A person had just stepped from the hotel and was moving toward the lead helicopter. Arnaud recognized the tall figure and batting coat.
Everson Croft.
The wizard’s cat was with him, trailing from a leash. The detective followed. Behind them appeared a stout figure—a goblin, Arnaud realized. No doubt the one whose leathery scent he’d picked up earlier. The goblin was helping a large woman, whom Arnaud recognized from Yankee Stadium. His sharp teeth scraped together. She had taken control of the imps and devils who were to have helped feed his return to the world.
“Well?” the cabbie said.
“Silence!” Arnaud snapped. “I’m not paying you for your boorish talk!”
If he hadn’t needed the man, he might have ended him right there. Arnaud ordered him to remain, not even bothering with the pretense of payment this time. He stepped from the cab and walked toward the barricade, his stride no longer a shuffling hobble. He was growing stronger, more fluid, but what good was it if he lost the wizard again? If he forfeited his chance to claim this Sefu before the others?
Arnaud reached one of the officers managing the cordon as the helicopters began to lift off.
“What’s happening here?” Arnaud asked pleasantly. “Where are they headed to in those whirligigs?”
The officer remained staring past him, his thick arms crossed at his chest. The man’s insolence coupled with the sound of the helicopters batting away sent a spike of rage through Arnaud. He seized the officer’s throat and drew the man’s face to his.
“Tell me where they’re going,” he demanded in a demonic voice.
As the officer’s eyes found his, Arnaud could all but see the surge of irrational fear short-circuiting the man’s training to light up his reptilian brain. There was charming, and then there was horrifying.
“R-Russell Quarries, up in West Nyack,” he stammered. “Some sort of hostage situation.”
Arnaud squeezed until the man gargled, then shoved him away. Though he had the location, a red-hot anger continued to thrash inside him. Part way into his turn from the officer, Arnaud stopped and looked back.
“I want you to go to your car,” he told him quietly, “count to thirty, insert your service weapon into your mouth, as far as it will go—yes, until you’re positively choking on it—and pull the trigger.”
Back in the cab, Arnaud gave the location to the driver.
“I know where that is,” the driver said, executing a three-point turn. “I can have you there in forty.”
“I do need you to hurry,” Arnaud said calmly. “I apologize for erupting at you earlier. Zarko and I have had a trying day.”
“No prob. Hey, what did you say to that officer back there?”
“Officer?” Arnaud had all but forgotten about him. “Oh, I just gave the man a little life advice.”
“Huh,” the cabbie grunted and turned a corner.
Behind them, a gun banged.
31
I pushed through the undergrowth that had taken root in the berm of earth surrounding Russell Quarry, swearing silently as brambles snagged my coat. I crawled the final feet to the top and parked on my forearms beside a bush. A few seconds later, Vega arrived next to me. I whispered an invocation to deepen the shadows that concealed us.
“Anything we missed from the air?” she asked, taking in the massive stone quarry below.
We had done one pass at high altitude to make sure we had the right place. We did. The scene now looked much as it had through binoculars from 5,000 feet. About a half dozen NYPD officers were positioned around the berm to act as lookout for Brian. Farther below, beyond small mountains of earth and stone, lizards patrolled the roads that switch-backed down. I didn’t need to go closer to know they burped fire.
At the very bottom, standing around a large basalt-colored pond were the robed figures of Brian and the rest of the Military Federation of the Dragon. Their unwitting tributes stood behind them, numbering well over a hundred. Strange draconic chants echoed off the steep, excavated walls. The sound alone raked me with chills. In my wizard’s senses, I could see the power building in the pool.
“Looks like we accounted for everyone,” I replied. “And everything. But we’re going to need to hurry.”
Vega nodded. She had donned a SWAT vest and helmet, and now she spoke in a low voice into the second. The NYPD had wanted to swarm the quarry and subdue Brian and his group with force in order to get their officers to safety. Fortunately, we were able to convince them of the awfulness of the idea.
When Vega finished, she said, “Everyone’s in position. They’re awaiting your word.”
I looked around the berm again. Though spaced over a hundred yards apart, the enthralled officers were in sight of one another. The timing needed to be exact to take them out without alerting anyone in the quarry. I didn’t want to hurt them, either. The NYPD officers weren’t themselves.
I took a deep breath, pulling in as much ley energy as I could contain while forming a Word in my mind. Even with the chanting echoing from below, and the power continuing to build from the pool, I let my eyelids slide close. I locked in on the officer’s positions, then on the officers themselves. It wasn’t until I felt everything align—energy, breath, magic—that I released the Word.
“Vigore.”
The force from my cane split in six different directions, homing in on their targets.
As the force invocation ripped six guns from the officers’ grips, I spoke a second Word. The air around the officers’ heads hardened, muting their surprised shouts and making their available oxygen very, very finite. I arrested their arms and legs before they could begin thrashing—attention we didn’t need.
I gave Vega a thumb’s up.
“Now,” she said into her radio.
Moments later, SWAT team members broke through the brush behind the officers and pulled them out of sight. I dropped my eyes to the pool, but there was no sign the Military Federation of the Dragon was aware they had just lost their upper sentry.
The officers would be okay. I had calibrated my shield invocations to dissolve in about ninety seconds, the time it would take for them to lose consciousness, taking into account exertion. By the time they came to, the officers would be safely away from the quarry and no longer under Brian’s control.
That took care of the NYPD’s biggest concern—getting their personnel back.
Now, thanks to Vega digging in her heels with her department, we had carte blanche to stop the summoning and free the tributes. The remaining NYPD on the scene would serve in a backup capacity. Already, snipers were taking positions around the berm. I couldn’t see them, but that was the point.
“The officers are safely away,” Vega whispered. “How are you doing?”
“That took a bit of power, but I still have plenty in the tank.” I pulled a stealth potion from a coat pocket and activated it. I could see Vega’s concern in my peripheral vision as I drank the sludgy potion down.
“Be careful,” she said.
“If we execute like we discussed, we’ll be fine,” I said, drawing a sleeve across my mouth.
I rose, secured my coat, and moved to the edge of what must have been a two-hundred-foot drop. The plummet would land me behind a small range of heaped-up earth, well below the lizard sentry and only a short run to the summoning ceremony. Vega and I had discussed knocking Brian out from a distance, but it was too risky. The efreet could repel the attack and help Brian escape through another portal. Getting close was my best chance to get the phylactery from Brian. Maybe my only chance.
Vega reached up and squeezed my arm. The X factor remained the efreet, and we both knew it. If I’d guessed wrong about it being the one to have reached out to me—and why—I’d have a major fight on my hands. One I probably wouldn’t win.
On that question, my magic didn’t have much to say.
“I’ll be all right,” I reassured Vega, my voice already becoming insubstantial. When Vega pawed up and down my arm, unsure
whether she was still holding it, I knew the stealth potion had taken effect.
She withdrew her hand, and I stepped off the edge of the precipice.
The force of the drop peeled my coat up to my belt. My potions and spell items had to be rattling, if not smashing together, but wrapped in an aura of stealth, they didn’t make a sound. I struggled against my coat while trying to keep my cane aimed between my feet. Wind blasted past my ears.
With the ground coming up fast, I began pulsing out a series of force invocations to stall my descent. The Words boomed inside my head as if I were shouting them with my ears plugged. Small craters appeared behind the mounds below. The final invocation gave me a fresh fall from ten feet up. Even so, my legs collapsed on impact, and I landed hard on my side. But all without a sound.
When I looked up through the dust, the quarry spun several times.
It took me a moment to make out Vega’s head. I’m not sure what, if anything, she could make out. That was the main drawback to the stealth plan: no one could see whether I was in trouble. To call for help, I would have to dispel the potion first, forfeiting the element of surprise.
“He’s here,” Vega radioed me.
Good, I thought, everything’s on track. Just need to get my hands on the phylactery.
I stood and straightened my pockets, then crept around the mounds until I had a view of the quarry. The lizards were still patrolling the levels above, smoke snorting from their nostrils. One level below me, the ceremony continued. Brian was facing the vast pool of water, chanting with his face reared skyward, arms held out to the sides. A section of petrified bone, the size of a loaf of bread, lay at his feet.
Behind and to one side stood Cameo, the fist with the dragon gauntlet braced across his chest. The rest of the Military Federation, several in headdresses, and the hundred-odd tributes repeated each chant from the bottoms of their diaphragms, unaware they were calling up something that would devour them.
The pool eddied with strange energies and spawned occasional bubbles.
My gaze shifted back to Brian. There were several ways to disrupt the ceremony, but the key to stopping the summoning and preventing the demons from possessing the efreet was the phylactery. Problem was, I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t sense it, either, thanks to the cloaking effect of the efreet passing through the Harkless Rift. But there was a small mound beneath Brian’s robe at his chest.
That has to be it.
I tuned into my magic for a second opinion, but the cloaking effect seemed to be confounding it too. Steeling my breath, I drew my cane apart and aimed my sword at Brian’s chest. Though I’d had recent experience with this very maneuver, my hand trembled. I was taking a big chance here.
“Vigore!” I called.
The force invocation snagged the chain around his neck. I drew back on the sword. Brian’s chant broke off as the force yanked him forward. The chain snapped, saving him from plunging headfirst into the pool. The necklace whipped through the air. I caught it and brought it down to inspect.
Oh, c’mon!
This wasn’t the phylactery in the photo Stan had shown me. From a sterling chain that had been sculpted to look like little branches and leaves hung a twenty-sided die. Probably something Brian wore while presiding over D&D games as the Dungeon Master.
When I looked back up, Brian had regained his footing. He peered wildly around. Still wrapped in my stealth potion, I remained invisible to him. I then witnessed the difference between an accomplished sorcerer and an amateur: instead of using the efreet’s powers to reveal his attacker, Brian panicked.
“Abandon the conjuring!” he cried.
Tucking the bone into the crook of his arm like a football, he balled up his robe at the waist and hustled toward a portal. From above, I hadn’t seen the symbol in the vertical rock wall, but it was pulsing now, growing.
I aimed my sword at Brian, but the rest of the crowd closed in behind him, blocking my shot.
Dammit. I dug through my pockets—I had to close the portal, prevent his escape—before remembering I was out of neutralizing potions. Realizing something, I switched to my pants pocket and emerged with my flip phone. The neutralizing spell continued to hum around it, protecting its circuitry from energy spikes. A part of me hated what I was about to do. I’d become attached to that little phone.
“Vigore!” I shouted.
The force invocation ripped the phone from my grip and slung it toward the portal. As it shot over the tributes’ heads, I followed up with an invocation to release the phone’s neutralizing spell. White light exploded from the device and into the portal. The portal fell apart with a sound like shattering glass. An instant later, the phone bounced off the rock in pieces, and Brian nearly ran face first into a solid wall.
His escape thwarted, he spun around, searching wildly again. The invocations must have burned through the potion, because this time, his eyes locked on mine. When he thrust his wand at me, I braced myself. But like at the morning’s session, nothing happened. I’d made a good gamble. The efreet wasn’t attacking.
I wasn’t out of the woods yet, though. The lizards had noticed the commotion and, with low grunts and plumes of fire, began scrambling down the sides of the quarry. Meanwhile, Brian was waving his followers toward me.
“Stop him!” he shrieked. “Stop the imposter wizard!”
“Plan B,” I called into my radio, my voice more substantial now. “Commence plan B.”
“Roger that,” Vega answered.
I would have to trust my teammates now. Willing a shield around me, I ignored the descending lizards and mob scene and focused on Brian. He was staying low, trying to use his followers as a human shield. With an invocation, I parted them like the Red Sea.
Exposed, Brian cowered back and jabbed his wand ineffectually. Though I was itching to blast him into next week, I couldn’t chance getting fancy.
“Protezione,” I uttered.
An orb, like the ones I’d used for the officers, formed around his head. When my magic spiked in warning, I spun to find Cameo running in from my blind side, his hood blown back. He was younger than Brian and thinner. Nothing in his appearance suggested the handle ‘Cameo,’ though I wasn’t sure what would. With determined eyes, he reared back the fist bearing the heavy gauntlet.
In what was becoming a favorite counter attack, I met his intent to cold-cock me with a staff shot to the gut, a force invocation crackling down the length of wood. The blast sent him through the air and splashing into the pool. His robe immediately took on water, and he began to thrash.
“Help!” he cried.
From the sides of the berm, dull thuds sounded. Tear gas canisters arced through the air and began tumbling around us. The gases they spewed sent Brian’s followers running and gagging in all directions.
Brian fell to his knees. He might have been protected from the gas, thanks to my shield invocation, but he was also short on oxygen. And damned if he wasn’t still thrusting his wand at me, determined for something—anything—to happen.
A grunt sounded, and hot fire broke over my shield. But it hadn’t come from Brian.
I spun toward the source and swore. The first of the lizards had reached me. Clinging to the side of a wall, its throat leapt as it prepared for another blast. I beat the lizard to it, hitting the creature with a force blast that knocked it from its perch. I then spun and nailed two more incoming lizards, sending them flying off.
I’m wasting power, dammit. Where’s the rest of Plan B?
At that moment, a helicopter appeared over the rim of the quarry and dipped down, batting the tear gas around. Better late than never, I thought. A voice boomed from the chopper’s sound system.
“Stop going after that man!” Mae called. “Leave him alone!”
The lizards that had been scrambling toward me halted in their tracks and craned their necks around. They were on the lower end of the spectrum of what Brian and the efreet could conjure—certainly not on the order of the frog-beast—bu
t would Mae’s abilities have power over them?
“I want you to go into that cave over there,” she ordered them. “Right where that light’s shining.” The helicopter’s search light was centering over a deep opening in the side of one of the rock walls, where it looked like a hydraulic shovel had gone digging. The lizards’ necks craned from Mae toward the cave.
“Go on!” she shouted.
The lizard that had been closest to me turned and scrambled in the direction of the cave, stopped, then scrambled again. Miraculously, the others followed. Before long, the twenty-odd lizards were crammed into the back of the deep recess, their flickering eyes peering out like chastised children.
“Well done, Mae!” I radioed.
“Anytime, honey. You got it from here?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Thrusting my sword above the lizards, I shouted, “Forza Dura!”
The force invocation plowed into the rock wall like a 747 jet. The cave collapsed, along with half the rock face.
“Goodness, I guess you do,” Mae radioed as the helicopter lifted away from the great plume of dust.
With the lizards buried and the Military Federation of the Dragon and its tributes in disarray, I turned back to Brian. He had stopped trying to wand-attack me and was pawing at the orb around his head, mouthing something. I hustled toward him through the loose sand and gravel, determined to find the phylactery. But in a burst of flames, the orb vanished from Brian’s head. The dispersed magic returned to me in a hot blast.
Brian took a heaving breath and shouted, “Protect me!”
A wall of fire burst up around him and the pond, the force of its heat knocking me backwards. I regained my footing and cast a force invocation to grab Brian. But the fire incinerated my magic before it could penetrate the wall. With another invocation, I attempted to enclose the fire in a shield and squeeze it out of existence. But no sooner than I’d manifested the shield, a sensation like molten lava ripped through me.
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