My vampire escort fell away and lined up in a row at the bottom of the stairs, sitting on their haunches like mutant hairless cats. Javier invited me up the stairs with a sweep of his hand. I climbed after Rowena into Ghastek’s domain. He stood with his arms crossed, silhouetted against a window, a tall thin man in a black shirt, charcoal pants, and expensive dark shoes. All of the Masters of the Dead dressed as if they anticipated being ambushed with a surprise board meeting, but since he’d become my Legatus, Ghastek had been steadily moving away from suits and corporate-slick toward clean and comfortable clothes, more suitable to a wealthy academic researcher than a captain of industry. As I entered, a vamp scuttled out of the small kitchenette on the side and set a cup of coffee on the polished black granite of Ghastek’s desk.
My Legatus peered at me, his eyes sharp on a narrow face. “What happened?”
“Sahanu.”
Ghastek pivoted toward the journeyman. “Initiate Counter-Invasion Protocol One, Sierra Delta, Target Group Charlie.”
“Yes, sir. The medic team is closing on the office. Should I ask them to wait?”
“Yes,” I said.
“No,” Ghastek said. “Send them in immediately. Aside from them, I do not want to be disturbed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“That will be all, Javier.”
The journeyman made a shallow bow, or a deep nod, it was hard to tell, and left, closing the door gently behind him. Through the glass I saw him walk down the steps and park himself next to the vampires.
Ghastek faced me. “As I recall, we discussed this possibility thirteen months ago. We both agreed that it wasn’t a matter of if Roland would try to obtain your child but when.”
“The sahanu who attacked us didn’t want to obtain Conlan. She wanted to eat him.”
“What?” Rowena drew back. “His own grandson?”
“I’m sure that wasn’t part of the plan,” Ghastek said. “It makes no sense. Your son is too important to be wasted like that.”
“My father kidnapped a bunch of children, imprisoned them in a fortress, and brainwashed them into believing he is a god to mold them into fanatical assassins. Then he turned them loose in the world on a suicide mission without any supervision. You’re right, he couldn’t possibly anticipate anything going wrong with that plan. I need to call him.”
A woman hurried to the door, carrying a bag, two men behind her. Ghastek shook his head. The woman and the men went down the stairs and went to stand by Javier.
“We’ve been over this,” Ghastek said. “One doesn’t simply call your father. Especially not now and not from this place.”
“We’ve betrayed him,” Rowena said. “All of our contacts are cut off.”
“Do I look like an idiot?” I asked.
Ghastek raised his eyebrows.
“I know my father and I know you. He has spies among your people, and you figured out who they are ages ago, and now you’re sitting on them.”
Rowena smiled. Conlan wiggled out of her arms and padded across the floor to the vampire that sat motionless by Ghastek’s desk. My son and the bloodsucker stared at each other, their noses inches apart.
Ghastek grimaced. “I liked you better as a merc.”
“Well, too bad, because I spent two years knee-deep in Pack politics, and I know how you operate. Get me a phone number, Ghastek.”
Ghastek inhaled. “No.”
I spoke slowly, sinking menace into my words so there wouldn’t be any misunderstanding. “What do you mean, no?”
Ghastek leaned against his desk, braiding his long fingers into a single fist. “We are aware of three people who report to Roland. Of those three, one is a second-year journeyman and two are apprentices, both of whom are wavering in their devotion to your father since you personally singled them out with your goddess routine.”
The goddess routine involved me radiating magic during a tech wave. “You insisted on the goddess routine. You claimed it would boost morale.”
“It did. Do you really think that any of these three would have a direct line to your father? They don’t. They report to someone and that someone reports up to someone else and so it goes, up a very tall ladder that may reach your father or may terminate with the Legatus of the Golden Legion or any of half a dozen people in Roland’s inner circle. These contacts are best used for subterfuge and disinformation. I won’t let you throw them away so you can yell at your parent.”
“Be very careful with words like ‘let,’” I told him.
“If you wanted someone who always said yes, you should’ve picked someone else.”
“I’m reviewing the error of my ways,” I told him. “He gave an order that resulted in one of those freaks trying to eat my son. Conlan is probably traumatized for life because he watched me kill a woman in front of him.”
“Your kills are usually quick,” Rowena pointed out. “Maybe he didn’t notice.”
“He noticed.”
Conlan raised his hand, fingers outstretched, as if they had claws, and slapped the vampire upside the face.
The undead remained unmoved.
“Your son doesn’t look traumatized to me,” Ghastek observed.
“I’m sure this will surface as a repressed memory fifteen years from now.”
Conlan smacked the vampire again.
“Stop,” I told him.
“What a shame,” Ghastek murmured. “He isn’t even trying to pilot.”
Conlan raised his hand.
“Har.” No. The ancient word rolled off my tongue, suffused with magic. I was too keyed up.
Conlan dropped his hand, backed away from the vampire, and came toward me, his hands raised. “Up.”
I swung him onto my hip. My right arm screamed.
“Oh my God,” Rowena whispered. “He understood.”
Of course he understood. “Erra sings to him in Shinar every night. He speaks it better than English at this point.” I petted his hair. “I need to speak to my father, Ghastek. You’re my Legatus. Make it happen.”
Ghastek leaned over to the window and knocked on the glass. The woman ran up the stairs and opened the door.
“Just you, Eve,” Ghastek told her.
She shut the door behind her and crouched by me. “May I treat you, In-Shinar?”
Given that my arms burned like fire, it was probably a good idea. I turned to Rowena, and she took Conlan from me and smiled at him. “There is my little prince.”
Conlan petted Rowena’s fiery hair and made a cute noise.
I tried to take off my shirt. Pain shot all the way through my shoulder. Nope.
“You’ll have to cut it,” I said.
Eve opened her bag and took out a pair of scissors.
Conlan cooed, looking like the most adorable child, all innocence and light. The kind of child who would never turn into a monster and eat raw mice in the woods with his father. My son was a con man.
Eve cut my right sleeve. It fell apart. I sent a pulse of magic through the fabric, and black powder rained from it onto the floor. The last thing I wanted was my clotting blood everywhere.
Rowena gasped.
The cut on my bicep was pretty deep. It had turned an odd color of green, too. I’d thought something didn’t feel right. The bitch had poisoned me.
“Keep going,” I told Eve.
The scissors slid up my arm. My shirt fell away, leaving me in a sports bra. A dozen shallow cuts, blooming with green, covered my arms. My shoulder blade burned where the dagger had embedded itself.
Rowena put her hand over her mouth.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Ghastek demanded.
“The medic was on the way.”
“You look like you’ve been through a tornado of knives,” Rowena said.
“She had two daggers. I had no weapons, beca
use Biohazard makes me surrender them before I go into their lab. I couldn’t use power words because Luther was at risk. I bludgeoned her to death with my bare hands and a microscope.”
The two Masters of the Dead stared at me.
“She wasn’t going to touch my son,” I told them.
Ghastek turned to the medmage. “How bad is it?”
“The cut on the right arm is deep. Slow healing is best in this case. It will take three sessions over the next twenty-four hours if the magic wave holds.”
“That won’t work for me,” I told her. “Fix the arm as much as you can. That’s all I need.”
She met my gaze. “If I do this all at once, it will be very painful.”
“That’s fine.”
“I’ll need to cleanse the wounds. They already closed. The poison is trapped inside.”
I pulled on my cuts with my magic, calling on my blood. Red slid from the gashes. Eve shied back as if struck with a live wire.
“Is that enough?” I asked.
She swallowed and held up her hands. “Yes. Please stop.”
I stopped the bleeding. A spark of magic and the blood streaking my skin turned to dust.
I held my arm out to her. Eve sat down next to me, touched my arm, her fingers cold on my skin, and began to chant. The burn in my wound exploded into ice, stabbing my muscles with a dozen sharp needles. She was a burst medic. Most medmages poured their magic into the body in a steady current, amplifying the natural regeneration. Burst medmages, who were much rarer, drove their magic into their patients, mending them like they were inanimate objects. They were excellent in emergencies, because they healed even the worst wounds fast, but the pain was excruciating.
Some terrible beast with icicle teeth bit my wound and began gnawing on it.
I unclenched my teeth before I did any damage to my jaw. “I need to speak to my father. The sahanu who attacked us isn’t the only one. Razer is in the city, so there will be more.”
A muscle jerked in Ghastek’s face. “How do you know Razer is in Atlanta?”
“The Pack snapped a candid photo of him prancing on a roof near Sandy Springs some days ago.”
The pain was almost unbearable now. I checked to see if my arm was still attached. It was.
Ghastek pushed a key on his phone.
“Yes, sir?” a male voice said.
“Prior to today, were you aware of any sahanu in the city?”
“No, sir.”
“Razer was seen near Sandy Springs two days ago by the Pack. Is it our custom now to rely on the Pack for our intelligence?”
“No, sir.”
“What’s our mission?” Ghastek’s voice was almost mild.
“To defend In-Shinar and the heir,” the man responded, his voice clipped.
My arm was actually being torn off now. I wished I had something to bite on.
“Can we accomplish this mission without proper intelligence?”
“No, sir.”
“Can you tell me why the Pack knows about the sahanu and we do not?”
Silence.
“I’m waiting,” Ghastek said, his voice iced over.
“Uh-oh,” Conlan assessed the situation.
“Uh-oh!” Rowena smiled at him. “Such a smart boy.”
Oh no. Now she was encouraging him.
“Uh-oh!” my son told her.
“Uh-oh!” Rowena said.
“Uh-oh!”
Ghastek gave her a look. She turned away, walking a few steps toward the glass window. “Look there. Look at all the vampires.”
The phone still offered only tortured silence.
“Can anyone there tell me why this is the case?” Ghastek ground out.
Silence.
“This is your chance to help me understand why I’m now facing an injured In-Shinar and having to explain our failure. Demonstrate to me that someone in the intelligence division has even the smallest modicum of intellect, or I’ll replace the lot of you.”
“The sahanu must’ve identified a pattern to our patrols,” said a different voice.
“Who is this?” Ghastek asked.
“Journeyman Wickert, sir.”
“Wickert, find the pattern and bring me your results.”
Ghastek hung up.
The pain released me. I took a nice, deep breath and checked my arm. I couldn’t even see the scar. Eve was a miracle worker.
The ice stabbed into the gouge on my left shoulder. I gritted my teeth. Here we go again.
Ghastek knelt next to me, his sharp face serious. “It’s my fault. I take full responsibility for this failure. I’m sorry.”
He bowed his head. I wished to be anywhere but here. What do I do now?
I waved Eve off and she stepped away. “Stop, Ghastek. We agreed. No kneeling, no bowing. I can’t do it.”
He stayed where he was. “Protecting you and your son is what we do. We exist to fulfill this purpose. We didn’t know that girl was here. We didn’t know Razer was here. It’s a failure of leadership. If my people are incompetent, I didn’t realize it. You have given me free rein over my subordinates. I restructured the People, I oversaw personnel assignments, I approved patrols. The ultimate responsibility for this is on me.”
I finally understood. Ghastek prized competence above all else. He was deeply ashamed. He didn’t want Kate, his friend, right now. Convincing him that he’d done nothing wrong wouldn’t work. He needed absolution or punishment. He wanted the In-Shinar.
Something in me died a little. First Raphael, then Teddy Jo, now Ghastek. I would never again be just Kate. You are the Princess of Shinar, the beacon of your people’s hope, and if you succumb, that hope will perish with you.
Sooner or later, in every relationship I had, I would end up becoming In-Shinar, and once I did, if only for a few moments, it altered that relationship forever. Mercs in the Guild remembered my voice shaking the building when I had spoken in the old tongue to the projection of my father. Shapeshifters who fought in the battle against Roland remembered In-Shinar’s rage.
Once I showed my true face, people never forgot it.
I’d fought it so hard for these last three years, but in the end, it didn’t matter. I had claimed Atlanta and everyone in it. I accepted responsibility for their safety. I was Sharratum na Shar. The queen who didn’t rule, but a queen still the same.
I dropped my cloak and pulled the magic from the depths of my soul. It bubbled up to the surface like a geyser. If it’d had a voice, it would’ve whispered, I’m awake. I’m alive.
Eve knelt by my side.
“Mama!” Conlan said, the same way he’d tried to tell me that the shiny walls of Biohazard were pretty.
I reached for Ghastek and my skin glowed with pale gold. Gently I touched the right side of his jaw and made him look up at me.
“I forgive you.”
The reverence in Ghastek’s eyes almost broke me. He was a natural skeptic, but in that moment, he would’ve followed me off a cliff. It was the last thing I wanted.
“I forgive you,” I repeated in English. “Keep my son safe. I have faith in you.”
Ghastek just nodded quickly several times.
At least I still had Curran. Curran would always want me, Kate. He would be human with me. I was enough.
“Rise,” I told him.
Ghastek got up to his feet. As he moved, I saw Javier and the other men staring at me from beyond the glass, awe in their eyes. Oh brother. Just what I needed.
I pulled the magic back, curling it inside myself like the petals of a closing flower. An odd emotion flickered through Ghastek’s eyes, almost as if he wanted to stop me. Yep, In-Shinar was addictive, and if I kept showing my inner self to the people around me, soon I would be as bad as my father.
“Thank you for your help,” I t
old Eve.
The medmage startled as if waking up from a trance. “Of course.”
She gathered her bag and walked out. I waited until she cleared the stairs.
“She wasn’t one of my father’s spies, was she?”
“No,” Ghastek said.
“Conlan doesn’t know how to cloak. He’s ridiculously easy to track if you can sense magic.”
“Makes sense,” Ghastek said, his voice and expression neutral.
“I thought about letting his grandparents watch him at the Keep.”
“That might not be a good idea,” Rowena said behind me.
“Why not?”
Ghastek walked to the desk, opened a drawer, and brought me a photograph. A shot of a wooded road in twilight. A man in his forties, salt-and-pepper hair, strong profile, walking between two shapeshifters in warrior form, a werejaguar and a bouda. I recognized both. Renders, the deadliest fighters the Pack had at their disposal. Jim wasn’t taking any chances.
“This is Avag Barsamian,” Ghastek said. “Landon Nez’s second-in-command.”
Landon Nez was Ghastek’s counterpart, my father’s right-hand necromancer and the head of his Golden Legion. Any time Nez got involved, things went from bad to worse.
I scrutinized the photograph. Avag was carrying a briefcase. He didn’t appear to be in distress. The two shapeshifters flanking him didn’t have their claws on him. The lines of their bodies suggested caution, but when guards transported a dangerous prisoner, they watched for outside threats, rescue attempts, and so on, because the person in their charge was properly restrained and unlikely to escape. These two watched Avag instead. He was there of his own free will.
I tapped the photograph. “I recognize this oak. This is the road to the Keep.”
“He visited the Keep two nights ago,” Rowena said. “I saw him through the eyes of my vampire. He was there for two hours and then he left, except this time he didn’t have a briefcase. They escorted him just like that to his car parked on the side of the road.”
And the next day Robert came to us with the offer of alliance.
“I was told my father is mobilizing. Is that true?”
Magic Triumphs Page 15