“Beau Clayton,” Saiman said. “His deputies caught one.”
The journeymen connected the two cages, locking them together. They gripped a steel handle, pushed it to the side, and the gate between the cages fell open. The yeddimur on the left scuttled over and sat on its haunches next to the yeddimur on the right.
“They’re us and we are social animals,” Luther said.
“They are quite happy sharing the cage,” Phillip said. “They sleep together and eat together.”
“We had to ask ourselves, if they are controlled by subvocal commands, then what would be the exact opposite of that?” Saiman said.
Ghastek turned to Luther. “If you please.”
Luther nodded, reached behind the desk, and produced a set of bagpipes.
“You play bagpipes?” I asked.
“No, but it was determined via experimentation that of the four of us, I produce the worst sound.” Luther stuck a pipe into his mouth and blew on it. A piercing note screamed through the room.
The yeddimur screeched.
Luther blew on the pipes. A cacophony of sounds filled the space. Curran clamped his hands over his ears. The yeddimur snarled and ripped at each other. Fur and blood flew.
Luther stopped.
The yeddimur took a few more swipes at each other and broke apart, each skulking to its own corner of the joined cages.
“We’ve tried over fifty different sounds,” Ghastek said. “Bagpipes are the most efficient. We’ve attempted them fifteen times and every single time we’ve gotten the same response.”
Suddenly the bagpipes on the druid stone made total sense.
“The sound drives them mad,” Luther said.
“It drives me mad,” Curran said, his eyes shining with gold.
I looked at him and Hugh. “Can we use it?”
“We could,” Hugh said.
“If we could make the sound loud enough,” Curran said.
Ghastek looked at Phillip. The mage smiled. “The Mage College offers thirty-seven specialties. One of them is sound and light amplification. As long as you find bagpipers, we will amp their sound loud enough to wake the gods.”
“That’s amazing,” I told them, and meant it.
All we had to do now was pull the city together and cobble an army to face Neig. We had three days in which to do it. It had to be enough.
Atlanta would come together. We weren’t just one thing. We were many: shapeshifters, necromancers, witches, mages, mercenaries . . . We came in all shapes and sizes, in every age, in every human color, in every variation of magic, and from that we drew our strength. We were surprising and unexpected, and we were united.
Atlanta would hold its own. It always did.
“BABY,” CURRAN WHISPERED into my ear.
I opened my eyes. I was so warm and comfortable, wrapped in him. As long as we stayed in bed like this, under the sheets, nothing could go wrong.
The magic was up. It was day five. We’d caught a lucky break, finally, and after a short magic wave on the first day of our three-day timeline, the tech held for three days and four nights. The shift happened while we were awake, and Curran remained solid this time. The tech, like magic, flooded the world with various intensities. A strong tech wave could rip him away from me. I lived these days in a state of constant paranoia.
The rest of it was a whirlwind of negotiating, explaining, demonstrating, pulling the alliance together. Between Curran and me, we’d probably gotten about twelve hours of sleep in the last seventy-two, but last night, after the bulldozers finally rolled off the field and the last of the preparations had been made, we finally went to bed, in a tent, on the outskirts of the battlefield. Martha and Mahon took Conlan, so we could rest. We were alone.
Neig was coming.
I reached for Curran. He kissed me. We shared a breath. I kissed him back, and then again and again, his lips, his stubbled jaw, his face. His hair had grown overnight into a tangled mane, and I threaded my fingers through it.
He pulled me closer to him, our bodies sliding together with ease and practice. He kissed my neck and my lips. For three days, I’d been Sharratum, because I’d had to be. I’d met with the mayor and the governor, as part of the Conclave’s delegation. I’d called in favors. I’d promised the sky and the moon for assistance. But right now, I was Kate, and I kissed him with desperate need. He responded as if I’d set him on fire and he couldn’t wait to burn.
“This won’t be the last time,” he said.
“Not if I can help it,” I told him.
“I promise you,” he said, his voice low, almost a snarl. “This won’t be the last time. Do you trust me?”
“With everything.”
“It won’t be the last time,” he swore.
We made love, hot and wild. Then we got up, cleaned up, got dressed, and stepped out of the tent.
In front of us and behind us, tents lined the fields cleared on both sides of the road. A sea of tents. The sun had barely risen above the horizon, and in the young light, the world seemed fresh. I took Sarrat and the other saber I carried and walked east, to the apex of the low hill that stretched north to south. Erra was already there, staring at the battlefield.
It stretched before us, rolling into the distance. My father had cleared it two years back, because he’d planned to build the Water Gardens there, a place of his favorite childhood memories. Normally the vegetation would’ve reclaimed it by now, but when my father wanted something to stay clear, it did. It was a wide rectangular field, two miles wide and six miles long. The jagged remnants of a stone tower, still black from soot, stuck out in the middle of it, all that remained of my father’s castle. We’d left it on the field. According to Andrea, it made a handy marker for her ballistae.
I glanced to the right, where the battery was positioned. She was already there, pointing at something and arguing with MSDU’s colonel. The military had joined us. The National Guard came first. The guardsmen weren’t full-time soldiers. Most of the time, they were mechanics, teachers, police officers, office workers. As we pulled the city together for battle, a lot of them got swept up in it. On the second day, Lt. General Myers, a fit black woman in her late fifties, walked into our headquarters in the Guild. I was trying to read through the convoluted document the Druids had drawn up, outlining the terms of their cooperation, and I finally threw it into Drest’s face and told him that either he fought with us or he could deal with Neig on his own after he burned Atlanta to the ground, but I didn’t have time for his machinations. He swore and stormed out, and then she was there. We looked at each other for a long moment, and then she said, “What do you need?”
No conditions. No bargaining. Just “What do you need?” I told her, and she made it happen.
We needed everything. We had everything there was to be had now: the MSDU, the National Guard, the human volunteers, the mercs, the Red Guard, the Pack, the People, the Order, the mages, the Covens, the volhvs, and the other pagans. We even got the Druids, which was why if I squinted hard enough, I could see small white stones sitting on both sides of the field.
We were as ready as we were going to be.
It wouldn’t be enough unless my father showed up. He’d come to visit during that short magic wave on the first day to discuss strategy. He sat at our kitchen table while Hugh, Curran, and Erra tried to explain things to him in two languages. At one point he declared that we were making it too complicated, and then Hugh drew stick figures on pieces of paper, trying to explain it. My father had gotten the strategy by the end, but whether he would stick to it was anyone’s guess.
“Do you think Father will show up?” I asked her.
“He will,” she said.
Martha joined us, followed by George, carrying Conlan. I took him from her and hugged my son. I’d thought about trying to send him out of the city, to hide him somewhere, but it would be no use. My son shone too bright. Either my father or Neig would find him, and if not them, someone else. For Conlan to survive, we had to triumph.