“What was that?” she cried, clinging to the building.
The Empty Wind hovered, his glowing eyes worried in the void of his face. “Not sure, but I think Algonquin just lost control of the situation.”
He hadn’t even finished speaking when a second wave of magic even bigger than the first ripped through the city like a cannon blast. Just like before, the magic was a physical presence, a moving wall of power that shattered windows and set Marci’s ears ringing. This time, though, there was a voice inside the blast. A screaming wail of rage and loss that rose from the city itself.
“ALGOOOOOONQUUUUUUIN!”
“Oh boy,” Marci whispered, tightening her grip on the roof. “That can’t be good.”
“At least she’s not mad at us,” Ghost whispered back, crouching down beside her. “A common enemy works in our favor.”
“Not if she runs us over on her way to battle.” Marci peeked over the building’s edge to get a better look at the city below. “We have to calm her down, convince her that blindly lashing out at Algonquin will hurt more than it helps. Shouldn’t be too hard. Her city’s already broken all to—”
The building groaned beneath them, and it wasn’t alone. All throughout the DFZ, the ground was swelling. It rose up like a building wave, sending the broken Skyways and toppled buildings sliding in all directions for a terrifying heartbeat before they suddenly jerked back together, the cement foundations and support beams twisting together like wires as the ground opened up below them, gaping up at the night like an enormous mouth.
“SLAVE MAKER.”
The roar came from the city’s foundation, echoing from the sewers and the storm drains and the forgotten warrens of the Undercity in a cacophony of bending metal and breaking glass. Even with so much noise and distortion, though, Marci recognized the voice. It was the same one she’d heard after Ghost ate her in the Sea of Magic. The voice of the city itself, rumbling like an earthquake.
“DIE!”
At the worddie, a volley of debris shot out of the city’s gaping maw. Cars, buses, chunks of buildings, entire intersections broken off during the chaos were sent flying over Marci and Ghost’s heads and into the water of Lake St. Clair. Each missile landed with a tremendous splash, sending water flying hundreds of feet into the air. But this was just the start, an opening ruse to cause confusion. Before the water finished falling, the DFZ roared again, and the superscraper Marci and Ghost were clinging to began to lurch violently. A second later, the whole thing tipped sideways as the gigantic building tore itself out of the ground and launched like a missile straight at Algonquin’s Tower.
That was the last thing Marci saw before she was flung off the side and sent spinning into the empty air beyond.
***
“Come on,” Julius said, tugging at his sister’s arm. “We need togo.”
He never thought he’d have to say that to Chelsie, but between the Qilin’s unexpected thanks and the incredible rush of magic that had come after, everyone had just sort of…stopped.
Not that Julius could blame them. After years of anxiety, worry, and misfortune, the power of the Qilin’s luck going full bore was like a drug. Everything felt right, perfect, as though nothing could ever be wrong in the world again.
But even the happy haze of good fortune couldn’t hide the fact that the ground was shaking worse than ever. Scarier still, the magic was moving with it, trembling like a wire about to snap. The absolute worst part, though, was that Julius would have sworn he could smell Marci on it.
That was impossible, of course. The magical craziness going on here was new, and Marci was dead. It was probably just confusion caused by the fact that her scent and the DFZ’s magic were so closely linked in Julius’s mind. Unfortunately, knowing it was an illusion didn’t make it go away. Every time he breathed in, there she was, faint but unmistakable.
Each breath left a little crack in the wall he’d built to keep the pain of her death from washing him under. It had already worn down the happiness of the Qilin’s good fortune, leaving him scrambling to get his family moving before he broke down again. But just when he’d finally managed to get the dragons to their feet, a horrible screech sent them all right back down.
It sounded like an entire steel factory going through a shredder, but angrier. The sort of fury you felt to your bones, even when it wasn’t yours. Julius was still trying to get his body to unclench when the unnatural scream hit him again. This time, though, the rage formed a word.
“ALGOOOOOONQUUUUUUIN!”
It came from everywhere and nowhere, vibrating from the cracked pavement and the toppled buildings and the broken edges of the collapsed Skyway overhead. It came from the water and the dirt, from the air itself. Even the Qilin was knocked out of his thankful, serene haze, looking around in alarm for the source of the sound. “What was that?”
Before Julius could say he didn’t know, the voice blasted them again.
“SLAVE MAKER.”
“That’s our signal to go,” Chelsie growled, tucking her daughter against her side as she turned to her son. “Fredrick.”
The F was way ahead of her. But as he lifted his Fang to cut them all back to Heartstriker Mountain, a third scream exploded through the air.
“DIE!”
The word went off like a bomb. The whole city lurched, throwing them all sideways, along with what was left of the tilted Skyway ramp. If the miracle of the Qilin’s luck hadn’t still been flowing through them, the ramp that had been their shelter against the flood would have landed on their heads. But as impossible as it seemed, the broken slab of Skyway didn’t fall. It actually liftedup,hurtling into the dark sky as though it had been plucked out of the ground by some giant, invisible hand.
It wasn’t the only one. Through the hole in the broken Skyways, Julius could see the air was full of flying objects. Vans, cars, hunks of cement, dumpsters—whatever wasn’t nailed down was hurtling over the city to bombard Lake St. Clair.
