“I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m a little busy at the moment.”
Cornelius ran into the Wedding Cake and came to stand next to me. Konstantin was close behind. I pulled the chalk out of my pocket.
At the foot of the hill, Krause was straining. I could see her arms shaking from where I stood. She had already opened two portals today and whatever she was pulling out of the third one was draining every last bit of her magic.
“I have the kids, Zeus and Sgt. Teddy,” Runa reported. “I’m activating.”
Magic flared in the distance, somewhere in the main house, a bright smudge across my mind that shone and vanished.
Leon jogged into the pavilion like he didn’t have a care in the world. He hopped over the chalk boundary and landed by Cornelius. I crouched and finished the circle in two quick lines.
“We have lightning,” Bern reported. Whatever she was summoning was about to come through.
“Today,” Grandmother Victoria ground out.
“On my way,” Linus said.
Something drummed on the Wedding Cake’s roof like hail. Creatures fell into the Compound in a monstrous waterfall.
“If he isn’t here in thirty seconds, go ahead and do it,” Victoria said.
An acrid stench spread through the air. The roof to the right of me broke, and a creature fell into the pavilion. The size of a medium dog, it had no head or neck. Its body resembled a leathery sack, fish-belly pale, splattered with whorls of neon orange and turned on the side, so the opening served as its mouth. Four pairs of spindly long legs supported the sack, while two smaller limbs thrust from its belly, armed with three clawed fingers.
Leon shot it. It jerked and died.
“Arrived,” Linus announced.
An explosion of blinding white burst in my mind’s eye. Grandmother Victoria, unleashing her power like a sun going supernova. She blazed and vanished.
I sank a punch of power into the circle. The chalk lines flared white and then all sound vanished. Another creature fell into the Wedding Cake through the hole and bounced off the invisible boundary of the circle. The four of us were cut off from reality by null space.
On the patio Alessandro’s circle ignited with orange. A tornado of amber sparks spun around him. He jumped and hung suspended, the current of magic whipping around him. It suffused him, setting his skin aglow. He shone like a star.
This was the second time I’d seen it, and it took my breath away again.
Alessandro’s eyes blazed with power. He looked like a god about to unleash his righteous wrath.
His magic detonated. The blast rushed from him in a radiant pulse. The creature scuttling around on the floor trying to bite through the invisible wall on null space died. At the bottom of the hill, Krause collapsed, screaming. I couldn’t hear her, but I saw her straining.
Anyone or anything within a nine-hundred-meter radius of Alessandro had their magic ripped away from them.
Konstantin slow clapped. “Ever the showman, cousin.”
“Three cars incoming,” Bern reported.
We had given Arkan what he was waiting for.
I collapsed the circle. Keeping it up was like holding a weight, light at first, but growing heavier with every second.
Konstantin stepped out and twisted himself into Smirnov’s shape. “So it’s not environmental after all. Good to know.”
We had just given away one of Alessandro’s secrets to the Imperium. It couldn’t be helped.
The cars disgorged their occupants. I tapped the tablet, zooming in.
Arkan. In the flesh. Average height, athletic build, pleasant face. Nothing at all remarkable about him. He could have been a businessman, a lawyer, a high school volleyball coach.
Another man got out of the car and came to stand next to him.
I went ice-cold.
A woman screamed into my earpiece, a sound of pure fury, and I knew it had to be Lilian.
Alessandro leaped out of his circle, wrapped in glowing magic, and strode into the pavilion. He stared at the two men, and his face was full of rage.
Franco Sagredo stood next to the man who had murdered his son. He wasn’t restrained. Nobody was holding a gun to his head. He didn’t look in distress. He stared in our direction, derision on his face.
Arkan waved.
“What a charming family reunion,” Konstantin said.
“One more word, and I will shoot you,” Leon said, not a trace of humor in his voice.
Franco raised his hands. Orange magic clutched at them, and he leveled a rocket launcher at us.
I ran.
We dashed out of the pavilion and down the stairs. Behind us the Wedding Cake exploded.