Koun chuckled softly. “Beyond their wildest dreams.”
“I had a teacher in high school. She said that war was about one thing and one thing only. False pride and resources. People dolled it up all kinds of ways, with national identity, or being the genetically superior, or history with a whitewash, or even the claim to protect our allies. But false pride and resources are the sole answer for war even if the resources are only money into the hands of the military complex and the pockets of corporate military CEOs. Resources. Always have been. Always will be. We have to protect our resources from attack and the people of this city are the best resource we have. Price doesn’t enter into it.”
“My Queen is wise beyond her years.” He bowed slightly, which was weird. Some of the humans nearbygave us a thumbs-up. The vamps all turned to me... and bowed.
“Oh crap.” I reached up to my mic as I realized it had been live and everyone had heard me.Oy...
“Okay, people,” Molly said into her mic. “Enough of all this yucky sweetness. Everharts and Jaymie, at your sites. Get up close to the circles. Remember to toss the object, and do not let your skin cross the circle in case it has an automatic defense system set into it. No one wants to lose an arm. On three, throw your shells or sticks into the circle and back up fast. One. Two... Three.”
Molly tossed a Y-shaped stick into the circle and raced back to Big Evan. Into her mic she said, “Molly here. My stick went through the circle and is gone. Prison circle active.”
Each of the others announced the disappearance of the tossed object, and the fact that their circle was active. Even the one that had been blown up in Barataria, so exploding them to hell and back wasn’t going to work.
Koun waved us all farther away and took up a shooting stance, his back to the road, his weapon pointing at the circle and the prison beyond it in case he had to fire. And then we waited because we had no idea how long it might take for an object to transport to one of the other sites. Or the hub. If there was one.
But nothing happened.
Minutes ticked by.
Molly said, “Nothing has appeared. Has anyone had anything appear in their circle?”
“Negative,” each team leader said.
Big Evan said, “I think that correlates with an irregular pentagram and a central hub. Could it be in downtown NOLA?”
“So their base would be right under our noses all this time,” Eli said, disgusted.
“That’s been their MO up until now,” Alex said. “Maybe for good reason. Maybe a central hub of magic has always been here. I’ve made contact with every major hotel, B and B, even the RV lots for thirty miles around. Tex and his dogs took walks around the usual hotels, alsothe hotels in the central area between the five points of the pentagram, to sniff out unknown vamps. No one’s spotted them or sniffed them.”
“A house in the city?” Koun suggested. “They send their cattle—their humans; forgive me, My Queen—out for supplies and otherwise stay hidden? The Mithrans would have access to the transport system should they have to evacuate.”
I gave Koun a closed-mouth cat smile and a slow blink of approval. I hadn’t issued a command for the vamps to stop using offensive names for their dinners, but they were taking notice of my speech patterns and changing on their own. “Evacuate equals retreat? That makes sense.”
“We have action,” Molly said. The pavement in front of the prison house rippled. Big Evan pulled her farther back and she initiated ahedge of thornsaround them. “Anyone else have rippling in their circles?”
“Negative,” Eli said. The others echoed his comment.
A low-pitched hum started, felt under my skin as much as heard.
We all took several more steps away. I reached into my pocket and wrapped my hand around the Glob and its padding.
A flash of blackness shot up through the pavement and ripped across the night. I flew back. Vaguely, I recognized that I landed. Bounced. Then it all went black.
***
Later, I realized I was awake and staring at the night sky. Blinked into the darkness. Damage to my body made itself known in a wave of heaviness and pain. “Ohhh. That hurt.” I had lost some time.
I was at the null prison. We had been attacked.
I curled up to sitting and nearly barfed as the world whirled around drunkenly. My ears were ringing. Over comms, I heard only what might be static. Locally I heard only distant sounds. I blinked debris out of my eyes and looked around. A boom of death magic had knocked me back, onto my butt.
Molly and Evan were okay behind their ward. Kounwas shaking his head, but was standing. Quint was down at my side. Somehow, she had ended up behind me. I was pretty sure I had landed on her. Our people seemed okay. Had we been standing a few feet closer that might not be the case.
There was a body in the circle.
An electric blast of shock zinged through me.
Koun sped to the circle as a human-shaped form rose to its knees and crawled across the pavement.
