We had won. It had cost hundreds of human lives, but we had won. We had the device. We’d rout the Keepers. Maybe I’d catch a break and Julie would survive.
“We’re building another one!” the man behind me yelled through the sobs.
The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I turned slowly.
He cringed on the ground. Curran leaned to him. His face unreadable, his voice almost casual. “Run that by me again?”
“We had a man, a man on the inside.” The man’s words came out too fast, tumbling over each other. “He copied the inventor’s plans. We’ve been building it for weeks. We just needed a working prototype to fine-tune it. It’s three times as big as this one.”
Damn it all to hell.
“Range?” Curran asked.
“Five miles,” the man stammered out.
Enough power to wipe out everything from the city center all the way to Druid Hills. They could kill most of the city. All they needed was a strong magic wave.
Curran pointed at Jim. “Tell that man everything you know. Location, time, names, everything.”
Jim grabbed the man by the throat. His lips parted in a feral grin. “Don’t keep anything to yourself.”
“Barabas!” Curran roared.
The weremongoose stepped from the Pack. A hundred pounds, sheathed in reddish fur, Barabas opened his mouth filled with sharp teeth and licked his fangs. The narrow horizontal pupils slit his coral-red irises in half, making him look demonic.
“I need you human,” Curran ordered.
Fur split, melting. A moment and Barabas stood in front of Curran, nude, his eyes still glowing with madness. “Lord?”
“Call the Conclave.”
The Conclave started as a quarterly meeting between the Pack and the People, officiated by a neutral party, usually someone from the Mage Academy, and held at Bernard’s, an upscale Northside restaurant. It gave the Pack and the People a chance to resolve problems before things spiraled out of hand. The last two times, representatives of other factions had attended to resolve their own issues. I had attended only one so far, because the meeting over the Christmas holiday had been canceled by mutual agreement.
“Should I schedule it at Bernard’s?” Barabas asked.
“No. There.” Curran pointed to a lonely Western Sizzlin’ steak house sitting on a low hill. The building was all glass and stone. The tall windows overlooked the town. To get to the place, the leaders of the factions would have to ride through the graveyard that was Palmetto.
“When?”
“Four. Sunset is at six. I want them to see the town. Invite the mages, the druids, the witches, the Guild, the Natives, Norse Heritage. Invite everyone.”
“Except the Order,” I added. “The Keepers may have infiltrated it.”
Curran nodded.
“And if the cops restrict access to the area?” Barabas asked.
Gold rolled over Curran’s eyes. “Buy the place. They can’t restrict access to our own land. Go.”
Barabas took off running.
“The volhvs have the inventor,” I said. “We need access. I need to make some phone calls.”
“I’ll take you,” Curran said.
We walked to the car. I was so tired, I could barely move.
“Curran?”
“Yes?”
Today was apparently the day for finding out what mating with me really meant. I nodded at the men. “One of them has my blood on his forehead. The blood must be destroyed or it can give me away if someone scans it.”
Curran gave me a look usually reserved for the mentally challenged. “Someone would have to find the bodies, first.”
Behind him the sounds of enraged boudas tore through the silence, followed by a cacophony of screams.
“In that case, cut off his head,” I said.
Curran gave me a look like I was stupid.
“My father made the damn vampires. I don’t know what my blood will do to a dead body. Cut off the guy’s head before you bury him.”
“Should I stuff his mouth with garlic?”
“Curran!”
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”
I got into the car and slumped against the seat. The fatigue mugged me. I was hanging by a thread and I clawed onto it, desperately trying to stay awake. I had paced myself, but three power words in a row equaled a lot of magic spent far too quickly.
The screams went on and on, and I was too weak to get my slice of the revenge pie. I just sat there and listened to them shriek. Finally the howls died down. Curran approached the car and got into the driver’s seat. “It’s done.”
The woman in the dirty dress stumbled into our field of vision. Her hands were bloody. She swayed, wiped the red dripping off her fingers on her dress, forced her way through the old dried weeds onto the road, and kept going, back toward the town.
“She had her turn,” Curran said.
CHAPTER 19
CURRAN DROVE BACK. I SAT IN THE PASSENGER SEAT, watching the brush roll by. Andrea and Jim had taken a different vehicle—he wanted to ask her some questions about the Keepers.
The magic had crashed shortly after we finished burying the bodies, and the steady hum of the gasoline engine set my teeth on edge. There was something mind-numbing about it; it conjured images of streets strewn with bodies. We had no idea where the second device would be activated. They could snuff out the entire Keep from four miles away. We’d never know what had hit us.
We’d stopped at a store on the way and I made four phone calls. One to Roman, to inform him that unless the volhvs delivered Adam Kamen by three o’clock to the Western Sizzlin’ I would crucify them at the Conclave. I wanted a shot at Kamen before the rest of Atlanta took it. The second call was to Evdokia to let her know what I was doing about the volhvs and that if she wanted to come and sit in on it, I wouldn’t mind. Next I called the Keep, to speak to Doolittle. The news was the same. No change. I thanked him and told him to send Derek with the volhv’s staff to the Western Sizzlin’. The fourth call was to Rene. She didn’t like what I had to say, and when she found out that the whole thing would be blown wide open at the Conclave, she liked it even less.
“When I hired you, I expected discretion.” The phone clicked and small noises muffled the sound—she’d put me on speaker.
“When you hired me, I expected honesty. You told me you had no idea what Kamen’s device did, but he’d tested the prototype in the forest. You told me he’d had no visitors, when one of the investors came to see him on multiple occasions.”
There was a small pause, and then Rene’s voice said, “What is she talking about?”
Henderson’s baritone answered. “Sorry, Captain.”
“‘Sorry,’ Sergeant?”
“It was above your pay grade. The orders came from above.”
Rene’s clipped voice snapped like a whip. “This conversation isn’t finished.” Then she spoke into the phone again. “Kate?”
“You have two choices: either you come to the Conclave and help, and we gloss over the fact that you’ve been guarding the creator of the Doomsday Device that’s about to murder everyone in the city limits, and then lost him; or you don’t show up, and I will tell it like it is.” That’s right, I’ll throw your ass right under the bus. Watch me.
“We’ll be there,” Rene ground out, and hung up.
Now we were back on the road, going toward the steak house, and I was fighting the phantom images of dead Julie flooding my mind.
Curran reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a roll of worn-out bills. He peeled a dollar from it and held it out to me.
“What for?”
“A dollar for your thoughts.”
“The usual price is a penny, not a dollar. Had I known how bad you were with money, I would’ve reconsidered this whole mating thing.”
“I didn’t want to go through all the haggling.” He held the dollar in front of me. “Look, here is a nice dollar. Tell me what’s brewin
g in your head.”
I snatched the dollar out of his fingers. It was old. The ink had faded so much, I could barely make it out.
“You took the money. Pay up.”
“All those people meant nothing to them. The Keepers killed a whole town for this bullshit promise of a better tomorrow. In a world without magic, only the deserving rise to the top? Really? Did they not read history books at all?”
“They’re fanatics,” Curran said. “It’s like expecting humanity from a falling rock. It’s not going to have a fit of compassion and not crack your skull open.”
“I can wrap my head around demons or rakshasas hating anything human, but the Keepers are people. A thug robs someone for money. A psychopath murders because he can’t help himself. They are perpetrating mass murder for no real immediate gain.” I stared at him helplessly. “How can you do this to your neighbors? They would have to murder millions of people and for what? It’s inhuman.”
“No, it’s human,” Curran said. “That’s the problem. People, especially unhappy people, want a cause. They want something to belong to, to be a part of something great and bigger, and to be led. It’s easy to be a cog in a machine: you don’t have to think, you have no responsibility. You’re just following orders. Doing as you’re told.”
“I can’t hate people that much. Don’t get me wrong. I want to murder every last Keeper I can find. But that’s not hate. That’s vengeance.”
Curran leaned over and squeezed my hand. “We’ll find them.”
We drove in silence.
“Why do you hold back?” he asked.
I glanced at him.
“You never let go,” he said. “You can do all this magic but you never use it.”
“Why don’t you murder every man that annoys you and rape every woman you find attractive? You can—you’re powerful enough.”
His face hardened. “First, it’s wrong. It’s the complete opposite of everything I stand for. The worst thing that ever happened to me happened because someone did exactly what you’ve described. The loups murdered my father, took my mother and my sister from me, ripped apart my family and my home. Why would I ever permit myself to become that? I believe in selfdiscipline and order, and I expect it from others just as I expect it from myself. Second, if I randomly murdered and violated people according to my whims, who the hell would follow me?”
“My father murdered my mother. She was no prize, but this doesn’t change things. Roland wanted to kill me. Because of him, my mother brainwashed Voron. Because of him I had no childhood and became this.”
“This what?”
“A trained killer. I like to fight, Curran. I need it. It’s a function of my existence, like breathing or eating. I am seriously fucked up. Every time I use Roland’s magic, I take a step closer to being him. Why would I ever permit myself to become that?”
“It’s not the same,” Curran said. “Loupism is loss of control. Practicing magic is honing your skills.”
“Taking over someone’s mind makes me feel like I’m swimming through a sewer. As I recall, the last time I did it, some overbearing alpha insisted on cramming the consequences of doing it down my throat.” Chew on that, why don’t you . . .
“I gave you a protector.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to do it again, unless I have to. Besides, it’s a limited magic. I can make the person perform basic physical tasks, but I can’t force him to tell me what he knows. If I can’t picture it, I can’t make him do it.”
“Does it get easier if you do it more often?”
“Yes. Saying a power word used to knock me out. Now it just hurts like hell. I can manage two or three in a row now, depending on how much magic I sink into them.” I leaned back against my seat. “I know what you’re driving at. Magic is just like anything else; you get better with practice.”
I closed my eyes. A vision of my aunt dead on the bloody snow flashed before me. “Before Erra died, she spoke to me. She said, ‘Live long enough to see everyone you love die. Suffer . . . like me.’ ”
“Why are you letting the dead woman fuck with your head?” he asked.
“Because I don’t think I will ever become Roland. It’s not in the cards. But give me enough time, and I could turn into Erra.” Fighting her was almost like fighting myself.
“And every time I turn into an animal, I have a small chance of forgetting that I’m human. Every time I heal or exert myself, I have a chance of turning loup.”
What was this, I’ll show you my scars if you show me yours? If he wanted to play the weird powers game, I’d beat his ass. “I can pilot vampires.”
Curran glanced at me. “Since when?”
“Since I was about five.”
“How many at a time?”
“Do you remember the woman we killed, when we hunted the upir? Olathe? Remember the horde of vampires on the ceiling?”
He stared at me.
“I was holding them in place,” I told him.
“There were at least fifty undead on that ceiling,” Curran said.
“I didn’t say it didn’t hurt. I couldn’t do much with them. With that many, you have to mold them into a whole. Like a swarm.” I checked his face. Are you freaked out yet, baby?
“So you could kill a vampire with your mind?”
“Possibly. The easier thing would be to just have it bash its head against a rock. I’ve had almost no practice, so I have no skill or finesse, but a crapload of power. If you ever have a war with the People, Ghastek will be in for a surprise.”
Curran frowned. “Why no practice?”
“Playing in an undead’s head leaves your mind’s footprint in it. Someone like Ghastek could take it from the dead vamp, assuming it’s fresh, and pull my image right out of its head. Then I would have to answer interesting questions. The fewer questions, the better.”
“Any other surprises?” Curran said.
“I can eat apples of immortality. My magic is too old to be affected by them, so it’s just like eating a regular Granny Smith. You can, too. I made you an apple pie with them once.”
“Aha. Okay, the next time you decide to put magic apples into my pie, I want to be notified of that before I eat it.”
“You liked it.”
“I’m serious, Kate.”
“As you wish, Your Majesty.”
We fell silent.
“The blast zone turned the shapeshifters in warrior form human,” I said.
Curran nodded. “It takes magic to maintain the warrior form.”
“What if we brought Julie into it? The virus would disappear. She would be okay, right?”
Curran’s face slid into his Beast Lord expression. “Bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Carlos was able to shift after he came out of the zone, which means it doesn’t destroy the virus, it just negates its effects. The moment Julie stepped foot out of the zone, it would hit her all at once. That’s a guarantee of instant loupism. Besides, do you remember the way Julie looked when we brought her in?”
My memory served up a twisted wreck of a body: a mix of fur, skin, exposed muscle and bare bone, and a grotesque face.
“I remember,” I said through clenched teeth.
“She is alive only because Lyc-V holds her together. A regular human body can’t sustain that much damage. You move her into the zone, all her regeneration will vanish. She would die quickly and in a lot of pain.”
I stared out the window.
“I’m sorry,” Curran said.
“She isn’t going to beat it, is she?”
Curran exhaled slowly. “Do you want me to lie to you?”
“No.”
“There is a way to calculate the probability of loupism,” Curran said. “It’s called the Lycos number. An average shapeshifter has ten units of virus per blood sample. I don’t know exactly how the units are determined, but Doolittle can explain it to you. The unit level fluctuates as the levels of virus rise and fall in a shapeshifter’s b
ody. An agitated shapeshifter might show twelve units; a shapeshifter in a fight post-injury might show as much as seventeen or eighteen. The number isn’t the same for everyone. For instance, Dali shows sixteen units at rest and twenty-two when agitated. Her regeneration is really high.”
I filed it for future reference.
“Next we have shift coefficient. A loup can’t maintain a human form or an animal form,” Curran continued. “They can’t fully shift. This is where it gets complicated. A normal shapeshifter in either animal or human form is considered to have a shift coefficient of one. As the shapeshifter begins to change shape, the coefficient changes. Suppose you’re going from human to animal. You turn twenty percent of your body animal, while the rest remains human. Your shift coefficient is two. Thirty percent—three. And so on, until nine. When you turn a hundred percent, you go back to one. With me?”
“Yes.”
“The Lycos number is determined by multiplying shift coefficient by the units of virus by the time it takes you to shift completely. Let’s take Dali. She can completely shift in less than three seconds. Her Lycos number is one multiplied by sixteen multiplied by point zero five minutes. Point eight. Anything under two hundred seventy is safe. Over a thousand is a guarantee of loupism. Dali isn’t going loup anytime soon.”
“What’s Julie’s number?”
Curran glanced at me. “Julie’s fluctuating between thirty-two and thirty-four units. Her shift coefficient is six point five and she’s been at it for sixteen hours.”
Dear God, I’d need a damn calculator.
“Twelve thousand four hundred eighty,” Curran said. “We stop counting after an hour if there is no significant change.”
Twelve times the loupism limit. My mind struggled to comprehend it. I knew what he was saying—it was right there—I just couldn’t force myself to believe it.
The realization hit me like a punch. “When did you know?”
His voice was hoarse. “Once Doolittle pulled her unit number. It took us forty-five minutes to get to the Keep. She had begun the transformation at least fifteen minutes prior. I knew that unless she shifted within the first hour, her chances were cut by three quarters, unless her unit number was below twenty.”
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