With the power of the Planeswalker behind it, the invisible blow was enough to send the massive dragon flying head over tail into the souvenir shop across the street, crashing through the glass storefront and sending posters of Bethesda flying. He was rolling back to his feet when Marci hit him again.
“You hurt my cat!” she screamed, slamming Gregory right back into the broken glass. “You hurt Julius!”
She was reaching for more magic to hit him a third time when her fingers hit the flames of Amelia’s actual fire. There was powerful magic there, more powerful than anything she’d touched yet, enough to finish Gregory for good. But tempting as that was, Marci knew if she used that magic, it would be the end. All of Amelia’s fire would be gone, which meant not only would she be undermining Julius’s grand slam of nonviolence, she’d have to break her promise to Amelia in order to do so.
Angry as she was, that price was too high, and Marci lowered her glowing hands, glaring at the battered dragon, who was only now pushing himself out of the rubble. “You’re not worth it,” she spat, jerking her head down the road toward the open desert. “Get out of here.”
“And go where?” Gregory snarled, shaking the broken glass and concrete off his wings. “Thanks to your whelp, I’m banished forever. But while I couldn’t kill Julius, Icankill you, which is almost as good. You will both suffer for my—”
A flash of light cut him off. A split second later, it was followed by a deafening thunderclap loud enough to make Marci’s ears ring, and then Gregory fell over, gasping and spasming in the street as he tried in vain to clutch the smoking, perfectly round, trash-can-lid-sized hole that had just appeared in the center of his left wing.
“That’s enough of that.”
The dragon roared in pain, flipping over to hide his wound from General Jackson, who’d just stepped in front of Marci with her smoking hand held out in front of her.
Marci stared at the general in wonder. She’d known from the moment she’d first walked into the diner that General Jackson was heavily modified, but given the crazy body augs you saw every day in the DFZ—giant fake muscles, twitchy wired reflexes, camera eyes, and so forth—she hadn’t thought too much of it. Now, though, staring at the smoking, obviously metal, spellwork-covered hand that was clearly visible beneath the burning remains of the general’s leather glove, Marci was starting to realize just how much she’d underestimated the woman. She didn’t even know therewereimplanted weapons that could produce an attack like that, but whatever Emily Jackson was packing in her arm, it was a lot more than Gregory had bargained for.
Too bad he didn’t seem to understand that yet.
“I don’t know who you think you are, woman,” the dragon hissed, crouching protectively over his injured wing. “But you should have aimed better. I can smell the magic on you, and I know you don’t have enough to do that again. This”—he lifted his smoking, useless wing—“will heal, but you’llneverrecover from what I’m about to—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish. The moment he showed his wing again, Emily shifted her hand and fired. There was no warning, not even the twitch of rising magic. Just a blinding flash of light from her palm followed by the thunderclap as she shot Gregory’s wing clean off. The boom was still echoing off the buildings when she turned and shot off the other one as well, her free arm stretched protectively in front of Marci as the critically wounded dragon began to thrash in the rubble, his roar of pain lost in the crash of the godlike weapon’s aftershock. She was aiming her hand at his chest to finish the job when Marci finally came to her senses.
“Stop!”
She grabbed the general’s arm with both of hers. “You can’t kill him!”
General Jackson looked at her like she was crazy. “He just tried to kill you.”
“That doesn’t mean you should return the favor!” Marci cried, tugging on the general’s arm, which was about as effective as tugging on a steel girder.
“I think it’s a perfect reason to,” the general growled, glaring at the dragon with a deep, old anger. “He’s banished, which means killing him is no longer an act of war against Heartstrikers. He also clearly has a personal vendetta against you, which means if we don’t take him out now, he’ll be a thorn in your side forever. Both of those sound like excellent reasons to kill him.” Her dark eyes narrowed. “And the world can always use one less dragon.”
That sounded like it came from personal experience, but Marci didn’t let go. “I know,” she said. “I hate him and his stupid traffic-cone-colored feathers more than you ever could, but I’m not going to let you kill the dragon Julius just nearly died tryingnotto fight!” She turned back at Gregory, who was now crouching in his own blood, his green eyes wild with pain. “You’ve done your job. He’s not going to be attacking anyone like that. The Heartstrikers have already punished him, and I’ve proven I can put him in his place. If he comes after me again, I’ll just put him through an even bigger wall, but I will not let you undo everything Julius has fought for.” She released her grip on the general’s arm and stepped forward, putting her own chest between Gregory and the general’s deadly hand. “Let him go!”
General Jackson sighed deeply, and then she lowered her arm. “You heard Miss Novalli,” she growled at the dragon. “Your life is spared. But if I ever see you near her again, I’ll consider it an attack on the UN itself, and unlike Conrad Heartstriker, we don’t have the luxury of being merciful. Now get out.”
She didn’t have to tell him twice. Her threat was barely finished before Gregory bolted, racing down the street as fast as his legs would carry him. It wasn’t as fast as Marci was used to—dragons were built for flying, not for running—but Gregory was still gone before she realized it, vanishing around the corner behind a billboard advertising this year’s Heartstriker-branded ready-to-wear fashion line.
“That was a terrible idea,” Sir Myron said, pulling up his incredible ward with a sweep of his hand. “Dragons never forget humiliation, and they can regenerate any part of their body. He’ll be back.”
“Then I’ll just kick his butt again,” Marci growled, putting a hand to her chest to check Amelia’s flame. Despite her reckless use, it was still burning, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Ghost was another story, though. Amelia was still burning, but the little nook inside Marci’s magic where her spirit lived was far too still. She reached inward to give him a mental poke, just to be sure, but there was nothing there. The space where Ghost should have been was empty. Marci didn’t know if that was because he’d climbed further inside her than she could reach, or if it was because he’d faded too far for even her magic to feel. Either way, it made her blood run cold.
“What’s wrong?” the general asked, her already serious frown pulling even deeper. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Opposite problem, actually,” Marci said shakily, running her hands through her hair. “Change of plans. Forget what I said about finding something local. We need to take Ghost home right now.”
Sir Myron had the gall to look smug about that. Fortunately, Raven beat him to the punch. “And where is home, exactly?” the spirit asked, fluttering back down to the general’s shoulder, which he’d abandoned when she’d started shooting.
Marci bit her lip. No one was going to like this, least of all her, but after what had just happened, she didn’t think she had any other choice. “I need you to take us to the DFZ.”
The UN team exchanged a grim look, and then General Jackson reached up with her metal hand to retrieve the military phone from her jacket pocket.
“Let me get the jet.”
Chapter 13
The first thing Julius became aware of was an itching on his chest.
