“He’s screwing up the ionosphere,” Mallory muttered. “What a douche.”
“For that and many other reasons,” Ethan said.
Backpack in one hand, Mallory turned to me, wrapped her free arm around my neck, squeezed. “Be careful up there,” she whispered.
“Be careful down here,” I said, squeezing her back.
I released her to Catcher. Linking hands, they walked to the curb, and the division between concrete and granite. They blew out a breath and did the thing all heroes must do—they took that terrifying first step.
Mallory walked in front of Catcher, and she seemed impossibly delicate walking into the empty square, Towerline rising like the body of a dark and long-forgotten cryptid in front of her.
A cadre of cops stepped behind them, watched while Catcher and Mallory looked up at the building, then the square, gauging the best location. When Catcher nodded to them, pointed, they moved to form a line between the sorcerers and the building.
She looked at them for a moment, as if adjusting to the possibility their bodies were her shield, then pulled out a thick crayon from her pocket and began to drew a white line, then another, until she’d sketched onto the granite a kind of Bizarro World QE, with the symbols in a different order.
When she was done, she nodded at Catcher, who joined her at the boundary. Together, they stepped carefully inside the middle square. While he held her backpack, she unzipped and unloaded what I’d recognized as an Alchemy Starter Pack—glass bottle, her crucible, a box of matches, a notebook, and an assortment of herbs.
For five minutes they worked, combining materials and pressing them into the crucible, drawing small symbols in the square, and reading words from the notebook. Occasionally, one or both of them looked up at the tentacular magic that flowed above us. The air buzzed with it, so even the steady-looking uniformed cops glanced around, shifted on their feet.
Catcher pulled a match from the box, looked at Mallory, waiting for her nod. When he got it, he flicked it against the box and dropped it into the crucible. Lightning or magic or some combination of both cracked down the building like an explosion, shattering the new columns of windows and sending glass shooting down over us. We ducked as glass rained down.
All hell broke loose.
There was no time to wonder whether their magic was working. The tower’s doors burst open, and supernaturals ran forward.
“Fallon, Jeff,” Ethan called out, and we unsheathed our katanas. “Stay with Mallory and Catcher! Keep them safe!”
And we rushed forward.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
A SOUL INSPIRED
Reed had anticipated an attack, and he’d been prepared for it. Maybe by using the individual magic the sorcerer had worked on Kyle Farr, Reed had collected the supernaturals who came out to meet us. There were dozens of them. Shifters, vampires, River trolls, the similar-looking mercenary fairies who’d once guarded our door, River nymphs, and a very tall, willowy creature I’d never seen before.
A dryad, Ethan said silently, as if sensing my confusion. That was a kind of tree nymph, if I remembered my Canon. She had the look—skin that was nearly gray beneath her pale green, Grecian-style dress, hair that was silvery green, and long arms that ended in reedy, pointed fingers.
As if the opening of the doors had unleashed power as well as creatures, magic seemed to pour out of the building. It was intrusive magic, biting and terrible magic that felt like alien fingers pinching, grasping, looking for literal and metaphorical access into our psyches. The bracelet kept the magic out of my head—and I was ridiculously grateful for that—but it didn’t mute the disturbing sensation of it.
The dryad reached me first, swinging her long arms as fluidly as waving branches but as sharp as whips. I dropped and rolled to avoid being snapped by one, came up on the other side, and swept my katana back. I’d slicked a cut across her arm. It seeped green and put the scent of crushed leaves into the air. She made a horrible, windy sound of pain, lashed her arm out again. I’d prepared to drop again, but she adjusted her trajectory at the last minute and caught my ankle.
I hit the ground on my back but shifted my weight and hopped back to my feet just as she moved closer, tried to swipe again. This time, I grabbed her arm; her skin was rough, but it moved in my hand like an eel, which was weirdly disconcerting. I grabbed the dispenser from my belt, pressed it to her arm.
With a scream, she ripped her arm away, leaving ropelike burns on my palm. She stumbled back once, and then her silvery green eyes rolled up and she fell to the ground like a felled tree.
That tranq was damn effective. The fact that the CPD had made it just for sups was probably worth some thought, but not tonight. Tonight was for magic.
“One down,” I said, glancing over the plaza. “A dozen to go.”
Ethan was a few yards away, battling two vampires with slashing katana moves that had him nearly blurring with movement. His opponents were fast, too, at least Strong Phys in the scale of vampire power rankings. But being controlled made them clumsier than they would have been if they’d been fighting on their own.
I don’t see why you get to have all the fun, I said silently, and ran toward him, stepping to one of his opponents as he executed a gorgeous butterfly kick that had the vampire flipping backward.
They fought in silence, I realized. No cursing, no groans of pain, not even grunts of effort—like the ones tennis players made when returning hard plays. There were still sounds—the sharp ping of metal against metal, the shush of fabric, the crunch of glass underfoot. But they didn’t speak at all.
The second vampire lunged for me. I used a side kick to shift his weight. He stumbled to the side but regained his balance and came back at me with silvered eyes and descended fangs. He thrust the katana downward; I used the spine of my sword to deflect, push it away.
Got him, Ethan said, moving forward and slapping the plunger onto the vampire’s back. A pause, and then he crumpled to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Spoilsport, I said, but my cheeky smile was interrupted by an avalanche of screams.
“Everybody take cover!”
I instinctively looked back at the sound of Catcher’s voice, found him running toward us, eyes on the balustrade that separated the plaza from the canal that contained Chicago River.
I followed his gaze. One of the River nymphs stood in front of the wall, her hands lifted toward the river—and the wall of water she’d raised over the river, and apparently planned to drop over the plaza.