They landed on a small, private airstrip beside the DFZ’s massive, modern, and eternally crowded airport and got into a car that was already waiting for them on the tarmac. Once they were in, the general turned off the autonav and took the wheel herself, driving them straight into the Underground. When Marci tried to tell her this wasn’t the right way, she just put a finger to her lips and kept going, driving them in ever-widening circles for nearly an hour before finally pulling into a nondescript parking deck below downtown filled with black armored SUVs identical to the one they were driving. They sat there for a while longer, and then, as though she’d reached some pre-agreed-upon checkpoint, Emily ordered them all out of the car and into the identical one beside it before turning the auto drive on the previous car on again and sending it empty back into the city. When it was gone, she joined Sir Myron, Raven, and Marci in the new car, which Sir Myron had already programmed with their actual destination.
“I know we’re trying to avoid being followed,” Marci said as the general climbed over the seat to join them in the back of the armored SUV. “But don’t you think that was a little overkill?”
“Better over than under,” General Jackson said as she settled into her seat. “Algonquin’s on high alert, and you’re a known target. Under those circumstances, there’s no such thing as too careful.”
“And we absolutely can’t have her getting your Mortal Spirit,” Sir Myron added, looking dourly down at Marci’s empty hands. “How is he, anyway?”
Marci reached inside with a mental hand to pet Ghost’s tiny shadow. “The same,” she said sadly. “But everything’s going to be okay once we get him home.”
The mage looked more skeptical than ever. “And where is home? The address you gave us is within spitting distance of Reclamation Land. That’s the middle of nowhere.”
“I didn’t give you the wrong one,” Marci said defensively. “Relax. I know where we’re going.”
Sir Myron did not look convinced, but he didn’t say anything more as the new black car left the Underground and rolled out into the open streets of what had once been the lovely University Heights neighborhood.
The old house where Marci had lived before she met Julius looked exactly as she remembered: stuffed with trash, riddled with bullet holes, and on the verge of collapse. “Good god,” Myron said as the car pulled to a stop. “Thisis where you found the first Mortal Spirit? I’ve seen war zones in better shape.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Raven said as he fluttered into the air. “Not many, but some.”
“What happened?” the general asked, nudging the spent ammo shells that still littered the driveway with the toe of her polished boot. “Or are these not yours?”
“They were fired at me,” Marci said as she climbed out of the car. “I had an altercation with an old associate. He tried to force me to give up something that was mine. I had other ideas.”
“Obviously,” Sir Myron said, glancing pointedly at the burned bushes in the next yard over. “What was he after?”
Marci opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She’d already decided not to tell them about her Kosmolabe, which was still hidden in her bag, but when she tried to tell them the other reason for her beef with the dearly departed Bixby, Marci had suddenly realized that she couldn’t remember. She was positive there’d been something else, but when she tried to remember why she’d run from Bixby or even how she’d gotten the Kosmolabe in the first place, all she found was a blank. She knew she had good reason to hate him,knewthat she’d been in the right, but the harder she reached for the truth, the more it faded.
She was still working on it when a cool hand landed on her shoulder, and she looked up to see General Jackson standing over her with a concerned look. “You okay?”
“Fine,” Marci lied, plastering a smile on her face. “I’m fine. Just bad memories.”
As always, Sir Myron didn’t seem to believe a word she said. Fortunately, Marci’s past wasn’t why they were here. Now that they were out of the car, the stray cats—who’d been conspicuously absent when they’d pulled up—were starting to appear, poking their noses out of the undergrowth and through the remains of the house’s dusty broken windows. There were even cats up on the collapsing roof, their reflective eyes gleaming through the rainy evening as they stared down at their visitors. It was every bit as creepy as Marci remembered, and she breathed a deep sigh of relief.
“Come on,” she said, clutching her bag even though she knew Ghost wasn’t in it. “Let’s get inside.”
Sir Myron’s eyes widened in horror. “Inthere? It doesn’t look structurally sound.”
“It’s sound enough,” Marci assured him, hurrying down the old steps and through the empty door into what was left of what had once been her basement apartment. “This is where I found Ghost.”
“No accounting for taste, I suppose,” Raven said, landing on the stairs to peer through the dark at the mountain of trash, which had only gotten moldier without the door to protect it. “Is he the spirit of consumer culture?”
Marci scowled at the bird. She wasn’t exactly proud of the place, but she didn’t think it wasthatbad, especially the bits she’d cleaned. Of course, between the broken glass, spent shells, and other debris from the firefight, itwaskind of hard to tell which bits those were at the moment. Some luck must have still been on her side, though, because the stretch of cement floor where she used to draw her circles was still clear and only a little damp from the rain blowing in through the broken windows.
“Ah, ah, ah.No.”
That exclamation came from Sir Myron, and Marci looked over to see the undersecretary of magic gingerly trying to keep one of the stray cats from coming through the door with the toe of his expensive leather loafer.
“It’s okay,” she said, digging into her bag for a piece of chalk. “Let them in.”
He gaped at her. “Youwantstray cats in your casting area?”
“Not normally,” Marci said as she set her bag on the stone floor and knelt down to start drawing her circle. “But I think they’re part of this.”
Sir Myron muttered something under his breath about Thaumaturges and their lack of standards that Marci pointedly chose to ignore, focusing instead on the spellwork she was writing along the inside of the hastily drawn circle. It was the same spellwork she’d written on the shield when she’d bound Ghost a second time after he’d defeated Vann Jeger, or as best she could remember it. She wasn’t actually quite sure about some of it, but this was uncharted magical territory for everyone, which meant best guess was the best she could hope for.
Thankfully, given how much of a hurry she’d been in at the time, the new binding was a relatively simple spell. Even so, Marci took her time, going over each symbol one by one to make sure they were exactly as she meant them. She was doing a final check when her elbow bumped into something furry and soft, and she looked up in surprise to see that the basement was now full of cats.
They were obviously strays, small cats with lean bodies, ragged coats, and hungry, wary eyes. Despite their numbers, they didn’t step on her spellwork, and not a one made a sound. They just sat in silence around the circle she’d drawn, staring at the empty spot in the middle like an audience waiting for the show to start. Even for Marci, who was used to this sort of thing, it was pretty creepy, but UN Team looked seriously spooked. Sir Myron especially seemed to be fighting the urge to kick the cats away, looking at Marci’s spell with increasing nervousness.
