Peter jumped up and towed Martinelli to Beatrix as Sam Whitaker dropped the shielding to let his father out. “I have reds,” he whispered. “Quick?—”
Sam Whitaker barked another spell. The next instant, Martinelli was blasted backward, landing with such force on his cot that he fell through it.
“Itoldyou to stay on your side of the room!” The wizard stalked toward Martinelli, who’d stumbled to his feet.“Ic rædend þé, ic oferswiþe þé, ic fortrede þé!”
Peter had enough years of Anglo Saxon in school to instantly recognize most of the words—I control you, I overpower you. The other verb escaped him, but it wasobvious what the enchantment itself must be. The marionette spell. He repeated it in his head, trying to figure it out:Ic rædend þé, ic oferswiþe þé, icfor-somethingþé. Forewyrcend?No, that was a noun, not a verb …
He shook his head to clear it and gripped Beatrix’s hand. As satisfying as it would be to use that spell and hoist Sam Whitaker withhisown petard, he was missing a key word and needed a different plan.
Peter slipped his hand into his pocket, palming a red as Whitaker wiggled his fingers at the stock-still Martinelli. Surely there were attack spells that could target a specific person, but he didn’t know any of them. Still: If he cast a shield-wall just right, he could trap Whitaker on the far side of the room. Whitaker would either need a bit of time to pull it down, or he’d remove his own shielding on the room, teleport out and come in the front door. Either way, they’d be gone before he could get his hands on them.
But for the moment, Whitaker was standing between him and Martinelli—on the wrong side.
“Comeon,” the wizard snarled and Martinelli jerked forward, walking with an unnatural gait to the center of the room.
Whitaker lay down a demarcation stone, then another and another. With a jolt of horror, Peter realized Whitaker was making a circle around Martinelli. Martinelli was the fuel. He was the wizard they were using to set the weapon off.
Focus!Peter stretched out his hand, waiting for Whitaker to get to the right side. Almost … almost…
The door flew open. In marched the elder Whitaker—and Morse, levitating the transmitter.
Peter jerked his arm down, heart spasming. He couldn’t cast the barrier unless all three of them ended up on the right side of Martinelli. Even then, would the strategy work? Morse was too fast, too frightfully good at what he did.
And besides, now the transmitter was here—righthere. Beatrix would want him to do something about it. He just didn’t know what that could be.
The transmitter was shielded.Morsewas shielded. Nothing he could think to cast would have an immediate effect, and in the meantime, Morse would overpower him.
Morse murmured something so softly Peter couldn’t make it out. General Whitaker’s answer was louder: “James left the summit fifteen minutes ago. Back in Washington. All clear.”
Vice President James Draden, his mind supplied. As if that mattered.Focus, damn it!
“What about the stone?” the general asked.
“Handled.”
“Yes, but how close to the complex did you get it?”
“Inside the shielding.”
General Whitaker looked impressed. “Still within the five-mile range, though? You’re sure?”
“Yes,” Morse said. He slipped his hand into a pocket, pulled out a handheld radio and switched it on. Static crackled. He adjusted it, and a reporter’s voice broke in.
“—the Canadian prime minister was met with sustained catcalls and booing. He walked out without finishing hisspeech yesterday. Today we learned that the entire Canadian contingent has left the Americas Summit. President Abbott hopes he can ease tensions by speaking a day earlier than planned. He’s expected at any moment. You can hear the crowd around me in the Detroit Convention Center surging to their seats as?—”
Morse turned the volume down, the reporter’s voice flattening into a buzz of mostly inaudible words. Was thisthe event?
General Whitaker chuckled. “Nice of them to allwalk out in a huff. Good work.”
Were they planning to detonate the weapon inDetroit?
Morse, turning, said to Whitaker’s son: “I’ll finish that. Watch them.”
Sam Whitaker looked up from the demarcation stones he was arranging around the transmitter. “Those two? I just gave her another dose. And I certainly don’t need to babysithim.He can’t do diddlysquat.”
Morse’s gaze shifted to Peter. Peter stared back, feeling as if the world—or possibly his heart—had come to a halt. Morse would know. Somehow, he always knew.
Just then, the sounds from the radio changed. People were cheering. People who had no idea they were about to die in a plot by Draden’s team to make it appear that Canada had attacked—with a weapon Draden would say he, Peter, had given them after fleeing there.
