Curran climbed up next to her. I sat in the cart with the two men. They lay stiff like two wooden statues. Naeemah turned the cart and the horse clopped its way down the road, heading out of Jester Park.
“Well?” she asked. “How did it go?”
“I had a shot and I didn’t take it.”
“You chose to live. Smart choice. Life, it should mean something. A death is just a death. If you died there, what would your death mean? Nothing. You would stop nothing. You would change nothing.” She blew on her fingers and waved them at the road. “A bug under a shoe. But you lived. And now they live, too.”
“Damn right,” Curran said.
“I killed Hibla,” I said.
“Did she need killing?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t exactly a killing,” Curran said. “It was more like punishment piece by piece.”
Naeemah looked at him. “And you? Did you roar at the wizard?”
“No,” Curran said. “I’ll roar at him if he comes to Atlanta.”
“See, you both did good. You accomplished things and got out alive. Best behavior.”
The laughter finally broke free and I laughed, gulping in the cold air.
• • •
THE MAGIC WAVE receded three hours after we had left the Swan Palace. Twenty minutes later a lone figure dotted the field ahead of us.
“God damn it,” Curran swore.
The dot grew at an alarming rate until it finally became Thomas, running full speed over the snow. He sprinted to us, leaped into the cart, and hugged Robert to him.
“It will wear off,” I told him before he could freak out over Robert’s stasis. “The more distance between us and Roland, the better.”
Thomas turned to me. “Make her go faster, Consort.”
We found the rest of our people waiting where we had left them. We loaded up our gear and headed toward Atlanta.
At some point I climbed into the back of the cart and fell asleep. I dreamed of Christmas and garlands. They wrapped around me in long shiny strands. I kept trying to break free, while Jim was reassuring me that I was a lovely Christmas tree and the Pack was appreciating my efforts on its behalf.
Another magic wave hit closer to the morning. I felt the moment we passed out of Roland’s territory. It was like hitting a speed bump in the road. I lay there with my eyes open and took a deep breath.
He’d let us go.
We weren’t done. He said he would see us in Atlanta. Things would only get worse from here. Not only that, but both Naeemah and Thomas had disobeyed. It was a partial disobedience—Naeemah had left to get the cart before I announced that they had to stay put, and Thomas ran to us after we had left the Swan Palace—but still, there was a price to be paid. I half expected their eyes to melt from their sockets.
“Incoming,” Curran said.
I raised my head. A swirling clump of darkness appeared on the road in front of me. The tightly wound whirlwind of dark twine, snakes, and feathers spun on its end, stretching to seven feet high.
“What the hell now?” Curran growled.
“No clue,” I told him.
The clump broke open and spat a person onto the road. He or she wore pants and a tunic of animal hide with patches of fur sewn onto it at seemingly random places. Pale paint covered the person’s hands and face, with two scarlet vertical lines stretching from the hairline on both sides of his or her nose down to the lips. Three scarlet lines curved from those two, tracing the cheekbones. A pair of longhorn’s horns, painted with bands of red and white, rested on top of the person’s head, positioned so the tips pointed downward.
The person shook a staff at us. “Daughter of Nimrod!”
A man.
“I cast my eye upon you!”
The man threw something to the ground. Red smoke exploded. The wind cleared it, and the man had vanished.
Shaman ninjas. Perfect. Now my life was complete.
Curran looked at me.
“I’ve blown my cover,” I told him. “Now every weirdo with a drop of power will be coming over to investigate.”
“It’s like you had a coming-out party,” Andrea said. “You’ve been presented to polite society, except now everybody wants to kill you.”
“Spare me.”
“Kate Daniels, a debutante.” Andrea grinned.
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s hilarious.” The smile slid off Andrea’s face and she vomited on the snow.
“Karma,” I told her.
“Daughter of Nimrod?” Curran asked quietly.
“Nimr Rad, if you want to get technical about it. He who subdues leopards. The great hunter.”
“Nimrod like in the Bible?” Curran asked. “The one who built the Tower of Babel?”
“It’s an allegory,” I said. “My father and his contemporaries built a civilization of magic. It was great and mighty, like a tall tower. But they made the magic too strong and the Universe compensated by starting the first Shift. Technology began to flood the world in waves, and their civilization crumbled like the tower. The language of power words was lost.”
“How old is your dad, exactly?”
“A little over five thousand years old.”
“Why does he build towers?”
“I don’t know. He has a thing for them, I guess. I think they might help him with the claiming of his territory.”
“The claiming?”
I explained what the witches had told me about the genocide of the Native tribes and the lack of natural protection for the land, and the Witch Oracle’s vision of Roland claiming Atlanta.
Curran stared straight ahead, his expression grim.
“Are we okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. We’re okay,” he said. “I just need some time to process.”
It was one thing to know that you were sleeping with Roland’s daughter. It was a completely different thing to have met Roland. And to have challenged him. “Why the hell did you invite him to start a war?”
“He needed to know. We’re ready and we won’t roll over for him. It had to happen sooner or later. We knew he was coming and we’ve known for a while. If he shows up, we’ll deal with it. We’ve dealt with Hugh and Erra; we’ll deal with him as well.”
An hour later Robert began to cry. He didn’t say anything. He made no noise. He just rode in the cart, tears rolling down his face. Thomas talked to him, saying quiet soothing words. Eventually Robert stopped, and then Christopher began to weep.
Half an hour later Robert cleared his throat. “Tom?”
“Yes?” Thomas bent to him.
“If Roland tries to capture me again . . .”
“He won’t.”
“If he tries, kill me.”
• • •
BY NOON WE reached the ley line point and the two Pack Jeeps they had parked there. Naeemah told me she wouldn’t go any farther.
“Thank you,” I told her.
“I will see you,” she said.
We boarded the Jeeps and steered them into the ley line. The magic current grabbed the vehicles and dragged them southeast. We rode the ley line for hours. I slept. I was so tired. Sometimes I would wake up and hear Jim and Curran discussing war plans or see Christopher asleep next to me with a small smile on his face, or hear Andrea vomit into a paper bag. At some point Jim asked her how she could possibly have anything left to throw up and she threatened to shoot him.
Finally the magic squeezed the Jeep, compacting us inside it, as if some unseen force somehow moved our atoms closer together. The pressure vanished and the ley line spat us out onto solid ground. I opened my eyes. “Where are we?”
“Cumberland.” Curran was looking at something ahead.
Northwest end of the city. We were home.
I raised my head and looked in the direction Curran was looking. Barabas stood on the sidewalk.
“How did he know we were coming?”
“He didn’t,” Curran said.
We got out of the car and Barabas trotted to us. “I’m so glad you’re alive!”
“We’re glad, too,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“The People notified us that you would be coming in at this ley point. Actually they gave us the exact time you would arrive, which is odd.”
Not odd at all. Apparently my father had us watched.
“The People want to have a Conclave meeting tonight, and they requested the presence of both of you and the Pack Council. They said they want to bury the hatchet. It’s in two hours.”
“Tell them no,” Curran said.
“I tried,” Barabas said. “They said, quote, ‘Sharrim’s presence is requested.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
Curran swore.
“I’ve sent our guys to sweep the location and establish our presence,” Barabas said. “They’re reporting that the People are already in place. The Pack Council is on standby. Do you want me to cancel?”
“If we don’t go, it will make things worse,” I said. “Roland’s giving us the time and place. If we ignore him, he can hit us at the Keep, and the loss of life will be greater.”
Curran put his arm around me. “It’s your call.”
I was as ready as I was going to be for now. Another few days or even a few more weeks wouldn’t make a difference. I would’ve taken a century or two if it was offered, but it wasn’t on the table. “Screw it. I’m tired of waiting. Let’s get it over with.”
Curran looked at Barabas. “Call the Council. The Pack will make a stand.”
18
THE RUINED CITY slid by outside the Jeep. Atlanta. Ugly and beautiful, decaying and rising, life and death at the same time. Home. For better or worse, home. The sun was just beginning to set and the sky burned with a riot of orange and red. Curran drove, his face somber.
“This isn’t the way to Bernard’s.”
“The Conclave isn’t being held at Bernard’s,” Barabas said from the backseat. “We’re going to Lakeside.”
“What’s Lakeside?” I asked.
“It’s a new development where North Atlanta High School used to be.”
“The one that was overrun by boars with steel quills?” I remembered that. Took the city two years to boar-proof the area.
“Yes. Supposedly it’s been constructed by the same firm that made Champion Heights.”
Champion Heights was the only surviving high-rise in Atlanta. “It’s a tower?”
“Twelve floors.”
I laughed. What else was there to do?
“Did I miss something?” Barabas asked.
“You should drop me off and bail,” I told Curran.
“What, and miss the fun? Not a chance. We’ll pound him into the ground.”
We couldn’t win. I knew it. He knew it. But I loved him so much for those words, he didn’t even know.
We turned onto Northside Parkway. The ground rose, forming a hill, and on top of it a tower perched above a long, narrow lake. Built with yellow rock and turquoise glass, it faced the setting sun and the sky set its windows on fire.
Curran parked in front of the tower near a row of black SUVs that probably belonged to the People. A row of Pack Jeeps sat at the opposite end of the parking lot. The party was all here. Now I just had to bring the entertainment.
“Who is running security?” Curran asked.
“Derek,” Barabas answered.
Well, the place would be secure. Also, Derek would probably die. I needed to get him and our people out of the building.
The second Jeep parked next to us and spat out Jim, Andrea, Thomas, and Robert. When I tried to suggest Robert should stay behind, both wererats acted mortally offended. I let it go. I was tired of trying to talk people out of this mass suicide.