“Complicated?” He stared at her in disbelief. “Marci, youdied. I saw it. Chelsieburiedyou.”
That would explain the dirt she’d had to dig through. But as much as Julius deserved an explanation, there simply wasn’t time.
“I promise there’s a perfectly reasonable story behind this,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice calm. “But I can’t get into it now. Algonquin’s trying to destroy the DFZ. If I don’t stop her, the two of them will bring this whole city down.”
As if to prove her point, an echoing crash sounded in the distance, followed by an equally enormous splash. When Marci tried to turn to see what new bit of the city had just gone into the drink, though, Julius grabbed her shoulders with his forefeet.
“Why do you have to stop her?” he asked, sheathing his curved talons before they could touch her. “You just came back from the dead! I’m not going to let you die again fighting Algonquin. I’ve already got a way out. Just come with me and—”
“No,” she said firmly, staring straight into his green eyes. “I can’t run from this, Julius. This mess is partially my fault. I’m the one who cut the spirit of the DFZ loose.”
Now he looked even more confused. “Since when doesthe DFZhave a spirit?”
“Since about six hours ago,” she said with a helpless smile. “Again, no time to explain, but the short version is that if I don’t fix this, we’re all going to be in a lot of trouble on alotof different levels.”
That was a ridiculous cop-out even by Marci’s standards. To her surprise, though, Julius didn’t launch into a barrage of questions. He just sighed and reluctantly uncoiled his body from hers. “What do we have to do?”
She blinked in surprise. “We?”
“Yes,we,” he said, incredulous. “I just got you back from the dead. That’s amiracle, Marci. I don’t care if you’re marching straight down Algonquin’s throat. I’m not leaving your side. Whatever you have to do, we’re doing it together, so hop on and tell me where we’re going.”
He lay down on the ground after that, lowering his wings so she could climb into the space between them, but Marci could only gape. “You want me torideyou?”
“It’s the fastest way to get around, and it lets me stay by you,” he said stubbornly. “And Ididpromise you a flight.”
That he had. “It’s going to be nuts,” she warned as she climbed onto the ridge of his feathered back.
“All the more reason to stay close,” he said, swiveling his head to look at her with an intense expression. “I lost you once, and it was the worst experience of my life. I amneverlosing you again.”
He sounded so serious, Marci almost cried again. It was a ridiculous way to react, but she couldn’t help it, because he was always like this. No matter what happened, Julius hadalwaysstayed by her side. He’d always helped her, always had her back. Even now, when he had no idea what they were up against and the whole city was coming apart, he didn’t hesitate. He was right there with her, ready to jump into the fire feet first, and as she had since the very beginning, Marci loved him for it.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice thick.
He pressed his head against her shoulder, breathing her in deep, and then he jumped them into the air, forcing Marci to hold on tight as his wings pumped on either side, lifting them into the cloudy night with astonishing speed. Or not so astonishing. For all his claims that he was a mediocre dragon, Julius had always been fast, and now was no exception. Even Ghost had to scramble to keep up as they shot through the gaping holes in the collapsed Skyways and back into the shaking city.
Or what was left of it.
“What the…”
All her life, the DFZ had been the city of the future. A famously huge, neon-lit, double-layered wonder of human magic, commerce, and ingenuity in all its forms. Now, though, it looked like an active war zone.
Every bit of construction was damaged. Buildings were cratered or collapsing or on fire, filling the sky with plumes of black smoke. Most of the elevated Skyway bridges were down, and those that hadn’t collapsed outright were cracked and sagging. Without their support, the city’s famous superscrapers were leaning like poles in quicksand, but the damage wasn’t limited to the upper city.
Down in what had been the Underground, fires were raging as gas lines snapped and electrical boxes exploded. Other blocks were still flooded, the streets washed under several feet of dirty water. But as horrible as all of this was to see, what made everything a thousand times worse was the fact that the destruction wasmoving.
The city wasn’t just broken. It was undulating, the buildings and roads twitching and shifting and curling in on themselves like cornered animals. Across the smoking skyline, out in the middle of the shallow green waters of Lake St. Clair, Algonquin’s white tower was in ruins. Since she’d been falling at the time, Marci hadn’t seen what had happened, but the uprooted superscraper must have struck true, because the entire top of the Lady of the Lakes’ famous stronghold had been knocked clean off.
From Julius’s back, Marci could actually see the tower’s elegantly swirled peak—and all the speared dragon head trophies that’d been stacked on top of it—lodged in the dirt several hundred feet inland on the lake’s Canadian side. But crazy as it was to see Algonquin’s Tower, the icon of the city, decapitated, that was nothing compared to the spirit beside it.
Marci had seen Algonquin many times now, and in many guises, but never like this. This was no Lady of the Lakes, no personification or humanizing element. This was Algonquin as she must have appeared that very first night magic came back: a skyscraper-sized spout of furiously spinning water.
The only thing bigger was the shadow of the Leviathan behind her. At first, Marci thought he was just hovering, but then she saw his tentacles down in the lake, sweeping water into Algonquin as her swirling pillar rose higher and higher, bigger and bigger, until, without warning, she burst, collapsing on the writhing city in a crushing, skyscraper-sized wave.
“Julius!”
He was moving before she’d even opened her mouth. Wings pounding, he flew them to a safe height moments before the tsunami of lake water crashed into the buildings. The city screamed when it hit, an inhuman cry of pain and rage Marci felt to her bones. Even Ghost trembled, his fear shooting up their connection like a spear of ice.
We have to stop this!he cried in her mind.At this rate, Algonquin will drown the city before we even make contact.
