Eileen Wilks - Death Magic

An enormous, excited earth elemental was not good news. But at least Deborah’s guards had found her and were jogging along beside her now at the far west end of the Mall as she and the elemental headed this way. Deborah’s phone wasn’t working, which was why Rule was talking to Matt instead of Deborah.

She was on a bicycle. A bloody bicycle in D.C. traffic! She’d found it in the shed behind Fagin’s house and had ridden over eight miles to get here. She couldn’t track the elemental in a car, she’d told Matt, so wasn’t it lucky Fagin had an old bike?

Rule was certain Ruben wouldn’t consider that good luck, any more than he did. “Keep me posted if anything changes,” he told Matt and reached up to disconnect. He glanced at his watch. Ten more minutes. Maybe less.

The minister of a Maryland megachurch finally reached the “amen” in a lengthy but surprisingly inoffensive opening prayer. Rule had no problem with people asking to be protected from the forces of darkness—he only hoped some Power was listening and would give him a hand with the protecting. The minister went back to his chair on the right side of the stage. Four people—two men and two women—sat in those chairs, waiting their turn.

Kim Evans was one of them. She returned to the podium, where she proceeded to whip up the crowd about the great evil in their midst, focusing on their recent martyr: Senator Bob Bixton.

“—and a man who was supposed to protect us all, a man sworn to the service of this country—a Gifted man who ran the very Unit designed to deal with magical crimes in this country—walked into Senator Bixton’s home and stabbed him. Why? Do we even have to ask?”

She paused dramatically while the crowd screamed their responses— no, killer, traitor —then continued. “Here to talk to you today about the danger posed by those corrupted by magic—a danger we all know is increasing and has penetrated every level of our society and even our government—is the senator’s longtime friend and chief of staff, Dennis Parrott!” She stepped to one side and began clapping.

The crowd screamed and clapped. Parrott hadn’t been among those waiting on the stage. He walked up the steps at the side.

“Son of a bitch,” Cullen said, his voice raised to be heard over the din created by thousands of enthusiastic Humans Firsters. “That’s Parrott?”

“Yes.”

“He’s got a charisma Gift. A real powerhouse of a Gift, augmented by a nasty smear of death magic. And . . .” He stopped, squinting. The Jumbotron screen was no help with what Cullen needed to see.

A charisma Gift explained how the aliens had gotten people like “poor Meggie” to go with them. When a strong charisma Gifted turned his attention on you, you trusted. You wanted to please. Poor Meggie, indeed. Maybe it explained what had happened to Abel as well. Parrott could have distracted him long enough for one of the others to knock him out . . . or worse.

“Parrott might be wearing it,” Cullen said suddenly. “The artifact, I mean. I can’t tell from here, but there’s something interacting with his power.”

“Drummond told Lily that Parrott isn’t the one who makes the dopplegängers. Would their creator hand over control of the artifact to someone else?”

“Well, Drummond’s a lying, murdering sod, but who knows? He could have been telling the truth about this. But Parrott’s got something. I can’t tell what. I think it’s on a ring, though. There’s a bit of an extra glow on his right hand . . .” He scowled. “I need to get closer.”

Rule didn’t respond. There was one way to get closer, but they would use that only if they had to. If, say, a few slavering, oversize wolves suddenly appeared on the stage.

Parrott advanced across the stage, pausing once to wave and nod as if recognizing someone particular in the audience. He reached the podium and held up his hands, urging everyone to be quiet. The cameras zoomed in, and the Jumbotron screen filled with the man’s smooth-shaven face looking grave and sincere.

Rule’s phone vibrated. He pulled it out, touched the screen . . . “Harry. I’d about given up on you.”

“We’re here, Rule! We’re here! Traffic sucked, but we made it. I never saw so many people in one place before. Humans are crazy, aren’t they?”

“I often think so. Where are you, specifically?”

“I’m up by the stage, like you said. Oh, you mean my troop. Don’t worry,” he said proudly. “I’ve got them stationed like you told me.”

“That’s great, Harry. I also told you I needed someone who was very, very good at the game.”

“That would be me! I am the best. I am the juggernaut of the game! What do you need?”

“You see the man on stage now? He has a ring on his right hand . . .” Rule went on to tell Harry what he needed him to do. Parrott was talking. Rule wasn’t really listening . . . until the man spoke Lily’s name.

THEcatering truck had been stripped of everything usually found in such a vehicle to make room to stack twenty-two unconscious people in back. Those people were, Lily hoped, being revived or at least tended back on Webster Street. Shannon had first aid training; she’d left him at the house to help, and Mullins had planned to call it in as soon as they left.

Mike was the driver of the truck now. No lupus would have been fooled by the substitution; the front seat must reek of blood to them. But he’d tossed a jacket over the back of the seat, covering the worst of it, and humans are visual creatures. So far no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary—including the cop who’d stopped them when they needed to enter the closed-off street.

Chris was up front, too. Lily and Scott crouched on bare metal in the back of the truck, their weapons out, and listened.

So did Al Drummond. He didn’t look much like himself, being all white and filmy ... except for that glowing gold ring on his left hand.

He gave her a tight smile. He had his weapon out, too, as if he planned to charge out of the truck with the rest of them, but since it was as insubstantial as the rest of him, she didn’t think he’d be much backup.

He hadn’t spoken to her. It was clear he knew she could see him, though, and that the others couldn’t. It was clear he meant to stick with her.

Why and how had his ghost started appearing days before he died? Was that one of those “instabilities” the Etorri Rhej had mentioned, some sort of astral time warp?

Did Drummond even know he was dead?

Lily had been told by someone who ought to know that ghosts weren’t souls, but the shadows cast by souls. She’d wondered at the time what the hell that meant. She still did. And she really, really wished this one would go into the light or something and quit following her.

“What the hell you mean, the cargo don’t go here?” Mike demanded. “I was told to bring it to the stage. This is the stage.”

A muffled voice told Mike he had to take the truck to Fourteenth Street—“at the back of the gathering, by the Washington Monument. You’ve heard of it? Big pointy thing sticking way up in the air?”

“Shit. I gotta call Big Thumbs.”

“You’ve got to move this thing, and quick!”

“I do what Big Thumbs says, asshole, not you.”

Lily nodded at Scott, then at the doors at the rear of the truck. He moved into position.

So did Drummond.

RULEended the conversation with Harry quickly—and his phone immediately vibrated again. He answered.

It was Mark from on top of the Smithsonian. “Silver catering truck just pulled in behind the stage.”

He’d known she was here. He felt her. “Good.”