Torbert barked out a laugh, then said, “I hate to disappoint you, but no, we don’t torture prisoners. What are all those scabs on his face and hands? Where did the blood come from?”
“Spears?” Wen-li pointed to all the tiny spears on the ground around Crocker.
“Well, yeah. The wee folk are rather territorial,” I said.
“I never saw a containment spell surround a pentagram,” Bronski suddenly said. “What kind of spell did you use?”
I fidgeted. I didn’t like to talk about magic with Humans. “I just set a ward around him,” I finally said. “Runes invoked at the cardinal points, like the ward I have around the nursery.”
Bronski looked up at the oak tree, then through the fence at the oak at the opposite corner of the compound, then at the bamboo towering over us. Then he looked at Wen-li and said, “This is a completely different kind of magic than any I’ve ever seen.”
She smiled at him. “I’ve seen it before. I’ll tell you about it.” Turning to Crocker, she said, “If we let you out, will you behave yourself? No international incidents?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice almost a gasp.
“I think you can let him free,” Wen-li told me.
I spoke a Word, then looked up at the Fairies sitting on the lowest branch of the oak. “I’ll pay in chocolate if you bring me one of the green water bottles. One that’s full of water.”
A couple of dozen Fairies took flight, rocketing over the fence toward the supply shed.
“Chocolate?” Wen-li asked with a grin.
“It’s like whiskey to them. Just a little bit gets them very drunk. Their queen thinks I’m a bad influence, but as long as I don’t go overboard, she looks the other way.”
A couple of minutes later, the Fairies brought the bottle, carrying it in a hammock contrived of a scrap of weed-barrier fabric.
“Thank you!” I said as I took the bottle. I counted the six Fairies carrying the bottle and the six supervising. “As soon as I’m through with these people, I’ll get the chocolate from the cottage.”
They cheered, and whirled away, I assumed, to sit on the kitchen windowsill and wait on me. I tossed the water bottle to Crocker.
“That is amazing,” Wen-li said as she watched the Fairies fly away.
While that was going on, other Fairies and Pixies had been darting down, grabbing spears from the pile around Crocker, and then flying away. About half of the spears had been retrieved.
I drew Torbert aside. “Remember the story I told you about the golden jaguar?” He nodded. “I think Crocker is after the statue and thinks I’m hiding it. He said something about destroying it. I’m not sure a nuclear explosion could destroy the damned thing.”
He stared at me, his eyes searching my face as though he could read something there. “I find that difficult to believe. What kind of object is that thing?”
With a deep breath, I said, “Are you religious, Agent Torbert? Do you believe in one god like a lot of humans do?”
“I guess so, though I don’t consider myself very religious. My girlfriend is a pagan.”
“That artifact belongs in the realm of the gods. It was used in blood magic rituals to summon gods and demons. I’m told that it contains immense power. I’ve never seen it myself, but I have been in a place where it was stored. I would rather sleep with carrion and rats than be near it.”
“If that’s the case, what do you plan to do with it?”
“Give it to a demigod who says she can return it to where it belongs.”
His eyes shifted toward Isabella for an instant.
I grinned. “Do you really think she looks like a demigod?”
The PCU agents bundled Crocker into their car and drove away. Isabella gave me a scowl and said she was going to one of the university libraries. She didn’t say when she’d be back, so I assumed our night out to listen to music was cancelled. I grabbed a historical romance novel from my to-be-read stack, then poured myself a glass of wine and a bath infused with lavender oil.
“Get up. I have a lead.”
I opened my eyes and tried to focus on Isabella, but it was very dark. I checked my internal clock and found that I’d been asleep only for two hours. Combined with two long days in a row, I wasn’t feeling very lively.
“Can’t it wait until morning?”
“No, it can’t. Come on. Get dressed.”
“Easy for you to say,” I grumbled as I sat up. “What kind of lead?”
She handed me her laptop. At first, I couldn’t make sense of the pictures on the screen. It looked like a war zone. Syria or Iraq, maybe.
“What is this?”
“Arlington.”
“Danu merde. Now?”
“Yes, now. It just happened about an hour ago. I need you to tell me if the magical signature matches what you felt at Weber’s house and lab.”
I tumbled out of bed and grabbed clothes from my closet. Arlington was just across the Potomac River from the Capitol and all the main government buildings, a suburb packed with apartment buildings and residential areas.
“Where in Arlington?” I asked as I pulled on a shirt and bent down to pick up my boots.
“As best I can figure, somewhere between the Pentagon and Reagan National,” Isabella said.
I stopped. “We don’t have a snowball’s chance of getting there. Not unless you suddenly develop teleportation or learn how to fly. The military will be all over that area.”
She stared at me, frustration plain on her face.
“What makes you think magic caused this?” I asked.
“They’re saying that the blast zone is almost a mile wide, and damage extends another mile past that.”
“No mushroom cloud?”
She shook her head. I had to agree with her. I couldn’t imagine any kind of Earth-origin bomb that could produce that kind of devastation.
“These pictures are from the fringes of the destruction,” Isabella said. “The photographer was at the airport.”
I took a deep breath and tried to think. There seemed to be only one answer.
“If you want my help, then we have to go through the authorities. There’s no way we can sneak in there without permission. Hell, they may detain us and think we did it. The U.S. military isn’t big on magic users, from what I’ve heard.”
She bit her lip, and I gave her time to think. “You think your PCU friends could get us in there?” she finally asked.
“It’s worth a try. The worst they can do is say no.”
I could hear her teeth grinding together, but with a jerking nod, she said, “Okay. Call them.”
Although it was one o’clock in the morning, Torbert answered his phone immediately.
“Yes, Miss Rogirsdottir?” He sounded hurried and impatient.
“My friend thinks the explosion in Arlington was caused by the golden jaguar.”
“Okay. Look, I’m really…” his voice tailed off. “Can you repeat that?”
“We think Arlington was caused by someone trying to use the golden jaguar I told you about.”
“Why did you call it an explosion?” he asked.
“Isn’t that what happened? I’m looking at photos on the internet.”
“Magic.” His voice held a musing note. “How would we tell if this was caused by your artifact?”
“I would have to get close to the scene. I know what the jaguar feels like. If the damage was caused by magic, it will have left residual traces.”
“Where are you?”
“At the nursery.”
“I’ll have a car pick you up.” He hung up.
I looked at Isabella. Her hearing seemed to be as sharp as mine, so she should have heard Torbert’s side of the conversation.
She nodded. “Finish getting dressed.”
Chapter 10
A black SUV with FBI plates pulled up outside the nursery gates. Isabella and I slipped through, and I closed the gate behind us. A burly man wearing a helmet and a flak jacket sat beh
ind the wheel, and Karen Wen-li was in the other front seat.
We jumped in the back, and the driver pulled away, turning on red and blue emergency lights and a siren.
Karen twisted around to face us. “Dave said you told him about a magical artifact. Can you give me any more information?”
I glanced toward Isabella. After giving me the evil eye, she sighed and said, “It’s an ancient statue that was used in certain ceremonies more than a thousand years ago. Blood ceremonies. Sacrifices. It stores magic. An archeologist took it from a tomb about two months ago and brought it to DC. He tried to sell it and ended up dead. The statue disappeared, and unfortunately, a lot of mages are interested in acquiring it.”
“And you think it caused the incident in Arlington?” Wen-li asked.
“Can you think of a non-magical event that would cause such a catastrophe?” Isabella countered.
Wen-li’s eyes shifted toward me, then back to Isabella. “And who are you?”
“Doctor Isabella Cortez, University of Colorado. I’m a zoologist with a specialty in animal behavior. I also have an interest in ancient Mesoamerican civilizations.”
“Ah, the shifter expert,” Wen-li said. “I’ve read a couple of your books.” She glanced back at me, then continued. “Dave said that you warned him about someone trying to use the artifact. Your warning and what happened are much too close for coincidence.”
“Isabella is the one with the knowledge,” I said. “She’s the one who thinks it’s so powerful. What I can tell you is that I have been in a place where we think the statue was, and it stinks of blood and demons. I’ve never felt anything like it, and I’ve been in Hel.”
Wen-li nodded, then asked, “Hell with one ‘l’ or two?”
“One.”
She made a face and turned back around.
Our driver took us on the most direct route, down the GW Parkway, across the Arlington Memorial Bridge, and then south to the Pentagon. At that time of the morning, there wouldn’t normally have been much traffic, but we did see a lot of police and military vehicles. When he pulled off the road and parked, Wen-li got out and we followed her, looking around in disbelief.
Trees were blown over, and some looked as though they had blown in from somewhere else. Full-grown trees. The trees still standing were bare of leaves. Debris covered the ground. I saw a spec of color and walked over to it to find half of a child’s doll. The buildings I could see were standing, but they had taken a beating. The flashing lights of police, fire, and ambulance vehicles gave the whole scene a surreal look.
Torbert met us and asked, “How close do you need to be to tell us anything?”
“I don’t know. Is this near the center of what happened? I can’t feel anything here.”
“No,” he said. “We’re on the periphery. For half a mile from what we’re calling ground zero, everything is flattened.”
“Worse than this?” Isabella asked.
“Much worse.”
“Madre nos protégé,” she breathed. “How many people?”
Torbert stiffened, and for a second, as I watched his face, I thought he was going to crack. “Tens of thousands. At least,” he said and turned away.
I started walking forward, but before I went very far, a soldier stepped in my way.
“You can’t go any farther, miss,” he said.
I turned and looked back at Torbert. He stepped up and showed his identification. “She’s a special consultant, Sergeant.”
The soldier shook his head. “I have my orders, sir.”
It took half an hour and half a dozen phone calls, but finally some soldier with stars on his shoulders and a superior of Torbert’s got together and talked for a while. When they finished, a dozen soldiers spread out in front of me and started walking forward. Torbert, Wen-li and Bronski approached Isabella and me.
“Follow the soldiers,” Torbert said. “They’ll supply security.”
I traded a look with Isabella and rolled my eyes but didn’t say anything. I was faster than any of them, and I had no idea what they might be protecting me from.
As we walked, Torbert told me, “ICAA threw a fit about us arresting Crocker, and we received a complaint from the English ambassador. Rather than deal with them, my superiors decided to deport him.”
“So, where is he now?” I asked.
“That’s the thing. Some of our men took him to the airport, but he must have had a partner. He disappeared. A surveillance camera caught him leaving the airport with another man. The reason I bring this up is, Crocker was staying at a hotel in Pentagon City—the hotel we think was at the center of all this.”
We walked for about fifteen minutes, picking our way between fallen trees, wrecked cars, pieces of houses and other buildings, and bodies. It was bad. Almost as bad as Dresden. At least nothing was on fire.
A demon rose up from behind a wrecked car, grabbed a soldier, and bit his head off. The nearest soldier raised his rifle and fired, but the demon threw the body at him and knocked him off his feet.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Isabella start to shift, but I was already moving, drawing my sword as I ran toward the demon.
Purple and muscled like a weight lifter, it was at least eight feet tall. Instead of aiming at its neck, I swung at its midsection, and my sword sliced through its abdomen. I aimed the back swing a little lower.
The demon opened its mouth and roared, reaching for me. I dove to my left, tucked, landed, and rolled to my feet. The demon took a step toward me, but when its feet tangled in its intestines, it tripped and fell. Before it could do anything else, I brought my sword down on its neck, and its head bounced away.
I leaned over, my hands on my knees, and tried to catch my breath. Isabella in jaguar form stood next to me, scanning the area for more trouble.
When I could speak, I told Torbert, “It might be safer if the soldiers just waited for us.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, ma’am,” one of the soldiers said. “We have our orders.” He looked around at the other soldiers and yelled, “Heads up. We’re not out here for a Sunday stroll. Move out and keep your eyes open.”
I felt sorry for the men, especially the man who had been knocked over by his comrade’s body. The look in his eyes was one I’d seen many times in Germany during and after World War II.
The next demon we encountered was greeted with explosive ammunition by at least four of the soldiers. It kept coming after us until one of the bullets hit it in the head. I became increasingly uneasy. The demons we had seen were major demons, nasty enough to wreak havoc, but killable. Killing a greater demon usually required magic, and I hadn’t seen anything from Bronski, our only mage.
Isabella hadn’t shifted back, stalking along about ten feet to my left. Torbert and Wen-li kept shooting glances at her, and at least one of the soldiers was completely freaked out by her change. Her willingness to take on a demon in that form kind of freaked me out, too.
As we progressed, the damage became more severe. It looked like what I’d seen on TV of cities that were hit by a tornado or a hurricane.
“As best we can tell, this is wind damage, essentially the shock wave from the blast, Torbert said.
“You sounded skeptical when I asked you about the explosion,” I said.
He shook his head. “That’s because there wasn’t one. At least, not an explosion in the typical sense. No sound, no smoke, no fire. Witnesses say there was a blinding flash of light, and the hotel walls simply dissolved, along with everything else for about half a mile in all directions. The pilot of a plane landing at Reagan said it looked like a wave of light expanding from the center that left nothing in its wake.”
All I could do was shake my head. I had seen some impressive displays of magic in the various realms I’d traveled through, but nothing like that.
My worst fear stepped out of a ruined building and roasted the soldier nearest it with a fountain of flame. The fire demon grabbed the soldier and took a bite like it was eati
ng a turkey leg while rushing with inhuman speed toward the next soldier in the skirmish line.
The soldier was about ten feet in front of me, and I reached the demon at the same time it reached the soldier. The soldier fired his weapon into the demon’s body at point-blank range as I swung my sword across the back of the demon’s legs to hamstring it. It screamed, leaning backward, and Isabella landed on its back.
The demon turned toward me and I leaped away, grabbing Torbert’s shoulder and pushing him to the ground on my way past him. I felt the heat of the demon’s flame behind me.
When I rolled to my feet, I saw the demon on the ground with Isabella on its back. She raised her head, demon blood dripping from her jaws, and gave a roar of triumph. The demon’s skull was crushed in the same way as she killed the Werewolves in that alley the night she and I met.
Torbert’s jacket was on fire, and I leaped to grab it by the collar and rip it off his body. His shirt underneath showed a scorch mark, but it hadn’t burned.
Bronski had evidently cast a protection spell a little late. He was singed from his head to his feet, but he didn’t seem to be injured. As far as I could tell, his spell was meant to protect only him and not anyone else. Although Wen-li looked to be unharmed, when she turned away from me, I saw that the last two feet of her beautiful hair had been burned off.
I walked over to the demon. “That can’t possibly taste very good,” I said to Isabella. She snarled, and then pawed at her snout. I used the cloth from Torbert’s ruined jacket to wipe the ichor off her. Demon blood is extremely acidic, and I was amazed to see that she didn’t seem to be affected by it. One of the soldiers handed me a canteen, and I turned it upside down, washing Isabella’s mouth. Then she almost gave the soldier a heart attack, rubbing against his legs and purring like a house cat.
I didn’t have to guess when we reached the edge of the magic’s destruction. The ground suddenly dropped about twenty feet from a clean, straight cliff to a perfectly flat plain of dirt. I could see that the depression was a perfect circle, and as Torbert had said, about a mile wide. It looked as though that piece of Earth had been picked up and relocated. I had a feeling that was exactly what had happened. The stench of blood magic was identical to that I’d felt from Weber’s car and laboratory.
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