That seemed like a strange reason to make the world’s first magic-integrated cyborg, but given everything else Marci knew about Raven, she didn’t think he was lying. Before she could ask another question, though, the door to the back of the plane opened again, and a sopping-wet General Jackson stepped back into the pressurized cabin.
“We’re clear,” she said calmly, brushing the water off her face like she’d just come back from a walk in the rain rather than standing on the rear deck of an aircraft flying at cruising altitude. “The Thunderbird knew we had prior clearance, but he still made me recite the entire code four times.”
“I’m just glad none of his lightning struck the plane this time,” Sir Myron said grumpily as he restacked the papers the earlier turbulence had scattered. “The last time he did this, we had to replace the entire autopilot.”
“He was being careful this time,” the general said, grabbing a towel from the compartment beside the door to wipe down her metal arms and shoulders, which Marci could now see were covered in an intricate, interlocking web of engraved spellwork from multiple schools of magic. “Probably because we’re surrounded by commercial flight lanes. Algonquin might be on high alert, but she isn’t going to throw the DFZ tourism baby out with the dragon bathwater. The city is still open for business if you’re not a dragon, which means if we’re careful, we shouldn’t have any further trouble.”
She looked at Marci as she finished, greeting her gawking stare with a resigned sigh. “I suppose Raven told you what I am?”
“Of course I did,” Raven chirped, fluttering up to land on her shoulder. “I’m a very proud papa.”
“You are most definitely not my father,” the general said as she turned back to Marci. “I hope this won’t damage your ability to trust me, Miss Novalli,” she said, holding up her metal hand. “I assure you that, other than a few modifications, I’m as human as you or Myron. I was actually born right here in Detroit, and I can show you pictures if you need proof.”
“No, no, I believe you,” Marci said quickly. “It’s just that I’ve never…that is to say, I didn’t knowyouwere possible. The last I’d heard, we were still trying to figure out how to make enchantments stick to paper clips, never mind a full-blown person.”
“I’m a bit of a special case,” the general said, sitting down in the seat across from her. “And I’m not actually enchanted. I have no magic of my own. My body is simply a complex spellwork conduit for Raven’s magic. He provides the power, I decide how it should be used, sort of like a pilot.”
“How did that happen?” Marci blurted out. “I don’t want to be rude, but you have to admit it’s not a common thing.”
“Hardly,” the general agreed. “There have only been a handful of successful human constructs in all of history. All made by Raven, I might add.”
The spirit shrugged. “What can I say? I enjoy playing god.”
“So we’ve noticed,” the general said, turning back to Marci with a smile. “Don’t let him fool you. He plays like it was his idea, but I asked for this. A long time ago, Raven appeared to me when I was dying and offered me a second shot at life. I accepted, but only if I got to remain in control. He agreed, and the rest is public record. I’ve been working for the government—first the US, then the UN—as a weapon protecting humanity from the monsters who suddenly appeared in our midst with moderate success for five decades now.”
“Fivedecades?” Marci said, staring at the general’s lineless face. “But you don’t look more than forty.”
“I assure you, I’m much older than that,” the general said with a chuckle, rapping her knuckles against her thigh with a metallicclack. “Being made of metal and plastic does occasionally have its advantages, as do constant upgrades. I’m actually eighty-six.”
“Wow,” Marci said, doing the math in her head. “So when you said you were born in Detroit, you meantactualDetroit. Not the DFZ.”
The general’s face grew angry. “I was born before any of this, back when there was no magic and Detroit was just another struggling Midwest city. I grew up thinking magic and dragons and spirits were all just make-believe. But when the flood came, I learned the hard way how wrong I was.”
By the time she finished, Marci was practically bouncing in her seat. “You werethere?” she cried. “That means you saw the return of magic and Algonquin’s flood with your own eyes! What was it like?”
“The end of the world,” she replied bitterly, giving Marci a look that knocked the excitement right out of her.
“I’m sorry,” Marci said, suddenly ashamed. “It’s all history to me. I didn’t think about what it must have been like to live through it.”
“That’s good,” General Jackson said calmly. “It’s not the sort of thing you want to imagine. But I don’t mind answering your questions. When the flood came, I was still in the Marine Corps. I was at home on leave visiting my family when we felt the ground shake. We thought it was an earthquake, but I learned later that what we’d felt was the meteor hitting the bedrock of the Canadian Shield eight hundred miles away in Quebec. After that, we felt something far worse. It was painful, like something inside us was rupturing, but not in our physical bodies.”
“The tearing open of magic,” Marci said, nodding. “I’ve read about it.”
“Trust me, it wasn’t fun,” General Jackson said with a shudder. “Since I wasn’t a mage, mine was over quickly, but my brother was in crippling pain for nearly an hour. We were trying to get him to go to the hospital when the ground shook again, only this time, it didn’t stop. When we went out to see what it was, all we saw was a wall of water.” She shook her head. “It washed everything away. My entire neighborhood was destroyed, and my family drowned. I was the only one who survived, but not for long. My legs had gotten crushed when the house came down, so even though I’d survived Algonquin’s wave, I was going to bleed out anyway. That’s when Raven appeared and offered to save me.”
“She thought I was the devil,” Raven said with a chuckle. “That was fun.”
“What else was I supposed to think?” she growled. “I didn’t know magic was real yet, and you were a giant talking bird. My choices were devil or pain-induced hallucination.”
“But you took my deal all the same.”
“Of course I took it,” she said. “I’d just seen my entire family killed by something I couldn’t understand or explain. I wanted only one thing, and I didn’t care if I had to make a deal with the devil to get it.”
Marci could guess what that was. “Revenge?”
“No,” Emily said, looking at her like she was crazy. “The power to make sure nothing like this ever happened again. That’s why I do all this.” She gestured at the jet. “That’s why I endured the decade of operations and experiments it took to get my first body up and running. So that when creatures like Algonquin try to step on us, I can stepbackand stop them. That’s why I’ve done everything I’ve done for the last sixty years, and it’s why I’m so excited to find you.”
She gave her that strange look again, as though Marci were all the hope in the world. “You’re what we’ve been waiting for. Hard as I’ve worked, I always knew I was a stopgap, a makeshift weapon to help us limp along until the Merlins returned. Now that you’re here, we can finally start pushing back for real, and I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it.”
