“That may be true,” Shiro admitted, his voice quivering. “But… we just got you back! This world—Ihave been without a proper Merlin for so long! Sir Myron is unquestionably skilled, but he doesn’t have your understanding or vision for how the future can be better. I want to see the world you promised the last time you were here, and that can’t happen if you’re dead for real!”
“It won’t happen if I don’t go, either,” Marci said, surprisingly touched. “Your support means a lot to me, Shiro, but I have to do this. Not because I’m the Merlin, but because I’m the only one who can do the job right now. I want to see that world too. I want tolive, and I can’t do that if Tentacle Face out there eats my plane. I’m ready to do whatever I have to to beat him, and I’m betting there’s a lot of spirits who feel the same. We’ve never been able to unite before, but we’ve also never faced a truly universal threat. This is an existential crisis that threatens every sentient being in our reality. The enemy of my enemy may not be my friend, but that doesn’t mean we can’t come together and fight to survive, especially when the stakes are this high.”
“You are right,” Shiro said, lowering his eyes. “I was being selfish.” He bowed deeply. “Forgive my disobedience, Merlin.”
“Thank you for caring enough to try to stop me,” Marci said, grabbing his shoulders to gently pull him back up. “But I’ve got this. Just hold down the fort, and make sure Myron doesn’t get so caught up haggling with his spirit that he forgets to mend the seal, because when I come back, I’ll probably be coming in hot. Also, Amelia and Raven are allowed to come and go as they please.”
“I believe the Spirit of Dragons has already gone,” Shiro said. “But I will not try to kick her out again.” He lowered his head one more time. “Good luck, Merlin.”
Marci smiled and turned away, sliding her hand into Ghost’s freezing one as they stepped through the door into chaos once again.
Chapter 10
General Jackson’s truck convoy arrived with much fanfare.
Ten UN armored personnel carriers rolled into the sheltered area below the ramps like soldiers charging the enemy line. Each one was covered with what had to be a million dollars’ worth of glowing military-grade wards, which explained how they’d made the journey from the armory in Chicago through the still-dangerous magic levels. They slowed down when they hit the dirt to let the dragons get out of the way, but they didn’t stop until they’d formed a protective circle around General Jackson, who hadn’t even looked up yet from the makeshift war table she’d fashioned from the top half of Julius’s front door.
When the APCs were in position, the bulletproof doors rolled open, and UN soldiers with ANTI-DRAGON TASK FORCE stamped in yellow letters across their augmented body armor poured out, much to the chagrin of the watching crowd.
“Are you serious?” Lao demanded, his eyes shining like blue fire as he placed himself between the soldiers and the Qilin. “You dare bringdragon slayersto our aid?”
“I’m the general of the Anti-Dragon Task Force,” Emily replied dryly, her eyes still locked on the map of the Great Lakes region she’d sketched onto the cracked wood with one of Marci’s sticks of casting chalk. “You go to war with the army you’ve got.”
Lao growled low in his throat, but the general didn’t even raise her head until the last officer hopped off the trucks, a young man with a confident air and reams of preprinted ward tape attached to holsters to his belt. The yellow band on his arm marked him as a battle mage, but Emily looked much more excited about the sleek, cement block-sized augmented reality receiver he was carrying in his hands.
“Finally,” she said, grabbing the receiver and setting it down on the door-table beside her. The officer handed her a smartphone in a Kevlar case next. Emily snatched it out of his hand, taking a quick picture of her hand-drawn map before swiping her fingers through the phone’s augmented reality field to bring up an actual map in the air above it.
“Much better,” she said, smiling at the glowing projection of the Great Lakes region. “Status report.”
The battle mage saluted and started rattling off a bunch of jargon Julius didn’t understand. It must not have been what the general wanted to hear, though, because her face—the only part of her body that wasn’t currently made of scrap metal—grew dourer by the word.
“What’s wrong?” Julius asked after she’d dismissed the soldier.
“Everything we already know, plus a bit more,” Emily said, sweeping her hand through the AR to replace the floating map with a circular display of satellite images and magical readouts. “It seems the Leviathan is bigger than our original estimation. I don’t know if Raven was wrong about his size or if he’s grown in the last half hour, but we’re going to be stretched even thinner than planned. The good news is that Canada, the US, and Mexico are all sending their air forces to help. Washington in particular is being extremely generous, though I think we can all guess why that is.”
She glanced pointedly at David, who was busy schmoozing with the heads of two European clans. The senator smiled when he saw her looking and took his government-issued phone out of his pocket, wiggling it at her before sliding it back into place.
“The president of the US has preauthorized a nuclear strike and designated Senator Heartstriker as the man on the ground,” Emily continued. “I don’t intend to use it because I’d like to avoid having all of our forces and what remains of the DFZ vaporized, but it’s good to know we’ve got an ace in our pocket.”
“Would it even work, though?” Julius asked nervously, glancing up at the Leviathan. “Can you nuke something that big without destroying everything you’re fighting to save?”
“We can damn well try,” the general said grimly. “But if we have to launch a nuclear strike, we’ve already lost, so it’s a moot point.”
“It won’t come to that,” Julius assured her. “Marci’s plan will work.”
“It’d better,” Emily grumbled. “Because all our other options are just different flavors of defeat.”
Another soldier came up to them as she finished, an older woman wearing a bright-orange vest that read LOGISTICS and carrying a heavily armored metal box the size of a picnic basket. Emily grinned when she saw it, clearing the table so the soldier could set the box down. The woman was still saluting when Emily popped the locks and threw the box open, revealing an array of complicated-looking military gadgetry packed inside custom-cut black foam.
“Here,” the general said, grabbing what looked like the world’s most expensive black plastic headband and holding it out to Julius. “Put this on.”
“What is it?” Julius asked, taking it from her.
“Coms rig,” she replied, grabbing a second one to place over her own head. “It’s got a full AR interface, a camera, a phone, and an old-fashioned radio, just in case things goreallysouth. There’s also GPS, though with the Leviathan blocking the satellites, that’s probably useless.” She pointed at the satellite pictures that showed nothing but a wall of black above the entire northern border of the Midwestern US. “It’s also got military-grade mana-contacts that are better than anything on the civilian market, so it should work in your dragon form as well as your human one. Just make sure at least one side stays in contact with your skin at all times, and you’ll have full AR sound and capability.”
That sounded extremely useful, but… “Why are you giving it tome?”
“Because you’re in charge,” Emily said, looking at him as if she couldn’t understand how that was a question. “I overheard your dragon powwow. It’s clear you’re the one the others are looking to as the leader of this assault.”
