“That’s impossible,” Myron said. “Humans are the only ones who can move magic. Spellwork helps organize and focus, but no matter how fancy you get, sooner or later, someone has to actuallycastthe spell. That’s why we don’t have spell-casting machines. Without humanity, magic doesn’t work.”
“That’s true,” Marci said, pushing back to her feet. “But she’s talking about holding magic, not casting it. Casting is just the act of pushing magic at a target, and you don’t have to be able to hold all of something to push it. It just has to be connected, and there’s nothing more connected than a Merlin and her spirit.”
The DFZ nodded happily, and Marci turned to Ghost, who looked as excited as she felt. “Can you do it?”
“I won’t know until I try,” he said. “I’d call it a long shot, but you expanded my horizons just now when you showed me that the entire Sea of Magic is a realm of death. That’s a lot of room to work with.” He nodded. “I think I can do it.”
“Better than I could,” the DFZ said grumpily. “I’m just a city. He’s a whole concept of mortality.” She kicked one of the spellworked pebbles that still dotted the ground. “Stupid Algonquin, making the smallest spirit possible.I’mthe city of mages! This should have been our gig!”
“I’m perfectly happy to let Novalli hog this spotlight,” Myron said. “It was a good observation, though.” He smiled at his spirit. “Perhaps we’re not so badly matched after all.”
The city snorted. “I wouldn’t have accepted you if we were. But if the Empty Wind’s going to play capacitor, my work here is done.” She reached her hand out to Myron. He shook it gladly, giving his spirit a truly warm smile as she turned and began walking toward the well.
“Wait,” Marci said as the DFZ neared the edge. “What are you doing?”
“My part,” the spirit said. “Myron and I already talked about this, and we both agreed. I’m the DFZ, and that thing is right above me. Without my city, I’m nothing, so like everything else, I’m throwing my lot in with you.” She glanced at Shiro, who was watching them with a shocked look on his face. “He says it’s impossible, but mages do the impossible every day. I should know. My city is full of them.” She grinned, pushing her hood back to look at Marci with her bright, orange eyes. “It’s time to live up to your reputation, Marci Novalli. Pull it out of the bag one last time and save us all.”
She stepped into the well as she finished, her body dissolving into the bright, neon-reflected water that flowed through the gutters of the wilder parts of the Underground. For a split-second, her magic glittered beautifully. Then, like all the rest, it was gone, sucked down into the Heart of the World as the spellwork groaned.
Marci watched to the end with a lump in her throat. “Are you sure about this, Myron?”
“It wasn’t much of a choice, really,” he said quietly. “If you succeed, she’ll come right back. If you don’t, we’re all dead anyway, so I won’t be around to regret my decision.” His face grew sheepish. “Though if I may ask you a favor, Novalli, please don’t mess this up. I just got to be a Merlin, and I’d very much like to spend some time here when I’mnotin a panic to save the world, if it’s all the same to you.”
“I’ll do my best,” Marci promised, putting out her hand to Ghost. “Ready?”
A cold wind was her answer. No sooner had she touched her spirit than his body dissolved, his magic settling over her like armor.
Ready,he whispered.
Marci nodded and leaned down, pressing her hand against the spellwork Myron had so miraculously repaired. There was so much magic packed inside, it practically leaped into her hand. Marci pushed it back down again, closing her eyes until she was certain of what she meant to do.
It didn’t take much. Boiled down, a hammer banish was just throwing magic at a spirit as hard as you could. You didn’t even technically need spellwork for that, but Marci still sketched it out in her mind, using one of the rocks Myron had brought up to scratch the spellwork equation for the hardest, densest hammer she could imagine into the plastic of her bracelet. When Marci was certain she had every bit of the spell right, she reached down again, leaning hard on Ghost’s wind as she plunged her hand into the condensed power of the world.
Chapter 12
The fight against the Leviathan had been raging for just over an hour, but it already felt like a hundred.
The sky was full of fire. Everywhere Julius looked, dragons and jets and helicopters were shooting down the black tentacles that fell from the sky like streamers. There were actually more human aircraft than dragons now. They’d been arriving in a steady stream since the magic had dropped enough to let them fly, and not all of them were military. Between General Jackson and David, everything capable of flight for three hundred miles had been scrambled. The ones that couldn’t shoot served as spotters, helping Julius direct the rest to places where the tentacles were getting through.
“South of the river! Canadian shore of Lake Erie!” a voice shouted in Julius’s ear. “No one’s here, and that thing’s drinking the lake like a damn hose!”
“Copy,” Julius replied, looking up at Amelia. “We need someone on the Erie north shore by the river.”
“Working on it,” his sister growled, hovering on her flaming wings as tentacles shot through her. She wasn’t even bothering to burn them anymore. She was too busy coordinating the dragon half of the world’s biggest, deadliest game of Whac-A-Mole, abusing her ability to turn into pure flame to avoid having to dodge the tentacles that were constantly sailing through the air.
Julius didn’t have that luxury. He was still flesh and blood, which meant he spent most of his time dodging, blasting whatever he could while he frantically tried to keep track of everything that was going on and which locations needed help the most.
“Most” was key, becauseeverywherewas in trouble. When they’d started this, he’d assumed that the Leviathan couldn’t be everywhere at once. After an hour of fighting, though, Julius had decided there was no practical limit to the number of tentacles that thing could produce. They literally filled the sky at times, forcing the dragons to scramble out of the way as the black appendages crashed into the lake beds to suck up whatever water was left. The less-agile human vehicles weren’t so lucky. They went down flaming when the tentacles got thick, the pilots’ voices screaming in Julius’s ears before their radios cut out.
It would have been horrific if he’d had time to process it, but there was no time for anything except the fight. They’d long since given up trying to stop every tentacle. At this point, it was simply a race to slow the Leviathan down enough for Marci to finish. He just hoped they could make it.
“Julius.”
He snatched his eyes off his AR radar display as General Jackson’s face appeared in the air to his left, looking more harried than he’d ever seen her. “We’re losing too many units,” she said. “We can’t keep up like this, so I’m pulling two squads off Lake Michigan and authorizing a bombing run on the Leviathan’s main body. I need you and the Planeswalker to pull someone in to cover their areas during the gap.”
“I don’t know if wehaveanyone else,” Julius said, flitting to the side just in time to avoid being hit by the flaming end of a tentacle Justin had just chomped in half. “Why are you wasting time on a bombing run anyway? Amelia already blasted that thing with enough dragon fire to melt a battleship, and it did nothing.”
“I know,” the general snapped. “But we can’t keep up with the tentacles and I’m running out of planes. If we don’t start doing some damage back, this fight is going to be over in the next ten minutes.”
