
“There’s a staff kitchen not far from here. Perry said opening the door wouldn’t hurt anything, and you looked like you needed it.”
Asanti took the mug. The tea was hot and sweet and milky. “Thank you.”
Menchú nodded, but didn’t leave. Instead, he sat down on the case beside her. “How long has this been going on?” he asked.
“We got here yesterday.”
“Frances’s machine isn’t something you whipped up in a few hours after you got off the plane in London.” He paused. “Is all of this”—a wave of his hand took in the machine, Frances, Perry, the lines on the floor—“since the trial?”
Asanti huffed a laugh, sending ripples across the surface of the tea. “I’ve been working with magic for years, Arturo. I’ve just been working in secret since the trial.”
“Perry and Frances?”
“If you want to know about their involvement, ask them.”
For a moment, Menchú looked like he wanted to press the point, but he let it go. “So for the last year, every time Perry has suddenly shown up in a useful location, or you just happened to have information about what we were working on … it wasn’t from the Orb, or some book, or one of your sources, was it?”
“Sometimes it was research, just like always. Sometimes it was … other kinds of research.”
“How many times did you have information on the phenomenon that we were investigating because you had caused it?”
Maybe it was the aftermath of making the ward. Maybe it was the caffeine in the tea on a mostly empty stomach. Maybe, after nearly a year, she was just tired of lying to him. “Only once.”
“The caves?”
“No, I sent Perry ahead of you to learn what he could, but he didn’t trigger it. It really was those poor girls.”
Menchú thought about this. “The apartment building in Rome, then, with the magical servants.”
Asanti nodded.
“It was a very simple spell. A test run. It all went perfectly until we found out they had changed the rules on us. The information we gained was invaluable.”
She followed Menchú’s gaze to the creature, quiescent now inside the circle.
“Was it fun for you?” Menchú asked. “Watching us run around in circles trying to catch up to what you already knew?”
“No, of course not!”
“Then what, Asanti? No matter what our differences, it hasn’t stopped us from working together for years. I thought we trusted each other.”
Asanti sighed. She had assumed her reasons were obvious, but maybe not. “Of course I trust you. But I also know you.” He looked a silent question at her, and she continued. “For me, the Church is an employer. To you, it’s a vocation. It didn’t seem fair to put you in a position where you would have to choose between that and your loyalty to me.”
Menchú was silent.
• • •
Liam frowned over Frances’s computer. His last dabble with technomancy had led to his possession, which made him reluctant to trust his expertise on the subject, even without the giant hole that used to be in his memory, but from what he could tell, Frances had told him the truth: She was analyzing the heck out of whatever was inside Asanti’s circle on the floor. But what she was measuring? That was another trick entirely. Liam let his hindbrain take over, scanning the numbers that scrolled across the screen while he half-listened to Sal and Perry’s quiet argument in the corner of the room.
• • •
“I cannot believe you!” Sal hissed at her brother. “You’ve been secretly working for Asanti’s Operation: Resurrect Team Four this whole time?”
“It wouldn’t be much of a secret if I told you about it, Sal.”
“That is not the point. I’m your sister. I can’t protect you if you’re getting up to your neck in—”
“No.”
“No? What do you mean, no?”
“I mean it’s not your job to protect me.”
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